EMERGENCY POWERS ACT, 1920 (REGULATIONS).

HC Deb 29 November 1926 vol 200 cc853-939

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [26th November]. That the Regulations made by His Majesty in Council under the Emergency Powers Act, 1920, by Order dated the 20th day of November, 1926, shall continue in force, subject, however, to the provisions of Section 2 (4) of the Act."—[Sir William Joynson-Hicks.]

Question again proposed.

Mr. J. HUDSON

When the Debate was interrupted on Friday, I was calling the attention of the Home Secretary to the application of these Regulations and to their interference, as I regard it, with the instruments of the law to such a point that a very remarkable result has followed. I was quoting the evidence of Mr. Justice McCardie that during the last few months a very considerable increase of crime has taken place, and, as the learned Judge believes, a very considerable increase in crime that has not been detected, crime where the criminals have not been brought to justice. I was urging that the cause, or one of the causes, of the state of things described at Leeds by Mr. Justice McCardie was that the Home Secretary, through the application of these Regulations, has wasted the work of the police in useless forms, while the real work for which they were created has been almost entirely neglected. You have such a spectacle as the Home Secretary's influence going to this point, that in Derbyshire the Chief Constable, egged on, as I believe, by the Home Secretary, sends at least 100 policemen into a village Court to watch my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) and my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood)—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]. Of course, hon. Members opposite cheer a statement of that character, because some of them—although I think it is very few who are in this state of mind have come to believe the picture that the Home Secretary is so fond of painting when he appears before the old Primrose dames of both sexes and describes the red peril. These people see so red that even hon. Members forget the general esteem in which my hon. Friends the Members for Bridgeton and Dumbarton Burghs are held Personally in this House. They are the last people in the country whom one would expect to need 100 policemen, or, as I have had from other estimates, from 200 to 400 policemen, to watch their movements.

Sir W. LANE MITCHELL

Why not 1,000?

Mr. HUDSON

Whether it is 100, which is an estimate I think hon. Members opposite will accept, the efforts were wasted, and the result has been that the law of the country, which ought to have been safeguarded in every direction, has been left in neglect. The most serious side of the application of these Regulations, to my mind, is that the Home Secretary has made so many speeches, both in the House and out of it, to justify these Regulations, he has issued so many circulars causing chief constables to deviate from the ordinary course of their duties, that it is very difficult now for even a Judge, pursuing the even tenor of his judicial course, to remain entirely uninfluenced by the speeches that the Home Secretary has made, and even though he be not influenced—and I pass here no censure whatever upon the action of our Judges or our magistrates—I will say that, as a result of the Home Secretary's speeches and his circulars, thousands of people in this country now believe that the Judges are influenced in their decisions by the hints which the Home Secretary has given to them. The very hard decisions —I will not say whether they are just or unjust—but the very hard verdicts that have been recently passed, one this last week in South Wales, where nine months' imprisonment has been imposed upon a man, who, we believe, and, if hon. Members opposite knew him, would believe, too, is a thoroughly good man, a man whose service is required in the community—the fact that that is done, and the fact that the Home Secretary has delivered such speeches as he has delivered in support of these Regulations, has given the impression in the community that these judgments have been passed—the impression may be right or wrong—in the interests of the friends of the Home Secretary.

Mr. SPEAKER

I cannot allow a departure from our Rule that no reflection can be passed on the decisions of the Courts, unless on a substantive Motion. It cannot come in ordinary Debate.

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN

As some doubt arose before, or, rather, a question was put on the subject, may I point out that it is a fact that in the "Manual of Procedure" it is pointed out that, except on a substantive Motion, no reference may be made in discussion— where the authorities mentioned include the Heir to the Throne, the Viceroy of India, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Speaker, the Chairman of Ways and Means, Members of either House of Parliament, and Judges of the Superior Courts of the United Kingdom, including persons holding the position of a Judge, such as a Judge in a Court of Bankruptcy or a County Court Judge. I understand that the reference at this moment is to Justices of the Peace, and I ask whether, in your judgment, the Rule which precludes any reference to Judges of the High Court is intended to refer to decisions given in summary Courts presided over by Justices of the Peace?

Mr. SPEAKER

The particular cases which have just been referred to in the "Manual of Procedure" are given by way of illustration; they are not complete. The Rule of the House that no Court of Justice must be attacked in Debate, save on a substantive Motion, applies to all Courts of Justice.

Mr. SNOWDEN

Arising out of what my hon. Friend has said, I take it that he was not in any way criticising the action of the Magistrates, but was making the point that the severity of the sentence was due to having been unconsciously influenced by the advocacy of the Home Secretary, and that it was the Home Secretary he was attacking, and not the Justices.

Mr. SPEAKER

The Hon. Member is not entitled to suggest that any Court of Justice has been influenced. The whole basis of our constitutional separation of the Executive from the Courts of Justice would be done away with if we departed from the ancient practice of this House.

Mr. HUDSON

On that ruling may I say—and I would apologise if I cast any stricture on His Majesty's Judges—that that was not my intention at all. What I said was that those judgments having being given, and given at a later date than the speeches made by the Home Secretary, there is a feeling in the mind of the country, not caused by the judgments such as would be given by Judges or Magistrates, but that the Home Secretary's speeches have caused a general weakening in the administration of the law, that people in the country have no confidence in the law; and while it may be true that Judges, beset with great difficulties, give their judgments as they ought to give them, and as we expect them to be given, the attitude of the Home Secretary is removing from the Judges that support in the public mind they ought to have, namely, the support of the whole people of a belief in law, which they cannot have as long as the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary holds his present position. That is the claim I was making, and I submit to you, with all respect, that is was in order, and that it was a perfectly valid claim to make.

Mr. SPEAKER

As long as the hon. Member kept to that, I did not rise. It was only when I was afraid he was going a little further that I thought it my duty to intervene.

Mr. MAXTON

This is a rather serious question. I want to put it to you, that on Wednesday last week, in this House, the Attorney-General read out a list of Labour Justices of the Peace who have been removed from their position, because of certain action they had taken, without the procedure of Petition from this House or the other place. Does that not indicate that there is a complete difference in the status of the Justices of the Peace from Judges of the superior Courts?

Mr. SPEAKER

Not so far as this Rule is concerned. It may in other respects, but our -Rule is quite a clear one—that there must not be criticism of a Court of Justice, except. on a Motion properly placed on the Order Paper.

Mr. MAXTON

Then was it out of order for the question to be put here last week, and answered by the learned Attorney-General?

Mr. SPEAKER

That is quite another question. That is not a criticism of the Courts of Justice.

Mr. MAXTON

The question put in this House cast a reflection on every Labour Justice of the Peace who had participated in any way in the general strike. I ask you, was it in order for such a question to appear on the Order Paper, if it be not in order for hon. Members to discuss the action of other Justices of the Peace?

Mr. SPEAKER

That was not out of order. I do not at the moment recollect exactly what were the terms.

4.0 p.m.

Captain BENN

May I point out that at present we are in a difficulty, because the Act blurs over the prior distinction between the Executive and the Judiciary, and, in an earlier Debate, the Home Secretary himself thought well to read out from the Treasury Box certain legal definitions of what he held to be intimidation and so forth for the guidance of Judges. Therefore, althought I recognise and accept your important ruling about the distinctions between the Executive and Judiciary, I submit that in this case we may be free to discuss the effect of these directions to the Benches in the decisions which they give.

Mr. SPEAKER

The hon. and gallant Member has a right to discuss the Home Secretary, but I never allow a Court of Justice to be brought into question except by the proper procedure.

Mr. MAXTON

Well, rub it in to the Home Secretary.

Mr. HUDSON

I was endeavouring with all my strength to carry out the in-junction just given to me. I had no intention, and I still have no intention, to pass any reflection upon His Majesty's Judges, but I want to urge upon the attention of the House that the Home Secretary, acting as the present right hon. Gentleman is acting, is bound to influence to a very considerable extent, I will not say the Judges, but the police, and he it bound to influence the types of action that are brought into the Courts. He may through the very great help which the newspapers give him influence the mind of a jury, and, after all, the verdict is given by the jury and not by the Judge. We have to-day in this very important administrative position a gentleman who, I believe, it bringing the law constantly into greater and greater disrepute. Quite apart from the other evil influences of these Regulations, I consider that they ought to have been withdrawn in order that some greater respect for the law might be the result.

I desire to bring against the Home Secretary a more serious charge still, not so much against him Personally, as on account of his very particular relations with the party that has egged him on to make these Regulations and administer them in the spirit in which be has done. Conservative conferences and the howls of the Primrose League have created these Regulations, and not the needs of the situation. What has happened? Some sort of body has had to be found for the hectic imagination of the Home Secretary and his supporters, and, if the Reds were not there to be kept in order, the Home Secretary's party has not been above creating them so that he might have an excuse for dealing with the Reds through the various Regulations that he has brought in. I was asked just now about Hull. Hull is a particularly good point to illustrate the charge I am now making. I was in Hull the other day, and I was brought in contact with the fact that at the end of last week, though Communist leaflets are held to be the particular danger from the point of view of these Regulations, 30,000 Communist leaflets were distributed throughout the central division. Does any hon. Member say that they were distributed by the Communists? [HON. MEMBERS: "Certainly!"] If it be the contention that the Communists have delivered them, then surely with all the Tories in Hull to watch them, with all the paid speakers the Tories have had there, with the town entirely in ferment, those Communists should have been discovered. The Home Secretary has been telling the Tories at meetings and conferences which he has addressed that he is going to drive the Reds out. Why did he not get hold of those Reds who delivered those 30,000 leaflets? As a matter of fact, hon. Members who interrupt to say that it was the Communists know as well as I do that it was not the Communists who delivered them.

Mr. WOMERSLEY

Allow me to say that those leaflets recommended the people of Central Hull to "Vote for Kenworthy." Is it suggested that anybody but a Communist would say that?

Mr. SPEAKER

This is getting a little wide of the Question before the House.

Mr. HUDSON

I hope, if you think the interrupter was getting a little wide, you will allow me to say that I have no intention of travelling from my main thesis, which is that, if these Regulations are successful from the point of view of the Home Secretary, then at least they ought to be so successful as to prevent the distribution of leaflets by Communists, because the Home Secretary has told this House that wherever Communists hold meetings or carry on any activity whatsoever—

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir William Joynson-Hicks)

Quite untrue.

Mr. HUDSON

I have at least judged that to be the tenor of all the Home Secretary has stood for in his speeches, and I believe there are a large number of people in the country who believe that is the Home Secretary's intention, and that it is one of the intentions of these Regulations. What I wanted to prove was that these leaflets had not been distributed by Communists at all, but by friends of the Tory party in that very spirit. [Interruption.] Well, we can all now admit that the argument is getting home. These leaflets have been distributed in the spirit in which all the leaflets and speeches of the Tory party have been distributed and made during the last six months. They could not prove disorder. They therefore had to make disorder. If the Communists were not bad enough from their point of view, they were prepared to create Communists and Communist literature by forgery. I am here to charge the Tory part with every type of dishonesty. They are not the party of law and order. These Regulations are not for that end. If law and order exist, some reason has to be found to create unlaw and disorder. Many a good and honest man, though I will admit an angry and irritated man, has been cast into gaol by these Regulations. They have only got there by the spirit that Toryism throughout this long dispute has done all in its power to create. It is because we know that—

Sir W. MITCHELL

Is this your Hull speech?

Mr. HUDSON

I would like to say that as a result of speeches like this delivered in Hull you will have the pleasure of receiving back to this House the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull, who has been here so long. All I desire to say, in conclusion—[Interruption]— I am very glad that hon. Members desire a conclusion. They will get their final quietus after many speeches like this in a general election, because of the attitude they have adopted with regard to these Regulations. I hold that with the continuance of these Regulations—I am not here to plead for their withdrawal—there will remain on the wall that writing which in the long run will be the judgment of the party which brought them in and administered them. I admit that there are good points in the Regulations, but it is not those good points that have been utilised. I admit that there are safeguards to the community, and that there are means whereby, through these Regulations, you can keep for the community its fuel, its food, and its shelter. But these are not the things that have concerned the party opposite. These things have passed almost unnoticed, and no attempt has been made to administer them.

I should disdain to be a Member of a party which dared to copy the administration of the Regulations of the Tory party opposite, but at least there is this to be remembered. One or two of the Regulations upon which they have turned their backs are there to he remembered, and, as surely as they have used these Regulations to repress the freedom of our land, the day will come, and come shortly, when the party on these benches will have the opportunity of using the special Regulations now again brought before the House, not for the repression and the gaoling of our people, but in order that the people may be safeguarded in their means of life, and in order that the mines, the land, and the railways, which have been held for selfish purposes, may at least become the possession of the community and the people may enjoy the use of them for the general welfare of the community.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS

I beg to move, in line 2, after "1926," to insert the words "other than Regulations 21 and 22."

Perhaps the Home Secretary will relieve the situation by telling us at the outset whether he really meant what he said on Friday of last week when he told us that he hoped in the course of two or three days that the atmosphere would be such that he could contemplate the withdrawal of many of these Regulations. During the week-end the situation has changed very considerably, and I suggest to him that a very large proportion of the 500,000 miners to whom he referred on Friday as being out of work will now have resumed work or be well on their way back to work if there are places available for them. That being the case, and in view of the further fact, as the Home Secretary intimated to us, that it would undoubtedly need something more than an Order in Council to withdraw these Regulations, once they are passed, may we, if not plead with him, at least ask him whether he is going to accept the Amendment? If he will intimate that such is his intention, it will save me the trouble of making the observations which I intend to make in case he refuses.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I think the hon. Member had better give us the pleasure of hearing his further observations, but I will make a statement immediately he has moved his Amendment.

Mr. WILLIAMS

We are now in more doubt than ever. It does seem to me that the changed situation between Friday and to-day warrants us not only in asking the right hon. Gentleman to remove Regulations 21 and 22, but in expecting to hear from him that these hordes of policemen who have been sent into the mining districts are going to be forthwith sent back to their homes, so that our people can live a perfectly reasonable and normal life. What effect has these Regulations upon the mining population? The right hon. Gentleman cannot actually know what they have meant to them. Otherwise, I am convinced that instead of persisting in passing these Regulations, he would feel it his bounden duty, even from a humanitarian point of view, to withdraw at least Regulations 21 and 22. There is no possibility at this moment of people interfering with the distribution of food, fuel, light or other necessities, and to that extent Regulation 21 can be dispensed with. As for the causing of sedition, it seems to me there is no more likelihood of seditious speeches or seditious actions to-day than there was either before or after the outbreak of this dispute. The Home Secretary has already told us there is no further need for the application of Regulation 22. He says that he, as an individual, is prepared to accept all the responsibility for banning meetings or for permitting them to be held; and if for no other reason than what has occurred as the result of these Regulations, I shall persist in demanding the withdrawal of Nos. 21 and 22.

Some 10 or 12 days ago I sent a letter to the Home Secretary with reference to two cases. One case was that of a local police sergeant who had persistently taken advantage of these Regulations to terrorise local people day after day and week after week, fetching them out of bed at midnight, although no offence had been committed, stopping them when they were strolling through the streets in an orderly way, stalking through their gardens at midnight and uprooting what they had been doing in a horticultural sense, and, generally, making the lives of some people intolerable because they were not willing to concede the mineowners' terms. I have had no reply from the right hon. Gentleman to that complaint, and I suppose that after the ruling of Mr. Speaker this afternoon there is no possibility of our ever having any sort of redress for these definite and real grievances. In our district there are various people who have resumed work and others who have not agreed to resume work. Those who have resumed work regard these Regulations as permitting them to do anything, and to say just what they like, to any man, woman or child in eases where the man has not agreed to resume work. Apart from the terrorisation practised by some of the police, the blacklegs, as the miners call them, have so far intimidated those who are not working as to make the lives of these men, and their women and children, well nigh intolerable. These Regulations have not only safeguarded the man who has returned to work, but have deprived of his liberty the miner who has not yet returned to work. It has given people a licence such as nobody in this country is entitled to.

These Regulations have created in many mining districts an atmosphere of bitterness and an atmosphere of strife that will persist for a long time. It has led to dozens of people being sent to gaol for no particular offence—other than something that may have resulted from provocation by a local policeman or local people who have resumed work and have unduly intimidated those who have not. Men have been sent to gaol, and women have been sent to gaol; and in one case, at least, as the Home Secretary knows, a child 11 months was sent to gaol along with the mother. While there may have been some justification for some of the Regulations seven months ago, I suggest there is no justification for a single one of them to-day.

I do not know where we stand with regard to the law. I have been in a mining district where some' 20, 30 or 70 strange policemen have been patrolling the streets, and I have watched policemen go to people standing in their own gardens and tell them to get inside their houses, because it was expected that in course of time some men would he returning from the local colliery. I suggest this action by the police is a direct outcome of Regulation 21. People are not safe in their own homes, they are got out of bed at midnight, they are not safe if they stand on their own doorsteps, they are not safe even when they stand in their own gardens. The restrictions placed an human liberty have had the effect of granting to irresponsible people a licence which they have used with deadly effect so far as miners, their wives and children are concerned. There is, or has been, a complete reign of terror in many mining districts, and the sooner these Regulations are withdrawn and people are permitted to live a normal life the sooner shall we remove bitterness and strife, and the sooner can we hope to instil peace in the future. I am not expecting much peace and conciliation as the result of the settlement which has been imposed on the miners at the point of the economic, or starvation, revolver, but at least now that men are resuming work policemen ought to be sent back to their own districts, and local populations left in the hands of policemen who understand their psychology, will not irritate, terrorise or tyrannise them and will see that the law is administered in the best sense. I also want to refer to the restrictions which have been placed on the normal liberty enjoyed by people performing their trade union duties. On the last occasion on which these Regulations were discussed we sought from the Home Secretary a specific reply to a specific question—Were trade unionists who were performing their normal picketing duties permitted to carry on as usual? The Home Secretary said that so long as they did not call upon people who were at work to break their contract, so long as they sought to get men to refrain from working only after they had given legitimate notice to end their contracts, they were entitled to carry on with their picketing work. Whatever the Home Secretary may have said, however, the Regulations have had this effect, that police inspectors—whom apparently we are not allowed to challenge in this House—have definitely told trade union leaders that they are not permitted to carry on this normal peaceful picketing. Men who have resumed work could not be approached either in the street, in a social institute, or even in their own homes, and there has been a general repression such as I think the Home Secretary would not permit did he know what was actually taking place in some of the districts. These things are known to us who live in the midst of bodies of mine workers, and our local knowledge of the persecution that has taken place, and of what has happened in the local Courts, ought to guide the Home Secretary in deciding what he ought to do in restoring liberty now that at least 80 per cent or the miners are back at work, or will be in the next 24 hours.

The Home Secretary told us in his speech on Friday that his decisions under Regulation 22 were largely determined by the reports he received from his inspectors of police. Apparently the Home Secretary makes up his mind on the basis of reports received from inspectors of police. I would like to ask what is our position when we find an inspector of police deliberately exceeding his duty and importing into his work political motives and political imputations which have the effect of not only Increasing a sentence, perhaps, but of bringing disrepute upon the person who happens to have been prosecuted as the result of these Regulations? I do not want to refer to a particular Court; but these cases have taken place. The Secretary for Mines, when questioned to-day upon the restrictions with regard to the sale of coal, said certain things were going to be done. Well, we are justified in believing this—that at the moment there is one law for one section of the community and one law for the other section, one law for the rich and one law for the poor. What I am referring to is a case in which a lady purchased five tons of coal when, under the restrictions, she could not have more than a hundredweight in one week. That case was dismissed; but because of the atmosphere which has been created under these Regulations, there are dozens of men in gaol for 14 days or 28 days who have merely been picking coal. It was not the heinousness of the offence that warranted 14 days or 28 days in gaol, but there were the comments made by inspectors of police; and they are the men who supply the Home Secretary with the information on which he decides the issues in this House.

If it is the county inspector of police who makes up the Home Secretary's mind as to what he ought or ought not to do, I want to ask whether or not the county inspector has his mind made up as a result of reports from district inspectors. If that is the case, I think it is fair that we here should he able to quote statements of inspectors of police to prove, not only that the Regulations have been made use of to alter the mind of a very high public official, but that they have imposed inflictions upon people, have dragged common justice down in the mud, and created in the minds of tens of thousands of people a real belief that there is one law for the rich and one law for the poor. There is certainly no justice at all in the Courts of Britain for working-class people while these Regulations exist, and I think the Home Secretary ought to tell us here and now that these two Regulations are going to be withdrawn; that a normal atmosphere is to be made possible in mining areas; that he is going to do his best to insist on even-handed justice among all sections of the community; that if a Labour J.P. is to be attacked, other Magistrates will be attacked too: and that all Magistrates are to be compelled to administer the law fairly and squarely, with no discrimination whatsoever.

Mr. HARDIE

I beg to second the Amendment.

The need for these Regulations is due to the hypocrisy and dishonesty of the Prime Minister and his party. There seems to be so much hypocrisy about the actions of the present Government that it has eaten itself right into the government of this country. In Regulation No. 21 we read about sedition. I want to ask the Home Secretary why he did not prosecute Sir Hugh Bell, who, speaking at the opening of a certain bookstall in London a fortnight ago, said he was sorry we had not got a Prime Minister here who could do some shooting. I have been reading that report, and it is very strange that since that thing was first reported and repeated you do not get the Tory Press quoting that because he was a coalowner. It was not some coalowner who had to be shot, but the miners. If you shoot the miners who will get the coal?

Mr. MARCH

Let them go down the mines themselves and get the coal.

Mr. HARDIE

No, they prefer to deal in Chinese bacon. I want to ask the Home Secretary if he has paid any particular attention to what took place when an hon. Member of this House appeared before a Court in another part of England. I am not going to criticise the decision of the Court, but I want to speak of the circumstances which led up to the prosecution. What I wish to draw attention to is the fact that the evidence brought forward against an hon. Member of this House, who was being tried, was of such a character that its reliability could at once be questioned. The charge was based upon a report said to have been taken by a certain constable. We have not been told whether the man who made the report was either a competent shorthand writer or a competent longhand writer, and when a test was put to that same reporter he failed twice to give any record of what was being said by the gentleman who was charged.

I think if you are going to claim any sense of justice it should be justice which at least includes fair play. Take the question of reporting. Take, the evidence afforded by this House, especially of the capable and highly skilled men in the Reporters' Gallery of this House, Those Gentlemen could give some fine illustrations of what reporting means when in this House we get three different intonations from three different countries. If you get, for example, the Scottish tongue pronouncing the vowel "a" and the Welshman trying to pronounce the same vowel, it is difficult for even a highly skilled English reporter to tell whether the sound is "eh" or "ah" Under such circumstances how can you take what is reported in the case to which I have referred as being the offending part of a speech? I will guarantee that I could speak the same sentence in another dialect and no reporter would be able to get it down.

I am driven to believe that there is no reliability as to truth when it comes to reporting a speech which has something new to the reporter in every vowel and every diphthong. That there can be no guarantee of accuracy in the report to which I have alluded is quite evident from the fact that even when this reporter was put upon his mettle he could not stand up to the first five words of the sentence which was given him to take down. Therefore, I think it is utterly shameful on the part of anyone claiming to represent the Government to have allowed such a fabrication of evidence, and to have undertaken a prosecution upon such a slender basis. If Regulation 21 is to he continued, the Home Secretary will require to have a little more care in regard to what he is doing, because, after all, things go on continuously in one direction, and the Government may find before very long that the actions they are now taking will reColl upon themselves. In the case I have referred to, the Home Secretary has not given any satisfactory answer, and he is always pushing the blame on to some chief constable or other. If men wish to show that they have a deep sense of justice in the eyes of other nations they should not do things by proxy where justice may be tampered with. When you start by proxy in things like this you are bound to come to serious trouble. It is a standing disgrace that evidence could be so drawn up and put before any Court without any justification whatever, and even the reporter who furnished the alleged statements had to admit that he was incapable of reporting. In these circumstances I ask the Horne Secretary to tell the House where he obtained the basis of the charge made against the hon. Member to whom I have alluded.

Mr. SAKLATVALA

I rise to support this Amendment, and am doing so more in the interest of the Home Secretary and his party than on behalf of those who, perhaps, ostensibly or apparently may be suffering from the operation of these Regulations. It is most curious that the Home Secretary should come to this House for the eighth time and ask for these extraordinary powers. It is almost against the right hon. Gentleman's own convictions that he is asking for these powers once more. I suggest that the temperament of the Home Secretary has already disclosed during his notorious political career that he is really a human being unfit to carry out administration under Parliamentary and constitutional methods. He has found it altogether impossible, and he is now struggling and making gigantic efforts to forget his own nature and wipe out his own past in order to get back to what he himself has preached. The right hon. Gentleman is trying to be a Parliamentary figure, but he has entirely failed to carry on his administration upon ordinary constitutional lines. It is only for the right hon. Gentleman's individual safety that he wishes these Regulations to go on longer than his own convictions consider necessary. It has become a growing habit with the Home Secretary to rule the country with erratic and despotic powers rather than by ordinary rules and regulations. I ask the right hon. Gentleman not to misunderstand me.

A week ago, when we were discussing the substance of Regulation No. 22, dealing with the banning of meetings, the right hon. Gentleman read out certain passages from the "Workers' Weekly "and other mis-statements and he was asked whether they were illegal. He told us that they were legal in the usual way under normal conditions, and he said that he wanted these powers because he might be called upon to exercise extra legal powers when in his judgment he felt justified in doing so. I further asked the right hon. Gentleman whether he would suggest that an alternative political programme, however foolish it may appear to him., is criminal; whether there was any justification in the article he had read for any rising or dis- turbance; and whether asking the miners to refuse the terms put forward by the coalowners and their agents, the present Government, was a criminal offence. I gather that the Home Secretary objected to my interpretation, and he said it was not fair for me to misrepresent his observations in that way. I should he very sorry to misrepresent the right hon. Gentleman, but I have failed to find anything that was objectionable in my interpretation. Probably the right hon. Gentleman may have thought that I was casting upon him a personal reflection by describing the Government as the agent of the coalowner, but that was not the object of my question. The whole force of the argument used by the Communists was based on the assumption that the Government were acting as the agents of the coalowners. That may be untrue from the point of view of the Home Secretary and the Government, but I want to know would it be illegal, and that was the object of my question. I did not use those words in order to give any offence to the Home Secretary, but simply to put a strong case against the Government as it was put by the Communist party.

The Home Secretary suggested that under those circumstances he has to use these extraordinary legal powers. Let me point out that although that may be his honest desire, it is not his nature. Impartial action is not taken even when it is felt that there is reason to fear disturbance and riot, but, as a matter of fact, these Regulations are positively used against the political opponents of the party represented by the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary was asked with regard to a speech by Colonel Leather, talking openly of bloodshed, because there was no prosecution, and there is going to be no prosecution; and the excuse given was the flimsy excuse that that speech was not delivered in a mining area. The Home Secretary pursued me from the first day of the Regulations, when I had spoken in Hyde Park, and I think the nearest coal mine was much further away from Hyde Park than from where Colonel Leather spoke. Hundreds of persons, who were arrested and tried, were not arrested and tried because they had spoken so many yards nearer to, or further away from, a coal mine, but because they belonged to the working-class movement and were against the coalowners; and whoever has spoken of bloodshed and not and shooting, so long as he was a coalowner himself or in favour of the coalowners, is not tried under the Regulations.

I want to draw the attention of the Home Secretary to a particular case, because his chief constables have failed to report this speech to him. He always asks us to give him proofs and quotations; I wonder why the police did not supply him with quotations from this speech as they do with quotations from ours. I want to draw his attention to the fact—I do not know how far the report is correct, but I see that some Conservative papers are very anxious in suppressing it—that his own colleague, the Minister of Labour, has delivered a speech, which is not contemptible but is criminal under the Regulations, in which he said: It is Cook's folly and cowardice that are ruining the miners. Just imagine it. A Member of the Cabinet, whose family has flourished on the starvation, under-payment and overproduction of the miners, whose family has made money out of the blood of the miners, and are to-day crushing the miners that their future dividends may be higher than they ought to be under a just administration—that Minister has the audacity to refer to Cook as carrying on a policy of folly and cowardice. Cook is fighting as a hero against the family of the Minister of Labour, who is one of the worst inhuman exploiters, living on they blood-money and the sweat-money of the miners. 'When these things are going on, it does excite feelings in us, just as much as our speeches excite feelings in the Home Secretary and his party, and if our speeches are supposed to incite disaffection among the Conservative civilian population, does he not realise that the civilian Conservative population incite us to feelings on our side?

What I want to point out is that Regulations of this sort are certainly unworkable, but they are quite handy weapons for abuse, and so far, consciously or unconsciously, in every instance the Home Secretary will find that the application of the Regulation No. 21, has been nothing short of the party abuse of an extraordinary, extra-legal power in the hands of one who has always shown him- self to be a party man above everything else. I honour him for being so zealous a member of his party; I do not blame him for it; but I suggest that it is this over-zealousness which induces him to ask for these Regulations, rather than his impartial judgment on public peace and public affairs. What is the Home Secretary's confession this time in introducing the Emergency Regulations? Last Friday, in the opening paragraph of the speech, he said that he was really hesitating in his mind whether he should come again to the House for these Regulations or not, and in a long sentence he said: I had hoped, myself, that by to-day it would have been possible for me to say that the condition of affairs was such that I should he justified, as the Minister responsible to the Government and to this House for the maintenance of law and order, in not pressing for these Regulations; but, having regard to the fact that several of the chief constables have advised me that it would be better and safer "— not that it is absolutely necessary, but that it would be better and safer— in the interests of the preservation of peace, that the Regulations should be made for some little time longer, I have felt it my duty to put them before the House to-day."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th November, 1926; col. 714, Vol. 200.] On a previous occasion, in anwser to a question that I put to the Home Secretary, there was a candid confession that, if the chief constables report to the Home Office that such-and-such meetings ought to be banned, the right hon. Gentlemen has no disposition to disagree. We really do not know whether Parliament is to govern this country—whether, when advising His Majesty to declare that there is an emergency, the Home Secretary exercises his own judgment, or whether he just does it because the chief constables ask him to tell His Majesty to issue the Proclamation and to tell Parliament to pass these Regulations, because they consider that it would be more convenient to them, and is a little safer and better, if they have these Regulations. That is a very flippant and frivolous way a asking Parliament to set aside its own authority, and to grant this authority, not because even the Home Secretary or the Cabinet in their judgment think so. The Home Secretary's own judgment, desire and wish is that he should not come before this House, but, because some chief constables have reported that it would be better and safer, he just makes light of the whole nation, of the Parliamentary system and traditional custom, and comes to this House and says, "Well, because the chief constables ask for it, we may just as well give it to them."

We again come to Regulation No. 22, and I again desire to point out to the Home Secretary that the very way in which he has applied this Regulation absolutely proves his illogicality and inconsistency, and the contradictory excuses which he has put forward from time to time are quite sufficient to prove that there is no real necessity in the state of things for these Regulations to be in force. But the Home Secretary temperamentally feels this necessity, and he is just making a sort of personal use of it, in all sorts of circumstances, rather than a State use fox State purposes for the safety the State. On one occasion the Under-Secretary, replying on behalf of the Home Secretary, said: At Question Time yesterday I thought I made it clear to the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones) when I told him that the responsibility was given to the chief constable in any district to ban meetings if in his opinion to hold them would be likely to create a breach of the peace. When the hon. Member suggests that these meetings are banned in order to suppress certain political thought, he is quite wrong."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, November, 1926; col. 141. Vol. 199.] Here we are given an emphatic statement, in the name of the Home Secretary, that the Home Secretary has not thought it right to ban meetings of a political party wholesale but only when, in the judgment of the chief constable, an individual meeting is going to produce bad results. Two or three days after that, the Home Secretary was challenged on the position, and he comes forward and confesses something quite contrary to what was said in his name. The Home Secretary said: Yes, it will apply to every exercise of the powers under Regulation No. 22. There will he no banning of any meeting or procession under Regulation No. 22 by"— I beg pardon, I am reading the wrong quotation. The one I meant to read was from a previous occasion, on which he said: I took the responsibility quite clearly. On the 29th October I wrote to all the chief constables calling their attention to this campaign of the Communists, and quite distinctly and definitely authorised them to ban all the Communist meetings during this period at which these speakers were announced to speak."—[OFFICIALREPORT, 18th November, 1926; col. 2087, Vol. 199.] And yet the Home Secretary tries to assure the hon. Member for Caerphilly that no such ban to suppress certain political thought was in his mind. Now we come to the other quotation, which I unfortunately read before by mistake. On that occasion the Home Secretary said: There will be no banning of any meeting or procession under Regulation No. 22 by any chief constable after to-day, but, if anything of the kind is needed—as I have said, I hope it will not be—it will be done by myself Personally, and, of course, I shall he responsible by question and answer in this House for any exercise of my power."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th November, 1926; col. 715, Vol. 200.] we fail to understand, in regard to these three emphatic declarations, how far the Home Secretary recognises his mistakes and admits them, and considers one assertion an improvement on the other, or how far he wants the country to believe that contradictory attitudes and contradictory policies are justifiable proofs of the necessity of these Regulations. In the first place, it was admitted, when the hon. Member for Caerphilly pressed the Government, that it is a wrong policy, and is not justifiable even under the Regulations, just to ban a political party wholesale from holding ally meeting. That was an admission which satisfied the House as being a right policy. Two or three days later, the Home Secretary emphatically announces that, a fortnight before this assurance was given to the House, he had written to the Chief Constable to ban all these meetings and all these Communist speakers that he mentioned. Curiously enough, even after this emphatic assertion by the Home Secretary, we do find that the Chief Constables have not banned all these meetings Some of them—we do not know why— were allowed to go on; and nothing very extraordinary happened arising out of those meetings which, through oversight or for some reason unknown to us, the Chief Constables did permit to go on, in spite of the Home Secretary's general and sweeping orders. Now comes the Home Secretary and says: "I will withdraw this general authority"; but, will he kindly tell us, is it that he is now convinced that the general authority prior to his withdrawal was abused or wrongly used, and now he is righting his action by withdrawing the general authority or is he doing it merely for some other unknown purpose?

What is the satisfaction to us even if he retains this right to himself? This is again a contradiction in itself. The Home Secretary now says that he is going to deprive the chief constables of their authority and is going to exercise that authority himself. Does he mean that he is going to use his fingers just to sign all Orders, or is he going to use his own judgment to sanction such action or otherwise? The Home Secretary tells us that he is not convinced that Regulation No. 22 is needed, but that he is just putting it forward again and asking for it because the chief constables desire it. Is he still going tamely to follow the chief constables in banning meetings, or is he going to exercise some independent judgment? In a previous answer to a question we were told that he has no disposition to disagree with the chief constable" if they recommend the banning of meetings. We want to know whether it means that the decision of the Home Secretary as to banning a meeting is the exercise of his fingers in putting down his signature, at whether it means the exercise of his own personal judgment in the matter, in contradistinction to the judgment of the chief constables. Then, again, the Home Secretary has already betrayed his idea of how he is to exercise his powers under these Regulations. Under the Regulations it is clearly provided that A person shall not be guilty of an offence under this Regulation by reason only of his taking part in a strike or peacefully persuading any other person take part in a strike. 5.0.p.m.

Though, when providing these Clauses, illegal picketing may be uppermost in the Home Secretary's mind, it certainly applies to all publicists and all speakers who wanted to advise the miners to take part in the strike or to prolong it. I ask the Home Secretary, considering all those paragraphs, which he read out the other day from the Communist papers—some of them written in language which I myself say would be unnecessary to use on all occasions—did any of those paragraphs, suggesting that the safety men should come out, or that the locked-out men should not go to work, or that men should come out who were at work, mean that the men were to be taken out by physical force or rioting It was a peaceful appeal, made in peaceful language. Why is that not just as legitimate a performance of public duty, asking the miners not to surrender and not to accept certain terms, as some of the speeches delivered by other people? The Home Secretary has also made a confusing use of certain terms. These Regulations are supposed to be for peace and protection. By peace you mean peace against disorder and rioting; but, if one reads the Home Secretary's last speech during the Debate upon the ban on certain Communist meetings, it will be found that he distinctly confessed that he banned certain meetings, not because there was a danger of rioting but because he was using the word "peace" to apply to the peace terms between mineowners and miners. He was screening himself behind the double meaning of the word "peace, "for the sake of insuring that the masters' terms would be accepted by the miners, while Communists and other speakers were not being allowed to protest against the hideous character of those terms.

Does the Home Secretary mean that when we say we do not want peace between the masters and the employés that the meaning covered by this word "peace" is disturbance? He has used a Clause which employs the word "peace" in one sense in order to use the word in another sense. We are told that these Regulations are for the protection of the people against riots, bloodshed, disorder, shortage, and so on. We agree; but what did the Home Secretary confess? I know he did not mean it. He said that the ban on these Communist meetings was not for the protection of the country, but for the protection of the poor Labour party, who are not able to take care of themselves, against the Communists. That is all moonshine. We of the Communist party are not to be misled so easily into a quarrel with the Labour party by these tactics, and the Labour party will not be misled by these tactics. Every man and woman in the Labour movement can assure the Home Secre- tary that they do not require his protection for it. But, if the Home Secretary was sincere and was not pulling the leg of the Labour party or belabouring the Communist party, then the charge against him by the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones) and by myself and others is completely proved and he confesses it. Our charge is that he is using his power for political purposes. He is banning the meetings of one political section to safeguard the political prestige of another party.

The Labour party are quite able to take care of themselves, and the Communist party are quite able to take care of themselves. There is not a man or woman of worth in the Labour movement who is at all desirous that the fussy Home Secretary should come to their protection and use these rotten Regulations for the protection of the Labour movement. It is for the growth and liberty of the people in that movement that the Home Secretary has been asked eight times from the Labour benches to remove these Regulations. During the past, in applying Regulation No. 21, he has applied it to members of the working class because of certain political opinions. There has been no incitement to disorder as compared with the speeches of Conservative speakers at the saint time. In regard to Regulation 22, the banning of meetings, the Home Secretary has shifted from position to position, and all he has confessed at the end of it is that he issued a wholesale order to the chief constables to ban the meetings of a certain political section for the protection of a political party, his own, and pretending that it was for the protection of the Labour party. We ask the Home Secretary to give up putting in Regulations 21 and 22, because it is now time that, in the eighth month of this autocracy, he should learn to wean himself gradually. He has found it impossible during the last three or four months to be the Home Secretary of this country without those Mussolinian powers at his disposal. He is asking for them now against his own convictions, sheltering himself once again behind the chief constables. The time has now arrived when he should try to be the Cabinet Minister of a British Cabinet without extra legal power, and prove to the country his shibboleth of Parliamentary constitutional powers to be for the good of the people.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I feel that I should apologise to the House for having been the unwitting cause of letting loose the torrent of eloquence which we have just heard from the hon. Gentleman. But he has, if I may say so, one good point, for which I admire him very much, and it is that he never loses his temper. He is always courteous in whatever he says, even in making the suggestion to me—a rather horrible one—that I should gradually "wean" myself, an expression which I never heard of before. This, I hope, will be the last occasion on which I shall have an opportunity of speaking on these Emergency Regulations. Let me try to state what my aim and object has been in regard to the meetings. First of all, I have admitted that certain of the Communist documents, which the hon. Member for North Battersea (Mr. Saklatvala) mentioned, were not illegal in the ordinary sense of the word under the ordinary law; but greater powers have been given to the Home Secretary outside the law. They were given to me by Parliament, with the idea that they should be made use of in proper circumstances. I came to the conclusion earlier that there were from time to time certain meetings proposed to be held which, if they were held, would lead to breach of the peace, and in the terms of Regulation 22 I banned those meetings. Later on, there was an increase in the number of meetings, and on 19th October, I issued an Order to the chief constables giving them power, for which I had authority under Regulation 22, to stop meetings if they were of opinion that those meetings would lead to a breach of the peace, rather than that they should have to write to me or telephone to me asking me to exercise the ban myself. Those meetings were not banned because of the political opinions of those who wished to speak. I have no power to ban political meetings and I certainly would not do so because of the political opinions of the speakers; but I found that there was undoubtedly a campaign being started by the Communist party for a certain definite purpose, in order to prevent the men going back and to bring out the safety men, and that there were certain publications issued which I thought were of a serious character, and which I read here a month ago. I came to the conclusion that, at that par- ticular juncture, when negotiations were going on, when a great many of us were in hopes that the stoppage was coming to a conclusion, that it would be detrimental to the peace of the country if I allowed particular speakers, whose names I gave to the chief constables, to go loose to foment that particular campaign.

Captain BENN

Does the right hon. Gentleman mean industrial peace or public peace and order?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I mean public peace and order. I came to the conclusion that, if this particular campaign were started, if speeches were made of the character of the documents that I read to this House a few weeks ago, when the men were going back and when safety men were in doubt whether they should come out or not, it would lead to actual breach of the peace. Parliament has given me that responsibility. I may be right or I may be wrong, but, acting on that responsibility, I thought as Home Secretary that those meetings would lead to breach of the peace and therefore I banned them. The hon. Member for North Battersea has complained of my action, but it has at least given his voice a holiday, and, as soon as the Regulations are discontinued, he will be able to go to the country in greater health and vigour and make his speeches.

I would like to deal with the points raised by the hon. and learned Member for South East Leeds (Sir H. Slesser) and the hon. and gallant Member for Leith (Captain Benn). I hope they will excuse mc for saying that I think there is some little misunderstanding as between the Emergency Proclamation and the Regulations. In the first place, the Emergency Proclamation is the act of His Majesty's Government. When His Majesty's Government uses the Act of 1922, "His Majesty means "His Majesty's Government." The Government are entitled to advise the issue of the Proclamation, and, so far as His Majesty is concerned, he is carrying out, as a constitutional Monarch, the advice given to him by his Ministers. Those Ministers are entitled to say that an Emergency Proclamation may be issued if it appears that any action that has been taken by a body of persons on so extensive a scale as to interfere with the supply and distribution of fuel or means of locomotion and to deprive the community, or a substantial part of the community of the essentials of life. Within the terms of that, the powers of the Government arise. Let us see what the position was last Saturday week when the Proclamation was issued. I was of opinion on Saturday week last that there was ample ground for continuing the Emergency Proclamation. There was this great stoppage continuing in the coal trade. There were five blast furnaces going in England out of just under 20C in normal times. The production of iron and steel and of a great many other industries was at a standstill, and the people were being deprived of the essentials of life. You may, if you like to get a permit, buy coal at an enormously high price, if you can afford to buy it at 4s. 3d. a cwt., but I am quite convinced—it was the responsibility of the Cabinet as well as mine—that they were perfectly justified, under the terms of Section 1 of the Act of 1920, to declare that an emergency was still in existence "which was likely to deprive," and so forth. When once the emergency is established, Regulations may be made by the Secretary of State not merely dealing with the supply of food or the requisites of life, but for the preservation of peace, and it was under this Section 2 of the Act of 1920 that we made the recommendation by Order of the Privy Council, and by the Act those Regulations are valid only until such time as they have been sanctioned by Parliament, and unless they are sanctioned within seven days of their being laid on the Table, they go by the board.

Then comes the question raised by the hon. Member for South East Leeds about the revocation of these Orders. We all realised on Friday that in all probability within a very limited period of time they would be revoked. Though I am asking the House to-day to sanction Regulations which give me power for one month from last Tuesday, when they were laid on the Table, I am sure they will not be needed for that length of time. They can be revoked under the terms of the Act either by Resolution of both Houses of Parliament or "in like manner as they can be made," and I stated in answer to a question on Monday that I hoped it would be possible to revoke them by order of the Privy Council. They are created by the Privy Council, they are valid for seven days, and then they have to be authorised by this House. The revocation is in the same way. Revocation by order of the Privy Council becomes instantly effective, but if I do not come to the House within seven days and ask them to confirm the action of the Privy Council in revoking the Regulations, I think in all probability they could be revised at the end of the seven days and endure for the period of the original month from Tuesday last. That is the legal position as I am advised by my legal advisers, and as soon as I am in a position to say that in the view of the Secretary of State, who is responsible for law and order, these Regulations, or any of them, can be revoked, I shall ask the Privy Council to revoke them, and I shall lay the revocation on the Table of the House, and I am certain the House will very gladly and very happily give me the necessary Resolution confirming the revocation. I am sure from the speeches I have heard to-day from hon. Members opposite, and those I have heard a good many times previously, they at any rate will be glad to join with me in seeing the last of them.

A few questions have been raised in the Debate that I ought to deal with. The Hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. J. Hudson) made a very grave attack upon myself. He accused me of using my powers under the Regulations for political purposes, and made a very violent onslaught upon me. Really, I am in the knowledge of the House—I am in the knowledge both of my own supporters and of hon. Members opposite—and I will tell the House something that occurred on Friday. The hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Paling) was making an attack upon me, and he may have noticed that I was signing a paper. It concerned a man who had been sentenced to two months' imprisonment under the Regulations. One of his colleagues told me that the man's wife was undergoing a serious operation, and I at once released him. That is the brutal Home Secretary!

Mr. PALING

I appreciate it.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

hon. Member for Huddersfield that violent language to me released four miners.

Mr. TINKER

It only needs us to make another attack upon you, and we shall get others released.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

The hon. Member is assuming that the releases are made in consequence of the demands of hon. Members who attack me. It is not so. After all, I have no reason to defend myself on the grounds of ordinary humanity. If I could, I should be only too glad to release all these unfortunate men who are now in prison. I exercise the very great and very responsible powers entrusted to me by the House of Commons, leaning when I can to the side of mercy.

I was asked by the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) a question in regard to the misbehaviour of a police inspector. If the statements he makes are borne out by investigation the conduct of the inspector was wrong in every detail. I cannot at the moment believe it possible that he went at 12 o'clock at night waking people up, but if it was done it will receive my very strong censure indeed. I am having inquiries made in regard to the case put to me by the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. G. Hall) a few days ago. The next day but one after he saw me in reference to the charges he made against the police of a certain district, Sir Leonard Dunning, one of His Majesty's inspectors of constabulary, was on the spot, sent by me to make an investigation. I am; always willing to make any investigation, but at the same time I will ask Members to appreciate their responsibility and not to make accusations against the police unless they are satisfied in their own minds that there is a foundation for them.

The hon. Member for Don Valley further dealt with the question of picketing. I hope it is not necessary to go into that fully at present. I made a full statement about six weeks ago, at the request of the Labour party, and when I received a deputation from the Miners' Federation, when Mr. Cook and Mr. Herbert Smith came to see me at the Home Office, they were amply satisfied with the explanation I had given in the House as to the right of peaceful picketing and peaceful persuasion. The hon. Member may always quote my speeches—

Mr. T. WILLIAMS

Which I did.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I need not worry about it any more. Then I was asked how long it will be desirable for me to ask the House to keep the Regulations in force. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why not finish to-day?"] The position is, I admit, better than it was on Friday, but to-day there are still only about 450,000 men back. Those are concentrated very largely in certain sections of the country. There are other sections where there are only a very few back, and where there is a possibility, at all events, that trouble may occur. The hon. Member for Don Valley has given me very great hope indeed, and if he is right in his figures no one will be more delighted than I shall. He told us that by tomorrow 80 per cent. of the miners will be back at work. [HON. MEMBERS: "Back at work or signed on?"]

Mr. WILLIAMS

I intended to say that by to-morrow 80 per cent. or more of the men will have agreed to resume work, and will resume immediately places are available for them.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I said on Friday, and I repeat to-day, that I hope very soon—it may be within a few days, or it may be within a week or two—it will be possible to ask the House to revoke the Regulations. I think I can say now quite definitely that if the hon. Member's statement is even approximately correct, and anything like 80 per cent. are at work or have signed on, and that in effect the trouble in the coalfields is over, I will ask His Majesty to hold a Privy Council on Thursday and I will ask that these penal Regulations may be abolished. It is taking perhaps a little risk on my part, but I think the risk may be well taken. I believe it is the desire of the mining leaders, those Members of the House who have great power and great influence with the mining community, to get rid of these Regulations and to get rid of the possibility of trouble, which is the foundation of the Regulations. Hon. Members may suggest that there is no force in them at all, and no reason for them. I am afraid I cannot accept that position. The figures which have been given from time to time, the numbers of cases that come before me, and the advice and reports I get show that when a grave emergency of this kind is in progress, when there is a violent conflict of opinion between different sections of the community, when efforts are being made from one side or the other to influence the feelings of the miners and to lead them in one direction or the other, it is desirable that Regulations of this or some similar kind should be in force for the preservation of peace and to preserve the amenities of the country, but as soon as the country gets back to normal we do not want them. They are only needed for abnormal times. Give me back normal times, and I shall be only too delighted to get rid of the Regulations, with all the responsibility, all the labour, all the trouble, all the anxiety they impose upon the Home Secretary.

Mr. PALING

Does the normal time include the seven hours?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

The hon. Member is not helping me. I am trying to leave out controversial matters. I will ask him to do his utmost to help towards peace in the mining world. He may have his view about the seven hours.

Mr. LUNN

You cannot have peace with the Eight Hours Act.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

The hon. Gentleman is not helping me. I am explaining my desire to relieve the community of these Regulations as soon as I possibly can. I can only relieve them when there is a return to normal conditions. Hon. Members may say that there are normal conditions to-day, but that there may be smouldering resentment. That, I cannot help. As soon as the men are back at work; as soon as the pits are working; as soon as there is an absence of processions and riots and things of that sort, I shall be only too glad to get rid of the Regulations. If, as the hon. Member for the Don Valley stated, anything like 80 per cent. are back,, or are signed on to work in the course of to-morrow or Wednesday, I shall hope, I cannot put it higher than that, to ask that the Regulations may be revoked on Thursday. Then, I hope there may be, in my time at least, no further need for anything of the sort again.

Sir HENRY SLESSER

rose—

Mr. HARDIE

May I have an answer to the two definite questions which I put to the Home Secretary? I know that I am not a Front Bencher, and perhaps not of much account to the Home Secretary, but I put two questions to him, and I am going to have an answer. I gave him the name of a colliery owner and what he said, and I want to know why he did not have him arrested for inciting people to shoot. I also asked a question about the taking of evidence for putting into Court a man who sits in this House. I would like an answer.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

When the hon. Member can assume that somebody else has intelligence besides himself, and he will put his questions in a proper way, they will be answered, and not until then.

Mr. HARDIE

In my speech I did put them in the ordinary way. I have had this sort of slight from the Home Secretary more than once. He slides off the point to points that do not really matter. I was dealing with essentials. He has not the courage to stand up and defend himself as a man.

Sir H. SLESSER

The Home Secretary has dealt at great length with, and has gone to some extent beyond, the Amendment before the House, and I am sure that you will allow me to follow him perhaps beyond the exact terms of the Amendment. It is evident from these discussions which have gone on month after month that the real trouble is that we on this side look upon the whole method by which order is to be restored, whether by Regulation or not by Regulation, from quite a different standpoint from the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends. I think we shall be justified, therefore, in going to the country and saying that one may reasonably expect that whenever the Conservative party is in power, and there is a trade dispute on anything like a large scale, they will employ this method of dealing with the situation, and that if the country desires that disputes shall be dealt with by the law which has sufficed to deal with them for the last 150 years, they will abstain from supporting a Conservative Government in power.

It is almost useless to argue about the technicalities of this particular provision. It is a question of method. We believe, and we have said it over and over again, and I hope this will be the last time that anyone of us need say anything on the subject, that the law which has sufficed to deal with any difficulties which may arise out of trade disputes ever since the beginning of trade disputes until the year 1920, is the law which should deal with them to-day. We say that without attempting to employ Regulations of this sort, having regard to the experience we have had while the Regulations have been in force, that those laws have been and are now sufficient without using this particular method. This method of dealing with disputes has produced the maximum of friction. It has produced suspicion. It has produced uncertainty, and the right hon. Gentleman has told us that it has produced very disagreeable responsibilities for himself.

I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will not misunderstand me when I say that whether he has acted sympathetically and mercifully or not, one of the effects of these Regulations has been to put the most enormous powers into his hands. We dispute altogether that it is right that one man, even the right hon. Gentleman, should be entrusted by the State and by this House with the powers with which the right hon. Gentleman has been entrusted during the past seven months. Whether he has exercised the powers wisely or not—I go so far as to say that there may have been people who would have exercised them more unwisely—he has been placed in the position of dictator. He signs decrees allowing people to escape out of prison, even while he argues in this House. He tells chief constables that they may or may not ban meetings. He controls the whole law of this country in regard to these disputes. That is not due to any native arrogance on his part; it is the nature of the machinery which entrusts the Home Secretary with these enormous and, as we think, unjustifiable powers.

I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has quite fully appreciated what was put against him on Friday with regard to his exercise of powers under the Proclamation and the Regulations. He has suggested that the hon. and gallant Member for Leith (Captain Renn)' and I do not appreciate the difference between the Proclamation and the Regulations. We must be foolish indeed after spending seven months on this matter if we do not appreciate the difference between the Proclamation and the Regulations. I would be the first to agree, if we did confuse the two. We have however distinguished very closely between the Proclamation and the Regulations. We have maintained, and we maintain now, that a Proclamation may only be made when it appears that the conditions are such that it is necessary for the preservation of the peace under conditions when the life of the community is imperilled. I have asked the right hon. Gentleman to say what were the conditions which imperil the life of the community. We have had an answer to-day. He says that a certain number of miners are still not at work. There are, he said, still a number of blast furnaces not at work. He really states that at the present moment there is no actual menace to the life of the community: none whatever.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

The hon. and learned Member is confusing the Regulations and the Proclamation now.

Sir H. SLESSER

The right hon. Gentleman may say that I am confusing the matter, but I am not confusing it. I am talking of the Proclamation. Let us take last Saturday week. The right hon. Gentleman was speaking of Saturday week. He said that on Saturday week a number of miners were out of work and a certain number of blast furnaces were out of condition. The Proclamation contemplates a condition of affairs where the life of the community itself is in peril. How can he say to-day that the life of the community is in peril when we have imported coal, when we have foodstuffs, and when our normal processes are going on. The hon. and gallant Member for Leith, who is the only Liberal who has taken any special part in these Debates.

Sir W. MITCHELL

He is the only Liberal here.

Sir H. SLESSER

He is not only the only one here, but is the only one in England.

Captain BENN

I sit for a Scottish constituency.

Sir H. SLESSER

What the hon. and gallant Member has said, and what we have said, is that if you are so to strain an Act which was passed for real perils and emergency, that whenever there is a trade dispute on anything like a large scale, immediately you are to issue a Proclamation and to put Regulations of this sort into action, we have no guarantee that the ordinary processes of law will not be interrupted nearly every year on some pretext or other. We have this Proclamation because there are 300,000 miners out of work. There have been engineering lock-outs, railway disputes and endless disputes, unfortunately, going on for many years, and if the right hon. Gentleman is correct in his view, on everyone of those occasions a Proclamation of this kind might have been made, because the peril to the community was no less then than to-day. If this arbitrary discretion is to be allowed, the Government can say at any time, "There are a certain number of people out of work, therefore we will issue a Proclamation." Surely, the responsibility rests upon the Government to look round and try to satisfy themselves that, in fact, the life of the community is in peril. I have waited to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that. I think he said two weeks ago, when this Proclamation was issued, that the life of the community was in peril, but he knows that it was not.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. and learned Member, but he is a lawyer and he ought to put the matter clearly. There is' nothing about "the life of the community being imperilled" in the Act.

Mr. HARDIE

I gave you a quotation, but you took no notice of it.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

Under the provisions of the Emergency Powers Act, provision is made for dealing with any action taken or immediately threatened which is calculated to deprive the community, or any substantial portion of the community, of the essentials of life.

Sir H. SLESSER

I will repeat the words quoted by the right hon. Gentleman:— to deprive the community, or any substantial portion of the community, of the essentials of life. To say that the life of the community is not imperilled under those conditions is too subtle a distinction for a lawyer. The question which I ask is, a fortnight ago, could the right hon. Gentleman say that action was being taken which was depriving the community, or any substantial portion of the community, of the essentials of life?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

Certainly.

Sir H. SLESSER

If the right hon. Gentleman means that, in so far as the miners were getting no wages, they could not have the essentials of life, I agree. As a matter of fact, we were told by the right hon. Gentleman, with the applause of the hon. Member for Streatham (Sir W. Mitchell), who so frequently interrupts, that coal was pouring into the country; that the miners were not seriously discomposing the country; that we were getting on very nicely. In those circumstances, how could it be said—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Captain FitzRoy)

It appears to me that the hon. and learned Member is discussing the whole of the Main Question over again. The Amendment is to leave out Regulations 21 and 22.

Sir H. SLESSER

When I started replying to the Home Secretary, I said that he had gone very considerably beyond the Amendment, and had dealt with the justification for making the Proclamation. I said that I hoped you would allow me the same latitude as the Home Secretary. I am dealing with precisely the same point.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

The Home Secretary replied to some questions put to him. We cannot go on replying to one another, or we shall get far beyond the limits of Debate.

Sir H. SLESSER

I have made my point, and I am quite content-to pass to the Amendment. My next point, the point which arises immediately out of the Amendment, is equally important, and it concerns the Regulations which we now propose to pass. They are Regulations which alter the law of the laud, which create a new offence. They create the offence of disaffection, which does not exist at Common Law, which has been twisted and interpreted in such a way as to make illegal things which have been decided at Common Law to be legal. They have done away with trial by jury and generally altered the structure of the Common Law. The point I put to the Home Secretary is this. The Proclamation says: Those Regulations may confer or impose on a Secretary of State or other Govern- ment Department, or any other persons in His Majesty's Service or acting on His Majesty's behalf, such powers and duties as His Majesty may deem necessary for the preservation of the peace. I say that the powers and duties imposed on His Majesty's servants cannot extend to altering the structure of the law. The right hon. Gentleman may ban meetings and order the police about, but surely he cannot create new offences under the law or do away with the right of trial by jury. The right hon. Gentleman has made Regulations under the Proclamation whereas the Act applies to much narrower purposes, and if he makes the Regulations again under a Proclamation—and as long as we have a Conservative Government in power we shall always have to look for them—I hope he will confine his powers to those given him under the Act itself. That point the right hon. Gentleman has not met. The powers which are conferred upon him and other Ministers are executive and not judicial, and under this Regulation he has taken judicial powers which we seek to exclude by the Amendment.

Finally, on the question of banned meetings. The right hon. Gentleman said that the reason why he was going to ban certain meetings was that because the Communists were to start a campaign in order to bring out the safety men and induce men to leave the pits. What are the powers conferred on the right hon. Gentleman under the Regulations? We must be exact about these extraordinary powers. The Regulation says: Where there appears to be reason to apprehend that the assembly of any persons for the purpose of the holding of any meeting or procession will conduce to a breach of the peace and will thereby cause undue demands to be made upon the police, or will promote disaffection. Which of these two, I ask, covers the ease of meetings to bring out the safety men? It may be that the bringing out of the safety men is a breach of contract, it depends on the advice, but if you were to advise the safety men to give a week's notice and come out at the end of the week it would not be illegal. But that in itself does not conduce to a breach of the peace. Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that there would have been such a strong feeling against the safety men coming out that it would have led to a breach of the peace? Nothing of the kind. What he means is that it would have been a deplorable thing. The right hon. Gentleman cannot say, regardless of the area, that the mere holding of meetings to persuade the safety men to come out would in itself tend to procure a breach of the peace. What is in his mind is that it is highly undesirable the safety men should come out—I am not arguing that point at the moment. The question is, does it come under this Regulation? The ban of a meeting is for a specific purpose—to stop a meeting which is going to cause a row; but the bringing out of the safety men is not included in that.

Sir PHILIP PILDITCH

Is it not within the recollection of the hon. and learned Member that complaints were made not long ago about a breach of the peace which would ensue in consequence of the bringing out of the safety men? The question arose when certain safety men were called out; some came out and some did not, and a breach of the peace was caused.

Sir H. SLESSER

I am much obliged for the interruption, because it enables me to make my point clear. If the Home Secretary had information that in a specific district there was a proposal to call out the safety men, or any other body of men, and that in that place a meeting was likely to produce disorder and a breach of the peace I do not complain. What I complain of is that without regard to any particular place the Home Secretary says that wherever a meeting is being held to persuade the safety men not to work it must necessarily conduce to a breach of the peace, and he issues a general ban on all meetings for that purpose.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I am sure the hon. and learned Member will allow me to interrupt him. I did not say all meetings to bring out the safety men. There was a particular campaign by a particular section of the community, the Communists, to be conducted in accordance with the recommendations laid down in their literature, which, in my view, would have inevitably led to disorder.

Sir H. SL ESSER

The Home Secretary can only expect me to deal with the reasons he gave at the time. He now says that it was because of a campaign by the Communist party to bring out the safety men, and I understand that this was related to some general literature, which must have led to a breach of the peace. That is not quite the same thing. My point is this—and as this is probably the last occasion we may have of dealing with these things I am anxious that in the future these Regulations shall be administered with a great deal more exactness than they have in the past—this Regulation contemplates the prohibition of a particular meeting in a particular area having regard to all the circumstances of the case as being likely to conduce to a breach of the peace. The consideration as to whether a particular meeting would or would not have so resulted was not in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman. He speaks generally, and in that way he strains the Regulations. The withdrawal of the safety men by itself is not likely to conduce to a breach of the peace. Had they gone around saying, "Let us break shop windows or hit someone on the head," he would have had a perfect case, but to say that the proposal to withdraw this particular class of men is in itself likely to produce a breach of the peace is contrary to the Act itself, which says that there is nothing to prevent a man or any body of persons trying to persuade other men to take part in a strike. The Act says that you can appeal to a particular class of persons to come out on strike. And this particular persuasion, directed to the safety men, was simply a persuasion to a number of persons to come out on strike.

Sir HENRY CRAIK

Yes, come out on strike, and produce what you admit to be a great calamity.

Sir H. SLESSER

That is the very point. I am on. The right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir H. Craik) has truly interpreted the mind of the Home Secretary. It is because the Home Secretary thought it would be a great calamity that these meetings were stopped. The Act expressly says that you may persuade men to come out on strike. That may be a calamity, that is not the point.

Sir H. CRAIK

You admitted it to be a calamity.

Sir H. SLESSER

It is so evident. If everybody ceases his labour, it is a calamity.

Sir H. CRAIK

You admitted that if they had taken away the safety men it would have been, itself, a great calamity.

Sir H. SLESSER

I am sure I have not made myself quite clear to the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities. The Regulation says that the Home Secretary may stop a meeting if it is calculated to lead to a breach of the peace. A calamity and a breach of the peace are not the same thing. You may say that all breaches of the peace are a calamity, but there are many calamities which are not breaches of the peace. Pestilence and sudden death are calamities, but they are not breaches of the peace.

Major the Marquess of TITCHFIELD

The Labour party!

Sir H. SLESSER

The Labour party, the Conservative party, the Liberal party, possibly all politicians, may be calamities, but they are not necessarily breaches of the peace. It is because the Home Secretary has been moved by the consideration of a calamity that these meetings have been banned.

Mr. GROTRIAN

May I ask the hon. and learned Member one question? Would not the calling out of the safety men tend to deprive the nation of the essentials of life under the Proclamation, and under the Regulation tend to prevent the distribution of food, water, fuel and light?

Sir H. SLESSER

If the hon. and learned Member were right it would be perfectly irrelevant to the point I am now discussing. We are not discussing whether the act would or would not interfere with the essentials of life. We are discussing Regulation 22, which deals with the power of prohibiting meetings which would conduce to a breach of the peace or promote disaffection, and if the hon. and learned Member will read the Regulation he, will find that his interpolation is irrelevant. Let me turn to one or two of the questions referred to by the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie), to which he did not get a satisfactory reply.

Mr. HARDIE

No answer at all.

Sir H. SLESSER

The hon. Member drew attention to speeches made by other persons which were just as clearly calculated to promote disaffection as anything which any miner has said in this dispute. It is a very unfortunate thing, but it is one of the results of these Regulations, that this suspicion must inevitably arise. The Home Secretary may take it from me that a large number of people during this dispute have expressed to me frequently in public places, in railway carriages and the like, the opinion that certain members of the Miners' Federation, certain of the miners' leaders, ought to be shot. That is a most usual phrase coming from a number of intemperate persons. In these cases nothing has happened, not a single person has ever been prosecuted under these Regulations for saying that some of the miners' leaders ought to be shot. Yet it must be within the knowledge of the right hon. Gentleman that some people have said these foolish things all over the country. There was the case of Lord Hunsdon, who said the miners should be treated like the Germans, or some foolish speech to this effect at a City banquet, Nothing was done. There was the case which the hon. Member for Springburn mentioned, to which no reply was given, and the case mentioned by the hon. Member for North Battersea (Mr. Saklatvala), and we have thousands of cases of speeches made by persons favouring the coalowners or the Government, all of them calculated in the highest degree to promote disaffection, yet not one single prosecution during the whole of this dispute has taken place.

6.0 P.M.

We do not want these people prosecuted. We think the whole thing is a mistake. Foolish words uttered in moments of excitement are not worth the consideration of the State or the law, but we do ask that when such laws as these are to be administered they should be equitably and evenly administered. One of the unfortunate results of this state of martial law is that very large numbers of people in this country, who favour neither mine owners nor the miners, have come to the conclusion that certain classes of the community can express opinions and say what they like, whereas other people if they do the same are arrested. That is to bring the law into contempt. It is the inevitable result of having this set of arbitrary laws. Believe me, Sir, I have not intervened in the Debate for the sake of scoring points. It is my real belief that all this special extra law is a profound mistake. It is a mistake, and it jeopardises the very things that the Home Secretary says he has at heart, namely, respect for the law and the security of the realm. I believe that the Regulations have converted thousands of people to Labour. If that were the only thing to be considered, I would like the Regulations to go on indefinitely, for I believe that we have received more support because of the arbitrary banning of meetings that we should have had if the meetings had been held. Looking at the question from the broad point of view, I hope that if the circumstance comes again and the right hon. Gentleman has the power, he will think many times before he embarks again on this martial law, these unnatural laws, which were considered unnecessary for hundreds of years and which we profoundly believe are unnecessary to-day.

Captain BENN

The Conservative party is moulded in so many respects on the Soviet Government of Moscow, that I was not in the least surprised to hear the Home Secretary defend this repression of liberty in almost the identical terms in which the Soviet Government defend the repression of liberty in Russia—they do not want to do it, but they have to do it in the interests of the people who are to be governed. Those were the reasons of the Home Secretary to-day. I -do not think that his position is made any stronger by the advertising of little acts of mercy which otherwise would have escaped notice. One of the most objectionable and most questionable lines of defence advanced to-day is that, when so many men are back to work the Home Secretary is prepared to withdraw the Regulations. No doubt he can find an ingenious meaning for those words, but many people will think that the Government are holding this threat over the heads of the men and using it as a means of forcing the men back to work, in complete harmony with their policy throughout, which has always been to bring what pressure they can on the side of those who are opposing the men. The right hon. Gentleman repeated said in effect: "Show me 800,000 men, or 80 per cent., back at work, and I will withdraw the Regulations." That is a very dangerous argument, because the men will say, "Yes, unless we go back to work we are to be deprived of our rights as citizens."

We said on Friday that these Regulations, Nos. 21 and 22, appeared to us to be illegal. It is not surprising that the Government should do 'anything illegal; it would not be the first time. Some hon. Members seem to think that the charge of illegality is an absurd charge for a private Member to make. It is not more than two years since the learned Attorney-General and the then Home Secretary persisted, in the face of opposition and criticism, in doing that which turned out to be illegal and which laid on the Exchequer a very considerable amount which the taxpayers had to find in order to pay for the misdeeds of the Government of the day. There is nothing necessarily improper in this charge against the Government. It is evident that the Home Secretary, during the week-end, has been advised that he made a mistake on Friday last. This Act is an Act that can only be operated—I would remind the hon. and learned Member for South-West Hull (Mr. Grotrian), not if it "tends to deprive" but—if a substantial portion of the population is deprived of the necessities of life. That is, calculated to deprive of the essentials of life, not "tending to deprive" of some of the essentials of life. The right hon. Gentleman to-day went completely back on his defence of Friday last. On Friday he appeared to be under the impression that he could issue the Proclamation if in his judgment the peace was affected. To-day he has seen that it would be wise to make a totally new defence. Let me quote what he said in defence of the Proclamation. I asked him: Do the right hon. Gentleman's advisers allege that the state of affairs is so serious that the essentials of life are at stake? The right hon. Gentleman replied: No …. I say at once that it is purely as a matter of precaution that I am asking for the continuance of these Regulations, in order that there may be no difficulty whatever about preserving the peace."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th November, 1926; cols. 716 and 717; Vol. 200.] The right hon. Gentleman closed his speech with these words: That is the sole object, to maintain the peace of the country during the next few weeks.… It is solely a matter of pre- caution in order that there should be, at the conclusion of this long-drawn-out dispute, no real breads of the peace, that I am asking the House to pass these Regulations."—{OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th November, 1926; col. 720, Vol. 200.]

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I said at the beginning to-day that there seemed to be confusion on the other side between the Proclamation and the Regulations. When the Government are of opinion that the essentials of life are in danger, that the right to the Proclamation arises. After that Regulations cant be made for he preservation of the peace.

Captain BENN

But that is a minor point before I come to the major point. Section 2 of the Emergency Powers Act, 1920, says: Where a Proclamation of emergency has been made, and so long as the Proclamation is in force, it shall he lawful for His Majesty in Council, by Order, to make Regulations for securing the essentials of life.… The maintenance of the peace is merely an ancillary purpose. Let me quote again the right hon. Gentleman's answer to my question on Friday last. I asked the Home Secretary whet-her his advisers alleged that the state of affairs was so serious that the essentials of life were at stake, and the right hon. Gentleman answered, "No."

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

Really, the hon. and gallant Gentleman is not quite fair. He has just said that, under Section 2, the Regulations should be made for securing the essentials of life and that the preservation of the peace is ancillary to it. It is quite the reverse. Section 2 also says that the Secretary of State or any other persons acting on His Majesty's behalf are to have conferred and imposed on them such powers and duties as His Majesty may deem necessary for the preservation of the peace…. The preservation of the peace comes first: it is not ancillary.

Captain BENN

I am not quite clear from what the right hon. Gentleman is reading. I will read Sub-section (1) of Section 2 of the Act again. It says: Where a Proclamation of emergency has been made …. it shall be lawful for His Majesty in Council, by Order, to make Regulations for securing the essentials of life to the community. That is the purpose. The Section goes on: And those Regulations may confer or impose on a Secretary of State … powers and ditties …. for the preservation of peace. The preservation of the peace an ancillary purpose to the purpose of maintaining the essentials of life. I submit to the right hon. Gentleman that on that point I have the better of the argument. Let us take a second point, When the right hon. Gentleman was asked specifically, "Do your advisers or you allege that the essentials of life are at stake?" he replied "No," and yet, unless he is of that opinion, he has no right to advise the issue of a Proclamation. It is clear that this argument has impressed itself on the Home Secretary during the week-end, and that someone has told him that it is necessary to make a case within the terms of the Statute. That is what he has attempted to do this afternoon. He does not say now and, will not say, that at this moment the essentials of life are being put in jeopardy. He says, "Ten days ago the essentials of life were in jeopardy." Will he say that now? If, for example, we were acting de novo, would he come down to-day and say, "I am sorry to tell you that something has happened which has put into jeopardy the essentials of life for a substantial portion of the community, and I ask you to give me powers to act." He could not do it; no reasonable' man could do it. Therefore, the Home Secretary falls back on something relating to ten days ago. Yes, but what justification can there be for moving now a Resolution continuing Regulations which would lapse to-night unless he is prepared to say to-day at this moment that the state of affairs is such as to justify him in declaring that the essentials of life are in jeopardy?

The Regulations ought to lapse unless the right hon. Gentleman can say that. Otherwise it is quite clear that these Emergency Regulations are going to pass into a regular part of our State machinery. Personally, I should very much regret it. The hon. and learned Member for South West Hull seems to be of opinion that the Act can properly be invoked if there is something done which "tends to deprive" the community of the essentials of life, which is calculated to deprive the community. Let, us see where that lands us. Suppose there is a dispute in any of the major industries. Suppose that the engineers, the railwaymen or the dock labourers were engaged in a dispute. In the London Docks the other day there was a sudden dispute. It was adjusted by the parties concerned. If the Act were read to mean that anything which "tended to deprive" the community of the essentials of life justified these Regulations, that hold-up in the London Docks would be an ample ground for declaring an emergency. If hon. Gentlemen opposite take such a light view of a solemn Act—it is a solemn Act—they are putting into the hands of the Executive a power which may be used by a Conservative Government against the workers in an industrial dispute, and may be used by a Socialist Government to deal in a very serious way with what are called the rights of property. I think that the wisest course for the Home Secretary to have taken would have been simply to announce that he did not intend to move his Resolution. If he does intend to move it, the best thing he can do is to eliminate all reference to objectionable and superfluous powers.

Mr. STEPHEN

I join in the protest against the action of the Home Secretary in connection with these Regulations. On previous occasions I have taken the opportunity of putting before the House some points concerning the administration of these particular Regulations, and I have not been at all satisfied with the answers given to me by the Home Secretary. Again, I desire to raise the question of the right hon. Gentleman's action, especially in regard to the banning of meetings, for which he himself was responsible. On 18th November, when I raised this matter, the Home Secretary in reply admitted that the action he had taken in connection with the banning of meetings was something quite apart from the possibility of disorder, disaffection or a breach of the peace. He pointed out that serious negotiations were then taking place and said that to his mind those negotiations were likely to be prejudiced by the action of members of the Communist party. The right hon. Gentleman has admitted that he used these emergency powers and these Regulations in a manner which is contrary to the law on the matter. These Regulations are always subject to the following proviso: Provided also that no such Regulation shall make it an offence for any person or persons to take part in a strike, or peacefully to persuade any other person or persons to take part in a strike. On his own confession the Home Secretary has wiped out that proviso. I feel very strongly on this point, because he pointed out in his speech that he was doing it in order to protect members of the. Labour party. I do not object to the Home Secretary taking upon himself the position of the patron saint of the Tory party and setting up as a sort of demigod in Primrose League gatherings. But I think it is going too far when the Home Secretary not only arrogates to himself the position of patron saint to the Tory party but also seeks to arrogate to himself the position of patron saint of the Labour party. Here are his words: The language they"— the members of the Communist party— used was not against myself but against the leaders of the Labour party, whom they threatened and accused of selling the interests of the miners."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th November, 1926; col. 2085, Vol. 199.] If the Communists say that about the members of the Labour party it is no reason why the Home Secretary should defy an Act of Parliament and take action which is contrary to an Act of Parliament. As a member of the Labour party I register my emphatic protest against the right hon. Gentleman's interference, There is another case. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas) put a question last week regarding the banning of a meeting which was to have been addressed by Mr. Pollitt. Again, it was the fussy interference of this fussy Home Secretary which led to the banning of this meeting. Now, we are not in the least thankful for the Home Secretary's action, and we do not believe he is taking that action in the interests of the Labour party. In fact, our main objection to these Regulations is that the Government and the Home Secretary have endeavoured to make them purely and simply instruments of the Tory party in order to help the owners.

When I last addressed the House on this subject I definitely asked the Home Secretary to use his influence with the Government to dispel the idea that is in the minds of so many of us, that the Conservative party funds are going to be greatly advantaged because of the action of the Government in the way they have used these Regulations. A great deal has been said about the necessity for altering the law relating to the rights of trade unions. I wonder at the suggestion. When these Regulations are being used in this fashion by the Government, I cannot see the need for any such legislation. A great deal is also said about the money which comes to the. Labour party from the trade unions. At any rate, the details of the funds of the Labour party are published and anyone can see them. I desire again to challenge the Government definitely on this point. I ask them to allow the details of the Tory party's funds to be made public and to show the amount of contributions made by the mineowners to the Conservative party funds because of the partial administration of the law and the partial administration of these Regulations by the Home Office. I leave the Conservative party with their patron saint. I have no objection to the Conservative party having a "Saint Hicks" in their calendar, but I assure the Government there is going to be no "Saint Jix" in the Labour party calendar because of the protection the right hon. Gentleman is fussily giving to speakers of the Labour party. We do not want his assistance. We do not need it in any way and we leave him to continue his work on behalf of the coalowners and his actions against the interests of the working class.

Mr. HARDIE

On a point of Order. The matter has often been raised in this House as to the cost of putting questions on the Paper. I understand each question put down costs a guinea. I put down two questions today. I put down many, but there are two to which I desire an answer. They are addressed to the Home Secretary, and I suggest that in the interests of economy the right hon. Gentleman should answer them now. One has been referred to already in the course of this discussion from the Government Front Bench, and I think the other is known to the right. hon. Gen- tleman. If he does not propose to answer them now, I shall be compelled to put the House to the expense of placing these questions on the Paper.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The House divided: Ayes, 86: Noes, 211.

Division No. 505.]	AYES.	[6.24 p.m.
Adamson, w. M. (Staff., Cannock)	Groves, T.	Paling, W.
Ammon, Charles George	Grundy, T. W.	Ponsonby, Arthur
Attlee, Clement Richard	Guest, Haden (Southwark, N.)	Purcell, A. A.
Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)	Hall, F. (York, W.R., Normanton)	Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Baker, Walter	Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)	Ritson, J.
Batey, Joseph	Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)	Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W. R., Elland)
Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)	Hardie, George D.	Rose, Frank H,
Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish.	Harris, Percy A.	Saklatvala, Shapurji
sondfield, Margaret	Hayday, Arthur	Salter, Or. Alfred
Briant, Frank	Hayes, John Henry	Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Bromfield, William	Hirst, G. H.	Slesser, Sir Henry H.
Charleton, H. C.	Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)	Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)
Cluse, W. S.	John, William (Rhondda, West)	Smith, Rennie (Penistone)
Connolly, M.	Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)	Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip
Cove, W. G.	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Stephen, Campbell
Dalton, Hugh	Kelly, W. T.	Sutton, J. E.
Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)	Lansbury, George	Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)	Lee, F.	Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)
Day, Colonel Harry	Livingstone, A. M.	Thurtle, Ernest
Dennison, R.	Lowth, T.	Tinker, John Joseph
Duncan, C.	Lunn, William	Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. p.
Dunnico, H.	Mac Donald, Rt. Hon. J. R.(Aberavon)	whiteley, W.
Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwelity)	MacLaren, Andrew	Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)
Fenby, T. D.	MacNeill-Weir, L.	Williams, T. (York, Don Valiey)
Gardner, J. P.	March, S.	Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)
Gillett, George M.	Maxton, James	Windsor, Walter
Gosling, Harry	Morris, R. H.
Graham. Rt. Hon, Wm. (Edin., Cent.)	Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)	Murnin, H.	Mr. T. Kennedy and Mr. B. Smith.
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)	Naylor, T. E.
NOES.
Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel	Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer	Grant, Sir J. A.
Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.	Churchman, Sir Arthur C.	Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.
Albery, Irving James	Clarry, Reginald George	Greene, W. P. Crawford
Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)	Colfox, Major William Phillips	Grotrian, H. Brent
Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.	Cooper, A. Duff	Gunston, Captain D. W.
Atholl, Duchess of	Cope, Major William	Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Atkinson, C.	Cowan Sir Wm. Henry (Islingtn. N.)	Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley	Cralk, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry	Hammersley, S. S.
Balfour, George (Hampstead)	Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)	Hanbury, C.
Balniel, Lord	Curzon, Captain Viscount	Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.	Dalkeith, Earl of	Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)
Barnett, Major Sir Richard	Davidson,J.(Hertl'd, Hemel Hemnst'd)	Haslam, Henry C.
Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)	Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)	Hawke, John Anthony
Bennett, A. J.	Davies, Dr. Vernon	Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Berry, Sir George	Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington. S.)	Henderson Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)
Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton)	Dawson, Sir Philip	Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Boothby, R. i. G.	Dean, Arthur Wellesley	Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Bourne, Captain Robert Croft	Drewe, C.	Herbert, S. (York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by)
Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.	Edmondson, Major A. J.	Hills, Major John Walter
Boyd-Carpenter, Major Sir A. B.	Elliot, Major Walter E.	Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.
Bridgeman, Rt. Hon, William Clive	Ellis, R. G.	Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D.(St.Marylebone)
Briggs, J. Harold	Elveden, viscount	Hohler, Str Gerald Fitzroy
Brittain, Sir Harry	Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)	Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard
Brocklebank, C. E. R.	Everard, W. Lindsay	Holt, Capt. H. P.
Broun-Lindsay, Major H.	Fairfax, Captain J. G,	Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y)	Falle, Sir Bertram G.	Hopkinson, Sir A. (Eng. Universities)
Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James	Fermoy, Lord	Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Burney, Lieut.-Com. Charles D.	Fielden, E. B.	Home, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.
Burton, Colonel H. W.	Finburgh, S.	Hume, Sir G. H.
Butler, Sir Geoffrey	Forestier-Walker, Sir L.	Hurd, Percy A.
Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward	Forrest, W.	Hutchison, G. A. Clark (Midl'n & P'bl's)
Caine, Gordon Hall	Foster, Sir Harry s.	Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Campbell, E. T.	Foxcroft, Captain C. T.	Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)
Cassels, J. D.	Fraser, Captain Ian	James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Cautley, Sir Henry S.	Frece, Sir Walter de	Jephcott, A. R.
Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Ox. Univ.)	Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.	Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)
Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton	Gates, Percy	Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William
Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. Sir J. A. (Birm., W.)	Gibbs, Cot. Rt. Hon. George Abraham	King, Captain Henry Douglas
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N.(Ladywood)	Glyn, Major R. G. C.	Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Charteris, Brigadier-General J.	Goff, Sir Park	Knox, Sir Alfred
Christie, J. A.	Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)	Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.
Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip	Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)	Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)	Perring. Sir William George	Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Lueas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere	Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)	Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman	Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)	Sugden, Sir Wlifrid
Mac Andrew, Major Charles Glen	Pilditch, Sir Philip	Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.
Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)	Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Assheton	Tasker, Major R. Inigo
MacIntyre, Ian	Preston, William	Tinne, J. A.
McLean, Major A.	Ramsden, E.	Titchlield, Major the Marguess of
Macmillan, Captain H.	Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington)	Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.
Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm	Reid, D. D. (County Down)	Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L. (Kingston-on-Hull)
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ranald John	Remer, J. R.	Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.
Macquisten, F. A.	Rice, Sir Frederick	Waterhouse, Captain Charles
Mac Robert, Alexander M.	Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)	Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-	Ropner, Major L.	Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)
Malone, Major P. B.	Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.	Winby, Colonel L. P.
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn	Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)	Windsor-clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Margesson, Captain D.	Rye, F. G.	Wise, Sir Fredric
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.	Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)	Withers, John James
Meller, R. J.	Samuel, Samuel (Wdsworth, Putney)	Wolmer, Viscount
Meyer, Sir Frank	Sandeman, A. Stewart	Womersley, W. J.
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)	Sandon, Lord	Wood, B. C. (Somerset, Bridgwater)
Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)	Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.	Wood, Sir Kingsley (Woolwich, W.)
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (streatham)	Savery, S. S.	Woodcock, Colonel H. C.
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.	Shaw, Capt. Walter (Wilts, Westb'y)	Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.
Moore, Sir Newton J.	Slaney, Major P. Kenyon	Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)	Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)	Young, Rt. Hon. Hilton (Norwich)
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Murchison, C. K.	Sprot, Sir Alexander	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)	Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)	Major Hennessy and Mr. F. C.
Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsl'ld.)	Steel, Major Samuel Strang	Thomson.
Penny, Frederick George	Streatfelid, Captain S. R.

Mr. TINKER

I beg to move, in line 2, after "1926," to insert the words "other than Regulation 33."

I did not expect to have occasion to move this Amendment to-day, because I thought the Home Secretary would withdraw the Regulations altogether. I can emphasise what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams), that to all intents and purposes the lock-out is over, and, so far as our knowledge goes, all the men will be signed on by the end of thus week. We expected with that knowledge that there would be no need for the continuance of these Regulations. Anyone reading Regulation 33 will see that it gives very wide powers indeed to a police constable, for it says, in part: Any police constable may arrest without warrant any person who so acts as to endanger the public safety or who is guilty or is suspected of being guilty of an offence against these Regulations. The words about being "suspected of being guilty" give a very wide scope of action to a police constable. Then, in Regulation 21, there is something about a person suspected of doing something calculated to lead to disaffection among the civilian population, and anyone can see that very wide grounds are given for any constable to act upon. Disaffection among the civilian population covers a very wide area, and we hope the Home Secretary, whatever he may do with the other Regulations, will not allow this particular Regulation to be continued any longer. In view of what is happening, we are expecting to-night that this particular Regulation will be struck out.

Mr. CHARLES EDWARDS

I beg to second the Amendment.

I, too, was hoping that these Regulations would have been withdrawn altogether, as there is no reason why they should be continued. The Home Secretary made an offer in regard to 80 per cent. of the men being signed on tomorrow, I think it was, but I do not know that he ought to be guided, by the number signing on. The possibility is that a large number of men may not be signed on for some time. There might be a thousand men working, who might not all be signed on the first day, and it might be months before all would be able to get to their places. They may sign them on at once, or they may sign them on as they take them on. I was talking the other day to a general manager, who said that in one district that I know well, where two or three hundred men are usually working, he would only require 12 men for a considerable time.

As far as I can see the dispute is over. The only place where there is any doubt is South Wales, where they are taking a ballot to-day, but there is no doubt that there as well starvation has done its work so completely that there is nothing to do but accept the terms that are being imposed on the men. District negotiations are a farce. There are no negotiations. The owners put down what they want, and the men may take it or leave it, and the owners know that we are bound to take their terms. I think the Home Secretary ought to remember that many of these districts have already called off the dispute. The whole of the Midlands, Lancashire, Scotland, Yorkshire, I believe, and Northumberland, and practically the whole country, have called off the dispute so that there is no reason for continuing these Regulations. I do not know whether I shall be in order in discussing the question of the safety men.

Mr. SPEAKER

That question does not come under Regulation 33.

Mr. EDWARDS

Then I will leave that question, but there is a big fuss about the safety men, and I know of colliery companies that have stopped them and told them their services were not required any longer, and that was not such a serious matter as some people seem to think. This Regulation deals with the police and gives them far too great powers. The police are like other people. They magnify their office, and they are like some Magistrates, who believe they were put on the bench in order to imprison and fine people. Some police are like that, and they take advantage of these Regulations, for which reason I should like to see the Regulations withdrawn. There were two cases in my own constituency, and I may say that we have had no riots there at all. We have been wonderfully favoured there, and in the district to which I particularly belong there is not a single man in a single pit working there at present, yet we have had no trouble whatever. In one place there were police drafted into the district, in another part of the constituency, where a few men were working. These police came out of the Conservative Club at Phillipstown, New Tredegar, on the 13th October. They were protecting men there, and I am told in a letter that they came from there half drunk very often, and that is a very serious charge to make against the police. Anyway, they came out one night from this Conservative Club and met two young men going home. One of them asked where they were going, and called them "B—swine," and other filthy, dirty language. They kicked one of these men on the leg, opening an old wound for which he had been under treatment for three months, and it was reported to the superintendent the same night, as soon as it happened.

In another case the police were on duty, and they were going by the food canteen of the workmen, and they had a man there stationed by night as watchman. There were other men who had been to a trades council meeting some distance away, half a mile or so. They were talking to this watchman by the canteen, and the police came there, and the others walked on. There was no trouble, and no crowd, and they told this man he must clear off, and if he did not he would want the doctor very shortly. Immediately after saying that, they struck him on the head with a baton, all without any provocation and without any crowd about at all, and that, I claim, is the result of these Regulations. Where the police. are given liberties, they magnify those liberties. These Regulations ought to be withdrawn, and, as far as I can see, there is no reason whatever why they should be kept on any longer. To all intents and purposes, the stoppage is now ended, and there is no reason why these Regulations should not be discontinued.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Captain Hacking)

We have had two very short speeches in connection with this Regulation, but in the speech of the hon. Member for Bedwelty (Mr. C. Edwards), he has made a very serious charge. He said that he had been told that the police were coming out of a Conservative club half drunk. That is a very serious charge, and it is also a very vague charge. I wonder whether he has reported that particular case to the Home Secretary and given him the opportunity of carrying out a careful investigation.

Mr. EDWARDS

May I explain that I have been for two or three days trying to get questions through the Clerks at the Table, but I have failed, on this very point, so that I have not put it to the Home Secretary.

Captain HACKING

There is another form of putting questions to the Home Secretary, in addition to going through the Clerks at the Table. The House knows that the Home Secretary is only too anxious to investigate all these charges against the police, but when there is no mention of the name of the place, in the discussion we have had this afternoon, it is impossible to carry out an investigation.

Mr. EDWARDS

I have given the name, the Conservative club at Phillipstown, New Tredegar, Monmouthshire.

Captain HACKING

I apologise. I was looking at another matter when the hon. Member gave the name of the place. but I will see that the Home Secretary is notified, and an investigation will at once be carried out, because these charges, unless they can be substantiated, do a great deal of harm, and it is not fair on the police. I, Personally, should be very glad if hon. Members would bring these cases to the notice of the Home Secretary before they make a charge in the House. It then gives an opportunity for a defence being made, and it gives us the opportunity of satisfying the hon. Member who makes the charge. Everyone admits that on the whole the police have carried out their difficult duties, sometimes under very great provocation, with great moderation.

Mr. EDWARDS

And sometimes with no discretion whatsoever.

Captain HACKING

Of course, there are instances when sufficient discretion may not have been used, but when we take into consideration the provocation under which on many occasions the police have to work, we must, I think, admit that they have carried out their duties with moderation, and it is not fair that these insinuations should be made on hearsay. It is far better that we at the Home Office, at any rate, should have the opportunity of making careful investigation before these charges are flung right and left. We have had many discussions on Regulation 33 in connection with the great powers that are given to the police. It is true that under this Regulation the police have powers to arrest without warrant and to enter premises suspected of being used for purposes endangering the public safety, but, in connection with sub-section (2) of the Regulation, there is a proviso which it is well to point out to the House, namely, that the Secretary of State has not the power to delegate his authority in connection with the raiding of the premises of a registered newspaper. That is a protection which is meted out perfectly impartially, not only to the "Morning Post," but also to the "Daily Herald," so that I think the House will be quite satisfied that there has been no degree of favour shown in that connection.

I do not know whether hon. Members realise, although they have been told very frequently, that there are already very great powers in connection with arrest without warrant, irrespective of this particular Regulation. The hon. and learned Member the late Solicitor-General, of course, knows those powers better than most Members of the House. I need only reiterate that a private person, and not only a police constable, may arrest, without warrant under the ordinary law, a person in order to prevent the perpetration of a felony about to be committed; a person attempting to commit a felony; a person found committing certain misdemeanours, a person found committing any indictable or summary offence under the Malicious Damage Act, 1861, against his property. Any other person, if authorised by the owner, can also arrest. A private person. may also arrest a person committing an indictable offence at night; a person taking part in an actual breach of the peace; or a person reasonably suspected of having committed a felony, provided that a felony has been committed. In addition to those powers of arrest without. warrant, a constable has certain other powers of arrest without warrant, but those powers are mainly conferred by Statute. He may arrest a person reasonably suspected of having committed a felony, whether or not a felony has actually been committed, or he may arrest a. person loitering at night, and suspected of being about to commit a felony against the Larceny Malicious Damage or Offences against the Person Acts, and there are many other powers.

But the fact that a man is arrested without warrant, does not mean that his case is decided by the police. That is a matter which is constantly overlooked by hon. Members opposite. It does not mean that the right of trial is denied. It means that the person concerned goes before a magistrate, and is tried in the ordinary way. There he has a lawyer, and is either found guilty, or the case is not proved. This Regulation does nothing more than what is taking place often under present Acts of Parliament, and under the Common Law which at present exists. I know that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Leith (Captain Benn) is going to jump up immediately, and ask: "If there are all these powers under the Common Law, why bother about these Regulations?" I anticipate that part of his speech, because I hope it will save the time of the House. The answer to it is that the Home Secretary does not consider he has sufficient powers under the present Common Law. As has been said by my right hon. Friend this after noon, he hopes that very shortly he will be able to revoke a great number of the Regulations—

Captain BENN

Can the hon and gallant Gentleman tell us on how many occasion^* paragraph (1) and paragraph (2) of this Regulation 33 have actually been used?

Captain HACKING

No; we have no record, I think, of the number of arrests which have been made without warrant, but I do not think paragraph (2) has been taken advantage of in connection with the raiding of a newspaper office. As I have said, the Home Secretary hopes very shortly to be able to revoke a great number of the Regulations, and we all hope and believe that this Regulation will not be one of the last to go.

Sir H. SLESSER

I have listened with great interest, and, I may say, admiration to the learning of the hon. and gallant Member on the question of warrants. But there is one thing he has not told us, which, I think, we should like to know, and that is, what are the circum tances which exist at the present time to justify the House continuing Regulation 33? Some look upon these Regulations in this way: Here is a body of Regulations, and the burden is upon those who wish to remove any particular Regulation to show that that particular Regulation is not necessary. I do not hook on the matter in that way at all. I look upon all these Regulations as a variation of the Common Law, and that it is incumbent upon the Government to show why to-day, when this coal stoppage is practically over, when there is perfect peace prevailing in the whole Realm, it is necessary to give a police constable the power to arrest without warrant any person who so acts as to endanger the public safety. Or why he should be given the power to: enter, if need be by force, any premises or place suspected of having been, or being, used for any purpose endangering the public safety, or why power should be given to him to seize and detain vehicles, and search their contents? Not a single word has been said by the hon. and gallant Member to suggest that anybody wishes to convey clandestinely anything dangerous in a vehicle, or print anything in a newspaper peculiarly inflammatory. Therefore, we are entitled to ask, what is the necessity to-day for these Regulations? The hon. and gallant Member says there are so many instances in which persons may be arrested without warrant, so why not have a few more? Then we know what we are talking about. The argument may be used that the warrant is an obsolete kind of protection for the subject. Why not say generally that you can arrest without warrant anybody who acts contrary to the public safety? That is an argument I would strenuously oppose. To-day the normal position is that a person is entitled to see the warrant before arrest, and that from time to time, in a few cases, common law, but far more frequently statute law, has put in the hands of the police, and very occasioNally in. the hands of private people, the power to arrest without. warrant But this Regulation practically means that a policeman is given a free hand to arrest anyone he likes.

The hon. and gallant Member said that we on this side of the House did not take sufficient cognisance of the fact that to arrest a person without warrant is not the same thing as to convict. I quite agree, and I cannot believe anyone would be so foolish as to think it was. This is what, I think, has been in the minds of hon. Members behind me. Although it may not be the same thing as conviction, it may do an enormous amount of harm to a man, particularly in a small community, if he be arrested without a warrant. People see him suddenly arrested in the street; his reputation is very largely destroyed, and many people, unfortunately, will say if a man be acquitted after trial, "There must be something in it, or he would not have got into the hands of the police." I am sure the hon. and gallant Gentleman will agree that to arrest a man at all, unless absolutely necessary and proper, is a most dangerous thing to do.

Therefore, what we are asking is that the ordinary protection of the warrant shall continue, that whatever need there may be to deal with persons who persuade others not to work, the ordinary machinery of the warrant, as far as the law is concerned, is absolutely adequate. I fear the hon. and gallant Gentleman will not pay much attention to what I am saying, yet he has so far learnt the lesson which the hon. and gallant Member for Leith has been teaching him so many months, that he is able to repeat almost spontaneously that the hon. Member would say, "Why interfere with the Common Law?" It has taken eight months of solid repetition, and even now we have had no answer to it. We congratulate the Under-Secretary on having learnt his lesson, but it has been rather tiresome. It has been like teaching children the irregular verbs in Latin. But at last we have done it, and now that he has learnt it, we hope in future he will rely on the Common Law, which, we submit, is quite sufficient to deal with this matter.

Mr. WHITELEY

I do not think one logical reason has been given from the Government Bench why this particular Regulation should be continued. I remember the Home Secretary saying at one time that it was essential to continue Regulation 33, because it was part of the code. Being part of the code, he was advised that it ought to be kept intact, although it was not used. Now we have the Under-Secretary telling us we have to keep in mind that private persons have a good deal of power of arrest without warrant. I want to draw his attention to the fact that the illustrations he has given us to-night, under the ordinary law, are quite different from this particular Regulation. He went on to say that, even if a man be arrested by a private person without warrant or by the police, the evidence of the police may not convict the man. But the point is, that the evidence of the police is much stronger than the evidence of any outsider, and it is very often upheld in the Courts of this country.

The police officer under this Regulation is given unlimited power. I do not know whether the Home Secretary has made arrangements that in future policemen are to undergo a course of thought-reading, because this Regulation gives a policemen power in the street, if he thinks a person is thinking About something, to arrest that person without warrant. The man may be thinking of something that might happen 20 years hence, but this particular Regulation gives the village policemen power to arrest on the least pretext. We say that as it is the Home Secretary's only argument that it forms part of a code, and that he is expecting to be able to withdraw the whole of these Regulations, and seeing that it has not had to be put into operation, because our people have not been thinking along the lines the Tory Government thought they would be during this particular crisis, it would be a good thing if the Government could withdraw this Regulation and, at least, let the people in the country see that they are sincere in some respects.

Mr. PALING

It was amazing to me that the Under-Secretary should read a whole list of things for which a person could be arrested under the Common Law for doing very little indeed, and that that was an argument why we should extend it, and enable a policeman to arrest a person for doing something or nothing, or for thinking something which he ought not to think. I am afraid that under the first paragraph of this Regulation, where it says: Any police constable may arrest without warrant any person who so acts as to endanger the public safety, or who is guilty, or is suspected of being guilty, of an offence against these Regulations. 7.0 p.m.

It is an exceedingly dangerous power to put into the hands of the police. It may well be that a person, who might be going to make a speech, would be liable to prosecution because the police thought he was going to say something that was not complimentary about the Home Secretary, and because he would therefore be suspected of endangering the public safety. It is a very dangerous power to give to the police, and it is because these powers have been given to them, in spite of the fact that the hon. Member says the police have acted with moderation and it may be that in the majority of cases they have, that in a number of cases the police have acted with anything but moderation. It is not too late for us to ask that these dangerous powers shall be withdrawn by the passing of this Amendment. Police officers of every description have said things in connection with cases brought under these Regulations that they would never have dreamed of saying without the Regulations. The Regulations have allowed many of them to act with a bias which they would not have displayed but for the Regulations.

The Home Secretary announced that, if we would submit any case to him, he would inquire into it, and he assured us that he was a generous-hearted man and not brutal, and that we ought not to attack him because he did not deserve it. Here is a case which I would like him to look into. A prisoner was in the dock at Doncaster Police Court for a minor offence. The police officer, giving evidence, said the prisoner was one of those men who would not work themselves and did all they could to intimidate others from working. He added that the prisoner could work, but was imbued with the Socialistic idea that it was easier to steal than to work. These Regulations have made it possible for the police to think that they are doing right in saying things like that when giving evidence. It is because of the encouragement that has been given to them, through the operation of these Regulations. I would like to see bias of that description abolished in all the courts all over the country. I do not object to giving the name of the superintendent in question. Here is the superintendent of the division—Superintendent Minty. I do not like to think of any superintendent or police officer using his powers with political bias, whether it be Tory, Liberal, or Labour, when giving evidence against an unfortunate prisoner, and to have him think by saying such things he is going to get the prisoner convicted. It is not a desirable thing, and it ought not to be done. A superintendent of police in charge of the district ought to have more sense and discretion than to make remarks of that kind. I am asking the hon. and gallant Member, in view of his promise, to look this case up and see if there was any reason for this man making these remarks and, if there was not, to enforce the necessary discipline. I am sure that in regard to many of the cases round Doncaster, if the moderation of which the right hon. Member spoke had been used, hundreds of them need never have been brought before the courts. These people have caused trouble instead of avoiding it, and it is because powers have been put into their hands by foolish Regulations like this.

Mr. CECIL WILSON

I am surprised that the Under-Secretary of State should say that the right of trial is not denied because, unless I am very much mistaken, my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Lee) cited a number of cases in a previous Debate in which he showed that in that particular district quite a number of people had been taken off to the police station without any charge being made against them and that some were dismissed after spending a night in the cells while other cases were withdrawn when the came into Court. Such a Regulation as this puts it into the hands of officious constables and superintendents to take action of this sort, action which is undesirable and which throws discredit on these Regulations and on the whole administration of the law. It seems to me that a constable should have some good ground before he arrests a man. There is nothing to prevent the ordinary course being followed or to prevent a charge being made at the time a man is taken to the police station. That was not done in the cases which were referred to. It is very regrettable that so much should be done to bring the law into contempt through power being put into the hands of constables in this way.

Captain BENN

I had rather hoped that somebody was going to defend this Regulation. Not a single word has been said on its behalf in the whole of this Debate. There are learned Gentlemen, supporters of the Government, sitting opposite who will not get up and defend it. The hon. and gallant Gentleman only read from a primer of elementary knowledge that if you destroyed a railway train or committed certain other offences you may be arrested. He has made no defence. His only defence was that he did not think it was going to be continued. We have here the widest invasion of public liberty that can be imagined and certainly that has ever been part of the law of this land. A man not only may be arrested without warrant, but premises may be entered where it is suspected that anything is being done contrary to the Regulations, and that something may be that somebody is in there discussing with another a speech which, when delivered, might, in the opinion of the police, cause disaffection. This sort of thing can only be justified by extreme national danger. It was drafted in a time of great national danger, for it was drawn up—and this should be remembered—when we were in a life and death struggle with Germany. The Under-Secretary comes here and admits the trouble is nearly over and the country has resumed its peacefulness, and all he can say to defend the Regulation is that it will not be needed in a day or two. He asks us to continue this Regulation, and there is not a single hon. Gentle-

man opposite ready to support it. I see the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. D. Herbert), who is learned in the law—

Mr. D. HERBERT

I am not a. member of the Bar—the only people who are learned in the law.

Captain BENN

I said "learned in the law." I did not know it applied only to barristers.

Mr. HERBERT

It should.

Captain BENN

The hon. Member is learned in the law, and yet he will not get up and defend this Regulation. Nobody who has any respect for the ordinary rights and privileges of citizenship will do so. and it was to call attention to this that I rose.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The House divided: Ayes, 86; Noes, 211.

Division No. 506.]	AYES.	[7.11 p.m.
Adamson, W. M. (Staff, Cannock)	Hall, F. (York, W.R., Normanton)	Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Ammon, Charles George	Hall, G H. (Merthyr Tydvil)	Ritson, J.
Attlee, Clement Richard	Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)	Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W. R., Elland)
Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)	Hardie, George D.	Rose, Frank H.
Baker, Walter	Harris, Percy A.	Saklatvala, Shapurji
Batey, Joseph	Hayday, Arthur	Salter, Dr. Alfred
Benn. Captain Wedgwood (Leith)	Hirst, G. H.	Scrymgeour, E.
Briant, Frank	Hudson. J. H. (Huddersfield)	Sexton. James
Bromfield, William	John, William (Rhondda, West)	Short, Alfred (Wedneshury)
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)	Jones. Henry Haydn (Merioneth)	Slesser, Sir Henry H.
Buxton. Rt. Hon. Noel	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)
Charleton, H. C.	Kelly, W. T.	Smith, Rennie (Penistone)
Cluse, W. S.	Kennedy, T.	Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip
Connolly. M.	Lansbury, George	Stephen. Campbell
Cove, W. G.	Lee, F.	Sutton, J. E.
Crawfurd, H. E.	Livingstone, A. M.	Thomas. Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)
Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)	Lowth, T.	Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)
Davies. Rhys John (Westhoughton)	Lunn. William	Thurtle, Ernest
Day, Colonel Harry	MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R.(Aberavon)	Tinker, John Joseph
Dennison, R.	MacNeill-Weir, L.	Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.
Duncan, C.	March, S.	Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)
Gardner, J. P.	Maxton, James	Whiteley, w.
Gillett, George M.	Morris, R. H.	Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)
Gosling, Harry	Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin. Cent.)	Murnin, H.	Wilson. C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)	Naylor, T. E.	Windsor, Walter
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)	Paling, W.
Groves. T.	Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Grundy, T. W.	Ponsonby, Arthur	Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr.
Guest, Haden (Southwark, N.)	Purcell, A. A,	Hayes.
NOES.
Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel	Bennett, A. J,	Brown. Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y)
Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.	Berry, Sir George	Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Albery. Irving James	Bird. E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton)	Burney, Lieut.-Com. Charles D.
Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)	Blundell, F. N.	Burton, Colonel H. W.
Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.	Boothby, R. J. G.	Butler. Sir Geoffrey
Atholl, Duchess of	Bourne, Captain Robert Croft	Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward
Atkinson, C.	Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.	Caine, Gordon Hall
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley	Brassey, Sir Leonard	Campbell, E. T.
Balfour, George (Hampstead)	Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive	Cassels, J. D.
Balniel, Lord	Briggs, J. Harold	Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.	Brittain, Sir Harry	Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Barnett, Major Sir R.	Brocklebank, C. E. R.	Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)
Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)	Broun-Lindsay, Major H.	Charteris, Brigadier-General J.
Christie, J. A.	Herbert, S. (York, N. R. Scar. & Wh'by)	Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer	Hills. Major John Waller	Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)
Clarry, Reginald George	Hilton, Cecil	Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Assheton
Clayton, G. C.	Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.	Preston, William
Cobb, Sir Cyril	Hohler, sir Gerald Fitzroy	Raine, W.
Colfox, Major William Phillips	Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard	Ramsden, E.
Cooper, A. Duff	Holt, Captain H. P.	Remer, J. R.
Courtauld, Major J. S.	Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)	Rice, Sir Frederick
Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islingtn. N.)	Hopkinson, Sir A. (Eng. Universities)	Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)
Cralk, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry	Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)	Ropner, Major L.
Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)	Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.	Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.
Cunliffe, Sir Herbert	Hurd, Percy A.	Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Curzon, Captain Viscount	Hutchison, G. A. Clark (Midl'n & P'bl's)	Rye, F. G
Dalkeith, Earl of	Hiffe, Sir Edward M.	Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)	Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.	Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)
Davies, Dr. Vernon	Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)	Sandeman, A. Stewart
Dawson, Sir Philip	James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert	Sandon, Lord
Drewe, C.	Jephcott, A. R.	Savery, S. S.
Edmondson, Major A. J.	Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)	Shaw, Capt. Walter (Wilts, Westb'y)
Elliot. Major Walter E.	Joynson-Hlcks, Rt. Hon. Sir William	Shepperson, E. W.
Ellis, R. G.	King, Captain Henry Doublas	Skelton, A. N.
Elveden, Viscount	Kinloch. Cooke, Sir Clement	Slaney, Major P. Kenyon
Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)	Knox, Sir Alfred	Smith, R.W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Everard, W. Lindsay	Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Fairfax, Captain J. G.	Lister, Cunliffe-. Rt. Hon. Sir Philip	Sprot, Sir Alexander
Falle, Sir Bertram G.	Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere	Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)
Fermoy, Lord	Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman	Steel, Major Samuel Strang
Fielden, E. B.	Lynn, Sir R. J.	Storry-Deans, R.
Finburgh, S.	MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen	Streatfield. Captain S. R.
Ford, Sir P. J.	Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)	Stuart, Crichton, Lord C.
Forestier-Walker, Sir L.	Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)	Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Forrest, W.	MacIntyre, Ian	Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
Foster, Sir Harry S.	McLean, Major A.	Sugden, Sir Wilfrid
Foxcroft, Captain C, T.	Macmillan, Captain H.	Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.
Fraser, Captain lat	Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm	Tasker, Major R. Inigo
Frece, Sir Walter de	McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John	Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E	Macquisten, F. A.	Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.
Gates, Percy	MacRobert, Alexander M.	Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L. (Kingston-on-Hull)
Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham	Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel	Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.
Glyn, Major R. G. C.	Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn	Waterhouse, Captain Charles
Goff, Sir Park	Margesson, Captain D.	Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)
Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)	Marriott, Sir J. A. R.	Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)
Grant, Sir J. A.	Meyer, Sir Frank.	Wilson, M. J. (York, N. R., Richm'd)
Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.	Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)	Winby, Colonel L. P.
Greene, W. P. Crawford	Mitchell. W. Foot (Saffron Walden)	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Grotrian, H. Brent	Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)	Wise, Sir Fredric
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.	Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred	Withers, John James
Gunston, Captain D. W.	Monsell. Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.	Wolmer, Viscount
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.	Moore. Sir Newton J.	Womersley, W. J.
Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)	Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)	Wood, B. C. (Somerset, Bridgwater)
Hammersley, S. S.	Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive	Wood, Sir Kingsley (Woolwich, W.).
Hanbury, C.	Murchison, C. K.	Woodcock, Colonel H. C.
Haslam, Henry C.	Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)	Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.
Hawke, John Anthony	Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)	Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.	Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsl'ld.)
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)	Pennefather, Sir John	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Heneage, Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.	Penny, Frederick George	Major Cope and Mr. F. C,
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.	Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)	Thomson.
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)	Perring, Sir William George

Mr. BATEY

I beg to move, in line 4, at the end, to add the words and to the substitution in Regulation 14, lines 1 and 16, of the word 'shall' for the word may.' The Home Secretary said to-night that he was proposing to revoke some of these Regulations, if not all of them, on Thursday. I and the rest of my colleagues who have been urging upon him to revoke most of the Regulations hope that he will not cancel Regulation 14, even on Thursday. There is a need for Regulation 14 to remain, this week, next week, next month, next year. When Labour comes into power after the next General Election—[Interruption]— that is sure to happen—I hope the first thing Labour will do will he to give the powers under Regulation 14 to the Secretary for Mines. If the Secretary for Mines had the powers under Regulation 14 it would be far better for the miners and for I he community generally. This is the fifth time I have moved this Amendment. If the Government had accepted the Amendment on previous occasions, it would have prevented them from repeated blundering and from acting as they have acted; we should not have had the coal tragedy we have to-day, and the reputation of Ministers would have been altogether different from what it is. Certainly the Prime Minister's reputation would not have been smashed as it has been. When the coal dispute began we regarded the Prime Minister as an English gentleman, whose word was his bond. We no longer look upon the Prime Minister's word as his bond. At the beginning of the struggle he said: I wish to make it as clear as I can that the Government is not fighting to lower the standard of living of the miners or any other section of the workers. When he made that statement we thought he meant what he said, but, looking back, we are bound to say he could not have meant what he said when he uttered those words, and we cannot rely upon what the Prime Minister says. If the Government had accepted this Amendment and amended this Regulation, the Prime Minister would have been in an altogether different position from that which be is in to-day. I want to ask the Secretary for Mines why this Regulation was included among the Regulations? Was it merely for the purpose of window-dressing —to make the other Regulations look decent? Did they include this Regulation without any intention of putting it into force? If this Amendment had been accepted earlier, the dispute would have come to a very different end. No doubt it is ending in poverty, misery and starvation for the miners, but the miners will not be the only ones to suffer. The Government will suffer, and the coal-owners will suffer. Although they may be boasting to-day that they have won the fight, they will find that it was a victory not worth winning, and they will regret the terms they are imposing on the men now.

The reasons for accepting the Amendment to-day are even stronger than they were in the past. Under this Regulation the Secretary for Mines could have dictated to the coalowners and have prevented them from forcing upon the men the brutal terms they have imposed, treating the miners worse than the Government treated defeated Germany after the War. The coalowners are dictating terms that are a disgrace to them, and are an even bigger disgrace to the Government, because the Government might have had the power to prevent them from imposing such terms. In my opinion the amendment of the Regulation in the way I propose is the only way to peace in the coal industry. The coalowners are forcing the miners to start work under three years' agreements. Everybody connected with the coal industry knows there will be no three years' peace. If next year the coal trade improves, if there be a boom in trade—and the coal trade has always moved in cycles, with periods of bad trade and periods of good trade—the miners will be bound to smash the three years' agreement. At the first opportunity—next year, or whenever the chance comes—they will be bound to wipe out the humiliating terms the owners are inflicting on them to-day.

When we were discussing this Amendment last month the Secretary for Mines questioned my ability to understand it. If I was not able to understand the Regulation I do believe that I understand what the Amendment would mean to the Regulation. It would give the Secretary for Mines power to direct the production of coal, to control the distribution of coal, and give him power to do what he urgently needs to do to-day, and that is to fix the price of coal. With regard to the fixing of coal prices, the Secretary for Mines said in his speech last month: I hope by the various negotiations which I have been able to carry out that we have got the price of coal steady."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th October, 1926; col. 835, Vol. 199.] I do not know whether there is very much for the Secretary for Mines to congratulate himself about. I was rather surprised when I saw a placard in the streets of London on Saturday announcing, "Price of coal to be cheaper on Monday." I wondered what it meant and when I got an evening paper I found it meant that the price of coal was to be reduced by the huge figure of 1d, per cwt. The Secretary for Mines will say to-night that he has steadied the price of coal. The reduction is from 4s. per cwt. to 3s. 11d, per cwt., so, that poor people still have to pay £3 18s. 4d. per ton. I can see nothing there on which the Secretary for Mines can congratulate himself. This Regulation, amended in the way we propose, would give him the power to fix the price of coal. The price of £3 18s. 4d. a ton is not only a disgrace to the coal merchant and a disgrace to the Government, but a disgrace to the Secretary for Mines, because., according to a statement issued by the Minister of Mines, it cost in the last month the pits were working before the stoppage 17s. 3d. to produce a ton of coal. That was the figure for England, Scotland and Wales. If it costs 17s. 3d. in the month of April to produce a ton of coal, it ought not to cost anything like 17s. 3d. now, when the miners are working for less wages and putting in longer hours. If the price of coal is less than 17s. 2d. per ton, the Secretary for Mines should not be satisfied with the people in London being charged£,l3 18s. 4d. per ton.

The Secretary for Mines told us to-day that he had seen the President of the Coal Merchants' Association and that association had undertaken to regulate the sale of coal. The Secretary for Mines ought not to be satisfied with leaving this matter to the President of the Coal Merchants' Association, and its members just charge what they please and to distribute the coal just as they please. The price of coal is very exorbitant, and nobody can justify £3 18s. 4d. per ton. Therefore I urge the Secretary for Mines, instead of dividing the House against this Amendment, to accept it for the purpose of enabling him to fix the price of coal. There is huge profiteering going on, and at present. the Minister seems to be quite helpless in the matter, and I want by this Amendment to give the right hon. Gentleman power to deal with it. Huge profits are being made out of the sale of coal both by the coalowners and the coal merchants.

With regard to the distribution of coal I understand that the Regulation dealing with the limitation has gone. I hope the Minister will he able to tell us what the limitation on the distribution of coal has cost, and he ought to tell us whether that cost is going to be borne by the local authorities, or will it be shouldered by the Government and the Secretary for Mines? With regard to foreign coal the Secretary for Mines, in answer to a question which I put to him, said: I can assure the House that the coal which the Government have bought is being used to maintain the service electric power stations, gas works, and various public utility undertakings which require assistance of that kind. I want to know if the foreign coal which the Government is buying is now going to the particular places mentioned by the Secretary for Mines, and has the right hon. Gentleman a guarantee that those particular places he has mentioned will continue to take the foreign coal? In to-night's evening papers we read that the underground railways are in trouble because of bad foreign coal. We can quite realise why those undertakings do not want to continue using foreign coal, and I should like to ask the Secretary for Mines what is going to be done with the foreign coal which the Government have contracted for? There is another danger, and I think the right hon. Gentleman ought to tell us for how long ahead the Government have contracted, the price of the coal and when we shall cease importing foreign coal into this country? Again, I want to warn the right hon. Gentleman that in 1921, for months and months after the coal mines, started in that year, because of the. blundering of Government officials in contracting so far ahead foreign coal was coming into this country for months after the mines had started work. I would like the right hon. Gentleman to tell the House how much coal is contracted for and how much he is paying for it, because it seems to me that the hulk of it will be thrown upon his hands.

There is a most important reason why the Minister of Mines should accept my Amendment, and it is that it gives him power to direct the production of coal. Last month the right hon. Gentleman argued that this Regulation did not give him that power, but I want to point to Regulation 14, which gives the right hon. Gentleman power to issue directions to. every owner. In Sub-section (3) of Regulation 14 it is provided that Every owner and person for the time being in possession of any such property as-aforesaid, and every person engaged or employed in the production, manufacture, treatment, transport, storage, distribution, supply, shipment, or disposal of coal (including the owner, agent, and manager of every coal mine and every officer thereof), and every person using coal. Under that proviso the right hon. Gentleman has power to control the owner, agent or manager of every coal mine and every officer thereof. At present there are no signs of peace in the coal industry, and therefore I want the Secretary for Mines to have this power so that he can direct the owners, agents and managers, and see that the miners get terms that will tend towards peace in the coal industry. The action of the coalowners and the terms they have dictated show that they cannot be left with a free hand in this matter to do just what they please. They care nothing for the miners or for the Government. They have got all they want; they have now got eight hours, and they have had the Government supporting them all along the line. They care nothing for the public or for the Government, and for these reasons I ask the Minister to consider this Regulation, and accept my Amendment in order that he may give directions to the coalowners, the agents and the managers of the mines.

I want the Secretary for Mines to tell us, after all the Government have done during the last few months to assist the coalowners, whether they are satisfied with the conduct of the coalowners. I remember when the Eight Hours Bill was going through the House of Lords the Prime Minister stopped that Measure because the Yorkshire owners, on a very small matter, were not carrying out their promise. I would now like the Secretary for Mines to tell us whether the Government are satisfied with the conduct of the coalowners. The Government must now realise that private enterprise stands more condemned to-day than it did at. the time of the Sankey Commission, and there is more urgent need, if this great industry is to be properly carried on, for the Government to interfere. The Prime Minister told us that there would be no interference with industry, but there is more need to interfere and take control of the coal mines to-day than there ever was before. The only way for the Secretary for Mines to save a little bit of his reputation, and the reputations of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Health and the Home Secretary, is to accept and carry out my Amendment, which I hope will not be turned down, because, in my opinion, it. is a very important proposal. In fact, I believe it is the most important of the whole of these Regulations.

Mr. WHITELEY

I beg to second the Amendment.

Like my hon. Friend who has just spoken, I am quite convinced that when these Regulations are brought into force the most important and the most useful of them will be found to be the one which we are seeking to amend. This is the fifth time we have brought this Amendment before the House, and if the Government had shown as much courage in looking after the interests of the community as they have shown in answering the beckoning calls of the coalowners, we should not have had the difficulty which the country has had to face during the last 30 weeks. My hon. Friend the Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) has covered the main points, but I wish to emphasise that part of his speech dealing with the question of the price of coal, and I ask the Minister of Mines to take some action in regard to this particular matter. I remember in August last the Secretary for Mines said: Hon. Members stated that nothing has been done with this Regulation, but they will do well to remember that from the very start the Government have been able to commandeer and control the supplies of coal that were in the country at the time, as well as the other matters dealt with in these Regulations. At that time one of my hon. Friends asked the right hon. Gentleman: "What have you done with regard to prices?" and the right hon. Gentleman said: The Government have taken very considerable action which has tended to keep prices down below the level to which they naturally would have soared hut for the action of the Government. As a matter of fact the Government have done nothing with regard to regulating the price of coal. My hon. Friend the Member for Spennymoor said that prior to the stoppage the average price of coal at the pithead was 17s. 3d. per ton. In my own county it was 12s. 3d. per ton, and that was the average selling price of all classes of coal going from the pithead upon which the workers had their wages based. To-day the consumer is being asked to pay £4 10s. per ton for foreign coal. The London tube railways are now in a bad way because they cannot develop as much power from foreign as from English coal and consequently passengers are experiencing very great inconvenience. I want the Secretary for Mines to concentrate on this matter, and use the power which this Regulation gives him to deal with coal merchants and other people. As a matter of fact, it has been said in this House before that if we have in the mines of this country an average selling price of coal at the pithead of 20s. per ton there will be no further trouble in the coal mines of this country. At the present time we have men working for 6s. 8½d. per day.

Sir W. MITCHELL

With free house and free coal.

Mr. WHITELEY

At the present time they are going to work for 6s. 8½d. per day. That is a big reduction of wages, and that has taken place after an extension of hours. Under these circumstances I think the Secretary for Mines at least ought to see to it that if the merchants are going to be allowed to keep their prices up to £3 10s. or £3 18s. per ton, he should see to it that some of that profit goes to the miners who get the coal, and there should be an average price fixed at the pithead to prevent profiteering and a price which will guarantee to the man who gets the coal some little benefit from the high prices which prevail.

If the right hon. Gentleman will concentrate upon that, I think that even at this late stage when all the men who can get back to work will probably have done so by the end of this week, he will at least be rendering some service both to the workers themselves and to the consumers. The Government could have prevented some of the hard-won conditions, which have been in existence for 60 years, from being broken, if they had had the courage to take this matter over, rather than pandering to the interest of the coalowners. Customs in the coal trade of this country that have been won by trade union efforts of over 60 years' standing have been swept away by the coalowners, and they talk about harmonious co-operation! I am absolutely sick of hearing from people on the other side of the House the phrase "harmonious co-operation between employers and employed." Here was an opportunity for the coalowners of this country to show real harmonious cooperation, and they came along and secured their full pound of flesh, and gloated over it. If the right hon. Gentleman had had any concern for the interests of the whole country, he could. even now, take this matter in hand, and see that the miners got in some little degree that square deal about which the Prime Minister talked, and that the consuming public got at least some advantage and some freedom from the exploitation of profiteers.

The SECRETARY for MINES (Colonel Lane Fox)

As on previous occasions, it is again my pleasing duty to congratulate the hon. Gentleman who moved this Amendment on his perseverance in what is, perhaps, if I may say so with all respect to him, a not very good or intelligent cause, have tried hard to explain to him on several occasions that the powers which he thinks his Amendment contains are not there. It is, apparently, no use my going on trying, but I can assure him that I have very high authority for what I have previously said, and, therefore, I need not repeat it now. One or two things, however, have been said by him and by the Seconder of the Amendment to which I desire to reply. In the first place, both hon. Members said that this was the one Regulation which they wished to retain, and the only one for which they had any respect at all, and they then proceeded to say that, if this Regulation had been used properly, the Government would have shown proper care for the interests of the community, instead of which they had done nothing at all. That. really indicates such absolute ignorance—I do not use the word offensively—of what has been going on during the whole of the stoppage, that I am sure they will be glad to have a reply.

Their remarks suggest that all through the stoppage such provision of coal as there has been has been perfectly natural, that no one has been working, that no one has been doing anything to bring the community through its troubles. So far as that is any reflection against myself, I do not mind, but. I want the House to know that the country owes an enormous debt of gratitude to a body of men throughout the country who, all through this stoppage, have been working day in and day out to secure that the very inadequate supplies of coal that were available have been efficiently distributed, although, of course, the amount available for distribution and the quantities that could be obtained in individual cases have been extremely small. If the hon. Members knew these facts—obviously they do not—

Mr. WHITELEY

Oh, yes, we are aware of all those facts.

Colonel LANE FOX

I cannot believe that they knew them—it would have been extremely ungrateful of them to suggest that nothing has been done under this Regulation, when the gentlemen of whom I have spoken have been working night and day saving the country from the terrible disaster that would have come upon it otherwise, and it is a little unfair to make that suggestion.

Mr. WHITELEY

We are not suggesting that at all.

Colonel LANE FOX

The hon. Gentleman said it, and he cannot get away from it. It is not fair to say that nothing has been done under this Regulation, when it is remembered that the whole of our power of distributing coal on the priority system in quarters where it was most needed, and thereby securing the food supply and the supply of other essentials for the whole population, the whole power of rationing and of restricting use where use was unnecessary, of granting licences, and so on, was derived from this Regulation, and has been extensively used. I will come to the question of prices in a moment, but I want first to deal with the very important things that it is possible to do under this Regulation. As to the work that has been done, it is a splendid thing, and vastly to the credit of those who have been engaged in it, that, all through this troublous time, not one gas undertaking or power station has had to stop, in spite of the inadequacy of the supplies which were available. No one likes to thank of what it would have meant if we had been, as we were time and again on the brink of being deprived of light or power. Cargoes have been split up, and small quantities from each ship have been distributed to undertakings all over the country; great undertakings have been standing with, perhaps, only one or two days' supply in hand.

Of course, these things could not be revealed while the stoppage was going on; it would have been very unwise to do that, because the public would have been put into a panic, and the stoppage might have been prolonged. Now, however, I am free to speak of them, and, when hon. Gentlemen say that nothing has been done under this Regulation, I want to pay a very real and serious tribute to the work which has been done all over the country by which these very inadequate supplies have been made available, and this possible disaster has been averted. A great many of the restrictions that we have had to put up with have been taken off, but one remains, and that one it may be necessary to keep on for a little longer. I refer to the control of exports. It is clearly essential that our home industries should get their share of coal before any is allowed to be exported. It is quite possible that in some cases there may be a difficulty in dealing with exports from exporting collieries and areas, and, in any case of congestion of that sort, we have powers, and machinery has been set up, under which export can be allowed by licence if it really proves that there is no other satisfactory means of disposing of the coal. The one thing, however, that is likely to cause any congestion at this moment is the price. It is obvious that colliery owners cannot hope that the present prices are going to remain, and I venture to predict that in a short time a generall slump in prices will come about naturally. Everyone is holding off. Who is going to buy coal now, when they know that in a short time there is going to be a general reduction It is worth while, even if it impedes the work in exporting areas, to say that there shall be no export of coal from this country, as that would maintain high prices in this country. The first thing we have to do is to think of our own people. All through this stoppage the country has suffered bitterly from its effects—from the fact that owners and miners in the coal industry have not been able to settle their affairs—and the first interest of the country now is to get a full supply of coal, and to get prices brought clown to a level which will make that coal freely available, so that industries may restart and we may get hack to something like our previous prosperity.

A good deal has been said about prices, and, again, it has been suggested that under this Regulation a great deal that might have been done has not been done to deal with prices. It is perfectly clear that to suggest any elaborate price-fixing scheme at this moment, when we are on the edge of a slump in prices, would be ludicrous. The reason why it was not possible to do so during the stoppage itself is, I think, not quite so obvious to everyone as it is to those who had the opportunity and misfortune to study it closely. I myself, with as much enthusiasm as hon. Members opposite, plunged into this idea of fixing prices and keeping down the price of coal, but I very soon found, after consultation with those who had had experience in this work during the War and at other times, that the difficulties were far greater than I had realised. During a greater portion of the stoppage, the coal en which the country was depending, and on which it was absolutely necessary that it should depend, was foreign coal. Without that foreign coal our power stations and gasworks would have stopped and there would have been intense suffering, panic and trouble throughout the country. Hon. Gentlemen ask why the price of foreign coal was not regulated, but how can any regulation that we pass in this House make any difference in the price of foreign coal? That is a thing absolutely beyond regulation by us, and, as long as it formed a large proportion of the country's supplies, and it was absolutely necessary that the country should have it, it was impossible to regulate prices in that way. If we had tried to fix a lower level of prices, it would have meant that the importation would have stopped, and all the troubles I have suggested might have occurred. It is a far bigger operation than hon. Gentlemen appear to understand. To take over supplies and merely fix prices will do nothing when we have foreign coal coming in. If the pit-head price is to be fixed, the retail price must also be fixed, and, if the price is to be fixed against the coalowner and the merchant, it is necessary to take over the whole output. [HON. MEMBERS "Hear, hear"] I know that hon. Gentlemen opposite are never afraid of big State schemes, but when we are in the presence of a great shortage., and the machinery of distribution is so delicate that anything going wrong may mean that a whole area might be without coal, it will be seen that the risk of dislocation and interference was an absolute bar to doing anything of that kind.

Hon. Gentlemen may think it is quite simple to set up Committees in every town, but the retail prices must vary in different places, according to the distance from the source of supply and so on, and it would be necessary to fix I do not know how many different prices for I do not know how many different sorts of coal in the various areas. To say that an operation of that sort. would be attended by no risk, at a time when the country was on the verge of serious disaster through the stoppage of light, heat and power in our great industrial centres, is, as I am sure hon. Gentlemen will agree on reflection, impossible. We are at the beginning of an obvious fall in prices, and it would be ridiculous to set up some great organisation of that sort, and thereby upset what would be the normal fall in prices. It is impossible for coal-owners to hold prices where they are, and, as regards the merchants, it will be possible to bring pressure upon them under this Regulation if necessary. Personally, however, I believe it is far better to obtain the desired results, if possible, by normal processes, and if the public continues, as it. has been wisely doing, to hold off buying coal until it comes down to reasonable prices, as it is bound to do in a very short time, I am certain that we shall soon return to normal prices, and, I hope, with normal prices, to something like the prosperity of which we have been for so long deprived.

Mr. PALING

Can the right hon. Gentleman give us the details of the operation in respect of which the Government obtained £3,000,000 in a Supplementary Estimate—at what price the coal was bought from abroad under that scheme, at what price it was sold here, and what effect it has had on the price of coal in this country?

Colonel LANE FOX

I cannot give the hon. Gentleman all the figures for which he asks from memory. I can only tell him that this money has been extremely well used. Many an electric power station and many a gas works throughout the country would have had to stop working if it had not been for the coal which the Government were able to bring to their assistance. There need be no fear that, as was suggested by the hon. Member who moved the Amendment, we shall be left with an enormous stock of Government coal on our hands. When the time comes, which is not yet, for giving a full account of the details of that transaction, the House will certainly be entitled to it, and will see the details of the whole transaction, which I, at any rate, think has been extremely well managed.

8.0 p.m.

Major CRAWFURD

The right hon. Gentleman was complimentary to those who deal with the distribution of coal. I am not going to quarrel with that, but I am going to say that I think the right hon. Gentleman himself at the beginning of this dispute, or the Board of Trade or whichever was the Department concerned, might have been a little more thorough in the measures they took to see that their Regulations were carried out. For instance, they placed upon local authorities the very onerous and entirely new duty of giving permits, and they also put penalties on those people who took more than their proper ration of coal. But they did not give the local authorities any power over the undertakings which supplied the coal or coke, and consequently there has been a great unfairness in regard to the incidence of these Regulations. But I am not concerned with labouring that point, because it is past and done with. What I am concerned with is the point of view in which the right hon. Gentleman wound up his speech. I would like to make a suggestion to him. I do not find myself in sympathy with hon. Members above the Gangway who wish to take over the whole coal business, but when the right hon. Gentleman says rather complacently that the public "is wisely refraining from buying," I cannot help thinking of the people in my own constituency, for instance, who, at the end of November, with the worst part of the winter just in front of them, are doing what the righ4 hon. Gentleman calls "wisely refraining from buying" coal. They are not "wisely refraining from buying"; the poor devils cannot afford it, and I would draw that to the notice of the right hon. Gentleman.

If I remember rightly, when these Regulations were discussed a month ago, the right hon. Gentleman said, I think in answer to the same two Members who have spoken this afternoon, that, with an increasing supply of coal, we were on the verge of a drop in prices. I have not got the OFFICIAL REPORT with me, but it is within my recollection that the right hon. Gentleman urged that. Well, we have had this drop in prices and, as has been pointed out, it amounts to a penny a cwt. Does the right hon. Gentleman realise what a price of 4s. a cwt. for coal really means to those people whose weekly earnings amount only to 30s., 32s. or 33s.? Does he realise that, with five or six children in the house, to those people the price of 4s. a cwt. means no coal, no heat, no warmth; it means suffering?

The right hon. Gentleman concluded his speech with the statement that he has the power under these Regulations to bring pressure to bear upon coal merchants and others. I agree that he cannot deal with foreign coal. I agree with nanny of his other arguments, but he has not replied to the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Whiteley) who made a comparison between the price that is demanded for coal of the retailer to the public, and the wages that the men who get the coal are receiving. Will the right hon. Gentleman do this? Under Subsection (4) of these Regulations the Board of Trade may cause inquiries to ho held by any person or persons with respect to any matters to which any of the powers hereby conferred relate. Will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiries and give the public the facts of the case about the cost of coal to-day? I remember, some years ago, when there was not a coal dispute but when there was a. dispute on the railway, that the whole of London was covered with large posters giving what were called "the actual facts" about the railwaymen's wages, because it was said that misstatements were being made about the wages of the railwaymen and the Government of that day gave the facts. Will the right hon. Gentleman go to the small trouble of making inquiries about the costs of producing coal, of distributing coal, and the cost to the public to-day, and let the public know whether or not profiteering is going on? Then the people, who, in the words of the right hon. Gentleman are "wisely refraining from buying coal" but who, in my experience, cannot afford to buy coal, will have the satisfaction of knowing that that is not because somebody else is making a profit.

Question put, "That those words be there added."

The House divided: Ayes, 75; Noes, 197.

Division No. 507.]	AYES.	[8.7 p.m.
Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)	Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)	Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W. H., Elland)
Ammon, Charles George	Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)	Rose, Frank H.
Attlee, Clement Richard	Hardie, George D.	Salter, Dr. Alfred
Baker, J, (Wolverhampton, Bilston)	Hayday, Arthur	Scrymgeour, E.
Baker, Walter	Hirst, G. H.	Sexton, James
Batey, Joseph	Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)	Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Bromfield, William	John, William (Rhondda, West)	Slesser, Sir Henry H.
Bromley, J,	Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)	Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Smith, Rennie (Penistone)
Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel	Kelly, W. T.	Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip
Charleton, H. C.	Kennedy, T.	Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles
Cluse, W. S.	Lansbury, George	Stephen, Campbell
Connolly, M.	Lee, F.	Sutton, J. E.
Cove, W. G.	Lowth, T.	Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)
Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)	Lunn, William	Thurtle, Ernest
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)	MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R.(Aberavon)	Tinker, John Joseph
Day, Colonel Harry	MacLaren, Andrew	Townend, A. E.
Dennison, R.	Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)	Wallhead, Richard C.
Duncan, C.	MacNeill-Weir, L.	Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)
Dunnico, H.	March, S.	Whiteley, W.
Gardner, J. P.	Murnin, H.	Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
Gosling, Harry	Naylor, T. E.	Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)
Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.)	Paling, W.	Windsor, Walter
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)	Purcell, A. A.
Groves, T.	Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Grundy. T. W.	Ritson, J.	Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr.
		Charles Edwards.

NOES.
Acland-Troyte, Lieut-Colonel	Dean, Arthur Wellesley	Hutchison, G.A.Clark (Mldl'n & P'bl's)
Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.	Drewe, C.	James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Albery, Irving James	Edmondson, Major A. J.	Jephcott, A. R.
Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)	Ellis, R. G.	Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William
Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.	Elveden, Viscount	King, Captain Henry Doublas
Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent,Dover)	Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Woston-s.-M.)	Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Atholl, Duchess of	Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)	Knox, Sir Alfred
Atkinson, C.	Everard, W. Lindsay	Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley	Fairfax, Captain J. G.	Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip
Balfour, George (Hampstead)	Fade, Sir Bertram G.	Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere
Balniel, Lord	Fermoy, Lord	Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.	Fielden, E. B.	Lynn, Sir Robert J.
Barnett, Major Sir Richard	Ford, Sir P. J.	MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen
Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)	Forestier-Walker, Sir L.	Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)
Bennett, A. J.	Foster, Sir Harry S.	MacIntyre, I.
Berry, Sir George	Foxcroft, Captain C. T.	McLean, Major A.
Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton)	Fraser, Captain Jan	Macmillan, Captain H.
Blades, Sir George Rowland	Frece, Sir Walter de	Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm
Blundell, F. N.	Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.	McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John
Boothby, R. J. G.	Gates, Percy	Macquisten, F. A.
Bourne, Captain Robert Croft	Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham	Mac Robert, Alexander M.
Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W	Glyn, Major R. G. C.	Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn
Boyd-Carpenter, Major Sir A. B.	Goff, Sir Park	Margesson, Captain D.
Brassey, Sir Leonard	Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)	Meyer, Sir Frank
Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive	Grant, Sir J. A.	Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Briggs, J. Harold	Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.	Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)
Brittain, Sir Harry	Greene, W. P. Crawford	Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Broun-Lindsay, Major H.	Grotrian, H. Brent	Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred
Burton, Colonel H. w.	Guinness, Rt. Hon. Waiter E.	Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Butler, Sir Geoffrey	Gunston, Captain D. W.	Moore, Sir Newton J.
Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward	Hacking, Captain Douglas H.	Morrison. H. (Wilts. Salisbury)
Caine, Gordon Hall	Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)	Murchison, C. K.
Campbell, E. T.	Half, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)	Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)	Hammeraley, S. S.	Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)
Charteris, Brigadier-General J.	Hanbury, C.	Nicholson, O. (Westminster)
Christie, J. A.	Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry	Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn.W.G.(Ptrst'ld.)
Clarry, Reginald George	Haslam, Henry C.	Pennefather, Sir John
Clayton, G. C.	Hawke, John Anthony	Penny, Frederick George
Cobb, Sir Cyril	Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.	Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Colfox, Major William Phillips	Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)	Perring, Sir William George
Cooper, A. Duff	Heneage, Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.	Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Courtauld, Major J. S.	Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)	Peto. G. (Somerset, Frome)
Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islington, N.)	Herbert, S. (York, N.R.Scar. 4 Wh'by)	Preston. William
Cralk, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry	Hills, Major John Walter	Raine, W.
Crawfurd, H. E.	Hilton, Cecil	Ramsden, E.
Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)	Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.	Remer, J. R.
Cunliffe, Sir Herbert	Hohter, Sir Gerald Fitzroy	Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.
Curzon, Captain Viscount	Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard	Rice, Sir Frederick
Dalkeith, Earl of	Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)	Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)	Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)	Ropner, Major L.
Davies, Dr. Vernon	Hopkinson, Sir A. (Eng. Universities]	Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.
Dawson, Sir Philip	Hurd, Percy A.	Russell, Alexander West (Tynemoutn)

Rye, F. G.	Streatfield, Captain S. R.	Wilson, M. J. (York, N. R., Richm'd)
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)	Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.	Winby, Colonel L. P.
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)	Sueter, Bear-Admiral Murray Fraser	Wise, Sir Fredric
Sandeman, A. Stewart	Sugden, Sir Wilfrid	Withers, John James
Savery, S. S.	Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.	Wolmer, Viscount
Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W.R., Sowerby)	Tasker, Major R. Inigo	Womersley, W. J.
Shaw, Capt. Walter (Wilts, Westb'y)	Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)	Wood, Sir Kingsley (Woolwich, W.).
Shepperson, E. W.	Titchfield, Major the Marquess of	Woodcock, Colonel H. C.
Skelton, A. N.	Tryon. Rt. Hon. George Clement	Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.
Slaney, Major P. Kenyon	Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.	Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)	Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.	Young, Rt. Hon. Hilton (Norwich)
Stanley, Lord (Fylde)	Waterhouse, Captain Charles
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)	Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Steel, Major Samuel Strang	Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)	Major Hennessy and Major Cope.
Storry-Deans, R.	Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)

Main Question again proposed.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

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

Mr. BATEY

On a point of Order—

Mr. SPEAKER

There can be no point of Order. I must put the Question.

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

The House divided: Ayes, 190, Noes, 76.

Division No. 508.]	AYES.	[8.15 p.m.
Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel	Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)	Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere
Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.	Everard, W. Lindsay	Luce, Major-Gen.Sir Richard Harman
Albery, Irving James	Fairfax, Captain J. G.	MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen
Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)	Falle, Sir Bertram G.	Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)
Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.	Fermoy, Lord	MacIntyre. Ian
Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)	Fielden, E. B.	McLean, Major A.
Atholl, Duchess of	Ford, Sir P. J.	Macmillan, Captain H.
Atkinson, C.	Forestier-Walker, Sir L.	Macnaghten. Hon. Sir Malcolm
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley	Foster, Sir Harry S.	McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John
Balfour, George (Hampstead)	Foxcroft, Captain C. T.	Macquisten, F. A.
Balniel, Lord	Fraser, Captain Ian	MacRobert, Alexander M.
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.	Frece, Sir Walter de	Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn
Barnett, Major Sir Richard	Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.	Meyer, Sir Frank
Bennett, A. J.	Gates, Percy	Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Berry, Sir George	Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham	Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)
Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton)	Glyn, Major R. G. C.	Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Blades, Sir George Rowland	Goff, Sir Park	Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred
Blundell, F. N.	Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)	Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Boothby, R. J. G.	Grant, Sir J. A.	Moore, Sir Newton J.
Bourne, Captain Robert Croft	Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.	Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)
Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.	Greene, W. P. Crawford	Murchison, C. K.
Boyd-Carpenter, Major Sir A. B.	Grotrian, H. Brent	Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Brassey, Sir Leonard	Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.	Newton. Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)
Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive	Gunston, Captain D. W.	Nicholson, O. (Westminster)
Briggs, J. Harold	Hacking, Captain Douglas H.	Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hon. W.G. (Ptrst'ld.)
Brittain, Sir Harry	Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)	Pennefather, Sir John
Burton, Colonel H. W.	Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Had.)	Penny, Frederick George
Butler, Sir Geoffrey	Hammersley, S. S.	Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward	Hanbury, C.	Perring, Sir William George
Caine, Gordon Hall	Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry	Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Campbell, E. T.	Haslam, Henry C.	Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)	Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.	Preston, William
Charteris, Brigadier-General J.	Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)	Raine, W.
Christie, J. A.	Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.	Ramsden, E.
Clarry, Reginald George	Hennessy, Major J. R. G.	Remer, J. R.
Clayton, G. C.	Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)	Rhys, Hon. C. A. O.
Cobb, Sir Cyril	Herbert.S. (York. N.R. Scar. & Wh'by)	Rice, Sir Frederick
Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips	Hills, Major John Waller	Richardson. Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)
Cooper, A. Duff	Hilton, Cecil	Ropner. Major L.
Cope, Major William	Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.	Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.
Courtauld, Major J. S.	Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy	Russell. Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islingtn.,N.)	Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard	Rye, F. G.
Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)	Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)	Samuel, A. M, (Surrey, Farnham)
Cunliffe, Sir Herbert	Hopkinson, Sir A. (Eng. Universities)	Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)
Curzon, Captain Viscount	Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)	Sandeman, A. Stewart
Dalkeith. Earl of	Hurd, Percy A.	Savery, S. S.
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)	Hutchison G.A.Clark (Midl'n & P'bl's)	Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W.R., Sowerby)
Davies, Dr. Vernon	James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert	Shaw, Capt. Walter (Wilts, Westb'y)
Dawson, Sir Philip	Jephcott, A. R	Shepperson, E. W.
Dean, Arthur wellesley	Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William	Skelton, A. N.
Drews. C.	King, Captain Henry Doublas	Slaney, Major P. Kenyon
Edmondson, Major A. J.	Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement	Somerville. A. A. (Windsor)
Ellis, R. G.	Knox, Sir Alfrad	Stanley, Han. O. F. G (Westm'eland)
Elveden, viscount	Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.	Steel, Major Samuel Strang
Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)	Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip	Storry-Deans, R.
Streatfield, Captain S. R.	Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.	Wood, Sir Kingsley (Woolwich, W.)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser	Waterhouse, Captain Charles	Woodcock, Colonel H. C.
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid	Watson. Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)	Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.
Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.	Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)	Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.
Tasker, Major R. Inigo	Wilson. M. J. (York, N. R., Richm'd)	Young, Rt. Hon. Hilton (Norwich)
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)	Winby, Colonel L. P.
Tinne, J. A.	Wise, Sir Fredric	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of	Withers, John James	Lord Stanley and Captain Margesson.
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement	Wolmer, Viscount
Vaughan-Morgan, Col- K. P.	Womersley, W. J.
NOES.
Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)	Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)	Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W.R., Elland)
Ammon, Charles George	Hardie, George D.	Rose, Frank H.
Attlee, Clement Richard	Hayday, Arthur	Salter, Dr. Alfred
Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)	Hirst, G. H.	Scrymgeour, E.
Baker, Walter	Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)	Sexton, James
Batey, Joseph	John, William (Rhondda, West)	Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Bromfield, William	Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)	Smith, H. B. Lees- (Keighley)
Bromley, J.	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Smith, Rennie (Penistone)
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)	Kelly, W. T.	Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip
Charleton, H. C.	Kennedy, T.	Spoor, Rt. Hon Benjamin Charles
Cluse, W. S.	Lansbury, George	Stephen, Campbell
Connolly, M.	Lee, F.	Sutton, J. E.
Cove, W. G.	Livingstone, A. M.	Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)
Crawfurd, H. E.	Lowth, T.	Tinker, John Joseph
Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)	Lunn, William	Townend, A. E.
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)	MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R.(Aberavon)	Wallhead, Richard C.
Day, Colonel Harry	MacLaren, Andrew	Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)
Dennison, R.	Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)	Whitelay, W.
Duncan, C.	MacNeill-Weir, L.	Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)
Dunnico, H.	March, S.	Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
Gardner, J. P.	Morris, R. H.	Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)
Gosling, Harry	Murnin, H.	Windsor, Walter
Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm, (Edin., Cent.)	Naylor, T. E.
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)	Paling, W.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Groves, T.	Purcell, A. A.	Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr.
Grundy, T. w.	Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)	Charles Edwards.
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)	Ritson, J.

Question put accordingly.

That the Regulations made by His Majesty in Council under the Emergency Powers Act, 1920, by Order dated the 20th day of November, 1926, shall continue in

force, subject, however, to the provisions of Section 2 (4) of the Act.

The House divided: Ayes, 193; Noes, 76.

Division No. 509.]	AYES.	[8.24 p.m.
Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel	Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)	Foster, Sir Harry S.
Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.	Charteris, Brigadier-General J.	Foxcroft, Captain C. T.
Albery, Irving James	Christie, J. A.	Fraser, Captain Ian
Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)	Clany, Reginald George	Frece, Sir Walter de
Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.	Clayton, G. C.	Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Frends E.
Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)	Cobb, Sir Cyril	Gates, Percy
Atholl, Duchess of	Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips	Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton
Atkinson, C.	Cooper, A. Duff	Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley	Cope. Major William	Glyn, Major R. G. C.
Balfour, George (Hampstead)	Courtauld, Major J. S.	Goff Sir Park
Balniel, Lord	Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islingtn. N.)	Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.	Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)	Grant, Sir J. A.
Barnett, Major Sir Richard	Cunliffe, Sir Herbert	Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.
Bennett, A. J.	Curzon, Captain Viscount	Greene, W. P. Crawford
Berry, Sir George	Dalkeith, Earl of	Grotrian, H. Brent
Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton)	Davies, Maj. Geo.F.(Somerset,Yeovil)	Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.
Blades, Sir George Rowland	Davies, Dr. Vernon	Gunston, Captain D. W.
Blundell, F. N.	Dawson, Sir Philip	Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Boothby, R. J. G.	Dean, Arthur Wellesley	Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)
Bourne, Captain Robert Croft	Drewe, C.	Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)
Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.	Edmondson, Major A. J.	Hammersley, S. S.
Boyd-Carpenter, Major Sir A. B.	Ellis, R. G.	Hanbury, C.
Brassey, Sir Leonard	Elveden, Viscount	Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive	Erskine, Lord (Somerset,Weston-s.-M.)	Haslam, Henry C.
Briggs, J. Harold	Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)	Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Brittain, Sir Harry	Everard, W. Lindsay	Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)
Brown, Col. D. C. (N'thTd., Hexham)	Fairfax, Captain J. G.	Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Burton, Colonel H. W.	Falle, Sir Bertram G.	Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Butler, Sir Geoffrey	Fermoy, Lord	Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward	Fielden, E. B.	Herbert, S.(York, N.H.,Scar. & Wh'hr)
Calne. Gordon Hat?	Ford, Sir P. J.	Hills, Major John Wallri
Campbell, E. T.	Forestier-Walker, Sir L.	Hilton, Cecil
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.	Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy	Moore, Sir Newton J.	Stanley, Hon. O. F. G.(Westm'eland).
Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard	Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)	Steel, Major Samuel Strang
Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)	Murchison, C. K.	Storry-Deans, R.
Hopkinson, Sir A. (Eng. Universities)	Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)	Streatfield, Captain S. R.
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)	Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)	Sueter, near-Admiral Murray Fraser
Huntingfield, Lord	Nicholson, O. (Westminster)	Sugden, Sir Wilfrid
Hurd, Percy A.	Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn.W.G.(Ptrsf'ld.)	Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.
Hutchison,G.A.Clark (Midl'n & P'brs)	Pennefather, Sir John	Tasker, Major R. Inigo
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert	Penny, Frederick George	Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Jephcott, A. R.	Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)	Tinne, J. A.
Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William	Perring, Sir William 'George	Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
King, Captain Henry Doublas	Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)	Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement	Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)	Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.
Knox, Sir Alfred	Preston, William	Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.
Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.	Raine, W.	Waterhouse, Captain Charles
Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip	Ramsden, E.	Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vers	Remer, J. R.	Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)
Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman	Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.	Wilson, M. J. (York, N. R., Richm'd)
MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen	Rice, Sir Frederick	Winby, Colonel L. P.
Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I.of W.)	Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)	Wise, Sir Fredric
MacIntyre, Ian	Ropner, Major L.	Withers, John James
McLean, Major A.	Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.	Wolmer, Viscount
Macmllian, Captain H.	Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)	Womersley, W. J.
Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm	Rye, F. G.	Wood, Sir Kingsley (Woolwich, W.).
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John	Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)	Woodcock, Colonel H. C.
Macquisten, F. A.	Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney!	Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.
MacRobert, Alexander M.	Sandeman, A. Stewart	Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn	Savery, S. S.	Young, Rt. Hon. Hilton (Norwich)
Meyer, Sir Frank	Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W.R., Sowerby)
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)	Shaw, Capt. Walter (Wilts, Westb'y)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)	Shepperson, E. W.	Lord Stanley and Captain Mar.
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)	Skelton, A. N.	gesson.
Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred	Staney, Major P. Kenyon
NOES.
Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)	Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)	Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W. R., Eiland)
Ammon, Charles George	Hardie, George D.	Rose, Frank H.
Attlee, Clement Richard	Hayday, Arthur	Salter, Dr Alfred
Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)	Hirst, G. H.	Scrymgeour, E.
Baker, Walter	Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)	Sexton, James
Batey, Joseph	John, William (Rhondda, West)	Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Bromfield, William	Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)	Smith, H. B. Lees- (Keighley)
Bromley, J.	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Smith, Rennie (Penistone)
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)	Kelly, W. T.	Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip
Charleton, H. C.	Kennedy, T.	Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles
Cluse, W. S.	Lansbury, George	Stephen, Campbell
Connolly, M.	Lee, F.	Sutton, J. E.
Cove, W. G.	Livingstone, A. M.	Thorne, W, (West Ham, Plaistow)
Crawfurd, H. E.	Lowth, T.	Tinker, John Joseph
Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)	Lunn, William	Townend, A. E.
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)	MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R.(Aberavon)	Wallhead, Richard C.
Day, Colonel Harry	MacLaren, Andrew	Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)
Dennison, R.	Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)	Whiteley, W.
Duncan, C.	MacNeill-Welr, L.	Williams, C. p. (Denbigh, Wrexham)
Dunnico, H.	March, s.	Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
Gardner, J. P.	Morris, R. H.	Wilson, c. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)
Gosling, Harry	Murnin, H.	Windsor, Walter
Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.)	Naylor, T. E.
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)	Paling, W.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Groves, T.	Purcell, A. A.	Mr. Alien Parkinson and Mr.
Grundy, T. W.	Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)	Charles Edwards.
Hall, F. (York, W.R., Normanton)	Ritson, J.

Question put, and agreed to.