HC Deb 21 March 1929 vol 226 cc1951-67

8.0 p.m.

During the unemployment Debate the other day I hoped to be called upon to speak, but was not fortunate. I, therefore, wish now to raise one or two points in connection with unemployment administration, and I hope that the Minister will not think me discourteous for not giving him notice. I find flung at me, as it were, an hour or two of Parliamentary time, and I propose to utilise the opportunity in his way. I see the Under-Secretary of the Home Department present, and he represents the First Commissioner of Works. For the past two years he has been answering questions of mine most unsatisfactorily and with a lack of knowledge of local affairs. He ought to know better, for he used to represent a Division of Glasgow. I want to raise the question of the condition of the Scottish Board of Health buildings in Glasgow. Every day there go to that office hundreds and thousands of people, most of whom are old and many of whom are unable with any kind of ease to get to the office which is situated on the fourth floor of a building. When they get there they find the place badly ventilated and overcrowded. It is a small square box and there are usually 20 or 30 people waiting for interviews. There is no proper sanitary accommodation. I know of a case of a woman who actually fainted, and there was no means of giving her proper attention. In the largest industrial centre of Britain outside London one finds that the accommodation provided for this purpose is a thoroughgoing disgrace.

I appeal to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department to see this place for himself. It is useless to appeal to the Secretary of State for Scotland. As far as he is concerned, nothing can be done but to await May and his dismissal from office. I ask the hon. Gentleman, not in any jocular fashion, to see this office, I ask him to go there, not as a Conservative Member, but as a man of business training and knowledge and a man who wants to see people decently treated. He will find that these offices are badly situated, difficult of access and totally inadequate to deal with the work for which they were created. I hope the hon. Gentleman will regard my suggestion in no unfriendly or hostile fashion, and will take an early opportunity of making a survey of these offices in order to see if he cannot—and I am sure he can—suggest improved accommodation.

Recently we had a Debate on the administration of unemployment insurance and, if my memory serves me aright, owing to the exigencies of the occasion, very few, if any, of the Scottish Labour Members were able to raise the points which they desired to raise. That was not their fault, nor was it the fault of the Minister, nor was it your fault, Mr. Speaker. It was simply because of the demand upon Parliamentary time, and I propose to take this opportunity of raising one or two questions about the administration in Scotland. First, there is the Ministry of Labour position in Glasgow. In various parts of the country there are divisional offices which supervise certain work in certain areas. A divisional office situated, for instance, in Birmingham, does not merely supervise the work in Birmingham but the work in the Midlands area. Similarly, there is a divisional office in Leeds which covers the whole of Yorkshire and certain adjoining districts, and there is also a divisional office in Manchester. But while there is a divisional office dealing with Ministry of Labour affairs, in practically every large industrial centre in Britain, there is one exception and that is the City of Glasgow. With all due deference to the representatives of other cities the area of the City of Glasgow and its neighbourhood is, apart from London, the most thickly populated area in Britain. I understand there are more insured persons within a 10-mile radius of the centre of the City of Glasgow than in any other industrial area, outside London. Why is it that this important centre has not a divisional office? During the first four years of the operation of the Act Glasgow had a divisional office. For some unknown reason it was deprived of that office At that time there were, comparatively speaking, very few Labour Members from Scotland and the matter was allowed to go by default, but the position then was not as serious as it is now.

The 1927 Act made the position in Glasgow much more difficult. Previously the divisional office did not to any extent run counter to local wishes, but what do we find now? With the Act of 1927 the administrative machinery had been altered. The whole of the administration for Scotland has been centred in Edinburgh, although Edinburgh has not one-fifth of the industrial population which is situated in the West of Scotland. Some hon. Members may ask why I should insist on this point. I do so because I think that a divisional office in a centre like Glasgow is absolutely essential. Up to the passing of the 1927 Act every applicant, every person who had to appear before a Court of Referees, was summoned by a clerk or an officer of the department—I wish to do that official no injustice by referring to him as a clerk. This officer summoned the applicant for unemployment benefit, he summoned the chairman and he summoned the assessors, representing employers and workmen, and those people were asked to attend at a particular place on a particular date. This arrangement was very important for this reason. It has been found, particularly in regard to the assessors, both workmen and employers, that those who are summoned at very short notice to act in that capacity may be unable to commit themselves to attendance at the required time and place. At the present time these men are summoned not from Glasgow but from Edinburgh, and, if they are unable to attend, they cannot be replaced as rapidly or easily as formerly. This applies particularly to the workmen's assessors, and the result is that, at many courts of referees, the workmen's representative is unable to attend and the court is held without a workmen's representative. The applicant usually wants to have his case settled and signifies his willingness to proceed without one, and his application is often weakened be- cause of the absence of the workmen's representatives.

I want to see every applicant for unemployment benefit getting a proper amount of time for the preparation and presentation of his case. Each man who is summoned has a right to consult his trade union officials and to prepare his case. There can be no consultation when a man only receives notification on the day before the hearing of the case, even if the man gets the notice at one o'clock in the day. But if a man were at home to receive the notice at one o'clock in the day, it would be taken that he was not out seeking for work. The man does not in fact get the notice until he returns at night, and he may have to appear at 10 o'clock on the following morning. I had a very informative interview on this matter with one of the Minister's chief officials who assured me that he was going to try to get the notice extended. I want to impress on the Minister the need for seeing that every unemployed person is given adequate notice, in order that when he gets to the Court of Referees he will be properly equipped to state his case. They should get at least three days' notice. I would remind hon. Members that we are here dealing with what is probably the most important thing in life for many of these poor people. To us 27s. a week unemployment benefit may not seem a very important matter, but it has a different significance to them. It is their whole income. It is their entire wherewithal.

I turn to another aspect of this question. I attended a court of referees recently in the interests of a constituent. The question at issue I do not wish to debate here, and I merely use the case as an illustration. The man had applied for unemployment benefit and also for dependants benefit in respect of a wife and two children. He had kept a lodger for a few months, receiving from the lodger 21s. or 22s. a week. Because he got this 22s. a week—which covered board and lodging and washing for the lodger—it was reckoned that he was making a profit, in consequence of which he was asked to lose a sum of 11s. a week. I know the Minister's answer to me will be that these are questions for the statutory authority to decide. I hope, with due deference to some of my hon. Friends on this side, that they have had enough of statutory authorities during the last year. The old rota committees were bad, but I would rather have them than the present statutory authorities. However, this man appeared before the court of referees, and I was there also. We had there just the Chairman and a clerk, and the clerk read the facts to the Court. I had no objection, but I went on to state my case. Then the clerk said, "There is an Umpire's decision in this matter that rules the man out." I said, "Where is the Umpire's decision?" The clerk turned round and said, "You should have it."

This is a court to which we are going, and if any legal man in a court quotes a document against a person, the sheriff or the judge makes the lawyer produce the document for the court's inspection. It is a first principle of legal practice that, if you quote a document, you must be prepared to produce it. I recently attended one of the High Courts in London, and the Judge said to the leading counsel, "If you are quoting that document, you must see that copies of it are made available and that the Statute is quoted, in order that the Court may know exactly where it is." I say to the Minister that if it is going to be a court, it must be a court, and that if clerks at the court are going to quote umpires' decisions, they ought to be ready, in fairness to the applicant to produce those decisions. When I asked for the umpire's decision, I was told that I, who knew nothing about it, should have it with me, and that he, who knew it and had access to it, should not have it. Where was I to get it from? When was it given? I knew nothing, and this clerk turns and says to me, "You should have it." I ask this, not as a favour, but as a right.

The Minister stated in the previous debate, that this is a statutory authority, that he has no right to intervene, that it is an authority with power and control, and that it can only be criticised by a special Vote. If that is going to be the case, let us have it conducted on properly constituted lines. Do not let us have it shouted at us that it is a court, with all the privileges of a court, and then, when we ask that proper legal procedure should be followed, have that procedure refused. Either it should be a court, or it should cease to have that name. The Minister ought to instruct his clerks in the matter. I know he cannot instruct Ida Chairmen, or at least he says he cannot, though he can make recommendations to them, but he can instruct his clerks to see that all Umpires' decisions are at the court, and that, if they are going to be quoted against an applicant, they should be produced.

I will go further and say that in an ordinary court case, a person having an Umpire's decision quoted against him, or a decision of a higher court sprung upon him as a bolt from the blue, would have a right to ask for an adjournment; and I ask the Minister that, in these cases, not only should the whole of the Umpires' decisions be there to be produced if quoted, but that time should be given, if needed by the applicant, in order that he might have some chance to study a decision quoted against him and to reply to the man who has had the knowledge beforehand. These Courts of Referees are now very important bodies. Previously, all that they dealt with were questions concerning alleged misconduct, questions as to men leaving their jobs and so on, but now we have reached the stage when the Court of Referees in connection with Ministry of Labour work dominates the lives of large masses of our people.

I will go one stage further, and I will ask the Minister to direct his attention to another problem. I have travelled from a by-election in North Lanark, which, I may say, we are sure to win, and, finding myself with an hour or two of Parliamentary time, I ask the Minister of Labour and the Under-Secretary for the Home Office to direct their attention to this further administrative problem. In Glasgow there is an Employment Exchange known as the Parkhead Exchange. It is alleged to be an Employment Exchange, but I keep pigeons in a better place than you ask people to go and sign in there. It is a shocking place, and the Home Office would not keep its worst prisoner in a place in which you ask people to work and poor people to sign. It is a shocking, disgraceful, fearful Exchange, and the staff could not do their work in it properly if they tried. There ought to be a new Exchange there immediately. You have nearly 5,000 people signing there daily, and it is over- crowded. The staff cannot get a decent place in which to eat their food, and yet that Exchange is allowed to go on day after day.

I put this point before the Under-Secretary for Home Affairs, who has something to do with controlling public buildings, in order that, when he goes to Glasgow, he should look first of all at the Board of Health Vote, and then take a 2d. car out to the East End and look at this place that they misname an exchange. A tenth-rate private firm would not tolerate it, and I hope the Under-Secretary will see that the place is rapidly hauled down and a new exchange built in its stead. It is adjacent to a great steelworkers yard, and large masses of men have to sign there. In the open air, in the middle of the cruel winter through which we have passed, they have had to stand there for a considerable time. They call it an exchange, but it would not be tolerated among well-to-do people for 10 minutes. I do not know how the staff have stood it so long. It is a tribute to their patience and almost, I should say, to their being afraid to voice their grievances. If they had been brave, they would have kicked up a row about it long before now, and I hope the Minister and the Under-Secretary will direct their attention to it immediately.

I ask the Minister to give attention to this further point as to what is meant by the regulations about not genuinely seeking work, and to the question of the interviewing clerks. Applicants are interviewed by a clerk, sometimes by a woman clerk, all manner of questions are asked, and the applicants are asked to sign an alleged statement. We have often heard about third degree methods, and this statement is often got from the applicants by a series of trick questions. The interview ought to be abolished, and if courts of referees must exist, the applicants ought to go to those courts without the intervention of the interviewing clerk, who is like a detective interviewing an alleged criminal. There is the difference, however, that when a detective makes his report, he must go to the court and swear by it and be examined on it in public, but the interviewing clerk does not go to the court of referees to substantiate what he has written down. I know that this is not important. I am merely a Member from the south side of Glasgow talking about unemployment, but if it had been a question of Irish loyalists or pensions for diplomats, I should have got attention. I cannot get attention from the Minister and the only thing he can do is to walk out of the House. If an applicant for unemployment benefit did a thing like that, his livelihood would be cut off for not genuinely looking for a job, but because Ministers get £5,000 a year instead of 26s. a week, they are made knights and the other fellows are sent to the workhouse.

Either the interviewing clerk ought to go to a court and substantiate the statement, or the statement ought not to be sent to the court at all. It is time that the Minister ceased to shelter behind the contention that the referees' court is a court. He ought either to make it a proper court or go back to the old local committees. I was the only member who believed in the local committees in preference to the court of referees, for I saw that this court would be a cruel machine for the suppression of the poor. That is what they have been. The chairmen appointed to the courts have been the worst possible type in almost every case, and they have been anxious not to improve the conditions of the poor, but to make the lives of the poorer section most intolerable. The Minister has walked away, and I hope that he will find courage and comfort from the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of people without unemployment benefit. The hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Scrymgeour) is present, and he knows that in Dundee to-night poor people are not getting the benefit they ought to be getting, and I leave that as a comfort for the Minister if he can find comfort in it. I would sooner occupy the position that I hold to-night than the Minister's exalted position, and rather be in my position than think that I was a part of the machine which deprives a single man or woman of unemployment benefit.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

I gave the Minister of Labour notice that I would raise one or two matters as soon as the scandal of the Geneva Conference had been got rid of, and I do not want to disappoint him by keeping him here and not raising them. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) on his excellent speech, from which I have learnt a great deal. On a previous occasion I criticised the hon. Member after he had left the House, but it turned out that he had an appointment, and I now take the opportunity of apologising to him. I want to put a point which concerns partly the Minister of Health and partly the Minister of Labour. That is the treatment by the guardians of men who ask for relief after they have been struck off the register for not genuinely seeking work and have appealed. The guardians give the men relief, but they make them do test work. While a man is doing test work he cannot look for another job. The scandalous part of it is that when his appeal is allowed, as is often the case, the guardians recover the relief, so that it means that the man's test work is work done for nothing. If that is not the worst form of slavery, I should like to know what is. It takes the heart out of a man and creates a burning sense of injustice. A few shillings may be saved by the guardians, but much more is lost by making men discontented. Knowing the conditions of the work at the docks, my wonder is that the men are so decent, patient, quiet and law-abiding. If I had to live the life of a casual labourer in the average shipping port, I should be a red-hot revolutionary instead of a constitutional evolutionary. I wish that the Minister of Labour would look into this matter with the Minister of Health, and see if this system cannot be abolished.

I would like the Minister of Labour also to look into the system under which dock labourers have to suffer. There are over 8,000 of them in Hull and steady work for about 5,000. The Government keep this system of casualisation in spite of this condition and the Shaw Commission's report. It is a hopeless system, but at any rate the Minister of Labour ought to see that it works efficiently. As it works now, we actively discourage men from getting work, and in that way we ruin good men. The ordinary dock labourer, whom the right hon. Gentleman has no doubt come across in the course of his duties, is really a very fine chap indeed. Most of those whom I know are ex-service men, fine, big, husky fellows and not afraid of work. They have their faults, as all of us have, but they are deserving of decent treatment. They turn out in all weathers to do their work, and they are a most valuable part of the community. The trade of the country could not be carried on without them; we should starve in six weeks without the work of these men.

This is what happens; this is the sort of thing which, if I were in the right hon. Gentleman's place, I should set my officials to investigate and should investigate myself. We will say that tide time is eight o'clock in the morning and a ship is coming in. A large party of men go down to the docks to get work. One party is taken on at once, and go on board the ship as she is docking for the work of rigging her for unloading; because unloading has to be done as soon as possible, so that she can be turned round quickly and be off to sea again. The docking and rigging are probably finished by nine o'clock. Up to that time nobody knows how many additional men are required. At any moment, it may be three-quarters of an hour or an hour after the ship has docked, the foreman comes out to take on more men. Until that time, until he has consulted the mate, no one, not even he himself, knows just how many men will be wanted. The men care not go away, because they want the work. If they go to the Employment Exchange and sign at nine o'clock and then go back in the afternoon and sign they get a day's unemployment pay, whereas if they wait on in the hope of getting taken on and are not taken on, and if they are not at the Employment Exchange at 10 o'clock, they do not get unemployment pay, although they may have been waiting three hours in the cold to get a job.

It is true that exchange boxes have been established on the docks themselves. That reform is a great improvement, and I take same little credit to myself for having brought it about; and I am glad that, as I understand, arrangements are to be made for these exchange boxes not to be closed on Friday afternoons. But the position remains that with a number of docks strung out all along the riverside a man who wants a job and, through waiting on in hope of it, does not go up to the Employment Exchange to sign, loses his unemployment pay. The way to get over this injustice is to do away with the requirement that men must sign twice a day. Let them sign once a day, like other casual workers. I know dozens of men personally who never sign and who never draw unemployment pay, although they only get their chance of jobs in turn with the rest of their fellows, because in the first place, it is such a nuisance to have to sign, and because they actually lose jobs under the present system. They would rather lose their unemployment pay in order to get a job when there is one going. Men of that type ought to be encouraged, but what we are doing encourages the weaker vessels, encourages idleness.

Here is another matter. The right hon. Gentleman is looking forward to going away for a holiday when the House rises. I want him to think of the position of dock workers at holiday time. Probably there is no holiday for them at all. If a man is lucky he will get work during the holidays. If he is not, he signs at the Exchange the day after the holidays are over and can draw unemployment pay for the period of the holidays; but if he gets half-a-day's work on the day following the holidays he will lose all his unemployment pay for the period of the holiday. I want the right hon. Gentleman to look into that question before the Easter vacation, because this system obviously puts a premium on idleness. A man stands on the edge of the crowd and hopes the foreman will not see him, because if he has been unemployed during the holidays and can prove it—and mostly they can—he gets paid for the whole of the holidays. If he works half-a-day he loses the whole of that unemployment pay—for which he has paid his contribution, I may add.

With regard to the other points raised, I understand that the right hon. Gentleman is making inquiries. I want him also to have inquiries made about the Employment Exchange in Hull where, I understand, there is still considerable congestion, with complaints of under-staffing. I do not make any charge against the manager or his officials, I believe they do their best, but they are understaffed; and when there is long-continued trade depression, as is the case at the present time, and a lot of men are waiting, we are bound to have congestion. The men want to get their money and get away as soon as they can to try to get a job. There are 16,000 men registered as unemployed in the city of Hull. If you cut out the fractional number of men who would rather draw a few shillings for doing nothing and allow their wives to go out to work, if you cut out those rotters, you will find that the great majority of men would far rather have work, even at the present low rates of wages offered in most instances, than undergo this horrible business of having to queue up at the Employment Exchanges. Such is the system which we have, and the least the right hon. Gentleman can do is to see that it works smoothly. It is a hopeless, rotten system. While we have this casualisation we ought to encourage the industrious man who wants work and is a decent fellow, and make it easy for him to get work, and not penalise him. If we did that I believe that public opinion among these casual labourers would prevent the "scrimshanker" from abusing the scheme. That is what I want the right hon. Gentleman to understand. The idler, the shirker, the scrimshanker, would be exposed, and get public opinion against him if the system were just and fair; but if the system works badly, who can blame a man for what he does when he knows that if he takes half-a-day's work he will lose unemployment pay? It may make all the difference between his wife and family having enough to eat and his children going crying and hungry to bed. I would not blame the right hon. Gentleman himself if under those circumstances, he was not quick at seeking a job.

These are the sort of things which the Minister of Labour ought to look into. In great questions of policy there are forces behind the right hon. Gentleman which he cannot resist. We heard earlier this afternoon how those forces had manipulated him at Geneva. I cannot blame him, because he is not a strong enough man to overcome them; but he can do a great deal in these small matters and when he lays down his office in May or June I want him, when looking back on his five years as Minister of Labour, to be able to say "In the last month, at any rate, I did remove some anomalies at the docks, and these poor ex-service men, who have this awful hellish life as casual labourers, can thank me for having removed these little injustices and made their path smoother." Cannot the right hon. Gentleman imagine the satisfaction he would have if he could say that? I hope he will mate the necessary inquiries.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR

The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) dealt with the complaint that employment exchanges so frequently turn down applicants on the ground that they are not genuinely seeking work, and I want to offer some confirmation of his emphatic and sweeping condemnation of their methods. I did not really make anything like that condemnation. We discussed this question on a former occasion, and I had reason then to make my decision clear. I am confident that many of those people who are being refused benefits for this particular reason are not getting justice. I am satisfied that many of them are thoroughly genuine in their efforts to obtain work, but the difficulty of making a generalised statement is that when cases arise and are submitted for our personal consideration, in order to make representations to the management of the employment exchange I always find a readiness to enter into the matter, and where anything has gone amiss there has always been a ready response in the direction of a readjustment of the case. There are instances where a decision has been arrived at and where the management cannot intervene and it is in that connection that I feel that there is a difficulty arising because we cannot make our representations to the direct quarter.

It is there that in some degree the criticisms which have been made are justified. I am strongly of the opinion that the phraseology "not genuinely seeking work" has caused great difficulty in the handling of such cases. So far as my own experience goes, I have never had any occasion to make anything like the deliverance which has just been made by the hon. Member for Gorbals. I would like to say to the Minister and the Department which he represents that I think this great body of people are under a great disadvantage. They suffer severely all those awful experiences which go beyond any of those of us who have had a comparatively smooth walk through life when they are met with a decision which puts them into the actual attitude of not only being dissatisfied but so intensely dissatisfied that their feelings are likely to find expression in a way that is not legal. When we have a Government Department responsible in any way for the liability of such development, I submit it is a very serious matter for the responsible Minister.

Another matter I wish to put before the Ministry of Labour is the great delay which takes place in the settlement of appeals would have to go before the insurance officer. I have submitted instances in regard to which I understand representations have been made concerning the roundabout system which keeps these people waiting for a settlement. I hope the further representations now being made will receive the requisite attention and will be attended by satisfactory results. As regards the question of the Eight Hours Convention, I think everybody concerned about the interests of the workers have had once more every reason, not only for disappointment, but strong reason for criticism of an effective character in that it should be the British Government that has been placed in such a humiliating position. When the representatives of other Governments, which we do not consider are so advanced as ourselves, have made such incisive criticisms upon our action, I am bound to say that I think the Minister of Labour must have felt his position very deeply. I am aware that the right hon. Gentleman has offered certain explanations, but I do not think on the whole they have been satisfactory.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND

I will briefly answer some of the points which have been put to me. The hon. and gallant Member for Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) very kindly gave me notice of the point he was going to raise with regard to the dockers, and I can give the information. The question was also put before me by another representative for Hull. I am inquiring into the system of payment to dockers in Hull and my representative is down there, at this moment, and when he reports I shall be in a position to communicate to the hon. and gallant Member for Hull the result of his inquiry. As regards the hon. and gallant Member's gentle insinuation that the casual character of dock labour is being deliberately sustained, I would like to point out what happens in other districts. Attempts at de-casualisation have been made in other ports. They have been more successful in Liverpool, and to say that they have been deliberately sustained is quite contrary to the fact.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

De-casualisation has been carried on very largely in Hull and it is part of the general system of casualised labour. Until you get rid of the system you will always have this casualised labour.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND

As regards what has been said about the guardians and the pay for test work, I will draw the attention of the Minister of Health to that matter. With regard to the delays in dealing with appeals which occurred earlier in the year there was a great congestion of business, and I said at the time that by the appointment of an additional deputy to the Umpire we might be able to accelerate those appeals. That has been done. The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) did not give me notice of the points he was going to raise, but I think the answer can be given very briefly. It is the old case of the district office in Glasgow as distinguished from Edinburgh. I think by having a district office in Edinburgh these matters have been working without any undue delay, but if the hon. Member for Gorbals has a sufficient number of cases of delays I hope he will put them before me and I will take them into consideration.

Mr. BUCHANAN

I think that people would be more satisfied if the notification of eases to the Court of Referees could be done from the Glasgow office as was done before under the 1923 Act.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND

It is not merely a question of being satisfied, or even a question of pride in having a district office in one's own particular town. The question of real importance is whether it acts with fairness and reasonable expedition. So far as I have made inquiries up to the present moment, those conditions are satisfied, and, at any rate, unless and until I get reasonably sufficient evidence that that is no linger the case, the present arrangement must stand. As regards the Courts of Referees, I am afraid that there would be no chance of satisfying the hon. Member in any circumstances. Formerly it was the use of the Ministerial discretion through the rota committees about which I had complaints from him and from others, individually and by organisations. The representation was made to me that there should be statutory courts—

Mr. BUCHANAN

I do not want to keep on interrupting the right hon. Gentleman, but I would ask him to read the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary in the last Debate, when he deliberately excluded me from that line of criticism. If the right hon. Gentleman would learn a little from his Parliamentary Secretary, it would help us all.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND

The hon. Member has been exceedingly polite in his correction, and perhaps I did not distinguish sufficiently between the various individual criticisms which reached me from the other side of the House. I am sorry that, in meeting the general wish expressed on that side, I have gone against the great love which the hon. Member must himself have had for the rota committees, but, on the whole, the generally expressed wish, both individually and collectively, on that side of the House and elsewhere, was for the present system of statutory courts. That wish having been expressed, the statutory courts have been set up, and I trust that they are doing their duty properly, as is indicated to be the case by all the information that I can gather. So far as the point about quoting Umpire's cases is concerned, I am afraid that, on the spur of the moment, I have not complete information, as the hon. Member did not give me notice, but, so far as I am aware, the chairman of the court of referees will always quote an Umpire's case which affects the case that is being considered by the court, and will be ready to tell it to the applicant, or, in case it should be suddenly produced, will be willing to adjourn the case where necessary. That, I understand, is the practice. The hon. Member has apparently met with exceptions, but, in the case of a particular exception, he ought to give me enough notice—

Mr. BUCHANAN

I have given you official notice.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND

He has already been discussing the matter with my Department, and I trust that he will realise that his representations are being attended to. Those are all the points that I have gathered, and, if I have been brief in replying to them, I am sure that the hon. Members concerned, other than the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull, will realise that I have done so without any notice whatsoever as to the points that were going to be raised.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.