Commons Sitting of 16 December 1925

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
BETHLEM HOSPITAL BILL [Lords].
The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS (Mr. James Hope): I beg to move,
"That the Promoters of the Bethlem Hospital Bill [Lords] have leave to suspend any further proceedings thereon in order to pro-coed with the Bill, if they shall think fit, in the next Session of Parliament, provided that notice of their intention to do so be lodged in the Committee and Private Bill Office not later than One o'clock on the day prior to the close of the present Session, and that all fees duo thereon up to that period be paid."
The purpose of this. Motion is to carry over to next Session the Bethlem Hospital Bill. This Bill has been objected to from time to time, and I have adjourned it from time to time in the hope that some settlement might be arrived at. No settlement has been arrived at, but I have some hope that, if it is adjourned till next Session, a settlement may be arrived at. The effect of this Motion is to put the Bill into the exact position then that it stands in now.
Question put, and agreed to.
Ordered,
"That such Bill shall be deposited in the Committee and Private Bill Office not later than Three o'clock on or before the third day on which the House shall sit after the next meeting of Parliament, with a declaration annexed thereto, signed by the Agent, stating that the Bill is the same in every respect as the Bill at the last stage of the proceedings thereon in this House in the present Session."
Ordered,
"That the proceedings on such Bill shall be pro forma only in regard to every stage through which the same shall have passed in the present Session, and that no new fees be charged in regard to such stages."
Ordered,
"That the Standing Orders by which the proceedings on Bills are regulated shall not
1382
apply to such Bill in regard to any of the stages through which the same shall have passed during the present Session."
Ordered,
"That all Petitions presented in the present Session against the Bill shall stand referred to the Committee on such Bill in the next Session of Parliament."
Ordered,
"That this Order be a Standing Order of the House."—(The Chairman of Ways and Means.)
Ordered,
"That a Message be sent to the Lords to acquaint them therewith and desire their concurrence."—(The Chairman of Ways and Means.)
Baldovan Institution for the Treatment and Education of Defectives Order Confirmation Bill [Lords],
Considered; to be read the Third time To-morrow.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  CHINA.

    TARIFF AUTONOMY.
    Mr. PONSONBYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the British delegate to the Peking Tariff Conference was instructed to state that the British Government intend to respect the sovereign right of China to tariff autonomy: whether any additional instructions have been given to the British delegation since his letter of instructions of 18th September last; and whether he will publish those instructions?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Godfrey Locker-Lampson): On the 3rd November the British delegation, with the approval of His Majesty's Government, formally declared their willingness to submit to the ratification of their Government such measures as might be desired and agreed upon at the Conference with a view to ensuring within a reasonable period the full realisation of China's claim to complete liberty of action in matters relating to her tariff, and on the 19th November the Conference adopted a resolution in the following terms:
    "The delegates of Powers assembled at this conference resolve to adopt the following article relating to tariff autonomy with

    1383
    a view to incorporating it, together with other matters to be hereafter agreed upon, in a treaty which is to be signed at this conference:
    " 'The contracting Powers other than China hereby recognise China's right to enjoy tariff autonomy; agree to remove tariff restrictions which are contained in existing treaties between themselves respectively and China; and consent to the going into effect of Chinese national tariff law on 1st January, 1929.
    " 'The Government of the Republic of China declares that li-kin duties shall be abolished simultaneously with the enforcement of Chinese national tariff law; and further declares that the abolition of li-kin duties shall be effectively carried out by 1st day of first month of 18th year of Republic of China (1st January, 1929).' "
    No further general instructions have been issued to the British delegation since their departure on the 19th September, but His Majesty's Government have been in frequent telegraphic communication with them and have from time to time sent instructions on specific points as occasion has demanded. I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by publishing such instructions.
    11. Miss WILKINSONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any information as to the extent to which the recent military developments in China have thrown difficulties in the way of the successful conclusion of the Customs Tariff Conference at Peking?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: The new crisis in China is, I understand, somewhat impeding the progress of the Conference, but negotiations are still proceeding. How the latest developments will affect the final issue of the conference I am, of course, quite unable to foresee.

    SHANGHAI DISTURBANCES.
    Mr. LOOKERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when the Report of the recent judicial inquiry into the Shanghai disturbances will be available for publication?
    Mr. LOCKER - LAMPSON: The diplomatic body has now approved of the publication of the Reports, which may be expected to take place in the near future.

    BRITISH GOODS (BOYCOTT).
    Mr. LOOKERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can give
    1384
    the House any information as to the result of the negotiations which have recently taken place in the cessation of the Canton boycott of British goods, and particularly of British trade from Hong Kong?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): The discussions to which my hon. Friend refers have been purely unofficial and have been conducted by representatives of the Chinese merchants in Hong Kong on the one hand, and of the strike committee in Canton on the other. I understand that these discussions are still proceeding, and I am not able to say whether any progress has been made towards the re-establishment of friendly relations between Hong Kong and Canton.
    Mr. LOOKER: Is there nothing the hon. Gentleman's Department can do to assist in bringing those negotiations to a successful issue?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: As I have said, these are unofficial negotiations, and I think that at the present stage it would be far more likely to result in good if they were left in that form.
    Mr. LOOKER: IS it not a fact that these negotiations have resulted in a deadlock?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: That is not my information to date.
    Mr. PALING: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether this boycott has succeeded in damaging British trade to any considerable extent?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Oh, yes. This boycott has damaged the trade very much, and caused grave anxiety to the Government of Hong Kong.

  LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

    DISARMAMENT COMMISSION.
    Mr. PONSONBYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make any statement to this House with regard to the proceedings of the preparatory Commission on Disarmament now sitting at Geneva?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: As the hon. Gentleman is probably aware, the British

    1385
    Representative on the preparatory Commission was the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster who only returned last night. My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, is still in Geneva, In these circumstances the hon. Gentleman will realise that I am not yet in a position to make such a statement as he desires.
    Mr. PONSONBY: Can the Undersecretary say whether, in view of the fact that we shall not be assembling again for six weeks, the Foreign Office will issue any Report on this matter in the meantime?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: If the hon. Member will allow me, I will have a talk with Lord Cecil and consider the point.

    INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE.
    Colonel WOODCOCKasked the Minister of Labour whether it is the practice for officials of the International Labour Office to attend and take part in meetings of the Trades Union Congress in this country; and whether the expenditure thereby incurred is included in the accounts of the expenditure of the International Labour Office to which this country contributes?
    The MINISTER of LABOUR(Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland): Officials of the International Labour Office have from time to time attended meetings of the Trades Union Congress as observers. Their expenses for such attendance fall on the ordinary budget of the Office.
    Colonel WOODCOCK: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he agrees that it is a correct proceeding that these non-party officials should take part in a political organisation representing a particular body of opinion while they are employed by a body to which the Government subscribe?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I think generally the more knowledge the officials have the better it is, subject to the ordinary rules of economy.
    Colonel WOODCOCK: I was not referring to economy, but to the political aspect.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: Does not the effectiveness of this organisation depend almost entirely on the officers of the
    1386
    organisation keeping in touch with Governments, employers and workpeople's associations?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: That is the effect of the supplementary answer which I have already given.
    Colonel WOODCOCKasked the Minister of Labour the total expenses incurred by the following groups of British delegates and advisers attending at the Seventh Session of the International Labour Conference, May-June, 1925, giving figures for Government delegates and advisers, employers' delegates and advisers, and workpeople's delegates and advisers, separately?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The total expenses paid out of public funds in connection with the Seventh Session of the International Labour Conference, May-June, 1925, amounted to £1,435 7s. 6d. Details of this expenditure are as follow:

    £.

    s.

    d.

    Government Delegates and Advisers

    637

    2

    1

    Employers' Delegates and Advisers

    295

    5

    5

    Workpeople's Delegates and Advisers

    358

    1

    3

    Other expenses including hire of office and Conference Rooms, sundry expenses and entertainment expenses

    144

    18

    9

    Colonel WOODCOCK: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether that is an economy over last year?
    Viscountess ASTOR: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that, from an international point of view, this is money well spent?
    Colonel WOODCOCKasked the Minister of Labour the amount of remuneration of the Director of the International Labour Office, Geneva; whether any further sum is paid to him by way of allowance for travelling or entertainment expenses; if so, what is the amount, and whether any account is rendered by them of such expenses; and whether he will state what is the period of the appointment of the director and, when the period terminates, who appoints the director for the next period?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The remuneration of the Director of the International Labour Office is 90,000 Swiss francs a year. He receives, in addition, an entertainment allowance of 30,000 Swiss francs a year, of which an account is not rendered, and payment of travelling expenses (including an allowance for subsistence) on the authorised scale. He was appointed by the Governing Body on the 1st January, 1920, and the appointment will, according to my information, come up for reconsideration on the 1st January, 1927.
    Colonel WOODCOCK: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to support the re-election of a director who has shown himself so partial to all Socialist propensities?
    HON. MEMBERS: Withdraw!
    Mr. HARRIS: Is it not right to say that in every way this official is proving a satisfactory and loyal officer?
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the Prime Minister taking note of the continued attacks made on this body by his own supporters?

    NEAR EAST (GREAT BRITAIN AND FRANCE).
    Captain WEDGWOOD BENNasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will lay upon the Table a White Paper setting out the terms of the Agreement between His Majesty's Government and the French Government in reference to policy in the Near East?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: There is no formal or written Agreement between the French Government and His Majesty's Government in regard to policy in the Near East, and consequently no material for a White Paper. But, as stated by my right hon. Friend in this House on the 25th November, it is the common policy of both Governments to extend their friendly relationship and close cooperation to all questions in winch they have a common interest, and this naturally applies to the Near East as much as elsewhere.
    Captain BENN: In the course of the conversations with M. de Jouvenel, were any undertakings entered into on behalf of the British Government?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: There was a communiqué issued to the Press with the consent of M. de Jouvenel, and it would be improper, I think, to add to that communiqué without communicating with him.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty what arrangements have been made for the taking of cinematograph pictures to be used for public exhibition on board His Majesty's ships; to how many firms has this privilege been given; whether any system of payment, rent, or royalties has been arranged for this privilege; and what are the sums involved?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Davidson): Arrangements have been made on various occasions during the last six years for the filming of certain events of naval and historical interest, such as the tours of His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales in His Majesty's ships "Renown'' and "Repulse," and the Empire cruise, subject to some payment or share of profits being made by the firm concerned. Facilities have also been afforded by the Admiralty on application for the production of certain other films of naval interest. When this business was first proposed it was found very difficult to obtain tenders from producers, but since certain films have achieved success more firms appear anxious to concern themselves with the production of this type of film.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Will the hon. Gentleman answer the question on the Paper, as to how many firms have had this privilege given them at the present moment?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: If the hon. and gallant Member will read my answer, he will see that these matters are dealt with therein.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I really want an answer to a question which has been on the Paper for weeks. We are told that some share of the profits has been paid. What amount has been received?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: The hon. and gallant Member must realise, I think, that all matters connected with contract prices are treated as confidential.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I really must protest. I really think that this is a case of refusing information, and I am entitled to ask—
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Member is entitled to put the question down again.
    Colonel DAY: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether all the Admiralty contracts have to be put before the technical adviser before they are accepted?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: No. That is not so.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: What arrangement is made for the disposal of the foreign rights?
    Mr. DAVIDSONI should want notice of that question.
    Mr. PENNY: Is it not a fact that some firms have, for educational purposes, taken a considerable monetary risk in producing these films which other firms would not take until they saw they were a success?

    SINGAPORE BASE (LABOUR).
    Mr. PENNYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that the labour supply of plantations in the vicinity of the Singapore naval base is being greatly depleted owing to Government competition; and whether he is prepared to adopt the suggestion of the Planters' Association of Malaya that the Imperial Government should recruit its own labour for the new naval base or utilise the local Government's recruiting officer to obtain labour from India?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: I have been in telegraphic communication with Singapore on this matter, and am advised that the present needs for labour at the naval base are not enough to have any great effect on the general labour position in the Colony, where the present prosperity of the rubber and tin industries is creating large demands for employment. Our officers on the spot are working in association with the officers of the local Government in this matter, and will continue to do so.
    Mr. PENNY: Will the hon. Gentleman keep in mind that the labour for the purpose they require is best recruited from the Northern Provinces of India as against the Southern?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: I will take note of that.
    Mr. PALING: Does that mean that the rubber growers' new demand for labour is sending up wages?
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is there an arrangement between the local contractors, who are acting for the Admiralty, and the planters, not to pay wages higher than the local wage rates?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: I must have notice of that question also.

    CHATHAM AND SHEERNESS DOCKYARDS.
    Mr. BOOTH BYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to reduce the dockyards at Chatham or Sheerness, or both, to a care and maintenance basis?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: The immediate intention of the Admiralty is confined to reducing Rosyth and Pembroke, as stated in the Admiralty Press announcement of 4th September, 1925. It is anticipated, however, that a further reduction of the amount of repair and reconstruction work of the Fleet will take place gradually during the next two or three years, in which case it will be necessary to review the situation afresh.
    Mr. BOOTHBY: Is it the considered opinion of the Admiralty that it is very necessary to maintain four dockyards in Southern home waters for the benefit of six capital ships and one cruiser squadron?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: As I am at present advised, I have nothing to add to the answer.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Will the Government see that greater notice is given before these yards are closed, so that private firms may have an opportunity of tendering, and so that men may not be thrown out of work?

    SHORE SIGNAL SERVICE.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHAasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he

    1391
    is aware that under the recent Admiralty reductions of pay for the Royal Navy Shore Signal Service, petty officers now transferring from the Royal Navy to this branch receive 1s. per day less than those men already in the Shore Signal Service; and whether, in view of the fact that those petty officers are all fully qualified and trained men, they will be paid the same scale as that laid down in Admiralty Fleet Order 1689/25?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: The hon. Member is, I think, under a misapprehension. Petty officers do not transfer from the Royal Navy to petty officer (Shore Signal Service). The Royal Navy Shore Signal Service is recruited from pensioner signal ratings who enter as signalman (Shore Signal Service).

    OFFICERS' MARRIAGE ALLOWANCE.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHAasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will publish the evidence taken by the Goodenough Committee on the subject of marriage allowance for naval officers?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: The answer is in the negative.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the very great feeling expressed, owing to the suppression of this Report, because it is believed that the Report was favourable to the claims?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: I am afraid that the Report was made to the Board of Admiralty, and is confidential.

    PEMBROKE AND ROSYTH DOCKYARDS.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHAasked the First Lord of the Admiralty when it is proposed to begin bringing men from Rosyth and Pembroke to the southern yards; and what arrangements have been made for the housing of these men in Devonport?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: The transfers have commenced, and will be continued as the men become redundant at Rosyth and Pembroke Dock; the men transferred will make their own housing arrangements; married men maintaining homes for their families will receive financial assistance on account of the expenses they will incur by having to make temporary arrangements until they can re-establish their homes in the South.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: What has the Admiralty done to fulfill its promise to make arrangements for housing? Why should the men have to make their own housing arrangements?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: The whole question of housing in southern ports is now being carefully considered.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Why was it not considered before the men were moved?

    CADETS (COST OF EDUCATION).
    Mr. BARKERasked the First Lord of the Admiralty the cost per cadet for education at Dartmouth, including nautical training, and the average fees paid per cadet for the year 1924–25?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: The cost of training a cadet at Dartmouth and the average fee paid per cadet for the year 1924–25 were £314 and £106 respectively. The corresponding figures for the current year are, approximately, £285 and £125.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us how many children from elementary schools are on their way to this educational institution?

    ENGINEER OFFICERS (UNIFORMS).
    Mr. BASIL PETOasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, seeing that the Fleet Order, issued on 21st November, deprives engineer officers of military status as part of the combatant personnel of the Fleet and that, as they are in control of approximately 40 per cent. of the ship's company, it is essential that they should have military status and not be regarded as non-combatants, he will consider whether, if the wearing of distinctive stripes, as worn by the medical, accountant find other non-combatant branches, gives rise to the belief that engineers are to be similarly regarded as non-combatant, the alteration of the uniform of executive officers by the addition of similar distinctive stripes would be advisable?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: I am unable to accept my hon. Friend's argument, which is based on an erroneous use of terms. Every officer of the Royal Navy has a military status, and all officers of the Royal Navy, except medical officers and chaplains, are combatant officers. The Fleet Order has made no change in the

    1393
    position of engineer officers in these respects, nor in the command which the engineer officer has over his subordinates appointed or detailed for duty in his department or placed under his orders. The distinction in uniform is, as my right hon. Friend explained in reply to a previous question, purely a matter of practical convenience, and does not imply inferiority in any shape or form.
    Mr. PETO: If it be necessary to differentiate in the uniform of these officers who specialise in engineering, why is it not necessary to have a differentiation in the uniform of those officers who specialise in other branches such as gunnery, submarines, navigation, physical training, and other such services?
    Vice-Admiral Sir REGINALD HALL: Is it not a fact that these officers have a distinctive uniform?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: That is so. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnstaple (Mr. B. Peto), the number of officers in the engineering branch cannot be compared with the number in special branches.
    Brigadier-General CHARTERIS: Does the hon. Gentleman anticipate that this order will affect adversely the number of cadets who volunteer for engineering?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: I do not think so.

    PRE-WAR HUNGARIAN DEBT.
    Mr. LOOKERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affaire whether, as a result of the recent Conference held at Prague, arrangements have been made to resume payments in respect of the British-held pre-War Hungarian debt?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I have no information beyond that contained in the summary of the agreement reached at Prague, which was published in the Press on the 25th November.

    RUSSIA (CONFISCATION OF BRITISH PROPERTY).
    Sir WILLIAM LANE MITCHELLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if any British national whose personal belongings were commandeered in
    1394
    1917 has received any compensation of any kind from the Russian Government; and if any commercial firms have received any compensation for confiscated property?
    Mr. A. M. SAMUEL (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): I have been asked to reply. I understand that new concessions have been granted to several British companies which formerly held properties in Russia, but I am not aware how far a settlement of the claims of the firms in question may or may not be included in the new contracts. Apart from such cases, I am not aware that any British subjects or companies have received compensation for commandeered or confiscated property.

  NATIONAL EXPENDITURE.

    ADMIRALTY.
    Mr. BRIANTasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has yet effected any economies in the administration of his Department which will result in decreased Estimates for the coming year?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: The Departmental staffs are all being carefully reviewed, and reduced where possible, and I certainly hope that the result will be seen in a reduced Admiralty establishment during next year. But I should like to make it quite clear to the hon. Member that the immediate result of the large schemes of reduction in naval expenditure on which we are at work is to throw heavy additional work on the Department for the time being, and thus to postpone the date at which reductions of staff become effective.
    Captain BENN: Why did the Admiralty tell us when they presented their Estimates that they were cut to the bone?

    MINISTRY OF LABOUR.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Minister of Labour whether he is now in a position to state what economies he has effected in the administration of his Department; and whether such economies will result in decreased Estimates for the coming year?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am considering the matter in conjunction with the Cabinet Committee on Economy. While I cannot anticipate the details to be published in due course in the Estimates, I can assure the hon. and gallant Member that I am neglecting no opportunity to effect such economies as may be compatible with the efficient discharge of the business of my Department.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: May we expect increased Estimates next year?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: That depends entirely upon the course of trade. There is no doubt, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman will be well aware, that if trade improves my Estimates are bound to go up, because the Treasury will, therefore, have to give more contributions on account of people who are in work.

    MINISTRY OF HEALTH.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Minister of Health whether he is now in a position to state what economies he has effected in the administration of his Department; and whether such economies will result in decreased Estimates for the coming year?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): The question of the provision to be made in the Estimates for my right hon. Friend's Department for the coming year is at present under the consideration of the Cabinet Economy Committee, and I am not yet in a position to make any statement in the matter.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Can the hon. Gentleman answer the second part of my question?
    Sir K. WOOD: I have said that I am not in a position to make any statement.

  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

    TAX OFFICES, WREXHAM.
    Mr. C. P. WILLIAMSasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether it is
    1396
    anticipated that alternative accommodation will soon be found for the office of His Majesty's Inspector of Taxes, at Imperial Hotel, Wrexham, 1st and 2nd districts, these premises being dirty, insanitary, badly heated, and ill-lighted, causing ill-health and consequent sick leave to members of the staff?
    Captain HACKING (for the FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS): It is not proposed to provide either accommodation for the Wrexham Tax Offices until the expiry of the lease of the Imperial Hotel at Michaelmas, 1927. The necessary re-decorations are being deferred pending consideration by the Inland Revenue Department of certain minor alterations, and it is not considered that the premises are insanitary, badly heated, or ill-lighted.

    TAX OFFICES. SHEFFIELD.
    Mr. A. V. ALEXANDERasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether he is aware of the unsuitable nature of the building in which the staffs of the third, fourth, seventh and eighth tax districts are housed at Sheffield, both from the point of view of the staff and the public; that it has been common for elderly persons seeking interviews as to their taxation liabilities to collapse before arriving at the third or fourth floors; and whether he will arrange for more suitable accommodation?
    Captain HACKING: The First Commissioner is aware that certain rooms on the third floor of the building are unsatisfactory, and schemes for improving matters are under consideration. It should not be necessary for the public to visit the fourth floor, and no complaints of distress to visitors to the third floor have been received.
    Mr. ALEXANDER: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that there is a very large building in course of construction now for Government telephone purposes where alternative accommodation is available, and will be consider using that for the staff in Sheffield?
    Captain HACKING: Certainly I will consider that.

    MESSENGERS AND CLEANERS (ADMIRALTY).
    Mr. HAYESasked the First Lord of the Admiralty the present wages, including bonus, of the messengers and cleaners employed by the Admiralty, and the corresponding figures for 1914?

    PAY OF THE MESSENGERS AND CLEANING STAFF AT THE ADMIRALTY.

    1925.

    1914.

    Per annum.

    Per annum.

    Office Keeper

    (a) £369

    2

    0

    Office Keeper

    (a) £250

    0

    0

    Deputy Office Keeper

    £238

    16

    0

    Hall Porters

    (a) 1 at £150

    0

    0

    1 at £130

    0

    0

    Established Messengers

    (b) £157 10 0—£211

    18

    0

    Per week.

    25 per cent. of Pensioner Messengers and Labourers

    (b) £1 1 0 to £1

    4

    0

    Per week.

    The remainder

    £1

    1

    0

    Pensioner Messengers and Labourers

    £2 10 9 to £2

    19

    6

    Duty Pay allowances, in addition to pay

    19 at 7s. Per week

    Duty Pay allowances, in addition to pay

    9 at 15s. per week.

    4 at13s. 11d .per week

    9 at 10s.per week

    26 at 5s. Per week.

    Per week.

    £

    s.

    d.

    Superintendent of Girl Messengers

    3

    5

    6

    Supervisor of Girl Messengers

    1

    13

    6

    Supervising Girl Messenger

    1

    10

    6

    Per week

    Girl Messengers under 16 years

    14

    6

    Boy Messengers

    9s. to 13s. 6d.

    16 years

    17

    0

    17 years

    18

    6

    18 years

    1

    6

    0

    19 years

    1

    7

    0

    to 1

    8

    0

    Per annum.

    Per week.

    Housekeeper

    £140 0 0 to £171

    10

    0

    £

    s.

    d.

    Per week.

    Head Charwoman

    1

    1

    0

    £

    s.

    d.

    Assistants to Head Charwoman...

    17

    6

    Assistants to Housekeeper

    1

    18

    9

    Charwomen

    14

    0

    Lavatory Attendants

    1

    11

    0

    Storewoman

    2

    4

    0

    Charwomen

    1

    9

    9

    (a) Plus quarters, fuel and lights.

    (b) Two allowed quarters, fuel and lights.

  UNEMPLOYMENT.

    BRISTOL.
    Mr. W. BAKERasked the Minister of Labour how many unemployed men, women, and juveniles in the city of Bristol were registered as unemployed during the week ending 28th November, 1925, and during the similar period last year?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: At 30th November, 1925, there were on the registers of Employment Exchanges in the Bristol area, 10,818 men, 1,981 women, and 816 juveniles, as compared with 10,767
    Mr. DAVIDSON: I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate a full statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the statement:
    men, 2,829 women, and 860 juveniles at 1st December, 1924?

    BENEFIT DISALLOWED.
    Mr. W. BAKERasked the Minister of Labour the number of men in the City of Bristol who have applied for extended benefit during each month of this year, together with the number of cases in which benefit has been refused; and in how many cases the claims rejected were those of disabled ex-service men?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: As the reply involves a number of figures, I will, with the permission of the hon. Member, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the statement:

    APPLICATIONS from Men for Extended Benefit considered and refused by the Bristol Local Employment Committee in 1925.

    Period.

    Considered.

    Refused.

    13th Jan. to 9th Feb.

    3,681

    244

    10th Feb. to 9th Mar.

    3,498

    268

    10th Mar. to 13th Apr.

    4,481

    359

    14th Apr. to 11th May

    3,949

    302

    12th May to 8th June

    3,118

    346

    9th June to 13th July

    4,431

    526

    14th July to 24th Aug.

    4,696

    478

    25th Aug. to 14th Sept.

    2,205

    270

    15th Sept. to 12th Oct.

    3,414

    487

    13th Oct. to 16th Nov.

    4,478

    620

    Total

    37,951

    3,900

    Separate statistics in respect of disabled ex-service men are not available.
    Mr. BAKERalso asked the Minister of Labour the number of applicants in the City of Bristol who have been refused benefit during each month of the present year after a Rota committee has recommended that benefit should be granted?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The number of applications for extended benefit which were disallowed after having been recommended by the local Employment Committee at Bristol were as follow:

    1925:

    25th August to 14th September

    …

    13

    15th September to 12th October

    …

    36

    13th October to 16th November

    …

    46

    Statistics on this point were not collected prior to 25th August, 1925. The number of cases recommended for allowance by the Committee during the period was 9,625.
    Colonel DAYasked the Minister of Labour if he is aware of the dissatisfaction expressed by Employment Exchange rota committees following the rejection by the authorities of claims that have been recommended by the local committees?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am not aware of any general dissatisfaction. As the Statute places upon the Minister of Labour the responsibility for final decision in these cases, a certain number of rejections is inevitable. The number is very small, being less than one-half of 1 per cent. of the recommendations for the whole country.
    Mr. MACKINDER: Are these rejections personally considered by the Minister or by his subordinates?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: That is a matter entirely for my discretion. I go through some of them myself; others are gone through by my subordinates.
    Mr. MACKINDER: How can the right hon. Gentleman exercise his discretion by transferring the responsibility to some one else to exercise theirs?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I can do it perfectly well.
    Mr. MACKINDER: You never see them. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"] He said himself he did not see them.
    Captain HOLTasked the Minister of Labour the total number of persons refused extended benefit at the Stratford and Canning Town Labour Exchanges since the passing of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1925, by virtue of the discretion given to him by that Act?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: During the period 25th August to 16th November, 1925, the number of cases in which extended benefit was disallowed under the provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1925, was 232 at Stratford and 246 at Canning Town.
    Mr. CONNOLLY: In regard to the latter part of the question, may I ask the Minister what takes places when the Rota committee gives a man extended benefit which is afterwards disallowed by the special committee? How does the right hon. Gentleman use his discretion in a case of that sort? Does he, or someone else, examine these cases?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise on the question.
    Mr. CONNOLLY: On the latter part, Sir, which did not appear to be answered?
    Mr. H. WILLIAMSasked the Minister of Labour how many persons have been refused unemployment benefit during the last three months; how many of them have since secured employment; how many are still on the live register; and how many have ceased to register, though not known to have secured employment?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: During the period 10th August to 16th November, 1925, the number of applications for extended benefit disallowed by local employment committees in Great Britain was 175,396, and during the three months ended 31st October, 141,706 applications for benefit were disallowed by the Chief Insurance Officer. These figures do not necessarily relate to different individuals. At 16th November, 74,558 persons who had been disallowed benefit were maintaining registration at Employment Exchanges, but I cannot say how many of these had been disallowed benefit in the previous three months. I am also unable to state how many of those disallowed benefit have secured employment or have ceased to register.
    Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: In view of the discrepancy of these figures will the right hon. Gentleman consider consulting the Poor Law authorities so as to make his figures comprehensive, thus enabling him to give how many people that are receiving Poor Law relief through unemployment are not so unemployed according to the Ministry of Labour?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: As a matter of fact, I am going into that very point myself at this moment. The figures are on a quite different basis at the present time. The Poor Law figures do not give the heads of families, but the whole number of the persons relieved. The matter will need a lot of consideration to see how far you can combine the total so as really to represent the case free from controversy.
    Mr. ALEXANDER: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that a number of Poor Law unions have available now, and publish, figures of relief?
    Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Is it not the fact that a large number of people receiving relief are also registered as unemployed at the Exchanges?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Sometimes that is the case, but it is not 100 per cent. one way or the other.
    Colonel DAY: Will the Minister lay before the House the information he obtains as to the difference in numbers?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: If I can get any reliable information such as I would use myself, I shall certainly give it to the House.
    Mr. GROVESasked the Minister of Labour (1) if he will investigate the circumstances attending the refusal of unemployment benefit to E. F. Bread street, 5, Weddin Street, E.15, on the ground that benefit would not be expedient in the public interest; whether he is informed that the father of this lad is a woodworker with wages of £3 a week, and that the committee considered that the lad could reasonably look to his father for support; and whether he will have such case reviewed;
    (2) If he is aware that Mr. C. A. Berger, 137, Major Road, Stratford, No. 56,528, has been regularly and continuously employed as a railway worker for the past 40 years, has contributed to the National Unemployment Insurance Act since its inception, and has now been compelled to retire from the service of the London and North Eastern Railway Company owing to the operation of the 65 years of age limit; whether, notwithstanding this man's career as a genuine workman, he has been refused benefit by the insurance officer on the grounds that he is not genuinely seeking work; and whether such decision will be reconsidered?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am having inquiries made into these cases and will let the hon. Member know the result as soon as possible.
    59. Mr. BARRasked the Minister of Labour whether his attention has been called to the position of the on-cost workers at the Parkhead Colliery of the Glasgow Iron and Steel Company, where the miners were on strike from the 27th August to the 28th October last; whether he is aware that these men were not allowed to ballot on the ground that the question concerned the miners alone; that the manager of the mine notified the Employment Exchange that they were taking no part in the dispute; that the Court of Referees granted the men's claim for benefit, but that it was disallowed by the divisional insurance officer and by the umpire; whether he will give favourable consideration to the claim of these men; and what steps he proposes to take in this matter?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: My attention has been called to the cases in question. The hon. Member will be aware that I have no power under the Acts to

    1403
    interfere in cases decided by the umpire and, as the claims have been disallowed by him, benefit cannot be paid to the claimants in question.
    Mr. BARR: Does the Prime Minister not think it is a great hardship that these men, who are compelled to remain neutral in a strike, should have no benefit whatever?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I cannot criticise, and I do not pretend to criticise, a decision of the umpire, but if there are new facts with regard to it brought forward then no doubt the umpire will reconsider the matter. As regards the men being obliged to remain neutral, no doubt it was or might have been within the knowledge of the parties to the strike that they would be affected so that the right of the ballot might have been extended to them. Of course that is a question for them to consider.
    Miss WILKINSONasked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the fact that over 800 applicants at Middlesbrough have been refused extended benefit within the three months ending 16th November by the local employment committee solely on the ground that the applicants had not had a reasonable period of employment during the previous two years, he will consider the relaxation of this Regulation in areas where acute trade depression has existed for a longer period than two years?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The condition referred to is a statutory Rule and I have no power to relax it. There is, however, no reason to suppose that the local employment committee at Middlesbrough are not fully cognisant of, or do not give due consideration to, the unfavourable trade conditions existing in their area.
    Miss WILKINSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Rota committees are giving as an explanation of these men being refused benefit the fact that they are having to work this Regulation, and cannot take this fact into consideration because they are not fully aware of it.
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I think they have power to consider all the circumstances of the case. As a matter of fact, the ratio of the cases turned
    1404
    down is now the same within a fraction for Middlesbrough as for the whole country. So also is the ratio of cases allowed. As the applications in Middlesbrough are far more numerous than in the rest of the country, it follows that allowance is made for the depressed state of trade there.
    Miss WILKINSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to inform the rota committees at Middlesbrough that they can take these circumstances into consideration, and that therefore they are not rigidy bound to enforce these Regulations?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Certainly I will inform them, but they must take into consideration all the relevant circumstances.
    Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT: Would it not be simpler and more effective to safeguard the industries of Middlesbrough?

    CEMENT PURCHASE, MIDDLESBROUGH.
    Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSONasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that, owing to the Unemployment Grants Committee having refused to allow the Middlesbrough Corporation to buy French cement at 39s. per ton and having compelled them to buy British cement at 50s. 2d. per ton, a heavy extra burden has been placed on Middlesbrough ratepayers; and will the Government reconsider their policy of prohibiting local authorities from buying in the cheapest market when the difference exceeds over 11s. per ton or, failing that, will they recompense such local authorities by extra grants from the Unemployment Grants Fund?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am informed that since November, 1923, the Unemployment Grants Committee have stipulated for the use of British cement as one of the conditions of Government assistance. I see no ground for making a change of policy in this connection.
    Mr. THOMSON: May I ask why these particular ratepayers should be called upon to subsidise the unemployed in another district, when their own unemployment is very serious?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: It is only fair that whenever ratepayers in any district come to the Government for a

    1405
    grant from Government funds, the purpose for which it should be given should not prejudice the employment of their fellow-citizens in other parts of the country.
    Mr. HARRIS: Is it not a fact that most of the cement factories are in the hands of combines and trusts?
    Mr. RADFORD: Can the right hon. Gentleman state to what extent the present position of unemployment in this country is due to persons buying cheap foreign manufactures rather than British?

    EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGES.
    Mr. BARKERasked the Minister of Labour if he has received a resolution from the Abertillery Trades and Labour Council and a large meeting of Tillery miners, protesting against the action of his Department in importing men to do the work of the local Employment Exchange when there are thousands of unemployed men in Abertillery; is he aware that 15 men have been discharged from this Employment Exchange, thus further burdening the rates of this area; and will he reinstate these men in their employment?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Yes, Sir; the men in question were permanent officers of the Ministry. It was necessary, on account of the acute unemployment position, to strengthen the permanent staff at Abertillery, and as no permanent clerks were available in South Wales, men were transferred from Exchanges in other parts of the country. In regard to temporary staff, preference is invariably given to local applicants. Of 20 temporary clerks now in post, 19 are local men. Fifteen temporary clerks have been discharged during the past six months owing to a reduction in the volume of work at the Exchange. Further staff is not necessary at the moment, but if it should be required, preference will be given to local men who are ex-service men and who have had previous experience of Exchange work.
    Mr. CAMPBELLasked the Minister of Labour what progress, if any, has been made in carrying out the suggestions contained in the Report of the Estimates Committee, 1925, to transfer a number of
    1406
    Employment Exchanges to less obtrusive and less costly sites?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The practicability of providing alternative sites for certain Exchanges, now housed in main thoroughfares, is under examination between my Department and His Majesty's Office of Works. For reasons of economy, removal must depend on the terms of existing leases and the discovery of suitable alternative sites, and the problem can only be dealt with gradually as opportunities offer.
    Mr. CAMPBELL: If the right hon. Gentleman cannot at once get rid of some of these Exchanges, perhaps he could let a portion of them after going into the local circumstances?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Quite clearly, if it is possible to let a portion of them advantageously. I shall be very willing to do it by letting or any similar method which will effect economy, while at the same time the work is being properly carried out in the interests of the men.
    Mr. HARRIS: Are not a number of the Exchanges in East London always overcrowded, inconvenient, and not large enough, and in order to have the work done properly is it not desirable to have central sites, where, conveniently, both employers and employés can go to?
    Captain ARTHUR EVANS: When the right hon. Gentleman is considering the plans of the new Employment Exchanges will He take into consideration the necessity of providing suitable waiting accommodation, and so doing away with the queues in cold weather?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: All these points have already been considered and, so far as practicable, are being dealt with. Where there is a large crowd, they are quite carefully given the time at which they should go to the Exchange. There is, therefore, no need at all for queues. There may be an exceptional case, but in nearly every case there is no need for a queue if the people will observe the time regularly given to them. In regard to the question of the central site, it is desirable to get a position that is as get-at-able as possible and not far removed from the place. On the other hand, it is better to have the Exchange

    1407
    in a side street, though in a central situation, and not in the main thoroughfare. As to the. size, that, again, is a matter of commonsense. On the one hand, one wants to have such premises that people are not unduly cramped if there is a rush; on the other hand, one does not want to have premises so large that when unemployment in a given district goes down we are left with unduly big places on our hands. It is a matter of commonsense in each case. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I shall do my best.

    NEW ENTRANTS (RETURN).
    Mr. H. WILLIAMSasked the Minister of Labour if he can arrange to publish a quarterly return of the number of unemployed books issued to new entrants to industry during each quarter, showing the number separately for each industrial group?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The only available figures are those for the number of new books issued. As these include an unknown number of duplicate books issued to persons previously insured, I do not think the expense of publishing them quarterly would be justified. Annual estimates of the number in each industry in July of each year are already published in the succeeding November in the Ministry of Labour Gazette.

    WEEKLY PENSIONERS.
    Mr. GROVESasked the Minister of Labour whether it is the considered policy of his Department that workmen who are compelled to retire from their ordinary industrial pursuits at the age limits of 60 to 65 years, and are in receipt of a weekly pension of from 5s. to 20s., to which they have contributed from their weekly earnings, are refused unemployment insurance benefit on the ground that they are not genuinely seeking work; and whether he will state whether it is the view of his Department that such men should not be expected at that age to be seeking jobs?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: There is no requirement under the Unemployment Insurance Acts which has the effect of disqualifying a man for the receipt of benefit solely because he has been compelled to leave his employment on pension on reaching an age limit of 60 to 65
    1408
    years. Such men, however, must in common with other claimants satisfy the statutory conditions, one of which is that they must be genuinely seeking work.
    Mr. GROVES: Will thy right hon. Gentleman say whether he is aware that there are a large number of cases that are affected by the principle that men are refused benefit on the plea that they are not genuinely seeking work on the ground that they are pensioned off and, therefore, are not likely to seek it?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: If there are any individual cases like that, I will be glad to look into them. I do not want anyone to be prejudiced by the fact that he has a pension, because the fact of having a pension does not mean that they are necessarily past work or that they are not necessarily seeking work.
    Mr. BECKETT: Is the right hon. Gentleman in a position to tell us what his Department regards as proof of genuinely seeking work?
    Mr. SPEAKER: We cannot go into that consideration now.

    WEEKLY STATISTICS.
    Mr. H. WILLIAMSasked the Minister of Labour whether the change in the method of compilation of unemployment statistics which is being made in some districts, namely, the separation of the totally unemployed from those on short time or temporarily stood off, is being put into operation generally; and whether in future the weekly statistics of persons on the live register will show separately the number totally unemployed and the number temporarily unemployed?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am considering whether arrangements can be made to analyse the weekly unemployment statistics in the manner suggested; but I cannot yet say with certainty whether this will be practicable.

    ROTA COMMITTEES.
    Mr. R. HUDSONasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that the burden of work on existing rota committees in certain towns is so great that it is often impossible for them to do full justice to some of the claims brought before them; and whether he proposes to take any steps to deal with the matter?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I have had the matter under consideration for some time. The difficulty arises in large measure from the rule hitherto in force of the applicant in every case, whether straightforward or not, being personally interviewed. I have decided that brief particulars of any claims for extended benefit which appear to be straightforward may be placed before rota committees with a view to their being recommended for allowance without personal interview, if the rota so decide; it will always remain open to the rota to select any of the claims out of the list for personal interview if they think this necessary. This procedure will reduce the number of cases requiring detailed consideration by the committees and allow more time for dealing with those cases which really need it. Copies of the memorandum to be issued to the committees will be placed in the Library of the House in accordance with the usual practice, and copies can be obtained from the Department by hon. Members who desire to have them.
    Mr. MACKINDER: May I ask whether the difficulty is being intensified by a large number of the members of the rota committees resigning because of the new methods?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Oh, no; not appreciably at all.
    Mr. BECKETT: In the event of the new procedure being adopted and the man being refused on these brief notes, will he be able to claim a personal appearance afterwards?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: If the hon. Member had listened to the answer he would see that it was only in cases for allowance, and not cases that would be disallowed, that the notes will be submitted.

    EX-SOLDIERS (IRISH FREE STATE).
    Colonel GRETTONasked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that, since the termination of the agreement between the British Government and the Irish Free State in July, 1923, soldiers returning to the Irish Free State on their discharge from the Colours are no longer allowed to draw 90 days' unemployment benefit as would be the case if their homes were in Great Britain or Northern
    1410
    Ireland; if he is aware that much hardship is entailed by this deprivation of unemployment benefit; and if he will examine this case in order that soldiers returning to the Irish Free State on the termination of their Colour service may not be in a worse position than others similarly discharged?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The matter is one of considerable difficulty, but I will see whether there is any practicable way of dealing with it.

    BETTING LAW.
    Mr. DIXEYasked the Prime Minister (1) whether he is aware of the feeling in the country owing to the inequality of the law with regard to betting; and, if so, what action does he propose to take in the matter;
    (2) what is the main difficulty in the way of Government taxation of betting?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): I shall answer these questions together, I believe there are some people who object to the law which prohibits certain forms of betting, but there are others who think the removal of such prohibitions would be very undesirable. I would suggest that my hon. Friend should refer to the Report and Proceedings of the Select Commit, tee on Betting Duty, 1923, where he will find a full discussion of the various aspects of this proposal.
    Mr. DIXEY: I have referred to that report, and I would now like to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he does not think this inequality to the poorer people who desire to bet ought to be removed?
    The PRIME MINISTER: If my hon. Friend has read the report, he will see exactly what are the objections to the removal of what we all admit is a somewhat disagreeable factor in our present-day life.

    IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY.
    Mr. DIXEYasked the Prime Minister whether he can now state on what day he proposes to give his promised statement to the House in respect of the iron and steel trade?
    The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir; but I will make a statement before the Session ends.
    Captain BENN: Can the right hon. Gentleman see his way to make the statement at some time which will permit of a short Debate?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I should like nothing better, but I think that the time is too short for a Debate.

    COMMITTEE ON TRADE AND INDUSTRY.
    Mr. ATTLEEasked the Prime Minister whether the Government have received any interim reports from the Committee on Trade and Industry, and whether, if any have been received, they will be published; and whether he can state when the final report of this Committee is expected?
    Mr. SAMUEL: I have been asked to reply. The Committee on Industry and Trade issued last July a comprehensive "Survey of Overseas Markets," and a short memorandum on transport development and cotton growing in East Africa, which were published. They are now preparing a volume on wages, hours and working conditions, which will be published early next year. It is hoped that the Report of the Committee will be available later in the year.
    Sir FREDRIC WISE: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether this report will be for the year 1924 or the year 1925?
    Mr. SAMUEL: I think there has been some confusion of thought. The documents which have been issued are not reports of the Committee, but contain information collected by the Committee. The report, which it is hoped will be available later in the year, will contain the Committee's recommendations and conclusions.
    Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: Have the Board of Trade really studied this interim report of the Balfour Committee? It does not seem so, from the tariff policy of the Government.

    ELECTRICITY DEVELOPMENT.
    Mr. R. MORRISONasked the Prime Minister if he is now in a position to state
    1412
    whether the Government has come to a decision with reference to its electricity proposals; and when a statement will be made?
    The PRIME MINISTER: No Sir. I am not yet in a position to make a statement on this subject.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is more than six months since he said this important matter was receiving the attention of the Government, and that shortly after that the Minister of Transport said the Report of the Committee of Experts had been received and was receiving the attention of the Special Committee?
    The PRIME MINISTE: Yes, all that is quite true, and I hope that we shall have a Bill ready for next Session, but the preparation of such a Bill and the examination of the points which will be raised takes many months' work, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman must recognise.
    Mr. HARDIE: Would it not be more for the convenience of the House that we should have the Report of this Expert Committee before the Bill comes on?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I do not know whether it would be. Captain BENN: Is it not a fact that Lord Weir has already told us at a dinner party all about the Report?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I do not go to dinner parties.
    Colonel DAY: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is not a fact that it was published fully in all the leading Conservative organs, and does not he read them?

    LAND TENURE.
    Mr. THURTLEasked the Prime Minister whether, with a view to increasing the production of home-grown foodstuffs, it is the intention of the Government to introduce legislation to effect changes in the system of land tenure at present obtaining in this country?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The production of an increased quantity of homegrown food is, in the opinion of the Government, dependent far more on

    1413
    prices than on any question of land tenure, and the Government do not propose to introduce any legislation with the object of making radical changes in the present system of land tenure.
    Mr. THURTLE: Is it the view of the Prime Minister that the present system of land tenure in this country is satisfactory?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I do not think anything in this country is satisfactory.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMS: In view of the answer the right hon. Gentleman gave, that prices determine the utility or futility of extending the area of land under cultivation, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he and his Government will consider the possibility of stabilising prices for agricultural food, thereby enabling us to make further use of the land?
    Major Sir GRANVILLE WHELER: Is the right hon. Gentleman- aware that the British farmer desires nothing so much as to be let alone, absolutely?

    ROYAL AIR FORCE (PARACHUTES).
    Colonel DAYasked the Secretary of State for Air when it may be expected to receive delivery of the American manufactured parachutes for the use of flying officers and men of the Royal Air Force?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Samuel Hoare): Deliveries began in July last and have been made weekly during the past three months.

    IMPERIAL AIRWAYS, LIMITED.
    Rear-Admiral SUETERasked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is satisfied that the present agreement with Imperial Airways, Limited, is functioning satisfactorily, and is such as to ensure the development of British civil air transport on a sound basis?
    Sir S. HOARE: I am advised, on the basis of recent experience, that the sound line of development for regular air transport lines is in the direction of large high-powered machines, which can be run more economically and efficiently than a
    1414
    larger number of small machines of equivalent capacity. The Air Ministry found that the stipulation in its existing agreement with Imperial Airways, Limited, requiring the completion of a given mileage in order to qualify for the full subsidy, was threatening to discourage development on the lines described, as a simple mileage requirement puts a premium on the use of small machines. I have accordingly arranged recently with Imperial Airways to convert the mileage requirement of one million miles per annum into a composite requirement, which is regarded as a fair equivalent, of 425 million horse-power miles per annum; this will allow the mileage of high-powered machines to count more heavily than that of low-powered machines, and will thus encourage the company to develop towards a self-supporting basis as the subsidy decreases. The amount of the subsidy and the general provisions of the original agreement remain unaltered. A. supplemental agreement, modifying the terms of the original agreement as above, is being prepared, and when the necessary document is executed I will lay it as a White Paper, with an explanatory statement.

  AIR SERVICE, EGYPT AND INDIA.

    HEADS OF AGREEMENT.
    Rear-Admiral SUETERasked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is yet in a position to make any further statement on the project for an aeroplane service between Egypt and India?
    Sir S. HOARE: Negotiations with Imperial Airways Limited for a regular air service between Egypt and India had advanced sufficiently last August for a detailed survey of the route to be carried out in September by officials of the company and the Air Ministry, and, after consideration of the results of this survey, definite heads of agreement for this service have been signed.
    The most important new point emphasised by the survey was the great advantage which would result from the use of three-engined machines, which should make forced landings very improbable—a matter of prime importance on this unfrequented route. This, however, involves an increase of cost per machine, and, owing to the limitation of

    1415
    the money available, a consequent reduction in the number of machines and frequency of the services as compared with the project outlined to the House last July.
    The agreement accordingly makes provision for a subsidy which can be earned by the company on the basis of a regular fortnightly service with three-engined machines for mails, goods and passengers, in each direction between Egypt and India via Baghdad and Basra.
    This subsidy will, I hope, enable the company eventually to increase the frequency of its service to a weekly basis as traffic expands and as increasing income from that and other sources becomes available.
    The maximum annual subsidy, to be earned by a stipulated degree of regularity in completed flights on each half of the route, will be £93,600. The duration of the agreement is to be for five years.
    The three-engined machines will take some time to construct, and I do not expect the service to be in actual operation much before the end of next calendar year. The Air Ministry will, in the meanwhile, proceed with the items of ground organisation for which it is responsible.
    As soon as the agreement is executed in legal form, I propose to lay it as a White Paper, with an explanatory statement.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to extend this service to Australia?
    Sir S. HOARE: We shall have to see how the first stage works.

    AIRSHIPS (DUAL CONTROL).
    Mr. GRANTasked the Secretary of State for Air if he will consider the advisability of instituting dual control in all airships publicly used for the conveyance of passengers?
    Sir S. HOARE: It is the practice to provide means by which rigid airships may be controlled from elsewhere in the event of accident to the normal control post, and a certificate of airworthiness would not be granted if this requirement were not satisfied.

    CROWN AS LITIGANT.
    Mr. BRIANTasked the Attorney-General if the special Committee investigating the subject of legal proceedings by and against the Crown is considering not only the procedure in such cases, but also the right of action in the Law Courts of servants of the Crown who have cause of action against their superiors; and if he will give the Committee's terms of reference?
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Douglas Hogg): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The terms of reference to the Committee were:
    "To consider the position of the Crown as a litigant and to make such proposals for the modification of the existing law upon the subject as may best conduce to efficiency and economy with due regard for the necessity for the safeguarding of the collection of the revenue."
    Mr. BRIANT: My specific point is whether this question is being or will be considered as to the right of the Crown officers to take action against superior officers.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: What the Committee wi1l do I cannot tell the hon. Member, but I have in my answer given the terms of reference.

    SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION, EBBW VALE.
    Mr. EVAN DAVIESasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that His Majesty's inspector of schools has strongly condemned the present accommodation for children attending the elementary schools at Ebbw Vale; that the local authority has submitted plans and schemes for improving such accommodation; and whether he will state the reason why he refuses the necessary sanction for this work to be proceeded with?
    Sir K. WOOD: My right hon. Friend is aware of the position as regards school accommodation in the area, but, having regard to the financial circumstances of the district, he does not feel that he can properly sanction fresh capital expenditure at the present time.
    Mr. BARKER: May I ask if the interests of education are to be sacrificed in this particular district?
    Sir K. WOOD: As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have gone very carefully into this matter, and the circumstances are very difficult.

    HOUSING (EX-SERVICE MEN).
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir FREDERICKHALL asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that a considerable number of men who left their homes to join the Colours during the Great War have, since their demobilisation, purchased houses, and in many cases have been unable to obtain possession of the same; that in some instances these ex-service men have been allowed, on sufferance, to occupy a small portion of the accommodation in the houses they have actually bought; and whether he is prepared to take steps to amend the Rent Restriction Acts so as to secure for such ex-service men immunity from the annoyance of sharing with other people the homes which they have purchased for the purpose of living therein with their wives and children?
    Sir K. WOOD: The question of what privileges should be extended to ex-service men was very fully discussed in this House in 1920, and as a result certain provisions were inserted in the Act of 1920 which are still in force. While my right hon. Friend has every sympathy with the cases to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers, he is afraid that it would not be desirable to introduce fresh legislation at the present time, for the reason which he gave on the Second Reading of this year's Act to prolong the duration of rent control.

    BRITISH INDUSTRIES FAIR (CRYSTAL PALACE).
    Sir F. HALLasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the British Industries Fair was held at the Crystal Palace in 1920, with results that were satisfactory to the exhibitors; and whether, seeing that the Crystal Palace is an institution belonging to the nation, purchased by voluntary contributions, he will consider the desirability of giving preference to this institution when exhibitions are held in the future in which the Government is interested or for which it provides a subsidy?
    Mr. SAMUEL: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The suggestion made in the second part is one which I will take carefully into account before deciding on the site for any future exhibition with which my Department may be concerned.
    Sir F. HALL: Will a little more sympathy be shown in the future than has been the case in the past, and would my hon. Friend mind communicating with the Crystal Palace before any decision is arrived at as to where these exhibitions are to be held?
    Mr. SAMUEL: As I told my hon. and gallant Friend when he brought a deputation to see me early in the summer, we did consider this matter carefully, but the exhibitors did not wish to go there.
    Sir F. HALL: Seeing that my hon. Friend states that the reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, may I ask whether the exhibitors were not satisfied with the results of the exhibition held in 1920?
    Mr. SAMUEL: That may be so, but in the case of the exhibition that is about to be held they do not wish to go to the Crystal Palace.
    Sir F. HALL: I hope my hon. Friend hon. Member but I have in my answer given the forms of reference.

    DYEING INDUSTRY (NAPHTHOL PRODUCTS).
    The following questions stood on the Order Paper in the name of Mr. KELLY:
    80 and 81. To ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) if he is aware that the dyers in Lancashire are threatened with litigation if they do as the officials of the Board of Trade direct and use, the British-made naphthol products; and will he give the necessary cover against litigation if these dyers do as directed by the officials;
    (2) if he is aware that dyers in Lancashire are prevented from getting licences to import naphthol A S and S W, thus causing this comparatively new trade to be handed over to Holland and other Continental dyers, and causing unemployment to the workers in this country; and if he will grant these licences to dyers in this Country?
    Mr. KELLY: May I ask that Question No. 81 be answered before No. 80?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Burton Chadwick): I am going to answer both together. In accordance with the general policy adopted by the Licensing Committee under the Dyestuffs (Import Regulations) Act, licences are not being granted for the importation of Naphthol A S and S W, since adequate equivalents are made in this country. I understand that a German company claiming to own certain patent rights in respect of the process by which dyestuffs of this kind are utilised, is asking royalties from the users of the British equivalents. The whole matter is now under consideration, but, in the meantime, I have no reason to think that any consequences of the kind suggested by the hon. Member are being experienced.
    Mr. KELLY: Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to assure these employers and manufacturers that there will be no consequences through action at law if they take the advice of the Board of Trade?
    Sir B. CHADWICK: I am afraid I cannot answer that question.
    Mr. KELLY: May I ask why the hon. Gentleman insists upon these manufacturers using naphthol which may bring them into the hands of the law?
    HON. MEMBERS: Answer!

    ARMY CLOTHING FACTORY, PIMLICO.
    Sir F. HALLasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office what is the approximate value of clothes and stores, separately, that were in hand at the date of the last stocktaking; what was the date of such stocktaking; whether clothing is still being made; and, if so, how much is spent annually in the cost and manufacture of Army clothing at Pimlico?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Captain Douglas King): Apart from war reserves, there are some 800,000 yards of material in stock for service dress and cotton drill khaki suits, and some 435,000 made up suits. I cannot state the value of these stocks, but I am considering the general question of the valuation of Army stores. As regards the last part of the question, clothing is
    1420
    still being manufactured at Pimlico; the estimated expenditure there in the current year, as shown on page 150 of Army Estimates, is £401,950.
    Sir F. HALL: Is there any truth in the rumours that there is enough clothing in the hands of the Government to last the troops for another 10 or 15 years, and, if so, will my hon. and gallant Friend see that economy is effected by making no further clothing at Pimlico?
    Captain KING: The stocks which I have just stated represent from two to three years' normal peace requirements.
    Sir F. HALL: And what about the stores?
    Captain KING: I think the stores mean the clothing. I have not an answer with regard to the whole of the stores for the Army.
    Sir F. HALL: I beg to give my hon. and gallant Friend notice that I will repeat my question. I want to know about stores, which are totally distinct from clothing.
    Mr. ERSKINE: Is it not very necessary to keep Pimlico in the highest state of efficiency?
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir JOSEPH NALL: Is it a fact that at the present time the clothing produced at the Pimlico factory is more expensive to the State than clothing produced by private contractors?
    Captain KING: I do not agree with that.

    MALTBY COLLIERY COMPANY.
    Mr. GRUNDYasked the Secretary for Mines if he has now received the decision of the Don-caster magistrates in the prosecution of the Maltby Colliery Company, and Mr. Basil Pickering, the agent, for the violation of Section 67 of the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1911; and whether, in view of the importance to the mining industry of paragraph 2 of Section 67 of the Mines Act, he will state what further steps he proposes to take in this particular instance to secure the enforcement of the law?
    The SECRETARY for MINES (Colonel Lane-Fox): This prosecution, as stated

    1421
    by my predecessor in this House, replying to the hon. Member on 20th March, 1924, was taken, not on the grounds that criminal prosecution was required in respect of anything done or omitted to be done, but solely to obtain an authoritative pronouncement on the proper interpretation of the law. That having been obtained in the High Court, the summonses were by consent withdrawn, and no further steps in this particular instance are necessary.
    Mr. GRUNDY: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that in this case no decision was given by the Police Court, but that the case was brought before the Don-caster Court and taken to the Divisional Court, who referred it back to the Don-caster Court, who withdrew the prosecution; and will he see that in cases whore workmen contravene the Mines Act the same leniency is exhibited towards them that has been shown in this case?
    Colonel LANE-FOX: It was not a case of favouring employers and not favouring workmen. The whole object of this prosecution was, as stated by Mr. Shinwell, to obtain an authoritative pronouncement as to what the law actually was. That has now been obtained in the High Court, and, therefore, the whole object has been attained.
    Mr. F. HALL: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman tell the House why, in the first place, the case went to the Divisional Court?
    Colonel LANE-FOX: Yes, Sir. The legal proceedings were started, as I have said, by my predecessor, and the object was to find out exactly what was the real state of the law. That having been ascertained, there is no reason for any further proceedings.
    Mr. HALL: Is it the fact that the Divisional Court ordered the case to be sent back to the magistrates at Doncaster?
    Colonel LANE-FOX: Yes, Sir, that is perfectly true, and the summonses were then, by consent, withdrawn. There never was in this case either of the two real reasons for which a prosecution is ordinarily useful, namely, either to punish someone who has done something wrong or contravened the law, or to deter others from doing so; and there was no need for further proceedings.
    1422
    The management had suffered very severe financial loss, and I am quite certain that the last thing the men would wish to see would be a petty prosecution of their management. A decision of the High Court is a far better means of determining the law than any decision of magistrates.
    Mr. HALL: Having regard to the fact that, the Divisional Court having given its decision, then, by consent, the summonses were withdrawn instead of there being a re-trial at Doncaster, may I ask who gave the consent for the prosecution to be withdrawn?
    Colonel LANE-FOX: It was done by agreement between the parties.
    Mr. HALL: What parties. [Interruption.]
    Colonel LANE-FOX: The proceedings wore started by the Government of hon. Members opposite. The parties to the prosecution were the Mines Department, who started it, and the party who was being prosecuted, and, by consent between those parties, the summonses were withdrawn.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that 28 miners' lives were lost in this explosion, and that thousands of miners who know the real danger of coal gas are not feeling at all safe as the result of the withdrawal of this prosecution? Further, while we have no desire for petty persecution, does he not consider that the miners are entitled to the same safeguarding regulations as would be applied to any other section of the community? May I further ask, since little or no consideration is given to miners who commit a technical indiscretion in the mine, if we are not entitled to expect that the law will be administered impartially?
    Colonel LANE-FOX: I emphatically repudiate the suggestion that there has been any question of the law not being enforced against the owners. The whole object, as I have said, of carrying this case from the magistrate's court to the High Court was to obtain a definite and authoritative pronouncement as to what the actual law was. The law is now absolutely certain, and, therefore, the miners have a safeguard they never had before.

    MOSUL (MASSACRED CHRISTIANS).
    Mr. T. P. O'CONNORasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if the Colonial Office have yet received the supplementary report drawn up by General Laidoner's Spanish colleague, Colonel Ortega, with regard to the Turkish atrocities in the Mosul area, and if he could give a summary of the contents to the House; also whether the Council of the League of Nations have yet come to a decision as to the future of Mosul, and, if so, can the information now be given to the House?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: No, Sir. The supplementary report by General Laidoner's colleagues has not yet reached His Majesty's Government. With regard to the second part of the question, I have no information that the decision of the Council of the League of Nations has yet been announced, but I understand that it is likely to be given to-day.
    Mr. O'CONNOR: May I ask, not in any reproach, how it is that the newspapers are able to give in full detail this report and other reports before they are in the possession of the Colonial Office in London? I hope it is not an admission that the service of the Press is more efficient and prompt than the service of a public Department.
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: It is easily explained by the fact that this report is not made to the British Government but to the League of Nations, and is by them issued to the public. It is then telegraphed by the various news agencies to the Press of the world. We get the reports from the League when they are printed at Geneva. The British Government do not go to the expense of having every word of these long reports telegraphed to us.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: May we be informed, before the House is prorogued, as to the outcome of these negotiations, and especially whether, before any formal instrument is entered into binding this country, this House will be consulted?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I hope it will be possible to make a full statement.

  EMPIRE SETTLEMENT (CANADA).

    Reduced Cost of Migrant Passages.
    Mr. CLYNESasked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he can state the nature of the new Agreement with the Government of Canada relative to the cost of passages to the Dominion for assisted migrants?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Yes, Sir. I am glad to announce that under an arrangement between His Majesty's Government, the Dominion Government and the trans-Atlantic shipping companies, persons proceeding to Canada next year with assistance under the Empire Settlement Act will be able to travel to the eastern ports of Canada for £3 instead of £15 5s., which is the present reduced rate; and they will travel to Winnipeg for £5 10s. instead of £20 10s., and to Vancouver for £9 instead of £25. Rates to intermediate destinations will be proportionate, that to Calgary being £6 10s. Thus assisted settlers will be able to proceed to any destination on this side of the Rocky Mountains at a cost to themselves of about a farthing a mile, and right through to the Pacific coast at a cost of three-eighths of a penny a mile. Children will go free, as at present. Loans will no longer be made, except, in special circumstances, to families and household workers.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Is the cost of these subsidised passages to be met by the Imperial Government or by the Dominion Government, or jointly by the two Governments?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I understand jointly. It is under the Empire Settlement Act, which is on a fifty-fifty basis.
    Mr. CLYNES: Are any special steps being taken to make that information generally known?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Yes. The Canadian authorities have already issued a summary to the Press, and we are issuing this afternoon an even fuller one.
    Mr. ALBERY: Is there any chance of a similar arrangement being made with the other Dominions?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I think I announced this spring that similar very large reductions have been arranged this year in the cost of passages to Australia and New Zealand.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE. Motion made, and Question put,
"That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting,
from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[The Prime Minister.]
The House divided: Ayes, 240; Noes, 114.

Division No. 498.]

AYES.

[4.0 p.m.

Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel

Forrest, W.

Malone, Major P. B.

Ainsworth, Major Charles

Foster, Sir Harry S.

Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn

Albery, Irving James

Fraser, Captain Ian

Margesson, Captain D.

Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)

Gadie, Lieut.-Col. Anthony

Marriott, Sir J. A. R.

Applin, Colonel R. V. K.

Ganzoni, Sir John

Meyer, Sir Frank

Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.

Gates, Percy

Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)

Astor, Viscountess

Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton

Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)

Atholl, Duchess of

Gee, Captain R.

Moore, Sir Newton J.

Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John

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

Barnett, Major Sir R.

Goff, Sir Park

Morden, Col. W. Grant

Barnston, Major Sir Harry

Gower, Sir Robert

Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)

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

Grant, J. A.

Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive

Berry, Sir George

Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.

Nail. Lieut.-Colonel Joseph

Betterton, Henry B.

Greene, W. P. Crawford

Neville, R. J.

Birchall, Major J. Dearman

Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Sir H.(W'th's'W, E)

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

Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.)

Gretton, Colonel John

Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G.(Ptrsf'ld)

Blades, Sir George Rowland

Grotrian, H. Brent

Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert

Blundell, F. N.

Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.

Nuttall, Ellis

Boothby, R. J. G.

Gunston, Captain D. W.

Oakley, T.

Bourne, Captain Robert Croft

Hacking, Captain Douglas H.

Oman, Sir Charles William C.

Bowater, Sir T. Vansittart

Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)

Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.

Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R.(Eastbourne)

Pease, William Edwin

Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.

Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)

Penny, Frederick George

Briggs, J. Harold

Hammersley, S. S.

Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)

Brocklebank, C. E. R.

Harland, A.

Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)

Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I

Harrison, G. J. C.

Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)

Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C.(Berks, Newb'y)

Hartington, Marquess of

Pielou, D. P.

Buckingham, Sir H.

Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)

Pitcher, G.

Burman, J. B.

Haslam, Henry C.

Pilditch, Sir Philip

Burton, Colonel H. W.

Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.

Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton

Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward

Henderson, Capt. R. R.(Oxf'd, Henley)

Preston, William

Caine, Gordon Hall

Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L, (Bootle)

Price, Major C. W. M.

Campbell, E. T.

Heneage. Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.

Radford, E. A.

Cautley, Sir Henry S.

Henn, Sir Sydney H.

Ramsden, E.

Cazalet, Captain Victor A.

Hennessy, Major J. R. G.

Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington)

Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton

Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.

Remer, J. R.

Charteris, Brigadier-General J.

Hogg, Rt. Hon. sir D. (St. Marylebone)

Remnant, Sir James

Christie, J. A.

Holland, Sir Arthur

Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.

Churchman, Sir Arthur C.

Holt, Captain H. P.

Rice, Sir Frederick

Clarry, Reginald George

Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)

Robinson, Sir T. (Lanes, Stretford)

Cobb, Sir Cyril

Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)

Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)

Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.

Hopkins, J. W. W.

Salmon, Major I.

Cohen, Major J. Brunel

Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)

Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnhnm)

Conway, Sir W. Martin

Howard, Captain Hon. Donald

Sandeman, A. Stewart

Cope, Major William

Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)

Sanders, Sir Robert A.

Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

Hudson, R. S. (Cumberl'nd, Whiteh'n)

Sandon, Lord

Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.

Hume, Sir G. H.

Savery, S. S.

Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)

Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F.S.

Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W.R., Sowerby)

Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)

Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)

Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl. (Renfrew. W.)

Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)

James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert

Sheffield, Sir Berkeley

Cunliffe, Joseph Herbert

Jephcott, A. R.

Shepperson, E. W.

Curzon, Captain viscount

Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William

Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)

Davidson, J.(Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd)

Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)

Skelton, A. N.

Davies, Dr. Vernon

Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)

Slaney, Major P. Kenyon

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

King, Captain Henry Douglas

Smith, R.W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)

Dean, Arthur Wellesley

Knox, Sir Alfred

Smithers, Waldron

Dixey, A. C.

Lamb, J Q.

Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

Drewe, C.

Lane-Fox, Colonel George R.

Spender Clay, Colonel H.

Eden, Captain Anthony

Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)

Sprot, Sir Alexander

Edmondson, Major A. J.

Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip

Stanley, Lord (Fylde)

Edwards, John H. (Accrington)

Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)

Steel, Major Samuel Strang

Elliot, Captain Walter E.

Loder, J. de V.

Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.

Elveden, Viscount

Looker, Herbert William

Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser

England, Colonel A.

Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman

Sugden, Sir Wilfrid

Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s-M.)

Lumley, L. R.

Tasker, Major R. Inigo

Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith

Lynn, Sir R. J.

Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)

Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)

MacAndrew, Charles Glen

Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)

Everard, W. Lindsay

McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus

Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell-

Fairfax, Captain J. G.

Macintyre, Ian

Titchfield, Major the Marquess of

Falle, Sir Bertram G

McLean, Major A.

Turton, Edmund Russborough

Fanshawe, Commander G. D.

Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm

Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.

Fielden, E. B.

McNeill. Rt. Hon. Ronald John

Waddington, R.

Finburgh, S.

Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-

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

Forestier-Walker, Sir L.

Makins, Brigadier-General E.

Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.

Warrender, Sir Victor

Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)

Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'dge & Hyde)

Waterhouse, Captain Charles

Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)

Wood, Sir Kingsley (Woolwich, W.)

Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)

Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

Woodcock, Colonel H. C.

Watts, Dr. T.

Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.

Wheler, Major Granville C. H.

Wise, Sir Fredric

White, Lieut.-Colonel G. Dairymple

Womersley, w. J.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

Wiggins, William Martin

Wood, B. C. (Somerset, Bidgwater)

Commander B. Eyres Monsell and

Colonel Gibbs.

NOES.

Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)

Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)

Potts, John S.

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

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

Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

Ammon, Charles George

Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)

Riley, Ben

Attlee, Clement Richard

Hardie, George D.

Ritson, J.

Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)

Harris, Percy A.

Rose, Frank H.

Baker, Walter

Hartshorn, Rt. Han. Vernon

Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter

Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertilltry)

Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley)

Scurr, John

Barnes, A.

Henderson, T. (Glasgow)

Sexton, James

Barr, J.

Hirst, G. H.

Shiels, Dr. Drummond

Batey, Joseph

Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)

Sitch, Charles H.

Beckett, John (Gateshead)

Hore-Belisha, Leslie

Slesser, Sir Henry H.

Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)

Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)

Smith, H. B. Lees- (Keighley)

Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.

John, William (Rhondda, West)

Smith, Rennie (Penistone)

Briant, Frank

Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

Snell, Harry

Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)

Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip

Buchanan, G.

Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)

Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)

Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.

Kelly, W. T.

Sutton, J. E.

Compton, Joseph

Kennedy, T.

Taylor, R. A.

Connolly, M.

Kenworthy, Lt.Com. Hon. Joseph M.

Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro. W.)

Cove, W. G.

Kirkwood, D.

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

Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)

Lawson, John James

Thurtle, E.

Dalton, Hugh

Lee, F.

Tinker, John Joseph

Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)

Livingstone, A. M.

Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.

Davies, Ellis (Denbigh, Denbigh)

MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)

Viant, S. P.

Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

Mackinder, W.

Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen

Day, Colonel Harry

MacLaren, Andrew

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

Dennison, R.

March, S.

Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney

Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)

Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred

Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah

Fenby, T. D.

Montague, Frederick

Welsh, J. C.

Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.

Morris, R. H.

Whiteley, W.

Gibbins, Joseph

Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)

Wilkinson, Ellen C.

Gillett, George M.

Murnin, H.

Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)

Gosling, Harry

Naylor, T. E.

Williams, David (Swansea, East)

Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)

O'Connor, Thomas P.

Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)

Greenall, T.

Oliver, George Harold

Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)

Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)

Palin, John Henry

Wright, W.

Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)

Paling, w.

Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)

Groves, T.

Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

Grundy, T. W.

Ponsonby, Arthur

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

Mr. Warne and Mr. Hayes.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SAFEGUARDING OF INDUSTRIES (CUSTOMS DUTIES) BILL.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Burton Chadwick): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
  As we are now entering upon the concluding stage of this long series of Debates, I may perhaps be permitted to make a brief survey of the ground we have traversed and draw a. few conclusions. In the first place, although we have been dealing with a subject on which feelings run very deep, I am sure that I may, on behalf of my right hon. Friend and I hope on behalf of hon. Members on this side of the House, say that they appreciate the generous spirit in which the Debate has been conducted by the Opposition. It is true that we have been denounced and excommunicated by the great high priests of Free Trade, and we have been stung by the waspish satire of my hon. and gallant Friend in the corner up there, but we have not been diverted from the narrow path of rectitude.
  The specific duties under consideration have been to a great extent submerged in the wider issue of general Protection, which has never been contemplated, and, it I may say so respectfully, I feel that the main credit which has accrued as a result of these proceedings is to the Chairman in the very difficult task of keeping hon. Members opposite anywhere near the lines of debate. In any circumstances, we in this country have not had sufficient experience of import duties in our time to enable us to bring this subject on to a more secure foundation of argument than, on the one side, theory and, on the other side, hypothesis. But it has been very interesting, and indeed very remarkable, to contrast the uniform soundness of the speeches that have fallen from hon. Members on this side of the House with, if I may so call it, the poverty that has manifested itself in the speeches that have fallen from hon. Gentlemen opposite. I am, of course, excepting my own part in the Debate. Speech after speech from this side of
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  this House has been closely reasoned and based on economic practice and the record of fact, and I think I am not wrong in saying that they have been almost invariably met by sheer fatuity.
  On several occasions we have been challenged, notably by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden), when he defied my right hon. Friend to point to one single industry where an import duty had increased the volume of employment. I can give facts, as we have all along been able to do, and I can give full justification in those facts for the imposition of these duties. I find, for instance, as the result of restriction of foreign competition since 1914, and during a period of an import duty since 1921, that these conditions have brought to the fine chemical industry marked improvement in the volume of home trade, in the variety of our products, in the quality of our products, in the reduction of the price of our products, in the extension of our potential resources, and in a very great increase in capital investment. All that information is available to the right hon. Gentleman. That also applies to certain other industries. One might refer to the motor-car industry. It will be said that the motor-car trade is in a period of prosperity, and I do not want to press it; but it remains a fact that disaster has not come to the motor-car trade such as been predicted by hon. Members opposite. Then the development in the silk trade is very remarkable indeed—
  Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: Under Protection.
  Sir B. CHADWICK: — by foreign manufacturers coming to this country, and developing their trade in this country.
  Captain BENN: Under Protection?
  Sir B. CHADWICK: On the general question of policy we have met the theories of hon. Members opposite with facts. We have met their contention that the duties will increase prices by pointing out to them the fact that in large ranges of fine chemicals prices have shown a marked reduction, production has increased, and the industry has developed. We refuse to admit the contention that a duty is necessarily a charge on the consumer where there is an alternative untaxed supply. Rather do we say

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  that prices will tend to reduce on account of the stimulus to trade.
  Hon. Members opposite have completely failed to establish the point which they have so much stressed, that import duties are the crutches of inefficiency, in view of the great efficiency which has enabled highly protected countries to flood our markets with their goods. Throughout these Debates the unreality and inconsistency of the Socialist party has been beyond belief. They are never tired of proclaiming themselves to be the specially ordained champions of the workers and the unemployed. We are imposing duties to help certain industries which are languishing under fierce foreign protected competition. The question of Free Trade does not arise. Where are we enjoying free interchange of trade? We are in a condition of fettered trade. I submit that the inconsistency of hon. Members opposite passes understanding;.
  At any given moment hon. Members opposite will plunge into action for reasons which they believe to be adequate, and with a perfectly sincere belief that they are doing the beat for mankind. With their eyes open, they will plunge into action knowing for a certainty that such action will mean immeasurable loss to the industry concerned and a set-back to the country, and when we are trying to bring about an improvement in employment, after a most exhaustive examination, and urged by the pleading of the workers themselves, they oppose us.
  What are their alternatives? The Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald), says, "Make roads." "Electrify the country," says the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). I notice the right hon. Member for Carmarthen (Sir A. Mond) present to-day, and also the right hon. Member for West Swansea (Mr. Runciman), whom I may congratulate on his courageous leadership of the remnant of his party. They say, "Put a pick into the hands of the gentle, delicate man who has been brought up all his life to make gloves. Send such a man out on to the roads. Tear him away from his home. Send him anywhere, but for Heaven's sake do not reinstate him in the profession or trade he knows, because it is conceivable that his wife or some-
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  body else's wife may have to pay an extra sixpence or shilling a pair for the gloves that he makes." Hon. Members opposite tell us that this is the thin end of the wedge. If that be so, let hon. Members bear in mind that the mallet is in the hands of the electorate of this country. Should it prove to be a wedge which is serving a good purpose, perhaps hon. Members opposite may choose, in good time, to drive it home. We are carrying out faithfully and to the letter the undertaking given by the Prime Minister, to do which we were sent here.
  Mr. WEBB: 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."
  I must congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary on being at last relieved from what I am sure he him found a wearisome, if not a thankless job. We on this side of the House have enjoyed the discussion as it has gone on. We have stood up for the rights of the House of Commons to discuss seriously, as far as one side of the House can discuss it, any proposition with regard to the imposition of taxes upon the people. We are now at the last stage of this contest, and I take the opportunity of expressing, for the last time, our protest against and our objection to this Bill and to the whole scheme of this legislation. I am afraid that we cannot expect at this last Lour to convert any hon. Members opposite, but we may appeal to the country, and in addressing that appeal to make a serious attempt to explain what we consider to be the position. We think this Bill unsound in principle. We think it is based on insufficient investigation and upon evidence which, in so far as it has been given to this House, is quite inadequate to support the case. We think it cannot possibly achieve its ostensible object in reducing unemployment. We think—and this is the vice which runs through all Protectionist legislation—it will impose a burden upon the consumer, whether large or small, which must necessarily be out of proportion to the relatively small sum which the Exchequer will receive from the duties. Let me take these points in order.
  We say that the legislation is unsound in principle. Customs duties have to be justified, but whether they can be justified or not, they are irritating to all those

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  who are concerned in trade, and they inevitably and invariably exercise a certain amount of hampering effect upon trade. They are bad things in themselves. If they are to be imposed at all, they have to be justified up to the hilt. There is another thing about this Bill which I regard with very great apprehension, and that is the effect upon our relations with other countries. I do not want to pretend that this country has not the right in every sense to impose what Customs duties it pleases. I do not want to suggest that this Bill in any way infringes the most-favoured-nation clause in respect of any particular country. I do not want to suggest that it is likely to lead to war, or even to lead to retaliation in the way of Customs duties, but it is not unfair to say—this is not unsupported by a certain amount of evidence—that already it has produced an effect upon the minds of some countries, one country in particular, which we shall find inconvenient as time goes on in the negotiations which are bound to take place.
  The light hon. Gentleman who preceded me at the Board of Trade knows very well what are the grievances of traders in this country against the Customs duties and Customs regulations of some other countries. Not that we can have any right to complain or that we do complain of any particular duty, but in regard to the administration of those duties and the classification of goods and in the way that imports are treated by the Customs administration of those countries the traders of this country have had a great deal to complain of, and it has been the function of the Board of Trade to do what it can to obtain some redress for our traders against those regulations and that administration. The right hon. Gentleman succeeded in introducing into the Anglo-German Treaty a year ago words which bind the Germans and bind us to carry out, in the spirit as well as in the letter, certain agreements with regard to specific duties and with regard to the spirit and the administration of the duties.
  I cannot help feeling—I hope I am wrong—that in the step which this Government has taken in dealing with Customs duties and the regulations which are necessarily implied in legislation of this kind, for instance, the taxing of an article in respect of a very tiny amount
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  of the dutiable article which it contains, they are doing that against which we have complained to foreign Customs houses over and over again. We are now doing that ourselves to an increasing degree. We are going to hamper negotiations in regard to any future complaints which our traders may make. We fear that this Bill will not merely affect the trade in the articles referred to in the Bill, but that it will necessarily to some extent—I do not want to exaggerate —militate against our export trade in other articles.
  When I said that the Bill was unsound in principle, I referred to something more than the point I have already made. I cannot help feeling that the argument by which the Bill has been supported is entirely wrong. Those who have supported the Bill seem to have done so on the ground that imports are in some way, from their very nature, objectionable and evil things. Over and over again hon. Members have spoken of imports as being a case of wickedness, almost a case of evil from which we ought to be protected They have declared, in tones of indignation, as if it were an obvious evil, that there are imports into this country of such and such articles. We on this side of the House protest against the assumption that imports into this country are evil things. This country has grown and prospered because we have 'had large imports. The simple fact is that without large imports into this country we could not possibly have had the large exports upon which so much of our prosperity and employment depend. Over and over again the implication from the other side has been that imports are necessarily an evil which should be restricted as far as possible.
  Hon. Member after hon. Member on the other side—sometimes not very careful in the language they used—hailed with joy the prospect that this Bill would diminish imports into this country. We on our side believe that it will be a loss and an evil if the imports into this country are diminished. Fortunately this Bill is a very little one. I do not pretend it is going to bring down the total volume of imports to any enormous extent, but hon. Members opposite have expressed their regret that the scope of the Bill is not larger and that it does not seek to impede more imports coming into this country.

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  I do not need to repeat the varying definitions which have been given of the conditions under which a Safeguarding duty can be applied. The definition of abnormal imports seems to vary from committee to committee, from article to article, and, sometimes, from one part of a report to another part. Moreover, none of these committees appears to have considered the effect of the duty upon the consumers. They practically refused to hear any evidence from or on behalf of the consumers, and no consideration seems to have been given to the effect upon price. Hon. Members opposite scoff at the idea that the effect of import duties is to increase the price of the article concerned, and without any investigation, as far as I can discover, into this matter, it has been gaily taken for granted that there is not going to be any increase in price. The hon. Gentleman who moved the Motion for the Third Reading of the Bill seemed to assert that, normally, import duties would not increase prices. He said he gave the House facts and suggested that we gave nothing but hypotheses or theories in return. Well, we have had a very large experience of import duties in this country—a larger experience, I would remind the hon. Gentleman, in volume, than any other country, though possibly not extending over so long a period of time—and, so far as I have been able to examine the history of the effect of import duties in this country, that effect, demonstratively and obviously, has always been to raise the price of the article to the consumer above what it would otherwise have been.
  Sir HARRY FOSTER: Articles we cannot ourselves produce.
  Mr. WEBB: On the contrary, it has raised the price to the consumer of ail articles, including articles which we do produce. When I hear that doubted, as I frequently do in this House, I yearn to make the acquaintance of those manufacturers who are eager for a duty without any regard to its effect on the price of the commodity. Surely it must be known to hon. Members that the manufacturers themselves welcome an increase of price. As a matter of fact, what they complain of is not the entry of the foreign articles but the entry of the foreign articles at a price lower than that which they wish to charge or would otherwise charge.
  Mr. PILCHER: What about the motor car industry?
  Mr. WEBB: If I went into the case of the motor car industry I could prove my point from that alone, but it is impossible to deal with the motor car industry in this connection within the short time which I can occupy, because there is not a standardised motor car, and the cost of production varies constantly from one type of car to another and from one year to another. To deal with motor cars in the aggregate will prove no proposition in regard to the price of motor cars. If the hon. Member really suggests that the way to get motor cars at 2½d. is to add on a duty, I am willing to try a duty to that extent, but I am sure the hon. Member does not believe that you can bring down the price by adding on a duty.
  Mr. PILCHER: The prices are down now.
  Mr. WEBB: I am not going to be led aside into a discussion on that point. It is bad logic to compare the prices in one period with the prices in another without taking all the other relative factors into account, but we have had a great deal of bad logic in these Debates. I have heard economic discussions in various places, high and low, but never until coming into this House have I heard such preposterous economic logic and such preposterous economic ideas. We say this Bill is unsound in principle for another big reason. It is that no regard seems to have been paid to the effect of these duties—and of import duties in general— upon the export trade of the country. The committees seemed to have confined their attention to the export of the articles with which the duty was to deal. The notion that these import duties would have any possible result upon the volume or value of the exports of the country generally—not on the exports of the particular articles concerned, but on the export of other articles—does not seem to have been brought before any of the committees and is not alluded to in any one of their Reports, and, practically speaking, it has not been alluded to by the President of the Board of Trade or the hon. Gentleman who moved the Third Reading of the Bill. I know it will not be accepted by hon. Members opposite, and I am afraid they will not be able to understand it, but I must assert, once more,

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  definitely and dogmatically, that you cannot restrict the volume and value of imports into a country without necessarily and inevitably exercising a restrictive influence on the volume and value of the exports from that country.
  Consequently, anyone who sets about putting import duties upon certain articles with a view to restricting or diminishing the import of those articles into a country, is whether he likes it or not, whether he knows it or not, whether he believes it or not, whether he understands it or not, necessarily and inevitably doing something which tends to reduce and restrict the exports of that country. Those duties may not necessarily or even probably restrict the exports of the same articles. They may have that effect upon the exports of any other articles. The precise effect cannot be predicted at the time. If hon. Members opposite seek to understand how this can be, I refer them to the hon. Member for Ilford (Sir F. Wise) who has more than once explained lucidly to this House that the credit which the foreigner has in this country by reason of imports coming into this country from abroad, can be taken away to his own country or any other country only in the shape of goods.
  Mr. RHYS: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman how he reconciles this statement with his own statement in the country that the Labour party are prepared to exclude altogether goods made abroad by sweated labour?
  Mr. WEBB: I am not going to reply to that point, because I have not four hours in which to speak. Whatever may be my views on that point, they do not affect the truth of the proposition which I now make. Put it down that I was wrong on that occasion if you like. The proposition which I am now making has not been considered by any one of these committees. So far as we know it has not been considered by the Board of Trade. It has not been revealed to hon. Members opposite. They have not been asked to take it into account. I come to the third point. We say this Bill is ill-conceived and unsound because it will not and cannot achieve its ostensible object. I take it that the object of hon. Members quite genuinely is to reduce the number of unemployed. It is difficult to prophesy, but I do not think I am making a dangerous prophecy if I say that no Bill of this sort
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  can possibly reduce the number of unemployed. The whole thing is founded on a misconception, and if that be the real object of the Bill then, again, it is unsound in principle because it cannot do what it purports to do. Take the whole range of employment dealt with in the Bill by the three duties, namely, the manufactures of cutlery, gloves and gas mantles. Consider the figures which the committees themselves give as to the number of men unemployed in those industries. What do they come to? Several thousands here and several thousands there and in the aggregate not 20,000. The number of unemployed in the country is 1,250,000, and all this Bill pretends to seek to do is to relieve unemployment in these three industries to the extent possibly of 10,000 or 20,000.
  Mr. DIXEY: That is worth doing.
  Mr. WEBB: It is worth doing, of course, but you have to take into account the other effects of the Bill. What is the advantage of putting 10,000 men into work, if the effect of the Measure upon the export trade of this country is to put out of work a much larger number? I suggest that any economist would say that such is bound to happen. I do not pretend to give a number, but any improvement in employment which you can make by this means, in these three small industries, is almost certain to be far outweighed by the effect upon employment in the great exporting industries. Remember the difference in volume. A reduction of unemployment in these three industries by 50 per cent. , which would be an enormous gain, would only affect a few thousand men, while a reduction of trade in our great exporting industries by only 1 per cent. would represent a far larger number of cotton operatives, coal minors and iron workers out of employment. Theoretically it may be possible for this Bill, small as it is, to affect employment in the trades definitely concerned, but that effect is certain to be far outweighed by the diminution of employment in our great exporting industries. That being so, we have a right to complain that no consideration has been given to that effect of the Bill by the committees, and that no estimate has been made of the effect which it will have on all these industries.
  Moreover, there has been no inquiry by there committees into the causes of the

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  unemployment which they deplore. There is one extreme and curious case, and that is in the Cutlery Report. We are told that the unemployment in the manufacture of razors is extreme and acute, and that out of 800 men normally employed 700 are out of work. The hon. Member who preceded me seemed to complain that the Labour party, while professedly eager to do something for the unemployed, nevertheless, opposed this proposal. Why should we accept any Bill which comes forward if the hon. Members who bring it forward have not sufficient logic to connect the fact of unemployment with the remedy which they propose? Take these 700 men in Sheffield who are out of work. Does any hon. Member suppose that putting a duty on razors will replace those 700 men in work? Hon. Members must know that these 700 razor makers are out of work not because of the importation of German or American razors but because people have ceased to use the articles which these men call razors. Unless hon. Members believe that this Bill is going to induce the male population of this country to give up the safety razor and revert to the use of the cumbersome implement of our forefathers, I suggest it is a mockery to tell those 700 unemployed makers of razors that this Rill is going to reduce their unemployment. Will any hon. Member say that anything in the Bill will reduce the unemployment among these men? As a matter of fact that is typical, although, of course, it is an extreme case, of many of the cases to which hon. Members have referred. It is quite true that when people are unemployed in normal industries, and another article comes in from abroad, they say that the importation is the cause of their unemployment. In some cases the article that comes in from abroad is a different article from that which they have been making. The article very often has not been made in this country at all, or not made in the same way. Even though the articles from Germany may be of other varieties and qualities than we have been making, we are to try to keep out the substituted articles.
  It is not in the case of safety razors even suggested that it is possible to keep them out, but notwithstanding that, we can foresee that hon. Members and their candidates will go down to the
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  electors and say that this Bill has been passed in order to prevent unemployment. They know that in the aggregate it can have only the slightest effect on the million and a quarter unemployed. I doubt whether anyone can really believe that it will have any effect at all. It is not calculated to achieve its object. There is no sort of agreement, as to whether it is going to keep out an article or as to whether it is merely going to add something to the price Every experience shows that import duties do not keep out the articles on which they are put. At the present time we have hostile tariffs against British goods in all directions, and my recollection is that, in the last five and twenty years our exports have gone on increasing. In spite of the hostile tariffs, the complaint has always been, with the United States, that, make their tariffs what they will, they could not keep out British goods. Goods rise over the tariff, and the consumer pays the bill.
  I must not run on with all that too long, but there is a further point that, in so far as these articles do come in, they are going to increase the price of the commodity on the entire consumption, and not merely on the articles that come in. The special evil is that they will increase the price of all the competing articles, in this country. That is the object of a good many of the people who promote this kind of legislation. They merely want to increase prices. There may be good reason for an increase in their own returns But the effect of an import duty does not stop there. Increased prices, which they seek mean a burden on the whole community, far out of proportion to what is saved. If we had had the advantage of the presence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer at these Debates a little more frequently, we might, have asked him, how he reconciled, with his former statement, putting such a burden on the community in order to get such an miserable trickle as will be got out of this Bill.
  Worse than that, it is not only a tax on the ordinary consumers, but on other industries. This is not a scientific tariff. I sometimes wish it was a scientific tariff. I suppose that would be deliberately framed so as to tax those consumers who consume in final consumption, and it would carefully exempt the raw

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  material. It would carefully exempt all the tools and implements and components which are used in the manufacture of other articles. If it does not do that, how can we say that it is going to promote an increased trade, or how can we evade the conclusion that it cannot fail to diminish our export trade? Unfortunately, this Bill, because it is not a scientific tariff, I suppose, actually imposes an extra cost on the production in other industries. Amendment after Amendment to exclude those articles, those implements, which were used in other industries, has been rejected by the serried ranks opposite. The tailor? knife will cost more. The garment workers—and I would remind the House that garment-making is one of our large export trades, employing vastly more people than the whole of the cutlery trade in Sheffield, and an export trade which is still sufficiently alive to be worth considering—you are going to increase the expense of making these garments for export, by increasing the cost of the knives, and so on, which are used in their production.
  I wonder what the agricultural industry will say, if Bill after Bill is brought in to increase the price of the articles they use, without any prospect whatsoever of a Bill to add anything to the price of the articles that they sell. I suppose in agriculture, knives are used of various kinds. Shears are used. I do not profess to know what a secateur is? I imagine a secateur is used for cutting things, by horticulturists. In fact, the cutlery trades in Sheffield serve practically all our industries with the tools and instruments by which these are carried on, and admittedly these tools are to be made more expensive by the Bill.
  There is a worse aspect of the matter; a good many of these tools, not being great machines, are owned and used by the individual workers in the independent handicrafts. The woman who sings the "Song of the Shirt," her implements are going to cost her more, Her scissors are going to cost her more, and so with all the badly paid workers in these industries. The little cobbler and all the rest of them are going to pay more for their tools because of this duty. The mechanic's kit of tools is going to cost him more. Sometimes we are told that this will not be the case because an
  1470
  increase in production will enable a deduction in overhead charges, and hon. Members have been very glib about that argument on overhead charges. Have they forgotten, I wonder, the trades to which these duties relate? Two out of the three, cutlery and glass, have the stigma of being largely conducted by outworkers, homeworkers. The cutlery that we buy from some big manufacturer at Sheffield, as we imagine, is really made by individual artisans, each working on his own account, with his own wheel, by his own power.
  There can be here no question of a great reduction in costs by overhead charges. I do not know whether hon. Members realise that out of 10,000 people in the cutlery trade there are about 1,700, according to the medical officer in Sheffield, who are employed in tenement factories. Perhaps I may be allowed to explain what is a tenement factory. A tenement factory, or a factory tenement, is where many, or perhaps most of the good blades of Sheffield are made. There is no capitalist enterprise; the individual working cutler rents a place in a factory, where he gets power and light and heat supplied, and where he works at his own forge a blade, and when he has forged it, he takes it round to the so-called manufacturers, whose place is decorated by a name and perhaps with "Manufacturers for His Majesty the King" and all the rest of it. These individual producers will not find any reduction of overhead charges, and the duty will inevitably be added to the price of the articles. You cannot escape from it.
  Why is this done? The Bill is brought in because hon. Members at the Election said something about the safeguarding of industries. They said: "We undertake not to bring in protective duties, but we are going to safeguard industries." There is the underlying feeling that Members of the Protectionist party think that it will be a good cry to go on at the Election. There are Members, how many I do not pretend to estimate, but a very large proportion, who really believe in a general protective tariff on all manufactured articles.
  Sir H. FOSTER: A scientific tariff.
  Mr. WEBB: Yes, they really believe in it. I am glad that one hon. Member has

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  the candour to admit it. I have heard a good many honourable Members who want a Protective tariff, and their leader will not let them ask for it. What a calamity for a great party! They want a full-blooded tariff, and their leader will not let them ask for it, and they are trying to do what they can in a small way in the name of the Safeguarding of Industries. I respect the man who believes in a Protective tariff. At any rate, he puts his heart into it. He really imagines that he sees all round, and that he has really got a scientific proposition, but has any single supporter of these duties any confidence as to their reverberations and reactions, which is just what a scientific tariff does seek to consider? There is some lack of candour in it. I do not want to end on a harsh note, but I cannot help remembering how, on this very question just 80 years ago, we were told, by no mean authority, that a Conservative Government was "an organised hypocrisy."
  Sir ALFRED MOND: I am not surprised that the right hon. Member who spoke last has suffered some amazement in having to listen during these Debates to economic arguments that would puzzle any student in an economic school of any kind, and any country. He will have to learn to be patient on the subject of Protection and Free Trade. Those of us who, like myself, took part in this controversy now many years ago, and thought we had finally established, by common consent, certain verities, also were surprised to find younger Members of the House who apparently had not taken the trouble to go back to those days repeating exactly the same fallacies which we finally destroyed at that period. The hon. Member who introduced this Bill from the Government Bench referred to my absence from these Debates. Really, if all the economic knowledge I am to obtain is the extraordinary farrago of economic fallacies that he propounded at that Table, I really do not know why I should spend my time in coming here at all. A Minister, representing the Board of Trade, and standing at that Table, and with a solemn voice announcing that import duties reduce prices! If he would go and speak to any person living in a protected country, I do not care which it is, there is not a single consumer who would not assure you how much their
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  cost of living is increased by protective duties. After all, if the hon. Member believes that, why did not he and his party put a duty on foodstuffs? What is the sacrosanct difference which they always make?
  5.0 P.M.
  Again, the hon. Member seems to think that, by restricting trade and producing scarcity, you can increase the volume of commerce and employment. It is not for the purpose of dealing with those subjects that I rise this afternoon. If he complains that some of us have not been taking part in these Debates, I might say that the right hon. Member for West Swansea (Mr. Runciman), and those associated with him, have been sufficiently capable of destroying the arguments he has adduced. [HON. MEMBERS: "Mr. Lloyd George!"] He has been employed more usefully than in taking part in a Debate like this. We might retort, with some truth, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, after all, is responsible as Chancellor for this Bill which he himself in his speech last week referred to as a Finance Bill, has only taken part in the Debate once. Even then he did not deal specifically with a single item, while he has not graced the House very much with his presence during the Debate.
  It was really the intervention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other day which has induced me at this stage of the proceedings to offer a few remarks in reply to a particular section of the speech which he made. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, it was obvious, did not share the Protectionist views of his colleague who spoke to-day. If his speech meant anything, it meant a warning that the end of his patience had come, that Safeguarding Bills were not going to be more plentiful, and that general tariffs were out of the question. The concluding passage of his speech made it quite clear that, as far as he nails any colours to the mast—and he: has an ability for hauling them up and down that many of us envy—he, at any rate, made up his mind that this Parliament had no right to deal with a general tariff. The right hon. Gentleman believes in the evolution of what I might call the safeguarding principle. He stated, quite rightly, the principle of the Safeguarding of Industries Bill of 1921, with which I was

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  at one time concerned. I do not in the least wish to escape from any responsibility that I took at that time. What was the principle of that Measure? It was, as he said, that the duties should be exceptional, that they should be temporary, and that they should be duties discriminating against particular countries, and not be duties of a general character. What reference has that to the Bill we are discussing to-day? There is no one single item on which that Safeguarding Bill of 1921 was based which exists to-day. An hon. Member has quoted the words,
  "And if the home trade is cut away, the export trade will follow."
  That is not a principle of the Bill, that is an ex cathedra statement of my own. I think that is a self-evident proposition. I do not see what it has to do with the question I am trying to place before the House, that the present Bill has no relation to the Bill of 1921. Let me read again what the Chancellor said. He said, quite rightly:
  "The duties should be exceptional; secondly, that they should be temporary; and, thirdly, that they should be duties discriminating against particular countries." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th December, 1925; col. 611, Vol. 189.]
  Why? We first brought in that Bill—I have looked up my speeches, and I emphasised it in every speech—to deal with the extraordinarily disturbed state of the exchanges and to counteract the bounty given by a depreciated currency. This Bill does nothing of the kind. You have duties against Germany which is on a gold basis, against America which is on a gold basis, against countries with stable exchanges. You have got general duties —the very thing we tried to avoid—duties which have no relation whatever to exchange, duties which are justified on no principle which we laid down in 1921. Therefore the Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot possibly derive any satisfaction or argument from that point. How did we arrive at a duty of 33⅓ per cent. which has been mechanically and slavishly followed in this Bill? We discussed in the Committee, of which I was a member at that time, how we could deal with the depreciated and depreciating exchanges. The figure of 33⅓ per cent. was the average figure which officials of the Board of Trade then advised us was the best figure they could arrive at
  1474
  as the difference between the internal exchange of a depreciated country and our own exchange. Now it is made a general figure. Why? Mr. Joseph Chamberlain's general figure was 10 per cent. , and everybody thought it was a high tariff then. This is a 33⅓ per cent. average on everything. Did anybody ever advocate on behalf of the Tariff Reform League that we should have ad valorem duties of 33⅓ per cent.? Did anybody, if they examined the tariff schedules of Protectionist countries, ever call that a moderate tariff? It, is really a prohibitive tariff. It is remarkable that it is taken so calmly when it is transposed from very different conditions to a Bill dealing with the matter in an entirely different way.
  Sir H. CROFT: If the right hon. Member had been hero during the Debates, he would have heard some of his colleagues state that the duty would not be high enough to do any good.
  Sir A. MOND: I have read the reports of the Committee proceedings, and I can imagine that there are industries in which nothing but prohibition could do any good. I am rather interested when I think that at the time when the Act of 1921 was being discussed there was no one here more meticulously anxious about his Free Trade soul than the Chancellor of the Exchequer. At that time I had to act in the capacity of a kind of fiscal father confessor to him, and it was only really on my assuring him, as I could honestly do, that that Measure was not a general tariff but dealt with an abnormal state of matters that he somewhat reluctantly acquiesced.
  To-day he has moved on from that position, at any rate to this extent, that when one looks through these documents and reports one finds a reference to one of the most difficult, and most controversial subjects, unfair competition. Unfair competition has always been, of course, one of the standard phrases of those asking for Protective duties. Every manufacturer considers all competition unfair, as is his natural bent of mind; every consumer considers all competition most reasonable. What standard is set up for unfair competition? It is assumed apparently that if any country has its working population working longer hours and at lower wages, then that is unfair-competition. That overlooks the fact that

  1475
  on the whole low wages and long hours means higher cost of production. The country which now threatens the industrial supremacy of the world is the United States, with high wages, short hours and great efficiency. [HON. MEMBERS: "High tariffs!"] High tariffs merely hamper their export trade. The leading manufacturers in America to whom I have spoken, like the heads of the big steel trusts, are themselves realising that if ever they wish to increase their export trades they must decrease their tariffs. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] If my hon. Friends have not yet grasped the idea that tariffs are an impediment to exports, I cannot stop and explain it to them.
  Sir H. CROFT: Will the right hon. Gentleman give me an instance of a country which has gone in for a complete policy of Protection, which has reduced its exports or its imports?
  Sir A. MOND: Then the hon. and gallant Member's argument is, that a tariff has no effect at all. If it does not reduce either exports or imports, then its economic effect is nil. There is nothing more foolish and nothing more unfair than for Committees to recommend duties of this character on the ground of so-called unfair competition. Let me take another point, the comparison of taxation, which has also been stressed by these Committees, the point that we are more heavily taxed than people in other countries. That is also a question almost impossible to establish and a question of the most controversial character. Anyone who has taken the trouble for years past to endeavour to establish a comparison of taxation between this country and any other country must have found the task almost beyond them. Local taxation as well as State taxation is on a completely different basis. In every Protectionist country a large revenue is derived from import duties, and every citizen of these countries thinks himself heavily taxed. I find my French friends saying, when it is suggested that they are not heavily taxed, "But you live in a Free Trade country. You are not taxed on everything you buy. We are taxed on everything we buy. The amount of our taxation is quite as high as yours with your Income Tax." Any comparison of
  1476
  that kind is also going to be entirely misleading. As a matter of fact the scientific tariff, that dream which I have heard discussed and advocated now for something like 20 years, is an impossibility. It has never been constructed, it never will be constructed, it cannot be constructed. No country has yet ever endeavoured to construct it. Good lobbyists, large vote-getters, such are the elements from which tariffs are created in Protectionist countries, and from which they will be created in this country if it ever comes to a tariff here.
  There is another point raised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer with which I would like to deal. He dramatically asks "Does anybody question the right of the Government to impose any taxation it thinks fit?" What I want to ask the Government is this: Are these duties meant to be taxes in a revenue sense at all? If they are not, what is the point of the argument he is trying to enforce? What revenue is expected through these duties? Obviously, if they produce a revenue, they do not safeguard; and if they safeguard, they do not produce a revenue. We should like to know which they are intended to do. [HON. MEMBERS: "Both!"] They cannot do both. I do not believe they are meant to be taxes in the revenue sense, and, if so, the argument which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has adduced, that the Government have a right to include these duties in the Finance Bill, whenever they like, without inquiry, and almost without argument, seems to me untenable.
  I would also ask, if this argument is sound, why this new-fangled title of the Bill to which we are giving a Third Reading to-day? It is not a Finance Bill. The Tight hon. Gentleman was very anxious indeed to challenge hotly any attack on his consistency. His argument-reminded me rather of the fable of the fox who lost his tai] and who discovered that other foxes had lost their tails too. He discovered, therefore, that) the tailless fox was the only true specimen of the breed. The right hon. Gentleman's position on this question is not so much of national as of personal interest, however. Although he made it amusing to us the other day, he did not seriously deal with the underlying and more important aspects of this question. When the Safeguarding of Industries Act, 1921, was first

  1477
  discussed, a statement was made by the Board of Trade that the iron and steel industries were in danger of going out of existence, unless duties of this kind were imposed in their favour. Fortunately, depressed though they are, our iron and steel industries still exist.
  I would like to ask the Government whether they propose that these interests, these large and vital industries, should or should not come under the scope of the Safeguarding Measure, and, if they do not, why not. Is safeguarding meant to be a serious remedy, or a kind of farce? Is it seriously believed in, or is it merely a sop thrown to the wolves, like the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft), running behind the Conservative sleigh and chasing through the woods the reluctant Government, who are escaping from his tariff jaws by the sacrifice of little bits of food in order to stop him on the way? If it is merely that, then, of course, we can understand somewhat the apparently light-hearted and non-serious way in which this whole matter has been dealt with from the Government Benches.
  But there is a very much bigger and more important point which has to be made. Agriculture seems to be the stepchild of all Governments. Agriculture is one of our depressed industries. Agriculture has been abandoned even by the most ardent Protectionists. Exposed to the fiercest competition of all the countries in the world, having to accept the lowest world prices, with all the surplus shot on to these shores, it is at the same time demanded that it should subsidise industry by means of raising prices owing to import duties. There is scarcely an article in this Bill or in the other Hills which does not directly affect the farmer, the farmer's wife, the farmer's daughter, or the farmer's sweetheart. Articles of clothing, articles of household use, articles of use in every farm and every agricultural labourer's cottage are being made dearer by these duties, and I am amazed at the party opposite, which has always rather prided itself on standing up for the landed interests, and which contains so many county members, patiently acquiescing in this gross unfairness which is being perpetrated at the expense of the most harassed industrial class, namely, the farmers of this country. It is useless to say that the amounts are small. They
  1478
  are large enough, they are cumulative in their effect, and they keep on growing and growing.
  Hon. and right hon. Members opposite seem to have a special "down" on women, which is most ungallant of them. They tax their blouses, their stockings, their gloves, And their lace, and all their duties are designed to make their raiment more costly. [An HON. MEMRER: "In order to give work to their young men"!] The young men will have to pay for these articles. As a matter of fact, the whole tendency of these duties is to lay a greater burden on those things, and especially on agriculture, which receives no kind of compensating advantage. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about hops"?] Hops are a very small crop indeed in the agricultural produce of this country. There is a fundamental reason why these duties, which are apparently regarded as trivial, which certainly will not revolutionise our industries, which certainly will not even microscopically affect unemployment, are so inopportune at the present moment. There is no doubt, to those who are following the trend of events, that there is a movement on foot to-day on the Continent of Europe in the direction of Free Trade, more universal, more deep-rooted than it has been for many years. Necessity is forcing the populations of those countries, who have been economically depressed, to reconsider economic conditions, and they have more and more come to the conclusion that the abolition of tariff barriers and the free interchange of goods is the only way of restoring economic stability.
  I heard only to-day that even in Germany industrial magnates, who formerly were certainly advocates of tariffs in favour of their own industries, are turning in a Free Trade direction. The question of a Customs Union for Europe is beginning to loom on the horizon, yet this is the moment we choose to drop Free Trade. We have kept alive and held aloft the torch of Free Trade economics throughout the world all these years, and the moment when our teaching has at last begun to bear fruit is the moment when we are going to hand over the result of generations of practice to those who have always been opposed to it and who are opponents of it still. It seems to me, looking at it from a wider,

  1479
  larger, world point of view, to be the most foolish proceeding.
  If hon. Members opposite really believed that a general tariff would produce the results which they imagine, it would be their duty to proceed with it. One Election should not have made them so faint-hearted. But if we are to believe in the sincerity—and I do not doubt it for one moment—of the pledge of the Prime Minister, if we are to take, at its face value, the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, we know that for the next few years, at any rate, that is not their intention, nor are they going to proceed on that basis. Why, then, smirch —that is all you can call it—the bright shield of our Free Trade faith and practice with these miserable little duties? Why hamper your Customs, increase your officials, interfere with your commerce, harass your traders, and inflict duties on your consumers to achieve, finally, neither a proof nor a disproof of the theory, neither an improvement nor a worsening of the industrial position of your country?
  Sir HARRY FOSTER: Whatever one may have thought of some of the statements of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham (Mr. Webb) who moved the Amendment, at least, he has set an example in this Debate which I hope will be followed, in which case it will be peculiar to a fiscal Debate, namely, the moderation, the courtesy, and the good temper with which he directed his arguments. Generally, these debates seem to generate a kind of, I will not call it odium theologium, but an odium fiscalatus, and I do not think we, on either side, and whatever our feelings may be, advance our respective causes by indulging in an odium of that kind. The right hon. Baronet the Member for Carmarthen (Sir A. Mond), who courteously gave way when I reminded him of a statement of his in this House in 1921, was, I observe, quite unable to answer the challenge of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth. (Sir H. Croft) on a very particular and specially important point which he was enunciating. The challenge delivered to him was whether he would instance in this House any country which had got a general protective tariff and which had suffered or was suffering to-day either in its ex-
  1480
  ports or its imports. I assume that the right hon. Baronet did not answer because he was unable to answer.
  I am glad to have this opportunity, the first I have taken during these Debates, of saying a word in support of the Third Reading of this Bill, not because the Bill itself is going to exercise any great effect upon our trade—admittedly, it is very restricted in its operations and surrounded by any number of safeguards —but because it is the first step in that course of duty which, as it appears to me, was have perhaps made as long a study as the right hon. Baronet of this question, and with which perhaps I have been as familiar in the last five and twenty years as he has, is the first duty of any Government responsible for the welfare of an industrial State, namely, to help forward, to stimulate, and to promote within its own borders production, for the employment of its own people, of those articles which its own people can produce.
  I remember the exceedingly wise course pursued by Prince Bismarck when the German Empire was formed, how he threw over those Free Trade prejudices and inclinations in which he had previously indulged, and how he laid down to the German people that which produced such an enormous fruit, as the right hon. Baronet will, I am sure, acknowledge. Prince Bismarck said in effect: "That which my people require and that which my people can produce, that I will help them in producing by protecting their home market. In regard to that which they require and cannot produce. I will either put it on a free list, or I will put on a tariff for revenue-purposes." The right, hon. Baronet-challenged the Chancellor of the Exchequer in connection with the question of the old and, as I should have supposed, worn-out dogma that you cannot have it both ways, that either you are going to get a revenue, in which case you will not get employment, or you are going to get employment, in which case you will not get a revenue. That is a very specious argument, but there is absolutely nothing in it
  If the right hon. Baronet had been in the House a few days ago, he would have heard a most apt answer by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who in a few sentences exposed the fallacy of that argument. If I can put it into one or two

  1481
  sentences, I will reproduce it for the benefit of the right hon. Baronet. What my right hon. Friend said was this: "Of course, you cannot have it both ways, if you mean you can only have it either one way or the other. So far as your tariff stops imports, to that extent it increases employment in your country; so far as it does not stop those imports, to that extent it helps the revenue." Of course, as the right hon. Baronet said, whatever tariff you put on, there are certain people who will even pay that higher duty, in order to get the. goods they want, and, admittedly, in that case they will pay the tax; but the argument that in every case in which you put on a tariff or a tax you are putting the burden on the consumer, I venture with all respect to tell the right hon. Gentleman, high economic authority as I know he is, that that will not bear examination. It is quite true that in this country, until recent days, our only experience of the effect of a tax upon imported articles was that in every case the consumer ultimately bore not only the tax, but even the expense of financing that tax in the hands of the importer, and why? Because we rigidly, under our so-called Free Trade system, levied our revenue on imports from those articles which we did not and could not produce ourselves—tea, coffee, sugar, cocoa, tobacco, arid so on.
  Of course, in all those cases, there being no home-made competing article, the whole of the burden imposed on that article imported from abroad fell upon the consumer, but in cases where you have a home-made, untaxed article produced within the borders of the tariff-protected country, experience has shown —I will give an instance in a moment, which, I am sure, the right hon. Gentleman will acknowledge is worth some consideration—that the effect, in the first place, is to reduce the cost of production within your own borders, because you have stimulated production, you have protected your home market, and thereby you have increased the production of your factories, and, by increasing the production, you have manifestly reduced the cost of production, and the internal competition between one manufacturer and another has kept down the price to the consumer, and if the foreigner still wants to enjoy the use of our market for the goods he sends in, he has to pay either the whole, or at least part, of the tax
  1482
  I said I would give an instance, and I think it is one worth mentioning, because it is not a question of to-day, or of yesterday or a recent experience. As long ago as 1866, nearly 60 years ago, one of our own Colonies, the Colony of Victoria, created a tariff for the protection of their home market, and, after that tariff had been in operation, not for five years, but for a whole generation, in October, 1893, the Governor in Council of Victoria appointed a board to inquire into the effect of the fiscal system of Victoria upon industry and production, upon the employment of the people and other matters. The board conducted an inquiry throughout the whole of the Colony. They took exhaustive evidence on every industry, and they presented to Parliament their full report on the 30th April, 1895, with all the evidence. That is 30 years ago. They pointed out the extent to which the duties levied had helped industry and production, and afforded employment to the people. Then came this pregnant-statement on the vexed question—and I call the attention of the right non. Gentleman to this in view of his argument—
  "As to whether goods have been made dearer or cheaper by the imposition of protective duties, we have received a great deal of evidence. It is an established fact that such goods are, as a rule, cheaper to the public than they were before the imposition of such duties, and that recent increases of rates have not, except in isolated cases, been followed by corresponding increases in the prices to the public."
  Those documents are all available at the offices of the Agent-General for Victoria. I myself have a full set of copies of the report and the whole of the evidence. That report was a unanimous report, after nearly three years exhaustive inquiry in every industry in the State of Victoria, and if hon. Gentlemen read that report and it is brought to their knowledge that, after a generation of experience, the result of that independent public inquiry was to show that the effect of a tariff was to reduce prices to the consumer, not to increase them, I think the moment they have really mastered that statement for themselves, and ascertained it is a fact, they can hardly, as honourable and straightforward people, stand up in this House, or anywhere else, and say that the effect of a tariff is to throw a burden upon the consumer in the country where the tariff prevails.
  Mr. HARRIS: Why not have a general tariff, then?
  Sir H. FOSTER: I hope we shall have a general tariff on scientific lines—most certainly I do. Most certainly the Prime Minister himself to-day believes that is the wise course. There is no disguising that fact. The Prime Minister has not altered his opinion. We have not altered our opinion because of a pledge to which we are all bound.
  Mr. BOOTHBY: Has the hon. Gentleman the authority for saying that the Prime Minister still holds that view?
  Sir H. FOSTER: I am going to answer by reading these words:
  "If we go pottering along as we are, we shall have grave unemployment with us to the end of time. The only way of fighting this subject is by protecting the home market. It is vital to our progress that neither our employers nor workmen shall be unfairly exposed to the merciless attacks of foreign competitors sheltered behind walls of their own high tariffs."
  Captain BENN: Can the hon. Gentleman state with authority that that is the present policy of the Government?
  Sir H. FOSTER: No, but if I had been allowed to develop what I was going to say, I should have come to that point. At the present moment, and as the result of the very definite pledge given by the Prime Minister at the last election, this Government and this party are pledged not, directly or indirectly, to attempt to introduce a general tariff. The Prime Minister has meticulously observed, even to the detriment of safeguarding, that pledge both in the letter and in the spirit. We are hindered and hampered even in these small proposals in the extreme anxiety of the Government not by one hair's breadth to depart from the letter or the spirit of that pledge, but we are strongly hoping and believing, what some hon. Members opposite are fearing, that the effect of this safeguarding of certain industries, always given fair-play, always provided the pitch is not queered, will be so manifest, that it will so prove the wisdom of a scientific tariff, it will so truly prove that it increases employment, without putting a burden upon the consumer, that there will arise from the consumers and from the workpeople themselves, a demand for the extension of the blessings of safeguarding. And so by that process, by a process of education which the Prime Minister himself
  1484
  has laid down as a necessity of his advocating again anything in the nature of a general tariff, namely, the conviction of our own people, not by theory, but by actual experience, practical knowledge of the facts, then the demand will come, and the pressure will come, from the electors themselves for a general scientific tariff.
  The right hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment said—and, I think, said quite logically and quite fairly—that while he respected a 3nan who said he was a Protectionist, and did not run away from the term, he had not so much respect for the man who, holding these views, was afraid to express them. What has always puzzled me is why any man on either side of the House should be afraid of, or should shy at, the term "Protection." We think it right to protect our homes by police, by fire brigades, by sanitary inspectors, and other measures. We think it right to protect the country by means of the armed forces of the Crown. We think it right to protect our labour. We do not mind protection as applied to labour conditions, hours of employment, rates of wages, the general conditions under which the industry is carried on. But it is a terrible thing to say you want to protect your trade and industry. I think it is the first duty of the Government, as I said before, to do everything in its power, by whatever name you like to call it, to protect its industries, its workpeople and its producers. We have heard a good deal, of course, in this Debate, as we have heard before, of the use of the term "Free Trade," and some people are very fond of saying, "I am a Free Trader." They have no right to such an expression. They have no right to claim they are Free Traders, because we in this country do not know what Free Trade means. We have never had, and we are further off to-day than we were in Cobden's time from Free Trade— the free interchange of commodities—I use Cobden's own definition—between nation and nation, or, as the hon. Member for Hillsborough. (Mr. A. V. Alexander) said the other night, the breaking-down of the barriers between: nation and nation. That is Free Trade.
  Our own experience to-day is absolutely foreign to anything Cobden advocated or recommended. Cobden never suggested that we should freely open our

  1485
  markets and our ports to the imports of the world, while allowing the rest of the world to erect barriers against our own manufactures. He was never such a foolish man or such a bad economist as to make such a suggestion. It is quite true, as even the right hon. Member who moved the Amendment admitted, that for a long while we suffered nothing in respect of tariffs in foreign countries, for the simple reason that at that time we were the monopolists of manufacture, and the countries of the world erected their own tariffs for the purpose of their own revenue, and not with the slightest idea of shutting out British goods- It is not because of Free Trade, but in spite of Free Trade, and because of our own ability to supply the rest of the needs of, he world, that we attained the position we did; that is all changed, and what we are here proposing is to safeguard a few industries exposed to unfair competition. This is all we are able to do under the pledges which have been given. The worst that hon. Members opposite can be afraid of is that we are going to prove that their theory is unsound, and that what we are doing will have been proved to have been beneficial to the trade which we are safeguarding so that other trades, one after another, will ask us to extend the same benefits to them. That is what we are hoping to do. There is nothing inconsistent in this with the pledge of the Prime Minister. Quite the contrary, in our helping these industries.
  I want, however, to ask the Government to consider, first, the removal of some of the hindrances which exist at the present moment, so that fair play shall be given to those industries that have been safeguarded. One of the great hindrances that exists in our constitutional system is the necessity of going through all this paraphernalia of an inquiry, a report, recommendations by the Government, the introduction of Financial Resolutions, and a long debatable Bill, all of which gives the fullest opportunity, as we found in the motor and piano trades—which is at once taken advantage of—to queer the pitch of the industry which is going to be safe guarded by rushing in large quantities of foreign articles before the Act comes into operation. We saw that last March. Some of us on the Terrace saw large quantities of pianos and motor cars being
  1486
  brought in by water. So serious did the matter become that the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, when questioned, said he was watching, and he was going to consider what could be done and what action could be taken. He was taking note of these things with a view to seeing whether they could not be covered by the duty. He, of course, found it was not within his power to do so. The effect was that our revenue was deprived of a substantial sum. [HON. MEMBERS: "£1,000,000."] I am informed it was so stated in the House at the time. The revenue was deprived of a very large sum and our workpeople were deprived of the work which would have been given to them if these things had been made in this country instead of being imported.
  One of the things I do ask the Government to consider—this is a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself— with a view to protecting out' revenue and preventing the queering the pitch— is that once it has been decided that an industry should be safeguarded that a much shorter method should be found, if necessary by some change in our procedure—as in the case of tea, cocoa, and other exciseable articles — before it becomes public property, to see that the revenue will not be done out of the sums that should go to it. The other change that I advocate is that there should be a much simpler procedure in connection with safeguarding, and that the Government should not be made afraid by taunts about the pledges they have given. They should, so far as they feel it right, adopt a simpler procedure than to-day. On behalf of a good many traders I do urge on the Government, that if they can they should simplify their procedure. I do not think that these industries ought to be treated in the same way as a highly conscientious and scrupulous schoolmaster would deal with his own sons who happened to be at his school.
  Some of us have had experience in this regard. The strong desire to avoid anything like an accusation of favouritism in the case of a son who has committed some offence would lead, perhaps, to his being punished more heavily than the ordinary boy in the school. We who are supporting the Government in connection with this safeguarding policy do not think our industries should be treated more severely than justice requires. A scrupu-

  1487
  lous desire to respect pledges need not lead the Government to be under the slightest imputation. I thank the House for the extreme patience with which they have listened to me. I hope hon. Gentlemen opposite will be disappointed in regard to the result of this Safeguarding Bill. If that be so, I trust it will have that convincing effect upon them that they will not mind having been proved to be wrong: that they will not be like a certain Free Trader who said he would rather see the Kingdom perish than see Free Trade proved to be wrong;
  Mr. DENNISON: One thing that would appear to emerge from the Debates to which one has listened in recent times is that the Government have evidently made up their mind to cling to tariffs. We on these benches—at all events, I, speaking for myself—are not unmindful of the fact that we have had considerable experience of Free Trade and that Free Trade has not brought us all the boons that we expected it would do. In the light of these things during the past few years, we feel no objection to sitting down and examining the whole position from the view of how trade is affected by foreign competition. Speaking, however, as a member of my own trade union, we are affected by the low standard of wages and the conditions of employment in other parts of the world, but I do not find anything in this Safeguard Bill that is going to help us very much. On the contrary, from all I can see the Safeguarding Bill will give to a certain number of people who are persistent enough in their advocacy, the chance to make money out of the safeguarding of their industry.
  May I remind hon. Members that we had a statement made from the other side of the House only a couple of days ago that since the application had taken place for the protection of the glove industry there has been imported into this country supplies that will meet the requirements of consumers for years. We already know that since the application for the safeguarding of the gas mantle industry there has been a three years' supply of gas mantles from abroad come into this country; some of this by the people who have been urging safeguarding upon the Government. That is the kind of thing which is going on. Only the other day a
  1488
  gentleman, whom I knew very well, stopped me in the street. He is engaged in the button trade. His association is going to make application for safeguarding purposes. He asked me particularly to see that I supported the application, and that he would make it worth my while. If you have this kind of thing at the thin end of the wedge of safeguarding, what is going to happen in the course of the next twelve months or two years? I have no objection to sitting down and examining the whole position. I have no objection to inquire whether Free Trade has been good or bad in the past, or whether it will be good or bad in the future. I am satisfied that these proposals will not help us.
  Take the case of the procedure, which the hon. Gentleman who preceded me spoke about. Let us see what really-happened. One manufacturer quite recently made an application for safeguarding under the White Paper procedure. The first intimation to the consumers— that is the public—that there had been an application was an announcement which appeared in the Board of Trade "Gazette" in October. Three or four days later another announcement appeared in the "Gazette" that evidence would be taken in respect of the application 10 days later. The result was that those who were going to be affected by the safeguarding proposal suffered considerably because of the lack of time to prepare any case to rebut the evidence, submitted in favour of the application. There, has been a very justifiable suspicion created in the country that this safeguarding consists of a great deal of gerrymandering. It is a pity that there should be this lack of confidence in any committee that may be set up, or any legislation passed, for dealing with such important matters.
  6.0 P.M.
  One other point. I think it is quite justifiable to complain as to the composition of the committees set up under the White Paper procedure. The President of the Board of Trade, who appears to have absolute discretion in the appointment of these committees, is said to be impartial. On numerous occasions during the present year he has advocated a tariff policy, and ho is assumed to be acting impartially in the appointment of these committees of inquiry! With the exception of only one Labour leader, I do not know that a single Labour leader

  1489
  has been appointed to one of these Safeguarding committees. That gentleman is well known as having strong leanings towards Tariff Reform. We think we can justify the position that the Committee expect, and the President of the Board of Trade would be disappointed, if they did not put forward the proposals he desires for Safeguarding, whether or not the evidence warranted it. I say that is fatal to any Government. If the Government are going to continue their Safeguarding policy, I urge them to revise the whole of the machinery under which they do it, and give opportunities for everyone to hear the evidence submitted, and for Members of the House of Commons to be supplied with copies of the evidence in order that they may realise their responsibilities when they come to vote. I am opposed to the Bill for the reasons stated, among many others, and I hope we shall be able to carry our opposition to the extent of killing the Bill.
  Captain GROOKSHANK: In the course of the Debates on the various stages of this Bill we have heard many experts— business people, economists, trade union leaders, Tariff Reformers even; but we have heard very little of the point of view of the average man, the common or garden person, who does not go very deeply into this subject, but who is faced with the question of whether or not he ought to support a policy of this kind. The vast mass of the electorate do not go into the intricacies of the Protectionist or the Free Trade argument. They know that at the last Election we on this side of the House said quite definitely that we would do what we could to safeguard efficient industries under certain conditions. We welcome the Bill because it is doing that; it is one of the first stops in that direction, and we welcome it also because it enshrines the principle of Imperial preference, to which our party are absolutely pledged. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham (Mr. Webb) said just now he did not think the Bill would achieve its object. We differ; we think it will, but that is a matter of opinion which time can only prove. The Liberal party have fought a good battle, but they are wedded to the dogma of Free Trade—I am afraid, in the words of the marriage service, "For better or worse, for richer or poorer," and
  1490
  that leaves them cold, very cold sometimes, as to the state of employment and whether or not there is some way of helping industry in this country.
  I was left quite unmoved by the appeals of the right hon. Baronet just now regarding the agricultural interest when I remember that only a very short time ago the Liberal candidate at Bury St. Edmund's was advocating an import duty on malting barley. I suppose he had none of the present leaders of the Party to show him the way in which he ought to go. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Swansea (Mr. Runciman) has spoken a great deal from the shipping point of view, but he has never made a point which is worth while making, and that is that the particular commodities dealt with in this Bill happen to be things which take up very little bulk, and therefore are not important as far as shipping is concerned; safety razor blades or gloves cannot take up very much room.
  The average man in the street does not really believe there are any great eternal verities on this subject. He likes rather to put the Bill to the rough and ready test—knowing how bad employment is at the present time—of whether by its means something can be done to improve employment. That is what is going to be the justification for this Measure. All I would say to hon. Members opposite is that we, like they, are somewhat circumscribed in what we can do.
  The Prime Minister and the party on this side of the House put ourselves under a self-denying ordinance not to introduce a general tariff at the present time. The party opposite are under an ordinance, not a self-denying one, but one imposed upon them by the electorate, not to remedy unemployment by Socialism—they have not the opportunity. Cannot they join with us in trying to make this Bill work? Is it too late to appeal to them not to press their opposition to a Division on Third Reading? They know the Bill will become law in a few days' time. Cannot they let it go through now, and try to make it work? It has been represented in the course of the Debate that it is bound to raise the cost of living, and increase the price of the tools in various trades. Would it not be better for them not to go out of their way to look for difficulties and possible small expenses—they

  1491
  can only be very small in the aggregate —and to say, "The Conservative party have brought in this Bill. We have tried to bring in Votes of Censure on them because they do nothing for unemployment. On the first occasion when they bring forward a constructive measure, is it in anybody's interest to block it at the last moment?"
  In particular, I appeal to them to try to make this Bill work. Many of them have no dogmatic theories on the fiscal situation of this country. Let them tell their people, as we will tell our people, that this Bill makes a definite contribution to the solution of our problem. Let us try to make it work. The time may come when further steps will be proposed in this House, and then we shall have the experience coming from this Bill. I hope the policy the Government have taken in hand will not be allowed in any way to deflect them from their sure and certain purpose of doing all they can to solve the unemployment problem.
  Mr. VIANT: The hon. Member who has just spoken has sought in a persuasive manner to get the assent of Members on the Labour benches to allowing this Bill to pass its Third Heading unchallenged. Not for one moment could I entertain any such idea. To mo the Bill is nothing but. a sham—even to its very title. Knowing the views of the electorate of this country towards Protection, those responsible for the Bill very carefully considered the ways and means by which they could impose the principle of Protection without the electorate understanding what was being done. I can readily understand the average elector agreeing to safeguard industry. The very term itself appeals to the average man or woman. Of course they are very desirous of safeguarding the industry in which they are engaged. This Bill will, however, be futile for that purpose. We are not going to safeguard our industries by imposing taxes upon imported articles. The only way to do it is to put our best brains into our industries. I have been associated with a few industries in my experience, and I feel that our problem to-day is a psychological one. The mass of the British people are far too averse to change. The psychology that is prepared to stick to old things, to do as one's father or as one's grandfather did, is responsible for the Tory party
  1492
  having a majority at the last election; and the same psychology is responsible for our inefficiency in industry. It is no uncommon thing to find machinery that has been in a factory not for five or 10 years but for 20 or 30 years. A certain sentiment towards that machinery has grown up among those responsible for the factory, and to suggest to them the need for scrapping the machinery is like suggesting they ought to part with every drop of their own blood. If we are to meet foreign competition we must be prepared to adopt changes, we must become amenable to change, but not a change that means the erection of tariff walls, not a change which will ultimately create greater national antipathies, as this scheme will.
  I regret some trade unionists should have lent themselves to supporting proposals of this kind. I am old enough to remember the subtle methods adopted by friends of the party opposite when they endeavoured to foist Protection upon this country before. They sent their paid propagandists into our trade union branches. At that time I was associated with an industry that suffered considerably from the importation of foreign joinery, and the Tariff Reform agitators came into our trade union branches and played upon the national antipathies, sentiments and interests of our men, endeavouring to get their support for Protection on the ground that it would keep this foreign-made joinery out of the country. We had to take into consideration the effect of this competition upon our trade, and we devised a tar better method than that, and it was incorporated into a treaty which we are attempting to operate to-day under the auspices of the International Labour Office. We met the situation by sending our representatives into those countries where this joinery was being made. They found out the conditions, and eventually we got those engaged in making the joinery to organise into trade unions. The result has been that we have levelled up the conditions abroad, and now we have an understanding between the organised workers in those countries and our own trade unions by which a stamp is placed upon the joinery made in those countries, and it is recognised by our trade unions. These articles are now being made under fairer trade union conditions, and this has

  1493
  been brought about by the members of our trade union, and it is action of this kind that makes it impossible for foreigners to exploit our interests on those lines.
  I am afraid we shall have to proceed in that way in order to meet the subtle devices of the Protectionists of the day. I deny that these duties mean more employment. During the Lebate I asked the President of the Board of Trade what he thought the effect of these duties would be upon the trades of pattern-making, joiners and shipwrights, but he made no reply. A pattern-maker to-day has to expend as an initial expenditure between £70 and £80 for tools, and now it is suggested that we should put a tax of 33⅓ per cent. on that expenditure. Occasionally new tools have to be supplied. That will mean an increased expenditure on tools which must automatically have its reflex upon the cost of production. How is that going to benefit our consumers?
  Take the building trade where sharp-edged tools are much in use. The same effect is going to operate there. Right through the whole of society these taxes are going to have their reflex in increased cost of living and an increase in the price of commodities in general. The argument has been used by hon. Members opposite that this policy might increase the price, but on the other hand they contend that it will mean more employment. It is only going to mean more employment for the unemployed when the Government are prepared to get down to rock bottom methods and provide goods in the form they are now produced at a price that can be paid for them. The averags pattern-maker and joiner to-day is prepared to purchase standard tools made in America simply because of their better finish and their better edge and greater adaptability to the function they are expected to perform. When our manufacturers are prepared to get down to these rock bottom methods then you will regain your markets, but if you still adhere to the old-fashioned methods of the past you will make no progress.
  In one factory I know of they went along successfully for 35 years with the same old machinery, but in the end the result was that their trade gradually went down until that firm had little or none of their former prosperity. Then
  1494
  the younger men came along into that business, and put in more up-to-date machinery and adopted a better organisation, and the trade gradually came back. I make this statement to the House. I want it to be understood that, as far as I am concerned, I consider this Bill instead of being in any way a solution of the unemployed problem it is nothing but a sham, and it does not bear the hall-mark in such a way that I could recommend it to my electors. For these reasons I shall oppose the Third Heading of this Bill.
  Mr. HALL CAINE: I should like to make one or two observations on the general Debate. In the first place, I wish to take this opportunity of thanking the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carmarthen (Sir A. Mond), who in his speech has given me as a Protectionist a great deal of encouragement for supporting these and other duties. The right hon. Gentleman told us that there is a great movement abroad in favour of universal Free Trade, and this I think shows that the Conservative Government have done more for that principle of universal Free Trade in 12 months by their safeguarding duties than the so-called Free Traders have done in a generation.
  Mr. HOPKINSON: Does the hon. Member support this Bill as a Protectionist?
  Mr. HALL CAINE: Yes, I do so because I believe the only way you can get universal free trade is by taking steps to protect your own industries, then you have something to bargain with, and by which you can secure Free Trade. One of the most remarkable things in Germany with regard to this duty on cutlery is the way the German industrialists are talking about it and declaring that it is going to ruin their trade. I have heard that argument inside and outside this House from a great many hon. Members when they try to explain the theory of Free Trade versus Protection. I have also heard the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Swansea (Mr. Runciman) who is a great business man whether inside or outside this House, use the same argument, and naturally as a young manufacturer myself I listen to him with the very greatest respect. I understand and indeed I know that the right hon. Gentleman is very interested in shipping, and of

  1495
  course I cannot imagine that these two small duties which are now suggested would have any considerable effect upon shipping. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Swansea is also a banker, and the one Amendment which came from the Opposition which gave me any moment for pause, because I think it must be admitted that many of the Amendments were purely obstructionist Amendments—[HON. MEMBERS: "No"]— well I will call them purely dilatory Amendments—the one which really did make me pause, and I think rightly, was the one which suggested that the period of the operation of the Bill might be shortened from five years to one year. Perhaps there is something to be said for that argument because we renew our duties and taxes yearly, and in that way these matters might come up for reconsideration at yearly periods. I should, however, like as a manufacturer to answer that point, and to show that five years is only a reasonable period which the Government could put upon these duties. The right, hon. Gentleman the Member for West Swansea is a banker—
  Mr. RUNC1MAN: A bank director.
  Mr. HALL CAINE: Yes, a bank director. In. business, there are two sources from which business men can borrow money, one is the British public and the other the banks, and from these sources we can obtain capital for new machinery. Supposing that I went to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Swansea as a bank director and said to him, "My business is getting in a bad way and I want to instal some new machinery, and I want you to advance me some money for this purpose." He would at once say, "What security have you to offer?" I should reply, "I have got Protection for my trade for one year, and the question of further Protection is coming up again in one year's time." The right hon. Gentleman would probably say, "I am a banker and not a gambler." If we admit that we are behind in our machinery then if we are going to put on a protective tariff we shall have to give it a sufficient run to enable manufacturers to bring their machinery up-to-date, and have a period sufficiently long to repay them for their new expenditure.
  1496
  I was very sorry to hear one or two speakers call into question the action of the President of the Board of Trade by saying that he had packed these committees. I am one of those who took the opportunity during the sittings of the various committees which were open to the public to go and hear their deliberations and hear the witnesses that came before them, and whether we believe In their recommendations, or not I think we ought to thank the committees for the very excellent work they have done in analysing these questions. To suggest for a moment that the President of the Board of Trade has packed them with his own friends or supporters is practically saying that the President ought to be impeached, and that he is not worthy of the position he occupies. It is simply calling the men and women who have served on the committees mere puppets.
  The danger of that sort of attack in the House of Commons is that, when hon. Members who make that sort of attack upon public-spirited men and women who serve voluntarily on these committees come into office, they will not be able to get a single business man or business woman in the City of London to sit on any committees, because these people are not going to be pilloried in that way for their public services. I have lived and worked in various Protectionist countries such as America and France, and I have spent some time in Germany. I know that we say as Protectionists that we are unable to compete with countries where they work under sweated labour conditions. We are told that this takes place in Protectionist countries. We are asked, why does this sweated labour take place? My reply is that Protection alone does not cover the whole ground. Let us look at the situation for a moment. In America it is the stock argument of the Protectionist that you have high machinery efficiency to begin with and high wages. In Germany you have high machinery efficiency and very low wages, while in Australia you have high wages and high machinery efficiency. On the other hand, you have in France low wages and low machinery efficiency, and therefore it seems to me that the mere question of Protection alone does not cover the whole question. Every country is to be judged upon the standard of living which its workers demand.

  1497
  In America, as I have every reason to know, the workers demand, and quite rightly, a good standard of life, and they are paid wages up to as much as even a dollar an hour for a 44-hour week. In Germany, as I also have reason to know, the workers are prepared to work in some cases for as little as the equivalent of 6d. an hour, and are willing to work 10 hours a day, and even seven days a week. That would go to show that, as far as Germany is concerned at any rate, they do not ask for the same standard of living as prevails in America. In this country there is a tendency, and a very good tendency, and one which we as manufacturers are really glad to see, although we are frequently discredited by hon. Gentlemen on the Labour benches —there is a, tendency towards a higher standard of living in this country. Speaking, as I have said, as a manufacturer, I should like to give that standard of life; but when we have to compete, as we frequently have to compete, and as the cutlers have to compete, with rates of wages and hours of labour with which it is impossible to compete, then I say that the only result of not allowing these safeguarding duties to go through would be, either to crush the industry itself out of existence, or to put manufacturers in the position of having to turn round and ask their workers to take lower wages.
  Hon. Gentlemen on the Labour benches frequently say that, if they are given a chance to put the whole thing right all over Europe, there will be higher wages and better conditions for all types of workers. Good luck to them! I hope they will do it; I hope they will improve the conditions in Germany; I hope they will be able to educate the people in Germany, France, Spain, Norway, Italy, and all those countries where, as they know, and as I know, the workers are paid at lower rates of wages and work longer hours; but, until that is done, it is unfair to ask the manufacturer to try and keep his works open when he has to meet that sort of competition, or to ask the worker to compete with it. When hon. Members on the Labour benches are able to convince the foreign workers that they ought to ask for the same rates of wages and the same working hours as my workers, I, at any rate, for one, shall be
  1498
  willing to withdraw my claim for a protective duty
  Captain BENN: I would like to attempt to reply to some of the points which have been put by the hon. Member for East Dorset (Mr. Gaine), but, before doing so, I would like in a general way to say that I am sure those who have taken part in these Debates will regret that they have come to an end, because we have had some very interesting controversies. Speaking for myself, and I think for some others on those benches, we have been grateful to the President of the Board of Trade and to the Parliamentary Secretary for the courtesy with which they have met us in Debate, and, speaking for myself, I think I may say I have enjoyed these Debates, because they have done a great deal to illuminate the subject under discussion.
  This is about the fourth effort that has been made since the War to correct some manifest ills by this sort of legislation, and the President of the Board of Trade was associated with every stage of those efforts. They have all been failures. The original one was made immediately after the War, when there was the policy of import and export restrictions. It was not confined to this country. If you went to Hungary, or Austria, or various other countries, you would find them all tinkering with the same useless tools, which I am glad to say they very quickly abandoned. That was followed by a Bill which never saw a Second Reading in this House— the Exports and Imports Bill, I think, was its title, and it was commonly called an Anti-Dumping Bill. It was still-born. In this connection I would remind hon. Members that, if any manufacturer now can show that goods are 'being dumped into this country he can secure a duty under the Safeguarding of Industries Act. That is very often overlooked, It is sometimes supposed that the Safeguarding of Industries Act has been repealed, but it has not been repealed at all. It is still on the Statute Book, and it contains a provision which says that if it can be shown that there is real dumping— that is to say, the sale of goods below the cost of production at their place of manufacture— a duty of 33⅓ per cent. can be obtained. It is extremely striking that, in spite of all the complaints about dumping, no one has ever come

  1499
  forward to establish a case under that section, which is still the law of the land.
  That was followed by the Safeguarding of Industries Act, which many of us opposed very strenuously to the limit of our strength and numbers in this House, and also outside. The opposition was much more powerful outside, because some of the most powerful opponents did not secure admission to this House in 1918. I listened to the speeches which were then made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Sir A. Mond). He explained why he thought it was going to be necessary, but he did not show that it was necessary. I heard all his speeches in the House, and by that time, I think, the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade had joined the Government. The case for the Safeguarding of Industries Act was that the depreciation of the exchanges was going to mean a great flood of goods into this country from countries where the exchange was depreciated; but that did not turn out to be the case, because, although a depreciated exchange appears to be an export bounty on the goods of the country where it exists, the internal conditions of a country with a depreciated exchange are so bad that export in bulk is impossible. That is the reason why Germany to-day, although its exchange is now stabilised, does not prove to be really a formidable competitor, because, for one thing, as is indicated in the Annual Report of the Commissioners on Reparation Schemes, her money is borrowed at the rate of 12 per cent. or 13 per cent. That is one of the results of bankruptcy, and most firms there are very severely handicapped in their export trade.
  Now we have this present Measure. I do not want to paint the iniquities of this Measure in colours that are too bright, or to magnify its rather slender proportions. It is quite a small thing, but it is supported by many hon. Gentlemen opposite because they think it is an earnest of what is to come. That is why we oppose it. "Avoid beginnings in evil" is, I think, written in the Scriptures. We oppose it on that ground. In some respects, undoubtedly, it breaks the Prime Minister's pledges. I do not like to make charges of pledge-breaking generally, and particularly against the Prime Minister, whom I have
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  always regarded as one of the most sympathetic and attractive figures in public life, but it is the fact that, whereas the questions proposed for the committees were not answered in the affirmative in these cases, and whereas it was represented as being a Safeguarding of Industries Act, it is being utilised now in preserving what are called key industries. It is quite easy to show that the key industry business is only another form of the Safeguarding of Industries Act, however defective it may have been for the purpose when it was originally introduced.
  One of the arguments used by the hon. Member for East Dorset was that it was "something to bargain with." I think it used to be called the " big revolver " theory. When, however, we put down an Amendment which sought to provide that these duties should only be applied against a country which had not ratified the Labour Convention, we were told that it was impossible on account of treaty obligations. Again, is the hon. Member for East Dorset aware—of course he is—that we have just made a Trade Treaty with Germany, which the President of the Board of Trade agrees will be very good for our trade? We made that Treaty as a Free Trade nation, while the French, who have "something to bargain with," are obliged to make shift with a temporary modus vivendi. I do not see how tariffs, in these circumstances, can be shown to be something to bargain with, because we have nothing in any case that can possibly be used in that way.
  Then he referred to Germany, and he is delighted with this Bill, because it is said that it will ruin the trade of the Germans. That is a very narrow and, I think, a false view of trade. Good trade here does not mean bad trade elsewhere. Good trade here means good trade elsewhere, and good trade elsewhere means good trade here. Trade is the interchange of goods to the profit of both parties concerned; it cannot possibly exist on any other basis. I do not take the same patriotic delight in the information that the trade of Germany is going to be ruined by this Bill. While the hon. Member was in Germany, did he inquire into the influences governing the new German tariff, or why it was found necessary by the German Government to promise a cost-of-living inquiry at the

  1501
  same time as they introduced the new tariff, and whether they met the opposition of their Socialist party by promising them that by a certain date, and then by some later date, they would reduce the cost of living?
  He spoke of our pillorying the Committees. I am sure that none of us would wish to say anything disrespectful of the ladies and gentlemen who, at the invitation of the Board of Trade, undertook these inquiries. Many useful Committees have made inquiries on Tariff Reform at one time and another. That we do not complain of, but what we do complain of is that the President of the Board of Trade has attempted to shelter himself behind the reports of these Committees. If he had said, "I propose a tariff," he would have been quite entitled to do so; the Chancellor of the Exchequer is entitled to do so, and he could justify it in the House. What we complain about is that he said, "I have had a judicial inquiry, here is the report of that inquiry, and nothing more need be said in defence of the proposal I put forward." That is the gravamen of our charge against these Committees; it is not any charge against those who desire to render public service.
  Mr. HALL CAINE: It has been said on more than one occasion, both from the Liberal benches and from the Labour benches, that these Committees were packed, and I think the natural interpretation of that is that they were committees of partisans.
  Captain BENN: I repeat that charge. If it be a crime to be a partisan, some of us here are, indeed, extreme criminals. The point is that they are not judicial. The old Safeguarding of Industries Committee was judicial. It had its rules laid down in the Statute, and, if it made a finding, we were partly responsible for that finding, because we passed the Act. These committees are nothing of the kind. They are not even appointed from a panel; they are appointed by the President of the Board of Trade, and the President of the Board of Trade is not entitled to come here and say, "Here is the finding of an impartial, judicial, statutory committee." That is the charge that we made, and to that we adhere.
  One word, in conclusion, about this Bill. A great deal of play has been made
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  by the hon. Member for East Dorset about the anxiety of the British manufacturer to defend himself against sweated labour conditions abroad. But every proposal that we have made for attempting to improve labour conditions abroad has been met either with a negative or a non possumus. We have urged the Government, by making Amendments to this Bill, to be more active both by example and by precept in getting European nations to adopt the Labour Conventions, but they will not move; they will do nothing. When we said we were concerned about the status of workmen in Germany, we wore told that we cared more about other countries than our own, but it must be perfectly well known that to raise the labour standard all over Europe would be the best service we could render to the labour standard of this country, and to our own success as a manufacturing nation.
  Furthermore, the hon. Member for East Dorset will at least grant mo this point, that no duties can improve the labour standard. If you attempt to prevent the import of goods, you make those goods dearer, and, if the exporter who sends them finds that there is a duty on them, he may conceivably—especially if he is called upon to pay the tax, as hon. Gentlemen opposite think he is—further reduce the wages of his workers in the endeavour to pay this tax. In any case, no device of this kind can improve their conditions; it is in other directions that you must look. An hon. Member who spoke from the Labour benches spoke about international co-operation between trade unions, and everything of that kind is to the good of our workers. Furthermore, the Government themselves have it in their hands by a more active prosecution of the recommendations of the Geneva Conventions, to do something to this end. The Bill is now going through, and I dare say it will secure a considerable majority in this House— [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] — it does not require a prophet to notice that. Little industries may be singled out for little special favours, and they may benefit thereby, but it is supported on grounds which mean that at heart the party opposite are Protectionists and are committed to a policy of Protection which they have not the courage to put into operation at the moment, but which if they do put into operation would bring

  1503
  much harder conditions upon the workers and the consumers in this country.
  Mr. RAMSDEN: I am quite in accord with one thing that was said by the right hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment, that during the course of these Debates there has been a great deal of bad logic heard in this House. But I think it is only fair to remind the House that most of the speeches have been made by Members on the other benches who are opposed to this Measure. There is one thing which apparently is not well understood on that side. We are told about the evil effects which will come to us by restricting imports, but it is well to remember that there are two different kinds of imports, those which are useful and essential and those which are not. If we restrict the imports of certain manufactured goods we should be quite easily compensated for that, if in their place we import a rather increased quantity of raw material which can be used here and which will find employment for our own people. The right hon. Gentleman feared that the effect of any safeguarding duty would be to decrease the export of our manufactured goods. I happen myself to be engaged in the export trade, and I feel that, far from doing harm to the export of British manufactured goods, these duties will in many cases help us to increase our export trade.
  We have found by experience that one of the reasons why we have lost our export trade is that we have lost the basis of it, that is the home trade, which makes it possible. If we could regain our home trade it would help us to build up that export trade which is so necessary to us. I listened to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman below the Gangway with a very great deal of regret. I am very much in favour of such Measures as this, and it is partly as the result of the very interesting speeches he has made in the past that I have arrived at such conclusions. It was certainly with very great regret that I heard him speak to the contrary to-day. He said he did not see the difference between the tax of 33⅓ per cent. which we are imposing in these duties and a 10 per cent. ad valorem tax which had been advocated some years ago. I see a very great difference
  1504
  indeed, because in this case we only try to impose this 33⅓ per cent. on a very restricted number of articles and in the taxes which were proposed it was to be an average of 10 per cent. on the whole lot. If one looks at the Board of Trade returns, one would find that at the end of the year the revenue derived would be a very different one indeed. I sincerely hope that these taxes we are going to impose will be of great benefit to these trades, and will find employment for a large number of people.
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: The speech which has just been made is that, no doubt, of a sincere Protectionist, who believes that the general volume of trade can be increased by the imposition of duties. I do not know whether I can usefully argue with the hon. Member on that subject. It is a theory which has often been propounded and frequently exploded. What strikes me most as I have listened to the Debates during the last week or two has been that all the old fallacies which were brought forward in the time of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain have been repeated again and again. I remember in those days looking back to the Annual Register, to the controversies of 1830 to 1845, and exactly the same fallacies were then propounded. They have been met and answered, but they crop up from time to time. One of the reasons is that they sound so simple and obvious. One of the simplest and most obvious, which has been repeated again and again in the course of these discussions, is that if you impose a duty on imports you of necessity benefit the trade that is immediately concerned. That benefit spreads throughout the whole range of industry and, in fact, increases the general prosperity of internal trade. That, of course, cannot be true if it were applied to all industries, because it would pro tanto reduce the purchasing power of the country, and by a general rise in prices all round, as we have known from recent experience, we should actually diminish instead of increase our resources. But when it is applied, as in this case, to only one or two industries it is true—and we have never denied it—that the industries concerned must of necessity obtain a sporadic benefit.
  An hon. Member below me asked whether there was not much to be said

  1505
  for increasing the period over which these benefits should be granted. I believe if you increased the period you would indeed be giving to that one industry an advantage over other industries, you would indeed be imposing a burden on the consumer for a longer period than if the 12 months that we suggested had been adopted, but that would not in any degree help to add to the general volume of trade. The period during which prices are to be kept up must mean that the amount which people have available for spending on these commodities is reduced. The necessity under which we all labour nowadays of making ends meet applies to the whole of the people. They can only afford to spend a certain amount, and in so far as you make prices rise, especially artificially, you tend to diminish their consuming capacity, and by diminishing their consuming capacity you naturally diminish the consuming power they have for the benefit of other larger and more staple industries. The policy of the Government might be extended to a large number of trades, but I see no anxiety on their part to extend the number. They are burning their fingers one after the other. They are hardly likely to go as far as they have been invited by those who have spoken from the Conservative benches to-day. Every one of those speeches has been a full-blooded Protectionist speech. They have not been safeguarding speeches within the Prime Minister's meaning. They have been Protectionist speeches, made to ginger up the President of the Board of Trade while he was here, or his excellent colleague during his absence.
  The desire of the Protectionist is to get away from this footling little policy of dealing with one minor trade after another and to go in for a larger scientific tariff. The hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Foster) wanted a general tariff on scientific grounds. My right hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Sir A. Mond) quite truly said there never had been a scientific tariff in any country in the world, neither in this country in the old Protectionist days, in the United States, nor in Germany, where science is worshipped. The truth is that there never will be a scientific policy in this country, but certainly this way of selecting industries is the most unscientific and most unsatisfactory that ever entered into the heads of Ministers of the Crown.
  1506
  Let me take one or two extraordinary anomalies which will occur to the mind of anyone who examines these duties. This new tariff, which is not scientific, is to put a duty on knives. It is not to put a duty on forks unless they happen to be carving forks. It does not put a duty upon spoons. There is to be no duty upon steel, although surely the steel makers have just as great a claim on the generosity and the ingenuity of the Government as the cutlers. The steelmakers have a much larger number of unemployed and, if there is anything to be said for this method of increasing the amount of work for the benefit of the unemployed, steel ought to have come before knives.
  Then I turn to another group of taxes There are to be taxes upon gloves. There are to be no taxes upon hats or other garments. There is nothing scientific in selecting gloves in preference to other articles. There is an inquiry sitting at present to deal with the worsted industry. I presume our Protectionist colleagues will look forward with some satisfaction to the possibility of that Committee recommending that there should be an import duty upon worsted goods. They might wish it to be extended far outside the range of worsted cloths. In every one of the major industries, there is a far greater body of unemployment than there is amongst the glove makers or the cutlers. What can be the justification for taking these minor things and leaving the larger ones on one side? If it is good enough for cutlery and gloves it is good enough for steel and for woollens. If it is good enough for these manufacturing industries it ought to be good enough for agriculture. At present one of our most grave problems is that the number of people employed on the land is going down instead of up. If the Protectionist doctrine is right there ought to be an import duty on butter and grain. Hon. Members opposite do not recommend that. Their theory falls down directly they come to anything that is likely to be unpopular at the poll.
  The general theory of Protection, as it is expounded in this House, turns largely on the export trade. The hon. Member who spoke last, who is engaged in the export trade, thought a general tariff would tend to increase our export trade. He did not favour the House with his

  1507
  reasons for holding that view. I know there are many hon. Members here who believe that if you have an import duty you will by that means add to the security of the home manufacturer and he will be able to sell his goods abroad at a lower price than he is selling them to his customers at home and by that means he will capture the export trade. If he is going to expound that to the consuming class of this country he will give little satisfaction by confessing that the foreigner is to get the cheaper article while we are to be charged dearer, and that is the way our export trade is to be expanded. Surely nothing more unreasonable was ever put forward by those who have had anything to do with the protection of industries. The idea that our export trade can be favoured by a Protectionist system is supported in some quarters by the knowledge that the export trade of some Protectionist countries has certainly gone up within the last generation. It has gone up, no doubt, in some cases since the War. But why should it not do so? The general trade of the world has expanded and is expanding. I am glad to think that during the last three years we have seen a considerable expansion, and I hope it will go on expanding more and more. We do not want these countries to cease to export. We want them to do a larger export and a larger import. We want that to go on over the general range of commerce.
  7.0 P.M.
  Let me give a most striking, and perhaps a most awkward illustration for Tariff Reformers, taken direct from the cotton trade. There is no great manufacturing industry in this country which can excel the cotton trade in importance. The whole of the teeming population of Cheshire and Lancashire is directly or indirectly dependent upon the cotton trade. If Protection is such a remarkable thing for fostering export trade, how does it happen that in the United States, which is Protectionist, where the raw cotton is grown, exports are only about 5 per cent. of her output? In the case of cotton, the United States only exports 5 per cent. of her manufactured goods, while we in the United Kingdom export no less than 80 per cent. of our manufactured goods. Hon. Members overlook the fact that we have to draw that raw material from the
  1508
  United States, and that it has to be carried across the ocean and distributed in Lancashire, and that in the case of some cloths we can actually send it back to the United States to be sold at lower rates than they can manufacture it themselves. They are dying to get our markets and would like our foreign customers to buy their cloth. But they cannot manufacture it as cheaply, because under a protective system they have raised prices all round, and we can beat them hollow in the export trade of the world because of their protective system. [An HON. MEMBER: ''That is why they are so rich!"] No. They do not grow rich by a small export trade.
  Let us take another illustration. I will refer to shipbuilding because I know something about it. I hope the House will not think that I am adopting a schoolmaster's attitude if I talk about shipbuilding, but I must talk about something of which I know. What has happened with regard to shipping? Shipbuilding and shipping are co-related industries. They are not the same thing, but if you take shipbuilding first, we are, and still remain, the greatest shipbuilding country in the world. The Americans have enormous plants and great open spaces along their waterways and great possibilities of building their ships more cheaply than we can here. But I venture to say that there is not a single shipyard in the United States chat we cannot beat with our shipyards in the United Kingdom, because their cost of equipment and production is so high owing to their protective system as compared with ours under our Free Trade system. In Germany they have smaller wages, and we can still hold our own against the Germans.
  Shipping is one of the great export trades. What is earned by the shipping of the United Kingdom in foreign trades is one of our invisible exports, yet it is not so very invisible. The great earnings of British shipping are due not only to our nautical sense, but to our having had for three generations in this country the advantage of obtaining our supplies, from the hull and machinery down to the last pot of paint, more cheaply than you can get them in any other country in the world. That is why America with its protective system and higher prices all round fails. During the last war America

  1509
  built an enormous mercantile marine. Most of it is lying rotting, while we in this country who have not adopted this higher artificial range of prices all round are able to beat them. That, with cotton, I couple together as being two of the most important industries in the world.
  Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT: Is it not a fact that we led all the world to a greater extent in shipping and cotton before we adopted Free Trade?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: No, in the first half of the nineteenth century the American mercantile marine was comparable with our own. Let me make one general statement with regard to these discussions and this policy as a whole. I believe it is based on an entirely wrong mental attitude, and that attitude is one of warfare. The whole language of these discussions is that we are in hostility to the rest of the world. It is based on theories of antagonism, while the real truth is that trade is not warfare but the exchange of goods and services for goods and services. Why one country buys the goods is because it wants them, and another country sells the goods because it can produce them. We are great customers for all the world, but when we carry through our transactions we have not won a battle. We have given what is required find what we can produce best to the country which has bought it because it requires it.
  This theory of Protection or safeguarding has been likened by hon. Gentlemen opposite to a household in which we safeguard against burglary, fire and attack. But trade is not burglary: it is an exchange. It is giving an equivalent for an equivalent. It is not an attack, because we are doing service by exchanging. If the trade of this country is to be greatly improved, especially in the industries where there is most unemployment and where misery is walking in our streets—in the shipbuilding trade, in the engineering trade, in the coal trade—in no one of these can Protection lift a finger to ease the pain. There are some outside influences that can be brought to bear on the world that could lead to an improvement in trade. I think we should facilitate exchange. I suggested the other day to the President of the Board of Trade that he should go round with the oil-can. I hope he
  1510
  will not think that is too humble an occupation. One of the best services he could render to the country, which would enable him to crown his name with renown, would be to sweep away all these restrictions and give this country free ports and Free Trade.
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Ronald McNeill): I am afraid, if I were to attempt in this concluding stage of these debates, to sweep up the crumbs of the banquet, they would be found exceedingly stale crumbs, for the debates have ranged over more than a week. They began with three separate duties now included in this Hill. They had to go to the Committee of Ways and Means, then Report, then the Second Reading of this Bill, then Committee, and now the Third Heading. In all those stages of this legislation, I think exactly the same arguments were used. I have the reports, and, although complaints were made of my absence on some occasions, I perhaps know what, was said just as well as anyone in the Mouse, because I have made a diligent, study of the reports. At one time the Opposition complained that they spied strangers, and at another time they complained that they could not spy the Treasury, and it was complained that the Chancellor of the Exchequer by his absence was clearly showing that he was indifferent, if not hostile, to this legislation. But there has been another very significant absentee. It was complained that, this being a Finance Bill, it should never have been left in the hands of my right hon. Friend, but the leading of the Liberal Opposition has come from his opposite number. It is quite true that, so far as the greater opposition is concerned, the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer has taken a conspicuous part. But where is the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer belonging to the Liberal party— an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, an ex-Prime Minister? A week of important Debates which the Liberal party, such as they are, tell us is going to be the "ruination of the country," and not a word from the Leader of the Liberal party. He is so busy, apparently, with the fiscal system of his party that he has no time to give to the fiscal system of the country.
  One complaint has been frequently reiterated, and repeated, I think, a few minutes ago by the hon. and gallant

  1511
  Member for Leith (Captain W. Benn), that the use which has been made of these consultative or advisory committees has meant that the Government have surrendered their responsibility with regard to taxation, and I think I even heard it said that they were making the House of Commons do the same. A great deal was made of that point by the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Snowden). He has proved himself one of the straightest and strictest elders of the kirk of Free Trade. A very austere man is my right hon. Friend, a Gamaliel at whose feet even the most pert disciple from Leith might be glad to sit. But having studied his speeches—he is always polite, much more polite that I can possibly be, but, if he will not mind my saying so, there seems to be in his style a little what I might call acidulated urbanity—I should like, if I may, to paraphrase what appears to be the meaning of his speeches. To put it quite bluntly, this is what the right hon. Gentleman meant, though he was too polite to say so: "If you do not agree with me, you are an idiot."
  At the very outset of his contributions to these Debates he told us that the Government would have supported a certain Amendment if only they could understand the matter that they were talking about; if only they could understand the effect of tariffs. On another occasion the right hon. Gentleman actually moved to report Progress. Why? In order that my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade might learn the meaning of the Resolution, and in order that he might have time to get a typewritten explanation to use. As for the idiocy of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, it was nothing to the idiocy of those very able persons whom he employed on the Safeguarding Committees, because the right hon. Gentleman said of the Reports of those Committees:
  "They were painful exhibitions of incompetence, of economic fallacies and of ignorance of the rudimentary conditions of foreign trade."
  Mr. SNOWDEN: Hear, hear!
  Mr. McNEILL: Has the right hon. Gentleman got an exhaustive knowledge of foreign trade? When I reflect upon the right hon. Gentleman's speeches, I
  1512
  cannot help saying to myself: "How delightful it would be if, like the right hon. Member for Colne Valley, one could come forward in the House of Commons and, with perfect sincerity, contrast the conspicuous imbecility of one's fellow creatures with the unparalleled splendour of one's own intellectual equipment." The right hon. Gentleman has come forward as the very high priest of the good, old, solid Free Trade doctrine. What does he think of the scheme of the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury)?
  Mr. LANSBURY: I am not a high priest, thank God.
  Mr. McNEILL: Very far from it. The hon. Member for Bow and Bromley is not content with duties. He wants to exclude altogether imports coming into this country which have been produced by inferior labour conditions abroad.
  Mr. LANSBURY: Hear, hear!
  Mr. McNEILL: Very well. I tremble to think what language will be applied to the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley by his right hon. Friend. The hon. Member must be not only on a lower plane than the Government, but also on a lower plane than the Committees. What is going to happen to the working classes of this country—we have been told by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen above and below the Gangway opposite that their prosperity, their very existence depends upon absolutely free imports —if the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley gets his way? I do not know how many hon. Members opposite will agree with him. The hon. Member for Bow and Bromley and those who think with him on this matter are not going to be content with a small duty, but they are going to keep out, no matter what the result may be upon the class for whom the right hon. Member for Colne Valley speaks, all goods produced by inferior labour conditions abroad.
  After making a study of the speeches of hon. Members opposite. I have come to the conclusion that the most interesting feature of these Debates has been their contradictions. It is true that, all through there has been a delightfully harmonious little party of Liberals in the corner below the Gangway opposite—harmonious, I suppose on account of the absence of their leader. If hon. Mem-

  1513
  bers have looked at the Amendment Paper, they will have seen all down one page and down another page Amendments standing in the names of Liberal Members. Sometimes it has been a trio, sometimes a quintette, and occasionally even a septet, and by that time the party is exhausted. There we have had these little combinations, and they have been all the time trilling away on their little tune, with absolutely wearisome reiteration, and even up to the very last moment before I rose we had the same tune sung again in perfect harmony by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Swansea (Mr. Runciman).
  But in spite of the sameness, there have been variations on the theme. At one time they said, "Thirty-three and a third percent.! Pooh! That's nothing. That is not going to effect your purpose. That is no good. It is far too small. It will never bridge the gap between the foreign price and the home price." It was so insufficient that they moved time after time to reduce the 33⅓ per cent. to 5 per cent. In one sentence we were told that these duties are paltry, pettifogging and piffling, and the next moment we were told that their effect is going to be so tremendous that they are going to destroy the Dawes Scheme, to dissipate the precious spirit of Locarno, to destroy our relations with Germany and even to imperil the peace of Europe! These same duties, which were too utterly piffling to keep out imports, will be fatally effective in keeping out reparations.
  Why these proposals really offend hon. Gentlemen opposite, as has been shown by speech after speech, is because they think that they are violating the doctrine, and striking at what they think to be the impregnable rock of Free Trade. I wonder whether the right hon. Member for West Swansea (Mr. Runciman), who is one of the great pillars of Free Trade, and his friends, accept the proposition which I am about to make. I hope they will. I do not want to misrepresent them. I believe that what they say is: "The more imports we have the better. They cannot be too cheap. Think only of the consumer, and let the producer go hang." I want to ask them, in all seriousness, what they would say to a slight alteration. Instead of bringing into this country, as is now happening, cheap
  1514
  German knives, or cheap Czechoslovakian gloves, and selling them in this country, goods which are produced, as the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley put it, by sweated labour, or, at all events, by inferior conditions, at lower wages and longer hours, suppose you were to bring the German workers and the Czecho-slovakian workers here, and get them to work in this country for those longer hours and lower wages, to produce the goods here.
  What would hon. Members opposite say to that proposition? I do not believe for one moment, and I should thoroughly agree with them, that hon. Members would tolerate that I am certain that the trade unions of the country would not tolerate it. Why not? To keep them out is every whit as much a violation of Free Trade doctrine as to keep out the product. Not only that, but it would be actually less mischievous from the point of view of the British worker to let foreign workers in, because, if you brought the German worker here, and set him to work in or near Sheffield to make knives, he would not cut the British cutler out of his job one whit more than by the knife itself coming in from Germany. On the other hand, you would get, at least, this advantage, that you would have his wages spent in this country, and to that extent you would do what hon. Gentlemen opposite so often lay stress upon as an important element in regard to employment, you would be increasing purchasing power in this country. Therefore, of the two operations, to bring in cheap knives and cheap gloves is more harmful to the British workman than if you bring the foreign worker here to work long hours in producing those articles.
  I do not suppose that any hon. Gentleman below the Gangway opposite would deny for one moment that that is the proper teaching of Free Trade. Does any hon. Gentleman opposite deny that? [Mr. FISHER: "Yes!"] The most learned of them does deny it. All I can say is that I am surprised, because, learned as the. right hon. Member is, it is not unfair to say that even he has very largely derived his economic doctrine and knowledge from what used to be called the orthodox economists. I remember very well, and I am sure he knows, a passage from a lecture by Henry Fawcett, who was one of the great leaders of that

  1515
  teaching, and who pointed out that no Free Trader could object to cheap labour being brought into this country, and that if he was wanting to build a house in this country, and was wanting to bring cheap workmen here to build his house cheaper than he could do it by British labour, and was prevented from doing that, he was every whit as much taxed as if a duty were put upon his broad or his salt.
  The fact is that these leaders of what is called Free Trade are never logical in this matter. They talk a great deal about logic, but they are never logical. As far as pure economic theory is concerned, I am, and always have been, just as much a Free Trader as any of them. I subscribe to every word of the doctrine which was formulated in the brilliant speech of the Noble Lord the hon. Member for Oxford University (Lord Hugh Cecil). What hon. Members opposite leave out of mind is—whether they like it or whether they do not—that, one of the main premises of the whole Free Trade argument is gone. They cannot restore it. Unlimited imports, unlimited competition of commodities, I agree, produce the greatest aggregate of national wealth, on one condition and one condition only. All the great teachers of Free Trade say that that is only true if wages are as unfettered as prices and if labour is as free as commodities. None know better than the party opposite that wages are not, cannot, and ought not to be as unfettered as prices, and that labour is not free in that sense, and ought not to be free. The trade union movement destroyed the economic freedom—in that sense—of labour. It is for that reason that, as everybody knows. Cobden detested the trade unions, and said we could not live under them.
  What I submit to the House is that just as there is a difference between pure and applied mathematics, so there is a corresponding difference between pure and applied economics. In pure mathematics no account is taken of friction or radiation or a number of other disturbing factors which have to be taken into account as soon as you come to make any practical experiment in applied mathematics. So it is in economics. The theory which has been propounded by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Swansea, the right hon. Gentleman
  1516
  the Member for Carmarthen (Sir A. Mond), the hon. and gallant Member for Leith (Captain Benn) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley is perfectly sound were it not that they leave out one element. Just as friction and radiation are left out of pure mathematics, so they leave out the human element in this problem. It is precisely because the Free Trade economics of the 19th century did leave out the human element that they were denounced and trounced and scorned by great social prophets like Carlyle. Kingsley and Ruskin. And it is for that reason that we are attached to this policy.
  Here may I say that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are totally wrong in saying that this policy is the same thing as a general tariff. It is not. I quite agree with the Free Trade argument taken in the abstract, that if labour is displaced by the crushing and destruction of an industry through foreign competition it is, in theory, only a change in the direction of labour. It is quite true that where one industry is destroyed in that way, you will probably find, after a few years, that while the one industry has disappeared, more labour is employed elsewhere. That argument, however, leaves out the transition period. The theorists never take account of the fact that, although that argument is true as an abstract proposition, the actual men and women who are displaced when an industry is destroyed must, in the interval, go on to the dole, or to the poor-house, or live upon charity. They cannot go on in their own industry.
  We do not want by this policy to make a complete alteration in the whole fiscal system of the country. We do want, when we find that in a particular industry particular people, owing to exceptional circumstances, are being or are likely to be deprived of their occupation and wages, to do an exceptional thing in order to prevent that deprivation. You cannot, whether you like it or not. have real Free Trade. You cannot subject labour— and no party want'-' to subject labour—to free competition as hon. Members desire to have free competition in commodities. You cannot have labour as the theorists would have it, on exactly the same footing of freedom of competition and elasticity, as commodities. You cannot buy labour

  1517
  in the cheapest market, and that is what you must do in order to have real Free Trade. Therefore, since we are in fact safeguarding labour against the importation of cheap foreign labour, we stultify ourselves unless we also safeguard them against the introduction, in certain special exceptional circumstances, of the products of foreign labour. That is the policy which is embodied in this Bill, and the policy which we are asking the House to sanction. We are not going to be deterred from it, not even by the harmony of the Liberal sextet. We are not going to be deterred from it even by the most fulminating ex cathedra pronouncements of the Pontifex Maximus opposite.
  I wish to refer in particular to one Amendment which was constantly brought forward and argued with immense insistence by hon. Gentleman opposite. Time after time; they urged that, apart from the principle of these duties, apart from the amounts of these duties, the period for which they are to be imposed was intolerable. Five years! There was an Amendment to reduce it to 18 months. If hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite really believe in their case, five years should suit them admirably. It will not be long before the end of that period when we shall have a General Election. Think of the plethora of promises which we are offering to hon. Gentlemen opposite! The hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams), with that great ingenuity which they all display in picking out little individual instances from the Schedules, discovered that a pruning-knife was subject to duty.
  He said a duty on pruning-knives would disturb our trade in preserves. He will be able, just before the five years elapse, to go to the country on the emancipation of jam. Not only that. He has a still better case: he discovered that there was also somewhere buried in these Schedules a hop-knife, and that the duty on that article would be an indirect tax upon beer. He will be able to promise the emancipation of beer. Vote for Labour, jam and beer.
  The party below the Gangway will not be left out. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Leith (Captain Bonn)—I hope he will allow use quite respectfully to compliment him upon the series of eloquent and able speeches he has made and I do so quite sincerely— will not be loft without hope. Before the end of the five years when we are going to the country he will he able to captivate all the fishwives of the Forth by promising them a removal of the bounty on chilblains. As for us, we shall, when that time comes, point to the complete fulfilment of the election pledges of the Prime Minister. We shall, I hope, be able to point also to the beneficent results of the policy which we are adopting to-day, and notwithstanding the admirable election cries which hon. Gentlemen opposite will have at their disposal — if they really believe all that they have, said—we shall accept their challenge without a shadow of misgiving.
  Question put. "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 245; Noes, 132.

  Division No. 499.]

  AYES.

  [7.42 p.m.

  Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel

  Briscoe, Richard George

  Craik, Rt. Hon, Sir Henry

  Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.

  Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.

  Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.

  Albery, Irving James

  Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C.(Berks, Newb'y)

  Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)

  Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby)

  Buckingham, Sir H.

  Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)

  Applin, Colonel R. V. K.

  Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James

  Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)

  Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.

  Burman, J. B.

  Cunliffe, Joseph Herbert

  Atholl, Duchess of

  Burton, Colonel H. W.

  Curzon, Captain Viscount

  Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

  Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward

  Davidson, J. (Hertf'd, Hemel Hempsf'd)

  Balfour, George (Hampsteed)

  Caine, Gordon Hall

  Davidson, Major-General Sir John H.

  Barclay-Harvey, C. M.

  Campbell, E. T.

  Davies, Dr. Vernon

  Barnston, Major Sir Harry

  Cautley, Sir Henry S.

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

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

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

  Dawson, Sir Philip

  Bennett, A. J.

  Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton

  Dean, Arthur Wellesley

  Berry, Sir George

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)

  Dixey, A. C.

  Betterton, Henry B.

  Charteris, Brigadier-General J.

  Drews, C.

  Birchall, Major J. Dearman

  Churchill, Rt. Hon, Winston Spencer

  Eden, Captain Anthony

  Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton)

  Clarry, Reginald George

  Edmondson, Major A. J.

  Blundell, F. N.

  Clayton. G. C.

  Elliott, Captain Walter E.

  Boothby, R. J. G.

  Cobb, Sir Cyril

  Elveden, Viscount

  Bourne, Captain Robert Croft

  Cope, Major William

  Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-S-M.)

  Bowater, Sir T. Vansittart

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

  Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith

  Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.

  Craig, Capt. Rt. Hon. C. C. (Antrim)

  Everard, W. Lindsay

  Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.

  Craig, Ernest (Chester, Crewe)

  Fairfax. Captain J. G.

  Falle, Sir Bertram G.

  Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)

  Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)

  Fielden, E. B.

  King, Captain Henry Douglas

  Rye, F. G.

  Finburgh, S.

  Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

  Salmon, Major I.

  Fleming, D. P.

  Lamb, J. Q.

  Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)

  Ford, P. J.

  Lane-Fox, Colonel George R.

  Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)

  Forestler-Walker, Sir L.

  Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip

  Sandeman, A. Stewart

  Foster, Sir Harry S.

  Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)

  Sanders, Sir Robert A.

  Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.

  Loder, J. de V.

  Sanderson, Sir Frank

  Gadie, Lieut.-Col. Anthony

  Looker, Herbert William

  Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Guttave D.

  Galbraith, J. F. W.

  Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman

  Savery, S. S.

  Ganzoni, Sir John

  Lumley, L. R.

  Scott, Sir Leslie (Liverp'l. Exchange)

  Gates, Percy

  Lynn, Sir Robert J.

  Shaw, R. G. (Yorks. W.R., Sowerby)

  Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton

  MacAndrew, Charles Glen

  Shaw, Lt. Col. A. D. Mcl. (Renfrew, W.)

  Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)

  Sheffield, Sir Berkeley

  Glyn, Major R. G. C.

  MacDonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)

  Shepperson, E. W.

  Goff, Sir Park

  Macintyre, Ian

  Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)

  Gower, Sir Robert

  McLean, Major A.

  Skelton, A. N.

  Grant, J. A.

  Macmillan, Captain H.

  Slaney, Major P. Kenyon

  Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.

  Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm

  Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)

  Greene, W. P. Crawford

  McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John

  Sprot, Sir Alexander

  Grotrian, H. Brent

  Macquisten, F. A.

  Stanley, Lord (Fylde)

  Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.

  Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-

  Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)

  Gunston, Captain D. W.

  Makins, Brigadier-General E.

  Steel, Major Samuel Strang

  Hacking, Captain Douglas H.

  Malone, Major P. B.

  Storry Deans, R.

  Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)

  Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn

  Streatfeild, Captain S. R.

  Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)

  Margesson, Captain D.

  Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.

  Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry

  Mason, Lieut. Col. Glyn K.

  Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

  Harland, A.

  Merriman, F. B.

  Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser

  Harrison, G. J. C.

  Mayer, Sir Frank

  Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.

  Hartington, Marquess of

  Milne, J. S. Wardlaw

  Tasker, Major R. Inigo

  Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)

  Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)

  Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)

  Haslam, Henry C.

  Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)

  Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell-

  Hawke, John Anthony

  Moore, Sir Newton J.

  Turton, Edmund Russborough

  Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.

  Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)

  Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.

  Henderson, Capt. R.R.(Oxf'd, Henley)

  Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive

  Waddington, R.

  Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)

  Nail, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph

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

  Heneage, Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.

  Neville, R. J.

  Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.

  Hennessy, Major J. R. G.

  Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)

  Warrender, Sir Victor

  Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)

  Nichotson, Col. Rt. Hon, W. G. (Ptrsf'ld.)

  Waterhouse, Captain Charles

  Hills, Major John Walter

  Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert

  Watts, Dr. T.

  Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.

  Oakley, T.

  Wells, S. R.

  Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)

  O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)

  White, Lieut.-Colonel G. Dairymple

  Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy

  Oman, Sir Charles William C.

  Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)

  Holland, Sir Arthur

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

  Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)

  Holt, Captain H. P.

  Pease, William Edwin

  Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)

  Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)

  Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)

  Winby, Colonel L. P.

  Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)

  Perring, William George

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

  Hopkins, J. W. W.

  Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)

  Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

  Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.

  Philipson, Mabel

  Wise, Sir Fredric

  Howard, Captain Hon. Donald

  Pilcher, G.

  Wolmer, Viscount

  Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)

  Power, Sir John Cecil

  Womersley, W. J.

  Hudson, R. S. (Cumberland, Whiteh'n)

  Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton

  Wood, B. C. (Somerset, Bridgwater)

  Hume, Sir G. H.

  Preston. William

  Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'dge & Hyde)

  Hurst, Gerald B.

  Price, Major C. W. M.

  Wood, Sir Kingsley (Woolwich, W.)

  Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S.

  Radford, E. A.

  Woodcock, Colonel H. C.

  Jackson, Sir H, (Wandsworth, Cen'l)

  Raine, W.

  Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.

  James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert

  Ramsden, E.

  Jephcott, A. R.

  Rees, Sir Beddoe

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)

  Remnant, Sir James

  Commander B. Eyres Monsell and

  Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)

  Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)

  Colonel Gibbs.

  NOES.

  Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)

  Connolly, M.

  Greenall, T.

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

  Cove, W. G.

  Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)

  Ammon, Charles George

  Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)

  Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)

  Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)

  Crawfurd, H. E.

  Grundy, T. W.

  Baker, Walter

  Dalton, Hugh

  Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)

  Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)

  Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)

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

  Barnes, A.

  Davies, Ellis (Denbigh, Denbigh)

  Hardie, George D,

  Barr, J.

  Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

  Harris, Percy A.

  Batey, Joseph

  Day, Colonel Harry

  Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon

  Beckett, John (Gateshead)

  Dennison, R.

  Hayday, Arthur

  Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)

  Edwards, John H. (Accrington)

  Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)

  Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.

  England, Colonel A.

  Henderson, T. (Glasgow)

  Briant, Frank

  Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)

  Henn, Sir Sydney H.

  Broad, F. A.

  Fenby, T. D.

  Hirst, G. H.

  Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)

  Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.

  Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)

  Buchanan, G.

  Forrest, W.

  Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)

  Cape, Thomas

  Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.

  Hore-Belisha, Leslie

  Charleton, H. C.

  Gibbins, Joseph

  Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)

  Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.

  Gillett, George M.

  Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)

  Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)

  Gosling, Harry

  John, William (Rhondda, West)

  Compton, Joseph

  Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)

  Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

  1520

  1521

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

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

  Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)

  Ponsonby, Arthur

  Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)

  Kelly, W. T.

  Potts, John S.

  Thurtle, E.

  Kennedy, T.

  Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

  Tinker, John Joseph

  Kirkwood, D.

  Riley, Ben

  Townend, A. E.

  Lansbury, George

  Ritson, J.

  Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.

  Lawson, John James

  Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter

  Viant, S. P.

  Lee, F.

  Saklatvala, Shapurji

  Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen

  Livingstone, A. M.

  Scurr, John

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

  Lowth, T.

  Shiels, Dr. Drummond

  Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney

  MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R.(Aberavon)

  Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)

  Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah

  Mackinder, w.

  Sitch, Charles H.

  Welsh, J. C.

  MacLaren, Andrew

  Smillie, Robert

  Whiteley, W.

  Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)

  Smith, Ben (Bermondsey. Rotherhithe)

  Wiggins, William Martin

  March, S,

  Smith, H. B. Lees- (Keighley)

  Wilkinson, Ellen C.

  Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred

  Smith, Rennie (Penistone)

  Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)

  Montague, Frederick

  Snell, Harry

  Williams, David (Swansea, E.)

  Morris, R. H.

  Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip

  Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)

  Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)

  Stephen, Campbell

  Windsor, Walter

  Murnin, H.

  Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)

  Wright, W.

  Naylor, T. E.

  Sutton, J. E.

  Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)

  Oliver, George Harold

  Taylor, R, A.

  Palin, John Henry

  Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

  Thomson, Trevelyan (Middleabro, W.)

  Mr. Warne and Mr. Hayes

  Question put, and agreed to.

  LAND SETTLEMENT (FACILITIES)AMENDMENT BILL,
  Read the Third time, and passed.
  GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (CIVIL SERVICES) BILL [lords].
  Not amended (in the Standing Committee), considered; read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.

  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered; read the Third time, and passed.
  WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION BILL[Lords].
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time,."
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Commander Eyres Monsell): This is a purely Consolidating Bill and has only just come down, with a certificate stating that the Bill is a Consolidating Bill. In view of the fact that these Consolidation Bills are for the general convenience of the House, I hope we shall be allowed to pass it.
  Mr. CLYNES: I understood that Government business was to be limited to matters which have now been disposed
  1522
  of, but I have no objection to the Committee stage of this Bill going through.
  Resolved, That this House will immediately resolve itself into the Committee on the Bill. — [Commander Eyres Monsell] Bill accordingly considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment.
  Bill to be read the Third time To-morrow.

  NECESSITOUS AREAS.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth now adjourn."—[Commander Eyres Monsell.]
  Mr. MORGAN-JONES: I desire, on the Motion for the Adjournment, to raise a matter which I think needs no apology from any part of the House regarding its being raised. The subject which I wish to raise is a subject which we have heard of quite frequently in this House, and I think quite rightly, namely, the distressing circumstances of the condition of the necessitous areas in this country. I am quite sure that I speak with the approval of all Members present, when I say that this subject is one that is present to all our minds, and I am sure that it is present to the mind of the Minister, and all with whom he is associated. A certain number of Members of this House have a special responsibility in this matter by reason of the fact that the areas which they represent have particularly difficult problems to meet and par-

  1523
  ticularly heavy responsibilities at this particular time. I would like if I may, to emphasise the point, that certain areas have a problem which is entirely different in its nature and in its complexity from other areas.
  8.0 P.M.
  In a, return given in this House a week ago, at the request of the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson), we were provided with figures giving particulars of the percentage of unemployment in 10 towns where unemployment is most acute, and in 10 other towns where unemployment is least acute, and the returns that were then given by the Minister indicate quite clearly what a vast difference there is in the incidence of this problem, as between certain areas of the country and certain other areas. For instance, in regard to the high rates of unemployment in the 10 areas where unemployment is heaviest I observed, to my surprise in some measure, certainly to my alarm, that of the whole 10, seven of them are to he found in South Wales. I regret to say that the first place that appears in the list is a place which I have the honour to represent in this House. I observed that in Bargoed, which happens to be the centre of my constituency, the percentage of unemployment is as high as 64 per cent. The next highest is Jarrow. Then we have four Welsh areas, following immediately upon each other, with a percentage of unemployment over 51 per cent. That mere fact is enough to justify raising this issue to-night on the Adjournment so that the position might be ventilated and so that the Minister in charge may be able to indicate to us what the policy and the attitude of the Government is in regard to these areas which you call necessitous areas.
  I am not quite sure that all Members of this House appreciate why it is that we feel that these areas are in a special difficulty and have a special claim upon the attention of the Ministry of Health. May I speak of an area of which I happen to know very intimately? I happen to represent it in this House and also I have had the advantage of being a member of one of its local authorities for a number of years. What, is the position in these areas? I take the one with which I am most acquainted. It is to be found in the Rhymney Valley. In a very large
  1524
  number of cases these areas are rapidly growing areas. Their growth has been a sort of mushroom growth. I can myself recollect when the place first mentioned in this list, Bargoed, was nothing but a mere village, but owing to the sudden discovery of mineral resources in that area, a township has suddenly grown up. Side by side with that development of that township all kinds of complicated and pressing municipal problems have pressed themselves upon the attention of the local authorities. The, roads have had to be developed, sewers have had to be developed, water resources have had to be procured, and all these problems have crowded in upon each other not within the space of time of half a century but within a quarter of a century or less.
  The consequence is that the rates of these areas even normally would stand at a particularly high figure. In the area of which I am speaking; a special difficulty has arisen. I admit that the same conditions appertain to most areas up and down the country although it is particularly difficult for these areas of which I am speaking. Let me lake one illustration of the difficulty in which they find themselves. At the beginning of the War all the local authoritics in my area were busily occupied in laying down a sewage scheme for their areas. That was to cost rather less than £-250,000. How that the War has passed that same scheme has been completed, but at a cost, not of £250,000. but of something very nearly approaching £800,000. Similarly they have a huge water scheme to pay for which is to cost a number of authorities in my area something in the neighbourhood of £2,000,000. My reason for citing these facts is this. That enhanced burden is not due to any failure to deal with their own local problems on the part of the local administrators but on account of (he difficulties which have overtaken them through national causes. The War was after all not created by the people in my locality. It was created for the nation as a whole, and this aftermath of the War, therefore, is to that degree a national burden or a burden created for local authorities by national considerations and national difficulties. I am, therefore, urging that these enormous burdens are burdens which entitle these local authorities to argue that they are necessitous areas in a very special degree.

  1525
  I want to follow that point out a, little further. What is the consequence of these increased rates in these areas? Take my own area. When I was a member of the local authority our total rate was not much more than 10s. 6d. in the pound. At this very moment the rates in one of my areas is as high as 30s. in the pound. This has its reactions upon the finance of the local authorities. My local authority has already submitted to the Minister of Health a proposal whereby they may be able, to build a number of houses in the area. I grant that a certain number of houses have already been approved of, but because of their difficult financial situation the Ministry of Health turns round to this local authority and says, "Your financial position is so bad that we cannot allow you to build more houses." The very fact, therefore, that their local burden has been made so heavy by the national considerations to which I have referred has been used by the Ministry of Health as an excuse for refusing approval for these necessary local improvements. Not-only that, but it has a worse reaction than that. When the local rates of the local authorities are as high as they are—and, indeed, the increases that one could bring to the attention of this House are staggering in their character—the reactions are worse in another way. When the local authorities have got authority from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health and his chief the Minister of Health to embark on local improvements or, indeed, on works providing employment for the unemployed miners, and they go into the market to secure money, or, rather, to invite gentlemen to lend money to them, they find that these gentlemen turn round and say, quite naturally, "Your commitments locally are so heavy, your debts are so burdensome, that it is impossible for us to contemplate lending you money in an area where your prospects of being able to repay are not as bright or as hopeful as they are in other parts of the country." The consequence is that these overburdened areas, these necessitous areas, are crippled in every way by reason of the difficulty which they themselves are not responsible for.
  There are certain very important human considerations which one must also put to the hon. Gentleman opposite. These unemployed workmen are com
  1526
  pelled by reason of their poverty and their lack of facilities for earning their livelihood to turn to the local boards of guardians. Now they turn with confidence to certain boards of guardians. It depends, of course, on what the complexion of the particular boards of guardians they be. In some areas they are sympathetically treated, for their condition is well understood by the guardians concerned. But in other areas the proposition is not so comfortable for those concerned. I have before me at this moment a document from which I propose to read. It is a letter which has been received indicating the state of affairs in South Wales, in Monmouthshire, and how this state of affairs applies to people who happen to be unfortunate enough to be placed within the confines of an area controlled by less sympathetic guardians. This concerns the case of a miner which was discussed recently before the Abergavenny Board of Guardians.
  "An unemployed miner, with a wife and eight children, ill receipt of 39s. unemployment pay, applied to the Board for assistance. The Board expressed sympathy with the man, but refused any relief on the ground that the man's income was above the maximum scale paid by the Board, namely, 32s. a week."
  I invite the hon. Gentleman opposite to examine that proposition. Here is a man with a wife and eight children, and they are expected to live upon the impossible sum of 32s. a week. It is utterly impossible for, after all, the cost of living in these areas is as heavy in every degree, taking all in all, as the cost of living in London or in other large towns. Rent is very heavy, and to meet all these enormous demands—I am not speaking of luxuries, of things that people in this condition of life can perhaps do without— they are expected to live on 32s. a week. I am not, as I said, demanding luxuries at all, but I ask the hon. Gentleman opposite to consider how a man with a wife and eight children can reasonably be expected to live and pay the demands that fall on him on that sum.
  What is the consequence of all this? There are figures which are eloquent in themselves as to the terrible consequences that are overtaking the families in various parts of South Wales. Objection has been taken recently to certain speeches of my hon. Friends on this side of the

  1527
  House relevant to conditions in South Wales. People say they are exaggerated, and that their statements are overdone. Let us examine the facts. In 1919 the death rate in this particular area was 14·9 per 1,000. In the same year the infantile mortality was 78·85 per 1,000. In the year 1924, in the same area, the infantile mortality had mounted up to the horrible figure of 127 per 1,000.
  Mr. LANSBURY: That is murder by government.
  Mr. MORGAN JONES: Why is this? The real reason must surely be apparent to every Member. The only logical deduction you can get from these figures is that the poverty and the condition of the home are so terrible and the means whereby the head of the family can meet the day-to-day needs of the family are so limited that even the children have to suffer the natural consequences. It is not such an exaggeration as it seems to be to say that a direct consequence of this abnormal poverty in these areas is that children are, in fact, dying before their parents' eyes because of the horrible poverty from which their families are suffering. I want to compare that figure with the figure for the whole of England and Wales. The infantile mortality for England and Wales for 1924 was 75 per thousand, and in the particular area to which I am referring it was 127 per thousand. The facts only need to be stated to bring conviction, I trust, to the heart of every Member who happens to be listening to me. In the administrative county of Monmouth in 1924 the infantile mortality stood at 75·6, whereas for this necessitous area it stood at the abnormal figure of 127·2 per 1,000. The point I wish to make is this: Here am areas—and I could multiply instances like that, from my own area, from adjacent areas, the Aberdare area, the Rhondda Valley area, the Neath area, from almost every industrial area in South Wales at this moment —in which this position of affairs prevails, and I think this House has a right, and the representatives of these areas have a special right, to ask the hon. Gentleman opposite what methods his Ministry proposes to adopt in order to deal with the special claims of these very hard-hit areas.
  There is a good deal of alarm being expressed by hon. Members opposite from
  1528
  time to time as to the growth of what they are pleased to call revolutionary feeling in certain parts of the country. We may perhaps join with them in regretting the form in which this feeling is sometimes expressed, but it has been said repeatedly in this House, and with some truth, that hungry men become angry men, and angry men may not always be depended upon to act in what we are pleased to call a reasonable way. Revolutionary feeling is fed upon a sense of grievance, a sense of wrong, and a sense of injustice, and I feel that if this condition of affairs is allowed to remain very much longer in the part of the country to which I have the honour to belong the consequence will be that sooner or later this kind of feeling may get out of hand. I trust not, but even if it should, though perhaps I might regret it, I should still, I trust, be able to understand the reason for its existence.
  But there is another issue raised by this set of circumstances, and it is this: Are we not in fact, in areas like this, approaching the time when local government as we now know it is in danger of complete collapse? Areas such as my own. and such as are represented by the hon. Members for Poplar, the hon. Members for Middlesbrough, and others, are met with problems which no local resources are adequate to meet. It is impossible to expect these areas, with all these problems forcing themselves upon the attention of local administrators at once and together, to confront these burdens with the same measure of equanimity as, let as say, Westminster or other more happily situated areas are able to do. So I ask the hon. Gentleman opposite whether in fact it is not possible for the Ministry to come to the aid in a special way of these exceptionally hard-pressed areas. Is it not possible, for instance, in regard to their difficult housing situation, to have some special procedure applied to them whereby they may be able to meet their exceptional problems of exceptional overcrowding without having to impose upon themselves an added burden to that which they are already bearing, on behalf, as I submit, of the whole of the nation?
  I plead, therefore, for special treatment for these local authorities. I am not asking for special treatment for South Wales merely, because I recognise only

  1529
  too well that there are other areas in almost the same condition as we are, but I do plead as earnestly as I can for special consideration for these areas, which in these days are called upon to bear a burden not in any degree comparable with the burdens of much more favoured areas in the country. I trust that before this Debate ends we shall be able to hear from the hon. Gentleman opposite some indication that the Ministry of Health is having regard to the condition of these areas, and not only so, but is prepared also to come to their aid in this hour of their need, and to make special provision to meet their very special condition.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): Has the hon. Member any special plan to suggest, or could he develop the last part of his speech a little more?
  Mr. MORGAN JONES: It is not entirely my work to initiate plans on behalf of the hon. Gentleman opposite, who has been elected to his post to do this particular work, and I am sure that with his very fruitful mind he will not be without some proposals to that end. But I am quite cure that, if I can get the approval of my hon. Friend opposite to the principle I am putting forward, since two heads are better than one, it might be possible and indeed probable that some adequate method, or at least some more adequate method than there is at present, might be found for dealing with this exceptional situation in these hard-pressed areas.
  Sir WILFRID SUGDEN: I want to support the appeal that has been made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones) from the Front Opposition Bench, not only for a speeding-up of the Committee that has been appointed by the Prime Minister to investigate the case of the 75 necessitous areas in Great Britain as to special treatment and consideration by the Exchequer, but I want to ask the spokesman of the Government to-night to give us a definite assurance that, when the Committee of Investigation has reported—it can report in no other fashion than for practical help, bearing in mind the starvation and privation that are obtaining, with all our social amelioration at the present time— immediate action shall be taken, and that it will be of a practical nature in
  1530
  regard to grants, cheap municipal finance and rate relief.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health asked hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition Benches for some definite, practical proposal. No Member of this House with whom one has had the honour and privilege of "colleagueship" during the six or seven years that I have been a Member will lay to my charge any especial love or affinity for the extreme irrational methods that may be, and have been, propounded sometimes from those Socialist benches. But I do say that if the Parliamentary Secretary wants some guidance and lead, as apparently he does, I would suggest to him that he might consider the scheme that was put forward by the Borough Treasurer of West Ham, and say at once that while one is by no means enamoured of all that is contained in that scheme, there is contained therein some part of a fundamental basis which, with perfect protection to our own Exchequer carefully assured, might be applied in some degree to the problem. Be that as it may, I am prepared to take any risk rather than there should obtain the enormous amount of starvation which exists in Hartlepool to-night. When I read, as I do, that men who have been in continuous employment for over 20 years, men who have endeavoured in all parts of the country to obtain work and have been unsuccessful, are being brought before the magistrates to pay rates and to face the liability of rates, I say the time has come when there should be some assurance from the Government that there shall be some further consideration shown to these hard cases, and something definite done for the easing of rates which the great industrial class carry in many of these districts, particularly in my own constituency of The Hartlepools.
  What exactly is the position? The hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson) has told us on one or two occasions of the rate carried per ton of shipbuilding, etc., in his necessitous area of Sunderland. Speaking as a business man to-night, I say it is good business that a "very well-off " suburban area or such districts in the country as carry by reason of the wealth of their occupants a very low rating value, should help to carry some of the burden of the overrated great

  1531
  industrial areas of the country. You may call it Socialism if you care. No one wilt accuse me of being a Socialist. I call it common sense, for in the long run such wealthy low rated areas will via national taxation be called upon to carry extra taxes to meet costs in necessitous areas. "Socialism," according to my definition is, "A method of academic reasoning not-practicable when applied to present day needs and necessities." All I want to say to-night is that with over 47½ per cent. of our workers in our great industrial regions a areas like Hartlepool—out of work with, the uncertainty of obtaining employment—and I want to pay proper respect and regard to the Minister of Labour for what he is doing;, although I do not think he is always going the best way to work, or availing himself of such opportunities as I have offered him. But that by the way. Some attempt, I agree, is being made. But unless the overweight which is being pressed on these necessitous areas in respect to the price per ton carried in regard to rolled steel, shipbuilding, pig-iron and other sections of industry, varying from 2s. 3d. per ton in some cases to 12s. 9d. in others, this country will never be able perfectly and efficiently to carry its heavy national debt and contribute its full quota in respect of the progressive efficiency of citizenship in the industrial areas, nor in respect to the application and bearing of the poor rates, and compete successfully in the markets of the world. His Majesty's Minister of Health has certain proposals of an excellent character dealing with the reconstruction of the Poor Law. I have carefully gone into those proposals.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope): It is not permissible to discuss proposals for future legislation, but only what happens in the administration and is in the power of the Department under existing laws.
  Mr. MacLAREN: But did not the Minister ask us to give him some advice in the way of suggestions?
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I assume he meant some advice as regards the administration of his office.
  Sir W. SUGDEN: I bow to your ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and leave the tempting subject of the Poor Law proposals of
  1532
  the Minister of Health. I would suggest that what we desire from the Minister is not of necessity merely a capita grant of money, and money alone, to relieve our rates. While we say that a reduction in the cost of management of our towns would be distinctly helpful as a byproduct in regard to the cost of that which we produce, and which has to meet in open competition with the world, we want to say that in respect to the health and well-being of the citizens of. our towns and our cities, there are improvements long overdue from the days of the War, improvements which certainly would have been carried our had not the expensive war intervened. For example, in my own constituency of the Hartlepools, the Harbour Commissioners, this shipowners' associations, chamber' of shipping and trades and also the workpeople's representatives and those associated with them, have carefully examined the shipping and harbour facilities. as well as facilities dealing with the transport of goods across the country from Hartlepool which in past days sent goods to all parts of the country and have recommended unanimously that it would be a wry good proposition if two or three millions of money could be spent in enlarging and helping the harbour accommodation, in making possible better facilities of transport from this very fine shipping centre geographically placed to make it a quick and a cheap centre. If this money could be spent, it would help in a great degree to find employment, and would not in he slightest degree detract from the high moral capacity of industrialism and craftsmanship that at present obtains in our centre which unemployment grants carried out year after year has a possible danger of doing. When I brought these matters before? the responsible Minister, I was informed that the money was not available. But the money was available to a wealthy city like Liverpool to make a tunnel under the Mersey, and it is available to other like wealthy sections who are allowed funds by reason of their numerical representation here and by reason, some of us Think, sometime, of their especial heavy political colouring. Again, we have need for more and greater facilities in respect to technical schools: an excellent but overcrowded building does duty for such in my constituency; greater facilities for hospital

  1533
  treatment, etc.—all needed work for suitable out-of-work engineers and craftsmen.
  Those of us who represent these great industrial areas, which, more than many other centres are suffering hardships and privations with all the facilities that obtain by way of support and amelioration, are determined that this heavy weight resting upon our shoulders, disproportionately, shall have proper consideration from those who have not so heavy a burden to carry, and that the nation must help us thereon. In conclusion the Parliamentary Secretary asked for proposals in addition to those I have given to him. If he will very carefully diagnose the proposals put forward by Members from every part of the House at the recent interview we had with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and will adopt some of those proposals, he will have full and ample opportunity of relieving the great distress that obtains in many of our great centre?.
  Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: I wish to join in the appeal which has been made to the Government to give every consideration to the case of the necessitous areas. This is no party matter. As representing the third section of the House, I would note that there is a unanimous appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary that he should give more consideration to the needs of these? districts. Those needs have been placed before him, in the case, first, of South Wales, and in the second case in respect of the needs of the Hartlepools, and I wish in a word or two now to put forward the special need of the North-East coast, and Middlesbrough, those districts adjoining Hartlepools, where we are suffering severely owing to the unemployment in the heavy steel trades. I would remind the Parliamentary Secretary that the unemployment rate in the insured trades for the country is 11'4 per cent. , while on the North-East coast, and in the shipbuilding industry, the figures for last month show 51 per cent. : in the marine engineering, 39·5 per cent. , and in iron and steel, 26·6.
  With this appalling witness to the depth of the need it must be obvious that you have a burden falling in a very unequal degree upon districts least able to bear it, and I, therefore, wish to support the appeal put forward by the other speakers that the relief of unemployment
  1534
  should be regarded as, not a local, but a national burden. Figures that were given a little while ago by way of illustration showed that the numbers relieved per 10,000 were: Lanchester, 1,846, Bedwelty, 1,205, Gateshead 1,151, while for Exeter it was 110, Carlisle 114, and Headington, 46. These figures illustrate very clearly how unequal the burden is pressing on one district as compared with another. These figures are re Mooted in the rates and show that whereas in Middlesbrough the. rate was 19s. 4d., and Merthyr Tydvil 24s. 4d. on the pound, if you look at other residential places in the country, Oxford, Eastbourne, Bournemouth, Southport, and Blackpool, you will find that their average rate is 8s. to 9s. on the pound.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health asked for suggestions. My suggestion is that there should be a measure of equalisation of burdens such as this, which should be considered a national charge. The same principle could be applied as obtains in connection with the Metropolitan Common Fund. The same principle as applies in the case of special grants to necessitous is school areas. This same principle, I say, should be applied in the case of the relief of unemployment. We may perhaps be told that there is a Departmental Committee now sitting, and that, it has been taking evidence this week to deal with the claims which have been put forward. The Parliamentary Secretary will probably say that until after that particular report he will not be able, or has not been able, to do anything. I do, however, ask him not to be satisfied with this negative attitude. This Committee was promised as far back as last August. Here we are nearly at the end of the year and nothing tangible has yet been done. How many more months have we to wait?
  I urge that the Ministry in the meantime, and until we get the Report of the Committee, should do something to relieve the gross necessities of these particular districts. He asked for suggestions. As my hon. Friend the Member for the Hartlepools has suggested, there are many valuable public works needed in these districts, if only there were adequate financial assistance given. At present, however, the assistance does not amount to more than 25 to 33 per cent.

  1535
  of the total cost. Where you have rates of from 20s. to 30s. in the £ you can, hardly expect—it is more than human nature can stand—to add to those rates by launching further schemes for the relief of unemployment in the particular district. In the district I represent we have already spent over £1,000,000 in unemployment relief work. We cannot indulge in any further capital expenditure unless we get more assistance.
  Therefore, I suggest to the Minister that the immediate practical needs of the moment are for him to persuade the Treasury to make increased grants towards these necessitous areas for unemployment. The scheme should be on a national scale because unemployment, as I have pointed out, varies from 10 or 11 per cent. in some districts to over 50 per cent. on the North-East coast. To give the same method of grant for the relief of unemployment in areas where the distress is so very different, surely, is hardly reasonable; and I put in a plea for a percentage grant, the percentage of relief, higher where the unemployment is higher, and vice versa. We should also spend public money in carrying out public works which, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, will be valuable assets to the districts and to the nation. In my district, as in that of my hon. Friend, schemes have been under consideration for docks extension, etc., but it is a question of the finance being forthcoming. Improvements in the shipments of goods from the port, in the workshops and factories, and so on, might be made. In other directions work of a public character could be undertaken on which labour could be usefully employed rather than that labour should be receiving unemployment benefit. Those concerned would rather not have the unemployment benefit. The total extra cost per week on 21st November, in Middlesbrough, owing to the disallowance of benefit, was £636.
  That, again, is adding tremendously to the burden of our rates. Then we have the Government's education circular which, if it is carried out in its present form, will increase local rates, particularly in industrial areas where there are a large number of children. Not only is this plea put forward on the ground of common justice, but from the
  1536
  business standpoint. These heavy rates not only hit the poorest of the poor but are a severe tax on industry, and whereas, in one particular works in the borough I have the honour to represent, the local rates in 1913 corresponded to a charge of 7d. per ton on the steel manufactured, this year they correspond to a charge of 2s. 11d. In other works, rates which were equivalent to 1s. per ton are now equivalent to 6s. 3d. In other works in the same district the rates and insurance contributions were equal to 3s. 3d. per ton of steel manufactured; to-day they are equal to 10s. 3d. So I might go on, showing that this is acting, not merely as a measure of hardship on individual ratepayers, but as a handicap to that very recovery of trade which is the only real solution of the problem.
  May I give this other figure to the Parliamentary Secretary, to show that our rates are 50 per cent. in arrears? On 1st April rates were levied to the amount of £298,000, and on 1st October £194,000 was in arrear. Out of 13,000 ratepayers more than 6,700 were in default. Surely further evidence is not required to show the necessity of this district. The justice of our claim has been established on all hands. As to the practicability of our remedies, I put it to the Parliamentary Secretary that, instead of paying out these millions of money in poor relief and unemployed benefit, it would be better to spend an even larger sum of money in providing work for the unemployed, because at the end of it we should have something to show for it, and we should have preserved the morale and the physical fitness of our people. That is one of the worst features of the position. There are men in the shipyards who have done no work for two or three years.
  Sir W. SUGDEN: Four years, sometimes.
  Mr. THOMSON: If this state of things continues the men will not be fit to take up skilled work again. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary not to shelter himself behind the fact that a Departmental Committee is sitting. It has been sitting for nearly six months, and it may be another six months before its conclusions are carried out, and meanwhile distress is aggravated and the burden is accumulating. Let us have some imme-

  1537
  diate relief on the lines we have suggested, and then the Debate will not have been of an unfruitful character.
  Mr. GROVES: Representing, as I do, a portion of one of the most important boroughs in the country from this point of view, and a borough that has, if I may say so with due respect, had the gloves on with the Minister of Health more than once—I mean by that West Ham—I would like to put it to the Minister, in a perfectly straight way—and he knows that I always endeavour to put my views courteously to him—that West Ham needs attention from the Government on two grounds. In the first place it is necessitous from the point of view of lack of housing accommodation, and it is necessitous on account of the widespread unemployment. The Parliamentary Secretary, who represents a constituency near mine, Is probably as well aware of the causes of this poverty in West Ham as I am. I want to impress upon him that the poverty is not our fault. I was born in Stratford and grew up with it. I knew Stratford when it was prosperous. The questions that have occupied this House over a number of years have proved to me that the War has resulted in the loss of our markets, and Stratford is suffering as a result of that economic stringency. Before the War boats used to go to the Baltic and other parts laden with goods produced in this country, and other boats came from the Baltic into the docks, and our men got wages for loading or unloading this merchandise. Flax, oil, grain, timber, and other things, were brought in, and we sent out agricultural and other implements manufactured by our artisans at home. To-day, owing to the loss of our export trade, our men, instead of loading or unloading boats, are queuing up-well, they were, but they are not to-day, I am sorry to say—outside the Employment Exchanges. The persistence of unemployment has so badly affected my area that men lost first their standard benefit and then their extended benefit, and now a large number of them are not getting any benefit at all.
  In addition to the economic side of the question, there is a deep moral side. What is happening is eating into the heart of the manhood and the womanhood of this country. I look upon my men in Stratford, and West Ham generally, as being
  1538
  in an extremely disastrous position when they have to choose between looking their wife in the face and saying, "Mate, there is nothing this week," and going to the relieving officer. I have had quarrels, diplomatic quarrels, with the Minister over these questions. Does he realise how the existence of this state of things is demoralising our manhood? I have seen these men on the day they go to the R.O.—to use the vernacular—for the first time. These men, who years ago were proud British workmen, go with bowed heads when they visit the relieving officer for the first time. When they have been there for a month, they go with head erect. We sometimes denounce these men, but society has taught them that they can get money there without toiling—society has denied them the right to toil. These men are begging, so to speak, at the doors of the Ministry of Health, and we, their representatives, just have to take advantage of these few minutes on the Adjournment to lay their case before the Minister, so that he may feel that the area itself is not guilty, and I know he will agree that it is not.
  My West Ham is suffering as the result of great, world-wide economic conditions. We are the second largest borough in the United Kingdom, and we have a good past industrially. As a result of the overtures made when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carmarthen (Sir A. Mond) was Minister of Health, our borough was urged to go to the Ministry for loans to tide over the difficulty. When West Ham, like other necessitous areas shouldered the burden of unemployment it stood between this country and revolution. There is no doubt about that. These men in the East End of London would not stand starvation after so many of them had been through the War. Our county sent a very large proportion of men to fight for their country, and yet to-day we have. I believe, the largest percentage of ex-service men living on the relieving officer's pittance. That is a very serious thing.
  I urge hon. Members to note the economic position of our borough. In company with the hon. Member for Silver-town, I went to the Ministry of Health to urge our last loan. I admit that we were very courteously received, and the only thing we objected to was the cutting down of the amount, and the conditions

  1539
  then imposed were hardly fair according to the circumstances. Our people were placed in a position which they did not seek. In the past they were good and industrious people, and they have been brought down to a state of destitution, and therefore I say that they have a right to declare that after giving their best services to the country they ought not to be living on paupers' bread, and they have a right to claim that the nation should provide them with adequate and humane maintenance. Our trouble in West Ham is a financial one. We have borrowed £2,000,000, and we have paid back nearly £1,000,000. I would remind hon. Members that after all they have said about West Ham, it has stood the test even financially, for we have paid back to the Exchequer nearly £1,000,000, and we are proving that, after the assistance you have given us to tide over this national emergency, we are doing our duty in shouldering the burden without acrimony and almost without food. We are facing the situation as boldly as we can, but in our borough we cannot continue to shoulder this financial burden. We shall shortly have to borrow £200,000 in order to pay the interest on the money we have already borrowed.
  I want to point out that this problem is not a local one, because it is the duty of the National Assembly to apply itself to the alleviation of this state of things, and this can only be done by the Government meeting the expenditure and commitments within the Union of West Ham caused by the unemployed. This burden ought not to be shouldered by the local taxpayers but by the National Exchequer and by the taxpayers of the nation. We have 27,000 cases per week receiving unemployment pay and there are 60,000 people in the Poor Law Union of West Ham who are living on ordinary Poor Law relief. That is a great national problem in itself, and its administration perplexes the best tried local administrators. May I urge the moral side of it because you are doing a great deal to demoralise the manhood of this country in this way. I know it is a difficult thing for the Government to promulgate schemes of work for the unemployed. Last year I asked what schemes the Government were going to introduce for the alleviation of distress, and I ascertained that very few schemes were forthcoming.
  1540
  All I have to say is that if we do not get more schemes for work in West Ham it simply means the continuance of the miserable position of all these men and women practically begging for bread.
  9.0 P.M.
  I think after all the noble traditions we have heard of, our men and women are entitled to claim that they should be maintained like men and women and not like paupers. West Ham cannot continue to shoulder the burden of Poor Law relief, and they cannot afford to keep 60,000 per annum doing nothing, and therefore it is necessary to treat West Ham as a necessitous area. Notwithstanding the reason which has been put forward by the Minister of Health for the position in which West Ham finds itself, I assert that the reason why West Ham is in the worst position is because it suffers the most, and people ought to benefit according to the incidence of their suffering. I look upon this problem in West Ham as a tragedy. Many of these people went to the War to fight for their rights and for the freedom of this country, and I ask the Government to recognise that there is a fuller mentality in the country to-day. When we were discussing the Communist prosecution there was a feeling aroused that the people are not going to suffer these hardships much longer, and if the Government want to put off the revolutionary spirit I hope they will learn that one way to keep it back is, first of all, to feed the people.
  At present our people are simply begging and that is not a right position for the people to be put into. The Government have a solid majority and can do what they like, and if the Minister of Health came forward with a programme of constructive work, I can assure him that he would not get any opposition from this side, but, on the contrary, he would get cordial support. I want hon. Members to feel that they must come to the succour of West Ham financially and assist us to tackle properly the housing problem, because that is a human problem. The people in my borough are living in some cases 10 in one room, and that is a disgrace to any civilised country. We take this opportunity of laying the facts before the Minister of Health, and we ask him to recognise that the time has come for the Government to attempt to master this problem, and declare that

  1541
  the burden of the poverty of the country shall not be imposed upon the shoulders of the local ratepayers but shall be shouldered by the Government in a fair manner.
  Mr. WRIGHT: I should like to make a brief contribution to this Debate, and to endorse what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford (Mr. Groves) with regard to the urgency of this problem as it applies to my own constituency of Rutherglen. It would be invidious to attempt to declare in any very definite manner what particular part of the United Kingdom is most seriously affected by this problem of unemployment and necessitous areas, but those who know the West of Scotland will agree, I think, that there is no district in the country which is suffering and has suffered more severely than the West of Scotland during this prolonged and unparalleled period of trade depression. That is particularly true in my own division of Rutherglen. We have many highly-skilled workmen, of whom it would be equally true to say, as the previous speaker has said, that they went to the War voluntarily, and have given of their best. They followed very important occupations in the past, and the whole of this area is suffering very intensely and acutely—much more severely than a vast number of people imagine.
  I am convinced that our local authorities cannot bear this tremendous burden very much longer. A year ago I submitted a statistical statement to the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Pensions with regard to this area. The parish authorities have appealed to me repeatedly since then, and I have often tried, though I regret to say in vain, to make a contribution on this question to the Debates in this House during the present year. It is perfectly obvious that, unless some special consideration be given to this problem, and unless the burden be removed from the shoulders of the local authorities on to the National Exchequer— because we believe it to be a national burden—very disastrous events will take place, in all probability at no very distant date. I feel certain that our people desire to do a useful day's work. They are perfectly willing to do it, and they are peaceful and law-abiding citizens. I do not want to make any wild or extreme statements, but I think
  1542
  that what people sometimes call revolution would have taken place already had it not been for the fact of this provision of relief, which is said to have cost the nation £225,000,000 during the last five years. That is a sum of money which, had it been spent in productive enterprise, would have met to a very considerable extent the demands that are now being made.
  Inasmuch as we have had no visitation on behalf of the Government in our area in the West of Scotland to investigate this problem for themselves, I should like to appeal to the Ministers who are not here. It is rather singular, seeing that this is one of the most distressed areas in the whole country, that there is not a single Minister to pay any attention to what is being said on the matter. There is in fact no Scottish Minister on the Front Bench at the present moment, and I only but express the views of all the Scottish Labour Members here when I say that we are not going to stand this very much longer. It is a shocking state of affairs. Our people are the most highly skilled workmen in this country, and vast numbers of them are absolutely destitute. In my judgment it is a disgrace to the Government, and a disgrace to the nation, that this kind of thing should go on very much longer. If I could do anything to stir them up to peaceful revolt I would very gladly do it, if I thought there was the ghost of a chance of their succeeding in their effort.
  If we were living in some distant part of the world, where it was impossible to obtain the essentials of well-ordered life, we might all agree to share whatever was going. But to-day we are living in a land where the power to create wealth was never so great as it is now. By the aid of machinery and mechanical appliances, by the skill possessed by our workmen, we could very easily but for this horrible system of landlordism and capitalism which prevails to-day, supply the needs of our own people in food, clothing and shelter without any real difficulty. There is not a shadow of doubt about that; the Scottish Cooperative Wholesale Society have demonstrated it over and over again. If something drastic be not done at no very distant date, and if the people over the West of Scotland rise in revolt, this Government will be held responsible for

  1543
  it, and no one else. If my colleagues were in my mood, they would go back over the Border, and never come here again, because honestly I do not believe that a serious effort is being made.
  The Secretary for Scotland has now come in. He is a neighbour of ours, whom I have invited on more than one occasion to come just a few miles from his own division, and see what is going on in Rutherglen, Cambuslang and Blantyre. But it is all in vain. I feel that if the Minister of Pensions would come and see for himself, I would even undertake to speak with a Conservative Minister on the same platform. In vain I have appealed to the Minister of Labour, under whose Department men are being refused benefit as not genuinely seeking work. This has been going on for fully a year, if not longer. Men have submitted certificates from a dozen employers of labour as evidence that they were seeking work, but they have been refused benefit on this ground, and we still ask in vain for a definition of what is meant by "genuinely seeking work."
  We are frittering away our time day after day and night after night in this august Assembly upon twopenny-halfpenny things, in comparison with the great problems of the day. After all, what is the good of a Government if it cannot provide the essentials of well-ordered life for people who are perfectly willing and capable of producing them? In many respects, in this highly civilised and much belauded 20th century, our people are infinitely worse off than people in many of the so-called savage places of the world. If they were living apart from a Government, apart from our modern Press and banking system, and had access to the forces of Nature, they would be living in comparative comfort as compared with the position of affairs to-day. Therefore, what we are witnessing now, although the Government are extraordinarily slow to realise it, is the collapse of the old order of landlordism and capitalism. Sooner or later the nation will realise that that is a fair and correct analysis of what is going on.
  I venture to appeal to the Secretary for Scotland. If he will not feel that he is in any way disgraced by my presence and that of one or two of my colleagues,
  1544
  we shall be delighted to spend some brief period during the forthcoming holidays in showing him what there is to be seen in various parts of Lanarkshire. In that case, I venture to say—at least, I hope I am not misjudging the right hon. Gentleman—that he will come back here fortified with a knowledge which he does not at present possess, if I may say so with all due respect to him, and I hope he will then submit some very definite practical proposals for the opening up of work, financed by the nation, if you will, with a large loan, because there is any amount of land to be reclaimed in Scot-land, there are any number of roads to be made, there are plenty of relief works which could be done, if it is not. possible again to re-establish the markets abroad. We have the plant, we have the skill, we have the men capable of supplying those distant markets, and but for the short-sighted policy pursued by the Government during recent years, some measure of relief might have come from that quarter. There is the further fact that this question cannot be delayed very much longer, and, speaking in the name of the parish authorities of my own constituency, I appeal to-night to the right hon. Gentleman, on behalf of Scotland, not to ignore this question any longer. It has been ignored too long, and, if there be any rising in the West of Scotland, the responsibility for that will rest upon the incompetent and utterly incapable Government which is in office at the present time.
  Mr. W. PRESTON: It is a great pleasure to me to take part in a Debate which affects my native borough and the town in which I live and which I represent. The Walsall Union embraces, in addition to the county borough of Walsall, the urban district of Darlaston, the Walsall Rural District and part of the Brownhill Urban District, including mining villages. The population of the union at the 1921 Census was 136,555 and the assessable value in April, 1923, was £476,376. This is the fifth winter of abnormal unemployment in the Walsall Union, as shown by the following figures: In March, 1914, the outdoor relief given was £156 per week, but it had pone up in 1923 to £2,328. Fortunately it was reduced a little in 1925, to £1,202, and during the past summer the amount paid in out relief

  1545
  has increased, instead of decreasing, as is usual in the summer period. The amount of capital commitments on unemployment relief schemes in respect of the county borough of Walsall alone up to date is approximately £255,000 on non-revenue producing schemes such as road widening, etc., involving a rate of approximately 7d. in the £, and this will be very seriously increased on the expiration of the limited period during which Government grants are made.
  In spite of the re-assessment of the Walsall Union which has been carried out during the last few years, the assessable value per head of the population remains low, and the total rate for the county borough of Walsall during the past six years averages 17s. 9d. in the £. Walsall is peculiarly situated. It is a large area, but is surrounded by small towns which have very large factories. Unfortunately, when those factories have little work, the people who live in Walsall and are employed at them come on to the Walsall Union. We are a town of a hundred trades. There are 632 manufacturers, but they have only small factories, there being only one which is employing 1,000 workpeople. The others on the average do not employ more than 250 each. Furthermore, the majority of the chief manufacturers do not live in the borough. They go outside, and, as a consequence, our rateable value is very low. However, we are hoping for better things, and are looking forward to the inquiry which the Departmental Committee are setting up, trusting that they will devise a scheme for necessitous areas which will do something tangible for us.
  Mr. CONNOLLY: Like the last speaker on these benches, I feel it my duty to say that our experiences in these Debates are very regrettable. I think this is the fifth or sixth Debate I have taken part in with regard to necessitous areas and unemployment, and the usual experience has been of a half-empty house, particularly the Minister being absent. After our first Front Bench speech the Parliamentary Secretary put across what I thought was a reasonable question. He asked if my hon. Friend could make any suggestions. That is reasonable enough though, of course, it does not relieve him from the responsibility of also putting forward suggestions. I think we can put a reasonable question to him and ask
  1546
  whether he thinks it proper, in face of this question, which transcends in importance every other question, invariably to have in these Debates empty benches behind him. The least they could do is to come in and hear the discussion upon this very important matter.
  The first thing I want to do is to draw attention to to-day's OFFICIAL REPORT and ask what limitation the Department puts upon the answer that was given to the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Henley-on-Thames (Captain Henderson), who asked the hon. Gentleman whether he was aware that in the borough of Bootle 130 men were employed at full trade union rates by the giving of the full amount of relief from the board of guardians to the corporation; also that this was augmented by grants from the Unemployment Grants Committee to the extent of 75 per cent. of the loan interest and also the capital charge for one half of the period of the loan. To me this is a very important matter as far as palliatives are concerned. It is in this direction that the Ministry will have to move, and I should like to ask whether the Department puts any set limitation upon the grant, and also, with regard to his instructions, how far the guardians can go in the matter. I intend to send this copy of the OFFICIAL REPORT to our local authority, and to ask them to move in the direction indicated by the answer given yesterday, that the Minister himself will give every assistance to corporations and to urban authorities to make applications for grants under these Clauses.
  Captain HENDERSON: I think the question was put by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bootle (Lieut.-Colonel Henderson).
  Mr. CONNOLLY: I am glad the hon. and gallant Gentleman has put me right. There are about five Members of the same name. I want to emphasise the necessity for the extension of these operations. At the beginning of the last-financial year I made application to the Newcastle Council, of which I am a member, to get some very bad roadways in my ward put right. They were in a disgraceful condition. I found the available money was only something like £3,000, and these very necessary repairs had to be diverted to another financial year. If the Ministry will extend, as far

  1547
  as their powers will allow them, the giving of grants to local authorities, to further road schemes, etc., something will be done in the way of a palliative.
  With regard to the responsibility for meeting the charges caused by unemployment, I meet our guardians very often, and I was at a meeting quite recently when they were in a very disturbed state as to the fulfilment of their work and carrying on and paying out at the agreed scale. I said to them, "You can only do your best. The responsibility does not lie with you. The responsibility for all this unemployment does not rest in the board of guardians' room, but in the room that I sit in. The policy of the Government of the day—and when I speak of the Government I do not mean a Tory Government, or a Coalition Government, but a Government in the abstract, is responsible for the policy and you in this district are suffering"—as the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson) has pointed out—" to the extent of 51 per cent. unemployed." We have in the Tyne districts a larger proportion even than that, for that was the average for the north-east coast. In my constituency there is fully 60 per cent. of our shipyard workers idle. I say now, as I have said many times before, that the responsibility lies here.
  Questions have been answered in the House recently, a question was asked yesterday, and another question will be asked to-morrow, with regard to what I consider the real cause of unemployment in our area. In an answer given before, it was stated that we had received over 2,000,000 gross tons of German shipping. We are a shipbuilding centre. The North-East coast and the Tyne and other places in the country are dependent on shipbuilding to give employment to our people. The answer given was that we have received well over 2,000,000 tons. Putting that at the very lowest figure, it comes to over £20,000,000 that we have received in shipbuilding tonnage, and the policy pursued here has thrown our people out of work. The town councils are not responsible for it, the guardians are not responsible for it, and I say seriously to the House that if this policy is to be pursued—I am speaking of reparations, and I am asking a question about this to-morrow as to whether it has definitely ceased or will cease in the
  1548
  immediate future—that policy is responsible for unemployment, and it is the business and the duty of this House, if that policy is to go on, to find some counteracting influence to it, and to find some remedy or at least to find some effective palliative.
  The question of the equalisation of rates has been mentioned. That is something that the Minister ought to consider in face of the fact that we are not out of the Slough of Despond yet and that unemployment may go on for quite a number of years. It is a serious matter that industrial centres like Middlesbrough, Glasgow, London and Newcastle, have to bear, not only their own share of the burden of unemployment, but also the burden of such places as Bournemouth, Teignmouth, Margate, Tyne-mouth and other watering places. We have people deriving the whole of their income from our industrial centres where there is 5s. 5d. poor rate to pay, while the total rates in the particular areas in which they live do not amount to that figure. That is a crying injustice, and I am glad we have had from the Conservative benches to-night some backing for the continual protest we have made against this particular form of rating.
  There are many other Members who want to get in, but I want to say with regard to this question of reparations, I have again and again asked the House to consider the question of ceasing taking reparation tonnage while we have so much unemployment and have had for the last, not three or four years, but six years. The real importance is that people are gradually going to seed, and they are losing all hope, and the greatest loss to this country is not in finance but in morale. Lord Aberconway, who is not a Labour man, said with regard to this shipbuilding tonnage from Germany, "Far better it had been sunk in the Scapa Flow along with the German Fleet. "Then at least we would have had our morale in our shipyards left intact, and I plead with the Government both on the question of reparations and the policy which has been pursued, that serious consideration should be given to the alteration of that policy. I hope, in conclusion, that the Parliamentary Secretary will be good enough to reply to the little points I have raised and to the questions asked by other hon. Members.
  Mr. EVAN DAVIES: I am sure it requires no word of mine to emphasise the importance of this Debate and to show that the House appreciates the difficulties of the problem with which we are dealing. I have been rather thinking that to initiate this Debate on unemployment was rather a mistake because I find that there have been many Debates in this House on this very important question, in which the magnitude of the problem has been demonstrated over and over again, and I find by my own personal experience—although I have not taken part in the Debates myself and I represent one of the most necessitous areas in the country—that every time Debates have taken place in this House the Minister responsible, though informed of the conditions prevailing in these necessitous areas, becomes more hardened after each Debate. It will be admitted that we come from an area in South Wales that is greatly troubled by unemployment and although I have taken no specific part in the Debates, I have made it my business to interview the Minister of Health and the Minister of Labour on deputations from that part of the country and every occasion we have been told that nothing further can be done in order to alleviate the suffering that exists.
  It makes a world of difference in the attitude of a man whether he is in opposition or a Minister of the Government. I remember that the present Minister of Health attended a deputation at Downing Street, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) was Prime Minister, when he emphasised the point that we have been trying to emphasise to-night, which is that unemployment is an aftermath of the War and the direct result of mismanagement of the affairs of the country. He stated this very definitely for the deputation when we met the Prime Minister and said this question of unemployment ought not to be considered as a local question, but that the expenses of unemployment should be spread over the whole of the nation and should become a national charge. That was the present Minister of Health during the time he was not a Minister in the Government. Now that he has become the Minister of Health and is charged with the operations of that
  1550
  particular Department, I find that he is becoming more hardened than the hardened Minister who was there before him. All I can say is that the further he advances in years the more he recedes from virtue.
  This deputation which waited upon the Prime Minister in those days did succeed in closing up the gap in the unemployment benefits, but the present Minister of Health has so interpreted the present Act of Parliament for which he is responsible that instead of using the discretionary powers that he asked for in the Act in order to bring in people that were really in necessity, and people it would be in the national interest should receive unemployment benefit, he has used it to put as many people out of unemployment benefit as it was possible to do. The Minister comes to this House and makes pathetic appeals to the Opposition, and says he is doing all he possibly can to ameliorate the condition of people in the country, but we know by what actually occurs in our own areas that he is cutting people off the unemployment benefit wholesale, and that men of 65 years of age are being turned off. When a Minister comes to the House and pleads that he is using all the humane treatment that is possible for these people, all I can say is that I do not believe in the sincerity of such a plea.
  The result of what is happening is the creation of a mentality in these necessitous areas that will make real difficulty for the Government in a very short time, unless some other treatment is meted out to the people. Take the situation in the Bedwellty Union. There are certain Members of the Government who frequently make sarcastic remarks about such places as West Ham and Bedwellty, as though they were simply adopting a policy in those places of mismanaging local affairs, spending money without consideration and paying out money to the unemployed people on a most lavish scale in order to induce them and encourage them not to seek employment.
  The result of the action of the present Minister of Health has meant, following upon the last Act of Parliament and the circular sent out in February of this year, that the Bedwellty Board of Guardians have been compelled to increase the amount of weekly payments by £500. Then, the Bedwellty Guardians are ex

  1551
  pected to go to the ratepayers and to levy rates sufficient to meet the expenditure of this money in order to relieve the National Exchequer. As a result of mismanagement, not of local administration, but of mismanagement from the Department in London, we find that those people who are doing their best to try to meet the situation are held up to ridicule and criticism by the Ministry of Health in London.
  Let me give an illustration. I was a member of a deputation from the Bedwellty Guardians which waited upon the right hon. Member for Carmarthen (Sir A. Mond) when he was Minister of Health. The Bedwellty Guardians had laid down a certain principle. I am convinced that it would have been in the interests of all the boards of guardians if they had adhered to the principle laid down by the Bedwellty Guardians. They said that they were not a borrowing authority and did not intend to take upon themselves national burdens and to levy rates upon their local people to meet those burdens. They said that instead of borrowing the money the Government should make grants in order to meet the conditions that arose as a result of the depression in trade in 1921. They fought the then Minister of Health, the right hon. Member for Carmarthen, and told him definitely that they did not require to borrow any money, and that he must make a grant to them in order that they might relieve the pressure that was put upon them.
  The right hon. Member for Carmarthen then made a statement to the deputation to this effect: "I beg of you, for the time being, to accept a loan of £60,000. Go back to your area, expend the money in the way you are expending money in order to relieve the depression there." The Government were afraid in those days that a feeling was developing in the country that would make things very ugly. The right hon. Member for Carmarthen said: "Go back to your people, and when you have spent the £60,000, do not levy rates that are too heavy for the people to pay, but come back to this Department and we will grant you further loans. "As a result of adopting that policy and going to the Ministry of Health from time to time to secure large sums of money in order to relieve the unem-
  1552
  ployment and distress in their area, the Bedwellty Board of Guardians have already accumulated a debt of £500,000. Now, the present Minister of Health is accentuating the unemployment difficulty in the area by adopting what I consider to be a most pettifogging policy in his attitude towards the Bedwellty Board of Guardians.
  The policy which I have outlined has resulted in the Bedwellty Board of Guardians going to the Ministry of Health and asking for a loan of another £90,000. The attitude adopted by the Minister has been this: "I will lend you the £90,000 you require to carry on with in the Bedwellty area, but you must adopt a particular policy which I will outline." The policy which the Minister has outlined is this: "Instead of paying a man and his wife and one child £1 6s. per week, you must pay £1 5s. per week." Imagine a Minister of Health in a country which boasts so much of its great qualities, going to a board of guardians and insisting upon the paltry condition that they must reduce the relief to a man, his wife and one child by 1s. per Week. As if that is going to make a tremendous difference to the finances of the country.
  The Minister then says: "In regard to a man, a wife and two children, instead of paying £l 12s. a week you must pay them £1 10s."Instead of allowing the maximum scale to remain as we have had it at Bedwellty at £l 18s. 6d., the Minister has adopted the paltry attitude of compelling the Bedwellty Guardians to accept a scale of £1 18s. per week. That is to say, 6d. off the maximum scale, and he keeps up agitation between the Ministry of Health and the Bedwellty Guardians with a view to compelling the guardians to accept the conditions that he has laid down. Is the case of Bedwellty singled out because they have a Labour majority? There is no real opposition or interference with a board of guardians such as the Abergavenny Board of Guardians, who are responsible for the figures which have been read by the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones), where the rate of the infantile mortality has increased from 78 to 127. There is no criticism by the Ministry of Health of a particular policy so long as it is reducing the relief to the poor people in the area. The Bedwellty Board of Guardians will act as they think best, and I shall always

  1553
  encourage them to do it, if the Ministry of Health is not prepared to allow them to administer relief in a reasonable and rational way.
  Who will say that £1 a, week is too much for a man and wife to live on? Who will say that £1 6s. 0d. is too much for a man, his wife and one child? Who will say that £l 18s. is too much for a. man, his wife and six or seven children? No Member of this House will dare to get up and say so. The Minister of Health, however, operates that particular principle behind the doors of the Ministry of Health, and then he comes forward to tell the House of Commons that he is doing all he possibly can in order to relieve conditions in the areas. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health has asked us what remedy we suggest. I will put to him one or two remedies.
  I have gone to the Ministry on more than one occasion with proposals from these areas for schemes to provide work instead of relief—but always without success. The Ebbw Vale district, which I represent, has sent to London on several occasions asking for sanctions for loans to erect houses, which are absolutely necessary, to build a new school which His Majesty's inspector has insisted upon and to repair other schools which have fallen into bad condition. The Ministry of Health has refused sanction for these loans although the Board of Education was pressing the local authority to deal with the schools and the ground of their refusal was that the local council was temporarily embarrassed financially. They had an overdraft at the bank of £20,000, but instead of exercising intelligence and helping the authority to convert that overdraft into a loan extending over a period of years—instead of allowing them the opportunity to build schools and houses and adopt unemployment schemes, the Ministry stand fast and say, "We can do nothing because you are embarrassed financially." That is the kind of help we are receiving both from the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Health.
  I protest emphatically against the attitude of individual Ministers who are acting in a dictatorial fashion and are helping to bring about a state of demoralisation and degeneration among
  1554
  the people. The Minister of Health assumes autocratic powers in dealing with boards of guardians and orders them to pay a scale of relief which he lays down, on the ground that he is lending the money with which those authorities pay the relief. In the case of the Minister of Labour we find that he acts in a dictatorial fashion by ordering that only those people shall receive unemployment benefit who are indicated in the regulations which he sends out. But in the case of unemployment, the employer and the employé provide more than two-thirds of the fund and the dictatorship of the Ministry of Labour is exercised in the spending of other people's money. I have put down a question on that point and I will take every opportunity of protesting against that procedure. It is a sound principle of administration that representation should go with payment, and the law ought to be amended so as to give the rota committees the power to rule properly in their localities, because they have better knowledge of the local situation than the officials of the Ministry. I can understand the attitude of the Scottish people who say that they will not come to London unless there is a change in this procedure. There was a time when Wales claimed Home Rule, and I think we ought to stay away from London also if better treatment is not meted out to us.
  It is useless to initiate Debates on unemployment in this House if the Ministers hide, behind their officials in Whitehall, and, instead of helping the situation and trying to secure a more humane administration, only tighten the purse strings still further. There is a strong feeling in South Wales that the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour are tightening the purse strings for a special purpose. They know that trouble is likely to take place in the coalfields next May, and they are trying to demoralise the people beforehand. At every conference and protest meeting you find that nine out of every ten speakers suggest that the Government are preparing to demoralise the people in view of the fight which is regarded as inevitable in May next. If the Government want to relieve the pressure, to clear the atmosphere, and to create a better feeling, the Ministry of Labour should not seek to put everybody off benefit, but

  1555
  should rather try to get on all who are entitled to benefit. The Ministers reply always is, "What about the other people who are paying towards the fund?" The people of this country will not quarrel with any Minister who gives a liberal interpretation to the Act of Parliament so that every man will receive unemployment benefit who is genuinely out of work. The present policy is having a disastrous effect in the country, and I warn the Government that the time will come sooner than they think, unless a different spirit is manifested in the administration of these two Departments, when they will have created a psychology in this country which will end in social revolution.
  Mr. STEPHEN: On a point of Order. Is it in order that a Debate on this very important matter should proceed without a single responsible Member of the Government in attendance? The Minister of Health, the Minister of Labour, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer are all disregarding the poverty and misery of the people by not coming into the House to hear this discussion.
  Mr. WHITELEY: I am glad to have heard the interesting remark of my hon. Friend the Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen), and I hope the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health will at least see that the Ministers concerned have brought to their notice the facts referred to in this Debate with a view to some remedy being put into operation. I represent an area which is passing through a time as difficult as that experienced in any of the areas mentioned. The hon. Member for the Hartlepools (Sir W. Sugden) has told the House of the great difficulties in that borough and Sunderland, South Shields and Gateshead are passing through an equally difficult time while the administrative county of Durham is possibly experiencing a worse time than any of the boroughs.
  In that county we have 40,000 miners idle. They are not idle because they want to be idle but because the employers refuse to allow them to work under fair and just conditions. As a result nearly all the areas have bad to levy higher rates and the unemployment affects not only the working class but the small tradespeople who depend on the purchasing
  1556
  power of the workers. I live in a rural area where the rates are 21s. 6d. in the £ and in some urban areas they are 27s. and 28s. in the £ with the prospect that they will be higher. The hon. Member for Ebbw Yale (Mr. Evan Davies) said the Government were adopting the policy of breaking the spirit of the people and bringing them into a physical condition which would make it impossible for them to refuse work if work were offered, under whatever conditions it might be. We find that when we come to the Ministry of Health for a loan for our boards of guardians, there is a suspicion that we receive a different kind of treatment from what some boards of guardians received in the past when they were under different control from what they are to-day.
  We are fortunate in the county of Durham that we have a number of boards of guardians under Labour control, and, because they are, they have made up their minds to accept the full responsibility to the citizens in their area to see that they are kept in a proper physical condition, and that they are not going to allow them to starve just to please the Government or anybody else. We have instances of where boards of guardians have come to the Minister of Health to secure loans, and they have asked for £50,000 to be paid within four years, and have got it without a murmur. Now, when the same boards of guardians come along to the Minister of Health to ask for exactly similar sums, he says, "Yes, you can have £50,000, if you will repay it within six months." It is an absolute impossibility. We are called upon to see the Minister of Health in his own room, and then he has to bring in his advisers, and eventually we are able to extract from him, after a good deal of argument, £20,000, to be repaid within three years.
  We say it is not fair treatment, because the Labour boards of guardians are not responsible for the condition in which these areas are being placed to-day. We are told by the Minister of Health that there has been a decision. In a country where we are supposed to have some kind of rights, we are being placed in an extraordinary position to-day. Men are prevented from receiving unemployment benefit from a fund to which they have contributed, simply because they have the courage and manhood to refuse unfair and unjust conditions from their employer.

  1557
  They are now told that because they are able-bodied men, they are not entitled to any out-door relief from the board of guardians, and that if the boards of guardians see fit to give out-door relief to their wives and children, then these able-bodied men have to accept the responsibility and the liability of refunding such amounts as are paid to their wives and children.
  If the able-bodied man is out of work a sufficiently long time, and the board of guardians starve him during that time, and he becomes physically unfit, then it is a right of the board of guardians to pay outdoor relief to a man who is physically unfit when he has gone past the needs of outdoor relief. We say the time has come when the various Government Departments of this country ought to cooperate in such a way as to prevent things like that happening. It is no good the Minister of Health putting into operation certain Regulations that have already been referred to to-night, and simply putting young men off the unemployed benefit, because they happen to be living with their parents. Their parents ought not to provide unemployed relief out of their income. These young men have paid their contributions. They are citizens of this country, and they are entitled to be treated as citizens. The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour ought immediately to be getting together in order to frame some scheme by which these people can have proper assistance.
  In Durham County we happen to have the good fortune—it may be good fortune, I do not know—of having a Labour county council, and this Labour county council has been down to see the Minister of Transport in regard to certain schemes that have already been approved, and to get these schemes under way to find employment for our unemployed in order to relieve the ratepayers in our areas. We have been turned down there again. I have in my hand communications from three urban district councils in the county of Durham asking us to press upon the Government not to allow the Chancellor to take any of the Road Fund, but to see that it is increased for the purpose of bringing it into operation to provide work for our unemployed. In conjunction with my colleagues, I want to urge upon the Government not to treat this
  1558
  thing lightly, but to remember, first and foremost, that their policy means that our citizens in this country are becoming physically unfit to meet the needs of life when they are going to have the opportunity, if ever such an opportunity comes, of again being employed. The various Departments of the Government should co-operate in order that the citizens of the country might have the opportunity, if not to work, at least to live as decent citizens ought.
  10.0 P.M.
  Mr. N. MACLEAN: The Debate that has been taking place to-night is one that the House has grown rather familiar with during the past five years, and I can remember occasion of no longer ago than 12 or 13 months when the Under-Secretary for Health, standing on this side of the House, questioned the Minister of Labour who represented the Labour Government, two weeks after the Labour Government had opened in this House, asking the Minister of Labour what schemes for employing the unemployed the Labour Government were going to produce. Twelve months after that, the same individual representing the Ministry of Health, asks from that Box if the Labour Opposition can give any suggestion as to schemes of employment. Is the Tory Government so bankrupt after its 12 months of office? Did it not go through a campaign during the election, telling the people what was going to be done for them if they would have the courage to elect a Tory Government? Unemployment was to be wiped out of existence. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Unemployment was to be wiped out of existence. [HON. MEMBERS: " Who said it? "] The Prime Minister in his address to the country. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Never? Well, then, I am afraid the English language has different meanings to different people. Scotsmen apparently can understand the English language best.
  The Tory party put forward the claim that it could solve unemployment if it were elected. Instead of solving unemployment, it has augmented unemployment. The numbers of unemployed are greater to-day than they were 12 months ago. There are less opportunities for finding employment than there were last year, and the Tory Government that is now in office cannot find anything

  1559
  better than to come forward to this House with a scheme to tax gas mantles in order to throw light upon the unemployment problem for themselves. It is rather a bad light they have thrown upon themselves.
  The Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Unemployment or the Ministry of Labour, and all the Departments of the Government that are there with the object of doing something to lighten the burden of distress or the burden of ill-health in the community, instead of taking up the responsibility of their office in a way they ought to have done, to have tried to alleviate the distress and to have endeavoured to find employment, have mocked at the miseries of the people, and have driven the people deeper into distress than they were previously.
  The Ministry of Health—one might rather describe it as the Ministry of Death! There is a greater infantile mortality in working-class areas in industrial communities in this country to-day than there was 12 months ago. People are worse off, conditions are worse, yet this great Government with its majority of 200 cannot produce a scheme for unemployment.
  Do the right hon. Gentlemen opposite agree with the statement made 18 months or two years ago by the Colonial Secretary that there could no longer be found employment in this country for all those seeking employment, and that for the next five or six years we would be faced with a problem of over 1,000,000 and probably 2,000,000 unemployed? Do they agree with that? It seems to me that their silence is evidently an indication that they do accept it, and that they are agreed to look forward with equanimity to a period of five years with 1,000,000 people unemployed. That means, with their dependants, that there will be 4,000,000 of the population of this country unemployed and in distress. Yet the Tory Government, after their year of office, have nothing to show for their work, nothing to produce to this House to alleviate the distress.
  The Secretary for Scotland accompanied the Prime Minister to Dundee. I do not know if he went with him to the slums, the "Blue Mountains" of Dundee. The Prime Minister expressed his horror at
  1560
  the condition of the houses there. The Secretary for Scotland knows perfectly well that in Glasgow we have places where the housing accommodation is at least as bad as any that could be found in Dundee.
  The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Sir John Gilmour)The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Sir John Gilmour) indicated assent.
  Mr. MACLEAN: He admits that. It is the first indication of life upon the Government Bench. What has been done? Hundreds of thousands of people are living in insanitary houses. Rent is being charged although the houses have been condemned, and not only is the rent being charged but practically the whole of the 40 per cent. increase with the addition of the increase in the rates over the pre-War sum that was paid by the owners. That means a 40 per cent. increase for condemned houses. Is it not a scandal? Can the Secretary for Scotland justify it? No life this time!
  There used to be a slum in Dundee which was called the Scouringburn, a filthy slum looked upon with disgust by everyone. Everybody who visited Dundee-used to taunt the Dundee people with this particular slum, and the Town Council of Dundee decided that they would sweep it out of existence. So, one morning, a couple of workmen went out with a hammer and a ladder and a basket. At the corner of a street they erected a ladder against a wall. One of the workmen mounted it, look up the hammer, knocked off the tablet; with the name on it, and put up another. "Scouringburn" had disappeared, because they put up another tablet with the name "Brook Street." There was no longer Scouringburn, but the slums still remained. The houses remained. All that was changed was the name. That is the Tory Government's method of social reform. They change nothing but names, but the conditions remain.
  When the House rises, some of you will probably go to your constituencies and tell of the glorious and brilliant work accomplished by the great Government we have in office. Brilliant! They want gas mantles to show the brilliance, and very poor light at that! I want to ask the Secretary for Scotland and the Undersecretary for Health exactly what the Government mean to do. We have had

  1561
  this year three months' holidays at a stretch. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO, no!"] I have not had them, but that is the time the House has not been sitting. We rise next week for another six weeks' holidays. Then we have our fortnight at Easter, and 10 days at Whitsuntide. This year we will only have sat in this Chamber for six months out of the year. Six months' holidays for the Members of this House while thousands of people are starving in the country! You could not devote time to try and solve this problem. Thousands of people starving, yet your Members, according to the Press to-night, are going over the country and over the world. Why cannot they take a trip in their own country and find out some of the distress that exists here I Let them try, if they can, apply the brains they possess to hammering out some solution that will bring some comfort into some of the homes this Christmas.
  We will all be wishing each other a Happy Christmas as we leave on Tuesday. We shall all be hoping to spend an enjoyable new year. Yet we know that there are hundreds of thousands all over the country to whom Christmas and its pleasures will be a mere mockery. There will be thousands of children all over the country to whom the dawn of Christmas morning will seem only a flick in the face. If is nothing to them. They know nothing of its pleasures. This Government, with their 200 majority, could, if they liked, have brought in measures of social reform that would have gone a long way towards relieving a great deal of that discomfort and distress.
  An hon. Member, a, colleague of mine from the Clyde area, said it would be a good thing if Scottish Members did not come here. An hon. Member for Wales expressed himself in much the same manner in regard to the Welsh Members. After the War finished the Government of that time had to face a problem. There were hundreds of thousands of men who had been trained in the use of weapons and who were being demobilised. The fear of what might happen if those men, demobilised in a. hurried fashion, could find no employment whatever and nothing to keep starvation from their door, the fear that they might be rendered desperate, and might break out into violent breaches of the peace, and even rioting of a very serious nature,
  1562
  made the Government come forward with a special remedy in order to prevent the likelihood of any of those outbreaks. They provided a. special unemployment benefit for all those who were being demobilised—an insurance against revolution it was called. Do hon. and right hon. Members on the opposite benches think that the people to-day have now been tamed to such an extent and cowed to such a degree by unemployment that they cannot now be rendered desperate by the sight of the miseries that exist in their own homes and their own streets? Do they think it is safe now to gamble with life and death in the industrial areas? Do they think the people have got out of the way of thinking of those scenes of slaughter that they left behind in Flanders?
  If you want the people to be peaceful, treat them as they ought to be treated, as human beings. An hon. Member asked what could be done about it. There is not a man in this country gifted with a brain, having two arms with 10 fingers at the end, who could not, if allowed to do so, by applying his intelligence and his skill to the machinery of production or to the land, produce more in six months than would maintain himself and his family for 12 months, and the private ownership of land and of the machinery of production keeps those men walking the streets and refused unemployment benefit. It is time that the Government took some action. We cannot go on in this House playing with the problem of unemployment much longer. If the Government is not prepared to solve it, I warn it that the people outside who are suffering from these things may take the solution of that problem out of its hands and solve it in a manner that may not be liked by many hon, and right hon. Members on the benches opposite.
  Mr. SNELL: It can hardly be called a Debate where the speeches are all from one side of the House. We have not had the advantage of any contribution to the speeches on this very grave problem from hon. Members on the other side of the House, who are always telling us that their sympathies are as keen as ours in this matter.
  Sir W. SUGDEN: The hon. Member does me an injustice.
  Mr. SNELL: The hon. Member for the Hartlepools (Sir W. Sugden) was a very notable exception. Neither have we had the opportunity of hearing a word from the Government in answer to the very serious appeals that have been made to it. I do not wish to follow what has been said by other speakers in the way of illustration. One area may be more acutely distressed than another area, but for the purpose of this Debate we may take it as granted that all working-class areas are in a state of distress, and some are very acutely distressed.
  I wish to say a word or two from the standpoint of London, which has so far not been put in this Debate. It seems to be assumed that if an area is in special trouble, it is because of some weakness on its own account or some failure to do what it might have done, but in reality many of these areas that are suffering such distress are so suffering because they have had special responsibilities thrown upon them in the national service, and the nation has not responded to their needs. Now we claim that in this matter something like the principle of the equalisation of rating should be applied. If it is a colliery district in South Wales that is in trouble, that colliery district has served the nation to the best of its ability. It has given everything that it had to give. The nation has required its industry, and the people would have been poorer if that industry had been withheld. If, in the development of our national industry, some particular area chances to be stricken more than others, it is the business of the whole community to come to its aid, and not to leave it to suffer on its own account. That is what we claim.
  Let hon. Members reflect upon what is involved. Many of the boys who left in this area went out to the War and died that the property of hon. Members in the more prosperous areas might be secured to them. There is an honourable obligation upon every Member to see that these particular areas that are so suffering are given all the help that is practicable, as well as never-failing sympathy on the part of this House. So far as many of the London boroughs are concerned, they are in a state of despair, practically at the end of their resources, and you cannot go on in a locality borrowing and borrowing without getting
  1564
  into serious difficulties. I do not want to particularise localities to-night, but all down the riverside, as other hon. Members will corroborate if necessary, there is the most grievous state of uncertainty and anxiety as to what the future is to bring, and in the area which I specially represent, for which the Government has a very particular responsibility in calling from that area for its needs 100,000 men to work for it, and, having used up the nerve, strength, blood and energy of the men, it-throws them on the streets, just as if they were driftwood, and has no further use for them. We claim in such a case, at any rate, that the obligation upon the Government is beyond all question. In addition to that you have some of the most skilled men in the world on the Clydeside, in Woolwich, and elsewhere, men whose fingers have been trained to do the most difficult and necessary work for the community, left idle until their skill is departed, and we have lost everything of training we have put into them.
  That is the problem with which we are faced, and so, far we have had no indication of the policy of the Government in this matter. What seems to me to be suggested by the silence of hon. Members opposite is that they have sunk back into an economic fatalism in this matter, that it is, and must be, and, therefore, silence is the best thing. Of all the things we should not be, it is to be fatalists. We must apply all our minds and all out energies to this problem. I, for one, believe there must be a way out somewhere, if the Government will face it in the proper spirit. Not only is physical suffering involved, but the spiritual demoralisation of hundreds of thousands of men and boys and homes. All the spiritual qualities that have been, built up through friendly societies and other methods seem to be in jeopardy, and if we do not face this problem, and find a solution for it, I think the outlook for us is very black, indeed.
  I do not like to sit down without making one or two suggestions in answer to the hon. Member who invited them from this side. Has the Government in its inquiries gone into the question of the possibilities of land development and reclamation of waste areas? Has it seen whether something cannot be done on these lines? Has it; applied itself to the problem of re-afforestation in a vigorous

  1565
  and scientific manner? I understand that there is the greatest need for main roads through the country. The Government might have developed before this some policy in that way. There are houses for the working classes needed in every locality. Finally, there is the question—and we require this in my judgment above all—of a great development and exploitation of our national and Empire resources. If the Government would apply itself to these objects it seems to me that the solution of them would be found. We are approaching the period of Christmas. I do hope, therefore, that in reply to the appeals that have been made to the Parliamentary Secretary, we shall have some message of hope for 1926, so that we may go away from this place feeling that we are approaching the beginning of better days.
  Mr. TAYLOR: It would be as well to face the facts, that it is no use pretending even to ameliorate the problem of unemployment in the necessitous areas either by grants or by schemes of relief works. As a matter of fact, anyone who has had any experience of local administration in necessitous areas during the last four or five years will, I think, readily agree that every local authority of that kind has reached the end of its development so far as public commitments on these lines are concerned. I should like to draw the attention of the House to what this problem really is. When you come to consider the concrete details of a. practical scheme you will find, on an average, that out of every £3 you spend £2 are required for the supply of material and to cover administrative charges, and that possibly, in order to provide money to carry on these schemes, the terms on which the municipality has to borrow means that for every £2 it expends it has finally got to pay £9 for sinking fund and loan.
  On an average, in the constituency that I represent, it has cost us £9 to put £l into the pockets of the unemployed worker when we have attempted to deal with the problem by means of the organisation of relief work. That involves very considerable burden upon these necessitous areas which will last for the next 20 years. It means that the industrial undertakings of these areas are suffering from a very unfair handicap as compared with undertakings of a com-
  1566
  petitive character where there has1 been no abnormal unemployment. Therefore, that being true of all the necessitous areas, at least so far as they have expressed their opinion in representative conferences, it is quite obvious that nothing is to be hoped for by the development, or the extension, of this system of capital grants.
  What, then, can be done in a practical way by the Ministry? If you go into necessitous areas in different parts of the country you will find that, in almost every case, if they extend their normal services, they have got to provide the money. There is the amount they are spending on the maintenance of the road apart from the provision of the road. There are services in that direction of waterworks. These could be tremendously extended, and should provide a similar amount of work, if the local authority had the money. The very areas suffering from abnormal unemployment cannot possibly afford to continue the present method of financing that kind of work, and I suggest the Ministry might consider the desirability of going into those areas, finding out the details of the local problems, and then making special grants for this definite work apart from the system of financing it all on the basis of loan. That seems to be a perfectly legitimate request, because I do not think there is any question that the causes of the abnormal unemployment are not peculiar to the locality, are not the result of bad administration. The causes are national, due, in the main, perhaps, to a mistaken foreign policy or monetary policy. Many of the problems in the localities are the direct result of the deflation carried on during the last four or five years. All their commitments in the way of loan charges have been turned into very much heavier burdens than they were when they were contracted, while the resources of the community to meet them are very much less. That makes it very difficult for the localities to organise work on the basis the Government now lay down.
  Another suggestion is that the Government might give some attention to the possibility of encouraging the establishment of new industries in certain of these distressed areas. By a scientific survey of the problems in each area it might be discovered in some cases the staple in-

  1567
  dustry had been destroyed, probably permanently, and it might be that the Government, in agreement with the local authority, could work out definite plans for the attraction of new industries into the area. In the constituency I have the honour to represent we have had additional burdens piled on our poor rate by reason of changes in the administration of unemployment insurance; and, further, hundreds of men in the city of Lincoln are tramping the streets to-day absolutely and entirely because the Government refuse to extend the Trade Facilities Act to Anglo-Russian trade. During the last mouth very considerable orders have gone to Germany that might have been executed in our city, entirely owing to the fact that credit facilities under that Act are not available for financing long-term credit business. These are practical difficulties which those of us have to face who are engaged in local administration.
  I suggest there is a perfectly simple method of dealing with the problems of these necessitous areas on the financial side. Most of these areas have incurred burdens, which will last for 30 years in the form of interest and sinking fund charges, for relief works already put in hand. In addition to that, most of them have paid out of revenue very large sums in the way of poor relief, and if the Government see the unfairness of the present situation from the point of view of the manufacturer surely, by making special grants in those areas where Poor Law relief has been abnormal, they could meet many of the objections to the present position. I sincerely trust that these suggestions will be given consideration, and that the Government will make definite inquiries into the position of affairs each year.
  Sir K. WOOD: The hon. Gentleman opposite who raised this question tonight will agree with me when I say that he has raised a serious question and a matter that has been long under discussion, and which hitherto, I candidly confess, although considered by many Governments has been found in capable of solution. Let me just state to the House what I regard this question as being, because if I do so I think it will meet many of the questions and suggestions which have been put by various Members to-night. The problem we have
  1568
  to consider is in relation to what are known as necessitous areas, and the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones) who raised this question asked the Government to come to the assistance of those particular areas up and down the country in what he called a special way. When he said that I ventured to ask him to elucidate the matter a little further, and go into details as to what it was he desired the Government to do, because that is the real basis of the problem which we have to face. As hon. Members will realise, it means no; only special assistance by the Government, but special assistance to a particular locality meaning better financial aid to that particular locality than to other parts of the country. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear!"] I am glad to have agreement on that point. This matter has been considered by successive Governments, and in 1924 the matter was raised in this House, and most of the suggestions made to-night were made on that occasion. We have been told to-night that unemployment should be treated as a national matter, and that the burdens of those particular localities should not be thrown upon the local ratepayers, but should be shouldered by the nation. It is interesting to observe the reply that was given on that occasion by the then Minister of Labour (Mr. T. Shaw) who said, replying to a speech made by the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson):
  "He has submitted one or two points that I think carry him further than he gives them credit for. If the Government once accept the principle of paying for ordinary municipal work out of the taxpayers' money, I am afraid that, though we may have an almost bottomless purse, the bottom of that purse will be found. It is impossible for any Government to look with equanimity at a proposal for paying for the ordinary work of the corporations out of the taxes.
  "The position that confronts the Government is rather a difficult and delicate one. After three or four years of acceleration of work, the time has come when it is getting more and more difficult to find work to accelerate. The special schemes which might have been postponed for five or ten years have nearly all been carried out, but in spite of that the work at present going on is work that normally would not have been done had there been no Government grant at all. Then there is the difficulty when one tries to discriminate between one authority or another, discrimination in the view of the Government after careful con-

  1569
  sideration would in practice be most difficult, and we have come to the conclusion that whatever terms probably are offered those terms must apply to approved schemes from all the municipalities."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 4th August, 1924; col. 2572, Vol. 176.]
  That is how the right hon. Gentleman, in the last Government, dealt with the suggestion of shouldering the matter from a national point of view. Many hon. Member's to-night have said: "Surely there ought to be some way of dealing with this situation, not by asking that the whole of the exceptional burdens of these areas should be dealt with toy the National Exchequer, but by some arrangement, which can surely be found, by which a fair formula for dealing with the situation could be arrived at." I should like to read to the House what was said on another occasion in response to that suggestion—
  Mr. BUCHANAN: Why do you not reply for yourself?
  Sir K. WOOD: I will reply in my own way. The point I am endeavouring to make is that we are showing no lack of sympathy, but that there is difficulty in dealing with the situation. Let me just give another quotation, again in reply to the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough. This is what was said by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour on the 10th March, 1924:
  "A very interesting point is raised by the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough in relation to the grants made to necessitous areas, and I should like to give him a definite statement of our policy on that point. The hon. Member dealt with a deputation which went to the Ministry of Health with a proposal that special assistance should be given to necessitous areas by means of a grant based on a complex formula. After careful consideration, the Government has not been able to accept this. The formula, if applied, would give rise to the most grotesque differences in the grants to the various necessitous areas. It is very difficult to find a formula which would be fair. The general policy of the Government is to extend the unemployment programme, and in this way greatly to relieve the local authorities of some of their burden. That is definitely the policy of the Government on that point.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th March, 1924; cols. 2086–7, Vol. 170.]
  It will be observed that the policy of the Government—and I do not think hon. Members opposite will accuse that Government of any lack of sympathy or consideration—was, as the Minister of Labour
  1570
  said in the passage I quoted before, in the first place, not to shoulder these burdens from the National Exchequer, and, secondly, not to endeavour to find some formula which could at any rate give assistance to these particular areas. The policy that was then adopted by the Government of the day was that the whole situation should be dealt with in its entirety, not by distinguishing between necessitous areas and other areas, but by developing the unemployment programme. Again to-night, and since the present Government took office, the matter has obviously again come forward for consideration, and hon. Members opposite have referred to the difficult and undoubtedly distressing circumstances of very many of these areas. The hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) talked, as we sometimes rather expect him to do, about murder by administration.
  Mr. LANSBURY: I mean it
  Sir K. WOOD: He means it. If that is so, then murder by administration has not only been going on for some time, but was going on last year, and we find, perhaps, a worse situation in respect of many of these areas to-night. At any rate, I would say to hon. Members opposite who will believe what I say, that this Government is just as desirous and anxious of meeting a very difficult case of this kind, if it can be fairly and justly done, having regard to consideration of the National Exchequer and of doing the fair thing to local authorities up and down the country. Instances have been given of refusal by the Ministry of Health with regard to various applications which have been made for loans by various authorities who are, certainly, in a most unfortunate financial position.
  The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Evan Davies), who will agree that a great deal of consideration has been given to that particular case, has instanced the fact that they recently applied to the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health for various sanctions for loans. They wanted a loan only a short time ago of £40,000 for the erection of a school. I regret to say that if you look at the unfortunate financial position of that district you find it is unable actually to meet its current expenses from rate sources. A loan of £25,000 was a short time ago sanc-

  1571
  tioned for this purpose, and only a small sum has been repaid. Any Department which has an application for a further £40,000 in circumstances like these is undoubtedly confronted with a very difficult situation.
  Mr. MORGAN JONES: Does not that prove that it is an exceptionally necessitous area?
  Sir K. WOOD: Undoubtedly, and I am going to state the policy of the Government and their intentions in the matter, but I want to answer some of the charges which have been made.
  Mr. EVAN DAVIES: Will the hon. Gentleman make it clear that the £25,000 to which he is referring is a bank overdraft and not a long-time loan?
  Sir K. WOOD: That may very well be, but the hon. Member, I think, will agree that it is somewhat difficult to sanction a further loan of £40,000 when the County Council is not paying its way and only a very small sum has been repaid of the previous loan. Let me answer another charge. Reference has been made to West Ham. West Ham has recently come to the Ministry of Health and asked for a loan to make provision for hard tennis courts and bowling greens in various recreation grounds in the borough.
  That loan, I at once admit, has been refused on the ground of the high rates in the borough—23s. l1d. in the pound— which even really does not represent the true rate as so much of the Poor Law expenditure in that district is undoubtedly capitalised. In those circumstances, I say at any rate to Members of the House who give this matter careful and fair consideration, that no Department in whatever Government of whatever political complexion, would be justified, in circumstances such as these, and with rates of that extent and magnitude bearing upon the people of that district, in sanctioning a loan for the provisions of hard tennis courts and bowling greens.
  Mr. MACLEAN: What about the Singapore Base?
  Sir K. WOOD: Perhaps the House will permit me to say what the Government have done in this matter. Various Governments have considered the matter,
  1572
  including the Labour Government. I have put before the House the statement of Ministers who, at any rate, will not be accused of being unsympathetic by hon. Gentlemen opposite. They have been unable to find a solution of this problem. During their term no special assistance above that to any other area was given to the necessitous areas of the country. The other day a deputation, to which the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Middlesbrough referred, waited on the Prime Minister and again put forward the undoubtedly distressing circumstances of very many of these areas up and down the country. A further attempt is about to be made, and in fact is now being made, once again to consider the situation. A Committee has been formed and is now at work under the chairmanship of a very distinguished man—Sir Harry Goschen—with wide terms of reference. The terms of reference are to consider and report on any scheme which may be submitted to them for special assistance from the Exchequer to local authorities of necessitous urban and quasi-urban areas. In order that full justice may be done to the various local authorities, there are on this Committee representatives of the Municipal Corporations Association, the County Councils Association, two representatives from Scotland, and a representative from Wales, with various other official members.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: Is there any Labour representative?
  Sir K. WOOD: It is a very expert Committee, well composed, and likely, if a solution can be found, at any rate to deal effectively with the situation as we find it.
  Mr. R. MORRISON: This winter?
  Sir K. WOOD: Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to add the Committee have already met, and I may tell my hon. Friend the Member for The Hartle-pools (Sir W. Sugden) that this very week they are considering three proposals which have already been made to them, including the one to which he referred by the Treasurer of West Ham. Any other scheme which any hon. Member of this House may care to put forward to this Committee will be welcomed. It must be a scheme of general application, and I would like to point that out to

  1573
  Members who have so kindly made various suggestions in relation to increased unemployment, that, as they will see, any scheme which deals with necessitous areas in order to be effective must be of general nature and application in order to deal fairly with all areas alike.
  Mr. STEPHEN: You mean "general" only to depressed areas.
  Sir K. WOOD: Of general application to necessitous areas. The Committee are already considering three schemes and they will gladly consider any others. If a proposal is put to them of that nature they will consider it, and their recommendations will be made to the Government, and if the Government decides to give assistance on the lines they recommend, then a solution will have been found which certainly has not been presented by any Government to the House for a good many years. Whether it is possible or not I cannot say. I think hon. Members who, at any rate, have given special study to this particular problem and who will, at any rate, not deal lightly with it by a few odd suggestions as to unemployment in particular districts, will agree with me when I say the problem is a peculiarly difficult one.
  If this Committee is able to formulate any fair and just scheme, which is fair all round, fair to the National Exchequer, and fair to the other localities—I would remind hon. Members that other localities suffer from unemployment although not perhaps of so extensive a character as in the necessitous areas—then I think we shall be very successful. I hope the House will recognise that this Government is not lacking in sympathy towards proposals for dealing with this problem. What we desire to do is to find a fair and equitable scheme and, if possible, come to the assistance of localities which, I frankly admit—
  Mr. R. MORRISON: Can the hon. Member say whether the Government are bringing any pressure to bear upon the Committee to present an interim report?
  Sir K. WOOD: There is no necessity to do that. The Committee are meeting to-morrow and they are receiving evidence. I think the hon. Member for Middlesbrough is attending before the Committee to advocate one particular
  1574
  scheme. The Committee are, therefore, engaged on the work, and there is no necessity to urge upon them the necessity of getting on with the work. They are fully seized with, the importance of it. Sir Harry Goschen has had a great deal to do with this particular question for many years and has rendered great service to the State. The House can, with confidence, believe that the Committee will give a very fair and impartial investigation to a very difficult problem.
  Mr. BARNES: I consider the Minister's reply is thoroughly unsatisfactory. We want to know whether the Government has the will to get on with the solution of this problem. The Minister has referred to the problem as something which so far cannot be solved. I submit to him that the solution of the problem of necessitous areas is not more difficult than the prosecution of the last War. During the War we had great difficulties which had to be solved. We are always confronted with difficulties. The purpose of Parliament is to meet difficulties and overcome them. There was the problem of the production of munitions and of dealing with food supplies during the War. In the post-War period we have had the problem of bolstering up certain industries in this country.
  Let the House contrast the efforts of Governments in post-War periods in regard to such things as the Trade Facilities Act, the Export Credits Act, and other legislation of that description, where they have done so much towards dealing with the complexities of trade, and much more than they have done towards solving the problem of necessitous areas. What is the difficulty in these particular localities? The problem of poverty and destitution is abnormal in certain localities not because the difficulties there are of their own local creation. It has been created because this is the sixth winter of severe unemployment. Who is responsible for unemployment in Great Britain? The responsibility does not rest with West Ham, Middlesbrough, South Wales, and Sheffield. It is because of the incapacity of hon. Members on the other side of the House who control industry to organise industry so as to provide the people of this country with employment. If you keep people dependent upon employment in your industry, it is your

  1575
  responsibility to provide employment. If you cannot provide employment, and cannot give labour a reasonable access to the means of livelihood, you ought to maintain them in decency and comfort until you can find them employment.
  It being Eleven of the Clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

  DIOCESAN BOARDS OF FINANCE MEASURE, 1925.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: I beg to move:
  "That, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this House do direct that the Diocesan Boards of Finance Measure, 1925, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent."
  This is a Measure which the House is asked to present for Royal Assent, and is of a purely administrative character. There are, all over England, diocesan boards of finance, and it is desired by this Measure to bring them all under one form. It is necessary for the purpose of dealing with various trusts and other legal instruments to have the authority of Parliament. Therefore this administrative Measure is put forward in order to make all the diocesan boards of finance of one type and character. The proposal is non-controversial, and I shall not detain the House further unless any hon. Member wishes to ask questions upon it.
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir JOSEPH NALL: I beg to second the Motion.

  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 rural districts of Aylesbury and Long Crendon and part of the rural district of Wycombe, in the county of Buckingham, the urban district of Thame and part of the rural district of Thame, in the county of Oxford, and the urban district of Tring and part of the rural district of Berkhamsted, in the county of Hertford, which was presented on the 1st day of
  1576
  December, 1925, be approved, subject to the following modifications, namely:
  After Sub-clause (4) of Clause 11, insert:
  (5) No electric line shall be placed by the undertakers above ground within the added areas along or across any county bridge or main road vested in the county council without the consent in writing of the county council under the hand of their clerk unless the Minister of Transport consents to the placing of such line above ground, and the said Minister, before giving his consent, shall give the county council an opportunity of being heard."
  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 parishes of Witton and Livesey, in the rural district of Blackburn, in the county of Lancaster, which was presented on the 30th day of November, 1925, be approved."
  Resolved,
  "That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 18S2 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the burgh of Helensburgh, in the county of Dumbarton, which was presented on the 30th day of November, 1925, 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 the urban district of Leyland, in the county Palatine of Lancaster, which was presented on the 30th day of November, 1920, 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 (Supply1) Act, 1919 in respect of the burgh of North Berwick' in the county of East Lothian, which was presented on the 30th day of November, 1920, 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, for the amendment of the Pontypool Electric Lighting Order, 1895, which was presented on the 1st day of December, 1925, be approved."
  Resolved,
  "That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Elec-

  1577
  tricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of parts of the rural districts of Bath and Frome, in the county of Somerset, which was presented on the 30th day of November, 1925, be approved."—[Lieut.-Colonel Moore-Brabazon.]
  The remaining Government Orders were, read, and postponed.
  Whereupon, Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of l6th November, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."

  NECESSITOUS AREAS.
  Mr. LANSBURY: I desire to reply to some of the remarks made by the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Health about the late Government. This present Government has, under the Act of this year, repealed the Measure brought in by the Minister of Labour in the last Government, by which the local authorities were benefited. That is the first point. The second point is, that when I charged the present Administration with murder it was because the hon. Gentleman has been unable to answer the statement of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Evan Davies) that the death rate among babies in one district had gone up by 50. Each one of those babies is a victim of the policy laid down by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Health. You stood at that Box just now, and you said that in those districts they were so driven that they could not pay for their loans or their interest, and therefore they should have no more money. You forgot to say, or to explain, that you told them they could have more money than the £45,000 if they would knock a couple of shillings off the relief here and sixpence off the relief there, and so on. You very quietly put that on one side. You have not answered the charge that in that particular parish in the union of Abergavenny, the authorities are refusing, although they have the means of granting, the relief necessary for preventing the murder by starvation of these little children, and you calmly tell us to-night that we are to await a report from Sir
  1578
  Henry Goschen and his Committee. I want to say to this House—I may not have another opportunity—that all of us who do not protest against that will be responsible for the slaughter of every innocent little baby that dies of starvation. It is no use blinking it. If it was in Turkey, if it was somewhere in Iraq, if it were the Kurds and Turks, massacring Christian women and children, everyone would be up in arms, but I say, deliberately, that I would rather see a baby killed outright by a spear or a gun, or any weapon of that kind, than I would know it was being starved in its mother's womb, starved at its mother's breast, or then starved, if perchance it lived to be a few months old. That is what is happening.
  To-night we have had a repetition. I am sick of hearing this charge of one Minister against six Ministers. Everybody can do that. We have got from the Minister who has replied exactly nothing. Nobody can say that you do not know anything about it. It was put to you by the Member for Abertillery a week or two ago. Nobody took any notice then, nobody has taken any notice to-night. If one or two of us were to use language that would get us suspended, I am perfectly certain that public opinion would be called to it, and you would have to deal with it. I know that our people have good hearts, and would not begrudge one single penny to assist one single baby.
  What the Ministry of Health is doing— and this is why I call it the Ministry of Death—is because it is deliberately, in conjunction with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Ministry of Labour, saving over £7,000,000 on unemployment pay. You have driven men off the unemployment roll, you have forced them on to the guardians. The guardians are too poor to raise the rates, and they come to you and ask for a loan, and then you say to them: "Crush these people down to starvation level!" and you use your power to withhold the loans in order to enforce starvation. The hon. Gentleman cannot get up and deny that. You do not deny what the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Evan Davies) told you about the rates of relief. You do not say a word about that. You sailed round about it by referring to what somebody had left undone.

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  The policy which my party has always stood for is that of national responsibility for dealing with unemployment. Either pay out of national funds, as you are obliged to maintain the people, or else find them work. I charge the Minister of Health, the Minister of Labour and the Chancellor of the Exchequer with being the Ministers who are absolutely responsible. If there is a baby starving not one of you but would want to feed it, for many men and women in this House like myself have had babies of their own. It is this idea of public policy, of saying that the people must not under certain circumstances have assistance, which prevents you from realising the inhumanity of the business. In one area we have heard that 50 more babies per 1,000 are dying. Sir George Newman told us in his last report that the health of the children is going down. It is going down because these three Ministers are acting in cooperation with one another to save money at the expense of human lives. I say that each one of you are individually and collectively responsible and every Member who has not protested against it is responsible for the murder of every person who dies under these circumstances.
  Mr. PALIN: The Minister's reply is very unsatisfactory. I do not think he realises the seriousness of one aspect of this problem. I see a very grave danger that if these local authorities in these specially necessitous areas are greatly burdened with increased interest charges upon the huge sums of money that they are having to borrow for the purpose of relieving the unemployed the point will be reached, and it is not far off, when they will default. What is going to happen then? It is not outgoing to affect the credit of those particular necessitous areas but of all the local authorities throughout the country. Even further than that it will have very serious results upon the finances of the country. That is not a matter which the Minister can afford to say is due to some lack of action on the part of his predecessors. It is a problem that is becoming increasingly serious as time goes on. Unless special measures are thought out to meet the situation the Government will find themselves in very serious difficulties. All the measures taken for the relief of unemployment up
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  to now have only relieved a portion of the unemployed. In my area the bulk of the unemployed are women, and you cannot relieve women weavers or even men weavers by roadwork. Not only is the moral of the people going down because of the continuance of their unemployment, but there is a large number of people who have never been trained for any occupation. When you come to consider that the people who are going out of the country an emigrants are not the type of person who has never been trained to any employment, but the most skilled shipbuilders and engineers and agriculturists, all people whom we shall require, I feel that to say that a Committee has been appointed which may report in six months' time is a very ineffective answer to the very grave danger with which we are confronted, due, very largely, to the local authorities having to live on loans and the loans doing so little towards alleviating the distress that exists.
  Mr. KIRKW00D: I want to begin with a protest, as emphatic as I can make it, on behalf of the working-class people—
  Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and, 40 Members being present—
  Mr. KIRKWOOD: As I was saying, I wanted to enter a most emphatic protest against the way in which this most important matter has been handled by the House. Little did I think that my protest would be more justified by the part that has been played by the Tory party. If this had been a question of the Treaty of Locarno, you would have had the Tory Benches packed. The Tory Government are nothing more nor less than a mutual admiration society, because they have placed the Foreign Secretary on a pinnacle and made him to be supposed to be a great man when he is anything but a great man. He is typical of the Government. To think that we have been discussing the whole evening the matter of unemployment, and to think that the Government have not been represented! That is not to say that members of the Government are not in the vicinity. They are. They are in the building, and they have the audacity, the Ministers of the Crown— God help the Crown that depended on them! the Ministers of the Crown, not to

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  have been here to hear what we have got to say on this most important matter, which, if not attended to, is bound eventually to overthrow, not only this Government, but present civilisation. If the powers that be think that men are going calmly to stand this, they never made a bigger mistake. It is all in keeping with the arrest of the 12 Communists. This is part and parcel of the game. They arrest 12 Communists and throw them into gaol, men who have been drawing attention to the Hellish conditions of working-class life in this country: and to-night these men will be shivering to the very bone. I know what it is to be in a cell. They are to-night suffering because they stood up for the working-class, and the working-class and the Labour movement have stood by and seen these men in prison. Because they have got off with the arrest of these men, they think that they can treat this House in the same manner, namely, with contempt. It serves us right if we take it. I say that I for one am not going to submit. If I am kept down as I have been tonight, I will use every means of drawing attention to what is going on.
  To think that men on the Clyde, where I come from, the very finest type of artisans in the world, have been walking the streets unemployed for years! AH has been stated here to-night already, some of our very best tradesmen have had to leave their native land and cross the wild Atlantic sea for the United States of America, leaving their native land against their wish, forced, driven from home by the big financiers of this country, by the ruling class of this country. Here we stand time and time again; we have tried to reason with you to the best of our ability. We have tried to show you what can be done immediately. Take my own constituency. The men there are right up against it. I refer particularly to Dumbarton. They have there the finest shipbuilding place in the world. There is no ship on the stocks —not one! We have appealed to the Scottish Office. I am glad to see the Secretary of Health for Scotland and I was pleased earlier to see the Secretary for Scotland present during most of the Debate. That cannot be said for the rest. That is why I am doing my best to pillory them before the British Empire. The Chancellor of the Exchequer
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  had every right to be here to-night. The Prime Minister had every right to be here. From time to time he has got up and said, "Give peace in our time, O, Lord." Why is he not here to-night to give us some guidance as to what he is going to do on behalf of the people who need help.
  To come to the town of Dunbarton. We have suggested to the Scottish Office what might be done in the immediate vicinity. There is a building scheme in operation at the present moment for housing the people who have been living in the houses that have been up for a hundred years. To get to these places they have to go over a level crossing on the main line. That level crossing is now a menace to the little children going to school. But that fact has no effect upon those concerned. The children risk their lives every time they cross that main line. We have appealed to the company to put up a bridge.
  We took advantage of the railway company coming here to ask concessions to try to get that railway bridge. Nothing was done. Right from Dumbarton down to Helensburgh we have miles of foreshore, the most valuable fertile soil in Britain, waiting to be reclaimed. There are miles of foreshore on the Clyde which, when the tide conies in, is under water, and to reclaim it would give the men good work and work that would be beneficial to the country in days that are to be, but a deaf ear is turned to everything that we put forward.
  To turn to the bigger question. We are asked. What did the Labour party do? The Labour party did many things; but as far as you are concerned you are up against the big financiers of this country. To begin with, I would say, and I am only speaking now for myself as a Socialist, that every day we have to pay £1,000,000 for interest on War debts. Until we are prepared to repudiate that War debt it will hang like a millstone round the neck of the people, and until, also, the people are prepared to force the Government to take over the land—not nationalise it, because, if we were to nationalise it, we would be placing another millstone round our neck in paying these people compensation. If I had time I could tell you; I have it all worked out.

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  Another thing we could do in the immediate future—there is a Royal Commission sitting now—is to nationalise the mines. Not in the usual orthodox fashion would I nationalise the mines. They would not get a penny-piece from me. I not only would repudiate the National Debt, but I would take over the
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  mines, the workshops, the factories, and the railways, and not give them a pin for it.
  It being Half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Order of the House of 16th November.
  Adjourned at Half after Eleven o'clock.