BRITISH LEGION POPPIES. (Hansard, 15 May 1928)

§ Sir COOPER RAWSON

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prohibit the importation into Great Britain and Northern Ireland of spurious British Legion Poppies. I do not make many extravagant demands on the time of the House, and I am certain no one will grudge me the few minutes necessary to introduce this Bill. In 1921, the late Field-Marshal Earl Haig instituted Poppy Day for the purpose of raising a fund for exceptional cases of disabled ex-Service men which did not come within the ordinary Government awards, and the Flanders poppy was selected as the emblem of Remembrance Day.

At the present time the Flanders poppy is receiving competition, and we want to put a stop to that competition. The proposal that I am bringing forward has received support from all sides of the House. The British Legion Haig Fund poppy is being manufactured in a factory at Richmond, and in a factory at Edinburgh by disabled ex-service men—240 at Richmond and 50 at Edinburgh. Some of these men are 100 per cent. disabled, and the remainder are on the average 85 per cent. disabled. There are, in addition, 300 men waiting for similar 864 employment, if more work can be found for them. By cutting out this extraneous competition, it will be possible to manufacture more British poppies by British men. Unfortunately, there are in this country at the present time, I am ashamed to say, people who are manufacturing, for profit, British Legion poppies in competition with the British Legion official poppy. These are being manufactured, distributed, and sold merely to undercut the British Legion official poppy. Those people do not come within the ambit of this Bill. They are beyond legislation and beyond all hope. I think we shall have to leave it to the discerning British public to find them out and when they have found them out to expose them.

The people with whom it is contemplated that this Bill shall deal—the Germans—are, of course, in a different, category. It is very difficult for us with the British temperament to appreciate how the Germans can be so lacking in a sense of decency as not to be able to appreciate how gauche it is to send over here Flanders poppies manufactured on the Rhine. We want to put a stop to it, and the object of this Bill is to put a stop to it. We have it on authority that on the last Armistice Day one-third of the wreaths placed on the Cenotaph were made of German poppies. Although we cannot improve their moral outlook, we can, at any rate, prevent them from sending more poppies over here. The object of my Bill—it is a very short Bill of one Clause, and unlike most Bills, it is easy to understand—is to prohibit entirely the importation of poppies to compete with the British Legion Haig Fund poppies and to provide the necessary penalties for those who participate in the importation or the distribution of such poppies. The only objection I have encountered is that it will be difficult to discriminate between the genuine Haig poppy and the poppy from abroad. The answer to that is, that the official Haig poppy contains a metal centre with the words "Haig Fund" embossed upon it, and, in addition to it being a registered design, every Haig poppy has a tag which is very easy to distinguish, so that that difficulty is done away with. I only want to say, in conclusion, that I have the support of Members from the three different parties in this House, and I hope this Bill will be given a unanimous welcome so that the 865 Government may perhaps be able to give facilities for it to pass in order to prohibit the importation of further foreign poppies next Armistice Day.