§ Mr. SNOWDENIf I may be permitted to do so, I would like to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make any statement as to how far he proposes to proceed to-day. There is a number of what I might call minor Amendments on the Order Paper, but there are two or three of major importance. There are the Clauses for dealing with the evasion of Super-tax. I understand that that is a matter in which hon. Members opposite are extremely interested, and I think it would be very undesirable that we should be dealing with these important proposals at a late hour. Therefore, I would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has considered that matter, and, if so, has he any statement to make to the Committee?
§ The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Churchill)I have been giving consideration to the point which the right hon. Gentleman has raised. Personally, I hold very strongly the view, and have always held it, that we should try to arrange our business to bring on important Debates at times when the fullest publicity can be obtained, and that the crucial issues should be debated on the best occasions. I would therefore propose, if the Committee would agree, that when we reach Clause 28 I should move to postpone consideration of Clauses 29 to 34 inclusive, which are the Clauses dealing with Super-tax and its evasion, and that they should he considered after Clause 45. Then we should endeavour to make what progress we could, and of course the Government attach the greatest importance to getting as far as Clause 45 to-night. There is really nothing of a controversial character in the various intervening proposals, and a great many are in the nature of technical provisions. That would enable 598 us to get the discussion of the evasion Clauses on Monday next in the best circumstances, and after that we could deal with the Road Fund. There will be a day for the new Clauses, with regard to which, I understand, it is intended and desired to have a very definite Debate upon the Betting Duty, raising the whole position. I think that is much the best division of our time, and I understand there is no difficulty whatever in the way of precedent for making this Motion. Very often a Motion is made to postpone a Clause to the end of the Bill, but a precedent exists for postponing a Clause or group of Clauses, not to the end of the Bill, but to a particular point of the Bill. I find that in 1908, when I was in charge of the Port of London Bill, I said:
I am very anxious indeed that the crucial and fundamental Clauses of this Bill, of which, perhaps, Clause 3 is the most important, should be discussed in the House at the best period for publicity and criticism.I then moved that that Clause should be postponed until after Clause 11 had been considered, to which the House gave its assent. I shall therefore propose to repeat that process this evening, and for exactly the same reason, by moving that Clauses 29 to 34 be postponed until after consideration of Clause 45, so that we can begin to debate the important evasion proposals on Monday, if that would be convenient to the Committee.
§ Mr. SNOWDENOf course, it is impossible to say what length of time the discussion to-day may take. It might possibly happen that we might reach the end of Clause 27 about 11o'clock this evening, and, in that case, it might not be necessary for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make this Motion then, as we could begin Clause 28 on Monday.
§ Mr. CHURCHILLI am afraid that would not do. There is very little in between to cause any trouble at all, but we must get it out of the way if we are to secure the good opportunities for debating evasion, the Road Fund, and the Betting Duty.
§ The CHAIRMANI think I ought to point out what is quite a small technical point, that the proper time to move to postpone Clauses is after the last Clause is disposed of, and in this case that would 599 be after the Question, "That Clause 28 stand part of the Bill," has been agreed to. Also, under the Rules of the House, it will be necessary in that case to move to postpone each Clause.
§ 4.0 p.m.
§ Mr. RUNCIMANThe arrangement which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has described is one which on other occasions might very favourably be adopted. It is, perhaps, the best way of obtaining a full discussion of one of the most important parts of the Bill, and in so far as we can facilitate that procedure, we shall do all that we can to help.
§ Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCEBefore we go on to deal with pottery, it might he for the convenience of the Committee if you, Mr. Hope, were to tell us what procedure you propose to adopt with regard to this discussion.
§ The CHAIRMANI propose to call upon the hon. Member to move the first Amendment—to leave out the words "five years" and to insert instead thereof the words "one year." I think it will be convenient, and in accordance with the usual practice, that we should have a general discussion on the Clause on that Amendment. I also propose to call this Amendment—in line 7, to leave out the words "or vitrified pottery." With regard to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir R. Hamilton)—in line 4, to leave out the words "nineteenth day of April," and to insert instead thereof the words "first day of July"—and the Amendment of the hon. Member for West Leicester (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence)—to leave out the words "nineteenth day of April," and to insert instead thereof the words "first day of May"—I am not very favourably disposed towards them. It appears to me that they are more suitable for discussion on the Resolution imposing the duty. I can see that the former would involve repayment of the whole quarter's revenue. The latter would also involve repayment of a very much smaller amount, and I am not very well disposed to accept those two Amendments.
§ Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCESo far as my Amendment is concerned, it is not intended as a destructive Amendment. 600 It has been put down at the special request of those who are very much interested in this matter. It involves a very small concession, and I had hopes that, after hearing the case I should put forward, the Government would be willing to concede it. I hope, therefore you will consider whether that particular Amendment could not be allowed.
§ Mr. HARRISI did not intend to press the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and myself. I was quite prepared to ask you, Mr. Hope, to allow me not to move it, but I feel that the other one is not really controversial and that the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) could justify it.
§ The CHAIRMANIt has reference to duties on goods that were coming into the country at the time. I think I will be disposed to accept that, but not the Amendment standing in the names of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Harris).
§ Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCEI now beg to move, in page 5, line 3, to leave out the words "five years" and to insert instead thereof the words "one year."
I am much obliged to you, Sir. I think we shall have an important discussion when we come to that point on the Paper. The ostensible object of the Amendment I now move is to limit the period for which this new duty on pottery runs, from five years to a single year, but I understand that, in accordance with your ruling, the Committee will be entitled to discuss the whole question of the Pottery Duties on this Amendment. When the subject was before the House in the form of the Money Resolution on Report, there was one feature of the position of the Government that was very noticeable on this side. It seems very likely that it will be repeated to-day. I refer, of course, to the absence of the Chancellor of the Fxchequer, and I venture to ask why is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is always absent when these safeguarding duties are under discussion. I venture to supply the answer. The answer is, in my opinion, that he knows too much about these safeguarding proposals. It has been a matter of observation to myself, and I think to other hon. Members, 601 that it is when the knowledge of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is least that his speeches are the most alluring, at any rate, to hon. Members on the opposite side of the House. We recall his attitude on Monday, on the question of the gold supply, and there are many other occasions which bear out that view.
§ The CHAIRMANI am allowing a general discussion on the Pottery Duty, but not a general discussion on the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
§ Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCEI am very sorry to have offended, but I was only making a slight introduction to what I was going to say with regard to the attitude of the Chancellor of the Exchequer towards the Pottery Duties. That, I think you will admit, is in order. The Chancellor of the Exchequer knows quite well that these safeguarding duties are, in fact, pure and unadulterated Protection, and, although his feet have led him into the Conservative camp, his brain holds him still a Free Trader. If I might paraphrase the adage, one might say of him:
Whose brain rebels against his will Remains of the same opinion still.For that reason, he seeks safety by staying away from these Debates, but, although the Chancellor of the Exchequer has gone away, our Debate is to be graced again, as it was before, by the presence of the President of the Board of Trade. The attitude which the President of the Board of Trade takes towards us on this side, on this safeguarding question, is something of this kind: "I am not arguing; I am telling you." The reason that the President of the Board of Trade is not prepared to argue, is because he cannot defend these duties by argument on their merits. The Committee is well aware that the President of the Board of Trade is himself a Protectionist, and he would like to defend these duties on the ground of protection. He cannot do that, however, and the reason is not solely because of the Prime Minister's pledge, but because he knows quite well—probably better than I do—that, if he were to defend these taxes on Protectionist grounds, he would make an additional rift in his party and widen the one which had already developed. But apart from that, why does he not defend this tax as a 602 safeguarding tax? The reason for that is that that also is impossible, because, by all the tests which the White Paper relating to safeguarding imposes, this particular duty on pottery has failed. That is why, on the last occasion, we had the President of the Board of Trade, instead of defending the new taxes on their merits, coming to us and saying something of this kind: "Have we not done all that we are required to do under the Prime Minister's pledge? We have set up a committee, the committee have come to a decision, and now the House has just got to swallow the decision of the committee." I have slightly paraphrased his words, and have used the words "swallowed a decision of the committee," but I think that is amply justified by the facts.The committee reported on 8th April. The Chancellor of the Exchequer declared his intention of putting on these taxes in the Budget of 11th April. The only chance that the House or the Committee could have had of discussing them was during that week, and, as a matter of fact, they were not discussed until 28th April, and they had already come into force on the 18th. There were only 11 days between the report of the committee and the date on which these duties actually came into operation. Therefore, I think I was right in saying that the position taken up by the President of the Board of Trade is that, if a committee issue a report, then both the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the House must be expected to swallow the findings of that committee, and come to a decision in their favour without any real separate investigation or consideration of the question. The President of the Board of Trade says, "If you do not like that procedure, so far as I am concerned, I am willing to scrap it and have the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in consultation with myself, putting on any duties which we think desirable."
I have already pointed out the reasons which, I think, prevent the Government and the President of the Board of Trade taking that course. The fact is that the procedure of the White Paper contemplates something totally different from what the President of the Board of Trade would have us believe. The procedure there indicated is to the effect 603 that any application for one of these duties must pass certain tests, and that is not satisfied if you merely have a majority of two to one of a specially appointed committee taking that view. It will only satisfy the required tests if, competent authorities, a decision of the committee is reviewed and accepted after all the facts have been taken into account. That is particularly true with regard to this question of pottery.
Anyone who has gone in detail into the evidence brought before that committee, and has read the report, cannot fail to observe that, as a matter of fact, the findings were entirely contrary to the evidence. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer had fulfilled his duty, and allowed a little time to elapse between the report and coming to the decision, and also allowed the House time to examine the facts, they would come to the view which I have already given. But when the subject was before the House on the Report of the Money Resolution, we on this side went in great detail into the way in which these duties conflict with the test imposed by the White Paper.
So far as I am concerned, I have no intention of repeating the details which I and other Members, both above and below the Gangway, gave on that occasion. I propose to confine myself to two main points. The first point is this, that the articles which these duties propose to tax are not, in the main, in competition with the articles which it is hoped thereby to protect. They are in competition with different articles, the manufacturers of which do not ask for protection at all. The articles which it is suggested that these duties are imposed to protect, are broadly summed up in what is known as Longton china. If the Committee goes into the facts with regard to the sale of Longton china at the present time, they will discover that, since the War, the producers or Longton china have chosen to make of their industry a luxury trade. While the cost of labour in that trade has gone up about 80 per cent., and while many of the raw materials have gone up by about the same extent, and all except one of them have gone up by less than 100 per cent., the prices charged to the consumers of Longton china are, according to the manufacturers' 604 own admission, not less than 125 per cent. above pre-War. Those who have gone into it will agree that, in many cases, they are much more than that, and are 150, 175 and even 200 per cent. above pre-War.
It stands to reason that people in these days are not prepared to pay twice or three times what they were asked to pay before the War, when they can obtain other articles which for their purposes are just as good, and which they can obtain at a very much lower price. These cheaper articles come in from abroad in the form of felspar china and are manufactured at home in the form of earthenware. People can obtain articles of felspar china or earthenware for something like one-third the price they are expected to pay for Longton china. It has been alleged by those who defend this duty that the reason why these articles of bone china, Longton china, are so much dearer than articles of felspar china, on which it is proposed to put the duty, is that the wages paid abroad are much lower than the wages paid here. I believe that was the ground on which the majority of the Committee came to their findings; but the wages question has little or nothing to do with the discrepancy in prices. The articles of Longton china are so immeasurably dearer than articles of felspar china that even if you were to wipe off the whole of that part of the production of this home article which is due to wages, you would not bring the price down to anything like the price of the foreign imported article. On that point, I will quote the remarks made by the counsel against this duty, at the examination. He said:
If you take the cheapest factory making bone china in Longton, of which we have heard anything, and if every individual in it, from the managing director down to the youngest operative. including the commercial travellers. worked free and for nothing, the cost of bone china"—that is, Longton china—would still he greater and in some cases twice as dear as the cost of a similar article in felspar china made in Germany.I would remind the Committee that that statement was upheld by the Chairman of the Committee, who ultimately agreed to the imposition of the duty. He said:Taking the figures given to us for Canada, and working them out in one's head. I think that that is so.605 Therefore, as a matter of fact this pretence that the duty is being imposed upon foreign imported china in order to countervail the difference in wages is exploded, because even if the British workers worked for no wages they still would not be able to compete with this foreign-imported article. The real competition is not between the felspar china which comes from abroad and the Longton china manufactured in this country, but between the felspar china which comes from abroad and the earthenware which is manufactured in this country, and the important fact has to be realised that the earthenware manufacturers in this country did not ask for protection and did not appear before the Committee. I do not know exactly the reason for taking that view, but I can only suppose that they thought that protection in respect of the importation of felspar china would injure the earthenware manufacturers' trade either by injuring the home market or by injuring their chance of getting trade by exports.We who oppose this duty have nothing to say against the excellence of the Longton china. We realise that Longton china consists of some of the most beautifully manufactured china in the world, and that it rightly holds a very honoured place, but if it is to be produced in anything like the way as at present it is bound to have a limited market. It is open to the manufacturers themselves to decide whether they will cater solely for the market of the rich or whether they will cater for the market of the rich and the middle classes. The policy which they have adopted by forming a ring and keeping up prices has had the effect of restricting their own market. That is not our business. If they choose to take that course they are entitled to do so, but they are not entitled to make that an excuse for interfering with the table necessaries of the working people of this country. That brings me to my second point, and that is, the repressive character of the duty which it is now proposed to impose. The position in regard to this duty is that the cheaper the cup the greater is the tax, and not merely the greater in proportion to its actual value. This tax is put on weight. The cups, saucers and table-ware generally used by the working classes are thicker and heavier than the better 606 material; therefore the people who use these articles have to pay a duty which is not merely greater ad valorem, but actually greater per piece than the duty on the better material. In fact, on the cups and saucers and plates that are bought, say, by the labourers in this country the duty works out at something from 70 to 100 per cent., whereas on the thin and beautiful china of the best quality it gets down to below 10 per cent., and I believe I am right in saying that it gets down to as low as 2 or 3 per cent.
It is only by adding together the article worth several pounds, which is taxed two or three per cent., with thousands of articles of the cheap kind which are taxed 70 to 100 per cent., that the figure of 28 shillings per cwt. is said to average 33⅓ per cent. There is a great danger in taking averages in this way. I am reminded of the story of a man who went to dine at an inn and was given what the innkeeper told him was rabbit pie. When he came to eat the pie he found in it parts that did not belong to a rabbit, and he came to the conclusion that he had been put off partly with horse pie instead of rabbit pie. He went to the innkeeper afterwards and complained. The innkeeper admitted that there had been horse in the pie as well as rabbit, but he added: "Never mind, at any rate it is horse and rabbit pie fifty-fifty." "What do you mean by fifty-fifty?" asked the man. "One horse and one rabbit" replied the innkeeper. That illustrates the danger of averages. It is said that the 28 shillings per cwt. duty is really the equivalent of 30 per cent. ad Valorem for practical purposes, but so far as the working people of this country are concerned, and they will have to pay the great bulk of this tax, that is a pure snare and delusion. As a matter of fact, they are being asked to pay 50, 60 or 70 per cent. on the kind of materials which they actually have to use, and it is only by introducing the lower percentages on the high value articles that the average can be brought down.
What are the effects that are likely to arise from this taxation? It will have practically no effect upon the industries in Longton. I do not believe that there are any grounds for thinking that this taxation will beneficially affect the Long-ton manufacturers. What will be the 607 effect upon the consumers? It will add to the tax on sugar, a tax on the sugar basin. It will add to the tax on tea a tax on the teapot. The other day, the Chancellor of the Exchequer defended the tax on motor tyres on the ground of symmetry. I suppose, on that principle, this duty will be defended on the ground that it makes the breakfast table taxes symmetrical; because it taxes the crockery materials on the table as well as the food which is eaten from them. The effect will be that the poorer classes will buy fewer of these articles. When a cup is chipped they will continue to use it, and when a plate is cracked it will have to remain part of the household utensils. This taxation will involve maintaining a chipped cup and a cracked plate. That will not only be bad for the people who have to eat from these utensils but it will be bad—this will appeal to hon. Members opposite—for trade. If goods are cheap and when they get a little injured they can be replaced without much cost, people will go on buying. That is largely the cause of the prosperity in the United States. People can buy cheaply and usually they more quickly discard things which are a little worn out and buy new ones. This policy of taxing the imports of cheap crockery will have the effect of raising the price of these simple household utensils and will make people buy less, and because it will make people buy less it will be bad for the earthenware trade of this country. That, no doubt, is one of the reasons why the earthenware manufacturers did riot appear before the committee and ask for the duty.
I ask the Committee to accept this Amendment because I do not believe this duty will bring prosperity to the china trade at Longton but rather that it will bolster up that industry in making their trade a luxury trade, because it will bring added hardship to the working people of this country, and because it is a tax which increases with the poverty of the people who have to buy. That being so, we on this side will vote for the Amendment to limit the evil effects of the proposed taxation.
§ Sir ROBERT HAMILTONThe more one considers this proposed taxation the less justification one can see for it. There are various points from which the 608 tax can be criticised, but I propose to confine my remarks more particularly to the way in which the tax is imposed. It is suggested that the tax should be imposed on weight. when that is worked out, it is perfectly obvious that the result is something quite different from that which the Committee intended. The Committee said that they intended to impose a tax of about 33⅓ per cent., but in practice we find that in applying their manner of taxation by weight the tax goes up to anything from 40, 50, 60, 70 to 100 per cent., and that in proportion as the articles become cheaper. The more expensive article bears less of the tax, while the cheaper article bears the higher proportion of the tax.
I should like to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he intends to attempt to justify the imposition of the tax in this manner. Is he going to argue that this manner Of imposing the duty does, in fact, result in a duty of 33⅓ per cent? I ask the right hon. Gentleman does this method of imposing the duty work out in practice in the way in which the Committee suggested it would work out?
§ The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister)I will deal with that point in my reply.
§ Sir R. HAMILTONWe shall be very pleased to hear the arguments of the President of the Board of Trade, because in all the figures supplied by anyone connected with the trade it is obvious that this is not the case. The most conservative figures, taken over a large area, show that it will be a duty of 60 per cent. rather than 33⅓ per cent., and, if it be intended that the duty should work out at merely 33⅓ per cent., the method of imposing the duty should be modified. It does seem to me most extraordinary that, when it is desired to put on a protective tax of this character, it should be put on according to the weight of the goods, especially when we are dealing with a class of goods like china and when we know that the highest quality of finished article is the, lightest and that it is obvious that the duty must fall with a very heavy weight on the cheap article. Therefore, the imposition of this duty will put a heavy burden on the poorest class of the community. You cannot get away from it that the highly-finished article bought as a luxury in Bond Street 609 pays an infinitesimal tax, while the cheap jug, the cheap mug and the cheap cup will bear a heavy tax running to 50, 60 and 70 per cent. I really think this is one of the most extraordinary examples of all the extraordinary examples we have had in this White Paper, and the Board of Trade have given us no justification for imposing the duty according to this method. There is no justification to be found for an arrangement according to which the cheapest article bears the heaviest burden of taxation, and it cannot be too widely known that this is not a 33⅓ per cent. duty. It is infinitely more than 33⅓ per cent. I ask the President of the Board of Trade if it is intended to impose a heavier duty than the Committee recommended. The Committee recommended a 33⅓ per cent. duty, but, as I say, it will work out at infinitely more than 33⅓ per cent. if the duty is imposed on the weight of the article. It will work out at twice or three times as much as the Committee themselves recommend.
§ Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTERThe case against this Clause is founded upon two grounds. The first which was advanced by the hon. Member for West Leicester (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) was that it does not comply with the conditions of the White Paper. He said that, having detailed the arguments on a former occasion, he did not propose to repeat them. But as he has made that general charge I want to reply generally to the charge, because I equally replied at some length on the last occasion on which we discussed this Clause. The conditions of the safeguarding procedure laid down in the White Paper have been complied with. No one will deny that the industry is one of substantial importance—it employs 7,200 people. The imports of pottery have grown rapidly during the last six years and now exceed the average for pre-War years. The imported article is sold at prices at which it is not possible to produce similar articles in this country, and the Committee found that the wages paid in Germany and Czechoslovakia are lower than in this country. Then it is said that the imports of china are not excessive. The Committee showed in their Report that imports were excessive at the time of their Report, and they have since increased. The second ground on which the case against this 610 Clause is founded is that the imported and the home produced articles do not compete. On the last occasion, we had a most interesting demonstration by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Harris) who produced a series of plates and cups, and I myself was also armed with a similar battery, and I defied any Member of this Committee to distinguish between felspar, and bone china. There is a different process employed in the manufacture of these two kinds of china, and there is a difference in the component materials, but it is not that kind of scientific analysis which determines people when things are similar in appearance when they see them on the shop counter to purchase one or the other. The ordinary purchaser is content to buy what pleases him—
§ Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; Committee counted, and 40 Members being present—
§ Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTERThat is the real test of competition which any practical person will apply. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is no reason why poor people should be taxed!"] I am dealing with the point raised by the minor Opposition. I now come to the charge made by the hon. Member for West Leicester with regard to the question of the volume of imports. Now there, the case is plain. Production in the home industry has been going down, and it would have been still lower were it not for the preference given to it in certain Empire countries which enabled us to do a trade which otherwise we would have been handicapped in doing. According to page 9 of the Report of the Committee, the home production of Longton china was in 1913, 1920 and 1921 considerably higher than it is at the present time. The estimated net imports of chinaware averaged 300,342 cwts. from 1909-1913. In 1913, the imports amounted to 341,511 cwts. The imports decreased in the years 1920 to 1925, but in 1926 they amounted to 365,131 cwts. I will bring the figures more up to date. The importation in the earlier months of this year showed, again, a progressive increase. It was 39,000 cwts. in January, 39,000 in February, 46,000 in March and 49,000 in April. Then it dropped owing to the duty.
§ Sir R. HAMILTONDoes that include earthenware?
§ Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTERNo. It follows the same classification that is adopted in the table owing to the difficulty of separating china from earthenware. The figures I am giving now are strictly comparable with the table set out on page 9. Therefore, when you come to the volume of competition, you will find that the imports are progressively greater while the home production is diminishing. That is one of the cardinal facts you must consider in regard to the White Paper in considering whether the conditions of the Committee are being carried out. On that, I think there is no dispute. The wages in Germany and Czechoslovakia are very much lower than the wages in this country. They are set out in page 14 of the Report. The average rates of wages for men and women employed in the china section of the industry in this country are about £3 9s. 9d. and £1 12s. 9d. per week, respectively, for a full 47-hour week. The average hourly rates are 1s. 5.82d. for men and 8.36d. for women. It was asserted by the applicants that the wages in Germany for skilled men were between 8½d. per hour in the case of time-workers and 10d. per hour for piece-workers. In Czechoslovakia the wages are lower still. Wages in both of these countries are about 50 per cent. of the cost, but the hon. Member says that because some of the raw material is cheaper abroad than in this country it is still more difficult for this country to compete with them. That is an argument to which I cannot for a moment assent, because if you really consider that the standard of wages is lower in the competing countries than here it makes the case for a duty stronger and not weaker. I should have thought, therefore, that the case was abundantly made out in the White Paper. Another consideration to be considered under the White Paper is whether you are likely to cause injury to any other industry in this country. It has been sometimes debated at length in this House that the finished article is more properly subject to duty than a partly manufactured article connected with some other industry. Now here is an article which is a finished one and cannot enter into any other industry unless you say that it is the [...]raw, material of a hotel keeper so far as he keeps table ware on his table.
612 I submit that on all these grounds there is a clear case made out in favour of this industry, and I am glad to say that even though the duty has been in operation a short time only, so far from it being clear that no help can be expected from the duty by the industry, I understand that manufacturers are getting inquiries of a kind which they have not experienced for years past. Then it is said you ought not to impose a duty because there was a ring in this industry. The allegation is very easy to make, but this happens to be an industry in which employers and workers are most closely related and have a joint industrial council in which every difficulty is treated in common and thrashed out in common. But the charge of a ring was made to the Committee and that Committee said:
We are aware that, there is some agreement among the English bone-china makers which includes the fixing of minimum selling prices, but owing to the numerous graduations of quality and the large sale of "Seconds," it is clear that nothing in the nature of 'ring' prices exist.I prefer that considered judgment to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. I submit on these grounds there is a complete answer to the complaint that a case has not been made out under the White Paper. I say that the case for the duty is made out under the whole of the White Paper and I am sure—I have said this before and I adhere to it—it is wholly unreasonable to strain the meaning of the White Paper against the imposition of the duty. If the right hon. Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) would consider to matter impartially, the one charge he simply cannot make against the Government is that they do not impose strict conditions.These conditions are a very stiff interpretation of the Prime Minister's pledge. If the stringent conditions of the White Paper are satisfied, we plainly are guilty of a gross breach of the Prime Minister's pledge if we refrain from inviting the House to impose the duty. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir R. Hamilton) dealt with another ground. He said, "I accept what has been said by the other speakers as to reasons why you should not impose a duty." Then he said, "You are going to impose a duty of 28s. a cwt., and you ought to 613 impose the duty which the Committee recommended." The Committee did recommend a duty of 28s. a cwt. The Committee says:We have consequently considered the possibility of a specific duty and have come to the conclusion that the duty of 28s. per cwt. would he approximately equal to an ad valorem duty of 33⅓ per cent. on the main classes of pottery to which the application relates.The opponent said that as between the two duties they would prefer to have a specific duty rather than an ad valorem duty which might press hardly upon grades of china in which competition was not severe. The Government were meeting the convenience of the importers by this duty. This hon. Gentleman says a specific duty is wrong, and that you must not put on this particular specific duty because it works out too high. Any specific duty that is imposed must in some cases be below and in some cases above, but I have carefully examined the matter, and about as good an example as I can take of what this duty in fact does is the example of a sample produced by the London Chamber of Commerce. It was a 975 cwt. consignment. It was a sample produced by a gentleman who was a principal witness on behalf of the opponents. He claimed that the comparison which has been given has been a comparison of duty on the works' costs of some foreign firm. But the 33⅓ per cent. duty will not be levied upon the figure equal to the cost at the foreign works. The specific duty will be levied like an ad valorem duty on the c.i.f. value which of course has a figure of something like one-third added on to the works cost. As a matter of fact, taking that particular sample which was produced, we found that it worked out on the average that the c.i.f. value would be £3,981 on 975 cwt., and a duty of 28s. a cwt. would be £1,365, which was just a little over 34 per cent. on the c.i.f. value. That is a pretty good test. In another case which was taken, one finds that with cups and saucers where prices varied from 4s. 2d. to 5s. 3d. per dozen with 28s. a cwt. it worked out at 1s. 6d. a dozen, and the duty would range from 36 per cent. on cups and saucers at 4s. 2d. a dozen to 28 per cent. on cups and saucers at 5s. 4½d. a dozen. Those are pretty good general test cases, but there was one case raised on the last occasion 614 by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon), who produced a specific example of a tea-set from Woolworths, and said this would be a perfectly enormous duty and that it would work out at exactly 50 per cent. The particular set he quoted was to cost 3s. 1½d. each. This is a specific case. I do not pretend to trace the specific set, but I am told that whatever may be the price at which Woolworths are buying, there is a similar tea-set sold by them at 9s. to-day so that whatever the rate of duty on the cost price, it works out instead of to 50 per cent. to less than 18 per cent. on the retail price. If that is the best kind of case that can be made out against this duty, I do not think it is a very substantial case, and therefore I ask the Committee to stand by the proposal that the duty of 28s. a cwt. should be taken as a fair arid reasonable equivalent of the duty of 33⅓ per cent. on the c.i.f. value. If you had a duty which is at once a specific duty and an ad valorem duty, and you now charge the one and now the other, that would involve the Customs in difficulties over mixed consignments in order to decide on which the duty should be paid. That would make matters worse.
§ 5.0. p.m.
§ Mr. SNOWDENThe right hon. Gentleman is alwaye interesting and his innocence is rather captivating as is also his simplicity. I have never listened to a right hon. Gentleman whose speeches were always so wholly packed with fallacies. I am wondering whether he has convinced himself of the truth and accuracy of the arguments he puts forward. He is trying to justify this duty on the ground that the recommendation of the Committee justifies it an each of the five heads of the White Paper. He claimed that nothing could be fairer than the conditions laid down by the Government for this Committee's investigations. We are not now complaining about the terms of the White Paper; we are complaining that the terms of the White Paper and the Terms of Reference of the Committee were wholly ignored by the Committee itself. We are, therefore, not bound to accept the recommendations of the Committee or its views. I am not aware of a case—there may be a case, but I am not aware of it—where a Committee has recommended the imposition 615 of a duty, and the Board of Trade has not accepted the recommendation. But the circumstances in which this Committee submitted its Report, the recommendations of which were accepted by the Board of Trade and incorporated in this year's Finance Bill, constitute little less than a scandal. A day or two after this Report had been published, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in his Budget speech that he was proposing to include the recommendations in the Finance Bill. I will do the Chancellor of the Exchequer the justice to say that he made that announcement in his most contemptuous manner. He made no comment on it, except by the scornful tone of his words. He simply announced that this duty would be imposed. In fact, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Leicester (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) pointed out, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has never been here, heard either by word of mouth or by his pre-sence, to support this Resolution, but he has left the case to the President of the Board of Trade, and that gives further support to the impression we have, which is derived from the manner of the announcement by which the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed the imposition of these duties. They are, of course, purely protectionist in their action.
The President of the Board of Trade went through the five heads of the Terms of Reference to the Committee which are embodied in the White Paper, and tried to prove that this duty had been justified under each of those five headings. I am not prepared to dispute the statement, and it is a matter of no relevance to this duty, that this industry is one of substantial importance. Of course the word "substantial" is very vague and indefinite, but we will not waste time in discussing that first point. Then we get to the second point, as to whether this duty was justified on the ground that there had been an increase in imports of a competitive character. I listened to the President of the Board of Trade when he was attempting to go through that part of the Committee's recommendations. Nothing could be plainer than the fact that there has been no increase in imports of a competitive character. The President of the Board of Trade 616 called attention to some figures which appear, I think, on page 9 of the Committee's Report.
I do not know if members of the Committee have got the Report of that Committee in their hands, but if they have they will see that the figures there laid down are figures giving the imports of chinaware from 1909 to 1926, and that from 1909, with one single exception—the year 1926—there has been a progressive decline in the imports of chinaware. In 1909 to 1913 the average net imports of chinaware are stated to be 30,626 cwts., and those figures then drop—the War figures, when the circumstances were quite abnormal are excluded—to a figure of 20,000 odd in 1920, then 10,000 odd in 1921, 10,000 odd in 1922, 11,000 odd in 1923, 10,000 odd in 1924, and 5,000 odd in 1925. "Ah, but," says the President of the Board of Trade, "lock at the figures for 1926." Yes, the figures for 1926 are 109,000 odd cwt. But it might interest the Committee to remember that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade has always warned the House of Commons not to accept these figures at their face value, because the year 1926 was an abnormal year.
The explanation, of course, is that, after 10 years of progressive decline in imports, and of a progressive decline in the severity of foreign competition, there was an increase of imports in 1926, because the importers of foreign manufactured goods knew that this duty was intended. The Committee had been set up and they knew the constitution of this Committee. They knew the scandalous composition of this Committee. They knew that, like nearly every other previous Committee, that Committee had been packed by the President of the Board of Trade, by two out-and-out pronounced. rabid, and violent Protectionists, and that, whatever the facts might have been, everybody knew what the recommendations of the Committee would be. Therefore, importers took advantage of the interval between that time and the coming into force of this duty, to rush into this country as many goods as possible. That is the explanation of the rise last year. If it had not been for the appointment of this Committee boy the President of the Board of Trade. it is perfectly certain from the evidence and from the experience that we have seen for the last 617 10 years, that the imports last year would have shown a further decline. Therefore, the case under that heading is not made out. There has been no abnormal increase of the imports of a competitive kind. On the contrary, there has been an annual decline. That is supported not only by figures but by the evidence of the only business man upon this Committee, a man who is fully acquainted with the industry, and who says in his report:
I am not satisfied, however, that translucent table-ware is being imported into this country in abnormal quantities."Although there may not have been an abnormal increase in the import of translucent china," the President of the Board of Trade says, "there has been an increase in the import of the competitive article which serve the same purpose." The right hon. Gentleman is wrong there, if he looks at his own figures. Take the table on page 9. There you have the heading, "Estimated net Imports of Chinaware included in Earthenware." In 1913 the figure was 311,583 cwts. In. 1922 that had fallen to 190,678. In 1925 it was 287,476. Last year included the large supplies of exceptional imports of chinaware. The table says, under the heading, "Net Imports of Chinaware," that in 1926 the net imports of chinaware were 109,370 cwts. The net imports of chinaware, including earthenware—
§ Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTERThe table says, "included in earthenware."
§ Mr. SNOWDENI do not understand the right hon. Gentleman's interruption.
§ Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTERIt is common ground, as everybody has known for a long time, that there have been a great many imports of what was really china, but the figures of which were included in the return as earthenware.
§ Mr. SNOWDENThat is not material to my point at all. Figures are my case, and not any explanation of the President of the Board of Trade. Here are the figures—in 1913, 311,000 cwts., and in 1926, 255,000 cwts. Certainly those figures do not justify the claim that there has been an increase in imports in recent years, but, on the contrary, they show that there has been a 618 constant decline. Therefore, under that heading the case for this duty has not been proved.
Then the right hon. Gentleman went on to deal with wages. It is, of course, quite impossible to make accurate deductions if you take only the rates of wages in one country, and compare those rates with the rates of wages in another country. If you are going to get at the real facts you must take a great many other factors into consideration, such as the general standard of living in a country. There may be a country where what seems a low wage compared with the wage in this country really represents a high wage on account of the different standard of living, and there may be a country where an apparent high wage really represents a low wage, compared with the wage in this country. The Committee, on this point, do not appear to be very certain as to whether there is much difference in the wages as between this country and the countries which compete with us in this market, but they do state one very important and pertinent fact, and that is given on page 11, about the middle of this Report. We are dealing here really with the matter of the cost of production, and methods of manufacture are most important in this connection. Here is one of the most significant sentences in the Committee's Report. It is to be found about the middle of page 11, and it reads as follows:
They stated, by way of example, that in Czechoslovakia one skilled workman with thirteen assistants could turn out by means of automatic machinery 4,800 pieces per day as against about 360 in this country made by one man by ordinary hand methods.There we have the fact—4,800 pieces a day compared with 360 in this country Made by one man. It is not a question of wages. You cannot possibly take away the competitive advantage of a country which has adopted that method of production.
§ Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMSMay I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he has done the arithmetic?
§ Mr. SNOWDENI leave it to the Tariff Reformers to do the arithmetic. There is a sentence somewhere else in the Committee's Report; it is to be 619 found in paragraph 35. It gives the wages in the china section of the industry, then the wages in Germany and I think in Czechoslovakia, but it does not say that the wages in Germany are wages for the same class of work as the wages given in the china section in this country. We may assume that the wages in the china section, which is the highest class of pottery industry, are higher than the general rate of wages in the pottery trade. The Committee, as I have said, have gone altogether outside their terms of reference. They were to consider the question of the imposition of an import duty on tableware of translucent pottery, but they did not confine their investigations to that nor did they confine their recommendations to that. Without warrant, and without application from this particular section of the trade, they went out of their way to recommend an import duty on a class of pottery which they were never asked to consider.
There is one other important matter in this Report. The President of the Board of Trade is very anxious, indeed, to conform strictly to the terms of the White Paper, and the White Paper says that there must be an application from the industry. What is the industry? According to the President of the Board of Trade the industry is the employing section of the industry. What was the main justification put forward by the Government for this procedure? It was the question of employment. These Safeguarding Duties were to be imposed in order to increase the volume of employment in the particular industry. That is a matter in which the operatives are deeply interested. But they were not a party to this inquiry or to the application for this duty. The right hon. Gentleman said that the relations between the employers and workmen in the pottery trade were very intimate, and if the state of the industry was such as to need a protective duty, and a high protective duty, why were not the operatives a party to this application? It is very significant that there is no reference in their Report to the fact that the operatives were not a party to the application.
§ Brigader-General Sir HENRY CROFTThey were not opposed to it.
§ Mr. SNOWDENThey were not a party to it. If they had been anxious to see such a duty imposed in their interests, for an improvement of their wages, they certainly would have been a party to the application. Just a word on another matter which was dealt with by the right hon. Gentleman in his concluding remarks. He attempted to deal with the case against a specific duty put forward by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir R. Hamilton) and I do not think there was even an hon. Member opposite who considered that the President had made any reply to that case. I have had some figures supplied to me. The President says he has had some figures supplied to him. I believe the figures which have been supplied to me are quite as accurate as those which have been supplied to the right hon. Gentleman. They give the price of a consignment of cups and saucers. The President took the number of crates as the basis, and I will do the same. This was a shipment of 13 crates of cups and saucers, weighing 2 tons 7 cwts. 3 qrts., and the value was £87 10s. 6d. The duty charged upon that consignment was £66 17s. Hon. Members opposite are good at arithmetic and, as it is one of my weak points, I will leave it to them to work out the percentage of the duty in that case.
§ Mr. SNOWDENI am quite ready to accept these figures as being as correct as the figures given to the President of the Board of Trade, and which went unchallenged by the hon. and gallant Member. A duty of £66 17s. on a consignment of the value of £87 10s. 6d. is not a duty of 33⅓ per cent., but a duty of somewhere between 60 and 70 per cent,; and the applicants never asked for such a duty at all. Therefore, in two respects the Committee's recommendations have gone beyond what they were asked to do, and what the trade itself asked them to do They have given them an average protective duty nearly double the figure for which they asked, and they have also given a high protective duty which a large part of the industry neither asked nor expected. The President of the Board of Trade, without a single exception, 621 has accepted all the recommendations of this Committee, even when those recommendations were carried by a majority of only one vote.
I protest, as we protested at the time when the White Paper was before the House of Commons, against a question of national policy, which is a matter of acute division between political parties, being determined by one outside person. As a matter of fact, this question has been decided by Lady Askwith, and by nobody else. During thewhole of the Committee's deliberations she was obviously a biased and prejudiced party. This recommendation was carried by one vote only, and, therefore, if you set off the vote of the chairman against that of Mr. Hayhurst you have only Lady Askwith left. Therefore, this Report is the Report of Lady Askwith, and the House of Commons this afternoon is not being asked to approve proposals of the Board of Trade or of the Government but to say that in fiscal matters, in trade matters, it is under the dictatorship of Lady Askwith.
§ Sir H. CROFTThe speech of the right hon. Gentleman has been very interesting, but I must at the outset take exception to his remarks concerning a member of the Committee—Lady Ask-with. I have been associated with Lady Askwith for a good many years in connection with other questions, and I am quite safe in telling the right hon. Gentleman that Lady Askwith, who is a descendant of Sir Robert Peel and Lord John Russell, has been a Free Trader all her life, and until a few years ago she used to look very sadly at me when I advanced any of my fiscal arguments. For the right hon. Gentleman, without any knowledge, to say that this lady is biased is not quite fair, and I hope he will withdraw his insinuations.
§ Mr. HARRISIs she is Free Trader now?
§ Sir H. CROFTShe has sat on two or three Committees hearing evidence and she may not be a Free Trader now. That is very likely. The right hon. Gentleman says that all these questions are decided by one vote. May I remind him that there are only three members on the Committee, and that after all it is not Lady Askwith who decides these questions but Parliament, although the 622 Liberal party, judging from the state of the Liberal Benches, does not seem to take much interest in this matter.
§ Mr. ERNEST BROWNLook behind you!
§ Sir H. CROFTBut I have always regarded this as the one remaining rag left to the Liberal party, and I am surprised that they show such little interest in it. I think it is only fair to consider the opinions of the third member of the Committee. It shows the impartiality of the President of the Board of Trade. This gentleman—Mr. Hayhurst—represents the co-operative movement and is not a business man in the sense of being a producer. He is a commercial agent for the co-operative institution.
§ Mr. SNOWDENMr. Hayhurst is a director of one of the largest distributing organisations in this country, an organisation which, I believe, is responsible for a trade between £150,000,000 and £200,000,000 a year. He is also a director of a pottery, and a very successful pottery.
§ Sir H. CROFTI am sure the right hon. Gentleman is quite accurate in saying that Mr. Hayhurst is a director of one of the largest distributing businesses in this country, and I am interested to hear that he is a director of a pottery. I can only regret that he only went to see one pottery, a co-operative pottery, and that he did not visit others. The right hon. Gentleman in making his case endeavoured to prove that there was no considerable increase in the imports of pottery into this country, and he said that the large increase of last year was only due to the fact that people abroad were getting nervous as to the possibility of an import duty being imposed and therefore increased their imports. Does he apply that same argument to British production? It has steadily fallen in the last 15 years, and it is inconceivable you can consider the case without putting the two facts together. May I be allowed to give the right hon. Gentleman the total value of the imports in those industries in 1924 in 1925 and in 1926. In 1924 the round figures were £8,500,000. In 1925 they had risen to £9,840,000 and in 1926 to £11,297,000. The right hon. Gentleman's greatest desire, I am sure, is to see our people employed. Does he not 623 think that these increases are staggering, when we take account of the fact that our home production at the same time has decreased as is shown in the table in the White Paper?
The right hon. Gentleman tried to make a point in regard to wages, and he said that we must consider other matters as well. He went into a calculation which, I think, showed conclusively that the British worker is more efficient than his foreign competitors. There is, therefore, all the more reason that, with such efficiency, we should not permit him to be undersold by those who are working at a wage level like that referred to in the White Paper. The hon. Member for West Leicester (Mr. PethickLawrence) made a very interesting speech, but I hope he realises that his own constituents at the present time are very anxious. In the industry with which his constituency is principally concerned there is a demand from employers and employed. Both, I think, are approaching him with a view to some help being given in the matter of hosiery. When he told us that the working classes pay the whole duty on these imported goods, I think he was wrong. I have never been one of those who contend that any kind of protection is going to reduce the price of tie article. I do not think that follows, though I also think that it is possible, with the greater security of the duty and a reduction of overhead charges by mass production, to produce an article which is cheaper. That has happened in some industries which have been protected under the McKenna Duties or the Safeguarding of Industries Act. But when the hon. Gentleman deliberately says that the working classes will pay the whole duty, he is going contrary to the experience which we have had in connection with every single duty imposed in this country.
It is a pity that fears such as this should be raised, because they have been proved false in every other case. The hon. Member might have been justified in saying that part of this duty may ultimately be borne by the consumer, but he was stretching his advocacy a little when he suggested that the whole of the duty would be paid in that way. In practically every case of articles protected 624 by the present Government under these Measures, the price has not been increased to the working classes. The hon. Member then went on to say that this duty was going to be bad for the trade. I think he will admit that if it were bad for the trade those who are principally involved financially in the industry would not have asked for this security.
§ Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCEWhat I said was that it is going to be bad for the earthenware trade and that the members of that trade were not parties to this application.
§ Sir H. CROFTI am rather at a loss to see how it can be bad for the earthenware trade unless the protected trade is so successful that, in fact, the duty will do what the hon. Gentleman has told us it will not do, namely, reduce the price so as to compete with earthenware. The curious thing is that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) spoke on behalf of the workers just now. I am surprised that the hon. Member for Hanley (Mr. Clowes) or some of the other Socialist representatives from the pottery districts are not here to say that the workers in the industry are opposed to the duty. That would carry more conviction. All I can say is that the fact that an hon. Member opposite sought to count out the Committee seems to show there is not any very considerable interest against these proposals on the benches opposite, and perhaps that explains why so many members of the party opposite have gone down to the country to play bowls this afternoon. The hon. Member for West Leicester also referred to the wages question, and I think on that point he must find himself in conflict with the majority of his party. He will not deny that the differences in wage values between the pottery industry in this country and Czechoslovakia or Germany are considerable. I think I am right in saying that our lowest wages are higher than the highest in Czechoslovakia.
If that be anything tike the case, have we not arrived at the situation contemplated by the official Opposition when they laid down the policy—which has never been repudiated—that if goods were being imported into this country 625 produced on lower wages or longer hours than those prevailing in this country, then they were in favour not merely of a tariff but of prohibition? How is it that the hon. Member goes counter to this view, endorsed, as it was, by over 1,000,000 on a card vote at the Trade Union Conference this year? He deliberately says that British workers ought to be subjected to the competition of a wage level which, if imposed in this country, would be regarded as sweating by every hon. Member opposite. There was an interesting Debate two days ago on the question of matches, and an hon. Gentleman who speaks for the co-operative movement in this House boasted that the co-operative movement were buying thousands of gross of matches from Finland. It surprised many of us that he should have been so bold, and his answer to us was that, while they bought these matches from Finland, they were selling, in return, a large number of bicycles and boots and shoes and other articles to the people of Finland.
I presume the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley would use the same argument in regard to pottery. We on this side say that not only has a case been made out for the pottery trade in this matter, but that the argument to which I have just referred can no longer hold water in these Debates, for this reason. A large number of people in the pottery trade have been out of work for a considerable time. If you give them employment they will be able to buy the bicycles and the boots and shoes which you may now be selling in exchange for imported pottery. That argument has not been realised by the party opposite. As long as we have 1,000,000 unemployed in this country, are we not wise to do everything in our power to see that our own people are employed, especially when we know that they are only on the streets because they are competing with something which is as near to being a sweated product as anything which the party opposite ever denounced in the past? I hope there will be no doubt about this duty. I hope hon. Members opposite will not go to a Division. I believe that deep down in their hearts they see that the policy which considers only the merchant is a selfish policy and that our bounden duty, 626 if we are to regain our national prosperity, is to see after our national production.
§ Mr. RILEYI desire to emphasise the objection to this duty, first, on the ground put forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden), namely, that the Committee is now being invited to embark upon a development of national policy, on the strength of a report, in circumstances which are perfectly scandalous. I should like to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether there was any meeting of the committee of inquiry to consider their report after the closing of the evidence, and, if so, how many persons were present at that meeting. We now know as a matter of public information that the committee, consisting of three persons, closed the taking of evidence on 15th February, and that one member of the committee, within a few hours, left this country for South America. The evidence was closed on 15th February and the report was signed on 23rd March. Only five weeks or thereabouts elapsed between the closing of the evidence on which the report had to be made to the Ministry, and the signing of the report. The member who, within a few hours of the closing of the evidence, went to South America, presumably could not possibly return in time to take part in the meeting, to assist in coming to a judicial decision and to sign the report.
§ Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTERI have never interfered with the conduct of the proceedings of the committee in the least or inquired as to when it was sitting. That was an undertaking which I gave to the House, and I have strictly kept it. I have not the least idea of how many meetings the committee may have held, but I have known many instances where a Judge, after hearing evidence, has immediately proceeded to give judgment.
§ Mr. RILEYThis is not the case of a Judge dealing with evidence but the case of three members of a committee appointed to hold an inquiry. Their duty was—after all the evidence had been submitted—to weigh up that evidence. A Judge may make up his mind in the course of the evidence and then decide, but their duty was, the evidence having been given, to weigh it up and in the 627 light of all that evidence to come to a decision, agreed or otherwise. As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley has said, this policy is being based on the decision of one person. There were only three persons in all, one of whom, after the collection of the evidence, left the country. The report had to be issued by the other two who presumably met together to consider it. We now know that of those two, one was entirely opposed to the recommendations. He issued a minority report and in several paragraphs he says that in his opinion the evidence submitted did not justify the applicants in seeking the order. We are told by the President of the Board of Trade that the Committee found that the main ground on which safeguarding should be granted was the abnormal increase in imports during recent years. What are the facts of the case? The President called attention to page 9 of the Report, where a table of imports of pottery is given, and he stressed the point that for the years 1909 to 1913 the average weight of imports was 300,342 cwts., and in 1926 it was 365,000 cwts. On the face of it, that is a very considerable rise. But let us take not simply one year, 1926, but take the years 1913 to 1926, or take the average of the years 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925 and 1926. What we find then is that the average for these last years is only 224,000 cwts. per annum.
§ Mr. H. WILLIAMSIf you are very ill, does the doctor judge of your temperature by the average of the last week, or at the time when he is examining you?
§ Mr. RILEYThe hon. Member can put that argument in the course of his speech. I was calling the attention of the Committee to this table which shows that from 1909 to 1913 the average imports were 300,342 cwts. In the year 1913 it was 341,000 cwts. If we take the average for the period from 1920 down to 1926 we find the average is 224,000, which is less than the average in the period for 1909 to 1913. Therefore, as Mr. Hayhurst, a member of the Committee said, the 1925 imports were less than those in 1913. On those figures I submit that the claim that a substantial duty is justified by an enormous increase in imports is 628 not supported by the facts of the case. But I have an objection to this duty apart from the grounds upon which this recommendation is made, which I regard as inadequate grounds and grounds which have been arrived at in a manner not very creditable to the present Ministry in its conduct of these inquiries. I object to it on account of its niggling and petty character. In his Budget speech the Chancellor of the Exchequer told us that he expected to get out of this duty on pottery £150,000 in the present year and, possibly, £200,000 in a full year subsequently. To disturb this trade and the price of these articles of everyday household use for a paltry £150,000 a year is not a sound policy, and is an unworthy method of trying to raise revenue when there are millions of pounds to be found elsewhere which could be tapped without those who would be liable to pay feeling the burden in the least.
As in so many other cases, this duty is being applied in such a way that it will fall on the backs of chose least able to bear it. It has not been disputed that the duty will be lowest on the most expensive pottery and glassware and highest on the cheapest kinds of pottery. Take as an example what are called half thick tea-sets, in cases of 35 dozens. Here is an actual instance of a consignment weighing 2 cwt. 3 qrs. 12 lbs., invoiced at £4 2s. 8d. without the duty. The duty on that amounts to £4 0s..4d.; that is a duty of 97½ per cent. on common cottage ware tea-sets. That means that a single article which on import is priced, say, 1s. without the duty, is raised in price practically to 2s. by the incidence of the duty. The users of that pottery have not only to pay the actual sum by which the duty increases the price of the article, but an extra sum in respect of the several profits which are made on the goods between the time they leave the importer and reach the retail buyer. Let us assume that there is a profit of 50 per cent. made betwen the importer and the retailer. The purchasers of this class of pottery, who are the poorest people, have to pay not only the duty of 100 per cent., but an additional 50 per cent. representing these profits. Not only is the duty passed on to the consumer, but he has to pay for the increased capital expenditure on the part of the traders who are 629 handling these goods. From every point of view the incidence of this tax will be unjust.
§ Mr. REMERTwo points have emerged from this Debate which I think call for some protest, not merely from the party point of view but from the point of view of the whole House of Commons. I refer first to the criticisms upon the in partiality of the various committees, and in particular of this committee, which has given this decision as to a duty on pottery. If every committee appointed by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade is to be subjected to this kind of attack in the House of Commons, it will be impossible for him to secure men to serve upon these committees. It would be just as unreasonable for me to criticise my right hon. Friend about the far larger number of committees which have given decisions against the imposition of a duty, and condemn him for having appointed convinced Free Traders to serve on those committees. The second point which has emerged from the Debate is the statement by the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) that there was no demand for this duty from the industry itself. While this committee was sitting the hon. Member for Hanley (Mr. Clowes) made a reference in the "Staffordshire Sentinel" to a, speech I had delivered in my own constituency. In that letter, which was extensively quoted in the proceedings of the committee, he made it quite clear that they of the society representing pottery workers were not either for or against a duty, but were entirely neutral in this matter. To say, therefore, that they are not parties to the duty does not mean that they are against it.
It is noteworthw, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) has already pointed out, that not a single Member for the Potteries is present this evening while this duty is under discussion. There are four Members representing the Potteries, three of them Labour Members. One of them, the hon. Member for Stoke-on- Trent (Lieut.-Colonel John Ward) is, I believe—so he has told me—in favour of the duty. We all regret the reason for his absence. I think the whole Committee know that he is only absent on account of ill-health. It would be interesting 630 to know why the Pottery Members, if they are so violently opposed to this duty, are not in their places to state their reasons in Debate. Some rather curious arguments have been put forward in the previous Debates on this duty. During the consideration of the Budget Resolution, the right hon. Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) condemned this duty at great length, calling it a cruel tax upon the working people of this country. His argument was based on the statement that the price of pottery would be increased to the very poorest in the land. I have been in consultation with a very large number of people in the pottery industry, as was my duty, seeing that I represent a constituency adjacent to that great industrial area, and they tell me that in the circumstances prevailing at the moment no manufacturer would raise his prices one penny above what he was charging before this duty was imposed.
§ 6.0. p. m.
§ Mr. REMERI was coming to that in a moment. I can give the hon. Member a quite conclusive answer to his question. What were the conditions of the pottery industry prior to the imposition of this duty? The industry was working only three or four days a week. If a manufacturer can work full time the proportion of his standing charges, rent, rates and taxes, which are imposed whether he is working full time or short time, is reduced to such an extent that he can sell his goods at a lower price and make a profit, whereas when he was working short time he was making a loss even at the higher price. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley on the Budget Resolution, stated that he had studied the shorthand notes of the inquiry dealing with this matter, and, therefore, he must know that it was stated quite clearly at the inquiry what a terrible amount of unemployment there was in the Potteries before this duty was imposed. It amounted to as much as 16 per cent., and, if the right hon. Gentleman has, as we know he has, sympathy for those people who are suffering, surely he should have sympathy for these people, one in five of whom are out of work totally—not temporarily—while the remainder are only working 631 three or four days a week. The sum total of the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman and of hon. Gentlemen opposite is to condemn these pottery workers permanently to their present condition—16 per cent. totally unemployed, and the balance working short time; and I would submit that it is poor comfort to these people, who have no money in their pockets, for the right hon. Gentleman or hon. Gentlemen opposite to tell them that, if they oppose this duty, they will have cheap pottery.
England has been the natural home of the pottery industry. China clay—ball clay and china stone—is produced to the greatest extent in the world in the counties of Devon and Cornwall, and we export these commodities, not only to Germany, but to America, Spain, Portugal, and, indeed, practically all over the world. It may be asked why the pottery industry is stationed in Staffordshire, such a long way from where these commodities, which are so necessary for the production of china, are found. There is a very good reason, namely, that Staffordshire coal is the most suitable for making pottery, so that Staffordshire is the natural home of the most efficient production of pottery. In that area there are people who have been in the business for generations. The industry is unique in the world, and the manufacturers and workpeople in Staffordshire are admitted by everyone to be the most skilled potters in the world. It may be asked why, if this be correct, they are beaten in their own market. The answer is quite a simple one. It is that in Germany the wages are 33⅓ per cent. lower than in this country, and in Czechoslovakia they are 50 per cent. lower. Here was this industry, one of the finest skilled industries in this country, slowly bleeding to death, and the people who are supposed to protect Labour in this country come here and condemn the one means by which the industry can be restored.
I want to refer to the speech of the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith) on the Budget Resolution. He told us that the remedy for the pottery industry was that the English manufacturers should start to manufacture felspar china. I do not know where he got his information from, or what was the basis 632 of his knowledge of this industry, but it is rather surprising, if that be the remedy, that no Continental manufacturer of felspar china has attempted to manufacture it in this country before. There would be a great saving in carriage, there would be a closer liaison between the manufacturer and his customer, there would be many advantages for him if he came here and set up his works. If the hon. Member's arguments were right, one would suppose that Continental manufacturers would have done that. The reason why they have not done it is that the cost of labour in this country is twice what it is in Czechoslovakia, and the cost of erecting works here is twice what it is in that country. It will be very interesting to see if the Czechoslovakian manufacturers will now erect potteries here as a result of the duty.
A further argument used by the hon. Member, when he was speaking on the Budget Resolution, was that the earthenware manufacturers had not applied for a duty upon earthenware. There was a very good reason why the earthenware manufacturers, in November of last year, did not make an application, namely, that at that time no earthenware of any kind was being imported into this country; but in November of last year, for the first time in 45 years, earthenware was offered for sale in this country, and I am informed that it is now being freely offered in this country by Continental manufacturers. Possibly, therefore, the earthenware manufacturers may look at this subject at the present time in a rather different light. I am quite satisfied that this duty is going to provide full employment and better wages for the workers in this industry. and I cannot understand the attitude of the Socialist party in condemning the one means of raising the standard of life of those workers—of raising their wages and bettering their conditions. I hope that in all the pottery districts it will be shown conclusively to the working people there that the party which represents them in the House of Commons has done everything it could to grind down those workers to a state of unemployment.
§ Mr. HARRISFrom this discussion very few people would think we were dealing with the Finance Bill, that is to say, a Bill to provide the necessary revenue for carrying on the country and raising 633 taxation, because the question of taxation has been peculiarly absent from the discussion. This Bill is a Bill to impose taxes and raise revenue, but, under the new regime, our Finance Bill has been diverted from what has been its object for many years, and the discussions upon it are degenerating into a controversy in favour of Protection. Speeches have been made by hon. Members opposite—and I make no complaint of it—which would apply with equal reason to any manufactured article imported from abroad, or to bacon, bread, meat, butter, and every other import of any article produced in this country. I cannot help thinking that it is rather hard on the farmers, who used to look upon the Tories as their friends. They have been badly deserted. They have to pay more for everything they buy—cups, saucers, cutlery, and so on. The only purpose of this tax is to raise prices. The ground of this particular proposal is that manufacturers in the Potteries find that they cannot produce china as cheaply as manufacturers in Germany and Czechoslovakia, and they say, as was said by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Remer), that that is because of the labour costs. Whatever may be the cause, the contention is that they cannot sell at the present price because it means selling at a loss, and the admitted purpose of this duty is to remove foreign competition, so that the consumer, who, after all, is a more important person than the trader and the merchant— the trader and the merchant are of very small account; it is the user, the person who has to buy the articles, the house wife, the working-class family, the person who has to spend the money—will have to pay more for these items.
§ Sir H. CROFTCan the hon. Member say where they have to pay more—in what particular industry?
§ Mr. HARRISThey pay more in the shops when they buy across the counter. As an instance, I may mention that my hon. Friend the Member for North Lam-beth (Mr. Briant) has been organising a camp, and he wanted to buy some mugs. He searched all London in his endeavour to buy drinking mugs for his camp. I do not suppose that the hon. and gallant Gentleman ever used anything so vulgar as a drinking mug. Probably my hon. Friend will be abused at every street 634 corner by our Tariff Reform friends, but he wanted to buy these cheap china mugs. They are not obtainable any more. The tariff is having its effect. The market is there, but my hon. Friend has had to get a substitute. Now you cannot buy an English substitute—it is not available; and my hon. Friend has to buy cheap enamelled iron mugs imported from abroad. Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman will say that a cheap mug of that kind is quite good enough for working-class children, but it is not so pleasant to use for a cup of tea., and, of course, it is a poor substitute for the china mug. That is a good example of what is going on all over the country as a result of this tax.
§ Mr. GREENECan the hon. Member say why gloves have gone down in price since they have been protected?
§ Mr. HARRISWe are discussing mugs at the moment, not gloves.
§ Mr. GREENEThe hon. Gentleman knows more about mugs than I do.
§ Mr. BUCHANANYou can always tell them when you see them.
§ Mr. HARRISI hope the Debate will not be allowed to degenerate into personal abuse.
§ Mr. GREENEI was not referring to the hon. Member when I referred to mugs.
§ Mr. HARRISAs a matter of fact, the cheap gloves of the ordinary working woman are more expensive and are far more difficult to get. I agree as regards the kid gloves of Bond Street. They were already very expensive, and it means that the rich woman can still buy them, but the working-class woman in the East End of London cannot buy expensive Westbury or Yeovil gloves in Bond Street; she has to put up with cheap cotton gloves.
§ The CHAIRMANI think I heard the hon. Member say he was discussing pottery.
§ Mr. HARRISSo I was, but I was interrupted by the hon. Gentleman opposite, and I thought that perhaps you might have protected me, so that I might concentrate on my subject.
§ The CHAIRMANThe hon. Member so effectively corrected the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Greene) that I thought it unnecessary that I should do so.
§ Mr. HARRISThe real reason why there is depression in the china industry, where there is undoubtedly short time and unemployment, is the high prices at which the articles are offered. The prices of china have gone up to three times the pre-War prices, and that has meant that at present prices these articles are quite out of reach of the ordinary user of crockery and china-ware. The result has been that, although there is depression in the manufacture of china, immense strides have been made in the substitute manufacture of earthenware, because earthenware has gone up only 75 per cent. as opposed to treble the price in the case of china. The very same amount of labour has been employed in the production of the earthenware as of the china. They are under very much the same trade unions, and have the same rates. The earthenware manufacturer having adapted himself to new methods and to the requirements of the market, and the public having the money to spend on china, they have been able to extend their plant, increase their production, improve their design, and meet the demands of the public. As far as one can see, the price is so enormously different from the foreign article, produced by better methods, with different materials, and by an entirely different process, that the English bone china cannot be called a really serious competitor with the felspar china produced under mass production and by new methods. You might as well compare the production of a Rolls-Royce car with a Ford as compare the manufacture of high quality china in Staffordshire, made under old-fashioned methods, and bone china with felspar china manufactured abroad under new methods and mass production with all that that involves.
When you come to the labour costs, it is doubtful whether you can really say there is justification under the machinery of the Safeguarding of Industries for imposing this duty. I find the labour cost of an equivalent tea set in earthenware works out at 1s. 8d., with the same trade union rates and conditions, as compared with 5s. 11d. for bone china; felspar 636 china, which is very little different from earthenware, works out at 1s. 5d., a little less, but the fact remains that under the duties now proposed the real assistance will be given to the manufacturer of earthenware, who did not ask for a duty, who had no inquiry made into his case, who has never been asked to put forward evidence, and has not been subject to cross-examination. They will be freed from competition and will be able to get the advantage of a protected market. It is a curious fact, which has to be borne in mind, that many of the people who control the manufacture of china are also controlling the production of earthenware. Perhaps they knew the weakness of their case in asking for protection for earthenware and preferred to keep in the background and allow their case to be fought by the organisation representing the production of translucent china.
One thing we might ask is that the President of the Board of Trade might very well consider the exclusion of vitrified pottery. I understand already in many cases the Customs officials are not including many articles which would not come under the description of vitrified ware, because when you start going into a Customs tariff, it is very difficult to distinguish between this article and that. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that in his speech. He is very proud of the difficulty to the ordinary person of distinguishing between translucent ware and ordinary earthenware. It is only the initiated who can easily distinguish. The Customs House officials are already very worried and troubled to decide under which particular category the import comes. On the whole I understand many articles have already been excluded by taxation which are generally described as vitrified pottery, and I think it would be reasonable, when we come to the detailed Amendments, that this particular article should be excepted.
May I refer to the method of levying the duty. This plan of levying duty by weight is novel. Some of the interested parties thought it would be more convenient and would lead to less disturbance in the trade not to unpack the cases and value each article separately but to lump them together and charge the duty on the weight. In order to save trouble, the Committee came to the conclusion that that was the simplest plan. No inquiry 637 was held and witnesses were not cross-examined. We do not know on whose advice it was, but the Commissioners came to the conclusion that 25s. a cwt. was a reasonable interpretation of the request for a 33⅓ per cent. duty. Since then the various trade interests have had time to inquire. They had gone to great trouble and given the right hon. Gentleman many examples. I believe most of the figures have been placed before his officials. I know he is a very busy man, and spends a good deal of his time upstairs, trying to get protection for films and various other matters. No doubt he did not have time to consider all the evidence before him, but it is a very peculiar thing that he has brought down to the Committee one example that is favourable to his case that this duty is a fair one. He took goods imported from Czechoslovakia, which are of a finer character and decorated, and, therefore, their value is higher compared with their weight. He ignored the tact that, generally speaking, the familiar china tea-set, the modern article used in every working-class home, is heavy, coarse, and not decorated, and its principal qualification is its cheapness. There is evidence to show that in most of these cheap tea-sets, which make up the bulk of the imports, the duty works out not at 33⅓ per cent. but at 70 per cent., 80 per cent., 90 per cent. and 100 per cent.
If the right hon. Gentleman desires to be just and fair, not to the foreign manufacturer but to the general public, especially the working class, he should be prepared to listen to representations to bring the proposed duty more into line with the rate asked for by the applicants and on which evidence was given at the inquiry. I have here examples extending over three or four months. Here is a case of 5,537 cwt., which at 28s. works out at £7,753, on goods invoiced at £11,108. I shall be pleased to hand the figures over. They have been placed before the Board of Trade and an unanswerable case has been made out for lowering the rate of duty, it you are not going to take advantage of this occasion to put something like a penal tax on an article of general use by the working class, who are already overburdened and suffering from high prices in many articles of general use, and I think the Minister ought to be prepared 638 to consider it when we reach the Amendment in my name. The people of London have a specially strong case against this duty. There are 7,000,000 people living on open ports. Here is the Government, under the excuse of safeguarding machinery, giving protection to this industry in one part of this country and another industry in another, seriously interfering with the trade of London, whose very existence depends on open ports. This duty is going to divert trade from London to the mainland, and throw out a large number of workers employed as workers, carmen, packers, and, not least, seamen. For that reason only, as a London Member would not hesitate to vote against this duty. It is against the weight of evidence. It singles out one trade for special favour, and is going to make an article of general use to the public very much more expensive.
§ Mr. H. WILLIAMSI have listened with interest to the hon. Member's speech. He made a number of assertions which he did not support with any particular evidence. In conclusion he asked us to consider the situation of London, one of the constituencies of which he represents. London has a far lower level of unemployment than any other great industrial centre, perhaps only a third of that which prevails in North Staffordshire. The hon. Member should not be quite so narrow and selfish as he appears to be.
§ Mr. HARRISThere are 7,000,000 people in London.
§ Mr. WILLIAMSI quite agree that there are 7,000,000 people in London, but I am talking about percentages. The ratio of unemployment is about a third of that prevailing in North Stafford-shire. I should imagine a man with his noble principles would have some consideration for other people. Then he says it is a novel thing that there should be a duty by weight. For many years he supported a Liberal Government that taxed tea and sugar by weight. There is nothing novel in duties by weight. He has only to examine any tariff in any country and he will find large numbers of specific duties, and in pre-War days, when he used to make speeches in opposition to Protection, I am certain he used to turn out the same kind of, shall we say 639 stuff, that those who hold his views turn out, and say you could not possibly have ad valorem duties. It was so difficult to determine. It was always urged that these duties must be specific, and that was one of the attacks made on Mr. Chamberlain, because he rather tended to advocate ad valorem duties. So when we present them with what they want, they do not like it.
Then the hon. Member attacked the efficiency of British producers, but he gave no evidence. I suppose he wanted to support what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) had said, when he drew our attention to page 11. He said, "Here we have 4,800 pieces a day turned out in Czechoslovakia, against 360 in this country made by one man by ordinary methods." But in Czechoslovakia there was one skilled workman with 13 assistants doing the job. The right hon. Gentleman declined to do the little sum in arithmetic, and left it to the Tariff Reformers. He did not want to do it, because it would expose the folly of his argument. The average per person in Czechoslovakia was 343, and the primitive, incompetent, unscientific Englishman, whom he is so happy in denouncing, does 360 in a day.
§ Mr. WILLIAMSI have always heard the hon. Member stand up for the bottom dog, the unskilled labourer. He has to live, and he lives out of his production. The single man, with 13 assistants, does less than one man in this country. I want to raise the standard of living of the people. I can only raise the standard of living by raising the efficiency of their production. If a man turns out 343 instead of 360, that would be his standard of living. The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Riley), who has just interrupted me, has asked us to consider, not the imports during 1926, but to take the average of the last five or six years. If you take the average of the last five or six years, he said, the imports are not abnormal. But they did not make the application until the imports became abnormal. They are asking us to deal with the existing situation. It would be no satisfaction to the people in his constituency 640 who are out of work now if you pointed out to them the average imports relating to some time past when they were in work. What they want is a job now, and we are trying to get them a job now by imposing this duty.
We have had some depressing examples of how a specific duty may result in a very high ad valorem rate. Taking the whole of the pottery imported this year, roughly 95,000 cwts. valued at just over £313,000, or an average of 66s. a cwt., a duty of 28s, does work out to rather less than the figure mentioned, but only to 42 per cent. It is no use coming along with some isolated cases and attempting to prove your case with an example which has been supplied no doubt by some foreign importer who is rather distressed because he is going to lose his trade, which will pass to the British producer. Mr. Hayhurst, who did not agree with the duty, pointed out that there was one pottery where they were making reasonable profits, though even in that case the organisation of the factory was not all that, could be desired. I am told that the particular factory was a co-operative factory. I am fold that it is the most inefficient factory in the district and yet it made reasonable profits. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why put on the duty then?"] It made reasonable profits for this reason. I imagine that it has a guaranteed market, the guaranteed market being its own proprietors. In order to maintain its success, no doubt, they bought the products at appropriate prices which produced a profit. That is not very conclusive evidence of the state of the industry.
Will this duty give more employment to my own fellow countrypeople? I think it will. I think an analogy of the existing duties shows conclusively that it will. You may take the analogy of a trade, one section of which is safeguarded, and the other section of which is not—the hosiery trade. The greater part of hosiery is made of wool or cotton, but there is a very large amount of hosiery made of silk or artificial silk. What has happened since the hosiery which is made of silk or artificial silk has been protected? The importation of this kind of hosiery has rapidly diminished, while the importation of hosiery made of cotton or wool has rapidly increased. When we come to exportation, the exportation of artificial silk and silk hosiery has increased, 641 while the exportation of woollen and cotton hosiery has diminished, proving conclusively that you have raised the efficiency of that branch of the hosiery industry.
§ Mr. HARRISNot at all. You are using silk hosiery instead of woollen and cotton hosiery.
§ Mr. WILLIAMSSurely, any Member of Parliament who, as part of his duties, attends a great many social functions in his constituency of the jazz variety, must have observed that the introduction of artificial silk on the nether limbs of the opposite sex took place long before the Silk Duties were imposed.
§ The CHAIRMANWe are not considering the Silk Duties but the Pottery Duties.
§ Mr. WILLIAMSI apologise. I did not wish to go beyond the analogy, but the interruption led me rather further than I intended to go. With regard to the question of prices, why should it be alleged that this burden is going to be cast upon the poor? Is there any justification, as far as we have experimented in this matter, for saying that the burden has been cast upon the poor? Broadly speaking, can any hon. Member opposite point to any new duty which has, in fact, made any serious addition to the price of any commodity? [An HON. MEMBER: "Gas mantles!"] I hope I am not going to be stopped again, for I am only going to draw attention to an answer to a question in the House of Commons two days ago as regards gas mantles.
§ Mr. HARRISI stick to my facts.
§ Mr. WILLIAMSPrecisely, and the statement is true but entirely misleading. An hon. Member drew attention to one type of gas mantle sold at a certain price and another gas mantle which is a very much superior article and is sold at a higher price. He was merely misleading, because he read it in the newspapers like the rest of us, and did not investigate the matter. If he will take the official information based upon the inquiries as to the price at which they were sold last year, he will find that the wholesale price went up by a shilling a gross and that the retail price, broadly 642 speaking, was not affected. I take the analogy of the one selected by the hon. Gentleman.
§ Mr. HARRISIt is not true.
§ Mr. WILLIAMSIt is true. Go into the shops and compare quality with quality. Eighty-five per cent. of the gas mantles sold in this country last year were sold at an average price of only one shilling a gross higher than the average price which prevailed previously. That is the analogy. I do not care what commodity you may take—there may be odd exceptions—the price has not risen. As the result of increased efficiency in a guaranteed market, prices have fallen. It is no use getting up and constantly asserting, as you have done for the past three generations, that the sole effect of a duty is to raise prices, when you have innumerable cases destroying the theoretical basis of your argument. We do not want generalisations based on the past, but concrete examples based on our present experiences.
§ Mr. BARNESListening to these Debates on the Safeguarding of Industries, it appears to me that the only time that the Conservative party, or the Members of this party, and particularly the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Remer) and the Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft), have a good word to say for the British working man is in a Tariff Reform Debate, when he becomes the most skilled workman in the world, and during a war, when he becomes the most patriotic worker in the world. But when the British working man is actually unemployed, whether it is of because of Free Trade or the absence of Tariff Reform, we do not find that sympathy and appreciation as to the value of the British working man displayed in the the policy of the party of the hon. Members opposite.
§ Sir H. CROFTMay I ask the hon. Gentleman if he has ever heard me make any speech or remark decrying the British working classes, who are so unfortunately led in this Debate?
§ Mr. BARNESI can quote something which is more effective than speeches—the votes of the hon. Members on occasion after occasion.
§ The CHAIRMANI think that the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. H. Williams) was going rather wide of the subject, but the hon. Gentleman is going a great deal beyond the scope of the Resolution for vitrified pottery.
§ Mr. BARNESDuring the Debate the skill and the emotions of the workers have been referred to with regard to the state of unemployment in particular industries, and the hon. Member for Macclesfield in particular, addressed the Members on this side of the Committee as if we have no sympathy for the unemployed working man. As a matter of fact we have the utmost sympathy for any unemployed worker, because the majority of us on this side of the Committee at some time or other during our working career have experienced the difficulties of unemployment. Therefore, we do not wish to be reminded by persons, who, possibly, have never known the difficulty of getting a job in order to obtain a meal, of the reaction of Free Trade and Tariff Reform on the people of this country. As a matter of fact, I do not stand here as a fanatical Free Trader. I do not consider that the principle of Free Trade by itself can solve the difficulties and the problems of unemployment in this country, but I seriously state and with equal emphasis, that I do not consider the principle of safeguarding or of Tariff Reform will provide any additional employment for the workers of this country, or in any way case the difficulties they have to meet. I do so because of this fact. I entirely agree that you can take a specific industry or trade and by artificial stimulus increase, possibly, the amount of employment in that trade. We have seen it in regard to the sugar-beet industry. We have seen it in other industries.
If you are prepared to administer artificial aid to an industry, of course you can produce favourable conditions. The principles on which the Safeguarding proposals are being introduced in this country are vicious and bad in practice, and must inevitably lead to corruption of political administration through the avenues of trade. It does not matter whether the President of the Board of Trade is a fanatical Tariff Reformer or not, he can always appoint committees of three who will give him the decision he wants. Does any hon. 644 Member opposite wish to assert that if the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley had the responsibility of appointing committees of three he could not appoint committees that would give him a majority decision in favour of Free Trade. Any Member of this House knows very well that the system of appointing three persons to decide a question of fiscal policy in its relation to any particular trade or industry in this country is fundamentally wrong and that it must lay itself open to the charge of corruption for the purposes of serving vested interests.
§ The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Burton Chadwick)Is the hon. Gentleman aware that on the committees appointed by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade 50 per cent. of them have recommended against a duty?
§ Mr. BARNESI am not at all surprised at that, because, as a matter of fact, in this country the bulk of our trade is based upon such a principle that it is impossible, in view of the fact that the working costs depend upon the importation of raw materials and things of that sort, to get applications through, even if you packed the committees entirely with, tariff reformers. But it is a significant thing that it is the secondary trades that are beginning to get through under the principle of the Safeguarding of Industries Act. However much you may play with figures, you cannot avoid the fact that eventually the additional artificial costs of these industries are bound to find their way ultimately to the purchaser. I said once before in these discussions that the Conservative party and the people of this country must make up their minds what they are going to do, either we are going to sacrifice entirely the primary industries of this country upon which we built our wealth and upon which the secondary industries in the long run depend for their trade—I am speaking of coal, cotton, shipbuilding, engineering, iron and steel—
§ The CHAIRMANThis is most suitable for a Second Reading Debate. If the hon. Member continues in this way there may be no end to the matter.
§ Mr. BARNESI was led into that general statement by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, who 645 pointed out that 50 per cent. of the inquiries under this Act had failed, and I was endeavouring to find out where they had failed.
§ The CHAIRMANI do not take exception to that being replied to, but I thought the hon. Member was suggesting there was an unconscious bias in these committees. That would be a fair point to take, but to go over the whole question cannot be done.
§ Mr. BARNESI was endeavouring to prove that in the secondary trades the bias came out in administration, but when you come to another range of industries in this country it was impossible to get them through because of bias. However, I do not want to emphasise that if I am out of order. I should like to refer to the remarks made by the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. H. Williams) when he stated that, as far as the position of Mr. Hayhurst is concerned, his connection with the pottery owned by the Co-operative Wholesale Society no doubt biased him.
§ Mr. H. WILLIAMSI did not say anything of the kind.
§ Mr. BARNESAt any rate, the hon. Member has referred to a guaranteed market which the Co-operative Wholesale Society had. As a matter of fact, may I point out to him that a Co-operative Wholesale Society factory has no more guaranteed market than any other factory in this country? Each retail co-operative society has perfect freedom to buy their goods wherever they like. As a matter of fact, if the Co-operative Wholesale Society production were to move above the current manufacturing prices for these articles, the buyers for the retail society who have to hold their trade, the trade of their members, against the general competitive prices, would be compelled to go past the Co-operative Wholesale Society for the purpose of buying their commodities. As a matter of fact, that happens time after time. If the hon. Member would familiarise himself with co-operative buying a little more, he would find repeatedly in the Co-operative Wholesale Society complaints of the absence of loyalty on the part of the retail buyers. You do not find the co-operative, system perfect all along the line, any more than any other industrial organisation, and its 646 weakness develops in administration, but you will find that that is put right by the economic reaction of prices.
§ Mr. H. WILLIAMSHow is it that this inefficient factory is able to make a reasonable profit when less efficient factories are not?
§ Mr. BARNESIt shows that the operation of the ring is effective.
§ Mr. WILLIAMS indicated dissent.
§ Mr. BARNESThe hon. Member disagrees with that, but I assert that prices are affected in this industry by a great decision between the manufacturers as to the prices they charge. If one doubts that, will the hon. Member try to explain how it is that in this bone china before the War you could get an ordinary set for 3s. or 4s. and this has jumped to 13s. 11d.? It is absurd to argue that the manufacturing costs have moved in that direction, because the bulk of the factories and plant were erected and in operation before the War. Wages have not moved to anything like that extent, so that no one can argue that is the reason for that. With regard to the question of prices, again I should like to assert that this duty has been passed on to the consumer, and I want to prove it by quoting a particular set I have in front of me. Take the ordinary set purchased before the War at 3s. 3d. and sold for 4s. 11d. That set moved to 5s. 5d. prior to the imposition of this duty, but to-day if you wish to buy that particular tea-set—just an ordinary set in common use in working-class homes—you would have to pay 6s. 11d. to be sold at 9s. 6d. I agree, if I might refer to artificial silk for a passing moment, that where you have a newly-developed industry, as the total output increases prices are naturally falling, and I agree that for a period the imposition of taxation of this sort can be hidden; but when you come to a well-established industry of this sort, where the production and the volume of production are not Materially affecting prices, I state without any hesitation that at the present moment, whatever may happen ultimately, this duty which has been imposed has passed to the consumer, and is being passed to the consumer. But that is not all. One of the reasons why I—although I do not stand here merely 647 as an automatic and fanatical Free Trader—oppose any imposition of tariffs or safeguarding in this country is, that ultimately it leads to a more intense exploitation of the consumer, and a more intense exploitation of the producer.
In the first place, if you impose a duty, it does not matter whether it is levied from the point of view of raising taxation as such or for the purpose of keeping out goods that are imported. Eventually it must go into price, and if it goes into price and the retailer or manufacturer has to collect that tax for the Government, it means that ultimately he must have more capital in his business, because the rise in the goods that he purchases necessitates a greater outlay on his part. What happens in respect to that? Every industry, broadly and roughly speaking, has to provide its own additional capital. How does it provide that? By enlarging and widening the margin between the cost of production and what the consumer pays. That is the only way by which industry ultimately provides the additional capital that is necessary either through inflation or an artificial system of increasing prices by tariffs. Take that one set I have mentioned. I wish to illustrate the general argument by that one set. Before the War it was purchased for 3s. 3d. and sold for 4s. 11d. The gross profit was 1s. 8d., representing 34 per cent on price. Because of this duty that is imposed on that set, and the natural rise in prices because of inflation, the price of that 3s. 3d. set comes to 6s. 11d. Obviously, every person who is engaged in that industry must roughly double his capital to stock the same range of goods as he did before the War, and I say without any hesitation that that additional capital does not come from saving, but from a more intense exploitation of the producer and the consumer from 1914 to 1926.
But that does not end the story, because that article is sold for 9s. 6d. The gross profit of 1s. 8d. on that set in 1913 now jumps to 2s. 7d., an item of 11d. represented in the value of gross profit which, although it is only 27 per cent. to-day as against 34 per cent. in 1913, takes an additional 11d. out of the consumer. This with the 1s. 6d. in tax that I assert 648 this duty represents on that class of tea-set means a total of 2s. 5d.—an artificial price. It is not represented in the cost of labour or in overhead charges or by foreign competition or matters of that sort, but an additional 2s. 5d. is taken out of the productive power of the workmen of the country. When hon. Members opposite get up, and with that kind of emotional appeal to this House and through this House to the electors of this country, say that this system of tariffs is devised for the purpose of putting people into employment in this country, I say there are plenty of ways of putting people into employment in this country Cut down the vast expenditure on—
§ The CHAIRMANReally, the hon. Member must keep to the point.
§ Mr. BARNESI would hesitate to disagree with your ruling. I have sat all through this Debate and I assert without any hesitation that many Members have travelled far wider than I have, and if the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Remer) and the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) can make a reference in a general way to, these problems, I am entitled to. However, I close with the observation I made before, that this system of imposing a tariff through safeguarding an industry of this sort would not benefit either employment or workers in this country, but lead eventually to a widening of the margin between what the workers get in wages and what they have to pay in prices.
§ Mr. E. BROWNThe hon. Member for Reading (Mr. H. Williams) has alluded to the reference of the hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Mr. Harris) to London and said he was selfish and narrow because he said the unemployment rate in London was less than in the Potteries, and the hon. Member for Reading was rebuking the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Riley) for taking an average, and yet he committed the same sin himself. If he will consider the conditions of parts of London which will be mostly hit by this duty, he will find that the rate of unemployment in the areas of those parts of London is much heavier than in the Potteries where this particular industry is situated. It is useless for the hon. Member for Reading to take a selected case like that and leave out the 649 parts which will be most hit by the putting on of a tariff like the tax on pottery.
I want to say one other word. It is about unemployment. We do not believe that the imposition of this duty of 28s. per cwt. on translucent and vitrified pottery will make more employment in the pottery industry which made application for this duty, for I think it is clearly shown in the evidence that a great part of the competition from which the bone china section of the industry has suffered did not come from abroad at all, but came from the manufacturers in the very same area. It did not come from manufacturers abroad paying low wages, but from the same trade paying the same wages in the same joint industrial council in the county of Staffordshire itself. We are against this tax because, first of all, we disagree with taking selected industries and giving them artificial protection on a separate basis, quite apart from the general argument of Free Trade and Protection; and when we get an industry like this which puts up a case, and in the course of putting up the case before the Committee refuses to produce its balancesheet—it is the first time in any of these inquiries into safeguarding that the applicant has refused—
§ Mr. BROWNIf the hon. Gentleman will read the minutes of evidence he will find that the opponents' counsel made the statement in the course of the argument and asked for a production of the balance sheets, and they were not produced.
§ 7.0.p. m.
§ Mr. BROWNWell, he is entitled to his opinion, and I am entitled to mine, after reading the evidence. They did not produce the balance sheets. More than that, the evidence shows on the point of employment in the bone china section that there were no figures for that section of the industry to show what the rate of employment was in that particular section. Further, the evidence went to show that when it was a question of foreign competition no proof was given that the sweated rates of wages referred to by 650 the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Remer) had anything to do with the difference in price between felspar china imported from abroad and bone china made in these small factories employing 7,000 people in Staffordshire. Counsel for the opponents actually made not only the statement referred to by the hon. Member for West Leicester (Mr. PethickLawrence), but a further statement which he said:
I will make another assertion. If the Longton manufacturers got their wages and firing and their materials for nothing, their overhead charges would still be more than the whole cost of the felspar china.I think that is conclusive proof, which was not denied by the applicants in the course of the hearing, that the question of sweated wages does not come into this at all, and, as a matter of fact, the competition is more from the other branch of the trade, which did not associate itself with the application, than from foreign competition.I do not think the nation as a whole appreciates the range of articles to be affected by the imposition of the tax. If you turn to Appendix A of the Report, the list of articles to be taxed at 28s. in the cwt. is an amazing one. It includes tea sets and component parts thereof; dinner sets and component parts thereof; morning sets; fruit or berry sets; dessert sets; breakfast sets; cups and saucers, all sizes, including cream soup cups, chocolate cups, sherbet cups, custard cups and all kinds of other cups, including egg cups; covered muffins of all sizes; and butter dishes. I think the public outside does not understand how wide is the range of these articles, and I propose to read a few more so that the public may know what is being taxed. The list includes tea-pots, coffee-pots, cocoa-pots, chocolate-pots and covered jugs of all sizes, sweet dishes, bon-bon dishes; oatmeal plates and bowls, and salad bowls—and that will make an appeal to the hon. Member for one of the divisions of Glasgow—nappies, round or square—I do not know what they are, but no doubt other hon. Members will know—sardine boxes, cheese dishes, covered jars, tea infusers, tea-tasting cups, milk or drinking horns, beakers, toast racks, butter pads, dessert dishes, fruit saucers, olive trays, pickle trays, sugar boxes, bread and butter plates; jugs, milk, cream, hot-water and syrup 651 of ail sizes; ash trays or bowls, grapefruit bowls, plates of all sizes, including service plates, whether flat or deep, and oyster plates; cress plates, salad plates and asparagus plates, bakers or pie dishes, cruets, powder boxes, egg-stand frames; biscuit jars, and of course the final item of, mugs of all sizes and kinds with one handle or more. I think the time has come when we might very well revive in this country the old art of the lampoon. I was wandering in a museum the other day looking at pottery, and among the articles I found was a spittoon on which was inscribed:
I will spit on William Pitt.Obviously political feeling in those days against William Pitt, the great statesman, was so strong that they inscribed a lampoon on their spittoons. I think if this kind of duty is to go on we shall have to inscribe on our spittoonsI spat on Winston's hat,or something of that kind, so that the people who do not read our Debates will understand all about the ridiculous taxes to which this ridiculous Government and the President of the Board of Trade are subjecting the country. There is one other point about this range of articles. I have here a letter from a firm giving four lines of articles and showing how this tax of 28s. per cwt. will adversely affect the prices. First of all, there are tea-sets. The value of these sets is £10 4s. 2d. and their weight is 418 1bs. A tax of 28s. per cwt. will work out at £5 2s. on that 418 1bs., that is, just 50 per cent. The second line is a line of jugs. Their value is £5 4s. 2d. and their weight 332 1bs., and a tax will work out at £4 3s. 0d., or considerably more than 65 per cent. on the 332 1bs. The third line is a line of cups, the value being £3 6s. 8d. and the weight 242 1bs. The amount of the tax will be £3 0s. 6d., or nearly 100 per cent. on the 242 1bs. The fourth line is a line of cups and saucers—the china used by the poor people referred to by the hon. Member for Southwest Bethnal Green and the hon. Member for West Leicester. This line is valued at £5 4s. 2d., and the weight is 440 1bs. The tax will work out at £5 10s. 0d. This very firm has 250 branches up and down the country, and this will be the result. My hon. Friend the Member for North Lambeth (Mr. Briant) has been accustomed 652 to run a camp for boys of South London in the country, and he has always been able up to this year to give them an earthenware vitrified cup from which to drink. He was able to buy these before this year at 3d., but when he comes to this same firm to buy cups for this year's camp he is told that the price is up above the level at which they were sold before, and he has to content himself with enamel cups instead of china cups. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh, but it is no laughing matter that a tax of this kind should prevent children living in the slums of London from having the comparative joy of drinking out of these china cups rather than an enamel cup. Those of us who served in the Army know perfectly well that enamel cups are not the best kind of drinking instruments to have.On these and other grounds this Committee ought to oppose this duty to the very last possible moment. The tax is bad, and the evidence, before the Committee, in my judgment, did not justify the imposition of the tax, and especially it did not justify its extension to that part of pottery which was not asked for by the applicants, namely, vitrified pottery, which was not included in the application. I oppose this duty with all my heart.
§ Commander WILLIAMSI hope when the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down proceeds to elaborate the speech he has just made in different parts of the country—
§ Commander WILLIAMS—he will not omit to give the information that the originator of the Safeguarding of Industries was the very respectable Leader of the Liberal party, the Prime Minister of the Coalition Government—
§ Commander WILLIAMSThat interruption is not very relevant.
§ Commander WILLIAMSBut everyone knows that in these respects one Liberal never supports another Liberal.
§ Commander WILLIAMSMy real object in rising was to draw attention to two or three points which have been raised. Both the hon. Gentleman who is now sitting on the front Opposition bench and the late Chancellor of the Exchequer poured out a very considerable amount of abuse on these Committees—though perhaps not as strong as they poured out on the Chancellor of the Exchequer—but they poured out much abuse on the Committees which have had to deal with this matter. These Committees, after all, are doing the public service. They have no means of defending theémselves, and I think it is not quite up to the high standard of the House of Commons for hon. Members, and particularly the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, to say that these Committees do not endeavour to do their work fairly, honestly and in the interests of the nation as a whole. I believe that members of all parties, to whatever section they belong, if put on this type of Committee would try to give their decision with the same honourable intention, and I believe the front bench of the Opposition would do if any of them were on these Committees.
To leave that point, I think the right hon. Gentleman the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer has advanced a long way this afternoon in the admissions he has made. He made the admission that his position as regards mathematics was not quite so strong as it might be. That was known to many of us, but he went on from that to say that he left the Tariff Reform League to work out these matters, presumably because of their greater accuracy. I think that that, coming from him, shows the very great value of the very large number of figures on this question of safeguarding which have been brought out by various parties who believe it is essential in the interests of the country that as a whole we should have a measure of safeguarding such as is contained in this particular Clause. I do not wish to take up much of the time of the Committee, but there is a point which was raised in regard to the proceedings of the Committee which inquired into this industry, and which was raised by the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, as to why the workers in that industry did 654 not take any part in giving evidence before the inquiry. I think it is the very clear and simple reason that, unfortunately, in many places in this country at the present time the workers instead of looking after their industry—or rather the leaders of the workers—are much too engaged in political matters.
§ The CHAIRMANI am afraid the hon. Member is now opening up an entirely new discussion.
§ Commander WILLIAMSI had no intention of following that up, but was only replying to the point raised that the workers took no part in this discussion, and to express a wish that in this matter of safeguarding the workers would take a very clear and definite part, because I am convinced in my own mind that this Clause is probably one of the most valuable Clauses in the whole of the Budget and it certainly will have my support.
§ Mr. MacLARENI do not think the hon. Member would have made the remark he has just dropped if he knew the facts. Unfortunately for his case, it so happens there are few industries in this country where employers and employed are more amicably agreed with one another than in the pottery industry.
§ Commander WILLIAMSI quite agree, and that particular point has been made before several times in the course of this afternoon, as the hon. Member would know if he had heard all the Debate. I was replying to the point raised by one of his leaders on the Front Opposition bench that the workers did not take part in this inquiry, and I was saying quite clearly I wished they had taken a part. If it be the case, as the hon. Member opposite says, that the workers and employers are working in absolute harmony in this question, then I congratulate the trade and only wish that was extended further.
§ Mr. MacLARENI am afraid the hon. Member does not get exactly what I mean. The point made was that they were deflected by economic and political considerations, rather than attending to their own particular business. I want to assure the hon. and gallant Member that that is not so in the Potteries. The workers 655 are divided very much upon this question with regard to safeguarding, but I really want to make it clear that the suggestion that they were deflected by other purposes is not true.
§ Commander WILLIAMSThere is some misunderstanding between us, because as I understand it, the point the hon. Member made was that the workers and employers in this particular industry were working in the closest possible alliance. Then all I say is, I congratulate the whole industry, both sides, on the success of that condition, and no one would wish to make it any different. To come back to the point to which I was referring, I wish to thank the Government for carrying out this Clause because I believe, as coming from the West country from where a very large amount of the material comes, in the shape of china-clay which is worked into this china, the Government are not merely doing something which will help enormously to encourage an industry which employs highly skilled and efficient workers in the Midlands, but which will also do something to encourage the production of raw material in the West country, which needs it very badly at the present time. I thank the Government most sincerely from the point of view of helping the unemployed, and from the point of view of encouraging trade and manufacture and enabling the Britisher to get an article in this country which, under a better scheme of production, there is no earthly reason why it should not be not only better in quality but not so expensive as the foreign article.
§ Mr. CRAWFURDI would not have intervened in this Debate had it not been for the fact that the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Remer), by his intervention during the speech of the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown), has repeated an allegation which he made during the discussion on the Report Stage of the Resolution. During these discussions I have made two complaints with regard to the procedure adopted in connection with the safeguarding of industries. I have complained in the first place of the action of the President of the Board of Trade in the appointments he has made to these Committees, and I do not feel in the least abashed by what 656 has been said by the hon. Member for Torquay (Commander Williams). No one on this side of the House will believe that any of these Committees are consciously misrepresenting the evidence they hear. What we say is that people who have a strong bias in one direction, whether they may be members of a Committee or Members of this House, cannot possibly prevent that bias influencing them in the decision they make. The second complaint which I have made, is that this House is supposed to base its judgment upon these duties upon the merits of the case, but we have never been allowed to see the evidence on which the Reports are based. In this particular case, we find that of the three members of the Committee, two took one point of view and one took another view. In other words, the Committee is as divided as it can be about the merits of the question. Even then, this House is not allowed to see the evidence upon which these members have come to their conclusions.
My next point relates to something that has been said by the hon. Member for Macclesfield, and I hope he will take this seriously, because I propose before I have finished to show to him that it is a very serious matter. On the 28th April, 1927, the hon. Member said:
A further statement was made that the manufacturers who were the applicants in this case refused their balance sheets. That statement is not correct. The statement was made at the last minute by Mr. Comyns Carr, the counsel for the opponents, and the manufacturers made it quite clear that they had never been asked until the last minute to produce their balance sheets.That was the statement of the hon. Member. He went on to say:The Chairman of the Committee stated that Mr. Comyns Carr's statement was most unfair, and Mr. Comyns Carr withdrew the statement in face of what the Chairman had said."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th April, 1927; col. 1088, Vol. 205]The hon. Member made that statement in this House about someone who is not able to defend himself, because he is not here; a past Member of this House, and a very respected and very able ex-Member of this House. The hon. Member made a statement that a certain thing said by Mr. Comyns Carr was not correct, and that it was contradicted by the manufacturers. Not one of these statements of the hon. Member is true. 657 Every one of them is entirely untrue, and I am not saying that without producing my evidence. I have the evidence. One of the disadvantages of the procedure which the President of the Board of Trade has thought fit to pursue is that we have to pick up this evidence for ourselves when allegations of this kind are made by hon. Members opposite. One of the members of the Committee, Mr. Hayhurst, in his report says:During the course of the inquiry there has been an evident reluctance on the part of the witnesses appearing on behalf of applicants frankly to table certain details in support of the application, and in this connection the failure of witnesses to produce balance sheets for the inspection of the Committee indicates a lack of confidence in the investigating Committee.That is a statement of a member of the Committee. One of the people whom we are told we must respect. Further reference was made to the question of balance sheets not only at the last minute, and I want the Committee very carefully to take account of this, but on the 5th, 10th, 12th and 13th day of the inquiry. I have taken the trouble to secure a copy of the evidence on the 21st day of the inquiry and I am going to read certain passages. The question was brought up by Mr. Entwistle in regard to evidence about debentures in the Longton industry.Mr. Entwistle: There is no evidence about debentures in the Longton industry at all.Mr. Farraday: How can there be? They are all partnerships.The Chairman: They are private companies.Mr. Entwistle: No capital, no balance sheet, no anything has been produced of that kind.The Chairman: We have had nothing at all.Mr. Farraday: The answer is that during the time the German mark was depreciating the British pound was appreciating, so that the boot is on the other leg.The Chairman: I do not see why we should not have had a balance sheet.Mr. Entwistle: I do not see why we should not have been trusted.Mr. Farraday: It was not quite a matter of trusting anyone. It is a matter of introducing irrelevant questions.Mr. Hayhurst: I very well remember you saying that you were not going to show anything to your opponents, but we are not your opponents.Mr. Farraday: No. You are our best friends.658Mr. Hayhurst: One hopes so, but one likes to be treated as others would treat us.I now turn to the speech made by Mr. Comyns Carr in introducing the case for the opponents. He said:In every inquiry I have taken part in the manufacturers in camera have produced their balance sheets for inspection. We have had no balance sheets here. We have challenged them, we have asked for them, but we have not received them. We cannot, therefore, assume that things are bad with the manufacturers.The Chairman makes no mention whatever of the fairness or unfairness of that statement.
§ Mr. REMERI think the hon. Member is a little unfair to me in bringing forward an accusation about something which happened six weeks ago, without having given me notice that he was going to do so. The Committee is entitled to an explanation. On the night before the Budget Resolutions six very responsible members of the trade met me in one of the Committee Rooms upstairs, and this statement quoted from Mr. Entwistle's remarks were referred to the Committee and it was on their answer to that statement that I made my statement in the House. I am not able to verify it now, because it has only just been sprung upon me, but it was a statement made by six people who were present at the inquiry, and it was made by me in all good faith. All I can say is that I will make inquiries into the matter, and probably deal with it on a subsequent occasion.
§ Mr. CRAWFURDI thank the hon. Member for that assurance, but when it comes to a question of my bringing forward a matter without giving him notice, I may say that it was my intention to refer to this matter later this evening and to ask the hon. Member to remain in the House; but he interrupted my hon. Friend the Member for Leith and repeated his accusation. If he says that I have no right to bring forward this matter without giving him notice, he has no right to intervene, when this Committee has no means whatever of judging of the truth of what was said by the responsible or irresponsible people who supplied the information to the hon Member, particularly when he makes an assertion upon that sort of ground about someone who is not here. This is all of a piece with 659 what we may expect from protective duties in this country. We have always said, and it has been said this afternoon from the Front Opposition Bench, that so surely as you begin to introduce tariffs into the fabric of your finance you will get corruption, and you will get people who are simply there to get all there is to be had.
§ Sir H. CROFTOn a point of Order. The hon. Member has just said, as an instance of what is going to happen, that this Bill will encourage corruption. May I ask if that is an insinuation against anyone in this House?
§ Mr. CRAWFURDNo. Certainly not.
§ Sir H. CROFTOn a point of Order. Can such an insinuation be allowed?
§ The CHAIRMANI was waiting for the hon. Member to finish the sentence. I was not able to catch the drift of it.
§ Sir H. CROFTHe has already practically called the hon. Member for Macclesfield a liar.
§ Mr. CRAWFURDThe hon. Member must be very careful. He has made his point of order and that point of order has been ruled on, and I am going to reply to it very directly. Nothing that I have said contains any imputation against any Member of this House. I used the phrase "corruption," and what I mean is that not only hon. Members on the other side of the House but hon. Members on this side will be approached by people who may be interested parties in these Duties or these tariffs. It is inevitable. In every country where you have tariffs you have that kind of corruption, and you are bound to have it.
§ Mr. MacLARENThe right hon. Gentleman need not sneer.
§ Mr. CRAWFURDIf the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade is casting any doubts on what I am saying, the best answer that he can make on this occasion and on every other occasion is to let the House see and judge for itself the evidence on which he acts. Until he does that, and until we have that, we on this side say that these duties are being imposed by secret Committees 660 and by methods which are unworthy of the traditions of good finance in this country.
§ Captain FRASERWill the hon. Member permit me to ask him a question? He is pleading that the Committees should produce their evidence so that Members of this House may be able to consider it. Does he think that that would facilitate the provisions by manufacturers of the very facts and figures which they must necessarily keep to themselves?
§ Mr. CRAWFURDThe hon. and gallant Member asks me a perfectly fair question, and my reply is that in the proceedings before these Committees the public are admitted, but some proceedings are taken in camera, and the evidence that is submitted on those occasions is the kind of evidence which manufacturers, in the interests of British industry, do not wish to make public. That protection can still be given. The main evidence on which these conclusions are come to should be put before this House, and unless that is done this House cannot come to a just conclusion.
§ Mr. MacLARENThere seems to be some apprehension on the other side as to the righteousness of anyone on this side casting any reflection on the conduct of this inquiry. It was the most comical Committee I ever watched carrying on any business at all. In the Committee there was a lady, there was the Chairman, and Mr. Hayhurst, who seemed to be the only man who held strong and decided views about anything. The Chairman was non-committal, but the lady was very indiscreet very often. If I may be allowed to give an illustration of the qualities of the Committee to make such an inquiry, I think you will find that it will throw some light on the nature of the Committee, and I think the President of the Board of Trade will remember an incident connected with it, about which he was very nervous when I brought the matter up in the House. During the sittings of the Committee a very important matter was raised in connection with the comparison of hours of labour in the different countries. The question was under discussion and much was hinged upon comparative hours of labour in connection with competition. The question was raised by Mr. Faraday, who appears to be the champion of Protection 661 in this country and other countries. He pointed out that in Germany they worked excessive hours of labour compared with the hours in this country, but that these hours were not included in the statutory number of hours as expressed in the State documents. He said these hours were "preparatory" hours of labour. I hope the President of the Board of Trade will listen to this because it has distinct reference to an incident which he will not forget. Mr. Hayhurst asked Mr. Faraday, the champion of the Tariff Reformers, what he meant by "preparatory" hours of labour. Mr. Faraday seemed nonplussed, but suddenly the lady in the Committee, Lady Askwith, sprang upon the Committee a very clearly defined definition of what "preparatory" work meant. She was asked what she meant because she was evidently quoting from a document. She said she had a private document, supplied to her by the President of the Board of Trade. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] I quite agree. Why not? It is interesting to know that private documents were supplied to members of the Committee to meet emergencies of that kind, but when Mr. Entwistle. who was defending the opponents, asked that this document might be submitted to him so as to prepare the case against the evidence, he was told that such a document could not be given to him, and the Chairman then ruled that witnesses had a right to submit evidence from any private document, and might refuse to submit them to the other side.
I raised the question afterwards in this House, and I do not think the President of the Board of Trade will forget that day. He had even to send round notice to the Committee that they must not in future carry on like this again, and also he instructed them that the private document made use of should be submitted to the other side. I congratulate him on having done so. I only give this as an illustration of the capacity of the Committee to make an inquiry. The lady had no right to be there at all. I am not saying that in any ungentlemanly way, but to watch the process of the Committee one could not fail to see that this lady was more governed by her political prejudices than by any capacity she might have for the job. It was very evident that there were two very strong Tariff Reformers on that Committee, and 662 another fighting like a good Co-operative for Free Trade. To speak of this being an impartial inquiry is sheer nonsense. I expected that the recommendations of this Committee and the evidence upon which it was based would in due course come before this House for the usual review of a debate in this Chamber. But no. I do not think sufficient is made about this point. Surely it was the understanding in this House generally, if the Safeguarding policy was to be pursued, that any recommendation made in regard to it would be the subject of a discussion, and a free discussion, in this House. None of the evidence was brought before the House and no discussion was allowed upon it. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer, looking afield for same fancy tax, landed on this wonderful child of the Committee and this duty has been adopted as one of the many ingenious devices in his Budget. I would not become very wroth about the proposal, and I would not wax hot about it, and denounce the Government for having adopted this policy. I would say to the Government now, "Keep your Safeguarding policy and double it, and put more on top of it, and you will do nothing to resuscitate the bone china industry in this country." Felspar china is a cheap shoddy which cannot compare with bone china as a finished product or as the work of a craftsman, and the dishonesty of this whole inquiry is shown by the fact that it is not the bone china industry but the earthenware industry which is being injured by the enormous importation of felspar china into this country. This felspar china is a cheap product, but has a certain amount of daintiness about it, and it is coming into this country and is being sold at a price out of all proportion to its value.
Really, it was not the bone china manufacturers at all but the earthenware manufacturers who felt that they were being displaced by this enormous importation of felspar china. The supporters of Protection in this country seized upon the bone china industry which is becoming more or less a fancy trade, and said to the Committee, "Here is an industry which cannot stand before this felspar competition." The earthenware manufacturers have been largely handicapped by this competition and if, in view of that fact, those manufacturers 663 had come forward and asked for safeguarding there would have been some honesty in the appeal. But they did not come forward. That is where the dishonesty comes in in regard to this inquiry. The question was raised as to why some of those who are connected with this industry did not take any interest in this inquiry. The reason is simply because they had never been asked. We are in such a position in many parts of the potteries that it is not altogether safe for many of the employés to express their political convictions. There is a good deal of intimidation. The working people were not greatly interested. The only people really interested were the earthenware manufacturers whose interest it would have been to keep down this competition of felspar china. But they did not appear in the picture—the bone china industry was brought in and now it is put forward that we must have a certain measure of protection against felspar china, and that in that way we are going to help industry in the potteries.
§ Well, you can double your Protection and even make it our times what it is, and yet you will not provide for the bone china industry.
§ There are certain technical points one could bring out to prove that case, but I refrain from doing so. I want to support and to reinforce what was said by the last speaker. I do not wish to cast any reflection on this House or on any Member of this House, but I say this, whenever you allow private interests to be a moulding force in the policy of any country, these interests will in time begin to hamper and to influence that policy. I, therefore, quite agree with what has been said regarding possible corruption in the sense of spoiling the pure stream of political thought by the intrusion of private interests. Corruption of this kind is bound to grow in connection with this kind of thing. These are my own personal views on the matter.
§ Question put, "That the words 'five years' stand part of the Clause."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 247; Noes, 100.
665| [Division No. 228.] | AYES. | [7.43 p.m. |
| Acland-Troyte, Lieut-Colonel | Cassels, J. D. | Fermoy, Lord |
| Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l) | Cautley, Sir Henry S. | Finburgh, S. |
| Applin, Colonel R. V. K. | Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth.S.) | Ford, Sir P. J. |
| Apsley, Lord | Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston) | Foxcroft, Captain C. T. |
| Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W. | Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton | Fraser, Captain Ian |
| Astbury, Lieut-Commander F. W. | Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood) | Gates, Percy |
| Astor, Viscountess | Charteris, Brigadier-General J. | Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton |
| Atkinson, C. | Christie, J. A. | Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham |
| Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley | Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer | Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John |
| Balfour, George (Hampstead) | Churchman, Sir Arthur C. | Glyn, Major R. G. C. |
| Barclay-Harvey, C. M. | Clarry, Reginald George | Goff, Sir Park |
| Barnett, Major Sir Richard | Cobb, Sir Cyril | Gower, Sir Robert |
| Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.) | Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George | Grace, John |
| Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake) | Cohen, Major J. Brunel | Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.) |
| Bennett, A. J. | Colman, N. C. D. | Grattar-Doyle, Sir N. |
| Berry, Sir George | Conway, Sir W. Martin | Greene, W. P. Crawford |
| Betterton, Henry B. | Cooper, A. Duff | Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London) |
| Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton) | Couper, J. B. | Grotrian, H. Brent |
| Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.) | Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L. | Gunston, Captain D. W. |
| Boothby, R. J. G. | Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islington.N.) | Hacking, Captain Douglas H. |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe) | Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich) |
| Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart | Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H. | Hammersley, S. S. |
| Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W. | Crooke, J. Smedley (Derltend) | Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry |
| Brassey, Sir Leonard | Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick) | Harland, A. |
| Briggs, J. Harold | Curzon, Captain Viscount | Harrison, G. J. C. |
| Briscoe, Richard George | Dalkeith, Earl of | Hartington, Marquess of |
| Brocklebank, C. E. R. | Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H. | Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington) |
| Broun-Lindsay, Major H. | Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester) | Hawke, John Anthony |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y) | Davies, Dr. Vernon | Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley) |
| Buchan, John | Dean, Arthur Wellesley | Henderson, Lt.-Col. Sir V. L. (Bootle) |
| Buckingham, Sir H. | Dixon, Captain Rt. Hon. Herbert | Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P. |
| Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James | Drewe, C. | Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J. |
| Bullock, Captain M. | Eden, Captain Anthony | Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford) |
| Burman, J. B | Edmondson, Major A. J. | Hills, Major John Waller |
| Burton, Colonel H. W. | Ellis, R. G. | Hogg, Rt. Hon.Sir D. (St. Marylebone) |
| Butler, Sir Geoffrey | Elveden, Viscount | Holt, Captain H. P. |
| Butt, Sir Alfred | Erskine Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.) | Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.) |
| Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward | Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South) | Hopkins, J. W. W. |
| Campbell, E. T. | Everard, W. Lindsay | Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S. |
| Carver, Major W. H. | Falle, Sir Bertram G. | Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Colonel C. K. |
| Hudson, Capt. A. U. M.(Hackney,N.) | Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge) | Sprot, Sir Alexander |
| Hume, Sir G. H. | Nicholson, O. (Westminster) | Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F. |
| Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer | Oakley, T. | Stanley, Lord (Fylde) |
| Huntingfield, Lord | O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh | Stanley, Hon. U. F. G. (Westm'eland) |
| Hutchison, G. A. Clark (Midl'n & P'bl's) | Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William | Steel, Major Samuel Strang |
| Illffe, Sir Edward M. | Penny, Frederick George | Streatfeild, Captain S. R. |
| Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l) | Perkins, Colonel E. K. | Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C. |
| Jephcott, A. R. | Perring, Sir William George | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) |
| Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington) | Peto, G. (Somerset, Frame) | Styles, Captain H. W. |
| Kidd, J. (Linllthgow) | Pilcher, G. | Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser |
| King, Commodore Henry Douglas | Pilditch, Sir Philip | Sugden, Sir Wilfrid |
| Lamb, J. Q. | Power, Sir John Cecil | Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H. |
| Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R. | Pownall, Sir Assheton | Tasker, R. Inigo. |
| Lister, Cunliffe, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip | Radlord, E. A. | Thompson, Luke (Sunderland) |
| Little, Dr. E. Graham | Raine, Sir Walter | Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement |
| Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley) | Ramsden, E. | Turton, Sir Edmund Russborough |
| Loder, J. de V. | Rawson. Sir Cooper | Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L. (Kingston-on-Hull) |
| Looker, Herbert William | Reid, D. D. (County Down) | Warner, Brigadier-General W. W. |
| Lougher, Lewis | Remer, J. R. | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere | Remnant, Sir James | Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley) |
| Luce, MaJ.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman | Rice, Sir Frederick | Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle) |
| Lumley, L. R. | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) | Watts, Dr. T. |
| Lynn, Sir Robert J. | Roberts, Sir Samuel (Hereford) | Wells, S. R. |
| Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) | Ropner, Major L. | Wheler, Major Sir Granville C. H. |
| Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart) | Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) | White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dalrymple |
| Macintyre, Ian | Rye, F. G. | Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern) |
| Macmillan, Captain H. | Salmon, Major I. | Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay) |
| Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm | Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham) | Wilson, Sir Murrough (Yorks,Richm'd) |
| McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) | Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield) |
| Macquisten, F. A. | Sandeman, N. Stewart | Winby, Colonel L. P. |
| Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel- | Sanderson, Sir Frank | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Makins, Brigadier-General E. | Sandon, Lord | Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl |
| Malone, Major P. B. | Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D. | Wise, Sir Fredric |
| Margesson, Captain D. | Savory, S. S. | Wolmer, Viscount |
| Mason. Lieut.-Col. Glyn K. | Scott, Rt. Hon. Sir Leslie | Womersley, W. J. |
| Meller, R. J. | Shaw, Lt.-Col. A.D. Mcl.(Renfrew, W.) | Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'dge & Hyde) |
| Merriman, F. B. | Sheffield, Sir Berkeley | Wragg, Herbert |
| Meyer, Sir Frank | Shepperson, E. W. | Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T. |
| Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark) | Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down) | Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton (Norwich) |
| Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden) | Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast) | |
| Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M. | Slaney. Major P. Kenyon | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Moore, Lieut.-Col, T. C. R. (Ayr) | Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.) | Major Sir Harry Barnston and Mr. |
| Moore, Sir Newton J. | Smith-Carington, Neville W. | F. C. Thomson. |
| Murchison, Sir Kenneth | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Grundy, T. W. | Scurr, John |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Hall, F. (York., W.R., Normanton) | Shepherd, Arthur Lewis |
| Ammon, Charles George | Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Shiels, Dr. Drummond |
| Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston) | Hardie, George D. | Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) |
| Baker, Walter | Harris, Percy A. | Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness) |
| Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery) | Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley) |
| Barnes, A. | Hirst, G. H. | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) |
| Batey, Joseph | Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield) | Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip |
| Beckett, John (Gateshead) | Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles |
| Briant, Frank | John, William (Rhondda, West) | Stamford, T. W. |
| Broad, F. A. | Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown) | Stephen, Campbell |
| Bromley, J | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Stewart, J. (St. Rollox) |
| Brown, Ernest (Leith) | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Strauss, E. A. |
| Brown, James (Ayr and Bute) | Kelly, W. T. | Sullivan, J. |
| Buchanan, G. | Kennedy, T. | Thornt, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.) |
| Charleton, H. C. | Lawrence, Susan | Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow) |
| Cluse, W. S. | Lawson, John James | Thurtle, Ernest |
| Clynes, Right Hon. John R. | Lee, F. | Tinker, John Joseph |
| Connolly, M. | Lowth, T. | Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen |
| Crawfurd, H. E. | Lunn, William | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline) |
| Dalton, Hugh | MacLaren, Andrew | Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda) |
| Day, Colonel Harry | MacNeill-Weir, L. | Wellock, Wilfred |
| Dennison, R. | Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.) | Welsh, J. C. |
| Dunnico, H. | Mosley, Oswald | Wilkinson, Ellen C. |
| Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington) | Naylor, T. E. | Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham) |
| Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.) | Oliver, George Harold | Williams, David (Swansea, East) |
| Fenby, T. D. | Palin, John Henry | Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly) |
| Gardner, J. P. | Pethick-Lawrence, F. W. | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Gillett, George M. | Potts, John S. | Windsor, Walter |
| Gosling, Harry | Rees, Sir Beddoe | Wright, W. |
| Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | Riley, Ben | |
| Greenall, T. | Ritson, J. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne) | Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W. R., Elland) | Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr. |
| Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Rose, frank H. | Whiteley. |
| Groves, T. | Scrymgeour, E. |
§ Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCEI beg to move, in page 5, line 4, to leave out the words "nineteenth day of April," and to insert instead thereof, the words "first day of May."
The duty, according to the Finance Bill, comes into operation on the 19th April. My Amendment is to delay the coming into operation of the duty until 1st May. The reason for that is very simple. There were at the time when the duty was imposed a great many consignments already on their way, and when the actual days are remembered it will be seen that the Report of the Committee was on 8th April, which was the first announcement of the proposal to impose the duty, that a speech announcing the duties was made three days later, on 11th April, and then Good Friday, 15th April came, on which the Customs were closed. The Saturday following, the l6th, the Customs were closed nearly all day, and the duties came into force on the 18th. There were only 10 days between the Report of the Committee and the coming into effect of the duty, and and it will be remembered that many of these consignments came from a very long distance, and therefore started before any indication that the duty had been imposed had reached them, and some of them had been on the sea for six weeks. It is felt that this very rapid imposition of the duty before any of the consignments could be stopped is very unfair, for commitments were entered into which could not reasonably be carried out, and very great hardship arose. In cases of other countries which have imposed duties against our manufacturers our government has protested against the sudden imposition of duties of this kind.
One of the reasons given for putting on these duties rapidly is the fear of evasion. That reason cannot arise when the time has now considerably gone by, and the actual amount of goods which came into the country is known. It may be thought by some Members of the Committee that to do this retrospectively is absurd, and it could not reasonably be carried out, but, as a matter of fact, there is a definite precedent for doing this thing. In 1925 three Safeguarding Committees reported in favour of duties. They were the Cutlery, Glass and Gas Mantles Committees. The Reports were published in 668 November in that year, and in December Parliament was asked to give effect to these duties and to fix the date for 23rd December. These industries had already had considerable notice that the duties were to be imposed. Nevertheless, some months afterwards, the date was retrospectively altered from 23rd December to 1st January. I have here, if the Committee wish to be troubled with it, the actual order which was published by the Commissioner of Customs and Excise postponing the duties retrospectively in this way. There is, therefore, a precedent, and in view of the very great hardship which would be inflicted if the 19th April were strictly adhered to, I hope this very reasonable request will be conceded by the President of the Board of Trade on this occasion.
§ Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTERThe Treasury attach very considerable importance to this matter, and I am afraid it is quite impossible to accept the Amendment. The hon. Gentleman will remember that the Committee considered very carefully the question of dates on which this duty should come into force. The decision was that the duty should come into force forthwith. If we gave this concession to-day, it would operate in all cases, and this would be the worst case of all. The amount of the import duties in the earlier months of this year shows that the importers were fully alive to the possibility of this duty being imposed. We, therefore, could not possibly give way.
§ Mr. MACQUISTENThere is another precedent for the Amendment, and it is that in 1921, when the German Reparations were on, and a number of people had bought and rebought, heavy duties were imposed, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer of that day dated back the duties to give the people who had contracts abroad time to get them in. I have a similar case in connection with motor tyres where a man had same tyres which had not actually arrived. It was on the seas, and it was going to bust his business. Notwithstanding, the fact that it is a precedent, the Treasury might in a case where it is obvious that there is no attempt at dumping, make some arrangement and not stick to the cast-iron principle as in the case of motor tyres.
§ Mr. E. BROWNI regret the statement of the President of the Board of Trade, not only on the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Argyll (Mr. Macquisten), but about the duty under discussion. There is a great deal of dubiety about the pottery which comes, or does not come, under this duty, and it is extremely hard on the importers of this pottery whose articles have been ruled by the Customs and Excise unexpectedly to come within the duty. It is extremely hard on those who have forward contracts to have to face up to this duty so suddenly without any warning whatever. I, therefore, support the Amendment, which is similar to that in
§ the name of three of my hon. Friends but for a longer period.
§ Mr. GILLETTWe have as a precedent the case where the Treasury made an exception. If they have done it once they should do it again. It seems to me, in view of the importance of our business relations, which affect us more than any other country that, taking a broad view of the question, you ought to have thought that it would be wiser and in our interests to make this concession.
§ Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 236; Noes, 96.
671| Division No. 229.] | AYES. | [8.2 p.m. |
| Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel | Couper, J. B. | Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.) |
| Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l) | Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islington, N.) | Hopkins, J. W. W. |
| Applin, Colonel R. V. K. | Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe) | Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Colonel C. K. |
| Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W. | Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H. | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) |
| Astbury, Lieut.-Commander F. W. | Crooke, J. Smedley (Derltend) | Hume, Sir G. H. |
| Astor, Viscountess | Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick) | Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer |
| Atkinson, C. | Dalkeith, Earl of | Huntingfield, Lord |
| Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley | Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H. | Hutchison, G. A. Clark (Mldl'n & P'bl's) |
| Balfour, George (Hampstead) | Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester) | Illffe, Sir Edward M. |
| Barclay-Harvey, C. M. | Davies, Dr. Vernon | Jephcott, A. R. |
| Barnett, Major Sir Richard | Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.) | Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington) |
| Barnston, Major Sir Harry | Dawson Sir Philip | Kidd, J. (Linllthgow) |
| Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake) | Dean, Arthur Wellesley | King, Commodore Henry Douglas |
| Bennett, A. J. | Dixon, Captain Rt. Hon. Herbert | Lamb, J. Q. |
| Berry, Sir George | Drewe, C. | Lister, Cunliffe, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip |
| Birchall, Major J. Dearman | Edmondson, Major A. J. | Little, Dr. E. Graham |
| Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton) | Ellis, R. G. | Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley) |
| Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.) | Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.) | Loder, J. de V. |
| Boothby, R. J. G. | Everard, W. Lindsay | Looker, Herbert William |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Falle, Sir Bertram G. | Lougher, Lewis |
| Bowater, Colonel Sir T. Vansittart | Fermoy, Lord | Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere |
| Bowyer, Captain G. E. W. | Finburgh, S. | Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman |
| Brassey, Sir Leonard | Ford, Sir P. J. | Lumley, L. R. |
| Briggs, J. Harold | Foxcroft, Captain C. T. | Lynn, Sir Robert J. |
| Briscoe, Richard George | Fraser, Captain Ian | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) |
| Brocklebank, C. E. R. | Gates, Percy | Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart) |
| Broun-Lindsay, Major H. | Gault Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton | Macmillan, Captain H. |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y) | Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham | Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm |
| Buchan, John | Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John | McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John |
| Buckingham, Sir H. | Glyn, Major R. G. C. | Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel- |
| Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James | Gower, Sir Robert | Makins, Brigadier-General E. |
| Bullock, Captain M. | Grace, John | Malone, Major P. B. |
| Burman, J. B. | Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.) | Margesson, Captain D. |
| Burton, Colonel H. W. | Grattan-Doyle, Sir N. | Mason, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K. |
| Butler, Sir Geoffrey | Greene, W. P. Crawford | Meller, R. J. |
| Butt, Sir Alfred | Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Sir H.(W'th's'w, F) | Merriman, F. B. |
| Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward | Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London) | Meyer, Sir Frank |
| Campbell, E. T. | Grotrian, H. Brent | Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark) |
| Carver, Major W. H. | Gunston, Captain D. W. | Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden) |
| Cassels, J. D. | Hacking, Captain Douglas H. | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M. |
| Cautley, Sir Henry S. | Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich) | Moore, Sir Newton J. |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth.S.) | Hammersley, S. S. | Murchison, Sir Kenneth |
| Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston) | Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry | Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge) |
| Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton | Harland, A. | Nicholson, O. (Westminster) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood) | Harrison, G. J. C. | Oakley, T. |
| Charteris, Brigadier-General J. | Hartington, Marquess of | Penny, Frederick George |
| Christie, J. A. | Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington) | Perkins, Colonel E. K. |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer | Hawke, John Anthony | Perring, Sir William George |
| Churchman, Sir Arthur C. | Henderson, Capt. R.R. (Oxf'd, Henley) | Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome) |
| Clarry, Reginald George | Henderson, Lt.-Col. Sir V. L. (Bootle) | Pilcher, G. |
| Clayton, G. C. | Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P. | Pilditch, Sir Philip |
| Cobb, Sir Cyril | Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J. | Power, Sir John Cecil |
| Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George | Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford) | Pownall, Sir Assheton |
| Colman, N. C. D. | Hills, Major John Waller | Radford, E. A. |
| Conway, Sir W. Martin | Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D.(St.Marylebone) | Raine, Sir Walter |
| Cooper, A. Duff | Holt, Capt. H. P. | Ramsden, E. |
| Rawson, Sir Cooper | Skelton, A. N. | Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley) |
| Reid, D. D. (County Down) | Slaney, Major P. Kenyon | Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle) |
| Remer, J. R. | Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.) | Watts, Dr. T. |
| Remnant, Sir James | Smith-Carington, Neville W. | Wells, S. R. |
| Rice, Sir Frederick | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) | Wheler, Major Sir Granville C. H. |
| Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) | Sprot, Sir Alexander | White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dalrymple |
| Roberts, Sir Samuel (Hereford) | Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F. | Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern) |
| Ropner, Major L. | Stanley, Lord (Fylde) | Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay) |
| Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) | Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland) | Williams, Herbert G. (Reading) |
| Rye, F. G. | Steel, Major Samuel Strang | Wilson, R. R, (Stafford, Lichfield) |
| Salmon, Major I. | Streatfeild, Captain S. R. | Winby, Colonel L. P. |
| Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham) | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) | Styles, Captain H. W. | Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl |
| Sandeman, N. Stewart | Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser | Wise, Sir Fredric |
| Sanders, Sir Robert A. | Sugden, Sir Wilfrid | Wolmer, Viscount |
| Sanderson, Sir Frank | Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H | Womersley, W. J. |
| Sandon, Lord | Tasker, R. Inigo. | Wood, E. Chest'r, Stalyb'dge & Hyde) |
| Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D. | Thompson, Luke (Sunderland) | Wragg, Herbert |
| Savery, S. S. | Tinne, J. A. | Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T. |
| Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl. (Renfrew.W.) | Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement | Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton (Norwich) |
| Sheffield, Sir Berkeley | Vaughan-Morgan. Col. K. P. | |
| Shepperson, E. W. | Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L.(Kingston-on-Hull) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down) | Warner, Brigadier-General W. W. | Mr. F. C. Thomson and Captain |
| Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast) | Waterhouse, Captain Charles | Viscount Curzon. |
| NOES. | ||
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton) | Scrymgeour, E. |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Scurr, John |
| Ammon, Charles George | Hardie, George D. | Shepherd, Arthur Lewis |
| Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston) | Harris, Percy A. | Shiels, Dr. Drummond |
| Baker, Walter | Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) |
| Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery) | Hirst, G. H. | Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley) |
| Barnes, A. | Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield) | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) |
| Batey, Joseph | Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip |
| Beckett, John (Gateshead) | John, William (Rhondda, West) | Spoor, Rt. Hon Benjamin Charles |
| Broad, F. A. | Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown) | Stamford, T. W. |
| Bromley, J. | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Stephen, Campbell |
| Brown, Ernest (Leith) | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Stewart, J. (St. Rollox) |
| Brown, James (Ayr and Bute) | Kelly, W. T. | Strauss, E. A. |
| Buchanan, G. | Kennedy, T. | Sullivan, Joseph |
| Charleton, H. C. | Lawrence, Susan | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.) |
| Cluse, W. S. | Lawson, John James | Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow) |
| Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R. | Lee, F. | Thurtle, Ernest |
| Connolly, M. | Lowth, T. | Tinker, John Joseph |
| Dalton, Hugh | Lunn, William | Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen |
| Day, Colonel Harry | MacLaren, Andrew | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline) |
| Dennison, R. | MacNeill-Weir, L. | Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda) |
| Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington) | Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.) | Wellock, Wilfred |
| Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.) | Mosley, Oswald | Welsh, J. C. |
| Fenby, T. D. | Naylor, T. E. | Wilkinson, Ellen C. |
| Forrest, W. | Oliver, George Harold | Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham) |
| Gardner, J. P. | Palin, John Henry | Williams, David (Swansea, East) |
| Gillett, George M | Pethick-Lawrence, F. W. | Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly) |
| Gosling, Harry | Potts, John S. | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | Rees, Sir Beddoe | Windsor, Walter |
| Greenall, T. | Riley, Ben | Wright, W. |
| Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Ritson, J. | |
| Groves, T. | Robinson, W.C. (Yorks, W. R., Elland) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Grundy, T. W. | Rose, Frank H. | Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr. |
| Whiteley. |
§ Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCEI beg to move, in page 5, line 7, to leave out the words "or vitrified pottery."
The reason I ask for the omission of these words is that vitrified pottery was not really a subject of inquiry at all. Vitrified pottery, in the view of the trade, means earthenware. It does not mean china, and, when the inquiry was fixed to deal with china, it was supposed that all forms of earthenware would be excluded from any question of duty. It was, therefore, a very great surprise to the trade, 672 after the terms of reference and after the way in which the question had been handled, that at the last minute vitrified pottery was included with translucent pottery in the proposals of the Committee. If there had been any suggestion from the beginning that vitrified pottery would be included, evidence ought to have been given in regard to the earthenware which would be classed under that description. But, as there was no expectation that it would be so included, all evidence relating to earthenware was most carefully 673 excluded from the inquiry. No figures were given, and it was confidently supposed that the inquiry would be confined to translucent pottery. There are very large numbers of articles which, in the general definitions of the trade, are included in this term. It is, therefore, very difficult to know what will be admitted free of duty. When the proposal came into force, the greatest confusion prevailed, and the importers were in doubt whether every article of earthenware should not be included under these terms. I understand that the Customs officials have not taken an extreme view and included all sorts of articles that could possibly be described as vitrified pottery, but they have confined themselves to a certain number, and, in that respect, the situation is better than it possibly might have been.
The fact remains that the very greatest uncertainty and difficulty prevails at the present time as to what is going to be included and what is to be excluded, and it is largely because of that difficulty that we suggest that vitrified pottery should be omitted from the scope of this taxation. It is exceedingly harassing, because it includes a great number of articles which are certainly not translucent pottery or china, and it creates the utmost confusion because, where you are dealing with portions of a trade in this way, it is exceedingly difficult to know what will or what will not be included by the Customs. Therefore, I hope the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, who, I think, rather unnecessarily ruled out our last Amendment, which was a small one, will not do that on this occasion, but will make this concession largely in the interests of clarity, so that people may know what imports will be subject to taxation and what will not.
§ Sir B. CHADWICKIn reference to what the hon. Gentleman has said I may say that the word ''vitrified" was introduced for the sake of clarity, and in order that the duty shall operate as it is intended to operate, it was thought by the Committee that the word should be introduced. Though the china now imported is translucent, it might be made non-translucent by the introduction of oxide, and therefore the Committee has recommended that the duty shall extend to all vitrified pottery. 674 I should like to give the Committee a definition of vitrified pottery. I want to give the hon. Member the actual facts as to what takes place, and how the introduction of these words will relieve the Customs officials instead of embarrassing them as he suggests. In general language the expression "vitrified" may be explained in this way. In the manufacture of glass various materials such as sand, soda and potash are mixed and raised to a high temperature so that they fuse or melt and flow together. Precautions are, of course, normally taken to see that the resulting product is colourless.
Glass is pre-eminently a vitrified product. In the case of china, various clays are mixed with certain fluxes, easily fusible bodies. When the temperature is raised, the fluxes melt with some of the material in the body and form what may be regarded roughly as a vitreous or glassy mass in which the unfused particles of clay are disseminated. That is vitrified pottery. Let me also give the Committee a clear definition of earthenware; a great deal has been said about the difficulty of distinguishing earthenware from translucent pottery. In the case of earthenware there is no component in the body which melts or flown at the temperature at which the body is fired. That is unvitrified pottery. The vitrified pottery is non-porous while the unvitrified pottery is porous and this is the clear distinction between china and porcelain on the one hand and earthenware on the other. I hope that explanation will satisfy the hon. Member and will clear away any confusion which may exist in his mind.
§ Mr. E. BROWNI accept the explanation given by the Parliamentary Secretary in so lucid a form. The term "vitrified pottery" will bring inside this duty a great range of articles which are commonly consumed by the poorest people, because they are the heavier ware. It is our contention that this range of articles was not inside the terms of reference, and I therefore join with the hon. Member in opposing this duty. We consider that the Committee had no right to go outside their terms of reference and recommend a duty on articles which are not within their terms of reference.
§ Question put: "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."
676§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 228; Noes, 95.
677| Division No. 230.] | AYES. | [8.20 p.m. |
| Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel | Gates, Percy | Pilcher, G. |
| Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l) | Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton | Pilditch, Sir Philip |
| Applin, Colonel R. V. K. | Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham | Power, Sir John Cecil |
| Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W. | Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John | Pownall, Sir Assheton |
| Astbury, Lieut.-Commander F. W. | Glyn, Major R. G. C. | Radford, E. A. |
| Astor, Viscountess | Grace, John | Raine, Sir Walter |
| Atkinson, C. | Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.) | Ramsden E. |
| Balfour, George (Hampstead) | Grattan-Doyle, Sir N. | Rawson, Sir Cooper |
| Barclay-Harvey, C. M. | Greene, W. P. Crawford | Reid, D. D. (County Down) |
| Barnett, Major Sir Richard | Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Sir H.(W'th's'w,E) | Remer, J. R. |
| Barnston, Major Sir Harry | Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London) | Remnant Sir James |
| Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake) | Grotrian, H. Brent | Rice, Sir Frederick |
| Bennett, A. J. | Gunston, Captain D. W. | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) |
| Berry, Sir George | Hacking, Captain Douglas H. | Roberts, Sir Samuel (Hereford) |
| Betterton, Henry B. | Hall, Lieut. Col. Sir F. (Dulwich) | Ropner, Major L. |
| Birchall, Major J. Dearman | Hammersley, S. S. | Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) |
| Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton) | Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry | Rye, F. G. |
| Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.) | Harland, A. | Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham) |
| Boothby, R. J. G. | Harrison, G. J. C. | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Hartington, Marquess of | Sandeman, N. Stewart |
| Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart | Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington) | Sanders, Sir Robert A. |
| Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W. | Hawke, John Anthony | Sanderson, Sir Frank |
| Brassey, Sir Leonard | Henderson, Capt. R. R.(Oxf'd, Henley) | Sandon, Lord |
| Briggs, J. Harold | Henderson, Lt.-Col. Sir V. L. (Bootle) | Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D. |
| Briscoe, Richard George | Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P. | Savery, S. S. |
| Brocklebank, C. E. R. | Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J. | Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl. (Renfrew, W) |
| Broun-Lindsay, Major H. | Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford) | Sheffield, Sir Berkeley |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y) | Hills, Major John Waller | Shepperson, E. W. |
| Buchan, John | Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone) | Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down) |
| Buckingham, Sir H. | Holt, Captain H. P. | Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast) |
| Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James | Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.) | Skelton, A. N. |
| Bullock, Captain M. | Hopkins, J. W. W. | Slaney, Major P. Kenyon |
| Burman, J. B. | Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Colonel C. K. | Smith, R.W. (Absrd'n & Kinc'dine. C.) |
| Burton, Colonel H. W. | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) | Smith-Carington, Neville W. |
| Butler, Sir Geoffrey | Hume, Sir G. H. | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) |
| Butt, Sir Alfred | Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer | Sprot, Sir Alexander |
| Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward | Huntingfield, Lord | Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F. |
| Campbell, E. T. | Hutchison, G. A. Clark (Mldl'n&P'bl's) | Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland) |
| Carver, Major W. H. | Illffe, Sir Edward M. | Steel, Major Samuel Strang |
| Cassels, J. D. | Jephcott, A. R. | Streatfield, Captain S. R. |
| Cautley, Sir Henry S. | Kidd, J. (Linllthgow) | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth.S.) | King, Commodore Henry Douglas | Styles, Captain H. W. |
| Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston) | Lamb, J. Q. | Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser |
| Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton | Lister, Cunliffe, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip | Sugden, Sir Wilfrid |
| Charteris, Brigadier-General J. | Little, Dr. E. Graham | Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H. |
| Christie, J. A. | Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley) | Tasker, R. Inigo. |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer | Loder, J. de V. | Thompson, Luke (Sunderland) |
| Churchman, Sir Arthur C. | Looker, Herbert William | Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.) |
| Clarry, Reginald George | Lougher, Lewis | Tinne, J. A. |
| Clayton, G. C. | Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere | Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement |
| Cobb, Sir Cyril | Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman | Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P. |
| Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D. | Lumley, L. R. | Ward, Lt.-Col. A.L.(Kingston-on-Hull) |
| Colman, N. C. D. | Lynn, Sir R. J. | Warner, Brigadier-General W. W. |
| Conway, Sir W. Martin | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. Of W.) | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Couper, J. B. | Macdonald, H. (Glasgow, Cathcart) | Watson, Sir F. (pudsey and Otley) |
| Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islington, N.) | MacMillan, Captain H. | Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle) |
| Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe) | Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm | Watts, Dr. T. |
| Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H. | McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John | Wells, S. R. |
| Crooke, J. Smedley (Derltend) | Macquisten, F. A. | Wheler Major Sir Granville C. H. |
| Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick) | Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel- | White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dalrymple |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Makins, Brigadier-General E. | Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern) |
| Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H. | Malone, Major P. B. | Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay) |
| Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester) | Mason, Lieut-Col. Glyn K. | Williams, Herbert G. (Reading) |
| Davies, Dr. Vernon | Meller, R. J. | Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield) |
| Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.) | Merriman, F. B. | Winby, Colonel L. P. |
| Dawson, Sir Philip | Meyer, Sir Frank | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Dean, Arthur Wellesley | Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark) | Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl |
| Dixon, Captain Rt. Hon. Herbert | Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden) | Wise, Sir Fredric |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M | Wolmer, Viscount |
| Elliot, Major Walter E. | Moore, Sir Newton J. | Womersley, W. J. |
| Ellis, R. G. | Murchison, Sir Kenneth | Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'ge & Hyde) |
| Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.) | Nicholson, O. (Westminster) | Wragg, Herbert |
| Everard, W. Lindsay | Oakley, T. | Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T. |
| Fermoy, Lord | Penny, Frederick George | Young Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton (Norwich) |
| Finburgh, S. | Perkins, Colonel E. K. | |
| Foxcroft, Captain C. T. | Perring, William George | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Fraser, Captain Ian | Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome) | Captain Lord Stanley and Captain |
| Margesson. | ||
| NOES | ||
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Groves, T. | Rose, Frank H. |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Grundy, T. W. | Scrymgeour, E. |
| Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro') | Hall, F. (York, W.R., Normanton) | Scurr, John |
| Ammon, Charles George | Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Shepherd, Arthur Lewis |
| Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bliston) | Hardie, George D. | Shiels, Dr. Drummond |
| Baker, Walter | Harris, Percy A. | Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) |
| Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery) | Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley) |
| Barnes, A. | Hirst, G. H. | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) |
| Batey, Joseph | Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield) | Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip |
| Beckett, John (Gateshead) | Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles |
| Broad, F. A. | John, William (Rhondda, West) | Stamford, T. W. |
| Bromley, J. | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Stephen, Campbell |
| Brown, Ernest (Leith) | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Stewart, J. (St. Rollox) |
| Brown, James (Ayr and Bute) | Kelly, W. T. | Strauss, E. A. |
| Buchanan, G. | Kennedy, T. | Sullivan, J. |
| Charleton, H. C. | Lawrence, Susan | Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow) |
| Cluse, W. S. | Lawson, John James | Thurtle, Ernest |
| Connolly, M. | Lee, F. | Tinker, John Joseph |
| Crawfurd, H. E. | Lowth, T. | Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen |
| Dalton, Hugh | Lunn, William | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline) |
| Day, Colonel Harry | MacLaren, Andrew | Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda) |
| Dennison, R. | MacNeill-Weir, L. | Wellock, Wilfred |
| Dunnico, H. | Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.) | Welsh, J. C. |
| Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington) | Mosley, Oswald | Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham) |
| Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.) | Naylor, T. E. | Williams, David (Swansea, E.) |
| Fenby, T. D. | Oliver, George Harold | Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly) |
| Forrest, W. | Palin, John Henry | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Gardner, J. P. | Pethick-Lawrence, F. W. | Windsor, Walter |
| Gillett, George M. | Potts, John S. | Wright, W. |
| Gosling, Harry | Rees, Sir Beddoe | |
| Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | Riley, Ben | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Greenall, T. | Ritson, J. | Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr. |
| Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Robinson, W. C, (Yorks, W.R., Elland) | Whiteley. |
§ Mr. E. BROWNI beg to move, in page 5, line 8, to leave out the words, "suitable for use," and to insert instead thereof the words, "of a description commonly used."
I move this Amendment in a form which is slightly different from that appearing on the Paper.
§ Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTERI am prepared to accept the Amendment.
§ Mr. BROWNThen there is no need to argue the point. The Amendment is designed to leave out certain fancy articles which are only used in connection with breakfast sets and are not essential to the primary purpose of the report.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Mr. E. BROWNI beg to move, in page 5, line 10, to leave out the words, "one pound and eight," and to insert instead thereof the word "fourteen."
The object of this Amendment is to lower the rate of duty from £1 8s. per cwt. to 14s. per cwt. and thereby to bring it nearer the application made to the Committee, which was for a duty approximating to 33⅓ per cent. This point was debated at great length on the first Amendment to this Clause and I think it is only treating the Committee fairly if I refrain from adding any facts and 678 figures to the arguments submitted previously.
§ Mr. LEES-SMITHIt may assist the Committee and expedite business if, instead of moving an Amendment standing in my name later on the Paper—to insert the words "or thirty-three and one-third per cent. of the value, whichever is the less "—which covers much the same point, I make at this stage any observations which we wish to make on this point. That will free the President of the Board of Trade from the objections to a particular form of argument which he expressed during the Debate on the main question. We wish to support the Amendment by certain figures which have been brought to our attention. We have had brought before us figures which indicate that when the Committee said that a duty of 28 shillings per cwt. was equivalent to an ad valorem duty of 33⅓ per cent., they had not sufficient evidence before them, and that, in fact, they laid down a duty higher than that which they had in mind in their statement about the equivalence of the specific and the ad valorem duty. I do not anticipate that this Amendment will be accepted, but I suggest that with the evidence which we have, and the evidence a part of which, at any rate, the right hon. Gentleman has, he should give us an undertaking to look into these figures again 679 and satisfy us on the Report stage that the intention of the committee of inquiry is being carried out. A duty of 33⅓ per cent. at the factory becomes equivalent to a duty of, say, 40 per cent. or thereabouts c.i.f. If this duty were merely equivalent to 40 per cent. or so, c.i.f., we should not be using the particular argument which we are using now; but our evidence is that this duty is going to work out on the average, on the main classes of pottery, at over 50 per cent.—nearer 60 per cent.—and in many cases at between 60 and 70 per cent.
The President was furnished with certain schedules in which it was argued that such would be the result. He has this afternoon quoted one single example taken from those schedules. Does he say that, taking all the schedules submitted to him, the average duty works out at33⅓ per cent.? If that be so, they contradict the figures in the annual returns of the Board of Trade. If we take those returns for any year in the last five years and divide the total weight of imports by the total value, we get a duty of nearer 50 than 40 per cent. But the figures in the Board of Trade returns include all classes of pottery. They include Copenhagen ware and rare Japanese pottery on which the average is much less than 33⅓ per cent. I think it has been said to go down to about 3 per cent. in some of these cases. That being so, it follows that on the main classes of pottery, to which the committee refer, and in connection with which they wish to secure an ad valorem duty of 33⅓ per cent., the average duty is nearer 50 per cent. In fact, the duty is far nearer to those figures which we have indicated as resulting from the evidence submitted to us. That is why we believe these figures have not been tested with sufficient accuracy. So far as we know, they were not tested at all by the committee of inquiry. There is no evidence of any figures on this subject having been submitted to them, and they do not say how they arrived at their conclusion. The inquiries have been simply those which have taken place subsequently at the Board of Trade, and we wish to ask the President whether he will repeat them and call for full information on this subject, and, if necessary, bring up revised terms on the Report stage.
§ Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTERI do not want to go over the whole of the answer which I gave on the main Debate. The figures have been carefully considered; they were considered not only after the Report was presented but while the Committee were sitting. While it is true that in some cases the duty is considerably above 33⅓ per cent., in other cases it is considerably lower. That will always happen with a specific duty, and in this case the specific duty is much more convenient than an ad valorem duty. It is quite true that some of the figures submitted show a higher duty on some commodities. They were all based on factory cost, which, of course, is an entirely unsound basis on which to calculate the duty. The C.I.F. price would, I should think, add another 30% to the value. The illustration I quoted to the House was not quoted because it favoured my contention. I quoted it because it was an example given by the man who, I understand, asked to give evidence on behalf of the opponents in this case. Everybody naturally will produce the arguments which are most convenient to his own case, but I am checking this figure in this way. I have taken the figures of prices which were produced by the opponents, showing what are the costs of production and what are the prices at which the foreign articles are sold. The figures I gave included cups and saucers 4s. 2d. to 5s. 4½d., that means a duty varying from 36 per cent. to 28 per cent. I also included tea sets verying from 5s. to 6s. 9d.; that means a duty varying from 32½ per cent to 24 per cent. In the case of certain special Czechoslovakian ware, the duty works out at 34 per cent. There are certain to be variations one way or the other. Cases could be given showing the duty to be as low as 18 per cent. What we have got is a pretty good working average, and I must ask the Committee to adhere to the rate of duty.
I am much obliged to the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith) for raising his point on this Amendment, and so saving a debate on his further Amendment. I feel sure that his proposal to have an alternative duty, so that it would be possible to charge either a specific duty or an ad valorem duty, would be the most inconvenient course. This china comes in in consignments of varying 681 value, and the Customs officers would have to hold up each article to decide the weight or value, and consignments would have to be broken up in order that we could decide, in the case of each article in the consignment, whether the ad valorem or the specific duty was to be charged.
§ Mr. GILLETTOur fundamental difficulties still remain, in spite of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, because we have grave doubts about the assurances given by hon. Members opposite that this duty is not going to be thrown on the consumer, and the method of levying the duty according to the weight of the article is certainly going to throw the heaviest duty on the very goods which are used by the poorest people. Although that argument must be very familiar to the Minister, he has not in any way met it. I understand that the china and glassware section of the London Chamber of Commerce investigated the effect of the duty upon some typical goods imported, and they estimated that the duty would range as high as 60 per cent. or 70 per cent. The one exception worked out at 45 per cent., and in that case the goods were of a rather thinner make, showing that in the case of the more expensive goods the duty is lighter. Take the case of Longton china and a 21-piece tea-set sold at 13s. 2d., and compare that with a cheap china set which may be sold at 4s. 6d. Under the method by which this duty is being imposed, the cheap set, the set used by the poorer people, is the one that is penalised.
I have here one or two other illustrations which were brought to my notice. In the case of a tea-set valued at £10 4s. 2d., the duty worked out at £5 2s. In the case of some cups and saucers valued at £5 4s. 2d., the duty worked out at £5 10s. Because this ware was heavy stuff the duty amounted to more than the value of the goods themselves. An hon. Member speaking earlier in the Debate said British manufacturers had assured him they were not going to alter the price of their goods. That statement ignores one important point, because they have been telling us they are not selling their goods at the present time through being undercut by the cheaper foreign imports. It is obvious that, if they are going on selling, in spite of this duty, at the price at 682 which they are selling to-day, they are counting upon the duty preventing the cheaper stuff from coming in, and, although they may not alter their prices to the consumer, he would have his prices raised, because he would be compelled to buy the English ware at a higher price. There is a certain fallacy in the argument that the manufacturers are not going to alter their prices. Of course, they are not; there is no need for them to do so if foreign ware is to be prevented from coming in, because that will leave the market secure for the English maker; but it still leaves the fact that the consumer is going to bear the extra cost, or at any rate part of it. On these grounds we attach great importance to this question, and I very much regret that the Minister has not seen his way to meet us.
§ Mr. RILEYAlthough there is force in what the Minister said with regard to the difficulty of adopting an ad valorem duty rather than a specific duty, that does not apply to a specific duty at a lower rate than is set forth in the Clause. The Minister, in his reply, has not met at all the substantial objection that, as the duty stands, it presses very heavily upon the people who are least in a position to bear it. We have also been told that, in spite of what the Minister has said, so far as regards the goods which have come in since the duty came into operation, the average duty has worked out at about 42 per cent. How the Minister justifies the statement that he makes it actually less, namely 34 or 35 per cent., I do not know.
It has been admitted in the Committee this afternoon that actual experience, since the duty began to operate, has shown that it averaged about 42 per cent. That indicates that the class of goods in use by the poorest people and in the greatest demand is the class of goods which is going to bear the largest proportion of this duty, while goods of better quality will have only a very small duty imposed upon them. The Minister has not met that substantial objection. It has not been denied that the vast bulk of the pottery which is imported and which comes under these duties is pottery of cheaper quality, and that, therefore, it will bear, under a specific duty, a higher and not a lower duty. That being the case, I submit that the Minister 683 should face the fact that the incidence of the duty as it now stands is not fair. I also submit, an an additional reason for accepting this Amendment, that clearly the Committee, when they were examining the request of the applicants, had before them the view that the duty as a whole would be 33⅓ per cent. They probably saw the difficulty of fixing an ad valorem duty, and they therefore
§ recommended a specific duty. It is known that a duty of 28s. per cwt. amounts to more than 33⅓ per cent., and I therefore urge the Minister to meet those who are moving this Amendment.
§ Question put, ''That the words 'one pound and eight' stand part of the Clause."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 225; Noes, 94.
685| Division No. 231.] | AYES. | [8. 52p. m. |
| Acland-Troyte, Lieut. -Colonel | Elliot, Major Walter E. | Macmillan, Captain H. |
| Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l) | Ellis, R. G. | Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm |
| Applin, Colonel R. V. K. | Elveden, Viscount | McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John |
| Ashley, Lt. -Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W. | Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.) | Macquisten, F. A. |
| Astbury, Lieut-Commander F. W. | Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South) | Maitland Sir Arthur D. Steel- |
| Astor, Viscountess | Everard, W. Lindsay | Makins, Brigadier-General E. |
| Atkinson, C. | Falle, Sir Bertram G. | Malone, Major P. B. |
| Balfour, George (Hampstead) | Fermoy, Lord | Margesson, Captain D. |
| Barclay-Harvey, C. M. | Finburgh, S. | Meller, R. J. |
| Barnett, Major Sir Richard | Foxcroft, Captain C. T. | Merriman, F. B. |
| Barnston, Major Sir Harry | Fraser, Captain Ian | Meyer, Sir Frank |
| Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake) | Gates, Percy | Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark) |
| Bennett, A. J. | Gault, Lieut. -Col. Andrew Hamilton | Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden) |
| Berry, Sir George | Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M. |
| Betterton, Henry B | Gilmour, Lt. -Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John | Moore, Sir Newton J. |
| Birchall, Major J. Dearrman | Grace, John | Murchison, Sir Kenneth |
| Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton) | Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.) | Nicholson, O. (Westminster) |
| Boothby, R. J. G. | Greene, W. P. Crawford | Oakley, T. |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Greenwood, Rt.Hn.Sir H. (W'th's'w. E.) | Perkins, Colonel E. K |
| Bowater, Colonel Sir T. Vansittart | Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London) | Perring, Sir William George |
| Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W. | Grotrian, H. Brent | Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome) |
| Brassey, Sir Leonard | Gunston, Captain D. W. | Pilcher, G. |
| Briggs, J. Harold | Hacking, Captain Douglas H. | Pilditch, Sir Philip |
| Briscoe, Richard George | Hall, Lieut-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich) | Power, Sir John Cecil |
| Brocklebank, C. E. R. | Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.) | Pownall Sir Assheton |
| Broun-Lindsay, Major H. | Hammersley, S. S. | Radford, E. A. |
| Brown, Brig. -Gen. H. C.(Berks, Newb'y) | Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry | Raine, Sir Walter |
| Buckingham, Sir H. | Harland, A. | Ramsden, E. |
| Bullock, Captain M. | Harrison, G. J. C. | Rawson Sir Cooper |
| Burman, J. B. | Hartington, Marquess of | Reid, D. D. (County Down) |
| Burton, Colonel H. W. | Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington) | Remer, J. R. |
| Butler, Sir Geoffrey | Hawke, John Anthony | Remnant, Sir James |
| Butt, Sir Alfred | Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley) | Rice, Sir Frederick |
| Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward | Henderson, Lt. -Col. Sir V. L. (Bootle) | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) |
| Campbell, E. T | Heneage, Lieut. -Colonel Arthur P. | Roberts, Sir Samuel (Hereford) |
| Carver, Major W. H. | Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J. | Ropner, Major L. |
| Cassels, J. D. | Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford) | Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) |
| Cautley, Sir Henry S. | Hills, Major John Waller | Rye, F G. |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth. S.) | Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone) | Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham) |
| Cazalet, Captain Victor A. | Holt, Capt. H. P. | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) |
| Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton | Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun) | Sandeman, N. Stewart |
| Charteris, Brigadier-General J. | Hopkins, J. W. W. | Sanders, Sir Robert A. |
| Christie, J. A. | Howard-Bury, Lieut. -Colonel C. K. | Sanderson, Sir Frank |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) | Sandon, Lord |
| Churchman, Sir Arthur C. | Hume, Sir G. H. | Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D. |
| Clarry, Reginald George | Hunter-Weston, Lt. -Gen. Sir Aylmer | Savery, S. S. |
| Clayton, G. C. | Huntingfield, Lord | Shaw, Lt. -Col. A. D. Mcl. (Renfrew, W.) |
| Cobb, Sir Cyril | Hutchison, G. A. Clark (Midl'n & P'bl's) | Sheffield, Sir Berkeley |
| Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D. | Illffe, Sir Edward M. | Shepperson, E. W. |
| Colman, N. C. D. | Jephcott, A. R. | Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down) |
| Conway, Sir W. Martin | Kidd, J. (Linllthgow) | Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast) |
| Couper, J. B. | King, Commodore Henry Douglas | Skelton, A. N. |
| Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islington. N.) | Lamb, J. Q. | Slaney, Major P. Kenyon |
| Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe) | Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip | Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine. C.) |
| Crooke, J. Smedley (Derltend) | Little, Dr. E. Graham | Smith-Carington, Neville W. |
| Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick) | Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley) | Smithers, Waldron |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Loder, J. de V. | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) |
| Davidson, MaJor-General Sir John H. | Looker, Herbert William | Sprot, Sir Alexander |
| Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester) | Lougher, Lewis | Stanley, Lieut. -Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F. |
| Davies, Dr. Vernon | Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere | Stanley, Lord (Fylde) |
| Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.) | Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman | Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland) |
| Dawson, Sir Phillip | Lumiey, L. R. | Steel, Major Samuel Strang |
| Dean, Arthur Wellesley | Lynn, Sir R. J. | Streatfeild, Captain S. R. |
| Dixon, Captain Rt. Hon. Herbert | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) | Styles, Captain H. W. |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart) | Sugden, Sir Wilfrid |
| Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H. | Watts, Dr. T. | Wise, Sir Fredric |
| Tasker, R. Inigo. | Wells, S. R. | Wolmer, Viscount |
| Thompson, Luke (Sunderland) | Wheler, Major Sir Granville C. H. | Womersley, W. J |
| Tinne, J. A. | White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dalrymple | Wood, B. C. (Somerset, Bridgwater) |
| Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement | Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern) | Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'ge & Hyde) |
| Wallace, Captain D. E. | Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay) | Wragg, Herbert |
| Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L. (Kingston-on-Hull) | Williams, Herbert G. (Reading) | Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T. |
| Warner, Brigadier-General W. W. | Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield) | |
| Waterhouse, Captain Charles | Winby, Colonel L. P. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley) | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George | Mr. F. C. Thomson and Mr. fenny. |
| Watson, Rt, Hon. W. (Carlisle) | Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl | |
| NOES. | ||
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Grundy, T. W. | Rose, Frank H. |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton) | Scrymgeour, E. |
| Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro') | Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Scurr, John |
| Ammon, Charles George | Hardle, George D. | Shepherd, Arthur Lewis |
| Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston) | Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | Shiels, Dr. Drummond |
| Baker, Walter | Hirst, G. H. | Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) |
| Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery) | Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley) |
| Barnes, A. | Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield) | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) |
| Batey, Joseph | Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip |
| Beckett, John (Gateshead) | John, William (Rhondda, West) | Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles |
| Bromley, J. | Jones, Morgan(Caerphilly) | Stamford, T. W. |
| Brown, James (Ayr and Bute) | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Stephen, Campbell |
| Buchanan, G. | Kelly, W. T. | Stewart, J. (St. Rollox) |
| Charleton, H. C. | Kennedy, T. | Strauss, E. A. |
| Cluse, W. S. | Lawrence, Susan | Sullivan, J. |
| Connolly, M. | Lawson, John James | Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow) |
| Crawfurd, H. E. | Lee, F. | Thurtle, Ernest |
| Dalton, Hugh | Lindley, F. W. | Tinker, John Joseph |
| Day, Colonel Harry | Lowth, T. | Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen |
| Dennison, R. | Lunn, William | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline) |
| Dunnico, H. | MacLaren, Andrew | Watts-Morgan, Lt. -Col. D. (Rhondda) |
| Edwards', C (Monmouth, Bedwellty) | MacNeill-Weir, L. | Wellock, Wilfred |
| Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington) | Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.) | Welsh, J. C. |
| Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.) | Naylor, T. E. | Whiteley, W. |
| Forrest, W. | Oliver, George Harold | Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham) |
| Gardner, J. P. | Palin, John Henry | Williams, David (Swansea, East) |
| Gillett, George M. | Pethick-Lawrence, F. W. | Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly) |
| Gosling, Harry | Potts, John S. | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | Rees, Sir Beddoe | Windsor, Walter |
| Greenall, T. | Riley, Ben | Wright, W. |
| Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Ritson, J. | |
| Groves, T. | Robinson, W. C. (Yorks,W.R.,Elland) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Mr. Fenby andMr. Ernest Brown. |
§ Mr. E. BROWNI beg to move, in page 5, line 11, at the end, to add the words:
Provided that nothing in this Subsection shall apply to fireproof china.The case of this Amendment is that when fireproof china, the word "fireproof" being used in a technical sense, was mentioned in the inquiry, it was said these articles were made in France and did not come under the scope of the inquiry. The Chairman did not invite evidence on the subject at all. Furthermore, none of the articles coming under the term "fireproof" were exhibited before the Committee, and a very great number of them do not come in competition at all with Longton ware, because similar articles are not made in England at all. We have put down this Amendment in the hope of saving cooking utensils and other pottery ware not normally used for table ware and getting them exempted from the duty. There is a great range of these articles which are not commonly used as table ware, and we 686 consider it is not fair, as they were not argued before the Committee and do not come into competition with Longton ware at all, that they should be subject, to the duty.
§ Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTERWhile I cannot accept the Amendment, I do not really think that there is anything between the hon. Member and myself. Actually all china, as distinct from earthenware, is fireproof, and I am advised by the Customs authorities that if these words were put in they would have to exclude all the china that is subject to the duty. What the hon. Member wishes to exclude are those things that are not normally used for the service of food and drink, but only occasionally. The Customs practice is to exclude those, and they have issued an instruction making it plain that that kind of thing does not come within the scope of the duty. I have already accepted the hon. Member's Amendment 687 "of a description commonly used." That makes plainer what is already the practice.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Captain FitzRoy)The next Amendment I select is the first standing in the name of the hon. Member for North Southwark—in page 5, line 11, at the end, to insert the words:
Provided that there shall be allowed and paid in the case of any manufactured article exported from Great Britain a drawback equal to the amount shown to the satisfaction of the Commissioners to have been paid as duty on the translucent or vitrified pottery used as a container.
§ Mr. STRAUSSI should like first to move the next Amendment—in page 5, line 11, at the end, to insert the words:
Subject to the exclusion from the operation of this Section of all translucent, or vitrified pottery imported and used solely as containers for chocolate and sugar confectionery manufactured in the United Kingdom"—as, if the Government give me that, it will not be necessary to move the other.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI have my doubts about selecting the next Amendment at all.
§ Mr. STRAUSSI beg to move, in page 5, line 11, at the end, to insert the words:
Provided that there shall be allowed and paid in the case of any manufactured article exported from Great Britain a drawback equal to the amount shown to the satisfaction of the Commissioners to have been paid as duty on the translucent or vitrified pottery used as a container.This is simply to ask the Government to give a drawback on these cheap containers. I think that is a reasonable request, as the confectionery trade has
§ to meet very keen competition abroad, and if it is handicapped and has to pay the duty on the re-exported article it is placed in a very difficult position.
§ Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTERWhile I cannot accept anything that is different in its terms from the regular drawback practice, I think the hon. Member already has all he wants under the Bill as it stands. There are imported into the Clause the provisions of the second Schedule of the Safeguarding of Industry (Customs Duty) Act, 1925. In that Schedule, in Sub-section (3) of Section 6 of the Finance Act, 1925, this is provided:
If it is proved to the satisfaction of the Commissioners that duty has been paid under this Section in respect of any goods, and that the goods have not been used in Great Britain or Northern Ireland, a drawback equal to the amount of the duty so paid shall be allowed on the goods if exported as merchandiseThat covers the whole of the ordinary entrepoót trade, and I am advised by the Customs that in the case I understand the hon. Member referred to, of taking an article that is subject to this duty, like a teapot, and filling it with confectionery and then sending it out, it is the practice not to regard that as using the article, and it will already obtain the benefit of this Section. Therefore, while I could not agree to admitting any new principle of drawback, the point he is anxious about is, in fact, covered by the Customs practice under an existing Section of the Finance Act.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Motion made, and Question put, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 225; Noes, 95.