§ "(1) As from the appointed day it shall, subject to the provisions of this Section, be lawful for the council of any county to defray any expenses necessarily incurred by members of the council or of any committee thereof to which this Section applies in travelling to and from meetings of the council or committee or in travelling by direction of the council or committee for the purpose of carrying out any inspection necessary for the discharge of the functions of the council or committee.
§ (2) No expenses which a county council have, apart from this Section, power to defray shall be defrayed under this Section, and this Section shall not affect any such power.
§ (3) No expenditure by a county council under this Section shall be taken into account for the purpose of determining the amount of any sum payable to the council out of moneys provided by Parliament.
§ (4) This Section shall apply to any committee of a county council appointed for the discharge of functions throughout the whole 1063 area for which the county council is charged with those functions, and shall also apply to any sub-committee or joint committee so appointed as if it were a committee of the council.
§ (5) In this Section the expression "subcommittee" means a sub-committee of a committee of a county council, and the expression "joint committee" means a joint committee or joint board appointed by a county council jointly with the council of another county or of a county borough or with a court of quarter sessions."—[Sir E. Turton.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
§ Sir EDMUND TURTONI beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
9.0 p.m.
In moving this New Clause, I must point out that it is a proposal which has been asked for for some years by practically every county council in England and Wales. It has been before' this House on several occasions, and I once had the honour, at three o'clock in the morning, of obtaining a Second Reading for a Bill on the subject. Therefore Parliament has already approved the principle of the Clause, It is purely a permissive enactment and does not deal with sustentation allowances or loss of time. The Committee will agree that it is only fair that those who give their time—and a very great deal of time is given by members of county councils to their different duties—should be reimbursed for the expenses of attending county council meetings and the committees of the county council. It is very hard on those who have to attend joint committees with borough councils. Let me give an instance. In the North Riding of Yorkshire we are in charge of a reformatory, in conjunction with the towns of Hull and York. The representatives of Hull and York are able to receive their railway fares for attending the meetings of the joint committee for the reason that they have no auditor, but members of the county council who have to come much longer distances are unable to receive their travelling expenses. I am sure hon. Members will feel that this is an injustice and one which ought to be lemedied.
It will hardly lie in the mouth of Members of Parliament to refuse to county councillors that which they have already voted for themselves—namely, their travelling expenses in coming to perform their 1064 duties at Westminster. May I also point out that the Scottish Bill includes a similar enactment and it has passed the Second Reading in this House. There is, therefore, no reason for me to take up much time in explaining this necessary provision but I should like to take this opportunity of thanking the Minister of Health for putting his name to this New-Clause. It is one of the many acknowledgments we owe him for the extremely courteous way in which he has met requests of the county councils. I only desire to say how extremely obliged we are to him not only in this instance but in those many other instances in which he has come to our assistance on the points we have desired to have cleared up.
§ Clause read a Second time.
§ Mr. JENKINSI beg to move, in line 2 to leave out the words "defray any" and to insert instead thereof the words:
incur expenditure in paying allowances at uniform rates to be prescribed by the Minister in respect of travelling, time necessarily lost from ordinary employment, and other personal.The expenses which have to be incurred by members attending county council meetings, and also the large number of committee meetings, makes it very difficult for those who have to lose time and pay in order to attend to their duties, and with the addition of work which will come on to county councils under this Bill it is going to be a very heavy burden not only for working men but for the large number of small tradesmen who are at present members of county councils to attend to their duties. It is only reasonable that the Minister should meet the reasonable expenses of members attending county councils. In my own County of Glamorgan they have to start at seven o'clock in the morning to attend the meeting of the county council at half-past 10, and they do not get back until eight o'clock at night. That is a long time to give to public service, and those people who depend upon their weekly earnings find it very difficult indeed to meet the expense of attending the county council. They are really useful men who are devoting their spare time to the public service. When men are prepared to do that, to delve into all these questions and to give their 1065 services at great sacrifice, they deserve recognition. The Minister would only be dealing fairly with them if he accepted the reasonable proposals of the Amendment.
§ Mr. T. WILLIAMSI hope that the Minister will reconsider this matter with a view to accepting the Amendment. He certainly has gone some distance to meet the wishes of Members in all parts of the Committee, but in view of the tremendous amount of work imposed upon county councillors, the time has arrived when, unless some payment is made for the time lost in performing the ordinary dutie3 of their office, a large number of highly capable local representatives will be prevented from carrying on this public work, particularly when this Bill has become an Act. I know that in the West Riding of Yorkshire many county councillors have to travel from 30 to 35 miles to each meeting that they attend. That journey, the time occupied in their public duties and the return journey, make it impossible for them to carry on their normal employment. Unless some payment is to be made for their loss of time, obviously these people will be prevented from continuing their public work.
There will be additional duties imposed on county councillors as a result of the passing of this Bill. The counties are taking over the whole of the rural roads and all Class 1 and Class 2 roads in urban districts. The number of sub-committees is bound to increase, and attendance at the county offices for ordinary committee meetings and sub-committee meetings will involve evern more loss of time than is necessary now. The revision of the Poor Law system, the establishment of public assistance committees, and the new county guardian committees, on which two-thirds of the members must be members of the county council, will impose a tremendous amount of extra work upon county councillors. The principle has been accepted that, if we are to keep the best type of men and women to carry on the duties of county councillors, some part of their expenses must be paid. Merely to pay the travelling expenses of a county councillor who happens to be a mine worker or a farm labourer or an engine driver or a factory worker, without paying him for the loss of wages, is not going far enough. Many who are now serving will be called upon to do 1066 one of two things—either to cease membership of the county authorities, or to neglect a good deal of the work that otherwise would he carried on by them. If one tries to visualise the position in a purely rural county, it is easy to see that, unless some financial assistance is forthcoming, none but the comparatively wealthy farmer or the country squire or those in fairly comfortable circumstances, will be able to perform the functions of a county councillor.
I know that in Yorkshire many county councillors are obliged to desert their normal employment on an average of four days in each week. It is clear that no ordinary working man, without some subsidiary source of income can afford to lose his wages for so long. The general principle has been accepted in Scotland and in Wales for years. There members of the county agricultural committees are already remunerated on a scale fixed by the counties. If it is fair to remunerate a member of a county agricultural committee, there is no justification for refusing similar payment to a member of a county education committee. We have gone even beyond that point. So far as Members of Parliament are concerned, it has been recognised that, unless one has a private income, it is quite impossible to carry out one's duties without the State coming to the assistance of the Member. That being so, it seems to me essential that the Minister should do his best to make it possible for the man or woman who has the capacity and will to perform the duties of a county councillor, to have that privilege. This question ought to be treated entirely on a non-party basis. We have universal suffrage, and all men and women are permitted to select their own local and national representatives. We ought to do the next and final thing by making it possible for those who have the capacity and the will to carry out their duties as local representatives to be removed from any position of economic distress.
§ Mr. WEBBI would make an appeal to the Minister of Health. If he cannot accept the exact words of the Amendment, cannot he concede what is here desired. First of all I would call attention to the words of the new Clause that is before us. It refers to expenses necessarily incurred in travelling to and from the meetings 1067 of the council. I have not served on the Somerset County Council but I know something about the conditions and I know that it is not possible, with the railway service which Somerset enjoys, to go from various parts of the county to the place where the county council meets which, I believe, is Taunton—
§ Sir E. TURTONWeston-super-Mare.
§ Mr. WEBB—and return within the same day unless you have a motor car. Consequently, those members of the county council who do not possses motor cars are obliged to spend a night away from home when they attend a meeting. That may not be the only case. Somerset, though it has many other excellent qualities, is not the largest county. There are other counties where it would be impossible to attend county council meetings from a distant part of the county, and return in the same day, by rail. The expense of a night's lodging in a hotel would necessarily be incurred by anyone who did not fly or did not possess a motor car. Therefore I assume* that this proposal will cover hotel expenses where necessary. I mention this fact, because I want to bring home to the Committee the extraordinarily great increase in expenditure which is going to be incurred under this Bill. County councils will have to meet, not once a quarter, but in all probability once a week, or at any rate much more frequently than at present.
Hitherto we have maintained a property qualification for membership of local authorities. We have not called it that, but, by paying nothing towards the expenses, we have made it impossible for anyone to serve on a county council who has not private means. When the Local Government Act of 1888 was brought in, Mr. Broadhurst said that nobody could serve on the Norfolk County Council who had not control of a horse and gig. Now we have reached a point where it is not possible, in many cases, for anybody who has not control of a motor car. More than that, it means that we have—I will not say deliberately, but in effect—confined the membership of county councils, with the exception of a few in industrial areas recently, to persons possessing what may be termed a property qualification. Is anybody prepared to say that we 1068 should maintain a property qualification for membership of county councils? When this Bill becomes an Act, when the county councils take over the business of the Poor Law guardians and much other work, are we prepared to advocate the maintenance of a property qualification? Are we prepared to say that we mean definitely to exclude from membership of the county councils anyone who cannot afford to give up two-thirds or half his time without remuneration? Are we prepared to say that members should receive only if the council agrees—for it is to be optional—the bare travelling expenses, which would not even include the cost of meals, while away from home on county council service?
If that view were to be taken by the majority of Members, I should be inclined to call it rather mean; but I hope the majority of the Committee are not going to take that view. In view of the fact that the Government have been induced already to agree—at the instance, I suppose, of the County Councils Association—to allow those members who are sitting with what I call a property qualification, to be reimbursed for the expenses to which they are put, I cannot help thinking that it would be selfishness on their part deliberately to maintain that property qualification as against people who are less well OFF than themselves. I put it to them that when they are recouped for their own travelling expenses, it will not be a gentlemanly thing to seek to exclude from these county councils persons of lesser means. The Ministry of Health, I know, has not been accustomed to the payment of members of local authorities: but the Ministry of Health is no longer the Ministry of Local Government, and there is a great deal of local government which is not under the Ministry of Health. Other Ministries have already reached the point of paying travelling expenses, and have even gone beyond that point.
The case of county agricultural committees has been mentioned. In that case, not only are travelling expenses paid, but payment is also made for loss of remunerative time, as it is called'. That is under the Ministry of Agriculture. Then there is the Ministry of Pensions. I am not sure what the system is now, but, at any rate, in the earlier stages of the local pension committees, payment was made for loss of remunerative 1069 time. Under the Ministry of Labour the rota committees and the courts of referees are paid for loss of remunerative time. Thus you have three Ministries, all dealing with local authorities which already adopt this principle. Surely the Minstry of Health which is the fourth Ministry dealing with local authorities, does not want to make a final rally on this narrow point, when these other Ministries have given it away with popular approval and without any objection being taken to their action.
I appeal to the Minister to accept an Amendment which would bring his Department into line with the other Ministries I have cited, and remove this property qualification which, as things stand, he is deliberately maintaining for the county councils over the greater part of the country. I ask him to make a gesture which will be more in conformity with popular feeling than to pay the actual travelling expenses of those people who can afford to attend the county councils while refusing payment for remunerative time to those people who have no means of livelihood which would enable them to attend the meetings otherwise.
Mr. CHAMBERLAINIn very dulcet and seductive tones, the right hon. Gentleman has been trying to make some ex hypothesi suggestions regarding the Amendment before us. There is a very considerable difference between the purpose of the new Clause to which we have given a Second Reading, and the Amendment. The proposition to pay travelling expenses to members of county councils is a. new feature.
Mr. CHAMBERLAINThat is not the point. I say it is a new feature that the members of county councils should be given their travelling expenses. I have put my name to this new Clause because I feel that in the changed circumstances of the county councils brought about by the Bill, it is a reasonable request on the part of the county councils that they should have these travelling expenses allowed; and I am glad to have been able to meet the hon. Baronet, the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir E. Turton), on this and other occasions which he has 1070 so generously recognised. It is perfectly true that under the provisions of this Bill the work of county councils will be considerably increased in future. The right hon. Gentleman's suggestion is that they will have to meet every week. I rather doubt that being necessary, and I should be very much astonished if that were the immediate result of the Bill, but I do think it will be necessary for them, if they are to carry out the hew duties imposed upon them, to -meet more often than once a quarter. Besides the council itself, there are meetings of committees and subcommittees. Seeing that the distances are great, and that there is this increased work, I think it quite reasonable to say that those expenses should be allowed.
But when we come to paying not only travelling expenses, but for lost time as well, it seems to me we are in a different atmosphere altogether. All the arguments which have appeared to me as differentiating the conditions in a county from those in a district or borough in respect of travelling expenses, are inapplicable when you come to deal with the question of broken time, because a man who is a member of a council in a borough or local district loses time when he is doing his public work just the same as the member of a county council. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Surely there can be no dispute about that. A man who is doing public work cannot in the time that he is doing it be doing his private work. [HON. MEMBERS: "In the evening."] The meetings are not all in the evenings. [HON. MEMBERS: "Most of them are."] Hon. Members must allow me to have some slight knowledge on this subject as I have been a member of a local authority for a long time. There are very few of them who work in the evenings. The argument which hon. Members use to advocate that broken time should be paid for in the case of county councils would apply with equal force to members of borough councils or district councils. I am quite sure hon. Members would like to see broken time paid for in all districts, but logically you could not stop at county councils, and you would have to pay borough councils. There is no reason why you should stop there if you once begin, and, therefore, Members who are asked to vote 1071 for payment for broken time for county councils must bear in mind that it carries with it absolutely no possibility of avoiding payment for broken time on other bodies.
The right hon. Gentleman opposite says there is a property qualification, and suggests that it is very ungentlemanly for anybody to attempt to maintain that property qualification. I deny that the nonpayment for broken time constitutes a property qualification, and I prove it by pointing to the numerous cases where there are very large numbers of working men upon borough councils to-day. In many cases they are actually in a majority, and if that can be so, it shows that the loss of working time has not prevented them from doing these services in boroughs. I say there is no difference in this respect between boroughs and counties. The two things are just the same, and if you are losing time doing public work in the county council you are equally losing it in a borough. The fact that that does not prevent a working man from being returned and doing work in a borough is proof that it is not a property qualification. It is very creditable to those who are making some sacrifice, but I do want to point out that this sacrifice is not confined to working people, and that of the people who are performing these duties there are very few who do not incur some pecuniary sacrifice in taking up public work.
That is one of the things to which we are accustomed in this country and it would be a great pity to weaken what, I think, is one of the strong points of our system of local or even Parliamentary Government. In the case of Members of Parliament, of course, it is obviously different. There it is not a case of one or two days a week, travelling a certain distance, doing a certain amount of work and going home again. It means going to another town, means whole-time work and complete absence from home and maintaining in many cases two establishments—a home in a man's native town where his family resides, and some accommodation for himself in London. That is one of the differentiations in the case of Members of Parliament, and as for the case that the right hon. Gentleman has adduced of certain committees acting with other Ministries, that is not 1072 really on all fours with the case we are discussing now. Those are cases of ad hoc committees where really there is practically no attraction to persons to undertake work of that kind. The case is quite different from that of a local authority to which many people aspire, because it is a position which is recognised as one of dignity and responsibility, and in which it is a credit to represent a constituency. That in itself constitutes an inducement to many people to make sacrifices, and it differentiates the case entirely from the other case. If this Amendment were accepted, it would mean a very drastic change in the whole character of our local government, and would to a certain extent professionalise our local government. I am bound to say that while I agree that the payment of travelling expenses stands in a different category and may fairly be justified, the payment for broken time is in a different position altogether, not merely in degree, but in kind, and is one for which no sufficient reason has yet been adduced.
Mr. GREENWOODI think the Minister has shown a little less than his usual knowledge of local government. I do not believe for one moment that the Minister has answered the argument of my right hon. Friend. it is no reply to say that your courts of referees, local pensions committees and bodies of that kind are merely ad hoc committees, and therefore there is no honour attaching to membership of those bodies and that such public service is different in character and quality from that of a local authority. In Scotland members of education committees have this payment already. Members of Education authorities there have this payment for broken time for which we are asking now. Why should it be withheld from the equally thrifty people south of the Tweed? If it has been accepted in one case, clearly it ought to be accepted in another. Let me put to the Committee what will be the effect of this Clause on county councils. The right hon. Gentleman was quite right in saying that there would be increased duties. It is true he is now to pay travelling expenses, but, as a matter of fact, it is going to make it harder for people who have no means to serve on county councils, and they are going to be worse off than before. I 1073 can quote innumerable cases where it is not the travelling expense but maintenance and the loss of wages that are the real burden, and if, as the right hon. Gentleman agrees, this will increase county council work, then the effect of that will be to increase the disparity that there now is between the well-to-do person and the poor person on the county council; and, so far from this levelling up the matter, it will make the situation much worse.
Then the right hon. Gentleman used a most astonishing argument. He said the town councils have not got it, that in this Amendment they are not asking for it, and that the case of the town councils and the county councils is on all fours. That, if I may say so, is the merest nonsense. There are far more borough councils in England and Wales meeting in the evening than the right hon. Gentleman recognises, but even where they do not, you have to remember that the bulk of these people live on the doorstep, that they can be at the town hall within a quarter of an hour or even less from leaving their work, and that the amount of time that is lost, even where a council and its committees meet in the daytime, in the case of the boroughs is infinitesimal compared with the loss of time of a man who has to travel a long distance to a county council.
Moreover, it is not, perhaps, commonly realised by hon. Members opposite that in very large numbers of cases these men's expenses are met either by their trade union or by the local Labour party. That is possible in the towns. The trade union movement is much stronger in the towns and has a larger membership, and the trade union branch is more able to do this kind of work. The local Labour parties, broadly speaking, are stronger in the boroughs, and able to bear the burden, but that is not so in the counties. In the great county areas, where trade union organisation and political organisation are not as strong—and this is purely a question of Labour representatives—the burden is over great, and it is utterly impossible for a working-class representative to stand for a county council unless he is able to get help from somewhere or to make sacrifices out of all proportion to the sacrifices that are made by better-to-do people.
As a matter of fact, this payment of travelling expenses alone does mean a 1074 property qualification. I am not denying that all members of local authorities have to sacrifice both time and money, but my point is that, broadly speaking, the sacrifice is the greater the poorer the public representative, and that whereas a well-to-do person may not feel the additional financial burden of meals away from home, and whereas in most cases he is not earning any less, that is not a case of hardship in the sense of the ordinary manual worker, whose expenditure on meals may not be large, but is relatively a heavier burden on him than on the well-to-do member of the county council; and most of these people, it must be remembered, actually do lose working time. One of the great difficulties which members of my party have in their local government activities is the difficulty of finding people who can get off from work to attend, because in many cases it is impossible for them to do so, and unless there is some recompense for them, it is economically impossible for them to face the added burden.
The right hon. Gentleman's last argument was that it would professionalise local government. That is precisely the argument used by the party opposite against the payment of Members of this House, which, in a sense, has professionalised Parliamentary government. I am not complaining of that. I have never been ashamed to declare myself a professional politician. That is my trade, and I am not so terrified of professional politicians as are many hon. Members opposite, but it is absurd to pretend that because you are going to pay the actual monetary loss which people suffer because they are members of county councils, you are going to professionalise local government. You are going to widen your area of selection, and that perhaps is what hon. Members opposite do not like. It has given them a political advantage in the past. By professionalising local government they would be enabling people of working-class origin, who would not otherwise be members of these bodies, to become members.
This Amendment has been drafted almost exactly in the terms of the Scottish Bill which may be before the House very shortly now:
to incur expenditure in paying allowances at uniform rates to be prescribed by the Minister in respect of travelling.1075 I am not sure that that would not cover our further point, hut we have put in definitely, to make it quite clear:time necessarily lost from ordinary employment,which, I believe, are the words of the Education (Scotland) Act. This principle has been admitted in Scotland, and it exists to-day in Scotland. There is no argument that can be adduced from the benches opposite to justify withholding from England and Wales what Scotland now enjoys. I have always held—and I say it in the presence of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Fife (Mr. W. Adamson)—that Scotland always gets most-favoured-nation treatment. Scotland has had greater advantages thrust upon it by this House than have England and Wales, and I should like the Committee to realise that this House has already legislated to give to certain people in Scotland what we are asking to-night should be given to members of county councils here. If hon. Members opposite could get rid of their general bias against Labour representation on county councils, and look at it from the point of view of political justice, I believe they would support us in this demand, which is a very modest demand to make. It is a demand that has to be satisfied if political democracy in the counties is to become a reality, and it cannot, by the mere payment of travelling expenses, become a reality in the counties. The economic deadweight against us robs us of our chances in those rural areas.Hon. Members opposite know that that is true. They know that our difficulties are greater there than they are in the towns. We can hold our own in the towns, but in the counties, with the dice loaded against us, the only effect is to interfere with the free working of the political system. Is that what hon. Members opposite desire? Do they wish it to go forth from this Committee that to-night, when they had an opportunity of doing a measure of justice, they have made it more difficult, by the very proposals in this Bill, for working class organisations to put forward candidates'! Do they wish that to go forward from this Committee? It is not a motive of which hon. Members should be proud. They may deny that that is the motive, but the effect of it is there. The 1076 effect of merely paying travelling expenses will be to continue the disability under which the working-class candidates suffer, and to perpetuate the advantage which the well-to-do person now enjoys over the ordinary manual worker. An opportunity like this will not arise again for some time. The only interpretation to be placed upon the opposition of the Government is that the Conservative party fear the Labour party in the counties as much as in the towns.
§ Mr. TINKERThe reply of the Minister of Health was not up to his usual standard. As a rule, his speeches consist of close reasoning, but to-night he used one or two rather cheap phrases. He used the argument that we would press for the payment of members of urban district and town councils. When we get an opportunity we shall press for that, but for the moment we are concerned with county councils. I will cite a case. The council on which I served altered the time of sitting from 2 o'clock to 6.30, in order to give a chance to working men to serve upon it. Another point made by the Minister was that everybody gave time to attend to these matters, but there is a difference between a man giving time when he is not losing money, and a man losing time when he is losing wages. I serve on a court of referees, and, as I have a stated salary, I receive no payment because I do not lose any money. That is right, but alongside me are miners, and as they have to lose time when they serve, they are paid for loft time. That is quite right, because they are doing a public service.
There is a vast difference between my case, my wages not being affected, and the case of the man who is losing his wages and who would not be able to attend if he did not get payment from the State for attendance. I have known cases of working men representatives on county councils who are paying money out of their own pockets in order to attend. This Bill will increase the work of the county councils, and is it unfair to ask the Government, if they want to give a chance to working men representatives, to see that they are paid for attendance? The Government regard this Bill as a first-class Measure, and if they want the confidence of the country, they must enable working men to serve on the county 1077 councils so that they will be able to help in their administration. We appeal to the Government to recognise the fairness of the proposal and to go a little further than they have already done.
§ Mr. WOMERSLEYI speak on this matter with some desire to try to help because, having had considerable experience in local administration, I know of the difficulties with which working men are faced in wishing to serve on these bodies. We have heard from hon. Members of the Labour party that their real object is to get in the thin end of the wedge, so that in future they will be able to introduce payment to members of local councils of all descriptions. I suggest that that is the wrong way to go about this business. After all, the people who have to pay should be those who decide whether the payment should be made or not, and I suggest that the ratepayers generally are not prepared to agree to a measure of payment for anything beyond travelling expenses to members of local bodies. To smuggle this through in a Bill such as this is wrong and undemocratic. If the party above the Gangway wish this to be brought about, they should put it forward as part of their party programme, and get the people to decide whether they wish to agree to it or not. If the matter were put to a referendum of the people, I am satisfied that they would not agree to the payment of members of local councils, and until we can have a Measure brought in dealing with the whole subject, I shall vote against any Amendment to a Bill such as this which means introducing it by a backdoor method.
§ Mr. DUNCANI want to state my own experience by way of illustration in support of this Amendment. Nobody would begrudge the great reputation of the Minister of Health and of his father for the magnificent work they have done in Birmingham, but would the Minister suggest that he ever went short of anything as the result of his experience upon the council, either in pay or food? I happened to be elected a member of a board of guardians and a town council as a workman 33 years ago. I was only 30 years of age at the time, and I was working as a skilled engineer with wages of 35s. per week. I attended meetings of the council in the afternoon—fortunately my employer let me go—and I attended 1078 meetings of the board of guardians as well, and it meant that I was living for five years on 25s. a week. That was my measure of sacrifice. I think that, young as I was, I did as good work on the town council and the board of guardians as anybody that was on them. I endeavoured to bring what ability I had to the public work of my native town; I am not ashamed of the work I did, and I think that the people of my own town would give me credit for it in every sense of the word. It is, however, a very cheap and easy way to treat the sacrifice that is made by people similarly placed.
There are thousands of men in this country who have done what I have done, but is it reasonable and fair that those men who take a very keen interest in the public work of the country should be asked to make this tragic sacrifice? I am sure that the Minister of Health cannot realise what sacrifice it meant to me. I had to face my wife with my 25s. a week; she knew as well as I knew that there was 10s. less going into the house, and that we had many a time to do without things to which we were entitled, because of my interest in public work. It is not fair, and it is not playing the game. If there is anything that people on the other side of the Committee claim to do, it is to play the game, and it is not really recognising the ability that there is in the people of the country to refuse this measure of help. Nobody would grudge the poorer classes of people the opportunity of taking part in the public life of the country. There is nothing to be ashamed of in that. The very education being given in this country tends to fit people for this work, and is it right to begrudge the few shillings per man which this would involve?
§ Mr. HASLAMI would like to ask hon. Members opposite for a little more information about this question of broken time. Does the; compensation apply only to those engaged in manual labour? On our local bodies there are people in every walk of life, and among them many who make considerable sacrifices, not only of their time and energy but sacrifices out of their pocket. Does this proposal apply to those who are engaged in trade? Are they to send in estimates of the monetary loss to which they are put when serving on a county council? If this matter is to be dealt with at all, it ought to be dealt with in a broader way than 1079 hon. Members opposite have suggested. It is generally agreed that in future considerably more work will fall on county councils and on the individual councillors, who will be called upon to give, perhaps, twice as much time as at present, and whose out-of-pocket expenses will, perhaps, be doubled. This is a sacrifice which is felt by others than working men. I suggest that a better way of dealing with this matter would be to increase the number of county councillors. We have heard a good deal about the pro-fessionalisation of those who serve on local bodies. If members of county councils are called upon to give up so much of their time to the work that they are almost unable to pursue their ordinary duties, we are taking a very serious step in the direction of pro-fessionalisation. I contend that the real remedy is to increase the numbers of councillors, because we want to preserve the amateur aspect of our local government and to get on our local authorities people of all classes, as we have to-day. I suggest, therefore, that the real remedy for this state of things, apart from the broader treatment of the matter to which I have referred, is to increase the number of our county councillors.
§ Mr. CECIL WILSONWhen a matter of this kind arises in the House a number of bogys are always put forward. When the question of payment of Members of Parliament was before us in 1911 certain bogys were raised. One of them was raised by the brother of the Minister of Health, and I think it may be convenient to read to the House some of the fears he expressed at that time, in order that hon. Members may realise how little they have been realised. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Sir A. Chamberlain) referred to certain persons who were in the House at that time and whom he was glad to welcome, and then went on to say that his fears were that
this will turn to the profit, as we think it has done in other countries, not of the man who comes here because he is a genuinely earnest politician, interested in these affairs, and anxious to accomplish a work, but of men who, having failed in other departments, whether as workmen with their hands or as workmen with their heads, being gifted with glib tongues and easy manners, find this the easiest and sim- 1080 plest way of procuring a living."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th August, 1911; col. 1464, Vol. 29.]10.0 p.m.I ventured to suggest at the time that that was a bogy and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would not to-day suggest that his fear has been realised. The hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Womersley) said just now that we ought not to go beyond payment of railway fares. He must forget that in boroughs and county boroughs an arrangement exists already whereby sustenance allowance can be paid to members who have to go on deputations to other places. This matter is very much smaller, because the only suggestion that is being made refers to county councils and not to county boroughs. It is perfectly true, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that men in the county boroughs are giving their time to public work without remuneration, and it is also true that arrangements are come to in many cases whereby it is made quite easy for them to undertake this work, the employers assisting with real public spirit. It is a very different thing for a man who is living in a borough or county borough to go home in the middle of the day and change and then go to his meeting for the rest of the day than for a man to have to leave home early in the morning to attend a meeting of the county council which will occupy him for the whole of the day.
An hon. Member asked just now to whom these proposals would apply. Surely the question to be asked in every case will be whether a member is out of pocket through the work he is doing. That is the plea upon which this proposal is being put forward. If any members are really out of pocket, I quite admit they will have a very considerable claim in this direction. I think it must be admitted, so far as this House is concerned, that there are many Members whose Parliamentary salary is almost their only income, but there are also a large number of Members who are also directors and so forth. On the one hand you have people who are obliged to come to London to discharge their Parliamentary duties and, on the other hand, people already living in London who can occupy a considerable part of their time in other duties in addition to their Parliamentary work.
§ Mr. HASLAMI was asking about county councillors and not about Parliament.
§ Mr. WILSONThe question of fares and the question of time lost are very different things. In many cases the amount of the fare may be a small matter, whereas loss of time is a very big matter. In the view of some people this change is as revolutionary as the payment of Members of Parliament was supposed to be when that was introduced, but I do not know that anybody will now seriously suggest that that has proved to the detriment of this House or to the detriment of the individual Members.
§ Mr. PALINGI think the objections of the right hon. Gentleman to this Amendment are twofold. First, there was the question of professionalism; and, in the second place, the point was made that if we paid county councillors we should have to pay borough councillors, too. The right hon. Gentleman did not seem to object so much to the principle as he did to the possible extensions of the system. I need not say much on the point of professionalism. Everybody knows what was said about the payment of Members of Parliament, but none of the things prophesied at that time have happened, and nobody who is speaking the truth can say that Parliament is a penny the worse for it. A reference was made by the last speaker to a speech which was made by the brother of the right hon. Gentleman in 1012. I remember when we were discussing in this House the question of payment for travelling expenses. Quite a number of people who were opposed to that raised the same kind of objections as were raised with regard to the payment of Members, but the right hon. Gentleman's brother on that occasion took a very different attitude, and gently, but none the less effectively, chided those people who were suggesting all kinds of things that would occur if travelling expenses were allowed. If the right hon. Gentleman's brother said a bad thing in 1912, he remedied it when we were discussing that matter, and he would have disagreed with what the| right hon. Gentleman has said to-night about professionalism.
We come to the question of the difference between county councils and borough councils. That is, in principle, 1082 I admit, just the same, but the right hon. Gentleman himself said, concerning county councils and Members of the House of Commons, that it was quite a different proposal and that Members of the House of Commons had to come here and keep two homes going and that their expenses were very heavy. I agree with him to that extent, but when he speaks of the difference between Members of the House of Commons and members of county councils, I submit that the difference is almost as great between members of county councils and members of borough and urban district councils. I will give him my own experience. I was on an urban council for a good many years, along with ten other working men, who were nearly all miners. Naturally, the meetings of the council were held in the evening. We had no desire to change it, and, so far as I remember, not a single individual ever received one penny for attending those meetings. We sacrificed our time. But the meetings of the county council were quite a different proposition. It was a physical impossibility for any of those men, myself included, to attend a meeting of the county council without losing time. The number of meetings we had to attend was very great) indeed, and, if we were to do justice to the work of the county council, and if we were to attend the meetings, we had not only to travel a long way, but we had to lose our pay. We had to travel on a good many days in the year. May I just give one quotation to illustrate that point? This comes from one of the officials of a very great county council not a thousand miles away. He takes some figures relating to three typical members of the county council, and he finds that the average number of committees and sub-committees is 29. The number of meetings of the council, of the committees, and of the sub-committees in the course of a year for those members is 205. He points out that frequently the meetings of a number of those committees are arranged to take place on the same day. The average miles travelled by members to a Committee meeting is 17 miles, making in all 34 miles per day. I submit those facts just to show that the difference between county councils and borough councils and urban councils is just as great as the difference pointed out by the Minister 1083 between Members of this House and members of county councils. I hope the Minister will give further consideration to those people who have to lose time, and that he will give them some remuneration for the time lost.
§ Mr. RENNIE SMITHI do not want to spend time dealing with the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman, but I want to come back to the specific terms of this Amendment, and those are whether we cannot get some further financial assistance to help the representatives of the county councils in the future to carry out their duties. I think the Minister will admit that there is a real difference between those who represent town councils and those who represent county councils. I do not think he appreciates how much the growth of popular representation on the town councils has actually brought about a change in the time of their meeting. It is only within the last 10 or 15 years that there has been this great swing over from the town councils' habitual afternoon meetings to the habitual evening meetings. That has been brought about by the change in the character of the representation on the town councils. It is impossible, in the nature of things, to have meetings of county councils in the evenings. Suppose there was a large representation of working men and working women on the county councils, it would be impossible to swing over to meet the situation, because that would mean in almost every case staying overnight. The work of the county councils remains to a very considerable extent afternoon work, and therefore there will be permanently this problem of how to get the best representation in the circumstances.
Speaking as one who represents a county constituency, there are two real problems which stand in the way of securing a representative system of self-government on the county councils. First, there is the fact that in the small villages the whole of the economic life in the village is in the hands of one or two persons, and for that reason it is impossible for the ordinary working man to stand out, and have his own views of politics, and make good in the way of representation on the county council. There is the economic boycott, which I think is a most outstanding characteristic in relation to 1084 the county council. One of the outstanding reasons for the decline of Liberalism is precisely this fact, that it has not secured real freedom of opinion, and real freedom of thought, which can express itself in terms of representation on local councils, and particularly the county councils. I am aware that it is not within the terms of this particular Clause, or Amendment, to secure reform in public opinion in this direction. That will come in time.
§ The CHAIRMAN (Mr. James Hope)This is not a question of the decline of the Liberal party.
§ Mr. SMITHI am not thinking that the Minister can deal with this new problem of opinion which would free the working man in the village from the point of view of representation on the county council, but he has here a first-class opportunity of remedying the second problem, which is that of providing ways and means to get a really representative system of self-government on the county council. I do not know if the Minister of Health has made an analysis of the occupations of members of county councils in this country. If he could cause such analysis to be made he would find to what an astonishing extent county councils are governed and made up in the main of landlords on the one hand and farmers on the other. That, in itself, is the best possible proof of the extraordinary difficulties that other classes within the range of the county areas have in securing adequate representation on these councils. During the time I was in Yorkshire, and during the years I was attached to the University of Sheffield, I took a certain amount of trouble to try to encourage certain kinds of men and women to serve on the county councils of Yorkshire as well as on other local authorities. I found over and over again this problem cropping up, namely, that the men could not get time off from their work or, alternatively, that they must lose wages or salary for the time that they were off. Taking these economic facts into account it is impossible for these people to contemplate duties on the county council.
On this question, I ask the Minister of Health not to take a five minutes' view but a 30 years' view. I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman has done in the way of granting travelling expenses. 1085 We discussed this question on the Rating and Valuation Bill, but our Amendment was rejected. I fully appreciate the new position which the Minister of Health has taken up, but, if the right hon. Gentleman really wishes to secure in the next 30 years a thoroughly representative county council, I am sure that he cannot achieve that result simply through the payment of travelling expenses. That will not touch the real problem of the economic boycott which lies in the way of securing effective representation.
If the Minister of Health wants a lively and vigorous county council to carry out these new duties, he must do something more than merely allow travelling expenses. A big sum of money is not involved in this question, and under the present proposal the Government are only giving the councils the right to decide this matter for themselves. If the
§ right hon. Gentleman admits the first position which I have put before the Committee, I hope he will consent to make his economic foundation a little firmer and broader, so that every man or woman, whether they belong to the farming class, landlords, agricultural labourers or workers in factories shall have a more reasonable chance of getting on to the county council. This Bill can only achieve its object by improving the quality and character of the men who are elected as members of the county council, and I ask the right hon. Gentle man to consider afresh the Amendment which we have submitted to the Committee.
§ Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the proposed Clause."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 210; Noes, 109.
1087| Division No. 141.] | AYES. | [10.20 p.m. |
| Albery, Irving James | Dalkeith, Earl of | Hudson, R. S. (Cumberl'nd, Whiteh'n) |
| Alexander, E. E. (Leyton) | Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset,Yeovil) | Hume, Sir G. H. |
| Allen, Sir J. Sandeman | Davies, Dr. Vernon | Hurst, Gerald B. |
| Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W. | Davison, Sir w. H. (Kensington, S.) | Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H. |
| Astor, Maj. Hn. John J.(Kent,Dover) | Dawson, Sir Philip | Iveagh, Countess of |
| Atkinson, C. | Dean, Arthur Wellesley | James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert |
| Balniel, Lord | Drewe, C. | Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton) |
| Barnett, Major Sir Richard | Eden, Captain Anthony | Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth) |
| Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H. | Edmondson, Major A. J. | King, Commodore Henry Douglas |
| Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake) | Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington) | Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement |
| Bethel, A. | Elliot, Major Walter E. | Knox, Sir Alfred |
| Betteton, Henry B. | Ellis, R. G. | Lamb, J. Q |
| Birchall, Major J. Dearman | England, Colonel A. | Leigh, Sir John (Clapham) |
| Bird, sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.) | Ertkine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.) | Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip |
| Boothby, R. J. G. | Everard, w. Lindsay | Little, Dr. E. Graham |
| Bowyer, Captain G. E. W. | Fairfax, Captain J, G. | Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley) |
| Braithwalte, Major A. N. | Falle, Sir Bertram G. | Loder, J. de V. |
| Brass, Captain W. | Fielden, E. B. | Long, Major Eric |
| Brassey, Sir Leonard | Forestier-Walker, Sir L. | Lougher, Lowis |
| Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive | Forrest, W. | Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere |
| Briggs, J. Harold | Fraser, Captain Ian | Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman |
| Briscoe, Richard George | Frece, Sir Walter de | Lumley, L. R. |
| Brockiebank, C E R. | Fremantle, Lieut -Colonel Francis C. | MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen |
| Broun, Lindsay, Major H. | Gadle, Lieut.-Col. Anthony | McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus |
| Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'I'd., Hexham) | Ganzonl, Sir John | Macintyre, Ian |
| Brown, Brig., Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y) | Gates, Percy | McLean, Major A. |
| Bullock, Captain M. | Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John | MacRobert, Alexander M. |
| Burman, J. B. | Glyn, Major R, G. C. | Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn |
| Butler, Sir Geoffrey | Goff, Sir Park | Margeston, Captain D. |
| Campbell, E. T. | Grant, Sir J. A. | Merriman, Sir F. Boyd |
| Carver, Major w. H. | Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter | Meyer, Sir Frank |
| Cassels, J. O. | Greene, W. P. Crawford | Monsell, Eyres. Com. Rt Hon. B. M. |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt.R.(Prtsmth. C) | Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London) | Moore, Sir Newton J. |
| Cecil, Rt. Hon. sir Evelyn (Aston) | Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E. | Moore-Brabazon, Lieut. Col. J. T. C. |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood) | Hanbury, C. | Moreing, Captain A. H. |
| Clarry, Reginald George | Kannon, Patrick Joseph Henry | Morrison, H. (Wifts, Salisbury) |
| Cobb, Sir Cyril | Harland, A. | Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive |
| Cochrane, Commander Hon, A. D. | Hartington, Marquess of | Nail, Colonel Sir Joseph |
| Cohen, Major J. Brunei | Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington) | Nelson, Sir Frank |
| Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips | Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes) | Neville, Sir Reginald J. |
| Colman, N. C. D. | Headiam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M. | Oakley, T. |
| Conway, Sir W. Martin | Henn, Sir Sydney H. | O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh |
| Cope, Major Sir William | Hills, Major John Waller | Oman, Sir Charles William C. |
| Couper, J. B | Hoare, Lt. Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G. | Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William |
| Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L. | Hoibrook, Sir Arthur Richard | Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple) |
| Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islington, N.) | Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar) | Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome) |
| Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe) | Hopkins, J. W. W. | Pitcher, G. |
| Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend) | Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N. | Power, Sir John Cecil |
| Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick) | Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K. | Preston, William |
| Crookshank, Cpt.H.(Lindsey. Crinsbro) | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney.N.) | Price, Major C. W. M. |
| Radford, E. A. | Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast) | Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement |
| Raine, Sir Walter | Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Haliam) | Turton, Sir Edmund Russborough |
| Ramsden, E. | Smith-Carington. Nevlile W. | Waddington, R. |
| Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington) | Smithers, Waldron | Wallace, Captain D. E. |
| Renfoul, G. S. | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) | Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L.(Kingston-on-Hull) |
| Rhys, Hon. C. A. U. | Sprot, Sir Alexander | Warner, Brigadier-General W. W. |
| Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) | Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F. | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Roberts, Sir Samuel (Hereford) | Stanley, Lord (Fylde) | Watson, Rt. Hon. W, (Carlisle) |
| Rodd, Rt. Hon, Sir James Rennell | Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland) | Watts, Sir Thomas |
| Ropner, Major L. | Steel, Major Samuel Strang | Wells, S. R. |
| Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A. | Storry-Deans, R. | Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern) |
| Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) | Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H. | Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay) |
| Rye, F. G. | Stuart, Crichton,-Lord C. | Wilson, Sir C. H. (Leeds, Central) |
| Salmon, Major I. | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn! | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Coionel George |
| Sandeman, N. Stewart | Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser | Withers, John James |
| Sanders, Sir Robert A. | Sugden, Sir Wilfrid | Womersley, W. J. |
| Sandon, Lord | Thompson, Luke (Sunderland) | Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley |
| Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W. R., Sowerby) | Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South) | Woodcock, Colonel H. C. |
| Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. O. Mcl. (Renfrew, W.) | Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell | |
| Sheffield, Sir Berkeley | Titchfield, Major the Marquess of | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Shepperson, E. W. | Tomlinson, R. P. | Major Sir George Hennessy and Mr. Penny. |
| NOES. | ||
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Grundy, T. W. | Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich) |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W. R. Elland) |
| Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro') | Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland) | Scurr, John |
| Amman, Charles George | Hardie, George D. | Sexton, James |
| Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Biltton) | Hayday, Arthur | Shepherd, Arthur Lewis |
| Baker, Walter | Hirst, G. H. | Shinwell, E. |
| Barnes, A. | Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Short, Allred (Wednesbury) |
| Barr, J. | Hore-Belisha, Leslie | Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness) |
| Batey, Joseph | Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose) | Sitch, Charles H. |
| Bellamy, A. | Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) |
| Bondfield, Margaret | John, William (Rhondda, West) | Stamford, T. W. |
| Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W. | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Stewart, J. (St. Rollox) |
| Broad, F. A. | Kelly, W. T. | Sullivan, J. |
| Bromfield, William | Kennedy, T. | Sutton, J. E. |
| Bromley, J | Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M. | Taylor, R. A. |
| Brown, Ernest (Leith) | Kirkwood, D. | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.) |
| Buchanan, G. | Lansbury, George | Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow) |
| Buxton, Rt. Hon. Nod | Lawrence, Susan | Thurtle, Ernest |
| Cape, Thomas | Lawson, John James | Tinker, John Joseph |
| Charieton, H. C. | Lee, F. | Tewnend, A. E. |
| Cluse, W. S. | Lindley, F. W. | Watts-Morgan. Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda) |
| Compton, Joseph | Longbottom, A. W. | Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney |
| Cove, W. G. | Lowth, T. | Wellock, Wilfred |
| Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities) | Lunn, William | Welsh, J. C. |
| Dennison, R. | Macdonaid, Sir Murdoch (Inverness) | Westwood, J, |
| Duncan, C. | Mackinder, W. | Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J. |
| Dunnico, H | Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan) | Wilkinson, Ellen C. |
| Gardner, J. P. | Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton) | Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham) |
| Garro-Jones, Captain G. M. | Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.) | Williams, T. (York, Don Valley) |
| Gibbins, Joseph | Murnin, H. | Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe) |
| Gillett, George M. | Oliver, George Harold | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | Palin, John Henry | Windsor, Walter |
| Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.) | Paling, W. | Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton) |
| Greenall, T | Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan) | |
| Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Coine) | Pethick-Lawrence, F. W. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Grentell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Ponsonby, Arthur | Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr. T. |
| Griffith, F. Kingsley | Potts, John S. | Henderson. |
| Groves, T. | Purceil, A. A. |
§ Mr. JENKINSI beg to move, in line 4, to leave out the words "travelling to and from," and to insert instead thereof the word "attending."
§ Sir K. WOODMy right hon. Friend has explained at some length the view of the Government upon this proposal. He feels that he cannot advise the Committee to go further than to meet the request of the County Councils Association in authorising the payment of
§ travelling expenses for the first time. After all, other people have to pay these expenses, and they must have an opportunity of expressing their views before any further extension is made.
§ Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the proposed Clause."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 215; Noes, 112.
1091| Division No. 142.] | AYES. | [10.30 p.m. |
| Albery, Irving James | Applin, Colonel R. V. K. | Atkinson, C. |
| Alexander, E. E. (Leyton) | Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W. | Bainlel, Lord |
| Allen, Sir J. Sandeman | Astor, Maj. Hn. John J.(Kent,Dover) | Barnett, Major Sir Richar J |
| Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H. | Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John | Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple) |
| Bunn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake) | Glyn, Major R. G. C. | Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome) |
| Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish- | Grant, Sir J. A. | Pilcher, G. |
| Bethel, A. | Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter | Power, Sir John Cecil |
| Betterton, Henry B. | Greene, W. P. Crawford | Preston, William |
| Birchall, Major J. Dearman | Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London) | Price, Major C. W. M. |
| Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.) | Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E. | Radford, E. A. |
| Boothby, R. J. G. | Hanbury, C. | Raine, Sir Walter |
| Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W. | Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry | Ramsden, E. |
| Braithwaite, Major A. N. | Harland, A. | Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington) |
| Brass, Captain W. | Hartington, Marquess of | Rentoul, G. S. |
| Brassey, Sir Leonard | Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington) | Rhys, Hon. C. A. U. |
| Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive | Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes) | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) |
| Briggs, J. Harold | Haslam, Henry C. | Roberts, Sir Samuel (Hereford) |
| Briscoe, Richard George | Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M. | Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Rennell |
| Brocklebank, C. E. R. | Henn, Sir Sydney H. | Ropner, Major L. |
| Broun-Lindsay, Major H. | Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J. | Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A. |
| Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham) | Hills, Major John Walter | Russell Alexander West (Tynemouth) |
| Brown, Brig -Gen.H.C.(Berks, Newb'y) | Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G. | Rye, F. G. |
| Bullock, Captain M. | Holbrook sir Arthur Richard | Salmon, Major I. |
| Burman, J. B. | Hope, Sir Harry (Fortar) | Sandeman, N. Stewart |
| Butler, Sir Geoffrey | Hopkins, J. W. W. | Sanders, Sir Robert A. |
| Campbell, E. T. | Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N. | Sandon, Lord |
| Carver, Major W. H. | Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K. | Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W. R., Sowerby) |
| Cassels, J. D. | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M.(Hackney, N.) | Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl. (Renfrew, W) |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt, R.(Prtsmth, S.) | Hudson, R. S. (Cumberl'nd, Whiteh'n) | Sheffield, Sir Berkeley |
| Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston) | Hume, Sir G. H. | Shepperson, E. W. |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood) | Hurst, Gerald B. | Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ. Bel'f'st.) |
| Chapman, Sir S. | Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H. | Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam) |
| Clarry, Reginald George | Iveagh, Countess of | Smith-Carlnuton, Neville W. |
| Cobb, Sir Cyril | James, Lieut. Colonel Hon. Cuthbert | Smithers, Waldron |
| Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D. | Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton) | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) |
| Cockerill, Brig. General Sir George | Jones, Henry Haydn ( Merioneth) | Sprot, Sir Alexander |
| Cohen, Major J. Brunei | King, Commodore Henry Douglas | Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F. |
| Collox, Major Wm. Phillips | Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement | Stanley, Lord (Fylde) |
| Colman, N. C. D. | Knox, sir Alfred | Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland) |
| Cope, Major Sir William | Lamb, J. Q. | Steel, Major Samuel Strang |
| Couper, J. B. | Leigh, Sir John (Clapham) | Storry-Deans, R. |
| Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L. | Lister, Cunliffe, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip | Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H. |
| Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islington, N.) | Little, Dr. E. Graham | Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C. |
| Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe) | Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley) | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) |
| Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend) | Loder, J. de V. | Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser |
| Cronkshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick) | Long, Major Eric | Sugden, Sir Wilfrid |
| Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro) | Lougher, Lewis | Thompson, Luke (Sunderland) |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Lucas Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere | Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South) |
| Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset, Yeovil) | Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman | Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell- |
| Davies, Dr. Vernon | Lumley, L. R. | Tinne, J. A. |
| Davison, Sir w. H. (Kensington, S.) | Mac Andrew, Major Charles Glen | Titchfield, Major the Marquess of |
| Dawson, Sir Philip | McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus | Tomlinson, R. P. |
| Dean, Arthur Welletley | Macintyre, Ian | Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement |
| Drewe, C, | McLean, Major A. | Turton, Edmund Russborough |
| Eden, Captain Anthony | Macquisten, F. A. | Waddington, R. |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | Mac Robert, Alexander M. | Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L. (Kingston-on. Hull) |
| Edwards, J. Huch (Accrington) | Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn | Warner, Brigadier-General W. W. |
| Elliot, Major Walter E. | Margesson, Captain D. | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Ellis, R. G. | Merriman, Sir F, Boyd | Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle) |
| England Colonel A. | Meyer. Sir Frank | Watts, Sir Thomas |
| Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.) | Monsell, Eyres. Com. Rt. Hon. B. M. | Wells, S. R. |
| Everard, W. Lindsay | Moore, Sir Newton J. | Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern) |
| Fairfax, Captain J. G. | Moore-Brabazon. Lieut.-Col. J. T. C. | Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay) |
| Falle, Sir Bertram G. | Moreing, Captain A. H. | Wilson, Sir C. H. (Leeds, Central) |
| Fielden, E. B. | Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury) | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Forestier-Walker, Sir L. | Morrison, Bell, Sir Arthur Clive | Withers, John Jamee |
| Forrest, W. | Nall, Colonel Sir Joseph | Womersley, W. J. |
| Fraser, Captain tan | Nelson, Sir Frank | Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley |
| Frece, Sir Walter de | Neville, Sir Reginald J. | Woodcock, Colonel H. C. |
| Fremantle, Lt.-Col. Francis E. | Oakley, T. | |
| Gadie, Lieut.-Col. Anthony | O'Neill. Major Rt. Hon. Hugh | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Ganzonl, Sir John | Oman, Sir Charles William C. | Mr. Penny and Captain Wallace. |
| Gates, Percy | Ormsby-Gore. Rt. Hon. William | |
| NOES. | ||
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (File, West) | Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W. | Connolly, M. |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Broad, F. A. | Cove, W. G. |
| Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro') | Bromfield, William | Cowan. D. M. (Scottish Universities) |
| Amnion, Charles George | Bromley, J. | Dennison, R. |
| Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston) | Brown, Ernest (Leith) | Duncan, C. |
| Baker, Walter | Buchanan, G. | Dunnico, H. |
| Barnes, A. | Buxton, Rt Hon. Noel | Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedweilty) |
| Rarr, J. | Cape, Thomas | Gardner, J. P. |
| Batey, Joseph | Charleton, H. C. | Garro-Jones, Captain G. M. |
| Bellamy, A, | Cluse, W. S. | Glbbins, Joseph |
| Bondfield, Margaret | Compton, Joseph | Gillett, George M. |
| Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | Lindley, F. W. | Stewart, J. (St. Rollox) |
| Graham. Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.) | Longbottom, A. W. | Suillvan, J. |
| Greenall, T. | Lowth, T. | Sutton, J. E. |
| Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne) | Lunn, William | Taylor, R. A. |
| Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness) | Thorne, G. B. (Wolverhampton, E.) |
| Griffith. F. Kingsley | Mackinder, W. | Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow) |
| Groves, T. | Maclean, Nell (Glasgow Govan) | Thurtie, Ernest |
| Grundy, T. W. | Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton) | Tinker, John Joseph |
| Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.) | Townend, A. E. |
| Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland) | Murnin, H. | Viant, S. P. |
| Hardle, George D. | Oliver, George Harold | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline) |
| Hayday, Arthur | Palin, John Henry | Watts-Morgan. Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda) |
| Hirst, G. H. | Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan) | Wellock, Wilfred |
| Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Pethick-Lawrence, F. W. | Welsh, J. C. |
| Hore-Belisha, Leslie | Ponsonby, Arthur | Westwood, J. |
| Hutchison. Sir Robert (Montrote) | Potts, John S. | Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J. |
| Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Purcell, A. A. | Wilkinson, Ellen C. |
| John, William (Rhondda, West) | Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich) | Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham) |
| Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W. R., Elland) | Williams, T. (York, Don Vatley) |
| Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Scurr, John | Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe) |
| Kennedy, T. | Sexton, James | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Kenworthy. Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M. | Shepherd, Arthur Lewis | Windsor, Walter |
| Kirkwood, D. | Shinwell, E. | Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton) |
| Lansbury, George | Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) | |
| Lawrence, Susan | Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Carthness) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Lawson, John James | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) | Mr. T. Henderson and Mr. Paling. |
| Lee, F. | Stamford, T. W. |
Question, "That the Clause be added to the Bill," put, and agreed to.
§ It being after half-past Ten of the Clock, the CHAIRMAN proceeded, pursuant to the Order of the House of 12th December, successively to put forthwith the Questions on any Amendments moved by the Government of which notice had been given and the Questions necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at half-past Ten of the Clock at this day's sitting.
1092§ First Schedule (Functions exercisable in rural districts exclusively by county councils) agreed to.