BOARDS OF GUARDIANS (DEFAULT) BILL.

HC Deb 05 July 1926 vol 197 cc1639-765

Order for Second Reading read.

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Mr. Neville Chamberlain)

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

In presenting the case for this Bill to the House I shall avoid anything in the nature of exaggeration, either of statement or of comment, upon a matter which I think would be sufficiently important to merit the serious attention of the House. A few days ago the Leader of the Opposition observed that the Bill raised fundamental questions of local government and of the relations of this House towards local administration. I do not quarrel with that description of the Bill, except that I would rather say the questions at issue affecting local government and the relations of the House to local government are raised rather by the events from which this Bill springs than by the Bill itself. These events constitute in effect a breakdown of the machinery of part of our local government. This Bill is an attempt, not to destroy local government but to save it, and to find a temporary means of restoring the operation of the machinery until more normal methods can be resumed. I think everyone knows that this Bill would never have been brought forward if it had not been for the action of one particular union, the board of guardians of West Ham. Of course, I have had some differences with other boards of guardians whose administration I thought was extravagant but, speaking generally, they have endeavoured to meet the criticism which I thought it necessary to make, and in view of the fact that the Government had announced its intention next year to introduce a general measure of reform of the Poor Law system, by which boards of guardians would be abolished and their functions transferred to other bodies, I had hoped it might be possible by administrative methods to carry on without any legislation of this character until that larger Measure could be introduced, but the action of the board of guardians of West Ham has left me no choice. Perhaps after all, it is as well that Parliament itself should clear up a situation which has really become impossible.

4.0 P.M.

As this Bill arises out of the situation in West Ham, it is on the circumstances of West Ham that I am going to base my case for the Bill. I shall have to enter into some details with regard to what has happened in West Ham in order to show the House what has brought me to this position, but, before I do that, I would like to put forward one or two reflections of a more general character. It is our boast that we are a democratic country, and I think it is the fact that we can lay claim to that title with greater justification than perhaps any other nation in the world. We choose our governors by popular election, and, whether it be in national or local affairs, we endeavour to give everybody an equal opportunity of saying who those governors shall be, irrespective of the wealth or the state of the person who makes that choice. In fact, it would not be easy to conceive of any system under which there is a more completely free or unhampered choice given to the people of a country than there is under our system, and I do not think that there is any danger to that system unless the conviction were to grow up that the checks and balances of the system were somehow being upset, that the very intentions of the system were being compromised, and that, in fact, it was working out rather to the detriment than to the advantage of the community as a whole.

I do not mean to enter into any discussion as to whether it is desirable or necessary that we should have elections for the choice of the bodies who have functions such as those which appertain to boards of guardians to-day, but, in connection with the election of guardians, I want to draw the attention of the House to two salient facts which have a very intimate bearing upon the matter. When we raise money for local needs, we raise it not only on the property of individuals, but also on the property of associations of individuals, and we find that associations of individuals, in the form of limited companies and so forth pay in many cases a large part and in some cases actually the largest part of the rates in particular areas but those who are concerned in these associations of individuals have by reason of the fact that they pay rates no voice or vote in the election or choice of those who are going to distribute the money. That is the first fact. The second is this. Those who are made the recipients of relief and who are unable to support themselves are no longer disfranchised, and they have a voice, and sometimes it may be the deciding voice, in the election of those whose duty it is to distribute relief. Put those two facts together, and I do not think anybody can deny that, human nature being what it is, you have there a very serious danger of political corruption.

Let me press the point a bit further. It is a favourite argument of the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) that, after all, all elections are accompanied by promises which are not always performed. Of course, in our Parliamentary elections every party makes promises, some of which are not always performed afterwards, and it is one of the common-places of politics that the party which has not made the promises should describe those of its opponents as bribes, and that the party which has lost the election should suggest that the party which has won it has won it by deluding the community with those promises which have never actually been carried out. These, of course, are not promises of personal benefit, but of reforms, of measures, which are suggested as being intended, and, in fact, likely to confer substantial benefits upon large parts of the electors. But the very fact that after elections these accusations that promises are not being carried out are so frequently made has rendered the electors suspicious, and to-day the Parliamentary voter does not regard merely the size of a promise which is made, but discounts it always by what his opinion is about the likelihood of it being carried into effect. Of course, he makes a slip sometimes, but he always takes the first opportunity afterwards to remedy it. Therefore, I think one may say that, in spite of the alluring character of some of the pledges that are given at election times, there is no danger of corruption in our Parliamentary system as we see it to-day from anything of that kind, and that the elector is perfectly well able to take care of himself.

Compare what happens at a Parliamentary election, as I have described it, with what happens at the guardians' election. In a Parliamentary election you have almost invariably a mixed issue. There are a number of points put forward, some of which appeal to one section of the electors and others of which appeal to another section. The policies which are put forward by the different parties are not the same policies. They are alternative policies, and there is, as I have said, always uncertainty as to how far these promises and policies will actually materialise if the party be returned to power. But, in the case of the guardians' election, there is one issue, and that is the amount of relief which shall be given and the way it shall be administered, and nothing is more certain than that a candidate belonging to a party with a definite policy can, and will if that party be returned in sufficient strength to give it a majority upon the board, put his promises into effect and distribute rewards, partly pecuniary and partly in kind, to those to whom he owes his election. I think in such circumstances as that if corruption did not raise its head in elections of this kind we should have to be a nation of saints. Unfortunately, it is common knowledge that, as a matter of fact, these elections are fought and won upon promises of extended relief, that those who refuse to make such promises are accused of intending to stop relief altogether, that people in receipt of relief are allowed to go about as canvassers, and that, in short, there reigns in some parts open and unabashed corruption.

Mr. LANSBURY

I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman to define what he means by "corruption"?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I think I have made it perfectly clear. I mean that the system naturally tends to set one candidate against another bidding for the support of the electors by promising extra relief. That is what I mean by corruption.

Mr. LANSBURY

Exactly the same as a Protectionist candidate.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

It is not the same. I have endeavoured to show why, in my view, it is very different from general promises which are from time to time made at Parliamentary elections. I say that not only do you have a sort of competition between one candidate and another, but there is even a further sort of competition between one board and another to show which can give the greater amount of relief; and this disease, unless it is checked, is bound to spread right through the framework of local government and will eventually lead to disaster. It does not stop there. Unfortunately, if you once begin upon the degradation of the standard of morality it is very difficult to know where it is going to stop, and we find, where this sort of thing which I have described goes on, it spreads very rapidly in other directions. You find numerous cases of applications for relief on false pretences. You find even that the officers are beginning to be concerned, and that relieving officers go off with funds or make use of gifts in kind for their own purposes. You find that those who have been elected to the responsible post of guardians make appointments the benefits of which go to relatives and friends on grounds which it would be difficult to believe are pure and consistent with their duty.

This case of West Ham has got to be considered in the light of these general considerations which I have brought before the House, and it is, unfortunately, the fact that there the majority of the board of guardians appear from time to time so to have committed themselves to those whom they describe as the people outside, by which presumably they mean those in receipt of relief, that they take their orders from those who have to receive benefits from them; and they appear to have continued with increasing extravagance their methods until they have run far beyond any chance of balancing their expenditure and their income and have, indeed, brought themselves within sight of bank-ruptcy. Of course, I can see what is the sort of defence which is going to be made for West Ham. The right hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley), who will move the rejection of the Bill, will tell us that West Ham is a place with a board of guardians actuated by the pure motives, that they have been highly efficient and economical in their administration and that they have a most scrupulous regard for all the checks which experience show to be necessary for the administration of domiciliary relief. He will say that the situation in which the guardians find themselves is due to no fault of their own, but that they are victims of the circumstances of the poverty of their district and the extent of unemployment there and, above all, to the failure of this Government—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]—but not, I presume, of the Government which preceded it, to supply a remedy for unemployment. I am not for one moment going to deny the fact that any board of guardians functioning in West Ham would have an extremely difficult task to perform. [An HON. MEMBER: "You will find it so."] I admit that. I say so because they have there a large population, over three-quarters of a million, and a very low assessable value which, of course, means not merely that one penny on the pound on the rates brings in a much smaller sum than it would in a more favoured district, but also that in any period of distress there is a much larger proportion of the people in an area like this who have not more than a small amount of resources of their own, and are likely, therefore, to come at an earlier stage upon the administration of outdoor relief.

There are, of course, other areas not far away from West Ham which are in that respect similarly placed. There is Poplar. There is, however, this remarkable difference, which in fairness to West Ham should be stated, namely, that Poplar, being within the County of London is able to draw a great part of its expenses out of the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund, which is paid for by other Metropolitan boroughs. Therefore, Poplar has been spared, by reason of that fact, some of the difficulties which have been so acute in West Ham. I recognise that fact, and I do not think that any definition of "necessitous areas" that anyone could think of would ever exclude West Ham from coming within that category. If it was merely that they were spending £500,000 or £600,000 a year more than they can get out of the rates, and they came to me for money, I should, in the light of the circumstances I have mentioned have felt inclined to give them all the assistance I possibly could; but the question I had to ask myself was: Was this great expenditure reasonable expenditure, and were they, as a matter of fact, doing all that honest and conscientious guardians should do to see that value was obtained for the money and that it was not given both to the deserving and the undeserving? That was where my difficulty came in. I could not convince myself of anything of the kind.

What are the tests which are to be applied in a case of this kind? I have had put into my hands a pamphlet which is called "An Impartial Study of the Facts." I think there is more impartiality on the outside page than anywhere to be found within the pages. In this pamphlet the West Ham Guardians make their own test, in a paragraph which is headed, "A difference of Eleven Shillings a Year." Purporting to take their facts and figures from a paper issued by the Ministry of Health, they find that in the West Ham area the average annual cost per person relieved is £27 11s. 10d. They compare that with Birmingharm, where they find the cost to be £32 2s. 10d., and they find that for all England and Wales the cost is only £27 0s. 10d. Therefore they say: Before Mr. Chamberlain can carry the Measure which he threatens, he will, surely, have to prove that in this annual 11s. lie all the enormities and irregularities which he alleges. The figures which they quote are fallacious; they are taken from a document which I think was originally prepared by the Treasurer of West Ham. I am not disputing its correctness, but what I am disputing is the inference drawn from the figures, and I will tell the House why they are fallacious. First of all, these figures include the cost of indoor relief as well as outdoor relief. Everyone knows that the cost of indoor relief is very much higher per person than the cost of outdoor relief, wherever it is. Therefore, before one can make a comparison between one place and another, or between West Ham and the whole of England, we have to have the relative figures of indoor and outdoor relief for various places. What we are concerned with in this case is not indoor relief, but outdoor relief. The figures are very different if we take outdoor relief alone.

Mr. W. THORNE

These are for those who are out of work.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I am not talking of those who are out of work only. I am taking outdoor relief as compared with indoor relief, and if we take these figures themselves in West Ham the cost per head per annum is £20 5s. 5½d. for the year ending March last, compared with Birmingham £14 11s. 3¼d. and for England and Wales £15 11s. 9¾d. That at once shows that the test which has been applied in this pamphlet is somewhat misleading. It is misleading for another reason. There are plenty of experts here who will correct me if I am wrong. I want to put another consideration to the House which, again, makes the figures quoted quite misleading. The average cost per person relieved of those to whom you give outdoor relief is not the final test, because in one area, and this applies to West Ham, you have a large number of people given very small amounts of relief every week to bring them up to a scale which works automatically, in sums of 6d., 1s. to 2s. a week, whereas in places where they administer more strictly it is considered that persons who only require 6d. or 1s. a week to bring them up to the scale are not really destitute and ought not to have relief at all. I am informed that, West Ham has hundreds of cases where these small sums are given, and that is what brings down the average cost even to the figures I have given to the House. Those figures are not reliable.

There is another consideration which must he taken into account in considering whether West Ham is extravagant and that is the proportion of the population who are in receipt of relief. I have here a table which shows the number of persons per 10,000 of the population in receipt of Poor Law relief on the 1st May, that is, before the general strike. The figures are: London—taken as a whole—481; Middlesbrough, particularly a district where there is great distress, 598; Birmingham, 248; and West Ham, 919. I hay, some further figures which are interesting, because they show the difference in the administration of West Ham and the administration in other places. They show the degree to which in West Ham they have pushed the deliberate policy which they have pursued. These further figures show the percentage of persons on the register of the Employment Exchanges who have been marked for disallowance of benefit, but had not actually ceased receiving benefit when the return was made. An investigation was made to see what proportion of these persons were in receipt at the same time of outdoor relief. The figures are very remarkable—Birmingham, 3 per cent.; Liverpool, 9.8; Hackney, 9.8; Gateshead—which, I think, is rather advanced in its ideas—17.6 and West Ham, 55.4. These figures speak for themselves.

Let me consider another test which is sometimes applied, the test of the scale. A great deal has been said about the scale and about the alleged attempts on the part of the Ministry of Health to impose scales. I say frankly that I do not believe in scales. I think that any automatic adoption or operation of a scale is the wrong way in which to work Poor Law administration. But, of course, it is no doubt convenient to have some sort of a scale, to be taken as a maximum, and within which each case can be treated upon its merits and upon the circumstances which are known to exist. In West Ham, the scale which they have adopted, even though it has been somewhat reduced, is a high scale as compared with other unions. It is considerably higher than that of Greenwich. But what I want to put to the House is this fact, that the scale itself is not the real test of the extravagance or otherwise of the administration. Everything really depends on the way in which the scale is worked. To find out the way in which the scale is worked one has to go to the auditor's report. I do not want the House to think that the difficulty in West Ham is one which has only just arisen.

Mr. THORNE

It is the West Ham Union and not West Ham.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. West Ham is in the West Ham Union, which also contains East Ham and a number of other areas. I will say the West Ham Union, and if I make a slip I hope the hon. Member will understand that it is not meant as any discourtesy to him. But, as I have said, this has been going on for years. In 1922 the administration of West Ham was considered extravagant. Over and over again it appears in various district auditors' reports which have been received that they have found one thing after another to criticise, and when the board of guardians had "outrun the constable" to the extent that they were obliged to come to the Ministry of Health for assistance, the Ministry itself endeavoured, on most occasions, to attach conditions to the loan with a view of inducing the guardians to reform their administration and put their house in order.

Mr. THORNE

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Labour party was not in a majority in West Ham at that time by a long way.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I did not say anything about the Labour party. I was not making any accusation against the Labour party.

Mr. THORNE

The inference is there.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

The hon. Member is drawing his own inference. I am talking about the board of guardians.

Mr. MARCH

But you had been talking about the election of guardians.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

Yes, the guardians, not the election of the Labour party. Hon. Members opposite are in too much of a hurry to put caps on their own heads. I have been careful not to place a cap on anybody's head. I am telling the House what the position is and what is really the justification for the Bill which I am now submitting to the House. I do not want to go through a long list of loans made to the West Ham Union or the conditions which have from time to time been attached to them. Suffice it to say that here they are, a considerable number of them, and every time there has been a struggle between the board of guardians and the Minister of Health when such a concession has been obtained or wrung from them, and the Minister of Health in a desire to avoid open conflict has had to make concessions and give up demands he has made in order that the guardians may be induced to carry on better. The last report of the auditor, which refers to the year ending 31st March, 1925, contains so many comments upon the administration of the guardians that I must ask the House to allow me to make one or two quotations and extracts from it. The auditor says: Generally, it may he stated that relief is granted automatically according to the scale as a minimum payment for 'maintenance,' seldom below it, and often above it for exceptional circumstances. In cases of unemployment relief, the scale is applied without proper consideration of the total income of the household. … In many such cases the payment of relief in addition to the income raises the total means of the family to such high figures as £5, £6 and £7 per week, clearly above the general average of families who are not on out relief. … In several cases such small sums as 2s., 1s. 6d., 1s. and 6d. are given for no apparent reason except to bring the means of the applicant up to scale. … In the cases of single men over 18, these are treated as separate applications and relief given regardless of the income of the household. … In the case of relief to juveniles between 16 and 18 at the juvenile unemployment centres, … 9s. 6d. in cash is being paid where the means of the applicant's household might be deemed sufficient. Old age pensions are being augmented to bring them up to the full scale of 15s. single, and 25s. married, and in the majority of cases there is no attempt to record the circumstances of sons who might be able to pay something. Prosecutions for obtaining relief by false pretences are numerous. No fewer than eight cases occurred in the last 18 months of fraud or misconduct on the part of relieving officers. Three of them were prosecuted and sentenced to imprisonment, two were dismissed without prosecution, one was censured and put on probation and one was certified as mentally unfit.

Viscountess ASTOR

Are these relieving officers?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

Yes, relieving officers.

Mr. J. JONES

The hon. Member for Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) runs her own hoard of guardians at Plymouth in order to keep her seat. You start on us, and we will give it back with interest (HON. MEMBERS: "Order, order!"]

Mr. SCURR

Can the Minister of Health say how long these officers had been in the service of the board of guardians?

Mr. JONES

We will have it all out before the night is over.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I cannot say, but there is an unusually large number of cases of officers who have been shown to have misconducted themselves. I think the House should hear some of these individual cases—

Mr. JONES

We have them all here, everyone of them.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

—which have been brought to the notice of the guardians by the district auditor. Here is one case. A married woman, living apart from her husband, with two single daughters at home, earning between them £5 12s. 0d. a week, was allowed 25s. a week for four weeks, and 15s, a week afterwards. A single young man, age 21, living with his parents, his father earning £4 a week, was allowed 10s. per week for 20 weeks. A household which consisted of four persons earning £5 5s. per week, was given 15s. per week relief for two weeks, and 10s. per week for 13 weeks. In another case where the income of the household was £6 3s. 6d., a widow with four children, she was allowed £1 for 14 weeks, and her case was not referred to the house committee, though in any case she was over the scale. In another case, a widow with one dependant child, various rates of relief, 20s., 25s. and 19s. were given, though according to the scale it should have been 14s. 6d. a week, and the relieving officer says that she was allowed over scale relief in order to pay off her debts.

Mr. MONTAGUE

What was her rent?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

In another case, a widow with a son at home, earning 45s. a week; she paid 20s. 6d. in rent and sublet for 23s. 6d. She was allowed 10s. weekly by the guardians until the 16th February, and then 5s. for 14 weeks, 12s. for six weeks and 14s. 6d. for six weeks. In a household of six, with an income of £6 per week, the relief allowed was £1 6s. 6d. weekly. In another case the earnings of the houshold which contained seven persons was £5 6s. a week. The applicant was allowed 1s. weekly for eight weeks, and it was then increased to 24s., and then constantly altering.

Miss LAWRENCE

Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many persons in these households were legally bound to support the applicants? Were they uncles and aunts and stepfathers?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I do not think it is much use the hon. Member trying to make excuses for these cases. They have been shown to the guardians—

Mr. JONES

Put Birmingham up against it.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

—and they admitted that there was no possible excuse for them. I will give one more—

Mr. JONES

Give us Birmingham.

Mr. SPEAKER

If the hon. Member for Silvertown wishes to take part in the Debate he had better deal with it as a whole later on.

Mr. JONES

I thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, for the invitation. I will do my best.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

One more case—a household of five, in which the income of the householders was alleged as £4 per week. They received 30s. weekly from the guardians, but subsequently it was discovered that the father's wages, instead of being £3 5s., as stated in the books of the guardians, were £10 per week. To give an illustration of the statement made earlier in the Report as to what goes on in connection with cases where there are juveniles in juvenile employment centres, I find amongst the lists given by the district auditor a case where the father of a household of six, with an income of £7 12s., was given 9s. 6d. extra for 14 weeks in respect of his boy who was at a juvenile employment centre. All this is for the period which ended on the 31st March, 1925, and the same thing is going on now. Only recently I received a letter from a firm in East London calling my attention to The reckless and indiscriminate manner in which relief tickets were distributed in West Ham during the strike period. We took five times the normal amount in relief tickets for one week, and wish to emphasise the fact that many of the recipients were given tickets of such high value that they hardly knew what to buy in order to use them up. I am sorry to have to put cases of this kind before the House, but I feel it is necessary the House should appreciate the sort of atmosphere which exists in the Union of West Ham. I am going now to give some of the cases which substantiate what I say about the practice of giving remunerative positions to relatives and friends of the guardians. In the case of the appointment of the chief engineer at Silcoats, the assistant engineers were passed over, when they were naturally expecting promotion, for a member of the Labour group of the West Ham Town Council.

Mr. JONES

He was not a Freemason.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

The board of guardians appointed an ex-secretary of the West Ham Trades and Labour Council as clerk of works, on 6th September, 1923, calling it a temporary appointment for three months only. He is now a permanent officer. Never before has there been a permanent clerk of works in the West Ham Union.

Mr. JONES

Can you find any fault with the qualifications of these men for the jobs they got?

Mr. SPEAKER

Order, order!

Mr. JONES

We will have all this out if you will allow me later.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

The Secretary of the West Ham Union Branch of the National Union of Municipal Workers was appointed registrar in June, 1925, over the head of the chief registrar of the department. One more case. A single son of one of the guardians was continually engaged in a temporary capacity in one department or another when married men were still on the waiting list, and this particular guardian had also two other relatives in the service of the board. I think, really, when appointments of this kind are made the onus of proving their qualifications really lie upon those who make the appointments. Let me quote to the House the words of Mr. Killip, who is the vice-chairman of the board of guardians. In December of 1923 he said: He must admi[...] that Mr. Ward was correct when he charged the Socialists with using the guardians' relief for political and personal ends. He regretted to have to say that the way in which some of his colleagues were canvassing the unemployed had become such a scandal that something would have to be done to put a stop to it. He, therefore, supported a resolution that no one individual member had power to alter the relief granted by another member. Mr. Killip is not always complimentary to me, but he has a refreshing way now and then of saying what is in his mind. At a meeting of the guardians on l0th June he said: Some of the things that have been done in the name of the West Ham Guardians—well, the least we can do is to be ashamed of them. When you are elected to the guardians you do not go there to give out relief as though you were giving away handbills. … We have been landed in this position by people who have entirely abused their membership of the board of guardians. I could not myself say anything more severe than that. Now what is the position? The board of guardians have an overdraft of between £200,000 and £300,000, of which £100,000 was due to be repaid at the end of June. With a debt to the Ministry of some £2,000,000, and rates at 24s. in the £ in West Ham, they came to me and asked for a further loan of £425,000. I told them that in the face of facts such as those I have given to the House, in face of the method of administration in West Ham and the deliberate policy which had been pursued by the guardians there for so many years, I felt that I could not possibly agree to grant a loan for that further sum of money, when I was faced with the position that it was quite possible that the loan would never be repaid. It is now not only a question of protecting the helpless ratepayer; it is a question of protecting the taxpayer too. The result was that I wrote to the guardians, and even then I do not think that I was very severe. In the first instance I sent them no ultimatum, but I asked them to come and say what proposals they could make which would produce a real economy in administration. They said that they would be willing to undertake some reform in administration, but that they declined to alter their scale. Looking at the way in which the scale had been used in West Ham, I felt that that did not offer sufficient prospect of economies, as I wished. I, therefore, wrote to them again, and I will just read the letter, because it disposes of any accusation that I tried to impose a scale on them. The letter says: I am directed … to state in reply to your letter that the terms of the resolution are too vague to enable the Minister to reach any definite conclusion as to the effect of that resolution in securing a substantial reduction of the rate of expenditure by the guardians which is essential. Although the Minister assumes that the guardians have included among the administrative proposals which they are prepared to adopt, proposals which they anticipate will have the effect desired, it is not clear to him that this effect can be obtained without a substantial modification of the scale of relief itself, and of the manner in which that scale is applied; and I am to request that the Minister may be specifically informed of the changes which the guardians propose to make and the estimated saving to be secured by the adoption of each of them. It is, of course, realised that such estimates cannot in all circumstances be precise, but they should be as closely prepared as is possible within the time available. That shows that the guardians were invited to make their own proposals for the economies which I think essential.

Mr. THORNE

Will the right hon. Gentleman give the scale of relief? He omitted to state what it is in West Ham.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I did not suggest a scale. The hon. Member knows what the scale is. I can read it if he thinks it necessary.

Mr. THORNE

A man and wife 19s. a week.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I have explained, until I am almost weary of it, that the scale itself is not the thing that matters, but the way in which the scale is applied. That was brought out in the Report which I have just given to the House. The guardians again, no doubt too tied by all their commitments to give way, repeated their previous refusal to alter their scale, and the present situation arose. What is the present situation? Already they have had to cut down the relief, which they had refused to cut down. They have cut it down in the wrong way. They have cut it down all round, and it is the deserving who are suffering just as much as the undeserving. In a comparatively short time. if this Bill or something like it be not carried, relief would have to stop altogether in West Ham, because there would be no funds from which it might be administered. There then is the emergency. What was the Minister to do in circumstances like that? Would anybody contend that it is the duty of a Minister, when be is faced by a deliberate, Prolonged, and repeated maladministration of the kind of which I have given specimens to the House, to go on lending the taxpayers' money without any control over the expenditure of that money? I feel certain that no one would take up that position. Everybody would say that the Minister was not doing his duty, either to the boards of guardians, who in the face of great unpopularity are trying to do their work, or to the ratepayers in the particular district affected, or to the taxpayers of the country as a whole, if he were to put himself in that position.

Those who come here, who criticise and object to the particular method which we have adopted, at any rate must tell the House what is the alternative method which they have in mind. We shall be very much interested to hear it. I might mention one or two alternatives that have occurred to me, because the House will believe that I have not jumped into a Measure of this kind without consideration, but that I have tried to see all the possible ways in which one could get out of this extremely difficult position. I examined the precedents. One way would be to follow the precedent of the insurance committees, to put an end to the present board of guardians and to have a new election. It is obvious that that would not produce any amelioration. The people receiving the relief would vote in the elections and would naturally vote for those who would say that they were to continue to have relief. There is another method which has already been adopted, and that was the Order for what was known as the Mond scale. I do not think it is any secret to say that that Order was found to be perfectly ineffective, and that the right hon. Gentleman opposite made his reputation largely in this House by the speech in which he declared that by rescinding that Order he had rescued his Department from degradation. That may be put aside as of no use.

Then there is another method, which is to he found in a section of the Public Health Act of 1875, in which the Minister proceeds by mandamus. He first makes an Order, and, if it is not carried out, proceeds by mandamus. That is a very long and cumbersome procedure, and it is not effective. Again, the only result of putting that procedure into practice is that the guardians go to prison and there is nobody left to administer relief. The fourth method would be to supersede the guardians by a superior local authority. Quite apart from the unwillingness of any superior authority to go in and administer relief in West Ham, that is quite impracticable. Therefore, I come to the last method, which is in the Bill. The Amendment says that the method in the Bill "destroys a funda- mental principle of the Constitution." Is that a fact? I wonder whether hon. Members opposite think that this is an entirely new method of dealing with these cases? If they are under that impression, I want to disillusion them.

The method in the Bill is adopted from a very old Statute, the Education Act of 1870. Under that Act, I think in Section 63, if the Education Department was satisfied that a School Board was not performing its functions properly, it could supersede that School Board and put into its stead appointed persons, exactly on the same lines as are proposed in the first Clause of this Bill. I have made inquiries and I am told that that Section was actually put into operation on a number of occasions. At any rate, the fact that it remained on the Statute Book for over 30 years shows, I think, that there is no danger to any fundamental principle of our Constitution in what I am proposing here.

But I have not contented myself with the practice under the 1870 Act. I have been looking for something rather more recent than that, and I have found it. Here is a Housing Bill which was presented last year by the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies), supported by the right hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes), the hon. Member for Camberwell North (Mr. Ammon), the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Mr. Buxton) and the right hon. Member for Bermondsey (Dr. Salter). I find that among the objects of this Bill, as stated in the Memorandum, was to strengthen the hands of the Minister of Health in the case of default on the part of local authorities. I looked at that Bill with great interest to see what it contained. I found that it stated that where it appeared to the Minister that the local authority had failed to exercise their powers under the principal Act, or otherwise to discharge any duty thereunder, the Minister of Health could make an order directing that authority, within a time prescribed by the Order to carry out such works. Hon. Members opposite in their desire to strengthen the hands of the Minister of Health where the local authority had defaulted were proposing that he should usurp the control of the ratepayers over the disbursement of public moneys, and that he should take upon himself to order them to do what he required, and in default to proceed by mandamus. Is it the mandamus that hon. Members opposite lay stress on?

Miss LAWRENCE

The difference is that in the one case the local authority continues to function and in the other it does not.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I am very much obliged to the hon. Member. I see now that what she objects to in this Bill is that I am proposing to put in appointed representatives instead of the local authority. If it had been procedure by mandamus, then it would have been in line with this Bill and there would have been no objection. This is a Prevention of Unemployment Bill presented by the hon. Member for Ilkeston (Mr. Oliver), and supported by such authorities as the right hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Webb), the hon. and learned Member for South-East Leeds (Sir H. Slesser), the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. A. Greenwood), the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley and other distinguished Gentlemen opposite. Let us see what they think. This is a Bill to set up a board and the local authorities are to prepare schemes for the relief of unemployment to be referred to the Board. If any local authority, it says, fail to prepare such schemes or to execute them within the time and in the manner required by the board, the board either themselves or through such Government Department as they may deem appropriate, shall prepare or execute such schemes and recover from the local authority such part of the expense of the preparation or execution of such schemes as the board may think fit as a civil debt. That is precisely the same thing. These are not nominees; it says the Board itself is to give authority. What about the fundamental principle of the constitution of local government? If this really be a partisan and misguided attempt to meet the situation, then I think I can claim that it is one in principle which has the approval of some of those who are coming forward to oppose it because it is moved by the party on this side instead of on that side of the House.

The provisions of the Bill do not require much explanation. In Subsections (1) and (4) it is proposed that where the board of guardians or any Poor Law authority appear to have ceased to discharge any or all of their functions then the Minister may supersede them and put in their places persons who will under Sub-section (4) be remunerated for their services. I will explain that, when this Bill becomes law, it is not my intention to appoint boards of guardians of the same size as those displaced. I propose to put a small number and expect them to give their whole time to the work, and it will be necessary that they should get some remuneration. I also propose under Sub-section (4) to appoint persons of competence to act as an advisory committee to whom the board can refer. The Advisory Committee will be independent persons and will not be remunerated by salary, but of course if they have to travel to West Ham and back that will be considered.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY

May I ask what the remuneration proposed to be granted to these persons will be?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I have not settled anything at present. Certainly it will not be anything which the hon. and gallant Member will be advised to take exception to.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY

There must be a Financial Resolution?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

No, these salaries are not to be paid by the Exchequer.

Mr. LANSBURY

Will you advertise?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I only want to add that the Bill in the last paragraph of Sub-section (1) provides for the election of members of the board who will come into office when the guardians go out; and under Subsection (2) power is given to the Minister to extend, if he thinks it necessary, the appointed time that guardians can hold office and an Order will be laid on the Table of both Houses of Parliament and there will be an opportunity for Parliament to express approval or disapproval. I think I have said all I want to say. Once again I would say to the House that it is with the greatest possible regret that I find myself obliged to bring forward a Measure of this kind. It is a temporary one, for I do not anticipate it will be needed for boards of guardians after a short period of time. I trust it may never be necessary to put it into operation except in the case where the emergency has arisen. As one who is a believer in local government and always desired to extend the functions of local government, I view with the utmost concern a state of things that is bringing the good name of local government down. Here is a state of affairs which, if local government is to be saved, must be put a stop to, and this Bill is the best way in which I think I can do it. I do not desire to take to the Minister of Health any more powers than are necessary for his purpose. If when we come to Committee, there are proposals put forward which in the view of the Government will embody any safeguards that are thought necessary so that no Minister can make an unreasonable use of the power conferred by this Bill, I shall be ready to consider them, but always with this proviso, that they must not be such as will hamstring this Bill or render it ineffective.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I beg to move, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words this House declines to proceed with the Second Reading of a Bill which, by empowering the Minister of Health to supersede the democratically elected guardians of the poor by the Minister's nominees, destroys a fundamental principle of the Constitution that local government shall be vested in the elected representatives of the people, enables nominees of the Minister to disburse public moneys without any control by the ratepayers who provide such moneys, and is a partisan and misguided attempt to meet a situation arising out of the failure of His Majesty's Government to deal with the problem of unemployment on national lines. Before proceeding to an examination of the general principles of this Bill, may I be allowed to tender my congratulations to the Minister of Health for the high standard of public morality that he has laid down for the guidance of the country? Coming from him, it is sure to be a stimulus to that purity of public life, of which we in this country are all so proud. I think that it must have been consoling to the consciences of his supporters to be told there was something different in corruption between voting for a guardian who might increase your scale of relief by 2s. 6d. a week and giving a colonial or judicial appointment to a man who had served your party well. Regarding the temporary nature of the Bill which was so much dwelt on in the right hon. Gentleman's closing remarks, I would merely say that any principle in this Bill which is adopted by the House would be a precedent that would be certain to be acted upon by the right hon. Gentleman or anyone of his disposition in dealing with whatever local authority administers poor relief in this country.

May I say with regard to the Bill that it is more dangerously reactionary than the Eight Hours Bill we discussed last week. No one will have difficulty in seeing that it came from the same stable and is of the same pedigree. The right hon. Gentleman has addressed the House for, I think, about 75 minutes, and I submit that in that time he has done more practical Communist propaganda than the Communist party working in poverty and isolation can do in 75 years. Indeed, he has given that party a much greater boost than even was done by his colleague when he sent its leaders to prison. Anyone familiar with Communist literature knows that thesis after thesis has been written to show that political democracy in capitalist countries is only a toy given to the workers to keep them quiet and obedient, but that as soon as they use that toy to the inconvenience of their masters it will be taken away. We have been told that they would have votes as long as they voted for their master's voice, that they would have local government while they carried out their master's policy, that they would have a Parliament as long as that Parliament did not seriously threaten their master's economic power. And the deduction which the reader was always expected by the author to draw was this—that while the working class of this country should try to capture political power in order to weaken the influence of their masters, they should not rely on it mainly as the means of their emancipation. We on this side have always questioned that reasoning. But what have we to say in future when they quote against us the action to-day of the right hon. Gentleman? Not only Socialists but Liberals have always in this country asked the Government and the people to put their faith in political action, and they have so successfully appealed to the people that there has grown up in this country a system of local government which, I think, in the main, as has been said, rests broadly on the will of the people.

To-day we are asked to pass a Measure which is a step towards the complete destruction of that system of government. I submit to the House that this is a very serious matter; that to attack the work of a century in political reform, is something that ought not to be done even by this Conservative House of Commons, without the deepest consideration of its probable consequences on the psychology of the country. The paltry excuse which the Minister submits as justification for his act, is not one which any independent House of Commons would accept. He has attempted to justify himself entirely on what has happened at West Ham. Local government in this country was not granted on condition that the locally elected representatives would satisfy a Tory Government. If that had been the basis of our system, it would have been the very negation of democracy. Socialists and Tories differ as to the rights of the poor. We have been appealed to, not merely by people on this side of the House, but by the party opposite, when impatient individuals created trouble for them, to reason with our fellows, to convert them to our point of view, to try to get a majority of our comrades where that majority at the time was against us, and to rely on that constitutional way and on that way only to establish in society the views for which we stood.

In the local authorities, in the boards of guardians which we are discussing here, and, indeed, in regard to every public authority in this country, that is exactly what has taken place. Labour and Socialist enthusiasts carried on their propaganda. In the course of time they got their majority, and replaced the Tory majority against which the propaganda had been conducted. Naturally, when the people secured a change in the character of the majority they expected a change in policy. If a Labour or Socialist majority were merely to carry out, in continuity, the policy of their Conservative predecessors, there would be no sense at all in making the change. Toryism is Toryism from whatever hand it comes, whether the hand be the hand of a Socialist, or the hand of a member of the Conservative party. I think it not unreasonable, when we allow for differ- ence in views, to expect that the Socialist majority will give greater consideration and more generous treatment to the poor whose affairs they administer than the Conservative majority whom they have succeeded. When a Socialist majority proceed, quite naturally, to give effect to their views, they find themselves confronted by a Conservative Minister of Health. He says, in effect, when they come to him as they must come to him: "If your scale of relief or the manner of administering it"—it really amounts to the same thing—"if your assistance to the poor, under your Socialist administration, exceeds what is given under a Conservative administration, then I will take the earliest opportunity of smashing you when you are compelled to come my way." I refuse to follow the right hon. Gentleman into an examination of the details of the administration of the West Ham Union.

Mr. J. JONES

We will do so; we have it all here.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I have no doubt that my colleagues behind me, with their fund of local knowledge, will deal adequately and creditably with that part of the right hon. Gentleman's statement. I will say this in passing. Even if all he has said were true, even if it could be proved up to the hilt, it would not justify this House in giving a Second Reading to the Measure now before us, because this is not a West Ham Measure. This is not a Bill for dealing with Bedwelty. This is a Bill for the gradual destruction of local Government in England and Wales. [Laughter.] observe the hilarity of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health. At the close of Question Time to-day he was compelled by the House to inform it that over 60 unions in this country had been forced, through economic necessity, to seek sanction for loans from the Minister of Health. I have beside me here a list of 36 unions, which, since the general strike began, only a few weeks ago, have been compelled to go to the Minister of Health in order to seek sanction for loans. In these 36 cases, the sanction was granted, but in 11 of the cases, before the sanction was given, a reduction had to be promised in the scale of relief that was being granted by the unions concerned.

What is the use of submitting that anything which is happening in West Ham justifies this Bill, or sets a limit to the powers of the Minister of Health in his administration of this Bill? Under this Bill, if these 11 unions or any one of the unions had refused to agree to the recommendations or advice or suggestion, or whatever you call it, made by the Minister of Health, then the Minister of Health has power to refuse his sanction and if they did not accept his decision, this Bill would enable him to deprive them of their functions and to set up in their place paid officials of the Ministry from Whitehall. With regard to these 36 unions, in every case they are conforming with Circular 703. I sympathise with the reference which the right hon. Gentleman has made to the difficulties encountered by boards of guardians in this country within the past two or three years, but I submit that the difficulties of the guardians have been largely due to the blunders of the Tories. As the Minister has rightly pointed out, this trouble began with the industrial collapse which took place in 1921. There has grown up in this country a state of affairs which, in itself, is some contribution to the view often proclaimed about the distinction of the classes. We have had what might be almost termed a segregation of the working class. We have many districts that are largely working class camps. We have huge areas from which the rich, who can afford to do so, flee—for residential purposes—as from a pestilence. I do not know much about West Ham or Poplar, but I venture to say that there are no millionaires in West Ham and few in Poplar.

Mr. J. JONES

If fleas were money, we would all be millionaires.

Mr. WHEATLEY

The working class who reside in areas such as that are used by the other people in order to create their wealth, but they are not good enough for the other people to spend their time among during the period when they are not engaged in industry. The districts most hardly hit by unemployment are, of course, the working-class localities, and the working-class localities, in the very nature of things, are the localities which have the lowest valuation. The Tory Government, in carrying out its national policy, refused to make unemployment a national burden. They allowed people, who had made their money in industrial districts and through the labour of the industrialists in times of prosperity, to escape their just share of the burden during the years of adversity. They threw the maintenance of the poor on the poor themselves. The man who could get outside the necessitous area could escape, almost completely, any substantial contribution to the relief of the poverty that had naturally accrued from the industrial collapse. In 1922, and for some time later, the state of affairs created by that national policy did not cause any alarm. People, particularly those on the other side, with that lack of knowledge which always characterises their dealings with industrial situations, thought the collapse was only temporary, but the collapse continued. Unemployment grew; the difficulties of the boards of guardians and the necessitous areas increased, and so did the indebtedness to which reference has been made at length by the Minister of Health.

In the course of his speech the right hon. Gentleman referred to my brief handling of this problem during 1924. When I took office, I found the position had already become serious. Within 10 days after taking up my position at the Ministry of Health, I was called on to deal with the problem of Poplar. It would have been easy for me to have accepted the doctrine of continuity of government, to have blamed my predecessors for the condition of things which prevailed, to have sacrificed or ignored the principles of local government which I have advocated in public life, and to have had a more comfortable time than I and my colleagues had during the first four weeks of our Administration. But with the hearty support of my colleagues, with the enthusiastic approval of my party, I preferred not to sacrifice our principles, but to face the difficulties. I refused to bow to the demand that was made on me to punish the local representatives of Poplar, and, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, with, I think, some truth, I gained a certain amount of respect in this House, not merely from my friends, but, I hope, from my opponents, for the manner in which I handled that problem.

I had also put before me at that time the very difficulties with which the boards of guardians are now embarrassed, and with which the right hon. Gentleman, in, I think, a very foolish way, is attempting to deal in this Bill. I recognised that they were real difficulties, and I promised the representatives of the necessitous areas that at the very earliest moment when my mind was free from the consideration of the Housing Bills that were then my chief concern, I would concentrate my attention on this problem and endeavour to find a solution. I recognised then that the solution would have to lie to some extent in undoing the evils that had been done by the policy of placing a national obligation on the local ratepayers. The right hon. Gentleman sneered at the principle of the cancellation of debts, but this principle becomes obnoxious only when you are dealing with your own people. It is not at all an obnoxious doctrine always, when you are dealing with other people, and I had no doubt then, and I venture to say that the right hon. Gentleman has no doubt now, that no complete solution of this problem will be found that does not involve at least a partial cancellation of debts. But I recognised, and so did the Government of which I was a Member, that the proper course and the immediate manner of alleviation was by taking national responsibility for the maintenance of the unemployed, and my colleague, the late Minister of Labour, proceeded immediately to give effect to that policy by improving the amount which the unemployed would receive from State and insurance funds and consequently reducing the burden of the unemployed on the local ratepayers of the country.

The position began to improve immediately we took office. I have been looking up the figures, and I find that in the average number of persons per 10,000 of the population receiving Poor Law relief in England and Wales there was a steady diminution during 1924. I do not want to quote many figures, but let me submit these figures to the House, because I think they are noteworthy and something that enlightens the country on what may be the result of proper administration and careful legislation. For the first quarter of 1924, in the month of March, the month after I took office, the number of persons per 10,000 of the population receiving relief in England and Wales was 319; three months later, in June, that figure had gone down to 297; in September it had gone down to 272; and then a foolish country ousted the Labour Government, and I think this fact is also noteworthy, that from the day the Labour Government demitted office these figures have steadily increased until the present moment. In March, 1925, the 272 had become 285; it remained stationary for the next quarter; in September it had gone up to 315; and in December it had reached the figure of 342. According to the "Labour Gazette" figures, in March of this year it had bounded further to 421, and in the month of May it had gone up to 624. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why!"] I do not want to compare the month of May with the month of September, the last month in which the Labour Government was in office, but I think it is fair to compare the 272 of September, 1924, with the 421 of the month of March, 1926.

Someone on the other side asked me the reason why. Is not the reason obvious to anyone who is taking an intelligent interest in the public affairs of this country? I could take these figures and show that they are the trail of Tory policy in dealing with unemployment. I could show how the burden on the local ratepayers increases point by point as the burden is taken from the shoulders of the Supertax payers by His Majesty's Government I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman accepts as an authority the editors of the "Poor Law Officers' Journal," but I will read this to the House, because there may be others, at any rate, who will believe that these are not partial or biased people, but that they are those who, being most immediately concerned and interested in administering the Poor Law, are in the best position to give us an impartial judgment. Here is what the editors of the "Poor Law Officers' Journal" say about the present situation: The unemployment figures of the Ministry of Labour (the general strike excluded) are decreasing at the rate of 125,000 a year in England and Wales. The Poor Law figures have increased at the rate of over 250,000. In other words, we have once more ample confirmation of the fact that the Treasury, that is to say, the taxpayer"— I would have almost said the Super-tax payer— is gaining at the expense of the ratepayer. Further on they say: The black spots, the necessitous areas"— and not merely West Ham— are getting steadily blacker. I submit that in these circumstances we should have a great deal of sympathy with those who have had to administer Poor Law relief in this country during the trying years 1922–1926, and the right hon. Gentleman, instead of doing that, has devoted almost 50 minutes of his speech to a denunciation of those who have been grappling with that problem and, I have no doubt, doing their very best—I admit, with a sympathy different from that which would be displayed by the right hon. Gentleman—to bring some little brightness into the darkened lives of those who have been overcome by our industrial difficulties. The right hon. Gentleman, in one part of his speech, made some reference to our donning caps, and he hoped we would not accept caps too soon if we did not think they fitted. I want to submit to him that he has this afternoon put on the black cap and has proceeded to decree sentence of death on a board of guardians, and probably on boards of guardians, in this country, which, instead of deserving that sentence, deserve our greatest consideration, our utmost sympathy, and, in the main, our national gratitude.

I want to refer again, as I did at the outset, to the important principle of democracy that is involved in this Bill. Democracy here has reached a critical stage in its career. It is held up by a Tory Government; its way is barred; it is told that it must turn back. Up till now, we have erroneously described slow progress or no progress as reaction. We were wrong in so describing it, but we used that description because no progress was the worst we had known, but this Bill is real reaction, and, in view of the industrial circumstances in which it is introduced, it is reaction with a vengeance. To bring in a Bill like this, at a moment when possibly millions of children in this country are on the verge of starvation, children whose parents in very many cases are not directly involved in the miners' dispute at all, to select that time for the introduction of this Measure, is in itself an offence against the good taste of the public life of the country. The right hon. Gentleman dealt at length with what he called the corruption that exists among our local representatives. I have not had the pleasure myself of serving on a board of guardians. but I submit that the type of man or woman that we get to do our work on boards of guardians does not differ materially or morally from the type of man or woman who serves on other local governing bodies of the country.

It has been my good fortune to serve for 10 or 12 years on two of the largest local authorities in this country, and in both cases I was taking an active, and sometimes an influential, part. I had opportunities of coming into the closest touch with the colleagues who were engaged with me in that work, and I want to say this, that among men of all parties, among women of all parties, I found nothing but a purity of motive, a standard of morality, of which any country might be proud. I have discussed the standard of public morality in this country with representative people from other lands, and I am pleased to be able to say that I have on all occasions found that our public life is the admiration of the world; and for a Minister of the Crown to come forward to-day and, on the evidence that he has submitted to us, to cast reflections on the honesty and the purity of the motives of the people who are in the public life of our country is something which I regret, sincerely regret, apart from the fact that it came from a Conservative Minister.

Viscountess ASTOR

He did not do it.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I am told he did not do it. He is doing it in the most practical manner possible. He has submitted a Bill here to-day which asks us to scrap the voluntary service that you are getting in the administration of Poor Law relief because it is corrupt, because it is untrustworthy, and to replace it by a, body of officials selected by the Ministry of Health. I fear that again we may have to set aside—I hope it will only be temporarily—the battle for economic improvement upon which we have been engaged and to fight over again the whole battle of democracy. I do not know what form that struggle may take, but I know there is bound to be resentment and indignation, deep and wide, at a Bill under which the democratically-elected voluntary guardians of the poor are to be superseded by bureaucratically-appointed and highly-remunerated guardians of the rich.

Mr. ERNEST ALEXANDER

The right hon. Gentleman who has just resumed his seat told us in one of his phrases that he knew nothing about West Ham or Poplar. That may possibly account for the fact that his speech contained absolutely nothing by way of criticism of the Bill before the House, or by way of reply to the damning indictment of the Minister of Labour in presenting it. Instead of that, he treated us to a little homily as to what a great Minister of Health he was in the Socialist Government, and what the nation had lost by superseding him. As the constituency which I have the honour to represent forms one of the constituent parishes of the West Ham Union, I am glad of the opportunity afforded to me in expressing my views on the Bill before the House, and also to be able to give voice to that strong sense of local approval which has been accorded to the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health for his manly and courageous handling of the very delicate situation created by the contumacy of the West Ham Board of Guardians. I am quite sure that we shall hear a great deal about the sacredness of local self-government from the Opposition benches to-day. In the West Ham Union, at any rate, the fact has to be recognised that local self-government has definitely broken down, and that the local service of Poor Law relief is not now administered from the local rate but has to be largely supplemented by loans from the Ministry of Health. I go further. [Interruption.]

Mr. DEPUTY - SPEAKER (Captain FitzRoy)

I hope the hon. Member will show the usual courtesy in giving a just hearing to an hon. Member making his maiden speech.

Mr. ALEXANDER

I go further, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and I say that not only has local self-government definitely broken down, but I assert that we, are getting a mere semblance of local self-government in West Ham under present conditions, because it is a notorious fact that even the Socialist members of the board have had to admit that they have to obey the behest of the local juntas, the trade and labour council, and the unemployed organisation. I suggest that to be dictated to, and to be bullied, in that way by outside organisations cannot be justified, and cannot be called real self-government? In yet another sense I suggest that we—I am speaking now so far as my own constituency at Leyton is concerned—are not getting local self-government so far as Poor Law administration is concerned. For Poor Law purposes the Union comprises half-a-dozen parishes, not mere parishes as the rural member understands them, but half-a-dozen separate and distinct townships. It is often said that a district gets just the government it deserves. So far as we in Leyton are concerned, we suggest that we are not getting the government we deserve. It is dominated by the Socialism of East Ham West Ham and Walthamstow. Leyton, with a population of nearly 150,000 souls, contributes a heavy proportion to the rateable value, and sends but a minor representation to the West Ham Board of Guardians. It is represented on the District Council by 24 moderate-minded men and six Socialists only, and it is represented on the County Council by one Socialist only out of 10 members. Leyton returns to this House two Conservative Members—and stout ones at that—and yet our partnership in the West Ham Union secures to us, so far as Poor Law administration is concerned, a grotesque travesty of representative local self-government.

When the Minister of Health adumbrated his plans for a revised system of Poor Law administration at the beginning of this year, although there were some of us at Leyton who were genuinely doubtful as to whether the local council was not already overweighted with work, yet we all thought that if the right hon. Gentleman's plan was carried out it would free us, at any rate, from the shackles of West Ham. May I express the cordial hope that those plans for Poor Law reform will very shortly be brought into being.

It is not often that I go out of my way to give advice to the Liberal party, but I am willing, having regard to the sorry disunion there is in their ranks at the present time, to endeavour to save them from falling into further error. In Leyton we have no party politics in local government. Liberals, Conservatives, and all moderate electors, combine to fight the Socialist menace. How well we work together may be gathered from the figures I have already given of the local Socialist representation in the borough. I should like here to pay a tribute to the Liberal party who there are associated with local government. They are to my mind some of the best types of local administrators we possess. Of course they have a few fads—which are excusable with Liberals! They are, so far as local administration goes, as I say, the best type of men. The advice I have to tender to the Liberal party in this House to-day is to support their local followers, and to see that their action here shall be such that it will not deprive those local followers of what support they now get. Do not, in a word, drive them out of your party by affording support to the Socialist Opposition to the Bill now before the House, because there is not a Liberal in Leyton, or in any parish comprised in the West Ham Union for the matter of that, who does not, I can tell them, support to the fullest possible extent the Minister of Health in his action in relation to the West Ham Board of Guardians in the present Bill. If the Liberal party here are stupid enough to support their Socialist allies in connection with this Bill, it will be a mistake, and I think it is only right that the Minister of Health should know that he has the support I have mentioned. But for this fact I might, and probably should, have kept this advice to myself and watched the remnants of the Liberal party in this House strain at the gnat of self-government and swallow the camel of Socialist extravagance, and I should then have watched with interest the further progress of local Liberal party disintegration with pleasure to myself and profit to the party which I represent.

The House is always indulgent to those who can speak with actual local knowledge of the subject before it. I think it right, therefore, that I should give a few examples of the extravagances from which we hope to be freed by this Bill. For some considerable time in Leyton the relief committee of the West Ham Guardians dispensed relief on a lower scale than that recognised by the Board. People were kept from want. The local guardians did their duty in relieving real destitution, though they had no desire to be lavish in their expenditure. As soon as this lower scale of relief came to the knowledge of the West Ham Board of Guardians, the local committee were ordered to level up their own standard to that of the Board. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health has spoken in regard to the action of the boards of guardians during the strike. During the strike many complaints were brought to me that strikers were being relieved by the West Ham Board of Guardians.

Miss WILKINSON

Hear, hear!

6.0 P.M.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Moreover, they were men who up to that time had been in constant employment. Therefore, I suggest to the House that it could not possibly have been necessary. I was also informed in several quarters—and I have no reason to disbelieve it—that men were advised to apply for relief to the board of guardians before they drew their strike pay so that they could say, with some semblance of truth, that they had not received strike pay, although they knew full well that they were going to draw the strike pay afterwards This disregard of the earnings of the rest of the members of the family has often led, in the case of the West Ham Union, to the grant of relief where there was no destitution whatever. The slogan of the guardians was "Work or Maintenance for All," and that has led to the disappearance of family responsibility. There have been numerous cases of people living in double tenement houses where the upstairs tenant was living on Poor Law out-relief, while the downstairs tenant, probably a Leyton man with a wife and children to look after, preferred to keep his work and keep his wife and children free from the taint of the Poor Law. Through his rent the latter was contributing to the upkeep of his more opulent and more leisured co-tenant. Real and genuine destitution every man who is a man would cheerfully pay his poor rates to relieve, but originating with Poplar, spreading to West Ham, and, I fear, to many other districts, the practice is not now the relief of destitution—for it should be borne in mind by hon. Members that that is the only proper function of the board of guardians. The desire of the West Ham Guardians has been to level up the standard of living, where there was destitution or not. The Socialists have preached that there is no stigma in pauperism, that everybody has a right to live on public funds.

Mr. LANSBURY

No.

Mr. ALEXANDER

The manner in which this has been sapping the responsibility of our people can best be illustrated by a case which I have had from the lips of a member of the West Ham Board of Guardians and for which he can give chapter and verse. A widow was living with her son, a motor driver, who fell out of work. For weeks and for months the widow struggled on, parting with small portions of her furniture and even with some of her clothing rather than make an application to the relieving officer. [An HON. MEMBER "Shame!"] Time went on and the conditions grew worse, until real destitution was upon her. At last the neighbours persuaded this poor woman, and rightly so, to apply to the board of guardians for relief, and she was given relief consisting of some amount of coal, something in kind and something in money. That went on for some weeks. Then the guardians discovered that the relief given was not according to their scale, and they raised the money by 7s. 6d. per week. Later the son got work. The idea of parish relief had in the first instance been repugnant to that woman, but what was the effect upon her of accepting relief? When she came to know that through her son getting work she might lose something, instead of showing any desire to dispense with parish relief her one anxiety was to find out how much she would lose. That is how the receipt of Poor Law relief influences people. In nine, cases out of 10, whenever a man puts his hand out for charity his usefulness to the community is diminished.

Mr. J. JONES

What about yourself—putting your hand out for contracts?

Mr. ALEXANDER

I will not weary the House with further details, but will content myself with welcoming the Bill, though only as a temporary palliative of the evil from which we are suffering. I wish to impress upon the House, and more particularly upon the Government, that the real root of the trouble is not touched by this Bill. The administration of Poor Law relief, either in West Ham or anywhere else, by or from Whitehall, for a long or short period, is not the remedy. The real remedy lies in the repeal of Section 9, Sub-section (1), of the Representation of the People Act, which would disfranchise those who are responsible for electing such boards of guardians as we have at West Ham. The Minister of Health confirmed the absolute corruption which exists there. I have seen it, I know it, and can vouch for it.

Mr. J. JONES

And you were in it the first time.

Mr. ALEXANDER

A candidate who offers the people of a district the higher scale of relief is bound to gather round him hundreds of anxious workers eager to secure his election to the board in order that they may share in that boundless relief. We can sympathise with the argument put forward when the Representation of the People Act was passing through this House that a person ought not to lose the right of citizenship if compelled through difficulties temporarily to seek Poor Law relief, but no one realised the extent of what was possible under that Section. I have no hesitation in saying that half the Socialism of this country, the worse half, the most repugnant half, would be killed if this particular Section of the Representation of the People Act were repealed. It would leave us with the other type of Socialism, a very decent type, which could be easily combatted, while ridding us of those who would batten and fatten upon public funds.

Mr. W. THORNE

After the speeches of the hon. Member for East Leyton (Mr. E. Alexander) and the Minister of Health, I think everyone will come to the conclusion that it is about time a Commission was appointed to investigate the charges they made. I think I am justified in saying that the West Ham Guardians have on previous occasions invited investigation of charges made from time to time, and I am sure the present board of guardians would only be too glad if such an investigation were made into these allegations. From One to time attempts have been made to prove the statements about corruption in the West Ham Union, but they never have been proved in any particular, and, as far as I can understand it, the only crime which can be charged against the West Ham Guardians is that they have been very humane, that is to say, they have given relief to the poor on a scale a little in excess of that of Poor Law authorities in other parts of the country. I am not quite sure whether the scale of relief in operation in West Ham is in any way excess of that in Poplar. There may be some slight difference, but there is very little. The scale of relief in the West Ham Union has been reduced, I think, on two occasions. At one time the maximum allowance was 59s., at present it is 55s., but that maximum is granted only in cases where there is a man and wife and six or seven children. Some members of the House will be surprised to learn that the amount of relief given to a man and wife in the West Ham Union is 19s., whereas the amount in Manchester is 20s., and in the Sheffield Union 23s. It is true that in West Ham they give in addition to the 19s. for the man and his wife 5s. extra for each child, but I do not think anyone can say that is in any way extravagant.

I think the House ought to know, and I dare say the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health will be able to say it is so, that in granting relief all the income of a family is taken into consideration—the amount received as unemployment benefit, and any sums the family receive from any other source. It is perfectly evident that one cannot always rely upon the statements made by the applicants, but where there is some doubt as to the money coming into a family there is a strict investigation. The 18 charges made by the West Ham Ratepayers' Association some time ago were thoroughly investigated, and if any Member of this House, with an impartial mind, will read the charges and the results of the investigation, he will be perfectly satisfied with the result, so far as the West Ham Board of Guardians are concerned.

The affairs of the West Ham Board of Guardians have been a thorn in the side of all Governments for a number of years. I have been a Member of this House since 1906—that is very nearly 21 years—and on more than one occasion their affairs have been before the House. Various suggestions have been made as to how Poor Law authorities can be assisted. I am one of those who have held for a number of years—not for the last 10 or 15 years, but ever since I have been a member of the Socialist party, over 40 years—that all the relief distributed by Poor Law authorities in the country should be a national charge; if not all of it, at any rate the major part, ought to be provided from the National Exchequer. A committee, of which I have the honour of being chairman ever since 1921, has drafted various schemes for relieving the position—not for the purpose of finding a complete remedy, but in order to get a palliative, and schemes have been brought before successive Governments, but they have been turned down. On one occasion when the present Minister of Health was what we call an ordinary rank and filer in this House he was one of a deputation which waited upon the Government asking them to give some relief to Poor Law authorities. He was the chief spokesman of the deputation and expressed the unanimous wish of all the Poor Law authorities, and personally, I think, he made one of the best speeches ever made in support of the plea that some relief ought to be given to Poor Law authorities. What we have suggested for the time being is that as the average Poor Law relief is 2s. 11d., where the Poor Law authorities pay over that amount, 75 per cent. of it should be paid by the central Government. Not very long ago, in consequence of this case being very urgent and because the Prime Minister had been pressed upon this question of necessitous areas, the Government were good enough to set up a Committee to investigate the schemes which had been presented, and that Committee met on the 5th November. A number of meetings were held at which a number of witnesses were examined and various schemes were considered, but they were not in a position to recommend any grant from the Exchequer because they had no authority to do so, and they were only appointed to consider the schemes which had been put forward. If the Parlia- mentary Secretary to the Ministry et Health will investigate the conclusions of that Committee, he will find that they were strongly in favour of some assistance being given to these various Poor Law authorities which are suffering very much from the large number of unemployed in their districts.

I would like to point out that the West Ham Union consists of eight parishes and not six as has been stated. In three of those parishes, namely, West Ham, East Ham, and Walthamstow, the population has grown something like 100 per cent. during the last 20 years. When I first came to live in West Ham, the population was about 121,000, but, in consequence of the rapid growth of the borough of West Ham, and the population of East Ham and Walthamstow, we now find a very large number of poor people residing in those three particular areas, and the proportion of poor people there is much greater than any other industrial centre in this country. As the Minister of Health has already pointed out, one of our difficulties arises on account of the extremely low rateable value in these areas. If our rateable value was as high as Birmingham, of course we should not be in our present position. I think the population of Birmingham is pretty well on all fours with the population of the West Ham Poor Law Authority, although there may be a few thousands difference. But when we come to consider the rateable value we find that in Birmingham it is £6,000,000, whereas in West Ham it is £3,500,000. Then again the population of Manchester is on all fours with the West Ham Poor Law Authority. The rateable value in Manchester is over £6,000,000. Therefore, it is evident the West Ham Poor Law Authority cannot go on in the way it has been going on.

As the Minister of Health has stated, the West Ham Poor Law authorities have been absolutely compelled to borrow money from the Goschen Committee, and I believe they have borrowed something over £2,000,000. I want to remind hon. Members that between now and the year 1932 and 1934 the interest and principal which West Ham will be called upon to pay will eventually amount to £250,000, and then it begins to dwindle down. That time is a long way off. The Minister of Health is now proposing to abolish the West Ham Board of Guardians as they are established to-day. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will also wipe out the debt at the same time, because that is one of our troubles, and that is one of the difficulties the Government will have to face. We are all well acquainted with local administration and Poor Law government, and if the West Ham Poor Law Authority was not called upon to come to the Government for their loans they could snap their fingers at you and pay what scale they liked. It is because they are compelled to come to the Goschen Committee on every occasion they desire to raise a loan that the Government have always insisted upon the scale of relief being reduced. That is now taking place, and when any Poor Law authorities have to go to the Goschen Committee, they always insist upon the scale being reduced.

What is now being aimed at by the Government- is a scale of relief not to exceed 40s. a week. I am convinced that a man with a, wife and five or six children will find it impossible to live on 40s. a week. It is inhuman, and no Poor Law authority can ever carry out a proposition of that kind. The right hon. Gentleman knows that, although the Greenwich Board of Guardians suggested a scale of 40s. 6d. for the purpose of obtaining money from the Goschen Committee, they attempted to carry it out on that scale for two weeks, and they were afterwards compelled on humane grounds to rescind that decision, and, as a matter of fact, I understand they are not carrying out that scale at all. The Poplar Guardians are in a stronger position than they were some time back, but that is in consequence of the efforts of my lion. Friend the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) and the Member for East Ham (Miss Lawrence), who went to prison, and it was because they defied the Government that the law was altered, and that brought about another method of dealing with this problem through the Metropolitan Poor Fund. In consequence of that action Poplar is now in the position of receiving close upon £500,000 every year, and I wish the Government would come along and give West Ham £500,000 a year in the same way. If the Government would do that, the West Poor Law authority would be considerably relieved.

The proposals which are now being put forward will not afford any solution of this question. Of course, the Government will pass this Bill, and it is like talking to a lot of ferocious animals to talk to some people outside on this subject because they will not take the slightest notice of you. The Government have their majority, but the time will come when this method of dealing with Poor Law relief will have to be done away with, and it will have to be dealt with as a national charge. We have all this destitution in West Ham, because we have a greater working population and more poor people than any other industrial centre in the country. It is in consequence of the poverty we have in front of us in the West Ham area that the Guardians are compelled to come along and ask for loans. I know the Government are going to get this Bill through, and it will become an Act of Parliament, but I would like to warn hon. Members that when the Bill is passed they will be up against a very tough problem. It will be found to be a very expensive job, and, whatever remuneration you are going to give to the gentlemen you are going to appoint to carry on the Poor Law administration, I guess you will have to pay them very handsome salaries. Something has been said about the guardians being corrupt, but I defy the Government to appoint a Committee to investigate this charge. I am sure they would not find one board of guardians which had been corrupt in the ordinary sense of the word. By corruption I mean cases where a man or a woman have received a money consideration or perquisites. Does the Minister of Health mean to tell me that if I should have the audacity to stand as a candidate for the West Ham Poor Law Guardians and I said to the electors, "If you return me I am prepared to give you 40s. or 50s. outdoor relief," that is corruption? If that be so, then every Member of this House is corrupt. What, will hon. Members opposite do at the next General Election. They will try to excel our programme, and they will promise the electors all kinds of things. Do you call that corruption? It is just as much corruption as what the members of the West Ham Board of Guardians have been doing. Hon. Members cannot put their fingers on a single case where the West Ham Guardians have been corrupt. The Minister of Health made various innuendoes about corruption going on, but I would like to know if that is true what the auditors have been doing and why have they not made surcharges? You cannot bring any corrupt charges against them, and because these guardians have meted out humane treatment you are now bringing forward this vicious Bill. All I say to you is, "Get on with the job."

I wish I could only talk a bit more strongly and more grammatically, but I will leave this question now with my hon. Friend the Member for Silvertown (Mr. J. Jones). I have lived in West Ham since 1884, and poverty has always been with us. People have flocked into our borough for years, and more especially in the docks area, where there are a large number of casual labourers, and that system has gone on for years. When those docks were first established hundreds of thousands of people took up their domicile in West Ham. You may call the West Ham citizen whatever you like, but he is as good as any other citizen, and, although they are poor in West Ham, they have helped to make the wealth of the country, and they have not only earned their pay, but they have made their contribution towards the payment of members not only nationally but locally. I want to tell the Minister of Health to his face that his Bill will not settle this problem. I only wish the right hon. Gentleman would accept the advice which he himself gave on the occasion to which I have already referred when he was the principal speaker of a deputation, and if his advice had been accepted on that occasion we should not have found the West Ham Union in its present position and we should have got some kind of relief.

In my humble opinion the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health made out one of the best cases I have ever heard so far as necessitous areas are concerned. The borough of West Ham has been a necessitous area for the last 25 years. It was a necessitous area in regard to elementary education, and it has been the forcing ground to bring about reforms for many other localties. Now that we have a majority of Socialist and Labour members on the West Ham Board of Guardians, you are coming forward to penalise them. At one time the majority of the West Ham Board of Guardians were members of the Ratepayers' Association, and even they found themselves in the position we are now in. I feel very strongly about this matter. I do not speak very often, but I do hope that even now at the eleventh hour some way will be found out of this difficulty. If this House is going to try to enforce a scale 40s. 6d., upon the West Ham Guardians they will not accept it. They have been compelled to cut down their scale because they were short of money, but I hope the Minister of Health will represent to the Government the real position of things and ask his colleagues to give us a clean sheet, and wipe out all the debt we owe to the Government. I am convinced we cannot go on paying interest to the amount of close upon £250,000 in the next five or six years. It is impossible; it is unthinkable. Even when the Bill is passed and when the Ministry take on the position, the Minister will find it is one of the toughest problems that ever fie had to tackle in his life.

Captain HOLT

I was somewhat interested to hear the Minister of Health, in his opening remarks, say that West Ham was a necessitous area and would always remain so, and I should like to endorse some of the remarks of the hon. Member for Plaistow (Mr. W. Thorne), who has just sat down. While I think that this Bill will help the situation as it stands, I am forced to say to the Minister that I doubt very much whether he will be able to collect the money which has already been advanced to the West Ham Poor Law Union area, owing to the very difficult circumstances in which the population of that area, are placed, I should like to deal briefly with the statement in the Amendment which has been moved by the right hon. Gentleman the late Minister of Health, to the effect that the Bill enables nominees of the Minister to disburse public moneys without any control by the ratepayers who provide such moneys. The situation, as I understand it, in the West Ham Poor Law Union area, is that to a very large extent the money which is contributed for Poor Law purposes is not controlled by those who contribute, the money. I am informed that between one-third and one-half of the total rates for Poor Law purposes are contributed by limited companies who have no vote, no voice, and no control in the matter, and who, in fact, cannot even be represented by a director or official on the board of guardians.

Mr. THORNE

The docks are only rated on the same principle as the docks in Manchester.

Captain HOLT

Quite so. I am not saying that this position is confined to West Ham, but, as the Bill has been introduced, as the Minister told us, because of the situation in which West Ham is placed, I am dealing with that particular locality at the moment. I would further point out that there are undoubtedly many people in the area who do not contribute towards the rates but who have votes, because there are many people who are entirely existing upon out-relief. It is obvious that their rates are paid out of that out-relief, and they, therefore, are in the position of having votes in respect of rates which are paid by someone else. On the question of corruption, I must beg to differ from the hon. Member for Plaistow. I do not think he mentioned, and I do not think anyone else has made, any charge that any of the West Ham Guardians have helped themselves or benefited financially by any of the irregularities in the distribution of out-relief, but I am afraid r cannot accept the very limited definition of corruption which the hon. Member gave, and in that I am, apparently, supported by several members of the board of guardians who belong to the Socialist party.

The Minister of Health, in his opening remarks, referred to a statement made by Councillor Killip in December, 1923, but I have here a report from the local newspaper which gives a more recent statement by that gentleman. It says: At the guardians' public meeting in February, 1925, Councillor Killip agreed with the Alliance's suggestion to accept the Minister's terms, and said they found people with £4 a week objecting to allowing 2s. 6d. to their parents in relief. Again, Councillor Killip, at a meeting of the House Committee in March, 1926, said: Poor Law relief is being abused, and abused right up to the hilt, and Alderman Davis also said: Something must be clone to put a stop to the girls refusing to work and keeping on relief. These are not statements made by the Municipal Alliance, or by those opposed to the Socialist party, but by Socialist members of the board of guardians, and very prominent Socialists too. I should like, if I may, to quote a case which has been given to me of a man who, in 1924, was caught defrauding the guardians. He appeared before the house committee to answer the charge, and put forward the lapel of his coat, in which was a trade union badge which was identical with that worn by the chairman of the committee. Although this was the man's second offence, he was again let off with a caution only. Mr. Walsh, a Socialist member, protested against this, and said that the case "left a nasty taste in the mouth." I am afraid that Mr. Walsh suffered for that. He helped the local Labour party at the last Election, but, although he stood as an independent. Labour candidate, he was defeated by the official Labour candidate. I have been supplied with a great many of these cases, and I may, perhaps, quote another, that of a woman who in December, 1924, had £240, which she said she got rid of in five days, and then she came on relief. She had bought a gramophone for £6 6s. the day before, and while she was on relief she had over £100, which she gave to a man, also on relief, to get rid of.

Mr. W. THORNE

Will the hon. and gallant Member read the right-hand side, in reply to that?

Captain HOLT

I am afraid I have not got it. No doubt the hon. Gentleman will be able to give the reply.

Mr. THORNE

I have got it here.

Captain HOLT

This is information which has been sent to me. There is another case where a man who, in January, 1923, was proved to have obtained relief by false statements, and was let off with a caution, was again before the house committee in July, 1924, for a similar offence, and was again let off and continued on relief. In another case, a man had been on relief—full scale—since 1922, and was working for the Waltham-stow Council. He was not prosecuted. In another case a man drew unemployment benefit continuously to the amount of £13 in all, and he was not prosecuted. I have pages of cases of this kind, and it appears to me that, while there may not be corruption in the sense to which the hon. Member for Plaistow refers, there is undoubtedly a very great reluctance to deal drastically with these cases of defrauding the guardians, and it appears to me that the ratepayers' money is being wasted in cases of this kind—which I do not think any Member of this House would defend, no matter on which side he sits —that the investigations are not properly carried out, and that, when these frauds are found out, measures arc not taken to deal with them so drastically that they do not occur again.

Th. Minister of Health said that there had been cases in which relief tickets had been issued on such a scale that the recipients did not know what to do with them. That statement was received with derision by hon. Members opposite, but perhaps I may quote a case which came to my personal knowledge last summer. It was the case of a man who went into a shop kept by one of my constituents, and he had a relief ticket for 16s. He bought out of that ticket a tin of peaches and half a pound of Devonshire cream. There arc many people—I think the majority—in my constituency who are working hard, and very few indeed of whom could afford to spend the money they have gained with the labour of their own hands in making a purchase such as this man made out of his relief ticket. If we turn to the Report of the Auditor, which the Minister has already quoted, we find that it states that Efforts have been made to detect 'trafficking' in tickets, but so far have been usually without result, as apparently the sight of a stranger stops any transactions. I have, however, had brought to my knowledge a case in which a relief ticket for 12s. 6d. was actually bought by the representative of a London newspaper for 2s. 6d.

There is just one other point that I should like to make while I am dealing with the question of the administration of out-relief in West Ham. It is that there is dictation from outside. Undoubtedly a number of Socialist members of the West Ham Board of Guardians vote, not as they think, but as they are ordered to do by the trades and labour council outside. We have had many instances of that. There have been instances of Labour members of the board of guardians being "told off," if I may use the expression, by the trades and labour council for not voting in the way that they have been ordered to vote, and at the next meeting of the board they have turned round and voted as they were ordered. The right hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment was very violent on the subject of the Constitution, but I can think of no more perfect example of Soviet rule than the fact that the elected representatives of the people are under the orders of people who are neither elected nor representative. In this connection I may mention that there were some very heated and acrimonious meetings of the board, and the final decision was that the Socialist members should consult those outside. An ordinary person would have been under the impression that consulting "those outside" meant consulting the ratepayers who had furnished the money for the purpose of out-relief, but, as a matter of fact, consulting "those outside" meant nothing of the kind; it merely meant consulting the organised unemployed, who gave their orders to the. Socialist members, and the offer of the Ministry was refused.

From the examples I have given, I think the House will he able to form a judgment as to the way in which the affairs of the guardians are conducted. I wish to remind the House that the cost of the excessive relief falls very largely upon people who are themselves struggling under very adverse circumstances to gain a living. The excessive rates in the district are undoubtedly hampering trade and creating unemployment. I feel that under this Bill the Ministry will be able to provide adequate and fair relief to those really in need of it, while at the same time checking abuses. For all these reasons, I am very glad to support the Second Reading of the Bill.

Mr. J. JONES

It is very interesting indeed to listen to wisdom coming from the mouths of babes and sucklings. Some of us have spent all our lives in the localities which have been attacked to-day. We know the people and have lived with them. Now they have got to have carpet-bagging politicians with an accidental majority imported into the district because of a combination between two so-called opposing schools of politicians, who find themselves accidentally in this House and who are now trying to teach their grandmothers the way to suck eggs. I have in my hand the report of the auditor, upon which the whole of the case against West Ham might be ostensibly built, and I challenge the Minister of Health—we in West Ham are willing to accept the challenge—to compare this with the administration of the Poor Law in Birmingham. I have had some experience of travelling throughout the country, and when I hear the word "corruption" it makes me feel tired. Even in West Ham, before Labour became the dominating political factor, you could not get a job as a school teacher unless you were a member of the Conservative or the Liberal Club, and you could not get a job under our local authority unless-you were a member of the Masonic Club. But corruption only begins when the ordinary worker begins to take part in public administration, and ho gets control of the machinery, and he says, as we are not ashamed of saying in West Ham, "every man who draws the trade union rate of wages from our public authority and works the hours laid clown by the general conduct of our movement shall be a member of the union." Is that corruption? [Interruption.] You know how to intimidate. You are doing it now. Tens of thousands of railwaymen have been intimidated during the general strike. Seven thousand members of our own union—[ Interruption.] They never had you for a leader!

Mr. WOMERSLEY

It would have been better if they had.

Mr. JONES

They have followed you up till now. You have had a majority at your disposal for donkey's years. Where are the people now? Are they prosperous? We have only had office for nine months. You have had it for hundreds of years, and the people are not prosperous and never will be, because, as long as the workers have to submit to your domination, you wilt always see to it that you get the best end of the stick. What does this Bill mean? The real policy of the Government is not explained even in the Bill. It is to force down the scale of relief to the lowest possible point, so as to compel people by the sheer force of economic circumstances to accept any job that is offered them, and it is because we in West Ham, Poplar, and other working parts of the country, where we have some political influence, have fought against it that we are going to he put into the pillory now.

The worst case you can find is a family with an income of £10 a week, and that is made a charge against the members of the boards of guardians. If there is any corruption about it, according to your officer, you have the power to surcharge members of the board under the present law, like you did to Popular, and God help you, you will never get your money back. [Laughter.] It is not a joke from my point of view. What about your belief in publicly-elected representatives? Do you not believe in them? The people in constituencies like mine select a certain number of men and women who do not own property. A large proportion of the guardians are men employed in jobs, some of them working at night, who attend to their public duties in the day time. Some are married women whose husbands are in employment, and they are able to devote the necessary time. They are selected, for good or evil, by a majority of the constituents in the ward they contest. They are sent to the board to carry out their responsibilities as members, and they do it, and all you can bring against us is this beggarly list in a population of a million. In the right Ion. Gentleman's own city you will find more mal-administration than there is in this document from Ms own auditors. I should like to ask, what is an auditor? We know what an auditor is in our trade unions and friendly socieities. We have chartered accountants who audit our books. They come and tell us whether we are right or wrong in so far as our finances are concerned. But these Gentlemen coming from the Ministry of Health are not auditors. They are sent down with instructions to try to find fault with certain local authorities. If you believe in saving your bank balance at the expense of the poverty of the people, it is easy to find fault.

Major PRICE

On a point of Order. Is it right to impute motives to public officials?

Mr. SPEAKER

I do not think I can interfere. There is a well-known axiom about corporations which I need not quote.

Major PRICE

It was about the public auditors.

Mr. JONES

I do not say a word about these gentlemen at all. I have had some experience of them, and have always had fair treatment from them. I understand the officers' duty is to audit, and not to pass opinions—not to become a propagandist of a political party, as this document proves they have become. If a gentleman is employed in a professional capacity, he exceeds his duty when he expresses political opinions. This is the best case you could bring against us—the only case you have—and on the strength of this the West Ham Board of Guardians is going to be put in the pillory. We are told by the right hon. Gentleman that members of boards of guardians have sons and daughters and brothers and cousins and aunts probably working for the boards of guardians. I wonder if we could say the same about the Government. Do they not appoint their friends to political offices when they get the opportunity? Some people who are sitting on that bench would never be there if it were not for their past donkey work for your party, getting salaries of £1,200 a year when they are not worth 12d. a month. They could not even get up to defend their own Government when the Front Bench was absent. These are the people who charge us with corruption. Most of them are only there because they are their father's son, and some of them would have a difficulty in proving it—[HON MEMBERS "Order!"] There is nothing disorderly in that. I am not attacking any individual.

We have in our area it population nearly as large as the largest Poor Law area in the country. I do not want to exaggerate, because it is not necessary. The truth is enough. We have the greatest mass of congested poverty of any part of Great Britain under the administration of one authority. Some hon. Members have had experience of charity organisation. I have had the administration of funds where we have had a special investigation, and it is physically impossible to stop people taking advantage of money which can be had for the asking if it can be got by that method. Even your Charity Organisation Society has been taken advantage of by people who are clever enough. They cannot see under the surface.

This Bill is not brought in for the purpose it ought to be brought in for. If it was for the reorganisation of our Poor Law system you would find more supporters probably on these benches than upon your own. We all know the overlapping that takes place between various local authorities in matters of this kind. We want to see a real co-ordination and reorganisation in matters connected with the Poor Law, unemployment, National Health Insurance and all these other matters. Why select West Ham? Some of us have been attacked by the extremists in our own borough, because we tried to bring about some kind of arrangement. Now what position are we in? If we go to meet our local people we are told this is the consequence of our attempts to try to bring about an arrangement. Because we tried to get an amicable, democratic arrangement 12 months ago, because we tried to smooth over the difficulties, we are told we are traitors to the working-class movement. They say "You are willing to be reasonable, but these other people are not, and they are coming to take the power out of your hands and disfranchise the electors of West Ham." Why should we be selected? I know all the other places may find themselves in the soup as well as us, but not for the same reason. We have to get our tanning, because our colour is red. We are told we are Bolshevists. We are nothing of the kind. I should like to see hon. Members opposite keep a family on 45s. a week in London. Some Members opposite will pay more than that for one meal.

We want to know where is the charge against us. On what basis is this Bill built? Surely if the West Ham Board of Guardians have done wrong they can be dealt with under the existing law. But this is not an attack on the West Ham Board of Guardians. It is an attack upon democracy and local administration. We are determined, so far as we are able, to fight the Bill, because no evidence has been produced as to its necessity. The question of corruption can easily be dealt with, because, if you have any individual cases of corruption, why not bring in the people guilty? Some hon. Members who talk here today know more about corruption than I do. We know them in the East End of London. There is an Act now on the Statute Book which gives you the right to deal with corruption. If a commercial traveller offers a bribe to get orders, he is guilty of corruption and can be sent to prison. A member of a. board of guardians can be sent to prison if he does a corrupt act. But you have no, evidence based upon real fact. Therefore, we say this is an excuse for an attack upon the workers in the districts where we have been successful in obtaining to some extent political power. The whirligig of time will bring its revenge. This Government will not last for ever. Another may come along, and a Labour Minister of Health may go to some guardians in the West End of London and say: "Your scale of relief is starvation for the workers in your district. You will have to come up to the, level of West Ham and Poplar, and, if you do not, I am going to sack you and put my nominees in your place." I wonder how you would like your eggs done then?

7.0 P.M.

Once you get the law on the Statute Book the Minister has the power to discharge the functions of the publicly-elected representatives and to get rid of them and put salaried people in their place. Time will bring about the inevitable result, and you will not have it all your own way when the last word is said. Therefore, we are opposing this Bill. We are prepared to accept democratic decisions. We have to accept them in this House where we are in a minority. We want you to accept the decision, so far as local government is concerned—that the majority of the people in a district have a right to decide, under existing conditions, what their position shall lm in administering the Poor Law.

We have not asked the Minister for any money, only to lend us some. Have we not paid back all the money we have undertaken to pay back, both capital and interest? We have paid it back, and we have maintained our responsibility. It is very bad for us that we are Britishers. If we had been Greeks, or French, or Spaniards, you would have any amount of money for us, and, if it had been a sum of £5,000,000, we could have wiped your £5,000,000 off the book and said, "Let us-be pals in future. The Entente Cordiale for ever t" West Ham, being of course a British place, you can do as you like with us, because we are a minority. We have said that we are willing to pay all that we can be made to pay. Nobody else pays more. We are willing to pay all that we are liable to pay. What we are protesting against is that districts like ourselves, segregated as they are, great industrial areas under poverty-stricken conditions, with casual labour almost everywhere, should be called upon to face this burden locally. We are asking that in future it shall he faced nationally and that the whole nation shall bear its proper share. This is not the way out of the difficulty. You can put all the guardians in prison you can put all the members in prison, except the hon. Member for Upton (Captain Holt). Perhaps you will send him as warder in the prison where you send the others and so reward him for the services he has not been able to render to you. We are against this Bill because it assails the principle of local government in this country which, after all, is the basis of all our public administration.

Mr. HARRIS

It would be unfortunate if it should be thought that this is merely a Bill to deal with one particular district. The discussion this afternoon would give the public outside that impression. The Minister of Health made the whole case for the powers he sought on the position of West Ham. He made it quite clear to the House that that was the reason for these powers. He built up a case for seeking the powers in this Bill on circumstances and instances in that one particular part of London. This Bill goes very much further. It is a Bill giving the Minister very autocratic powers. ft does not even attempt to describe how these powers are to be used. It vests in him the right at his own discretion to supersede the elected members of the board of guardians in any part of the country. It does not limit that right; it does not require that corruption should be proved. It merely limits it by the Preamble of the Bill which speaks of "matters arising out of default." It does not attempt to define what default is. It is a very serious thing to ask this House to vest these powers in a Minister. We have always been suspicious of anything like a Minister of the Interior in this country. We have based our whole organisation of administration on local government. Now we are departing from that principle.

The hon. Member for Silvertown (Mr. J. Jones) quite rightly pointed out that these are dangerous powers, and may be used in other directions by future Governments. Just as the Minister is now proposing to use them because he thinks the local authority is sinning in one particular direction, another kind of Government with another kind of bias may attack with these powers a local authority because they are sinning in the opposite direction. This is not the right way to tackle a difficult problem. If there be really corruption and if all the Minister has said be correct—it is an allegation that there is something very near corruption—then the individuals concerned should be attacked. if they are really using their position of trust in order to push their own friends into paid positions, then proceedings should be taken against them.

This trouble has arisen because of the failure of Parliament, not only this Parliament but previous Parliaments, to deal with this long overdue problem. Everybody admits that our Poor Law machinery is inadequate and unsatisfactory, unpopular and discredited, extravagant and inefficient. The right hon. Gentleman has admitted it. He even went so far as to prophesy that it would not be necessary to use these powers, because at some unspecified date he is going to produce a Poor Law Bill I am a little supicious of his promises to produce this Bill. We were to have a Bill this year. It was supposed to be a very urgent question. I suggest that there would have been adequate time to produce this Bill. Many days were spent just before Easter in dealing with the Economy Bill which might very easily have been spent much better in dealing with the problem of the Poor Law. I am a little afraid that, when the Minister has got these autocratic powers, he may not find the pressure to deal with the Poor Law on large and national lines so great as hitherto. I am not prepared to vest in a Minister these autocratic powers.

The incidence of the Poor Law does fall very hardly on some districts. The tradespeople and the ratepayers in West Ham and other similar areas are bearing grievous burdens. It is a great handicap to them in their business and in their trade in those areas. It is quite right that something should be done to relieve that burden, but this is the wrong way to deal with it. I am very doubtful whether, even under the benevolent administration of the Ministry of Health, it would be possible to do very much to bring down the rates, because, even with the most careful administration, even with the most cheeseparing policy, by lowering the scale, by eliminating all the uncle-serving, and by limiting relief to all those cases that can be proved to the satisfaction of the officials of the Minister, the burden of rates in districts like West Ham, with the large amount of unemployment that exists will still be a very heavy one.

The whole trouble is that to the old cumbersome machinery of a Poor Law, which was discredited even before the war, there has now been thrown the extra burden and responsibility of dealing with an immense amount of unemployment. Unfortunately, a great part of that unemployment is concentrated in certain areas. The Minister knows very well that, despite all the unemployment, there are large areas in this country, like the West of England, the West of London and other places, where the amount of unemployment is not abnormal, and where, owing to the high assessable value, the small amount of unemployment that does exist in those areas does not mean an exceptional burden on the rates. Unfortunately, unemployment and poverty are concentrated where the assessable value is low. Poverty goes to where the rents are low; where rents are low, assessable values are low; where assessable values are low, the produce of a penny rate brings in a very small sum of money. That is the difficulty the Minister has to face, and the problem which he has to tackle.

I am going to prophesy that in the next 12 months, during which the Minister will have had the administration of this district, he will give very little satisfaction to the local ratepayer and will give very little relief except from the National Exchequer which he is not prepared to do on the one hand, this Bill is giving autocratic powers to the Minister; on the other hand, it is not dealing with the complicated problem of the relief of poverty and of unemployment only hope that the Minister will produce his Poor Law Bill. I wish I could see it in a tangible form. We had some outline of a Bill he was going to introduce to deal with the Poor Law last year. It has faded into the background. Do I understand from the shaking of his head that he still adheres to—

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I was shaking my head at the statement that it has faded into the background.

Mr. HARRIS

I understand then that the Bill remains in the same form. It would be a great advantage if we could see this Bill. If, instead of spending our time discussing this Bill which gives the Minister autocratic powers, we could give a Second Reading to a Bill dealing with the whole question, Parliament would be discharging its functions more effectively, and the Minister would he occupying his time to much greater advantage. That is what the nation demands: that is what the nation wants. We have at the present time these millions of unemployed, and they are unfortunately increasing. These armies of unemployed are put upon unfortunate local authorities, with no adequate funds to deal with them, and with inadequate powers. I represent Bethnal Green, and it has never been for a moment suggested that the guardians there are corrupt or inefficient. The majority of them do not actually belong to the Labour party, but are independent persons recognising no political authority. They have done their best to discharge their difficult duties; they have tried on the one hand to protect the interests of the ratepayers and on the other hand to deal fairly with these unfortunate people who are out of work and have to seek relief. Even they find, with all their care, with all their trouble, with all their desire to mete out even-handed justice between the ratepayer and the recipients of relief, that their burden is too heavy to carry, that the rates are rising every year, and that the expenditure is much higher than we have a right to demand from a local authority.

Bethnal Green, too, has the advantage of coming under the Common Poor Fund. It has the right to ask the rich districts of Kensington and Westminster to help it, but West Ham has not that advantage. It has to fight out its battles alone. This is really the issue at stake. It is not a question of corruption or of inefficiency. It is the fact that these poor districts outside London, who have not been bought into the London system are asked to fight out their battles on their own. The Royal Commission was not favourable to the extension of the area of London. It was not in favour of a Greater London scheme; it was not convinced that a case had been made out for that, and it was loth to propose any remedy of that kind; but it pointed out that it was necessary that districts like West Ham should receive assistance from some common poor fund, and recommended London inside the county to assist financially London outside the county. Nothing has been done in that direction.

This Bill is the wrong way to tackle the question. It is not a remedy. On the contrary, it is a sin against the sound principles of local government and constitutionalism. It is proposed to vest the Minister with autocratic powers to sweep away any Poor Law guardians in the country. This House ought to weigh long and weigh well before it vests those powers in a Minister, unless it has some very substantial assurance that the Government is in earnest in its desires to reform the whole system of dealing with poverty and of making proper provision for tackling the difficult and complex problem of unemployment.

Captain HUDSON

This Bill is of very great interest to London Members of Parliament. I have at various times had considerable correspondence and conversation with people on this subject of Poor Law relief. There is scarcely a conference of the Metropolitan Unionist Association at which this question does not come up. We have been attacked to-day on one ground particularly, that this Bill for the taking over by the Minister of Health of boards of guardians ender certain circumstances is interfering with local government. That might be so e the Exchequer did not have to find the money for the local government; but it seems to me that he who pays the piper should call the tune, and when, as in this case, up to £2,000,000 has been lent to West Ham by the Exchequer, it can scarcely be called unjustifiable interference because the Government feel it necessary to step in and take over the affairs of the board. I believe that the whole of this maladministration which has been brought against West Ham, and which was previously brought against Poplar, has come about because of the advent of party politics into local government. In the old days, as far as one could gather, party politics as far as possible were kept out of local government. Men and women were not elected on a party ticket. They considered their job as guardians to be to administer to the best of their ability, and they had no party to think of. This change of affairs has come about with the growth of Socialism.

The Minister of Health mentioned corruption. I gathered from his speech that he was particularly alluding, I may be wrong, to the case, which I believe the Cabinet are now considering, of people who are in receipt of Poor Law relief electing the guardians who are to give them that relief. Whether that may be called corruption or not I do not know, but undoubtedly whenever an election takes place we do hear complaints of certain guardians promising to do various things for people if they are elected. If a Bill were brought forward to disfranchise people who are in receipt of Poor Law relief from electing people who are to give them relief, I would support it. I think I ought to have the support of the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury). On Tuesday night last, in the Debate on the Coal Mines Bill, he said: For 35 years I have been a local administrator, and during all that. time I have held the view that i a man lied no right to vote public money, or to take part in a discussion of voting public money if some of the money might conic his way,"—[(OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th June, 1926; col. 1110, Vol. 197.] I admit that that case is somewhat different from the case with which I am now dealing, but my point is that the spirit is the same, because people elect guardians who are going to give them relief. Seeing that the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley is of opinion that a Member of this House should not vote when he is financially interested, I hope I shall have his support on this point. [interruption.]

Mr. SPEAKER

The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) has no right to interrupt in that way.

Captain HUDSON

The introduction of politics into local affairs is a bad thing. I have a feeling that some of these local bodies, boards of guardians in particular, have at the back of their minds some idea of trying to make that particular body unworkable, and then they can turn round and say "Capitalism has failed, Socialism is the only thing." On many occasions that argument is used in this House, and I believe that that is one of the reasons that operates in the case of West Ham. They do not seem to mind how much money they borrow, and they openly say that they never see any hope of paying it back. In my own constituency last week we had a by-election for the board of guardians, and I heard continual complaints of the extraordinary statements made during that by-election by canvassers for the Socialist cause. It became so bad that a member of the board of guardians attended the Labour meetings in order to say which statements were true or untrue. I am glad to say that we won the by-election, although by a small majority.

This business of mixing party politics with local government is particularly rife in West Hans. In the "Times" of 25th June I noticed a remark by Mr. Killip in which he said after the decision of the Minister of Health that he was going to present this Bill to the House, that he, Mr. Killip was going outside and inside the relief stations, if necessary, and would point out to the people that this was part of the considered plan of the Tory Government, which is tottering to its doom. I do not think it is part of Mr. Killip's business to go up and down the relief stations in that way. He is supposed to be going there as a guardian and not as a party representative: Although it may be his personal opinion that the Tory Government is tottering to its doom, in which view I do not agree with him, I do not see what that has to do with his business as a guardian. It is not the scale of relief that we object to, but the maladministration of the guardians. We have heard of cases where the family income has been £5, £6 or £7 a week, yet people in that family have been receiving relief. We have had the case, which I particularly noted, of a family receiving up to £10 a week in income, and also receiving relief. These are the reasons why the Bill has been brought in, and not because of some scale of relief which the Minister would not approve. We on this side are always taunted, whenever we back up a Bill of this description or oppose some Socialist Measure, that we are in favour of starving women and children and of starving everybody. That is untrue. There is no country in the world where people are better looked after than in this country; certainly the children. I heard the right hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley) talking about millions of starving little children. That statement is untrue. There are not millions of starving little children. Any hon. Member who takes an interest in his constituency and knows what is going on will back me up in what I say on that point. I hope we shall get back to the time when party politics are entirely cut out of local administration. The present state of affairs is had for the recipients of relief and bad for the country. It is a bad thing, anyhow, that a man should get something for nothing.

Mr. LANSBURY

Hear, hear!

Captain HUDSON

It is a great pity that people outside are inclined to mix up the question of Poor Law relief and unemployment benefit, which are two entirely different things. Poor Law relief in itself is a bad thing. It is, therefore, all the more necessary for the people who have to administer the relief to see that it goes to deserving eases and that it does not go to people who are not entitled to it. I support the Bill as being an effort to see that that policy is carried out. I hope the Bill will receive a Second Reading and that the working of it will be as smooth as I think it will; although hon. Members opposite think the opposite.

Mr. LANSBURY

I would like to clear up the question of corruption. What I consider to be corruption is this: If I in this House proposed legislation or voted for legislation knowing that that legislation would benefit myself. As I understand it, no such charge as that is made against the West Ham Board of Guardians. No one has charged any single member of that board with getting any personal advantage from membership of that board. Therefore, I think, the right hon. Gentleman used unwarrantable language in talking about corruption. The man who votes for a Parliamentary candidate who promises to give better education to the children of the voter and who says that he will establish scholarships and so on, is no less corrupt, if the other case can be regarded as corrupt, than the man who, hard up and down-and-out, with a family almost starving, is asked to vote for a candidate who, at least, will put him over the starvation period. It is an amazing doctrine for the right hon. Gentleman to come and talk about members of boards of guardians who give jobs to their relatives. I should have thought that any member of the Tory party, having in mind the doctrine laid down by Lord George Hamilton that the duty of the Tory party is to look after its friends, would not have adopted the attitude of the Minister of Health. It is rather late in the day for the right hon. Gentleman to talk about a set of poor people in the East End who may occasionally find a job for one of their relatives. I ask him whether in his experience in appointing men or women to positions he has never been swayed at any time by the fact that it was either a relative or the friend of a relative he was appointing. I would like him to stand at that box on his honour and tell us that he has never appointed to a job any person, capable of doing the job, who has been ever indirectly a relative or a friend. I challenge him to stand at that box and say that he has never done it.

I say without any reservation whatsoever that in connection with none of the public contracts or the public money that I have had a hand in giving or spending could it be charged against me and not against any of the members of the board of which I am proud to be a member, could it be charged that I or they have feathered our own nests or feathered the nests of their friends. That being so, it does not lie with the right hon. Gentleman, in that superior manner of his, to talk about poor men and women as he did to-day, in regard to many of whom he is unworthy to unloose their shoes. They give time and energy to the work and get absolutely nothing out of it.

This problem of Poor Law relief and destitution in the East of London is nothing new. It has been investigated over and over again during the past 50 years. After 1870 we had a, period of administration which is beloved by the right hon. Gentleman opposite—a strict administration. Mr. Goschen, who was then at the Local Government Board, tightened up things and cut down Poor relief almost to a minimum. People imagined that they were getting rid of pauperism in the East of London, but within a few years London was faced with an increase in pauperism and destitution, and the public conscience was aroused by books written by the late George Sims, "Bitter Crys of London," the late General Booth, "Darkest England, and the Way out," and the late Mr. Charles Booth, who was by no means a Socialist, but one of the finest public-spirited men I have ever met. He conducted an independent investigation into the poverty and conditions of life in South-East and East London, and I recommend hon. Members opposite to read the results of his investigation; they will then understand the problem better and will realise that in West Ham, Bermondsey, Greenwich and Poplar it is not new, but that it is only a little more accentuated now than it was 50 years ago. It is quite absurd to put the blame on local administrators.

The Prime Minister, speaking in the House the other evening, bade us cast our minds back to the days when the power loom was introduced and displaced the hand loom, and he told us of the terrible misery and suffering which was endured by the workers during the period of transition. The inference was that we must not complain if in these days the workers had to go through the same kind of purgatory. The Prime Minister forgot to tell us that the hardships, the misery, and the deaths from starvation, in the hills and dales of Lancashire and Yorkshire was only made possible by legislation very much on the same lines as the present Bill—namely, the 1834 Poor Law Act, which advocated and put forward, as the panacea for getting rid of destitution and pauperism, a strict administration, by denying everybody any right to relief except in a workhouse and saying that able-bodied men must work at any wage that was offered them or go into the workhouse. The workhouses were made worse than the prisons. You have only to read the novels of Disraeli, of Charles Dickens and of Charles Kingsley, to know how that infamous law was used, and this Bill is intended to be used in order to make men work for whatever wages are offered. They are given no alternative but to crowd into the towns and become the servants of machinery.

What is the position to-day? West Ham and Poplar and Middlesbrough and Birmingham are suffering because of the War and the economic results of the War. Who is being asked to bear this burden? During the War the workers were told that they would not be called upon to suffer. I have heard Dr. Macnamara tell us in this House about the living wall that stood between the destruction of this country and the Germans, and at this moment there are millions of men and their dependants who are being thrown on the tender mercies of the Poor Law or of charity or of unemployment insurance. The Minister of Health knows as well as I do that in the casual wards to-night throughout this country will be found some of those who formed that living wall, some of those who stood between the governing classes of this country and the destruction they dreaded from the German Kaiser, and all that this country can do as a remedy is to take up this case against West Ham. Last week this House passed a Bill which some of my colleagues—and I agree with them—called a murderers' Bill. The Bill we are considering this afternoon is to safeguard that murderers' Bill. It is a Bill to rob the worker of his last chance of standing up against the hard demands of his employers. Take this away and he has no chance at all.

What is the defence for this Bill? The Minister of Health knows that there are 60,000 to 70,000 individuals relieved in West Ham each week, and the bulk of those are widows and orphans and children and the sick. The percentage of able-bodied men who are relieved is very small. The same is true of Poplar and Bermondsey. In the main women and children and sick persons form the bulk of the 30,000 relieved in Poplar and the 60,000 or 70,000 relieved in West Ham. And what is the result of that relief? Hon. Members opposite say they are as warm-hearted as we on this side, that they want to do justice to these people, that they do not want anyone to suffer or die. What are the facts? Before the Labour party came into power in these districts the death rate amongst infants was considerably higher than it is now. Take the figures of West Ham, Poplar or Bermondsey, wherever there has been a large expenditure on Poor Law relief, or a large expenditure on public health service, the death rate amongst the children has gone down, and I say that if the Minister of Health gets his way, that death rate will rise again.

I was much interested to bear where he is going to collect those people who are to administer Poor Law relief in West Ham, whose relations they would be, whose friends they will be; how they will be chosen. I was also interested to hear how they were proposing to administer a scale which does not include rent. I was amazed at the ignorance or effrontery of the Minister of Health on this point. He should know that in comparing relief scales—it all depends on a factor which neither the hoard of guardians or anyone else can govern—namely, the factor of rent. That is the dominating factor in the East of London. If the new guardians set up a scale that does not include rent, it is perfectly evident you will not get any rent. The fact is, the rent will not be paid. You are faced with a disaster in East London, and especially in West Ham just now, but you will be heading for a much greater disaster if you persist in this policy, because widows with their children, and the unemployed man and woman with their children, will not pay rent to a landlord if they have not sufficient to get bread for their families. You will force bankruptcy on these districts.

If you attempt to administer a set scale of relief you are flying in the face of every canon of Poor Law administration. Poor Law authorities, from the beginning up to the present day, have always held, even Geoffrey Drage, the most dry as dust charity organisation champion in the world, will tell you that you have no right to fix a scale beyond which you will not go. The right hon. Gentleman has not fixed a scale, but he has fixed a minimum, and if you fix a minimum beyond which the Board shall not go, is not that fixing a maximum? You say that a man with five or six children shall not have more than a man with four children. Can any hon. Member keep seven children on the same money as he can keep four We could not do it in my own family, and wherever it is attempted you will drag down the standard of life and interfere with the health of the children. In doing that the right hon. Gentleman is doing something which every Poor Law expert denounces as wrong. An hon. Member has referred to the case in which a family downstairs was at work, and the family upstairs getting relief, and the income of the family downstairs was less than that of the family upstairs. But what he did not tell us was the numbers in the family downstairs and the family upstairs, and what he did not realise and understand is that boards of guardians do not base their allowance as employers do on a standard wage, irrespective of whether there is anybody in the family or not, but in deciding relief has to take account of the necessities of each case, and the more children there are the more money must be paid. I defy the right hon. Gentleman to deny that—the bigger the family the more money must be paid. If wages are so barbarously low that the scale of relief necessary for the well-being of the family is higher, then so much the worse for the employers and their miserable wages. That is what is wrong.

The right hon. Gentleman challenged us as to our remedy for this condition of affairs. He knows that this Bill is no remedy. The Bill is just an alteration of machinery again. It will do nothing in any way to reduce unemployment or to deal with the problem of casual labour in the East End. It will do nothing to deal with the growing number of women whose breadwinners die early because of the conditions of labour, and so on. There is only one way out of this, and that is Socialism in the last resort. I know that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite think that it is a piece of lunacy to make that remark; but I put it to them, as was pointed out at the end of the investigation of the Poor Law Commission, of which I was a member; that the minority at any rate, and the majority to some extent, agreed that unemployment and the whole problem of unemployment ought not to be left to the Poor Law authorities or the local authorities. I am certain that whatever machinery you put up, in the long run in order to keep people quiet you will have to feed them.

Lord Derby said that all the provision made at the end of the War to feed people, to increase unemployment payments by relaxing the Poor Law and allowing guardians to pay for rent as they had never been allowed to do before, to give increased scales to the unemployed as never before—he said that all that was done in order to prevent revolution. The men had come home with their guns, and Lord Derby inferred that the governing classes were afraid they might be used in another direction. So you broke down the whole of your Poor Law principles and allowed guardians to do what they had never been allowed to do before. I am as certain, as I am that I stand at this Box, that if you attempt now to deny the men and women and children who are in need of the assistance that they need, you will have exactly the condition of affairs that Lord Derby visualised as likely to take place. Unemployment is not the responsibility of Poplar. Casual labour is not the responsibility of West Ham. The question of the organisation of industry is a national question and can be dealt with only in a national way. The cost of it, instead of being put on the children and women and men who are the victims of this system, ought to be borne by the rich and well-to-do of this country.

When I hear right hon. and hon Gentlemen talking about something or nothing, I stand here as one who believes that neither I nor anyone else ought to have anything but what we earn from the community or from anyone, that everyone ought to earn his or her livelihood while able-bodied, and that it does not lie with those who support the present condition of affairs to point the finger of scorn at the victims of a system which enables a few to be rich and the many to be poor. No, we want industry to be reorganised, and reorganised on the basis of social service, and then we are sure that instead of having paupers at one end and millionaires at the other who are also paupers, we should have a system of society where there would be neither. When hon. Members say to us, "What do you do at this moment?" I reply that the first thing I would do would be to take the problem of able-bodied destitution away from the Poor Law guardians and local authorities, and make it a national business to be paid for out of national funds.

Captain MACMILLAN

The speech to which we have just listened is characteristic of the hon. Member's method of approach to any problem such as this. Almost throughout his speech he did not think fit to mention the Bill which is under discussion. He then put forward what he believed to be a reasonable method of Poor Law administration. He was very indignant with the Minister of Health for having suggested that in certain cases there had been some nepotism in the appointment of officers by the guardians, who were anxious to help their own relations. He seemed to regard that as the normal method of government.

Mr. LANSBURY

Does the hon. and gallant Member mean to say that I defended nepotism?

Captain MACMILLAN

I understood the hon. Member to say that nepotism was an inseparable part of government.

Mr. LANSBURY

Not of local government.

Captain MACMILLAN

The hon. Gentleman, in the concluding passages of his speech, made a number of statements which may or may not be true, with regard to the whole question of local and national taxation, but those statements were not relevant to the Bill before the House. The hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Mr. Harris) made a speech of a rather lugubrious character, in which he took upon himself the position of a prophet, and maintained that the passing of the Bill would have most lamentable effects. He also went on to refer to the possibility of a reform of the whole Poor Law. I take it that the object of the Minister in introducing this Bill is simply to tide over the period before the new Bill dealing with Poor Law reform as a whole is introduced. The hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green seemed to think that the fact that the Minister shook his head when he said that the Bill had faded into the background was an admission that nothing was to be done in that direction. Of course, it is well known that the Bill is going ahead. The fact that it has not yet been introduced does not mean that the Ministry are not actively engaged on a much larger reorganisation than is contemplated or possible in this temporary Measure.

The right hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley), in the course of his speech, which was largely directed to a panegyric of his own efforts as Minister of Health and a description not only of all the things that he had done, but of all that he would have done if he had been allowed to pursue his course, also took up What seemed to me to be an amazingly reactionary point of view. He said in effect, "We are changing the whole system of government, because we interfere with the election of boards of guardians, which has gone on and on for hundreds of years. This is a most terrible and fearful example of the revolutionary activity of the Conservative party." We of the Conservative party believe that it is right and proper to conserve those elements of our Constitution which have proved themselves to be of value, but not to be unwilling to change, to give up, to alter and modify according to the circumstances of the day, those elements which have proved themselves to be harmful. I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman should adopt such a high Tory point of view in face of this problem. He put forward the argument that when members of the community vote for Socialist guardians, it was only fair that they should get the result of what they voted for. He said, in a very telling definition, "Toryism is Toryism," but when he came to describe Socialism words failed him. The part that I understood was that, the electors having voted for extreme Socialist candidates, it is the duty of the guardians to provide them with that profuse and profligate system of management which they had been led to expect.

Surely the whole of that argument falls to the ground on one question, and one question only? The question is, whose money? If that system could be carried on from the money raised by the ratepayers themselves, there would be an argument for leaving a locality to stew in its own juice. The argument would be that the whole system of self-government tends to make men learn by their mistakes, and it would be quite arguable, even if there were mal-administration in an area, to allow them to go on in the hope that the trouble would finally right itself. But in this case we have to deal with areas which are not able to carry on, not necessarily through their fault, without borrowing money from the Exchequer. Therefore, it seems to me that on the principle of "no taxation without representation" the Exchequer or the Ministry is rightly put into a position by this Bill to check gross abuse. The power which the guardians have is to threaten that unless their conditions for fresh loans are granted the whole machinery of the Poor Law will break down. Up till now the Minister has always been in the position that either he has to consent and see all the proper relief come to an end, or to give in to whatever terms the local authority may favour.

Under this Bill it will be possible for the Minister in cases of gross maladministration, and more particularly cases of these very large borrowings with their high payments for relief, to exercise some control in the matter. I shall support the Bill. I regard it as a temporary Measure to deal with what has become a great and grave scandal in our public life. I hope that when we are able to deal with the problem as a whole it will be found possible to consider very carefully the whole question of the relations of local and national taxation, that either by the formation of larger areas, or by a reorganisation of our system of taxation, some of the difficulties which undoubtedly accrue in necessitous areas through no fault of their own, may be dealt with radically and permanently. But that is entirely different from the question whether we should at this stage give the Minister powers, which I am sure he has not sought, but powers which are necessary if certain elements of local government are to be preserved from mere wastefulness and profligacy.

8.0 P.M.

Mr. MARDY JONES

I listened very carefully to the Minister's explanation of the Bill. I understood him to say that the sole object of the Bill was to put a stop to the mal-practices which have been revealed in the West Ham Union area. He also made the point, the sole issue that takes place at boards of guardians' elections is the issue as to how much or how little poor relief shall be given to the electors when they apply for it. The insinuation was that the Labour party, particularly, has specialised in the encouragement of promises, in return for votes, of high scales of relief. I have taken an active part in elections throughout South Wales in recent years and I have always discovered as far as our Labour candidates are concerned—and we have a majority on the greater number of local authorities in the South-east polling area—we have made that issue, so strongly emphasised by the Minister of Health, the least important of all. All we have asked for is humane treatment to be meted out to the poor. We have been pioneers in other matters that have been followed in England, Wales and in Scotland, namely, that we wanted a radical reform in the rating of this country, because experience has taught us that the propertied classes control local machinery as they do national machinery and that they always abuse it. Another issue of importance we have always impressed upon the electorate has been the total abolition of the Poor Law system. The Labour movement in this country has done far more to influence public opinion in the question of reform of rating and the abolition of Poor Law than anything else.

What I cannot quite understand is why the Minister of Health has taken such a long time to take this particular action. He was Minister of Health in 1923, he has been Minister of Health since the formation of the present Government, and the case of West Ham has been public property, due to public misrepresentation in the Press and in Debates in this House, for the last four or five years. Poplar has been up in the same way, and throughout the necessitous areas in this country the same kind of stunt has been used. Why has the Minister therefore taken so long for this action, and why has he taken it at the present moment? We are told that serious defects have been discovered in West Ham. I listened very carefully to the instances given by the Minister himself and I find nothing new in those instances. I have discovered that similar things have happened in every branch of local government for generations past, and the only thing we can say with any certainty is what the right hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley) said—that the Civil Service administration in local government has improved and stands second to none in the world in being above suspicion in this direction. The real reason the Minister is taking this action at the present time is because there is a national coal stoppage. That is the beginning and end of his motive. There are some 50 or 60 necessitous areas in the same state as West Ham, and they have been so since 1921. The replies given to-day at the close of Question Time make one realise that these necessitous areas can be classified, geographically, in three groups. There are, first of all, heavy industries. The unions in those heavy industry areas are in great financial distress—Sheffield and Middlesbrough, for instance. All the shipping industry areas —Thameside and Barrow-in-Furness—are in the same boat as West Ham. The coal-mining areas of Northumberland, Durham and South Wales are faced with the same depression. We are suffering from a period of abnormal depression in trade as the after-effect of the great world War, and the Poor Law union authorities hi the necessitous areas are faced with providing some means of keeping people from destitution. The present Government have failed to provide a solution. It is the excessive unemployment we have which explains the position of West Ham and other necessitous areas.

As unemployment is a national evil, we say that we should apply a national remedy, and the burden of relieving people in poverty due to it should be a charge on the National Exchequer and not on the local rates. The Government set up the Goschen Committee recently to go into this question of necessitous areas, and they rejected what many of us considered was a practical scheme put forward by that Committee. That scheme has been rejected by the Government, and they have failed to provide an alternative. In my opinion, West Ham Union has been picked out deliberately by the Minister of Health as a scapegoat to cover up the Government's incapacity and unfitness to govern. Although they could have taken West Ham years ago for a scapegoat, they neglected to do so, because they want to use this Bill as a lever in every mining area deliberately, and slowly but surely, to starve the miners' wives and children into subjection. That is the sale object of this Bill. It is a national disgrace that any Government should coolly and calmly legislate in this manner. I have had experience of knowing that the screw has been put on by the Minister of Health many months past in these necessitous areas. Since the general strike they have been putting on the screw. They have issued Circular 703, dwelling on the Merthyr Tydvil Judgment given in the Courts of Law when the Merthyr Tydvil Board of Guardians defied the Minister of Health and meted out relief because people were in need of it. The Circular insinuates that that judgment is now the law of the land, and that while boards of guardians can relieve the wives and children of miners who are locked out, they cannot relieve able-bodied men who can get work, whatever the terms offered by the employers.

The Ministry have encouraged the Poor Law guardians to interpret that ruthlessly. We have boys in the coal mines from 14 to 16 years of age with no voice in the decisions as to disputes. They are as helpless as the wives and children, yet they are not given any relief at all, simply because the Minister has deliberately debarred them by his interpretation of the Merthyr Tydvil Judgment. There is another section of the youth of the mining population of this country who have been affected by his policy. These are the boys between 14 and 16 who have never started to work either in the mines or anywhere else and have never had a chance to get employment because of the national depression in trade and in the mining industry. The great mass of our boys have no other opening in life but mining. They are obviously in the same position as the wives and younger children, and they are being deprived of poor relief. There is serious distress in the coalfields as far as they are concerned. The position of the boards of guardians in the mining areas is more acute even than in the industrial areas because the bulk of the revenue in the mining Poor Law areas is based on the output of coal. For the current half-year, all over the country, they are failing to recover the bulk of the revenue at all. The revenue from April to September next is in sight for revenue purposes. Not until the stoppage is over will the Poor Law guardians in these areas be able to raise the ordinary revenue to meet ordinary relief, much less the extraordinary relief created as the result of the stoppage.

Let me give an example from South Wales. The Ministry have sanctioned for Bedwelty Union up to date £684,000; Merthyr Tydvil, £275,000; Pontypridd, £210,000. These three unions cover the largest portion of the South Wales coal- field. Collectively they are responsible for two-thirds of the output of coal for the entire coalfield. Pontypridd is in a better position than the other two. Bedwelty has suffered for three years acute unemployment in its coalfields. Merthyr Tydvil suffers in the iron and steel industry as well as in regard to coal. I think the Minister will be the first to admit that while he may have had certain criticisms to offer in regard to administration in these areas, he cannot make any such charge against them as he has raised to-day against West Ham. They are in a very serious plight, and they have got to carry on their relief by means of loans. The normal cost of relief in Pontypridd is about £5,000 per week. At the present moment, even with reduced scales of relief, it is costing them no less than £20,000 per week and is likely to go up by several thousands per week. The last relief they have given is due to a temporary loan of £20,000 sanctioned by the Ministry of Health, but the Minister took advantage of the need for that temporary loan to compel them to reduce their scale of relief to a maximum of 103. per week for the wife of a man who was locked out and 2s. per week for a child. How can the wife of a miner be expected to maintain herself in health, cleanliness and decency on 10s. a week? How can she keep a child on 2s. a week? It is physically impossible and it is a scandal that any Minister should have the power to screw down any Poor Law authority in that way.

For those reasons I have no hesitation in saying that this is not merely a Ministry of Health policy but a Cabinet policy. The Tory Government reveal in this Bill the same tactics and the same policy as are revealed in the Eight Hours Bill. The object of the Eight Hours Bill is to reduce the miners by compelling them to work extra time. The object of this Bill is to put the screw on the miners, to induce them to accept the Eight Hours Bill and to force them back to extra time and lower wages. It is thought the miners will accept that alternative rather than see their children and their wives gradually starved to death. The Government have made the same blunder in this Bill as they made in the Eight Hours Bill. They will never induce the miners of Britain to work the eight hours proposal and that Bill will be a scrap of paper, as Royal Proclamations have been scraps of paper. This Bill will not force the miners to give way. I assure the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues that the miners of Great Britain entered this coal dispute reluctantly. They have done all in their power to get a reasonable settlement. They now have their backs to the wall. They have fought and suffered many times before, and I venture to predict that unless the Government arrange some agreement, which will give the men a living wage, this stoppage will continue for months.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope)

The hon. Member seems to be going rather wide of the Bill.

Mr. JONES

With all due respect, Sir, I conscientiously believe that the sole object of this Bill is to "down" the miners of Great Britain, and I am entitled to that opinion. When the provisions of this Bill and the speech of the Minister of Health become known through the public Press, the majority of miners will hold the same opinion. If the average Tory Members sit idly by and allow to be carried out the policy of the Cabinet in this direction they are not bringing about peace; they are bringing about war. The end will be not a permanent settlement but increased bitterness, as hon. Members opposite sooner or later must realise.

Mr. SCURR

I am sorry the hon. and gallant Member for Upton (Captain Holt) has left the House, because in the course of his speech he made a statement regarding West Ham to which I desire to reply. His statement was to the effect that a woman who had £240 got rid of that sum in five days and then came up for relief. The inference was that this woman had been receiving relief from the West Ham Guardians, and that no further notice was taken of the matter, and that she went on enjoying the £240 and her relief quite happily. The facts of the case were brought before the General Purposes Committee on 29th November, 1924, and were referred to the Clerk. On 18th December a summons was taken out at the West Ham Police Court under the Poor Law (Amendment) Act, 1848. The case came before the magistrate, Mr. Sharpe, and was dis- missed by him with a caution. I should say that this gentleman is a stipendiary magistrate, and not the ordinary justice of the peace. Before hon. Members bandy charges of this kind across the Floor of the House they ought to investigate the facts and state the facts as a whole.

I was amused by one argument put forward by the hon. and gallant Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Captain Macmillan) to the effect that this was a temporary Measure. It seems to be the policy of the Conservative Government to deal with serious issues by temporary measures. In connection with the great mining crisis we had the Eight Hours Bill which was described as a temporary and permissive Measure. We have now the crisis in regard to the Poor Law and we are asked to vote for this Bill, on the ground that it is a temporary Measure. What are we to say of the intelligence of a Government which can only produce temporary Measures to deal with serious problems? The right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Bill, was careful not to disclose what was in the minds of himself and the Government in this matter. What they are concerned with is the fact that big business has not what they consider to be a proper say, in the administration of Poor Law relief. So long as big business is able to impose hours of labour and the price which it pays for labour on the individual workman, that is allright, but the right hon. Gentleman wants to give them further power. The men who suffer under the present system are being protected to a certain extent because boards of guardians are carrying out the law of the land, which lays down that relief is to be adequate. That protection is to be taken away and persons who happen to be directors of limited liability companies who, for their own convenience, have factories and works in these areas, are to be given the power now held by the guardians.

These large industries themselves have created the problem. If, at the moment, they are meeting with some exceptional expenditure it is their own fault. They only concerned themselves with running their businesses in a way which brought in profit without any consideration for humanity or for the interest of the workers. In the whole East-End riverside area in London—Stepney, Poplar, Bermondsey and West Ham—the problem with which. we are faced is that of casual labour, produced very largely by the working of the great docks there. When the Port of London Authority was created, a. condition was laid down that it should set to work on a scheme for getting rid of the incubus of casual labour in that area. The Port of London Authority has dealt very little with that question, for the simple reason that upon that authority there sit a number of wharfingers. As things are, it pays them to have a reserve of casual labour upon which to draw and, as they are in the majority, nothing is done to ease the problem of casual labour. An examination of the last figures with which the right hon. Gentleman had the courtesy to supply me in answer to a question a few days ago, shows that all the figures of high cost per head of relief in London relate to areas where there is casual labour. Until we grapple with that problem, it is idle to talk about maladministration and huge scales of relief and all the rest of it.

Then we have had the charge of corruption. We are led to believe that the West Ham body is corrupt. Parliament in 1918 decided that persons who were from that time onwards in receipt of assistance from the Poor Law, ought not to be deprived of the franchise as the result of receiving that assistance. There was no hint of corruption then. I think in the minds of the Government of that day was the idea that there were men who had been serving in various capacities during the War: that there was a bad economic time coining on, and that if they did not give these men the opportunity of exercising the franchise in this way, there might be a great deal more trouble. But to-day, because it is working out as it naturally would work out, and guardians are not going into this matter from the point of view of the estimable middle-class ladies who run the Charity Organisation Society and similar bodies, but, because they are going into it from a soundly practical point of view, they are denounced as corrupt. I happen to be chairman of a board of guardians, and at the present time, for two nights a week, from 6.30 to 11 o'clock, the members of that board sit in relief committees investigating case after case of the applicants who come before them. They are not even con- tented with that, but once every week a further committee, representing the whole of the union, sits and revises those very cases that have been investigated by the relief committees. What better administration can you have than that? It is the same thing that is being done in West Ham, because the same sort of people are doing it, and because they know the lives of the people with whom they have to come into contact.

When he talked about corruption in West Ham, it might have been better if the Minister of Health had pursued his inquiries a little bit into the antiquities of West Ham, into that particular time when there was no Labour member sitting on that board, but when you had all those people who believed that practically every person who asked for public assistance under the Poor Law was, by that very fact, a rogue and ought to be fined. There had to be an investigation then, and there had to be prosecutions because of transactions with regard to contractors. That was real corruption in regard to the West Ham Board of Guardians, but we do not hear anything of that. Now it is only corruption when poor men, poor women, and poor children are being saved from starvation by their fellows. The right hon. Gentleman started to juggle with the figures put forward by the editors of the "Poor Law Officers' Journal," and he said that really you have to remember that one of the differences was that Birmingham had a greater indoor relief and was pursuing a policy of indoor relief, as compared with West Ham, the consequence being that Birmingham's outdoor relief scale was £14 11s. 3¼d. a week, against West Ham's 20 5s. 5½d., but the right hon. Gentleman also admitted that indoor relief is far more expensive than outdoor relief. Are we to understand that it is the policy of the Government to go back to the policy of 1834, and recreate the Bastilles up and down the country Are we to understand that we are to go on building workhouses all over the country in which to put people? That is the only inference that can be drawn from the right hon. Gentleman's statement, because, if we compare various boards of guardians, we can only compare them on their whole administration. It is not merely with oudoor relief that a board of guardians is concerned. It has its institutional poor and its hospitals—and, so far as West Ham is concerned, I suppose Whipps Cross is one of the most creditable of the hospitals of the country —and all of this is being done by the devoted men and women on the board of guardians. Then the Minister comes down and simply insults them by charges of corruption and all the rest of it.

This is a policy which is being pursued by the Government in reversing completely the policy which was instituted a few years ago, when the central Government was coming to the point of view that our local government needed a little speeding up, and that there was not in a good many quarters a right appreciation of the necessity for carrying out various social services. In 1914 there was introduced in the Budget—I believe the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) was then Chancellor of the Exchequer—that system of grants which were given out to local authorities in order, as he said, to stimulate them, so that they might look after the well-being of the community under their care. Now we have the Chancellor of the Exchequer coming along and telling us, during the Debate on the Economy (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, that It is the considered policy of the Government to convert the system of percentage grants into a system of block grants. We have the famous Circular of the Board of Education, which they have had to withdraw, but they are still working throughout all the education authorities to cut down the grant from the centre to them, and we have also the Minister of Health himself, in his provisional proposals for Poor Law reform, issued in December, 1925, saying: It is further proposed to abolish the present system of assigned revenue grants and to replace the existing grants out of the assigned revenues for Poor Law relief, health services, and unallocated, and the Grants-in-Aid of expenditure on health services, by a system of block grants. to be expended at the discretion of the local authority. All that is for the purpose of transferring as large a burden as possible on to the local authorities, a burden which ought to be borne by the nation. Men are not out of work, whether in West Ham, Birmingham, or Glasgow, because of the follies of the municipal administrators or guardians or parish councillors of those places. They are out of work for reasons over which they have no control, as a result of the condition of this country after the great War and the economic consequences which have followed from it, and, therefore, because they are, for the convenience of the employers of labour, grouped into various localities, it is unfair that those localities should have to bear that burden, which ought to be thrown on the community as a whole. Further, it ought to be thrown on the Whole community because taxation in its incidence is much fairer than rating. Our taxation, after all, whether it be direct or indirect, is on the ability to pay of the persons taxed, but when we are collecting rates from people, it is on the particular premises which they may be occupying, and there are numerous anomalies under which even people in business, as well as people in houses, are having to pay too much in their locality by reason of the fact that our rating system is wrong.

At the present time the Government, through the Ministry of Labour, are tightening up administration in order to throw people off the unemployment benefit and on to the Poor Law authorities. After all, a starving man has got to obtain some means of existence, and if he cannot do so from the local authority, the only result is that in the end there will be rioting, insurrection, and possibly, in the end, bloody revolution. Although the British people are a long suffering people, who can put up with a good many things, there comes a time when, as the Earl of Balfour once said, there is a limit to human endurance, and unless these people are able to get their food and clothes and lodging, you will find that there is a limit to human endurance. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health may not then be in a position to introduce Bills of this kind. He and the class to which be belongs may find themselves faced with a position which under no circumstances do any of us, sitting on these benches or connected with our party, desire to see in this country. Therefore, you have got to relieve this and you relieve out of the local rates what ought to come from the national Exchequer. This is a bad Bill. It interferes with our local government. It interferes with the discretion of the localities. It is ill in its effects in so far as it affects men, women and children, and it is nothing more than cool, calculated, cold-blooded murder.

Colonel VAUGHAN-MORGAN

As far at any rate as the conclusion is concerned, the argument addressed to the House by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Mile End (Mr. Scurr) was an argument in favour of a national in preference to a local system, though a national system would carry with it certain disadvantages, for instance, a fixed grant, and fixed methods, and a rigid system which would be inevitable. On the other hand, under our present system of local administration we are able to carry out the principles of the original Poor Law, to deal with the matter locally and with full cognisance of the local circumstances. I think no one in face of that would seriously prefer a purely national system in preference to a local system in this matter of the Poor Law. One of the previous speakers challenged the Minister of Health on the ground that he had suggested that the Bill was of a temporary character. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman defended his Bill on the ground that it was of a- temporary character. He explained it was a temporary Measure in view of further reform in the Poor Law that he had in view, but so far from the Measure being a temporary one, it reverts to the principles of the Statute of nearly 100 years ago, a law that has already been referred to, the Act of 1834. The Commissioners who are to be set up under the present Bill are merely the successors of the Commissioners who were appointed under the Act of 1834, with this difference, that those Commissioners have not certain powers of supersession which are to be given to the Commissioners under the present Bill. Tire other Commissioners had very wide powers in view of the circumstances of the time, but they had not the necessity of the present Measure to restore good order and good administration in the localities. It was not judged necessary at that time, and probably was not required because, by the machinery at their disposal, the authorities were able to do all that was needed.

We all know under the present system the method of control by means of surcharge is quite ineffective. The fact that some of the guardians may have come into the custody of the law for the time being does not relieve the situation. Some of the safeguards of the local authorities in local administration will not be necessary, for the new authority will see that the work is properly carried out. The hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) drew a parallel between certain administrations and certain places in the London area and certain others, and he drew from this the deduction that where Poor Law administration was most lavishly carried out, that those were the places where you find good conditions prevailing as to the health and welfare of the people. The Division I have the honour to represent presents a direct challenge to that assertion. We are not different in many respects from the place with which the hon. Gentleman is associated. We have a similar population, area and rateable value, but the numbers in receipt of Poor Law relief are different, our rates are very different, and our administration—if I may say so—is also very different. What is the test of this following on the lines of the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley? It lies in our favourable rates of mortality. Our death-rate is the lowest or amongst the lowest in London, our infantile mortality rate is exceedingly low; our health services are admirably administered, and I think would bear comparison with any borough in London with regard to the quality of the services.

It does not require extravagance of expenditure and administration on out-relief to bring about a healthy condition of affairs. Allusion has been made to the question of rent. We know what a difficult question that is. We are building houses and endeavouring to relieve overcrowding, but the rates of a locality have a very great bearing on this matter of rent, for the higher the rates the higher the rent is bound to be. Again, the greater the burden of rates on the local factories, the more difficulty you are likely to have in keeping the industries going. This is the natural sequel to this unhappy cycle of events. Allusion has also been made, and the point was put, that the Minister of Health has challenged the maxim that local affairs produced devoted service to the public by his supersession of the guardians at West Ham. I am well aware that a large number of men and women have devoted their services to the valuable work of local administration. Here, again, nobody is going to suggest that the work has not been done efficiently by a most devoted body of guardians, in, say, a borough like Fulham, and if it is done by the same type of individual all over London why should it be necessary in one district that the administration of affairs be on such a different scale, that if it can be done effectively in one place it should not be possible to find it equally well done and on equally sound lines in another place? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] The argument holds both ways, but where you have once started and brought into being a lavish scale of relief, of course it is very difficult to alter it. It is sliding down the slippery slope! These things are much easier to start than to stop, and the longer they go on the more difficult they are to remedy. So we come to the end of all attempts that have been made to meet the difficulty of the particular areas that have been discussed this afternoon, and this is the final effort, the final endeavour to protect and safeguard the local administration. We have really come to a breakdown in the system. The public authority are really defying Parliament. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Yes, because they are in their capacity as local administrators under the law of the land. The law of the land is administered by the Ministry of Health, which is the successor of the Local Government Board, as they in turn were successors to the Commissioners appointed under the Act of 1834. A body of people here are like an individual. If an individual breaks the law he suffers. It is somewhat more difficult to deal with a body of people. But the only way at the present time is simply and solely from a public point of view to carry out the necessary work on the right lines which they have so far failed to do.

Mr. WALLHEAD

Is it not fair to suggest that the position in West Ham is due to its poverty? If West Ham had a good rateable value, were a rich union instead of a poor one, the Minister of Health could not interfere with whatever scale of relief they choose to give. There is no question of breaking the law, because West Ham has a high schedule, as you insinuate.

Colonel VAUGHAN-MORGAN

What I described as breaking the law is failure to comply with the instructions issued by the responsible authority.

Mr. J. JONES

There is no authority over the board of guardians.

Colonel VAUGHAN-MORGAN

For the purpose of my argument it is not a question of whether the rateable value of West Ham be high or low. I can quite understand, from the nature of the place, that it is not as high as other areas; the rateable value of West Ham, for instance, is lower than that of Westminster; West Ham has not got certain local advantages which London boroughs have. But even if it had some other source from which to draw, that would not justify the West Ham Board of Guardians in pursuing a course of extravagance.

Mr. JONES

There is no extravagance about it. You spend more in a night than we give in a week.

Colonel VAUGHAN-MORGAN

I am not dealing with the question of scales. That has no immediate bearing on the point. It is the administration which is the test—that you should not relieve people who, by the ordinary tests which govern these matters, are not entitled to relief. The function of Poor Law guardians is to relieve destitution. They are not intended to maintain any given standard of living. It is not their business to raise the income of a family from one figure to another just because they think the higher figure is the more suitable. I would like people to have the best standard of living possible, but it is not the function of the Poor Law authority to dispose of their funds with the object of giving expression to their ideas on the subject of the people having a certain social or economic standard; and when their conduct is challenged, because they have failed to comply with the law, they must accept the consequences. That is the sole object of the present Bill.

I was interested to read in the weekly organ of the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) the statement, "No taxation without representation is a sound constitutional doctrine." As one who believes that limited companies which pay rates on their property ought to have some, voice in local administration, it is gratifying to me to see a supporter where I least expected to find one. I had hoped to have the opportunity of introducing a Bill on that subject this Session, but owing to the course of Government business it was not possible for me to do so. If I or any other Member has an opportunity of introducing it on another occasion I trust I shall find support from the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley.

Mr. BARNES

I have only two comments to offer on the speech we have just heard. The first is that, knowing both West Ham and Fulham fairly well, I do not think there is any comparison between the conditions prevailing in those respective localities

Colonel VAUGHAN-MORGAN

I drew the comparison between Poplar and Fulham, not West Ham.

Mr. BARNES

Even in the case of Fulham and Poplar I do not think there is any comparison to be drawn. In the second place, the hon. Member accused West Ham of defying the Government—I think I am right there?

Colonel VAUGHAN-MORGAN

Defying the Ministry of Health.

Mr. BARNES

And that means defying the Government. I do not think a case can be made out in support of that accusation. I would say it is a case of the Government exploiting the problems of West Ham. In introducing this Bill the Minister said the guardians had left him no alternative except to take this step. If I understand his case aright, the only reason he advanced for introducing this Bill was maladministration on the part of the guardians, and in support of his argument he brought forward a number of cases which he alleged confirmed that accusation of maladministration. Personally, I have never stood for teal-administration in public affairs. I should oppose it whether it came from the Labour party, the Liberal party or the Conservative party. But I think it is necessary to say that if there be any mal-administration in public affairs to-day many of the standards have been laid down by the party opposite. It is no use to say that we cannot, from our experience in a variety of ways, bring dozens and hundreds of cases arising under the administration of the Conservatives for every one that can be brought forward as occurring under a Labour administration. When we were discussing this question about 12 months ago the Minister of Health was invited to take any administrative action he cared in order to prove any of these general allegations. All sections of labour in West Ham would welcome it. The Minister cannot say there has been from responsible Labour opinion in the West Ham Union any effective opposition to any proposals for dealing with any faulty administration.

I think he has been challenged on more than one occasion to prove his case. Instead of doing it, the Minister and the Department have sought under this pretext—that is what it is, a pretext and an excuse—to upset what so far has been a very important phase of local life in this country. This Bill is introduced ostensibly to deal with the case of West Ham, and that being so we are entitled to ask why the Department are seeking general powers. I venture to suggest they are doing it for this purpose. The Department intend to negative and destroy the advantages that come from Labour administration and Labour successes at the polls. This Bill is not introduced against any board of guardians under Conservative administration. It does not compel a board who are giving people in distress relief on a scale which is below a reasonable standard of living to bring up that scale to a reasonable standard. The whole Bill is designed to frustrate the electors in certain areas who have had the good sense to return Labour representatives. I can speak on this question in more varied aspects than the Minister of Health. I reside in the West Ham union area. I also represent South-East Ham, which is one of the poorest divisions in that particular area. The Minister has dealt with the hardship to trade associations which have large liabilities in the West Ham Union area, who are denied the right of representation. I can speak on behalf of probably the largest trade organisation in that area—namely, the London Cooperative Society, which last year paid rates to the extent of £11,000 in this Poor Law union area. [An HON. MEMBER: "And no Income Tax!"] Every member of this Co-operative Society conforms to the law, and when we have an opoprtunity of dealing with the question of the Income Tax we can fully justify our position.

9.0 P.M.

Although the present Government has decided to interfere with local government, it has not had the courage to deal with co-operative societies and the Income Tax in this House. This particular co-operative society has paid in rates in the West Ham Union £10,929. We have nearly 50,000 members resident in this area, and they form, with their families, probably one-fourth of the population. It is all very well for the Minister of Health to build up the case about the trade associations, but that is not the problem. The real problem does not consist of half-a-dozen cases of abuse, even if they exist, because the Minister can deal with them administratively, and he has the power to do so. These cases of abuse are simply being used as a cloak to relieve the Government from the responsibility of shouldering their real burden. What the traders in West Ham area require is that the Government should carry the burden of unemployment. If the Government claim has a grievance that companies, who have factories and property in certain Poor Law areas, are denied voting power because they do not reside in those areas, then we are entitled to make a similar claim on behalf of tens of thousands of people in East and West Ham, Leyton and Walthamstow, who work in the City of London and in Westminster, and have not the right to participate in the government of some of those districts whose wealth they build up. Hon. Members cannot have it both ways. I do not intend to allow those cases which have figures so largely in this Debate to obscure the real issue. I am going to give to the House some of the problems of West Ham which the present Bill cannot possibly touch. You may he able to save a few pounds by tightening up the administration, but that is not the object of this Measure. We owe the Ministry over £2,000,000. That is the debt on the West Ham Union. For some years we have been levying a rate of 9s. in the £, and one-third of the total rates in the area are for Poor Law purposes. I do not think there is another parish in the country levying a rate of 9s. for Poor Law purposes, and that does not meet the total liabilities of the area. The cases men- tioned by the Minister of Health do not touch the fringe of the problem in West Ham. The purpose of this Bill, if it is going to reduce the cost of Poor Law administration in West Ham, can only be carried out by cutting down the relief over the whole range of applicants in every direction. If that is the purpose of the Bill, why not have the honesty and courage to state it? The very least we can claim is that Parliament should understand the problem, and it should not legislate on the type of nonsense, misrepresentation, and abuse which has figured in the Press during the whole controversy that surrounds the Poor Law problem of West Ham. Let us see what this problem really is. In the first place there was no rating problem until 1920. This problem synchronises with the date of the great trade slump when the unemployment difficulty arose. Of the 108,000 persons who have been relieved in the West Ham Union, 85,000 of them are insured persons.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS

Separately insured persons or including dependants?

Mr. BARNES

Including their dependants. That clearly proves that your unemployment insurance scheme has broken down, because it does not maintain the able-bodied workmen who do not desire to apply for Poor Law relief. If your unemployment insurance has broken down, and is not sufficient to maintain the worker who has been thrown out of employment, you cannot argue that it is a case of political corruption to relieve them. This state of things is a reflection on your own incapacity to organise the industries of this country. Having displaced these individuals by the result of your policy your unemployment scheme cannot maintain them, and they are fastened on to the Poor Law. In West Ham the overwhelming majority of the population are insured persons, and tans of thousands of them are engaged in casual occupations. In this case continuous unemployment has operated for something like five years, and what does that bring in its train? It brings unemployment, which also means poverty, overcrowding, and sickness.

The property in this area is mostly one type of houses at a very low rateable value, and there is no other Poor Law union in the country to-day that has collected in rates more than its assessable value per head. In the West Ham Union, for instance, the asssessable value is £4 6s. per head, and yet we are actually collecting in East Ham a rate of £4 17s. per head. I suggest that there is no other Poor Law union in the country where the rates that are being collected exceed the assessable value per head. If that be the case in West Ham, I would ask the House is it fair, is it legitimate, to introduce a. Bill of this sort that does not grapple with our problem at all? Is it fair to do so under the shelter of a few cases which it may be argued represent abuse? I would repeat that all responsible Labour opinion in this area, and the Labour Members of Parliament representing the area, invited the Minister to take administrative action to prove what he has stated so often, and one cannot make a fairer statement than that. A Bill of this kind will not touch the fringe of the problem.

Let me compare West Ham with London. West Ham is just outside the fringe of London. All the Metropolitan boroughs that represent working-class districts share in the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund, but West Ham is denied that privilege; West Ham is denied that opportunity. We are a collection of five authorities, either borough councils or urban district council areas, and to all intents and purposes we are a part of London. Our poverty problem is the creation, not of these five authorities, but of London as a whole. These districts feed the docks, and the docks and the riverside are essential to the whole London community. Because of the conditions that prevail there, these three-quarters of a million people are herded together, as I have said, representing low wages and casual labour, and yet West Ham, for administrative purposes, is not entitled to share in the Metropolitan Common Law Fund. Let us compare West Ham with Bethnal Green. Bethnal Green has the lowest assessable value per head of any borough in London. Its assessable value per head is £4 17s., whereas in West Ham the assessable value is 6s. per head, so we have a more difficult problem in West Ham than the borough with the lowest assessable value in the Metropolitan area. Nevertheless, we have no opportunity of sharing in the relief that comes from the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund. Now let us take the assessable value per head in some of the other boroughs in London. In the City of Westminster it is £59 13s.; in Marylebone it is £24 8s.; in Finsbury it is £14 7s., and in the City of London it is £494 per head. Here, again, I think it is necessary to emphasise the fact that it is our people who live in West Ham, East Ham, Leyton and Walthamstow who travel into the City every day, and whose, labour helps to make the wealth which that assessable value in the heart of the City represents. That being the case, we claim that those areas should bear some of our burden. A penny rate in the West Ham Union amounts to £13,650, whereas the average value of a penny rate for the whole country is £20,000. West. Ham, therefore, is one-third below the average for the whole country. It does not matter at what point or at what angle you compare the West Ham Union with any other part of the country—whether you take the amount we are now raising in rates for Poor Law purposes, whether you take the assessable value per head or whether you take the amount of a penny ratein every direction and from every angle West Ham suffers in comparison.

I say it is a disgrace to Parliament, it is a reflection on that equity of administration which should characterise the Ministry of Health, that the only action they should have taken towards this distressed area should be, on the basis of one or two malpractices, to begin to override and supersede its method of local government. I suggest that the Ministry should have recognised the burden of this necessitous area, and should have been prepared to make us grants—not loans at a higher rate of interest. In 1928, the sum that will be due for repayment of interest and principal in West Ham will be roughly £450,000 a year. We cannot stand it; it is impossible that this situation shall go on. The next point to which I desire to address myself is the policy of forcing the unemployed on to the guardians. In 1925, the Ministry of Labour recorded for the year a total decrease of 125,000 persons unemployed; but, while the Department's figure for unemployed went down, the Poor Law figure during that year went up by 250,000.

Mr. WILLIAMS

Including dependants?

Mr. BARNES

Including dependants.

Mr. WILLIAMS

Did the other include dependants?

Mr. BARNES

The argument of the hon. Member rather suggests that he thinks the dependants of the working man are suspended in the air. They have to be maintained, whether their breadwinner is in work or not. The fact remains that during that period, when the figures of the Ministry of Labour would suggest to the community that trade was improving, that we were becoming more prosperous, the figures in the Poor Law areas were mounting up. West Ham to-day, as I have said, owes a total debt of something like £2,000,000. This Bill will not interfere with that at all; it will not in any way minimise it; but if the Minister intends to use his powers, not for the purpose of tightening up adminstration, but to save money by means of wholesale cuts, I venture to suggest that this Bill will not solve any problem, but will create graver problems. So far, responsible opinion in that area has been anxious to do all it can to get an adequate and reasonable but sufficient settlement of this problem, but if the Minister is going to adopt a policy of forcing on to the ratepayer the responsibilities that are legitimately those of the taxpayer, West. Ham will become a greater problem in the future than it is to-day. A ratepayer has to pay his rates, whether his income is improving or worsening, whether he has any income or not; but a taxpayer only pays taxes if his income permits him to pay those taxes.

Therefore, on the question of equity, on the question of justice, the problem of West Ham should be borne by the Treasury and not by the people of West Ham. It is no excuse to come here this afternoon and, on the pretext of a problem like that of West Ham, to interfere with the whole administration of local government in that area. I want to ask the Minister to face up to the facts, and, in his reply, to tell us here and now, so that we may know where we are, whether he is going to use his powers to cut down in a wholesale manner the scales that have been paid in West Ham. The majority of Labour opinion in that area is satisfied that these scales are not extravagant. Here and there there may have been abuses, but the scale as a whole is not extravagant. From that point of view, I oppose this Bill with all the strength at my disposal, and I sincerely hope that, instead of adopting this method, the Department at last will recognise and wake up to the problems of West Ham, will wipe away that loan which represents a liability on the district, and will take as a national charge, through the Unemployment Insurance Scheme, the problem of all insured persons. Then West Ham will meet its liabilities, and public opinion will operate in the district to see that we have fair and efficient administration.

Mr. WILLIAMS

The hon. Member who has just sat down did not, I think, quite appreciate the point of my interruption. I apologise to him for having interrupted him, but I wanted to raise the issues at the moment he mentioned them lie contrasted the decline in unemployment insurance statistics with the increase in the Poor Law statistics. The unemployment insurance statistics relate to unemployed persons exclusive of dependants, and the Poor Law statistics relate to unemployed persons including their dependants.

Mr. BARNES

I admitted that.

Mr. WILLIAMS

The hon. Member did not admit it. He seemed to think my reference to dependants was something unkind. It is absurd to make comparisons of that kind, because you are not comparing like with like.

Mr. BARNES

Surely the hon. Member does not deny the inference of my speech. While the figures of unemployment were going dawn, on the other hand, there was an increase of the charges on the Poor Law, my point being that a great number have been transferred from the Employment Exchange list to the guardians' list.

Mr. WILLIAMS

I am fully aware that that is the purpose of the hon. Member's point, because that point has been made in my hearing from the benches opposite a dozen times in the last 12 months, and on three or four occasions it has been my privilege to explain what is the basis of the unemployment statistics. If the hon. Member will obtain from the Vote Office a very interesting White Paper published some months ago he will find that his comparison is of no value whatever. If you are going to make a comparison between an increase on the one hand and a decrease on the other, at least the statistics might refer to the same groups of people. With regard to unemployment insurance the position is this. A decline in the number of persons registered has nothing to do with the number of persons in receipt of benefit. It is a record of the number of persons seeking work, and people register in order to get work and not primarily in order to get benefit —at least in my constituency, and I hope in the hon. Member's—because that is the object of the Employment Exchange. It is only incidentally a place for paying out benefits. If the White Paper is studied it will be found that the influence of the Disqualifications Act, 1924, and the Disqualifications Act of last year on the statistics has been trifling. It cannot have influenced them by more than about 13,000. As a matter of fact a very large number of persons who are registered as unemployed are in receipt of Poor Law benefit because they are not in receipt of unemployment benefit. I have indulged in this explanation because the statement is so frequently made from the benches opposite, and much more frequently outside, where there may not be persons present to contradict them. The hon. Member said there were 85,000 insured persons in West Ham who were in receipt of Poor Law relief because of unemployment. It is not 85,000 insured persons, hut 85,000 with dependants. So that reduces the number of insured to 28,000 or 30,000.

Mr. BARNES

The proportion remains the same—85,000 in 108,000 cases.

Mr. WILLIAMS

There are about 28,000 or 30,000 insured persons out of work included in those cases. I imagine the total number of unemployed persons in West Ham is not very much greater than that total. The number of unemployed in Birmingham before the general strike, which is a convenient time to take for a reference, was about 20,000. The sizes of the Birmingham Union and the West Ham Union are approximately the same, so they are convenient areas for comparison. They both contain a population of about a million. The unemployment in West Ham is apparently greater than in Birmingham. It may be 50 per cent. greater. But the proportion of persons in receipt of Poor Law relief in West Ham per 10,000 of the population, again at the end of April, was 923. In Birmingham it was 250, and if you allow for the difference in unemployment it might be in Birmingham 375. So that in West Ham they, are relieving, in relation to the number of unemployed, two-and-a-half times as many people as they are relieving in Birmingham. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is the problem."] Precisely. That is the problem, and that problem is the creation of no one else but the Guardians of West Ham. The hon. Member helped me with his statistics because they were the one lot I was trying to get for the completion of my case. What I am trying to show is that in relation to the people who are out of work you are relieving two-and-a-half times as many in West Ham as are being relieved in Birmingham. In other words, you are being two-and-a-half times as generous with the ratepayers' money. Your generosity is not entirely with the ratepayers' money. It has been with money lent you by the Ministry of Health, in other words provided on the security of the whole of the population of these islands, and, having been generous with other people's money, you have now apparently reached the stage in West Ham that you want to escape the liability you have incurred.

I am going to vote for the Bill with the very greatest possible pleasure. I carry my mind back to 1921, when certain friends of mine—I call them friends though we differ politically—decided that Brixton was more comfortable than Poplar and they sojourned at Brixton for a period, and ultimately the Government of the day, in my opinion, gave way to them and passed the Local Authorities (Financial Provisions) Act, which enabled Poplar to draw almost without limit on the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund. I remember, though I was not in the House, indulging in many discussions on that Bill. I remember the violence, with which I denounced it. It was perfectly obvious what was going to happen. You were going to have in Poplar people in the happy position of being able to provide unlimited funds which they only had a very limited responsibility in finding. The people of Poplar in due course were debauched with this distribution of largesse provided by other people. Before the Illegal and Corrupt Practices Act it was the practice of those seeking election to bribe people with their own money. Our modern Socialists are only a section of the Socialist party, because a large proportion of the Socialist party do not like Poplarism, but that section which likes it has discovered something much more ingenious than bribing people with your own money, that is, to bribe them with other people's money, and that is in fact bribery on the most colossal scale and it has debauched the East End of London and turned decent honest British citizens into cadgers.

I am very glad the time has come when a stop be generally put to this. I am glad it has come fairly soon because the House must realise that what has been happening is intensely resented by all classes of the community all over the country. The normal British attitude towards Poor Law relief is that it is a thing that ought to be avoided at all costs. I have always held the view that my fellow-countrymen and women have been even a little too extreme in that attitude. They have refused relief when they ought to have had it. That is their normal attitude. If Poplarism and Wesa Hamism and a few other isms go on, the ultimate reaction will be too violent and will carry us too far in the Opposite direction. I rejoice that the Minister of Health has intervened reasonably soon—quire frankly I wish he had intervened a little earlier—to prevent this thing going too far.

The contrast I have made between Birmingham and West Ham is not the only one that can he made. If you will contrast—and it is really difficult to do it satisfactorily, because the Employment Exchange areas and the Poor Law union areas are not. the same and it is difficult to make an exact comparison—but, if you run through the tables which appear in the "Labour Gazette" showing the people in receipt of Poor Law relief, and run through the other table showing the registered number of unemployed in certain areas, you are forced to the conclusion that some boards of guardians are far more generous—shall we call it? —in their distribution of public funds than others. I know districts where the boards of guardians are very considerably under the influence of the Labour party and where they have not given way to this temptation to distribute public money for the purpose of influencing votes later on. There are also parts where I am perfectly satisfied that the distribution of Poor Law relief is part of the political life of a section of the Socialist party, and I think that form of corruption ought to be brought to an end, and therefore I rejoice that the Minister of Health has brought forward this Bill.

Miss LAWRENCE

At the beginning of our proceedings to-day I took the rather unusual course of refusing to allow the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health to submit a certain table of figures to me in writing. I want to say I did not do that from any desire to be discourteous to the hon. Gentleman or to trouble the House with a long answer. I did it in order that the House might have some idea of the scope and extent of the present Bill, because this long list of unions which, as the hon. Gentleman said, is an almost unbearably long list to read to the House, is some measure of the scope of this Bill. Every one in that long list, from Abergayenny to Birmingham, from Birmingham to Chester-le-Street, from Chester-le-Street to Manchester, Merthyr Tydvil, Monmouth, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Neath, Wrexham, and the rest—every one of those are unions which have had to borrow and which may, therefore, very likely appear to the Minister as being unions which are likely to be unable to discharge their duties. The truth is that, the administration of the Minister of Health in the past three or four months has raised an almost general body of opposition among the Poor Law guardians of the country and this business of West Ham is only a smoke cloud to cover a very large, far-extending and thought-out policy. It was a smoke cloud which occasionally grew rather thin. I thought it grew particularly thin when the Minister was driven to read out a sorry record of certain rogues whom the guardians had detected in fraud and had prosecuted and punished. As everybody knows, the ingenuity of human wickedness is so great that the strictest bodies—the Charity Organisation Society itself occasionally—have somebody who gets right away with it. The fact that prosecution has taken place is always a criterion of strict rather than of lax administration. But I do not want to be diverted to this tempting question. Does anybody suppose that if this were a question of dealing with a single board of guardians, Parliament would be asked to spend three or four days talking about it? If, as the Minister has hinted, though he brought no evidence, there have been corrupt appointments, anybody who has been in municipal work for 20 years or so can give a long list of guardians up and down the country who have done time and been in prison for long periods for corrupt appointments. There are rogues everywhere. There is nothing which can be more readily punished by the law. The only objection from the ministerial point of view is that you have got to prove it according to the rules of evidence before the Judges. The Minister said you could not deal with guardians by mandamus. You can go to prison for mandamus, and you can spend long terms in prison. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman wants capital punishment for the guardians, because, short of capital punishment, there is hardly any punishment you can inflict upon a criminal that cannot be inflicted by process of mandamus.

I come to another point. The policy of the Minister with regard to Poor Law administration changed violently and suddenly this year. I only take the instance of the West Ham scale, which was up to the minimum of 55s. last autumn. With the general strike the Minister issued his circular. Tie did two things in that circular. He told the boards of guardians not to give higher relief than unemployment benefit in cases which were not strikers. He suggested for the wives of strikers 12s., and for the children of strikers 4s. Those were his suggestions. But where he had the lever of indebtedness he has forced sometimes that scale and sometimes lower scales on the boards of guardians. That has provoked resistance, discontent and deputations from the boards of guardians up and down the country. As a member of the Women's Committee for the Relief of Miners' Wives and Children, I can say that we have had from all the districts concerned very full reports as to the scales of Poor Law relief and as to the action of the Minister with regard to health matters.

I have been trying to drag an answer from the Minister of Health on a matter to which I am coming, almost continually since I came into the House. He said that he has advised that it is correct that the guardians should apply the Merthyr Tydvil judgment so as to refuse relief to all males over 14 in colliery districts. Many of these boys have never been employed at all, and I have pressed the Minister to tell me under what possible decision it can be held that people who were never in an industry at all are strikers. He has referred that question to the Law Officers of the Crown. The Law Officers did not attain their present position without having learned a little worldly wisdom. They have not answered that question and I do not believe they will answer that question until the stoppage is over and the weapon is no longer needed. There is another question put to the Law Officers which may perhaps need a little legal consideration. It is this. In the Merthyr Tydvil case the Judge said—and what the Judge said is the law of the land now—that persons who by their own active consent threw themselves out of work might not be relieved. That is the law; but the boys cannot vote. No boy under 16 can vote and most young men up to 18 cannot vote. How can you argue that people who have no voice in calling on a stoppage and who will have no voice in calling off a stoppage have by their own active consent thrown themselves out of work? The men have thrown them out of work exactly in the same way as the stoppage of the colliers has thrown the textile men out of work. I suppose one could go on for ever asking the Minister whether people who have not been in industry are strikers, and perhaps when the strike is over we shall get some sort of answer.

A great many of the boards of guardians have refused to accept the Minister's dictum on this, and some of them are in this list to which I have referred. Some of the Durham Board of Guardians are relieving people up to 16 and some up to 18, and it is excessively inconvenient to the Minister because they will not listen to his law. Many boards of guardians are refusing to acecpt the scale pressed upon them. You will not find one London board which will put into force a scale no higher than the unemployment pay, and very few in the country, and I do not suppose Birmingham would. I should like to ask how many boards of guardians have written in the last three months protesting. It is a very long list. Some have given way, and the amount of distress caused by those who have given way is almost unspeakable. From that committee of which I have spoken we have continual stories about the actual hunger of the colliery lads. Some districts say they can do nothing, and when we ask what happens to the boys, they say that they are hanging about the children's feeding centres in the hope of getting what is left over. Others say that they can manage one meal a day. Some say, hopefully, "The boys got 10s. last week from the Russian money." Many arc resisting the Minister. It is a very long business to try to deal with the matter by persuasion, circular letter, reduction of loans, etc., and to get a large number of boards of guardians to adopt an entirely new scale in regard to administration.

The Minister wants a quick and easy way; therefore he has brought forward this Bill, which says that "wherever it appears to the Minister" that boards of guardians will be unable to discharge their functions, he may get rid of them and put in his own paid nominees. "Whenever it appears to the Minister" Could there be a more blessed form of words? You cannot take an appearance into Court. You cannot convince a hard and unsympathetic Judge that something did not appear to the Minister. Appearances are not subject to the law of evidence. The Minister will not have to go into Court to prove the case as he would in regard to maladministration. He can sit in the privacy of his room and conjure up appearances, and in virtue of those ghosts he can take away the rights of the ratepayers. These paid nominees of the Minister will have power to determine what the ratepayer has to pay. According to the Bill, these paid people, appointed by the Minister and holding office at his pleasure, will be able to make out the precept for the district. They will be able to impose upon the ratepayers the rates they will have to pay. There are certain rates which will be difficult to collect.

Does anybody believe that this is really a West Ham business? Can anybody think that all this machinery is to be put into force in order to deal with one board of guardians i No. What we feel is that it is done because of the partial failure of the Minister's efforts to reduce out-relief generally throughout the country and by that means to bring additional hardship and suffering upon the strikers and those who are out of work, and to reverse the whole Poor Law policy of the last 10 years, which has been towards greater generosity and to remove that little assurance, that little comfort, which is now behind every poor fellow who draws the unemployment benefit and cannot find work. Anybody who looks at this matter must see that this Bill is part of a concerted plan. It is part of the same plain motive which prompted the attack upon the money which was sent for the miners. It is the same motive which is now prompting the general reduction of Poor Law relief. The Minister has taken this step not for the sake of West Ham, not in order to deal with one board of guardians, but to ensure that every board of guardians in the country may, whenever it appears to him advisable, be superseded, and their places filled by his own paid servants, administering as he thinks fit. I do not think that our Amendment is too strong, when we speak of this as a revolutionary Measure. The boards of guardians may be the smallest elected authority in the country, but they are by no means the youngest. They are a very old part of our constitution, and to supersede boards of guardians because in a very large number of cases they are conducting a policy which the Minister dislikes, is, without exaggeration, an attack upon one of the great principles of our constitution.

Mr. MACQUISTEN

I should have thought that if this were a revolutionary proposal, it is the very thing that would have recommended itself to the last speaker.

Miss LAWRENCE

On a point of personal explanation. I will not allow that statement to go unchallenged. I am not a revolutionist. I am a democrat clinging, under very great difficulties, to the principles of democracy.

Mr. MACQUISTEN

I will make an exception in the case of the distinguished lady who has just spoken, whose speech we all so much enjoyed; but I do not think, if this be a revolutionary proposal, that that is any drawback in the eyes of most hon. Members who sit on the benches with the hon. Member. The proposal is, no doubt, somewhat novel in this country, but it ought to commend itself to hon. Members opposite because it is, to some extent, a bureaucratic proposal. The men who are to take the places of the guardians are to be paid for their job. As far is I understand it, those guardians who are connected with trade unions are already paid by the trade union funds and the political levy for the work they do. They get paid a salary, and they also receive their expenses, and they are paid out of the pockets of our supporters. It seems that it is merely because those connected with trade unions are not appointing these paid men, and that the Minister is going to appoint them, that they object. I suppose the men appointed will be called blacklegs, because they will be taking jobs which are at present held by trade union members.

Although the proposal in the Bill is somewhat novel, we have to bear in mind that the circumstances are extreme. Even after making allowances for the exaggerations of the Press, who are always getting hold of something striking, there can be no doubt that up and down the country there has been considerable feeling amongst decent working men in regard to cases where a man with a family is getting more out of relief funds than the same man would get if he were working.

Miss WILKINSON

That is an objection against low wages.

Mr. MACQUISTEN

If a man is to receive wages according to the size of his family well and good. That used to be the case in agriculture, but it has never been possible to work that system in any other industry. I think it is a very sensible principle. It is very unfortunate that so many of the unemployed have large families, because that means a large burden being put upon the rates.

Mr. BROMLEY

The lawyers do not base their fees on the size of their families.

Mr. MACQUISTEN

They work very hard for their fees. I would remind hon. Members that although the proposal seems somewhat undemocratic, it is not very novel. There is one part of the British Isles for which hon. Members opposite always express admiration. They have no special regard for Northern Ireland, but they have great admiration for the Southern part of Ireland. They think that Southern Ireland is a very fine place. I would remind them that the Free State Government of Ireland have done to the Dublin Corporation the very thing that the Minister is now proposing to do with regard to defaulting boards of guardians. When one asks Irishmen how the Commission is working in regard to the Dublin Corporation, the reply is that they pray God that it will never come to an end. For the first time Dublin really has had a sound and salutary government. The same thing applies to the United States. Democracy is all very well, but it is liable to abuse. With freedom you may get licence as well. It is a very bad thing even when democracy is free to spend its own money, but it is especially bad when it gets an unlimited right to spend other people's money. So long as the West Ham guardians can go on spending as much as they like so long will you have corruption. Anybody can spend as much as they like so long as they are spending their own money, but when you borrow from other people, as West Ham has done to the extent of £2,000,000, then it is about time people cut their coats according to their cloth and not according to other people's cloth. It is like the old Scottish saying, "Its gey and easy cuttin whangs' aff anither man's cheese." That is what this board of guardians insists upon doing, and the Minister of Health very properly is endeavouring to end it.

If you go to the United states of America you will find that in many places people have got so dissatisfied with the conduct of municipal affairs that they have deliberately placed the administration of municipalities in the hands of one or two Commissions. You will find many towns which have taken this broad road, or slippery slope, whichever you like to call it, and are extremely gratified at the result. Corruption is the same whether you put money into your own pockets or into the pockets of your friends. It is just as corrupt to hand it over to somebody else. In the United States they have handed over all their affairs to Commissions of first-class business men, who look after the whole administration of the town, and those who have done so have found that rates and charges have been reduced and the efficiency of administration enormously increased. The only fault. I have to find with this Bill is that the Minister of Health will have to raise this matter again in 12 months' time. I do not think the West Ham Board of Guardians will be renovated in 12 months. It will take much longer; it will take at least 10 years before they get to the ordinary ideas of how to conduct municipal affairs. One would like to see those who are unemployed or in need of help receive the maximum possible, hut you have to consider that there are hundreds of hard working people who are struggling on, and who prefer to struggle on rather than take relief, who are being taxed in order to pay for these other people. Let me give you a striking instance of this from Scotland; it is an instance of the spirit of the people in the North. Here is a case referred to by the clerk of the Glasgow Parish Council, and is reported in connection with the payment of relief to a woman from the Highlands, a widow with five children. The council made her an allowance of 38s. 6d, a week, not a very big allowance compared with the sums given in West Ham and Poplar. Four weeks later she said she would be happier if she returned to the Isle of Skye among her own people, and she asked the council to send the allowance to her there. The parish council granted the request, and the widow returned. Two weeks later she wrote to the clerk to the parish council asking him to reduce the allowance as there were only two other members of the community who were as well off as she was, one being the local clergyman and the other the policeman.

Mr. SULLIVAN

; What is the date of that letter? You have read it before.

Mr. MACQUISTEN

It is dated about two years ago. It is a newspaper cutting. You can get all the information of the case from the clerk to the Glasgow Parish Council who is in attendance at one of the Committees of the House. Some hon. Members opposite seem to be annoyed about it because this is a Scottish Highlander and not an Irish Highlander. It is one of the finest letters I ever saw in the Press and I am very proud of my Highland compatriot. If we could only get a little more of this Highland spirit in West Ham and Poplar this kind of Bill would not be required.

Mr. RAMSAY MacDONALD

I have risen in this Debate for the purpose of ascertaining what the Minister of Health has in his mind in introducing this Bill. Is it an instalment of Poor Law reform? Is it an instalment in the reform of municipal government? Is it an economy Measure? Is it a Measure to improve the moral standard of administration in certain areas? Is it a Measure to enable the Government to recognise more than it has done hitherto its responsibilities for necessitous areas I had questions like these in my mind when I came into the House this afternoon, and I have still those questions in my mind. It is now nearly 10 o'clock, and I am just as wise as to what the Minister means to do by this Bill in relation to these questions as I was when he rose to address the House. He began by making certain reflections upon the electoral roll. He pointed out that the shareholders in companies owning property in places like West Ham, who did not live in West Ham, but who get their profits from West Ham, had no votes there, and he suggested that we ought to return again to the property qualification for voting for hoards of guardians. Up to 1892 that, of course, was the case. He knows perfectly well that up to 1892 the idea which he has expressed this afternoon was actually embodied in the law of the land, and that in voting for boards of guardians property owners had a number of votes scaled in accordance with the property they held up to as many as six, and that was abandoned deliberately by this House because it was an unjust way of distributing votes and electing boards of guardians. If he had that in mind, he does not seek to enfranchise them, but he seeks to disfranchise the whole body of electors for boards of guardians of West Ham and similar bodies. He proposes to wipe the register off altogether, and instead of having a register to have his own will. I should like to have some further light on that subject when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health replies.

The Minister of Health then went on to discuss the risk of corruption. I think he used a very unfortunate word, because the difficulty he pointed out, which is a real one, has never been associated in the minds of the public with corruption. It is not corruption. It may be a very sound argument that in the creation of local government bodies it is an exceedingly bad principle to make a special body' charged with one purpose and one purpose only, and that purpose the distribution of money. That is one of the reasons why a good many of us have always been in favour of merging the boards of guardians into larger bodies with wider responsibility. But if there is any danger at all it lies, not in the nature of the board and not in the character of the people who are administering. Nowadays it is common for hon. Members opposite to talk about the Socialist party. I am certain that no hon. Member opposite will take any advice that I give him, but really hon. Members would be very much more convincing if before they talked about the Socialist party they would spend an hour or two in reading a few authoritative penny pamphlets on the subject.

When they talk about the Labour majority on the West Ham Board of Guardians and suggest that that is the reason why, as they say, there is corruption—there is no corruption as they use the word—how do they explain that one of the largest hoards of guardians mentioned by the Parliamentary Secretary, in the long list that he read out at Question Time to-day, was Sheffield? It is a board of guardians with an enormous debt, and I admit that T was staggered when I heard the figures. It is a board of guardians that has always been dominated by a combination of those very worthy and disinterested citizens, Liberals and Tories, great, solid, independent mid-Victorian models, in combination against Labour, they standing up with mixed colours on the one side, and friends of mine, the Socialists and the Labour party, on the other. And we get defeated; we are in a minority on the board. The chairman of that board is a Liberal, who used to sit on the Treasury Bench as a representative of the Ministry of Transport. He has a majority of people of the same colour as himself, or, rather, of mixed colours, and we are in the minority. Yet that is the board of guardians which took second place in the list for indebtedness. That is not all. The Sheffield Board of Guardians has been the subject of inquiry. The Ministry of Health has been so dissatisfied with what the board of guardians has done that it has sent down and held a special inquiry. I am not attacking the Sheffield Board of Guardians, but I wish that hon. Members would stop talking nonsense about Socialist boards of guardians being extravagant.

10.0 P.M.

Sheffield and West Ham share a common hard lot. If the Minister of Health were to send down to-morrow one of the most capable officers on whom he could lay his hands and give him a salary double of that which he gets in Whitehall, give him a staff well selected, well appointed and well paid—if the right hon. Gentleman sent one officer down to Sheffield and another to West Ham, all I can say is, God pity the two Government officials who have to solve the problem of Poor Law relief in either of those places. The right hon. Gentleman provides no remedy in this Bill. He tells us that the new Poor Law Reform Bill is to be introduced next year. The necessitous area is the problem. It is not only an economic problem, but also a moral problem and, it is there that the rub comes in. Will hon. Members visualise the situation? You have a public authority administering the Poor Law, and it is absolutely impossible for them ever to balance their budget. The budget cannot be balanced in this period of bad trade.

You have people living in the dullest and most depressing circumstances. Those of us who live in different districts can remain alert to the dangers that beset a lax administration of the Poor Law. But plunge yourself into those circumstances, go and live in the mean streets, sit day after day in administrative offices, and at last the bum of human misery dulls all your sensibilities except human sentiment, and you are bound to he affected at the end. When the widow, the orphan, the fatherless, and the poverty-stricken are before you the administration of the law becomes, perhaps, a little lax. And who is going to apportion blame? Put your officers down there, and exactly the same thing will happen. It is the area, the conditions, the masses, the overwhelming human oppression that tells upon the mind of the administrator, when there is not a single break in the black cloud. If you want to face that problem, face it in that way and merge it all into the larger national interests, as has been suggested by my hon. Friends. You are not taking a step towards that by this Bill. As a matter of fact you are making things worse by your action. For years, ever since this Government came into office, what has been the economic tendency of its policy? To save the Exchequer at the expense of the ratepayers. It does not matter where you look. The effect of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's policy and the policy of the Minister of Labour has been to increase the difficulties of the Minister of Health and the administration for which he is directly or indirectly responsible.

I put the question— a very simple one and a very searching one—is the suggestion of the Minister that the necessitous areas have been caused by maladministration? If he says "Yes," then this Bill is of some use; if he says "No," then this Bill is of no use. Nobody can suggest that the necessitous area has been created by maladministration or is going to be made a non-necessitous area even by better administration. I have already referred to Sheffield. It is actually administering a scale prescribed by the Minister of Health, and yet it cannot reduce its indebtedness. Its budget is not balanced, and it is in the same position as West Ham. One of the reasons — the main reason — for the necessitous area is this, that for certain natural causes there is a tendency in our country and in other countries for a segregation of the population. The shareholders to whom the Minister began to refer to as living outside West Ham will not live in West Ham. I do not blame them. But they will not live there. It is perfectly true, as an hon. Member opposite said, that there is a section in the West Ham Union—I think it is called Leyton—where they object to paying rates. They welcome the Minister's intervention. Of course they do, because the necessitous area is created by that sort of life. You get your population segregated and your so-called respectable districts all drawn together and, alongside, the residential district that is not called respectable, and, if it happens to be very poor, the sections that do call themselves respectable object to paying their proper share for which they are responsible. We have got the Metropolitan Common Poor Law Fund which includes the whole area, but it excludes West Ham. Why should it exclude West Ham? You will never solve this problem of the necessitous area which has created the problem in this Bill until your unions represent all the classes, all the interests of which the nation is composed. In other words, you have got to extend the area of your common assessment that enables you to do your duty.

I would further like to ask: Are you going to cheapen administration by this Bill? I do not think you are. I think you are going to increase the expense of it. In any event, you are going to pay salaries that are not paid now. Are you going to purify administration? The only purification is that which is mentioned by the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Scurr) who has had experience of this, that you may remove certain mistakes that have been made. Certain of those cases, as hon. Members have pointed out, are not new. They have already been the subject of prosecutions. Some of them have been the subject of inquiry, and they have been the subject of remedy. I venture to say that an officer appointed by Whitehall, or from Whitehall, is just going to make his mistake and provide cases like those read out to us, with the same frequency as boards of guardians. So I doubt if you are going to purify your administration very much. Morally we ought to get a definite reply from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health. Does he suggest that the administration requires purification from the moral point of view as well as the merely mechanical? I do not believe it does. I suggest it is an insult to boards of guardians to suggest that it does.

Let me put another question. Is the Minister going to reduce scales. We ought to know. In a wealthy union the poor may receive scales very much higher than the scales that are going to be imposed on these necessitous areas. Is the practical working of this Bill going to be this—that if you live in the midst of poor people you have got to cut your coat according to your cloth, but if you live among wealthy people—if you happen to have a little hutch in, say, any London Union, the valuation of which is very high —then you cut your cloth according to your rich neighbours? Is that the great proposal the Minister of Health has brought before us in the shape of this Bill? He ought to tell us to what boards of guardians it is to be applied. He cannot expect us to give him a blank cheque. Is he going to apply it to West Ham and West Barn alone, or is he going to apply it to other areas? The House is not a place for Ministers to come and apply for blank cheques. The only place mentioned was West Ham. How many of those boards of guardians read out by the Under-Secretary at Question Time are going to have this Bill applied to them? What is to be the Minister's test'? It is insulting the House to come down and say: "I want to include hoards of guardians in a, Bill like this." What is going to be the test? Is it to be rates? Is it to be percentage of people relieved? The country must know what the Ministry of Health has in its mind when it asks the House to pass this Bill. What is it estimated you are going to save? I suppose we are right in assuming that the first board of guardians in this Bill is West Ham. The Ministry must have gone into the subject. They are not bringing in a Bill before they have made up their minds and come to a conclusion as to what effect the Bill will have on that particular situation.

We are dealing with this more fully on another occasion, and I promised to give the Parliamentary Secretary a 40 minutes' run, but before I conclude I wish to refer to certain cases which were quoted to-day by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health—I am sorry it was in my enforced absense. We say that this is a very serious constitutional change. Ah," says the Minister, "but I have precedents." Has he? Is he sure his precedents are right? The municipal law of this country has been laid down by this House. This House has referred certain duties to the municipal authorities. It has set certain standards for these municipal authorities. It said, for instance, when it started public education, "We decide that school boards shall be established, wherever it is necessary that they should be established. We decide that the school boards, when established, shall provide schools." Then it went on, in view of threats that were offered especially in rural districts and in the more backward areas in the country, to add something. The right hon. Gentleman has perhaps more reason for remembering these things than any of us, on account of the very magnificent connection which his name and his family have with this matter, but in Lord Morley's book on "National Education" we can see it all laid out. The Opposition then declared outside "Pass your Education Bill; set up your school boards. We will do nothing; we will not carry out the law of the House of Commons." The House of Commons said "We impose duties and we will see that they are carried out." That is not what it is doing here. Here it is doing exactly the opposite. In the other three cases which the right hon. Gentleman has given there is the same principle precisely set out. The municipalities derive their authority from House of Commons law. For the House of Commons to come in and interfere with the administration in this special way, reducing the liberty of the municipalities to use the power which the House of Commons itself has given them, is a thing which has never been done in the history of this country before. I hope it will not be done now, but I am afraid we cannot help it. There is a very distinct difference between the one and the other.

The final point I wish to make is this. Is the Minister going to use this Bill for the coercion of boards of guardians in further negotiations about his scales? I am sure he appreciates this point as a good business man and negotiator. He must know perfectly well that, armed with this Bill, he is not only going to have power to take over certain boards of guardians which have misbehaved themselves, but that this Bill gives him a power which he can use in a thousand and one different ways in his dealings with the boards of guardians. Is he aware of the fact that under the general words which he uses to take this power, he can use this power in the way exactly opposite to the way in which he proposes to use it here? That is exceedingly bad legislation. It is a very bad model of a Bill or an Act when one party brings it in to suit its purpose and another party can administer it for exactly the opposite purpose. I do hope, from the point of view of the Constitution, quite apart from your West Hams and your Sheffields and your other boards of guardians, that the right hon. Gentleman will pause very carefully before he lends his weight and his countenance to a type of legislation which is most objectionable indeed, because it is the embodiment of the purest and the simplest and the most unlimited form of partisanship. From the point of view of business, I do not see what good is going to happen from this Bill; from the point of view of the Constitution, I think the Bill is very bad; from the point of view of this House of Commons, I think the Ministers have not given us the information which would justify us in voting for the Bill; and, therefore, my position to-night when the vote is taken will be in the "No" lobby.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood)

The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition has followed the path which practically every speaker against the Bill has followed this evening. He has raised all sorts of diversions, such as Sheffield, the position of other hoards, an attack upon local government generally, but he has failed, I think, as every other speaker who has opposed the Bill has failed, to answer the overwhelming and convincing case which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health made for this Bill this afternoon. The right hon. Gentleman said that be has been troubled about this Bill and its objects. I will tell him this, that this Bill is an emergency measure, designed, first, to deal with an urgent situation, which has been developing for some time and has now become acute, and, secondly, and with an equally necessary object, possibly to prevent and in any event to circumvent a similar situation, if such should arise in other parts of the country. I am one of those who believe that when this Bill is passed and has dealt with the particular locality which we have discussed at great length to-day, it will probably be unnecessary altogether to put it into operation in other parts of the country. It is true that it is a drastic and exceptional measure, but ray answer to that is that it is to deal with an urgent and a serious situation. In other words, this Bill is not to end local self-government in this country, but is brought in because, in the particular area which we have discussed, local self-government has broken down altogether; and to say, as the right hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley) said this afternoon, that this is a step towards the complete destruction of self-government in this country, is absolutely absurd.

What is the charge that is brought against this Bill this afternoon? It is that the proposals in the Bill are improperly designed so as to deal unfairly with an elected body which is carrying out difficult duties with care and discretion in the sole interests of all classes and sections of the district. That is the case presented by hon. and right hon. Members opposite, with special reference to the rights and duties of a local authority such as that of West Ham at the present. I say that, under our system, which has grown up now for many years, in connection particularly with the autonomy of local bodies in this country, it has always been one of the fundamental conditions that a local body carried out its functions with reference to its financial resources, and if it obtained financial assistance from the State the conditions which are laid down when that assistance is given must be observed. I have been trying to ascertain as I listened to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley) what it is exactly they complain about in regard to the attitude of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health. The West Ham Board of guardians have come forward again for the advance of a very large sum of money, £425,000. This follows many similar applications. We have been told this afternoon from many quarters that in the judgment of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and one or two hon. Members behind me, that there is great doubt as to whether this will ever be repaid. Does the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition put this proposition to the House: that my right hon. Friend has to advance money without any conditions and without laying down any particular line of conduct as to the manner in which this money has to be spent? Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health has a responsibility to this House for this money? Does the Leader of the Opposition think for a moment that another large sum of money is to be advanced without any conditions whatever in the case even of a local authority that is administering its affairs with great care and discretion? Is that the proposition of hon. Members of this House at the present time? You have only to state it to realise its absurdity. When money is advanced in this way my right hon. Friend is answerable to this House, and he has to assure the House of Commons that that money was advanced on conditions that are fair to all sections of the community.

What are the particular facts so far as this particular district is concerned It is perfectly true, as has been said, that West Ham is a very difficult area, and has peculiar problems at the present time owing to the fact that a very large number of its inhabitants are from time to time in great need, but it is important to administer an area of that kind with justice to all its inhabitants. There are other sections of the community who arc carrying on industries and trade at the present time under great difficulties, and whose conditions are not improved by the heavy rates in that district at the moment.

In view of the criticisms which I anticipated might be advanced, I looked up the figures. My right hon. Friend indicated one of the difficulties of the situation so far as the administration of Poor Law relief is concerned. As he said, you have on the one hand a large number of people able to vote at these elections who are directly benefited by whatever relief may be given; and in two districts like West Ham and East Ham you find many public undertakings which have to pay heavy rates without any possible voice in local affairs or right to intervene or to say how that money is to be spent. In the two districts of West Ham and East Ham no less than 38 per cent. of the rateable value is represented by undertakings which have no part or lot or voice in the administration of that area. Whilst it is true that relief should be administered sympathetically, it is equally necessary to have regard, in view of the industrial situation of this district and others, to the burdens which these undertakings have to bear, and in order wisely and fairly to administer the affairs of that district those in authority must conserve their financial resources and have regard to the future.

The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition has asked what is the case we make for this Bill. The case, as I conceive it, is that the West Ham Guardians have themselves brought local government in their district to an end by landing its administration in bankruptcy, and that by their own willful default and neglect. In support of that I would ask, is it true that the financial position in West Ham is such that practical bankruptcy is in sight? I have a statement as to the position in West Ham made not by any partisan hut by the clerk to the Poor Law guardians, who, I think everyone will agree, is in no sense a partisan and who must have considerable difficulties at the present time. He made a statement to the guardians on the 4th June giving the exact position of this particular local authority. He stated: When the Finance Committee submitted their estimates of expenditure in March they based the amount on a call for Poor Law purposes of 4s. 6d. in the £ for the half-year. That was what the Board had adopted as their policy. They claimed, and he thought rightly, that they could not in justice to the ratepayers raise a higher rate than that; 9s. for the year was as much as, he thought, was levied in any other union in Great Britain. When the estimate was made they had to fall back on the now old process of putting down a sum for which they would have to ask the Ministry, namely, £350,000. That had to be increased by £75,000 owing to the cost of the strike. It had been pointed out by the Ministry that the Goschen Committee would not recommend a loan unless the Ministry could give them the assurance mentioned in the document, and that could not be given. If they added £425,000, which they expected to receive, to what they had already had, they would find they had had nearly £2,500,000 on loan, and considering that the rateable value of the union was only £3,000,000, apart from all other loans for ordinary purposes, the position so far as the union was concerned was that they were simply getting to sheer bankruptcy. That is the financial position.

Mr. MacDONALD

Have the Government made any estimate as to how much is going to be saved?

Sir K. WOOD

I will deal with that point later. What are the facts which have brought this state of affairs about? It is true that the situation is a very difficult one. The district contains a very large number of very poor people, and if that had been the sole position we had to consider, so far as this area is concerned, you would have heard nothing about this Bill. There is, however, over-whelming evidence against West Ham, not from politicians—

Mr. J. JONES

Where? There is no evidence.

Mr. SPEAKER

The hon. Member for Silvertown said to me earlier in the day that he would be dumb if he got an opportunity of making a coherent speech. I found the hon. Member that opportunity earlier in the day before dinner. I hope he will now allow the Parliamentary Secretary to make a coherent speech.

Mr. JONES

I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman, but he raid that there was overwhelming evidence against West Ham, while the only evidence he has produced is that of the officer he has quoted.

Sir K. WOOD

I will endeavour to give a little further evidence. Evidently the Leader of the Opposition and other hon. Members are under a misapprehension with regard to the auditor's report. The statement made by the Minister of Health has been described as a flimsy excuse, but my right hon. Friend has by no means exhausted the case against the particular guardians in question. The auditor made a selection from a number of cases and presented them to the Poor Law Guardians of West Ham as an example of the situation showing exactly what was taking place in that district. In regard to the auditor's report itself, as a good many hon. Members have questioned that report and have given many explanations for the cases which have been put forward and cited by my right hon. Friend this afternoon, it is only fair to say that that is not the attitude which the guardians have adopted. The chairman, at a meeting of that Board of Guardians on the 3rd June when this report was discussed, rose in his place and said he had before him one hundred cases of relief picked out by the auditor in which there had been allowances for which there was no justification whatever. That is the statement of the chairman of this Board of Guardians. They are only instances of the character of the administration which is taking place in this area.' The hon. Gentleman, quite rightly, speaking on behalf of this district, asked what proof there is. I suppose the best proof one can have is the evidence of the guardians themselves, and I suppose the hon. Member will agree that the man who has certainly been the most capable, and who has had an extensive knowledge of what has been going on in that district, namely, Mr. Killip, whose word he will not question, has made a very remarkable statement, a part only of which was read by my right hon. Friend. He has not made any of the excuses which have been advanced by the right hon. Gentleman and others this afternoon. He has said that, if you want to know why if is that West Ham has got into its present position, he will tell you; and he told the guardians. He said that it was his honest opinion that their present position—that is, the dreadful financial state in which they found themselves—was due to the fact, not that they were giving what was in the opinion of the Ministry an extravagant scale of relief but that individual members of the board had completely forgotten their duty as guardians, and had been usurping that of the relieving officers. That is a very different explanation from what has been given to-day by hon. Members who are not so conversant with the facts. The right hon. Gentleman has raised the question of the scale of relief which he says has been imposed by my right hon. Friend upon this board of guardians. He is quite incorrect with reference to that. My right hon. Friend invited this Board of Guardians to make a proposition themselves, and I will say this in credit to many moderate Labour members of the West Ham Board of Guardians, that, when this position was put to them, when they were confronted with the position which everyone in this House can see to-day who wants to give a fair judgment on the case, it was actually a Labour member of the board who proposed that another and lower scale should be adopted.

Mr. MacDONALD

I am perfectly aware that it was a Labour member who did so, but the reference which I made to a scale that had been suggested by the Ministry of Health related to Sheffield.

Sir K. WOOD

I wanted to deal with West Ham, and I want to say to the right hon. Gentleman that in the opinion of Mr. Killip—who is, I may say, strongly opposed to my right hon. Friend, who has objected right through to the attitude which the Ministry of Health has adopted, and, therefore, cannot be said for a moment to be anything but an opponent of the Ministry—in his opinion there is no question of the scale of relief in this matter; that is not the issue. What Mr. Killip says is that individual members of the board had completely forgotten their duty as guardians, and had been usurping that of the relieving officers.

Mr. W. THORNE

That is only 100 eases out of 73,000 a week.

Sir K. WOOD

I know the hon. Member has done his best. The board of guardians disregarded his own advice in October last year. It is quite untrue to say this would be only 100 cases.

Mr. THORNE

73,000 a week.

Sir K. WOOD

I carefully stated, as the auditor himself stated, that it was no question of only 100 cases. This was a sample taken of a number of eases and the board of guardians have seen that the position they find themselves in today is not due to any scal—

Mr. SCURR

Have any of the 100 cases been surcharged by the auditors?

Sir K. WOOD

The hon. Member knows that a surcharge is no effectual remedy. My right hon. Friend gave the House particulars of the Auditor's Report for 1925. Anyone would have thought, in view of the difficult position in which the board of guardians found themselves, and knowing the attitude of my right hon. Friend, that, so far as, their recent administration was concerned, we should have seen some improvement. If there had been the slightest sign of improvement, my right hon. Friend and I would have gladly avoided this Bill. It is true, we believe, we may be able to bring forward a far better remedy in our proposals next year than we have in this temporary Bill. What is the last Report of the Auditor who examined into the case for the year ending 31st March, 1926? It has come to my hands during the last few hours. Do you think there is any sense of the responsibility in which these people find themselves? This is what he says: The conditions set out in my last Report in regard to the administration of out-relief still continue,"— that is the report my right hon. Friend gave to-day. The auditor goes on to cite, and has handed into the Department, another list of cases adopting exactly the same attitude as those my right hon. Friend has given to the House. I take the very worst case. You find there the board of guardians still persisting in giving relief in a case of a man, wife and three children, rent 13s. 7d., actual income of the household,£7 12s. per week, relief actually allowed, 24s. 6d.

Mr. LANSBURY

Who is earning the money?

Sir K. WOOD

Whoever is earning the money, and whatever refinements we may be able to introduce in consideration of a ease of that kind, put yourself in the position of an ordinary working man in West Ham who gets no relief at all, who is endeavouring to bring up a family in decent conditions solely on his own account. When cases of that kind occur, for which Mr. Killip has said with reference to many others, that there is absolutely no excuse for it, the great majority of decent people certainly feel that my right hon. Friend ought to do something.

Mr. LANSBURY

Who are the people, and what are their ages, who are earning the £7?

Sir K. WOOD

Various suggestions have been made this afternoon and this evening as to what should be done to meet a case of this kind. I do not know whether the Leader of the Opposition thinks that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health can leave things as they are. I do not know whether he thinks that the Prime Minister would authorise my right hon. Friend to advance without restrictions another sum of £300,000 in conditions such as these. Various hon. Gentlemen opposite have suggested that a surcharge must deal with that case. Obviously, it is ludicrous to contend that. Other hon. Gentlemen and I think the hon. Lady the Member for West Ham North (Miss Lawrence) have suggested that a mandamus might meet the situation. Obviously, if a mandamus were put into effect to-morrow, it would make no difference in a case of this kind.

Another suggestion has been made that there might be an election for a fresh board of guardians. I would like to tell the House this—and I think the right hon. Gentleman opposite might have made a few more inquiries if he wanted to support moderate and decent Labour opinion in the district—when we had difficulties with the West Ham Board of Guardians in October, there was considerable division among Labour people themselves. One Labour member of the board of guardians had the courage to propose that in the circumstances—and here I may say, so that there shall be no question of his bona fides, that he was a member of the National Union of General Municipal Workers and of the Silvertown Divisional Labour party—to propose that the Minister's conditions at that particular time should be accepted. What was his fate? He stood for election at the last board of guardians election and, because he had made that very reasonable proposition in the circumstances which then existed, he was called by all and sundry in the district a "baby starver" and as a, consequence he lost his seat. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Hon. Gentlemen, and, especially the hon. Lady opposite, apparently, fully support that idea.

An election is impossible. We are bound in these circumstances to take the, if you like, very drastic course we have taken. The position was very well put by a leading newspaper the other day—not a supporter of the Government, but a newspaper which has taken a very considerable interest and has given a great deal of space to municipal politics—the "Star" newspaper, which said this: The Bill which Mr. Neville Chamberlain is to introduce to supersede the West Ham Board of Guardians and to take over their duties is a measure of rough justice and may have a salutary effect in other quarters. The guardians were elected to perform particular duties on clearly defined lines, and they have chosen to substitute for their statutory obligations a new and extravagant system of relief of their own devising. In their anxiety to do fill; justice to the poor they have altogether forgotten the poor ratepayer who has to foot the Bill, and they have instituted scales of relief which make it more profitable and more comfortable to be unemployed than to work for a living. That is politically anti economically unsound. Extended to the whole country it would reduce us to bankruptcy in a month and the scale of relief would therefore fall because there would be no funds out of which to provide it. The supersession of the board of guardians is a strong measure but it is impossible to suggest that it is unjust and the first persons to approve it will be those ratepayers in West Ham who are not fortunate enough to be in receipt of Poor Law relief.

Mr. J. JONES

That is a lying statement. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw!"]

Sir K. WOOD

The right hon. Member opposite asked what was to be the position; what were the intentions of the Minister when the Bill was put into operation, and what was the saving that would be anticipated? Obviously, I cannot commit my right hon. Friend or myself to an exact estimate of the saving, but I can say that, in my judgment, when careful and faithful administrators enter upon the administration of West Hare, as they will do within a few days, there will be a saving of a very large sum of money, without doing the slightest injustice to any deserving person.

Mr. W. THORNE

You cannot do it without cutting down the scale of relief.

Sir K. WOOD

There will be persons in charge there who will have regard to the interests of the Whole body of people in the district. My right hon. Friend has

no intention to inflict hardships on the people in the district, but what he is determined to do and what I hope the House will do to-night, is to end a state of affairs which, in my judgment, is a disgrace to local government in this country. In asking the House to reject the Amendment, and give a Second Reading to the Bill, I say that these proposals will not interfere in a single case where guardians in ordinary circumstances would, have carried out their duties reasonably and faithfully, or prevent one deserving individual from receiving that relief in his distress to which he is rightly and properly entitled. But they will, and that is my reason for asking the House to give a Second Beading to the Bill, end an abuse which has too long disgraced local self-government in this particular area, and restore that principle of self-help which ought to be encouraged, that thrifty people should be rewarded and not penalised, and that administration shall be conducted not in the interests of a section, but on behalf of all classes of the community.

Mr. WALLHEAD rose—

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN rose in his place, and claimed to move," "That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The House divided: Ayes, 346; Noes, 130.

Division No. 318].	AYES.	[11.0 p.m.
Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel	Blundell, F. N.	Cayzer, Sir C (Chester, City)
Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.	Boothby, R. J. G.	Cayzer, Maj.Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth.S.)
Ainsworth, Major Charles	Bourne, Captain Robert Croft	Cazalet, Captain Victor A.
Albery, Irving James	Bowater, Sir T. Vansittart	Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)	Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.	Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Ox. Univ.)
Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l)	Boyd-Carpenter, Major Sir A. B.	Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby)	Braithwaite, A. N.	Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)
Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.	Brass, Captain W.	Charteris, Brigadier-General J.
Applin, Colonel R. V. K.	Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive	Chilcott, Sir Warden
Apsley, Lord	Briscoe, Richard George	Christie, J. A.
Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W	Brittain, Sir Harry	Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)	Brocklebank, C. E. R.	Churchman, Sir Arthur C.
Astor, Viscountess	Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.	Clarry, Reginald George
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley	Broun-Lindsay, Major H.	Clayton, G C.
Balfour, George {Hampstead)	Brown. Maj. D. C. (N'th'I'd., Hexham)	Cobb, Sir Cyril
Balniel, Lord	Brown, Brig.-Gen.H.C.(Berks, Newb'y)	Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Banks, Reginald Mitchell	Buckingham, Sir H.	Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir G. K.
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.	Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James	Colfox, Major Wm, Phillips
Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)	Bullock, Captain M.	Conway, Sir W, Martin
Bellairs, Commander Canyon W.	Burgoyne, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Alan	Cooper, A. Duff
Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)	Burman, J. B.	Cope, Major William
Bennett, A. J.	Burney, Lieut.-Com. Charles D.	Couper. J. B.
Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish-	Burton, Colonel H. W.	Courtauld, Major J. S.
Berry, Sir George	Butler, Sir Geoffrey	Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islingtn., N.)
Betterton, Henry B.	Butt, Sir Alfred	Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Birchall, Major J. Dearman	Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward	Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)
Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.)	Campbell, E. T.	Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)
Blades, Sir George Rowland	Casele J. D	Crookshank,Cpt.H.(Lindsey,Gainsbro)
Cunliffe, Sir Herbert	Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)	Pownall, Lieut.-Col. Sir Assheton
Curtis-Bennett, Sir Henry	Hudson, R. S. (Cumberl'nd, Whiteh'n)	Preston, William
Curzon, Capt. Viscount	Hume, Sir G. H.	Price, Major C. W. M.
Dalkeith, Earl of	Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen, Sir Aylmer	Radford, E. A.
Davidson, J.(Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd)	Huntingfield, Lord	Raine, W.
Davidson, Major-General Sir John H.	Hurd, Percy A.	Ramsden, E.
Davies, Dr. Vernon	Hurst, Gerald B.	Rawson, Sir Cooper
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset,Yeovll)	Hutchison,G.A.Clark (Midl'n & P'bl's)	Rees, Sir Beddoe
Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)	Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)	Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington)
Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)	Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.	Reid, D. D. (County Down)
Dawson, Sir Philip	Jackson, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. F. S.	Remer, J. R.
Dixey, A. C.	Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)	Rentoul, G. S.
Drewe, C.	Jacob, A. E.	Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.
Eden, Captain Anthony	James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert	Rice, Sir Frederick
Edmondson, Major A. J.	Jephcott, A. R.	Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)
Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington)	Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)	Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs, Stretford)
Elliot, Major Walter E.	Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)	Ropner, Major L.
Ellis, R. G.	Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William	Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.
Elvedon, Viscount	Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)	Rye, F. G.
England, Colonel A.	Kindersley, Major Guy M.	Salmon, Major I.
Erskine, Lord (Somerset,Weston-s.-M.)	King, Captain Henry Douglas	Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith	Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement	Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)
Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)	Knox, Sir Alfred	Sandeman, A. Stewart
Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)	Lamb, J. Q.	Sanders, Sir Robert A.
Everard, W. Lindsay	Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.	Sanderson, Sir Frank
Fairfax, Captain J. G.	Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)	Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.
Falle, Sir Bertram G.	Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip	Scott, Sir Leslie (Liverp'l Exchange)
Falls, Sir Charles F.	Little, Dr. E. Graham	Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W.R., Sowerby)
Fanshawe, Commander G. D.	Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)	Shaw, Capt. W. W. (Wilts, Westb'y)
Fermoy, Lord	Locker-LampSon, Com. O. (Handsw'th)	Sheffield, Sir Berkeley
Fleiden, E. B.	Loder, J. de V.	Shepperson, E. W.
Ford, Sir P. J.	Looker, Herbert William	Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)
Forestler-Walker, Sir L.	Lord, Walter Greaves-	Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast)
Forrest, W.	Lougher, L.	Skelton, A. N.
Foster, Sir Harry S.	Lowe, Sir Francis William	Slaney, Major P. Kenyon
Foxcroft, Captain C. T.	Lucas-Tooth. Sir Hugh Vere	Smith, R.W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Fraser, Captain Ian	Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman	Smith-Carington, Neville W.
Frece, Sir Walter de	Lumley, L. R.	Smithers, Waldron
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.	MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen	Somerville. A. A. (Windsor)
Galbraith, J. F. W.	Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)	Spender-Clay, Colonel H
Ganzoni, Sir John	Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)	Sprot, Sir Alexander
Gates, Percy	McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus	Stanley, Col. Hon. G.F. (Will'sden, E.)
Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham	McLean, Major A.	Stanley, Lord (Fylde)
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John	MacMillan, Captain H.	Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. Westm'eland)
Glyn, Major R. G. C.	Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm	Steel, Major Samuel Strang
Goff, Sir Park	McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John	Storry-Deans. R.
Gower, Sir Robert	Macquisten, F. A.	Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.
Grace, John	Malone, Major P. P.	Streatfeild, Captain S. R.
Grant, Sir J. A.	Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn	Strickland, Sir Gerald
Greene, W. P. Crawford	Marriott, Sir J. A. R.	Stuart. Crichton-, Lord C.
Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)	Mason, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K.	Stuart. Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. J.	Merriman, F. B.	Styles, Captain H. Walter
Grotrian, H. Brent	Meyer, Sir Frank	Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.	Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)	Sugden, Sir Wilfrid
Gunston, Captain D. W.	Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)	Sykes, Major.Gen. Sir Frederick H.
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.	Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)	Thom, Lt.-Col. J. G. (Dumbarton)
Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R.(Eastbourne)	Monsen, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.	Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)
Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)	Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)	Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry	Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.	Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell-
Harland, A.	Moreing, Captain A. H.	Tinne, J. A.
Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)	Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)	Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Harrison, G. J. C.	Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive	Tryon, Rt. Hon, George Clement
Harlington, Marquess of	Murchison. C. K.	Turton, Sir Edmund Russborough
Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)	Nall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph	Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.
Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)	Nelson, Sir Frank	Wallace, Captain D. E.
Hawke, John Anthony	Neville. R. J.	Ward, Lt.-Col. A.L.(Kingston-on-Hull)
Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxt'd, Henley)	Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)	Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)	Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)	Warrender, Sir Victor
Heneage, Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.	Nicholson, O. (Westminster)	Waterhouse, Captain Charles
Henn, Sir Sydney H.	Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn.W.G.(Ptrsf'ld.)	Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.	Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert	Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)
Herbert, S. (York. N.R., Scar. & Wh'by)	Nuttall, Ellis	Wells, S. R.
Hills, Major John Waller	O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh	Wheler, Major Sir Granville C. H.
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D.(St.Marylebone)	Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William	White, Lieut.-Colonel Sir G. D.
Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy	Pennefather, Sir John	Wiggins, William Martin
Holland, Sir Arthur	Penny, Frederick George	Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)
Holt, Captain H. P.	Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)	Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)
Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)	Perkins, Colonel E. K.	Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)
Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)	Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)	Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)
Hopkins, J. W. W.	Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)	Wilson, M. J. (York, N. R., Richm'd)
Hopkinson, Sir A. (Eng. Universities)	Pleiou, D. P.	Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)	Plicher, G.	Winby, Colonel L. P.
Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.	Pilditch, Sir Philip	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Howard, Captain Hon. Donald	Power, Sir John Cecil	Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

Wise, Sir Fredric	Wood, Sir Kingsley (Woolwich, W.).	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Withers, John James	Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.	Major Sir Harry Barnston and
Wolmer, Viscount	Wragg, Herbert	Captain Margesson.
Womersley, W. J.	Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.
Wood, E.(Chest'r. Stalyb'dge & Hyde)	Young, Rt. Hon. Hilton (Norwich)
	NOES.
Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)	Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)	Scrymgeour, E.
Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')	Hardie, George D.	Scurr, John
Ammon, Charles George	Harris, Percy A.	Sexton, James
Attlee, Clement Richard	Hayday, Arthur	Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)
Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)	Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)	Shepherd, Arthur Lewis
Barnes, A.	Henderson, T. (Glasgow)	Shiels, Dr. Drummond
Barr, J.	Hirst, G. H.	Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Batey, Joseph	Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)	Sitch, Charles H.
Beckett, John (Gateshead)	Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)	Slesser, Sir Henry H.
Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)	John, William (Rhondda, West)	Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)
Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.	Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)	Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)
Broad, F. A.	Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Slivertown)	Smith, Rennie (Penistone)
Bromley, J.	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Snell, Harry
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)	Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)	Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip
Buchanan, G.	Kelly, W, T.	Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)
Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel	Kennedy, T.	Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles
Charleton, H. C.	Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M	Stamford, T. W.
Clowes, S.	Kirkwood, D.	Stephen, Campbell
Clues, W. S.	Lansbury, George	Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)
Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.	Lawrence, Susan	Sullivan, J.
Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)	Lawson, John James	Taylor, R. A.
Compton, Joseph	Lee, F.	Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)
Cove, W. G.	Lindley, F. W.	Thurtle, E.
Crawfurd, H. E.	Livingstone, A. M.	Townend, A. E.
Dalton, Hugh	Lowth, T.	Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)	Lunn, William	Varley, Frank B.
Day, Colonel Harry	MacDonald, Rt. Hon.J. R.(Aberavon)	Viant, S. P.
Dennison, R.	MacLaren, Andrew	Wallhead, Richard C.
Dunnico, H.	March, S.	Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen
Fenby, T. D.	Montague, Frederick	Watson, W. M. (Dunfermilne)
Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.	Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Webb, Rt. Hon, Sidney
Gardner, J. P.	Murnin, H.	Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah
Gibbins, Joseph	Naylor, T. E.	Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.
Gillett, George M.	Oliver, George Harold	Wilkinson, Ellen C.
Gosling, Harry	Palin, John Henry	Williams, David (Swansea, East)
Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.)	Paling, W.	Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)
Greenall, T.	Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.	Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Coine)	Ponsonby, Arthur	Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)	Potts, John S.	Windsor, Walter
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)	Purcell, A. A.	Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)
Groves, T.	Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Grundy, T. W.	Riley, Ben	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Guest, Haden (Southwark, N.)	Rose, Frank H.	Mr. Hayes and Mr. Charles
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)	Sakiatvala, Shapurji	Edwards.
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvll)	Salter, Dr. Alfred

Question put the accordingly "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the question."

The House divided: Ayes,341; Noes, 124.

Division No. 319.]	AYES.	[11.12 p.m.
Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel	Bennett, A. J.	Brown, Maj. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.	Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish-	Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C.(Berks, Newb'y)
Ainsworth, Major Charles	Berry, Sir George	Buckingham, Sir H.
Albery, Irving James	Betterton, Henry B.	Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)	Birchall, Major J. Dearman	Bullock, Captain M.
Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l)	Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.)	Burgoyne, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Alan
Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby)	Blades, Sir George Rowland	Burman, J. B.
Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.	Blundell, F. N.	Burney, Lieut.-Com. Charles D.
Applin, Colonel R. V. K.	Boothby, R. J. G.	Burton, Colonel H. W.
Apsley, Lord	Bourne, Captain Robert Croft	Butler, Sir Geoffrey
Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.	Bowater, Sir T. Vansittart	Butt, Sir Alfred
Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)	Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.	Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward
Astor, Viscountess	Boyd-Carpender, Major Sir A. B.	Campbell, E. T.
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley	Braithwaite, A. N.	Cassels, J. D.
Balfour, George (Hampstead)	Brass, Captain W.	Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)
Balniel, Lord	Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive	Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R.(Prtsmth.S.)
Banks, Reginald Mitchell	Briscoe, Richard George	Cazalet, Captain Victor A.
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.	Brittain, Sir Harry	Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)	Brocklebank, C. E. R.	Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Ox. Univ.)
Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.	Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.	Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)	Broun-Lindsay. Major H.	Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)
Charteris, Brigadier-General J.	Hawke, John Anthony	Nicholson, O. (Westminster)
Chilcott, Sir Warden	Henderson, Capt.R. R. (Oxford, Henley)	Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn.W.G.(Ptrsf'd)
Christie, J. A.	Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)	Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer	Heneage, Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.	Nuttall, Ellis
Churchman, Sir Arthur C.	Hennessy, Major J. R. G.	O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh
Clarry, Reginald George	Herbert, S. (York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by)	Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Clayton, G. C.	Hills, Major John Waller	Pennefather, Sir John
Cobb, Sir Cyril	Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D.(St.Marylebone)	Penny, Frederick George
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.	Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy	Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir G. K.	Holland, Sir Arthur	Perkins, Colonel E. K.
Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips	Holt, Captain H. P.	Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Cooper, A. Duff	Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)	Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)
Couper, J. B.	Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)	Pielou, D. P.
Courtauld, Major J. S.	Hopkins, J. W. W.	Pilcher, G.
Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islingtn., N.)	Hopkinson, Sir A. (Eng. Universities)	Power, Sir John Cecil
Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.	Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)	Pownall, Lieut.-Col. Sir Assheton
Crookc, J. Smedley (Derltend)	Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.	Preston, William
Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)	Howard, Captain Hon. Donald	Price, Major C. W. M.
Crookshank, Cpt.H.(Lindsey,Gainsbro)	Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)	Radford, E. A.
Cunliffe, Sir Herbert	Hudson, R. S. (Cumb'1'nd, Whiteh'n)	Raine, W.
Curtis-Bennett, Sir Henry	Hume, Sir G. H.	Ramsden, E.
Curzon, Captain Viscount	Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer	Rawson, Sir Cooper
Dalkeith, Earl of	Huntingfield, Lord	Rees, Sir Beddoe
Davidson, J.(Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd)	Hurd, Percy A.	Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington)
Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.	Hurst, Gerald B.	Reid, D. D. (County Down)
Davies, Dr. Vernon	Hutchison, G.A. Clark(Midl'n & P'bl's)	Remer, J. R.
Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset,Yeovll)	Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.	Rentoul, G. S.
Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)	Jackson, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. F. S.	Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.
Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)	Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)	Rice, Sir Frederick
Dawson, Sir Philip	Jacob, A. E.	Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)
Dixey, A. C.	Jephcott, A. R.	Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)
Drewe, C.	Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)	Ropner, Major L.
Eden, Captain Anthony	Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)	Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.
Edmondson, Major A. J.	Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William	Rye, F. G.
Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington)	Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)	Salmon, Major I.
Elliot, Major Walter E.	Kindersley, Major Guy M.	Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Ellis, R. G.	King, Captain Henry Douglas	Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)
Elveden, Viscount	Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement	Sandeman, A. Stewart
England, Colonel A.	Knox, Sir Alfred	Sanders, Sir Robert A.
Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)	Lamb, J. Q.	Sanderson, Sir Frank
Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith	Lane Fox, Cot. Rt. Hon. George R.	Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.
Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)	Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)	Savery, S. S.
Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)	Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip	Scott, Sir Leslie (Llverp'l, Exchange)
Everard, W. Lindsay	Little, Dr. E. Graham	Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W.R., Sowerby)
Fairfax, Captain J. G.	Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)	Shaw, Capt. W. W. (Wilts, Westb'y)
Falle, Sir Bertram G.	Locker-Lampson, Com. O.(Handsw'th)	Sheffield, Sir Berkeley
Falls, Sir Charles F.	Looker, Herbert William	Shepperson, E. W.
Fanshawe, Commander G. D.	Lord, Walter Greaves-	Slmms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)
Fermoy, Lord	Lougher, L.	Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belf'st.)
Fielden, E. B.	Lowe, Sir Francis William	Skelton, A. N.
Ford, Sir P. J.	Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere	Slaney. Major P. Kenyon
Forestier-Walker, Sir L.	Luca, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman	Smith, R.W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Forrest, W.	Lumley, L. R.	Smith-Carington, Neville W.
Foster, Sir Harry S.	MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen	Smithers, Waldron
Foxcroft, Captain C. T.	Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Fraser, Captain Ian	Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Catheart)	Spender-Clay, Colonel H
Frece, Sir Walter de	McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus	Sprot, Sir Alexander
Fremantle, Lt.-Col. Francis E.	McLean, Major A.	Stanley, Col. Hon.G. F. (Will'sden, E )
Galbraith, J. F. W.	Macmillan, Captain H.	Stanley, Lord (Fylde)
Ganzoni, Sir John	Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm	Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)
Gates, Percy	McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John	Steel, Major Samuel Strang
Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham	Macquisten, F. A,	Storry-Deans, R.
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John	Malone, Major P. B.	Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.
Glyn, Major R. G. C.	Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn	Streatfeild, Captain S. R.
Goff, Sir Park	Margesson, Captain D.	Strickland, Sir Gerald
Gower, Sir Robert	Marriott, Sir J. A. R.	Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.
Grace, John	Mason, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K.	Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Grant, Sir J. A.	Merriman, F. B.	Styles, Captain H. Walter
Greene, W. P. Crawford	Meyer, Sir Frank	Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)	Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)	Sugden, Sir Wilfrid
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. J.	Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)	Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.
Grotrian, H. Brent	Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)	Thom, Lt. Col. J. G. (Dumbarton)
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.	Monseii, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.	Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)
Gunston, Captain D. W.	Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)	Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.	Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.	Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell-
Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne)	Moreing, Captain A. H.	Tinne, J. A.
Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)	Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)	Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry	Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive	Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
Harland, A.	Murchison, C. K.	Turton, Sir Edmund Russborough
Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)	Nall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph	Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.
Harrison, G. J. C.	Nelson, Sir Frank	Wallace, Captain D. E.
Hartington, Marquess of	Neville, R. J.	Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L. (Kingston-on-Hull)
Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)	Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)	Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.
Harvey, Major S. E. {Devon, Totnes)	Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)	Warrender, Sir Victor

Waterhouse, Captain Charles	Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)	Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'ge & Hyde)
Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)	Wilson, M. J. (York, N. R., Richm'd)	Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, West)
Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)	Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)	Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.
Wells, S. R.	Winby, Colonel L. P.	Wragg, Herbert
Wheler, Major Sir Granville C. H.	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George	Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.
White, Lieut.-Colonel Sir G. D.	Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl	Young, Rt. Hon. Hilton (Norwich)
Wiggins, William Martin	Wise, Sir Fredric
Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)	Withers, John James	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)	Wolmer, Viscount	Major Sir Harry Barnston and
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)	Womersley, W. J.	Major Cope.
	NOES.
Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)	Hayday, Arthur	Scurr, John
Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')	Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)	Sexton, James
Ammon, Charles George	Henderson, T. (Glasgow)	Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)
Attlee, Clement Richard	Hirst, G. H.	Shepherd, Arthur Lewis
Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)	Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)	Shleis, Dr. Drummond
Barnes, A.	Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)	Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Barr, J.	John, William (Rhondda, West)	Sitch, Charles H.
Batey, Joseph	Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)	Slesser, Sir Henry H.
Beckett, John (Gateshead)	Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Slivertown)	Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)
Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)
Broad, F. A.	Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)	Smith, Rennie (Penistone)
Bromley, J.	Kelly, W. T.	Snell, Harry
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)	Kennedy, T.	Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip
Buchanan, G.	Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.	Spencer, G. A. (Broxtowe)
Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel	Kirkwood, D.	Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles
Charleton, H. C.	Lansbury, George	Stamford. T. W.
Clowes, S.	Lawrence, Susan	Stephen, Campbell
Cluse, W. S.	Lawson, John James	Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)
Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.	Lee, F.	Sullivan, J.
Compton, Joseph	Lindley, F. W.	Taylor, R. A.
Cove, W. G.	Livingstone, A. M.	Thorne, W. (Wed Ham, Plaistow)
Crawfurd, H. E.	Lowth, T.	Thurtle, E.
Dalton, Hugh	Lunn, William	Townend, A. E.
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)	MacDonald, Rt. Hon.J. R.(Aberavon)	Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.
Day, Colonel Harry	MacLaren, Andrew	Varley, Frank B.
Dennison, R.	March, S.	Viant, S. P.
Dunnico, H.	Montague, Frederick	Wallhead, Richard C.
Gardner, J. P.	Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen
Gibbins, Joseph	Murnin, H.	Watson, W. M. (Dunfermilne)
Gillett, George M.	Naylor, T. E.	Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney
Gosling, Harry	Oliver, George Harold	Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.
Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.)	Palin, John Henry	Wilkinson, Ellen C.
Greenall, T.	Paling, W.	Williams, David (Swansea, E.)
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)	Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.	Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)	Ponsonby, Arthur	Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)	Potts, John S.	Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)
Groves, T.	Purcell, A. A.	Windsor, Walter
Grundy, T. W.	Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)	Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)
Guest, Haden (Southwark, N.)	Riley, Ben
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)	Rose, Frank H.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvll)	Sakiatvala, Shapurji	Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr.
Hardie, George D.	Salter, Dr. Alfred	Hayes.
Harris, Percy A.	Scrymgeour, E.

Bill read a. Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow. — [Mr. Chamberlain.]