§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Arthur Michael Samuel)I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
I think the House will not wish me to weary it with a long explanation of what this Bill means. I explained it at some length earlier in the week, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberavon (Mr. MacDonald) supplemented what I had to say on that occasion. I am, however, at the service of the House, and if hon. Members would like me to go into any of the details of the Measure, I am here to carry out their wishes. The Bill deals with the position in which Members of the amalgamated Diplomatic and Foreign Office Services now find themselves. The present position is neither just to the members of these services, nor is it in the best interests of the State. I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberavon bore me out in that view the other day. This Bill is intended to rectify that position. Hon. Members will agree that it is not in the best interests of the State that, before appointing an officer to a post for which he may be particularly suited, consideration must be given to the effect which such appointment may have upon his pension prospects.
That is the position which we think ought to be remedied, and we think that officers employed in the Diplomatic and Foreign Office Services should be placed on the same footing in regard to these matters as officers in other branches of the Civil Service. That is what we are seeking to do, and we are taking what we regard as the first and obvious step of placing these valuable officers under the Civil Service Superannuation Acts, which means that they will receive the same treatment in this respect as all other officers. The Bill is a simple one of three Clauses, and I will go through them briefly. The first Clause provides that members of the Diplmoatic Service shall be entitled to be brought under the Superannuation Acts, subject to the 2100 modifications shown at the bottom of page 3 and the top of page 4 of the White Paper, No. 3,224. The second Clause allows existing members of the Diplomatic Service to remain under the present system if they prefer to do so. Clause 3 defines the persons to whom the Bill applies. I appeal to hon. Members to give this Bill a, Second Reading unanimously, and so render justice to the members of a Service which has deserved well from all parties in the State.
§ Mr. TINKERBefore this Bill receives a Second Reading I wish to offer some observations upon it. Clause 1 seems to be the chief Clause of the Bill and to cover the whole point of the Measure and paragraphs (b) and (c) deal particularly with a matter on which we require further explanation. These paragraphs refer to the recall of a person serving abroad or to the breakdown of diplomatic relations; and it is provided that in such cases, certain payments are to be made to certain people who through no fault of their own are recalled. In the previous Debate the Financial Secretary stressed this matter and spoke about certain grave injustices but he gave us no actual cases. I do not know whether this provision is being made in anticipation of what may happen or whether something like this has happened before. It may be said that you do not dig your well before you want water. I quite agree but on other occasions the Government do not see matters in that way, and, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, I want to give a comparison. I have been trying to get the Workmen's Compensation Acts amended. I have been told by the Home Secretary that data is wanted to prove my case. I have provided data but even that is not sufficient for the Government in that case. How is it that in certain other cases, action may be taken where actual cases have never happened and where it is only a matter of getting ready for them?
Another point is this. During the discussion of the Financial Resolution no mention was made of the cost of this proposal and I noticed that at the windup of the Debate no response was made from the Government Benches. On this side various figures were mentioned—one of£30,000 and another of£50,000. In trying to get at the facts, I suggested 2101 that the Bill would involve for the first ten years a cost to the Treasury of£6,600 per annum and afterwards a flat rate of£2,000 per annum. That has neither been disputed nor confirmed. I am not going to a Division on this matter to-day, but some explanation is called for and if the Government want the confidence of the House of Commons in this matter, they must tell us exactly what is the extent of the financial burden. The Financial Secretary said that the cost would not be£50,000 and I think he ought to give us the actual figures. We are entitled to have some idea of what is involved. I take it that the right hon. Gentleman has figures which are, at any rate, approximate and fairly near the mark. I hope these remarks will elicit from the Government a full explanation.
§ Mr. KIRKWOODI may say at the outset on behalf of those who went into the Lobby against these pensions that we have no desire to divide the House to-day. The question was put to me by the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie), and I will tell the House as I told him, that on behalf of the Executive of the Labour party, we were asked not to do so, and on their recommendation that was what we suggested. Having said so, I now want to state to the House that we withdraw absolutely nothing of what we said from these Benches on the matter. We want to let the House know what is at stake here and what is really involved. Here you have an individual, a member of what is called the Diplomatic Service, who has had£3,400 a year of income, and when he comes to the age of 60, he is going to retire. On retiring, he gets that£3,400. But that is not all he gets. He also gets a year and a half's salary, called a gratuity. There is no gratuity for my class when we are paid off. I am here representing the working class, and when the working class are paid off or retire, there is no gratuity for them. But this individual as well as the£3,400 gets a gratuity of£5,100 into the bargain.
It does not end even there—and we have to remember that we are a working-class party, we are a Socialist party. We are out for changing all this, and this is what we are being tied up to. He not only gets the£3,400 and the£5,100, but he also, within a year, probably in a 2102 month, gets another£1,700. How much is that a year that he draws, the first year he is retired? It is£10,200, or, in simple Scottish phraseology,£200 a week. I am here representing a shipbuilding constituency, where men have to work the whole week and give of their very best, men who build the finest ships that are afloat on the seven seas, and they do not get£3 a week for doing it, yet here we are being tied up to giving an individual who has had£3,400 a year£10,200, or, in other words,£200 a week. Certainly I protest in every fibre of my body against any such thing. There is no justice here. It is the class revolt laid bare. It is the class war, and we are going to change it, because we are against the class revolt, the class war, just as we are against any other war. We are out for peace, but you never can have peace where you have men getting£200 a week while others are getting only£2 or£3 a week, and at the same time tens of thousands of as good men as any in this House now are bordering on starvation in this land. I have put forward my protest on behalf, not only of myself, but of those for whom I am empowered to speak.
§ Mr. ERNEST BROWNI think the House has listened as usual with respect to the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood), but I wish to add one remark to his. The thing that puzzles me is this, when the hon. Member is so passionately speaking for the working people and making a comparison, as he does, between the small wages of the workmen and the large pensions provided for in this particular Bill, the thing that astonishes me is that the very next Bill that was on the Order Paper when we took this particular Financial Resolution the other day was one affecting the Law Lords. The pension there was not£1,700, but£3,750, and what I cannot understand is the state of mind expressed by the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs, who will strain at the diplomatic gnat and swallow the legal camel.
§ Mr. KIRKWOODJust a word of explanation. I—
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe hon. Member has exhausted his right to speak.
§ Mr. KIRKWOODJust a second. We were tied up by our party, as loyal members of our party, not to oppose that, and that is why we did not do it. In the first instance I opposed it, just as strenuously as I did this.
§ Mr. THURTLEThere has been an exhibition of extraordinary courage, not to say effrontery, on the part of a member of the Liberal party in getting up and talking about strict logic in regard to Parliamentary situations. If there is one party in this House more than another which is frequently putting itself in a ludicrous Parliamentary position, it is the Liberal party. I only rise now just to say one or two words about what I consider to be the nonsense which has been talked about the impropriety of the opposition which was offered to this proposal by my colleagues and myself the other evening. It is said that all that the Government are seeking to do by means of this proposal is to remove an existing anomaly, so that those diplomats who serve abroad shall get pensions and be compensated in the same way as those diplomats who serve at home. We are prepared, I think, on this side to admit that that anomaly does exist and that it ought to be removed, but that was not at all the point of our opposition. What we were concerned about was this, that with a mass of anomalies existing in this country in regard to State pensions and other matters, the Government should come along and select this particular anomaly, giving it priority and precedence over all the others.
We say that there is no case for that position, and I would like to cite one or two other anomalies which exist and which, in my view and in that of my colleagues, are entitled to precedence over this one. The House must be familiar with the fact that there are many pre-war pensioners who are still labouring under disabilities, which have been brought before this House and which are admitted to be anomalies, and the reply that we have got from the Treasury Bench when those cases have been brought forward has been this: "We admit that these are anomalies and that in strict justice and equity they ought to be remedied, but there are not the funds available for this purpose." I can cite another anomaly, 2104 which must be familiar to every Member of this House. Two or three years ago we passed a widows' pensions scheme, and experience has taught every Member of this House that that scheme is full of anomalies. There are many cases of widows who ought to get a pension, who in equity and justice are entitled to it, but who cannot get it by reason of certain defects in the Act
I could cite a number of other anomalies, in connection with unemployment benefit and other matters, but I think I have said enough to show that there is a mass of anomalies in this country affecting poor people which are much more urgent in character than the one which it is proposed to remedy by this Bill; and I suggest that we are entitled to regard with a certain amount of scepticism the passion for equity and justice on the part of the Government which causes them to look around at all this mass of anomalies and then to select this particular one, affecting a comparatively wealthy and influential class, for remedy, ignoring all the others. I am in entire agreement with my hon. friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs when he says that we, who in this House primarily represent the poor people and are here as their champions, should have been lacking in our duty if we did not protest against the class bias which has selected this particular anomaly for remedy and has ignored all the others which are much more glaring in character.
Commander WILLIAMSI do not wish to take part in the very interesting discussions that apparently have been taking place among the party opposite on this Measure, but I think it might be in the general interest of the service and of the House to ask certain questions, because I think all parties agree that these people deserve very well of the country as a whole. There are three points about which the House in general is not absolutely clear. I believe that this injustice has been going on for a considerable time, and I wonder if the Financial Secretary to the Treasury or the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs could tell us why it could not have been remedied at any time during the past two or three years. The second point about which there has been, I think, a little vagueness is as to what is going 2105 to be approximately the cost of this measure. The third point is that we have had a great many figures hurled about in this House as to what "A" or "B" may get under given conditions, and I believe it would be in the interests of the Service itself if someone speaking from the Treasury Bench gave the facts of what one of these retired officials would get on retiring, on an average, so as to disprove what I think are possibly rather wild statements as to what he would be actually drawing during the next five years. If we could have those two figures, it would, on the whole, do away, I think, with a great deal of in- decision of mind on the part of certain people. I would like once again to emphasise this fact. Probably it is impossible for many of us to realise what men of this type and character do for the country, and you will not get good men to do this work unless you make them satisfied with the conditions of their service.
§ Mr. PONSONBYI hope the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will give some reply on the question of cost raised by the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown), and emphasised by the hon. and gallant Member for Torquay (Comdr. Williams).
§ Mr. SAMUELI will give the reply now, with the permission of the House, so as to clear away any doubt on the point. My right hon. friend the Under-Secretary or Foreign Affairs will deal with the other points. This is the actuarial calculation, in answer to the point raised by the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown). I give the figures under reserve, for this reason: We cannot tell—no one can tell—whether the option given to the existing officers will he exercised by all the existing officers. If only half of them exercise the option, of course the figures I give will need modification. But let me assume the very worst, and that everyone comes under the scheme. In the first place, the total amount of pension cost to the State for diplomatic pensions is now about£50,000 a year. If all the members of the services come in the increase upon that sum for the two services—members of the diplomatic service and members of the Foreign Office—will be, for the first year,£11,500. That will taper down gradually until, we estimate, in the fifth year it will be 2106 £5,500, and in the tenth year£3,000, and after the tenth year it will be approximately£2,000 a year. Perhaps it will help the House if I go further and repeat that the combined services under this Measure will come under the Civil Service Superannuation Acts. The reason why the amount of increase of£11,500 at the outset tapers down to£2,000 a year after the tenth year is that, under the Superannuation Acts, a lump sum benefit falls to be paid immediately on the death or retirement of the person affected, but the equivalent reduction in pension is spread over the lifetime of the pensioner. The figures I have given are the very worst that can happen if all the persons elect to come under the scheme.
§ Mr. KIRKWOODWill the hon. Gentleman tell us the maximum amount that the highest paid of those officials can draw in one year? Surely we may have an answer to the question.
§ Mr. SPEAKERNo doubt the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs will deal with that.
§ Mr. PONSONBYI should have thought the hon. Gentleman could have given these figures at a previous stage.
§ Mr. SAMUELThey are in the White Paper.
§ Mr. PONSONBYThey are not fully set out in the White Paper.
§ Mr. SAMUELOn page 4.
§ Mr. PONSONBYIt would have helped the Debate very much if we had all these figures before us. Also, I think, the hon. Gentleman has not given to the House quite fully what the particular anomaly is it is sought to get rid of by this Bill. He has referred to the question of amalgamation, but many Members of this House do not know exactly what he is talking about, and that question ought to be made very much clearer to the House. In old days there were two services— the Foreign Office, recruited from people who were appointed to stay at home like other civil servants, and the Diplomatic Service, recruited from people who were to spend practically the whole of their 2107 lives in posts abroad. I fought against that system when I was in the Service. I gave evidence before a Royal Commission against such a system in favour of amalgamation, because it was obvious that people who go abroad ought to have a central point of view, and also it was obvious that people working in the Foreign Office ought to have opportunities of residence in foreign countries. The proposal for amalgamation was eventually accepted, and the two schemes of pension naturally did not tally, and this Measure is to make a single scheme of pension for the two services. I agree with the hon. Member opposite in that I do not know why this scheme for a general unified system was not brought forward some time ago, because, after all, amalgamation has been going on for some years, and it seems to me rather a belated proposal.
On the general question, I agree with my hon. friend on this side that there are many other anomalies that require, perhaps, to be done away with with far more urgency, but, at any rate, I do not think that is a sufficient ground for not making a start in getting rid of this anomaly. There is one point upon which I should like to lay a little stress. These pensions and salaries for diplomats, when seen on paper, seem to be a very large sum, as my hon. friend has pointed out, and the whole question of the relative value of services in the community and the remuneration which should he accorded to people will have to come up for revision one of these days. But I would like to point out that a diplomat living abroad on what seems to be a very high salary is far from being a rich man. I have met a large number of diplomats, and I am afraid that, except in the case of those who have means of their own, on their retirement they have to take small lodgings, and spend the rest of their days in paying off some of the debts they have incurred in the service abroad. I know a great many of them. The calls on His Majesty's representatives abroad are far more numerous than people know.
2108 They not only have to entertain the foreign diplomats and eminent people of the country in which they are residing, but they are called upon to entertain British travellers of all descriptions; while there are, in most of the capitals, British communities and colonies which conceive it to be the duty of His Majesty's representatives to give them constant entertainment. Their seemingly large salaries of£5,000 or even£10,000 a year, therefore, do not cover the cost of their duties. It is also supposed that these unfortunate officials, wallowing in wealth, have a very easy time in the Diplomatic Service, but most of them are destined to a life of exile, and their duties are very strenuous; when a mistake is made they generally get the whole brunt of it and the blame for it. I cannot help feeling that of all the branches of the public service this is not the one that should come in for a special attack as privileged and wealthy. It has struck me during the Debate that my hon. Friends are not aiming at the right target. I cordially approve when the artillery is brought against the right object, but this is a very innocent sparrow, and is merely an attempt to get rid of an anomaly, and make the pension scheme for the two branches of the service work together on an equitable basis. For that reason, we shall certainly not oppose the Second Reading of this Bill.
§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYI must begin by referring to the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown). He apparently cannot find it in his heart to attack the Government, so, whenever the opportunity occurs, he attacks hon. Members above the Gangway. I never attack my Liberal friends, because I consider that the menace to the working people is on the other side of the House. When the hon. Member for Leith attacks my hon. Friends I remember the saying
Who touches my brother, touches me".and, as long as my hon. Friend is a colleague of mine, I must retort. My retort is this. Last night you, Mr. Speaker, allowed me to make some remarks about the anomalies of old age pensions, and you allowed me to develop my objection to the ridiculous cross-examination, which is very tiresome and annoying to the people concerned, before 2109 they get their pensions; and I drew attention to other anomalies. Where was the hon. Member for Leith?
§ Mr. E. BROWNSitting here.
§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYAnd silent!
§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYMr. speaker is the judge whether I am in Order. If the hon. Member was fulfilling a public engagement, I will apologise, but he was here and silent, and allowed these injustices to remain unchallenged, because it was not spectacular and would not be reported in the Press, and he has the effrontery to attack my hon. Friend. I must retort that it was a piece of political hypocrisy, and the House will agree with me. I want now to break new ground, and to address myself to something of importance—
§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYI did not interrupt the hon. Member for Leith, and perhaps he will let me get on with my argument. What is really to be the action of our party on this matter? Hon. Gentlemen opposite are delighted if they see a difference of emphasis on these things. There is no difference of principle, but a difference of emphasis, and if they are hugging the idea of any kind of cave or split in this party because there is a difference of emphasis they are hugging a delusion. What is to be the position of a Labour Government with regard to the Diplomatic Service? We may find it desirable—I am sure that we will find it desirable—to put our own people in some of the key positions abroad in diplomatic posts. We may find that if these people have other responsibilities, they may not be able to afford to take up these posts; the remedy is a State entertainment allowance, a State allowance for houses, and an adequate allowance for staff paid by the State. It should be made possible for anyone irrespective of means, if he has the necessary ability and requirements, to be able to take up any diplomatic post abroad. Unfortunately, our diplomats abroad have to entertain; it is expected of them, and they have to draw on their 2110 own private means. That means that they must have private means, and that is wrong. When my hon. Friend speaks of altering all this, he does not mean that he wants to reduce everyone down to a level of penury; he wants to do away with injustices. We want to bring everyone up to the£10,000 a year level, and we want them to earn it. But I will not develop that now. I have this criticism to make about the present Diplomatic Service abroad, and it is very relevant to this Bill. Speaking from a personal knowledge, I can say that there is far too much of the old tradition of the salon diplomacy, the drawing room diplomacy, and the diplomatic representatives must move in a certain exclusive aristocratic and wealthy circle.
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe hon. and gallant Gentleman cannot develop that argument on this Bill.
§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYSupposing the pensions are deferred emoluments, we are increasing them by£11,500, and it is admitted that Ambassadors have great expenses, and that is why these pensions are necessary. I will not, however, develop the matter. I was going on to say that it is necessary for our Ambassadors to entertain, but they should entertain every class of the community. In Petrograd before the War, I believe that it is a fact that the only two people in the Embassy who could speak Russian, and therefore could speak with the Russian middle class, were the hon. and gallant Member for Wycombe (Sir A. Knox), who was Military Attaché. and Commander Greville, who was the Naval Attaché. They were the only two on the diplomatic staff at the Embassy in Russia who had any kind of contact at all with even the middle class, and, as I have said, they were completely barred from—
Admiral Sir REGINALD HALLI do not wish to interrupt the hon. and gallant Member, but I happened to be in Petrograd just before the War, and his statement is not correct.
§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYMay I ask the hon. and gallant Member to say who were the others? I was not in Petrograd before the War.
§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYBut I was in Constantinople before the War. I admit that the need in Turkey for speaking the vernacular is not so important as in Russia, but I think it was notorious that in Turkey we had not anything like the same contact with the different parties as had the German Embassy.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI cannot see how the hon. and gallant Member can possibly connect these remarks with the subject under discussion.
§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYWith regard to the charge which was made—and I think rightly, only it is not easy to see how the matter can be remedied—that we are giving a large sum of money to people who are already rich, and that too much is spent on embassies. I would ask my hon. Friends to look at the position of the Republics in Europe to-day. One Socialist Republic and not a wealthy one, is the Austrian Republic; it is a very efficient Socialist Government. Is it suggested that their representatives abroad should not keep up an establishment which would compare favourably with those of other countries of the same size?
§ Mr. SPEAKERI cannot see how these references to Socialist republics have anything to do with this particular Bill.
§ Mr. KIRKWOODSurely it is in Order for an hon. and Gallant Member who has some experience of foreign Courts—[Laughter]. I know that some hon. Members will smile at that, but I will still have my say. Surely, it is right that those of us here who are members of the working-class and do not know the intricacies of this system may have it explained to us by one who knows.
§ Mr. THURTLEFurther to that point of Order. Is not the hon. and Gallant Member perfectly in Order in citing illustrations of other countries in order to show that they carry on their diplomacy effectually in a more frugal and less lavish manner than we do, and that we also might equally well spend less money upon our diplomacy.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI cannot agree with the suggestion that a breach of Order can 2112 be excused on the ground that an hon. Member is giving illustrations.
§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYI do not wish to dispute your ruling, Sir, and I will not pursue that subject. The hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) has said that I have a great knowledge of courts abroad. I really have not a very great knowledge either of police courts or royal courts.
§ Mr. KIRKWOODI know all about police courts; I am an authority upon them.
§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYWhen my hon. Friend refers to the working classes, I hope he will include me in that category. I was at sea for 16 years, and I think a man who goes to sea is a working man. In all the circumstances I do not see how we can avoid supporting the Bill when we remember the position in which we would be placed if we had to remove injustices of this kind, but I do say that it is time that the same sympathetic treatment was given to poor pensioners as is given to rich pensioners. I beg the hon. Member the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who I know is a man of humane character, to look into the work of some of his officials and their petty cheese-paring where poor people's pensions are concerned. We are being generous to him now, where the high and great are concerned, and we hope he will inspire a spirit of generosity among his underlings where the poor and lowly are-concerned.
§ Captain GARRO-JONESI fail to see why the opposition of some hon. Members to this proposal should have caused so much horror on the other side. In all sincerity, I find myself sharing the view of some hon. Members regarding this proposal. It is not that I object to paying adequate pensions to diplomatic officers, or any other officers of the State, but I do object to a proposal like this being brought forward when Parliamentary time is so short, when we are within six months of a General Election, when all the privileges of private Members have been absorbed by the Government, and when thousands of other anomalies in pensions and in other administrative matters undoubtedly exist. It is at this time that the Government come forward and say "Here are a score of diplomat- 2113 ists who are suffering hardships, and their particular grievances must be singled out to he dealt with at this time." When the hon. Member for Brightside (Mr. Ponsonby) gets up and attempts to paint a terrible picture of the hardships which are suffered by diplomatic officials abroad, it makes me ill. Those officials have a comparatively comfortable time. Though I should be tile last to detract from the undoubted services which some of them render to the State, I am equally conscious of the blunders and inefficiency of which some of them are guilty.
But that is not the point. In West Africa officials are working in a climate which wrecks and ruins their health for salaries far lower than those which these diplomatic officials are getting, and performing equally good work. Recently I paid a visit to those parts, and I know that the anomalies which exist there certainly warrant the attention of those who have the interests of the Civil Service at heart quite as much as does the case of these diplomatic officials, and therefore I found myself unable, with conviction, to go into the Lobby with my hon. Friends on the last occasion, and I hope they felt that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. My final word is one of complaint about the White Paper. I regard it as disingenuous, because it does not state the case in full. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury told us what the actual figures were. He said they amounted to£11,000 in the first year. I daresay it is possible to work that out from this White Paper, but the purpose of White Papers is to explain the position clearly to busy Members, and I venture to say there is not a single back-bench Member who had deduced from the explanation given in the White Paper that it was going to cost anything more than£2,000 a year.
Another point about the White Paper is that it does not tell us the maximum pension which a retired diplomatic official can get. Hon. Members have been concentrating their attack upon a figure of£1,700 a year, but that is the maximum which was possible for a retired diplomatist to get in 1869. The new proposal is based on so many eightieths for so many years service, plus pension-able emoluments and so on, and that may amount to more than£1,700 a year. Why 2114 were not all these figures clearly and explicitly stated in the White Paper, with a table of examples giving the maximum and minimum sums which might be obtained? If that had been done we should have had a clearer idea of everything which this proposal means, and if it had been compared with the pensions paid to other equally deserving classes of civil servants in the Colonies and elsewhere I venture to say that the 33 who voted in the Opposition lobby the other night would have been multiplied by 10.
§ Mr. BATEYThe hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Brown) said that Members of the Labour party opposed the granting of pensions to the Diplomatic Service, but they did not oppose the proposal to give a pension to a Law Lord.
§ Mr. E. BROWNThat is not what I said. What I stated was that I could not understand the inconsistency of an objection to a pension of£1,700 to members of the Diplomatic Service and no objection being raised to a pension of£3,750 for a Law Lord.
§ Mr. BATEYWhether the hon. Member made that statement or not does not matter. This morning we have the spectacle of the Liberal party being represented in this House by only two Members, and in regard to the question we are discussing one of them is on one side and the other is on the opposite side. What is worse, during the time the Liberal Member who opposed this Bill was speaking the other Member of the Liberal party went out. The hon. Member for Leith says that what he complains of is that the Labour party are dividing the House on this pension of£1,700 and neglected that duty in the case of the pension of£3,750 for a Law Lord. That question has come up to-day, and the Members of the Labour party who sit on the back benches, who divided the House on the pensions of£1,700 for members of the Diplomatic Service, do not get very much encouragement from the hon. Member for Leith on the question of£3,750 pension for a Law Lord. If the hon. Member for Leith feels so keen in regard to the pension of£3,750 for a Law Lord when the Bill comes up for discussion, I shall be pleased to act as a teller with him in the Division Lobby if he is agreeable to that course.
§ Mr. BATEYHon. Members opposite seem to delight in laughing at the position in which hon. Members on this side of the House find themselves this morning. We have criticised this Bill, and I noticed that when we stated that we did not intend to divide the House upon it, hon. Members opposite laughed at us. I am not complaining. Hon. Members may have their laugh, but they should remember that some of us on these back benches were bred and born amongst the working classes. We have suffered with them and know their needs, and we come to this House for the one purpose, that is to represent the working classes. That is why we are now opposing these pensions, and it does not matter who are to receive them. We oppose these large pensions being granted to anyone.
12 n.
The hon. Member for Brightside (Mr. Ponsonby), said that those back benchers who had voted against these pensions, seemed to have been using their artillery to kill a sparrow. The Diplomatic Service may be compared with a sparrow, but even if it happened to be an eagle we should oppose large pensions because, in our opinion, the working classes deserve more consideration in these matters than anybody else. We believe that Cod intended the working classes to live a decent life and a full life, but with the pensions they now receive they cannot live either a, decent or a full life. It is for those reasons that, on these benches, we take this opportunity of opposing these large pensions and we: shall continue to do so until something more is done for the working classes.
I want to remove one or two misconceptions. The hon. Member for Bright-side dealt more with the question of the salaries of our diplomatic representatives than the question of pensions. We are not dealing this morning with the question of salaries, and the subject we are discussing relates to pensions only. We are opposing all these large pensions. Some people are apt to give advice to the working classes, and to tell them that they ought to learn to be more thrifty. I think that advice might very well be given to the members of the Diplomatic Service and if it is a ques- 2116 tion of giving a copy of Smiles' "Self-help" it might very well be given to the members of the Diplomatic Service. I find that after the Debate on Wednesday night a good many Members of my own party had the impression that these pensions were to be given to all members of the Civil Service. One of my colleagues said to me: "I am in favour of increased pensions to the Civil Service." I understand that this Bill does not touch the other members of the Civil Service and it only applies to members of the Diplomatic Service, the rest of the members of the Civil Service being left out in the cold.
It seems to me that what the Government are aiming at in this Bill is to give to the members of the Diplomatic Service similar pensions to those now given to the members of the Foreign Office Service. The members of the Diplomatic Service seem to have come along, after observing the large pensions paid to Foreign Office servants, with a demand that they should be paid pensions on the same scale, and the only argument used by the Government in defence of their granting of this demand is that they are simply remedying an injustice and an inequality. There was a Superannuation Act dealing with pensions passed in 1919, and when that Measure was under consideration in the House of Commons it would have been far better if the Government had brought in the Diplomatic Service instead of dealing with that branch of the Service to-day. Perhaps we might not have had such a strong argument in 1919 as we have to-day, but, with the distress among the working classes, we certainly should not be justified in giving our vote for a pension of£1,750 a year to anyone, no matter in what service he is.
The Government have really taught two lessons in this Bill. I took rather an interest in the Bill that was before the House last Session, and carried it about with me for a long time, with some notes for the purpose of a speech that I never had the chance of delivering. At the end of the Session, I destroyed those notes and the Bill, because I thought we had heard the last of Diplomatic Service pensions, but, if my memory serves me rightly, that was an altogether different Bill from this one: 2117 it seems to me that, even between last Session and this, the Government have changed their minds in regard to this matter. Among all the foolish things that the Government do, however, they sometimes teach us lessons, and in this Bill they teach the Labour party two very useful lessons, which I want to point out to the Financial Secretary. Paragraph (b) of Clause 1 says:
If the Secretary of State certifies that it was necessary, in the interests of diplomatic relations, to recall from his mission a person serving abroad as ambassador, minister or high commissioner, and if, in the opinion of the Treasury, it is, for reasons outside the control of that person, impracticable to find suitable employment for him in the public service, the Treasury may grant to him such superannuation allowance"—and so on. The lesson that that teaches us is that if they cannot find work for him, they are entitled to pay him, and to pay him well. The point that I want to put to hon. Members opposite on that lesson is this, that, if a member of the Diplomatic Service cannot be found work when for some reason it is found necessary to recall him, the Government say that they ought to grant him a superannuation allowance, and, as I have already said, a very large superannuation allowance. If that applies to members of the Diplomatic Service, why should it not apply to the working class? If we were proposing to-day from these benches a Bill to find the working classes work, or, if that were not possible, to grant them a fair and reasonable allowance, hon. Members on the other side would be opposing that Bill and voting us down. That is a useful lesson which the Government have taught the Labour party, and, while we may differ from our own Front Bench on this question of pensions, I hope that our own Front Bench will learn the lesson that is taught by the other side, and that, when they get into power, they will be prepared to come to this House and say that the working classes are entitled to be found work, or, if work cannot be found, they are entitled to a superannuation allowance.The second lesson is this. The Bill also says:
If a person serving abroad is by reason of war or any interruption of diplomatic elations withdrawn from service before he has become eligible for the award of a 2118 superannuation allowance, and it is, in the opinion of the Treasury, impracticable to find suitable employment for him in the public service, the Treasury may, on the recommendation of the Secretary of State, award to him a temporary allowance …Here again is the same principle, which one might elaborate. It is, in my opinion, a most useful lesson, which I hope Labour will take hold of and will not be afraid to use in the future. There is another Bill that is to come before the House, dealing with a pension of£3,500 for Judges, and we shall want to criticise and raise our objection to that Bill also. In view of that, we do not want to state, on this Bill, all our reasons why we oppose it, but, broadly speaking, my opposition to the present Bill and to the next one is simply this. The working classes, in my opinion, are entitled to pensions that will enable them to live decently, and at the present time there is no one even on the other side of the House who will say that the 10s. a week, or£26 a year, which a working man receives, is sufficient to enable him to live decently. We have hundreds of cases where a man who has to retire from work is receiving 10s. a week and his wife is not eligible for the 10s., with the result that the two of them have to pay rent and exist on 10s. a week. Until a grievance of that kind can be remedied, we, as members of the working-class party, are never going to give our vote for huge pensions like this.This pension of£1,750 a year means some£34 per week for these people, and yet we cannot get£1 for members of the working class. If hon. Members on the other side were prepared to say, "We agree that these gentlemen, when they retire, ought to have a large pension of£34 a week, and, because we believe in that, we believe also that members of the working class, when they retire from their work, ought to have a pension too"—if hon. Members on the other side would say, as some of us believe, that members of the working classes are entitled to£2 a week when they retire from work, in order to enable them to live decently, and not merely to a miserable 10s. a week which will hardly keep body and soul together, which is merely sufficient for existence, and half starves them in the latter days of their life—if they would agree to that, we might be prepared to agree with them on questions 2119 like this. But, so long as this House stands, as one gets the impression that it does at the present time, for giving to one class of the community huge pensions of£34 a week and to the working classes only 10s. a week, we shall always be in opposition to such a policy. It does not matter how many Members of the Labour party disagree with us; we shall still be opposed to it, and shall still urge that the working classes should have their pensions increased before any increase of pensions is given to members of other classes.
§ Mr. THURTLEOn a point of Order. May I draw your attention to the fact, Mr. Speaker, that, although we are discussing a matter which relates to the Foreign Office, there is no representative of the Foreign Office present; and, in view of that fact, am I entitled to move, "That the Debate be now adjourned"?
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe representative of the Foreign Office was here two or three minutes ago.
§ Mr. THURTLEAt any rate, he is not present now.
Mr. WRIGHTI wish to associate myself with my colleagues on the Back Benches. It has been said that last Tuesday some confusion arose as to the point at issue. As I understood the question, we were not opposed to pensions in principle, and I said so distinctly. We think the time has come for a revision not merely of pensions, but of salaries as well. The hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) expressed himself very freely. I understood him to be speaking entirely for himself. I want to dissociate myself from the idea that Members of Parliament are adequately paid on£400 a year. This would not be the time to reply to some of the criticisms which hon. Members opposite have made from time to time with regard to the position of Members of this party, but, speaking for myself, I am no better off than I have ever been, and, as a matter of fact, in some respects I am very much worse off. In the United States, according to a former Prime Minister, they are paid£1,600, in Canada£800 and in Australia£1,000 a year.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI do not see that this has anything to do with the Bill under discussion.
Mr. WRIGHTI do not wish to dispute your ruling, Sir, but I thought that would be in order as it was allowed to pass the other day. I offer my earnest and sincere opposition to this Bill for the reasons alleged by my hon. Friend, with which I associate myself, and I have no word whatever to withdraw that I uttered in my previous speech. The Press reports of a rebellion on these benches are entirely inaccurate, because we acted in accordance with the power given us at the party meeting that morning, therefore any capital made by hon. Members opposite or by the Press is entirely irrelevant to the matter. We were strictly within our rights, and as long as I am a Member of the House I shall act to the best of my ability and conscience, and I hope in accord with the views of the party of which I am a member, but if I find myself in conflict with their views, I hope I shall always have the courage and ability to express my opinion on these matters.
With regard to the Bill, I want to reply to one observation made by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Torquay (Commander Williams). He said this nation is indebted to the past services of members of the Diplomatic Service That is a very double-edged argument, because it is also true that this country has sometimes been landed in very disastrous consequences due to the very grave blunders of some of these men. To give one instance of what I mean, it is now generally agreed that the Crimean War arose out of the policy pursued by the British Ambassador at Constantinople, and that he, the Emperor of France and Lord Palmerston were chiefly responsible for bringing about that war. A distinguished member of the Conservative party observed at a subsequent date that this country had put its money on the wrong horse. British Ambassadors have played a very important part in bringing about war in the past. For a period of 178 years from 1691 to 1871, according to a very eminent authority, loans and interest amounted to£2,130,882,000. The total amount in loans and interest, according to the late Canon McColl, was£3,041,000,000, and that burden is being borne by the working classes. An hon. 2121 Member opposite grins at that observation, but the gentleman who made it was at one time delegated to be the biographer of the late W. E. Gladstone. I think that is of sufficient importance to bring to the attention of the House.
So long as the working people of the country are in the terrible plight they are in, I should never support a Bill of this kind. I hope I am as earnest, as sincere and as disinterested as other Members. I think the time has come when a revision of the respective values rendered to the community should be taken into account. So long as the men who are doing the primary work of the world are treated as outcasts after years of valuable service to the community—services which cannot be dispensed with—so long will I raise my voice in protest against the treatment meted out to them. I do not regard the Socialist party as a working class party. Probably it is appealing passionately on behalf of the working classes in particular because their needs are greater, but the Socialist party consists of men and women drawn from all classes of society in ever increasing numbers. The vast number of people in the country, I am sure, including hon. Members opposite and their supporters, are conscious of the disgraceful, the shocking, the horrible conditions that prevail at present. We have no right to keep any human being in the shocking conditions that are prevailing in this land at present. I should be unworthy of the confidence of the people in the Rutherglen Division of Lanarkshire if I did not raise my voice with all the power and vehemence and passion I can against the abominable and horrible conditions that prevail, for which the responsibility largely rests on the shoulders of hon. Members.
§ Mr. SPEAKERThat may or may not be so, but it does not arise on this Bill.
Mr. WRIGHTI again defer to your Ruling, Sir, but it arises from this point that in 1926 the wages were reduced and the hours lengthened of men who have rendered as valuable service to the community as any Ambassador at any period in the history of the land.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
2122§ Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.