ENAMELLED HOLLOW-WARE.

HC Deb 08 June 1928 vol 218 cc503-97

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister)

I beg to move, That during a period of five years beginning on the thirteenth day of June, 1928, there shall be charged on the importation into the United Kingdom of wrought enamelled hollow-ware, whether of iron or steel, of a description commonly used for domestic purposes, a duty of Customs of an amount equal to 25 per cent. of the value thereof. The report has been published only for a comparatively short time. It is a very short and very convincing one. The history of the industry will be well in the minds of all Members of the Committee. The matter has been the subject of a series of reports which have been before Parliament, so that it has received a full measure of investigation. As far back as 1922, the Government were furnished with an exhaustive inquiry. I hope the hon. and gallant Member for South Hackney (Captain Garro-Jones) will not leave the House. In the temporary absence of his Leader, I am following in his footsteps, and inviting his party to join with me to-day in carrying out again, in a somewhat more modified form, a rather lower rate of the duty which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) imposed, with the support of the Liberal party at that day.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

And with the support of the Conservatives.

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

Yes, that Coalition Government inquired into this industry in August, 1922, and a duty was imposed under the Safeguarding of Industries Act of that time, and remained in force until 1924, when the provisions of the Act lapsed. After the removal of the duty, the imports again increased, as perhaps might have been expected, and in January, 1926, another Committee was appointed to investigate this industry. That Committee was the same in personnel as the Committee which has made the Report now before the House. The result of the inquiry in 1926 was that the Committee found that the industry was of substantial importance, and that in 1925 it was employing something like 3,750 people. They found that competitive goods were being sold to importers at prices below those of profitable manufacture here. Something was made in the inquiry of an allegation that, while the prices paid by the importer for foreign goods might be considerably below the British prices, the prices paid by the consumer in this country for foreign goods and British goods were approximately the same. That seems to me to be a strong argument in favour of the duty, and not against it, because, if the foreign goods manufactured under inferior labour conditions show a larger profit to the importer, and the home consumer gets the goods at identical prices—

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

It is profiteering.

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

I am not concerned with the defence of the importer of enamelled hollow-ware. I am dealing with the point of view of the consumer, and the case made by the opponents of the proposal. Their case is that the consumer was getting foreign goods and British goods at about the same price, and that therefore there was no case for a duty. I maintain, however, that the consumer can be a supporter of the duty without it making any difference to him.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

They will put up the price.

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

The hon. and gallant Gentleman's importing friends might make slightly less profit, but more people will be put into work without the consumer being prejudiced. We know quite well from past experience that, when you get a larger production, you reduce costs and reduce prices. I shall be very glad as time goes on, after the House has accepted this duty, which I am sure it will, to show again the working of a duty of this kind. The Committee found that the wages in Germany and other foreign countries were below the English rate of wages fixed by a trade board.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

Not for women.

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

I am going to deal with that, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me, and he will be able to make his speech directly. The wages were below the English wages. As regards employment generally, I think probably the best evidence anybody could have is the evidence of trade unions to which the people engaged in this industry belong, and they were the people who gave evidence before the Committee as to what the real conditions of employment were.

Mr. KELLY

Did the whole of the trade unions concerned in this industry give evidence?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

The unions roost materially concerned, I understand, did, and they gave evidence of the numbers of unemployed and of the amount of benefit which they had to pay out; and I shall be very much surprised if the hon. Gentleman gets up and says that the evidence given by that trade union is wrong. He will have his opportunity of saying that the trade union was wrong, and that it does not know its business. Then the Committee found that the duty cannot injure any trade; on the contrary, that no trade used domestic hollow-ware in any process of manufacture.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

Except householders.

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

They are not manufacturers.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

They are the most important in the country.

The CHAIRMAN

The Debate is getting rather conversational. There will be opportunities for debate, and I will regard the hon. and gallant Member for Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) with a benevolent eye, as I always do.

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

No manufacturer uses hollow-ware for the further processes of manufacture. Looked at from the other angle, the manufacturer of hollow-ware is a very important user of material in the trade for black sheets, and 95 per cent. of the material used in this industry upon hollow-ware manu- facture is of British manufacture. Therefore, when we consider what effect this is going to have upon any other industry in this country, quite plainly, no industry can be prejudiced, and the sheet trade in this country will benefit by the duty. The Committee formed the opinion that the importations were not abnormal. They are certainly considerable, and I think an impartial judgment of that Report will be that it was a border line case, and that it just fell outside a strict interpretation of the rule. However, we abided strictly by our pledges, and accepted that Report. In view of the circumstances which were disclosed by the Report, and remembering the duty imposed by the Liberals and Conservatives—

Mr. ERNEST BROWN

And opposed by some liberals.

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

—they were always an undisciplined army—and remembering the effects of that duty, obviously this was an industry to be watched. In the interval imports increased, and employment decreased, and there was clearly a case for a fresh inquiry. We referred the application to the same Tribunal which reported on it in 1926, and quite plainly that Tribunal cannot be said by anybody to be prejudiced. The result of the new inquiry, which had the advantage of the results of the census of production in 1924, and also of having certified figures before it, was that it transpired that six out of 18 of the firms engaged in the industry when the inquiry two years before was made, had closed down, and among them was a firm owned by the Co-operative Society. I understand that the reason—

Mr. KIRKWOOD

Why do you talk about the Co-operatives?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

For commiseration; I want to express my sympathy and to give the co-operatives a chance of restarting their factory. I understand that the reason why this Co-operative factory closed down was because the buyers on behalf of the Co-operative Societies found that they could buy, what I might without disrespect call relatively sweated goods, from the Continent, goods produced under conditions of lower wages and longer hours, cheaper than the products of their own factory. That factory had to close down. I hope it will restart as the result of this duty. At any rate, if it does not, other British manufacturers will no doubt be able to fulfil the wants of the Co-operative Societies. Retained imports show a marked increase and are steadily increasing. In 1926 the imports retained were 7,195 tons.

Mr. E. BROWN

Was not that the year of the stoppage? Do not the Committee say so?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

It does not require the evidence of the Committee to inform us of that fact. If the hon. Gentleman would prefer it I can take the year 1925, when the retained imports were 7,821 tons. In 1927, which was not the year of the stoppage, and therefore is a year which should receive more careful consideration—

Mr. BROWN

Quite right.

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

I am so glad to have agreement. In 1927 the retained imports had increased to 9,690 tons. The further we get from the stoppage the greater are the imports. In the first four months of 1928 the imports were at the rate of 10,500 tons a year. When the Coalition Government, under the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, imposed their duty, the imports were 7,634 tons. If it was good enough for the Liberals to impose a duty when the imports were 7,634 tons, surely I ought to have the support of the Members of the party to-day for this duty now that imports have risen to a rate of over 10,000 tons.

Mr. BROWN

I am sorry to interrupt, but would the right hon. Gentleman mind stating the 1913 figures?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

In 1913 the imports were higher, but I agree with the Committee that the year 1913 is not really very relevant to this inquiry. What has happened since then? A wholly new industry has been established in this country. During the War we were not able to get these vast importations. This industry developed during the War, and was able to fulfil all the requirements of this country. Therefore what we have to look at in this wholly new situation is what has been the general trend, and that was what was looked at when the Liberal Prime Minister was in office. The 1913 production and the 1913 imports were just as well known to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs as they are to his followers to-day, and he put on the duty when the rate of importation was only 7,700 tons a year. As importation has gone up, so home production has gone down. In 1926 home production was something like 9,600 tons, and in 1927 8,737 tons, showing a steady reduction in the work of an industry which is perfectly able, as all experience shows—as the year or two immediately after the War shows—to fulfil all our requirements. Side by side with the decrease in production there was a decrease in employment. The Committee estimate that in 1925 3,900 people were employed, in 1926, 3,360 people, and that in 1027 the figure was down to 2,980. The trade union has to pay out more and more in benefits, month by month, exhausting their funds. That ought to carry conviction to the hon. Member for Rochdale. As regards the source of these foreign goods, 66 per cent. come from Germany, 10 per cent. from Belgium, and 12 per cent. from Holland.

Wages are dealt with in Paragraph 19 and the following paragraphs of the report of the Committee. In this country the wages are fixed by a Trade Board. Parliament says what wages have to be paid, and therefore there is some responsibility upon us for seeing that people are able to earn those wages.

Paragraph 19 says of the wages in this country: The following statement indicates the minimum rates per hour payable for the various classes of labour:

Male Workers.	Female Workers (18 years of age and over).
Skilled.	Unskilled.	Time rate.	Piecework basis Time-rate.
1s. 6d. less 5%	11½d.	6¾d.	7½d.

This is the position so far as Germany is concerned: According to the various wage tariffs in force in the Metal Working Industry (within which comes the enamelled Hollow-ware Industry) the time-rates for skilled and semi-skilled workers vary from 61 pf. to 81 pf. (or 8d. to 9¾d.) per hour, and that for unskilled labour from 60 pf. to 66 pf. per hour (or 7¼. to 8d.). To these rates certain small increases granted in December, 1927, and in April of this year, amounting together to approximately 5 per cent., should be added. It would appear from this, and evidence given to us, that the minimum time-rate paid to skilled male workers corresponds to 10d. to 1s. per hour, while the rate paid to unskilled labour corresponds with approximately 9½d. per hour. In the case of one important German works we were informed that the 'weekly earnings' of skilled men, including certain family allowances and increased rates in respect of any hours worked in excess of 48 hours per week, ranged from 57 marks to 67 marks per week of 52 hours. This is equivalent to from 1.11 marks to 1.29 marks (or 1s. 1½d. to 1s. 3½d.) per hour. It will be observed that these are hours in excess of 48. The industry here is working 47 hours a week. When we come to deal with hours the Committee say— The hours of labour in Germany, the only country in respect of which evidence on this question was submitted, are normally restricted to 48 hours per week, and are therefore nominally little in excess of those current in the industry in this country. In many instances, however, overtime is regularly paid, and although paid for at increased rates is looked upon as part of the normal hours of labour. The hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull spoke of the wages he quoted as being the normal wages paid. They are not. It is an overtime rate of wages.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

I was looking at Paragraph 22.

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

That paragraph states: The wages of skilled female labour may be as high as 75 per cent. of the rate for the corresponding male worker, but in general would appear to average 50 pf. (or 6d.) per hour. That compares with 6¾d. to 7½d. in this country. We had in Paragraph 21 the normal German wage as compared with the normal English wage, and it is clear there is a very great disparity. In Belgium the disparity is infinitely greater. The figures are set out in Paragraph 20. As regards the efficiency of the industry, a suggestion was made on the previous occasion that some of the factories were quite efficient and some were not quite efficient. I presume that it is the less efficient factories, with the exception of the Co-operative factory, which have dropped out in the meantime. But the Committee directed their attention to this matter, and a very well informed member of the Committee, Professor Kirkaldy, who has, I suppose, as good a general experience as any professor of appied economics in this country—

Mr. JAMES HUDSON

Where is the evidence of the knowledge that possesses of applied economics?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

I will give the hon. Gentleman that information. I thought Professor Kirkaldy was sufficiently well known. He has been a very distinguished professor at Nottingham University, and was at Birmingham before that. He was so well thought of as a practical economist that he was invited to become president of the Nottingham Chamber of Commerce, and he has, with great success, and, I understand, with the approval of all sides, acted as chairman of the Ministry of Labour Tribunal in that area. He is a gentleman to whom one would naturally look for an impartial and an informed review of this question, because he possesses all the qualifications which the intelligentsia admire. The more men of this character we have in the country, and the more professors we have of that kind, the better. In this industry, the machinery is up-to-date, and it possesses a good and sound organisation. I have already observed that this proposal will help the block sheet trade. The rate proposed is an amount equal to 25 per cent. as against 33⅓ per cent. proposed by the Coalition Government. The proposal allows for some increase in foreign costs, but it still leaves a sufficient margin to keep manufacturers in this country keen and up-to-date. The proposal is that the duty should operate for five years.

I notice that there is an Amendment on the Paper to reduce that period to one year, but my opinion is that, if you are to have a duty at all, it would be quite futile to impose it for one year only. Therefore, without hesitation, I invite the Committee to reaffirm the principle which they have already accepted and that the duty should run for a reasonable period of time. The estimated revenue obtainable from this duty is something like £100,000 in a full year and £70,000 this year. It is not a very large sum, but I think it is well worth while imposing the duty. In view of the exhaustive inquiries made into this industry, and in view of its past history, I think it is quite clear that we should be guilty of a breach of our pledges if we did not impose this duty, and I hope the House will unhesitatingly adopt this Resolution.

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER

I wish in the first place to utter an emphatic protest on behalf of the House of Commons against the complete contempt with which the Government has treated the Committee. I think I shall be able to show that my charge is fully justified. After all the House of Commons is the one authority in the country which is responsible for the taxation of His Majesty's subjects, and of all the things which this House is called upon to consider nothing is so vital and important as the arrangements made for the incidence of taxation. What is the position here? We have been asked once more to impose taxation at very short notice upon His Majesty's subjects purely on the recommendation of three most estimable gentlemen who have been selected ex parte by the President of the Board of Trade.

The House of Commons has had no opportunity whatever of preparing itself to decide the important issue as to whether His Majesty's subjects ought to be taxed in this way. The Report on this subject which is dated 19th May, 1928, was never made available to hon. Members until the evening of the 6th of June, and the question has been put down for discussion on the 8th of June. Consequently, no adequate opportunity has been given to the House of Commons to prepare for this Debate, and besides this the Government have chosen to take this Resolution on a Friday. I suggest that the Government have done everything they can to prejudice the issue which is now before the Committee. Moreover the Government have not taken adequate steps to see that Members of the House of Commons get the first information on this question. I have in my possession a letter written from a gentleman connected with the trade—not from a person who is a manufacturer but who is interested in the inquiry. It is a letter dated 24th May, and it was written to a Member of Parliament. That letter is to the effect: That they understand that the duty is to be imposed and that it is not to be 33⅓ per cent. as on previous occasions but 25 per cent., as recommended by the Committee, and that it will operate on or about the early part of June. The Members of the House of Commons have been kept in complete ignorance of that information.

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

Is the hon. Member making a charge against me? I have no hesitation in saying that no information has been given to any parties to this inquiry or any persons in any quarter until the notice appeared on the Order Paper.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Of course, I do not charge the right hon. Gentleman with a personal breach of trust.

Sir P. CUNCIFFE-LISTER

But is the hon. Member charging my Department?

Mr. ALEXANDER

My charge is that important information has been allowed to leak out from the Committee which the right hon. Gentleman has selected, and which works under the jurisdiction of his Department. That information has been allowed to leak out not to a firm of manufacturers, but to the very kind of persons to whom the right hon. Gentleman would least wish it to be revealed. [Interruption].

The CHAIRMAN

I hope these interruptions will not continue, and that the hon. Member will be allowed to proceed uninterrupted.

Mr. ALEXANDER

What I say is that when a person can forecast a change from 33⅓ per cent. to 25 per cent., and indicate the date on which the duty is to operate, as was done in the letter which I have quoted, it is evident that there must have been a leakage somewhere. I consider it to be a perfect scandal that the Members of the British House of Commons should be placed in such a humiliating position when they are called upon to decide vital matters affecting the taxation of the people of this country. While I do not for a moment suggest that either of the Ministers in charge of this Motion has been guilty of divulging information, nevertheless the Government are responsible for seeing that such information is not allowed to leak out before the matter has been dealt with by the House of Commons. The next thing that I would say is this. [Interruption.] I said that the information was revealed, not to a firm of manufacturers, but to the very kind of people to whom the hon. and gallant Member would least wish it to be revealed. If there is anything in the case of the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft), it is this, that, if the information is divulged before it is dealt with by the House of Commons, it is possible, before the operation of the Duty—and I have no doubt at all that the people concerned have taken steps to do this—to stock themselves in advance.

Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT

I think the hon. Member ought to give the name of the firm.

Mr. ALEXANDER

I am quite prepared to give the name of the firm to the President of the Board of Trade, but it will naturally be understood that it is not for me, without permission, to divulge in the House of Commons something which I have not been empowered to divulge. The hon. and gallant Member knows quite well, however, that any Member of this House would be lacking in his duty if he did not raise such a question affecting the privileges of the House.

The President of the Board of Trade says that this short Report which has been submitted by this Committee of his selection is not only short but convincing. We have had to deal at various times with reports issued under this new safeguarding procedure, but I do not think it would be possible to find any one of the reports which have been issued by such Committees that is less convincing or more full of contradictions and inaccuracies than the Report which the right hon. Gentleman is now asking us to consider. A duty was imposed according to the President of the Board of Trade, from 1922 to 1924. I do not think it was intentional, but it was curious that the President of the Board of Trade, right through his speech, failed to inform the House that that Duty was only imposed against the exports of one country. It did not apply generally to hollow-ware imported into this country from other countries than Germany, and the imports from those countries were never subjected to duty from 1922 to 1924.

In 1926, the same Committee that has presented this Report in 1928 turned down the request for the imposition of a duty. They turned it down on three grounds, which are clearly defined under the safeguarding procedure of the Government. In the first place, they reported that the imports were not abnormal, and, secondly, that there was no serious discrepancy between the prices of home and imported goods. [Interruption.] That is my reading of the Report. Thirdly, they reported that the trade as a whole was not being conducted efficiently. They reported very clearly under those three heads in 1926, but now, in 1928, in the short space of two years, the Government bung, of course, very anxious to placate the eagerness and importunities of the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth and his friends[Interruption]—in that short space of time the same Committee, consisting of the same three gentlemen, execute a complete volte-face. It is curious to note that the President of the Board of Trade said that the Committee had paid special attention to the question of efficiency, and arranged for a most eminent member of the Committee, Professor Kirkaldy, to visit certain factories in order to satisfy himself on that question, and, he having satisfied himself, I take it that his decision was taken as read by the other members of the Committee.

Mr. E. BROWN

He signed the reservation to the first Report.

Mr. ALEXANDER

I was just going to point that out. The gentleman who was thus selected to satisfy himself is a professor who may have some qualifications in economics, and may have some experience in such matters, but whose principal degrees are literary degrees. His qualifications are given on the front of the Report as Master of Arts and Bachelor of Literature. I dare say he gives very learned discourses on Plato and other interesting subjects—

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Herbert Williams)

Surely, the hon. Member is aware that many Universities grant an Arts degree in economics, and not a Science degree.

Mr. ALEXANDER

I am quite well aware of that, but it is curious that we have only these two degrees and no mention of anything else. Here you have a gentleman who has these qualifications, who, so far as we know, has very little commercial or industrial experience, and who, after the first inquiry, signed a Minority Report clearly showing that he wanted a tariff put on, and he goes to satisfy himself as to the conditions of the industry. What is the position with regard to that? The first Report said that four or five firms were fairly efficient. Professor Kirkaldy has visited seven all told. Did he include the four or five reported upon before; and might we ask whether, among the seven firms that he visited, any were included who are not asking for a duty because they are so efficient that they can do without it? Not a bit of information of that kind is given to us in the Report, and there is no conclusive evidence in the Report to show that there has been any material change from the general position of the industry as the Committee found it in 1926.

Let me deal with the question of imports, of which the President of the Board of Trade has made a great deal this morning. I should like to examine the facts upon which the Committee apparently based their revised opinion. What you have to establish under the safeguarding procedure is that the imports are abnormal, and I take it that, if the Committee cannot establish to the President of the Board of Trade the fact that the imports are abnormal, he cannot, under the safeguarding procedure, ask the House to give a duty. I should like to examine that very carefully. In the first place, the Committee say that the imports increased from 7,888 tons in 1925 to 9,754 tons in 1927; but the pre-War average from 1910 to 1913—not the figure for a selected year—was 12,614 tons, of which the imports retained for home consumption were no less than 12,548 tons. In 1913 itself, the retained imports were 13,538 tons, and in 1927 they were 9,754 tons. In other words, in 1913 the proportion of imported goods in this trade was getting on for 300 per cent. of the total home consumption, whereas in 1927 it was only about 140 per cent. Is there any basis at all for deciding, on those figures, that the importation of goods of this trade is abnormal? Surely, there is no foundation for it at all. I see that the hon. Member for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto) smiles. Is it going to be suggested that every trade in this country which had to establish itself under certain conditions specially arising during the War must, if it has failed to retain all the trade which it had during the War, have a duty?

Sir BASIL PETO

If the hon. Member is putting that question to me, I should like to reply to it by putting one to him. Is he anxious that the industries which arose in this country during the War should necessarily be killed and done away with immediately the War ended?

Mr. ALEXANDER

The answer to that is quite simple. It all depends upon whether the industry is an economic and profitable one. If it is going to be suggested that industries are economic and profitable when they are subsidised out of the public purse—because it is the public purse when you tax the subject—that is advancing a very different theory. We are going from this country to Geneva saying that we are all in favour of breaking down barriers, fiscal and otherwise, between nations, and yet, apparently, according to the principle of the hon. Member for Barnstaple, we are to embark on a policy which says that, wherever there were certain kinds of trade during the War, it is essential in our interests, and without any regard to the ultimate effect upon the general standard of labour throughout the world, which, after all, has its effect upon our own people, we are to subsidise it on an uneconomic basis. That is a fiscal theory to which we, at any rate, can never give assent. [Interruption.]

The CHAIRMAN

I must really ask hon. Members not to continually interrupt. We cannot have a Debate with these continual interruptions all round the House.

Mr. ALEXANDER

I want to say something more about the Committee's figures. If you take home production pre-War plus the retained imports for home consumption, you find that the home consumption in 1913 was 17,850 tons. Paragraph 10 of the Committee's Report does this curious thing. It takes certain selected years, which they think are the only years in respect of which any comparable figures can be obtained. They say: It will be noted that the average importation for 1921 and 1922, the two years considered at our last inquiry as most fair and normal for comparative purposes, is 8,134 tons, while that for 1926 and 1927, the two years under review, the figure rises to 8,519 tons. Corresponding figures for imports retained here are 8,071 tons, the average for 1921 and 1922, and 8,442 tons, that for 1926 and 1927. Let us examine the figures, therefore, on the basis of their selected years. Take home production in the years 1921 and 1922. In 1921 it was 7,150 tons and in 1922 9,966 tons. The average of these two years was 8,558. Take the years 1926 and 1927. In 1926 it was 9,579 tons and in 1927, 8,727 tons, an average of 9,158 tons, actually an average increase of 600 tons over 1921 and 1922 in 1926 and 1927. What evidence is there there of a really declining home production? It is most significant that in this paragraph 10, the actual figures of the imports are quoted, but in the last Clause of the paragraph they say: Both the home production and the exports of home produce show a downward tendency in recent years. 12.0 n.

They are very careful not to draw attention to the fact I have quoted that the average of the two selected years that they themselves chose is higher than in 1921 and 1922. Let me deal on the same basis with exports. If you take the selected years again of 1921 and 1922, the exports of British products are 1,737 and 1,884 tons. In 1926 and 1927, the figures had increased to 2,794 and 2,206 tons. These are the two periods selected for comparison by the Committee themselves, and both sets of figures I have quoted show that their findings are not justified by the actual figures that are now submitted. I should like to say something further with regard to the figures given by the Committee. On page 9 of the 1928 Report—

Mr. KIRKWOOD

May I call your attention, Sir, to the fact that there are not 40 Members present?

The CHAIRMAN

An adjournment cannot take place at this time of day on a Friday.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

We have had a count several times on a Friday. This is a new rule.

The CHAIRMAN

It was changed comparatively recently.

Mr. ALEXANDER

The figures given for 1926 and 1927 are given in two sets and are bracketed. The first figure in each case is the figure submitted by the applicants. When the inquiry opened, the figures submitted by the applicants were challenged, and it was found they were so unreliable that it was necessary to secure an independent audit certificate of production. Take the year 1924, given in column 3. There the home production is given as 10,567 tons. But the Committee had the advantage of having, on the second occasion, the figures of the census of production of 1924 and, as a fact, the actual figure of production in the census returns was not 10,567, but 14,070. That is to say, the applicants for a duty have only understated the figures of home production by 40 per cent. It illustrates clearly to what flights of fancy a tariffist will go when making an application for Protection. It reminds me of the letter to the "Times" the other day by Professor Pope with regard to the evidence before the Merchandise Marks Inquiry with regard to Sheffield cutlery. He pointed out that, if the figures submitted by the cutlery industry in respect of their application for merchandise marks were correct, it would mean that nearly 800,000,000 tons of safety razor blades would reach this country and that each man, woman and child would consume on the average about 20,000,000 blades, weighing between 19 and 20 tons and, taking the price at 2d. a piece, each inhabitant of the country would spend £100,000 per annum on safety razor blades. That was his analysis of the figures submitted by a tariffist who wanted further protection.

The whole of the figures in this report are unreliable. You cannot depend upon one of them. We have protested on many occasions against the method of dealing with these applications. When you get information of this kind, it shows clearly that you ought to have a judicial committee instead of a committee appointed in an ex parte way and you ought to be able to produce evidence upon oath. I am sure the hon. Members below the Gangway would welcome that from some points of view. If the safeguarding procedure is to go on we will support an application to the Government for a Committee of a judicial character and for evidence to be taken on oath. It seems to be essential in view of the discrepancies which have now made themselves plain in these reports.

Take the question of the figures with regard to employment. The President of the Board of Trade has made considerable play with the fact that trade unions have submitted evidence with regard to employment. They are entitled to do so. We on this side of the Committee should not agree for one moment in saying that it was right and proper for trade unions to refuse information about employment to any Government inquiry that was being held. You have produced no evidence that the majority of members of the unions covering these trades have instructed their officials to make definite application on their behalf in respect of the duty. That is a different matter. I should always expect that the trade unions would be prepared to give figures with regard to employment. If you take the actual figures that were given, you get on balance a net decrease in the amount of employment of 380 workers since the last report was issued. If you were dealing with that fact alone, I agree that it would be a very strong point for Members opposite, but, when you examine the facts, you find the position is quite different.

If you take one firm, that of Macfarlane and Robinson, who closed down and who were employing nearly 500 workers, they account for more than the total loss of 380 workers in the industry. It would still be a strong point for hon. Members opposite if it could be shown that that factory closed down because of serious and sweated foreign competition. As a matter of fact, Mr. Macfarlane, the principal partner in that firm, appeared as a witness before the inquiry opposing the duty and made it quite clear that the necessity for closing their factory was not because of foreign competition but because they themselves had adopted wrong lines, that they had not specialised and that they had been largely responsible for their own failure. Here is the admission of the principal of the firm before the inquiry, and the number of people who were thrown out of work as a result of the inefficiency of that factory more than accounts for the net loss.

Mr. WOMERSLEY

Is it not due to imports?

Mr. ALEXANDER

Therefore, there is very little indeed in the paragraph dealing with employment to show that a case is made out with regard to the safeguarding proceedings. There are many other points to which one could easily draw attention, but I do not want to take up too much of the time of the Committee. I do not think that out of any of the reports of the various Committees with which I have had to deal since this procedure was adopted there has been one which was less satisfactory and less convincing than the one which is now submitted. I would say that undoubtedly there is no need for a duty if British firms would put their own house in order—not the slightest need. The Parliamentary Secretary seems doubtful about that. I will give at once my reason for saying that. Take the case of Mr. Stevens, of Cradley Heath, a very important manufacturer in the trade. I speak with experience of this case, because we are very large purchasers. I say quite advisedly that, wherever we can get British goods of equal quality and attractive to our customers, we shall purchase them. We find, when we sell the goods of Mr. Ernest Stevens, of Cradley Heath, that they actually compete with and displace on the market in quality and in price very often the goods which are coming from abroad. If the whole of the trade were conducted on the same specialised lines, with the same measure of efficiency, with the same commercial efficiency in salesmanship, in regard to which we have, apparently, much to learn from the foreigners against whom we want to put a fiscal barrier—if these things were done, there would not be the slightest need for a duty of this kind.

In conclusion, I would say that after the famous appeal to the country in 1923—the appeal made by the Prime Minister—and after the party opposite had met a very severe defeat at the polls, they held a memorable meeting at the Hotel Cecil at which we were assured that they had buried Protection and had taken it out of their electoral programme altogether. [Interruption.] That statement was made at the time. We were then told that all that would be done would be to have some measures of safeguarding introduced. Well, we have had them introduced one after another.

Mr. ERSKINE

What harm have they done?

Mr. ALEXANDER

Some of them have done considerable harm, and, when we come to a general Debate on the whole question, we shall not hesitate to expose the harm that has been done. The greatest harm is very often done to the consumer. [Interruption.] I should like the hon. Gentleman to go into any retail shop that is dealing with china in this country and purchase—

The CHAIRMAN

I would remind the hon. Member that he is getting away from the subject.

Mr. ALEXANDER

I did not want it to appear that I was unwilling to deal with points that had been made in the Debate. The Government are now introducing, step by step, something which will soon approach the nature of a general tariff. You can go on corrupting the country bit by bit by altering sectional trades one after the other, and it may be—and I say that it is a real danger—that small groups of workers in certain trades may also be drawn away from their proper view of what the effect of this policy will be upon their standard of life generally. They are taken separately and given, what we have never denied, specially stated terms, and they will wake up and find that they have arrived at very much the same state as the workers in other protectionist countries, where, instead of the workers having their general standards permanently raised and their whole conditions improved, they are always generally below the standards of life and of comfort which have been for so long the possession of the workers of this country. [Interruption.] Of course, we have never yet been satisfied upon these benches with that standard. Your own Prime Minister has said again and again from that side of the House that with one exception only we have a higher standard of life for our workers in this country than is possessed by any other country.

Mr. ERSKINE

What are you complaining about?

Mr. ALEXANDER

What I am complaining about is that by having a general protectionist policy we shall get a worse standard of life like that in protectionist countries throughout the world. It is because of that that we take the view we do upon this question. We are quite prepared to adopt any reasonable measures for the improvement of British industry and for the improvement of the standard of life of the workers, but we say that anything that interferes with the consumer and ultimately restricts the purchasing power of the wages the workers receive cannot be of benefit to the whole of the working-class community, and we therefore oppose the duty which is now proposed.

Sir JOHN POWER

We have listened to very able special pleading on behalf of the middle-men, an endeavour to retain the extra profits which come to them as the product of sweated labour in foreign goods. So long as this country is deluged with foreign merchandise, produced by sweated labour, it naturally brings down the price of the English manufacturer and keeps him in a state verging on bankruptcy. It seems an astonishing thing to me that the hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) should make a speech which really virtually means a new slogan: "Sweated goods for co-ops." I never heard such a mass of contradictory arguments in my life. As we prove, and we do prove conclusively, that the arguments put forward against this reasonable and sensible form of protecting ourselves, are wrong, fresh arguments are put up. I notice, for instance, that the hon. Member complains that although this particular Committee, composed of exactly the same personnel, in 1925 acted quite rightly, efficiently and honourably, in 1928 it is both inefficient and unfair. I cannot see that that argument is likely to convince the House.

The whole question is a question of wages. I will ask the hon. Member this question: Is he satisfied with the wages that are paid to the foreign workers and does he advocate similar wages being paid to British workmen? If he considers that the wages that are paid to foreign workmen are sweated wages, and that the worker is being oppressed thereby, why should he expect British workmen to produce goods at the same price as the foreigner, if they have to be paid for producing the same goods 50 per cent. more wages than the foreigner? How does he expect the British worker is going to make up the difference? Does he think that the British worker is so much more intelligent and so much more efficient that the manufacturer can afford to pay him so much more in wages, and does he think it logical to expect that goods produced by wages that are in some cases double the wages paid to the foreigner can be sold at the same price as the foreign goods? The whole thing seems to me to show a remarkable lack of recognition of the facts of existence. I know that, in theory, one can prove most things, but in practice that does not work out. I think Mr. Joseph Chamberlain on one occasion said that you cannot hold a man's head under water for ever but you can hold it under water sufficiently long to drown him. That is exactly what is happening in the case of the importation of foreign goods. I know of a case where the price of foreign goods has been gradually reduced until it has practically killed any competition from these shores, and as soon as the British competition ceased, prices went up almost immediately. So this policy of cat and mouse went on until the British manufacturer gives the thing up as a bad job.

I do not agree with the hon. Member for Hillsborough that the only person to be considered is the middleman. The middleman is not of the same importance to the country as the producer. What we want to do in this country is to foster production. The more production there is in this country the better it will be for everybody, including the workers. If you keep a trade on the verge of bankruptcy how can you expect it to adopt all the modern improvements that are constantly coming forward in industry? How can you expect the manufacturers to give extra facilities, benefits and advantages to their workers? I know from my own experience that there is no one more anxious to do what he can for his workpeople than the average British employer, and if he is in a position to do it he will do it, but if by your action you keep him in a position that he is unable to do it, then it is the workers who suffer

The party opposite remind me of what my scientific friends tell me was the case in antedeluvian life with regard to the huge monsters that grew to such enormous length. These monsters had a nervous system which took a very long time to convey to their brains anything that was happening to them. Consequently they were exterminated, because if they were attacked in the rear it frequently took them five or six minutes to realise it.

The CHAIRMAN

How does the hon. Member connect this example of primitive zoology to this Motion with regard to hollow-ware?

Sir J. POWER

My analogy was that it seems to take a very long time for the direct facts of industrial existence to reach the sluggish brains of my hon. Friends opposite. Many of us on this side of the House are agreed that the conditions laid down in the White Paper with regard to safeguarding are extremely difficult if not almost impossible to fulfil. A great many Members of my party wish to see the conditions of the White Paper modified, and to see them made more reasonable, in order to give the manufacturer a fair chance. In many instances the British manufacturer is not able to put up the funds necessary in connection with an application of this kind which the opulent foreign importer is able to do. That is one of the disabilities we suffer from, and I sincerely hope that the Government in their wisdom will, before very long, find the best way of modifying the very strenuous and onerous conditions which any applicant for a policy of safeguarding has to undergo.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

I do not think the President of the Board of Trade has been present during the discussions of the last few weeks on finance and rating. We were told last night that the object of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as no doubt the President of the Board of Trade must have known, is to strike the shackles off industry, to remove the dead weight, to free the channels. I am sorry that my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) is not here to-day to answer the unseemly quips of the President of the Board of Trade, in what he described as Latinised Lime-house.

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

I am throwing out a lifeline.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

But all the industries of this country are saved. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has done it. The safeguarding, the McKenna Duties, the Reparation Duties have failed, and now we have this complicated system of rate relief. I do not want to go into the question, because I cannot believe that the President of the Board of Trade does not know what has been going on. There may have been a case last year for the importunities of the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Brigadier-General Sir H. Croft) when the Government were doing nothing for British industries. If you are doing nothing even a quack remedy may help, even safeguarding may be useful, but when a man is no longer in the water but is on the bank, why throw a lifeline out to him?

The CHAIRMAN

I am afraid that this discussion is generating into what is known in academic circles as a rag. I suggest that the hon. and gallant Member should come to the question of hollow-ware.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

Far be it from me to take any proposal of the Government without great seriousness, and if I am in any way ragging, I wish to apologise. Hollow-ware is a productive industry. It is produced from iron, copper and steel. These are the very things that are going to be relieved by the Government in October, 1929, by direct rating relief in the first place, and secondly, by relief of rates on transport undertakings. They are going to get cheaper coal and cheaper steel, lower rates; they will not need this lifeline, this great constructive proposal which the Government are attempting to apply to the salvation of British industry which is to come into force next year. Whenever I have referred to the proposals of the Government I have always paid a tribute to the imagination behind them and to the honest endeavours of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to find a way out of the difficulties in which British industry is placed at the moment, but I do not think he will ever succeed until he adopts the suggestions which have been put forward from these benches on so many occasions.

Why is it necessary to ask for this special Duty for five years for this par- titular industry, which I should think would be one of the very first to benefit under the rating proposals of the Government? They will get their raw materials and transport cheaper, why then do they want this miserable tariff of 25 per cent.? The President of the Board of Trade must have been unaware, or have overlooked, the policy of his own Cabinet, otherwise he would not have brought forward this proposal. If you look at the Report itself you will find a good instance of a cause being damned with faint praise—I am speaking of the Report of 1928. There is no marked difference between the wages paid in Germany and Czechoslovakia and the wages paid in this country. A great deal of the labour employed in this industry is female labour. I wonder how many girls under the age of 18 years are employed in it; and what wages they get? The tendency in industry to-day is to take in young girls just after they have left school and keep them for a few years at low wages until they get married, or are sacked. That is the modern industrial practice to-day. It is said that the female workers in this industry are paid a time rate wage of 6¾d. per hour, and it will be found that the wages of the skilled female workers amongst our competitors on the Continent average about 6d. per hour. There is not a vast difference there. Where are the sweated wages on the Continent which the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) talks about?

Sir H. CROFT

Look at Belgium.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

I am taking the average on the Continent, and that is 6d. per hour. The hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth weeps over these sweated female workers in Czechoslovakia and still more over those in Belgium, who are paid 2¾d. per hour. I admit that the Belgian workers are terribly underpaid, but so are the British workers. There is not much difference between the wages paid on the Continent and the wages paid in this country.

Mr. WOMERSLEY

It is 6¾d. against 2¾d.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

I am sorry the hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Womersley) is so stubborn. If he will read the Report he will see that it says that the general average on the Continent is 6d. per hour. He will find it in paragraph 22.

Commander WILLIAMS

Surely that paragraph refers to Germany and not to the whole of the Continent.

The CHAIRMAN

I must remind hon. Members once more that it is impossible to conduct the Debate with these constant interruptions.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

I take it from the hon. and gallant Member for Torquay (Commander Williams) that the workers in Germany, the sweated, downtrodden female workers in Germany, are paid 6d. per hour; and our own British working girl gets 6¾d. I wonder what wages girls under 18 get? I am told by the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) that they get 8s. per week. I wonder the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth does not lead a revolt in the country against this. Is this proposal going to raise their wages? Has any Safeguarding Duty when it has been applied to other industries substantially raised wages? I challenge hon. Members opposite to give one instance where there has been a substantial rise in wages as a result of any of these duties. We are told that the price is not going to be raised to the consumer. The President of the Board of Trade made that case in his speech today. How are you going to raise wages with only a 25 per cent. duty when the female workers of Belgium are getting 2d. or 3d. per hour? I ask hon. Members opposite to be reasonable and to explain how this is going to be done.

Mr. DIXEY

By increasing output.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

We were told that that would happen in the case of silk; but it has not. There has been more unemployment in that industry and the output has not been doubled. Has the output been increased in any industry to which safeguarding has been applied?

Mr. DIXEY

Artificial silk.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

Artificial silk, like motors, is a special case. It is a wonderful discovery. The wearing of artificial silk has increased while the wearing of cotton and woollen goods has gone down. The increase in the output is due to a change in female fashions; and a very attractive change, too. I say that prices are bound to be raised to the consumer; that this proposal will not mean any increased wages to the workers but increased profits to the manufacturers. I am going to quote a very high authority in this connection. The President of the Board of Trade fortified himself with the opinion of the Coalition Liberals. I have never defended their action, in fact, I have always attacked them. One of the most prominent of the Coalition Liberals was the right hon. Gentleman the late Member for Carmarthen (Sir A. Mond), who is so highly thought of, and rightly, as an economist and great captain of industry that the Prime Minister recommended his name to His Majesty for signal honour. He now goes to another place—where some day I may have to continue the duel with him. I can well remember the right hon. Gentleman, then the flower of the Coalition Liberals, standing at the Dispatch Box and being interrupted by a question as to whether the proposed safeguarding duties, which he was advocating, would not raise prices? "Yes," he said. He was quite honest about it. He said, "Of course, they would raise prices. That was the object of the duty." Who is right, the President of the Board of Trade or the right hon. Member for Carmarthen? Who has had the more successful and famous industrial career in the country, the President of the Board of Trade or the right hon. Member for Carmarthen, who knows what he is talking about? The President of the Board of Trade says that prices will not be raised and the right hon. Member for Carmarthen said that they must be raised. The right hon. Member for Carmarthen has received a very high honour on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, and deservedly so, for he is one of the most successful business men in Europe. He has never asked for a dole.

Mr. DIXEY

He is an anti-Socialist.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

An anti-Socialist, yes, and his statement was that safeguarding duties would raise prices. I think, therefore, that the duty must raise prices to the consumers. We hear that pots and pans and bins and all the other domestic utensils made out of enamelled hollow-ware are not the raw material of any industry. I say that they are the raw material of the most important industry of the country—the keeping of homes, the rearing of children and the carrying on of the burden of this great Empire on which the sun never sets, of which hon. Gentleman opposite are so fond of boasting at election times and which they forget at other times.

The CHAIRMAN

This is a very concrete matter—enamelled hollow-ware—and I must ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman to keep more closely to the subject.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

I will ask the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. H. Williams), who, as Parliamentary Secretary, no doubt will reply, as he did on buttons, to explain this: In the 1926 Report, Command Paper 2634, paragraph 13, it was reported by the same gentleman: We received no evidence that

1. (a) the depreciation in currency, or
2. (b) subsidies exist sufficiently to render the present competition unfair."

That was when they rejected the application. They then go on to say: As to (c) we are of opinion from the evidence that remuneration for labour in most of the competing countries is slightly below that ruling here, and also that hours worked in Continental factories are rather in excess of those current in England. That is not very strong; there is no wide gap there. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether the currencies have depreciated since the 1926 Report. We know of course that they have not. We know that they have been stabilised; the mark has been stabilised, the Belgian franc has been made more or less stable, and the Czechoslovakian currency has been stabilised too. Have any extra subsidies been given on the Continent so as to alter to our detriment the Report that was made in 1926? Thirdly, has there been an increase in the gap—it is not a wide gap—between continental wages and British wages? My impression is that the general level of British wages has gone down; in most industries there has been a terrible falling-off in wages.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS

Since when?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

In the last few years, since 1926.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS

In what industry?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

In most industries. We have had Parliamentary Papers given us on the subject. The matter should not be in dispute, and I do not want to argue it. There has not been a great falling-off in wages on the Continent as far as I know. If there has been, let us know how much the gap has widened. It has not widened. If workers on the Continent do not work for more hours, if the working day here is not shorter, if the difference in favour of the foreign manufacturer is not greater, let us be told so. I deny that low wages and a long working day lead to greater efficiency. We ought to adopt the short working day and the high wages of the United States.

Mr. DIXEY

And protection?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

No, certainly not. If, as I say, the gap has not widened, I hold that the opinion expressed by the Committee in 1926 holds good to-day and we have no business to put on this Duty. The Government pick out an industry here and an industry there and give each a special favour. I do not often go to race meetings, but I am told that there was a big race meeting last Wednesday. Suppose that the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth was there and could not see the races, and suppose that the hon. Member for Reading was there too and could not see over the crowd, and I came along with a packing case or a tub and offered it to the hon. Member for Reading. He would feel comfortable on a tub. Suppose that I helped him up and he was then able to see quite beautifully. Of course he would get an advantage. You pick out a little industry here which employs 3,000 people, less than half the number that we employ in the docks at Hull. This little industry you pick out and you give it this tariff in a Free Trade country, in a country that is still Free Trade in spite of the depredations of the Coalition Liberals, supported gladly and egged on and blackmailed by the Conservatives.

You give an advantage here and a disadvantage there. You do not raise the level of wages in a particular industry, not at all. Until you put up the price of food and essentials wages, under the present Capitalist system, will not rise. You add to the profits of a few manufacturers and shareholders. You reduce our exports by reducing our imports—that is if you are successful. You take away work from stevedores and dockers and ships. You are no better off. That is the sop that is thrown by the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth.

Mr. SMEDLEY CROOKE

I do not intend to follow the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy), in the remarks which he has made upon this subject. One reason why I do not propose to do so is that I am not so accustomed to speaking here, and although I have been a Member of Parliament for five or six years I have seldom troubled the House of Commons with any remarks. Consequently, I should find myself at a grave disadvantage in crossing swords with my hon. and gallant Friend. He has pooh-poohed the idea of this safeguarding measure because, he says, it will not find work for many men, but I think any effort made by anybody to provide work, even for a few, is not a thing to be joked about, but ought to be taken quite seriously. I realise that the Government in bringing forward this proposal are not anxious that Members of their own party should waste the time of the Committee in talking about it. The time available would be better employed in hearing what the Opposition and those who do not believe in safeguarding have to say about it. But I think on a matter of this kind, a representative of one of the Divisions of Birmingham should have something to say, and as I represent what is, I suppose, the poorest Division of Birmingham, it is only natural that I should raise my voice in support of this proposal, which will undoubtedly bring employment to some of the people there.

No one pretends that the hollow-ware industry is one of our basic industries, but, at the same time, no one can say that is of mushroom growth. In the Division which I represent it has been carried on for many years. I know the conditions pertaining to the industry there, and I know those conditions from the angle of the workmen and workwomen. This is neither the occasion or the place for talking about one's self but it is, I think, only fair to state that for five and a half years I have met the workers in my Division weekly. I have devoted every Friday evening—when the House is sitting—to meeting the workers in my Division so that those who cannot express themselves in letters to me can attend at some central place, where they know I am to be found, and express their views to me as their Member. Therefore, I can look upon this industry from the workers' point of view. I know the men and women engaged in it who are now either unemployed or on short time because of unfair foreign competition. They ask me to find them work in some other industry until times are better, and yet all the time foreign competition becomes worse. We heard from the President of the Board of Trade of the increase in imports—not imports which go away from the country again but imports which are retained in the country. Apart from the figures contained in the White Paper, we have heard this morning that there is a further increase for the period since the White Paper was published. Unless something is done, the industry will be gradually wiped out and the people in the country will be using foreign-made instead of British-made articles. The hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull spoke about the raising of prices. When the question of wrapping-paper came before Parliament it was said over and over again that, if safeguarding were allowed, the price would be increased. I have made it my business to get in touch with the Paper-makers Association.

The CHAIRMAN

I stopped an hon. Member on the other side from dealing with china. I am afraid I could not allow a detailed discussion about other articles.

Mr. CROOKE

I shall certainly bow to your ruling and I do not wish to say anything that you would consider to be out of order. I merely wished to mention, by way of illustration, that I had evidence to show that in the case of wrapping-paper prices have not increased. I do not think I need detain the Committee longer. The mere fact that I am here as the representative of a Division of Birmingham is, I think, sufficient to justify my intervention in the Debate. We know the great help which safeguarding is giving to other industries like the motor car and motor tyre industries and therefore I support the Resolution.

Mr. E. BROWN

I rise to oppose this duty and I associate myself at once with the protest made by the hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) against the haste with which this Debate has been arranged. It is quite impossible for Members who have been taking an active part in the Debates on the Government rating proposals, to make the inquiries necessary from the point of view of those who handle hollow-ware whether in the home or as importers or manufacturers. It has been impossible for them to analyse the second White Paper with the care that it deserves and this Committee has not been treated with the respect to which it is entitled. This subject has been placed on the Order Paper within a day and a half of the production of the second White Paper. It seems to me to call for some inquiry because the learned professor—to whom the President of the Board of Trade has paid what is doubtless a well deserved tribute—was himself obviously inclined to a duty in the first inquiry. He signed a reservation then, which shows that he would have preferred to sign the second document then rather than the first one. It is largely on his evidence of inquiries made in seven factories, that the second report has reversed the decision of the first report.

It is not my task here to talk about the Coalition. When the President of the Board of Trade was in favour of it, I was against it. In the first election which I fought in 1918, the coupon was against me and the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. H. Morrison) was strongly in favour of it. When I came to fight a second election, he was against what he had favoured on the first occasion. It is, therefore, special pleading on the part of the President of the Board of Trade, when he comes forward with one of these duties, to use that argument in favour of it, because he knows that the Coalition Liberals did not represent the Liberal party, as such, at that period. He knows that although the larger number of Liberals then in the House favoured the Coalition, yet the organised party outside, through its elected repre- sentatives in the National Liberal Federation, always opposed the Coalition and always opposed safeguarding and Protectionist measures. It is a singular thing for the President of the Board of Trade to use that argument in the presence of his hon. Friends over there. They would be very much upset with me, I am sure, if the question of Ireland happened to come up and if I used against them the argument that Conservative votes had been given in favour of Home Rule because they were then in the Coalition Government. I do not wish to pursue that argument, but many die-hard Protectionists were also diehard anti-Home Rulers—

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member will realise that he is going beyond the Motion.

Mr. BROWN

I was only using an illustration, and my excuse is that the President of the Board of Trade himself raised this issue. I will only say this, that I think we may dismiss the Coalition, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman, in his arguments on this matter in the future, will remember the story of the Welsh boy, who summed up the Coalition—[Interruption]. The right hon. Gentleman was one of those who paid great tributes to the Leader of the Liberal party at that period.

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

I would do so again to-day.

Mr. BROWN

The Welsh boy summed up the Coalition by saying it was half a rat and half a bird; one half wanted to go out in the dark, and the other half wanted to go out in daylight, so it went out in the twilight.

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is out of order.

Mr. BROWN

I wish to point out that, in my judgment, when the Members of the Coalition supported tariffs they were acting the part of the darkness and not of the light, and, therefore, we are glad to know that to-day there is a large and growing body of opinion which at one time, during the War, might have supported notions of this kind, but which is now entirely against them. It is special pleading on the part of the President of the Board of Trade to go back to the Coalition, which the party opposite themselves destroyed, and to pretend that they can now argue the decisions arrived at in that period in favour of this application. With regard to the merits of the application, we get the same process each time in all the Debates on these continuous decisions to impose petty taxes in favour of industries which are substantial according to the procedure of the White Paper, but which, on the whole, are not substantial, as the hon. Member for Deritend (Mr. Crooke) has just said, if they are viewed as basic trades.

I oppose this duty, not merely because I believe that the White Paper does not make out a case for it—a less convincing document I have never read in the whole of the long series of documents which we have had in the course of this wretched safeguarding procedure—but because the Committee points out that this is not a duty which will interfere with any other industry. The point is that in almost every case, where a tax of this kind has been applied, it affects a product which is not a raw material or a semi-raw material of some other industry, as would be the case if this principle were applied to a big basic industry, but it affects really the woman in the home. Here we have another such tax, a tax upon pots and pans. It is no wonder to me, as I have listened to the Debate, that it has aroused rather excitable feelings, because when you use pots and pans you expect boiling water and the temperature to be high. The women in the country will undoubtedly find their political temperature rising in a very marked degree when they survey the long list of articles which have come under the system of Safeguarding Duties, either of 33⅓ per cent. or, as in this case, of 25 per cent. The hon. and gallant Member for Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) said that in every one of these cases the price is raised, but no instructed Free Trader has ever said that. What an instructed Free Trader does say is, as I say about this duty, that either the duty will raise the price, or it will intercept a fall in price to the consumer, or it will compel the consumer to buy an inferior article.

1.0 p.m.

I regard this as another small step in the most dangerous process of undermining Free Trade in this country. I have always thought that Free Trade would never be in danger in this country until the Conservative party began to adopt, as they are doing to-day, the policy of "one trade one tariff," for by taking selected industries and building up, as you will under this procedure, a vested interest behind the tax of 25 per cent., you build up a number of people who do not regard the state of trade of the country as a whole, or the interests of the consumer as a whole, or the needs of the nation as a whole, but who merely look at the policy of open ports or ports operating under Customs duties of this kind from the point of view of their own interest and their own trade. I regard that as a very dangerous step, and this is one of the latest exhibitions of that dangerous process. The right hon. Gentleman knows quite well that his own party at the last election dared not argue the general question as part of their election policy. He knows also that his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) is no more satisfied with this process, from his point of view, than are the hon. Member for Hillsborough and myself from our point of view as Free Traders. I believe that the case for this duty has not been made out, and I protest most strongly that the Members of this House have not had time to examine the findings of the Committee. I protest also on behalf of the consumers that the women of the country in the end will either have to pay a higher price for their hollow-ware, or will not get the advantage of a fall in price that might come, or will have an inferior article to use.

Mr. WOMERSLEY

I am sure we are all very much indebted to the hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. A. V. Alexander) for his speech this morning. It certainly was on somewhat similar lines to his previous speeches on these safeguarding duties, but, in the first place, he made a charge, not particularly against the Government Department or the President of the Board of Trade, respecting an alleged leakage of information. I interrupted him at that moment, for which I apologise, but I happen to have had a similar communication myself, and being interested in the trade of distribution and largely concerned in distributing this class of goods, I naturally wanted to get at the bottom of the whole business, and I tried to trace the source of that information.

This is the real position: Someone who gave evidence before that Committee undoubtedly, with intelligent anticipation, from questions that were put to him and from certain remarks that he heard, came to the conclusion that the Committee were going to find in favour of a duty. That was pretty evident to most people towards the end of the inquiry; further he got an indication that it was not likely to go to the full extent of 33⅓ per cent. that was usually allowed; and, as regards the date, it has been stated time and time again that delay in bringing these matters into operation meant flooding the country with imports in anticipation of the duty. Thus you get a man who is using his commercial intelligence and who says to himself, "It is bound to come, it is not going to be 33⅓ per cent., and it is going to come quickly because that is now the policy of the Government." These are absolute facts that I am telling you. I have known a man who has been able to pick out one, two, and three in a race, and here evidently was a man who knew all about this class of goods, who was a very keen business man, and who made an intelligent anticipation of the imposition of this duty. I will be quite candid and say that I felt myself somewhat aggrieved that this information should have come along and that we should have heard nothing of it in Parliament, but, after making investigations into the source of the information, I am satisfied that it is just a matter of intelligent anticipation and of smart deduction by someone who understands these matters thoroughly.

The hon. Member for Hillsborough mentioned the question of salesmanship and gave a deservedly good advertisement to a firm which is now making a very fine brand of goods, but I am not going to agree with him that it is altogether a question of salesmanship. I admit that the firm he mentions has very smart methods of advertising. It puts up its goods in a very attractive way, with a very attractive label marked in big letters "Made in Britain," which does help to command the sale of goods to certain patriotic people. I commend that sort of salesmanship. The foreign manufacturers who send goods into this country rely upon those goods being bought by people who do not understand that they are not British. The articles have a smart appearance, but are of inferior quality, and can cut into the price. This hollow-ware is not marked in any way but by a label, and it is the easiest thing in the world for the label to be removed. The Belgian people cater for the trade in a cheap article, but if you compare the British-made article of to-day with the foreign-made article, with the exception, of course, of one or two special brands made in countries other than Belgium, the British article is certainly the best. I do say, however, that the foreign manufacturer has been able to put a very fine finish on his goods. When it comes to a question of wear, the hon. Member will bear me out, at any rate if he has had to serve behind a counter as I have, that people bring things back complaining that the goods were chipped, simply because the manufacturers have concentrated on high finish, and not on the quality of the ware.

On the general question—and this is a matter in which I am keenly interested; probably I have sold more of this class of goods than any hon. Member, at any rate, and I know both the home-made and the imported article—there was a period when the people of this country thought that if there were safeguarding in certain industries it would mean a large increase of price to the consumer. The reason for that fear was that during the War period and shortly afterwards, but particularly during the War period, when it was not possible to get Continental-made goods, certain firms in this country had to try to meet the demand for articles which before that had not been made in this country at all, and, of course, in those early days the article they produced was not of the quality or appearance of the Continental article of pre-War days, nor did it compare in price. People, therefore, immediately said that showed that British manufacturers could not compete in this kind of goods. On the other hand, there were certain firms, well-established in other kinds of business, who, immediately this kind of competition ceased, took advantage of the position, and profiteered. There is no doubt about that. I have had the experience of going into places, of trying to get into places to buy goods during that period, and have been shown the door, because they said they did not want me, or anybody else. That gave a very bad impression, indeed, but the conditions to-day are altogether different. We know that in those days there was difficulty about getting raw material, and that manufacturers had to face many other difficulties which they have not to face to-day. I do not anticipate anything of that sort in the future as regards this particular line of manufacture. But that is the fear at the back of the minds of many people, and let me say that when another suggested duty was brought before the House—I hope I shall not be infringing the rules of Debate, but it is very necessary as an illustration to show why I am supporting this proposal—I must say I hesitated very much before I voted in favour of it, because in that particular line of manufactured goods I had a very unfortunate experience during War time with the makers of it. [An HON. MEMBER: "What was the industry?"] It was the china industry.

The CHAIRMAN

That is a matter which I ruled out of order when the hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. A. V. Alexander) was speaking.

Mr. WOMERSLEY

The point I was trying to make was that there was some fear expressed that the price of this particular line of goods would go up to the consumer, and that my experience as a buyer gave me that same impression. I will be quite candid. I felt there was a fear that that might happen. But what has been the actual experience?

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is entitled to say that his previous experience has been that that has not happened.

Mr. WOMERSLEY

My experience has been that it has not meant an increase of price at all on the articles of everyday consumption. The only exception is in the case of certain luxury articles, which are not used by the average housewife in this country. That being my experience as regards the particular industry that was safeguarded, and knowing also that the general effect of the duty has been considerably to increase employment in the industry, an enormous quantity of goods, which previously came from abroad, now being made in this country, I am satisfied that the principle of safeguarding, even in the case of hollow-ware, china and other articles for domestic use, is sound and sensible, and, after going carefully through this report, and speaking from my own personal knowledge of the business, I think it is a right and proper thing to give this industry reasonable safeguarding. Personally, I do not anticipate for a moment that there will be any increase in the price of hollow-ware to the consumer. [An HON. MEMBER: "What is the need for safeguarding, then?"] To keep the foreign article out of the market. My hon. Friend is not in the business, and does not thoroughly understand. When you are dealing with the retail trade in any article you must go a little further than actually selling over the counter. You have to find out where the article is bought. The hon. Member represents a great movement where they send their own buyers into Continental countries, but the retailer has to buy from the secondary wholesaler, who buys from the first wholesaler, who is an importer.

In the vast majority of cases the manufacturers in this country are prepared to sell direct to a retailer, who can place, at any rate, a £10 order. I hope the British manufacturers of hollow-ware will succeed in capturing the bulk of the trade, increasing their output, and in supplying the British housewife with a much superior article, at a price no greater than is being paid at present for the British article. I do not suggest for a moment that they will supply a 6d. bowl that comes from Holland at 6d., but I do not think that the British housewife will care if she pays 8d. and gets a good solid British article. But, speaking from practical experience, I say that the price of the British article will not go up, and that is the important point. As far as the foreign article is concerned, if the foreigner wants the market, he must pay the duty; they do this if they want the market badly, and we have had experience of it. The person who will really suffer over this matter is not the person who buys; it is not the retailer, if he be a sensible man and pushes British goods; the people who will suffer are those who have given evidence against this duty, who do not handle the goods and act as agents, and have very small offices, pay very small rates and not heavy taxes. They are the people who willl lose by this safeguarding.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

Who warehouses this stuff at the docks?

Mr. WOMERSLEY

As the hon. and gallant Gentleman and I both represent seaports, that is a right and proper question. I have had to meet this question in my own Division, time and time again, because it is a port where Continental goods are landed. I am going to quote the hon. Member for Hillsborough in my next speech in my constituency, because the late Minister of Pensions has introduced a candidate who is, I understand, a member of the intelligence department of the Labour party, and who has declared himself an out-and-out Protectionist if there is a difference of wages between British and foreign articles. We shall, therefore, have the Member for Grimsby defending the duty on hollow-ware, and the Labour candidate doing the same thing, so that we shall have a happy time in the Division. On the question as to the effect on the port, I have gone very carefully into this matter, because it is serious. I would ask the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) one question. What do his dockers want? Do they want all imports and no exports? You cannot have it both ways. What is it that the dock workers complain about most? It is the casual nature of their work, and the fact that, when trade is bad, there is enormous competition for jobs on the docks from people who have been put out of work in other industries. Let him go through his list and find out, in times of trade depression the enormous number of men who have tramped to the docks and have competed with the dock workers, and made things infinitely worse for them. The real solution is to provide work.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

The hon. Member has asked me a question. First of all, the clock labourers should be decasualiscd. Then, what the dock labourers want are cheap pots and pans for their houses. They want imports, because something has to be exported to pay for them.

Mr. WOMERSLEY

I was coming to the question of decasualisation. To try and meet this difficulty, certain ports have put in a scheme of decasualisation, so that the men who are really dockers, and have been dockers for years, and can claim to be skilled dockers, can be kept in their job.

Mr. MacLAREN

Where do these men come from?

Mr. WOMERSLEY

They come from other towns, where, owing to foreign competition, the industries have become depressed and men are out of work. With regard to the question of wages, I am sorry that Members have selected figures from this report to support their own argument, because, in dealing with that matter, we ought to take the position exactly as it is pointed out by the Committee which made the inquiry. We find, undoubtedly, that, as far as Germany and Czechoslovakia are concerned, there is not that great disparity in the wages that one would imagine to justify putting this duty into operation. It is in the Belgium figures where one finds a great difference. The hon. Member for Hillsborough will bear me out when I say that the real competition that the makers of hollow-ware have to face is not in the better-class goods; it is in the cheaper goods. That is where the competition comes in, and at the moment there is no doubt that it is the Belgium made hollow-ware which is being made—and I say it without any reservations—by sweated wages, that is the cause of the competition. As long as I am a Member of this House, I shall not support any thing that will assist the importation of goods, made under sweated conditions, to compete with goods that can be made in this country. I am out for higher wages for British workers, and British work for British workers if it is possible to give it.

Mr. J. HUDSON

I always listen to the speeches of the hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Womersley) with a great deal of interest. He has spoken very frankly about the difficulties that confront us, and has added a good many qualifications to sweeping statements and claims that are made by hon. Members opposite. I was particularly pleased to hear him corroborate—and I wish the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) had remained to hear it—the evidence given by my hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. A. V. Alexander) regarding the curious leakage which the hon. Member for Grimsby has endeavoured to explain away—

Mr. WOMERSLEY

No, to answer.

Mr. HUDSON

I would like the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth—

Sir H. CROFT

I agree.

Mr. HUDSON

There appears to be general concern about the leakage. The hon. Member for Grimsby received the information from such a perfect tipster in matters of economics, that he was not only able to say that there would be a tax imposed, but that it would be 25 per cent. and not 26 per cent. or 25½ per cent. and certainly not 33 per cent.; and he could go even so far as to give the exact time, and to say the date that this private committee would suggest.

Mr. WOMERSLEY

The information on which I have made my statement was "at an early date." There was no information about the day in the information given to me.

Mr. HUDSON

It confirms what I was suggesting, that we have an astonishing tipster in the world of economics, and, if he could transfer his attention and his field of operations, he would become a very popular and prosperous individual. I cannot feel quite so optimistic about the explanation that the hon. Member has suggested. I still think that it will be necessary for an inquiry to be made by the Board of Trade into the methods by which this information has got out. Whether it has come from the members of the Committee or from the Department, it is a matter of very serious import and one that certainly ought to be cleared up. I want to return to the attack made upon the Government as regards the report recommending the duty. As the President of the Board of Trade said, it is a very brief report. These reports are getting briefer. In the beginning of these safeguarding proposals we used to have from the Committees some kind of argument—

Notice taken, that 40 members were not present; Committee counted; and 40 members being present—

Mr. HUDSON

It is a great grief to me that I am not to have the pleasure of addressing the multitude which specially assembled just now. Apparently I cannot make the subject sufficiently interesting to persuade them to stay. I was saying that this report is shorter than most of the reports which have come to us. The Committee accept almost without argument each of the questions put to them in the White Paper, and give a very short space only to the relationship of wages in this country to those in foreign countries which are in competition with us. I complain very much indeed of a member of the Committee who has received such high praise from all quarters to-day on account of his record in economics, a professor of economics like Professor Kirkaldy, putting his signature to such unscientific statements. Gentlemen who write economic documents usually give us some indication of the sources from which they draw their evidence. Here we get only a lot of empirical, unproved statements, like the statement, for example, that somebody has visited different firms and looked round their workshops and has been satisfied with the character of the workshops.

Surely that is not the sort of evidence upon which to ask Parliament to bring about such changes as we are asked to sanction. Seeing that the Report is so utterly careless and that its proposals were known beforehand, one gets the impression that the Government do not care a scrap what sort of evidence is produced. As long as they have the name of a distinguished professor or two to print on the front page of the Report, and a Friday is selected in order that the Debate may be got through as quickly as possible, the Government are prepared to apply safeguarding irrespective of the merits of the case. A very careful re-examination ought to be made of the whole policy of safeguarding. It is true that in the earlier part of the discussion your predecessor in the Chair, Captain FitzRoy, ruled out a detailed examination of matters not dealt with in this particular proposal, but I hope the day will soon come when not only this particular duty but the whole question of safeguarding can be gone into by the House.

During this discussion I have been interested in the emphasis which has been laid upon the argument that lower wages in competing countries provide a special reason for protecting ourselves against the commodities from those competing countries. If there were anything in that argument, it would appear that the country which is at the greatest disadvantage in world production to-day is America, because wages there are so high. As a matter of fact, the exact opposite is the case. Where wages are highest there is the greatest prosperity, and until some closer examination is made of this question of comparative wages and comparative costs I do not see how it is possible for committees to come to the conclusions to which they have come. I know hon. Members are irritated by any attempt to lecture them about economics, and I should be very loth to attempt it, but I world beg those who pay so much attention to lower wages in other countries to turn back to the causes of international trade as dealt with by the classic economists of the past, though they are economists whose conclusions I do not always accept. Take the conclusions of John Stuart Mill. I hold that John Stuart Mill's views, as expressed in his famous chapter on "international trade and comparative values," still remain unassailed. I disagree with him about his wages fund theories and other theories, and there has been much controversy amongst economists over some of these matters, but I have heard no political economist endeavour to undermine the validity of the theory of comparative values and international trade which he laid down.

Let me try to apply that theory to the hollow-ware trade and discuss it in relation, say, to the commodities which I am interested in as the Member for a Yorkshire constituency. Why do we engage in international trade in hollow-ware or in woollen cloth? We do so because of comparative values, because values, as arrived at after an examination of all the costs in the countries examined, in one country are different from those in another. If in Britain, after all the costs have been met, 10 enamelled hollow-ware bowls could be exchanged for 10 yards of woollen cloth; and in Belgium, irrespective of the wages paid there or the total costs, 10 enamelled hollow-ware bowls would exchange for 10 yards of cloth of the same quality, there would be no advantage either for the people in Belgium or in this country in an effort to obtain hollow-ware or cloth from abroad. That is the theory propounded by John Stuart Mill, and it has never been upset. If 10 hollow-ware bowls in this country exchange for 10 yards of cloth and the same quality of bowls in Belgiun exchange for 12 yards of cloth of the same quality, then, on account of that variation in comparative values, it becomes worth while to encourage the exchange of bowls and cloth between the two countries. It will be observed that although the wages in Belgium may be low—it might be a question of trade with China or India where wages are lower still—what would finally settle the export of these commodities would be the comparative relationship of the cost of production of one article to all the other articles manufactured in that country. That being the case, I cannot understand how the professors whom the President of the Board of Trade has described as being distinguished in economics—

Mr. MARCH

That means nothing.

Mr. HUDSON

—At any rate, those professors have signed the document which has been placed before us quite oblivious of the principle which John Stuart Mill has so clearly laid down. On these facts hon. Members opposite often make the charge that there is too much [...]uning of the pulpits of the economic professors in order to meet the needs of those who find the funds to enable them to carry on their teachings. In our universities, whether they are at Birmingham or anywhere else, there is too much teaching and special pleading put forward to meet the economic needs of the particular district with which those universities are connected. I think Professor kirkaldy is as good a type of that kind of professor as any I have heard of. I do not complain of professors of economics who try to explain to us the reasons why there is a difference between the wages paid here and elsewhere, but in my view they seem to disregard altogether the great fundamental economic principles upon which their case ought to be built. If you could prove that the conditions of the hollow-ware trade in Belgium, Germany or elsewhere were so much worse than the general conditions of labour existing in Germany, Belgium or elsewhere, you might then bring forward an argument worthy of examination.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade knows perfectly well that these differential wage rates as between Belgium and ourselves which apply to the hollow-ware trade do not differ from the general differential trade rates between the two countries as a whole. Until you can upset the principle of comparative values which I have put forward, I submit that there is not a single argument used in the whole of the Report which justifies this Committee in going on with this proposal. There seems to be a general forgetfulness of the issue that, although you can make out a case for the protection of a particular industry—I maintain that You have not done so in the Report which has been issued—until it can be shown that you have not damaged other industries, you cannot be said to be considering the national interest as a whole. The point of the argument that I have pursued so far is that if you take away the power to import hollow-ware which may be manufactured more favourably under conditions of comparative exchange that I have mentioned, it is quite likely that you are also taking away opportunities of production by the woollen workers of Yorkshire. It has not been shown in the report that this proposal would add very considerably to the number of workers who would be employed.

Let us consider for a moment the evidence given before the Committee by the trade union representatives. I agree with the President of the Board of Trade that the trade union evidence is important, and should have special regard paid to it by hon. Members sitting on the Labour Benches. On page 6 of the second Report, it is stated that the number of unemployed whose benefit had to be paid through the trade unions had increased in the period from 1922 to 1927 by about 7,800 days' benefit paid. The President of the Board of Trade regarded this evidence as being of great importance and as largely covering the whole field. I have been working out the addition of 7,800 days' unemployment benefit paid to these workers, and I find that, on the basis of 250 working days per annum, that is 50 weeks per annum and a five days' week, that there have been 21 workers unemployed for the whole of the year.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS

Is that calculation based on 250 working days in the year?

Mr. HUDSON

Yes, that is so; and it is based on a five days' week, not allowing for holidays.

Mr. WILLIAMS

My arithmetic would show that the figure should be 31 and not 21.

Mr. HUDSON

I do not set myself up as an economist, neither do I claim to be an expert in arithmetic, and I at once accept 31 as the correct figure. No evidence whatever has been given as to the number of workers who will be thrown out of employment by the proposals we are now considering. Neither do you examine at all, in this question, the evidence that ought to be examined in regard to the work that is provided for those engaged in sending out the raw material for the finished hollow-ware which comes back into this country. I observe that the Parliamentary Secretary smiles, as if that were of no importance. May I give him some more figures in connection with the matter? In the evidence given before the Committee the statement was made that the big firms who are engaged in sending hollow-ware into this country imported from this country per annum £80,000 worth of coal, while they send back into this country—of course they are exporting to many other countries as well—£50,000 worth of hollow-ware. If you are thinking about the unemployed, there is the colliers' labour involved in the sending out of that coal as a raw material for the industry which produces the hollow-ware. What has this professor of economics to say about that? Apparently he never examined it, and the House of Commons, or, at any rate, hon. Members opposite, are prepared, equally with him, to leave that question entirely out of account.

It is an entirely false charge for hon. Members opposite to make that we have no concern for the unemployed. It was our concern for the unemployed that sent them fishing around years ago for some sort of quack remedy that might seem to deal with the unemployment problem. The need of the unemployed is as great as ever it was, but these fundamental truths of international trade, so well explained in the past by economists like John Stuart Mill, have never been touched, and all these quack remedies will in the long run give no real advantage to the unemployed of this land. I am not saying that unemployment can be solved; I am merely keeping it apart front the question of tariffs. As a matter of fact, the tariff problem, the problem of safeguarding, has a very small influence indeed finally upon the unemployment problem. Other influences come into these questions of comparative values that John Stuart Mill examined. The question of all the total costs in the production of the commodities must be taken into account, including, as my hon. Friend the Member for Burslem (Mr. MacLaren) is, I am sure, aching to tell the House, the question of the rents charged upon the land, and including also the high toll that finance takes in the production of those commodities.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Captain FitzRoy)

We must not get into a discussion of Free Trade and Protection. These questions were discussed at some length on the Safeguarding of Industries Bill, but we must not go into them now.

Mr. HUDSON

I am very grateful, Captain FitzRoy, for your reminder. In my examination of the more general question, the temptation has, I admit, been very great to go into the widest possible field. To bring it back again to the central point that we are discussing, namely, a duty upon hollow-ware, I would remind you, Sir, that the problem of rent is involved in the production of hollow-ware, and the problem of high finance is involved in the production of hollow-ware, and so-called professors who write reports to guide us in our decisions in the House of Commons can place no sort of scientific result before us when there is an absolute silence on these questions, and an attempt to gerrymander us into a position which is not justified by an examination of the sort of figures that play so large a part in the Report that is now before us.

I strongly oppose this proposal on the ground of the unemployed, and on the ground of the industry with which I am particularly concerned in the area which I have the honour to represent. Hon. Members opposite may catch a fleeting advantage here and there, though that is doubtful in the long run, but, granting them the argument that they may catch a fleeting advantage in places like Birmingham, the continuance of this process will lead to the disintegration of our national wealth and our national unity. They are trying to bribe one section of the community to support their policy, and are utterly neglecting the national need of a revival of our trade generally, and the most paramount need of all, the need of the unemployed, whose opportunities are denied to them very largely by the sort of gerrymandering policy that is represented by the Duty which we are now discussing.

Sir H. CROFT

I do not feel that I can follow the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. J. Hudson) in regard to his arguments of the case presented by John Stuart Mill. I would only say that he need not have apologised to the House for the lecture that he was going to give us, because it was one of very great interest, and was presented with very great sincerity. I will only say that, when he is considering the case of hollow-ware and Yorkshire cloth, there is a great deal in what he said, and, if there were no safeguarding duties in any country, I think the argument would be quite a plausible one. But I would also point out to him that, if you are considering the exchange of these commodities between this country and Belgium at the present moment, it may be that Belgium would deny entry into her markets on the one side of the transaction, and then I think the whole basis of the argument falls to the ground. Moreover, if you are exchanging the hollow-ware of Birmingham for the cloth of Yorkshire, instead of exchanging the hollow-ware of Birmingham for the cloth of Germany, which is pouring into this country at the present time and depriving Yorkshiremen of their living, I think there would even be a double advantage to labour and capital and the Exchequer in this country, which would far outweigh any of those indirect disadvantages to which the hon. Member has referred.

I should have liked to refer to the attack made by the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown) against his Leader in regard to the policy adopted by his Leader during the Coalition, but that would carry me rather out of order. I would merely remind the hon. Member that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) justified safeguarding duties when the case was very much weaker than it is to-day. He explained that he was merely carrying out the policy of Mr. Asquith at that time, which he had laid down in the Paris Resolutions, with the astute aid of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Swansea (Mr. Runciman). It is not, however, for me to attempt to compose those differences in the Liberal party, but I want to say just a word or two with regard to the case that we are now debating. I really only rose because I was challenged by two speakers in the Debate, and I think it would be discourteous not to give the answer which they were so anxious to obtain. I only regret that the luncheon interval has prevented their being here to receive the answer, which is pretty well known in the country now. The hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) challenged us to say where production in any industry had really gone up owing to safeguarding.

Mr. KELLY

Wages!

Sir H. CROFT

I am dealing with production; the hon. and gallant Member asked about production. I am very glad to be able to give him two instances only, as an argument to show that his fears are groundless with regard to hollow-ware. In the case of fabric gloves, I believe I am right in saying that the production has gone up by 70 per cent., and in the case of optical glass, scientific instruments and photographic apparatus, it has also gone up by 70 per cent. There has been in every case a very substantial increase in production, whatever other argument you may present. He made a further challenge. He said if this duty is imposed prices are bound to go up. I do not think I need deal with that, because the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown) immediately afterwards pointed out that no instructed Free Trader would say anything of that kind. It is not true, and we must realise that the total damage to the community really has been that we have not anticipated the still further reduction in prices that there might have been if the duties had not been imposed. We may leave the question of price with the experience gained at the hands of those two protagonists of the different schools of the Free Trade idea. The hon. Member for Hillsborough opened once more with an attack upon these Committees, and the suggestion is thrown out that we have some sort of sympathy with them.

Mr. E. BROWN

I said you had not.

Sir H. CROFT

The hon. Member for Hillsborough makes an attack as if the Committees are biased and partial. If that was true, how much more ground should we have for attacking their fairness when something like 50 Committees have sat and only 10 industries have been safeguarded? I think it is unfair to suggest that there is any question of a breach of faith on the part of the Government. What was the Prime Minister's policy? He said he was not going to go forward with any general policy of Protection, and that is generally accepted by the party, but in the case of every single efficient industry, where it could be proved that there was unfair foreign competition it was intended to use the machinery of the Safeguarding of Industry Act or analogous measures. These White Paper considerations have nothing to do with the Prime Minister's pledge. They were put in, I presume, to convince everyone that they were going to make it as difficult as possible for any industry to secure safeguarding. But why attack the Committee for having assented to the desirability of safeguarding, when only two years ago you were praising them and saying how fair they were for having turned an application down?

You cannot abuse one Member of the Committee because he is a professor. The hon. Member for Hillsborough gave a left-handed blow to the professor who signed the report and a moment afterwards he was quoting another professor with regard to the marketing of razor blades. It is rather cheap to attack a man because he happens to be a professor. The knowledge and abilities of this gentleman are so well recognised that it is hardly courteous to single him out for attack when we know he cannot reply. [Interruption.] It was an amusing letter. I enjoyed it as much as the hon. Member. To sum up these results, which are not unimportant, in the two years, as I gather from the report, since the previous report a third of the industries have gone out of business. That is very serious. To my mind that is an indictment against the whole policy of the White Paper, because it proves that if only we could have safeguarded this industry in 1926 those industries would have been saved, and why the whole Conservative party is so keen on this question is because we see the damage that is being done to these industries, and we fear lest other more substantial industries shall also perish within the next year or two until they get the advantage of the Government's rating proposals, which I am afraid will not solve all the difficulties, although they may go a very long way.

2.0 p.m.

Hon. Members have said that this is taxing the subject. That has not been the experience in any single safeguarded industry. There has been no appreciable harm to the consumers, while in every single case there has been advantage to the producers. The hon. Member for Hillsborough recalled the fact that one of the witnesses, Mr. Macfarlane, was driven out of business and has now become a witness against safeguarding. We invited him to state whether it was not a fact that Mr. Macfarlane had become an importer of the very materials which he used to manufacture, and I understand he admitted that that was correct. That is hardly an argument that is going to convince us that the policy recommended by this Committee is unsound. He went on to say that there was a time, before the War, when our imports were nearly 300 per cent. of our production. Was he pleased with that state of affairs? Is he really so much concerned with merchantry that he likes to see 300 per cent. of foreign production or is he concerned with the idea of obtaining employment for a greater number of people? You cannot have it both ways. You cannot call yourself a Labour party and at the same time betray Labour by always advancing the case of the foreign producer, who pays less wages for longer hours. As we have heard, employment during the period under discussion is down by nearly a quarter and imports have multi- plied approximately three times, and with regard to wages, in spite of the fact that female labour was quoted as if that alone was the subject under discussion, and in spite of the fact that Belgium was ignored, as I read the report, I understand that, for skilled labour, German wages are only approximately half those paid in this country, and in Belgium a little less than a third.

Mr. KELLY

Where are the German figures you quote?

Sir H. CROFT

In paragraph 21. They are given as 8d. to 9¾d. an hour.

Mr. KELLY

May I draw attention to the last line of the paragraph.

Sir H. CROFT

That is overtime at a very much higher rate. That has nothing to do with the general discussion. I am merely speaking of the general rates. I am not referring to overtime. Here is an industry which has been long established and, we can generally admit, is efficient. I never can understand why these attacks are made against the efficiency of British industry. Efficiency is made up half of brain power and half by our workers, and it is not really advancing any cause to suggest that British industry must necessarily be inefficient. Why attack the professor who states that on visiting all these factories he has found them efficient?

Mr. WALLHEAD

Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman was not present when the most savage attack I have heard on the efficiency of British industry was made by the hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. E. C. Grenfell) two days ago.

Sir H. CROFT

I did not hear that, but I do not want to be drawn away from the subject by what happened two days ago. Who is going to be harmed by this Duty? Who is going to suffer? If we know industry is suffering, and employment is suffering, if we see that firms have actually gone out of operation, if, as far as we can see, no other industry is really going to suffer in any way, directly from this, why do we not, if we are really sincere as to the suffering of our people, attempt to put the matter right? When we see what is the kind of opposition that comes to this safeguarding really no further words are necessary. I see seven witnesses were called by the opponents. Who were they? Mr. Schiff, of Messrs. Hannson, Schiff and Gross, Mr. Neuburger, of Neuberger and Co., Mr. Macfarlane, who is not an Englishman but a Scotsman, and none the worse for that. He was called as a witness for the opponents, because he is now an importer of these foreign goods. Mr. Curt Geerz, of Geerz Brothers and Ramsden, Mr. Hollander, of Messrs. Hollander and Co., and Mr. Kent, the London agent for Kockums Emaljerverk, Sweden. After all, we are British in this House. We are concerned very much with the fate of British industry, and I ask in all sincerity: What clues the country at large think when it sees the efforts made to destroy the security of this industry which needs our aid when the only witnesses that can be called are gentlemen who are interested in this foreign merchandise and are up against British production, upon the success of which this country depends.

Mr. MORRIS

I am sure we have one point in common with the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft), and that is the dislike of the present procedure under which Safeguarding Duties are being imposed. The procedure followed by this Committee is one which from every point of view, from the point of view of opponents as well as of supporters of safeguarding, must be regarded as highly unsatisfactory. If anything illustrates the unsatisfactory nature of the procedure under these Committees it is this method of imposing the Duty adopted by this Committee. This particular Committee illustrates the objectionable practice perhaps to a greater degree than any of the other Committees have done. There was an inquiry two years ago into this industry by the same Committee, and, when we bear in mind that these Committees have been described by the right hon. Gentleman's Department as judicial Committees, exercising judicial functions, one is surprised to find that an appeal is made to the same Committee after it has already inquired into the state of the industry, heard evidence, and presented a Report.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS

On new facts?

Mr. MORRIS

On new facts. In what way have the new facts been provided? They have been provided in an extraordinary fashion. I would not make this point, but for the fact that these committees are described as judicial committees. I turn to Question 6 on page 6 of the report of the committee issued in 1926. The question put, and the one which they had to answer, is this: Whether the applicant industry is being carried on in the United Kingdom with reasonable efficiency and economy? The applicants provided limited evidence on the subject of efficiency and economy relating only to 4 or 5 firms, but such evidence established a very fair measure of efficiency and economy in existence. We formed the opinion this could not be said of the trade as a whole and that closer co-operation and mutual exchange of views would be beneficial to the industry both technically and commercially. I have no desire, and I agree with what the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Bournemouth said, to attack the professor who sat on the committee as a professor. I desire to show that the events are not consistent with the judicial nature of the committee. On page 8 of the report of 1928, the same question is put, and the answer that is given is: Due to the further evidence and the knowledge gained from Professor Kirkaldy's visits"—

Mr. H. WILLIAMS

Not "the" further evidence. The hon. Gentleman has put in a word which is not in the report.

Mr. MORRIS

Due to further evidence and the knowledge gained from Professor Kirkaldy's visits to seven of the English works, we are satisfied that the industry is being conducted with reasonable efficiency and economy. I want to be sure on that point. Was there further evidence apart, from the visits of Professor Kirkaldy, and, if there was further evidence, will the hon. Gentleman tell us what it was and who supplied it? Where is the further evidence? If no answer is returned to that question, what is the object of the hon. Gentleman's interruption unless his intention is to mislead the Committee?

Mr. WILLIAMS

Does the hon Gentleman say I intended to mislead the Committee because I interrupted him when, in reading out 10 words he interpolated an additional word? As that additional word made a profound change I was entitled to challenge it, and he ought to accept the correction instead of getting into a great state of indignation.

Mr. MORRIS

The hon. Gentleman says that I got into a state of great indignation because I introduced the word "the." Will he say in what way that meaning differs from the actual statement of the facts? He gives no answer.

Sir B. PETO

It is perfectly obvious that if the less efficient firms go out of employment the average of efficiency must be higher.

Mr. MORRIS

Due to further evidence and the knowledge gained from Professor Kirkaldy's visits. There is no further evidence that this was based on anyone else's additional knowledge. The point I wish to make with regard to the judicial nature of the committee is that Professor Kirkaldy is not only a member of the Tribunal, but he is also one of the witnesses.

Major PRICE

Surely the hon. Gentleman is acquainted with the legal position where a Judge visits a site.

Mr. MORRIS

He may visit the site, but he does not give evidence in his own Court.

Major PRICE

But he gives a judgment based upon his visit.

Mr. MORRIS

When a Judge goes to view a locus in quo, he usually does so in company with the complainant and the defendant to the action. What is more, when the Judge gives his judgment, after visiting the site, he gives his reason. We are presented with this report and do not know what is the further evidence supplied by Professor Kirkaldy. We are merely presented with a fait accompli. If there ever was any occasion when the House of Commons has been treated with rank discourtesy by the Government, it is in connection with this particular Report.

Mr. WILLIAMS

Why discourtesy? Will the hon. Genteman tell us why the Report is discourteous.

Mr. MORRIS

This Report was only issued last Wednesday giving hon. Members practically no opportunity of examining it. In the second place, because the report differs from the Report of 1926, and we are not given any evidence upon which that differentiation has taken place. I turn to another part of the Report of 1926. Take the first question that was put. Evidence was taken then from about 55 per cent. of the firms engaged in the industry, and with regard to the remaining 45 per cent. there was no evidence at all. Has there been no change in 1928 apart from the one member of the tribunal who has turned witness and has also remained judge? Has there been any additional information from the firms? The 1928 report gives exactly the same position respecting 55 per cent. of the firms. We come to the question on page 4 of the 1926 Report: Whether the applicant's industry is, by reason of the volume of employment, engaged in the production of the goods to which the application relates, or, by reason of the nature of the goods produced, an industry o² substantial importance. The answer is: We are of opinion that the enamelled hollow-ware industry may be regarded as of substantial importance. "may be regarded." That was the position in 1926. What is the position to-day in regard to the same question? They now say: We formed the opinion at our previous inquiry that the industry might be regarded as one of substantial importance, and we adhere to that view to-day. That is a step forward. On that ground they turned down the duty in 1926.

HON. MEMBERS

No!

Major PRICE

That was one of the grounds why they should consider it, because it is of substantial importance.

Mr. MORRIS

"May be regarded."

Major PRICE

They were speaking of the past in that Report.

Mr. MORRIS

In 1926 they said that the industry "may be regarded." They did not and that it "could be regarded" as of substantial importance. They declined to recommend the duty in 1926 and that was one of the answers which they returned as a reason for declining it.

Sir B. PETO

There were certain conditions in the White Paper in 1926, on Which the Committee considered that the industry proved its case, one was that it was of substantial importance, but as there were two points which were not proved to their satisfaction they did not recommend the duty.

Mr. MORRIS

Does the hon. Member think that when the Committee said that it "might be regarded," that that would be accepted as definite proof in any Court of law that it could be regarded?

Major PRICE

I am certain that it does not mean that it might not be regarded.

Sir B. PETO

The 1926 Report does not say "might" it says "may be regarded."

Mr. MORRIS

I am quite willing to accept the word "may." The fact is that in 1926 they were not certain about it. Really, they have no more evidence to-day than they had in 1926. The only additional evidence so far as we know, in spite of the interruption from the representative of the Board of Trade, is the additional evidence of one witness who was a member of the Committee, and yet this Committee is described as a judicial Committee. The whole procedure is farcical and the Government have shown want of respect to the House of Commons in bringing this proposal forward for adoption, without producing better evidence.

Sir B. PETO

The hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Morris) has devoted a considerable amount of time to two or three very small points. He has dealt with the Report on the White Paper not on its merits, but he has attempted to find grounds for criticism simply based upon the fact that these tribunals are described as judicial. He assumes that that means that they have to follow all the procedure of a Court of law and that if they did not follow all the procedure of a Court of law, their proceedings were in some respects wrong.

Mr. MORRIS

Why does the Board of Trade describe them as judicial Committees?

Sir B. PETO

It is clear that you can describe a thing as judicial from more than one point of view. Judicial may mean the opposite of a partial inquiry. It may mean that if it is a judicial tribunal you would expect it to be fair. It is in that sense that I consider these committees are judicial, and not that they should take the place of a trial before a Court of Law. The hon. Member questioned the evidence in regard to efficiency and he thinks it was extraordinarily improper for this tribunal of three persons to request one of their number, whom they knew to be very competent to judge, to go to the trouble of visiting a considerable number of these works. What kind of evidence of efficiency would the hon. Member expect a tribunal of this kind to accept? Would he expect the board or the managing director or the partners in these businesses to go before the Committee and assure the Committee that their works were conducted in an efficient manner, and would the Committee be bound to accept such evidence? What other evidence would he want?

Mr. MORRIS

Some 55 per cent. only of these firms gave any sort of evidence. There was no evidence whatsoever in regard to more than 55 per cent. of the firms. How can you form any just conclusion as to the efficiency of the whole industry upon that evidence?

Sir P. PETO

Very easily, if the 55 firms were, as no doubt they were in this case, the principal firms. I hold that it was a very proper procedure which was adopted by the Committee in order to satisfy the Committee, namely, to obtain the ocular evidence of a member of their own Committee as to whether the works were conducted efficiently or not. The hon. Member also dealt with the question of substantiality. There he was entirely wrong. The Committee in their second Report say specifically that they did not find against the application of the safeguarding duty on the question of substantiality. They say that now, as in 1926, they were of opinion that the industry may be regarded as substantial. They say that that question was answered in the affirmative in 1926 and that they are of the same opinion in 1928. Therefore, the argument that further evidence should be adduced, or as to what evidence should be adduced, is beside the mark.

I should like to make a few observations with regard to the speech of the hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. A. V. Alexander), who opposed this Safeguard- ing Duty in the first instance. His first objection was that this was a proposal for taxing His Majesty's subjects. It is undoubtedly a taxing proposal, and as such it must originate in this House, but I think he was going on rather precarious ground when he spoke of it as a proposal for taxing His Majesty's subjects. Our experience of the previous Safeguarding Duties has been that, far from increasing the taxation imposed upon any of His Majesty's subjects, they have provided most useful revenue, which has been contributed mainly by the foreign producers of these goods, and it has helped materially by lessening the burden upon industry in this country. The hon. Member objected most strongly to the fact that these White Papers were only issued a couple of days ago and that the House was asked on a Friday afternoon—he emphasised the fact that it was Friday—to pass this Financial Resolution. I would point out that this is only the Financial Resolution. It is a necessary part of our procedure, in order that we may include a Clause for the Safeguarding Duty in the Finance Bill. Therefore, it is the preliminary stage, not the final stage, and if we pass the Financial Resolution this afternoon it does not pass out of the control of this House. Hon. Members will have ample opportunity of studying, between now and the Committee stage of the Finance Bill, these White Papers further if they think necessary. It all seems so simply and so amply to prove the necessity for this Safeguarding Duty that I cannot think that any further study is necessary.

The hon. Member went on to say that there has been leakage somewhere. He did not define where, although he kindly exonerated the President of the Board of Trade. He quoted an anonymous correspondent of some hon. Member, not named, who had made an intelligent forecast, some days ago, as to the amount of duty and the date on which the duty would be imposed. Could there possibly be any stronger argument in favour of proceeding at once, on the very first day after the White Paper had been issued, with this Financial Resolution, which is necessary to impose the duty?

Sir H. CROFT

I think the hon. Member for Hillsborough said that it was a foreign importer. He did not deny that. That strengthens our case.

Sir B. PETO

I said that it was an anonymous correspondent. The hon. Member would not give the name, although he did admit that it was a foreign importer. Therefore, if any argument were necessary to prove the urgency of the matter and the need for dealing with it to-day it would be that there had been leakage, which had got abroad, and which might, if this Resolution were not passed at the earliest possible moment, enable a foreign importer to get over further supplies of these competing goods. On the question of there not being fresh evidence, he noticed that the same Committee which considered the matter in 1926 came to opposite conclusion in 1928. There are three reasons, any one of which appears to be an ample reason, for the Committee finding in favour of this safeguarding duty. First, they said specifically that the census of production figures could not possibly be considered for the year 1924, as they only came to the knowledge of the Committee after their findings in 1926. Secondly, they say, in the body of their Report, that in the two intervening years no less than six of the firms engaged in this industry have gone out of business altogether. On the question of imports they point out that there has been an enormous increase in the imports of hollow ware into this country since their last finding. Any one of these grounds, or all three together, provide ample reason why the Committee should find in an opposite sense.

The hon. Member wanted to know in what respect these imports were abnormal. When you are considering whether a thing is normal or abnormal it is obvious that you must compare it with something, and the hon. Member compared them with the period before the War in order to prove his contention that they were not abnormal. That is a very strange admission. He almost seemed to glory in the fact that, before the War, there was little production of hollow-ware in this country, that the importation from abroad was about three times as great, and that only about one-quarter of the domestic consumption was supplied by production in this country. He said that if the importation is now in similar proportions, what is there to grumble about; if this industry is not finding employment for a great number of people, why do we want to do anything at all in the matter? That is what his argument amounted to. He tried to belittle the enormous difference between the wages paid here and the wages paid on the Continent, carefully ignoring, as did all other hon. Members on that side of the House, the wages paid in Belgium.

What evidence, he asked, is there that the wages paid abroad are so much lower than the wages in this country; and he claimed that the status of the working classes in this country would in all probability, if safeguarding duties were imposed, be reduced to the same level as wages in similar industries abroad. I hold that the evidence proves exactly the opposite. Hon. Members know that in many of these industries abroad wages are increasing to some extent—this Report says so—and the hours of labour show a tendency to decrease. Why is that? It is largely because of our policy of allowing them to have a full production which enables them to pay better wages at the expense of the workers of this country. If we allow them to have an absolutely free run of our markets, do our own people out of jobs, it is very likely that the wages on the Continent will be increased. It is our own workers whose status in life will be reduced, whose wages will become absolutely nil, if we provide the means by which foreign workers will be able to improve their status and reduce their hours of labour. The hon. Member finished his speech by saying, with great regret, that he feared that certain bodies of workers were being seduced from the proper view which they should take on this question.

What is the proper view; the trade union point of view, with regard to the question of the competition of ill-paid labour, either in this country or any other? The proper and natural view, and the view which is being more and more held by large bodies of workers in this country to-day, is that they should safeguard their standard of life, their hours and wages, whether the other bodies of workers happen to be across the Channel or not. In the enamelled hollow-ware industry, the women employed are paid 2¾d. on the Continent instead of 7d. as in this country. I wonder what any body of workers in this country, or any trade union leader, would say about that. The hon. Member thinks that we should on no account take any steps to protect the trade union workers in this country, their standard of life or their wages, and if he has come to that conclusion, he is forgetting the proper view which he should take of the matter.

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER

Perhaps the hon. Member will tell the Committee whether his party propose to go before the country with a plea for a general tariff at the next election.

Sir B. PETO

I am not going to discuss now the policy of the Unionist party at the next election. I have my own views on the matter, but it would not be proper for me to go into them now.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS

The speech of the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Morris) was rather surprising, and I can only attribute it to the bad attendance of the Liberal party.

Mr. E. BROWN

What about the attendance of your own party?

Major-General Sir ROBERT HUTCHISON

Nine out of 405.

Mr. WILLIAMS

During the greater part of the Debate only two hon. Members have been present on the Liberal Benches, on an issue which in these days they have all to themselves. On every other political issue they share the views of the Conservative party or the Labour party—

Mr. BROWN

It is not so.

Mr. WILLIAMS

And this is the only issue which really distinguishes the Liberal party from the other two parties in the State. On such a question, I should have expected them to be here in strength. They are not. At one time only two were present. Then the hon. Member for Cardigan came in and his statistical colleague, the Chief Whip of the Liberal party, said, "You had better make a speech." The hon. Member made a dash for the Vote Office in order to get a copy of the Report—

Mr. BROWN

Is that what you used to do?

Mr. WILLIAMS

The hon. Member misquoted the Report, and I am charitable in assuming that it was because he had read it in a hurry. He interpolated a word into the Report which entirely altered its meaning. He said that "the" further evidence called for by the Committee was that given by Professor Kirkaldy. Let me read the Report: These were those relating to importation and employment, while on the British industry's efficiency and the Continental labour conditions we also called for further evidence.

Mr. MORRIS

What was the further evidence?

Mr. WILLIAMS

I am not concerned with what was the further evidence. The Committee have presented their Report, have stated that they obtained further evidence and, as a result, have come to certain conclusions. The hon. Member tried to imply that the further evidence was merely the opinion of Professor Kirkaldy. I gave him a charitable way out by assuming that he had rushed to the Vote Office and had not read the document properly.

Mr. MORRIS

Not at all. I asked the Parliamentary Secretary to supply us with the further evidence and lie has not supplied it.

Mr. WILLIAMS

That is an entirely different question. It has not been the practice to publish the volumes of evidence in these cases. They were not published 'hen the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) was Prime Minister and when similar inquiries were made. Representatives of the Press attend these meetings. They report such parts of the proceedings as they think fit. Naturally the "Daily Herald" and the "Co-operative News" select the little bits which they think will suit them. There is nothing to be gained by suggesting bias on the part of the Press. If hon. Members want to find out what happened, they should read several newspapers and they would then get a fairly accurate picture, that is if they read intelligently. Then the hon. Member for Cardigan tried to attack the Committees and said that they were not judicial. He seems to think that "judicial" means a member of the legal profession. Nothing of the sort. Judging by the hon. Member's speech to-day, membership of the legal profession is almost a disqualification for being judicial. To be judicial is to behave as a judge and not necessarily as a lawyer.

Mr. MORRIS

I asked the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) whether from a non-lawyer's point of view he regards these Committees as any more judicial than I do.

Mr. WILLIAMS

The hon. Member who opened this Debate protested that a tax was to be placed on the subject on the authority of three people. Not at all. A tax is to be placed, if it is placed with the authority of the House of Commons Then he said there was not long notice. Can the hon. Member tell me of any Chancellor of the Exchequer of any political party who, prior to the introduction of safeguarding, gave ten seconds notice of the imposition of the new duty? Do not Chancellors talk till 5 o'clock when the Customs Houses shut so that there may be no danger of anticipation of a duty?

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER

In that case it is a tax which is afterwards to be the subject of debate. Here we are dealing with ex parte applications from industries which desire to be beneficiaries of the State. Therefore we are entitled to examine, with prior notice, the evidence submitted.

Mr. WILLIAMS

The State did not single out this industry. The industry selected itself. [Laughter.] It is no use hon. Members indulging in satirical laughter before the end of a sentence. The industry was aware of its own circumstances. Those who were concerned with the industry were aware of the terms of the White Paper. They submitted their case. They established a prima facie case. They went before the Committee and the Committee were satisfied that they had proved their case. It is still open to the House of Commons to accept or reject. If you take the analogy of Duties introduced in the past by Chancellors of the Exchequer without any notice, you find that there is 48 hours notice of the Financial Resolution and, of course, the duties do not become law permanently until the Finance Bill is passed. The point raised by the Opposition is a childish point. The hon. Member said that the Committee turned down the application in 1926 because the importa- tion was not regarded as abnormal. That is quite true. But the importation since then has increased by about 20 per cent., and it is therefore 20 per cent. different from what it was in 1926, and that is one reason for granting the application. Then the hon. Member said that prices were not greatly different. I do not know on what he based that statement. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) said that in 1926 the Committee ruled that prices were not materially different. On page 6 of the 1926 Report, it is stated that "the prices received by the foreign manufacturers"—that is for the general run of stuff—"are below those of profitable manufacture in this country." There is a definite statement.

Mr. ALEXANDER

I read exactly what they said. They found there was no serious difference. You cannot find a single word in their Report which draws attention to any serious discrepancy between the two classes of wages.

Mr. WILLIAMS

We are not talking about wages but about prices, and the paragraph under the heading, "Whether the foreign goods so imported are being sold or offered for sale in the United Kingdom at prices which are below the prices at which similar goods can be profitably manufactured or produced in the United Kingdom." They refer to three classes of goods, and they say: Ignoring the speciality ware…and also the very cheap lines referred to, we have reason to believe that in the case of goods imported through merchants who either have the sole agency for foreign works or who deal practically exclusively with foreign made goods, the prices received by the foreign manufacturer are below those of profitable manufacture in this country.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Page 6 of the 1926 Report also contains this statement: However, the evidence of retail houses given us independently and in camera clearly established that from their knowledge of both Continental and home manufactures there is very little discrepancy in price for the various ranges of articles mostly in demand.

Mr. WILLIAMS

I would ask hon. Members to take the trouble to read the reservation of Professor Kirkaldy. He makes certain specific statements and points out that the buyers who gave evidence were not representative of the general distribution of the class of goods referred to. The second Report is a continuation of that first Report, and if the majority of the Committee had thought that that statement of fact was misleading, they would have drawn attention to it. Then with regard to the industry not being efficient, the hon. Member made another attack. He said that the position in 1926 was that they were not efficient. That is not the case. The 1926 Report states that the evidence submitted indicated that a very fair measure of efficiency was shown.

Mr. ALEXANDER

The Report does not say so.

Mr. WILLIAMS

This what the Report says: The applicants provided limited evidence on the subject of efficiency and economy relating only to four or five firms, but such evidence established a very fair measure of efficiency and economy in existence. We form the opinion that this could not be said of the trade as a whole. Is not that what I said earlier? [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] It is, precisely. Let us go further. The hon. Member said that for various reasons the Committee selected the years 1921 and 1922 as representative. He then took the home production of those years and compared it with the home production of 1926–27, and proved that the home production in 1926–27 was higher than that in 1921–22. I dare say hon. Members present have the 1928 Report before them, and I would refer them to page 9. They will see that for 1926–27 two sets of figures are given. The figures quoted by the hon. Member were the second figures which are the certified figures. The second figures were not prepared on the same basis as the earlier figures. The earlier figures were prepared on the basis of the inquiries previously made from those in the trade. If a comparison is made over a series of years and the only figures compared are those prepared on the same basis, a fairer result would be obtained. The hon. Member took the figures prepared for the trade for his earlier years and then he departed to the certified figures, which are 10 to 15 per cent. above the others, and in that way establish an utterly fallacious and misleading comparison.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Why did not the trade supply the certified figures for the other period?

Mr. WILLIAMS

I imagine that it would not have been possible in 1927 to obtain detailed certification with regard to the earlier period; but, that the earlier figures were probably larger than those shown is very probable. The hon. Gentleman pointed out that the Census of Production figure was 14,070 tons for 1924, as compared with 10,567 tons given by the trade. All right, but if we project back into the two previous years, I think it is very probable that the certified figures of those two previous years would also be much higher than those given by the trade. Therefore, the case he made out has been proved to be entirely wrong. If we are going to talk about quoting the report honestly let us be honest all round, and take things as they are, and compare like with like.

Mr. ALEXANDER

The hon. Gentleman has no right to impugn another hon. Member's honesty in quoting the report.

Mr. WILLIAMS indicated dissent.

Mr. ALEXANDER

The hon. Member, I think, has used the word "dishonest."

Mr. WILLIAMS

I apologise if I used that word.

Mr. ALEXANDER

I wanted to point out that the figure quoted for 1924 showed specifically that the figures submitted by the applicants could not be relied upon for any of the years with which they dealt. Their figures were not worth the paper they were written on, as proved by a comparison of the 1924 figure with the Census of Production figure.

Mr. WILLIAMS

I am sorry if I used the word "dishonest" but I think there was some reference earlier, when I was quoting the report, to quoting it misleadingly. It is wrong that the report should be quoted, I will not say in a dishonest, but in a misleading way. I ask hon. Members to turn to page 3 of the report which shows that the earlier returns were not misleading, but were the best that the applicants could then put in. They were based on the returns of a few firms representing approximately 55 per cent. of the trade. The results of the Census of Production for 1924, only available since the date of our last Report, however, show that the proportion of the trade in the hands of those few firms was smaller than they had assumed.' That does not snake their figures wrong. It merely means that their figures were a smaller fraction of the trade than they expected, and that was true throughout. All that happens is that all their earlier figures which were not certificated, should be larger than they appear. It does not appear that on the comparative basis they would be unsatisfactory.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Will the hon. Gentleman please clear up one point. Are the certified figures given for 1926 and 1927, certified figures for the whole of the firm engaged in the industry?

Mr. WILLIAMS

Yes, so I understand.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Do they include the firm of Messrs. Stevens of Cradley Heath?

Mr. WILLIAMS

Yes, as far as I know, they include the whole of the production.

Mr. ALEXANDER

They do not, and the hon. Gentleman's Department knows it.

Mr. WILLIAMS

I speak subject to correction on that particular point. I know that the works of Messrs. Stevens were among those visited, and, naturally, I presumed that the information was obtained from them, but I do not pledge myself to precise accuracy on that point. At any rate, we are discussing a comparative figure and on the comparative basis, if you take the figures shown in the Report, and apply them all in the same way, you get conclusive evidence of a substantial drop in production. The hon. Member by selecting figures sought to prove the opposite. I think it was very unfair of him to attack the two trade union officials who gave evidence.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Who attacked them? I made no suggestion.

Mr. WILLIAMS

The hon. Member may not have actually made an attack upon them, but I think he expressed wonder as to whether they had the authority of their unions or not. He tried to undermine their evidence. I happen to know one of these gentlemen, and I have the greatest respect for him although he voted against me in 1922 and 1923. He was an ardent Free Trader at that time, and I imagine that the evidence which he gave was fair evidene. He appears to represent the very people who are concerned. He is a member of the Hollow-ware Trade Board in addition to being lately President of the National Union of Sheet Metal Workers. What is the point of asking that question about him, unless the object is to discredit the merit of the witness? We on this side have not sought to throw any discredit on the witnesses of the other side. The hon. Member did not use one word in defence of the interests of the workers of this country as producers. He spoke of them all the time as consumers, but the whole object of this duty is to help the workers as producers. They have to be considered as producers and then, as independent people, they become consumers.

There is not a great deal more in the hon. Member's speech which calls for reply, and I turn to the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull. The hon. and gallant Member began by analysing figures with regard to wages, and he said there was not much difference between 6d. and 6¾d. Again I would suggest that his reading of the report has been rather careless, because 6¾d. is the minimum time rate for female workers and the German figure of 6d. represents the wages of skilled female labour. Surely there is all the difference in the world between an average of skilled female workers in Germany and the minimum time rate applicable to our people. I suggest that the hon. and gallant Member ought to re-read the report. [Interruption.] I have read it several times, with great care, and I find that it establishes quite clearly that the general level of wages in the competing countries is substantially lower than the level of wages in this country. I do not think anyone would suggest the contrary. While the hon. and gallant Member was speaking, the hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. Kirkwood) prompted him with the statement that there were girls in this industry in Glasgow getting only 8s. a week. I have made inquiries and, as far as we can find out, there is no factory in Glasgow making enamel hollow-ware. I say so, subject to correction.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

I give the hon. Gentleman his point about the three farthings advantage which our highly paid working class enjoy over the sweated Germans; but will he answer my question as to page 6 of the first Report, and tell us what has happened in the interval to upset the findings in paragraph 13?

Mr. WILLIAMS

If the hon. and gallant Member reads paragraph 6, page 4, of the latest report, he will see that the committee concentrated on those instructions in the White Paper regarding which in the earlier report they were not satisfied, and they go on: While on the British industry's efficiency and the Continental labour conditions, we also called for further evidence. In other words, they had fresh evidence in the later report, and that fresh evidence establishes quite clearly a wider differentiation in rates of pay than appeared likely to the committee when they sat first.

Lieut. Commander KENWORTHY

What was the evidence? Can we not have it?

Mr. WILLIAMS

It is all given here if the hon. Member will look at it.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Whose evidence was it?

Mr. WILLIAMS

The findings of fact are stated on pages 6 and 7, and I do not think it is suggested that those statements are wrong. We had something in teresting from the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown), who said that no instructed Free Trader suggested of necessity that a duty would put up the price. What the instructed Free Trader—and he is the first of them who has appeared in the House—says is that it will either raise the price, or intercept a fall in price, or compel the consumer to buy an inferior article. The Free Trade party at last have abandoned their fundamental position. They now are forced away from the bold, brave statement that "Your food will cost you more" or "Your tin can will cost you more." They now say that if it does not cost you more something else will happen, and for safety's sake they make that something else something that you cannot conveniently prove one way or another.

Lastly, there was a very learned disquisition from the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. J. Hudson), who, to my surprise, based himself upon the ancient Radical former Member for the City of Westminster, John Stuart Mill, and with all the ponderous and pompous eloquence of that ancient statesman he told us that people will buy things if they are cheaper than other things. That is all that it means, and all this elaborate basis of the conditions of international exchange was merely a statement that most people prefer to buy the cheaper article.

Mr. MONTAGUE

What is there pompous about that?

Mr. WILLIAMS

It was only pompous in the way in which it was put, and I do not blame the hon. Member for Huddersfield, because he was merely copying the more ancient form of literary style of those days. But, with all due respect to John Stuart Mill, it was very largely a theoretical argument. In his days, broadly speaking, a man was only a great political economist if he had never been in business or if he had failed. I decline to be overborne by John Stuart Mill, or Ricardo, or Adam Smith, or any other economist. After all, we have to judge these things as they turn up, and it is no use judging the influence of a duty on prices by examining the static; you must examine the dynamic. The moment you impose your duty, the conditions are changed, and the reason why in so many cases—in fact, in nearly every case—British costs of production in safeguarded industries have fallen is because of the larger volume of production and the spreading of overhead expenses. Though at the moment British costs of production are higher than Continental costs of production, that does not mean, in my opinion, that the imposition of a duty will be followed by a permanent rise in prices, whatever may happen temporarily. I fully anticipate that the British producers will be able to reduce their costs of production as other safeguarded industries have done. It is no good quoting John Stuart Mill and regarding the problem purely statically when the problem is dynamic and when we have actual experience to guide us. I do not think there is much else that has been said of value that need be replied to, and I hope the Committee will now come to a decision.

3.0 p.m.

Mr. KELLY

Having sat throughout the whole Debate, with the exception of a quarter of an hour, I must confess that the reply of the Parliamentary Secretary is even worse than the opening statement of the President, and the number of points put up by the hon. Gentleman himself in order that he might deal with them shows how poor is the case of the Government for this duty. The point that has mainly come out of the discussion is that the Government are endeavouring to prevent coming into this country the manufacture of another country, but they are quite prepared that it shall came in if it will only pay us a 25 per cent. duty. Even the hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Womersley) agrees with that. That certainly is not going to be helpful to the industry and is not going to bring us that prosperity which has been hinted at by many hon. Members this morning. The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Sir J. Power) had a great deal to say about wages, and he asked whether we were satisfied with the wages paid in this industry.

Sir J. POWER

Paid abroad.

Mr. KELLY

Paid abroad and paid, here. I followed the hon. Member very closely, and I heard his slogans, which were invented, I think, while he was speaking, but that is the point. I can answer his question straight away. We are dissatisfied with the wages paid abroad and with the wages paid in every industry in this country, and it will be time enough for the hon. Member to deliver speeches about wages such as he delivered this morning when he lends a hand to those of us who have tried and are trying to lift them up. I have never, in the course of many years, discovered the hon. Gentleman do other than talk about safeguarding, and safeguarding has never raised the wages in any of the industries safeguarded. We were told by the hon. Member that greater production would be better for the workers. I wonder for how long the people of this country are going to be told by hon. Members opposite that all that is required is greater production. We can produce a great deal more than is being produced in the country at this time. We can produce much more than has ever been spoken of by any of those who have made estimates for us. It is not a question of greater production.

In the enamel ware occupation, we could produce a great deal more. [Interruption.] I am concerned with this industry. I think there are three, if not four, of the members of my own trade union who are sitting on the Trade Board for this industry, and I have negotiated on behalf of the workpeople in this industry, but I am not going to mislead the men, women, girls, and boys who are engaged in it by telling them that the industry is going to be improved by the operation of a 25 per cent. duty such as is suggested by this particular Committee. The hon. Member for Grimsby told us that his desire was to keep this foreign material out, but he said there would be an increase in price.

Mr. WOMERSLEY

No. What I said was that there might be, in the very cheapest article.

Mr. KELLY

And the cheapest article was the only one that the hon. Member said was likely to come into this country, that the foreigners were able to send in. The figures he quoted were those of 8d. and 6d., and it is clearly brought out that the intention here is that there shall be an increase of price. I hope that the agricultural people in the various districts who have to purchase these particular articles will recognise the fact that the Governmental party have no compunction in raising the price of articles which have to be bought by the agricultural community.

Mr. WOMERSLEY

Hypothetical.

Mr. KELLY

There is nothing hypothetical about them having to buy these particular articles. Then we were told by the hon. Member for Deritend (Mr. Crooke), who, I am sorry, is not here at the moment—we were all delighted with the speech he delivered, even if we disagreed with it—that at the meetings he holds week by week in his constituency all those concerned in this industry call upon him and and tell him about unemployment and under-employment, and that it was all due to the fact that hollow-ware manufactured abroad come into this country. That opinion is being fostered by people who use it for their own ends in the hope of benefiting their business. We have no idea as to what evidence the committee set up under the Safeguarding Act took. The evidence is not before us. That, I think, is a mistake which ought to be rectified at a very early date. We ought to have before us the whole of the evidence which is put before these committees, and not be asked blindly to accept the decision of three people, who are unknown to many of us, because those people have received certain evidence which they dare not place before Members of the House of Commons.

To revert to the statement of the hon. Member for Deritend that these people were out of work because of manufactured hollow-ware coming into this country, I would ask the Committee to consider the fact that many articles which now take the place of enamelled hollow-ware are made of a mixture which contains aluminium, which is taking the place of a great deal even of the cheaper kinds of product. I suggest that underemployment and unemployment in the industry may be due to that fact. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade shakes his head, but he has given us no evidence, and those of us who are concerned in both the aluminium and hollow-ware trade have some little knowledge, small though it may appear to this Committee, of what is being done in those two industries, and I want the people with whom I have worked closely for many years not to be misled by the suggestion that comes from the Government that they are to have some remedy from this proposal now before the House. The hon. Member for Wimbledon said that we on this side of the House appear to favour the middle-man. Believe me, I am out for the abolition of that particular type of individual. I wish we could get straight from the producer to the consumer, and I think it comes very ill from the hon. Member for Wimbledon, whom one has never found taking a big part in industry in this country, to suggest that we on these benches are favourable to the middlemen in this country. At any rate, it is in keeping with some of the work on the platforms of this country that I have watched pretty closely during the last few years.

I would ask the Committee to look at the Report, and see what is the evidence that has warranted the Committee in coming to its conclusion. A professor from Nottingham University may be quite learned but the fact that that Committee has taken from him the view as to whether the seven firms he visited were efficient or inefficient, I think detracts a great deal from the conclusions at which they have arrived. If they were to examine the efficiency or want of efficiency of these firms, it was the duty of the whole Committee to go, and not of one member, who had already made up his mind by the reservation which he made in 1925. I am sorry that the gentleman cannot be present, in order that he may defend himself, but we are placed in the position that we are expected to accept his statement. I am not going to accept, without criticism, the opinion of people about whose experience of knowing whether a particular firm was efficient or inefficient I was not sure. Of course, he came back and said that all the firms are efficient. A trade union official sat with him; I know him very well. I can imagine that, if the same thing happened in some of our trade union meetings, that particular official would have to explain his statement. It is on that type of statement that we are asked to accept the position that these seven English works are quite efficient.

Then we come to his earlier statement. I thought that it was usual for a professor at least to be scientific, and to have matters proved before he is prepared to accept them. In his earlier Report, when he makes a reservation in favour of a tariff, he states that there is evidence with regard to the conditions in another country, and he formed the opinion that the working hours in Germany, the chief competitor, were longer than those operating in this country. I would ask the President of the Board of Trade upon what figures he bases his conclusion? Where do the figures of the number of employed and unemployed come from? The Board of Trade is not in possession of the figures, nor is the Minister of Labour. I asked a question this morning, and I would like to read the answer, so that it may not be said that I am taking just an extract. It is the type of evidence that is good enough for the so-called safeguarders, who are endeavouring to delude the people that they are anxious to help the producer to have better conditions of work and wages. The answer of the Minister of Labour is: The enamelled hollow-ware industry is not separately distinguished in the statistics of employment and unemployment derived from the working of the Unemployment Insurance Acts, and the information desired is, therefore, not available.

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

That was why the Inquiry very properly took evidence from the employers and trade unions. Surely the trade unions themselves know something about the people who are in work and out of work?

Mr. KELLY

They did not make inquiries from all the trade unions that are concerned. They made inquiries only from some organisation in which they happened to find an official prepared to give evidence. They did not take evidence from the whole of those who represent the workpeople in that industry. I will finish this answer: Cast hollow-ware is included with stoves, grates, ranges, pipes, etc., to form one group. Wrought hollow-ware is included in the group 'Metal industries not separately classified.' The Government Departments cannot tell us how many are engaged in the industry, or even give us the names of the firms who are directly concerned in the production of enamelled hollow-ware; but in spite of that lack of evidence this proposal is brought forward, and not only is it brought forward but it is to be rushed through the House. It was only on Wednesday that we received the report of the Committee, but the Resolution was put down for discussion to-day in the hope that the battalions behind the Treasury Bench would rush it through, making the people believe once again that safeguarding is to their advantage. I see the hon. Member for Penrith (Mr. Dixey) present. Safeguarding and protection are two words which he is always ready to bow down and worship, but I would assure him that in no trade which has been safeguarded up to the present time has there been any improvement in the conditions of working or in the conditions of pay. In not one case has there been any improvement, but once again we are handing over to a particular set of employers the chance of raising prices against the people, with no guarantee that the conditions of the workers will be improved, and I shall believe hon. Members opposite are really serious and honest in what they say about their desire to raise the conditions of the workers when they do something in that direction. Safeguarding would only worsen the situation.

Mr. REMER

The hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Kelly) has argued that safeguarding in industry has done nothing to improve the lot of the workers in this country. The rate of wages is not everything. A man may be paid a high rate of wages and yet be working only a very short time, but where industries have been safeguarded works have been able to keep going full time, and the employés have been able to earn very much larger weekly wages than was previously possible. I would lay stress upon the fact that we on this side believe in a higher standard of life for the working people, believe in raising their standard of life to the highest possible economic point. Hon. Members opposite profess the same idea, but the difference between us and them is that they will not raise one little finger to make those higher wages and that better standard of life an economic possibility. We all realise the competition to which this industry has been subjected, and I I think it has been clearly shown that hon. Members opposite are not going to raise their little finger in order to save it from extinction. I was particularly interested in the speech made by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. J. Hudson) who seems to think that because we import enamelled hollow-ware we must ipso facto export woollen goods from his town in Yorkshire. The hon. Member has been advocating the old principle that goods must be paid for by goods, and that is a principle to which I subscribe to the full. It is equally true that if you export goods you have to be paid for them, and if we place a tariff on enamelled hollow-ware the people abroad who have to pay for them will have to send us some other form of goods in order to pay for the goods which we export.

Mr. HARRIS

Why do you buy the goods if you do not want them?

Mr. REMER

My point is that, instead of importing enamelled hollow-ware, we ought to be importing the raw materials in order to make these goods in our own country. If we export goods, the foreigner must send goods to pay for the manufactured goods which we export and this is true in respect of every manufactured article which is produced in this country. This question is solely one of the overhead charges which are the main cost of production. In each case, rent, rates, taxes, unemployment insurance, and National Health Insurance is to be paid whether our factories are working full time or short time, and if by imposing Safeguarding Duties we can keep our factories working full time our manufacturers will then be able to pay higher wages to their workpeople, and they will also be able to produce their goods at a lower price. That is the reason why in trades in which Safeguarding Duties have been imposed the price of the article has not been increased but reduced. In the case of the enamelled hollow-ware trade, I feel sure that after this Duty has been imposed we shall find an increase of employment in the factories manufacturing these goods, and there will be a reduction in the price of that particular article.

Mr. KELLY

Can the hon. Member give any instances of trades in which Safeguarding Duties have increased the wages paid?

Mr. REMER

I believe there are several trades in which the wages paid are higher. If the hon. Member wishes it, I shall be glad to look into the matter and send him the details of such cases. Where Safeguarding Duties have been imposed, the prosperity of the workers in those industries has been increased, and greater efficiency in production has been achieved. Those duties in many cases have enabled manufacturers to go forward to a higher state of efficiency in production by bringing their works more up-to-date without the fear of being wiped out altogether by foreign competition, and thus losing all their capital. In the case we are now considering, I believe the same results will accrue as have accrued in the case of other industries, and we shall find that greater prosperity will come to the enamelled hollow-ware industry by this proposal—not merely to the manufacturer, but also to the workman in the industry by full employment and greater certainty of employment, and also by the higher standard of life which will be made possible. The interests of the workers and of the manufacturers in the hollow-ware industry are identical. They are working, and should work, together in order to bring greater prosperity to the industry, and I believe it is only by a Safeguarding Duty such as it is now proposed to impose in the case of that industry that greater prosperity can be secured.

Mr. T. SHAW

I oppose the proposal that is being made, and am only sorry that on this occasion it is impossible to argue the general merits of the case for and against safeguarding. There are right hon. and hon. Members on the other side who go so far as to believe that the policy of safeguarding extended to a general tariff is the absolute cure for unemployment in this country. I personally believe, and I think that every Member of my party believes with me, that the tendency of a protective tariff is to encourage slackness, to make profits secure without making wages secure at all, and very often to encourage inefficiency instead of promoting efficiency. There is, therefore, between us a world of difference—

Mr. DIXEY

Do I understand from that that the right hon. Gentleman is an opponent of his party's plan of restricting importation?

Mr. SHAW

I cannot reply at this time of the afternoon to an interjection of that kind. I have stated, I think fairly, the two different schools of thought, and, obviously, this is one of the most important things that can come before Parliament. The question of the hollow-ware industry, important as it is, is as dust in the balance compared with the whole general question. We cannot, therefore, treat this matter merely as it applies to hollow-ware, but have to treat it as part of the whole general subject. How does the Government treat the House in regard to this question? Just think for a moment of the history of it. In 1926, a Committee sits, composed of three persons. That Committee does not recommend a safeguarding duty. One of those three persons goes away on an investigation. We do not know by whom he was sent; we do not know under whose auspices he went; we do not know what he did; we are simply left with the fact that the one member of the Committee who, in 1926, makes reservations, goes off on a tour of investigation, the Committee meets again, and the decision of 1926 is reversed. That is not a serious method of dealing with a serious problem. I raise no complaint about the gentleman in question. I know him personally, and I have the highest regard for his character, but my high regard for his character does not extend, perhaps, to swallowing holus bolus his economic faith. I know him very well; he worked in very close touch with Sir William Ashley in Birmingham, and everyone knows that Sir William Ashley was one of the chef protagonists of Tariff Reform in this country.

I am not mentioning these facts because I believe Professor Kirkaldy to be either biased or a man without judgment. I believe him to be strictly fair and I believe his judgment to be on the whole fairly sound, but that is the position of affairs. In 1926 the Committee report against. The man who makes a reservation goes on an investigation, apparently on his own. We hear nothing more about it. In 1928 the Committee meets again and, on information supplied by this member of the Committee, the decision of the previous Committee is overturned. How in these delicate and peculiar circumstances does the Government treat the House? Knowing the importance of the question, knowing what has taken place, on Wednesday night it issues a report, and it expects the House on Friday to come to a decision before Members have the slightest opportunity of getting to know what is the condition of affairs My hon. Friend has quoted answers given him by one of the Ministers of the Crown. Can anyone tell from them and can anyone tell from the 1928 report what the condition of affairs is? We are told many things that the applicants have said but I cannot find a word from cover to cover that shows the case of those who opposed the application. We have a report presented to Parliament which gives only the arguments used by one side. Is that a judicial way of presenting a case? Is that a way that any man in his private business would recommend? Would not everyone under other circumstances require that both sides should be heard before a decision was arrived at? We are left with a document of that kind at this hour and asked to swallow a report made under these extraordinary circumstances.

Let me take one or two things that are said. We formed the opinion at our previous inquiry that the wrought enamelled hollow-ware industry in this country might be regarded as one of substantial importance, and we adhere to that view to-day. But no one knows what the enamelled hollow-ware industry is and how many people are occupied in it. [An HON. MEMBER: "Paragraph 13."] In paragraph 13 it tells you that certain estimates are given, and one of the arguments of the Parliamentary Secretary is that you must not take the figures as given by employers for granted because the figures issued by the Government show that they were not correct. You cannot say to us on one occasion, "You must not take these things as accurate because the census return shows that they are incorrect," and then say, "Turn to so and so and accept what the employers state." Assume that the position of the Government is accepted, that imports are a bad thing and you have to get rid of them, what has taken place? In 1921 we imported 7,634 tons and in 1926 7,195 tons. I am taking the best for my case, but I do not want to take the best. I want to take the figures as they are. On the basis that imports are increasing in vast quantities and that that is bad for the country, a thing I do not admit for a moment, even then there is no case under this report.

With regard to wages, I want to call attention to the fact that possibly the most dangerous thing in making comparisons at the present moment is to compare the wages existing in the different European countries. It is quite wrong to assume that because a Belgian worker gets wages in francs and we can purchase 174 francs to the £the Belgian worker's real wages are represented in terms at which we value his franc. No man who has ever travelled in Belgium or who knows anything at all about Belgium can take that argument. He knows perfectly well that the franc has a much higher purchasing power in Belgium than is represented by the value placed upon it in this country simply because we can purchase 174 francs for the £.

I am going to give to the Committee my own personal experience in regard to another trade. Not long ago there was a demand on the part of a body of employers in this country for a reduction in wages on the ground that German workers were getting much lower wages and that the German employers by reason of the low wages they were paying were able to compete against the industry in this country. The industry in this country was the woollen industry. Acting on my advice, representatives of the woollen workers went to Germany in order to find out what were the facts. They found that the statistics used by the employers there were base rates. They were not the wages actually paid to the workers at all. We had opportunities time and time again of finding out that the actual wages paid to the workers were more than twice as high as the wages that had been stated to us in this country as the wages really paid to German workers.

I look at these figures and I cannot make them square. I want to put before the Committee the absolute necessity in cases of this kind, of having, not a mere vague statement on the part of the Committee, one-sided because it only gives the applicant's case, but also reasons given for what is done, the pros and cons, and some idea as to how the figures were collected and what weight could be put upon these figures. I shall vote against the proposal, and regret that I have not an opportunity of arguing the general case against it.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

I should not have taken part in this Debate to-day but for the fact that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade made reference in his speech of an interruption of mine regarding women in Glasgow receiving only 8s. per week. He said that that statement was incorrect.

Mr. WILLIAMS

No, no. I said that as far as I could find out, there was no firm in Glasgow that was making hollow-ware.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

As far as the hon. Gentleman found out there was no firm making hollow-ware paying those wages. My point is that I did not say hollow-ware. All I was interested in, and am still interested in, was that the speeches were bringing out the fact that there was sweated labour here as well as on the Continent. I was only pointing out an outstanding outrage, that in Glasgow there were women working for 8s. a week. I did not say that they were engaged in any particular industry.

The CHAIRMAN

If it has nothing to do with hollow-ware, the matter does not arise here.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

With all due respect, the idea underlying all this Debate to-day is sweated labour versus unsweated labour. Surely, if there are young women who are being paid 8s. a week wage in my native land, it is time it was stopped.

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member has now succeeded in drawing attention to the matter. The time is short, and we must confine ourselves to points in regard to the specific duty which is before us. The hon. Member has already made his point.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

The firm in question is situated in the East End of Glasgow. I only received word about it on Monday night, and I have not been able to make inquiries. I am saying this to let them know that we are informed about it.

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member must see that according to the Rules of Order I cannot allow this argument to go on. There was some conversation between him and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, and I called him out of his turn in order that he might make an explanation, but he must not use the opportunity in order to make an attack upon a firm which does not make hollow-ware.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

I do not wish to say anything further, and I thank you very much for allowing me to make my point.

Mr. HARRIS

What we are considering to-day is the imposition of a fresh charge. The Resolution before the House provides that for a period of not less than five years, beginning on the 13th June, 1928, there shall be charged on the importation into the United Kingdom of wrought enamelled hollow-ware a duty amounting to 25 per cent. of the value. Our complaint is that on a Friday afternoon, which is generally limited to private Members business on questions usually of a non-controversial character, and after only one and a half days notice, this new duty is proposed to be imposed. I do not think it is treating the House of Commons fairly and squarely to move this Financial Resolution in this way. It is peculiarly unsatisfactory, because the excuse for imposing this duty is not, apparently, for revenue purposes but because of a Report under the machinery of safeguarding. We have had a great number of these inquiries and a very large number of articles, numbering something like 40,000, have been taxed. In every case previously hon. Members have had reasonable notice of the proposal and have had the Report in their hands for some weeks, and have had a chance of collecting evidence, and getting to know the case thoroughly, for and against the duty.

In this particular case we are further strengthened in our objection because the amount of information given is very limited compared with the many reports which we have had in our possession. The second report of the Committee only consists, including statistics, of nine pages. So far as one can see, the Committee in their first report, which was not circulated and has only been circulated on special request, turned down the Duty. It seems to be a new idea, and it creates a precedent, that a Committee after having reported is to be called into being again for the purpose of making a second report. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to make that clear. Are we to understand that in two years' time a Committee can be called together again in order to reconsider its decision?

Mr. H. WILLIAMS

Only if fresh information is shown, only if a prima facie case is established for a fresh inquiry.

Mr. HARRIS

To whom must the evidence be submitted?

Mr. WILLIAMS

To the Board of Trade; according to the procedure of the White Paper.

Mr. HARRIS

Yes, by whom? By the same people who made the original application?

Mr. WILLIAMS

Yes, naturally.

Mr. HARRIS

Then we are to have a continual series of inquiries. I know that it is considered a crime to oppose any of these proposals. If anybody is bold enough to offer criticism or opposition they are treated as criminals and enemies of their own country; and, besides, it is a somewhat expensive process. I am informed that these inquiries cost the promoters thousands of pounds; they have to go to considerable expense. They have, however, some advantage to gain. They may be able to obtain extra profits, extra business, but their opponents, who do not get any advantage whatever, are to be put every two or three years to the expense of opposing these applications, and in addition, are to be open to insult and attack as enemies of their awn country. This machinery is cumbersome and unsatisfactory. We have had many of these inquiries. They cannot be held until the Board of Trade is satisfied that there is a case for inquiry, yet the great majority of them have been turned down. Does not that show that the whole case for safeguarding, advertised with such a great flourish of trumpets, is very weak indeed? Even with a Government sympathetic to the policy, even with two Ministers at the Board of Trade also sympathetic, the fact remains that the great majority of these applications have been turned down.

In this particular case no evidence is put forward to support the application. In the case of earthenware the whole process of manufacture was explained in order that hon. Members should understand the reason why a certain amount of safeguarding was necessary, but in this case no information is supplied to Parliament and no figures are given as to the amount of unemployment, which is certainly a great factor in any case for safeguarding. Indeed a great amount of unemployment makes it a special case. It is interesting to note that in this particular industry there has been a drop in imports since the War. The last page of the report shows that in 1913 the imports came to over 12,000 tons, while in 1927, an exceptional year, it is still 3,000 tons below that amount. Of course, enamelled ware is going out of use among people who can afford to use aluminium. Aluminium is now produced much more cheaply, and is employing a great number of people in a large number of factories. It is more suitable, cleaner and healthier for cooking purposes. But the poorer classes, the people with low wages in the East End of London or in the mining districts, cannot afford aluminium, and have to content themselves with enamelled ware.

It is very curious that the articles that the Government single out for safeguarding are in almost every case articles of general consumption by the people. In the case of pottery they singled out earthenware. That seems very hard when the cost of living is high and unemployment is widespread. They taxed the drinking cup of the working woman; they taxed the knife that she used to cut her meat; and now they are to tax the pot in which she cooks her food. Why? The whole case of the Government, as far as I can make out, is based on an inquiry made on his own account by a distinguished professor from Nottingham. The Minister seemed surprised that we should take exception to a professor going on a journey on his own account and to the fact that the Committee should change its opinion on the evidence that he collected during that journey. The evidence given before the Committee should have been evidence which could have been checked and examined by counsel and be subject to the usual process of inquiry. This is one of the worst cases in all the series of safeguarding inquiries. It imposes a duty without giving the House an opportunity of verifying the facts on which the committee has based its conclusion. For all these reasons I oppose the duty.

Mr. TINKER

I beg to move, in line 1, to leave out the words "five years," and to insert instead thereof the words "one year."

I have never listened to a Debate in which there has been so much controversy as to the facts. The controversy has not been on the principle of whether there should be Safeguarding or Free Trade, but has been solely as to whether the facts laid before the Committee have been adequate. This report has only been available for a few days and the House has not had sufficient time to say, definitely, whether this proposal ought to be accepted or not. The House ought to have a little more time in which to discuss this proposal and find out what it means. If those who are in favour of this proposal can satisfy the House of Commons as to its desirability I do not think anyone on these benches will stand in the way. The time for argument as between a Free Trade and a Tariff Reform system has gone by. Reference has been made to one prominent writer who in days gone by argued from a set case, but things change, and if that change takes place I do not think anyone will stand in the way. To-day, however, we have not had the facts of this particular case fully before us and, therefore, we ask that the experiment should only be made for one year. If at the end of that time it can be shown that it is working properly, an extension of the time can be sought.

Mr. CRAWFURD

I support the Amendment and, in doing so, I wish to refer to a remark made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade in his reply when we last discussed this question. It was during the Debate on the Motion for Adjournment before the Whitsuntide Recess, and the hon. Gentleman was good enough to remark that a certain observation of mine was

one which ought not to have been made. I was not in the House at the time when the hon. Gentleman made this remark—much to my regret, because, if I am to be hit, I like to be in the ring at the moment. My observation was that there has not been, up to date, one of these inquiries where the conditions laid down in the White Paper have been satisfied. It was that contention of mine which he questioned and which he said ought never to have been made. I make it again, and shall state, with regard to this particular duty, the condition which has not been satisfied. There has not been—and the figures even in this meagre report show it—anything that can be called abnormal importation in this particular case.

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

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

The Committee divided: Ayes, 234; Noes, 84.

Division No. 157.]	AYES.	[4.0 p.m.
Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel	Churchman, Sir Arthur C.	Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)
Albery, Irving James	Cobb, Sir Cyril	Grant, Sir J. A.
Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.	Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George	Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.
Applin, Colonel R. V. K.	Colman, N. C. D.	Greene, W. P. Crawford
Apsley, Lord	Cooper, A. Duff	Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Sir H. (W'th's'w, E)
Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.	Cope, Major Sir William	Grotrian, H. Brent
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley	Couper, J. B.	Gunston, Captain D. W.
Balfour, George (Hampstead)	Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L.	Hacking, Douglas H.
Balniel, Lord	Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islington, N.)	Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.	Craig, Capt. Rt. Hon. C. C. (Antrim)	Hall, Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne)
Barnett, Major Sir Richard	Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe)	Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)
Bellairs, Commander Carlyon	Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.	Hamilton, Sir George
Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)	Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)	Harrison, G. J. C.
Bennett, A. J.	Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)	Hartington, Marquess of
Berry, Sir George	Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West)	Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)
Birchall, Major J. Dearman	Curzon, Captain Viscount	Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Bird, Sir R. B. {Wolverhampton, W.)	Dalkeith, Earl of	Headlam, Lieut-Colonel C. M.
Bourne, Captain Robert Croft	Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)	Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley)
Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.	Davies, Dr. Vernon	Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Brass, Captain W.	Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)	Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Briggs, J. Harold	Dawson, Sir Philip	Hills, Major John Waller
Briscoe, Richard George	Dean, Arthur Wellesley	Hilton, Cecil
Brittain, Sir Harry	Dixey, A. C.	Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard
Brocklebank, C. E. R.	Drewe, C.	Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)
Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.	Edmondson, Major A. J.	Hopkins, J. W. W.
Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd. Hexham)	Elliot, Major Walter E.	Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K.
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y)	Ellis, R. G.	Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Buckingham, Sir H.	Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s-M.)	Hudson, R. S. (Cumberl'nd, Whiteh'n)
Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James	Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith	Hume, Sir G. H.
Bullock, Captain M.	Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)	Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis
Burton, Colonel H. W.	Everard, W. Lindsay	Hunter-Weston. Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Butler, Sir Geoffrey	Fairfax, Captain J. G.	Hurd, Percy A.
Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward	Fermoy, Lord	Hurst, Gerald B.
Campbell, E. T.	Fielden, E. B.	Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Carver, Major W. H.	Foxcroft, Captain C. 1.	Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)
Cassels, J. D.	Fraser, Captain Ian	James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Cautley, Sir Henry S.	Gadle, Lieut.-Col. Anthony	Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William
Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, city)	Ganzoni, Sir John	Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Cazalet, Captain Victor A.	Gates, Percy	Kindersley, Major Guy M.
Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)	Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John	King, Commodore Henry Douglas
Charteris, Brigadier-General J.	Goff, Sir Park	Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Christie, J. A.	Gower, Sir Robert	Lamb, J. Q.
Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.	Nicholson, Col. 'Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'ld.)	Smithers, Waldron
Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip	O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)	Spender-Clay, Colonel H.
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)	Penny, Frederick George	Sprot, Sir Alexander
Loder, J. de v.	Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)	Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F.
Long, Major Eric	Perkins, Colonel E. K.	Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)
Lougher, Lewis	perring, Sir William George	Steel, Major Samuel Strang
Lowe, Sir Francis William	Peto, Sir Basil E. {Devon, Barnstaple)	Storry-Deans, R.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere	Peto, G. (Somerset, Frame)	Streatfeild, Captain S. R.
Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman	Phillpson, Mabel	Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.
Lumley, L. R.	Pilditch, Sir Philip	Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)	Power, Sir John Cecil	Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)	Price, Major C. W. M.	Tasker, R. Inlgo.
McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus	Ramsden, E.	Templeton, W. P.
MacIntyre, Ian	Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)	Thorn, Lt.-Col- J. G. (Dumbarton)
McLean, Major A.	Reid, D. D. (County Down)	Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Macmillan, Captain H.	Remer, J. R.	Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell
Macnaghten, Hon. sir Malcolm	Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)	Tinne, J. A.
Macquisten, F. A.	Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)	Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham)	Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Rennell	Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
Makins, Brigadler-General E.	Ropner, Major L.	Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.
Malone, Major P. B.	Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)	Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L. (Kinqston-on-Hull)
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn	Rye, F. G.	Warrender, Sir Victor
Margesson, Captain D.	Salmon, Major I.	Waterhouse, Captain Charles
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.	Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)	Wells, S. R.
Meller, R. J.	Sandeman, N. Stewart	White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dairymple-
Merriman, Sir F. Boyd	Sanderson, Sir Frank	Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)
Meyer, Sir Frank	Sandon, Lord	Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)
Milne, J. S. Wardlaw-	Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.	Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)	Scott, Rt. Hon. Sir Leslie	Winby, Colonel L. P.
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)	Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W. R., Sowerby)	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.	Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl. (Renfrew, W.)	Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl
Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.	Sheffield, Sir Berkeley	Wolmer, Viscount
Morrison, H. (Witts, Salisbury)	Shepperson, E. W.	Wood, Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)
Nelson, Sir Frank	Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfst)	Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. sir L.
Neville, Sir Reginald J.	Skelton, A. N.
Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)	Slaney, Major P. Kenyon	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Nicholson, O. (Westminster)	Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)	Major Sir George Hennessy and
		Captain Wallace.
NOES.
Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)	Hirst, G. H.	Potts, John S.
Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')	Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)	Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Ammon, Charles George	Hore-Belisha, Leslie	Runciman, Hilda (Cornwall, St. Ives)
Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bliston)	Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)	Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter
Baker, Walter	Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)	Scurr, John
Barnes, A.	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)
Batey, Joseph	Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)	Shiels, Dr. Drummond
Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.	Kelly, W. T.	Shinwell, E.
Broad, F. A.	Kennedy, T.	Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)
Bromley, J.	Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.	Smith, Rennie (penistone)
Brown, Ernest (Leith)	Kirkwood, D.	Snell, Harry
Cove, W. G.	Lansbury, George	Stamford, T. W.
Crawfurd, H. E.	Lawrence, Susan	Stephen, Campbell
Dalton, Hugh	Lawson, John James	Strauss, E. A.
Day, Harry	Lee, F.	Sutton, J. E.
Dennison, R.	Lindley, F. W.	Thomas, Sir Robert John (Anglesey)
Dunnico, H.	Livingstone, A. M.	Thurtle, Ernest
Forrest, W.	Lowth, T.	Tinker, John Joseph
Gardner, J. P.	Mac Donald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)	Varley, Frank B.
Gillett, George M.	MacLaren, Andrew	Wallhead, Richard C.
Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin. Cent.)	Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton)	Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)	Maxton, James	Wellock, Wilfred
Griffith, F. Kingsley	Montague, Frederick	Whiteley, W.
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)	Morris, R. H.	Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
Groves, T.	Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Windsor, Walter
Grundy, T. W.	Naylor, T. E.	Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)
Hardie, George D.	Palin, John Henry
Harris, Percy A.	Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Hayday, Arthur	Pethick-Lawrencs, F. W.	Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr.
		Paling.

Question put accordingly, "That the words 'five years' stand part of the Question."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 230; Noes, 84.

Division No. 158.]	AYES.	[4.9 p.m.
Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel	Apsley, Lord	Balniel, Lord
Albery, Irving James	Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.	Banks, Sir Reginald Mitchell
Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.	Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley	Barnett, Major Sir Richard
Applin, Colonel R. V. K.	Balfour, George (Hampstead)	Bellairs, Commander Carlyon
Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)	Gunston, Captain D. W.	Penny, Frederick George
Bennett, A. J.	Hacking, Douglas H.	Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Berry, Sir George	Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)	Perkins, Colonel E. K.
Birchall, Major J. Dearman	Mall, Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne)	Perring, Sir William George
Bird, Sir H. B. (Wolverhampton, W.)	Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Had.)	Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Bourne, Captain Robert Croft	Hamilton, Sir George	Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)
Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.	Harrison, G. J. C.	Phillpson, Mabel
Briggs, J. Harold	Hartington, Marquess of	Pilditch, Sir Philip
Briscoe, Richard George	Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)	Power, Sir John Cecil
Brittain, Sir Harry	Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)	Price, Major C. W. M.
Brocktebank, C. E. R.	Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.	Ramsden, E.
Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.	Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley)	Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)
Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)	Heneage, Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.	Held, D. D. (County Down)
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y)	Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)	Remer, J. R.
Buckingham, Sir H.	Hills, Major John Waller	Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)
Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James	Hilton, Cecil	Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)
Bullock, Captain M.	Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard	Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Rennell
Burton, Colonel H. W.	Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)	Ropner, Major L.
Butler, Sir Geoffrey	Hopkins, J. W. W.	Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward	Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K.	Rye, F. G.
Campbell, E. T.	Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)	Salmon, Major I.
Carver, Major W. H.	Hudson, R. S. (Cumb'l'nd, Whiteh'n)	Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Cassels, J. D.	Hume, Sir G. H.	Sandeman, N. Stewart
Cautley, Sir Henry S.	Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis	Sanderson, Sir Frank
Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)	Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer	Sandon, Lord
Cazalet, Captain Victor A.	Hurd, Percy A.	Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.
Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)	Hurst, Gerald B.	Scott, Rt. Hon. Sir Leslie
Charteris, Brigadier-General J.	Inskip, sir Thomas Walker H.	Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W. R., Sowerby)
Christie, J. A.	Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Con'l)	Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mel. (Renfrew, W)
Churchman, Sir Arthur C.	James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert	Sheffield, sir Berkeley
Cobb, Sir Cyril	Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William	Shepperson, E. W.
Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George	Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)	Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast)
Colman, N. C. D.	Kindersley, Major Guy M.	Skelton, A. N.
Cooper, A. Duff	King, Commodore Henry Doug as	Slaney, Major P. Kenyon
Couper, J. B.	Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement	Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L.	Lamb, J. Q.	Smithers, Waldron
Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islingtn, N.)	Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.	Spender-Clay, Colonel H.
Craig, Capt. Rt. Hon. C. C. (Antrim)	Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip	Sprot, Sir Alexander
Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe)	Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)	Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F.
Croft, Brigadler-General Sir H.	Loder, J. de V.	Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland
Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)	Long, Major Eric	Steel, Major Samuel Strang
Curzon, Captain Viscount	Lougher, Lewis	Storry-Deans, R.
Dalkeith, Earl of	Lowe, Sir Francis William	Streatfelld, Captain S. R.
Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)	Lucas-Tooth, sir Hugh Vere	Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.
Davies, Dr. Vernon	Luce, Maj.-Gen, Sir Richard Herman	Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)	Lumley, L. R.	Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
Dawson, Sir Philip	Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)	Tasker, R. Inlgo.
Dean, Arthur Wellesley	Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)	Templeton, W. P.
Dixcy, A C.	McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus	Thorn, Lt.-Col. J. G. (Dumbarton)
Drewe, C.	MacIntyre, Ian	Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)
Edmondson, Major A. J.	McLean, Major A.	Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell-
Elliot, Major Walter E.	Macmillan, Captain H.	Tinne, J. A.
Ellis, R. G.	Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm	Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s-M.)	Macquisten, F. A.	Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith	Maitland, A. (Kent, Favershan)	Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.
Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)	Making, Brigadier-General E.	Wallace, Captain D. E.
Everard, W. Lindsay	Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn	Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L. (Kingston-on-Hull)
Fairfax, Captain J. G.	Margesson, Captain D.	Warrender, Sir Victor
Fermoy, Lord	Marriott, Sir J. A. R.	Waterhouse, Captain Charles
Fielden, E. B.	Mailer, R. J.	Wells, S. R.
Foxcroft, Captain C. T.	Merriman, Sir F. Boyd	White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dairymple
Fraser, Captain Ian	Meyer, Sir Frank	Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)
Gadle, Lieut.-Col. Anthony	Milne, J. S. Wardlaw-	Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)
Ganzoni, sir John	Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)	Wilson, R. R. {Stafford, Lichfield)
Gates, Percy	Mitchell. Sir W. Lane (Streatham)	Winby, Colonel L. P.
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John	Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Goff, Sir Park	Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.	Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl
Gower, Sir Robert	Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)	Wolmer, Viscount
Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)	Nelson, Sir Frank	Wood, Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)
Grant, Sir J. A.	Neville, Sir Reginald J.	Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.
Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.	Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)
Greene, W. P. Crawford	Nicholson, O. (Westminster)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Sir H. (W'th's'w, E)	Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'ld.)	Major Sir George Hennessy and
Grotrian, H. Brent	O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)	Major Sir William Cope.
NOES.
Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)	Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.	Day, Harry
Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')	Broad, F. A.	Dennison, R.
Ammon, Charles George	Bromley, J.	Dunnico, H.
Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)	Brown, Ernest (Leith)	Forrest, W.
Baker, Walter	Cove, W. G.	Gardner, J. P.
Barnes, A.	Crawfurd, H. E.	Gillett, George M.
Batey, Joseph	Dalton, Hugh	Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.)

Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)	Lee, F.	Shinwell, E.
Griffith, F. Kingsley	Lindley, F. W.	Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)	Livingstone, A. M.	Smith, Rennie (Penistone)
Groves, T.	Lowth, T.	Snell, Harry
Grundy, T. W.	MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)	Stamford, T. W.
Hardie, George D.	MacLaren, Andrew	Stephen, Campbell
Harris, Percy A.	Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton)	Strauss, E. A.
Hayday, Arthur	Maxton, James	Sutton, J. E.
Hirst, G. H.	Montague, Frederick	Thomas, Sir Robert John (Anglesey)
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)	Morris, R. H.	Thurtle, Ernest
Hore-Belisha, Leslie	Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Tinker, John Joseph
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)	Naylor, T. E.	Varley, Frank B.
Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)	Palin, John Henry	Wallhead, Richard C.
Jones, Morgan (Caerphillv)	Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)	Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)	Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.	Wellock, Wilfred
Kelly, W. T.	Potts, John S.	Whiteley, W.
Kennedy, T.	Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)	Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.	Runciman, Hilda (Cornwall, St. Ives)	Windsor, Walter
Kirkwood, D.	Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter	Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)
Lansbury, George	Scurr, John
Lawrence, Susan	Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Lawson, John James	Shiels, Dr. Drummond	Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr.
		Paling.

Main Question again proposed.

Mr. KINGSLEY GRIFFITH

rose—

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER

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

Main Question put accordingly.

The Committee divided: Ayes, 225, Noes, 84.

Division No. 159.]	AYES	[4.18 p.m.
Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel	Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.	Hills, Major John Waller
Albery, Irving James	Crookshank, Cot. C. de W. (Berwick)	Hilton, Cecil
Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.	Curzon, Captain Viscount	Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard
Applin, Colonel R. V. K.	Dalkeith, Earl of	Hope, Sir Harry (Forlar)
Apsley, Lord	Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)	Hopkins, J. W. W.
Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.	Davies, Dr. Vernon	Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K.
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley	Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)	Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (HacKney, N)
Balfour, George (Hampstead)	Dawson, Sir Philip	Hudson, R. S. (Cumberland, Whiteh'n)
Balniel, Lord	Dean, Arthur Wellesley	Hume, Sir G. H.
Banks, Sir Reginald Mitchell	Dixey, A. C.	Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis
Barnett, Major Sir Richard	Drewe, C.	Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Bellairs, Commander Carlyon	Edmondson, Major A. J.	Hurd, Percy A.
Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)	Elliot, Major Walter E.	Hurst, Gerald B.
Bennett, A. J.	Ellis, R. G.	Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Berry, Sir George	Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s-M.)	Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)
Birchall, Major J. Dearman	Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith	James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.)	Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)	Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William
Bourne, Captain Robert Croft	Everard, W. Lindsay	Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.	Fairfax, Captain J. G.	Kindersley, Major Guy M.
Briggs, J. Harold	Fermoy, Lord	King, Commodore Henry Douglas
Briscoe, Richard George	Foxcroft, Captain C. T.	Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Brittain, Sir Harry	Fraser, Captain Ian	Lamb, J. Q.
Brocklebank, C. E. R.	Gadie, Lieut.-Col. Anthony	Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.
Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.	Ganzoni, Sir John	Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip
Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)	Gates, Percy.	Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y)	Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John	Loder, J. de V.
Buckingham, Sir H.	Goff, Sir Park	Long, Major Eric
Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James	Gower, Sir Robert	Lougher, Lewis
Bullock, Captain M.	Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)	Lowe, Sir Francis William
Burton, Colonel H. W.	Grant, Sir J. A.	Lucas-Tooth. Sir Hugh Vere
Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward	Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.	Luce, Maj.-Gen- Sir Richard Harman
Campbell, E. T.	Greene, W. P. Crawford	Lumley, L. R.
Carver, Major W. H.	Greenwood. Rt. Hn. Sir H. (W'th's'w, E)	Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)
Cassels, J. D.	Grotrian, H. Brent	Macdonald. R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)
Cautley, Sir Henry S.	Gunston, Captain D. W.	McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus
Cazalet, Captain Victor A.	Hacking, Douglas H.	Macintyre, Ian
Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)	Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)	McLean, Major A.
Charteris, Brigadier-General J.	Hall, Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne)	Macmillan, Captain H.
Christie, J. A.	Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)	Macquisten, F. A.
Churchman, Sir Arthur C.	Hamilton, Sir George	Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham)
Cobb, Sir Cyril	Harrison, G. J. C	Makins, Brigadier-General E.
Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George	Hartington, Marquess of	Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn
Colman, N. C. D.	Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)	Margesson, Captain D.
Cooper, A. Dud	Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)	Marriott, Sir J. A. R.
Couper, J. B.	Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.	Melter, R. J.
Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L.	Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley)	Merriman, Sir F. Boyd
Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islington, N.)	Heneage, Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.	Meyer, Sir Frank
Craig, Capt. Rt. Hon. C. C. (Antrim)	Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.	Milne, J. S. Wardlaw-
Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe)	Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)	Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)	Hye, F. G.	Tasker, R. Inlgo.
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.	Salmon, Major I.	Templeton, W. P.
Mcore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Cot. J. T. C.	Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)	Thorn, Lt.-Col. J. G. (Dumbarton)
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)	Sandeman, N. Stewart	Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Neville, Sir Reginald J.	Sanderson, Sir Frank	Thomson, Rt. Hon. sir W. Mitchell-
Newton. Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)	Sandon, Lord	Tinne, J. A.
Nicholson, O. (Westminster)	Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.	Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'ld.)	Scott, Rt. Hon. Sir Leslie	Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)	Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W. R., Sowerby)	Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)	Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl. (Renfrew, W.)	Wallace, Captain D. E.
Perkins, Colonel E. K.	Sheffield, Sir Berkeley	Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L. (Kingston-on-Hull)
Perring, Sir William George	Shepperson, E. W.	Warrender, Sir Victor
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)	Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast)	Waterhouse, Captain Charles
Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)	Skelton, A. N.	Wells, S. R.
Phillpson, Mabel	Slaney, Major p. Kenyon	White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dairymple-
Pilditch, Sir Philip	Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)	Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)
Power, Sir John Cecil	Smithers, Waldron	Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)
Price, Major C. W. M.	Spender-Clay, Colonel H.	Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)
Ramsden, E.	Sprot, Sir Alexander	Winby, Colonel L. P.
Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)	Stanley, Lieut-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F.	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Reid, D. D. (County Down)	Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)	Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl
Remer, J. R.	Steel, Major Samuel Strang	Wolmer, viscount
Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)	Storry-Deans, R.	Wood, Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)
Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)	Streatfeild, Captain S. R.	Worthington- Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.
Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Renneil	Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.
Ropner, Major L.	Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)	Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser	Major Sir William Cope and Mr.
		Penny.
NOES.
Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)	Hirst, G. H.	Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan
Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')	Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)	Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Amnion, Charles George	Hore-Belisha, Leslie	Potts, John S.
Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)	Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)	Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Baker, Walter	Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)	Runciman, Hilda (Cornwall, St. Ives)
Barnes, A.	Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)	Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter
Batey, Joseph	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Scurr, John
Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.	Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)	Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)
Broad, F. A.	Kelly, W. T.	Shiels, Dr. Drummond
Bromley, J.	Kennedy, T.	Shinwell, E.
Brown, Ernest (Leith)	Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.	Smith, Rennie (Penistone)
Cove, W. G.	Kirkwood, D.	Snell, Harry
Crawfurd, H. E.	Lansbury, George	Stamford, T. W.
Dalton, Hugh	Lawrence, Susan	Stephen, Campbell
Day, Harry	Lawson, John James	Strauss, E. A.
Dennison, R.	Lee, F.	Sutton, J. E.
Dunnico, H.	Lindley, F. W.	Thomas, Sir Robert John (Anglesey)
Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedweilty)	Livingstone, A. M.	Thurtle, Ernest
Forrest, W.	Lowth, T.	Tinker, John Joseph
Gardner, J. P.	MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)	Varley, Frank B.
Gillett, George M.	MacLaren, Andrew	Wallhead, Richard C.
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)	Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thamoton)	Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney
Griffith, F. Kingsley	Maxton, James	Wellock, Wilfred
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)	Montague, Frederick	Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
Groves, T.	Morris, R. H.	Windsor, Walter
Grundy, T. W.	Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)
Hardie, George D.	Naylor, T. E.
Harris, Percy A.	Palin, John Henry	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Hayday, Arthur	Paling, W.	Mr. Whiteley and Mr. B. Smith.