Commons Sitting of 20 June 1927

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  INDIA.

    OPIUM-GROWING (CONFERENCE).
    Colonel DAYasked the Under-Secretary of State for India if he has received a report of the conference on the opium-growing Indian States for the Government of India, held at Simla on 28th May; and whether he can make a full report to the House?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Earl Winterton): Copy of the opening speech of His Excellency the Viceroy and a Press communique regarding Sir B. Blackett's speech have been received and will be placed in the Library. A report on the further proceedings of the conference has not yet been received.
    Colonel DAY: Can the Noble Lord say whether poppy cultivation has been suppressed in some of the States in India?
    Earl WINTERTON: No; the hon. Member does not ask that question; he asked whether I have received the report of the conference, and I have told him that I have received a communique, and that I am going to have it placed in the Library.
    Colonel DAY: Having seen the report, can the Noble Lord say whether it contains that information?
    Earl WINTERTON: The report, as the hon. Gentleman will see, is a rather long one. Perhaps he will be good enough to read it before he addresses to me further questions.

    DISTURBANCES, KULAKATI.
    Mr. SNELLasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he will
    1462
    give information as to the precise nature of the criminal proceedings which have been instituted following the inquiry by the district Commissioner into the recent clash between the police and a Moslem crowd at Kulakati, Bengal?
    Earl WINTERTON: I understand that the proceedings are the prosecution of the Maulvi who incited the crowd and possibly of other persons who were amongst the crowd (though I am not sure of this) on charges of rioting and membership of an unlawful assembly. These prosecutions are not consequential on the Commissioner's inquiry, which was directed to the circumstances surrounding the firing on the crowd.

    INDUSTRIAL ESTABLISHMENTS (FINES).
    Mr. THURTLEasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the Government of India propose to introduce legislation on the lines of the Truck Acts in this country?
    Earl WINTERTON: The inquiry addressed by the Government of India to local Governments, which was referred to in the reply given to the hon. Member for the East Division of Bristol (Mr. W. Baker) on 21st March last, relates to certain matters covered by the Truck Act of 1896 in this country, namely, deductions from wages or payments in respect of fines. The present position in regard to this inquiry was stated in reply to questions by the hon. Member and the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Johnston) on 16th June.

    WAGES (PAYMENTS).
    Mr. THURTLEasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that manual workers in India are compelled, in many cases, to wait as much as six weeks for the payment of wages due to them; and whether it is intended to introduce legislation to make the payment of weekly wages compulsory?
    Earl WINTERTON: In the case of some skilled workers who are paid by the month, wages are paid a fortnight in arrear and in such a case an initial period of six weeks elapses after the commencement of a worker's employment before his first wages are paid. The

    1463
    answer to the second part of the question is in the negative.
    Mr. W. THORNE: Would the Noble Lord say whether, in the meantime, before they get their pay, they have to go to some of the shops and obtain commodities, for which they have to pay an extra price?
    Earl WINTERTON: I think that the same circumstances occur in certain industries in this country. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Well, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that, as has been made plain by answers I have given to other questions, the Government of India and the local Governments are giving the matter very close attention, to see what steps are necessary, by legislation or in other ways, to deal with the matter.
    Sir BERTRAM FALLE: Is my Noble Friend aware that the same practice obtains in His Majesty's dockyards, the period being a fortnight?
    Mr. JOHNSTON: Is the Noble Lord not aware that a simple instruction compelling owners to pay wages weekly would obviate the necessity for people to borrow money from moneylenders at 300 per cent.?
    Earl WINTERTON: We cannot give a simple instruction to employers. We would have to pass legislation, and in order that legislation may be passed a number of authorities in India would have to be consulted. The Government of India are giving close attention to the matter to see what remedies are necessary.

    SOUTH AFRICA (AGENT).
    Mr. THURTLEasked the Under-Secretary of State for India when the right hon. V. S. Srinvasa Sastri will take up his duties in South Africa as agent for India in that country; whether Mr. Tyson, the chief presidency magistrate of Calcutta., has been definitely appointed as Mr. Sastri's secretary; and whether Mr. Sastri was consulted and approved of Mr. Tyson's appointment?
    Earl WINTERTON: My Noble Friend has no information except the references which he has seen in the Press to Mr. Tyson's reported appointment and to the expectation that Mr. Sastri would sail early this month.

    PRISONER, DIBURGARH (WHIPPING).
    Mr. W. BAKERasked the Under-Secretary of State for India the result of his inquiry concerning the incident at Diburgarh, when a man named Rasih Nandi was sentenced by the first-class magistrate to receive 15 stripes, but the warder whose duty it was to execute the order inflicted the stripes on another prisoner, Ghana Mahut, whose case was still pending; whether a full inquiry has been held into the incident; and what steps the Government propose to take in the matter?
    Earl WINTERTON: The facts of the case as reported by the local Government are briefly as follows:—Two persons were charged together with theft, one of whom, a boy aged 15, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 stripes with a cane on the hands to be administered forthwith in Court. Both the accused persons were in the dock together, and the constable in charge handed over the wrong prisoner by error, with the result that the latter received four or five strokes on the hand before the magistrate detected the error. The man whipped in error was also found guilty of participation in the theft, and in consideration of the mistake was given three months less sentence by the magistrate than he otherwise would have received—nine months instead of a year. The local Government has censured the magistrate for failing to exercise due care and attention. It appears that no substantial miscarriage of justice occurred.

    CRIMINAL TRIBES ACT (ERUKULAS).
    Mr. W. BAKERasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether any appeal has been received by the Government of India from workers in Madras who are members of the tribes known as Erukulas in Telugu and Kuravans in Tamil districts, asking that, in view of the hardships they suffer on account of these tribes being classified as criminal tribes under the Criminal Tribes Act, they should be exempted from the Working of the Act; and whether it is the intention of the Government to take any action in this matter?
    Earl WINTERTON: I am not in a position to add to the reply given to the hon. Member on the 9th May.

    CURRENCY.
    Sir FREDRIC WISEasked the Under-Secretary of State for India to what extent, expressed in sterling at the current rate of exchange, has the Government of India deflated the Indian currency from 1st April to date; and whether he is satisfied that such deflation, designed to support the rate of exchange at or about 1s. 6d., resulting as it does in dear money throughout India, is in the best interests of Indian trade and Commerce.
    Mr. WALLHEADasked the Under-Secretary of State for India what amount of rupee securities in the Indian paper currency reserve have been sold within the last two months in order to prop up the value of the rupee; and whether he is aware, of the effect that this policy is having on Indian trade, commerce and industry, and especially agriculture
    Earl WINTERTON: On a 1s. 6d. basis the contraction of currency in India between 31st March and 15th June was £10·8 million, of which £1½ million represents the repayment by the Imperial Bank of seasonal currency. As the hon. Members are aware, the exchange rate has recently been fixed by Act of the Indian Legislature, and I am satisfied that the measures taken by the Government of India in discharge of their responsibilities as the currency authority, are in the best interests of India.

    TEXTILE TARIFF BOARD (REPORT).
    Mr. KELLYasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the Report of the Textile Tariff Board will be placed before the Indian Legislative Assembly and their decision taken before the Government of India take any action on that Report?
    Earl WINTERTON: None of the principal recommendations of the Report could be carried out without a vote of the Legislative Assembly, but it cannot be said for certain that action on some recommendations of secondary importance will not be taken before the next session of the Assembly.

    DECK PASSENGERS' COMMITTEE (REPORT).
    Mr. KELLYasked the Under-Secretary of State for India what action has been taken on the Report of the Deck Passengers' Committee; and whether he
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    is aware that the Report has been before the Government of India for three or four years?
    Earl WINTERTON: Draft amendments to the rules dealing with the more important recommendations of the Committee were published in 1925. The Government of India stated in March of this year that the opinions received on the draft amendments were then under their consideration. The answer to the second part of the question is in the affirmative.
    Mr. KELLY: In view of the reply, are we likely to have any report as a result of the consideration?
    Earl WINTERTON: Yes, I think so. The opinions received on the draft report published in 1925 have, I understand, now been received by tile Government of India, and I think, therefore, a decision may be expected shortly, but inquiry will be made of the Government of India.

    INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES (LEGISLATION).
    Mr. R. RICHARDSON (for Mr. SPOOR)asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that in 1922 the Government of Bombay prepared a draft Bill in connection with the settlement of industrial disputes, to which the Government of India refused sanction on the ground that it was going to bring forward legislation for the whole of India; whether such legislation is under contemplation; and whether a Bill is likely to be introduced into the Legislative Assembly at some early date?
    Earl WINTERTONThe action of the Government of Bombay which is referred to took place in 1924. As regards the last two parts of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) on 4th April.

    DOMINION AND COLONIAL LEGISLATURES (STANDING ORDERS).
    Mr. ROY WILSONasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will arrange for a current copy of the Standing Rules and Orders of all Colonial Legislatures to be placed in the Library of the House of Commons?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Amery): Yes, Sir. I am arranging for a set of duplicate copies to be sent from the Colonial Office Library immediately. In certain cases, however, it will be necessary to ask Colonial Governments to send home copies, as no duplicates are available.
    Mr. WILSONasked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he will arrange for a current copy of the Standing Rules and Orders of Dominion Assemblies to be placed in the Library of the House of Commons?
    Mr. AMERY: I will ascertain from the Governments concerned whether copies can be supplied for this purpose.

  IRAQ.

    PETROLEUM.
    Colonel DAYasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to the statement made by King Feisal, at the opening ceremony of the Alwand Refinery on 3rd May, that there will be a pipe line from Iraq to the Mediterranean; and whether he has any information that confirms the foregoing statement?
    Mr. AMERY: I have seen a newspaper report on the speech, from which I gather that King Feisal merely expressed the hope that he would soon be able to make such a statement. Beyond this I can add nothing to the reply I gave the hon. and gallant Member on 23rd May.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: In the surveys for the pipe line will the right hon. Gentleman not overlook that Haifa will be the principal port concerned, and arrange accordingly?
    Mr. AMERY: Certainly I will not overlook any of these considerations, but it is, of course, a matter of private and not of Government action.

    PENJWIN AND SHAHBAZAR DISTRICTS (OCCUPATION).
    Mr. HARRIS (for Mr. ERNEST BROWN)asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he has any statement to make with regard to the position of affairs on the north-east frontier of Iraq; and whether any military operations are
    1468
    being undertaken in that area; and, if so, whether any British officers or men are involved?
    Mr. AMERY: I would invite the attention of the hon. Member to the reply which I gave on 15th June to the Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy).

    TANGANYIKA (BRITISH AND GERMAN SETTLERS).
    Sir ROBERT THOMASasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the recent reports of large German immigration into Tanganyika, it is possible further to encourage and assist British settlement in that territory?
    Mr. AMERY: Information which I have received from the Territory indicates that the reports to which my hon. Friend refers are much exaggerated. The number of German traders, settlers and visitors, including women and children, who landed in Tanganyika Territory between 1st January, 1926, and 31st, March, 1927, was 453. It is the policy of His Majesty's Government to afford British enterprise in the Territory all possible assistance and every encouragement consistent with the terms of the Mandate.

    COLONIAL AGRI CULTURAL RESEARCH COUNCIL.
    Viscount SANDONasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what the relationship will be between the new Colonial Research Committee and the recently created Civil Research Committee?
    Mr. AMERY: The proposed Colonial Agricultural Research Council, the establishment of which was recommended by the Committee on Agricultural Research and Administration in the non-self governing dependencies and more recently still by the Colonial Office Conference, will be a permanent body. No doubt the council will, as soon as it is constituted, take the necessary steps to ensure co-operation with the other research committees and organisations in this country, including the Committee of Civil Research, which has from time to

    1469
    time by means of its sub-committees dealt with questions in which the Colonies are interested.
    Mr. HARRIS: What relation have these various committees to the Imperial Institute? Are they linked up?
    Mr. AMERY: The Imperial Institute is a body which does a certain amount of research, and naturally will take care not to duplicate and will take full advantage of the valuable work done by them.

    NYASALAND (TOBACCO GROWING).
    Mr. W. BAKERasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the Governor of Nyasaland, in a speech in November, 1926, stated that the rapid extension of tobacco growing by the natives was not likely seriously to affect the supply of labour for European plantations, since it had been found in Kenya, as in Nyasaland, that the tribes which were the best producers for themselves were also those which most readily supplied labour for European enterprise; and whether, in view of that pronouncement, he will give an assurance that His Majesty's Government will not agree to any attempt to discourage tobacco growing by the natives?
    Mr. AMERY: I have not seen any report of the speech to which the hon. Member refers, but I can assure him that the policy of the Nyasaland Government, which is to encourage the growing of tobacco by natives as well as by Europeans, has the full approval of His Majesty's Government. I have received no suggestion that this policy should be altered.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    EMPIRE MARKETING BOARD.
    Mr. HURDasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how much is being spent by the Empire Marketing Board by various means, and especially poster newspaper advertisements, to encourage the habit of buying British Home and Empire foodstuffs?
    Mr. AMERY: The expenditure of the Empire Marketing Board generally is designed to further the sale of Empire produce, which includes home produce, in this country. The amount which has been provisionally allocated for the Board's scheme of poster advertising in the current financial year is £125,000. The amount allocated for newspaper advertising for the same period is also £125,000.

    IRON AND STEEL TRADE.
    Mr. COUPERasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether he is aware that pig-iron is at present being sold and delivered at steel works in Lanarkshire and Glasgow district from the Continent at 72s. 6d per ton, while the price of the same class of pig-iron at the blast furnaces in Scotland is 76s. to 77s. 6d. per ton, exclusive of railway carriage to steel works; that Continental steel plates are being delivered at the shipyards and works on the Clyde at 145s. to 152s. 6d. per ton, as against 162s. 6d. to 167s. 6d. per ton from Scottish steel works; that steel bars are being delivered at 103s. 6d. per ton from the Continent, as against 150s. per ton from the local works; and whether he can give any information as to the conditions as to subsidies, etc., in Continental countries which result in the undercutting of British manufacturers of these commodities?
    Mr. ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUEL (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): From inquiries I have made I gather that the figures quoted by my hon. Friend are substantially correct, although they may not relate to identical classes of material. With regard to the last part of the question, I am not aware of any direct sub sidies by Governments on the Continent to the industries concerned.
    Mr. COUPER: Will the hon. Gentleman make himself informed upon this subject as this matter is of great importance owing to the unemployment in these industries?
    Mr. AUSTIN HOPKINSON: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the difference in quality between Scottish pig-iron and foreign pig-iron and between British steel

    1471
    and foreign steel, is more than counterbalanced by the difference in price?
    Sir JAMES REMNANT: Can the hon. Gentleman give the House the relative positions of our imports and exports of iron and steel?
    Mr. SAMUEL: Yes, Sir, I think I can give my hon. Friend that information. First, I will deal with the question of the hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson). I am aware that the foreign pig-iron referred to in the question is not of the same quality as that produced in Scotland. With regard to the relative position of exports and imports, in May, 1927, the last month for Which we have figures, we imported 356,000 tons of iron and steel and exported 422,000 tons. That is to say, we exported more than we imported; and we exported last month more iron and steel than we have exported in any month since the end of the War except doing the month of May, 1923, at the time of the Ruhr occupation, when we exported about 3,000 tons more.
    Mr. COUPER: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that Scotland can produce any class of pig-iron?
    Mr. HARRIS: Is not one of the big factors in the price in England the high railway rates in this country and are the Government considering a change in the method of arriving at these rates?
    Mr. SAMUEL: No, I suggest that the reasons for the difference in cost are these—lower wages and longer hours on the Continent; probably indirect subsidies which I cannot trace in the form of low rates of interest granted to the industry: the fluctuations of the franc, which have pulled down the price of iron and steel in France and therefore all over the Continent; rebates by producers of pig-iron to export houses, and possibly a certain amount of rebate advantage given by foreign railways for export iron and steel.
    Several HON. MEMBERS—
    Mr. SPEAKER: This Debate must be continued on another occasion.

    SHIPBUILDING.
    Mr. COUPERasked the President of the Board of Trade what is the present
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    situation in the shipbuilding trade; whether during the past six months there have been any shipbuilding or ship repair orders placed with foreign builders by British shipowners; and how does the position compare with that of the corresponding period for the last two years?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Burton Chadwick): The tonnage under construction in Great Britain and Ireland at the end of the March quarter of 1927 was 1,217,000 gross tons, as compared with 843,000 tons and 1,165,000 gross tons at the end of corresponding quarters of 1926 and 1925, respectively. The tonnage commenced during the March quarter was 580,000 gross tons, as compared with 193,00 gross tons and 202,000 gross tons in the corresponding quarters of 1926 and 1925, respectively. Complete information as to orders placed abroad is not available, but there is nothing to indicate that in respect of such orders there has been any marked difference between the past six months and the corresponding periods of the two preceding year.

    MOTOR CARS AND PARIS (EXPORTS).
    Mr. COUPERasked the President of the Board of Trade what have been the exports during the past six months of British motor cars and parts of motor cars to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa; and what were the figures for the corresponding periods of 1925 and 1926?
    Mr. SAMUEL: The answer takes the form of a table of figures, and my hon. Friend will perhaps agree to its circulation in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: Have the figures of exports to New Zealand decreased since 1925 and 1926, while the American exports to New Zealand have increased, and can the hon. Gentleman offer any explanation of that?
    Mr. SAMUEL: It would take some time for me to dissect the figures, but—
    Mr. SPEAKER: We cannot argue on the figures now.
    Following is the table:

    STATEMENT showing the Exports from the United Kingdom of Motor Cars and Parts thereof, the Manufacture of the United Kingdom, to the under mentioned Countries, as Registered during the Five Months January to May in the Years 1925, 1026, and 1927.

    Description of Export.

    Country of Destination.

    Five months ended 31st May.

    1925

    1926

    1927

    Motor Cars and Parts:—

    No.

    £

    No.

    £

    No.

    £

    Touring Cars (including Cabs)

    Union of South Africa

    …

    603

    123,312

    547

    106,421

    653

    128,368

    Australia

    …

    1,537

    434,892

    878

    236,166

    373

    131,716

    New Zealand

    …

    1,097

    276,196

    900

    186,025

    810

    155,536

    Canada

    …

    13

    15,718

    31

    11,666

    37

    7,090

    Commercial Vehicles (including Motor Omnibuses, Motor Fire Engines and Motor Ambulances).

    Union of South Africa

    …

    12

    4,338

    21

    8,491

    71

    46,473

    Australia

    …

    25

    14,390

    84

    46,393

    67

    21,482

    New Zealand

    …

    14

    10,053

    49

    28,857

    9

    9,368

    Canada

    …

    1

    235

    —

    —

    —

    —

    Parts:—

    Chassis, complete

    Union of South Africa

    …

    52

    19,965

    52

    20,441

    103

    45,320

    Australia

    …

    1,743

    421,071

    4,668

    762,273

    9,652

    1,468,115

    New Zealand

    …

    257

    94,990

    161

    57,014

    195

    44,913

    Canada

    …

    12

    7,460

    14

    8,509

    55

    26,048

    Other Parts, except Rubber Tyres and Tubes

    Union of South Africa

    …

    —

    26,186

    —

    28,247

    —

    54,324

    Australia

    …

    —

    101,095

    —

    137,958

    —

    119,376

    New Zealand

    …

    —

    32,187

    —

    42,920

    —

    28,066

    Canada

    …

    —

    10,870

    —

    4,788

    —

    10,662

    Rubber Tyres and Tubes for Motor Cars*

    Union of South Africa

    …

    —

    90,280

    —

    102,335

    —

    150,941

    Australia

    …

    —

    106,917

    —

    197,601

    —

    159,322

    New Zealand

    …

    —

    51,931

    —

    92,197

    —

    80,764

    Canada

    …

    —

    1,318

    —

    1,759

    —

    1,831

    *These particulars unavoidably include Inner Tubes for Motor Cycles and Cycles.

    OFFALS.
    Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURYasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can give the figures for the import and export, of offals from the United Kingdom from 1st January to 1st June, 1927; and whether the import of offals is increasing?
    Mr. SAMUEL: The imports of corn offals (feeding-stuffs for animals) into the United Kingdom from January to May, inclusive, amounted to 139,532 tons, and the exports to 36,656 tons. The imports in the same period in 1926 were 150,502 tons, and in 1925, 163,847 tons. Accordingly, there has been a successive decrease in the imports in the first five months of the last three years. There has also been a successive decrease in each of the calendar years 1924, 1925 and 1926.

    EMPIRE SETTLEMENT.
    Mr. RAMSDENasked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether all assisted migrants have been carried on British-owned vessels?
    Mr. AMERY: Yes, Sir; all assisted migrants are carried on British-owned vessels.
    Viscount SANDONasked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he has entered, or will enter, into negotiations with the Government of the Irish Free State with a view to southern Irish ex-service men, who are in want, being afforded the same facilities as their counterparts in the north and in Great Britain as regards the provisions of the Overseas Settlement Act?
    Mr. AMERY: This question is under consideration, but I regret that I am not at present in a position to make any definite statement.

    ROYAL ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.
    Sir FRANK MEYERasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is prepared to consider making it a condition of any new lease to the Royal Zoological Society that they shall open their grounds for the benefit of the public on Sundays?
    The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Guinness): The suggestion made by
    1476
    my hon. Friend has been considered on several occasions but has not been found practicable.
    Sir F. MEYER: Is it not a fact that a great many people are only able to visit the gardens on Sunday and that foreigners and other visitors to London are prevented from inspecting this public institution by this Regulation; and will the right hon. Gentleman represent to the Fellows of the Society that they should have some privilege other than the exclusive right of seeing the grounds on Sunday?
    Mr. GUINNESS: There would be enormous difficulty in this proposal. The Sunday opening is the only valuable privilege which Fellows enjoy, and its withdrawal would inevitably mean a great shrinkage in revenue. At the same time, apart from the loss of revenue entailed this proposal would involve the society in heavy additional expenditure, because admission, under the law, would have to be free, and the society would have no resources out of which to find the expense of providing a staff of attendants to deal with the great crowds to be expected on such occasions.
    Sir HARRY BRITTAIN: Is it not fair to the society to realise that they have made the finest Zoo in the world and that they are entitled to some privileges?
    Sir F. MEYERasked the Minister of Agriculture what is the length and date of the termination of the lease under which the Royal Zoological Society holds its grounds in Regent's Park; whether any conditions as to the opening of the grounds to the public are attached to the lease; and, if so, what are these conditions?
    Mr. GUINNESS: The tenancy under which the Royal Zoological Society holds its grounds in Regent's Park is of very old standing and is not for any fixed period. No conditions as to the opening of the grounds to the public are attached to the tenancy.
    Sir F. MEYER: Is the rent an economic rent or considerably below the value of the land?
    Mr. GUINNESS: I should require notice of that question. There have been negotiations with the society from time to time and to any suggestion that we

    1477
    should terminate the arrangement, I would say that in my opinion any departure from the agreement on the strength of which costly buildings have been erected would be a breach of faith with the society.

    AGRICULTURE (CREDIT FACILITIES).
    Captain CROOKSHANKasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware of the interest that is being taken by the agricultural community in possible schemes for the extension to agriculture of special credit facilities; and, if so, whether the Government are now in negotiation with any group of bankers with regard to such schemes?
    Mr. GUINNESS: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply which I gave to a similar question addressed to me on the 16th of May by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Maldon division of Essex (Lieut.-Colonel Ruggles-Brise), to which I have nothing to add.
    Mr. BUXTON: Can the Minister contradict the rumours that banks are tending to restrict credit facilities to farmers?
    Mr. GUINNESS: I have no evidence of it.
    Mr. HURD: When will the right hon. Gentleman be in a position to give us the information which we are all anxious to have on this subject?
    Mr. GUINNESS: I have nothing to add to what I have already said in answer to a similar question.
    Mr. HURD: When will the right hon. Gentleman be able to add something.
    Mr. GUINNESS: It is impossible to say.

    CROWN LAND, REGENT STREET (RENTS).
    Sir R. THOMASasked the Minister of Agriculture what was the aggregate rent received from Crown land in Regent Street during the year 1926 under the new leases granted since the scheme of reconstruction was initiated?
    Mr. GUINNESS: The total amount received in the financial year ended 31st March, 1927, in respect of ground rents reserved under new leases was £345,405.
    Sir R. THOMAS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the buildings erected on these lands have increased in rental value 1,700 per cent. since the War, and does he consider that to be attributable to the increase in the ground rents?
    Mr. GUINNESS: It is due to the increase in the market value of the land, and I see nothing to regret in that fact, as the public is getting the benefit of it.
    Sir R. THOMAS: But is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the public is getting no benefit, because these offices are to let, and no one can afford to pay such rents?
    Mr. GUINNESS: Anyhow, we are receiving £345,000 out of it.
    Sir R. THOMAS: Is it not the case that that sum is from the ground and not from the offices?

    ST. STEPHEN'S HALL (PAINTINGS).
    Sir H. BRITTAINasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, what arrangements have been made for the unveiling of the paintings in St. Stephen's Hall?
    Major Sir GEORGE HENNESSY (for the First Commissioner of Works): The paintings in question will be unveiled by the Prime Minister on Tuesday, the 28th instant, at 11.30 a.m. Standing space will be available for Members and a limited number of their friends who wish to attend.

    EGYPT (FOREIGN OFFICIALS).
    Colonel DAYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is in a position to make a statement with regard to the settlement arrived at between Great Britain and Egypt with reference to the retention of foreign officials necessary to guarantee Imperial communications and safeguard foreign interests which, under the declaration of 22nd February, 1922, Great Britain has undertaken to protect?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Godfrey Locker-Lampson): I must refer the hon. and gallant Member to answers returned to similar questions asked by him on the 2nd May, and the 13th June, respectively. I do not think that I have any further information to add on this subject.
    Colonel DAY: Will the rights of foreign officials be protected by that arrangement?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I should like notice of any question of details of that kind.

  CHINA.

    INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENT, SHANGHAI.
    Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the Chinese are complaining that girls of 15 years of age are being introduced into maisons tolerées for the soldiers in the international area at Shanghai; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: His Majesty's Consul-General at Shanghai telegraphs that, so far as he and the Shanghai Municipal Police have been able to ascertain, there is no foundation whatever for this report. All remaining licences for houses of ill-fame in the international settlement were withdrawn on the 31st December, 1924, by order of the municipal council.
    Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: While welcoming the hon. Gentleman's reply, may I ask whether any steps have been taken to make that dementi known to the Chinese authorities?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I think the hon. Gentleman's question and the answer will give it full publicity.

    BRITISH AIRCRAFT.
    Mr. TREVELYANasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether a request has now been received from the Foreign Minister of the Nanking Government that British military aircraft shall henceforth not fly over Chinese territory without authorisation; whether he has information to the effect that Chinese soldiers have been instructed to fire on any aeroplanes flying over strategic points; and whether instructions will
    1480
    forthwith be issued to the British naval, military, and air authorities in China to observe on all occasions the provisions of international aerial conventions, to which Great Britain is a party, in so far as Chinese territory is concerned?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I have seen reports in the Press that the member of the Nanking Administration who is in charge of foreign affairs has made a protest of this nature and that Chinese troops have been instructed to fire on British aircraft, but I have no official information on the subject. It is not proposed to modify the instructions that have been given to the Naval Commander-in-Chief, regarding which I would refer the right hon. Gentleman to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary's reply of the 1st June.

    RUSSIA (CONVERSATIONS).
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is intended to inform Parliament of the substance of the conversations at Geneva of members of the Council of the League of Nations on certain matters affecting Russia, and the results of these conversations, if any?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: The conversations refererred to were presumably private, but the hon. and gallant Member will perhaps repeat his question when my right hon. Friend has returned to this country.

    ALBANIA (GENERAL SIR JOCELYN PERCY).
    Captain GARRO-JONESasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether General Sir Jocelyn Percy holds any official mission in Albania?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: General Sir Jocelyn Percy holds an appointment under the Albanian Government as Inspector-General of the Gendarmerie. He is not in the service of His Majesty's Government, who are not responsible for his appointment.

    BATTLE OF JUTLAND (DIAGRAMS).
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty

    1481
    why the diagrams prepared by the Harper Committee have not been reproduced with Cmd. 2870, Record of the Battle of Jutland; and whether they will be made available for Members?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Lieut.-Colonel Headlam): As stated in the explanatory note at the beginning of the Blue Book, the expense of reproducing the diagrams is prohibitive, but copies can be seen at the Admiralty, by anyone interested, on application to the Secretary of the Admiralty. This applies both to Members of Parliament and to the general public.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Have copies not been reproduced for the use of the staff and for the staff colleges and naval colleges; and would additional expense be involved in having some copies placed in the Library?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: To my knowledge no such copies have been reproduced, and I can only refer my hon. and gallant Friend to what I have already said. The expense is prohibitive, but if he wants to see the diagrams he can do so by calling at the Admiralty.

    GEORGIA.
    Mr. JOHNSTONasked the Prime Minister whether he is prepared to lay papers before Parliament relating to the conversations and arrangements made with Italy early in the year 1919 for the occupation of the territory of the Republic of Georgia?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I have been asked to reply. The hon. Member is presumably referring to some discussions which took place at the time of the Peace Conference about the possible relief of British troops in the Caucasus by Italian troops. The matter was dealt with largely in informal conversations, of which no record exists, and ended in nothing.
    Mr. JOHNSTON: Has the attention of the hon. Gentleman been drawn to the statements made by Signor Nitti, the late Prime Minister of Italy, in a book republished in this country last week, wherein he states definitely and as a positive fact that the Entente countries urged the Italian Government in 1918 and the beginning of 1919 to invade and
    1482
    seize the territory of the Republic of Georgia, and that he, Signor Nitti, scrapped those arrangements?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: The hon. Gentleman is, of course, aware of the fact that the conversations referred to were conversations carried on by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). The hon. Gentleman has written a letter to the Foreign Office in which he mentions this book, but we have not seen the book yet, and, therefore, have not had the opportunity of studying this particular matter.
    Mr. JOHNSTON: Is it the case that the present Government have got no record of these incitements to the Italian Government by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: No. I understand that these were practically conversations which were not embodied in any document. Therefore, if one gave any information at all with regard to them, it, would probably be very partial and misleading.
    Mr. JOHNSTON: If I hand the hon. Gentleman a copy of the book, and put down a further question on the subject for next week, will he be able to give me a fuller answer?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I should certainly be happy to receive the book.

    WEST HAM UNION (LOAN REPAYMENT).
    Mr. W. THORNEasked the Minister of Health if he is aware of the nonpayment of principal due on loans incurred by the West Ham Poor Law Union; that under the provisions of the Act, 22 and 23 Victoria, Clause 49, Section 1, all debts contracted by the guardians should be paid within the half-year they have been incurred or become due; that relief orders, each and kind, are being made by members of the Union Road staff, who are neither guardians nor relieving officers; and that relieving officers have no power to grant relief in money; and if he intends taking any action in consequence of these illegalities?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): My right hon. Friend has, on the recommendations of the Goschen Committee revised the terms upon which advances were originally made to the guardians, and postponed the date upon which certain instalments of principal would otherwise have been due. These instalments, therefore, do not become due on the dates originally fixed; and there has been no such failure to make due payments as is suggested in the question, and no contravention of the Act cited by the hon. Member. As regards the second part of the question, Article 4 of the West Ham Union (Default) Order, 1926, directs that the Orders and Regulations in force in the Union shall have effect subject to such adaptations as the circumstances may require. As regards the third part, my right hon. Friend understands that the relieving officers are not granting relief in money on their own authority. In these circumstances, there seems to be no ground for action on his part.
    Mr. THORNE: Is it not a fact that in consequence of this postponement the Commissioners are being relieved to the extent of something like £50,000 in one year, which is equivalent to a 4d. rate which they have remitted?
    Sir K. WOOD: No. I think that what my right hon. Friend had in mind, in making the arrangement referred to, was that the present guardians have ceased to borrow at the rate of some £450,000 year to meet current expenditure, and, in view of these great economies, he has thought fit to make the arrangement referred to.
    Mr. THORNE: Is it not a fact that had the late board of guardians been functioning, they would have been called upon to pay over £50,000 more than the Commissioners have already paid?
    Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS: Is it not also the case that they would have borrowed the money to repay the debt?
    Mr. THORNE: No, that is not the case.
    Sir K. WOOD: I hesitate to say what would have happened by this time.
    Mr. THORNE: Is it not a lot of eyewash from top to bottom?

    FRANCE (COAL IMPORT LICENCES).
    Mr. W. THORNEasked the Secretary for Mines what was the selling price of coal imported into France before the, embargo was imposed; and what was the cost of the coal at the pit-head?
    Sir G. HENNESSY: My right hon. Friend regrets that statistics are not available which would enable him to answer this question.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Are we to understand that the Department of Mines has been wound up already or that it has not got this very elementary information that ought to be available?
    Sir G. HENNESSY: The hon. and gallant Member is to understand nothing of the kind. My right hon. Friend, of course, has figures giving the average pithead prices of coal, but very many varieties of coal are concerned, at very many different prices.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Cannot we have them published? It is very important in view of the unemployment that has been caused.

    ROYAL AIR FORCE (LONG DISTANCE FLIGHTS).
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Secretary of State for Air whether any information was made public about the return of Lieutenants Carr and Gillman, of the Royal Air Force, to London after their flight of 3,425 miles; what steps were taken to see that the public generally had an opportunity of welcoming them on their return if the people so desired; and whether, in the event of another successful flight, especially if India is reached in one flight by officers of the Royal Air Force, an opportunity will be given to the public to welcome the officers on their return to this country?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Samuel Hoare): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative, but I may add that steps were taken to convey to the officers immediately on their arrival in London my congratulations on a flight that, though it did not succeed in establishing a record, can certainly be numbered among the great achievements of British aviation. If a

    1485
    successful flight is made in the future, as I hope will be the case, I shall certainly consider how best, to reconcile the desire of the Service to treat these and similar flights as undertaken in the course of duty with the desire of the public to show their appreciation of a fine achievement.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: In the event of a flight to India being successful, surely the right hon. Gentleman will not hesitate to allow the public to make some demonstration of congratulations to these people?
    Sir S. HOARE: I certainly cannot, even if I so wished, prevent the public making any demonstration they desire to make. One has at the same time to consider the point of view of the Service, the officers of which regard these flights as duty flights, undertaken in the course of their duty, and the feeling among officers of the Air Force is against publicity. It is my duty to attempt to reconcile this very legitimate desire on the part of the officers in the Air Force with the equally legitimate desire on the part of the public to show their appreciation of a fine achievement.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I can quite appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's view, but has he considered this side of the question, namely, that it is of great assistance to British prestige that the world should know that these great flights have been made?
    Sir S. HOARE: I have certainly considered that side of the question, and I have told the hon. and gallant Member that I am anxious to reconcile the legitimate desires both of the Air Force and of the public.
    Captain GUNSTON: Will my right hon. Friend say if there is another attempt likely to be made before the Autumn?
    Sir S. HOARE: We are at present considering that question. So far as I can see, it will not be possible to make another attempt before the early Autumn, owing to the monsoon having broken in the north of India. I think, on the whole, it is better to await a time when no unnecessary risks will be incurred.
    Mr. MACOUISTEN: Is it true that there are very few Navy men who really like publicity?

    PUBLIC PLACES (LITTER).
    Captain GROOKSHANKasked the President of the Board of Education whether any steps are taken to give instruction to school children regarding the undesirability of leaving litter, such as paper, bottles, etc., lying about not only in the streets and public parks but also in the countryside generally?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Lord Eustace Percy): I understand that local authorities take steps to impress upon the children at school the necessity for avoiding untidiness in public places, and the programmes of school journeys which have come to my notice all contain a reference to this subject, to which attention is also called on pages 10 and 66 of the Board's pamphlet "Notes on Camping," a copy of which I am sending my hon. and gallant Friend.

    PLAYING FIELDS (PARKS AND SQUARES).
    Sir R. THOMASasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is prepared to introduce legislation to provide that public parks and squares which have sufficient area for playing fields shall be thrown open for the benefit of the youth of the country.
    Sir K. WOOD: I have been asked to reply. There are already powers in the general law, which are freely used, by which local authorities may set aside parts of public open spaces under their control for playing purposes, and my right hon. Friend has every reason to think that local authorities generally fully appreciate the need for playing fields.

  TRANSPORT.

    SLOW-MOVING TAXICABS.
    Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD -BURYasked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the fact that there are over 8,000 taximeter cabs in the London streets, and that a crawling taximeter cab holds up the traffic more than does a horse-drawn vehicle or an omnibus, he will take steps with the Minister of Transport to regulate the number of four and two-seater taximeter cabs, and prevent a still greater congestion on the streets?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir William Joynson-Hicks): There is no power under the present law to restrict the number of licences. It is hoped that congestion on the streets will be greatly minimised when the Regulations at present under consideration with regard to crawling cabs are made.
    Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when those new Regulations are likely to come into force?
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: No, we must wait until we hear from the Minister of Transport.
    Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that crawling taxicabs are a great convenience to people waiting in the wet for a taxi-cab?
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Yes, and I have tried to reconcile the desires of the people with the needs of traffic.
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: Cannot people go by tube?
    Captain GARRO-JONES: Has the right, hon. Gentleman ruled out entirely the desirability of prohibiting horse-drawn vehicles using certain streets at certain hours of the day? [HON. MEMBERS: "why"?]
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have not had any idea in my mind of attempting to do so.

    ROAD FUND.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHAasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has received the resolution passed by the Association of Municipal Corporations on the 18th May last, stating that it viewed with alarm the policy adopted of diverting part of the Road Fund from the purposes for which it was formed, namely, the maintenance, improvement and construction of roads; and if he will state what reply he has sent or proposes to send?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Ronald McNeill): My right hon. Friend has received a copy of this resolution, which, in view of the various statements he has made in this House, did not appear to him to call for more than a formal acknowledgment.
    Mr. W. THORNE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is now a new name for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he is better known as the highway robber?

    WILD BIRDS PROTECTION ACT.
    Colonel APPLINasked the Home Secretary the names of the county boroughs that have issued local orders under the Wild Birds Protection Acts, 1880 to 1908, extending the close time after the 1st August, and give a list of those county boroughs who have also made additions to the 1880 schedule?
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: As the answer is somewhat long, I will circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the answer:
    County boroughs which have made Orders extending the close time after the 1st August in respect either of all birds or of particular species (including cases where by protecting certain birds for the whole of the year the council has, in effect, extended the close time in respect of those birds so as to cover the whole year):

    Barnsley.

    Barrow-in-Furness.

    Bath.

    Birmingham.

    Blackpool (lapwing only).

    Bootle (all birds).

    Bournemouth.

    Bradford.

    Brighton.

    Bristol.

    Burnley.

    Burton-upon-Trent.

    Canterbury (lapwing only).

    Cardiff.

    Chester.

    Coventry.

    Croydon.

    Darlington.

    Dewsbury (lapwing only).

    Eastbourne.

    Exeter.

    Gateshead (lapwing only).

    Halifax.

    Hastings.

    Huddersfield.

    Ipswich.

    Kingston-upon-Hull.

    Leeds.

    Leicester (lapwing only).

    Lincoln.

    1489

    Liverpool (all birds).

    Manchester (all birds).

    Merthyr Tydfil.

    Middlesbrough.

    Newport (Mon.).

    Northampton.

    Norwich.

    Nottingham.

    Oldham.

    Portsmouth.

    Reading.

    Rochdale.

    Rotherham (all birds).

    St. Helens (all birds)

    Sheffield.

    Southampton.

    Southport.

    South Shields.

    Stockport.

    Swansea.

    Tynemouth.

    Wakefield.

    Walsall.

    West Bromwich.

    West Ham.

    Wigan (lapwing only).

    Great Yarmouth.

    York (lapwing only).

    County Boroughs which have made orders adding birds to the Schedule of the Act of 1880:

    Barnsley.

    Merthyr Tydfil.

    Barrow-in-Furness.

    Newport (Mon.).

    Bath.

    Northampton.

    Birmingham.

    Norwich.

    Blackburn.

    Nottingham.

    Bournemouth.

    Oldham.

    Brighton.

    Portsmouth.

    Bristol.

    Reading.

    Burnley.

    Rochdale.

    Burton-upon-Trent.

    Sheffield.

    Cardiff.

    Southampton.

    Chester.

    Southport.

    Croydon.

    Stockport.

    Darlington.

    Swansea.

    Eastbourne.

    Tynemouth.

    Exeter.

    Wakefield.

    Halifax.

    Wallasey.

    Hastings.

    Walsall.

    Huddersfield.

    Warrington.

    Ipswich.

    West Bromwich.

    Leeds.

    West Ham.

    Lincoln.

    Great Yarmouth.

    DOGS ACT, 1906.
    Dr. VERNON DAVIESasked the Home Secretary if he proposes to give effect to the unanimous recommendation
    1490
    of the Medical Research Council contained in Cmd. 2880 that Section 3 (5) of the Dogs Act, 1906, should be repealed?
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: This recommendation has not yet been considered by the Government.

    PROBATION OFFICERS
    Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTEasked the Home Secretary why, in view of the need for economy, he refuses to sanction the appointment of voluntary probation officers?
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The appointment of probation officers outside Landon rests with the magistrates whose duty it is to make appointments in accordance with the Act and Rules which contemplate the appointment of salaried officers whether full-time or part-time. I appreciate fully the value and importance of voluntary assistance in probation work, but the view of Parliament was that it should be put upon a more definite footing.
    Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that very often voluntary men do the work better than paid workers?
    HON. MEMBERS: No!
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have known of extraordinarily good work done by voluntary men, but I think the work has now become of such importance that paid men should be substituted.

    FIGHTING FORCES (MEAT CONTRACTS).
    Mr. HURDasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what will be the additional cost to the Treasury if the Government policy of preference for British, Home, and Empire over foreign goods were applied to the meat contracts of the Army, Navy and Air Forces?
    Mr. McNEILL: My hon. Friend's question is based on a misapprehension. The general contract policy of His Majesty's Government to give substantial preference to British (Home and Empire) over foreign goods is applied to the meat contracts of the fighting forces.
    Mr. HURD: Did I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that there is a policy of preference in operation? Can he tell us the amount of the preference?
    Mr. McNEILL: Yes, the general policy of giving preference to British goods applies.
    Mr. HURD: What percentage of preference?
    Mr. McNEILL: Oh, there is no definite percentage. The policy is to give a preference where the difference in price is not too great.
    Mr. J. H. THOMAS: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what proportion of foreign contracts for meat is accepted, in spite of this preference?
    Mr. McNEILL: I could not say that without notice.
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what is the practice, notwithstanding the policy?
    Mr. McNEILL: The practice varies. A very large quantity of meat bought by contract is British production, but there are cases where the difference in price is so great, in some cases over 100 per. cent.,, that the policy cannot apply.
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is not the better quality of the meat likely to be reflected in the increased price?

    FUEL PRODUCTION COMPANY (GUARANTEE).
    Mr. H. WILLIAMSasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that a guarantee under the Trade Facilities Act has been given to a company known as Fuel Utilisation, Limited, which proposes to exploit a method of low temperature carbonisation developed at the Government fuel research station; and what advantage will accrue to the Exchequer should the method prove to be commercially successful?
    Mr. McNEILL: I assume that my hon. Friend refers to the guarantee given for three years in respect of a capital of £100,000 to the Fuel Production Company, as set out in House of Commons Paper No. 61 of 1927. For a full statement of the circumstances I would refer
    1492
    him to the speech of my noble Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education on the Coal (Scientific Research) Motion on the 11th May last.
    Mr. HOPKINSON: May I ask what was the actual subscribed capital of this company, apart from the Government guarantee?
    Mr. McNEILL: If my hon. Friend will look at the speech to which I have referred in my answer, I think he will ascertain all the circumstances.

    EX-SERVICE MEN (TUBERCULOUS PATIENTS).
    Mr. GROVESasked the Minister of Pensions whether he can state the number of ex-service men in West Ham who are suffering from tuberculosis, and the number of such eases in receipt of treatment allowances?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Lieut.-Colonel Stanley): Separate figures are not available for the Borough of West Ham, but the number of Ministry cases under treatment for tuberculosis, and in receipt of allowances, in the whole of the administrative area of West Ham, which includes districts adjoining the borough was, at the end of May, 53.
    Mr. GROVESasked the Minister of Pensions whether he will consider the issuing of instructions to local tuberculosis medical officers that when ex-service tuberculosis patients are recommended for a course of convalescent treatment at Douglas Homes they shall be kept on treatment allowances?
    Lieut.-Colonel STANLEY: The Homes referred to are not an institution approved by the Ministry of Health for in-patient treatment. Men staying in these Homes are not, therefore eligible for the allowances attaching to this form of treatment.
    Mr. GROVES: Is the right hon. and gallant Member aware that such ex-service men are only sent to the Douglas Homes by the local T.B. officer when they are T.B. cases, and, therefore, is he not of opinion that when a man is sent there he is incapable

    1493
    of work, and if he is incapable of work why should he not have the treatment allowance?
    Lieut.-Colonel STANLEY: Because this institution is not recognised by the Ministry for that form of treatment.

    DEPARTMENT OF OVERSEAS TRADE.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHAasked the Prime Minister whether the Government have reached a decision with regard to the proposed abolition of the Department of Overseas Trade?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): The matter referred to in the hon. Member's question is engaging the close attention of His Majesty's Government. I am not yet in a position to make a statement on the subject.
    Captain GARRO-JONES: Is it to be understood that the decision to abolish this Department has now been brought under review for consideration?
    The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir.
    Captain GARRO-JONES: What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by the statement that it is receiving the consideration of the Government? Does the decision that the Department is to be abolished stand?
    The PRIME MINISTER: We are investigating a problem of some difficulty, as to what functions shall cease and what functions shall remain, and how the work shall be done.
    Major Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how any function can possibly remain if, as he has just stated, the Ministry is to be abolished?
    The PRIME MINISTER: If the Ministry were abolished some of the functions would go with it.
    Mr. MAXTON: Was the decision to abolish the Department merely an ill-considered step to appease the cry for economy in the country?
    The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Did Lord Salisbury accurately state in another place the view of the Cabinet on this matter?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I did not see what he said, but I am quite sure that whatever he said was accurate.

    SMALL-POX, DARTFORD AND YEADING (VACCINATION).
    Mr. GROVESasked the Minister of Health whether the patients at the smallpox hospital at Dartford and at the smallpox hospital at Yeading were vaccinated on reaching the hospital or at any time after the discovery that they were suffering from small-pox or had been in contact with a case of small-pox?
    Sir K. WOOD: My right hon. Friend is informed that of the patients recently admitted to these hospitals, only one (as to the diagnosis of which there was some doubt) was vaccinated after removal to hospital, and in this case the vaccination was unsuccessful. None of the patients were vaccinated after they were discovered to be suffering from small-pox. Two of the patients were vaccinated after having been in contact with a case of small-pox, but in both instances too late to protect them from contracting the disease.

    RENT RESTRICTIONS ACT.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHAasked the Minister of Health whether it is the intention of the Government to renew the Rent Restrictions Act?
    Sir K. WOOD: My right hon. Friend is not yet in a position to make a statement on the subject, but he hopes to do so shortly.
    Colonel DAY: Can the Parliamentary Secretary say when a decision will be arrived at, and is he not aware that this is a matter of very great concern to many thousands of people?
    Sir K. WOOD: I am aware of that, and I hope to make an early statement on the subject.

    FRENCH CHERRIES (IMPORT RESTRICTIONS).
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY (by Private Notice)asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has received a protest from the fruit merchants of Hull protesting against his action in prohibiting

    1495
    the import of French cherries after the 24th instant; whether he is aware that the imports of cherries from France through the port of Hull are heavy and in no single instance has any parcel of infected fruit been reported this season; and whether, in these circumstances, he will consider allowing the fulfilment of existing contracts on which advances of money have been made by the English merchants on the condition that all fruit is carefully examined and any infected parcels desroyed?
    Mr. GUINNESS: I have received the protest to which the hon. and gallant Member refers. Consignments of French cherries are examined at French ports and packages believed to be free from cherry fruit fly are passed for export. Samples of such cherries appearing in the London Market have been taken under my direction. During last week several highly infected consignments were detected; and I regret therefore that I do not see my way to modify the Order issued on the 16th June.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the Minister of Agriculture aware that the result of this very drastic Order will be that the public will be so alarmed that no cherries, English or French, will be consumed?
    Mr. GUINNESS: I think the public will distinguish between the French cherries which are being received this week and the British cherries when they come to the market, because it is fully realised that British cherries are entirely free from this very objectionable infestation.
    Sir H. BRITTAIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that the English cherries are labelled "Grown in England."
    Sir R. THOMAS: Is the Minister of Agriculture not aware that there are large supplies of Italian cherries coming into Liverpool, and therefore this country will not be short of that commodity? Does he not consider that it is quite right that we should put an embargo on French cherries when the French Government put an embargo on our coal?
    Mr. GUINNESS: I do not think we can connect an embargo for the purpose
    1496
    of maintaining the health of our orchards and the reputation of our cherries with any action about coal. I have no reason to believe that there is any infestation in the Italian cherry, but we should deal with any cases that might be brought to our notice in the same way.
    Mr. LUMLEY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how long the Order will remain in force?
    Mr. GUINNESS: Yes, until the French Government can produce an effective scheme to avoid a repetition of what has occurred in this connection.
    Mr. LUMLEY: Are consultations going on?
    Mr. GUINNESS: Certainly.
    Major Sir GRANVILLE WHELER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Kent growers, and I believe the growers of cherries generally, are very well satisfied with this Order, which they believe will, materially help agriculture?
    Mr. HURD: Can the Ministry of Agriculture say what steps are being taken within the next four days to prevent infected cherries reaching the British consumer?
    Mr. GUINNESS: We have drawn the attention of the French Government to the matter.
    Mr. HURD: What are we doing?
    Mr. GUINNESS: We are sampling the cherries as they reach London, but we cannot prevent the export of all these cherries that remain in the hands of the French, and their machinery, I am afraid, has not produced the results which they foretold, and undoubtedly there has been a considerable amount of infected cherries coming through.
    Colonel DAY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say approximately what quantity of these cherries have arrived in this country?
    Mr. GUINNESS: I am afraid I could not say without notice.
    Mr. LAMB: May I ask whether adequate steps are being taken to see that all infected cherries are destroyed and are not allowed to be distributed in this country?
    Mr. GUINNESS: There are no means of getting hold of all the infected cherries.
    Sir JOSEPH NALL: Is it not a fact that the health authorities can take action if these cherries are unfit for human food?
    Mr. GUINNESS: I do not think there is any evidence that these cherries are unwholesome. They are merely disgusting. I do not think there is any case for intervention in that connection.
    Mr. THURTLE: Is it not a fact that medical opinion holds that these cherries are rather more nutritious?

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

  STANDING COMMITTEE D.
  Mr. WILLIAM NICHOLSON reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee D (added in respect of the Audit (Local Authorities) Bill): Sir Gervase Beckett, Major Harvey, and Sir Assheton Pownall; and had appointed in substituetion: Mr. Campbell, Sir Frederick Hall, and Mr. Looker.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  TRADE DISPUTES AND TRADE UNIONS BILL.
  [13TH ALLOTTED DAY.]
  Bill, as amended, considered.
  Mr. SPEAKER: The Amendment—New Clause (Management of Benefit Fund)—standing in the name of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Burton (Colonel Gretton), is not selected. It was debated at some length in the Committee and withdrawn.

  TRADE DISPUTES AND TRADE UNIONS BILL.

    NEW CLAUSE.—(Provisions as to persons employed by certain companies and societies.)
    It shall not be lawful for any society registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Acts, 1893 to 1913, or for any public utility company to make it a condition of employment or continuance in employment of any person that he shall or shall not be a member of a trade union.
    In this Section the expression "public utility company" means any company carrying on any undertaking for the supply of gas, water, hydraulic power, or electricity, any dock or canal undertaking, or any tramway undertaking, including a light railway constructed wholly or mainly on a public road.—[Captain Cazalet.]
    Brought up, and read the First time.
    Captain CAZALET: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
    Clause 6 of this Bill refers to public and local authoritiees and makes it illegal for them to insist on their employés either being or not being members of a trade union. It might be argued that if this principle is right for public authorities it should logically be also applied to all employers. I realise the weight of the arguments, however, against making it applicable to all private employers, especially because of the difficulty of enforcing it. In this Clause, therefore, I desire only to make it apply to those societies and companies which either have some special exemption given by Parliament, or trade under some privilege granted by Parliament, and which have some specific duties and responsibilities towards the public. I am aware that within the last few weeks a decision has been taken in regard to the Co-operative
    1510
    Wholesale Societies in which they expressed their desire to join their fortunes to that of the Socialist party. I realise that it would be out of order on this occasion to offer any observations on that point. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is not true!"] It is commonly believed that that is the case. I realise that it would be out of order to offer any observations upon it, and therefore I will not follow the red herring which has been drawn across my path.
    An HON. MEMBER: You raised it!
    Mr. J. H. THOMAS: The hon. and gallant Member said that the Co-operative Wholesale Society had decided to join their fortunes with the Socialist party, and that statement is not true.
    Captain CAZALET: I understand that the Co-operative Conference passed a resolution to that effect. I think this decision makes it all the more desirable that the Government should adopt this Clause, because, if and when hon. Members opposite sit on this side of the House and form a Government, surely the Co-operative Wholesale Society will—[HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]—the Co-operative movement, if I may say so, will be a kind of glorified Government Department, and its employés will be the equivalent of civil servants. [Interruption.] In order to illustrate the hardship which can occur under the present law, I desire to tell the House of an instance which has taken place in my constituency during the past few weeks. Between the villages of Compton Bassett and Cherhill, the Co-operative Wholesale Society own an estate of some 5,000 acres, which they farm, and where they employ 169 agricultural labourers.
    I desire to state the case as fairly as possible, and I admit at once that they pay their labourers a higher wage than is paid in the neighbouring districts. I admit that at once, but I think it has also to be borne in mind that this farm is not run on an economic basis, and that only the other activities and interests of the co-operative movement allow them to pay these additional wages. Some of these men have worked on this estate for 20 or 30 years. The other day they received notice to the effect that, unless they joined a trade union—the Agricultural Workers' Union—they would be dismissed from the service of the Co-operative

    1511
    Wholesale Society. As I have said, some of these men have worked 20 or 30 years on the estate—[An HON. MEMBER: "They ought to have joined before."]—and I should like to add that they are not, for the most part, Conservatives or supporters of mine. They do, however, very strongly object to being dictated to, and to being ordered to join a particular union, because, they disapprove both of its politics and of the policy which has been pursued in the past by that particular union, and, rightly or wrongly, they disapprove of the manner in which that union spends its funds. They therefore, signed unanimously a resolution, which was sent to the directors, asking that the matter might he reconsidered. A large number of them—in fact, I believe the majority—already belong to local Wiltshire organisations which give them many of the benefits which they might receive if they belonged to a trade union—
    Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: On wages and conditions?
    Captain CAZALET: No; I refer to sickness benefits, maternity benefit, and things of that kind. They might be willing to join a trade union such as the Co-operative Employés' Union, which, I believe, has been recently formed in the neighbourhood of Newcastle—I have a copy of its rules here, and I believe it has been registered with the Chief Registrar of Trade Unions. That organisation has all the ordinary rules and regulations which are common to trade unions, but it is not affiliated to the Trades Union Congress, and, therefore, membership of it does not satisfy the qualifications demanded by the directors of the Co-operative Wholesale Society. Hon. Members opposite may think it right and just that these men should belong to a trade union, because, as I know they will argue, it is only the work which has been done by the trade unions, in co-operation in many cases with the co-operative movement, which has given them the wages that they receive to-day. That may be a very just argument, but that is a totally different proposition from threatening these men with dismissal unless they join a particular union within 10 days.
    1512
    Coercion and compulsion of this kind are, surely, contrary to all the principles of co-operation. The co-operative movement is a vast organisation, which includes among its members and shareholders thousands who are Conservatives and Liberals, and it also includes many more thousands who desire to take no part in politics whatever, but who in the past have joined the co-operative movement, and who desire to continue in it, merely for the economic benefit which they receive through their association with it. We have but to look at the pages of the People's Year Book to see what immense benefits the co-operative movement has conferred on the people of this country. There may be sections of the community that are opposed to the competition of the cooperative movement, but no political party in this country has ever been opposed to the co-operative movement. In fact, it is with the consent of all parties that co-operative societies to-day are exempt in certain matters of Income Tax under Schedules C and D. As I have said, the co-operative movement is a national organisation, embracing manufacturing, wholesale and retail branches, and including millions of members who do not desire that through their membership they should be made to take part in party politics. Efficient management and good relationship between employers and employés have always been conspicuous in the development of the movement. These characteristics cannot continue, in my opinion, if political prejudice and political bias are to influence and control its decisions. Complete political impartiality is necessary for its success, as it is for the success of any company or society which stands in a privileged and national position. To quote a phrase used in a recent publication:
    "Voluntary, free and independent should be the principles which underlie the co-operative movement."
    Free and independent should be members, both shareholders and employés, and, if coercion and compulsion in these matters are to take the place of freedom and independence, then, whatever the Socialist party may think it is going to gain in political or other directions from amalgamation with the co-operative movement, the co-operative

    1513
    movement will lose in material prosperity.
    Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS: I beg to second the Motion.
    My hon. and gallant Friend has been inspired to move this proposed new Clause by circumstances which have arisen in his own constituency. I desire to support it, as he does, of course, on general grounds. People who join trade unions should joint them of their own free will; there should be no coercion to force people to join, and, equally, there should be no coercion to prevent people from joining. If a movement has intrinsic merits, people will join that movement because it is worth while to join it, and there is no need for compultion behind a movement that is good. Equally, if people desire to join an organisation for their own self-protection, I do not think that employers should be in a position to prevent them from joining. Although, in practice it would be difficult, probably impossible, to make what is proposed in this Clause of general application, I certainly think it should apply to organizations that enjoy special privileges from Parliament. My hon. and gallant Friend has referred more particularly to the co-operative movement, but the Clause also refers to public utility companies. They enjoy certain privileges from Parliament. They work under certain, restrictions and they are semi-public in character, and for exactly the same reason that this principle should apply to municipalities I think it ought to be applied to the organisations mentioned in the Clause. I do not see any reason why the employers referred to, the co-operative societies, whether wholesale societies or any distributive societies which may attempt to apply the principle, should object if their power of coering their workpeople is in any way restricted.
    There is nothing particularly magic about co-operation. It is only a form of capitalistic enterprise, though with a rather larger number of shareholders than is found in many public limited companies, and that its members regard it as a capitalist enterprise is quite obvious because there is a phrase in the co-operative movement, "no divi, no co-op." I merely mention that because there is rather a tendency, when the co-operative movement is referred to
    1514
    from this side, to regard it as something sacrosanct which must only be spoken of in hushed tones, whereas it is only a straightforward kind of business enterprise whereby people think they get certain benefits by trading in that way or buying their goods in that way. Whether they do or do not will vary according to circumstances. In some cases it is probably advantageous to trade with co-operative societies and in others it is not; but they enjoy certain special privileges from Parliament in the matter of taxation. Though the hon. Gentleman opposite who is one of their representatives in this House rather denies that, it is really the case, and if all trading was taken from private traders and transferred to the co-operators the Chancellor of the Exchequer would lose an immense amount of revenue and someone or other would be gaining, and however many arguments may be put forward with regard to the profit arising from mutual trade it is certainly regarded as of great advantage to them, otherwise they would not get so excited when any suggestion is made about modifying it. Here we have co-operative societies and other organisations occupying a peculiar position and enjoying peculiar privileges, and since they enjoy those things from Parliament, Parliament is entitled to say to them, "You shall not coerce your people one way or another," and for that reason I second the Clause.
    Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: This matter has been before the public through the Press, so much during the last few weeks that I am not sorry the hon. and gallant Member for Chippenham (Captain Cazalet) has seen fit to secure greater publicity by moving this Clause. I regret, however, that he seems to have changed his mind a little since he first made the announcement of what he intended to do in Committee on this Bill. In a speech he made on 9th May, he said no employer should have a right to say that an employé should or should not belong to a union, and he hoped during the Committee stage on the Trade Union Bill to move an Amendment to that effect. There is a curious difference between the Clause and the public announcement as to what he intended to do.
    Captain CAZALET: If the hon. Gentleman refers to the Order Paper he will see

    1515
    that I gave notice of several Amendments carrying out fully what I said, but unfortunately, through no fault of my own, they were ruled out of Order.
    Mr. ALEXANDER: The hon. and gallant Gentleman applied this restriction to all employers without any distinction at all and I think, if he refreshes his memory by a reference to the actual printed slip, he will agree. This Clause is directed against two forms of employers only, the industrial and provident societies, generally known, when speaking of them in a trading sense, as co-operative societies and public utility companies. We have heard very little argument about public utility companies, but we have heard a great deal about co-operative societies. We have heard also a very curious difference in the arguments used. The hon. and gallant Gentleman talked about what he regarded as an agreement made between the Co-operative Wholesale Society and the Labour party. There has been no such agreement. An agreement has been discussed at the Co-operative Congress at Cheltenham, but has not yet been submitted to or ratified by the annual conference of the Labour party. It was based not upon a request from the Labour party, as has been stated, but upon a request from the Co-operative party.
    Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Did not the inspiration come from Labour people who belong to co-operative societies?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: Not at all. The hon. and gallant Gentleman seemed to draw a connection between the discussions which have been going on of a political character with an actual case that arose in his constituency between the Co-operative Wholesale Society and the employés on their farm, but there is absolutely no connection at all between the political discussion in the co-operative movement and the actual relationship, as employer and employed,, between the Co-operative Wholesale Society and their farm workers. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman is doubtful about that, he might refer to the advertisement of the Co-operative Wholesale Society in the "Times" to-day. He is such a frequent contributor to the "Times" and such an ardent reader of it that I should have imagined he would be fully informed on that point already.
    1516
    But there is another point. The hon. Member for Reading (Mr. H. Williams) said that after all we are only an ordinary capitalist organisation, that we have probably a larger number of shareholders than other companies, but in all other respects we are just like a capitalist trading organisation. If that is so, why come to the House and ask for special Parliamentary powers against our organisation and against no other kind?
    Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Because you have special privileges.
    4.0 p.m.
    Mr. ALEXANDER: There are no special privileges conferred by Parliament upon this great, trading body of working-class consumers which are not equally conferred upon every other company which enjoys the protection of the Companies Act. The hon. Member says we have special privileges in relation to Income Tax. Never was there a greater mistake. We enjoy no special privilege. If the hon. Member wants confirmation of that, let him ask the Attorney-General to give the legal opinion of the Treasury. It has been stated with great orthodoxy and with great power many times in the last 12 months by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. He might also refresh his memory by reference to the issue of frequent Treasury memoranda in which it says we as co-operators are not in any case exempt from Income Tax. The only difference is that we are not assessed at the source under Schedules C and D, because if it were so, the loss to the Treasury would be greater than the gain, and, apart from that variation in machinery, not a single privilege is conferred by the Provident Societies Acts or the Income Tax Act, 1918, upon co-operative societies. Therefore, if that be the only reason hon. Members bring forward this Motion to-day, they have built their case on a very insecure foundation. Whatever becomes of the actual principle involved in the Clause, it is suggested that it is iniquitous, very unfair and very wrong for a body like a co-operative society to say to its employés, "You must belong to a trade union." I am the last one to subscribe readily at any time to compulsion. I do not like compulsion; I never did. But we must have regard to the facts

    1517
    and to the growing needs of the industrial situation. There are one or two things which, I think, will illustrate my point. In the first place, the Co-operative Wholesale Society are acting upon the direct vote and mandate of their shareholders, and when the question was first brought up in the Co-operative Society's quarterly meeting of shareholders, the position was that there was a trade union of co-operative employés at that time not affiliated to the Trade Union Congress who held up the movement for conditions of wages and hours which were not applied to their outside competitors, and, out of self-protection, the shareholders of the Co-operative Wholesale Society required their directors to lay it down that their employés must belong to a trade union which was capable of affiliation to the Trade Union Congress, and that, therefore, there should be no unfair conditions applied to them by a specialised body against the co-operative movement which were not applied against other capitalist employers.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: Was it that the Wholesale Society objected on the ground that they were demanding high wages?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: I am not to be drawn in that way at all. I will only say that if you were conducting a business you would know that you must have some regard to what were the general conditions obtaining in the general market. It was in order to protect themselves against specialised action that this line was taken. That resolution has been confirmed since from other motives, because trade unionists in the co-operative movement, have begun to see that there was not only a reason to take that, line in self-defence, but that there was sound logic for them as trade unionists to require that their employés should also be trade unionists. Let the House examine the case impartially. Here are two great movements, very largely composed of the same people. There are millions of trade unionists inside the co-operative movement as members of trade unions organised for defence against their employers, in order that they may conserve or improve their standards in relation to hours, wages and other conditions of employment. They organise the consumers in the co-operative movement in order that they may protect
    1518
    themselves against the forces of exploitation, and thus increase, as far as possible, the purchasing power of the wages they have been awarded. When they grow in their consuming organisation, they find themselves in the dual position not only of trade union employés fighting in a capitalised world, but in the position of employers.
    We have now 200,000 employés in the co-operative movement. What does a trade unionist say in such a position? He is bound logically to say to himself, "If I in my union have set down a platform of conditions of hours and wages for which I shall fight in a capitalist system, I cannot logically adopt a lower standard for the employés who have to work for me in my capacity as employer." There is not a single craft union which will not admit at once that it gets the trade union platform as a mere matter of form at once from the co-operative movement. There have been disputes about the interpretation of platforms—disputes which have been very less frequent in the co-operative movement than outside it. When a trade unionist has fought to get these conditions from his employer, and when he also confers those conditions and privileges upon the employés of his own society in the capacity of employer, is it not logical that he should say to those people, "If we confer upon you these privileges for which we have fought, you must be a part and parcel of the organisation which has secured the adoption of that standard of conditions?" For that reason there is nothing at all illogical in the attitude which is taken up by the co-operative movement in this particular matter.
    There is only one other point which I would like to make. If the Government were prepared, as they have been asked to do on more than one occasion from these benches, to withdraw this Bill at this moment, and really to confer with the trade union movement of this country as to the proper processes for conciliation, they might find a very good example in the events of the last 12 months in the co-operative movement. I have said that we have had our difficulties in regard to trade union relationships to the co-operative movement. Arising out of those troubles, we have found that the best way to deal with

    1519
    them is to get together, and, in the last 12 months, machinery has been set up under which a joint conciliation board, half provided by the Trade Union Congress and the other half by the co-operative movement, hear appeals in the case of all disputes. Already a number of cases, which formerly would have led to disputes, have been referred to that court—shall I say a court of arbitration, a conciliation board—and with very satisfactory results. If the Government really want to come to peace and conciliation in industry, I am firmly persuaded that if you would get your people into a trade union as a first step, and then agree to set up joint conciliation machinery, with the aid of the trade union movement, you would come much more rapidly to the spirit of peace and good will in industry than you will by imposing such a Measure as this.
    We have nothing of which to be ashamed in the position co-operators have taken in this matter, and if I need any support for that, I will only add it is significant that although the hon. and gallant Member for Chippenham has in the last two or three months made a strong point of the Wiltshire case, the whole co-operative movement—I am not speaking of the political section—has come down officially on the side of the trade unions in the fight against this Bill. It is all very well for hon. Members to smile, but if they had been present at Congress they might have seen the different aspects of the question. The co-operative movement is following on the lines of the Trade Union Congress in its fight against this Bill. If hon. Members really understood that, they would see how very strongly we are supported in our attitude in trying by the means we have adopted to secure a more uniform trade union position right through the movement.
    The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland): The hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. A. V. Alexander) seems to have a happy knack of reinforcing the arguments made on the side opposite to him. I had sympathy with the case which the hon. and gallant Member who moved this Clause brought forward, and I am bound to say that that sympathy has not been lessened, but has been reinforced by the speech of the hon. Member for Hillsborough.
    1520
    Hon. Members opposite seem always to claim that they can administer to others particular treatment which they would be the first to execrate if it were administered by anybody else. What is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander. Let me make my point quite clear. The hon. and gallant Member who moved this Clause brought forward the case of the co-operative societies who put pressure not only on their own employés to join a trade union, but who specified what trade union they would be at liberty to join, and what they would not. We have had no answer or explanation of any sort or kind from the hon. Member for Hillsborough, unless—
    Mr. ALEXANDER: I think the right hon. Gentleman could not have listened. I explained very carefully to the House that the object of the Resolution was to provide that they must belong to a union which was capable of affiliation to the Trade Union Congress. That is not laying down what union they should or should not join. There are many other unions which they could join, but the hon. and gallant. Member wants them to join a special co-operative employés' union which would seek to impose the very special conditions about which I spoke.
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Can the hon. Gentleman explain in the case of these various union, which have been banned by the Co-operative Wholesale Society and ex-communicated, what are the reasons which caused them to be excommunicated; were they not properly acting for the rights of their members, or what was the reason? Or are we to have a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde business in which Dr. Jekyll says, 'The union which the member may join must be approved by Mr. Hyde,' and Mr. Hyde comes forward and says. "We will not allow affiliation to be given"? I wonder what hon. Members opposite would say to the one analogy which naturally occurs to anyone who thinks of the subject. Supposing the coalowners were to say, "We will not only encourage any person who works for us to join the union which is at present led by the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Spencer), but we will stipulate that he does so. [An HON. MEMBER: "Do not use that

    1521
    illustration," and "Why not?"] Can any hon. Member on the other side produce evidence that there has been a definite stipulation that any of the miners in the employ of the coal-owners should join the union of which the hon. Member for Broxtowe is an official—[HON. MEMBERS: "Yes!]—and should not be allowed to join any other union? If so, we shall be very glad to hear of it. What the hon. Member also said is illustrative from another point of view, because the argument he has used is different from, and largely incompatible with, the argument used against Clause 6.
    In the very interesting speech of the hon. Member for Stratford (Mr. Groves) against Clause 6, the reason he objected to Clause 6 was, he said, that if non-unionists were allowed in the employment of local authorities, their presence would tend to undermine the position of trade unionists, that they would take away the guarantee or the security that trade unionists might have for the rate of wages, and that, therefore, their presence ought not to be tolerated, because it constituted an element of weakness in the position of trade unionists in bargaining. That was the principal argument against Clause 6 of the Bill when it was discussed, and, by the hon. Member's own showing, it is completely incomparable with their arguments against this Clause. The bulk of the members of the Co-operative Wholesale Society are trade unionists, and, therefore, whether they give a little freedom or not to their own employés, it is quite clear that the rate of remuneration cannot be prejudiced one way or the other. The two arguments are incompatible. I am bound to say, that from that point of view what I have listened to makes me sympathise with the hon. Member who introduced this Clause. On the other hand, as was explained when this Bill was in Committee, there is a real difference between the public employer and the private employer.
    The Co-operative Wholesale Society, the co-operative societies and the public utility societies are in the position of private employers, or, at the very least, in a position which is very much more analogous to that of private employers than that of the public authority which has been Publicly elected. The public authority has to observe a neutrality
    1522
    which is not necessary in the case of the private employer. Further, there is a special reason for the public employer which does not apply in the case of the private employer, and it is this. Where you have a public authority and where you have elections from time to time, if yon had a variation from the position of neutrality, you might have oscillations to and fro which would be both harmful and disastrous. But the same objection does not apply in the case of the societies we are considering now. As has been explained during the Committee stage of the Bill, the Government do not consider that the same objections apply from the point of view of the private employer and from the point of view of the public authority. Though much, as has been said, would naturally predispose one to sympathise with the point of view of the Member who brought forward this Clause, we do not wish to have the area of this Bill unduly extended, and, therefore, we must either ask the Proposer to withdraw the Motion, after he has had it considered, or, on the other hand, ask the House not to accept the Clause.
    Mr. J. H. THOMAS: The right hon. Gentleman has delivered us a lecture on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. All the time he was looking at us, but he was really talking to the hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side who supported the Motion for our benefit. He might just as well have got at it straight away and said, "The Government never intended to accept the Clause." They knew perfectly well that they were not going to accept it, and the Mover and Seconder knew perfectly well before they got up that they were not going to accept it. All this co-operative humbug is really camouflage. Therefore, I will answer the right hon. Gentleman about the coal-owners and the justice of this particular Clause. The Mover of the Clause showed his ignorance of the entire situation in the first five minutes of his speech. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman heard it, but what he said was this, "If any justification were needed for this Clause that I am now moving, it is the decision arrived at by the Co-operative Wholesale Society at their Cheltenham Conference." Is that correct?
    Captain CAZALET: The increased desirability.
    Mr. THOMAS: That at least indicates that what he had in his mind, and what was confusing the whole issue, was that the decision at Cheltenham was a decision by the people who are affected by the Resolution. We had to correct him at once, by telling him that the Co-operative Wholesale Society, with which this deals, was an entirely different body. When I corrected him, he proceeded at once to say that the justification for this Clause was something that was happening in his own constituency. Let us examine the position. He frankly admitted that in his own constituency a number of men are enjoying superior economic conditions than those who are similarly employed by private employers.
    Captain CAZALET: Yes, that is it.
    Mr. THOMAS: He said that this condition, which is the improved status of labour in his own constituency, was brought about by the co-operative effort of the great mass of the working class. Yet admitting that, and that these people benefit to the extent of shillings per week and work many hours less per week, he immediately says that their objection is that they shall be compelled by the people who give them these favourable privileges to pay something towards the upkeep of the enjoyment of those privileges.
    Captain CAZALET: I have no objection to them joining a trade union. I do not wish to put any objections in their way. I said I did not wish them to be forced into a trade union against their will.
    Mr. THOMAS: That is to say, if they have no objection to enjoying those advantages you have enumerated. Not one of them objects to that. Not one of them says: "No; it is brought about by a trade union." [Interruption.] Here is the authority from Reading. If, admitting, first, that the great bulk of the members of the co-operative movement are themselves trade unionists and that by their co-operative effort they set an example to other employers, demand a high standard of conditions for their own employés, is it unfair that they themselves being the employers should take responsibility? Please let the House observe that it is not the director. It is not like the railway company. The railway director may take action and be
    1524
    responsible for it. A general manager can take action and be responsible for it. But everybody knows perfectly well in this particular case the great bulk of the membership—
    Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Is it the case, that since the co-operators, who are largely trade unionists, provide subsidies to enable this farm to be carried on—and at a loss—they are entitled to coerce them into joining a union?
    Mr. THOMAS: Now the hon. Gentleman has drawn a separate picture. I will tell you exactly what I mean. What I mean, and what I state truthfully, is that the great bulk of these people are themselves trade unionists. They themselves believe in trade union principles. They contribute towards making a profit. That is disputed, and surely as employers they are entitled to say, "We, as employers"—
    Mr. WILLIAMS: Is there any profit in this case?
    Mr. THOMAS: The hon. Member says, "Is there any profit?" There is sufficient profit, to follow the words of the Mover of the Clause, to enable this society to pay higher wages and to enable its workers to work fewer hours than is the case with regard to all its competitors in the immediate vicinity. That is the case stated by the Mover. Surely if they are enjoying these conditions—
    Mr. WILLIAMS: Even if it be run at a loss.
    Mr. THOMAS: The hon. Gentleman says. "Even if run at a loss." We are dealing now with a concern that the Mover of the Clause says pays better wages out of their losses than all their competitors do out of their profits. But the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour asked the question directly, "Is there any employer that demands and makes it a condition that men should belong to a particular union?" I think that was the question?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I asked if there was any proof that the mine-owners made a direct stipulation that anybody should belong to the union of the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Spencer).
    Mr. THOMAS: There are some Members behind me who will answer

    1525
    clearly and specifically that point, but here is a letter from the Notts and District Miners' Industrial Union:
    "On behalf of the above union, I hereby appeal to you at once to join up. We are desirous that every man shall become a member willingly. You know its objects. You are reaping the benefits of the agreement it obtained. It is the only recognised union at the colliery. If your name is not entered in my book on Friday next, I shall have no option but to send your name into the office. On behalf of the local Committee, H. W. Cooper."
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: If the right hon. Gentleman will forgive my intervention, can he say that that letter from the local secretary is any proof that the employers compel the men to join that union? So far there is no proof whatever.
    Mr. THOMAS: The right hon. Gentleman has asked the question, and I will answer it. During the first two days on the Second Reading Debate on this Bill, when the hon. Member who is the general secretary of this union spoke from below the Gangway, every speaker from the opposite side of the House and the papers outside drew attention to his speech as the justification for freedom in the trade union movement, freedom from the tyranny of the General Council, freedom from the Miners' Federation. That was the text. Here is an authoritative letter by a committee man, sent on behalf of the hon. Member's union, which says something more than any of us dare contemplate. Supposing I, on behalf of the National Union of Railwaymen, issued a notice and said, "If you do not join the National Union of Railwaymen I am going to send your name to the general manager." The answer to the Minister of Labour—and I had not seen this letter until this moment—is this: "Do not let him use the Member for Broxtowe any more, and do not let the Conservative party issue any more pamphlets to the effect that the Member for Broxtowe is the shining example of freedom from trade union tyranny."
    I want to deal with another aspect that he put. Here is a new Clause before the House, and it is suggested we are only going to deal with a particular working-class organisation, namely, the Co-operative movement. They say, "We are going to make them do something that we cannot compel the ordinary
    1526
    employer do." The Minister of Labour challenged us on the question of coal-owners; but he knows perfectly well that there are a number of employers who may not specify a particular union to which their men shall not belong, but they make is a condition that the men shall belong to no union. Is it not as bad to compel a man to belong to one particular union as to compel him to belong to no union? The right hon. Gentleman, apparently, does not think so, but I think it is compulsion of the worst kind. The Government have intimated that they cannot accept the new Clause. I am surprised that the hon. Member should have moved the new Clause, because I always look upon him as a progressive hope. I happen to know the Wiltshire constituency that he represents, almost as well as he knows it himself, and I should not be surprised if when he goes to Wiltshire again he finds that someone has been pulling his leg in sending that letter. He must be thankful to the Government for saving him from embarrassment, and the Governmust must be thankful that, in asking him to withdraw his new Clause, it has given an opportunity to the Minister of Labour to give us an unnecessary lecture.
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: The hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. A. V. Alexander) stated very specifically that there was already an existing trade union in the co-operative movement, but it claimed special privileges which the society could not permit them to have He gave the best possible capitalistic argument against that union. That union is far too good for good trade unionists, according to his point of view. It wants something more from the co-operative movement than the other trade unions get, and so he will not have it Therefore, he says, "You must join a union which is connected with the Trade Union Congress. We cannot possibly have a privileged co-operative society union. It is far too much of a trade union for capitalists like Our-selves." That is his argument against this union When it comes to cash, he is in a quandary, for he has one foot in the capitalistic camp as a co-operator and another foot in the Socialist camp as a trade unionist. Therefore, we can expect a very lucid judgment from him. I will give his and his party's real reason for objecting to the Co-operative Workers' Union.

    1527
    I have here the rules of the Co-operative Society Trade Union. They are model rules. They provide that the union books have to be audited by a chartered or incorporated accountant. We do not find that in other trade union rules. That is a very desirable provision, because it shows that the members of the executive of that trade union are determined that the members shall be put into the same protected position as the shareholders in a limited company in regard to audit. There is another very important clause in the rules. I find that the objects of the union are to improve the conditions and protect the interests of its members, and to settle disputes between employers and employés in relation to conditions—
    Mr. BARNES: To which union's rules is the hon. and learned Member referring?
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: The rules of the Co-operative Employés Union, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and they are printed by a co-operative printing society, so that everything is kept in the family. But here is the really ruling clause in the rules which is causing all the trouble. This is the murder and the murder will out. This co-operative union is to protect and to further the interests of the members in industrial life and to discourage all party, sectional and political interests. That is why it is objected to. It is because it cannot and will not subscribe to the Labour party's funds and objects that it is anathema. That is why the following letter has been sent from the Co-operative Wholesale Society to certain or its employés:
    "It has been reported to us by the National Union of Agricultural Workers that you are not a member of a trades union, as requested in our notice of the 3rd March, 1925, of which we enclose copy. Please, therefore, let us know per return if this statement is correct, as although we have no wish to terminate your engagement with us, we shall be compelled to do so if you are not a member of a trades union before Saturday, 30th April, 1927. If you have joined any other trades union, please give the name of the union."
    What ate the facts about the Union of Agricultural Workers? In 1924 the income derived from members was £12,000 and the organisation expenses
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    £14,000. What a union to join. In 1925, the position was a little better. The income was £13,978 and the expenses £13,831, so that there was a trifling balance. What has happened in the last few years I have not been able to ascertain. How can any hon. Member like the hon. Member for Hillsborough, a leading man in a very prosperous successful movement, which has done enormous good for the working classes, tell people to join a union like that, where all the money is consumed by officials? The members of that union are in a position to give the answer which was given to the question, "Why do the heathen rage?" "Because they do not get 10 per cent. of the money that is gathered." They get less than the heathen by joining a union like that. By paying their subscriptions they will only be providing funds for officials, and there will never be anything left for benefits. Cannot hon. Members opposite recommend something better than that? Cannot they recommend something solvent to join? Cannot they let people remain in the union for a few years longer, although that union does discourage all party, sectional and political interest? I know that it is an intolerable thing to hon. Members opposite that a working man should not contribute to the Labour party, which has managed in the last twelve months or so to bankrupt the trade anions of this country.
    I have always been of opinion that it is illegal for co-operative societies to embark on political expenditure. If trade unions required a special Act, a fortiori co-operative societies require one to authorise them to dissipate their funds in that way. I have not been moved from that view by the statement that at Cheltenham recently the Co-operative Congress came to a foolish decision to do so. There is a co-operative society at Barrhead, and in 1918 a member got an injunction against that society subscribing, to political funds. The executive then called a meeting to alter their rules, is the terms of an opinion of the right hon. and learned Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) and several other societies did the same, but the members turned up wholesale and voted these political proposals down. I know that a vast number of members

    1529
    of co-operative societies are opposed to being tied to the wheels of any party, and they are right in that attitude.
    Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: Is that why Unionist headquarters are circulating leaflets to every society supporting candidates for election to management committees?
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: It was a wise thing to do, because it is in the interests of the co-operators that they should be protected from their political members, and that they should not be victimised by political co-operators who like Parliamentary life, but at the expense of the working classes. I formed the opinion in the particular case at Barrhead, and I am of the same opinion to-day, with regard to the co-operative movement, that it is illegal for co-operative societies under the law to spend their funds for political purposes, or to contribute to the Labour party. If the trade unions required an Act of Parliament in 1913 to give them political privileges, the co- operative societies also require an Act of Parliament to give them political rights, and I expect they will find them- selves in the Courts before very long, and a decision of the Courts will be given to that effect. Looking at the question from the political and party point of view, I think the resolution at Cheltenham will have a very far-reaching and beneficial effect on the fortunes of our party. To be able to tell a working woman that her dividends in future are going to help the Labour party is one of the finest pieces of propaganda that could be imagined. The Labour party has ruined the trade unions and it will ruin the co-operative societies, because there is no limit to the depths of their maws if they are not checked.
    I agree with the hon. Member for Hillsborough with regard to the profits of the co-operative societies. I agree that the co-operative societies, theoretically, do not make profits. It was explained to me by a leading co-operator at Alexandria. I said to him, "What is your dividend but profit?" He replied, "It is not profit. Our dividend is the amount which we overcharge our customers." They are purely capitalistic institutions, and it is well that they should keep the moths out of the bee-hives, or, in other words, prevent the
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    politicians in the co-operative movement from doing the same thing that they have done in the trade union movement. I hope to see the co-operative movement spread more and more, because the great trouble of present-day civilisation is that the producer at the one end is rooked by the big combines and the consumers at the other end is also rooked, and neither get justice. If we can bring the producer and consumer face to face, in co-operation, we shall have solved the great problem of civilisation, and that is what I hope to see the co-operative movement do. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh! "] Yes. I have been a member of a co-operatve society and I was exceedingly well served, and if I had a co-operative society in my own district I would join to-morrow.
    The co-operative movement is a splendid movement. It does good work and contains a big hope for the working classes, but it is a purely capitalist institution, and exactly like a limited company. I do not admit that it has any privileges. You cannot say to the ordinary employer that he must make pro- or anti-trade union conditions, because he can get the better of that quite simply. Therefore, I am averse to depriving a capitalist institution like the co-operative society of the same freedom that we leave to ordinary employers; but I do say that they or any employer who do the like are acting tyrannically in what they have done recently that it is unjust, and that it would be far better that they should allow their employés to remain in their own beneficent union, a solvent union, even though that union does not believe in encouraging party, sectional and political interests.
    Mr. KELLY: I desire to oppose this new Clause. It is an attack on the co-operative societies. It was good to hear the observations of the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) when paying a tribute to the co-operators, especially after the vicious attack he made on them in the earlier part of his speech. I wonder what offence the co-operative societies have committed that they have been singled out by the proposers of this new Clause for this treatment, when organisations on the employers' side have been left out entirely? It is not with any desire to give freedom to these societies; it is intended as a direct attack upon

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    them, and the hon. Member who seconded the Amendment showed quite clearly that this is the desire, despite his lack of knowledge and utter ignorance of the co-operative and trade union movement. He has no regard for the co-operative movement and understands it less.
    Question, "That the Clause be read a Second time," put, and negatived.
    Mr. SPEAKER: The next new Clause—(Non-recognition, of organisations of which established civil servants may not be members)—in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Moss Side (Mr. Gerald Hurst) and the hon. Member for Stoke Newington (Mr. G. Jones) is outside the scope of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 1.—(Illegal strikes and lock-outs.)
    Mr. CLYNES: I beg to move to leave out the Clause.
    This Clause, as it emerged from the Committee stage, is double the length it was when we first saw it; it is twice as long and about three times as bad as when it was first introduced. And its increase in length, its very considerable extension, has not diminished the original obscurity of many of its provisions. When the Bill was first introduced, even before it was introduced, the boast was made on behalf of the Government that such long and mature attention had been given to the drafting of this Clause that it was regarded as being as perfect as anything which had ever been introduced on behalf of a modern Government, but the way it has been changed and hacked to pieces by hon. Members on all sides of the House should teach to the head of the Government a lesson, and he should be careful in any statement he makes regarding future Measures. We regard the Clause as being worse now than it was when first introduced. During the Second Reading of the Bill we drew attention to the absence of any provision for equitable treatment as between employers and labour and trade unionists who might be disposed to cease work, and faced with our charge of unequal treatment the Attorney-General said that the matter had been considered, but provision was not made in this Clause for dealing with lock-outs because an attempt to do so would be useless, and any such Clause would be quite inept for that purpose. I invite the Attorney-General to
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    explain to the House and to the country what value Sub-section (1) of this Clause has in regard to dealing with lock-outs which employers of labour may force.
    Primarily, the lock-out is a weapon to force such a condition of hunger and privation and want on the workers of the country as to compel them to surrender to the employers' terms. It is not a cruel thing to say that a lock-out must to some degree inflict a state of starvation not merely upon the workers who are locked out, but upon their wives and families. Happily, provisions now exist in this country, perhaps better than ever before, for diminishing the conditions of stern necessity and real domestic privation, but I assert that in the case of every extensive lock-out that has taken place, and they are much more common than strikes, the feeling behind the mind of the employers is that it is merely a case of endurance, for in the end the workers must give in when they have suffered beyond a point which they can no longer endure. While inevitably, and almost always, the lock-out weapon must inflict some degree of privation if not starvation on the families of the workers no corresponding loss can be inflicted on the employers by the use of the strike weapon. Men who strike cannot put the employers in any condition of want; they cannot starve the employers' children. I have often felt that if the conditions of industry were such that by the use of the strike weapon, by withholding labour, starvation could be inflicted upon employers they might be predisposed to show a greater degree of mercy and reason toward their employés than they do now. Unfortunately the fight in such matters never can be even.
    When we first debated this Clause in Committee I inquired why, if it aimed at the prevention of any future general strike, the words "general strike" are not to be found in the Bill at all. I repeat that inquiry. If the suppression of the general strike is the motive behind this Bill surely the Government should use the words "general strike" in order that it should be understood by those who have to deal with industrial questions and trade union policy. One of the primary objections which we are entitled to urge against this Clause is that it raises, and will always maintain, a condition of the greatest uncertainty in the

    1533
    minds of those who have to guide the working men as to when it is right and legal for them to strike and when it may not be legal or permissible. It is highly advisable, indeed it is essential, that in order to maintain peace those who have to guide working men and determine trade union policy should know clearly what the law is, when it is legal and when it is not legal to advise their people to cease work. We have had innumerable large scale lock-outs and very few large scale strikes. The reason is that a large scale strike has generally been preceded by a large scale lock-out. The first great lock-out in modern British industry occurred in the engineering trade some 27 or 28 years ago. The trouble was a very small one. It occurred in London, where the men in the engineering industry felt that the special conditions in and about the City of London entitled them to an eight-hour day, and failing by negotiation to secure that standard they decided to, strike.
    The employers were not perfectly organised, but they soon perfected their organisation and throughout the length and breadth of the country, in the great towns and cities where engineering shops existed, measures were taken to coerce many employers of labour to lock out their workpeople, who had asked for nothing, who had no grievance, and who were not parties to the establishment of an eight hour day in London. From this we can trace the mood which has tended to greater mass action on the part of employers and employed, and the consequent tendency to raise disputes, whether strikes or lock-outs, to a large scale indeed. At any rate, the workmen did not begin this modern tendency, and so far as modern employers have used the weapon of the lock-out, which is a weapon of privation and starvation, they have not scrupled to try to force their employés into a state of surender, when those employés have had no grievance and have made no demands at all. I am prepared to say what I have said in the country to large bodies of workmen, and it is this: that trade union leaders in Britain have never, either at, home or abroad at international conferences, advocated the policy of the general strike. It has not been either our desire or our official attitude. When we have made this pronouncement we have been mocked at to some extent and challenged as to
    1534
    why, in the case of May last year, we did not repudiate the rank and file of our followers for the course they determined to take. I urge that that was essentially a rank and file movement.
    5.0 p.m.
    I was present at the great conference of trade union secretaries, numbering some thousand representatives, 90 per cent. of whom were not officials but working men drawn from their trades and workshops, and by a unanimous vote they decided to take a certain course. In my own particular sphere of action in the proper way and at, the proper time I stated my views on that act, on the policy of the general strike, as an act of folly, but I reject the view that it is the business of trade union leaders who dissent from a decision of the rank and file to put themselves into a state of revolt against that decision and acclaim themselves hostile to whatever policy their men may decide. There is such a thing as loyalty, and leaders accept the decision of the rank and file, leaving them to take the consequences of their action. The strike of last year was in the nature of a very desperate endeavour on the part of a few million workmen to come to the rescue of the miners, who, observe, had been attacked not for the first time and whose wages were again in peril by a policy which the mine-owners had put forward. Accordingly, I would urge that if the Government wanted really to deal with the possibility of any future general strike they would have brought forward some Measure for legislating against a political strike. By so doing they would be in a far stronger position than they now are with this Bill before them. Perhaps in that relation I might quote what appeared in a journal which commonly supports the present Government, namely, the Sunday "Observer." In the "Observer" yesterday, under Political Notes, this statement may be found:
    "If the Government had limited its restrictive action to declaring a general strike illegal and accompanied it with insistence on remedial publicity, it would have done something permanently helpful to industrial peace and not unprofitable to itself. Reason is the only keeper of the peace and publicity alone can weild its authority,"
    But instead of limiting the Bill to more or less understandable and intelligible proposals to protect the country against

    1535
    a recurrence of what was regarded by some as a disaster last year, they have thought proper to include in this Bill innumerable other lines of attack upon both the political and the industrial phase of the trade union movement. The Bill itself has not been inspired by the general strike of last year. The general strike has rather been made the occasion for an attack upon several lines on the organised workers in both their political and their trade union aspects. I will not labour that side of the question any further, but I do ask the Government to drop the pretence that the main purpose of this Bill is to insure the country against the possibility of any recurrence of what happened last year. My profound conviction is that no legislation can possibly deter millions of working men from taking, a certain line of action and from ceasing to work anyhow, if they feel so deeply aggrieved and wronged as to make them determined that that is the course which they are entitled to take. I find, in many parts of the country, that the feeling in the minds of working men at this moment is that whatever may happen in respect of this Bill in the way of its becoming law, nothing will ever prevent bodies of working men ceasing work whenever they think they are morally entitled to do so in order to protect themselves and their follows. But, if that state of things has to be dealt with, the Government could have made it its business to limit this proposal to efforts to find ways and means to cope with what may be regarded as a very great national calamity.
    In the Committee stage, very many changes were made in the Clause. In my view the most intelligible change is the remarkable change of liberating from any prospects of penalty, either financially or otherwise, the masses of men who themselves are guilty of the offences against which the Bill provides. Masses of individual working men are not to go to gaol, they are not to be penalised or punished for the mere act of ceasing work, yet it is the act of ceasing working which counts. It is that extended state of idleness which, in itself, would be a condition causing the Government to feel that it was being coerced, and causing deprivations and losses to be endured by the community, whether in a small or large degree, yet
    1536
    that primary offence of refusing to go on with their work is not to be the subject of punishment or penalty of any man. Why is that? It is because the Government saw the absurdity of thinking to arrest and imprison hundreds of thousands or millions of men who might take that course. Having been compelled to abandon the attempt to defend that absurdity, they go to the other extreme of inflicting the greater injustice upon those who happen to be regarded is ringleaders.
    Upon what grounds are those who serve the trade unions and carry out their orders, and give, advice and help to formulate policy, to be placed in a different category before the law from any other class of leader in the country? It is well known that there, have been strikes and stoppages entered into contrary to the advice of leaders; not advice publicly given or advice of which the country, or the Government, would ever know. Most of the decisions reached are reached not at public meetings but at executive meetings; meetings which are not attended by the Press and which are in no sense made public in any way. Frequently a strike occurs after a long process of consideration, leading up from the home of the working man himself to whatever may be the highest authority his particular organisation. I think I have said before, either out of this House or in it, that the first step to be taken is frequently taken not by the working man but by the working man's wife, who naturally wants better conditions, if by some movement they, can be got, and who properly inspires her husband to take some step to try and make conditions better and to get the benefit of better wages. If that be so, in very many of these fights, so far from there being acts of aggression or scenes of disorder, women have taken a more prominent part than men. While from first to last, the wife of the working man might be the immediate cause of the stoppage, yet the blame in to fall upon the so-called ringleader or the trade union official.
    I have only one further thing to say under this heading. Just as so many, if not all, of the other parts of this Bill will fail in their alleged objects, none will fail more completely than the endeavour to throw the penalty of responsibility

    1537
    upon the trade union official. I am convinced that one result of the Clause will be to extend any strike, no matter what its cause or character is, in point of duration, if an attempt is made to arrest any so-called trade union leader and to seek to punish him because of the advice which he has given to his men. One Sub-section in this Clause deals, as we allege most unfairly, with the former freedom that workmen have enjoyed sympathetically to associate with each other for a common end. This tendency to sympathetic action has commonly developed in more recent years because of the greater extent of capitalist power and because of the corresponding weakness of individual workmen in trades acting in their single capacity.
    Trade union activity would be almost valueless without the right of further sympathetic action on the part of organised bodies of workmen in the future. The workers' unity is that condition upon which alone working men must depend to put themselves on anything like a condition of equality with employers in the matter of arranging conditions and settling relations between employer and employed. However different men may be in trades, in pursuits, in occupations, in politics, and in point of view, they all claim the right of the wage earner, irrespective of their pursuits or trades, to give assistance to each other in the struggle which they may have to face. I have said, and I repeat it, that probably hundreds of thousands of the workmen who whole-heartedly entered into the last general strike were workmen who did not support the Labour party at all, who were Liberal and Conservative workmen, associated with their respective trades. Whatever might happen to be their political colour, however, they felt that their fortunes must hang together, and they had a perfect right collectively to use their power in order to balance the might which even a single capitalist can wield. While one enormously rich employer, if not acting within a federation or body of employers, can by his own action put the lives, not to say the wages, but even the lives and domestic prospects of thousands of men in jeopardy, it is impossible for any individual working man to exert any influence at all upon conditions or policy and therefore, his ideal of trade unionism rests upon the conviction that what cannot
    1538
    be attempted by a working man singly can be accomplished or should be attempted with the support of law and without interference by the law by working men in every collective trade union.
    I ask the right hon. and learned Attorney-General to observe how complete is the hostility which this particular Clause has aroused. As the right hon. Gentleman is no doubt well aware, even in trade union circles, there are degrees of feeling on these questions of policy. There are the very advanced, and the advanced men; there are the very moderate men and the reactionary men. There might be even several other degrees, but, with one accord, the whole of the trade union movement has manifested its hostility to this policy of the Government. In the moderate school of trade union thought, there is the Federation of Trade Unions. Their official, Mr. Appleton, in his last report makes the following statement:
    "Under the terms of the Bill it would be very difficult to say when any sympathetic strike would fall within the illegal category, or when such a strike might be accounted a general strike. In view of the tendency on the part of some individuals and of some Courts of law to hold all sympathetic strikes illegal, the ambiguity was deplorable."
    So the Attorney-General will see that the whole forces of organised trade unions, whether it be definitely Labour in the political sense, or whether it be on the extreme or the moderate side, take the same view of this lamentable step to which the Government are committed. I believe that view will find expression with the greatest unanimity and determination, whenever the first moment of test has to come, in the event of this Bill becoming law. If the organised workers give way to such a policy their decline is assured. They will have forfeited the only means by which, in the past, they have been able to retain anything like a reasonable standard of remuneration or good conditions of service. On whatever matters working men may be disposed to give way, I am convinced they will not, without a fight, whatever the cost may be to the country or to the Government, give way, whenever the moment of test has to come, as to the future exercise of their right of collective bargaining.

    1539
    As I understand this Clause it will really mean that the greater the grievance of workmen the less is their chance of being able by this Bill to remove it. A strike will be unlawful if it has other objects in addition to the furtherance of a trade dispute, or if it has for its direct object an object other than the furtherance of a trade dispute within the trade or industry in which the workers are engaged. I take those words to mean that a Government later on will be left to determine an illegal strike, not by a consideration of it within the Clause itself, not by the use of any language there is in the Clause, but by the assumed motives or intentions which are behind the act of the workmen. I do not envy those who in future must try to enter into the secret sensations of workmen in their settlement of questions of industrial conflict. Motives and intentions are not always revealed. This Government is ready to guess at them, to undertake to assess them, and having, in their judgment, come to a conclusion as to what the motives and intentions are, to apply the rigours of the law or call up all these penalties in order that men shall be punished for something which they have not revealed and, indeed, cannot reveal. In short, if the 60 odd lines of print are put before any average workmen and he is asked to give his opinion upon what they mean, I am certain he would be as puzzled after reading them 20 times as when he made the first effort. Whatever do they mean?
    So much is that so, that I find in different parts of the country some men are not troubling their heads about the Bill, because they say and they have told me, that it can make no difference to what they intend to do, that you cannot compel them to remain at work if they are determined to leave. So that the Government might have tried, I think, in fewer words and in a more direct and a more honest and straightforward way, to deal with the question of a general strike, alleged to be the cause of this Measure. I fear we have not had in any Parliamentary work in modern times any step greater than this towards teaching the masses of the people a contempt for the law, and we do pride ourselves on the Labour side, I assert, upon the regard which
    1540
    commonly we all entertain for the law when it once is the law. We accept as a rough and ready means for governing this very mixed community the democratic method of counting heads instead of breaking them, and getting majorities of people in order that the law should be settled; but such has been the spirit of evil and of class and party malice behind this Measure, that we are convinced that when it does become law it will not win what is necessary for all law, namely, the respect of those who have to obey it. So that it may well be that in future when anyone wants to justify any kind of Parliamentary or legislative outrage, it will be sufficient to say, "What did the Tory Government do in 1927?"
    I finish by saying that, however moderately I might have tried to express my own views, I shall, I hope, be as stalwart as any in any endeavour which workmen make in future to retain what is the distinction between the freeman and the slave. The slave is compelled to remain at his work by the compulsion of his master; the freeman has the right to leave his job whenever he thinks he is entitled to do so. That is a right of which a Government, even a powerful Tory Government, has no title whatever to rob him. You can arrange peace and, I should hope, prosperity in industry, upon the basis not of compulsion but on the basis only of an appeal to reason. This is not an appeal to reason; it is an appeal to numbers; and merely because the Government feels that it has weight of numbers on its side it claims the right to impose this restraint and these wrongs upon organised labour. But we shall stand for the freedom of workmen in future, even after this Bill becomes law, as we have stood for the freedom of workmen in the past.
    Mr. BROMLEY: I wish to support the Amendment. We on this side of the House and certainly I, personally, believe that Clause 1 is neither well balanced nor understood nor fair in its intentions. There have been changes for the worse, as far as the workmen are concerned, in the Clause since it first appeared in the Bill. Whether we take its original form or the amended form, I can apply quite fearlessly and sincerely the criticism which I have already made of it. Unfortunately it has been conceived

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    by the Government in panic and in arrogance—in arrogance because of the weight of numbers already referred to, and in panic arising from the national strike of 1026. I suggest to the Government without any fiery words that any Measure conceived in either of those frames of mind, and especially a Measure conceived in both, is not likely to be well balanced or fair to the individuals at whom it is aimed. I can quite conceive that after the calamity which struck the industries of the nation last year all men on all sides of the House and all thinking people would be making some endeavour to avoid a recurrence. I suggest to the Government that the sane and proper and manly way to try to avoid a recurrence would be, not to put shackles on the organised workers, but to endeavour to delve down to the roots of the upas tree and find why such things are considered necessary by the working classes of the country in order to get some measure of justice.
    If it had been the honest desire of this tremendously powerful Government, numerically, to avoid a similar occurrence in the future, it would have exerted its power and authority in getting down to the seeds which bring these discontentments amongst working people and trying to remove them, for they are capable of removal. There is sufficient wealth in this country to give a fair deal to our workpeople, and they are sufficiently diligent and honest workpeople to be entitled thereto. Instead of that the Government, in their panic, fearing to go the long and the just way round to salve these sores after proper diagnosis, in their haste and in their belief to make such an occurrence impossible again, bring forward this Bill, of which Clause 1 is the outcome of class hatred and an endeavour to force the slave mentality on the workers of the country. I say coolly and after a great deal of thought given to this Bill as a whole and to Clause 1 in particular, that it is impossible for any Government or any power in this country, now or in the future, to force upon the workers of the country that old bovine spirit of work and sleep and obey all injunctions of whatever character they may be as to their wages and manner of following their employment.
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    There has emerged from this discussion a suggestion from Members on the Government side that something of the character I have indicated would have been the right way—the conciliation method, the method of inquiry, of looking into things and trying to give the working people a square deal. The Ministerial Bench refused to consider that. I am not going to criticise that decision too vehemently, because I do not think the suggestion could find a place in this Bill. But I do suggest that Clause 1 should be deleted, or, better still, that the whole Bill should be scrapped and some conciliatory method, some method of fair and just inquiry substituted for this class Measure. It has been said from the opposite benches that this is a manufactured agitation and that it is confined to the protests of trade unions. That I am prepared to refute at once. Not only is there no manufacture about the enthusiastic condemnation of this Bill and of Clause 1 in particular, but some of us who are likely to be penalised under the Bill when it becomes law, though that will not have a great deal of terror for us, are already having more difficulty than will be conceived by some right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite in keeping our people in a calm frame of mind and persuading them to allow us to deal with this matter in this Chamber.
    The opposition is wider than the opposition of trade unions. From my own constituency I have had resolutions condemnatory of the Government and of the Bill and of Clause 1 in particular. The opposition comes, in the first place, from co-operative guilds. A few minutes ago the House was considering the question of co-operative societies. There is a large number of co-operative guilds in the constituency that I have the honour to represent, and they send me resolutions framed with as great severity as any framed by trade union branches. Then, again, the board of guardians of Barrow-in-Furness, certainly not a Labour organisation or controlled by its Labour members, has asked me to oppose by every possible means this Bill, and Clause 1 in particular. The town council also passed a resolution, which has been forwarded to me, condemning the Bill, but the Government appear to

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    be incapable of realising that, instead of curing the evil which it professes to cure, the Bill is likely to cause more turmoil, and disturbance, and dissatisfaction, and probably more industrial disputes in the future than we have experienced as a general rule in the past. I regret that Ministers, who are supposed to be men of perspicacity, education and understanding, do not appear to know the psychology of the working people of their own nation, whom they are endeavouring to suppress by Clause 1. As the Bill originally stood, the first Sub-section of Clause 1 contained the words:
    "Any object beside the furtherance of a trade dispute."
    Those words might not have been the most meticulous English but they could be generally understood. The amended Bill reads that a strike is illegal
    "if it has any object other than or in addition to the furtherance of a trade dispute."
    Those words, I suggest, give to legal gentlemen, and also to non-legal gentlemen in the persons of magistrates who may be called upon to deal with these points, the power to veto any industrial dispute in this country, even though it may be the adoption of protective measures by the members of a union against some infringement of their conditions of service by a rapacious employer or set of employers. We are told that the Clause is not meant to have this effect, but as I analyse the alterations made to Clause 1 I see it in that way. I have given it careful consideration and I have had explanations not only in this Chamber but from the Ministry of Labour—given I understand with the cognisance and agreement of the Attorney-General—which would appear to make this Clause less offensive and dangerous than some of us at first thought it was. I suggest, however, that these amendments give it practically the effect which we all feared at first. There might be a dispute, clearly within the confines of a particular industry, for purposes of defence against a proposed lengthening of hours or reduction of wages. People unfriendly to organised labour would be enabled under this Clause to hold that in addition to that defensive object a trade union's action would carry with it in such a case some
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    coercion or intimidation of the Government or something else apart from the ordinary trade dispute. Clause 1, with all the Amendments that have been made to it, is still an "un-understandable" and difficult Clause which appears to have the definite intention of making practically impossible any legitimate strike or any stand by the workers against aggression on the part of the employers. That is why I so willingly support this Amendment.
    I go further in my criticism of the Clause. Suppose that the premises I have put forward are wrong. With all respect, I doubt the bona fides of the Government in the Bill as a whole, and in this Clause in particular, but suppose that I am taking a too severe view and that, for example, a strike of railwaymen would not be held to be intimidatory or to contain within it the germ of something other than an ordinary trade dispute. The Clause would still shackle and confine the trade unions and prevent them from taking part, not in any national strike but in any legitimate strike within an industry, which affected men employed by one employer or one set of employers. It curtails the freedom of the men to withhold their labour from one employer or set of employers. In the last part of Sub-section (1) we find the words
    "or between workmen and workmen in that trade or industry,"
    but if we turn to Sub-section (3) we find the words
    "Within the same trade or industry if their wages or conditions of employment are determined in accordance with the conclusions of the same joint industrial council, conciliation board or other similar body."
    Now my union, for example, has an understanding with the Transport Workers' Union. We have in this city men employed by the London combine, engaged on tubes, trams and omnibuses. The men are in the same employment, the one body of shareholders take the dividends from the pooled results of the operations of these three sets of work-people. Our agreement provides for the underground railwaymen, fighting in defence, or in aggression if necessary alongside of and in conjunction with their fellow trade unionists who operate omnibuses or tramcars. Clause 1 would make that arrangement impossible The men would not be considered to be in the

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    same industry. The wages and conditions are not fixed by the same conciliation board or other machinery. If the men, actuated by the purest and most altruistic motives, desired to act with their fellow transport workers, and their own colleagues, by refusing to carry traffic, they would be placed in an illegal position. I myself, according to this beneficent Measure, would be likely to find myself in what is euphemistically termed "durance vile." I should be in a particularly lively position under this Measure, because I happen to be both a chief officer of my union and a member of the General Council, and the Attorney-General would be able to get me on two counts. I do not know whether my penalty would be doubled or not. Apart from that, this Clause is a definite infringement of the right of association in reference to workmen employed by one employer, and it does not affect the question of a national strike at which it is supposed to be aimed. Clause 1 goes further than we are told it is intended to go, and I ask for its deletion as a very brutal, ill-considered and badly-balanced proposal.
    My union also has an agreement with the members of the electrical trade unions, employed in the generating stations which provide the "juice" for these services Their conditions are not governed by the same conciliation machinery and, consequently, we are debarred from operating with them, though they are employed by the same employers and in the same industry. In the case of any dispute they are to be regarded as a separate industry for the purposes of Clause 1—again without having the slightest effect on any question of a national or general strike. I wish to enlarge on what my right hon. Friend the Mover of the Amendment said with regard to penalties on officers or leaders of trade unions. I think the Government were rather wise to amend the Bill so that it would not penalise the rank and file of trade unionists, though I do not think that proposal would have had the slightest effect on men who were deter mined. The freedom to leave work is a freedom which has always been recognised in this country. One man or a dozen men or 50 men may give notice to leave work. It is only a question of degree, and not of principle where it is a case of a thousand or three thousand men, but,
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    whatever penalties the Bill might have imposed, they would not have had the slightest effect. I suppose, however, the Government and their advisers thought that by removing the penalty from the rank and file and putting it on the officers, it would make the Bill less objectionable, and would possibly gain sympathy in some quarters, and—though here they must have stretched their imaginations considerably—they may have thought it would intimidate the officers of the trade unions
    I say without any arrogance or threat, that it will not do so. I repeat what I said in a previous Debate—that the last person who wants a strike is the trade union officer. There is not one of us who does not like comfort in his life just as much as other people. We would be content to go on conducting the affairs of our organisation, but when the rank and file, through the machinery of their union, which they have democratically arranged and set up determine to leave their work as a protest against some aggression by the employers, they expect their officers to carry out that decision. What do the members of the Government think we are? Do they think that we are the veriest poltroons, that we would accept payment from our fellows in times of peace and quiet, and that a Bill or a Clause in a Bill will cause us to betray that trust when there is a storm? If so, the Government are seriously underrating some of my right hon. and hon. Friends on these benches, and the trade union world generally. The Clause is likely to cause much greater trouble. I remember during the latter part of the War, a rumour got abroad among the South Wales members of my organisation, and spread as far North as Shrewsbury, that I had been arrested for daring to ask for an eight-hour day. Several locomotive depots in South Wales practically ceased work until they got an assurance to the contrary, and the Chief Constable at Shrewsbury had to telephone to Newport where I was staying and get one of his own sergeants to see me personally. I was brought out of bed at one o'clock in the morning because the police officer would take no one's word but my own in order that the men at Shrewsbury might work their trains on the following morning. If that spirit was in evidence in time of war, when no

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    one was anxious to do anything detrimental to the nation's interest and when there was no question of any trade union suffering, what is going to be the position when the Government's apparent desire is to punish the officers, leaders, or servants of a trade union and when there is a real determination on the part of the men to defend themselves against some aggression?
    Do the Government think that by sending us to prison the whole thing is going to collapse like a house of cards? The men would fight with greater virility than ever. In times of peace the democratic spirit of our unions leads the rank and file to kick the officers; it is a part of their recreation. They hammer us and threaten us with all manner of penalties, and they question us at our conferences, not quite in the language to which you, Mr. Speaker, would confine us in this gathering, but in pretty blunt English. But if someone else attacks us, you will find that the family circle closes with greater strength than you would give us credit for in times of peace. I therefore suggest that Clause 1 is deliberately aimed at causing strikes. You can reason with the rank and file of the trade unions if a fair and square deal is given, but threaten to punish those who are serving them when there is a storm, and you will merely precipitate trouble that might otherwise not be there. I seriously ask the Government, even now, if they cannot delete Clause 1 and, in taking the whole Bill back to consider its substitution, think over the whole matter again.
    I feel sure that not everyone opposite is quite happy in his mind about this Bill. It goes much further than some honestly intentioned people desire it to do, and I believe that it has awakened the conscience of a great many hon. and right hon. Members opposite. While apparently, in the words which advocate it, though not in its construction, aiming only at a national strike, the Bill stirs up dangers, possibilities of turmoil and trouble, and the determination of the organised workers to resist the filching of their freedom, that many hon. Members opposite, I am sure, do not intend, or at least did not intend, in the early stages of this Measure. I submit that, to be fair to the working people, the better way to salve the sores of the past and prevent outbreaks in the future,
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    which all of us desire to do, if we can get a square deal, is to see that any inquiry before or at the commencement of any dispute is deep, is searching, and is applied as firmly and fearlessly on the side of the employers as it is on the side of the men. Give the men the idea that they are getting at least a square deal, and you might often avoid disputes and difficulties, but put this Clause 1 on them and tell them that their freedom is going to be taken from them, that they are going to be pushed back into the equivalent of the days of mediæval serfdom, with pressure from above that is going to say that they or those who serve them are to be put in prison for daring to protest against the aggression of the employers, and we are in, not only for the downfall of the great party opposite from this false step, but for years of industrial disputes.
    No Measure will prevent workmen leaving their employment if they are sufficiently stung by the aggression of employers to do so. The fear of fine or of imprisonment may be very serious to people who have not lived hard and do not know what it is to have only just enough or not even that, but on the ordinary workmen who had to choose between going back to serfdom, or nearly to slavery, and exhibiting the strength of their manhood to protect themselves against aggression, no Bill of this description would have any other effect than that of arousing passions that all of us who have learned any lessons from the upheaval of 1926 ought to try to allay. We can allay those passions, not by an instrument of class oppression, not by an instrument from a forceful Government to break the spirit of the working people, or to attempt to do so; but by giving them a square deal and fair-play and by letting them know that they have fair-play. In order that a more enlightened spirit may come into the feelings between employer and employed and between this Government and the workers whom they would appear to hold in so much contempt, I support the omission of Clause 1 from the Bill.
    Mr. MORRIS: I have no desire to traverse the whole of the arguments against the inclusion of Clause 1 in the Bill. The only practical value, as far as I can see, that the Clause has is that it has provided, so far, mental exercise for the House of Commons in trying to

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    define what a general strike is and under what circumstances it shall be declared illegal, but, apart from that, its practical value cannot be very great. The Clause has the one definite object of making a general strike, or a strike in certain circumstances, criminally illegal, but that will be the least value that the Clause has, for I do not believe that in the circumstances of last year, if such should possibly recur, resort would be had by any Attorney-General or by any Government to the use of this Clause. Resort would be had to the Emergency Powers Act in those circumstances, as was done 12 months ago. But I want to raise one other point, and that is that this Clause may have a totally different effect from that of merely declaring to be criminally illegal a strike in certain circumstances. I conceive that the use to which this Clause may be put is that it may be applied in civil rather than in criminal actions. I imagine that this Clause is going to have a profound effect upon the working of the Trade Disputes Act of 1906. Rightly or wrongly, that Act has placed the trade unions in some respects in a privileged position. Section 3 of that Act reads:
    "An act done by a person in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute shall not be actionable on the ground only that it induces some other person to break a contrace of employment or that it is an interference with the trade, business, or employment of some other person, or with the right of some other person to dispose of his capital or his labour as he wills."
    What is the result? Supposing an action is done by a member or an official of a trade union which would be covered by the Act of 1906. I will take the case of a sympathetic strike. This Clause 1 of the Bill before the House says that any strike is illegal if it has any object other than or in addition to the furtherance of a trade dispute within a trade or industry. Take the case of the railwaymen, where a dispute takes place in the coal trade and the railwaymen come out in support of the miners. The moment that the railwaymen come out in support of those miners, although that does not necessarily make it an illegal strike for criminal proceedings, it is clearly not a strike within the trade or industry, and any action done by them is not done in pursuance of a trade dispute within the trade or industry. It may be pleaded, therefore, in an action brought against them, which
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    would be barred by the Trade Disputes Act, 1906, that under this Clause that action was illegal, and it, would not be protected by the Act of 1906. The effect of this Clause, therefore, although it has to do with criminal offences in its main intention, will be the effect it will have in repealing the Trade Disputes Act in civil proceedings. That may or may not be a desirable thing to do, but it certainly is going to be one of the results flowing from the passage of this Bill. It may or may not be a legitimate thing to repeal those powers and to change that privileged position under the Trade Disputes Act, 1906, but my argument is that this is not the way to do it, and that, if it is to be done at all, it should be done openly and frankly, not by a side door.
    6.0 p.m.
    Mr. HAYDAY: I rise to add my voice to the protest that has been made in connection with Clause 1 of this Bill. My first objection to the Clause is that it is totally unnecessary and gives undue prominence to the question of strikes. I wonder whether the Government, before introducing this Clause into the Bill, made a survey of the whole of our industrial relationships for, say, the past 10 or 15 years, and whether they caused to be extracted for them the percentage of settlements arranged by negotiation as compared with the settlements forced by strikes or lock-outs. If they had, they would have come to the conclusion that it is quite unnecessary to give this pre-eminent position to strikes, as though they were in themselves the greatest handicap towards settlements and as though settlements so forced were likely to leave an imprint of hardship upon the nation or upon a considerable portion of the community. As one who has had some little hand in negotiations, I suggest that quite 90 per cent. of the differences between bodies of employers and of workmen have been settled by negotiations, short or long. The cases in which there was a failure of negotiations, for which neither the employés nor their representatives can be held solely responsible, represent only 10 per cent. Therefore, it is not statesmanship to put the question of the strike in the forefront and attempt to frighten people by saying, "If only we make strikes illegal there will be industrial prosperity, and we shall drive those who otherwise would resort to strikes to make settlements

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    by negotiation." We shall do no such thing. What the Bill will do will be to give the strike an undeserved preeminence in the world of industry. The strike will now be the first thing thought of, because there will be a desire to test this legislation.
    For the past three weeks I have been at Geneva, where a possible questionnaire for Governments on the subject of freedom of association was under discussion, and I found there that the action of the British Government in introducing this Bill was reflected in the views of other Governments. In conversations outside the conference room it was suggested that Great Britain, in collaboration with Italy, was moving in the direction of limiting freedom of association amongst industrialists to a circumscribed area which would always give a Government Department an influence over every act which the men might think of embarking upon. The spirit of reaction started by the introduction of this Bill has now found its way abroad. It is copied and looked upon as a good thing. I would say to the Government, "You are not dealing with members of a Latin race. You are not dealing with industrialists who have never yet had an opportunity of organising themselves in their trade unions. You are dealing with a far different race, who are not given to sporadic outbursts or periods of excitable emotion, and the more you attack them and try to cripple their liberties the greater the resentment you will arouse within them. "But that resentment will not express itself in the way in which many of those who, no doubt, were behind the promotion of this Bill would like to see. They would like to see an outburst in some aggravated form which would give the Government an opportunity of bringing into play the forces which this Bill places at their disposal, an excuse to beat down the workmen.
    Workmen who have attempted to negotiate terms with their employers and have failed will not submit to being told, "You must not do this for fear of imprisonment. You must not do that because it will be illegal and you will be punished. "You cannot say to a man suffering from a grievance that he must submit to it, that he must not do anything
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    for fear of incurring punishment; because if I know the British character I know that it is the very last thing he will do. A man who finds that his terms of service cannot bring him wages which will enable him to give his children the education they desire to have and the food, clothing and housing accommodation which he desires to provide for them will not be tied down by an Act of Parliament. He will strike if he feels that that is the last method open to him. If he strikes agains an employer who is trying to beat him down, and that employer turns to some other branch of the industry to ask them to produce his goods for his customers, do you think we would not encourage those other workmen to take sympathetic action in order to defeat the aims of that employer? You are asking too much of human nature if you expect we would refuse to do that.
    It is said this Bill is designed to deal only with strikes which have some other object than the purely industrial one. Let me ask the Attorney-General if he could define a dispute which arose in these circumstances as being legal or illegal? There is an industry where the workers are suffering hardships because of the refusal of the Government to ratify the Washington Hours Convention, and there is a possibility of a dispute not only over the question of wages but for a reduction in hours. The argument used by the employer would be that he would be willing to reduce the hours if the Government would ratify the Washington Hours Convention. Therefore, that question would become part of the dispute, and that is a political issue, but it is an issue raised by the failure of the Government to carry out its word. I suppose the Attorney-General would say that was clearly an illegal dispute. Every dispute arising out of the question of long hours might well be brought within the same category. It is said that the workers are getting a measure of protection in so far as employers have been placed in the same category with regard to lock-outs as the workers are in regard to strikes. That is so much moonshine. I am sure the Attorney-General, with his astute legal mind, and the others who framed the Bill, know very well that that provision might just as well have been left out, because it is of no effect at all. If an employer wishes

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    to make his workpeople accept a set of conditions which they are not inclined to accept he need not say, "I will lock you out and starve you until such time as you do submit." All he need say is, "I must close down my works because it is no longer profitable for me to carry them on." He closes down on that pretence. It is not a lock-out within the legal interpretation of the phrase, or within the terms of this Bill, but it is the same thing, and the employer can in that way evade any liability he otherwise might run under this Bill.
    Whatever the Government may do in connection with this Bill I want to tell them they have put back the industrial development of this country more years than one cares to think. If I were now back in the workshop and were suffering under a sense of grievance I would not give the best that is within me. Good treatment will bring good service. Bad treatment and mistrust will bring bad service. Good will is not created by leaving men with a feeling that they are crippled and handicapped because of legislation which the Government have passed telling them they must not do this and that. That will not encourage a man to do the best he can. I would give only in accordance with the treatment I received, and I make no bones about saying it. I would say to the members of my organisation, "If you are treated harshly you cannot give generously." If they are treated as free men when entering into negotiations to settle their differences, a very different atmosphere will prevail. I repeat what I have said, that you are giving the question of strikes a position of prominence out of all proportion to its importance. You are weakening our Joint Industrial Councils, you are weakening the opportunities for conciliation, and weakening the possibility of successful negotiations. Our members will say, "We may spend seven or eight months in discussing a possible settlement but if we are up against a class of reactionary employers, these will say to themselves We need not come to a settlement, we have always this Act of Parliament behind us and these men will have to be very careful as to any steps they take if these negotiations fail."
    Suspicion will enter into all negotiations in which we engage. I do not want the Government to take my word for it. Let them ask any prominent employer
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    in the country what advantage he is going to get from this Bill. I have met a good many of them since this Bill was introduced and they all have fears as to the consequences of the Measure. They fear it is going to upset the development of factory welfare schemes and works' committees, and cheek that improvement in industrial relationships that was just emerging from the turmoil of the dispute of last year. The rough edges were beginning to disappear, but now the raw sores begin to show again. There is doubt and mistrust because the Government during a moment of panic pledged themselves to something which they cannot now let go with any sense of dignity. All these disturbing elements are at work, and within the course of the next year or two, instead of industrial development, you will be confronted with further difficulties. All the full flush of the industrial spring which the Government have been looking for will have trickled away, and class hatred will be the only result. I never conceived that mighty capitalist representatives, containing all the best of the great professions of the country, would be found so ready to belittle their abilities as to introduce a Bill of this kind for the purpose of attacking the free men of the country who saved us during the War. Now you are saying to these men, "You have come through a testing time, and before you have quite recovered we are going to let loose upon you the bully of the law, and we will keep you down."
    The last thing we think about is a strike, because we are not thinking so much about the men themselves as the women and children, and we are not going to allow the Government or any law to pin down those women and children to a standard of living established by the supporters of the present Government. We have our ideas as to what a reasonable life should be. We say, if there is to be responsibility on our side, there must be obligations and responsibility upon the other side, and you are not going to get that by stripping yourself for a scrap with all the full force of the law behind you, because moral rights in the end will beat bad laws. So long as moral right is on our side, then, though the battle may be stern through misrepresentation by the Conservative Government, there is bound to come a

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    reckoning day, and, when it comes, I hope that the blow will fall more softly upon those who are attacking us now.
    Lord HENRY CAVENDISHBENTINCK: When this Clause was being discussed in Committee, I made an appeal to the Government on the ground that there was so much ambiguity in the Clause that there was a great fear that under it we might travel very much further than the declarations of the Government. I am aware that the Clause has been improved from that point of view in Committee, but there is still too much ambiguity about it, and there is a very great fear that the Clause, as now worded, will interfere very largely with the perfectly legitimate activities of trade unions, and will take from them rights and privileges which they have enjoyed for a great number of years. My doubts about this Clause have been confirmed by that most respectable journal the "Times," which the other day, in an article on the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Bill, drew attention to these points, and, if I may be allowed to inflict a rather long quotation upon the House, I would like to quote a passage from this article, which says:
    "Clause 1, in short, certainly emerges from Committee improved. But this is not to say that it is even yet flawless, and between now and the Report stage it is to be hoped that it will be subjected to further scrutiny. There is still wide disagreement as to its meaning and effect. For instance, it continues to be loudly asserted on the one side (and denied on the other) that the Clause illegalises all sympathetic strikes. Again, the question is still asked whether the Bill illegalises any strike which is confined to a single industry. If, for instance, a coal strike (1) aims at nationalisation (an object besides the furtherance of a trade dispute within the industry), and (2) is designed or calculated to coerce the Government, does Clause 1 declare it illegal or not? In logic it is hard to see why the Bill should not aim at illegalising such a strike, if coercive, no lees than a sympathetic strike, if coercive. But the point under consideration is whether the Section as drafted does so. Here, again, there seems to be doubt. Thirdly, what is the meaning of designed or calculated to coerce? The normal rules of construction suggest that 'calculated' here means something other than 'designed.' If so, it must mean 'likely in fact.' Is it the intention of the Government that a strike, which was not designed to coerce the Government, but accidentally resulted in doing so, should expose its promoters to imprisonment? It is to
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    be hoped that even at this advanced stage language will be found of a kind to resolve these ambiguities (whether real or illusory) beyond the possibility of doubt."
    It is evidently not clear from the "Times" article what is the meaning of Clause 1, and I venture to make a renewed appeal to the Government to have another try, and see if they cannot put down words which are really watertight, and will not carry the meaning of the Clause further than they want to go. The Attorney-General has said many times that this Clause is designed to do nothing except prevent a general strike, but I would remind him that the interpretations of the Court have to be placed upon the plain words of this Bill when it becomes an Act of Parliament, and it very questionable whether it is wise to keep this Clause in the Bill in its present ambiguous state. In all good faith, I make a further appeal to the Government, and I ask if it is really worth while persisting in this Clause at all? What do the Government really think that they are going to get by this Clause? Do they think that they will prevent either a general strike or any particular strike? Do they really think that it will promote peace in industry? Is it not 10 times more probable that it will stir up ill-will, class hatred, and bitterness, and so promote the very result which this Bill, we are told, was designed to prevent? It was said in the eighteenth century that we lost our American Colonies for the sake of a formula, and put it to the Government whether there is not a grave fear that we may alienate all the organised labour of this country merely for the purpose of giving them a pinprick. Before this Bill was introduced Lord Birkenhead said:
    "The Government was well aware that the introduction of this Bill would stir up a great deal of bitterness in the country, and involve the Government in a very bitter quarrel with organised labour."
    If Lord Birkenhead and the Government were well aware of that, then they have introduced this Bill deliberately, with their eyes open. I have great respect for Lord Birkenhead, but I definitely refuse to quarrel with the trade unionists of my constituency on this matter at every election, and I question very much the wisdom of a Clause like this, either from a political or a national

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    point of view. I think it is accepted by everybody who has had any experience in these matters that a Government cannot do a more stupid or a suicidal thing than to arouse among a large section of the people of the country a keen sense of grievance, and there is no better way than that for a Government to dig its own electoral grave. I question the value of this Clause from the national point of view. Surely, with our trade in the condition in which it is now it should be the object of our statesmanship to promote the maximum of good will, conciliation, and co-operation between class and class. As a matter of fact, that has been realised by a very large number of labour leaders, and as Lord Grey has pointed out:
    "There has been a return to reason, and the things which grow in an atmosphere of reason have decidedly made progress."
    That passage was written before this Bill was introduced. I would also refer hon. Members to the last report of the Labour Ministry which drew attention to the fact that the industrial councils, so far from having been weakened by the general strike, were strengthened, and that both employers and workmen had concentrated their attention on strengthening the machinery for conciliation. It is a fact which I do not think is sufficiently realised in this House that every important industry in this country is covered by conciliation and arbitration machinery. Even the coal industry is at the present moment under conciliation machinery, and it is lamentable that the only contribution the Government can make is to treat trade union leaders as naughty children and attempt to pour a dose of nauseous medicine down their throats. If we are to have peace in industry, we can only have it in one way, and that is by promoting the atmosphere of peace. As Burke said during the American War of Independence:
    "The proposition is peace—not peace through the medium of war, but peace sought in the spirit of peace and on principles purely pacific."
    Those words are as true to-day as when they were spoken. Therefore, I make this appeal to the Government to withdraw the Clause, and let us have peace in industry on the principle of good will and co-operation in industry, rather than
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    on principles of repression and restriction, on which the Government are relying at the present moment.
    Mr. MOSLEY: The Noble Lord who has just spoken has sounded a note from the past which recalls the finer and more prosperous days of the Conservative party, but, unfortunately, the warning which he himself gave, in a very remarkable work on Conservatism, has been fulfilled. Some years ago he invited the Conservative party "to cast out the money-bags from the Temple." That clearance was not effected, and to-day we witness the tragic spectacle of the Noble Lord and his class weighted down in that temple beneath the money-bags of the bourgeois plutocracy who now control the Tory party. The Noble Lord has my profoundest sympathy, for the last refuge of aristocracy is on these benches. The Noble Lord, at any rate, has the traditional courage of his convictions. He condemned this Bill at the outset, and he faced the wrath of the party caucus, and even of some people in his own constituency—though I think not many—in order to give effect to his convictions. Therefore, I must confess that I entertain for him a far greater measure of respect in this matter, as I do in most matters, than for that gathering of young Conservative Members on the benches opposite who have supported this Clause and this Bill at every stage, who have assisted in the generation of an atmosphere of strife and of class hatred, and who then, a few days ago, at the very last phase of this Bill, revived the cant of peace and good will.
    We heard speeches from such Members as the hon. and gallant Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Captain Macmillan) —speeches which were almost the post mortem of Baldwinism, if I may use the expression. They were trying last week to recapture the magic of last year's cant. The bewildered disciples of the fallen prophet were making the speeches that the Prime Minister used to make two years ago. But they are too late; they are merely aggravating the offence of their party, for the electorate is very human in this matter. They object to a man picking a pocket, but they object still more when he sings a hymn about it. I prefer the frank and downright attack of a die-hard to the attack of a man who supports the Conservative party, who

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    derives all the advantages which support of that great organisation gives him, who engenders the class strife in which this country is now immersed, and then comes down to this House and talks pious platitudes about the peace and good will which he himself has destroyed. That is not the way to peace or to good will. The way, and the only way, is to build peace in industry upon the sure foundation of social justice. In the hearts of a free people, peace and injustice have never yet lived together, and industrial strife, I regret to say, will continue in this land while Measures of this character remain on the Statute Book, and while social inequality is perpetuated by the class interest of a class party.
    The Noble Lord said that this Bill had been in some respects improved during the Committee stage. I beg to differ from that statement. I think that, in so far as the Bill has been altered, it has been altered for the worse. But a more interesting consideration, on the Report stage, is to compare the actual admissions of the Government during the progress of these Debates with the claims which the spokesmen of the Government made during the earlier stages, and I propose very briefly to examine, in respect of this Clause, some of the claims which Government spokesmen advanced on the Second Reading and during the Committee stage of Clause 1, with the facts which have emerged under the painful process of cross-examination, to which the Attorney-General has submitted other victims in the Courts, and to which he himself has had to submit in this House. It was contended from these benches at the outset that the sympathetic strike would be made impossible under Clause 1 of this Bill. The Government, with all the emphasis at their command, denied that. The Government ment said that a sympathetic strike was still permissible, that they did not aim in any way at depriving the worker of the right to go to the aid of a comrade so long as the design was not to coerce the Government of the day. But, under the painful process of inquiry into this Measure, we very speedily found that the Attorney-General was compelled to give this definition: he said that, if a cessation of work takes place in any particular industry, the
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    maximum pressure that can be exerted has been brought to bear on the owners in that particular industry; and then he went on to say that, if any other body of workers come out in support of the workers in the primary trade, they cannot be striking to put pressure on the owners in the primary trade; their strike is clearly designed to coerce the Government of the day. That was the definition which the Attorney-General gave, and which is on evidence—
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Douglas Hogg): If the hon. Member purports to be quoting me, I should like him to give me the reference when I said that.
    Mr. MOSLEY: If the right hon. Gentleman will look up the report of the proceedings on the first allotted day in Committee, he will see where he gave, in answer to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas), precisely the definition which I am now quoting; and, if the right hon. Gentleman will further refresh his memory, he will recollect that a specific question was put to him by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), who asked what would be the position if the railwaymen refused to transport, in the case of a coal strike, firstly, coal imported from abroad, and, secondly, coal produced by blackleg labour from the British mines, from one point in Britain to another? The Attorney-General replied that in both cases the railwaymen would be committing an illegal act. In the first case, it is clear that, if they refused to bring in coal from abroad, and the Government were the importing authority, it might be represented as a strike against the Government; but, in the second case, a refusal to transport coal produced in the British mines from one point in Britain to another is directed primarily, clearly, not against the Government of the day, but against the coalowner, whose profits are directly affected by the refusal to transport his coal. The right hon. Gentleman—the words are on record—gave that very clear-cut definition. As I have pointed out, and as the right hon. Gentleman, if he refers to a copy of the OFFICIAL REPORT, will see, he very clearly said that, in the case of a sympathetic strike when a complete cessation of labour had taken place in the primary

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    trade, the sympathetic strike could not be aimed at the owners in that trade, but must be aimed at the Government, and so would be illegal under the terms of the Act. I refreshed my memory on that point only yesterday, and on reference to the OFFICIAL REPORT the right hon. Gentleman will, I think, admit the justice of my quotation.
    At any rate, he will not resist the proposition that the right of sympathetic strike on any material scale is very seriously affected, that he is in fact saying to the working classes, "You may strike in small detachments; then you are sure to be beaten; but you may not strike in large detachments; then you may win, and you may affect the pockets of our friends." Clearly, once such a definition is laid down, the chances of success of any working-class force in any industrial struggle are very seriously reduced. Suppose that in the late War the Germans had been able to define for us the conditions of war, and that they had been able to lay down rules which applied to us and not to them. Suppose that they had been able to say, "You may only come out of your trenches in twos and threes; you may not attack upon a wide front; you may not attack in mass; you may not attack with artillery fire supporting you, to blow away all our barbed wire entanglements, but you may come out in small detachments, you may come out singly-then our machine guns can easily shoot you down." What would have been the prospect of success in a struggle waged under those conditions?
    The right hon. Gentleman and the party supporting him know perfectly well that the only chance of success in a working-class struggle is a strike on a wide scale, which exerts real pressure upon the opponents of the working class; and they know that, if a limitation is placed on that right, if they are in small detachments, in small parties, the working class can be beaten down. They know, in fact, that in every struggle of recent years, if they have consented to be beaten in detail, when the workers in one trade have gone down the wages of practically every other section of the workers have speedily followed. When the miners came out in 1921, alone, and went down, the railwaymen and practically every category of workers in the country followed within a very short
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    space of time. They learned their lesson, and, the next time, they resisted the attack—which was, in fact, an attack originating from the policy of the Government—not singly or in detachments, but in their masses and in their strength; and at that moment, when they had learned the lesson of combination, the Government took steps to deprive them for ever of the weapon of effective resistance. There are other considerations, other exposures of the Government's pretensions, Which have taken place during these Debates. We were told, to begin with, that the only design of this Measure was to prevent some great revolutionary conspiracy designed to overturn the whole fabric of the State, planned and calculated to defeat and to ruin the Government of the day, and bring to an end orderly government, the Constitution, and everything else which this country holds dear. But, as we proceeded in these Debates, we came to quite different definitions of the Measure that is now before us.
    It was clear, of course, from the outset, that no one would really seriously propose to stop a violent revolution by law. After all, if a violent revolution has any object at all, its first object is to overturn all existing law, and it was farcical to suggest that people imbued with that intention would be deterred by passing one law more. The thing was absurd from the outset. But, as we proceeded to question and to examination during the Committee stage, we found that what was calculated to coerce the Government was not, in fact, any design or intention in the minds of strikers or their organisers, but a situation which, in the mind of some Conservative magistrate or Judge, was likely to result in pressure being put on the Government of the day. The Attorney-General, during the Committee stage, defined the word calculated" as "likely." He said that it had often been held in a Court of Law to mean just "likely." So then we got far away from the great revolutionary conspiracy of the fevered dreams of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—a great subversive force planning and plotting the downfall of Britain under the directions of Moscow. All that vanished with his other dreams into the land of the past forgotten, and happily forgotten. I share the right hon. Gentleman's happiness in forgetting the past.

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    All those things passed away, and we found, in fact, that a strike became illegal if in the opinion of the Judge it was likely to coerce the Government. Then we departed altogether from the intentions of the strikers or trade union leaders and we came to the character of the Government. How likely is a Government to be coerced? That depended upon the strength or feebleness of the Government, and clearly if the criterion of a strike's illegality is to be with his other dreams into the land of the ineptitude displayed by the Government, under the present Government all strikes would be illegal.
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Churchill): Try another like that.
    Mr. MOSLEY: The Chancellor of the Exchequer seems to throw doubt upon the contention that, under the definition of his not so adroit colleague the Attorney-General, the question whether a striker becomes a criminal or not depends on the strength or feebleness of the Government of the day, but, clearly, if in the first Clause of this Bill the word "calculated" can be held in the Courts to mean "likely," if we merely have to consider what is likely to coerce a Government, we have to consider the strength or feebleness of that Government, and that depends very much on who is in charge of the Government. If it is dominated by a personality such as that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if then at a moment of national menace he shows a strong and firm hand, the Government is not likely to be coerced, but if by an unfortunate chance the leadership of the Conservative party reverts not to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as it undoubtedly should, for he is much the ablest man in the Government, but falls rather to a type of character which the stupid party invariably chooses, we will say the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Government is very likely to be coerced. Then any interest, any force, in the community can push it hither or thither, but if strength, resolution, determination, as typified by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is in charge, nothing could shake such a rock of purpose. I am sure those are propositions from which the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not
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    dissent. I have always made myself one promise, that at some moment or other from the Labour Benches I will put forward a proposition in which I should win the cordial assent of the right hon. Gentleman. I firmly believe I have just done it. I think that illustrates the fact that the illegality of any strike depends no longer upon the intention or design of the striker but rather upon the character of the Government of the day.
    The Attorney-General a little earlier in the discussion disputed a definition which I ascribed to him. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas) put this question to him:
    "Suppose the miners have engaged in this legitimate trade dispute. The railwaymen and the other transport workers feel that it is their duty to go to their help, and they withdraw their labour in support of the miners' dispute, and in doing so, in the words of the Clause, they inflict hardship upon the community. I want to ask a simple specific question. Will the action of the transport workers or the railwaymen or any other body of men, under the precise circumstances which I have mentioned, be a legal or an illegal action?"
    I think I gave a very fair summary of the question put to the right hon. Gentleman. The Attorney-General replied:
    "That is a plain question to which I can give quite a plain answer,"
    and unfortunately for his party he gave the first plain answer of the Debate:
    "The strike of the transport workers or the railwaymen, in the case which has been put to me, could obviously not be a strike to put pressure upon the employers or the miners. It could only be a strike which was designed to put pressure upon the Government to compel them to act. That, in my view, would be illegal and illegitimate either by this Bill or independent of this Bill."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th May, 1927; col. 1034, Vol. 206.]
    That is precisely the situation which I described to the right hon. Gentleman and from which he so vigorously dissented. That is the satiation in which, when a strike has taken place in a primary industry, the maximum pressure which can be exerted hay been brought to bear on the owners in that industry and consequently any body of men coming out in support of the workers in that primary industry are held under the Bill, and in the opinion of the Attorney-General, to be directing their attack not against the owners in the primary industry, but against the Government of the day, and it is very difficult indeed

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    to conceive any sympathetic strike which under that definition can be held to be legal. So as we proceed in the painful process of elucidating information we find a very grave divergence indeed between the actual facts and admissions which now emerge and the original contention of the Government.
    But this matter proceeds rather further than the admissions of the Government. We are now considering a Measure which, in the claim of the Government, is designed to prevent revolution, but which I believe is in fact a Bill for the promotion of revolution. I make that statement for this reason. The Government ensures that under this Measure every strike must rapidly pass into the hands of people whose intention is revolutionary. They make provision for putting in gaol, for getting out of the way, any trade union leader who obeys the wishes of the rank and file to take part in a struggle of this kind. They leave workers on strike without responsible leadership of any kind, without leadership that can function in the open, and that is precisely the situation which in every historic position has led to revolution. Instead of Unity House, with its gilt-edged respectability—I think everyone will admit the respectability and integrity of such an institution—you are to have the secret society of the Continent. A leader cannot openly, on the public platform or in his trade union office, conduct a strike which the rank and file instruct him to conduct. If he does, he goes immediately to gaol, and men take his place who will meet not in the offices of a trade union, but in the caves and cellars of revolutionary conspiracy, hunted and chased by the police, as on the Continent in similar situations, and in such a condition you inevitably get that development of the revolutionary and violent mind which Toryism always produces. If you make impossible the open conduct of a strike, inevitably you produce the secret conditions of conspiracy and underground struggle which inevitably bring the evil in their train which this Government affects to detest.
    This Bill, for which such grandiose pretensions were advanced and which has been exposed to such a remarkable extent in the course of these Debates, is introduced without authority or mandate of any kind from the
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    people. When and where was any tampering with trade unionism submitted to the people? The history of this matter is very simple. In 1913 the position of the trade unions was regularised and settled with the consent of all parties. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer played some part in that legislation. The leader of the Conservative party, Mr. Bonar Law, advised his followers not to vote against the Third Reading of the Trade Union Bill. It was settled by consent, and I challenge any Conservative to mention any statement or pronouncement by any responsible leader of his party since that day even suggesting they were going to tamper with this great institution. Conservative candidates were not walking round at the last Election with placards round their necks saying "Vote for lower wages and ending trade unions." They were talking of Very different issues indeed, into which I will not now enter. But in this matter a very grave constitutional issue is raised by the party that sets itself up as the defender of the constitution. Supposing the Labour party, to take an analogy, did something which I hope it never will do and promised to leave a reformed House of Lords in exactly the situation in which the Tory Government had left it, won an election on totally different issues, and then brought in a Measure to abolish the House of Lords, what would be said from the benches opposite? "Bolshevism," "the overthrow of the Constitution," "the end of democratic Government," and at once the usual appeals to violence and bloodshed would be raised. But they are doing a precisely analogous thing in this Measure. Having won their power on totally different issues, by methods which I will not now describe, they use that power to uproot one of the greatest institutions in the land, an integral part of the Constitution which they say they are out to defend, and how grave a departure from any previous legislation is contained in this Bill is well exemplified in the Clause we are now considering.
    7.0 p.m.
    The Government in this Clause say, at any rate, to some categories of workers—and this will not be denied—"Under some conditions you may not leave your jobs when you want to. You have to stay at work under the conditions and under the wages that we dictate for as

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    long as the Judges in the Law Courts say you will." "Oh," says the Attorney-General, "they may leave singly, but they may not leave collectively." A very great concession indeed! The right hon. Gentleman says to the working classes, "We confer upon you a great privilege, the privilege our party has always conferred on the poor, the privilege of starving alone. If in your sad plight any other man comes out in sympathy with you, to help you, or fight for you, not only do you starve, but you become also a criminal." They go further than that. In the Clause that defines a strike, connected with the Clause we are now discussing they go so far as to say that a man who is out of employment, and will not accept employment, will not accept a blackleg's job to destroy and to undermine the resistance of his own class, is also to be branded as a criminal. So we find in this legislation the principle of slavery and compulsory labour frankly avowed and erected into an integral part of the Constitution of freedom. This Measure is brought forward and passed by an automatic majority through a House of Commons ruling a nation which led the world in abolishing those conditions among black men and savages. I do not and will not believe that a condition such as this can long survive in a nation such as ours, and I believe that before many months have passed this Government will meet the fate which tyranny, treachery and cowardice deserve at the hands of a free people.
    Mr. REMER: The hon. Gentleman who has just resumed his seat prefaced his speech with a reference to money-bags. I do not know whether he is an authority on this subject, but he gave me the impression, and I think also some of my hon. Friends on this side, that that speech to which we have just listened had been studied at length on the tennis courts which, I understand, he has just erected. We have listened now to three speeches from the opposite side all of which have told us about the great class struggle which is going to ensue as the result of the passing of this Bill. They have told us we are wrecking the cause of peace and disturbing the relations between employer and employed, and stirring up trouble and strife in the industrial
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    life of the country. If I thought that, I should be one of the bitterest opponents of the Bill. It is because I believe this Bill is going to bring industrial peace and happiness and prosperity to working people that I am a supporter of it.
    When the hon. Gentleman who has just resumed his seat spoke about this Bill being one to stop strikes, I might ask, what is that strike to which he refers going to have as its object? Is it a strike such as we had in May of last year, designed solely in order to further the economic fallacies of hon. Gentlemen opposite? Is it merely for political objects or for industrial objects? I venture to say that if it is a strike of a kind which has purely industrial objects, it will be just as possible after this Bill as it was before, and it is only that class of strike having definite political objects, such as was the case last year, which is prevented and dealt with in this Bill. When we hear the speeches of the hon. Member for Barrow (Mr. Bromley), the hon. Member for South Nottingham (Lord H. Cavendish-Bentinck) and that of the hon. Member who has just resumed his seat, and when we think of what happened in the life of this Parliament and the speeches made by the Prime Minister appealing for peace, and the appeals made from all people on this side of the House who desire to avoid the wrecking of our industrial life, which became such a vivid memory to us last year, and when we realise the reception given to those appeals and remember the hon. Members opposite who are largely responsible for the disaster to our trade and industry through the general strike of last May, then we should realise what the effect upon our trade has been. And it is because I believe that a repetition of the general strike, which some hon. Members opposite say they are going to have, would mean an end to all business in our country and untold disaster to our people, that I support the Bill.
    If the hon. Gentleman who has just resumed his seat asks me what is our mandate, I say the mandate of the Conservative party, and the Conservative Government or any other Government, is to save our country from impending disaster. I say that as far as our mandate is concerned, we have not only a mandate but an obligation to see that

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    no further general strikes are made possible, and that our country is saved not merely from the revolutionary actions of certain members of the Socialist party, but from the economic fallacies they have put forward. We on this side, viewing the future and the verdict which may be given as the result of the passing of this Bill into law, are not afraid of that verdict, and we shall stand shoulder to shoulder to see that that verdict is put forward, free from the misrepresentation of hon. Gentlemen opposite. When that verdict is given, we shall not be afraid, for it will be on the side of the Conservative party and the Conservative Government, of which I am a supporter.
    Mr. NAYLOR: I am, I hope, a man of peace. For many years past I have been working on behalf of peace in industry, and I was one of the few trade union officials who took a certain attitude of opposition to what is called the general strike of last year; and one would suppose that having the opinion that the working classes had nothing to gain as a result of the policy of a general strike, I might be expected to be supporting this Bill. I want to explain why I am opposing, not only the Bill, but especially Clause 1. Although one might oppose in principle and practice the policy of a general strike, and even might admit that the consequences of the general strike might prove to be injurious to the best interests of the working classes, that is not to say that we ought to interfere with the rights of trade unionists to combine in whatever way they decide must be in their interests. It is not for the minority in any movement or school of thought to attempt to force by legislation views which they cannot maintain without it.
    Surely in this generation we are entitled to liberty of thought and liberty of action in things which do not aim at the revolution of which we have heard so much from hon. Members opposite. I ask them, by what right do they interfere with the privilege of trade unions combining together and using the industrial weapon in the way they think will best serve their ends? Clause 1 aims at the liberty of the subject, a principle which members of the Conservative party are always preaching throughout the country. The Attorney-General has said that the Bill, and Clause 1 in particular, aims at
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    preventing a recurrence of the events of May of last year. Why should he aim at preventing the trade union movement exercising the right they have had for generations past and won from this House by legislative enactment? We are told by certain lawyers in this House that the proceedings in the general strike were illegal. Then why do we want this Clause in the Bill? If it is to be said that a combination of that kind is against the State and aims at the existence of the State, there can be no doubt whatever but that that action is illegal, but even this afternoon the question has been asked as to whether or not the action of May of last year was, in itself, revolutionary in character.
    As one who was engaged in that movement I want to say, definitely and emphatically, that it was of a purely industrial character, and had no aims beyond that of assisting the miners in their efforts to secure a living wage. Speaking as one who passed through that movement—and my colleagues will say the same thing—I can say that our men came out with no other purpose than that the miners should be supported, because they felt if the miners were defeated then there would be no limit to the losses which they themselves might sustain by reason of the defeat of the miners. Therefore, I am quite justified in saying there was no question whatever of attacking the State. Why should we wish to attack the State—we who hold positions in this House as well as in the trade union movement? What interest could we serve by any action on our part designed or calculated to overthrow the State? The idea is absurd. We have by our presence in this House, certified our intention of proceeding by peaceful political means to the purpose of reconstructing our social and economic system, and surely that is sufficient guarantee in itself to have persuaded anyone but a Conservative that our intentions were peaceful as far as the State was concerned.
    There is another reason why, I think, that this Clause is a mistake. I have had some experience in negotiating with employers and in the work of the Joint Industrial Councils, and I have, very much to my regret, noticed that since this Bill has been introduced a change has come over the scene—a change perhaps, that might cause, in the near or

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    distant future, the interests of those Joint Industrial Councils to be most seriously affected. I, for one, would greatly regret that that should take place. At a recent, meeting of the industry to which I belong, there came up a question which has already been discussed by this House on a Bill brought forward a year or two ago, as to the desirability of making the decisions of Joint Industrial Councils binding by legislative enactment on all those in the trade or industry. I have to tell this House that when that question came up again only a few months ago, such was the effect of the action of the Government in introducing this Bill, that the representatives at that conference would have nothing to do with the idea of carrying on that process.
    I can assure the House that the last has not been heard of the effects of this Bill upon the work of the Joint Industrial Councils. Those of us who have been responsible for negotiations of this kind know from our experience that it is in the interests of those we represent to preserve the peace in industry. While we would not sacrifice the right to strike either by accepting the principle of arbitration or by accepting even the terms of a Bill of this character, we still believe that the strike, whether the weapon be used or not, is the only weapon that the trade union has of enforcing its beliefs. We know at the same time, having that faith in the power to withdraw our labour, that once the necessity comes it is most unlikely that the use of the weapon will be effective. I think my colleagues who have had experience of these negotiations know perfectly well that when negotiations have reached the point when disagreement becomes final and there is no help for it, either for the lock-out or for the strike, in nine cases out of 10 the strike will be unsuccessful. Yet, what would have been the conditions of the working classes of this country to-day if it had not been for the power that they have always possessed to withdraw their labour?
    We who have been educated in the movement have come to the conclusion that we cannot part with this power to strike, reluctant as we may be at all times to use it. I can go back over the past 20 years and honestly confess, after an experience of strikes and of peaceful
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    negotiation, that, in most cases, we get more out of peaceful negotiation than we get by threatening a strike at the very outset of negotiations in the event of demands not being conceded. Prior to the introduction of this Bill, we who were supporting the peace-in-industry movement were hoping that we had succeeded in getting the vast majority of the trade unionists of this country, and the trade unions collectively, to recognise that fact. There was a new spirit in industry arising which made it possible for representatives of the men and representatives of employers to meet, knowing that one side or the other had to give something away, and believing that by reason and argument, and by friendship and good will on both sides we on our side were likely to get more than by any other means that we could adopt.
    That was the position before the introduction of this Bill. What is it now? Even with the introduction of the Bill a great change has taken place in the attitude of the men whom we represent, and I feel confident that were I to go before my own men and suggest that we should bind ourselves to a movement which might be described as the peace-in-industry movement, the proposition would be turned down mainly because of the anger that the men feel at this interference with their right to combine. I suggest to the Government, and especially to the Attorney-General, that it is not fair to place this handicap upon the liberty of action of men who, although they may not desire ever to take that course of action again, certainly ought not to be restricted by an enactment of this kind.
    A good deal is said in this House about class antagonism, about the class war. Can we describe a Bill that aims at a purely working class movement and limits its activities—its peaceful activities—by legislation as anything more than the legislative emphasising of the class struggle? We cannot deny that the class struggle exists. While you have the interests of two sections of the community continually in opposition, it is fatuous to deny that the class struggle exists. What you should have in mind and wish to aim at, is to eliminate the causes which make that class struggle. Here we have the Conservative party doing exactly the opposite. Instead of

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    eliminating the causes, they are introducing fresh reasons why the class struggle should go on, and they are making it far more difficult for leaders who would wish to eliminate the causes of the class struggle by the introduction of legislation of this kind. I believe already the Government regret the action which they have taken, but if they do not, at least they might have confined their efforts to the one particular danger that they themselves believe threatens the community. The honesty of their intention may well be doubted in that respect, otherwise they would have confined the Bill to a single Clause, and that Clause would have dealt with incidents arising out of a possible combination of all the trade unions of the country. We might have believed then in the honesty of their intentions. But no, they proceeded from one Clause to another, and they introduced Clauses without any relation whatever to industrial action as such.
    When we find introduced in the Bill two or three other matters besides that of combination in industry, we are justified in suspecting the motives of the Government. I will not go beyond Clause 1. It is not my intention to discuss any other Clauses of the Bill. I only mention these other Clauses in order to emphasise the fact that the Government have gone further than they originally intended, and that, therefore, they do not merit the confidence even of their own party. I was glad to see this afternoon that at least one member of the Conservative party was ready to criticise this particular Clause. I can only hope that before the Bill goes through, other members of the Conservative party will be sufficiently honest in their attitude towards this Bill by voting against Clause 1.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: To a large extent the discussion to which we have been listening this evening has followed what have become almost the stereotyped lines of attack upon Clause 1. We have heard from the hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Mosley) quotations almost textually from his own speech on Clause 8—I suppose because he thought it was not received with sufficient appreciation last time—
    Mr. MOSLEY: Only because you failed to answer it.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: —coupled with quotations not quite so accurate from the hon. and learned Member for South-East Leeds (Sir H. Slesser), winding up with alleged quotations from myself which bore no sort of resemblance to anything I have said.
    Mr. MOSLEY: Only read from the OFFICIAL REPORT!
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: The hon. Member says, "Only read from the OFFICIAL REPORT." I am proposing to deal with that particular question a little later on, and the House will see whether it was only read from the OFFICIAL REPORT. Apart from this old controversy, there have been a few fresh points with which I desire to deal. First of all, there was an entirely original mare's nest which was disclosed by the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Morris). The hon. Member said, and said truly, that we had mainly discussed matters of criminal liability. He said also, that it was right to have regard to the possible use of Clause 1 in civil disputes. So far, I am entirely at one with him. But he went on then to say, that in a civil dispute, if it turned out that there was a strike which had an object other than, or in addition to, the furtherance of a trade dispute in a particular industry, then the Trade Disputes Act no longer applied and no protection was afforded for trade union funds. Of course, the hon. Member was there making a mistake which he would be the first to recognise, because if he looks at Sub-section (4) he will see that the immunity conferred by the Trade Disputes Act is removed not when only one of the two conditions necessary to constitute the illegal strike has been satisfied, but only in the case of a strike which is declared by the Section to be an illegal strike. In other words, for civil, just as for criminal purposes, both conditions have to be satisfied. The Trade Disputes Act is not affected in any case, except in the case where a strike is commenced which is declared by this Section to be illegal.
    The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) raised what, I think, is a profitable line of inquiry when he said that he wanted to consider for a moment whether the Clause, as it emerged from Committee, was better or worse than what it was on Second

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    Reading, and he committed himself to the view that the Clause was worse than ever. I propose, therefore, for a few moments, to see what changes have been introduced which produce in the view of the right hon. Gentleman so lamentable a result. The first change that has been introduced is to include the general lock-out equally with the general strike. The right hon. Gentleman said that in practice he did not think that the inclusion of the general strike would be of very much effect. I have always taken the view, as I stated on Second Reading, that there are more effective ways of dealing with the general lock-out, if ever such folly should be perpetrated, than the means provided by this Clause. I think there is, in the existing law, a far more effective means of dealing with any employers who engage in any such illegal conspiracy, but that does not mean that the inclusion of the general lockout makes the Bill worse. At best, it can be said, it does not make it much better, and the truth is, that it makes the Bill worse from one point of view only, and that is, that it becomes less easy for Members opposite to misread its effect.
    There was an alteration, which, I confess, I thought even the right hon. Gentleman would have regarded as an improvement. I refer to that concession which the Government regard, and I think most of my hon. Friends on this side regard, as a substantial concession, the concession, I mean, in which those who merely take part in a strike which is declared by this Clause to be illegal are not thereby subject to any criminal liability. I am surprised to find that that makes the Bill no better, but makes it worse. The reason it makes it worse, according to the right hon. Gentleman, is because it is so unfair to the ringleaders. In other words, it is easier for the ringleaders to frighten their men into objection to this Bill by telling them that it makes them liable to go to prison, but when they are told that it only makes the revolutionary preacher liable to go to prison, the average trade unionist is left comparatively unmoved.
    The next alterations are two or three changes in language, which I do not think substantially affect the meaning of the Clause. We were told on Second Reading that the word "intimidate" was a difficult
    1576
    word to understand. We have left it out. We were told that the expression "a substantial portion of the community" was a vague expression, and might lead to confusion. That expression has disappeared from the Bill. We were told that the expression trade or industry" was an expression which might be narrowly construed, and thereby defeat the effect of the Clause. We have, accordingly, put in a definition which says that the words are to be construed in the widest possible sense. While on that point, may I refer to a misconception which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Bromley), in which he said that there were people—I think the instance he gave were the tubes—who were employed by the same employer. Some of them were engaged in producing electricity, and some in running trains, and he said that they will not be able to strike together under this definition, because their wages are not determined by the same joint industrial council or conciliation board. I am glad that the hon. Member mentioned that misconception, because it enables me to clear it up, in case anyone else should share it. The definition which we put in, and which is now Sub-section (3), begins by stating expressly that it is not a limiting but an enlarging definition, and it goes on to say that, if any one of a series of conditions are satisfied, then on the satisfaction of those conditions the workmen in question are to be deemed to be within the same trade or industry. Therefore, if workmen are employed by the same employer—in other words, if they are, to quote the words of the Sub-section working
    "in accordance with agreements made with the same employer"—
    they are within the same trade or industry, whether or not their wages are determined by the same conciliation board or joint industrial council. The workmen employed by any one employer or by any one group of employers are by the express language of this Sub-section within the same trade or industry.
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: Does that mean that they will be in a position to make London walk again if they so desire?
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I do not want to indulge in picturesque language.
    Mr. TOWNEND: On the point of accuracy. The submission made by the

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    hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Bromley) was not that they were employed by the same concern and not that they were in the same union. The instance he gave was that of the railway men supporting the tube men and the tramway men. They would all be under different employers, but they would come under an agreement covering the transport industry.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: If the hon. Member looks at the OFFICIAL REPORT, he will see that the hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness quoted the electrical trade union, and I think the tubes.
    Mr. TOWNEND: Yes, in addition.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: That is why I took that particular illustration; it was the one that remained in my mind. So long as the employers are the same, then they are within the same trade or industry; so long as the employers belong to the same group, again they are in the same trade or industry, and, so long as the wages are fixed by the same joint industrial council or the like, they are still within the same trade or industry. These definitions are without prejudice to the generality of the meaning of the language and expression "trade or industry."
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: May I press my question? Mr. Bevin has said that this Bill is going to prevent him from making London walk. Can the Attorney-General say whether under the provisions of the Bill it will be possible for Mr. Bevin to make London walk?
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: That is a question which had better be addressed to Mr. Bevin. It is his threat and not mine.
    Mr. CONNOLLY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how this Clause will affect artisans in the Royal Dockyards who belong to outside societies? The position is not clear.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I do not understand the meaning of the question, and it is dangerous for me to try to give an answer to a specific case, without knowing all the facts. I understand the hon. Member to ask how it is going to affect the artisans who are employed in the Royal Dockyard, who are members of outside societies. Obviously, we might
    1578
    embark upon a discussion of Clause 5. I do not think it would be useful or desirable to try to elucidate that point now. To deal with a question of that kind—and I frankly admit I do not understand its full bearing—would require a very careful statement of facts which are not in my possession.
    Mr. CONNOLLY: the position is very obscure.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: The position under the Bill is clear. So long as the facts are known, it is easy to apply the definitions in the Bill to the known facts.
    Lieut.-Commander BURNEY: Would the Attorney-General apply for an injunction if Mr. Bevin endeavoured to make London walk?
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: It would depend on whether or not I was satisfied that the method he adopted was an infraction of Clause 1. There is one further matter, which I am not proposing to discuss now, because it is the subject of a later Amendment standing in my name, under which we are proposing to meet a difficulty raised by some hon. Members on my own side to the effect that there might be prosecutions instituted by policemen in remote areas, where justices might come to a decision which was wrong in law. I am proposing to meet that point by providing that no prosecution can be instituted without the fiat of the Attorney-General. These are the alterations and, except from the point of view of those who want to mislead the public as to what this Bill does, I should have thought that they would have been received as improvements in all quarters of the House. The right hon. Gentleman opposite put a very attractive alternative. He said: "If the Government want to make the general strike illegal, why do not they just say so? Why do not they just say that it is illegal to have a general strike?" The right hon. Gentleman must know, and I am sure he does know, that that would have made things no better but worse, because at once we should have been asked: "What do you define as a general strike?" That is what we have done in the Bill. It is true that we have not used the expression "general strike." That expression has very different meanings

    1579
    in the minds of hon. Members opposite. The speech of the hon. Member for South-East Southwark (Mr. Naylor) proves that.
    Mr. CLYNES: Does the Attorney-General mean by that statement that the Government are legislating against something which it is impossible to define in law?
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: No, Sir. It means that the Government are careful not to legislate against something which it is impossible to define in law. We are legislating against something which we have defined. We have heard within the last few minutes from one of the hon. Members opposite—I do not think the right hon. Gentleman was present—that the general strike, I think the hon. Member referred to it as a general stoppage, was not a general strike but a purely industrial strike. In truth, one has to make up one's mind what one means by a general strike. I mean by a general strike a strike directed against the State, against the community, and not a strike for industrial purposes against the employer. If that be the definition, if that be what is understood by the expression "general strike," then Clause 1 does deal with the general strike and declares that a general strike is illegal. The House will remember that the definition which we give expressly brings in the condition that the strike is one which is not merely industrial but designed directly to coerce the State. Therefore, we have done the very thing which the right hon. Gentleman suggests was the desirable thing to do.
    The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that it was quite unnecessary to legislate against the general strike, because the responsible authorities, the trade union leaders, ere convinced that the general strike is a mistake, a weapon which ought not to be used, and which can only result in disaster. The right hon. Gentleman proceeded to give us the answer to that argument. He went on to say that they were of the same opinion a year ago but that, perforce, when the rank and file desired the general strike to take place last year, it was the duty of the leaders to follow. I have no doubt that the same persons who desired the general strike last year will remain desirous of such a strike, and it will still
    1580
    be the duty of the right hon. Gentleman and those associated with him to follow in what they themselves have said are going to be more serious and irrevocable general strikes in the future.
    The right hon. Gentleman also said that there is such a thing as loyalty. There is such a thing as loyalty to the State as well as loyalty to a class in the State, and it was because the general strike of last year was in breach of that primary duty to the State that we have thought it right to ask the House to condemn it in unmistakable language.
    Mr. CLYNES: There is loyalty to coal-owners.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: The right hon. Gentleman is not going to lead me away with that red herring. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that last year there was an irrepressible pressure from the rank and file in favour of the general strike. I am not going to follow him into that discussion at any length, because the question is not, "Who was responsible for starting the general strike?" The question is, "Are we going to allow it to happen again?" I would remind hon. Members opposite that the only trade union which did their own members the courtesy of consulting them by taking a ballot found a majority of two to one of their members against joining the strike. The right hon. Gentleman further said that a sympathetic strike to assist their fellows in distress was a thing into which the trade unions would always be ready to plunge. He forgets that it is not the strike to assist their fellows in distress in putting pressure upon the employers with which this Clause interferes.
    What this Clause forbids is the sympathetic strike designed not to put pressure on the employers, but to put pressure on the State. I stress that point because the hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Mosley) quoted me, or purported to quote me. He said that my statement had been that in any primary strike the maximum pressure is put on the employers by the strikers, and he said that I had gone on to say: "Therefore, any other strike cannot be to press the employers, and must be illegal." I should not have taken up time in contradicting that statement were it not that if it went uncontradicted it might give outside a

    1581
    wholly false impression as to the effect of the Clause. I never said any such thing. It would not have been true if I had said it, and the very column which the hon. Member purported to quote gave words almost in terms opposite from that which he represented me as saying. The hon. Member should read from col. 1034, just after what he quoted from col. 1033. Let me read from cols. 1033 and 1034 from the OFFICIAL REPORT of the 17th May. A question was put by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. J. H. Thomas) as to whether a strike by the railwaymen or any other body of men under certain circumstances would be illegal. My answer was this:
    "That is a plain question to which I can give quite a plain answer. The strike of the transport workers or the railwaymen, in the case which has been put to me, could obviously not be a strike to put pressure upon the employers or the miners. It could only be a strike which was designed to put pressure upon the Government to compel them to act. That, in my view, would be illegal and illegitimate either by this Bill or independent of this Bill."
    That is the passage which the hon. Member quoted, and it states that where there is a sympathetic strike, the object of which is manifestly not to put pressure on the employers but on the Government, that that sympathetic strike is illegal. It does not say, and I do not think anybody can suppose it to say; that every sympathetic strike is designed to put pressure on the Government and that the maximum pressure in every strike is always put on the employers. If anybody had thought anything so foolish they have only to listen to the next sentence in order to see how ridiculous it is. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Wallhead) asked:
    "If there were a general strike of the miners under the conditions which have been discussed for the purpose of enforcing a reduction of hours, then there could not be under the Bill a sympathetic strike in their aid?"
    Some hon. Members called out "answer" and this was my answer:
    "It would depend entirely upon who the sympathetic strikers were. If they were persons the effect of whose strikes would be to bring pressure upon the mineowners, then it would be perfectly legal. If, on the other hand, they were persons who, by their strikes, could not bring pressure upon the mineowners but were only attempting
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    to coerce the Government, then it would be illegal."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th May, 1927; cols. 1033–4, Vol. 206.]
    Mr. MOSLEY: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that, if there is a complete cessation of work in the mines, no further pressure by any body of workers can be exercised on the mineowners; that if in that event another body of workers strike, under his definition they are not coercing the owners, who are already coerced to the maximum extent, but are coercing the Government, and that covers the case of every sympathetic strike?
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: The hon. Member assumes that in every strike there is a complete cessation of work. Surely, he has studied the history of our own times and knows that the whole essence of the struggle in any strike is that it is not always complete to begin with, and that it very often ceases to be complete long before it is settled, and it is at that moment that sympathetic action may have serious effect on the employers. I agree that, if there is already maximum pressure brought to bear on the employers, then obviously, ex hypethesi, you cannot have more. But it is an entirely different thing to represent me as having said that wherever there was a primary strike the maximum pressure was brought to bear on the employers and, therefore, any sympathetic strike was, in my opinion, not designed to bring pressure on the employers.
    Mr. MOSLEY: Is not the right hon. Gentleman saying this, that a sympathetic strike is only permissible within the same primary trade in which the strike takes place?
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL indicated dissent.
    Mr. MOSLEY: I think so. The right hon. Gentleman says this, that in some cases the maximum pressure is not brought to bear on owners. In a mine the cessation of work is not complete; in that case, a further cessation is possible, and is legal. That is a sympathetic strike by men engaged in the same trade or industry; but, if it is a strike outside that trade by another body of workers, that sympathetic strike, which is the genuine sympathetic strike, is illegal.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I do not want to take up the time of the House, but obviously that is not so. It is perfectly true that any sympathetic strike in an industry is legal whether it brings pressure to bear on the Government or not, because it is in furtherance of a trade dispute in the particular trade or industry in which the workers are engaged. All these sympathetic strikes are covered even if they bring pressure to bear on the Government.
    Mr. MOSLEY: That is not a sympathetic strike.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: The hon. Member has just called it one. Hon. Members opposite must agree among themselves as to what they mean by a sympathetic strike before they cross-examine me. Of course, it is not true to say that a sympathetic strike is necessarily illegal if it happens outside the industry in which the strikers are engaged. If it is a strike which tends to bring pressure to bear on the employers, as opposed to one which tends to bring pressure on the community, then it is necessarily legal.
    Mr. CLYNES: Give us a case.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Suppose there was a strike in a pit, and there was a refusal to transport coal brought up by blackleg labour. There you have a sympathetic strike which was designed and calculated to bring pressure on the employers, because they would have no market for the coal, and it would not inflict such hardship on the community as to coerce the Government. Obviously, it would satisfy the definitions in this Clause. I do not want to take up any more time with the mistakes of the hon. Member for Smethwick. I think I have shown that at any rate he is becoming too adept at misquotation.
    Mr. WALLHEAD: Then the illustration means—
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: The hon. Member will be able to speak later. There is another point made by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, which I want to deal with. He said that this Bill must be much more serious in its effects than we represent because it invokes the unanimous hostility of the trade unions. If by trade unions the right hon. Gentleman
    1584
    means the officials of trade unions, then I think there is some measure of justification for his statement, but if he means the rank and file, I can assure him, from my own personal experience, that it is very far from being hostile. I have had a number of letters from trade unionists welcoming the Bill and begging me to be firm and resist any Amendment.
    Mr. CLYNES: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman read any one communication from any one branch of a trade union?
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: The right hon. Gentleman has again misunderstood me. I did not say that I have had statements from branches of trade unions. I said that I have had statements from individual trade unionists, and I do not propose to expose them to victimisation. It, in fact, there was general hostility to the Bill it would not be surprising when we remember the constant and deliberate misrepresentation as to the effect of the Bill which has gone on up and down the country. I want to quote one or two statements from a pamphlet to illustrate what I mean. This is a pamphlet published by the Trades Union Defence Committee, from Eccleston Square. It has been sold by the thousands; if it has not been sold it has been given away. These are a few of the things it says:
    "Imprisonment for workers
    "(1) If any group workers refuse to accept a wage reduction and in the last resort cease work it may be decided by any two justices of the peace that such a stoppage is illegal and the workers concerned will be liable to two years' imprisonment, while the employers will be able to secure damages from the trade union funds, including the benefit fund."
    Every statement in that paragraph is untrue. It cannot decided by a Court that a stoppage of work, because of a refusal to accept a wage reduction, is illegal. On the contrary, such a strike is expressly left as legal under this Bill. And the workers concerned will not be liable to two years, or two minutes, imprisonment. Even if it was illegal, they would not be liable to any imprisonment, and Justices of the Peace cannot give more than three months' imprisonment and do not decide claims for damages against trade union funds. Whoever

    1585
    published that must have known that every statement was designed to mislead the public.
    "(2) If the miners cease work in order to obtain a shorter working day underground that will be an illegal strike."
    The right hon. Gentleman opposite knows, I have stated it in this House several times, and the Bill states it in express terms, that a strike to secure improved conditions of employment is a legal strike. Therefore, that, again, is a statement which is absolutely untrue.
    Mr. MACKINDER: What about affect the community?
    8.0 p.m.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: It does not matter whether it does or does not. There are none so blind as those who will not see.
    "(3) The Government is virtually given power to prevent or stop any strike whenever it pleases."
    The House knows perfectly well that the Government is not given power to prevent or stop any strikes. The only thing which can be stopped by the Courts is the application of funds in their support, and only when the strike is one which has been declared and proved to be illegal. Let me read another quotation from this pamphlet.
    "If the Bill had been in force last year"—
    I want hon. Members to notice this—
    "the mining lock-out would have been an illegal strike."
    I will read a little more:
    "Contributors to the women and children's relief fund, including the Prince of Wales, would have been liable to two years' imprisonment."
    One more paragraph:
    "Every sympathetic strike, and practically all stoppages of work, may be declared illegal."
    Really, I think the hon. Member for Smethwick must have composed some of this. That is the sort of thing which has been circulated by the thousand up and down the country. The right hon. Gentleman himself told us that, if a workman was asked to read the Bill, he would not be able, after he had read it, to tell its real effect. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Hon. Members opposite applaud that statement. Then surely it is a duty, and an obligation of honour, on those whom the working men trust not deliberately to mislead them. The
    1586
    fact is that the Bill does none of these things, and the people who have published these statements must have known that it does none of these things. I hope, when this Bill is on the Statute Book and the workmen find out that it produces none of the effects which have been alleged, they may change their views as to the reliability of the men who have betrayed them. The right hon. Gentleman told us that they were going to stand firm in support of freedom for the working men. They may; and they will not be affected by the Bill as long as they do it. This Bill does not interfere with the freedom of the worker. What this Bill does is to assert that there must be freedom for the community as well, and it is because freedom for the workman has been abused, not by the average workman, but by a small gang of irresponsible people who sought to capture the trade union machine, that legislation has become necessary. They have destroyed liberty for the community by claiming licence for the workman, and the time has come when the Government must ask this House to put an end to that tyranny. We hear on benches opposite talk about the wonderful reunion of sympathy and good will which was arising in industry when this Bill spoiled it all. Last year we saw what a marvellous reunion of employers and workmen was taking place, how closely they were being joined in sympathy and good will.
    Miss WILKINSON: Whose fault was it?
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I am not discussing whose fault it was. I am discussing the argument of those who said that it existed. In truth the hon. Member for Smethwick talked about this cant of peace and good will. I think the cant comes from those who pretend to desire good will in order to damage this Bill, when they themselves are preaching the class war and proclaiming that the only sort of peace in industry which they desire is the peace which would come by the annihilation of the industry upon which the country depends. For all these reasons, the Government think that this Clause is demanded not merely by public opinion, but by public necessity in the interests of the State, and it is in that view that we have carefully endeavoured

    1587
    to limit its operation to those cases for which we designed it, while at the same time we have steadfastly resisted, and will continue steadfastly to resist, any endeavour to whittle away and destroy its usefulness. It is because we believe that by the Amendments made in Committee we have improved the Bill in the direction of making it carry out clearly and definitely those principles with which we began on the Second Reading discussion, that we ask the House to accept Clause 1, and to reject the Amendment.
    Mr. MORGAN JONES: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has just given us an illustration of the dual sides of his character. In the earlier part of his address, he sought to meet some of the objections which have been advanced against this Clause, and in the latter portion he descended to the hustings as he did on previous occasions. In the last part of his speech, the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that public opinion was behind the Government in demanding that this Clause should be carried. I wonder upon what ground the right hon. and learned Gentleman feels justified in making a claim such as that. I wonder if the right hon. and learned Gentleman could quote a particular passage from his own speeches in the last General Election, or his own election address, or from the election address of the Prime Minister or any of his leading colleagues in which any indication was given that, if they were returned to office, the Government proposed to introduce a Clause such as this. I venture to think that he cannot, Not only have they not sought a mandate for this Clause, but I am prepared to show that they actually received votes by parading themselves before the electorate as friends of the trade unions. I have in my hands a booklet which was published in my own constituency during the last General Election. The title of it is, "What Unionists have done for the workers." I was very much intrigued to know what they had done, so I looked inside to see what it was they claimed as their record. In the first place, they claim that they had given the vote, and, in the second place, they say:
    "Trade Unions.—First, the right to form trade unions, established by Conservative
    1588
    Acts of 1824 and 1825, abolishing old laws against labour combinations. Effects partially spoiled by Radical Act of 1871. Finally re-established by Conservative Acts of 1875 and 1876."
    The right hon. and learned Gentleman and his colleagues were inviting support from trade unionists in the country on the ground that they had proved themselves to be great friends of trade unionists. To emphasise their claim, they were hurling brickbats, metaphorically speaking, at the Liberals, and saying that the Conservative Codlin was the friend and not the Liberal Short. It seems to me, however, that the Tory party have become weary of well-doing. Having given the right to trade unionists to form trade unions, they are now making it extremely difficult for the ordinary man-in-the-street to decide when and on what occasion he may use his trade union. No one knows at a given moment what strike may be legal, and what strike may be illegal. It is, I think, fair for us to emphasise that this question of the right to strike has become increasingly important to trade unionists. I represent a constituency in which I was brought up, and my mind goes back to a time when my father was a miner there. In those days, there were in the Valley some 12 to 15 collieries, and they were owned by five or six different companies, and if a man had a grievance against one company, he could easily transfer his services to another company in the neighbourhood. But now no such conditions apply. In the whole Valley, from top to bottom, there are only two collieries out of 12 to 15 that are owned by two companies; all the rest are owned and controlled completely by the same company.
    If it be true that the tendency in various types of industries is towards the formation of greater amalgamations of companies, and the concentration of greater power in the hands of the capitalist class, then an equal right to co-operation should be allowed to the workers. It is the difficulty of using to the full that right of co-operation through trade unions that I feel is so much challenged in this Clause. The right hon. and learned Gentleman admitted that this Clause had undergone a good deal of transformation since we discussed it in Committee, but I should think it would be fair to say, quoting an old French proverb: "The more it changes, the more it is the same." He points to the fact that lock-outs have

    1589
    been made illegal equally with strikes. He says that he himself, in speaking on the Bill at an early stage, pointed out that there was a far better method of dealing with lock-outs than is to be found in this particular Bill. He says that these far better methods are in the existing law. If that be true, why was this far better method not put into operation a year ago? What happened on the 4th May last year happened three days after the lock-out of the miners? The general strike was an answer to the lock-out of the miners. If the Attorney-General thought that the law was sufficiently strong to enable him to deal with lockouts, why was that power not used then?
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: The answer is that in that case it was not a general lock-out.
    Mr. JONES: But are only general lock-outs to come under the ægis of the Attorney-General? Are partial lock-outs not to be brought within this Bill?
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: It all depends on what you mean by it "general." If you mean by "general," in that connection, a strike directed against the State, as opposed to a strike directed against the employer or the employed, then certainly all these general lock-outs, whether they be partial in area or extent, are dealt with by the Bill. The reason why last year's lock-out was not dealt with in the way I have suggested was that it never approached being a general lock-out in the sense of being directed against the State.
    Mr. JONES: But surely the right hon. and learned Gentleman cannot deny that it brought direct injury to the general community? When he argues that he had enough power last year to deal with lock-outs, we accuse him of having failed to use it on that occasion. Another point arises. The right hon. and learned Gentleman, in his speech, on a previous occasion, said that, if you did introduce the word "lock-out" into this Bill, it would—I think his words were—be "useless and inept." Therefore, he cannot accuse us of having failed to support him on that occasion, if he himself assured us in his introduction of that particular word into the Bill that it was in fact useless and mere window dressing for political purposes.
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    In his second point, I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman was rather less than fair to my right hon. Friend the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes). He said that the right hon. Member for Platting had stated that the change in the matter of the treatment of the rank and file who take part in a dispue was unfair to the ringleaders. That argument of the Attorney-General was very unfair. The argument of my right hon. Friend the Member for Platting was this. He said in effect, "If you take these powers, you take them because you want to prevent the cessation of work as far as possible." He said it was not the ringleaders who would be taking part in the cessation of work but the rank and file, and, therefore" he argued, you exonerate the rank and file from penalties under the Bill and clearly you are failing in the purpose which you say is the prime object of the Clause. My right hon. Friend did not argue that the ringleaders should be allowed to escape, far from it; and the Attorney-General had no right to make that insinuation. To do so was less fair than the Attorney-General usually is in debate. I want to make it clear that the right hon. Member for Platting was not arguing that the ringleaders should be allowed to have special treatment as distinct from the rank and file. He urged that if the Attorney-General's point of view as to the purpose of the Clause is what has been stated, the Government failed in that purpose in the Clause as amended.
    The third point made by the Attorney-General was this. He said there had been certain changes made by the elimination of the words "intimidate," "substantial proportion" and the method of dealing with the words "trade or industry." I think it is still open to some doubt as to who may or may not legally participate in a strike. The Noble Lord the Member for South Nottingham (Lord H. Cavendish-Bentinck) quoted the "Times," a paper which is not partial to Labour. It was a quotation which indicated clearly that there is in the minds of people who ordinarily are strong and faithful supporters of the Government a doubt as to the real implications of the Clause. Let us return to this controversy, which originated on the last occasion between the learned Attorney-General and my

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    right hon. Friend the Member for Derby (Mr. J. H. Thomas). The matter arose because of a speech delivered at Swansea by the Minister of Health. The right hon. Member for Derby quoted the speech of the Minister of Health, and he asked the Attorney-General whether he subscribed to the interpretation of the Bill given by the Minister of Health. The passage in question will be found in the OFFICIAL REPORT, beginning in col. 1030. The proposition, as I remember it, was this. Suppose that all the miners are locked out or that there is a national miners' strike. For all intents and purposes all the miners are out. Suppose that the railwaymen, having examined the situation, decide to come out on strike in sympathy with the miners, as they did last year.
    The question asked was, if the railwaymen came out on strike in those circumstances would they be striking legally or illegally? Do not let us bother now about the other people, but confine ourselves to the question of the railwaymen. The answer of the Attorney-General, as I understood it, was that some sympathetic strikes would be legal and some would not. That is a broad way of stating his point of view. Within which category does this sympathetic strike of railwaymen fall? Is it a legal or an illegal strike? Clearly, if all the miners are out you cannot bring any further pressure to bear on the coalowners. If, therefore, the railwaymen come out as well, they are clearly not adding to the pressure brought on the coalowners, and the pressure must be brought to bear on someone else, either the Government or the community. Can we have a clear answer to the question whether in those circumstances the railwaymen are striking legally or illegally?
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Assume that the miners are on strike in some great dispute, and assume that the railwaymen are out on strike in circumstances which cannot have any effect upon the mining employers and can only be effective by coercing the Government. Is that legal or illegal? If it is designed to coerce the Government it is certainly illegal. If it is designed to coerce the Government, if intended to coerce the Government, which is the only possible effectiveness of their action—?
    Mr. CONNOLLY: Who is to determine that?
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to finish my sentence? If it is designed to coerce the Government, which is the only thing their action can do, that is illegal. If they do not intend to coerce the Government, then it would be illegal only if it was on such a scale and so large and general as to be calculated to coerce the Government, and in that case again it would be illegal.
    Mr. CONNOLLY: Who does the calculation?
    Mr. JONES: The Attorney-General says that it depends on the intention of the railwaymen, as to whether or not they intend to coerce the Government by coming out. Is that so?
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: That is one thing.
    Mr. JONES: Let us examine it for the moment. Assume that the railwaymen come out on strike in support of the miners on strike nationally, could they have any other intention or how could anyone assume any other intention than that of bringing pressure to bear on someone other than the coalowners? Clearly they are bringing pressure to bear on someone other than the coal-owners. Who is that someone else? Either the Government or the community. As I understand the answer of the Attorney-General, it means that in those circumstances, if there is already a general strike of miners, it will be impossible for the railwaymen to come out in support of them because then, inevitably, the railwaymen will be designing a strike to bring pressure on the community. That is a very serious proposition.
    Mr. POTTS: Using his own words.
    Mr. JONES: Yes, and I think I am right in saying that the Attorney-General went to the Free Trade Hall in Manchester and, before the public there, said it had been alleged against the Government that railwaymen could not come out in support of miners and I believe he used the words "That is a lie." What is the truth? Is this answer true or is the statement of the Attorney-General in Manchester true?
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I can correct that statement now if the hon. Member will allow me. The instance I gave was this. Suppose a porter at Manchester has a dispute about wages, I said every railwayman in the employment of every railway company in the country could come out in support of him, and that would be perfectly legal. I never dealt with the point which the hon. Member attributes to me now.
    Mr. JONES: Then I withdraw at once. But the House will observe that the Attorney-General all the time visualises a dispute within a given trade. I am asking him to visualise a case where there is already a primary dispute, say in the mining industry, and where another trade strikes in sympathy with the people in the primary industry. The right hon. and learned Gentleman still does not answer the question except by giving us the clear impression that, in his view, such a strike would be illegal. In any case, even if he is not prepared to go as far as that, there is clearly a grave doubt in the matter. I am prepared to tell the right hon. and learned Gentleman that it is a very grave invasion of what these people have come to regard as an elementary right even to place the matter in doubt. The power to withhold their labour is the only power which they have, and its seems grotesquely unjust to place that right at all in jeopardy by leaving its legality in doubt. Not only are we afraid that the people directly concerned in a sympathetic strike will be involved, but we are not yet clear as to how far people outside the trade concerned, say the womenfolk of the strikers, may participate in helping those who honestly believe themselves to be acting in a perfectly legal way but whose action may subsequently be pronounced illegal by the Courts. Let us again suppose that the railwaymen came out with the miners, as they have done before and as they believe they have the right to do again. It may, in the course of time, be decided by the High Court that such a strike is illegal, but meanwhile the womenfolk in various parts of the country will have embarked upon the setting up of relief funds or the provision of food and clothing for the strikers. That may be held to be furthering an illegal strike.
    Is that a correct interpretation of the word "furthering" or is it not? We are
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    entitled to know. Frankly, I do not know, and I think I may fairly presume that there are millions outside this House who are not accustomend to the verbiage of Acts of Parliament and who do not know. What is the view of the Attorney-General? Will these forms of activity be legal or illegal, if a second trade which strikes sympathetically is pronounced to be acting illegally. That is a very important point and one on which we are entitled to a precise reply. Hon. Members opposite frequently argue as if striking were an activity in which trade unionists indulged but which ought not to be mentioned in the presence of respectable people. But, as a matter of fact, it is the exercise of a privilege which scores of hon. Members on the other side exercise in their own concerns. There any many business men on the other side of the House. They buy and sell commodities, and no one will challenge their right to withhold their commodities from the market until they get what they deem to be the appropriate price. The workman has a commodity to sell. It is the power of his right arm. It seems to me that the workers have a right, either themselves or in sympathy with others, to withhold their commodity from the market until they get an adequate price. That seems to be an elementary principle which is affected by this Bill and, whether the Government believe it or not, it will be proved in due time that the trade unionists of the country attach so much importance to this right, of withholding their labour, in the ultimate resort and when they are driven to it, that they will express strong disapproval of the Government's action in placing that right in jeopardy through the medium of Clause 1.
    Mr. CLUSE: Throughout the Debate this afternoon we have had a continuation of the usual line of policy of the Tory party. It seems to be their mode of propaganda to assume that the Labour party, industrially, is in favour of a policy of general destruction and, politically, in favour of a policy of confiscation. One does not know whether hon. Members opposite believe in this or whether it is merely a pose. As a matter of fact, the attitude of this party on trade union questions is not that the strike should be used for the purpose of destroying industry, but that it, can legitimately be used by working people to help them

    1595
    when they are bargaining either for an increased price for their commodity, which is their labour power, or when they are resisting an attempt by the employers to reduce their standard of living. We have heard a great deal of talk about peace and good will but only recently in these Debates the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) showed how, under modern developments, the trade union movement has had to extend its front in order to deal with the increasing power of modern aggregations of capital. With all the talk about good will in industry, unless the Conservative party believe in the abolition of trade unionism, they must leave to the workers the power of organising to protect themselves in the dealings between themselves and their employers.
    The Labour party and the official trade union movement stand by the right of the working people to withdraw their labour whenever they think it is necessary in the discussion of the living wage conditions. No responsible trade union leader and no sensible number of them have ever taken up the attitude that they believe in using the trade union weapon for any purposes other than the improvement of the conditions of the workers under the present capitalist system of industry, but the other side are always trying to drive us into the position of admitting that we believe in the destruction of industry by industrial methods. In a paper published by the Conservative head office under the name of the "Democrat"—a very amusing name when you come to remember that the party opposite believe in reforming the House of Lords in the direction of increasing its undemocratic powers—we have the same suggestion running right through, that we believe in the Communist or the Bolshevist attitude in politics, and that industrially we believe in destruction. It is because we know that the object of the Conservative party is to try to induce the public to believe that that is our out look that we think that in trying to bolster up that position the Conservative party, through this Bill, is really hitting at the right to strike and to organise possessed by the working people of this country.
    I am particularly concerned with the condition of working people in the unorganised trades of this country. In
    1596
    the catering trade, for instance, there is a tremendous amount of sweating and of very bad and insufferable conditions, and in the food distribution trade there are at present the same evils. What is wanted in those trades is a strong industrial organisation, with 100 per cent. membership in the trade union, in order that the representatives of the trade union can exert legitimate pressure upon the owners in order to lift up the standard of those who work in those industries. Immediately the suggestion gets abroad, as it naturally will, that this Bill will limit the fighting power of industrial organisations, instead of helping the development of organisation in certain industries which are now unorganised, it will deter it, and those working men and women will remain in the position of suffering and hardship in which they find themselves at present, with very little hope for the future. We go round the country—and we are prepared in this House to stand by our agitation outside—stating that this Bill is aimed at the industrial power of the workers of this country, and we intend to go on fighting it inside this House and to carry on our propaganda throughout the constituencies.
    Mr. WALLHEAD: The Attorney-General has attempted to give an explanation of what is meant by this Bill in so far as a strike is concerned that might be in sympathy with miners on strike, and if some of us present raise the case of the miners, we must be forgiven, because the miners are in a bad case. My constituents are miners. They are in a particularly bad way in South Wales at the present moment, and it is exceedingly difficult to see how their position is going to be improved if their power of striking or of taking industrial action is taken from them or weakened in any way whatever. I know that the argument is put up that the community must be protected against the recurrence of strikes upon a large scale, and I find that even on these benches there is a predisposition to suppose that there is something particularly sacrosanct about what is called the community.
    I am bound to confess that I do not quite accept that point of view. So far as my experience goes, what is called the community cares very little about the conditions of the people who produce its

    1597
    commodities, as long as it can sail along comfortably with no inconvenience to itself. The community cares very little about the conditions in the trade, for instance, which my hon. Friend the Member for South Islington (Mr. Cluse) has just mentioned, namely, the catering trade, a particularly ill-organised industry, and I think it cannot be said that the catering firms are firms which do not pay a fairly adequate profit. Some of them, indeed, pay exceedingly high dividends, but the conditions of employment in those firms constitute a positive disgrace. The community, however, is not concerned; the community does not bother itself. Speeches may be made explaining and exposing the conditions, but the community makes no move, and it is only when this sacred entity called the community has its convenience and comfort interfered with that it begins to take notice of the issues involved.
    It is the same with most of the trades and industries. Whether the miners were right or wrong last year, their condition at the present time is deplorable. I heard stories on Saturday afternoon of men in South Wales whose wages for the hours they can work in the week, the days they can put in, are less than £1 a week, and when the question of a minimum wage is raised, I was informed that the men dare not ask for their minimum wage, that they are afraid to ask for their legal rights, because, if they do, they are threatened that they will lose the meagre employment which they are supposed to enjoy at the present time. That is a very deplorable situation, but what does the community care about that, so long as the community continues to get coal cheap and so long as the manufacturers get their coal cheap? What does the community care that the lives and homes of the miners are being wrecked and shattered, that, they are living lives in a continual tragedy from one year's end to the other? All this talk about the community leaves me very cold, and when I find the community beginning to exercise its mind on the condition of the people who maintain it in its comfort, I shall be prepared to have more regard to what is called the community than, I am bound to confess, I have now.
    I raised a question with regard to the miners, and the Attorney-General this
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    afternoon has attempted to meet the point of a possible sympathetic strike on the part of the railwaymen, but I raised another point in a previous discussion about this very same issue. Capital now is becoming of a very international character. The right hon. Member for Carmarthen (Sir A. Mond) has stood in this House and pleaded for an international arrangement whereby the conditions in the coal trade might be improved. He visualised a system under which there would be a kind of international cartel, in which the international coalowners would begin to pool their resources; and as internationalism in capital spreads, it is easy to assume, I think, that British coalowners can own coal pits not only here in this country, but abroad, in Poland, in France, in Germany, or in Belgium. There is nothing to stop them, and it may well be that that will be the move in the near future, if it has not already begun. Supposing the miners here go on strike—and it must be a general strike of miners, otherwise adequate pressure cannot be exerted to bring the owners to reason. In that case the coalowners here who own either partly or wholly mines situated abroad would import coal produced by their foreign workmen, and the loss of their profits here would be made up by the increased prices of the coal from their mines abroad. In that ease the miners here would fail in the attempt to bring the necessary pressure to bear upon the coalowners, and the only way in which that pressure could be applied would be by a refusal of the transport workers and the railwaymen to handle the coal brought into the country. I am quite convinced in my own mind that under the terms of this Bill that would he treated as a sympathetic strike of an utterly illegal character, and the state of the miners in this country would become a very deplorable one indeed. That, however, seems to be the position to which we are rapidly coming under this Bill.
    We have been told that we must prevent sympathetic strikes because of the disaster they bring, as exemplified by the loss inflicted by the general strike. I have heard talk about the economic loss caused by the general strike until it has become rather nauseating. I believe the general strike involved 2,500,000 workers, and that over the period of eight days

    1599
    which the strike lasted there was a loss of about 20,000,000 working days. That is represented as being a tremendous interference with the prosperity of the country. We have had 1,000,000 men unemployed for years, representing a loss of 5,000,000 working days a week. We have even had 1,500,000 unemployed for years, and for some time there were 2,000,000 unemployed. Taking the figure as 1,000,000, however, that represents a loss of 260,000,000 working days per annum. That has been going on year by year for the last six years, but the Government do nothing. The Government have never made a move to deal with the unemployment problem, except by the continuance of State payments, for which they obtain nothing in return. Therefore, we do not feel disposed to shed crocodile tears about the economic loss that accrued from the general strike, seeing that the Government, a Government of the big manufacturers and the trading community, have allowed this loss to go on unchecked year after year.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope): The hon. Member seems to be getting rather wide of the question of illegal strikes.
    Mr. WALLHEAD: I was trying to deal with the argument put up about this Clause being necessary to prevent strikes on a large scale on account of the economic loss inflicted upon the community and showing that we are not taking the same meticulous care to prevent economic loss in other directions where it is far more severe than the loss we are immediately considering. We cannot help thinking that this Clause is aimed at the organisation of the trade unions themselves. From all we hear and from all the speeches in this House we get the impression that there is a feeling among hon. Members opposite that the fundamental cause of the difficulty with which this country is faced lies in the organisation of the trade unions and in their regulations, and that if they were organised on a different basis it might make a tremendous difference to trade and industry. A good deal has been said about a return to sanity in organisation. Many of my friends who believe what the Prime Minister said when he spoke about "peace in our time" have been led to
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    believe and to say that if we could get round a table to discuss difficulties strikes might disappear. Everybody will accept conciliation. No one but a fool would go in for a strike if it could be avoided.
    I would accept conciliation gladly, but I hold that the present organisation of society makes conciliation extremely unlikely, at any rate, makes it extremely difficult, and that it is absolutely necessary that the workers should retain their power of withholding their labour. We hold that the policy of conciliation is not likely to be accepted under the system of industrial organisation existing to-day, and the Government are proving that that is right. This Bill is one of a series of Measures based upon class antagonism of the deepest description, and proves up to the hilt the ineradicable antagonism which exists in modern society between the sellers of labour power and the takers of profits and dividends. Because we feel that this Bill is based upon that feeling we are out to oppose it for all we are worth. I make no appeal to the Government at all. I do not complain of what they are doing. I protest, so far as the trade unions are concerned, that it is a vindication of the trouble, that goes on.
    I say frankly that if I were a Conservative and found myself faced with a growing Labour party, faced with the growing power of a working class determined to alter its economic position by transferring wealth from one section to another in order that the workers may really enjoy the wealth they create, I would do exactly as the Conservative party are doing. They do what they are doing because they have the power to do it. All their talk about their love for trade unions leaves me exceedingly cold. I simply do not believe it. Every Amendment that could be thought of to strengthen this crippling Bill has been brought forward by them. I do not complain at all. I would do exactly as they have done, and I only hope that I may live long enough to see the time when a Labour and Socialist party will sit on the other side of the House, not only in office but in actual power, and then we will begin to undo some of the things the Government are now doing because they have the power to do them; and the excuse we will give and the explanation we will make will be the one they give

    1601
    to us—that they do it because the power is theirs. When we have the power we also will use it.
    Mr. GILLETT: There is one point in the speech just delivered by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Wall-head), with which I do not agree. The hon. Member said that if he belonged to the Conservative party he would do exactly what they are doing. If I belonged to the Conservative party I certainly would not do what they are doing, because, from the point of view of that party, it is an exceedingly foolish policy. The reason it is so foolish is that this Bill has not met with whole-hearted support in many important quarters that have no sympathy with Labour, and who look upon these questions from a totally different standpoint. Some of the leading financial papers have condemned this Measure. The Clause we are considering at the present moment is the principal Clause in the whole Bill.
    If we take a bird's eye view of the history of the trade union movement, and consider what that movement has meant to the vast mass of workers, I suppose all of us on the Labour Benches, and probably many of those sitting in other parts of the House will agree with me when I say that, whatever hon. Members opposite might have felt about this question, the lot of the worker has been better where the trade union movement has been most successful and powerful, and the sweated industries exist where there has been no trade union organisation at all. Therefore, if we consider the social outlook of this country to-day the two great weapons upon which the worker depends for the improvement of his lot and the defence of his position, are, first of all, the power of the ballot; and, secondly, the power of withholding his labour if in industrial disputes he has no other means of compelling his employer to do what he desires.
    The Conservative party are deliberately attacking this great principle of democracy. Hon. Members opposite may say that this Measure has not excited as much opposition as is claimed by the Labour party. Very often there exists an apathy that may be mistaken. This Measure is by no means understood, and those in this House who have listened to the explanations of the legal Members
    1602
    in different parts of this Chamber have noted how different even those explanations are. It is no wonder under these circumstances that a vast number of men and women hardly realise what this Measure stands for.
    9.0 p.m.
    On the introduction of this Bill, the Prime Minister said it was intended to prepare the way for peace, but since that time the extreme members of the party have come in, and we have now got before us a Measure far removed from the peace about which the Prime Minister spoke. When the Conservative party attacked this great principle of the workers they made a mistake, because they ignored altogether the enormous power which wealth has in the industrial world. Supposing hon. Members opposite had said, "We think you were mistaken in what you did last year," I think the Conservative party have made a mistake in thinking it was wise for them to meet that situation by introducing a Bill of this kind. Last year we had a general strike, and many hon. Members on the Labour Benches and on the benches opposite have said that they considered the principle of the general strike was unsound. I consider that the worker ought to be left the supreme power to decide as to whether he chooses to strike or not. A long experience will prove that, after all, the general strike is a weapon which is more powerful as a threat than it is when it is actually in being. Anyone who observed the general strike must have been enormously impressed by the suffering which it inflicted upon the very poorest people in the country. It is the smallest cellar that feels the coal pinch first, and it was from the men who were suffering most that the great mass of supporters of the general strike came, because they honestly thought it was a sympathetic movement to help some of their fellows who were being most unjustly treated.
    I think the action of the coalowners on that occasion was condemned by men of all shades of opinion. The line of action taken by some of the coalowners could only have been adopted by some of the worst employers this country could possibly have. If the opinions of many business men had been made public I think they would have been

    1603
    found to coincide with the views expressed in this House by the Prime Minister, after he had met the coal-owners, in regard to the way in which they had behaved. Whatever the policy which was adopted during the general strike may have been, it was no justification for bringing forward a Measure of this kind which challenges the whole position of the trade union movement. The general strike is a thing which I very much doubt this Bill is really going to stop in the future.
    There have recently been two illustrations in Europe of a general strike. One was in Germany and the other was in the very early days of the revolution in Russia. The fact that the Tsar was compelled to bring a legislative body into existence was due to a general strike. This Measure may possibly make a strike such as took place last year impossible, because the general strike in this country was never intended as revolutionary action. When you have another general strike in this country, it is possible that it may be the preparation for a revolutionary movement, and, if such a strike as that takes place, this Bill will be of very little use to prevent it. If you are going to have a revolutionary strike, you already have sufficient powers in the hands of the Government to deal with an emergency of that kind without any such powers as those which are contained in this Bill.
    If we take the first great principle outlined in this Clause, I believe that to stop a general strike in its worst revolutionary form this Bill would be useless. The danger, however, of the whole proposal, is that you pass through the general strike to the sympathetic strike, and we have seen, as the Bill has been going through Committee, the extreme difficulty of limiting the proposals in the Bill to the actual object which the Government have, at any rate, pretended to have in view, namely, the prevention of a general strike. As to how far a sympathetic strike can go, endless illustrations can be put forward, and here we come to one of the root objections to the Bill. We have asked the Attorney-General one question after another. He has answered that this strike will be legal and that strike will be illegal, and we might go on putting those questions.
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    There is one thing that it would be interesting to know. Suppose that, in the emergency of last year, when the whole of the coalminers were out, the railwaymen then refused to carry coal coming in from the Continent, I cannot see, if the Attorney-General were to give an answer as whether that was legal or illegal, that it would be any guarantee as to what action would he taken in the future should that emergency arise. It could easily be argued the other way. If there were a great coal stoppage, such as we had last year, and if coal were prevented from coming into this country, surely that could easily be interpreted as an attempt to coerce the Government. Where the number is larger, say, in the event of all the railwaymen being called out, the Attorney-General tells us that that would be illegal.
    It is one of the great difficulties and one of the most unsatisfactory features in connection with this Bill that to such a large extent it is virtually going to depend finally upon what a Court of law is going to say is the actual meaning of the Measure. In the earlier parts of the Debate, instances were given of the line of argument used by the Liberal Attorney-General and Solicitor-General when one of the great trade union Bills was going through the House. They said then how unsatisfactory it was that matters of this kind should be decided by the Courts, because they said that those who would have to decide were by no means best qualified by experience to decide matters of this kind. Nevertheless, it seems to me that in the case of the sympathetic strike it is bound to be left in the hands of Courts of law—in the hands of magistrates or of judges—and, with the best intentions, there will be the most extraordinary decisions, and feeling will be aroused which will only embitter any industrial disputes that may happen in the future. I do not know whether the question has been gone into very closely, but I have not heard what is the real meaning of that part of the Clause which deals with the question of people instigating or inciting others to take part or otherwise act in furtherance of a strike. I should have been interested to hear a little more as to what really is covered by this—whether, if a strike were going on which was declared to be illegal, anyone who gave any money, or anyone who

    1605
    began to collect funds on behalf of the wives and children of those who were taking part in the dispute, would render themselves liable to penalties under this Clause. Would anybody who was serving on the committees of the trade unions concerned be liable under this Clause? It seems to me that there is no end to the number of men or women who might become liable. These considerations are quite apart from what I regard as the great fundamental principle that the worker should be allowed the right to decide whether he is going to withhold his work or not.
    This Bill will only make the industrial problems that we have to face more difficult of solution than they were before, and it is very extraordinary that at this stage there should have been talk of some measure of conciliation. It has been suggested that the trade union leaders might now begin to see whether there is not some way of avoiding industrial disputes by methods of conciliation. Hon. Members opposite must have a very small conception of the enormous bitterness that this Bill has aroused when they can even make such a suggestion. If it had been made before the Bill was introduced, I could have understood it, but the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health who, I see, is smiling, cannot have any idea whatever of the bitterness that this Measure has introduced. If he thinks that the men who have been fighting it are now going to sit round a table in order to try to talk about what might very well have been spoken of before, he very much mistakes the whole position at the present time. In any case, time would have to be allowed to elapse, if the Government are going on with this Measure, to see what its actual working is going to be, but to talk at the present moment of conciliation, to talk of asking men to sit round a table when a Measure of this kind has just been introduced, as though there were no resentment and no bitterness, shows an extraordinary lack of statesmanship. Can anyone imagine the Liberal Government, at the height of the dispute on the Irish question, suddenly going to Lord Carson and proposing, while the Home Rule Bill was being passed, that he should come and sit at a round table? Can anyone imagine that Lord Carson would have listened to such a suggestion?
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: This is a long way from Clause 1.
    Mr. GILLETT: I was only trying to bring that in as an illustration which I thought might perhaps have been better understood on the Benches opposite than an illustration dealing with a dispute in the trade union world. The point which I was trying to bring out, and which I still desire to lay stress upon, is that I think the Government, if they really have any idea that conciliation is going to be considered at this time, are fundamentally mistaken. This Clause is fundamentally against the principle of the right of the worker to withhold his work. That right is going to be taken way, though how far or to what extent the great mass of the workers of this country do not know, and probably the Government themselves do not know; I do not think they possibly can know, because it will depend finally upon the judgment of the Courts. When that right is being challenged, as it is, and as it has been to-day, to come and talk about conciliation is utterly futile and hopeless. I shall certainly vote against this Clause, believing that the Government, in bringing in this Bill and introducing a Clause of this kind, have made a very great mistake which they themselves will have cause bitterly to regret.
    Mr. W. M. ADAMSON: The main argument that we have been using in regard to this Clause is as to its indefiniteness and its vagueness. We are inclined to believe that, almost deliberately, it has been given the widest and fullest possible scope, in order that it may include within it many things that are not intended to be shown openly and above-board. Whatever may be the legal expressions contained in it, there is no doubt that the intention of those who have been responsible for framing the Bill has been in the main to prevent what is detrimental to the interests of the nation. But it would have been very much better, instead of relying upon the experience of 1926, to take an ordinary period and base their proposals on ordinary normal conditions, on the fact of negotiations becoming futile, and on the probability of strikes on the one hand and lock-outs on the other. I speak as a trade union official of some 20 years' experience, and, taking my mind back the length of that period as to the

    1607
    methods which have been adopted with regard to hours of labour, the conditions that apply inside the factory, the wages paid and so on and the negotiations which generally have taken place on these matters, if you take the average position you have to come to the conclusion generally that it is only after very lengthy negotiations and every possible means to get at a settlement that a dispute actually takes place.
    I want to quote a particular instance in a normal year. I take the period of 1925, and I find that 53·7 per cent. of the disputes that took place arose out of reductions of wages that were being enforced upon the workers, whereas the actual number that were for increased wages was only 7·9 per cent., the remainder being on questions of working conditions, hours of labour, and so on. After we had gone through the period of enormous wage reductions from 1921 to 1924, the workers were surely entitled during 1925 to use every possible means to maintain their standard of life under the conditions that existed. But what is going to be the interpretation of hardship upon the community? Although it was discussed on many occasions in Committee and on the Second Reading, it has never yet been defined. There is an organisation called the West End Tailors' and Tailoress' Association. Let us imagine that prior to the opening of the society season the tailors and tailoresses decide not to carry out any of their ordinary functions in the making of fine dresses that are worn at Ascot or in the coming society season and that this caused hardship upon a section of the community. Would that entail the intervention of the Attorney-General? It would be a wonderful thing that the races could not be attended in last year's dresses.
    Lieut.-Commander BURNEY: Does the hon. Member really put that forward as a serious question?
    Mr. ADAMSON: Certainly. It would be a very peculiar position if Court functions were held up by the absence of new finery. The hon. and gallant Gentleman possibly has no experience of that class of society in which ladies dare not wear the same dress twice in public. It is not a question of the trade unionist's wife having to weal the same dress in and out
    1608
    of season and then turning it outside in. It is a question of what causes hardship. The only thing that caused discomfort to a certain section of the community would be something that took from their physical comforts or prevented the actual flaunting of their wealth and luxury. I want to know if it would be considered a case of hardship if the West End tailors and tailoresses struck work and refused, unless they got better wages and shorter hours, to carry out their ordinary functions.
    However, there is perhaps a more serious aspect of the Clause than that, as to the infliction of penalties under certain conditions when a strike is declared illegal. I believe the great responsibility upon the House of Commons is to keep free from the type of legislation that enforces penalty Clauses. It may be in the minds of Conservative Members of the House that penalty Clauses are a deterrent against infringements of the law. It may be, of course, in the case of ordinary crimes that a penalty may be a deterrent to individuals against breaking the law, but I question very much when you are dealing with matters of principle—and we have the same thing in regard to all sorts of questions that have come under the law as declared by the Governments of this country, such as anti-vaccination anti things of that nature—whether penalties, however inflicted, are any deterrent whatever.
    Perhaps I may take the opportunity of giving a personal experience to this House. It was a case in which I was engaged some 13 years ago in connection with a dispute in which, although it was taken under the common law, I was summoned before a bench of magistrates for a certain action taken in that dispute. I was responsible for the dispute in enforcing, as far as we could, a decent rate of wages and working conditions. I was brought before the magistrate in a certain town in the Midlands and a penalty was imposed for what was termed a misdemeanour for making threats, or something of that kind, to a man who had refused to cease work, although a member of a trade union who had, with others, decided himself upon the dispute. The bench of magistrates consisted of three employers who, within a very short period of time, had equally come under our methods of negotiation and had been compelled to pay increased

    1609
    wages to their workers. I was given the alternative of paying £5 or a month's imprisonment. I accepted the imprisonment. I may remind the House—and perhaps there are Members who remember the incident—that it was raised in the House and Mr. McKenna, who was then Home Secretary, reviewed the whole situation, and I was released in six days, after the fullest possible investigation, with the evident intention on the part of the Home Secretary to redeem what had been an injustice. Is the same thing going to happen under this Measure where you have a bench of magistrates who are not prepared to consider the circumstances in the light of evidence—it can be done on the application of the Attorney-General even in these cases—and who may be prejudiced individuals who are willing and likely to take an exceptional advantage of those conditions, so that responsible officials of the unions can be sentenced or fined under the Clause?
    As I said at the beginning, I am very much opposed to the Clause as it stands with its vague and indefinite form. Is it going to help the Government, even assuming that they claim it is illegal, in their attack on the dispute as it exists? Rather would it be better that they should settle down to the solving of many of our industrial problems by types of legislation that would be beneficial, not merely to the industries concerned but to those who are engaged in them. It would be better if it were possible even at this late hour, to withdraw the implications that are in this Clause, and which are bound to cause difficulties in the future, rather than solve the difficulties which they are intended to meet. It would be better for the Government and their supporters really to try to visualise the attitude of mind which they are going to create. They may think to-day that there is no enthusiasm in opposition to this Measure, but, on the other hand, let them be assured that there is the keenest possible determination against this Measure, and particularly this first Clause, which is going, in its vague and indefinite form, to make it possible for strikes to be declared illegal after they have been in operation, and for men and women who are engaged in them to come under the law, and be made criminals, and sometimes convicts, merely because they have acted according
    1610
    to their principles, in applying what was right and standing by their fellow-workers in carrying out the ordinary traditions of the trade union movement, in their desire for better working conditions and the things that mean life for all.
    Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: I certainly wish wholeheartedly to support the proposal for the omission of this, the all-important Clause of the Bill. I am very strongly in agreement with the reference made by the hon. Member for Merthyr (Mr. Wallhead) when he drew special attention to this particular part of the Clause which deals with causing inconvenience to the community. There is no doubt that one of the great difficulties in endeavouring to secure the application of justice to the struggles in the workaday world is because the community does not give serious consideration to those particular struggles as we find them today, and it has to be acknowledged that, even in the trade union world, that particular aspect of the situation has been very distressing. On many occasions, while very urgent appeals were being made by the men—and sometimes women—who were out on strike, for the appreciation by the community of a good cause, even then, not only did the community generally take no particular action to support the cause of the strikers, but sections of the trade union world themselves carried, on in their own way as if nothing particular was happening. That phase of trade unionism had, unquestionably, to be taken in hand, and in previous contributions we made in this Debate we certainly did acknowledge—and we endorse it to-day—that that situation has greatly improved. Had it not improved, it would have been a serious reflection on the trade union movement.
    The growing tendency of the trade union movement was to recognise that where it was a just cause for a strike, then that feeling should be made evident in a practical fashion by the other industries and different trades coming together either on strike themselves or by contributions towards such purpose. Now the Bill sets out to say, you are not going to have anything of the kind. You are going to consider the community! I have read in the evening paper to-night that three of the great meat traders of the world have had a terrible conflict for the last

    1611
    two years, and that now they have come to some terms which will obviate the struggle between them, but which will have the inimical effect, on the community of London in particular, of raising the price of meat. What evidence have we that the Government, with their pretended concern for the community, are concerned with an issue of that kind There is an inconsistency here which must appeal to every thoughtful man on the other side. There is no doubt about the inconsistency. The whole question lies in the difference between the ordinary toiler in his struggle for a fair deal, in his perfectly reasonable claim to get a fair reward for his labour, the labourer being worthy of his hire, and the tendency of the Government, in every possible way, to recognise the forces, and to facilitate the interest, of the very section of the community which profits by the crushing of the toiler to the lowest possible point.
    That is a desperate state of affairs for a Government concerned about the conserving of the best interests of the country, to get into. There is perfect agreement on the part of all writers on this Bill that nobody is going to be able to prophesy what will be the results of the Measure. I am quite confident that while there may be a difference of opinion as to the results of the Measure, there is not a shadow of doubt about this, that instead of helping in any degree to improve the industrial situation it will intensify the class struggle. Notwithstanding the penalties which have been emphasised by previous speakers, I am quite confident that there will be breakings of the law, and that there will be a steady drifting towards the intensification of industrial unrest in the country, and that you are not going to obtain the results you profess to desire in the best interests of the commerce of the land. One of the things which we conceive is that the Government are going to give an impetus and an encouragement to the less satisfactory employer, the man who is out to try to strike down wages to the lowest possible point.
    I am glad to think that one of the results will be that the blackleg chap will be let down. It is not the interests of the blackleg man about which the Government are concerned. It is very edifying on that score, that the man who is
    1612
    inclined to take advantage of the result of the reasonable combination amongst his fellows—the man who is now being appreciated as a hero, much on the same lines as the man during the War was a hero—and God help that man at the present time!—is going to be let down. The blackleg at the present time is a hero, but he is going to be dropped as surely as the man who took part in the War was dropped after the War. The blackleg man is going to go down. While you are doing this against the man who at present occupies the position of employer and who appreciates trade unionism, you are, at the same time, creating in the constituency, of which I have the honour to share the representation, gladness in the heart of one of the most diehard Tories this country has ever known. He has the running of a big journalistic enterprise not only in the City of Dundee, but elsewhere. He makes no bones about it. There is a clearing out of everybody in connection with all his establishments whatever may be the union, or whatever may be the association with which they may be identified, if they have any tendency at all towards the struggle for the benefit of the general body of the workers—
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: This might be relevant to Clause 3; I really do not see how it can be to Clause 1.
    Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: That is quite correct, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but I felt that he was really entitled to the recognition under this Clause while we were about it. I quite agree that this matter does not come under it.
    Mr. JOHNSTON: It comes under the lock-out.
    Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: There might be something to be said on the lock-out score, but as far as lock-out is concerned, as was stated in a previous contribution, the employer does not need to trouble about the lock-out method of dealing with it. He can deal with his employés in various ways without the lock-out. The lock-out is mere camouflage, and was not introduced when the Bill was first brought before the House. The very fact that there is a lock-out Clause tells of the necessity for facing the question I was handling at the moment. If we are to get something done in the interests of those who have to toil and struggle in

    1613
    order to find the means of securing why proper reward for their labour, why should the Conservative forces, as represented by the Government, step in and say, "You are not to be allowed to make any subscription towards the struggle of your fellow men or sisters engaged in another business"? I am stressing, for the moment, the seriousness of the situation which confronts the workers, but there is the other side of it. I make a frank admission that as far as I can see—and I know there are other Members on this side of the House who recognise it—that there is not just a spontaneous outburst against the Bill amongst the workers in the country as a whole. That will come. When the Bill begins to operate, it will result as other Measures have resulted. The workers will defer their most serious consideration and their most aggressive action when the screw is put upon them by Clause 1.
    When that state comes, it may then be realised by the trade union movement and the Labour party what was meant by the late Keir Hardie in his struggle to establish the Labour movement by adopting the plan of linking up the trade unions, and by providing for financing the Labour party. The stage has now been reached, by the passing of this Measure, when the body of workers will realise that it would have been far better for them in the early days, and it would be far better for them now that this Bill is to be passed that, instead of adopting indirect action, they should come direct into the political arena as a body of men and women not concerned simply about wages or conditions which are applicable only to trade unionism, but as a force realising that they can only deal with trade and industry and the general conditions of the country by securing power in this House, and being able, by placing a majority in the Lobby, to carry through the reforms that are necessary.
    It is a somewhat strange and significant thing that certain hon. Members of the Labour party, who are not by any means identified with the Prohibition party, have recently put forward the proposition that in opposition to this Bill, and especially to Clause 1, there should be a boycott of intoxicating liquors and of smoking. I never had very much hope about that propaganda,
    1614
    but I was interested in it as having come from a section of the Labour party who were not particularly enthusiastic about prohibition. I have heard the repeated assertion that that suggestion has not a ghost of a look in. That means that so far as direct action is concerned, so far as the general body of workers are concerned, you can smash the trade unions, so long as you do not smash their bottles.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member is getting a long way from Clause 1.
    Mr. THOMAS: Would not the hon. Member be in order in saying that the smashing of bottles would be calculated to coerce the Government?
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I think not.
    Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: I am speaking of the Opposition. I am admitting something which the Government may feel is gratifying to them and important in the interests of the Bill. We ought to be getting this Bill smashed, but the smashing is deferred, and I have given an illustration of what has been suggested for the overthrow of the Bill. Although there are those in this House and in the country who are securing meetings in opposition to the Bill, there is not that spontaneous response from the general body of workers by organised effort and by contribution to funds to promote opposition to the Bill, that one would have expected. The Government know how much they have behind them in carrying through a Bill of this kind. They rely upon this Measure as something which will be helpful to what they call the conservation of the country. I submit, quite seriously, that in this development we have something which is regardless of the true conservation of the country. It is quite consistent with the other policies of the Conservative party, all of which are derogatory to the interests of the country, entirely retrograde and adverse to the interests of the country at large.
    This Bill is a perfectly consistent line of action on the part of the Government, although it is a, decided reversal of the Conservatism as it was known in days gone by. It is in marked contrast to what we knew in the old days, even so late as 1874 and 1880. It places in

    1615
    an awkward predicament people like the Noble Lord the Member for South Nottingham (Lord H. Cavendish-Bentinck). He took a courageous line of action in connection with the Bill, and he has been dealt with as a blackleg in the Conservative party. He is the only man on the Conservative side who has given some definite indication of the real conservation of the interests of the country. He has been put into silence straight away, and we have not seen him since. What you have done with him, I do not know. This Bill will be one of the most remarkable memorials that the worst kind of Government could possibly have produced.
    Mr. J. BAKER: I listened to the Attorney-General, and I do not think he was at his best. He flourished a leaflet, which was written before the Bill was amended, and wished the House to believe that that leaflet applied to the amended Bill. That might be a good cheap debating point, but this House needs guidance on this Bill, and we are relying upon the Attorney-General to give us that guidance. The making of cheap debating points is not the best way to do that. The reading of a certain phrase in the leaflet aroused quite a chorus of laughter on the other side. Hon. Members opposite are not so liable to be locked up as are those on this side of the House, and I suppose they feel in a position to laugh. The phrase—I am quoting from memory—was that under this Bill last year's lock-out might have been declared an illegal strike.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Would the hon. Member like the exact quotation?
    Mr. BAKER: Yes.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: The quotation was:
    "If the Bill had been in force last year, the mining lock-out would have been an illegal strike."
    Mr. BAKER: Will the Attorney-General assure the House now that under no circumstances whatever can a strike, which at the outset is a legal strike under the terms of this Bill, become an illegal strike through the action of some outside body over which the strikers have no control? If that phraseology be wrong,
    1616
    if it be not possible under this Bill for the general strike of last year to make illegal the action of the miners in resisting the reductions which the employers were trying to force upon them, I, too, have been wrong, as well as the writer of the leaflet. It is the old complaint that this Bill is full of flat traps. It has been so drafted that we have not a sporting chance of understanding it, and, if we are to be misled by a Bill which we are told has been drafted with every care so that it shall carry out the intentions of its promoters, then, I say, that the intentions are deliberately to lead trade unionists into difficulties, so that the Government may punish them and get their revenge for what happened last year. The phrase sounds illogical and rather peculiar English, but I believe it will be possible for some group of work men to go on strike within the terms of this Bill, and then by the action of some outside body, over whom the strikers have no control whatever, it is possible for the strike to be made illegal and for the workmen to be taken before a Court of summary jurisdiction.
    10.0 p.m.
    The Attorney-General was playing on our ignorance as to the meaning of the term when he said that magistrates cannot inflict two years' imprisonment. The Bill says that "on summary conviction." What is summary conviction? I have asked hon. Members on this side who are magistrates, and they assure me that it is conviction in a police court. This Bill says that that court can inflict a fine of £10 and imprisonment for two years. If magistrates cannot do this, is not the Bill going a little further than the Attorney-General believed? It certainly makes that provision. The Attorney-General recognises clearly, probably it is the leaflet which he despises that has converted him, that there is an immense danger here of a miscarriage of justice and he is amending the Bill in order to prevent that miscarriage of justice. In that case he surely ought not to ridicule the men who drew his attention to its possibility. That leaflet was either sold or distributed, in fact, both things happened, and over a million copies have been circulated. I had nothing to do with the writing or publication, but it was drafted hurriedly in reply to a Bill which the Government has admitted was far from

    1617
    perfect because on the Clause we are now discussing they have brought in 10 Amendments. If they felt that it was necessary to bring in all these Amendments in order to make their Bill understandable the Attorney-General should be willing to excuse people who take him seriously and believe he means what he says. The Bill, in Clause 2, Sub-section (3), says:
    "As respects any strike or lock-out before the passing of this Act but since the first day of May, nineteen hundred and twenty-six, which, according to the law as declared by this Act, was illegal, this Section shall have effect as if it had been in operation when the strike or lock-out took place."
    What are we to think, except that this Sub-section is punitive, that the Government is out for blood and that it is going to force this Bill through the House of Commons and punish as many people as they can possibly get hold of. If they do not mean that why put such phraseology into the Bill? It is said that it is introduced in order to bring peace in industry. The Prime Minister prays for peace and throws a bomb. He says "Give me peace in industry; give me power to lock up all those fellows who are creating disturbances and we shall get peace." If the Government are relying on getting peace by locking up trade union officers I am afraid they have made a bloomer, and if they are relying on the indifference of the workers of this country they are making a mistake. The hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Scrymgeour) has said that there is no wild enthusiasm at the meetings he has addressed, but there is something worse than wild enthusiasm and that is the sullen attitude of the workers of this country towards this Bill. I addressed a meeting a week yesterday in South Wales, and when I said that I was not a believer in the general strike I was almost howled down. A resolution was carried at that meeting demanding a general strike immediately. In the afternoon I addressed a meeting where the audience was variously estimated at between 5,000 and 20,000 people. [Laughter.]
    It is all very well for hon. Members opposite to laugh, but I believe that if the miners' leaders had advised the men at that meeting not to go to work the
    1618
    following day, they would not have gone, notwithstanding their poverty. I hope we shall get through this situation without trouble, but hon. Members opposite who want to lock up the leaders and think they are going to get peace in that way are making this blunder. It is not the leaders who want strikes. The leaders have restrained their men as much as they can. It would be the easiest thing possible in several of our industries to have a general stoppage within a few days if the leaders lost their heads, as the Government seem to have done. When the Attorney-General was handling the hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Mosley) his backers behind him enjoyed the joke and thought it was good fun. They laughed; I hope they will be able to laugh after the next election. I am so certain that this is a blunder, because I know the effect it is having on my own organisation. Hon. Members opposite do not quite realise what was the view of the ordinary trade unionist last year. Last year was the first time in the history of my organisation—and the history of parts of that organisation goes back for 70 odd years—that the executive council declared for a strike. If hon. Gentlemen opposite were looking for signs, they would ponder that statement and ask if repression is the proper way to treat men like that. These men with all their training for arbitration and conciliation, whose leaders have been pioneers in the movement for industrial peace, kicked over the traces and joined their fellow-workers as a protest against what took place last year. This legislation will not help these men to continue in the paths of peace.
    Outside the House I have described this as a bosses' Parliament. It believes in the interest of the bosses. It is possible to take a course of action that one believes to be in one's own interest, and to find ultimately that it is the worst thing one could possibly have done. If this Government wanted peace, they might have attained it, but not by Acts like this, because this legislation appears to us to be so unfair and unreasonable that it cannot be justified. We have had no serious alteration in the trade union law such as this for over 100 years that has not been preceded by inquiry. In the year 1824, when no workman in the

    1619
    country had a vote, when there was not a workman in this House, when this country was being run by landlords and capitalists in their own interest, the result of an inquiry was that that kind of legislation was said to be unreasonable and unfair. One employer, employing a thousand men, is a stronger organisation in himself than these 1,000 men. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General would trouble to look at this question from our point of view, he would know that an employer is in a better position for self-defence; that he can last out longer in a fight that is decided on the stomachs of the people, because he has something to pawn, and he can borrow as his work-people cannot do. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General thinks it is fair to tie these workmen to employers or a group of employers who are guided by a board of arbitration or conciliation. In 1824 it was recommended by a Commission that the circumstances were unfair to the workers, because it gave the employers an unfair advantage. But in 1927, after 100 years of progress—and hon. Members opposite would be insulted if I compared their intelligence and civilisation to that of 1824—we get a Bill brought in which is just as unfair as the position was in 1824.
    Employers if they want peace cannot afford to tell their workmen that they are not going to be fair to them. The only reason why we have had such peace as we have had in this country is that because at least some employers have been fair, and it is those employers who are to suffer under this Bill. All employers will have to be treated alike; the bad ones will set the pace and the good ones will have to suffer. There will be no discrimination, and I think that is a pity. I am one of the men who, when I was secretary of a union, was known as one of the fighting crowd. I did not believe in strikes as a matter of policy, and I do not now; I did not believe in arbitration as a matter of policy, but I adopted either as the circumstances warranted. If an employer said to me, as they have said to me, that they were not going to meet me and would not discuss things with me, I have said, "Treat the men decently, and I do not want to
    1620
    see you; but, if you do not treat the men decently, there is only one way out, and that is a fight, and I never shirked a fight that was forced upon me." My chiefs believe in arbitration. Do not make it impossible for these men to continue advocating arbitration amongst our members by passing Bills that are so brutally unfair as this Bill.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: I would not have intervened on this Clause were it not for an interjection which was made by the Attorney-General in reply to a query by the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones). I hesitate to put to him a question which has been so often repeated on this Clause. But before approach that I would like to point out that during the last two hours we have not heard a single voice on the other side of the House in support of this Clause.
    Mr. AUSTIN HOPKINSON: We have not had a chance.
    Mr. DAVIES: There have been several chances during the last few hours for any hon. Member of the Conservative party to stand up in this House and champion the cause which they say they have so much at heart, but we have not had a single speech from them for two flours. One of the hon. Members for Dundee (Mr. Scrymgeour) said that there was no enthusiasm against this Bill. If comparisons of signs are anything to guide one, I would like to tell the House that the Attorney-General and I spoke at two meetings in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester—not at the same two meetings—and for every handbill which we put out for our meeting, he had 20 large posters. All the great men of Lancashire were there to support him. The Lords were there, and if there were Dukes, they were there, too; all the landlords and employers and the big business folk collected in the Free Trade Hall to listen to the Attorney-General defending his Bill. The Free Trade Hall, however, could have contained at least 300 or 400 more people than were present. I want the hon. Member for Dundee to note the fact that we on the other hand filled the Free Trade Hall at our meeting against the Bill; and from my experience there is very much more enthusiasm against the Measure than the Government is able to work up in its favour.
    Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: My hon. Friend has mistaken what I said. I did not say there was not any enthusiasm. I said there was no spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm.
    Mr. DAVIES: The hon. Gentleman apparently wants spontaneous enthusiasm in favour of prohibition against the Bill. It might help if I tell him that if the non-consumption of alcoholic drink would prevent a Tory Government coming into power, they would never have been in power so far as I am concerned. My point, however, is this: The Attorney-General, in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly, said that there were strikes that would be quite legal. He will pardon me if I put it in my own way; I am incapable of understanding legal formulas. Clause 1 makes it quite clear that if a strike is, as the right hon. Gentleman said, coercing the Government, or inflicting hardship on the community, that strike is illegal. I want to ask the Attorney-General this question. Can he imagine any strike on a large scale in any one of the vital industries of this country by the very fact of its taking place not fulfilling both the conditions required in the Clause? A classic example has been given over and over again and I repeat it. If all the miners of the country came out on strike, having decided to fight the Mining Association for shorter hours or higher wages or both, and the railwaymen came out in sympathy with the miners, the Attorney-General could at once declare that the railwaymen would be acting illegally? I take it that that would be the case? The right hon. Gentleman does not dissent anyhow. That means, that we can say now, that so far as this Bill is concerned, the railwaymen of this country will not be able ever to come to the aid of the miners in a dispute. That is the case, I think? I do not think that the Attorney-General would care to stand up now and dispute what I have said.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Certainly I should.
    Mr. DAVIES: The answer that the Attorney-General has just given will be very useful in a Court of law later on. May we take it for granted, therefore, that if the miners of this country, about 1,000,000 of them, come out on strike in future, it will be quite competent for
    1622
    the railway men to down tools, to collect funds and to support the miners on strike? The Attorney-General does not reply to my question in that form. Unless I am mistaken, I may be qualifying as a lawyer by putting these questions in different ways. The reply I got from the right hon. Gentleman will help us, as I said, in future, to elucidate some of the very difficult points in connection with the administration of the Bill. It does appear to me—I am not now speaking of small strikes in connection with, say, soap or biscuit works or industries of that kind, for those strikes probably will not be illegal, but of strikes, say, in the transport industry—it seems to me that by virtue of the fact that strikes take place they will in themselves fulfil the two qualifications that the right hon. Gentleman has put into his Bill, and consequently—I hope he will pardon me for putting it in this way—it is sheer hypocrisy to tell this House that the railway men can come out in sympathy with the miners to support them in a strike, when in fact the very nature of their strike will fulfil both conditions in the Bill and snake that sympathetic strike illegal.
    Let me put it in another way. I am entitled, if I desire to-night, to commit burglary. If I wanted to attempt that, I suppose I would do best if I broke into a Tory club; but before to-morrow morning, I would know that I had committed an offence against the law. In effect, what the Attorney-General has told us is that the railwaymen can come out on strike in the circumstances mentioned; that there is nothing to prevent them, but that on the following morning, they will be hauled before the Courts on the ground that they have committed an illegal act. That is the reasoning of the right hon. and learned Gentleman in connection with these two conditions. I would like to ask him still another question. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Surely, we are entitled to ask the Attorney-General these questions. I see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health sitting opposite, and I would remind him that when he was in Opposition and we were on those benches, he was quite an adept at asking questions. I really thought he was in charge of the Bill to-night; and, if he were, I would put to him a few more questions than I am putting to the Attorney-General. The next

    1623
    question which I wish to put to the Attorney-General is with regard to funds. The Bill says:
    "It is further declared that it is illegal to commence or continue or to apply any sums in furtherance or support of any such illegal strike."
    In spite of the fact that I am opposed to this Clause, and to the Bill, I realise that it would be illegal to use the funds of a trade union in support of an illegal strike; but I think the point should be cleared up as to what is meant by "sums." Supposing a collection has been made in favour of those who are illegally striking. Would it be illegal to support those strikers from funds collected outside the trade union organisation? If the Attorney-General answers that question, I think he will help us considerably in the administration of this Bill when it becomes an Act. I have another grave objection to this Clause It is going to enhance the reputations and fill the coffers of the lawyers of this country. When it becomes law, a trade union will hardly venture upon a strike without consulting the lawyers. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I notice that all the lawyers in the House say "hear, hear" to that statement.
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir William Joynson-Hicks): It is very good advice.
    Mr. DAVIES: I do not think, however, they will go to Tory lawyers for advice even on this Measure. It seems to me that it will be a ridiculous expenditure of money if trade unions are compelled to consult lawyers before they determine to engage in an industrial dispute of any kind. I would not be surprised if the right hon. and learned Gentleman had something of that kind in mind when he drafted Clause 1.
    I come back now to the point upon which I touched at the beginning of my remarks. What about the trade union which is compelled, when it strikes against the employer, to do the two things that are held to be illegal in this Clause. They must, automatically in striking against the employer, coerce the Government and inflict hardship upon the community all at the same time.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL indicated dissent.
    Mr. DAVIES: The right hon. and learned Gentleman shakes his head once again. He knows the law better than I do; but I am not sure that he knows this Bill as well as he ought to know it, if I may humbly say so. I ask once again, what about the trade union which must fulfil both conditions, of inflicting hardship upon the community and coercing the Government when it declares a strike against their own employers? As I have already stated, I can think of no strike on a large scale in this country, particularly in the transport industry, which could be legal, even when the men are striking against their employers.
    Mr. HOPKINSON: But it must be in addition to the furtherance of a trade dispute within the trade or industry.
    Mr. DAVIES: Yes, but the hon. Member knows full well that you cannot very well separate the Government from the employers in any big dispute.
    Mr. HOPKINSON: I separated them last year.
    Mr. DAVIES: I thought the aim of Clause 1 is to prevent not only a general strike because it is an industrial dispute, but because it is a dispute designed to coerce the Government and to inflict hardship on the community. But I pass to another point. The Debate to-night and prior to this evening has turned mainly on the two strong organisations, the miners and the railwaymen; but there are other industries quite as important in a way. The union to which I belong has in its membership a large number of flour millers; and I should say that if all the flour millers in this country struck work in favour of better conditions, they would automatically inflict hardship on the community, and I would not be surprised if that would not also at the same time be held to be coercing the Government. Consequently, I say that it is sheer hypocrisy to tell us that men are entitled to strike when, in fact, once they come out, the strike will be declared illegal almost immediately.
    Clause 1 is based, as far as I understand it, on the present situation in industry; but the legal gentlemen who drafted it have presumed that trade unionism is static. They look upon the miners, for instance, as being organised

    1625
    in federations in Scotland, South Wales, Lancashire, and so forth, but the miners to-day are talking of forming one big union instead of a federation, and I should not be a bit surprised if the miners some day joined forces with some other organisation too. I say, therefore, that trade unionism is not static. In the engineering trade, for instance, we have seen great amalgamations among the workpeople; and I can well imagine a great change taking place not only in the machinery and foundations of trade unionism, but in the whole functioning of those organisations. A Bill which is based upon trade union organisation as we find it in 1927 may be totally inapplicable in 1930 or 1932, when labour unionism may have changed its complexion altogether.
    The strange thing to me, in the speeches to which we have listened from the Conservative benches is that they all presume that trade unionism is anti-social in its character. They imagine that if this country were devoid of trade unionism, that if there was not a single trade unionist or Socialist in the land, everything would be well with this country, but, strangely enough, where trade unionism is strongest in Europe, that country is the richest of all the European countries. Trade unionism and labour organisation are stronger in this than in any other country in Europe, and still, in spite of the power of trade union organisation here, the rich people of this land are richer than those of any other country in Europe. It is not true to say trade unionism is anti-social; and rather than attempt to check the growth of trade union organisation the Tory party should be doing their best to encourage it. Right hon. Members opposite who talk of this Measure as a charter of freedom for trade unionists know very little about labour unionism. They know something maybe of professional organisations. I doubt whether any of them have ever been employed in workshops in their lives, or have ever worked in a coal mine or a textile factory; and I do not think they are entitled, therefore, to dilate upon trade union organisations in the way they do.
    We are opposed to this Clause and shall vote against it; and we shall endeavour to convince the electorate that the Clause, just as the whole Bill,
    1626
    is designed to cripple trade union organisation; and when the time comes, I trust we shall get the support we deserve from the population of this country in destroying the Measure root and branch.
    Mr. HOPKINSON: When listening to the speech of the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Davies) I could not help thinking it would be a very good thing if Members of the Opposition, particularly those sitting on the Front Bench, would read the Clause they are criticising before they begin to criticise it. In spite of the fact that I took the trouble to remind the hon. Member of the wording of this Clause, he went on with his argument without taking the least notice of the wording which I brought to his recollection. Indeed, one of the chief troubles of the present official opposition is that no matter how bad a Bill this Government may bring in—and they bring in some pretty bad ones—by the time the official opposition have finished criticising it it is almost impossible to convince anyone in the country that it really is a bad Bill. When Clauses 1 and 2 were printed, and before they were amended, there was a very great deal of feeling against them not only in the country outside, among employers and others, but among supporters of the Governmenthere. But after listening to the Second Reading Debate and the Debates in Committee I found it almost impossible, to my very great regret, to get up any sort of opposition against Clauses 1 and 2. If the official Opposition, instead of attempting the hopeless task of introducing alcoholic prohibition into their party, as described by the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Scrymgeour), had imposed on themselves a self-denying ordinance of a much more stringent but much more effective sort, and had denied themselves the pleasure of making speeches in opposition to this Bill both in this House and outside, I cannot help feeling that we might have modified Clauses 1 and 2 still more. Those who feel as I do that, on the whole, this is an unwise Bill at the present time, realise still that the Attorney-General and the Government have undoubtedly improved those two Clauses immensely in Committee. I should like to see other Amendments passed, but we must be thankful for what we have got.

    1627
    To my mind, the chief criticism that can be brought against Clause 1 is that it is a Clause designed to meet a situation which it is almost impossible to conceive can occur in future in this country. There is not the least doubt that, judging by the very careful wording of that Clause, and particularly by the conditions which were put in, we have made certain that a strike may not be declared illegal except under certain very stringent conditions. It is perfectly obvious that the Clause is directed against a general strike somewhat of the same kind that we experienced in May of last year. If we consider the history of that episode of last May, we are led to the inevitable conclusion that it is a work of supererogation to pass a Clause directed against the possibility of such a situation arising again. What was that history? The general strike was organised by the Trade Union Congress General Council. That body had given full, definite, and written notice to the Miners' Federation that they were going to betray them. They had given that notice publicly and confirmed it in writing. On 12th February last year the Trade Union Congress passed a resolution in which they said they were going to support the miners through thick and thin, and see that there should be no reduction of wages, no increase of hours, and no interference with the national agreement.
    But, as the time for the revolution approached, they began to reconsider their position, and on the 8th April they passed another resolution of quite a different character. They were then prepared to support the Miners' Federation only in getting an equitable settlement of the trouble in the mining industry. The Miners' Federation never showed any great practical skill or penetration, but even the Miners' Federation General Executive began to have a little doubt as to the degree of support they were going to receive from the Trade Union Congress Council. They made inquiries, and they were told, "It is quite all right,'' and afterwards they very foolishly involved themselves in a desperate position and were let down by the Trade Union Council.
    If it had not been for an unfortunate
    1628
    concatenation of circumstances the general strike would never have taken place at all. It is quite certain that the Trade Union Congress General Council never intended for a moment that the general strike should take place; in fact one of the most prominent members, and certainly the most intelligent member of that body, thought he himself personally could again make his celebrated swerve on the edge of the precipice and that he and his friends would not be precipitated over the edge. [An HON. MEMBER: "Who made that swerve?"]
    Another unfortunate circumstance occurred. Unfortunately the Government, being unused to revolutions and general strikes, and just before the revolution took place, receiving the unexpected news that the "Daily Mail" leading article could not be published, gave a wild cry of dismay. Having read many of the leading articles in the "Daily Mail," I do not see why the Government should have been so distressed about that. Unfortunately, the Trade Union Congress Council, balancing on the edge of the precipice, were disturbed by the cry of the Government, lost their balance, and found themselves over before they knew what had happened. They made a gallant attempt at surrender, and came back to 10, Downing Street, but unfortunately their previous conversations had produced such a degree of somnolence in the Prime Minister that when they arrived there with the intention of surrendering they found the lights were out. Under those conditions, I ask: Is this House not engaged in a work of supererogation in putting forward legislation with a view to preventing such a thing happening again?
    It is as certain as that there is going to be an eclipse of the sun that no Trades Union Congress in this country, at any rate for a very long time to come, will ever enter upon such an adventure again. That seems to me to be one good objection to these particular Clauses, but there is another objection, at which I hinted during the Committee stage of this Bill, when we were discussing these same Clauses, and that is that, if by any extraordinary mishap such a situation did arise again, the existence on the Statute

    1629
    Book of Clause 1 of the Bill would undoubtedly make that situation very much more dangerous than it was last May. Our revolution last May, as the House will recollect, extended over a period of some ten days, during which the Trades Union Congress General Council was dashing about trying to find any sort of excuse for betraying the miners. By great good luck, Sir Herbert Samuel reappeared from the Continent, where he had fled after issuing his Report, and he was able to give them that very thin and very delicate, almost gossamer, fabric in the way of excuse which enabled them to throw over the miners on the tenth day of the revolution.
    There is, therefore, one thing that I think this Clause might do to the detriment of the nation. If by any possible circumstance such a situation could arise, it would undoubtedly prejudice the position of the Trades Union Congress General Council when they were trying to find an excuse for betraying whoever it was that they were going to betray on that particular occasion. The uncertainty which existed in the early days of May of last year as to whether a revolution in this country is illegal or strictly legal—that uncertainty undoubtedly helped them immensely, and I wish that uncertainty to remain, and then, when we have another revolution in this country, we shall get over it, perhaps, with as great ease as we did in May of last year. But, again, I return to my view, which I cannot help feeling very strongly, that we are not likely to have any more revolutions just at present. The House will remember that we met, after the declaration of war on the Government and of revolution, to discuss the revolution which was then in being, which was actually taking place before our eyes; and I remember distinctly that this House and the country itself got so frightfully bored with that revolution on the second clay that the Debate fizzled out long before the appointed time for the House to rise. If there is one thing more certain than another, it is that if a revolution bores the people stiff on the second day, and bores this House to such an extent that it cannot keep up a discussion on it for more than an hour or two, then, in a country of that sort, it is a very poor business to be a revolutionary,
    1630
    and particularly to be a revolutionary of that extremely indifferent type, which is represented on the Trades Union Congress General Council.
    Mr. CONNOLLY: I rise to put to the Attorney-General, in the last few minutes of the Debate, a question that has been put again and again from these benches, from the benches below the Gangway, and from the Conservative benches. When the Bill was printed for Second Reading, I put a question upon the Paper, which was allowed by you, Mr. Speaker, as being in order, and to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer replied. The question was, "Do the words 'civil servants' and 'civil establishment' refer to the Royal Dockyards and workmen therein?" That question has been put again and again, and to this hour has never been definitely answered. I want to know whether in Clause 1 the words "trade or industry" cover artisans in the Royal Dockyards, because there are tens of thousands of workmen in the Royal Dockyards whose position is uncertain.
    There is a principle of British law that we should know what the law is. If we go into a Court of Law, we cannot plead ignorance of it. We are told we should know the law, and what is forbidden by the law is defined in the law. I put the question this afternoon, and the Attorney-General asked me to put it in a more definite form. I am going to do so now. I want to ask him what would be the position of my society and its members in a case of this kind. I have explained twice before what our position in the Royal dockyards is. The status of our members in the dockyards is equal to that of our members in private shipbuilding yards. If an attack is to be made on the, status of those men in the dockyards and we come out on strike to support them in their resistance to it, under this Clause is our action to be taken as coercing the Government, or under the definition of "trade or industry" are the artisans in the Royal dockyards who belong to our society to be covered by that phrase? I put it to the Attorney-General that that question, which has been asked from his own benches, from the Liberal Benches, and from these benches persistently through all the stages of the Bill, ought to be answered in the last few minutes to-night.
    Mr. TINKER: I want to comment on the speech of the hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson). I felt some alarm at his opening remarks. I thought he was going to declare himself to be a party man and was about to stand by the Conservatives in all their doings, because it would be far better for us if he would declare himself one way or the other. He is what we call in Lancashire a Jack of both sides, an independent critic, but I notice that his criticism generally ends up against the Labour party. When he has finished telling his own party off, it is our party that gets the worst of it, from his point of view. In dealing with the general strike, or the general stoppage, so-called—one has to be very careful in these matters—the hon. Member assumes an attitude of indifference, but I am of opinion that when the stoppage was on, his attitude was not quite what he has sought to show to-night. It is evident from the speeches he made then in backing up the coal-owners that he was not so indifferent.
    Mr. HOPKINSON: I never made a speech during the general strike at all.
    Mr. TINKER: If the hon. Member did not make a speech during that time, he made one immediately afterwards, pointing out what the coalowners intended to do. Whatever the Government did in trying to bring about conciliation, he at least could tell the House of Commons that the coalowners would have nothing to do with it. He made that quite emphatic in declaring his opposition to the miners and the stoppage. If he and the Government want to deal with this question properly, they want to get to the root cause of last year's stoppage. The Attorney-General, when dealing with this matter, slips over the first part and gets on to what happened afterwards. If he will examine the root cause, which ought to be examined in a matter of this sort, he will find that the coalowners were the chief cause of the stoppage commencing. They set out conditions to the miners which it was impossible to accept. Whatever may be said about the ultimate result, the miners could never have accepted these terms without a fight Following on that, it was the feeling of our fellows that brought them into the field—the real sympathy and bond of feeling between one working man and
    1632
    another. If by Clause 1 it is to be attempted to remedy that, and to prevent any help being given to the miners or any other body of men, I say the Government are not dealing with the matter properly. They ought, first of all, to get at the people who attempt to bring about this kind of thing.
    The Attorney-General has tried to define what will be a strike which is illegal. On 17th May he tried to define it, and if f understood his definition properly, it was that if the miners came out for a reduction from eight hours to seven hours, and the coalowners agreed with that, and we refused to accept it without getting the sanction of the Government upon the Statute Book, then that stoppage would be illegal. Do I get the Attorney-General right in that respect'? If the coalowners agreed with us for a seven hours' day, and we refused to accept that agreement without it being put on the Statute Book, and we asked the Government to put it on the Statute Book, should we not be carrying forward an illegal strike I want to put it to the Attorney-General and the hon. Member for Mossley that we have so much distrust in the owners that if they agreed to a seven hours day we could not accept it from them unless it was put on the Statute Book, because it would not be honoured, and we should have all over the country breaches of the Seven Hours Act, making it a dead letter. So we should be bound to go to the Government and ask them to sanction it legally, whatever the agreement might be. I claim that that stoppage would be declared illegal by the Government, because of the two factors being fulfilled. The miners' stoppage means causing hardship and the second point would be fulfilled by coercing the Government, so that in the one industry we should have an illegal strike, and that is backed up by the Attorney-General's words on 17th May.
    I want to put it to the Attorney-General that that proves the point that any big stoppage in one industry that coerces the Government at once makes that stoppage illegal. The miners would do it on every occasion because whatever we came out for would mean, of necessity, bringing in the Government. Therefore, to my mind, Clause 1 makes it quite clear that we cannot have any big

    1633
    stoppage without the whole matter being declared illegal. It may be said, "All right, wait until the time comes and see what will happen." We want to get ready before that time comes, and to be quite clear of our position, so that there will be no misunderstanding when the struggle takes place. We are so much in earnest on the matter, that we want the Attorney-General to make it quite definite where the Government stand on this particular point. This afternoon he slipped off on to a circular issued by the Trades Union Congress or Eccleston Square, and by covering up the mistakes of the Government and never attempting to answer the position, used the circular, saying we had not told our men the real position. May I tell the Attorney-General that when he replied on the Second Reading of the Bill, he himself was not quite clear what the Bill meant. When we said from this side, "Put in lock-outs," his reply was that to put in that word would be useless and inept. Those were the words he used, and yet, later on, lock-outs were inserted. That goes to show even at that time the Attorney-General was not quite clear what the Bill actually meant. Then he criticises us because we issued circulars to our people on what we thought it meant, and he draws the attention of the House to how misleading we were to the public.
    If we were misleading the public, the Attorney-General certainly misled the House of Commons in the Second Reading Debate. The Attorney-General this afternoon wanted to say that he had had a number of letters from trade unionists giving support to the Measure. [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!"] All right, but surely with 5,000,000 trade unionists one would expect he would get some letters.
    That is only natural. You will never get 5,000,000 people into one way of thinking. No one wants them to be, anyway. The Attorney-General said he had got some letters. In his speech at Manchester, in defence of another Clause, he said they had got a lot of evidence, and that was why they brought in Clause 4. If he has got the same kind of evidence on Clause 1 as he got on Clause 4 it does not amount to very much. He has put forward that as being one of the reasons why the Tory party is supporting the Measure. If they had received any genuine complaints they would have been shown in the recent elections, When I tell the House of Commons that out of the last five elections the Tory party obtained about 25,000 votes against the other parties' 80,000 votes, it goes to show what the feeling of the country is with regard to this Measure. That is the support the Tory party have got for this Bill. I would say this to the Tory party" If you really believe that you have got any strong grounds at all for this Measure, test the country upon it. See what they have got to say." If you do that, then we on this side of the House will accept the verdict of the country and will agree with you, if the country says that they want this Measure. If you do that, there is not a Member on this side of the House who would attempt to fight this Bill any further. These are the points of objection we have to Clause 1, believing that the country does not want it.
    Question put,
    "That the words proposed to be left out, to the word 'within,' in line 8, stand part of the Bill."
    The House divided: Ayes, 253; Noes, 111.

    Division No. 191.

    AYES

    [11.0 p m.

    Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel

    Blundell, F. N.

    Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)

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

    Boothby, R. J. G.

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

    Albery, Irving James

    Bourne, Captain Robert Croft

    Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)

    Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)

    Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart

    Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Ox. Univ.)

    Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.

    Bowyer, Captain G. E. W

    Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton

    Applin, Colonel R. V. K.

    Brittain, Sir Harry

    Chapman, Sir S.

    Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)

    Brocklebank, C. E. R.

    Charterls, Brigadier-General J.

    Atkinson, C.

    Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.

    Churchman, Sir Arthur C.

    Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

    Broun-Lindsay, Major H.

    Clarry, Reginald George

    Balfour, George (Hampstead)

    Buchan, John

    Clayton, G. C.

    Balniel, Lord

    Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James

    Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.

    Banks, Reginald Mitchell

    Bullock, Captain M.

    Colfox, Major William Phillips

    Barclay-Harvey, C. M.

    Burman, J. B.

    Cooper, A. Duff

    Barnett, Major Sir Richard

    Burney, Lieut.-Com. Charles D.

    Cope, Major William

    Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

    Burton, Colonel H. W.

    Couper, J. B.

    Beliairs, Commander Carlyon W.

    Butt, Sir Alfred

    Courtauld, Major J. S.

    Berry, Sir George

    Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward

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

    Betterton, Henry B.

    Campbell, E. T.

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

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

    Cautley, Sir Henry S.

    Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe)

    Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.

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

    Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.

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

    Hume, Sir G. H.

    Rice, Sir Frederick

    Crookshank, Cpt.H.(Lindsey, Galnsbro)

    Iliffe, Sir Edward M.

    Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y

    Cunliffe, Sir Herbert

    Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.

    Roberts, Sir Samuel (Hereford)

    Curzon, Captain Viscount

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

    Robinson, Sir T. (Lanes., Stretford)

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Jacob, A. E.

    Ropner, Major L.

    Davidson, Major-General Sir John H.

    James, Lieut-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert

    Rye, F. G.

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

    Jephcott, A. R.

    Saimon, Major I.

    Davies. Dr. Vernon

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

    Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)

    Dixon, Captain Rt. Hon. Herbert

    Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)

    Sandeman, N. Stewart

    Drewe, C.

    Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)

    Sanders, Sir Robert A.

    Edmondson, Major A. J.

    Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

    Sanderson, Sir Frank

    Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington)

    Knox, Sir Alfred

    Sandon, Lord

    Eillot, Major Walter E.

    Lamb, J. Q.

    Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.

    England, Colonel A.

    Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.

    Savery, S. S.

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

    Little, Dr. E. Graham

    Scott, Rt. Hon. Sir Leslie

    Everard, W. Lindsay

    Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)

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

    Fairfax, Captain J. G.

    Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)

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

    Faile, Sir Bertram G.

    Loder, J. de V.

    Sheffield, Sir Berkeley

    Fermoy, Lord

    Looker, Herbert William

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

    Fielden, E. B.

    Luce, Major-Gen, sir Richard Harman

    Skelton, A. N.

    Finburgh, S.

    MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen

    Slaney, Major P. Kenyon

    Foro, Sir P.

    Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness

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

    Forestier-Walker, Sir L.

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

    Somervllie, A. A. (Windsor)

    Forrest, W.

    Macdonnell Colonel Hon. Angus

    Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F.

    Foster, Sir Harry S.

    Macintyre, Ian

    Stanley, Lord (Fylde)

    Foxcroft, Captain C. T.

    McLean, Major A

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

    Fraser, Captain Ian

    Macmillan, Captain H.

    Steel, Major Samuel Strang

    Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.

    McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John

    Storry-Deans, R.

    Gadle, Lieut.-Col. Anthony

    Macquisten, F. A.

    Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.

    Galbraith, J. F. W.

    Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-

    Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser

    Gates, Percy

    Makins, Brigadier-General E.

    Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.

    Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton

    Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn

    Tasker, R. Inlgo.

    Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham

    Margesson, Captain D.

    Thom, Lt.-Col. J. G. (Dumbarton)

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

    Marriott, Sir J. A. R.

    Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)

    Goff, Sir Park

    Merriman, F. B.

    Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)

    Gower, Sir Robert

    Milne, J. S. Wardlaw-

    Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell-

    Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)

    Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)

    Tinne, J. A.

    Grant, Sir J. A.

    Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)

    Tryon, Ht. Hon. George Clement

    Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.

    Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.

    Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P

    Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter E.

    Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)

    Wallace, Captain D. E.

    Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John

    Morrison, H. (Wilts. Salisbury)

    Ward. Lt.-Col.A.L.(Kingston-on-Hult)

    Grotrian, H. Brent

    Murchison, Sir Kenneth

    Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)

    Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.

    Nall, colonel Sir Joseph

    Watts, Dr. T.

    Gunston, Captain D. W.

    Nelson, Sir Frank

    Wells, S. R.

    Hacking, Captain Douglas H.

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

    Wheler, Major Sir Granville C. H.

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

    Nicholson, O. (Westminster)

    White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dairymple

    Hammersley, S. S.

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

    Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)

    Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry

    Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert

    Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)

    Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)

    Nuttall, Ellis

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

    Harrison, G. J. C.

    Oakley, T.

    Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)

    Hartington, Marquess of

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

    Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

    Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)

    Pennefather, Sir John

    Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

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

    Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)

    Wise, Sir Fredric

    Haslam, Henry C.

    Perring, Sir William George

    Withers, John James

    Hawke, John Anthony

    Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)

    Womersley, W. J.

    Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.

    peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)

    Wood, Sir Kingsley (Woolwich, W.)

    Henderson, Lt.-Col. Sir V. L. (Bootle)

    Pilcher, G.

    Woodcock, Colonel H. C.

    Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.

    Pilditch, Sir Philip

    Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.

    Henn, Sir Sydney H.

    Power, Sir John Cecil

    Wragg, Herbert

    Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.

    Preston, William

    Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.

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

    Price, Major C. W. M.

    Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton (Norwich)

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

    Radford, E. A.

    Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy

    Rains, Sir Walter

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

    Holt, Captain H. P.

    Rees, Sir Beddoe

    Major Sir Harry Barnston and Mr.

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

    Remer, J. R.

    Penny.

    Hopkins, J. W. W.

    Rentoul, G. S.

    NOES.

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

    Buchanan, G.

    Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)

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

    Charleton, H. C.

    Fenby, T. D.

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

    Clowes, S.

    Gardner, J. P.

    Ammon, Charles George

    Cluse, W S.

    Gillett, George M.

    Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bliston)

    Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.

    Gosling, Harry

    Baker, Walter

    Connolly, M.

    Greenall, T.

    Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)

    Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)

    Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)

    Barnes, A.

    Crawfurd, H. E.

    Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)

    Batey, Joseph

    Dalton, Hugh

    Groves, T.

    Beckett, John (Gatesbead)

    Davies, Ellis (Denbigh, Denbigh)

    Grundy. T. W.

    Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.

    Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)

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

    Briant, Frank

    Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

    Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)

    Broad, F. A.

    Day, Colonel Harry

    Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)

    Bromley, J.

    Duncan, C.

    Hardle, George D.

    Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)

    Dunnico, H.

    Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon

    1636

    1637

    Hayday, Arthur

    Maxton, James

    Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)

    Hayes, John Henry

    Morris, R. H.

    Strauss, E. A.

    Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burntey)

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

    Sutton, J. E.

    Hirst, G. H.

    Mosley, Oswald

    Taylor, R. A.

    Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)

    Murnin, H.

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

    Hore-Belisha, Leslie

    Naylor, T. E.

    Tinker, John Joseph

    Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)

    Oliver, George Harold

    Townend, A. E.

    Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)

    Owen, Major G.

    Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.

    John, William (Rhondda, West)

    Pethick-Lawrenee, F. W.

    Vlant, S. P.

    Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)

    Ponsonby, Arthur

    Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen

    Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

    Potts, John S.

    Watson, W. M. (Dunfermilne)

    Jones, Morgan (Cairphilly)

    Richardson, R. (Houghton-Is-Spring)

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

    Kelly, W. T.

    Ritson, J.

    Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney

    Kennedy, T.

    Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O.(W.Bromwich)

    Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah

    Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.

    Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W.R., Elland)

    Wellock, Wilfred

    Lawrence, Susan

    Rose, Frank H.

    Westwood, J.

    Lawson, John James

    Salter, Dr. Alfred

    Williams, David (Swansea, East)

    Lee, F.

    Scrymgeour, E.

    Williams, Dr. J. H. (Lianelly)

    Lowth, T.

    Scurr, John

    Windsor, Walter

    MacLaren, Andrew

    Shiels, Dr. Drummond

    Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)

    Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)

    Smillie, Robert

    MacNeill-Weir, L.

    Snell, Harry

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

    March, S.

    Stamford, T. W.

    Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr.

    Whiteley.

    Resolution agreed to.

    It being offer Eleven of the Clock, further consideration of the Bill, as amended, stood adjourned.
    Bill, as amended, to be further considered To-morrow.

  OUSE DRAINAGE [MONEY].
  Resolution reported.
  "That, for the purpose of any Act of the present Session to make provision for the better drainage of the area drained by the River Ouse and its tributaries and for purposes connected therewith, it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

  (1) a contribution towards the expenses to be incurred by the Ouse Drainage Board in respect of certain works and of a certain matter specified in the said Act, up to an amount not exceeding one-half of those expenses;

  1638

  (2) a sum of four thousand five hundred pounds to the Company of Proprietors of the Norfolk Estuary in consideration of the surrender to His Majesty in right of his Crown of certain lands now vested in the Company."

  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

  ADJOURNMENT.
  Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Commander Eyres Monsell.]
  Adjourned accordingly at Fourteen Minutes after Eleven o'Clock.