Commons Sitting of 3 February 1930

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Bournemouth-Swanage Motor Road and Ferry Company (Bridge) Bill (Certified Bill) (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Friday.
Cardiff Corporation Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Wednesday, at half-past Seven of the clock.
Liverpool Corporation Bill (Certified Bill) (by Order),
London and North Eastern Railway Bill (Certified Bill) (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Wednesday, at half-past Seven of the clock.
London and North Eastern Railway (Hull Level Crossings) Bill (Certified Bill) (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Wednesday.
London Electric, Metropolitan District, Central London, and City and South London Railway Companies Bill (Certified Bill) (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Tomorrow.
Milford Haven Urban District Council (Water) Bill (Certified Bill) (by Order),
Second Beading deferred till Friday.
Newport Corporation Bill (Certified Bill) (by Order),
Read a Second time.
Ordered, That Parts II. and IV., and Clauses 39 to 53, inclusive, and 82, and in so far as they apply for the purposes of the said Parts II. and IV., and Clauses 39 to 53, inclusive, and 82, the Preamble, Part I., and Clauses 15, 16, 17, 20, 21, 54, 55, 81, 83 to 89, inclusive, and 100 to 103, inclusive, of that Bill, be committed to the Committee of Selection.—[Mr. Thomas.] (Newport Corporation (No. 1) Bill).
Remaining Provisions committed (Newport Corporation (No. 2) Bill).
Rotherham Corporation Bill (by Order),
Read a Second time, and committed.
Sheffield Corporation Bill (Certified Bill) (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Tomorrow.
Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Bradford Extension) Bill (by Order),
Read the Third time, and passed.
Ministry of Health Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 13) Bill [Lords], (by Order),
Third Reading deferred till this evening, at half-past Seven of the clock.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  INDIA.

    PROCESSIONS (PROSECUTION).
    Mr. THURTLEasked the Secretary of State for India the nature of the offence for which Mr. Subhas C. Bose and 11 others have been sentenced to 12 months' rigorous imprisonment?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Wedgwood Benn): The conviction was, under Sections 124A and 120B of the Indian Penal Code, for organising processions with the intention of spreading disaffection and incitement to revolution.
    Mr. THURTLE: Is it now illegal for Indian Nationalists to hold processions in India?
    Mr. BENN: My hon. Friend is not accurately setting forth the facts of this case. I may add that the persons convicted have appealed, and the case is therefore sub judice.

    SMALL-POX AND INFANT MORTALITY (CITIES).
    Mr. FREEMANasked the Secretary of State for India how many small-pox deaths were registered in each of the cities of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras in the years 1925, 1926, 1927, and 1928,

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    respectively; and what was the infant mortality death rate in each city for the same years?

    —

    Small-pox deaths.

    Infant Mortality death rate per 1000.

    1925.

    1926.

    1927.

    1928.

    1925.

    1926.

    1927.

    1928.

    Calcutta

    …

    …

    3,923

    934

    2,860

    Not yet received.

    326

    372

    340

    Not yet received.

    Bombay

    …

    …

    565

    476

    841

    595

    359

    394

    319

    314

    Madras

    …

    …

    762

    60

    32

    246

    281

    282

    240

    289

    EXPLOSIONS, SRIGONDA.
    Mr. WARDLAW-MILNEasked the Secretary of State for India whether he has any further information regarding the bomb explosion in a primary school in the village of Srigonda, near Ahmadnagar; and whether there is any evidence to show that this constituted an attack upon the life of the collector of the district?
    Mr. BENN: On 24th January an explosion occurred in a class room containing 20 boys of the Depressed Classes in a Free School at Srigonda. No evidence is forthcoming that political significance is to be attached to the incident, nor that there was an attempt on the life of the collector.
    Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: Is it not a fact that the collector was present at the time; and is not that a rather suspicious circumstance?
    Mr. BENN: No. I repeat what I said in my previous answer. There is no evidence that there was an attempt on the life of the collector.
    Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: Can the right hon. Gentleman answer my question? Is it not the case that the collector was present at the time?
    Mr. BENN: The collector had visited the school that day, but had left.

    MEDICAL COUNCIL.
    Major GRAHAM POLEasked the Secretary of State for India if it is the intention of the Government to take early steps towards the establishment of on all-India Medical Council?
    Mr. BENN: I will circulate a tabular statement containing these figures.
    Following is the statement:
    Mr. BENN: The Government of India are anxious to introduce the necessary legislation at the earliest possible date, but it is doubtful whether this will be possible during the present session of their legislature.
    Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: Will the right hon. Gentleman do his utmost to impress upon the two Governments that, unless we have reciprocity between the two Governments and the two medical councils, Indian practitioners will be debarred from the whole possibility of any practice throughout the rest of the British Empire; and that it is extremely important to keep the two working together—the General Medical Council here and the Council in India?
    Mr. BENN: The Government of India are fully aware of the facts mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member.

    CENTRAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE.
    Major POLEasked the Secretary of State for India the intention of the Government of India in the matter of the proposal to remove the Central Research Institute to Dehra Dun, in view of the fact that there would be an absence of the clinical facilities and the scientific co-operation available h larger urban areas?
    Mr. BENN: The Government of India have decided, after full consideration, to adhere to the proposal to locate the institute at Dehra Dun. Their reasons were explained in the course of a debate in the Council of State on the 17th September. A report of the debate will be found in the Library.

    LEGISLATURES (VACANCIES).
    Mr. WELLOCKasked the Secretary of State for India the number of Congress members in the central and provincial legislatures; how many of these have so far resigned their seats as the result of the National Congress decisions at Lahore; and whether new elections are to take place to fill the vacancies?
    Mr. BENN: I propose to circulate a statement giving the figures. In all cases, by-elections are being, or are to be, held to fill the vacancies.
    Mr. WELLOCK: Are Congress members standing for the vacant seats?
    Mr. BENN: It is necessary to issue a statement, because the cases vary in different circumstances.
    Following is the statement:

    Legislature.

    Number of Congress Members.

    Number of Resignations.

    Legislative Assembly

    34

    25

    Council of State

    9

    8

    Madras

    35

    15

    Bombay

    16

    7

    Bengal

    47

    38

    United Provinces

    22

    14

    Punjab

    1

    1

    Burma

    1

    1

    Bihar and Orissa

    35

    31

    Central Provinces

    17

    16

    Assam

    16

    10

    SIKH DEMONSTRATION, LAHORE.
    Colonel HOWARD-BURYasked the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been drawn to the demonstration of Sikhs, all ex-soldiers, well disciplined, at Lahore; whether he can state what were their grievances; and whether these are being remedied?
    Mr. BENN: I am circulating a statement of the facts. The hon. and gallant Member may rest assured that the Government of India are giving sympathetic consideration to all real grievances brought to notice through the recognised channels which are widely known and freely used.
    Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say if this demonstration
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    was due to increased assessments; and will he take steps to see that these grievances are remedied?
    Mr. BENN: If the hon. and gallant Member will read the full statement which, in order to save time, I am circulating, I think he will find that those questions are answered.
    Following is the statement:
    Three demonstrations of Sikh ex-soldiers of which that at the end of December last was the most recent have taken place at Lahore since December, 1928. The grievances brought forward related to the alleged inadequacy of pensions and the difficulty of obtaining grants of land. There has, so far as I am aware, been no complaint that the recognised means of bringing grievances of this nature to notice are inadequate. Soldiers' Hoards have been set up for some years past in various districts to collect, investigate and pass on to Government all grievances represented by ex-soldiers. The members of the demonstrations acted against the advice not only of Government officials but also of pensioned Indian officers of the Soldiers' Boards, and disobeyed police instructions with the result that on two occasions the leaders were arrested. The Government has made it clear that it is not prepared to receive mass representations on these matters, while on the other hand it is continuing to assist hard cases if represented through the proper channels. During the past year careful and sympathetic investigation has been made of every case brought to the notice of the Government, and many hard cases which did not come within existing Regulations have been met with pecuniary assistance.

    AIR SERVICES (BOMBAY-KARACHI).
    Earl WINTERTONasked the Secretary of State for India whether there is any prospect of the Bombay-Karachi air route being started during the present year; and, if so, by what company the service will be operated?
    Mr. BENN: I have just heard from the Government of India that in view of the negotiations which are taking place it would be premature to make any announcement on this subject at present.
    Earl WINTERTON: When is the right hon. Gentleman likely to be in a position

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    to make a statement, in view of the long period during which this matter has been under consideration?
    Mr. BENN: I will keep in touch with the Noble Lord and will make a statement at the very earliest opportunity, consistent with the public interest.

    PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSIONS.
    Earl WINTERTONasked the Secretary of State for India whether he will issue as a White Paper the reasons advanced for their action by those Presidency and Provincial Governments which have refrained from setting up Public Service Commissions?
    Mr. BENN: So far as I am aware, none of the Governments of the Governors' Provinces has given reasons for refraining from setting up Public Service Commissions. On the contrary, I understand that several of them are in favour of setting up such Commissions, but they are no doubt awaiting the Report of the Statutory Commission before taking action.
    Earl WINTERTON: In view of the fact that the setting up of these Commissions was the most important recommendation of the Lee Commission's Report, will the right hon. Gentleman consider making representations through the Government of India to the Presidency and the Provincial Governments with a view to accelerating the setting up of the Commissions?
    Mr. BENN: I am quite prepared, in view of the importance of the comment of the Noble Lord, to forward it to the Government of India. I think there we may allow the matter to rest for the moment.

    POLITICAL SITUATION.
    Colonel HOWARD-BURYasked the Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the size of the adverse vote of the Congress at Lahore on the resolution deploring the attempt on Lord Irwin's life and in view of the threats of civil disobedience and the existence of an active movement for independence, he is taking any special steps to uphold law and order in that country?
    Mr. BENN: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the Governor-
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    General's recent statement to the Legislative Assembly, to which I have nothing to add.
    Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Has the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been drawn to the resolution of the Central Moslem Association, which states that it is incumbent on all those who abhor bloodshed and anarchy to take every possible step to see that these ideas are not being preached in the villages; and is he not going to do anything in regard to the matter?
    Mr. BENN: I think that the Viceroy's statement covers those points, and I do not intend to add anything to it.
    Earl WINTERTON: May we have an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that he accepts the position that his responsibility is to this House and not to the Viceroy, and that the Viceroy's responsibility is not to this House but to the right hon. Gentleman?
    Mr. BENN: Of course, the Noble Lord knows better than anyone that the Viceroy's speech in the Legislative Assembly was prepared in consultation with me and my office.

  RUSSIA.

    COMMERCIAL RELATIONS (NEGOTIATIONS).
    Mr. SMITHERSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has discussed with Mr. Sokolnikoff a commercial treaty, and with what result; and, if such a treaty is contemplated, will he make the ratification of it conditional on the settlement of matters for discussion under the Protocol of October, 1929?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Arthur Henderson): The regulation of the commercial relations between the two countries is naturally being discussed with the Soviet Government in accordance with the Protocol of the 3rd October last. At this early stage in the negotiations, however, it would be premature and improper for me to attempt to foreshadow the conditions under which any eventual agreement shall be brought into force. I would, however, add that, in any case, the hon. Member may rest assured that any

    1473
    eventual definitive Treaty of Commerce and Navigation with the Soviet Government will not he brought into force without the House being given an opportunity to express its views thereon.
    Mr. SMITHERS: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the last part of the question? Will he make ratification conditional on the settlement of matters for discussion under the Protocol of October, 1929?
    Mr. HENDERSON: That is in the answer which I have already given. It would ho premature for me to lay down conditions.
    Mr. WISE: May we assume that the interests of employment and trade will not be subordinated to getting an extra 2½ per cent. for the bondholders?
    Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: Why all this secret diplomacy nowadays?

    DIPLOMATIC VISAS.
    Mr. SMITHERSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many diplomatic visas have been granted to the Russian Embassy; does one visa cover more than one person; and, if so, what is the total number of persons affected by these visas?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: No permanent diplomatic visas have yet been granted to members of the Soviet Embassy; diplomatic visas valid for the single journey only were granted in favour of about 25 persons, including wives and children, but I am unable to say whether all these persons had separate passports or not.
    Mr. SMITHERS: Did I hear the right hon. Gentleman correctly as saying that the number was 25?
    Mr. HENDERSON: Yes, with the inclusion of wives and children?
    Mr. SMITHERS: How does that number compare with the number of visas granted to other Embassies?
    Mr. HENDERSON: They are very much on the same lines. If the hon. Member is very anxious to have an analysis, I can publish one.

    DEBTS, CLAIMS AND COUNTERCLAIMS.
    Mr. SMITHERSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what is
    1474
    the reason for the delay in commencing negotiations on the debt questions with the Soviet Government; will it be the policy of His Majesty's Government to insist on differentiation between British civil or/and private claims and claims of the Soviet Government; and is it the policy of His Majesty's Government to maintain that the Soviet Government is liable for debts contracted by Russia before the revolution?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: I do not admit that there has been any delay. The present position was clearly explained in my answer to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West: Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) on the 27th January. As regards the other parts of the question, I refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to his question on the 30th January.
    Mr. SMITHERS: In view of the fact that the Article in the Protocol contains the word "immediately," will the right hon. Gentleman define what the word "immediately" means, and when it is proposed that these negotiations shall begin to take place?
    Mr. HENDERSON: The hon. Member must be under some misapprehension. These negotiations are going on now.

    PROPAGANDA.
    Mr. DIXEYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is satisfied that the terms of arrangement between the Soviet Government and this country with regard to Communistic propaganda are being properly carried out?
    Sir KINGSLEY WOODasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) whether he has taken any action with the Soviet Government in relation to the statement recently appearing in "Izvestia," the official organ of the Soviet Government, that it is futile to expect any change in the Comintern's activity as a result of the Anglo-Soviet agreement, and that there was not the slightest foundation for the view that the agreement concerns the Comintern in any way;
    (2) whether his attention has been called to a statement in the issue of the "Izvestia" of 25th January relating to his protest against the message from the

    1475
    Communist International which recently appeared in a daily journal; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter?
    Captain EDENasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has yet received any communication from the Soviet Government with reference to his recent representations as to propaganda by the Third International?
    Sir ASSHETON POWNALLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has had any reply from the Soviet Ambassador to his recent communication on the subject of the letter from the Third International which appeared on 1st January in a London newspaper?
    Sir WILLIAM DAVISONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been drawn to the issue of "Izvestia," the official organ of the Soviet Government, of 25th January, stating that the Soviet Ambassador had informed the Foreign Secretary that the activities of the Third International with regard to propaganda were never intended to be included in the assurance given by the Ambassador on the presentation of his credentials; whether this information was officially given; and whether he can now assure the House that the Soviet Ambassador places the same interpretation on the assurance given by him as that given by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to the House of Commons?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: I have already, on several occasions, stated the position of His Majesty's Government on the points raised in these questions, and there is nothing that I can usefully add at present. I take this opportunity of pointing out that since the 20th October I have already answered 101 questions relating to the Soviet Union, of which 42 were directly on the subject of propaganda. The Five Power Conference is proceeding, and the demands upon my time and that of my Department, I need hardly say, are exceedingly heavy. It will, perhaps, be convenient if, with the permission of the House, I make a restatement of our position. I have already made it clear that His Majesty's Government are firmly determined not to be
    1476
    rushed into any hasty judgments in these matters. Should causes of serious complaint arise, the Government will not hesitate to take the House into their confidence, but they must in the first instance be the judge as to the action which may be expedient and necessary to safeguard the interests of this country. I feel sure the Government may equally count upon the House not to go out of its way to attempt to magnify or create incidents, or to complicate relations with other countries, by the raising of questions which cause embarrassment without advancing public interests.
    Sir K. WOOD: With regard to Question No. 18, to which I take it the right hon. Gentleman is seeking to reply, does he deny that the statement contained in that question is perfectly true; is it a fact that the terms of the Treaty themselves are perfectly plain; and is it not equally true that from the moment they were signed they have been flagrantly broken?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I have not denied anything. I have simply said that I have nothing to add to what I have already said.
    Sir AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: There is one question to which the right hon. Gentleman has not even attempted to reply. I refer to Quest/ion No. 27. The right hon. Gentleman on a previous occasion said that he had made representations to the Soviet Ambassador on this matter, and. in reply to a further question, he said that be had not asked for an answer. The question now is whether an answer has been returned, and will he be good enough to say whether an answer has been returned or not?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I have already answered that question on various occasions.
    Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The right hon. Gentleman says he has answered it. Will he lie good enough to refer me to the answer?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I simply said on the previous occasion that I told the Ambassador here, when we were discussing the negotiations on the Protocol, that something had been done that was not calculated to assist the negotiations. I did not put a question for a reply.
    Mr. BECKETT: On a point of Order. May I ask whether it is in accord with the Ruling which you have given several times that after two or three supplementary questions no more would be allowed?
    Mr. SPEAKER: Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to conduct the business in my own way. The fact is that the right hon. Gentleman's answer deals with six questions, and I must allow move supplementary to six questions than to one question.
    Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: May I press the right hon. Gentleman to reply to Question No. 27 on the Paper, which is perfectly specific, and which he has hitherto carefully evaded?
    Mr. HENDERSON: If I have carefully evaded, as the right hon. Gentleman says, he has been sufficiently long in my position to know that there are occasions when the public interest demands silence.
    Colonel ASHLEY: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman how the public interest is to be hurt by answering "Yes" or "No"?
    Mr. THURTLE: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the country is much more interested in maintaining friendly relations with Russia?
    Several HON. MEMBERS—
    Mr. SPEAKER: It is no good repeating the same question and getting the same answer.
    Mr. DIXEY: I have not asked one supplementary question, and surely I am entitled to know, in reply to a question to a responsible Minister, whether he is satisfied—that is the only question that I have put—that the terms of the arrangement are being kept. I ask for an answer.
    Mr. HENDERSON: I have already answered the question in this House that experience alone would tell whether we could be satisfied.
    Sir W. DAVISON: Can the right hon. Gentleman—
    HON. MEMBERS: Order !
    Captain CROOKSHANK: On a point of Order. You, Sir, heard the right hon. Gentleman's reply, in which he inferred
    1478
    that hon. Members of this House, and inferentially yourself, who go through the questions before they are put, are failing in their duty in asking questions such as this. I should like to know whether it is in order for the right hon. Gentleman to cast such aspersions on hon. Members of this House?
    Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think the right hon. Gentleman cast any aspersions.
    Sir W. DAVISON: On a point of Order. My question, number 29, was included, and I asked the most specific point, which has not been answered, namely, whether or not the Soviet Ambassador gave the answer stated in the "Izvestia" and printed in my question?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That question has already been answered.
    Sir W. DAVISON: No, Sir.
    Commander BELLAIRSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that Indian students and students from other parts of the British Empire are under training in Soviet Russian colleges in revolutionary propaganda; and whether he has addressed any representations to the Soviet Russian Government on this matter?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I have no information on the subject on which I could make any representations to the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. But if the hon. and gallant Member will forward to me any particulars, I will have them examined.
    Commander BELLAIRS: Will the right hon. Gentleman endeavour to ascertain particulars for himself, seeing that in many of these cases, as in India, students have been sent to prison who have been trained in Moscow?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I think I am entitled to ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman to provide me with the information on which his question is based.

    BRITISH CONSULAR OFFICERS.
    Mr. ALLENasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the constitution of the Union of Socialist Republics, His Majesty's

    1479
    Government will extend to the constituent republics the compliment of establishing consulates-general at the capitals of these republics, namely, at Minsk for White Russia, Kharkov for Ukraine, Tiflis for Transcaucasia, Poltaratsk for Turkmenistan, and Tashkent for Uzbegistan?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: The question of the appointment of British consular officers to important trading centres in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is under consideration, and I cannot make any detailed statement at the moment.
    Mr. ALLEN: Is it not a fact that under the Soviet Constitution these republics are independent, and have the right to representation; and is it not desirable that we should have some representation there?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I must have notice of that question.
    Earl WINTERTON: Should we not have a representative at Tashkent, in view of the fact that for years past Indian revolutionaries have been trained in that place?
    Mr. HENDERSON: That will be taken into consideration.

    BRITISH SUBJECTS (ARRESTS).
    Mr. ALLENasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the frequent arrests of foreign nationals in Soviet Russia for alleged political, civil, and criminal offences, he will undertake to secure from the Soviet Government arrangements whereby British consular officials shall have free access to judicial proceedings in which British subjects are concerned, and to prisons and police premises in which British subjects are incarcerated; and whether he will secure further an undertaking from the Soviet Government that the arrest of a British subject anywhere within the Soviet Union shall be immediately notified to the British Embassy?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: I am making inquiries as to the procedure actually followed in the Soviet Union in the matter to which the hon. Member refers. Pending the receipt of this information, I propose not to take further action.

  CHINA.

    BRITISH NAVAL OFFICER'S ARREST.
    Mr. WARDLAW-MILNEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has had any communication from the British Consul-General at Hankow regarding the arrest by Chinese authorities of Commander McBride, of the British Naval Office, following upon a motor accident in that city; what action was taken by the British Consulate authorities in connection with the arrest; and by what court Commander McBride will now be tried?
    Sir K. WOODasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when the British Government's communications to the Chinese Government in relation to extra-territoriality will be laid before the House; whether he can now state the present position of the negotiations in relation to the matter; whether he can now give any information to the House concerning the case of the two British subjects at Wuchow who had been detained by the Chinese authorities, and who had refused to hand them over to the British naval authorities, and also concerning Commander McBride, of the British Naval Office, Hankow, who has also been arrested and detained by the Chinese authorities; and upon what terms his release was subsequently obtained?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: The papers regarding extra-territoriality, which I promised should be laid, are being issued to-day. The negotiations have made no further progress since the last statement I made, owing to Sir Miles Lampson's unavoidable absence in Hong Kong.
    With regard to the incident at Wuchow, my information is that the two persons arrested were Chinese and not British subjects.
    The facts in connection with the arrest of the British naval officer at Hankow are rather long, and I should prefer, if I may, to circulate them in the OFFICIAL REPORT. They were given with substantial accuracy in the "Times" of the 30th of January.
    Following is the statement:
    On the afternoon of the 23rd of January, a Chinese youth on a bicycle came into collision with the motor car which the officer was driving; he suffered

    1481
    serious injuries, and died an hour later. The officer was taken to the local Chinese police station, where he was detained. The Consul went to the police station and asked for the officer to be handed over in accordance with established procedure. The police refused, and insisted that the officer should be sent to police headquarters in the native city. The suggestion was then made by police headquarters that the Consul should go with the officer to the district court, which would release him on bail. This suggestion was declined, as it would have involved an admission that the Chinese court was competent in the matter.
    The Hankow authorities agreed to the officer being handed over on the Consul-General giving a letter undertaking that the officer would not leave Hankow until the case was settled, and would be available to give evidence as a witness when required. The officer was accordingly allowed to return three hours after the accident occurred.
    No charge has, according to my information, been made against the officer in connection with the accident, but, if any such charge were made, the case would be heard in the British Consular Court at Hankow. What I understand to be contemplated is an inquiry by the Chinese authorities in the nature of an inquest, at which the officer would appear at a witness.

    CENTRAL GOVERNMENT.
    Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can specify those provinces of China where the Central Government now exercise effective control?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: The term "effective control" is so difficult to define that I fear I cannot undertake to specify the districts in which it is exercised. I can only say that, apart from certain changing from time to time occupied by insurgents, the authority of the Central Government is acknowledged throughout the whole of China.
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that he will not sacrifice further any of our extra-territorial rights where the Chinese Government do not exercise substantial and effective control?
    Mr. HENDERSON: The whole question of extra-territorial rights is under negotiation, and, until the negotiations are complete, I am not in a position to add anything to what I have said.
    Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: Will the House have an opportunity of hearing the facts upon which the right hon. Gentleman himself is satisfied before an agreement is entered into?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I have no reason to withhold information on this question from the House, but I cannot say anything until the negotiations are completed.
    Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: What I am asking is whether we will have an opportunity of discussing the question.

    INDEMNITY FUND (INTEREST).
    Mr. L'ESTRANGE MALONEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been called to the fact that on the balance of the China Indemnity Fund Account, which has reached the total of nearly £3,000,000 and is held in a bank at Shanghai, interest is only being paid at the rate of 4 per cent.; and whether, as the British bank rate is 5 per cent. and the China bank rate 9 per cent. or 10 per cent., he will say why such a low rate of interest is accepted to the prejudice of the Fund?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: The instalments of the indemnity as they are paid are deposited at one month's call in a British bank in Shanghai in the name of His Majesty's Minister in Peking, and in view of the recurrent hope that it would soon be possible to remit the indemnity, it has never appeared desirable to alter this arrangement. The bank rates mentioned in the question are, of course, higher than the corresponding rates on deposits, and the Chinese rate is not to be compared with the rates obtainable on deposits in a British bank.

  GEORGIA.
  Mr. ALLENasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what countries continue to recognise the sovereign rights of the Social Democratic Republic of Georgia; and what countries have

  1483
  accredited to them a representative of the Georgian Social Democratic Republic with the full diplomatic status of Minister?
  Mr. A. HENDERSON: So far as I am aware, no Government is acting in the manner suggested by the hon. Member.
  Mr. ALLEN: Is it not a fact that the French Government still receive a Minister accredited by the Social Democratic Republic of Georgia, and that this Republic is recognised by Poland, Rumania, Germany, Argentine, and other countries?
  Mr. HENDERSON: That is not in accordance with my information.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    EXPORT TRADE.
    Mr. REMERasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department if he will give a list of the new schemes initiated in his Department since June last for the extension of the export sale of our goods?
    Mr. GILLETT (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): The activities of my Department are mainly concerned with assisting commercial organisations and individual traders to extend their export business. In addition to watching over these individual developments it has been my concern to give the closest study to improving and strengthening the organisation of the Department, both at home and overseas. Concrete proposals for this purpose are now receiving consideration from His Majesty's Government.
    Mr. MILLS: Can the hon. Gentleman tell the House whether the presently constituted Advisory Council has considered extending the time for export credit guarantees?
    Mr. GILLETT: I am afraid that my hon. Friend's question hardly comes under this question, but the matter has been carefully considered, though there has been no recent consideration.
    Mr. MILLS: Is not the export sale of our goods, especially heavy machinery, conditional upon the export credit guarantee extending over long periods?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That question does not arise out of the answer.

    EXPORT CREDITS (RUSSIA).
    Captain CROOKSHANKasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether seeing that all purchases of goods for Russia are now made by Russian Government organisations, on application they are all automatically guaranteed under the export credit scheme; and, if not, will he state the reason?
    Mr. GILLETT: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. It is not the practice to give reasons for decisions taken on the recommendation of the Advisory Committee of the Export Credits Guarantee Department.
    Captain CROOKSHANK: Is it not a fact that all goods sent to Soviet Russia have to be consigned to official Government organisations there?
    Mr. GILLETT: They are all imported by concerns connected with the Russian Government, but the hon. and gallant Gentleman will be aware that there are other factors to be considered, one being the length of time for which the application may be available.
    Captain CROOKSHANKasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether it is open to Russian trading organisations, such as Arcos, registered in Great Britain, to obtain an export guarantee to Russia; and whether in the event of default, such guaranteed sum would become- payable to such firms by His Majesty's Government?
    Mr. GILLETT: It is open to any exporter domiciled in this country to apply for an export credits guarantee in connection with the export of goods wholly or partly produced or manufactured in the United Kingdom. Any exporter who obtains such a guarantee is entitled, subject to the conditions of that guarantee, to receive immediate payment in the event of default on any bill covered thereby. It is most improbable, however, that the Advisory Committee will agree to the giving of such guarantees to any of the Russ an trading organisations in this country.
    Captain CROOKSHANK: Why should they not be given an export guarantee?
    Mr. GILLETT: Because, as I have just stated, the business concerns in this country are the importers. If, therefore, they become exporters, it would practically be the same concerns acting as both importers and exporters.
    Mr. MILLS: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in the Dartford Division of Kent, presuming guarantees can be obtained for a long period, a thousand men may be put to work manufacturing agricultural tractors?
    Mr. W. J. BROWN: Is it the case that a maximum of one year has been imposed in regard to British exporters desiring to do business with Russia, and has the same limit been imposed on British exporters desiring to do business with other countries?
    Mr. GILLETT: It is not considered advisable to make a public statement on this question.
    Sir ROBERT HAMILTONasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department if he is aware of the offer recently made by Russia to Norway to take 300,000 barrels of cured herring if credits were extended for 12 months; and if contracts on a similar basis would be treated as eligible for guarantee under the exports credits scheme?
    Mr. GILLETT: My attention has been drawn to Norwegian Press reports in the sense of the first part of the question. Contracts on a similar basis for British herring would be eligible for consideration by the Advisory Committee of the Export Credits Guarantee Scheme.
    Mr. W. J. BROWN: Would the hon. Gentleman's reply still apply if the period for the contracts in question extended over 12 months?
    Mr. GILLETT: I am afraid my last answer applies to this question also.
    Mr. BROWN: Is not the House entitled to ask the Minister in charge of a Department for the conditions he has laid down in connection with this matter?
    Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: Is it not the fact that the period covered would be at the discretion of the Advisory Committee?
    Mr. GILLETT: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. SPEAKER: Hon. Members are entitled to ask questions, but they are not always entitled to obtain an answer.
    Mr. BROWN: May I ask the Minister to say what public interest it is that accounts for his reticence on this subject?
    Mr. GILLETT: I am only following the usual custom in regard to these matters. It would be almost impossible for the Advisory Committee to do their work if a great deal of the information were given to the public.
    Mr. BROWN: Is there at the present time any differentiation drawn between the case of Russia and other countries?
    An HON. MEMBER: Yes, there is.
    Mr. GILLETT: No, Sir, we do not consider that any difference is made.
    Major McKENZIE WOOD: Does not the hon. Gentleman think that his Department might take the initiative towards securing a similar contract for our herring; and would he find out also if this agreement with Norway has been completed?
    Mr. GILLETT: I will make further inquiries.
    Major WOOD: Will the hon. Gentleman take the initiative and see whether a contract of the same kind cannot be secured in order to help our fishermen?

    BOOTS AND SHOES (IMPORT DUTIES, SOUTH AFRICA).
    Mr. WARDLAW-MILNEasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department what is the present duty in South Africa upon imported boots and shoes from this country; whether any proposals have been made for an increase in this duty; and whether any representations have been made to him in regard to the matter?
    Mr. GILLETT: The present duty is 30 per cent. ad valorem. I am informed by the Federated Associations of Boot and Shoe Manufacturers of Great Britain and Ireland that the question of its increase has been discussed in certain South African newspapers. I have, however, made inquiry and am given to understand that the question has not been referred to the Union Board of Trade and Industry for investigation.

    IRON, STEEL AND COTTON INDUSTRIES (INQUIRIES).
    Major NATHANasked the Prime Minister when he expects to receive the Reports of the Committees of inquiry into the iron and steel industry and into the cotton industry?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): Both inquiries are proceeding as rapidly as possible. I am afraid that I am not yet in a position to say when the Reports are likely to be presented to the Government.

  AGRICULTURE.

    MILLING (HOME-GROWN WHEAT).
    Mr. HURDasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department if he will gather information and issue a Report on the character and results as affecting producer, consumer, and miller, of the legislation requiring the milling of a proportion of home-grown wheat which is in force in Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, and other countries, with especial regard to the possible adoption of similar legislation in this country?
    The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Noel Buxton): I have been asked to reply. I am endeavouring to obtain information as to the character, administration and results of the legislation referred to in countries that have adopted it, and if I consider this information, when obtained, to be of general interest I will arrange for it to be summarised and for publicity to be given to it in some convenient form.
    Mr. HURD: Does the right hon. Gentleman also propose to put this information before the Agricultural Conference?
    Mr. BUXTON: Yes, Sir.

    EDUCATION.
    Brigadier - General CLIFTON BROWNasked the Minister of Agriculture whether the circular recently sent by him to county authorities urging them to start fresh schemes of development, and promising them funds for increases of their staff, etc., has been taken advantage of, and to what extent; and whether he proposes to approve any of these
    1488
    schemes that entail extra burdens on the ratepayers or to finance them from the taxpayers' pocket?
    Mr. N. BUXTON: I have not yet received from all local authorities their proposals arising out of the circular letter regarding the development of their agricultural activities in education, to which the hon. and gallant Member refers; but, from the replies which I have already received it is, I am glad to say, clear that the authorities as a whole intend to take considerable action upon that letter. The cost of such additional expenditure as I may approve will be aided by grants from the Exchequer on the existing scale—namely, two-thirds of the approved net expenditure.

    LAND DRAINAGE, DURHAM.
    Mr. LAWTHERasked the Minister of Agriculture the number of drainage schemes and the areas affected in Durham, the number of men employed and the average wages paid for the years ended December, 1928, and December, 1929, respectively?
    Mr. N. BUXTON: In the year 1928 no drainage schemes were assisted from State funds in Durham. In the year ended December, 1929, eight schemes in various parts of the county were in operation with the aid of grants from the Ministry. The number of men employed was, towards the end of the year, 106. On four schemes piece-work rates of pay were paid for unskilled labour, the average being 1s. 8d. per chain; on the other four schemes the rates were 1s. 1d. and 1s. 2d. per hour. During the same year there were also six schemes in operation which were assisted from the funds of the Unemployment Grants Committee. It. is understood that the rates of wages were similar to those paid on the Ministry's schemes.

    TENANT OCCUPIERS.
    Mr. C. WILLIAMSasked the Minister of Agriculture the number of tenant occupiers of agricultural land in Great Britain under Crown lands, local authorities, and private owners, respectively; and the amount occupied under each of these headings?
    Mr. N. BUXTON: As the reply is necessarily long and includes a number

    1489
    of figures I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the reply:
    (1) The number of tenant occupiers of agricultural land under the Commissioners of Crown lands, excluding allotments of an acre or less is about 1,000 and the area let to such tenants is about 92,000 acres. These figures do not include any land let to the Ministry or to local authorities for small holdings or allotments.
    (2) There are also 345 tenants of one acre and upwards occupying 7,831 acres of land owned or leased by the Ministry as farm settlements, including 84 tenants on 914 acres leased from the Commissioners of Crown lands. I have no information as to the number of agricultural tenants who hold land from other Government Departments.
    (3) The number of tenants of small holdings provided by county councils and councils of county boroughs in England and Wales on the 31st December, 1928, was 27,662 and the area occupied by them was 436,839 acres. With the exception of allotments for which figures are given in paragraph (5) I have no information as to the number of tenants of agricultural land under other local authorities.
    (4) No separate figures are available as to the extent of Agricultural land held under private owners, but the total number of holdings in England and Wales exceeding one acre occupied by tenants on the 4th June, 1927, the last date for which figures are available, was 254,847, and the area occupied by them was 20,361,181 acres, including about 4,000,000 acres of rough grazings. These figures include those given in paragraphs (1) to (3).
    (5) As regards allotments the latest returns show a total of 1,001,741 tenants on an area of 148,962 acres, of whom 473,674 on 62,977 acres, are tenants of local authorities. Some of these allotments are over one acre and may, therefore, be included in paragraph (4).

    FOOD IMPORTS.
    Commander BELLAIRSasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the assured support of both opposition
    1490
    parties, he will introduce immediate legislation to stop the dumping of food products below the cost of production in the countries of origin through the machinery of Government subsidies?
    The PRIME MINISTER: His Majesty's Government are parties to the International Convention for the Abolition of Import and Export Prohibitions and Restrictions concluded under the auspices of the League of Nations. A prohibition of the nature suggested would be in conflict with the provisions of this instrument. There are also a number of commercial treaties with individual countries which would have to be denounced before effect could be given to such legislation as the hon. Member proposes. A regards the particular case of the importation of wheat from Germany, I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture on the 22nd January, in reply to a question by the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. O. Lewis).
    Mr. MACPHERSON: Will the Government set up a Committee or Commission to inquire into the true facts of the case, in view of the fact that all engaged in the agricultural industry are despairing of the future?
    Mr. WISE: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the introduction of legislation for nationalised imports, a method for ending the results of dumping set out in "Labour and the Nation"?
    The PRIME MINISTER: As a matter of fact, this question has been very carefully considered. The first obstacle to action of the class suggested by the hon. and gallant Gentleman lies in treaties and agreements for which we, at any rate, are not responsible. It certainly is a subject which will have to be most carefully and thoroughly examined, and without delay, and we have come to the conclusion that the first place at which to raise it is Geneva, and that does not mean delay.
    Mr. MACPHERSON: May I ask whether it is not the fact that mass indignation meetings are being held all over Scotland, and whether there are not peculiar facts which ought to be investigated by the Government? In view

    1491
    of that, will not the right hon. Gentleman appoint a Commission to deal with these particular facts?
    The PRIME MINISTER: No, I think a Commission such as I understand my right hon. Friend has in mind would only mean delay. I have seen reports of meetings in Ross-shire and Morayshire. The Government are handling the matter with as great expedition as the circumstances will admit, but the surrounding obstacles are very complicated.
    Commander BELLAIRS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is nothing to prevent us putting on a countervailing duty—
    Mr. SPEAKER: Sir Austen Chamberlain.
    Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Does the right hon. Gentleman's earlier answer mean that the Government will raise this question at the Economic Conference?
    The PRIME MINISTER: As the right hon. Gentleman understands, I do not handle this particular question myself. I must take the information from the Departments concerned. It is a Departmental matter, and if the right hon. Gentleman wants an answer from me, would he be good enough to put a question on the Paper, because I cannot charge my memory with all the details?
    Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The right hon. Gentleman said it was the policy of the Government to bring this matter up at Geneva.
    The PRIME MINISTER: That is so.
    Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: In what body at Geneva does he propose to bring it up? That is all I wish to know.
    The PRIME MINISTER: Well, there is an expert body sitting at the present moment. I really cannot name the expert body, but it is there.
    Colonel ASHLEY: May I ask the Prime Minister how, if the Government's hands are tied by treaties, Geneva can release them from those treaties? What are they to gain by it?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The investigations at Geneva can make the position perfectly clear; and I can inform the
    1492
    House of this much, that on the Committee which is going to discuss this matter are representatives of Germany, and consequently the Conference at Geneva will be so representative that action can follow upon it.
    Mr. FISONasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has any information as to whether the Economic Committee of the League of Nations proposes to institute an inquiry into the effect of the import bond system, as applied to cereals, on agricultural producers in this und other countries?
    Mr. N. BUXTON: I hive nothing to add to the answer I gave on 22nd January to a question by the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. O. Lewis), of which I am sending the hon. Member a copy.
    Mr. FISON: I should like to know whether the Government are taking steps to see than an Economic Committee will be formed to inquire into this matter?
    Mr. BUXTON: I understand that the Economic Committee of the League of Nations, of which the Conference of Experts was a part, will meet in April. The import bond system was referred to that Committee, and it will deal with it in April.

    WALES.
    Dr. MORRIS-JONESasked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in framing his policy for the agricultural industry, he is considering the special conditions of this industry in Wales; and whether, in this matter, he proposes to enlarge the powers and authority of the Welsh Agricultural Department?
    Mr. N. BUXTON: The Welsh Department of the Ministry keeps me fully informed on matters relating to the agricultural industry in Wales and any special conditions in the Principality are certainly borne in mind. I do not think any advantage would accrue from an alteration of the powers of the Welsh Department.

    BRITISH MEAT (NATIONAL MARK).
    Mr. HURDasked the Minister of Agriculture if his attention has been called to the weekly market price lists of leading London stores in which customers are informed that unless English meat is specifically ordered imported meat

    1493
    will be supplied; and whether he can take steps to bring the value of the national-mark system to the notice of the managers of such stores?
    Mr. N. BUXTON: My attention has been drawn to one such case as that referred to by the hon. Member, and I am informed that, in this particular case, the establishment concerned sells a good proportion of national-mark beef as also do most of the leading London stores. I will, however, bring to the notice of the London stores the desirability of stating in their lists whether they sell national-mark beef.
    Mr. HURD: Could the right hon. Gentleman go further and suggest to the London stores that they would be doing a good service to their customers if British meat were preferred?
    Mr. BUXTON: The Ministry of Agriculture are conducting an active campaign in that direction.
    Lord LYMINGTONasked the Minister of Agriculture in how many of the 100 abattoirs established by local authorities in England and Wales a national-mark scheme of graded homegrown meat is working?
    Mr. BUXTON: The National Mark Beef Scheme is at present limited to beef for the London and Birmingham markets, where beef grading and marking operations take place in the respective abattoirs of the local authorities.
    Lord LYMINGTON: Would the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether he proposes to extend the scheme of national marked beef to other public abattoirs as soon as he can?
    Mr. BUXTON: We prefer to await the result of the present regional plan a little longer.
    Mr. HURDasked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been called to the results of tests made in public institutions of the price and nutrition values of Home as compared with imported chilled meats; and whether he will take steps to encourage these institutions to support Home production?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Miss Lawrence): My right hon. Friend is not aware of the tests to which the hon.
    1494
    Member refers. He recently addressed a circular to all local authorities impressing on them the desirability of making use to the utmost extent practicable of goods of home production. I am sending a copy to the hon. Member.
    Mr. HURD: Will the hon. Lady consult with the Minister of Agriculture as to the details of these important tests which are being carried out in Cheshire and elsewhere?
    Miss LAWRENCE: If the hon. Member will send me particulars, I shall be very glad to confer with my right hon. Friend.
    Earl WINTERTON: Is the hon. Lady's Department in full touch with the Ministry of Agriculture in regard to this campaign for the greater purchase of British meat?
    Miss LAWRENCE: Oh, yes, we are in very close and most cordial co-operation.
    Mr. C. WILLIAMS: Is the hon. Lady also in close and cordial co-operation with the Army and Navy on this matter?

  OVERSEA TELEPHONY.
  Colonel HOWARD-BURYasked the Prime Minister whether in view of the refusal of the Post Office to employ the Beam stations or to co-operate in any way with imperial and international communications for oversea telephony, he will appoint an independent committee to investigate and test the comparative efficiency of the imperial and the American systems of wireless telephony?
  The PRIME MINISTER: The Postmaster-General has not refused to employ the Beam stations for oversea telephony. On the contrary, this matter is now under consideration by the Government and a Committee of the Cabinet has been appointed to report upon it.
  Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Is it not the case that up to now the Imperial Beam system has been neglected, and that an allowance has been made to an American company which is prejudicing the Empire communications very seriously?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I am informed that the statements made in the supplementary question are not accurate,

  1495
  but in any event matters relating to departmental transactions must be addressed to the Department itself.
  Colonel HOWARD-BURY: I am asking the right hon. Gentleman whether he will not appoint a Committee to go into the whole matter over the head of the Department in view of the serious allegations which have been made?

  HOUSING (JUDICIAL DECISIONS).
  Major NATHANasked the Prime Minister when he expects the legislation to become operative which will obviate the holding up of housing schemes by reason of the judicial decisions in the so-called Derby and Liverpool eases?
  The PRIME MINISTER: A Bill is in preparation and will be introduced as soon as the state of Parliamentary business allows.
  Major NATHAN: Has the right hon. Gentleman not observed that my question inquires as to when he expects legislation to become operative?
  The PRIME MINISTER: Legislation will become operative when it is passed.
  Major NATHAN: Is the Prime Minister able to express any opinion as to the date when legislation will be passed? This is a matter of very great importance to the population of Scotland.
  The PRIME MINISTER: I should like to consult both sections of the Opposition.

  WASHINGTON HOURS CONVENTION.
  Major HILLasked the Prime Minister whether he is now able to tell the House when the ratification of the Washington Eight Hours Convention will be brought before it?
  The PRIME MINISTER: As was stated by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour in reply to a question on the 21st January, the Hours of Employment Bill will, it is hoped, be introduced before Easter.

  FISHING INDUSTRY (TRAWLING).
  Sir R. HAMILTONasked the Prime Minister whether he has received an invitation from the Canadian Government for Great Britain to take part in an international conference to consider means for regulating trawling fishing; and whether such invitation has been accepted?
  The PRIME MINISTER: No such invitation has been received.

  UNEMPLOYMENT.

    AGRICULTURAL WORKERS, BRECON AND RADNOR.
    Mr. FREEMANasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he can state the approximate number of unemployed agricultural workers in Breconshire and Radnorshire?
    Mr. N. BUXTON: I regret that there are no means of ascertaining the number of unemployed agricultural workers in Breconshire and Radnorshire.

    STEELWORKS, PENISTONE (CLOSING).
    Mr. TOM SMITHasked the Lord Privy Seal whether his attention has been drawn to the closing of Messrs. Cammell, Laird and Co.'s works at Penistone; and whether he proposes to take any action with regard to the matter?
    The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Lansbury): I have been asked to reply. My right hon. Friend has made inquiries, and understands that the closing of these works is part of the policy of concentration of production being undertaken by the English Steel Corporation. It is hoped that, as a result of this policy, employment in the other works of the Corporation will be more regular and production more economic, and it is possible that some of the men displaced at Penistone may have opportunities of employment in the other works. Every assistance will be given by the Employment Exchanges to men displaced to find employment elsewhere.
    Mr. SMITH: In view of the position in which Penistone will be if these works close, will the Lord Privy Seal receive a deputation on the matter?
    Mr. LANSBURY: I have not been able to consult my right hon. Friend, but I am quite sure that he will make arrangements to receive a deputation?

  COMMONS, METROPOLITAN DISTRICT.
  Mr. EDEasked the Minister of Agriculture how many applications for the regulation of commons within the Metropolitan police district have been received by his Department since 1918; how many have been approved; and the acreage involved?
  Mr. N. BUXTON: Since 1918 one application has been made to the Ministry for a scheme of regulation under the Metropolitan Commons Acts affecting an area of 19 acres, but it was subsequently withdrawn. Two applications have also been made for orders under Section 193 (1) (b) of the Law of Property Act, 1925, imposing limitations on and conditions as to the exercise of public rights of access to Metropolitan commons. The Orders were made, the total area affected being approximately 340 acres.
  Mr. EDEasked the Minister of Agriculture if he contemplates any amendment of the law relating to the regulation of metropolitan commons with a view to the simplification of procedure?
  Mr. BUXTON: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave him on the 2nd December last, when I stated that I was unable to contemplate the introduction of early legislation in regard to the regulation of common lands.

  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

    SANCTUARY BUILDINGS.
    Mr. REMERasked the First Commissioner of Works which Government Departments are working in Sanctuary Buildings, Great Smith Street; the number of clerical persons of all grades employed there; and the number of rooms occupied by persons in Government services in Sanctuary Buildings?
    Mr. LANSBURY: The following Government Departments are housed in these premises:
    1498

    Ministry of Pensions,

    Ministry of Labour,

    Ministry of Health,

    Board of Trade,

    Scottish Education Department, and National Savings Committee.

    The number of staff of all grades, including administrative, professional, technical, executive, clerical and typing grades, but excluding messengers, is 1,278. The number of rooms occupied by these staffs is 263.
    Mr. REMER: Would it not be possible to take the clerks out of this expensive building and to put them into some other buildings?
    Mr. LANSBURY: No, not under present circumstances.

    NEW BUILDINGS.
    Sir W. DAVISONasked the First Commissioner of Works what is the total number of buildings completed or commenced by his Department during the past year; and what is the total actual or estimated cost?
    Mr. LANSBURY: The total number of buildings which were in course of erection during the year 1929 is 245. The total estimated cost of these buildings is approximately £6,700,000.
    Sir W. DAVISON: Is this the normal output of buildings undertaken by the Office of Works, or is it in excess of the usual output?
    Mr. LANSBURY: I think it is the output arranged for by my predecessor.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS.

    COMMITTEE ROOMS (LIGHTING).
    Mr. FREEMANasked the First Commissioner of Works whether he will see if he can improve the lighting in some of the Committee rooms?
    Mr. LANSBURY: A scheme of improvement to the lighting of the Houses of Parliament has been begun and will be carried out over a period of years. If my hon. Friend will let me know which of the Committee rooms he regards as being specially in need of improvements to the lighting, I will consider the matter.
    Mr. MILLS: While that subject is under consideration, will the First Commissioner of Works pay attention to the polluted atmosphere in every corridor of the House of Commons?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The question only refers to lighting.

    WIRELESS RECEPTION.
    Sir WILLIAM MITCHELL-THOMSONasked the First Commissioner of Works whether he will consult with Mr. Speaker and the Lord Great Chamberlain as to the possibility of securing accommodation and providing within the precincts facilities for the reception of broadcasts from British and Continental stations, so that Members may have an opportunity of hearing broadcasts which may be made here or in other countries upon matters of importance?
    Mr. LANSBURY: I will consult the appropriate authorities on the matter, and, if there appears to be a general desire among Members of this House for the facilities suggested, I will endeavour to arrange accordingly.

  ANCIENT MONUMENTS ACT (HOUSE, CHEDWORTH).
  Mr. LOVAT-FRASERasked the First Commissioner of Works if he is aware that the fabric of a house in Chedworth, in the Cotswolds, is about to be removed to the United States of America; and if he will consider the desirability of introducing legislation to stop this process?
  Mr. LANSBURY: I am advised that this was not a suitable case for intervention under the Ancient Monuments Act, which does, in fact, give the Commissioners of Works power to protect buildings not in actual occupation as dwelling-houses. I do not consider that further legislation on this point is needed at present.

  HYDE PARK (BELLS).
  Major POLEasked the First Commissioner of Works whether it is his intention to accept an offer to defray the cost of erecting a permanent carillon of bells in Hyde Park?
  Mr. LANSBURY: I have this matter under consideration at present, but the question of an appropriate site in Hyde Park is one that is not free from difficulties. I am therefore carefully considering the question before making a decision.
  Mr. MILLS: Why not Victoria Park?
  Sir W. DAVISON: Will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that no more permanent buildings will be erected in Hyde Park without the House having an opportunity of discussing that question?

  TRADE DISPUTES AND TRADE UNIONS ACT.
  Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSONasked the Attorney-General when he proposes to introduce the Bill to amend the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act, 1927?
  The SOLICITOR - GENERAL (Sir James Melville): I have nothing to add to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to a similar question on Wednesday last.
  Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: Does the Solicitor-General realise that that answer was that the Bill was going to be proceeded with as early as possible? I am asking when is the Bill going to be introduced, and whether the Solicitor-General recollects that it is something over seven months since the Attorney-General gave notice that he proposed to introduce this Bill on an early date?
  The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I am sorry that I cannot add to the information which has been given.
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: Does the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Croydon (Sir W. Mitchell-Thomson) not think it is a mistake or, our side of the House to goad the Government on to introducing foolish legislation?

  ASSIZE TOWNS, WALES.
  Dr. MORRIS-JONESasked the Attorney-General whether the question of reducing the number of towns in Wales in which assizes are held has been under consideration; and, if so, whether any decision has been arrived at?
  The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I am informed by my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor that this matter is receiving consideration, but that he does not feel justified in taking any action in the matter at the present time.
  Dr. MORRIS-JONES: Will the learned Solicitor-General bear in mind the fact that, owing to the inconvenience that would be caused by a redistribution of the present assize areas in Wales, it would be very undesirable that any change should be made?
  The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I am sure that that will be borne in mind.

  WEST INDIES (SUGAR INDUSTRY).
  Sir W. MITCHELL - THOMSONasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Report of Lord Olivier upon the economic situation of the sugar industry in the West Indies has been presented to the Secretary of State; and when it will be published?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Dr. Drummond Shiels): The Commission's Report, when completed, is expected to be of considerable length. Only a part has yet been received by my Noble Friend. The date of receipt of the complete Report is not yet certain, and I am not in a position to make a statement on the question of publication.
  Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: Is it not the fact that the Government have had a telegraphic summary of this Report since the 31st December, Lord Olivier having stated that he had telegraphed to them on that date; and have- not the Government yet made up their minds as to the date at which publication will be possible?
  Dr. SHIELS: It is quite obvious that we must await the full Report before we can come to any decision on an important matter of this kind.
  Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I suppose it is quite certain that Members of this House will have an opportunity of seeing the terms of the Report?
  Mr. MILLS: Are we to understand from the right hon. Gentleman's
  1502
  supplementary question—[Interruption.]—that the Government are asked to act upon telegraphic summaries?
  Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: May I have a definite answer to a definite question: Is this House going to see the terms of Lord Olivier's Report?
  Dr. SHIELS: Yes, I expect that the' Report will be published in due course.
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is the hon. Gentleman fully advised of the desperate condition of these West Indian islands?
  Dr. SHIELS: Yes, Sir.

  MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE SCHEME, LONDON.
  Mr. WESTasked the Minister of Health whether he has received any representations from the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee with reference to the scheme which he proposes to make, under Section 101 (6) of the Local Government Act, 1929; and whether he is satisfied that under that Act he is authorised to confer on the London County Council the supervisory powers over certain voluntary associations which are specified in paragraph 3 of the proposed scheme?
  Miss LAWRENCE: The answer to both parts of the question is in the affirmative.

  ARMY CANTEEN WORKERS.
  Mr. KELLYasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office the number of men and women employed in the canteens at the various Army quarters; and the working conditions, hours, and wages operating in this work?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Shinwell): These employés are not paid from public funds, and I have no information as to their numbers and conditions of employment, which are fixed by the board of management of the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes.
  Mr. KELLY: In view of the representation of the War Office on this board, have they no responsibility for the working conditions and hours and the wages of these people?
  Mr. SHINWELL: The working conditions are really a matter for the board of management, but, if my hon. Friend is very keen on having the information, I will see if I can obtain it for him.
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is there not always keen competition to serve in the canteens?
  Mr. SHINWELL: I am afraid that I cannot express any opinion on that matter.

CHAIRMEN'S PANEL.
Mr. Frederick Hall reported from the Chairmen's Panel; That they had appointed Sir Hugh O'Neill to act as Chairman of Standing Committee A (in respect of the Children (Employment Abroad) Bill [Lords] and in respect of the Collecting Charities (Regulation) Bill).
Report to lie upon the Table.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
Unemployment Insurance (No. 2) Bill,—That they do not insist upon one of their Amendments to the Unemployment Insurance (No. 2) Bill to which the Commons have disagreed; that they insist upon certain other of their Amendments, for which insistence they assign a Reason.
UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE (No. 2) BILL.
Lords Reason for insisting on certain of their Amendments disagreed to by the Commons to be considered To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 117.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL.
  Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL.

    UNEMPLOYMENT.
    Sir ARTHUR STEEL-MAITLAND: This is the first chance that the House has had since the Recess of giving the Lord Privy Seal an opportunity of giving an account of his stewardship, and we hope to-day that the light hon. Gentleman will give us a specific account of what he has done. Last autumn he was very sanguine about the situation. Speaking at a date when he already had knowledge of the disturbance in the City due to the Hatry ease, and when he must have been already aware of the troubles in America, he gave us his own opinion of the immediate situation. It was this:
    "Speaking from a close examination of all the facts I have no hesitation in saying there is a trade improvement. I have no hesitation in saying prospects are brighter than they were."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November, 1929; col 678, Vol. 231.]
    That was in the late autumn. To-day, the latest figure for unemployment winch-has been given to us, unless the Lord Privy Seal or anyone on his behalf can give us later figures in anticipation, is 1,473,000. It is quite true that comparison of figures for unemployment may he fallacious. As we have been told by the Lord Privy Seal, you cannot compare June and December, nor can you compare the present situation with that of months immediately following. There is a rising figure of unemployment in the Autumn, generally, but a fall and improvement in the Spring. But we can compare the last figures that we have with the same figures for the corresponding periods of previous years. We have a far higher figure for unemployment to-day than in any year for seven years past at this time of the year. That is not the only disquieting feature of the situation or indeed the most disquieting. All that we know about the, situation otherwise ought to have tended to an
    1528
    improvement. The prolonged strike had effects which resulted ill unemployment long after the strike finished. The influence of these results has been wearing off and things ought to be better now than the year before, instead of worse.
    When the present Government came into office, the figures were 60,000 better than for the corresponding week in the year before. The figures are now very nearly 50,000 worse than for the corresponding week of the year before. Not only have we to deal with that situation, but we have to deal with the fact that wherever we go, with whomsoever we talk among those who are engaged in the productive industries of the country, there is a depression and a lack of confidence that has not been experienced for years past. We make-no personal attack on the Lord Privy Seal. We do not do him any disparagement when we say that we care infinitely more about the problem of employment itself than we do whether the Lord Privy Seal gets his salary. In addition, the Lord Privy Seal has an engaging personality. He makes us the partners in his joys and his sorrows, so that we can sympathise with him. But if our sympathy is to continue, he must make a clear statement to the House. I must confess that we are surprised not to see him here this afternoon.
    The CHANCELLOR of the DUCHY of LANCASTER (Sir Oswald Mosley): My right hon. Friend has been called to a very urgent conference. He will, I hope, be in the House very shortly. Meanwhile, I will take notes of the observations of the right hon. Gentleman and convey them to my right hon. Friend.
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: We are glad that the Lord Privy Seal will be here later. We shall lock for an account of his stewardship from his own mouth. The Chancellor of the Duchy will remember that when he spoke on behalf of the Lord Privy Seal on a previous occasion, he gave, us a promise that the Lord Privy Seal would be glad to give that account as soon as he was able. If the Lord Privy Seal is to retain our sympathy, everyone will agree that he must give us this afternoon an account which will be clear, ample and precise. I propose to make the task

    1529
    easier for him. He is rather an elusive character. I do not say that he wishes to mislead the House, but I think that sometimes in the answers that he has given to questions and in the references that he has made to past statements of his own, he has given an account which has not been fully satisfying to those who have heard them. It may be that he has not formulated the points quite precisely to himself; at any rate, I put that forward as an explanation. For that reason, if the Chancellor of the Duchy is taking notes, I will put certain specific questions, to which I hope that we shall obtain quite specific answers. As the questions affect employment and are interesting to all quarters of the House, I will ask hon. Members to note whether the Lord Privy Seal in his reply does or does not give us the direct and specific answers to which the House is entitled.
    The first subject that naturally arises to the mind is the famous visit to Canada in the Autumn. When the Lord Privy Seal returned home he made speeches about his visit and gave interviews, all of which received great publicity. They raised high hopes and aroused expectations as to the positive results of his visit. Up to the present time Members in all quarters of the House, from the Clydeside, who are interested in shipping, just as much as from this side, have tried to ascertain exactly what has been the result of the visit, but without success. The first question that arises is in relation to the ships that we were told would be needed for the coal trade of Canada as a result of the Lord Privy Seal's visit. I will not overstate any expectation that the Lord Privy Seal has aroused. The Chancellor of the Duchy is conversant with the different utterances of the Lord Privy Seal in regard to this matter and perhaps he will correct me if, by a hair's breadth, I overstate what the Lord Privy Seal has given us to understand. He led us to understand that a contract for five ships, of 7,000 tons each, would be placed in order to deal with the increased coal trade with Canada from Great Britain during the present year, 1930. That was his specific undertaking. It is three full months since that statement was made to the House, and I would now put these specific questions: What has happened? Has any contract for ships been placed?
    1530
    If so, for how many ships, of what tonnage and to what firms? The House is entitled to know. The House must have a precise answer if it is to retain any confidence in the expectations which the right hon. Gentleman has placed before the House.
    4.0 p.m.
    The next point in regard to the Canadian visit is in regard to coal. Coal, the Lord Privy Seal informed us, was together with steel the one item of trade with Canada to which he had devoted his greatest efforts, in order to increase British exports to take the place of exports to Canada which had previously gone from foreign countries. As we all know, there has been an export of hard coal to Canada during a number of years past. For the past four years it has exceeded 500,000 tons a year. What the Lord Privy Seal gave us to understand was that, as a result of his visit, that export would largely be increased this year. He said to this House:
    "I say without fear of contradiction that, whatever may be said to the contrary, the difficulty about hard coal next year will not, so far as Canada is concerned, be to get customers, but will be to supply the demand."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November, 1929; col. 674. Vol. 231.]
    Of course, it is patent to everybody at all familiar with Canada, that shipments of a substance like coal in the early months of the year to Canada are restricted for various reasons connected, of course, with the navigation of the St. Lawrence. On the other hand, shipments even of coal do occur in the early months of the year. What is most important is that, orders for future delivery in the coal trade are placed well beforehand, so that by now there should be ample opportunity of knowing whether, in fact, British exports not only for last month, but also during the whole of the early part of the year are to fulfil the quite confident expectations and statements which we have heard from the Lord Privy Seal. Therefore, may I put my next quite specific question: What actual orders have been placed for the export of British coal to Canada during both January that has passed and the spring months; how do they compare with the export of previous years; and how far precisely do they satisfy the expectation held out? The visit of the Lord Privy Seal to Canada was going to

    1531
    result in a large increase in the export trade of British coal to that country.
    The last point with regard to the Canadian visit has reference to steel. The Lord Privy Seal said:
    "When I come to steel I am even more optimistic."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November, 1929; col. 675, Vol. 231.]
    Again, we are entitled to know now whether his optimism has been justified. The Lord Privy Seal realises that the trade in coal and the trade in steel are of great importance. Clearly, there-lore, it is his duty not only to take notice of optimistic indications of the future, but also to keep track of the orders that pass so as to see how they are likely to be fulfilled. It is the more easy for him to do so, because, as he himself has explained to us, there is a centralised British office for dealing with steel for Canada. Though we may be told that the actual placing and fulfilling of these orders is a commercial matter, that is not an answer to us. He is easily able to keep track of how the trade is going, and we are entitled to know exactly what the prospects are compared with previous years. That is the precise question I put.
    There is another point with regard to trade generally about which I would not wish to put any question so specific or to demand an answer, but about which, I think, we ought to have the Lord Privy Seal's view. He has declared himself, and I think quite rightly, an apostle of the rationalisation of industry. He has told us how he has been in touch with the City and with banks for that purpose, and how they are ready to help in facilitating that rationalisation. I have no doubt that all that is true, but it is not new. Great finance houses in the City had been helping with the rationalisation of industry long before the Lord Privy Seal came into office. The Vickers-Armstrong amalgamation was one step in rationalisation accomplished long before the General Election. [An HON. MEMBER: "Not because of rationalization !"] It was because of rationalisation, and what was true, there was true also of the union of such great steel works as Bolckow-Vaughan and Dorman Long. Negotiations were in progress long before the Lord Privy Seal had anything to do with
    1532
    the conduct of industry as far as the Government were concerned. What is true of the iron and steel trade was true also of the cotton trade. Negotiations with firms for cotton amalgamation were in existence long before the conversion of the Lord Privy Seal to the doctrine of actively helping the progress of rationalisation. That being so, while, I think, none of us on this side would wish to hinder, but always to help in such progress as far as lies in our power, we would like to know rather more precisely the exact part which the Lord Privy Seal has played in a process which was already going on and in fairly full swing before he took up his present office.
    With the permission of the House, I would like to turn to another part of the Lord Privy Seal's activities and those of his coadjutors on the Front Bench opposite, namely, the question of public works. We were promised a White Paper last December. We were told that we would get it very soon. Later on, we were told that it would not come yet, but we might expect it in the middle of February. It seems a strange thing, after so much delay, suddenly to come to such precision on the point of raid-February. I think we are entitled to ask ourselves why the right hon. Gentleman should have chosen that precise dale. Why the middle of February? Was it because they could get the information just by that date and by no other? Or did it happen to have any connection with the speech of the Lord Privy Seal early last Autumn, when he said that when February came he would be ready to make comparisons with the previous year? He himself deprecated making misleading comparisons as regards figures. Yet he must have known that it was precisely in raid-February of last year that there was a sudden jump of over 100,000 in unemployment, not from any general and abiding reason, but because for the moment there was very severe weather and a very sharp frost. Consequently, if this year there is a continuance of open weather, this, obviously, would be a peculiarly unfair date of all dates for comparison. It is a strange coincidence that that is the precise date for which the White Paper is promised, and the date at which, naturally, we would be expected to get up a debate on the subject in this House.

    1533
    Until we get the White Paper, it is impossible to debate the subject, because we have not got it before us Like the agenda of a business. If a person who is in the chair conducting the business reads over a large number of new and unaccustomed figures, however accustomed people may be to deal with statistics, it is impossible to take them all in for the purpose of immediate criticism. Therefore, clearly, this House ought to have the White Paper before it, and be able to go into it before it has a real chance of pronouncing any verdict upon it. A speech in reply, which is simply a long list of figures, which none of us has seen beforehand, can, obviously, be no account of the right hon. Gentleman's stewardship at all. I would like to ask the Chancellor of the Duchy whether when we have the White Paper, it can give, together with the actual figures of schemes, some estimates which will enable us to see how far those schemes are of value or the opposite with regard to unemployment. How much work, for example, can each scheme be expected to provide? How much each scheme is in anticipation, is it work that ought to be undertaken at once or is it work that is anticipated three, four or five years hence? lastly, what is the estimated total of the Government expenditure on each of those schemes? That is what we would like when the White Paper comes. But I think to-day a list of details with which we are not familiar would not be treating the House fairly. The House prefer to-day to have a statement of the Lord Privy Seal's policy with regard to these schemes, and the reasons which led him to press them forward. It is not so long ago since he criticised us on this side of the House for being backward in pressing forward relief works. He said:—
    "The right hon. Gentleman opposite put on the brake; I am putting on the accelerator."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th December, 1929; col. 1866, Vol. 233.]
    An HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear.
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I hear a cheer from the opposite side. One cheer, does not make a scheme, any more than one swallow makes a summer. What we want is to know what is the basis of the right hon. Gentleman's belief and his reasons for his policy. It is very important; it goes to the root question
    1534
    whether these public works be, as they are in fact to a large extent, relief works; whether they are really justified; whether they will help employment, or whether, ultimately, they will make unemployment worse. It is a subject on which there is a great difference of opinion in this House. One view is held by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) and, perhaps, also by the right. hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel); at any rate, the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs holds it strongly that what is needed in this country to deal with unemployment is a vast scheme of relief works. [An HON. MEMBER: "Public works."] In my opinion in many cases these public works have an element of relief work in them. The right hon. Gentleman fortified his opinion with the beliefs which are stated by some economists of very high authority. There is another view. There is the view which I myself hold that while there is a certain elasticity in the supply of credit, I do not believe that there is the mass of frozen credit which would justify a huge extension of public works. Therefore, while a very limited amount of public works containing an element of relief work is justifiable and may help unemployment, it is only within very narrow limits indeed. When you pass those limits you may be doing more harm than good. If you pass those limits, you may see a number of men dotted about on some road which you are making and to whom employment is given on that stretch of road. That is what you may see. But it is more than likely, according to the view of many of us, when you have passed the narrow limit, that what you will not see are the men who have lost employment in some productive industry at their own trade through the curtailment of the credit which has gone towards putting the other men on roads. That is a fundamental difference in view. It affects the whole question of the extent to which public works should be undertaken.
    If anyone corrects me because, hastily, I said relief works, may I put this reflection before the House? If some public work is not actually needed on business grounds, then to the extent to which it is not actually needed it is relief

    1535
    and not public work. The greater part of these public works—I do not say all of them—probably would not be undertaken at the time by the public authority unless there was a State subvention to make them undertake the work. In other words, in a great many of them there is an element of relief. Again, if you anticipate by, say, five years some great public works which may be fully justified at the end of five years, the very fact of so much anticipation means that over 30 per cent. of it is relief, because of the premature expenditure of capital. We wish to hear from the Lord Privy Seal, What is the foundation of his own beliefs? What are his views about credit and relief works, from that point of view, which make him justify the procedure upon which he is going at this moment? The Lord Privy Seal has told us at any rate that he is anxious in each case to get 20s. of value out of the pound. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear !"] I am glad to hear those cheers, because I hope that the hon. Members who gave them will keep him up to it. He has not achieved it yet. If he has not achieved it, at any rate he has come very much nearer achieving it than his colleagues have done.
    I will turn for a moment or two to the question of foreign trade. We are all now agreed about the importance of it, and the Lord Privy Seal, now that he is seized with the importance of it, wishes to do everything to enable us to maintain the whole of the foreign trade which we still possess and to regain some of the trade which we have lost. One of his reasons for helping forward rationalisation is in order to reduce the cost of manufacture so as to enable us to compete with foreign countries more efficiently. We rejoice over his conversion to this view, but, if there is to be joy over the one sinner that repenteth, we would ask whether he can control the other 99 of the gang who show no sign of repentance of any sort or kind? [An HON. MEMBER: "What do you mean by 'gang'?"] I withdraw the word "gang" and substitute the word "flock."
    When it comes down to business, we have to look into the question of cost. The Lord Privy Seal lays this stress upon rationalisation because it will reduce the
    1536
    cost of management so that we can compete more successfully than before in oversea trade. He is a member of the Government, and I would ask, What are the rest of the Government doing There are other costs than those dependent on organisation. The burden of taxes upon industry is as important an item in deciding whether we are able to compete effectively or not. [Interruption.] It is so with regard to steel, cotton, and woollens. If we are to grant all that the hon. Member says, it does not for one moment detract from the truth that the burden of taxation on all these industries is diminishing their power of competition in foreign markets. Here is the Lord Privy Seal talking to us about the regaining of our foreign trade, and yet during the whole of the time his colleagues are engaged in making it infinitely more difficult for us to retain the trade which we possess, apart from regaining that which we have lost.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer is supposed to be the guardian of the purse of the public, and, when he was speaking here on the Third Heading of the Unemployment Bill, ho save us a complete modern edition of the Pharisee's Prayer. He was so proud of himself; so contemptuous of others. He said: "Lord I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, bad financiers, or even as this Conservative. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that others possess." That is the Chancellor of the Exchequer's version. At the same time, here he is, always giving way, always allowing fresh burdens to be placed upon the taxpayer in general and directly upon industry as well. [An HON MEMBER: "Where are they?"] Four million pounds in that one Clause of the Insurance Bill, of which £2,000,000 comes directly as a burden upon industry. That is one instance alone. There is the Coal Bill to which he has assented, and as a result of which there will be an increase in price which may be anything from 1s. 6d. to 4s. a ton weighing directly upon one of the raw materials which enter in varying degrees into the manufacture of every single article which forms our foreign trade. While these are direct burdens upon industry, there is the great increase in general taxation which indirectly burdens industry in precisely the same way. How can the Lord Privy Seal

    1537
    justify the action of his own Government—when he himself asserts that the recovery of our foreign trade is so vital—in continuing to add to these industries costs at least as great as those which can possibly be taken off through any process of rationalisation?
    There is one other point which has arisen in this connection and which is also of great importance at this moment. It is the effect on unemployment of the Safeguarding Duties. In the first White Paper, the Lord Privy Seal indicated that he was going to carry out schemes costing about £42,000,000. He calculated that these would produce work—if we accept the view that they will produce work without damaging industry in other respects—equivalent to the employment of 40,000 men a year for four years. Then it comes to an end. But the burden of the schemes is still left upon the country and the taxpayer. I ask the House to compare that with what happens in those industries which have been safeguarded up-to-date. There has been an immense increase in employment, but, if anyone says to me that it would have increased in any case, duty or no duty, then my answer is, that at any rate the additional rate of increase due to the Safeguarding Duties is, without question, more than equivalent to the whole of those 40,000 men a year; and not for a period of four years only, but in perpetuity and on a lasting basis. If there ever was a case before the War for Safeguarding Duties, it is a much stronger case now.
    Sir HERBERT SAMUEL: Does the right hon. Gentleman know what the increase has been?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: By comparing it as far as I can with the increase and the decrease in those industries in comparable countries on the Continent. Perhaps the House will allow me to give an instance. I take the question of lace. Lace is an article in which the general trade of the world has decreased. There has been a change of feminine fashions. Lace is not worn for trimmings, and in other ways as it used to be. The result has been, that in every one of the producing countries in the world during the last four years there has been a decrease in the number of people employed in the lace industry. On the other hand, in Great Britain alone of all countries, while there has
    1538
    been a decrease in the people attached to the industry, there has been an increase in the number of persons actually employed. It is by that process of comparison that one is enabled to say, I think with confidence, that, just as that has been the effect in the lace industry, if one compares in amount, the growth in the industries, such as the motor car industry for example, in France, Germany and in this country, the additional employment on a lasting basis through the Safeguarding Duties is greater than the whole of the unemployment for four years only which is given by the schemes which the right hon. Gentleman has already brought before us.
    Mr. MAXTON: The right hon. Gentleman may have made himself plain to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) on the matter of the lace industry, but his explanation has left me in a greater fog. He made this statement, that, although the number of people attached to the industry had decreased the number employed has increased. As the right hon. Gentleman has been so specific about its success, one or two figures would be helpful.
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I have not the figures here, but I shall be delighted to give them to the hon. Member. As regards what I said, may I give this explanation, if I was not clear? The total number of people attached to an industry includes those who are actually employed and those who are out of work, though belonging to the industry. Therefore, the number of people attached to the lace industry had slightly declined, but the amount of unemployment was so much less that the total of those who actually found employment in the industry was greater. I hope that I have now made the matter clear. I will send the hon. Member the figures.
    Mr. MAXTON: This is the main basis of the Opposition's case against the Government, and we should like to have it quite clear. I take it that the effect of safeguarding on lace has not been sufficient to bring it back to the position which it held before it was safeguarded?
    Brigadier - General Sir HENRY CROFT: May I ask my right hon. Friend if it is not a fact that the production

    1539
    of the lace industry has gone up by 50 per cent. in the last four years?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am giving the hon. Member an instance in which the actual figures of those employed have increased, and that in a trade which was otherwise decreasing the whole world over. The general point that has been put to us who are strongly in favour of a policy of Safeguarding is this: Opponents say to us, "You point to the increased number of people in the motor trade, or in the silk trade. Those trades would have increased in any case, and therefore you are not entitled to take the whole of the increase as due to the Safeguarding Duties, because in any case it was an expanding trade. I have taken on purpose, when challenged, the case of what was not an expanding trade but one that was diminishing throughout the world, particularly in the other great producing countries, like Switzerland and France, and, although it has been diminishing throughout the world, the decrease in employment in this country which would undoubtedly otherwise have taken place has been staved off through the Safeguarding Duties which were imposed.
    Mr. MAXTON: Safeguarding changes the fashions !
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am not sure whether the hon. Member is married or not, but, if he will question any feminine Member as to how far there has been a change in fashions and a decrease, he will be enlightened without any need of figures. We want to hear from the Lord Privy Seal what is going to be the policy of the Government with regard to these Safeguarding and McKenna Duties. We are entitled to know. Here is a time when unemployment is worse, as shown by the figures and by the general experience, than at any time during the last seven years. It is going to be increased—the reason may be good; I am not questioning that—by the stoppage of the building of cruisers. Suppose that is justified, which I am not concerned in debating, surely, when you are going to have in any case additional unemployment for that reason, it seems to be the worst possible time for going forward with a policy of repealing those duties which are the
    1540
    support and help of some of those trades that are already in existence. I trust the Lord Privy Seal will give us some clear answer upon these points. It is no answer to give us a list of some new works which may be in prospect which we have not had time to examine and about which, as yet, we have none of the further details for which we ask.
    We have a particular right to get it for this further reason, that we are faced with this situation, having been led to expect that by now things would be a great deal better and not worse. We were told by hon. members opposite last year that they had an actual programme. Since then, the Lord Privy Seal and his helpers have been running about like rabbits, scratching for a scheme that they can put before the House. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, when in Opposition, told us he had innumerable schemes that he could produce. Why were they not produced? Why could they not have been put before us? We were told by the Prime Minister that they were not schemes of public works but were schemes which would directly make industry active. Why, therefore, were we not told? We were told that they could produce the schemes at once, and could carry them into effect, because they had men who had the ideas and the courage to do so. We have seen no ideas, we have seen no courage, and the least we can ask for is a clear and precise statement of what has been done after all the expectations that have been raised.
    Mr. STRAUSS: The right hon. Gentleman has attacked the Lord Privy Seal on his record in dealing with the unemployment problem. I do not apologise for that record, because I believe it needs no apology, but I desire to point out the unfairness of the attack that has been made. Hon. members opposite always lay considerable emphasis on the importance of our foreign trade when dealing with unemployment in the opinion of many too great an emphasis, to the exclusion of our home trade. But when an event occurs, as it did last year, of international importance which depresses the trade of the whole world, one would think it would only be fair of the right hon. Gentleman to mention it.
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: If I remember rightly, I said, the Lord Privy Seal must have had knowledge of what was going on in America at the time that he made his speech on 4th November when he said that the outlook was so bright.
    Mr. STRAUSS: The full effects of the slump in New York could not have been foreseen by anyone. They were certainly not foreseen by any of the great economic experts, and it is, therefore, not unreasonable to suppose that the experts even in this country did not foresee its full effects. But it is generally known, first of all, that the boom on the Stock Exchange in New York, which caused a rise in money rates in all European countries by attracting for investment purposes, money across the Atlantic, had the effect of depressing trade in this country by narrowing and restricting credit and it is also known that the aftereffect of the boom, the slump, by causing tremendous losses to numbers of people, had the effect of restricting purchasing demand and again damping production. I should like to quote an authority which no one by any stretch of the imagination could suggest is tainted by Socialist influences. In the January edition of the "Federation of British Industries" review of last year, they state:
    "Unfortunately, adverse international monetary influences made themselves increasingly felt as the year proceeded, and we find both home and foreign trade showing signs of reaction in the closing months of the year. …. The responsibility for this disappointing end to what promised to be one of the best post-War trading years is, as is now generally appreciated, to be attributed almost entirely to the abnormal condition of the international money market and the high level of money rates which was one of its principal features."
    Hon. Members opposite are apt to put the blame on the Lord Privy Seal for every adverse factor affecting employment. Do they seriously suggest that he was responsible for that, or that any Government could have had any influence in preventing it? The right hon. Gentleman also said that the process of rationalisation had started before the Labour Government came into office, and that it was not right for the Lord Privy Seal to take credit for it. The unemployment problem to-day is so acute because the industrialists have not even yet made any attempt to rationalise their
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    industries in comparison with those of our great competitive countries on the Continent and in America. My own belief is that there are two alternatives in front of the country. Either we must refuse to rationalise, on the ground that we shall increase unemployment, or possibly because the industrialists themselves are too lethargic and shortsighted to do so, in which case our industries will gradually decay and the number of the unemployed will continue to grow; or we must now rationalise drastically and thoroughly. It will undoubtedly for the time being cause the displacement of labour, but in time we shall be an efficient economic unit, again able to compete with our competitors abroad.
    The unemployment that we have to-day is due, I believe very largely to the individualist and old-fashioned notions of our industrial leaders. The rationalisation that has taken place has meant, at the worst, merely amalgamations of various industries by which the promoters have made considerable profits for themselves, and have not increased the efficiency of the industry itself one iota. At the best, it has meant the replacement of old plant by new. But scientific rationalisation and reorganisation, as it has taken place in competitive markets abroad, has not yet started in this country. On the Continent they look upon it as a highly developed and most important science, and there are organisations of scientific experts who are continually being employed in reorganising works and making them more efficient. I came in contact the other day with the case of a factory making Pullman railway care in Poland. The managers decided to call in one of these expert organisations. After the experts had been at work for some time, they were able to curtail the length of time it took to produce their wagons. They produce them in series of five, which used to take 180 days. After a few months they were able to reduce that period, purely by scientifically replanning, and using exactly the same amount of labour, from 180 to 95 days, which has since been further reduced. Reorganisations of that kind, and rationalisation of that kind, are still completely absent in this country, as far as I am aware. It is true that certain managers committees discuss the special problems of certain industries and a certain amount has been done in what

    1543
    may be called scientific welfare work, in reducing industrial fatigue, but large scale scientific replanning of industry is still absent in this country. This is not only due to the lack of foresight on the part of industrial leaders but also to a lack of initiative on the part of the last Government in urging industrialists to carry out a policy of rationalisation.
    Only in two directions can this, or any other, Government tackle the problem of bringing the industries of the country up to a more efficient point than they are to-day. It is difficult for this Government owing to the Parliamentary situation in which they find themselves. One of the best methods is the control of credit, or more particularly the direction of the credit, of the country away from useless foreign investments and purely speculative Stock Exchange business into those industries which can benefit most by rationalisation. Such a control would go a long way to get over the difficulty. But only in two directions can any Government tackle the unemployment problem. One, in urging, if they cannot use compulsion, the industrialists of the country to bring their plant up to a level of efficiency equal to that of our competitors and, in the second place, in launching out on public works, mostly from the point of view of relief works which would carry a number of the unemployed who would be out of work during the process of reorganisation. Those are the only two directions in which the Government can reasonably work. International trade is not under the control of any Government, but judged on these two principles, the reorganisation of industry and the launching out on relief works, which latter has been done to a much greater extent by the present Government than by the last, the supporters of the present Government in the House and in the country can well be proud of the work that has been done.
    Sir HUGH O'NEILL: The right hon. Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland), who initiated this Debate, made a number of very pertinent observations and asked the Government a number of very definite questions. I agree with my right hon. Friend that this is not the occasion for harrying the Lord Privy Seal too much. We ought rather to sympathise with him. He is engaged
    1544
    in a task of extraordinary difficulty and complexity, and if he has failed to redeem the promises and pledges which he made it is not so much his fault as the fault of the general policy of the Government. We are faced with this bold plain and open fact, that during the last five months of the Conservative administration the unemployment figures fell by more than 350,000 and that during the first six months of the Socialist administration they have increased by considerably more than that number. These are plain figures, and they are the kind of things which the country understands. The Lord Privy Seal, so far, has adopted a policy much of which is quite acceptable. We all agree with the main lines of his policy in so far as it has shown itself; trying to increase our export trade by an extension of trade facilities, State aid of industry, and also necessary public works. All these are the kind of things which any administration was bound to attempt to carry out in the difficult circumstances with which we are faced.
    We have lately been told that a great deal is to be expected from the Lord Privy Seal's conversations with what he calls the City. I have only seen one definite public effect, which may or may not have been the result of his initiative, but I saw that the Bank of England was affording facilities to the United Dominions Trust, which is a company engaged in financing the hire-purchase system. That at any rate is all to the good.
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: May I intervene for one moment as the right hon. Member might wish to know. I happen to be a director of the United Dominions Trust, and the negotiations began with the Bank of England weeks before the Lord Privy Seal made his speech at Manchester and were entirely independent of anything he has done.
    Sir H. O'NEILL: Whether it was independent of the Lord Privy Seal or not does not affect my argument, which was that this kind of credit has been given for years past and has always been afforded by the great banks and financial houses of this country towards industrial projects which are likely to help in the improvement of industry. No; the real cause of the increase in unemployment

    1545
    to-day is the general policy of His Majesty's Government. Let me refer to the increase in expenditure. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, two days ago, made a speech in which he naturally tried to put the best light he could upon expenditure increase. As far as I read it, he said that we were committed to an extra expenditure of £8,000,000 this year and, at the very best from his own point of view, of £14,000,000 next year. What industry cannot understand is this; how is this extra expenditure going to be met unless we are in for some form of extra taxation? [An HON. MEMBER: "Fewer ships !"] It may be possible, as a result of the Naval Conference, to reduce the expenditure on the Navy, and if that is possible, and we are able at the same time to make our security as good as it is now, then I think that kind of reduction of expenditure will be welcomed in all quarters of the House. But you are not going to save the amount of the recent increases by building fewer ships next year. Surely no hon. Member expects that? And if we are faced with increased taxation that in itself has the effect of depressing industry and creating and increasing unemployment.
    The right hon. Member for Tamworth also referred to the uncertainty about Safeguarding and the McKenna Duties. I will not say anything about that except this, that whether those duties have or have not succeeded in increasing employment—I personally have no doubt that they have—we know that those who are engaged in those industries which are safeguarded one and all desire the retention of these duties. Surely that is a pretty strong argument that they are beneficial to the industries and are increasing employment. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says that he cannot disclose Budget secrets, that he cannot make an announcement about this until Budget day comes. Surely, in the present period of great depression and unemployment it would be the best thing to discard a small matter of practice like that and if the right hon. Gentleman has come to any decision to let us know what the decision is so that industries may be relieved, or at any rate, may know the worst if the duties are to be taken off. Another thing which tends to shatter confidence is, for example, the determination of the Government to repeal the Trade
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    Disputes Act. That will mean that the general strike as a method of coercion of the Government will again be legalised, and that mass intimidation in some form or other will again be brought within the law. That is not the kind of thing which creates confidence in industry.
    There is another aspect of the Government's policy with regard to unemployment which has not yet been touched upon, but upon which we have had a good many promises and statements. The Lord Privy Seal himself, just before polling day at the last election, made this statement:
    "Labour was going to solve the unemployment problem by spending money, and by giving bigger pensions to old people, inducing them to retire and find jobs for younger people."
    5.0 p.m.
    That, we understand, is part of the Government's policy for curing unemployment. A day or two ago in this House the Chancellor of the Exchequer answered a question as to what it would cost to give a pension of 25s. a week to everyone on attaining the age of 60.
    Mr. COVE: On a point of Order. Is the right hon. Member not now referring to what would require legislation?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The subject of Debate to-day is a very wide one, including, as it does, the salary of the Lord Privy Seal. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman is entitled directly to suggest something that would require legislation. Strictly speaking that would not be in order.
    Mr. COVE: The right hon. Gentleman was talking about the General Strike before this, and devoted a large part of his speech to it.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I cannot rule everything out of order.
    Sir H. O'NEILL: I quite appreciate that one ought not to touch upon legislation in a Debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill; but, nevertheless, the whole matter is so large and intricate that one cannot discuss the salary of the Lord Privy Seal without at any rate referring to the main aspect of the unemployment policy of the Government. One of the aspects of that policy is, apparently, the granting of pensions to those in industry

    1547
    who reach the age of 60. In answer to a question in the House the other day, the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that to give a pension of 25s. per week to all people at the age of 60 would cost £285,000,000 a year this year, that is 1930, and would cost £480,000,000 by—
    Mr. COVE: On a point of Order. Is the right hon. Member not out of order in discussing all this, which would require legislation?
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Robert Young): The granting of pensions at 60 would require legislation.
    Sir H. O'NEILL: When in the Chair a minute ago, Mr. Speaker ruled that it was competent to discuss the general unemployment policy of the Government.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: But he also said that it would not be in order to discuss matters that would require legislation.
    Sir H. O'NEILL: I appreciate and understand that, and if you rule definitely that any reference to that part of the unemployment policy of the Government is out of order, of course I leave it at that.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I was present and I heard Mr. Speaker state that questions requiring legislation were out of order.
    Mr. MacLAREN: The right hon. Gentleman has made reference to certain specific Acts of Parliament. I quite appreciate the co-relating of some Act of Parliament to the question of unemployment, but I have listened to the right hon. Gentleman very carefully, and he has begun to discuss the merits of these various Act" entirely apart from the question of unemployment.
    Sir H. O'NEILL: I am very sorry that hon. Members opposite desire that I should not refer to this matter. In view of what Mr. Deputy-Speaker has ruled, I have no alternative but to leave it at that. I think that the figures which I have been able to quote have at any rate shown the immense difficulties, to put it no higher, which any policy of that kind would cause to the Government. Another fact that is tending to create want of confidence is the
    1548
    situation in India. India is one of our greatest markets and a country in which order and peaceful progress are of inestimable and vital advantage to the industry of this country. In all these matters, the policy of the Government is tending to create want of confidence, and the one thing that is more likely than anything else to damage industry in this country is want of confidence. In addition, there are one or two definite and concrete facts which are bound to lead in the immediate future, so far as I can see, to an increase in the unemployment figures.
    My right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth referred to naval disarmament. If naval disarmament comes about and if our building programme is decreased, that in itself, of course, for good or ill, will lead to more unemployment. Then we have Clause 4 of the Unemployment Insurance Bill. The Government White Paper, which explained that Clause, pointed out that the Clause as it left the House of Commons would lead to an increase of from 80,000 to 90,000 in the number of those on the unemployment register. So that you are going to get an increase in the figures from that cause. Another matter which will lead, and, indeed, is leading, to an immediate increase in unemployment is the rationalisation which was referred to a few moments ago. What is rationalisation? I will tell hon. Members what I take rationalisation to be. I take it to mean this; Bringing about amalgamation in industry, installing all the most modern plant, machinery and equipment, with the object of reducing the cost of manufacture; bringing businesses together so as to spread your overhead charges over a wider field and installing more modern machinery so as to bring your processes more up to date. But surely it means also that you are going to modernise your plant in order that you may maintain your wages at the old scale, but employ at those wages a smaller number of men. That is what rationalisation must mean.
    What is the object of it? The object of it surely is this: After you have so modernised your plant yon will, by reducing your cost of production, capture new markets, increase your trade in existing markets, and so gradually increase the volume of trade in that business, so that in the end more men may

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    be employed in it than were employed formerly. That is what I understand by rationalisation. It is a process which is going on with, I am glad to know, the approval of the Lord Privy Seal, all over the country to-day and in many of the great basic industries upon which we depend for our prosperity. I have indicated some of the difficulties of our trade at the present time. I am sorry to see that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is very cross with industrialists and bankers who are bold enough to mention those difficulties. He says that their criticism is unintelligible. To suggest remedies for this unfortunate unemployment is far less easy than to mention the causes of it. I suppose that in the long run the remedy of hon. Gentlemen opposite would be the nationalisation of industries, for, after all, that is the basic creed of Socialism.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That also would require legislation.
    Sir H. O'NEILL: I fully appreciate that, and to that extent I suppose that even in mentioning it I was technically out of order. I was using an illustration, and I do not think I have gone beyond that. However, I will assume that that is the Socialist remedy for unemployment. What is the sensible remedy? The sensible remedy is summed up in two words—restore confidence. How are you going to do that? First of all it is vitally necessary for the Government to carry out a policy of economy. Of course, it is too much to suppose that the Government will sacrifice expenditure which they have already initiated, but for heaven's sake let us devoutly hope that they are going to sanction no more expenditure. Then let them encourage, as far as they can, better relations between employers and employed. They talk about a Trades Disputes Repeal Bill. It seems to me that the Government, representing as it does what I suppose we may call the majority of the organised trade unionists of the country, has an advantage with regard to the question of relations between capital and labour. Labour has been very suspicious in recent years. If this Government which represents Labour, throws itself heart and soul into the attempt to bring about peace in industry and to diminish trade disputes rather than increase them, nothing will tend, in the long run, to restore confidence more effectively. I
    1550
    hope that the Government will not fail to pursue that line of policy.
    This is an extraordinarily difficult problem, but, when we survey the industrial history of this country during the last four or five years, it is impossible not to feel that some kind of crisis such as we are passing through now was almost inevitable. It is only four years ago, or less, since we had the General Strike, and, quite recently, we have had for the first time in our history, apart from the short period in 1924 a Socialist Government in office. Industry in this country is—naturally I maintain—suspicious of a Socialist Government and will be so until this Government, as a result of having to face up to the facts of economics, realise, as I believe they will very soon, the delicacy and intricacy of our industrial and economic structure. When they see how easily that structure can be damaged, then I think it is possible that they will stick to their saner views, discard their more extreme pronouncements and become a responsible party in the State, a responsible Government putting forward responsible Measures. If they do so it is possible that, before long, some of that confidence the want of which has been so marked in industry recently, will return and that we may get back to times not only of better employment but of greater advance in industry than those which we have experienced in recent years.
    Major NATHAN: The Lord Privy Seal, speaking on unemployment immediately before the Christmas Recess, suggested that it would not be fair to compare the unemployment figures at the end of the year with the figures at the time when he entered on his present office. Figures are like hydrangeas. They have a habit of taking on different colours according to the light in which one looks at them. But in whatever light one regards the figures of unemployment as they stand, the stark fact emerges that there has been no improvement. I will not take the comparison that there has been an increase of 400,000 or 500,000 since the present Government took office, but I direct the attention of the House to the average weekly number of persons unemployed at the present time as compared with the last year or two. It will be found that the figure for January of the present year shows no improvement,

    1551
    compared with the figure of 1928 and is appreciably greater than the figure for 1927. These are relative figures as to averages. When I take the actual figures given by the Minister of Labour the other day in reply to a question, I find that on 20th January of the present year there were 1,290,000 persons unemployed in England and Wales as compared with 1,249,000 on approximately the same date last year and 1,044,000 on approximately the same date in 1928. A simple calculation shows that the figure at present is some 43,000 worse than it was on the corresponding date last year and 250,000 worse than it was in January, 1928.
    The House expects some explanation from the Lord Privy Seal as to the reasons which he thinks have occasioned this increase. The hon. Member for North Lambeth (Mr. Strauss) suggested that the increase was due to the slump in Wall Street. The slump in Wall Street had many unexpected repercussions, but one thing which it has not affected is the rate of unemployment in this country. Since that slump credit has become easier here, and the reduction of orders which possibly may be expected as a result of the situation in the United States has not yet, in any real sense, materialised. The hon. Baronet the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, speaking on 21st January, said with great frankness:
    "I do not think anyone would suggest that any measures taken by the present Government are affecting the unemployment situation materially, one way or the other, either beneficially or adversely."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st January, 1930; col. 95, Vol. 234.]
    I ask the Lord Privy Seal, since it is contended that no action of the Government has affected these figures so adversely, what has done so?
    I should like to track down some of the elusive ideas which have from time to time flitted across the Floor of this Chamber with regard to dealing with unemployment—ideas which have been mentioned once, and of which one never seems to hear again, but which are simply lost in oblivion. I am not referring to those matters which are the subject of the White Paper published a few weeks ago. Nor have I in mind the measures which
    1552
    I understand are to be included in the White Paper to be published during the present month. I wish to take a number of items to which apparently the Lord Privy Seal himself attached importance some time ago but of which we have heard little or nothing since.
    I ask, in the first place, what is the position with regard to the Channel Tunnel. In November the right hon. Gentleman informed the House that he expected the report by Christmas. Again, on 17th December, he said he expected the report before Parliament reassembled after the Recess. Has he yet received that report? If so what action do the Government propose to take upon it? Then, as long ago as 4th November, the Lord Privy Seal referred to the scheme known as the Lower Thames Tunnel scheme. He told the House that it was a £3,000,000 scheme; that the Government were desirous of proceeding with it, and that he hoped to be able to make an announcement within a few weeks. Is the right hon. Gentleman in a position to make that announcement now? The right hon. Gentleman both during the General Election campaign and since expressed the view that the 20 ton waggon ought to be introduced. What action is he taking on the report of Sir Arthur Duckham's Committee both as regards the simplification and cheapening of transport and the provision of work? There is also the matter of steel sleepers. On the last occasion when the Lord Privy Seal gave any information on this subject it was to the effect that 13,000 tons—which he himself admitted was infinitesimal in relation to the possibilities—had been ordered by the railway companies. What is the position to-day?
    During the Debate on the Address, the right hon. Gentleman referred, as I understood him with approval, to the project of an outer London goods railway. He said the Government were setting up a committee to consider that matter. Can he now state the composition of the committee, the stage which it has reached and whether it is yet in a position to make a definite recommendation. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) has already referred to the five 7,000 ton ships, regarding which the right hon. Gentleman on his return from Canada in November said orders were in negotiation. Only a few days ago the

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    right hon. Gentleman told us that he had received a letter from a firm of shipbuilders in connection with these ships. Can he give us some more definite information? Is the letter from the shipbuilders with regard to one ship or two ships or all five ships? The House is entitled to information upon that subject in view of the very definite statement made by the right hon. Gentleman on 4th November.
    I come now to a matter which is in rather a different category. The right hon. Gentleman, preluded by all the publicity to which he, in his high office, is entitled, went to Manchester and made a speech which was blazoned forth under headlines such as "Banks to help Industry." I wish to put some questions to the right hon. Gentleman on that matter. As far as I understand his statement on that occasion, stripped of verbiage it comes to this—that where businesses or groups of businesses put forward proposals for amalgamation or rationalisation which seem sound to those advising the City, then the City will give its co-operation in working out the details of the scheme and in finding the necessary finance.
    I paraphrase the words, but I do not think I have done him any injustice in what I have said. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman, How does the procedure which he has indicated here differ from the attitude that the City is now and has at all times been prepared to adopt towards sound businesses—"industry on a broad and sound basis," which is the condition which the right hon. Gentleman lays down—and since when has it-been that money could not be found in the City of London for enterprises which comply with those conditions? Is there anything new in the announcement which he made, in the conditions attached to any application, in the persons or the concerns to whom application is to be made, in the manner in which or the persons by whom the finance is to be found? I ask him, in a word, What does he intend to be understood by the use of the term "the City"? I put that specific question.
    It is well understood that the Bank of England is comprised within that definition, but whether it comprises the whole of that definition is a matter upon which perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will enlighten the House. It certainly does
    1554
    not include the joint stock banks, or perhaps I ought to qualify that statement to the extent that Mr. McKenna, in making his annual speech as Chairman of the Midland Bank, has been silent upon this matter—not unnaturally, in view of the fact that he is a member of the Committee which was appointed by the Prime Minister
    "to inquire into banking, finance and credit. …. and to make recommendations calculated to enable these agencies to promote the development of trade and commerce and the employment of labour."
    I quote the terms of reference, because I should rather have expected the right hon. Gentleman to await the Report of the Committee before making any definite pronouncement as to what the banks were or were not prepared to do, or what they ought to do. I take Lloyds Bank, the annual meeting of which took place on Friday. Mr. Beaumont Pease, the chairman of that bank, referred to this matter, saying:
    "There seems to be a certain amount of blame levelled at the banks, that they are not using their influence and power to enforce amalgamations and reconstructions, and generally to assume functions Which at present they only exercise to a limited extent."
    He goes on to say:
    "We can ask ourselves how far can the banks assist; how far do their functions extend; and what is the form of influence they can usefully exert where any steps should appear to them to he desirable?"
    He goes on further to say:
    "My own answer to these somewhat difficult questions is definitely that it is not the function of individual banks, or even of banks as a whole, if that were a practical possibility, to initiate the reorganisation of industry, or to try to dictate the steps which should be taken in this direction. … These points should be left to the industry itself or to technical experts."
    He goes on to use words which I think are very material in this connection. He says:
    "No doubt banks have an important and useful role to play in providing the necessary temporary finance"—
    I emphasise that word "temporary"—
    "for the reconstituted industry, if they are satisfied that the position has been sufficiently investigated and that the reforms instituted have reasonable hopes of success."
    I do not think the right hon. Gentleman will obtain any further satisfaction from a speech made by Mr. Goodenough,

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    chairman of Barclays Bank, on the 21st January. Mr. Goodenough was unambiguous in his opinion. He stated that, in his view:
    "It lies with industry itself to reorganise itself, that not being within the province of the banks, and provision of capital is of little value unless a business is efficiently organised and controlled."
    He says a little later:
    "If the difficulty is due to some relative inefficiency, it may be possible to overcome it through reorganisation. It is then that the banks can assist by helping to find the liquid capital"—
    I draw the attention of the House to that term "liquid capital"—
    "that is necessary to such reorganisation when a scheme has been carefully worked out by experts."
    I turn to the speech made by Sir Harry Goschen, chairman of the National Provincial Bank, who said:
    "No one, I take it, would suggest that the banks should permanently find the money required for capital expenditure, and lock up their resources in machinery and bricks and mortar. It never has been the policy of the English joint stock banks to immobilise their funds in such investments, and I trust it never will be."
    It does not look as if the National Provincial Bank would be included in the term "the City" referred to by the right hon. Gentleman at Manchester. Lastly, I would ask the House to bear with me while I refer to the speech made by Mr. Hugh Tennant, chairman of the Westminster Bank, at its general meeting held on the 29th January. He made an interesting suggestion in his speech, to which I would direct the attention of the right hon. Gentleman. He referred to the suggestion that:
    "British banks should extend their activities to providing home industry with fixed as well as working capital, and should interest themselves financially in company formations, after the manner of certain Continental banking systems."
    He went on to say:
    "There is one definite obstacle which prevents British banks, as at present constituted, from pursuing this line of development. Unlike Continental banks, they are mainly deposit institutions, and are not in a position to lock up in long-term industrial investments funds which are, for the most part, liable to be withdrawn practically on demand."
    I draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to these authoritative pronouncements by the chairmen of the
    1556
    various joint stock banks, because those pronouncements rightly carry considerable weight in the financial world. If, as is obvious, the various joint stock banks are not to foe included in the term "the City" for the purposes of the right hon. Gentleman's scheme, does it extend beyond the Bank of England, and, if so, does he include the various finance houses and issuing houses? I ask him that question because I have made certain inquiries as to how far the approaches of the right hon. Gentleman have been to the finance and issuing houses. I am not in the position in which the right hon. Gentleman apparently thought my hon. Friend the Member for North Paddington (Mr. Bracken) was the other day, when, in response to a question as to the meaning of the term "the City," he declined to give him an answer on the footing that my hon. Friend knew the answer to the question he was asking. I tell the right hon. Gentleman frankly that I do not know the answer to the question I am asking. All that I would say is that, from inquiries that I have made, it is not the answer that I should have expected it to be.
    I said just now that the speech made by Mr. Tennant had introduced a useful suggestion, or the germ of a useful idea. The joint stock banks have in the past been too apt to make advances on what they call temporary loans on fixed assets, but almost before the banks have realised it in many instances these temporary loans, this temporary capital has in fact become fixed capital, because the Banks have been unable to obtain repayment. I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in the course of his investigations and negotiations, it has been suggested to the joint stock banks that, to use the phrase which the right hon. Member for Bewdley (Mr. S. Baldwin) used, they should cut away the dead wood. Unless and until the joint stock banks are prepared to cut away the dead wood, it will be extraordinarily difficult, and I believe impossible, to obtain a healthy financing of reorganised industry.
    There are one or two further questions in this connection which I wish to put to the right hon. Gentleman. Previous speakers have referred to investments made by the Bank of England in the United Dominions Trust. Is that part of the scheme for financing British industry

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    which the right hon. Gentleman has in mind, and, if so, does he not think it necessary to give any explanation to the House of what looks very much like a reversal of policy? Whether credit inflation be right or wrong—and there are, of course, differences of opinion on that matter—it is clear that the investments in the United Dominions Trust look like a. reversal of policy, for hire-purchase business involves credit inflation.
    In his negotiations in the City, has it been suggested to the right hon. Gentleman that it will be impossible to obtain any assistance from the City beyond that which the City ordinarily and upon its own initiative will give to sound concerns requiring the provision of capital; has it been suggested to the right hon. Gentleman that those facilities might be increased if the Government were prepared to take, by means of the Trade Facilities Act or in some other way, the ultimate risk; and what answer has the right bon. Gentleman given to any such suggestion? I should like to know also whether, in connection with these various negotiations and investigations, the right hon. Gentleman brought to bear upon the Bank of England or any other financial institution in the City of London political pressure, or, shall I say, pressure to induce such institutions for political reasons, in reference to his schemes for reducing unemployment, to undertake financial obligations which upon their merits they would not undertake?
    Finally, does the right hon. Gentleman really think that the machinery of the Rank of England, either with or without the joint stock banks, is appropriate for finding for British industry that fixed and permanent capital which is essential, or even for finding on reorganisation temporary capital, temporary in the sense that it is not fixed, although it may be for pretty long periods? Does he not rather think the time has come when we should reconsider our methods of financing, and consider the adoption of the system which has been so long and so successfully in vogue on the Continent, and in particular in Germany, and create—and this is the idea which I take from Mr. Hugh Tennant's speech—something in the nature of an industrial bank, let us say an industrial credit institution along the lines of the agricultural credit institution for which Parliament has
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    already made itself responsible, at all events, something which will correspond in this country and fulfil here the functions which have been for generations past so admirably fulfilled by the great banks in Germany. It involves taking a new and different view of banking, and for that reason it is not suitable to be undertaken by the Bank of England or the joint stock banks. It also involves a special technique, of which our banks have little or no experience, but there are those who have the experience, and who will be available for the management of such institutions. My mood to-day is one of inquiry rather than of criticism and, therefore, I would end with this interrogation to the right hon. Gentleman: Will he take into consideration and consult with the joint stock banks, and the finance and issuing houses of the City of London, as to the creation, on a scale commensurate with the importance of its task and of its opportunities, of an industrial bank along the lines which have been so successful for so long on the continent of Europe?
    The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Mr. J. H. Thomas): I apologise to the House, and to the right hon. Gentleman who opened the Debate, for my inability to be present at the outset, but I will endeavour to answer the various questions which have been put. I will proceed at once to a series of questions put by the hon. and gallant Member for North-East Bethnal Green (Major Nathan). He drew attention in all his questions to certain statements specifically made by me at different times. He pointed out that at the latter end of last year I intimated that I hoped to receive the Report on the Channel Tunnel by Christmas. I have since stated that I did not think the Report would be out for a few weeks. The Government are in no way responsible for that Report. A Committee was appointed because of the importance of the question, and the first thing that happened when I came into office was that the Chairman of the Committee came to see me, and said that his Report would be very considerably delayed unless I was in a position to sanction expenditure that would enable the Committee to have the benefit of certain expert technical advisers. The Government agreed, sanctioned the expenditure, the

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    technical advice was called in, and I was informed by the chairman, as I told the House in answer to a question, that he hoped his Report would be presented in the course of next month. In any case, the House must clearly understand that it would not only be improper, but would seriously prejudice the value of such an important Report, if the Government merely said to the Committee that they must have the Report by a given time, regardless of consequences. Therefore, all I have done is to say to the Committee, "Speed up; let me have the Report as soon as you can"; and immediately the Report is presented, and the Government arrive at their decision, the House will be informed.
    The second point raised by the hon. and gallant Gentleman was that I referred in a speech on the problem of unemployment to the building of what I called the Lower Thames Tunnel. It is true that. I referred to the importance of it; in fact, I said that, in my judgment, there was no scheme which offered more immediate benefits to the problem of unemployment and simultaneously made a practical contribution to the solution of the traffic problem of London. We attached considerable importance to it, so much so, that we instructed Sir Henry Maybury to go to the various authorities and endeavour to get contributions from them towards the scheme, and also, if he could, get agreement to try to induce them to introduce the necessary Bill so that the matter could be facilitated. He did that, and he succeeded in getting cooperation among the authorities. The Government agreed to a very big sum of money, the whole scheme was fixed up, the Bill was introduced into the House of Commons, and on four days last week it was blocked in various parts of the House. That is the answer to that part of the question.
    Sir BASIL PETO: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Bill was blocked because the Port of London Authority were never consulted, and are not satisfied that it would not obstruct the access to the docks?
    Mr. THOMAS: I never attempted to give any reason. I was asked a simple question as to what has become of the scheme to which I attach so much im-
    1560
    portance. I told the House exactly what had been done, and merely said that Parliament blocked the Bill. There may be a good or a bad reason; I do not know, and it is not for me at this stage to ascertain.
    Mr. BOOTHBY: It makes a good deal of difference.
    Mr. THOMAS: It is for me to answer the specific questions put by the hon. and gallant Gentleman. Be wanted an answer, and I have given it.
    Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: Is it fair for the right hon. Gentleman to make out that the House of Commons is stopping his scheme, whereas, as a matter of fact, it is a question of difference of authoritative opinion on the merits of the scheme?
    Mr. THOMAS: If that be the position, no one knows better than the hon. Gentleman that the place for these differences to be hammered out is provided by this House in a Committee upstairs, and he knows perfectly well that the merits of the dispute between the Port of London Authority and the other authorities is not a subject which I can argue across the Floor. The merits of the dispute, whatever they may be, cannot be ascertained and argued until a Second Reading is given and the Bill goes upstairs.
    I come to the third question, which was: What has become of the Report with regard to 20-ton wagons which was submitted by the Duckham Committee? That Report was made after an investigation into the general question of privately-owned wagons and the use of small wagons. The hon. and gallant Member will remember that the investigations show that there was considerable delay, inconvenience and loss of revenue by the present method of not pooling wagons; that there was inconvenience and loss owing to the large number of small wagons in existence; and that there would be advantages to transport, and especially to the coal industry, if the pooling of these wagons could take place. That, in essence, was the Report. It was presented to the present Government, although the Committee was formed by the late Government. We agreed to the Report in principle, and instructed Sir Arthur Duckham to consider the question how immediate application of it could be

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    made. It is only fair for me to point out the difficulties. I believe that there are tremendous advantages in a 20-ton wagon, and anyone who knows anything about the coal trade would admit it, but 51 per cent. of the terminals in connection with the docks and railways would have to be altered before you could universally adopt the 20-ton wagon. In addition, privately-owned wagons are in so many hands, that you must adopt some scheme that will not automatically wipe out these private people, merely for the benefit of the railway companies.
    Major SALMON: What is the estimated cost in this connection?
    Mr. THOMAS: I think that it is within the vicinity of £20,000,000; it is some very big sum of money.
    Mr. REMER: Does that include the works at the collieries?
    Mr. THOMAS: There are two or three factors to be taken into consideration. There are screens so situated at the pits that they would have to be removed before a 20-ton wagon could be got into them. Then there is the difficulty about the terminals. The question of expenditure was not alone connected with the terminals, but with the shifting of the screens in order to take the wagons. It is open to public utility companies to avail themselves of the Development Act, for which Parliament gave me authority, in order to speed up the work that would be necessary, and the answer to the hon. and gallant Gentleman is that no delay is being occasioned by the Government.
    6.0 p.m.
    The next question was, what was my view on steel sleepers? When I first approached the problem of the railway situation and unemployment, knowing that practically the whole of the sleepers were imported, and believing, as I then believed, in spite of opinions against me, that there was no justification for using wood sleepers, and that steel sleepers could be made cheaply with some benefit to the country, I drew the attention of the railway companies to that point. I emphasised the point that not only would it be of importance to industry here, but that India, Australia, and a number of our colonies had for some years used steel sleepers. I cannot conceive of criticism coming from any quarter of the House
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    if I can influence anybody to get something made in this country instead of importing it from abroad. My intervention was justified. The first railway to give them a real trial was the Great Western, followed by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, then the London and North Eastern Railway and the Southern Railway. Not only are they now satisfied that steel sleepers are a practical proposition, but every one of the railway companies has budgeted this year for an extension of the mileage of track on which steel sleepers are used. Then I have been asked: "Is it true that the Government put some political pressure upon the Bank of England to compel them to change their policy?"
    Major NATHAN: The question which I put to the right hon. Gentleman was this: "Have the Government, for political reasons, brought pressure to bear, in connection with their unemployment policy, to secure the financing of proposals which, apart from that pressure and upon their merits, would not have been financed?"
    Mr. THOMAS: There is not very much difference. The hon. and gallant Member has only elaborated what I said very shortly. The answer I give is "No." Anyone who knows the history of this country can hardly conceive of a Labour Government bringing political pressure to bear upon the Governor of the Bank of England. What was done, as I shall endeavour to show later on, was to endeavour to get the banks and finance houses and other people to consult with the Government as to the best means by which they could render assistance in dealing with the problem.
    Another question which was put had reference to the coal situation, the steel situation, and the ships that were contemplated for the Canadian trade. The position with regard to coal is as follows: In 1928 we purchased from Canada direct 51 per cent. of her raw material—wheat—including a very large proportion indirectly, which came via Boston, New York and other places for mixing purposes. Examining the figures, and looking at what Canada spent with us in return, I found that for every £1 Canada spent with us she spent £5 with the United States of America. I know there is considerable talk about patriotism and

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    sentiment and waving the flag; but I came to the conclusion that from a purely business point of view that was not a good commercial transaction for us. I looked into the position to ascertain what particular commodities there were which we could justifiably ask Canada to take from us in return; apart from sentiment, apart from our connections, apart from all those things, what particular commodities were there as to which, regarding the transaction on a commercial basis, we could say to Canada, "Give us a fair chance."
    First I examined the coal position. I found that Canada imported approximately 14,000,000 tons of coal. Of that total 12,000,000 tons could be excluded from our consideration, as being coal with which we could not hope to compete, because we could only hope to compete with coal within the Quebec and Montreal regions. I ascertained prices, and came to the conclusion that we could supply coal to Canada—better coal—at a commercial price; but this was conditional upon certain transactions to which Canada must be a party. First, we had to be sure of a return cargo, because if we had to pay the charge of carrying any commodity to Canada, and the ship was coming back in ballast, we could not hope to compete. I set myself to see whether I could ensure regular return cargoes. My simple proposition was, could I ensure a return cargo of wheat for the coal that we supplied? The Canadian National Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway each stated that it was prepared to give a trial order for 100,000 tons, provided the price could be agreed on. Others were also giving orders.
    I immediately met the Wheat Pool and said, "Let us discuss right away the possibility of a return cargo." I will come to steel in a moment. The negotiations did not make much progress in Canada, for reasons which the House will understand—because of the abnormal situation last year in regard to the wheat harvest, which confirmed the Wheat Pool in taking certain action. I am not going into the merits of the case; I am merely stating the facts. It was agreed that the conversations should be renewed. The Wheat Pool are in London now, and I have already met them, and it would not be fair for me to make any other comment than to tell the House
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    what is the nature of the negotiations. That can be stated in a sentence. I want to ensure a return cargo so as to enable our manufacturers who are supplying steel and those who are supplying coal to have a fair chance of competing; because if there is a return cargo it will halve the cost of carrying the cargo they are sending there. That is the basis of the negotiations. So far as those on the coal side are concerned, they were so satisfied with the progress made that they informed me by letter officially that they were prepared themselves to order, and take the risk of, five ships. A firm of Sunderland shipbuilders have been asked to prepare the plans of the ships, though the order for them has not been placed. That is an indication of the confidence they have, notwithstanding the abnormal difficulties to which I have referred.
    This is not a subject for banter across the Floor of the House. I put this serious point to the House, that for every 300 tons of coal we can sell to new customers employment is given to a miner, and we have provided for him and his wife and family, as well as assisting all the other people who are involved in the trade. If I can in any way increase by 500,000 tons the output of coal from this country to a new market in exchange for a commodity that we are compelled to buy, I shall be making a much better contribution towards solving the unemployment problem than by merely talking about doles or any other expenditure of that kind.
    Now I will apply myself to the question of steel. I found that Canada was importing 300,000 tons of steel, much of which the steel people in Canada assured me they could buy from this country. I went carefully into the question with the steel trade, and the House will have read the statement, of their very able representative, Mr. Piggott, who gave an interview to the Press quite recently. The position is that instead of all the firms here competing with each other and getting no business. Great Britain has got one representative in Canada for the steel trade. He negotiates and does business for the country as a whole and not for any particular firm. That is the answer to the series of questions that were put. I hope I have answered all of them fairly.

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    I will proceed now to deal with the broad general situation. Quite frankly, if we are to be judged merely upon the figures of unemployment the figures are worse than they were 12 months ago. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear !"] It is hardly a question for "Hear, hear"; it is far too important. I will not be influenced a snap of the fingers by any speeches anybody has made from the party point of view—myself included. I am endeavouring to keep in mind that this is the most dangerous as well as the most human of all our problems, and there is no delight in mere party scoring over it. I say right away and quite frankly that whatever advantage may have been taken either by this side or anyone else, whatever it may be, "Yes, judge if you like by that standard." If you do that I have no right to complain, and I am not complaining; but I am entitled to say to the House, not so much for the benefit of those inside the House as to those outside the House, and also to those who understand our economic position, that a profound mistake is made in always magnifying a thing; and business men tell me daily that an immense amount of harm is done by conveying an impression which, after all, is a false one.
    I am not at all concerned in giving a figure to illustrate what I have said. When these figures show that 1,400,000 persons are unemployed to-day, the outsider will get the impression that 1,400,000 people are perpetually looking for a job. The actual facts are that 750,000 of those persons were in work less than a month ago. Whatever may be said on this point, I repeat that I am much concerned that those people outside should understand that fact. One hon. Member has asked me, "What have you done towards reducing the number of the unemployed; what contribution have you made and how is it that the figures are going up?" I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that all parties are responsible in this matter, and there are no exceptions to what I am going to say. Questions are put to me every week asking, "What are you doing; what is the result of your plan; when are they going to materialise?" All these questions convey the impression that unemployment is the one dominant thing about which they are
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    thinking. Last Monday, under the altered Standing Order which I obtained from the House, I certified a large number of Bills. I came down to the House every day at 2.45 p.m., in accordance with the Standing Order, with these Bills all certified that they would deal with unemployment, the passing of which was vital before anything could be done. Even to-day, after six consecutive days of my sitting here, seven of those Bills were objected to involving an expenditure of £20,000,000, not a copper of which can be spent, and under which no benefit to employment can be given until the House of Commons has passed those Measures. That is my answer to those who ask, "What are you doing?" We are told that the Government are responsible, but I ask, is it fair either to condemn the Government or myself after the reasons which I have given? One hon. Gentleman said that the objection of the Port of London was far more important.
    Sir B. PETO: It was necessary that ships with a much larger draught should have access to our docks.
    Mr. THOMAS: There may be some good reasons for the objections which were taken, but what I wish to emphasise is that all these Bills deal with the question of unemployment. Some hon. Members of this House apparently believe that there is a more important reason than finding employment. One hon. Member has asked, "Why have a House of Commons at all?" I think such a question is quite unworthy. I was careful to say that there might be quite legitimate reasons, and I also stated that the objections were as numerous from this side of the House as from the other side. The only point I was making was that at least I could not be held responsible for schemes for relieving unemployment not materialising if the House of Commons took that course.
    Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: Is it quite fair to say that? If the objections, from whatever part of the House they come, are reasonable, the Government are in a position to get their Bill carried at any time by making it clear that those objections will be met.
    Mr. THOMAS: The hon. Member evidently forgets that the Government

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    have no jurisdiction in this matter, and he knows that it is the duty of the Chairman of Ways and Means to name the next day. Every day last week the Chairman named the next day, and to-day the Chairman has announced that on Wednesday night certain Bills will be taken. Even then the objections raised quite legitimately by hon. Members opposite are matters which, in the end, can only be determined upstairs.
    Captain BOURNE: Is it not the case that none of these Bills can go upstairs until 12th February because petitioners, up to that date, are still able to present objections; and if the objections are dealt with now, the Bill will be quite ready to go forward in Committee at the earliest moment that the Committee can deal with them?
    Mr. THOMAS: That is not so. On the contrary, a number of these Bills, as far as petitioners are concerned, are not opposed, and, as far as I know, the objections raised by the hon. Member for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto) are objections on extraneous points, and have nothing to do with the merits of the Bills.
    Captain BOURNE: Is it not a fact that the petitioners have until 12th February to present objections, and therefore it is impossible for the Lord Privy Seal to say with absolute certainty whether any of these Bills will be passed or not?
    Mr. THOMAS: That seems to me to be a technicality. I am stating to the House the broad general practice, and the difficulties which present themselves to me. I have been asked why it is that as compared with 12 months ago the unemployment figures are worse. I have already said that I admit that they are worse. I will go as far as to inform the House that when the figures which will be announced either to-morrow or on Wednesday are published, it will be found that they are the worst of all the figures, because there will be an increase of 18,000 in the figures to be published. I wish to be quite frank about this matter, and I have no hesitation in saying that before the end of this month, there will probably be another 100,000 added to those figures.
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I trust that that is really due to some temporary reason, such as a trade dispute or some other reason of that kind.
    Mr. THOMAS: That is what I am endeavouring to explain. The figures which will be announced to-morrow will show an increase of 18,000, and from the information at my disposal the result of the passing of the Bill which is now being considered in another place may easily put another 100,000 on the register of the unemployed. It will be 100,000 at least, and the total may be more. That does not mean that there will be more unemployed, but it means that a large number of people will be able to say, "Look at this great increase in the figures," either not knowing or forgetting the fact that the increase is due to the cause which I have already mentioned. But that is not the full answer to the hon. Gentleman's question. There is a number of causes. The figures during the past month are mainly influenced by cotton and wool. Two-thirds of the increase this week is due directly to cotton and wool. Unrest in China, difficulties in India, the fact that Japan is a more serious competitor—all of these are factors which are contributing to the position.
    Although so many of those schemes that I have already sanctioned for railways, docks, harbours, roads, municipalities, totalling at this moment somewhere in the vicinity of £50,000,000 odd, cannot become operative until Parliamentary sanction is given, I do not attach importance to these schemes as being the real, effective solution for the problem of unemployment. I emphasise that for this reason. If I were dealing merely with a temporary problem, if it were for me to find some temporary work, no matter what the expenditure might be it would then be justified; but if afterwards, when the money had been spent, when the temporary work had been provided, the problem was even worse, it would have been far better not to have spent the money. I am faced with the cold hard fact that the country does not realise at this moment the serious situation of some of our industries. Surely, it is not going to be argued that we on this side are responsible for that. Surely, it is not going to be argued that all the difficulties that I have to

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    face at the moment are due to the advent of a Labour Government seven months ago. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member—
    Mr. HANNON: I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for interrupting him, but what I wanted to say is very applicable to the point. It is that the present policy of His Majesty's Government is making the situation worse for industry every day.
    Mr. THOMAS: I will endeavour to face that criticism. I presume that the hon. Gentleman admits what I have stated, namely, that this Government cannot be held responsible for the abnormal situation. I will examine a few industries which are the main cause of the unemployment problem, to see if he is right. Does anyone suggest that the cotton situation in Lancashire at this moment is something for which the Government are responsible? There you have an increase every week of 4,000, 5,000 and 6,000 on the unemployment register, and that must go on unless there is a real change in the export trade, which will never be brought about by the methods at present existing in the cotton trade, where there is over-capitalisation, where spindles are on a basis of two or two-and-a-half times more than ought to be the case, all requiring to be brought down to an economic basis, with hundreds of units all competing one against another and cutting one another's throats, with no organised selling agency and no organised buying agency, with no regard—[Interruption.] Someone says, "And no Safeguarding." It will not do for the hon. Member to go down to the cotton trade, who are dependent for their export trade on free cotton, and talk to them about Safeguarding—
    Sir NAIRNE SANDEMAN: Surely, the right hon. Gentleman does not know that for the last six years I have stood on Protection and Safeguarding in the cotton trade every time, and have won each time?
    Mr. THOMAS: The hon. Member may have stood on it, but are we not entitled, in view of the importance of the facts of the case, to say that at this stage we should keep away from questions of that kind? I will deal with the question of
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    Safeguarding later, but, so far as the cotton trade is concerned, anyone who went into Lancashire and talked about Safeguarding as a protection for the cotton trade would be laughed out of court. I have indicated the situation with regard to cotton. What is happening now? There is a reluctance to face the facts. There has been a decrease in our export trade in cotton, since 1913, of over 40 per cent., and in the woollen trades of 24 per cent.; yet it is true to say that there are large numbers of people engaged in the cotton industry who still refuse to face the facts.
    The object of my visit to Manchester was to try to deal with the factor that has been mentioned, namely, lack of confidence. Whatever debating points may be made in the House, it would be foolish to deny that, if there be abroad in trade and industry and commerce a lack of confidence, a feeling of pessimism spreading from one to another, it must have repercussions on trade. No one can deny that it aggravates the unemployment problem and that it adds to my difficulties every day, and I should be foolish to deny it, or to ignore the fact that I have abundant evidence of it. It would be idle to deny that, before going to Manchester, I felt that there was a lack of confidence, which if allowed to continue, would be followed by a worse unemployment situation. I deliberately went to Manchester to face that side of the question, in the first place, and, in the second place, to give to the Lancashire people at least an indication that the Governor of the Bank of England and those for whom he spoke did not take the pessimistic view that some people took. I indicated on his behalf, in the statement that I read, that the City was prepared to give assistance on certain terms. The object of that statement was, in the first place, to answer a lot of ill-informed people who were going about assuming and stating that the banks were mainly responsible for the industrial situation because they would not help.
    I said at Manchester, and I repeat in the House now, that in many cases the banks had given help in the wrong direction. I stated in Manchester, and I state now, that it would have been far better for me at this moment, and for the country, if some of that assistance had never been given, because it was bolster-

    1571
    ing up inefficiency, because it was merely putting off the evil day, because it was preventing these people from being forced right up against the facts. The same criticism that I made under that head also applied to the question of trade facilities, and that is my answer to the hon. Gentleman. I have not introduced the trade facilities scheme because the trade facilities scheme in the past has contributed very largely to inefficiency, because it has been used to bolster up inefficient concerns, and because to-day we are suffering from a number of undertakings that were kept going, quite honestly, as it was thought at the time, by the provisions of the trade facilities scheme. Having felt that and said it, I also indicated to the Lancashire people what I indicate here and now, namely, that it did not mean that the banks would not give assistance, but it did mean that assistance would be given on certain clearly defined terms.
    The question is put to me: Did I speak for the Governor alone? Were the joint stock banks consulted? Were any of the issuing houses consulted, and did the issuing houses know anything about it? According to the hon. Gentleman, from his inquiries they knew nothing about it. I will answer those questions right away. It is very difficult merely to state across the Floor of the House the names of concerns that are called upon to advance money. It is yet more undesirable to answer in this House, and I shall not do it, as to any particular concern that avails itself of that opportunity, because you cannot expect, and you will not get, business men merely to advertise their difficulties. My answer, shortly, is this: The only one that I did not see was Mr. McKenna, but the other four gentlemen quoted by the hon. Gentleman I saw personally, and I have no reason to say other than that they agreed with my policy. So far as the issuing houses are concerned, there is no issuing house in the City of London that is not associated with the statement that I make. All of them, so far as my knowledge goes, I have met collectively.
    I daresay the hon. Member for the City of London will have a word to say later in this Debate, but I ask to be excused from going into details on this matter, and for this reason. There is
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    not a day, and there has not been for the last month, on which I have not been engaged in discussing, not only what works or schemes for employment I would sanction, but what works may be closed down, in the case of what works receivers have been put in, or what works are in such difficulties that financial arrangements must be made. I ask the House to believe that, as those who have been in close touch with the matter know, this has been the most difficult and delicate part of my problem in dealing with unemployment during the past few months. Before passing from the cotton industry, I should like to pay them this tribute, that, whatever may have been the differences in the cotton trade in the past, the representatives of the trade unions as well as of the employers met me jointly, and discussed frankly and fully the question of rationalisation and all that it involved, and the trade unions were as frank and as ready to meet the situation as were the employers. That, to me, was the most hopeful sign of my visit to Lancashire.
    Turning for a moment to the steel trade, the same problem in another form, the House will have heard the answer to a question to-day as to the closing down of Penistone, where 1,300 people are involved. They have seen in the Press the closing down of the Ebbw Vale Works, and there are many more in the same position. Again it is the same story. There are plants that can hold their own, but there are a large number of plants that cannot hope to compete, and they realise it. Rationalisation and amalgamations are taking place, but it is no good assuming that amalgamating two concerns, or even four, is really solving the problem. Therefore, I am up against the fact that in coal, in steel, in cotton, there will inevitably be more people dismissed before we can hope even to put the trade on a sound basis.
    It is hard for me to have to admit those facts, but it is far better for the country to know them, because whatever the temporary situation may be, ultimately it will be to the good of the country as a whole. It all demonstrates that merely shouting for tariffs will not cure inefficiency. Mere shouting for Protection will not put these concerns in a position to compete with their rivals as they ought. [HON. MEMBERS: "It will

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    help!"] At all events, there ought to be common agreement that if there is inefficiency, if there is lack of organisation, if there is something lacking, it is our duty to face the consequences of it. If there is not, let us apply any other remedy that is a good one, but do not let us look for a wrong remedy before we ascertain the cause. I am facing the facts and I am not pessimistic, because I believe this reorganisation in the end will be good. The chemical industry is the best illustration I know of rationalisation. I am informed that 9,000 people were dismissed as the first result of that rationalising scheme. The whole of them were absorbed, and within 15 months twice that number were engaged in the industry. [HON. MEMBERS: "Protected !"] Unprotected. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about dyes?"] Is it not as well that hon. Members should at least face one side of the problem? If they believe the only solution is tariffs, surely it is not for them to quarrel with a policy which says, First let us be efficient. You have no right to look for a remedy unless you are satisfied that you cannot do without the remedy. I am only pointing out that, from the standpoint of my own position as Minister, it is unpleasant to have to face these facts, but I am facing them because I believe ultimately it will succeed.
    My concluding illustration is the motor industry. Here, I believe, there is a greater field for employment than in any other industry that I know. Here again it is no good merely shouting for tariffs. Out of 6,500,000 cars produced in 1928 this country, with 27 different concerns, produced 211,000. Our own Dominions, including Canada, took three times our output, and 85 per cent. of it from the United States. This industry gives real scope for finding employment, and surely it is my duty to say to it, "You have too many units competing one against the other. Get together like the other people did and then you can hope to capture the trade."
    I have endeavoured to answer the questions that have been put. I knew, when I undertook it, that my task was not an easy or a pleasant one. I knew I should be subject to all manner of criticism. I do not complain. The House has been very fair. I have disregarded, and will disregard, the mere spending of money because it is spending money as a solution.
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    I turned it down. I will not hesitate to spend money if it will add in the end to the efficiency of the country. All the time I base myself and the Government upon a long-term policy of efficiency, of placing our industries in a better position, of recognition of the fact that we have not got to be handicapped and we have to give what encouragement we can to our industry and keep clearly in mind that a nation that is compelled every year to buy £800,000,000 of raw material and foodstuffs can only meet the situation by its export trade being in a strong, sound, and healthy position.
    Sir H. SAMUEL: When I last had the privilege of addressing the House, I was able to express to the Government a very cordial measure of agreement and support. I only wish I were able to do the same to-day. We should all most earnestly desire to be able to speak in words of congratulation to the right hon. Gentleman, and it is with regret that we find that the results that have so far attended his efforts do not justify expressions of that character. We should be glad if we could congratulate him on a successful issue of his efforts, not only on account of their great national importance, but also because there is in every quarter of the House an exceptional measure of good will towards him personally. We should not only welcome his success for the country's sake, but we should also applaud it for his own. The Motion before the House has relation to his own salary. No one here would suggest that there should be a reduction. Indeed, if it were in order for a private Member to do so, we might suggest a form of increase, and it would be advantageous to the State if we could hand over to him a modest commission per head on all the unemployed for whom he would be able to find occupation. I am afraid at present that would be a minus quantity, and as the scheme would necessarily have to work both ways, the right hon. Gentleman would find himself heavily indebted to the State.
    The unemployment figures at present are at the highest point they have been at any date during the last seven years, and the right hon. Gentleman has been in the unhappy position of being obliged to tell the House that this week they were being increased by another 18,000. Even yet the House and the country are

    1575
    not, I think, fully seized of the immensity of the burden that lies like an incubus upon the country. I put down a question a few days ago, asking the Minister of Labour what was the total population now dependent upon the community at large for its maintenance, and it appeared that the number of dependants of those who are unemployed is more than equal to the number of those who are in direct receipt themselves of assistance. There is at present a population of more than 3,000,000 who are now, owing to unemployment, dependent upon the community at large and are being maintained upon the Insurance Fund, or from State subventions to that fund, or from the Poor Law. It is true that they are not the same people continuously unemployed, and, from the human point of view, that is a source of satisfaction. But the economic burden upon the nation is the same—a population of 3,000,000 month after month and year after year. It is as though all the people of Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, and Bradford were stopped from working and had to be maintained by the rest of the country. It is a terrible handicap upon any nation in the world-wide competition for trade, and in the international rivalry for industrial prosperity.
    7.0 p.m.
    That is the economic burden; but that is not the worst feature of the case, because the human aspect of it is even more tragic—all these hundreds of thousands of homes in distress, and often in despair, owing to the unwilling idleness of their breadwinners. It is a matter of very great disappointment that when, after eight months of effort, the right hon. Gentleman comes to report to the House, he is compelled by the facts to confess that he has been able to make no impression whatever upon the magnitude of this evil. At first, the Government were fully entitled to say that they must be given time before we could see the results which had been achieved, and in the first few months the whole country was willing to wait. Even after some months of office, when the right hon. Gentleman was speaking to the annual conference of the Labour party on 1st October, the country in general was still willing to be patient. He then said:
    1576
    "I cannot make any promise of figures at this moment but I am confident that, when February comes, the figures will be better than those of the late Government."
    February has come, and the figures are worse. Various schemes that have been put forward have faded completely from view. In his first speech he told the House—and we heard it with great interest—that he had in view schemes to induce the prosperous industries to open establishments in the distressed districts. We pressed the Government to say what those inducements were to be. The Chancellor of the Duchy, in one of the Debates, said that his right hon. Friend had in mind some scheme for assisting industries more or less on the lines of the rating relief of the last Government. We waited. The Lord Privy Seal was again pressed to say what these inducements were. Then he said that he had been endeavouring to induce particular industries, and one especially, to open establishments in South Wales, but had been prevented from success owing to difficulties with the local water supply. Any large scheme of statesmanship, any general inducement, seemed to have disappeared entirely from his consideration. We were told again at the outset that there were vast plans for the electrification of Liverpool Street station with connected schemes which would involve orders for the iron and steel industry—I quote again the Chancellor of the Duchy—of between £75,000,000 and £100,000,000. Where are those schemes now? We hear nothing of these proposals or of the orders for the steel industry of from £75,000,000 to £100,000,000.
    We had from the Chancellor of the Duchy in the last Debate on this subject on 21st January, a remarkable statement, very candid and very honest—all honour to the hon. Gentleman—but one, to which the House and, indeed, the country must give the most close attention. It has already been quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bethnal Green (Major Nathan) when the House was not so well attended, and I make no apology for repeating it. The hon. Gentleman said:
    "I do not think anyone would suggest that any measures taken by the present Government are affecting the unemployment situation materially one way or the other,

    1577
    either beneficially or adversely."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st January, 1930; col. 95, Vol. 234.]
    That is after eight months of office. Is that what the Labour party anticipated? Is that what their supporters looked forward to? When hon. Members opposite made election speeches to those who were going to be their constituents at the time of the last election, when the whole country was keenly interested in this question of unemployment, when they all of them, and all of us, spoke to our electors and told them what they would wish the new Parliament to do, would any of them, when they addressed great meetings in market places or town halls on the eve of the election, have ended with this peroration: "And I can assure the electors of this district that, within eight months of a Labour Government taking office, the representative of the Ministry will be able to tell the House of Commons that the measures taken by that Government are not affecting the unemployment situation materially one way or the other?"
    Sir O. MOSLEY: I invite the right hon. Gentleman to quote any statement made by any Labour candidate which promised that our measures within eight months would effect much?
    Sir H. SAMUEL: I am quite sure that the country was given to understand that any Labour Government would tackle this question with vigour and with efficiency, that they had plans ready to be put into operation. Certainly, we did so, and we should have been discredited if, after eight months, we had come to Parliament and said that we had made no impression upon the problem one way or the other. Certainly, the statement of the Chancellor of the Duchy is an indication of a very complete failure within this period to fulfil expectations which were undoubtedly definitely held out. What is the duty of the House of Commons in the present circumstances? Must we remain merely watching and waiting, criticising and complaining? The right hon. Gentleman who opened this Debate had very few suggestions to make. He did not then repeat the threefold policy of the late Government of which the country heard so much year after year: First, as we were told continually, that trade was just on the point of improving and that there was no need
    1578
    to be perturbed about the unemployment problem at all; secondly, that the late Government were carrying out vast public works and were ready to give, and did give, the figures of great public expenditure; and, thirdly, that public works were no use and that expenditure on that account would do more harm than good. We were not given to-day those contradictory statements.
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Will the right hon. Gentleman quote those statements which he says that we have made?
    Sir H. SAMUEL: I have not got them now, and I do not propose to detain the House. Again and again, I have quoted them in the country during the time the right hon. Gentleman was in office. They were never disputed. The speeches of the late Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer were continually of an optimistic tone, saying that, if there were no more labour disputes, trade would undoubtedly improve, and unemployment would go down. They put it in the remarkable White Paper published immediately before the election on the authority of various Government departments that great works had been undertaken for the benefit of the unemployed and ended in the same White Paper with a declaration made on behalf of the. Treasury—a most improper proceeding in my opinion—that for reasons of finance, expenditure on public works of a large character was likely to be most mischevious. Those were the three statements made again and again, but which, in face of the House of Commons, were not made to-day. The other suggestion he made was about the policy of Safeguarding, which, of course, we cannot discuss now, but which we shall have an opportunity of discussing once more on a private Members' day this week when we shall be willing to meet the hon. Members on that question.
    There is more than one aspect of the unemployment question to which the House of Commons ought to give even more attention than it has yet done. The first is this. Is there not a danger that the very measures which the country has taken to relieve the effects of unemployment, most necessary measures as they are, might not be in some degree perpetuating the causes of it? I mean our insurance schemes, which I believe to be right

    1579
    in principle and right in the main in their operation. Is it the case that our insurance schemes are tending to immobilise labour, to stop its fluidity, to prevent it adapting itself to the changed conditions of industry? Is it the case that workmen who would wish to find temporary employment in occupations other than their own are afraid of doing so for fear of being penalised by losing their rights to unemployment benefit in their own trade? I do not know whether it is so; I make the inquiry. Is it the case that employers, when trade is not at its best, are tempted and almost invited by our system of unemployment insurance to stop their works for a few days at a time and to throw upon the whole community the burden of maintaining their workmen meanwhile? These things appear to me to need examination. I do not assert that these are matters of great importance, or that they are of large effect upon the problem, but, for my own part as one Member of the House, and there may be others who may take the same view, I should like to be assured that we are not in some directions making a mistake in our system of dealing with unemployment and may not be to some degree aggravating the evil which we seek to cure.
    Secondly, I do not feel for my own part at all convinced that the measures taken by the right hon. Gentleman for works of various character are in any degree adequate. Many of us think that we ought to be grappling with this problem on an entirely different scale, not on a scale twice as great but a scale perhaps 10 times as great. We have made our own contribution to these questions, and I should be very grateful to know whether the Lord Privy Seal and his Department have consulted experts such as Sir Henry Maybury, for example, with regard to road development. Many of us think that our road system, in spite of great improvements, is quite inadequate to the present needs of the country and in 20 years' time may be utterly inadequate to cope with the needs of the country for communications. In a score of directions with regard to our whole national equipment for industry and commerce, we are by no means convinced that the works undertaken are commensurate with the
    1580
    needs of the country. I do not mean relief works. I entirely disagree with the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland). We have not in view any expenditure on relief works. The works which we contemplate are all works which would be wholly justified on their own merits, economically sound, and justified for the needs of the country.
    Lastly, there is the most important aspect of the question: By what means can we aid and stimulate the great staple trades of the country to expand their production and to re-absorb the workers? I agree with the right hon. Gentleman fully that there is great need for organisation and for a higher level of efficiency. I would like hint and his colleagues to proceed by whatever way is possible, both by information and by stimulus of various kinds, to encourage industry in this direction. How far has he yet proceeded with his plans of Empire development? It is largely by the development of the resources of the Empire and its markets and population that we shall get that great outlet for our exports which is the final element of the whole situation.
    In all these three departments of this great problem, could not the Government enlist to a greater degree than is now the case not only the goodwill but the co-operation of Members of this House? We were told by the Prime Minister in a famous phrase on the opening day of this Parliament, that he would like to see the House of Commons become more a Council of State and regard itself less as consisting of arrayed regiments facing one another in battle. There are, I believe, in this House, now, as always, very large reserves of administrative experience, ability, and energy. There are, it is true, critics who are accustomed to depreciate "politicians." I have heard it said that the only man who ever came to the House of Commons with the right, idea was Guy Fawkes. But those who know the House more intimately take a very different view of its capacities. A few days ago General Smuts, when leaving this country, as a kind of epilogue to the wise and stimulating messages which he had been giving, used these words:
    "I feel convinced that you are up against a hard struggle in this country, and I am of opinion that there should be far more national co-operation than is apparent at

    1581
    present. I saw what the people of Britain could do in 1917. The time is rapidly coming when there will have to be another great effort of co-operation, for the problems which your country has to face are greater than any single party can solve, and the interests of the nation will have to come first."
    Those are very wise words, and I venture very humbly to suggest to the Government that they might make a real effort to secure the co-operation, in examining all those various problems and in securing suggestions for action, of all sections of this House. Responsibility is in proportion to power, and it is for the larger parties in this House to take the initiative rather than the small group who sit upon these benches. I feel certain that, if the Government do desire a larger measure of co-operation from the House in seeking a solution of these problems, it will most readily be given, for all of us are eager to aid the Lord Privy Seal. We recognise the difficulties of his position, we appreciate the zeal which he shows, and we are only anxious to support his efforts.
    Mr. E. C. GRENFELL: I venture to address the House because the Lord Privy Seal has referred to the City and to me in particular. I understand that the House for some time has been wondering what the Lord Privy Seal meant when he referred to the City, as he did at Manchester. Let me say that, as far as I understand the matter, and as far as I understand the City, he meant the City, an amorphous body, which is not political in any sense. The City sends two Members who sit on these benches, but we have always maintained when we come into this House that we are freer than any other Member to express our opinions on any subject and in favour of either side. To-day, there ought to be no sides on this question. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) twitted the Lord Privy Seal and his party with not having done more for unemployment, and in my opinion it comes ill from him and his party. We do not make that accusation, because we never believed that the promises could be fulfilled in either of these cases. Having said that, let us get to work and put our house in order. I would like to refer to the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on Saturday I think it was. He said:
    1582
    "This is still the most wonderful country in the world. There is plenty of life in the old dog yet. The only thing it lacks is more pluck. We are without those great resources of wealth which most countries have."
    Part of that is true and part of it is quite untrue. It is wrong to say that this country is wanting in pluck, and it is wrong to say that we are without those great resources which most countries have. Why! we are blessed far in advance of most countries, and we profited by that in the last century. I have said that I want to avoid politics, and I will do so. I want to say—and I hope that it will not offend anybody—that I apportion the blame for the present state of trade here in many directions, and that none of the causes to which I refer are responsible singly. It is not the want of pluck from which we are suffering; it is the want of confidence in ourselves, and hence a want of confidence in us on the part of other people. To a certain degree we deserve it. If you were an industrialist employing much labour you would to a certain extent be nervous of what is called the tyranny of trade unions. If you were a member of a trade union, you would perhaps be distrustful of the ability of your employers. I do not say this in any critical spirit of cither party. I think there is justification in regard to both criticisms. I would point out that in the majority of enterprises in this country, especially in the smaller ones, there are not many strikes, and there are not many lock-outs. You hear of those that exist. On the whole, there is a great spirit of amity between masters and men in this country, but there is no news published about those cases. The reason we are still keeping our end up is because of these inconspicuous trades wherein there are no differences to speak of and where no strikes or lock-outs occur. That is one feature to be remembered.
    There are two other points, or at any rate one other point, making for difficulty and loss of confidence to-day. The main one is the great increase of taxation. This Government is largely responsible for promises. I do not say that the last Government were guiltless either. Until we can stop this increase of taxation, there will not be a return of confidence in this country. Light-hearted statements are sometimes made in this House, perhaps

    1583
    for amusement, which do infinite harm. There are sometimes, if I may say so, wild speeches made from the heights over there which do harm and which are not meant to be taken at their 100 per cent. value even by the speakers, and the same thing occurs here.
    I said I was going to speak as representing the City, especially as regards what the Lord Privy Seal had said. The City consists of the representatives of many big houses, occupied with trade all over the world, and trading with their own money. I presume that what the Lord Privy Seal meant was the so-called moneyed people, the banks, the issuing houses, and essentially the big investor or small investor. The only way that those bodies can relieve trade is for the richer people, or the issuing houses, or the banks, to be so convinced that they have the cure for some particular industry which is at present in trouble, that they can temporarily help to restore it to prosperity and then make the public—and this is really what the City means—relieve the banks and the issuing houses of the burden which they have undertaken; and for that you must persuade the public that the people offering these securities have, so to speak, bettered the concern and know that it is in good order.
    There have been in the past, especially in the last few years, many enterprises in sore trouble. We will not say whose fault it is. In the cotton industry, it is probably largely due to circumstances over which no one here has any control. But there are other enterprises in which I believe the prosperity of the last century made the employers careless of new inventions, made them think that we had the monopoly of prosperity, and that they did not keep pace with the times. When I say that the employers were to blame, everyone on the other side of the House will agree with me, as also, I think, will many people on this side of the House. It is extremely difficult to get rid of these employers. Very often they have vested interests which are difficult to give up. They are right on their beam ends, have ruined the business and thrown their people out of employment. It is the man to whom they owe money, the banker, who may sometimes put pressure upon them, and sometimes he is loth to do so.
    The one body of financial people to whom the Lord Privy Seal referred,
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    were, I presume, the so-called issuing houses, and he said that he had seen all of them. Those people—a small body—have no great funds of their own which they can use to advance to the many industries which at present require reorganisation. If they can advance funds, they do not propose to have their credit ruined by having their funds locked up in those industries for ever. These issuing houses and the banks have no real body of experts who can look into industries of all sorts. If they can create such a body they may do so, and, I think they will. On their behalf, all that I suggest is, that, if they do establish such a body, no one in this House must expect that when they have got a cure and a man to administer the cure, the medicine they are going to give is going to cure the body in any short time.
    It is perfectly useless to twit this Government or any other Government for not restoring the heavy trades, some of the intricate trades, to their old prosperity in one year or two years, and it is quite useless for them to criticise the Lord Privy Seal and his people if they cannot do it. What we require is confidence in our own country. Many of these financial houses have financed industries in other countries, because, in their opinion, conditions were more stable, or because they saw a bigger reward. We want to disabuse these people of the idea that the quarrels between master and man or fresh taxation make the English industry an unprofitable one in which to invest their money or ask their customers to do so. I hope that we may get rid of that fear. England has not lost its pluck, but England requires some security of peace at home—I hope we are securing peace abroad—and, if we did not believe what has been said on three sides to-day, that we are going to work together for the common good, and if we were not aware of the great danger, I should not he so confident about the return of this country to happier days.
    It being half-past Seven of the Clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means, under Standing Order No. 8, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.

  PRIVATE BUSINESS.

    MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 13) BILL [Lords], (By Order.)
    Order for Third Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
    Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: My object in desiring to speak on this Bill which comes before the House as one of the Provisional Orders is that I think that from time to time the House should endeavour as far as possible to find out actually how the money is being raised. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health when this Bill came up for Second Reading on the 17th December said:
    "This is a Bill for the purpose of providing more employment by widening the streets of Exeter and Romford. The local authorities desire it urgently in order to provide work for the unemployed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th December, 1929; col. 1169, Vol. 233.]
    I should be the last person in this House to do anything that might hurt or hinder those who are out of work, but we have been reminded this afternoon, in no uncertain voice, by the Lord Privy Seal that the solution of the question of unemployment is not merely the spending of money. His words were: "The mere spending of money is not a solution of the unemployment question." I accept that statement and, applying it to this Bill, I would like to ask a few questions. I have no desire to prevent the passage of the Bill, but I think it is wise on occasions such as this that we should have a very clear understanding of what the House is asked to pass. It would be no answer to say that the Bill has gone through another place, after careful consideration. I am well aware of that, and it will be no answer, after the Lord Privy Seal's speech, to say, in general terms, that it is a question of helping the unemployed. I want to know how and where the unemployed will be helped.
    It will be noticed that in connection with both schemes use is being made of the Act of 1919 for the acquisition of land, certainly so far as Exeter is con-
    1586
    cerned, and I think it is the same with regard to Romford, for the purpose of widening certain streets. That is very necessary, very useful, and very helpful work, particularly in the case of Exeter. Has the Parliamentary Secretary any definite information regarding the amount of work that will be given to the unemployed, and is she satisfied that the Act of 1919, in the passing of which I rendered assistance, is working freely. I should like to draw her attention to the fact that in both cases the proposed street widening will mean the closing of a number of establishments. So far as Exeter is concerned, it will close house property, workshops, store and garages. Can the Parliamentary Secretary say how many people are liable to be temporarily put out of work because their places of business are to be closed? Before we decide this matter we have a right to that information.
    I should also like to know—perhaps she may be able to tell me the approximate number—how many people will find work as a result of these schemes. I am certain that since she made her speech before Christmas she will have obtained some definite information on this point. So far as Exeter is concerned, I should like to know whether the labour to be employed will be local or whether there will be any labour brought in from outside. It will probably be local labour. This, of course, is a matter of vital importance, where you have a large city going in for street widening, and it is desirable that definite information should be given on the point which I have raised. Assuming that there is local labour, then I have no particular quarrel with the proposal. There is a further important point so far as these two schemes are concerned, and that is the amount of Government contribution, if any, and the amount of the local contribution. I should not have brought this matter forward had not the Parliamentary Secretary stated before Christmas that the value of the schemes was that they would help the unemployed. I hone she will be able to give the information for which I have asked.
    Sir ROBERT NEWMAN: I had no idea that my hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Mr. Williams) was going to oppose this Bill.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: I have not done so.
    Sir R. NEWMAN: Or that he was going to raise certain questions, I imagine that he is not going to oppose the Bill. We are old friends, and if he had intended to oppose the Bill I feel sure that he would have given me more than fifteen minutes' notice. Had he given me longer notice I might have supplemented some of the information for which he has asked. I am strongly in favour of the Third Reading of the Bill. It is not altogether a question of unemployment so far as Exeter is concerned. Anybody who has any knowledge of the City of Exeter—I have no doubt that my hon. Friend knows Exeter very well—must realise that the question of traffic there is most serious, and it is becoming most dangerous. I have known cases in which people in the summer time have taken nearly three-quarters of an hour to go down the High Street. Casualties are increasing, and the City Council are proposing this scheme to meet the situation. No council is anxious to spend money unnecessarily, but in this case the expenditure has been forced upon the City Council. They are trying to do their best, in very difficult circumstances, to get rid of the congested state of the city streets. Of course, the scheme will help the unemployed, but I do not pretend to say how many will be helped.
    I had not the pleasure of hearing what the Parliamentary Secretary said on the previous occasion, but I imagine that she could not have based the whole of her argument on the statement that the scheme was for the benefit of the unemployed. I imagine that what she had in her mind was that, in addition to trying to get over a great difficulty in regard to traffic, the scheme will certainly help the unemployed. It does not require any great intelligence to know that if you are going to widen a large number of streets and to do this, that and the other and spend thousands of pounds, it must obviously mean that a great deal of employment will be necessary. I would remind the House that the Bill has been very carefully considered in another place, that it has come down here for our general approval, and I hope that my hon. Friend will
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    stand no longer between the passage of the Bill and the great advantage which will be derived by Exeter.
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Miss Lawrence): I have little to add to what has been said by the hon. Member for Exeter (Sir R. Newman). The traffic difficulty in Exeter is a very real one. In 1928, there were 453 accidents in Exeter, and the Exeter City Council is extremely anxious to do considerable street widening. As to the number of shops that will be temporarily closed, they are set out in the Schedule in considerable detail, and the hon. Member for Torquay can count them as well as I can.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: I want to know the number of people who will be temporarily displaced, and the number who will be employed.
    Miss LAWRENCE: I cannot give the number of people employed in the shops, but I can give the amount of money that Exeter proposes to spend in the street widening. It proposes to spend £35,870 on the widening and, although that includes material and so forth, it will give employment to a very considerable number of persons. That sum is not inconsiderable, having regard to the size of Exeter.
    With regard to Romford, the proposed scheme relates to a bottle-neck in the town, in the main thoroughiare between the Docks, Barking and Tilbury. The road is terribly congested, and is estimated to carry 11,000 tons a day. It is used by 15 services of omnibuses. This street widening will perhaps do more to expedite traffic than many bigger schemes. I have not an exact estimate of the cost, but it will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of £10,000. The localities are bearing the cost out of their own funds, so that almost certainly they will employ local labour.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: No Government contribution.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL.
  Postponed Proceeding on Question, "That the Bill be now read the Third time," resumed.
  Colonel ASHLEY: During the very interesting Debate this afternoon on unemployment there was an atmosphere of unrelieved gloom in the speeches of every hon. Member who addressed the House. Although the bear points are far more numerous than the bull points, I should like, before going into the matter more deeply, to indicate to the House where in my opinion we may look for some breaking of the sun through the clouds of our present industrial desolation. It is, unfortunately, true that we have for the last four or five years had a total number of unemployed ranging from 1,300,000 to 1,500,000 at the present time, and that the tendency has been slightly to increase rather than decrease. But we must not forget that during the past five years—I take the period from 1924 onwards as a convenient period for examination—the population of Great Britain has increased by 800,000 people. Therefore, it is not quite fair from the industrial standpoint to say that the number of unemployed are the same, because we must remember that we have absorbed into industry practically all the additional months which have come up for employment during the past five years; and that, after all, is a considerable source of satisfaction.
  There is another point. At the present moment we have 550,000 more men employed in insured trades than in 1924, which again shows that this country, though unfortunately notable to absorb all its own people, is able to meet the increase in population and absorb it into the ordinary industrial life of the country. There are two other encouraging factors. One is the increasing amount of money in our savings banks and saving agencies generally. The money put into these funds is mainly, almost entirely, supplied by the lower middle class and the weekly wage earner. Taking the same period, that is from 1924, in that year the sum invested in the saving agencies was £1,133,000,000, and last year it had risen to no less a sum than £1,300,000,000; a very considerable increase in the wealth of the working
  1590
  classes. It is a tribute to the education of the people, and to their sobriety. They are denying themselves many things which they would like to have, and during that period of five years the capital wealth of what is called the working classes of this country has increased by £167,000,000. In 1926, the year of the great strike, the national income and expenditure barely balanced. It is estimated by competent officials at the Board of Trade that the profit of the nation in that year was not more than £9,000,000; which is really nothing at all. It means that our income and expenditure just balanced; whereas in 1927 the national profit, estimated on the same basis and calculated by the same competent officials, was no less than £114,000,000, and in 1928 it had increased to £149,000,000.
  Taking all these factors into consideration it is fair to assume that this country, although it still has this array of unemployed, which shows a certain tendency to increase, has yet been able to absorb the new entrants into industry created by an increase in population, and that owing to the spread of education and knowledge and sobriety in all classes we have been able, in spite of bad trade and adverse circumstances, to increase the national wealth by a sum by no means negligible. Those are the cheerful sides which the House should certainly look at, but, on the other hand, there is no denying the unpleasant fact that last year we exported in bulk 20 per cent. less than in 1913. It is an occurrence which gives rise to serious disquietude. Also, if you take values—I know they are constantly changing and it is not easy to compare them—it will be found that in 1924, the first year of the census of production, we exported goods to the tune of £800,000,000, whereas last year our exports unfortunately fell to £729,000,000. In those five years the value of our exports, for what it is worth, had decreased by £71,000,000, whereas, if we look at our industrial competitors on the Continent and in America, we find that every single one increased their exports.
  Take the figures of unemployment. The Lord Privy Seal frankly acknowledged that this month the figures of unemployment will rise to 1,500,000. He said that they were 1,473,000 to-day. The hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Mills) when

  1591
  we were talking about unemployment in America said that the number of unemployed in the United States was 3,000,000. I do not know where he gets that figure. If he goes into the question, he will find that there are no reliable figures at all with regard to the United States. Only a few of the State publish figures, and I imagine that the figure he mentioned, 3,000,000, was an estimate of the President of the American Federation of Labour. I am sure the hon. Member meant to give us as accurate a figure as he could get, but it is only a surmise and one of which we cannot much notice.
  Mr. STRACHEY: If the right hon. and gallant Member will allow me. I have just returned from Washington, and 3,000,000 is the official estimate of the Department of Commerce there. They themselves do not pretend to perfect accuracy because they have no figures comparable in accuracy with ours, but to the best of their knowledge they put the number of their unemployed at about 3,000,000.
  Colonel ASHLEY: I am glad the hon. Member has made that statement, and I, of course, accept it. Let us assume that the figure is 3,000,000. They have a population of 122,000,000 as compared with our population of 45,000,000, so that if we had the same number of unemployed in proportion to population as the United States our figure would be 1,100,000 instead of 1,500,000. Take France, they have no unemployment. The number last December was 10,000. Take Germany, where official figures are given. The population of Germany is 63,000,000 as compared with 45,000,000 in this country, and there are 1,600,000 unemployed who are officially on the register. If we had the same number of unemployed in proportion to population we should have 1,100,000. Therefore, from the unemployment point of view we are distinctly worse than any of our trade competitors; we cannot take any satisfaction to ourselves that our unemployment is less than that of our trade competitors.
  Mr. HANNON: Would it not be desirable to have a Member of the Government on the Front Bench to reply to my right hon. and gallant Friend?
  Colonel ASHLEY: I appreciate the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Mosley (Mr. Hannon), but if he does not mind I do not mind.
  Mr. HANNON: I think my right hon. and gallant Friend should "mind" it very much.
  Colonel ASHLEY: Then we have the great disadvantage of being the heaviest taxed country in the world, We are taxed three times more heavily than Germany, and twice more heavily than France. We have to carry a very heavy burden in regard to our social services. They cost the country no less than £360,000,000 every year. Everybody wants to continue these services, nobody would desire to diminish them, but hon. Members in all parts of the House must agree that when we are carrying this enormous burden of social services as compared with the United States of America—I speak with some hesitation in the presence of the hon. Member for Aston (Mr. Strachey)—where the only tax upon national money is the education tax, a more flea-bite as compared with ours, that our manufacturers and workmen are heavily handicapped in their industrial competition with the rest of the world. Surely this is hardly the time, when the Lord Privy Seal comes down and acknowledges that he has not, only made no impression on unemployment, but that it is increasing in comparison with this time last year, for His Majesty's Government to put through schemes and outline measures which in a full year are going to burden the taxpayer of this country, and therefore industry, with another £15,000,000 or £20,000,000 a year. How can the Lord Privy Seal, how can the Government, expect any diminution of unemployment with this extra burden upon the taxpayer?
  I am rather sorry the Lord Privy Seal is not here because I understood him to say most distinctly in his speech that the Government gave no pledge at all at the General Election that they would deal immediately and successfully with the problem of unemployment. That is my recollection of what the Lord Privy Seal said. I hold in my hand the "Labour Appeal to the Nation, General Election, 1929," and it is signed by James Ramsay MacDonald, J. R. Clynes, Herbert

  1593
  Morrison and Arthur Henderson. Under the heading "Unemployment" it says:
  "The Labour party gives an unqualified pledge to deal immediately and practically with this question. Its record on unemployment is a guarantee that this pledge will be kept."
  8.0 p.m.
  Have they dealt immediately or practically with unemployment? Nine-tenths of the schemes cannot come into operation for six months. The only practical result is that there is more unemployment now than there was at this time last year. The Lord Privy Seal cannot get out of the Socialist party's pledges in that way. Every elector, in places where there was a Socialist candidate, was informed that if the Socialist party was elected, it would "deal practically and immediately with the problem of unemployment." Of course we all knew that that was quite impossible. We knew that the Socialist pledge was as impossible of fulfilment as was the programme of the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), who proposed to solve the problem in 12 months by means of road schemes.
  There are only two means by which the matter can be dealt with and both ought to be adopted. One is rationalisation and amalgamation, and the other is an extension of safeguarding. It is true that in this country there are many businesses which are inefficiently managed and conducted on antiquated lines. Let those businesses put their house in order, and then they will have more chance of competing in the markets of the world. But, however much you rationalise, however efficient you become, you cannot in that way alone get over tariff walls; you cannot deal with the protected markets to which you are denied access. When you have rationalised, I am sure that in addition you will have to turn sooner or later to a measure of Protection and to a further extension of Imperial Preference.
  Mr. MILLS: The House is indebted to the late Minister of Transport, who has just spoken, for the moderate tone that he has adopted, and his frank acknowledgment of the difficulties of any Government in dealing with the problem of unemployment must have appealed to all who wish to contribute to the solution of this problem. Before I proceed
  1594
  further, and in order that the accuracy of these Debates might be maintained, I would like to say, not as a defender of the Government, but in order to explain the position, taken up by the hon. Member for Moseley (Mr. Hannon), who complained of the non-attendance of Members of the Government, that business was suspended at 7.30 for private Bills. There was previously a full muster of all three Members of the Unemployment Committee of the Government, generally known to hon. Members opposite as "The Unholy Trinity," and as a matter of fact the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade—
  Mr. HANNON: I am quite aware of that, but surely one of the Whips could easily tell the Ministers to come back?
  Mr. MILLS: I was saying that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade has been in attendance the whole time. He is taking notes of what is said, and I have no doubt will pass them on. It is true that during the Debate on Empire Free Trade last week, I interjected the remark that unemployment was not a phenomenon confined to any one country, or a problem that could be dealt with in terms of tariffs or Free Trade. It is true that I said that, so far as we knew, there were 3,000,000 unemployed in the United States. I drew my deductions from the only source that we had at our command, and that was the American Federation of Labour, which is the complement in America of the Trades Union Congress of Britain. I admit that the workers in America are not organised industrially to the extent that workers are in this country, and that any compilation they may make may well be on the conservative side; but my hon. Friend the Member for Aston (Mr. Strachey) has explained that he has just returned from Washington, and that 3,000,000 is the more or less authoritative figure issued by the Washington Chamber of Commerce.
  A colleague has very kindly handed to me a quotation from the Washington correspondent of the "Yorkshire Post," a newspaper which will be accepted without reserve and without exception by hon. Members opposite. That correspondent reports as follows:
  "The largest amount of unemployment since the American Federation of Labour has undertaken the compilation of statistics

  1595
  is noted in a statement by the President, Mr. William Green, for the first two weeks in January, showing 19 per cent. of union members workless compared with 16 per cent. in December, and 18 per cent. in January. Mr. Green's statement covers 640,000 wage-earners in 24 cities."
  If that deduction is drawn from only 24 cities, it is reasonable to assume that 3,000,000 is a conservative estimate of the total numbers unemployed in the United States. Therefore I submit that Members who occupy the benches on the Government side have no need to defend the Lord Privy Seal, but have merely to state in terms of ordinary common sense what they know to be the facts. Those who occupy the Labour benches, whether they be red, white or pink, are merely the holders of political power, and, by laws passed for generations, financial power remains untrammelled by anything that we might do. We are to-day hampered, and will continue to be hampered, by laws that have been passed deliberately to limit the powers possessed by any Member of any Government.
  Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being present—
  Mr. MILLS: I was about to say that when, during the great industrial depression of 1921–22, the Dartmouth division of Kent was amongst the necessitous areas, we did our best, and, I believe, the Minister of Labour at that time did his best, to see what could be done. But we found in 1921 as we found again in 1930, that with regard to the powers of this House to deal with the problem of unemployment, the Ministry of Labour remains to-day as it has remained since the first Employment Exchange was opened, that is, that it has never regulated anybody but the working classes, that it is merely a Ministry for regulating and administering unemployment benefit. The Lord Privy Seal, as a result of the General Election of last year, was asked to undertake the task of examining the question of unemployment. If the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery), whom I see opposite, intends to intervene, he might at least be honest enough to admit the difficulties which face the Lord Privy Seal in dealing with this problem. He knows and every old Member of the House knows, that until
  1596
  this Government came into power the Lord Privy Seal's office was purely a perquisite office, that the job of the Lord Privy Seal was merely to lead the House of Commons and to be responsible for its business in the absence of the Prime Minister. It is perfectly well known to everyone who has taken any interest in this problem, that the Lord Privy Seal has had to spend weeks and months in getting over the watertight compartments of the Civil Service in order to get information when asked for, either from the Treasury or the Home Office or the Board of Trade or the Ministry of Labour or the Department of Overseas Trade.
  I shall confine my further remarks to one or two simple illustrations which will prove the truth of our contention that the Government have been diligent and have set about the problem in a practical way, but that they have been confronted with forces over which they have no control. Take, for instance, the question of the Dartford-Purfleet tunnel. They have been committees for the last 12 years for dealing with the question of a tunnel between France and England. The question of a tunnel under the Thames has been outstanding for many years. The construction of that tunnel was recommended to the Conservative Government in 1925. Nothing was done. Directly after the last General Election and directly the Lord Privy Seal had begun his job, as a Member for one of the divisions interested in that tunnel, I visited him, and we went into the question with the Minister of Transport. We found that the traffic problem of London was bound up with this question, that the increased efficiency of industry in Hertfordshire, Essex and Kent was bound up with it, because the only means of communication were 10 miles down the river over a private ferry, or eight miles up the river by a publicly-owned ferry, both being subject to fog and tidal conditions, or to go further up the river to Black wall Tunnel. Nothing had been done for four years, and although we got the local authorities on both sides of the river to form a committee to expedite everything that could be done, although the Kent County Council was approached and kept in direct communication, we found that the law of this country is such, and the local

  1597
  government Acts of successive years have contributed to such a state of affairs, that this one of over 650 proposed schemes, all of which would add to the efficiency of the country and would give employment to numbers of the population—because the law as it stands leaves the whole problem of unemployment in the hands of the county authorities, nothing can be done in any county unless the county council is prepared to take the initiative.
  In spite of every effort that we could make, it was Wednesday of last week before a Bill was brought forward by the county councils and those responsible, as a Private Member's Bill. When it was brought forward 10 Conservative Members immediately rose to object in the name of shipping companies in Cardiff and Newcastle. Members on this side of the House have received correspondence, all of the same kind, objcting to this greatly-needed scheme on the ground that some day or other a heavier type of vessel might be required on the river, and that consequently we ought to go 30 or 40 feet deeper to provide for something that might happen in the future. Anyone who knows the traffic on the Thames knows that we have reached almost the limit in dock development, considering the width of the river, and that it is almost impossible to think of vessels there with a deeper draft than those which are coming up the river at the present time. Yet this scheme, which would open up the three counties I have mentioned, and which must be a condition precedent to any tunnel between Britain and France, has been held up for the last six months in spite of all the efforts that we on this side have made.
  Take other contributory factors to this problem. During the Tamworth Election I did my best to prevent the return of the late Minister of Labour, and I made a statement there which I am going to repeat here. The hon. Member for Moseley Division of Birmingham can examine it and controvert it, or ignore it as he pleases. Warwickshire miners are in training at Watford, and young men from the mining districts of Warwickshire and other counties are being taken away from those counties to be trained for jobs which may accrue in other industries, and yet if the Warwickshire County Council
  1598
  examined its own deficiencies and inefficiencies in the matter of communications and canals and general development, not a single adult worker need have left the borders of that county. What can be said of Warwickshire can be said of Lancashire, Durham and practically every other county. We are in a period of financial depression. No one wants to kick a man when he is down, and the Courts have decided in the recent financial cases, and whether or not the punishment fits the crime is not for us to say. But at least no one acquainted with finance can deny that the repercussions of the American financial slump, and of events which occurred during the summer and autumn of last year, have contributed in no little degree to the growing problem of unemployment.
  If there were time, one could cite innumerable instances of the great need for county authorities and corporations bringing forward and expediting plans which the Lord Privy Seal and his colleagues are only too anxious to sanction and carry forward. At the present time, public opinion in Southend is red-hot in its indignation against the present antique method of electricity production and distribution there. Yet nothing can be done because they are waiting on some committee. I have approached the Lord Privy Seal on four occasions, because the contract was placed as long ago as June last with a firm in the Dartford Division of Kent. That firm is anxious to get on with the job, but the matter is being held up not because of any red tape as far as I can discover from Members of the Government, but because of forces which are entirely outside their control.
  Mr. HANNON: In the first place may I acknowledge the courtesy of the First Commissioner of Works in coming into the House to hear what some of us on these back benches have to say on this subject.
  The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Lansbury): May I take this opportunity of apologising to the House. The Chancellor of the Duchy and myself agreed to divide the time. I thought that the two private Bills which had been set down would take a longer time. I had been sitting in the House from the commencement of the Debate until then, and I was nearly starving.
  Mr. HANNON: I was expressing my appreciation of the right hon. Gentleman's courtesy and consideration in coming back to the House, and I hope he enjoyed his dinner. With reference to the speech of the hon. Member for Dart-ford (Mr. Mills) I only make this observation. I think he was exceedingly unfortunate in suggesting that the Civil Service placed obstacles in the way of ordinary procedure in connection with the carrying out of the very responsible duties involved in dealing with the unemployment problem. Every Member of the House and, above all, Ministers of the Crown, will acknowledge the enthusiasm, loyalty and capacity of the whole Civil Service in helping any Administration which is in office.
  Mr. MILLS: I am sure the hon. Member does not wish to misrepresent me. The hon. Member knows the procedure of the House as well as I do. I was merely pointing out when I was interrupted by a count and had not the opportunity of completing my argument that the office of Lord Privy Seal was usually a perquisite office to which no executive authority attached; that the holder of the office merely had a couple of typewriters and two secretaries, and that the work of co-ordinating or of getting over the water-tight compartments of the Civil Service was a matter of difficulty. But I did not impute any discourtesy, or friction to the Civil Service, and I should be the last to do so.
  Mr. HANNON: Of course, I accept the explanation of the h on. Member. But what does he mean by water-tight compartments in the Civil Service? Does that indicate that the Civil Service which has given repeated proofs of its loyalty to every Administration, can be charged with standing in the way of this Administration performing its public duties? That is a suggestion which, I submit, would be unworthy of any hon. Member in this House. We had this afternoon a very remarkable, very plausible, somewhat apologetic, but very hopeless speech from the Lord Privy Seal. Hon. Members came down to the House to-day to hear some definite account of progress in relation to the Government's unemployment scheme. The Lord Privy Seal, for whom we have all the greatest respect, dealt with the situation with his accustomed Parliamentary astuteness.
  1600
  He glided over difficulties, forgot his promises, gave a very gentle tinge to his pledges, and then, more or less, appealed for the sympathy of the House in the difficult situation in which he found himself. Let me recall a statement of the Lord Privy Seal in a speech at Oldham on 24th May, before the party opposite had cajoled the electors into putting them into office.
  "Labour is going to solve the unemployment problem by spending money, by giving better pensions to old people, and finding jobs for young people."
  This afternoon the right hon. Gentleman told the House that the last thing which he could contemplate was the spending of money for any kind of unproductive work, which would not be of a permanent character or of economic value. He did not say anything about bigger pensions for the deluded people to whom those pensions were promised when the party opposite was facing the electorate, nor did he say anything about the number of young persons who had been restored to industry in this country by the wise, prudent, helpful, inspiring policy of His Majesty's Ministers. But that is not the whole of the story about the Lord Privy Seal. In this House on 4th November he said, with all the fine rhetorical qualities for which he is distinguished, with the same plausibility, and the same delightful apologetics:
  "When I first addressed the House on this question, it will be remembered, I clearly indicated that I had no magic cure for the problem of unemployment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November, 1929; col. 658, Vol. 231.]
  On the 24th May Labour was going to solve the unemployment problem, the people of this country who were out of work were going to be provided with jobs, and the sun of employment and prosperity was going to shine upon this country for all time to come. Every single Labour leader, including, no doubt, the First Commissioner of Works, who in this high quality abounds more than any other of his colleagues, went to meetings in Bow and Bromley and elsewhere and said, What a glorious time this nation will have when the great constructive Labour party come into power. The Lord Privy Seal went on to say:
  "I attach far more importance. …. to the development and the encouraging of our export trade. …. than I do to any other."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November, 1920; cols. 670–1, Vol. 231.]

  1601
  What have the Government done for the export trade of this country since they came into office? The export trade has gone down, and every industry in the country has been more or less hampered in its activity. Not a single industry in this country to-day, except perhaps the distributive trades for home consumption, can point to a position of permanent stability in carrying on productive work.
  I think it was very unfortunate and undesirable that the Lord Privy Seal, in his speech in the House to-day, took so much pains to decry the efficiency of many great works engaged in productive enterprises in this country. One would imagine, listening to his speech, that most of the great firms in this country were being bolstered up by over-capitalisation, were employing their opportunities to prey upon the State for financial support, and were at the same time inefficiently equipped to carry on their industry with economy and despatch. It is very unfortunate that the Lord Privy Seal should have made statements of that character during the course of his speech to-night. There are many works in this country, great works engaged in the steel trade, in the non-ferrous metal trade, in the wool industry, and in the cotton industry, in spite of many no doubt defective cotton mills, that are as efficiently provided to cope with world competition as any firms in the whole world.
  The Lord Privy Seal, having warmed himself into this attack on the efficiency of many enterprises in this country, and alluding to some by name, did not do anything more than to sweep the question aside and to say, "When we get these industries efficient, it will be time to say what we can do to find a market for their produce." Anything more hopeless, more deplorable, we have never had uttered in this House than the statement made by the Lord Privy Seal in that respect. The Lord Privy Seal, in our Debate in November, referred to a distinct series of constructive works which he contemplated realising actual results in a comparatively short time.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland), in his opening speech to-day, put a series of questions to the Front Bench. The Lord Privy Seal was not present, but the Chancellor of the Duchy was there, and
  1602
  apparently took note of the questions which my right hon. Friend submitted. The Lord Privy Seal did not answer any of those questions, and I will repeat, for the edification of the First Commissioner of Works, some of the questions which his colleague failed to answer. My right hon. Friend asked the Lord Privy Seal whether, in connection with his visit to Canada, the 600,000 tons of anthracite coal which he promised would be sent to that Dominion in 1929 had been so sent. If the Lord Privy Seal made a definite promise of that kind, we ought to have evidence that that promise has been fulfilled. In the course of his speech in the House to-day, the Lord Privy Seal used the word "specific," I should say, 20 times. Here is a specific promise, and I ask the First Commissioner to give us a specific reply. Were the 600,000 tons of anthracite coal sent to Canada last year?
  The second statement made by the Lord Privy Seal on the same occasion, a question in relation to which was put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth, was that there was a contract for five 7,000-ton ships. I really must have the attention of the First Commissioner.
  Mr. LANSBURY: I am trying to get the hon. Member's question down.
  Mr. HANNON: This is a question of the fulfilment of Ministerial promises, and the Ministry must stand or fall by their promises. I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that his colleague, the Lord Privy Seal, told the House that
  "a contract for five 7,000-ton ships to deal with the coal next year alone is being negotiated."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November, 1929; col. 675, Vol. 231.]
  Mr. LANSBURY: The right hon. Gentleman did really deal with this matter.
  Mr. HANNON: No.
  Mr. LANSBURY: The OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow will prove whether I am right or wrong in that statement. My right hon. Friend did deal with the five ships and with the question of the export of coal from this country, and everybody cheered his reply.
  Sir KINGSLEY WOOD: What did he say?
  Mr. HANNON: He did not deal with it.
  Mr. LANSBURY: You must not incite me.
  Mr. HANNON: The last thing I would try to do would be to incite the right hon. Gentleman, because heaven knows what would happen on this side if he were once incited, but I say with great respect to the right hon. Gentleman that the two questions to which I have just alluded have not been dealt with to-night by the Lord Privy Seal. The third question was this: He said that arrangements were being made for the Export Credits Committee to give certain financial facilities to help the export of steel into Canada. I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has any reply to make to that statement made by the Lord Privy Seal. Will he say that the Lord Privy Seal dealt with that point in his speech to-night? Not a bit of it; and, more than that, the Lord Privy Seal quite forgot to tell us anything about Empire development. Addressing the House on two former occasions, he was very eloquent—nobody in this House can fail to realise his intense interest in the Empire, and many of us are most grateful for the work he has done for Imperial development—on the subject of Empire development. On one of those occasions he said that the Zambesi bridge scheme, costing some £3,000,000, had been approved under the Colonial Development Act. I ask the Chancellor of the Duchy or the First Commissioner of Works to tell us what progress has been made with that scheme; how far have negotiations gone; has any money been expended upon it; are any contracts contemplated as coming here in connection with it; and what will be the volume of employment obtained out of it?
  The Lord Privy Seal told us in his speech on the 4th November that the Electricity Board had let contracts amounting to £1,250,000. Will the First Commissioner tell us, when he replies, what progress has been made with the expenditure of that money in the prosecution of that scheme? He said that the Post Office was spending £750,000 in each of the next two years. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what progress is being made in that direction? Will he also tell us the position of the Charing Cross Bridge scheme, for which the Lord Privy Seal has established a permanent
  1604
  place in the social life of this country, owing to his advocacy of this scheme. What progress has been made in that great adventure in modern statecraft, for which the Lord Privy Seal has secured so much publicity?
  In his former speeches, he told us from time to time that the electrification of railways was the object dearest to his heart. Those of us who have been advocating the electrification of railways said, "Here at last conies the great man who will accomplish these things; now, indeed, have we found the constructive artificer who will build these great projects; here he is in the person of the Lord Privy Seal." May I ask the First Commissioner what progress has been made; he is, of course, familiar with every detail of the progress that has been made from day to day in the office of his colleague, helping him, advising him, and encouraging him, saying, "You are not going fast enough my right hon. Friend; go a little faster." I can hardly conceive the First Commissioner ever being anything in this life but an accelerating force. I ask him to tell the House what actual progress has been made with the scheme of electrification round London? Every Member of the House has from time to time been faced by his constituents with the problem of congestion in our streets, and London is by far the most difficult problem in that respect.
  When the present Government, with the monopoly of all wisdom and statesmanship, came into office, they promised at once to solve all these things, as they promised so many others, but what progress has been made in the electrification scheme, for example, of the London and North Eastern Railway round Liverpool Street? Have the Lord Privy Seal and the Government failed to convince the London and North Eastern Railway of the immediate importance of proceeding with a scheme, the details of which were worked out six or eight years ago? I can hardly think that a man like the First Commissioner of Works, whose heart and soul are burning for his people, and who is thinking of the inconvenience of people travelling in and put of London, could not go down to the board room at Liverpool Street, and tackle these ferocious directors of the railway, and make them, by force if necessary, pro

  1605
  ceed with a scheme of such profound importance for the promotion of the welfare of the City of London.
  The speech of the Lord Privy Seal was sadder in one respect than in any other. He alluded to what had happened in this direction and that direction because of forces over which his colleague in this wise and wonderful Government had no control. He never suggested for a moment, except in reply to an interruption from this side, what the Government were going to do to try and solve this embarrassing situation. He charged the manufacturers of this country with inefficiency; he talked of all the difficulties placed in his way, but when he was pressed to a point, as he was by myself in this House a short time ago, he was forced to admit that he was exercising pressure upon somebody else in order to supply the only helpful and real remedy to solve these difficulties. We can get some idea of the necessity of the Lord Privy Real using pressure from a statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the 18th of May last, when the process of vote seeking was in full swing The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the most mysterious person in the party opposite. I can imagine gentle and kindly persons, like the Minister of Pensions or the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, getting up in the morning and offering up a humble prayer for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and at night offering up a little prayer of thankfulness if he has conferred any favour upon them.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the terror of the Lord Privy Seal on the one side, and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) is the terror on the other. I have seen from time to time the Lord Privy Seal sitting on the Front Bench, and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bridgeton, in all his quiet cloak of mystery, in his back corner there, and immediately a thrill passes over the Front Bench, and the Lord Privy Seal looks round to see whether the fire is in the eyes of the hon. Member for Bridgeton. Here is what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said on 18th May, when addressing a meeting at Huddersfield, which is the place where he told them that the Committee of Inquiry set up by the Board of Trade to investigate the condition of the woollen
  1606
  textile industry was going to report against Safeguarding—one of the most improper observations ever made by a man seeking votes in this country. On 18th May he said this:
  "I can promise you that a Labour Government would start at once with determination"—
  every mortal thing which a Labour Government proposes, they are going to start with determination—
  "and what is more, with the knowledge of the nature of the remedy that will have to be applied."
  Then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, this wise prophet of the beneficent future which this nation will enjoy under the ægis of the Labour party, said:
  "In twelve months time I am confident we are going to make a great impression on the magnitude of this problem."
  We have gone eight months of the twelve, and I do not think any hon. Member on the other side will maintain that this prognostication is likely to be realised. The Labour party are pursuing a negative method of making an impression. The Lord Privy Seal, before he closed his speech, made what he called specific reference to the cotton trade in Lancashire, and he looked across at me, one of the mildest persons in this House, and said that hon. Gentlemen in Lancashire who preached Protection will have very short shrift, or words to that effect. We have to-day, curiously enough, a statement made by Mr. Harold King, a director of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board and treasurer of the Manchester Conservative Association. I wanted to be frank, so I have given the whole list. He says:
  "A remarkable change, amounting almost to a revolution, has come over the thought and feeling of Manchester in relation to fiscal issues."
  The Lord Privy Seal spoke about the strong antagonism to Protection or Safeguarding inherent in Lancashire thought. He alluded to the deplorable condition of the trade in Lancashire to-day. Can there be any more extraordinary example of the complete failure of Free Trade in this country than the present conditions of the cotton trade of Lancashire? Every branch of the trade is suffering. Mr. King goes on to say:
  "Where a few years ago little else was heard than eulogies of the old-fashioned type

  1607
  of Free Trade and the slogans of the old-fashioned Free Trade, now seven out of ten of the people one meets are shedding their long-cherished notions. I believe it only needs a strong lead to make them fall into line in the Empire crusade."
  After the weakness of effective argument from the Front Bench opposite and the substantial case set forth on this side showing the grave nature of the present situation, I say that only by a sound and common sense constructive economic policy can the unemployment problem of this country be solved. The two suggestions I submit are these. In the first place—and I have often marvelled that this had not come from hon. Members opposite—we have to readjust our outlook with regard to the preservation of our market in this country for our own people. Secondly, we ought by every possible means to get closer to all the constituent parts of our Empire overseas—the self-governing Dominions, India and our Colonial Empire. By closer relations with them and by clear understandings we can create opportunities for their cooperation in making the Empire market more and more absorbent of our manufactured articles. No scheme, no matter how well-intentioned or sound or enthusiastically proposed, can carry this country to economic prosperity unless we prevent the entry of the flood of commodities produced in foreign countries under competitive conditions such as we can never meet. I ask any hon. Member on the Front Bench opposite to walk down the streets of Birmingham, where we have 1,700 small trades, and see in the shop windows the display of articles from Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Germany and France, offered at prices at which they cannot be produced in Birmingham. In face of that state of affairs, it is idle to talk of slip-shod remedies and not tackle the problem at the very root by a well-devised and far-reaching system for safeguarding the industries of this country.
  Mr. ERNEST WINTERTON: I do not propose to follow the last speaker in the very interesting argument which he has put to the House. I think few of us were surprised that it ended on the note of Empire Free Trade. I rise to deal with an assertion, frequently made in this House, regarding the actual extent of unemployment after some seven or
  1608
  eight months of a Labour Government. After examining the figures of the Ministry of Health I wish to correct what I believe to be an entirely erroneous impression created by some of the critics of the Government. It is quite true, comparing the figures in December, 1929, with the figures in May, 1929, that there are 176,000 more unemployed on the register, but it is also true that if we look at the figures for the corresponding period of 1928, when hon. Members opposite were in office, we shall find, in the comparison over those seven months, that 169,000 more people were unemployed during that period. I frankly confess that on these figures there were 7,000 more people unemployed during the regime of the Labour Government than in the corresponding period when the party opposite were in power; and I frankly acknowledge, further, that we ourselves are in some measure responsible for part of that increase.
  One of the administrative acts of the Ministry of Labour was to ease the working of the Clause, in the Unemployment Insurance Act which struck men off benefit on the ground that they were not genuinely seeking work. [HON. MEMBERS: "That legislation has not come into operation yet !"] I am not talking about legislation; I am talking about administration. Quite early in the life of the present Government a right of appeal was given to a board of assessors which had the result of bringing into benefit a great many people who had been deprived of that benefit under the regime of the insurance officer. Therefore, there is no wonder that there has been some increase in the figures, because under a more humane administration of the Unemployment Insurance Act certain people have been able to get benefit of which they had been deprived by the predecessors of the present Government.
  I want to compare the figures in the only way in which it is fair to compare them, and that is to take them month by month. I will give the House the percentages of unemployment during the two periods—first the period from January, 1929, to May, 1929, and then the period from January, 1928, to May, 1928. I ask hon. Members to remember that during the first five months of 1928 and the first five months of 1929 our critics opposite were in office.

  1609
  In January, 1928, the figure was 10.7 per cent., and in 1929 it was 12.2, or in other words an increase of 1.5 per cent. In February, 1928, the percentage was 10.4, and in 1929 12.1, or an increase of 1.7 per cent. In March, 1928, the percentage was 9.5, and in March, 1929, it was 10, or an increase of.7. In April, 1928, the figures were 9.5 and in 1929 9.8, an increase of.3. In May, 1928, the percentage was 9.8, and in 1929 the percentage fell to 9.7. Comparing June, 1928, with June, 1929—that is, after the General Election and even before hon. Gentlemen opposite were sitting on those benches—there was a reduction of 1.1 per cent. In July, 1928, the percentage was 11.6, and in 1929. 9.7, or a reduction of 1.9. In August, there was a reduction of 1.7, September 1.4, October 1.4, and November 1.2. It is only in the last month of last year that the reduction was not continued at the same rate and it fell only by.1.
  The moral, surely, is that if we are going to use figures we should use them fairly. During the first five months of the year 1928, as compared with 1929, when the Conservatives were in office, there was in each month an increase in the percentage of the unemployed; and, while the Labour Government have been in office, in spite of all the failures criticisms, and difficulties which have been so much magnified by hon. Members opposite, there has not been a single month in which there has not been a decrease in the percentage of the unemployed as compared with the previous year. Although some hon. Members sitting on these benches do not believe that the progress has been as great as we should have liked it to have been, we admit—this has already been admitted by the Lord Privy Seal—that the difficulties which confront any party that tackles this question are those which have already been mentioned by the Lord Privy Seal, namely, the difficulty of getting speedy action.
  Hon. Members are well aware of the slowness of local authorities in presenting their schemes. They are also aware of the difficulties which confront anybody who wishes to get any scheme of actual work adopted. Hon. Members are aware of the difficulties which confronted the present Government in the early months of its administration before any of their
  1610
  schemes could fructify; but, in spite of this, we have seen a reduction in the percentage of unemployment, and we believe that, when our schemes are hastened, the obstacles to their early development will be removed.
  9.0 p.m.
  I hope every hon. Member will do all he can to help the local authorities, and, if these things are done, I think before many months are out we shall see that definite decrease in the unemployment figures which we are all anxious to see. One hon. Member has been good enough to say that, even if the Government did encourage big schemes connected with our staple industry, there is not very much that could be done to assist this problem. It is all very well to quote literature and leaflets which are sent to us suggesting that the members of the Labour party made promises which they never can redeem. I deny-that we made a promise that within 12 months we would cure the unemployment problem. On this point I will give my own experience. I stated, quite frankly, at my first election meeting that I hoped no one would ever suggest that I had promised, if returned to the House of Commons, that we would find a cure for unemployment either within 12 months, or any other period, under the present structure of society. I think many of my colleagues were wise enough to make that reservation.
  We believe that under the present structure of society, with its competitive basis, the very efforts we are now making to bring it into a more efficient state will react against ourselves. The only thing which those of us who sit on the Labour benches, and who support the Government hope to do is that by using the powers which we are at present allowed to use in the House, we shall be able to palliate the situation and improve it somewhat. I trust we shall show to the country before very long the need for adopting a full constructive Socialist policy such as we know we are not allowed to adopt under the conditions under which the Government now occupy these benches. If the local authorities have been so lacking and slow in taking advantage of the opportunities they have of putting work in hand, I am sure that, if the Lord Privy Seal had undertaken bigger national schemes, he would have

  1611
  been met with even greater obstruction and difficulties than he has met with in connection with local schemes. I am not going down to my constituency to apologise for the so-called failure of the Government to relieve the unemployed. On the figures I have given to the House, I think it is justifiable to say that, while we have done well so far, we expect and believe to do better in the near future.
  Mr. SKELTON: I rise, not to make a prolonged speech on the subject of unemployment, or to bandy statistics across the Floor of the House, and even less to bandy pledges and "you're-another"-arguments of which I am quite weary. So far there does not seem to have been any other argument except "you're another." I want to direct the attention of the House, and still more the attention of the Minister who is going to reply to a topic which has never been even remotely touched upon in this Parliament in connection with the unemployment problem. I rise only to ask the Minister who is going to reply, if he will state the view of the Government on the topic that I am going to discuss, and, in particular, why that topic has never been brought in as a remedy under the present administration for the problems of unemployment. The topic to which I refer is, of course, the land. I do not propose to enter into a discussion of the reasons that have led me in this Parliament, as in the last, to believe that in a sound and sensible and, if you like, restricted scheme of land settlement in this country, there is an avenue by which to some extent the permanently unemployed can in part be dealt with. I am not going into the question at length, because the time at my disposal is short, and because the evidence is clear, from what has been done in land settlement since the War, that men of urban upbringing, training and occupation can, if properly selected, make good under suitable conditions on the land of this country.
  That was admitted by our own Minister of Agriculture when my party was in office, and I do not think it would be denied by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. I should like to ask him, as I understand he is going to
  1612
  reply to the Debate, the following questions. Have the Government considered for themselves the possibilities of handling at least some of the permanently unemployed through land settlement in this country? Let me assure the hon. Gentleman that I do not ask that question as a matter of embarrassment, but because I want to know how the Government stand in this matter. Have they seriously considered whether land settlement in this country can give any assistance in dealing with the problem of unemployment? My second question is whether, if they have considered that matter, they are engaged in framing a scheme? My third question is, if, as I suspect—though I have no business, I suppose, to suspect anything of hon. Gentlemen opposite—if they are not framing a scheme, and if I am right in thinking that in general the possibility of land settlement has been turned down, what is the reason why it has been turned down?
  Is it because there is doubt as to whether land settlement would be of any use, or is it because, whatever Government is in power, the Treasury—which understands as much about the land as the Table before me, and cares less—has told this Government, as they told the last Government, that there was "nothing doing"? If that be the explanation, and I should not be at all surprised if it were, may I appeal to the hon. Gentleman to consider this matter for himself, to look into it for himself, to ask the opinion and assistance of Members in all quarters of the House who have looked into it, and to break this fantastic objection which the Treasury have had, for as long as I personally have had even the most shadowy knowledge of its general views about anything, to spending money n any way that may be of permanent value to the people of this country? The Treasury will consent to additions to unemployment benefit, to any sort of expenditure that comes out of revenue, but, if you ask the Treasury to spend money in a capital way, which will bring permanent advantage, which will be creative and constructive and will be of real value to the lives of the people of this country, the Treasury has a fit of nerves, and it is impossible without the most tremendous effort, whatever party may be in power, to break down the Treasury

  1613
  resistance and say that the matter is a constructive, a creative matter on which money must and shall be spent.
  In asking for an answer to these questions, I should like to draw the attention of the hon. Gentleman to the fact that in the matter of unemployment there are two definite branches. The one is the question of getting trade better and the unemployed back to work, and the other is what is going to be done for the men who are unemployed. On this latter branch it is to be recollected that the Industrial Transference Board made the clearest distinction between the 200,000 men or so who have no hope at all of getting back to their own jobs, and the balance—the unfortunately large balance—who are in and out of employment from time to time, and in the case of whom it is the object of all parties to make their periods of employment long and their periods of unemployment short. The Industrial Transference Board clearly laid down that there were 200,000 men or thereby who would never get work in their own employment. If we are going to do our work as a Parliament, and if hon. Gentlemen opposite are going to do their work properly as a Government, these 200,000 men, whom I have always regarded as the "hard core" of unemployment, must be treated differently from the rest of the unemployed, because the best expert opinion that we can get shows that they can never get back to their own work. It is with regard to them that I desire to direct the attention of the Government to the question of land settlement.
  I do not pretend to hold that 200,000 men can be settled on the land, but, when you are dealing with a comparatively limited figure such as 200,000, if you can get 20,000, or 10,000 or even 5,000 of that number back into permanent employment on the land, I say that that is a side of the question of which the land in this country holds out an opportunity of solution. In my judgment, it is of no avail to say that only 2,000, or 5,000, or 10,000 could be got back on to the land of this country out of a total of 200,000 permanently unemployed. Surely it would he worth while if even 10,000 of these could be permanently dealt with.
  The greatest efforts are being and have for long been made to get people whose prospects of employment in this
  1614
  country are small to go to the Dominions and settle there, and I entirely agree with that as regards the young men; but I say with all the force at my command that, in the case of men of middle age, whose wives are middle-aged, whose families are growing up, whose early vigour is a thing of the past, it is a folly, and more than a folly, to say to them that they must go to the Dominions if there be even the shadow of a chance that they can be given an opportunity of life on the land in this country. If my hon. Friend is of opinion that in Dominion emigration there is a solution of the unemployment problem, let me tell him this, that, just in. so far as the land of this country is made open to the older men, under suitable conditions, with suitable selection and suitable training—I will not go into all the details—all the more eager will the younger men be to take their chance in a flight further afield. I am sure that that is true, and I urge my hon. Friend to answer the questions I have put to him frankly, as though in this matter he were talking over the table in a quiet business conversation. I have not asked them in any critical or controversial spirit, but because I believe that the whole mental attitude of our public people is so highly urbanised, so completely "townified," as is all the expert advice that they get, that it is the easiest thing in the world for the possibilities of the land of this country to be overlooked by one public Department and another. I believe it to be the duty of this House, and perhaps even more the duty of the Opposition, to recall to the Government that the land of England and Scotland is a fruitful land, that to a large extent it is empty land, and that if, while the town is overcrowded and congested, even 2,000 men now permanently out of work could be settled on the land, it is surely worth while for them to see whether help cannot be found there.
  Mr. McSHANE: I should like, in the first place, to congratulate the hon. Member who has just sat down. If the problem of unemployment were dealt with in that spirit more generally than it is, something might be done for the men and women for whom we are pleading. The hon. Member said the Treasury

  1615
  would not spend any money on the land because it did not care for the land. Might I refer him, not to this side at all, but to his own side, to the speech that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) made on the Debate on the Address. He said he would watch with interest the attempts of the Lord Privy Seal to solve the problem of unemployment, for he knew that the Treasury view was that, if money were taken from one source to be applied to another for the relief of unemployment, it would put out of work as many as it would put in work, and he said there had been no answer to that, for it was unanswerable. That also is an answer to the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Skelton). I listened also with very considerable interest to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel). He began with an exceedingly able criticism of the Lord Privy Seal and the Chancellor of the Duchy, so able that I asked myself what he was leading up to. I thought there must obviously be some really great constructive plan that he was going to enunciate, but his speech, when analysed, amounted to three suggestions only. The first was that the Government had not developed sufficient road schemes to absorb a large number of the unemployed. It is a common-place to most thoughtful people already that the man who does best out of the great Toad schemes is the landowner, that he is waiting there almost like a highwayman for us to come along and develop his land, and that whatever benefit is to accrue from great road schemes, the factor which will derive the least benefit of all is that of unemployment.
  His second suggestion was that the insurance schemes that are in operation now may tend to make labour immobile, so that it does not enable men and women to move about freely from one occupation to another. It is difficult to refrain from expressing astonishment at a suggestion like that. Surely he knows very little of working class life and of the efforts that men and women make in all directions, whether it is their own trade or not, to obtain a situation. Surely he must be ignorant of the everyday common experience of the men and women who we represent. It is notorious that
  1616
  the best answer to that was tae speeches made on Clause 4 of the Unemployment Insurance Bill, which all went to show that people out of work sought employment in every conceivable way, and it was precisely because they were doing that, and were penalised for doing it, that there was such general anxiety to remove that iniquitous Clause and to put in one that will be infinitely more humane in its operation. The right hon. Gentleman's criticisms amounted to practically nil, except the pious hope that by coming together we might do something. Unless one has much more constructive plans to put forward than those who sit on the Front Bench here, one ought at least to modify some of one's criticisms.
  The Lord Privy Seal spoke of rationalisation, and said he had approached the trade unions and the employers and both sides were quite agreeable to it. I am only anxious that, while we are pursuing the cheaper production of goods so as to compete with the foreigner, we should remember that there is another aspect of it. I want to know what is going to happen to those who are going to be displaced while rationalisation takes place. One of his phrases was that he must face the consequences, and it is precisely because I want the House to face the consequences that I am speaking. There are surely two consequences. The first may be the cheaper production of goods, but another is the effect on those who are going to be displaced. It may be easy to discuss in general terms the rationalisation of any industry, but it leaves behind it a great trail of ruined homes and broken men and women. Now that the Government, and the House, and the country generally, accept the proposition that, in this insane method of competition between one country and another, rationalisation should take place, and that there must be suffering, it should also be recognised that there lies upon the House and the country the obligation to treat those people as decently and generously as Government officials if they are displaced. Why should there be any such distinction as that? If that were done, the fact that they were still getting wages and salaries would not be the least contribution towards the solving of the unemployment problem.

  1617
  I have sat in the House now for seven or eight months and have listened for hours to all parties making their contribution to this problem and I can say with confidence that there are only apparently a dozen men in the House who are really prepared to face realities at all. What difference is there in the general situation from what there was when Carlyle wrote his "Tracts for the Times"? He quoted exactly the expressions of opinion that I have heard from most quarters of the House with regard to the causes of unemployment. Want of confidence—that is century-old. Spots on the sun may be responsible for it also. The most extraordinary and most continuously-persisting commonplaces are put forward for what is a radical disease. The disease is the same.
  "A million shirts are produced, and a million backs are bare."
  That is as true to-day as if it had been written to-day. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping seems at last to have got a glimpse of the truth In the articles which have appeared in the "Daily Telegraph" he describes his experiences when he was in the United States and the collapse that took place in Wall Street. He said that immediately the first thought of the great employers of labour—not by wisdom or careful thought or consideration, but almost by instinct—was that there must be no reduction of wages. If the working-classes had their wages reduced and their purchasing power was gone, then there would be a collapse and there would be no market at all; but, if they kept their wages up, the employers would manage to tide over this difficulty. I submit that it is along those lines, and not along lines of rationalisation alone and the displacement of more men and women whose purchasing power is further depleted to that extent, that something must be done. At any rate, I have not heard, during the eight months that I have been in this House, apart altogether from the suggestion which came from below the Gangway, any definite constructive suggestion that has not been made a century ago, which would in the slightest way tend to solve this great problem.
  Mr. W. S. MORRISON: It does seem a very ungracious thing to criticise this part
  1618
  of the Consolidated Fund Bill which consists of the Lord Privy Seal's salary, especially after the speech to which in all parts of the House we have listened to to-day with, it is true, some disappointment and a certain amount of alarm at the seriousness of the position, but at the same time with a deep and sincere appreciation of the courage and sincerity with which the right hon. Gentleman has faced up to the appalling facts of the situation. The few remarks which I have to offer will be in no sense directed against the Lord Privy Seal's tenure of his post. I would like to suggest that the actual existence of the post of Minister of Unemployment has been a mistake from the beginning and that we ought to express our opinion against it. I have always thought it was very unwise to create a special post for dealing with this problem, and I think it is also very unfair to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not think it is wise, because it concentrates the attention of the public, not on unemployment, but on this office as if it were one department of public life, something like the Duchy of Lancaster or the Office of Works or some other little Department, and as if it were a one-man job which ran on oiled wheels and had been going for a century.
  Unemployment is not like that, and no good will ever come to us or the public outside from considering unemployment as one Department and making one man responsible for it. It was no doubt a very easy gesture on the part of the Prime Minister to appoint the right hon. Gentleman to his present impossible and onerous position and to say, in effect, to the people of the country: "See how anxious I am about your unemployment. We are not sharing the responsibility of this great evil among all the Departments; I am so anxious about it that I make a special man responsible for that task. If your unemployment figures go up, do not shoot at me. I am a man of peace. Shoot at Jimmy; he is the man responsible." [HON. MEMBERS: "Order !"] Perhaps I should have said, "Shoot at the Lord Privy Seal." I may be pardoned for using that affectionate term about the right hon. Gentleman, considering that many members of his own party are always applying it to him, particularly as a prefix to addresses which are not at all of an affectionate nature.

  1619
  After all, what can a Minister of unemployment do to deal with unemployment? If, for example, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for some reason which is not explained, decides to keep a large part of the industries of this country in complete suspense and uncertainty as to their fiscal fate in the future and if that uncertainty and suspense is affecting unemployment, the Minister for unemployment has no control over that. His job is not the fiscal question, but unemployment. Suppose that the Minister of Health enunciates in this House the doctrine that the country can afford whatever it wants, or the Minister of War talks easily about the repudiation of the War Debt, and if as a consequence of these utterances a certain amount of anxiety is felt in quarters where there should be confidence—if alarm takes the place of a feeling of stability and if unemployment is affected by that, the Lord Privy Seal has no control over these right hon. Gentlemen. His business is unemployment. Similarly, if His Majesty's Government confront the heavy industries of this country with the alarming prospect of having to pay 3s. a ton more for coal while their foreign competitors are receiving cheap British coal which they have to subsidise, and that may affect unemployment, the Lord Privy Seal must not deal with it. No; his business is unemployment, not coal, which is a question for the President of the Board of Trade.
  The right hon. Gentleman cannot control in any way this hæmorrhage of public money which is taking place. His job is to deal with unemployment. Nor can he control in any way the fiscal policy of the country or deal with coal and the effect of the price of coal or its scarcity or abundance, because his job is not coal, but unemployment. In fact, he cannot in any way affect those conditions which determine whether industry is to be strong or whether there is to be much or little unemployment. He cannot affect those conditions, because his job is not to deal with those conditions but with unemployment. What is left to him? He has the Unemployment Grants Committee, as his predecessors had, and, if he keeps in close touch with the Minister of Transport, he may do
  1620
  something along those lines such as was done by his predecessor without the appointment of a special Minister for the post. It is a fact, and the more tragic in this connection, that the right hon. Gentleman does not believe—and has told us so—that you can improve or solve unemployment by the expenditure of public money through this one avenue that is left open to him. The one activity of the State, the Unemployment Grants Committee, which is handed over to him more or less is the very method in which he himself mast strongly disbelieves.
  What else can he do? He can negotiate with industrialists and with various interests in commerce and industry, but those industrialists are not politicians, and they have to deal with the actual facts of industry. Suppose that they say to the Lord Privy Seal: "Very well, we are doing all we can. Ease this burden on taxation; do not touch the McKenna and Safeguarding Duties; keep people who talk about the repudiation of War Debts, and about the country affording as much as it wants, a little quiet, and we will try to do what we can." Suppose that they say that, what can the right hon. Gentleman do? He has no control over these other Ministers that are responsible. All ho can do is to make representations. Suppose that he makes representations, what is the effect of them? These governing conditions of unemployment to which I have alluded remain untouched by his recommendations. The Chancellor of the Exchequer goes to Leeds and makes a speech, with what I might call the most ostentatious secrecy, about everything which matters least to anybody in this world. He leaves his audience with the news that there has been a decline in the tax receipts, with a probable deficiency in the Budget, and he does a little blaming of his predecessor, though business men are very well acquainted with the type of man who is always blaming his predecessor.
  The fact is that the country as a whole is not nearly so interested in the Chancellor of the Exchequer of his predecessor as it is in unemployment. It knows from the Chancellor of the Exchequer's own statement that in spite of falling revenue he has tamely submitted to the placing of greater burdens of taxation

  1621
  upon the people despite his protests. They go away resentful and suspicious as to the effect of all this upon unemployment. Another reason why I feel more sympathy for the right hon. Gentleman, whose position is really intolerable, is that, apart from his lack of any real power or responsibility—except that he is pushed up on an occasion like this for us to shoot at—he receives so much good advice. He receives ideas, while threats and all sorts of suggestions and prognostications are made. Distinguished members of his own party deliver addresses on the subject of "Why he must fail," and other distinguished members of his own party point out that his bluff has been called. They do not explain that the reason the right hon. Gentleman must fail is because of the policy which is being pursued by his colleagues. They do not point out to their audiences that the bluff that has been called is not that of the Lord Privy Seal, but of somebody higher up.
  It is not only Members of his own party who address him in these terms. I was in this House and heard the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) advise the Lord Privy Seal to pay less attention to railways and more to roads. In that picturesque diction which the right hon. Gentleman alone commands, he urged the Lord Privy Seal to "Come off his engine." That invitation was coupled with an invitation that the right hon. Gentleman might mount the tar barrel, which, I presume, is the symbol of the activities of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs. If I had to choose between the two right hon. Gentlemen—and I am glad I have not—I think I should prefer the engine to the tar barrel. After all, the engine has some chance of going somewhere, and it does not make such a hollow sound as does the tar barrel when you give it a knock.
  To-night I am going to add to the right hon. Gentleman's burden by saying a word or two on a matter of some importance in this connection. I refer to the question of rationalisation to which allusion was made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Walsall (Mr. McShane) a few minutes ago. Some people in this country always talk of rationalisation as if it were the panacea
  1622
  for all our ills. Other hon. Members refer to it as a threat to the continued employment of our people. Personally, I find it very difficult to understand what this long word really means. There are, I think, three meanings which are frequently used in consideration of the question of rationalisation. The first meaning which is given to it is that of equipping factories with new, efficient and up-to-date machinery. Other people consider that rationalisation is the grouping of production into larger and fewer units—an ideal of one huge factory for every type of production in the country. Other people consider rationalisation merely to include reorganisation of the selling and the distributive side of business. As far as rationalisation means the mere concentration of production into large units, I, personally, regard it as an unmitigated evil. If there is a tendency in that direction, it is one which we ought, to subdue in the interests of the people. These huge organisations of production may lead, in the first place, to that inhuman overcrowding which is one of the worst features of our industrial system. Rationalisation leads also to a greater vulnerability on the part of industry. These huge concerns are very vulnerable. They are as defenceless as a ship which has no bulkheads. Three is not a sufficient supply of super-men to manage these concerns. When they crash, they overwhelm thousands in their ruin.
  As far as the other meaning of rationalisation is concerned, that of securing the equipment of factories with proper and up-to-date machinery, it is not only a good thing but absolutely essential to their survival. To that extent I would ask the Lord Privy Seal when he conducts negotiations and considers the effects of his plans upon industry, not only to consider the great producers, the great corporations and the wealthy businesses, but to pay a little attention to the small producer who, if properly handled, may yet prove his best friend in this difficulty. But the old problem remains. If you get good machinery into a place, the only reason for it is that it does the work of a man who was previously employed. That is the crux of the position we are up against in this question of unemployment. Surely, the answer is, that this new machinery must mean more employment if only more people can own it and use it. If when you introduce new

  1623
  machinery into a factory you can ensure that it is available to more hands, you will avoid the danger of putting men out of work and secure the greater efficiency of the industry. It is impossible for a small man to own the very expensive and highly complicated machinery used in modern industrial processes. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman in all seriousness that if he has any resources, any new capital which he can put to the aid of industry at the present moment, he should consider carefully the advisability of organising firms or bodies which are in a position to lease up-to-date machinery to the small man for a rent payable upon output. He should place this new and up-to-date productive machinery at the disposal not only of the big trades and the big producer, but of the small man who has the enterprise and the skill to make use of it.
  That is not mere theory, as is shown by the actual example in this country of the boot and shoe industry, where about 80 per cent. of the machinery used in the factories is not owned by the factories themselves, but is leased to them by a firm which specialises in the production of up-to-date machinery. In that industry, almost the only one in this country, there is no scarcity of capital because the capital goes in in the form of machinery, there is no scarcity of up-to-date machinery, and there is prosperity in consequence. If you talk about making work by making money available for industry, you have to remember the danger that if you give a man money to spend on his business, he may neither have the skill nor the energy to use the money to the best advantage. The only way that you can secure that the capital for that purpose is well used is to give it to him, if you can, in the form of machinery which is really up-to-date and productive. I believe that in this industrial civilisation of ours we have reached a further stage of development which ought to be considered by the right hon. Gentleman. There was a time when the workman lost the power of control over his machinery, and it became a specialised job on the part of the capitalist to supply him with tools. I believe that in the complexity of modern machinery a further stage has been reached, and that the capitalist cannot keep pace with it. I believe that there
  1624
  is a specialised job for the production and supply of machinery, and I hope that if there is any capital available, the Lord Privy Seal will use his endeavours to see that it goes to small people in the form of up-to-date machinery supplied to them on lease.
  Mr. ROSBOTHAM: I should like to answer the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Skelton), who introduced the question of land, and accused the Members of the Treasury Bench of knowing no more about land than did the Table on the Floor of the House, and caring no more for it. That reminds me of a speech which the right hon. Member for Bewdley (Mr. S. Baldwin) made on the eve of the Election in my Division, when he said that the Labour Members in tie House of Commons did not know the difference between mangolds and Swede turnips. The hands of the Lord Privy Seal are tied behind his back with regard to land because of private ownership. In my Division there are thousands of acres of the best land in the world, covered with water. There is an opening for the Lord Privy Seal to bring forward a scheme of drainage. It would find work for 100 men for two years in my Division alone. When the land has been drained it could be developed into small holdings and cottage holdings, and that would find work for a further period of two or three years in the equipment of it.
  The hon. Member for Perth drew attention to the advantage of land settlement, and I agree with him. I have been chairman of the Land Settlement and Smallholdings Committee in my county for 10 years, and I can speak of the benefit of land settlement. There is one tenant who has only 2½ acres. In 1912 he had no money, but by his thrift and hard work he has made money, und bought his holding. What did the Conservative party do when they were in power to help land settlement? True, in 1926 they passed an Act of Parliament, but although they gave the machinery they gave no land. It is no use passing Acts of Parliament for land settlement if you do not give the land whereby the Act of Parliament can be administered. In regard to cottage holdings there is a provision in the Act of 1926 which confines them to agricultural workers alone. An agricultural worker cannot become the tenant, but has to become the purchaser.

  1625
  He has to find £30 and a further £30 for legal expenses, at the outset. Where is the agricultural worker who can find that sum of money? That Act will have to be amended in order that the agricultural worker or any other worker can become the tenant of a cottage holding, if he wishes to do so. There are great possibilities in connection with land settlement if facilities are provided for it. The present Minister of Agriculture will have to apply for powers to alter that Act.
  If the present Minister of Agriculture is going to do his duty, I hope that he will put some vim and fire into the work, and apply for power to enable him to acquire land to carry out his programme, and bring men back to the land. Will the Conservative party support the Minister of Agriculture if he brings in a Bill to acquire land in order to settle men upon the land? As the hon. Member for Perth said, we do not want to send the best men to the Dominions or abroad when we have land at home which we can develop. Another reason why men and the best tenants have been sent off the land is the breaking up of estates. There is no security for the good cultivator of the soil in this country. We shall have to give security of tenure to the good cultivator who cultivates his land according to the principles of good husbandry in his district. I trust that the Vote will be carried to-night. I sympathise with the Lord Privy Seal in the great difficulties with which he has to contend, and especially in the work of bringing men back to the land, thereby helping the rural population.
  Mr. AMERY: I agree with the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Rosbotham) and the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Skelton) that land settlement can make a valuable contribution towards the solution of this great problem. I would go further and say that there can be no permanently effective security for industry until we have found a policy for the restoration of agriculture. In answer to the challenge of the hon. Member for Ormskirk, I would say that any Bill with a courageous policy which may be presented by the present Minister of Agriculture will meet with sympathy and good will from these benches. I hope the hon. Member for Ormskirk will forgive me if I turn from his speech to the very remarkable speech of the Lord Privy
  1626
  Seal, a speech which differed in substance and in tone entirely and utterly from the confident and self-complacent speeches of last July and last November. It was a profoundly depressing and unsatisfactory speech. The right hon. Gentleman appealed to this House, and to a wider circle outside, not to go on saying things about the industry of this country that might tend to shake confidence. Could anything have been more calculated to shake confidence than the picture which he drew of the state of industry to-day, his sweeping condemnation of the general inefficiency of our great industries, his picture of one industry after another sinking?
  His whole attitude towards the problem with which he is confronted was in no sense what his previous speeches might have led us to hope for—a record of successful action. It was a melancholy chronicle of failure and deterioration of the situation. He made no real effort to show that he has done anything effective, that he is doing anything effective, or that he has anything effective in view. His attitude now is that the Government are not responsible for this situation, but that they took it over from us. That is true, but how did they take over the situation? They took over a situation which was improving. The situation has deteriorated steadily ever since. More than that, his party took over the situation with drums beating, with flags flying, and with a blatant assurance to the country that they had got, in the Prime Minister's own language, the brains and the ideas to solve this problem without recourse to relief works. We were told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Government bad innumerable schemes up their sleeves with which to deal with the problem.
  The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster intervened in the debate a little time ago and asked if anybody had ever given a pledge that the situation would be dealt with in eight months? Not, perhaps, in eight months, but I would remind him that the Prime Minister, in March of last year, declared that if anyone could cure the problem of unemployment in 12 months, Labour could do it. [HON. MEMBERS: "If !"] We have had plenty of assurances that they could do it. The Prime Minister said:
  "Labour has the programme. It only needs the power."

  1627
  Eight months have passed, and the Lord Privy Seal indicates that next month things will be much worse than they are this month. Does the Chancellor of the Duchy suggest that in the remaining three months there is going to be any substantial improvement in the situation? We are told that the subject is one which we ought not to treat as a party question. It is a little late in the day to take that point of view, but it is an advance when the Government take that line, and it is also a tremendous admission. We no longer have the boast that Labour can settle it all by itself. The new attitude is, "come over and help us." I doubt if ever any party strutted more boastfully into the handling of a great problem or tried more meanly to sneak out of their responsibilities afterwards.
  10.0 p.m.
  We on this side of the House have made it perfectly clear that in raising this issue we are in no sense making a personal attack on the Lord Privy Seal. He has certainly not spared himself, and in public speeches and in the more exacting task of private conferences he has given himself wholeheartedly to the question. He has shown courage on the platform, and I have no doubt has shown persuasiveness, forcefulness and reasonableness, in his discussions with the business world. But he has not achieved anything. He is for ever winding up the handle, but the machine refuses to start. He has no petrol. As was pointed out by the hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Mills) and in an admirable speech by the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. W. S. Morrison) who I wish had had a larger audience, he has not the power or authority to make his policy effective. He has been placed by the Prime Minister in an utterly false position, in which he gets all the blame and has none of the real power. He comes to his conclusions, but he is utterly impotent to put them into practice. The departments which actually control matters affecting unemployment, and which have the last word, are not in his hands, are not in his control. They are in the hands of colleagues, who are very far from seeing eye to eye with him, while the general policy of his party is swayed by sentiments and prejudices and considerations
  1628
  which override all his counsels and his warnings and make havoc of all his policies. A phrase which the Lord Privy Seal used in this House one day last week was extraordinarily significant of the position he occupies. It was in answer to a question of the motor industry being given some assurance as to the continuance of the McKenna Duties. The Lord Privy Seal replied that he was making "the necessary representations." Exactly. Making representations is all that he is allowed to do, all he can do, all he has been doing since last June. Sometimes he makes them to people who have already been doing things and who continue to do them afterwards neither more rapidly nor more slowly. Sometimes he makes them to people who pay no attention to them and who do none of the things he asks them to do. It is almost inconceivable that his representations should not have effect, at any rate so far as concerns the actual retention of the McKenna Duties in the next Budget. I cannot conceive that even the Chancellor of the Exchequer would go to such a length of criminal insanity as to repeal the McKenna Duties in the present situation of the country. But if they are to be retained why not say so now; why not have said so months and months ago? That was a step which, by creating confidence and giving security, would have given far more employment than all the schemes of the Lord Privy Seal put together when they do mature; and which would have given that assistance in a form which, unlike any of his schemes, would have cost nothing. There would have been no debit of expense, no diversion of capital or revenue, to set against the employment given. It would have been pure benefit to have given that declaration at the earliest possible moment.
  The Lord Privy Seal has spoken more than once in this House and in the country, he did so again to-night, about what the motor industry might mean to employment. He regards it, and rightly, as the greatest possible source of increased employment we have, both directly in the industry and indirectly to other industries. He has dwelt upon the immense possibilities of the expansion of the trade to the Dominions. This evening he

  1629
  suggested that the only difficulty in connection with that industry, the only obstacle to this tremendous expansion was the fact that it was divided amongst a number of small firms. He spoke of 211,000 cars being produced by 27 firms. It might have been better if he had also mentioned that practically two-thirds of those cars are produced by two firms alone, and that the difficulty in that industry, as in other industries, is that if you want to get rationalisation, if you want to do without the disadvantages which rationalisation brings in its train, if you want to organise on a big scale, you must give a reasonable measure of security behind which the re-organisation can be carried on. He knows that as well as we do; and can any one doubt that if the Lord Privy Seal had been entrusted with real power in this matter that he would not have made a statement on this subject within six weeks of coming into office and have set the fears of the industry at rest, given confidence, and found employment probably for tens of thousands of workpeople? The right hon. Gentleman has not the power.
  I dare say he made representations, but what, effect did they have against the overweening intellectual conceit and the fiscal prudery of the Chancellor of the Exchequer? The Chancellor of the Exchequer has the last word in these matters. And yet how futile is the position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to-day? What is the use of all this tight-lipped pretence to an untarnished fiscal virginity when the merest glance at the Chancellor of the Exchequer's figure makes it perfectly clear what the position is going to be in a few months time? Why cannot he make a clean breast of it? Nobody will find fault with him. Whatever the fiscal policy of this country is going to be in the future we are well away from the straitlaced fiscal puritanism of other days. Even the "Nation," a very staid Free Trade journal, pleads with him to retain the McKenna Duties. On that subject, only last week the leader of the Liberal party, a party which stands for Free Trade, and which really has no other reason for its existence, a leader who was bound to be circumspect in anything he said on this subject because of
  1630
  his somewhat ambiguous past—some of his colleagues regard him as a kind of second Mrs. Tanqueray in the Liberal household—even he could not refrain from openly toying with the question of an anti-dumping duty. So really we have got away from the position in which it would be any disgrace to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to state, in the condition of industry to-day, what he is going to do with these Duties in his next Budget.
  But let me come back to my main question. What has the Lord Privy Seal been doing since last July? He has been making representations. He went over to Canada. I was there at the time. Ho made representations, in public speeches and in private conferences, as to the desirability of Canada buying more British goods. Those representations were received with appreciation and with goodwill, as every frank and fair statement of the position will be received at any time in any part of Canada. But he did not contribute a single factor that was actually going to change the economic situation under which Canada is to-day buying more from the United States than from us. He made representations to Canadian industry to buy more British coal, and the answer given, the answer that the great railways gave, was, "We shall be delighted to do so, provided prices and quality are satisfactory." Yes, quite so. But that is the answer that they have given all the time.
  The right hon. Gentleman to-day, though pressed very strongly by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) gave no clear answer to the questions that were put to him. He was asked what evidence he could produce—the time has come when evidence must be available—that his efforts have resulted in an actual increase of coal shipments to Canada. What the right hon. Gentleman said in November was that 600,000 tons were being sent that year, and he added that in future, "Without fear of contradiction the difficulty will not be to get customers but to supply the demand." We have not heard a word to-day to suggest whether in this coming year there is to be an extra ton sent above the amount sent last year. So far, in answer to most questions, the right hon. Gentleman has

  1631
  always been content with the perfectly true and the perfectly cogent answer that the St. Lawrence had been frozen up. Yes, but what prospect does he hold out to us that when the St. Lawrence thaws British harbours will not be frozen up, as far as the coal trade is concerned, by the legislation which his colleagues may have passed? He was asked what had actually happened about those five ships of 7,000 tons—not a very big thing in itself—which he said, in November, would result in a contract. We were told to-day that a firm has actually been asked to produce drawings. No doubt in the course of a certain number of weeks, perhaps months, the drawings will be forthcoming. Perhaps an order will be given. But it is already much too late for that order to have any effect in carrying coal to Canada this year. The right hon. Gentleman has already missed the bus—or missed his engine. At any rate there it is as far as those hopes are concerned.
  The right hon. Gentleman went on from Eastern industrial Canada to Western Canada, to make representations to the grain growers. They at once made their counter-representations. They said: "We are not quite such fools as to send our wheat over to Great Britain in order to balance your cargoes of coal, unless you buy our wheat from us first. Are you prepared to buy?" What was the answer of the Lord Privy Seal? The only answer possible to him—that he would make representations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he got home. I dare say he has made them. The Lord Privy Seal in a not very hopeful way expressed the belief that possibly something might come out of these negotiations. I doubt it very much. So much for Canada. If I may. let me quote a sentence which caught my eye yesterday evening in the course of a Sunday evening browse in Dickens. I came upon the following passage:
  "Corn and coal being equally out of the question, Mr. Copperfield, I naturally look round and say what is there in which a person of Mr. Micawber's talents is likely to succeed?"
  So he came home, and resumed the business of making representations to industry and to local authorities in this country. We now know a little more about it. We know that some time ago
  1632
  the railway companies were making experiments in the use of steel sleepers. The right hon. Gentleman made representations to them to go on. He told us to-day that they are going on, that several of the great companies are continuing to make experiments. He gave no evidence as to the numbers of miles or the tonnage or the number of man-hours or man-years of employment that are likely to come. But the experiment goes on. Then in November we were told the result of his representations in the matter of Charing Cross Bridge. Draughtsmen were working feverishly night and day, and as soon as they were ready a measure would be rushed through in May or June, and we should see the great thing through. We have been told nothing about Charing Cross Bridge tonight. Is it possible that there may be something in the fact that counter-representations have been made from various quarters against this particular scheme, and that it may require a certain amount of reconsideration? The right hon. Gentleman complained that a number of schemes which he was pushing along in legislation had been blocked. Well, he himself said very emphatically that the only justification of schemes for spending public money is that they should actually and effectively increase the efficiency and wealth of the country. That does mean that the schemes need examination.
  When in this House he introduced his accelerating procedure with regard to this business of certified Bills, he had to meet the criticism that his procedure might prevent effective discussion on Second Reading. He gave the House a definite assurance that this was not intended. He said that if any Member of the House objected to a Bill, either not certified by him or certified by him, in both cases the same rights were preserved for the Member of the House. That was clear and specific. The right of securing discussion on Second Reading, the right to be represented at subsequent discussions is a valuable right which in the interests of his House ought not to be given up and, as was pointed out by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Oxford (Captain Bourne), who has special knowledge of these affairs, so far, these schemes have not been in the least affected by any power of this kind. As these schemes

  1633
  have been brought forward and certified by the right hon. Gentleman it would have been interesting if he had told us—and perhaps the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster can tell us—how much employment these schemes are actually going to give. For how many men are they going to provide work this year, for how many men next year, and for how many years will that employment continue?
  I hope the Chancellor of the Duchy will be very careful in the figures which he gives, The Lord Privy Seal, at the very beginning of his operations, made representations to the London and North Eastern Railway about the electrification of Liverpool Street, and a few days ago he told us that a meeting was actually taking place at which this matter was being seriously considered. Quite so, but within a day or two of his first representation the Chancellor of the Duchy successfully electrified, not Liverpool Street, but the House, by telling us that this scheme was going to give £75,000,000 to £100,000,000 worth of employment, especially in the steel trade. It would be of the greatest interest if the Chancellor of the Duchy would now tell us, both in substance and in language, what representations the Lord Privy Seal made to him next day. Then there is another matter of which we used to hear in July and November. We gather that the Lord Privy Seal has been busy making representations to industries—he instanced silk and tobacco—to go and establish themselves in the stricken areas. Now we gather that he has failed in every instance. He seems to have had one nibble. There was one industry which looked at the matter and then said they wanted more water. It is news to me that all the stricken areas are drought-stricken areas and that there is no depressed area in which an industry can find enough water to carry on its operations.
  I can imagine very well the kind of representations and counter-representations which took place. I can imagine the right hon. Gentleman going to a silk undertaking and saying, "Will you start a new silk industry down in the coalfields of South Wales?" They would at once make the counter-representation. "If you get an assurance for us from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Silk Duty will not be tampered
  1634
  with, then, when you have made your representation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, you can come back with that assurance and we will consider your representation." And the same thing right through. Other proposals have been dropped, or at any rate relegated to futurity. Trade facilities—dropped I Colonial development—not mentioned at all ! Then there are the banks. Representations have been made to them, so we gather, to throw themselves into the task of reorganising and helping industry. The banks make the counter-representation that it is not their lousiness, or that they will only do it where the conditions are absolutely safe and businesslike. Of course they would do that, whether the Lord Privy Seal was called the Minister of Unemployment or not. I do not wish to imply that the Lord Privy Seal's representations may not here and there have had useful effect. Knowing what his energy and persuasive powers are I do not say that they may not have helped to accelerate the ordinary progress of rationalisation, or railway work, or work under the Unemployment Grants Committee. But it all amounts to nothing when compared with the magnitude of the problem with which we are confronted.
  So far, I have dealt with one side of his representations—those which he has been making to the business and municipal world here or overseas, to the people who are already doing things and may or may not possibly do them a little more rapidly as the result of his efforts. Now I want to come to another class of representations, the representations which he has addressed to his own party here in Parliament and in the country. They have been admirable and courageous, but I wish I could say they had been effective. He has courageously disregarded his own pre-election promises. He has very wisely made no mention of pensions for all over 60 to provide work for the younger men. In May he said that the whole problem would be solved by Labour by spending money; in November he said, "I brush away those people who tell me that the only way for the solution of the problem of unemployment is spending money. I discard them." Admirable! He has had no difficulty in discarding and brushing away the pre-election Thomas, but he has not suc-

  1635
  ceded in brushing away his colleagues and supporters on that side of the House whose whole policy is an utterly different one and whose views dominate the practical action of the Government. Their whole policy is one of spending more money, of spending it on useful works when there are any, of spending it on useless works when there are no useful works left, and of spending it on doles when there is no other work to be given. [Interruption. That is the policy that does dominate the party opposite.
  He spoke in an earlier speech of the burdens on industry as being ruinous to industry, and he said that the easing of those burdens would do more than anything else to act in relief of the unemployment situation. He would like to ease the burdens, and he makes representations to that effect to his colleagues in the House and in the country at large. But the burdens are being piled up all the time against him. Take another of his warnings and representations. He said, "If you ask me what disturbs me most, I have no hesitation in saying that it is anything which tends to sap an independent spirit and make people look to the State for the assistance which they ought themselves to provide." And the answer to that representation is Clause 4 of the Unemployment Insurance Bill! In all these representations, powerless as they are—[An HON. MEMBER: "What about Darling?"] Lord Darling was endeavouring to give effect to the representations of the Lord Privy Seal.
  In all these representations, however ineffective they may have been, the right hon. Gentleman has endeavoured to face the facts, and to get at the key of the problem without regard to party, and that is what we all wish to do. The conclusion to which he has come—and at any rate there I quite agree with him—is that the solution of the problem has got to be found with the consumer, with the customer. He spoke to-night about the importance of the export trade, and on other occasions he has spoken about the importance of making in this country anything that at present is imported. The two things really come to the same as far as employment is concerned. It really makes no difference, from the point of view of employment, whether you send a
  1636
  motor car from Coventry to Belfast or to Dublin, yet one is called export trade and the other is called home trade. Anything that goes out of the factory and finds a customer, a purchaser, creates employment. There is no other way in which employment can be found, and that is a point of view which the right hon. Gentleman has himself emphasised again and again, and upon which I wish we could find some measure of common agreement in this House, at any rate, as a starting point of inquiry, however much we may differ as to our methods afterwards.
  I would suggest that in this problem it is the consumer, the purchaser with whom we have to deal. If we can induce him, persuade him, control him to buy British goods, we shall give employment to British labour. One answer that is given from the benches opposite, and was given in the sincere speech of the hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. McShane), is that as long as you give plenty of money in high wages, and, if necessary, high doles, you will increase the consuming power of this country, and in that way afford employment. There is an element of truth, undoubtedly, in the statement that the better paid your workmen are, the more they are in a position to support the fabric of industry and give employment. There is one essential factor in this matter which we must not overlook. The only form of purchase which can give permanent, continuous employment is purchase that pays for the goods it receives out of the production and economic efficiency of the person who is the puchaser. The purchases that are made by those who draw the dole are not purchases that support industry, because they are paid for by industry itself, and can no more give permanent employment than a man who keeps a motor factory can keep it working by making presents of his motor cars. In the same way, the value of high wages to employment depends entirely on whether those wages are spent in supporting the industries that pay them. What is the good of paying high wages if these are spent on supporting the industries of other countries, and not in supporting the industries of your own country?
  I do not wish to-night to go into the question of method, because that will

  1637
  mean legislation. We, on this side of the House, have our own methods of influencing the choice of the customer in this country and the Empire, and in foreign countries too. We believe that the present system exerts a constant inducement on purchasers in this country to buy from foreign countries. I do not wish to discuss the question of method, but I wish that in this House we may get a starting point for our inquiry by agreeing that it is only by influencing the customer, by creating purchasers of British goods, that we are going to affect this tremendous situation. To-night our position, at any rate, is a very simple one. Our business is to point out that, while the Minister who is responsible, or is supposed to be responsible, for dealing with the problem of unemployment, does in large measure realise the facts of the situation, realise where the key to the situation lies, he is, in fact, impotent to make anything beyond representations. The Government to whom he makes these representations have no practical or effective policy for dealing with the whole problem. They yield to sentiment and clamour, they pass measure after measure which can only aggravate the difficulty, but they do nothing positive and constructive to remedy it. That is why, in spite of all their high professions, they are utterly incapable of dealing with a situation in which unemployment is growing month by month, until some 3,000,000 of our population are now dependent on the State. That is the substance of the indictment which we direct against the Government to-night.
  Sir O. MOSLEY: The keynote of the rousing speech to which we have just listened was the charge that the Lord Privy Seal had no power except to make representations to his colleagues and his Government upon the policy which they should pursue. I have never heard of any Minister in any Government since democracy was invented who had any other power. It is precisely by making representations to their colleagues and to the Cabinet that Ministers secure the adoption of their policy—if they are so fortunate as to secure its adoption. In that sphere, of course, we meet with varying success. I am quite sure the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down always had his representations
  1638
  accepted—always ! Are there no melancholy pigeon-holes full of representations which he has made, and which have been rejected? Has every scheme ever advanced by the right hon. Gentleman to his colleagues been accepted with the acclamation which he expected? I know of one occasion on which the representations of the right hon. Gentleman to his party were accepted, and on that occasion they led to the Protectionist election of 1923. It will be some time before the Conservative party forgets those representations; and, as similar representations were being advanced in his speech this evening, I await the sequel with very considerable interest. The whole of the latter part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, by implication if not in specific words, was an appeal for full-blooded Protection. [Interruption.]
  The right hon. Gentleman pointed out, quite rightly, that the Lord Privy Seal was having conversations with the Wheat Pool of Canada. He said: "The Wheat Pool will, of course, say to you 'Will you buy our wheat?' What answer will you return?" Those conversations between us and the Wheat Pool are still going on. In the meantime, for our guidance, I might ask the right hon. Gentleman what answer he would give? [Interruption.] Is he prepared to say to the Canadian Wheat Pool, "We will buy your wheat as a Government, with an import control board," or is he going to rely, as he suggested, upon other methods of Conservative policy? What are those other methods of Conservative policy? There is only one other method which ever has been suggested, and that has been to put a tax upon foreign wheat in order to benefit the Canadian wheat farmer. Is the right hon. Gentleman in favour of that or is he not? [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer !" and "What about your policy?"] When we come to the council of State for guidance, and suggestions, when our poor efforts are criticised, and a policy is put forward from the benches opposite and we ask precisely what that policy is, we have silence from the Front Bench and the covering artillery on the back benches do their best to cover their leaders. The right hon. Gentleman did not go so far as to say that he desired to control the consumer, but he used those words. How is the right hon. Gentleman going

  1639
  to do that? Has he reverted to Socialism or is he going to propose a universal tariff of such a strength that the British consumer will be compelled to buy British goods? What was the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman if he did not mean that? I notice that he is silent, and so is his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition who sits next to him.
  Mr. REMER: What is your policy?
  Sir O. MOSLEY: The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Remer) inquires what is my policy. I have spoken in nearly every unemployment Debate during the present Session, and I have made an effort to describe that policy. The Lord Privy Seal spent one hour this afternoon describing the policy of the Government. Since then we have listened to attacks upon that policy and to constructive suggestions from the opposite side. I now ask precisely what those constructive suggestions mean, and the Conservative party, not for the first time in its history, seeks refuge in complete silence. [Interruption.] The only contribution seems to be the interruptions of the hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Major Elliot). The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery) has been put up to speak for the Opposition, but evidently his remarks were so unsatisfactory that the hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove has decided to conclude the Debate himself during the currency of my speech. I was proceeding to make a few suggestions upon unemployment, and it is now my duty to repudiate the charges which have been levelled against the Government. We have had a repetition of the customary charge that the Labour party was pledged within the time we have had at our disposal to solve the unemployment problem.
  Mr. BRACKEN: That pledge was given by the hon. Member for Smethwick (Sir O. Mosley) himself in a pamphlet entitled "The Consumers' Credit" in which he said that he would abolish unemployment right away.
  Sir O. MOSLEY: The answer to that is manifold. In the first place, I gave no pledge to abolish unemployment. In the second place, that pamphlet, which was not called "The Consumers' Credit," was not published on behalf of the
  1640
  Labour party, and had nothing to do with the Labour party or any section of it. It was published purely as a piece of research work, as I said in the preface to it myself, in the realm of speculative thought, and the cogency of those speculations is being brought home to me every day. That pamphlet neither claimed to cure unemployment nor had it anything to do whatsoever with the official policy of the Labour party. To return to the charges that are made against us, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the New Forest and Christ-church (Colonel Ashley) produced, very happily, a pledge from oar Election Manifesto which read that we pledged ourselves
  "to deal practically and immediately with unemployment."
  After due research since the last Debate, that is the best evidence that the Conservative party can produce to prove their claim that we were pledged up to the hilt to solve the unemployment problem within eight months. These are the strange metamorphoses of political dialectics. A pledge of that character is now translated to mean that within this period of time the unemployment problem would be solved by a Labour Government, and the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has very heartily denounced us because within this period of time, on the strength of the pledge which we gave and which his colleague has quoted, we have not solved the unemployment problem. The right hon. Gentleman quoted a pledge of the present Prime Minister, to the effect, I think, that if unemployment could be cured within a year the Labour party could do it.
  Mr. AMERY: It was that if anyone could cure unemployment the Labour party could do it.
  Sir O. MOSLEY: I suggest that the obvious inference from that is that the Labour party would do it. That quotation is from a speech that was delivered against the Liberal proposals, in which the right hon. Gentleman argued that the Liberal proposals were not such as his own party would accept, and were also proposals which could not possibly be carried out; and he pointed out that, if unemployment could be reduced within that period of time by any measures, it would be done

  1641
  under the programme of the Labour party. The whole context of his speech, however, was designed to prove that such an achievement was in fact impossible, and the whole controversy on this subject, at the time of the Election, between the Liberal party and ourselves, centred upon this question. They said that within a year unemployment could be reduced to normal, and they pledged themselves to do it. The Labour party refused to give any pledge of the kind, and in every Debate since this House assembled I have invited any Member on the benches opposite to produce any pledge given by the Labour party saying that within that or any specified period of time we guaranteed to cure unemployment. They have failed absolutely to do that, but on every platform we had to face from Liberal speakers the charge that we would not bind ourselves by such a pledge, and the greater attraction of the Liberal programme—and it was more attractive in that respect—was presented to the electors as superior to ours because of that binding pledge. [Interruption.] It is no good hon. Members seeking refuge in that kind of interruption unless they can produce a pledge given by a Labour leader. They cannot produce it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Labour candidates!"] I have invited even quotations from Labour candidates, but we have not yet had them. Let us have a quotation before we have derision.
  Sir B. PETO: What about the statement that if anyone could cure it in 12 months it was the Labour party?
  Sir O. MOSLEY: That is the question I have just been dealing with. Hon. Members opposite have failed absolutely to produce any pledge by a responsible leader of the party, or, for that matter, by any candidate pledging us within a year, or any other period, to reduce the unemployment problem to the normal. The pledges which they have produced are in no way discountenanced by the achievements of the Government. In our Election programme we were pledged to deal practically and immediately with unemployment. Arguments on the "practical" can be produced from each side, but on the "immediate," certainly it cannot be challenged, for the very first action of the Government was to set up a special Department to deal with the sub-
  1642
  ject and to empower a Minister to take action.
  It had been pointed out that the Lord Privy Seal has no executive authority to provide work. That is perfectly true. He must work through other Departments, and so must any other Minister in his position. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because he depends on several of the major Departments of State to carry out his plans. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] He has to work through the Minister of Transport for road plans, for the speedup of electrical development, for railways, and for other matters materially affecting his immediate unemployment plans. For land drainage and the rest of it you are dependent on the Minister of Agriculture, for housing and for slum clearance you are dependent, obviously, upon the Ministry of Health, and in other matters you are dependent on the Ministry of Labour. Either you work through those Departments or you duplicate the whole machinery of Government. Evidently, if you take away from these Departments the whole object of their existence, and still leave them in existence, you are duplicating the machinery of Government. The only way to surmount that dilemma is to have in supreme control a Minister who controls nearly all the major Departments of State. That would mean a change in the whole machinery of Government in the country, which has not so far been contemplated by any party.
  Mr. GEORGE BALFOUR: Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that the Lord Privy Seal should control those Departments?
  Sir O. MOSLEY: The hon. Gentleman asks me whether I am suggesting that the Lord Privy Seal should control those Departments. I was trying, rather laboriously, to convey to the hon. Member the intelligence that the right hon. Gentleman did not control all those Departments, and that under the present constitutional arrangements a Minister in the position of the Lord Privy Seal must confine himself, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook rightly said, to making representations, just as he, when Colonial Secretary, within the ambit of his own Department had to make representations to the Cabinet to get schemes adopted. There is nothing extraordinary in that. Every Minister

  1643
  since democracy was invented has done it, and unless and until you decide to make such changes in the machinery of administration—which may well in the end prove necessary—and give to one Minister an authority and control far greater than any one man has so far exercised, then you must inevitably proceed on the basis of making representations through the relevant Department of State.
  We have been subjected to a good many charges this evening. We have been told that we have made no contribution whatsoever to the unemployment problem. The White Paper which will shortly be issued will show, not that we have solved the unemployment problem, but, as the last White Paper also showed, that we have made a far bigger contribution to the unemployment problem than any other Government has done. [Interruption.] In one way alone, the provision of work through local effort, it will show that in a few months of this Government we have provided expenditure well over double the amount that the late Government provided in the last few years, to say nothing of all the new plans, such as Colonial development and in other directions. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about Liverpool Street?"] I will deal with Liverpool Street. I have been accused very often of having added a nought to my figures when I made a certain statement about the schemes, in connection with Liverpool Street. I did nothing of the kind. If I had I should not have the slightest hesitation in telling the House because nothing is easier, when reading a great many figures, as I had to do, than to make a slip of that kind. But, in fact, I did not. What I failed, if anything, to do, was to make clear that I was referring, in speaking of what I called the schemes connected with the Liverpool Street development, to the whole possibilities of electrification in the suburban system. My language there was possibly obscure when I talked about the schemes connected with Liverpool Street, instead of making it clear that the development we had in view was the whole of the suburban system. The figure I gave was Tightly applied to any such development as that and, as the Lord Privy Seal said later in the Debate, a development of that kind would
  1644
  probably cost £70,000,000 to £80,000,000, and everyone who knows anything about it knows it would. That was the simple point made on that occasion, and any schemes of that magnitude have not, as I made it quite clear, reached anything approaching materialisation, and many of them may never come to fruition.
  There is a project now for a Tube in the direction of Ilford of which we have some hope. The whole of these great projects after all, are being surveyed and pressed forward by the Government, but I cannot promise in connection with these schemes any immediate developments which can be announced. We have, perhaps, made the mistake at various times of taking the House too much, into our confidence—[HON. MEMBERS: "No !"]—because it has been our practice to describe in detail the various schemes which we were trying to bring to success. In this kind of work, for every scheme that comes to fruition you find probably within the Department that ten or a dozen schemes have come to nothing, schemes of which the House has never heard anything. Sometimes my right hon. Friend has described in the House schemes in regard to which we were afterwards blocked or found that we could not meet with the results which we first hoped to achieve. I hold that on the whole it is the right policy, as we advance in this very arduous and difficult struggle, to take the House of Commons into our confidence at every stage, and to describe quite frankly what are the aspirations which we hold and what are the policies which we conceive, and not to conceal from the House any of the developments which we hope to realise.
  The right hon. Gentleman has described the present situation and also the development of his policy. It has been left to me to answer the charges and the attacks which have been made. We have had from the Conservative benches a variety of charges and of attacks. We heard from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) who opened the Debate that really there was nothing which the Government could do at all, that rationalisation went on with or without the help of the Government, and that what the Government could do in that sphere did not really matter at all, that public works were always in the nature

  1645
  of relief works, and that even where they were sound they were only diverting credit from other undertakings which were more useful, and, finally, that the only policy of the Conservative party was to restore confidence, which doubtless in their view could be achieved only by the restoration of the Conservative Government. The country can then, at any rate, have complete confidence in the final mobility of Governments.
  We have been told quite frankly from the Conservative benches in this Debate that in the long-term policy of national restoration, which is called rationalisation, or in the short-term policy of the provision of public works to bridge the gulf before the realisation of that policy, in both these spheres there is nothing a Government can do, and that, indeed, the intervention of the Government may actually be harmful. We are back to the programme which the late Prime Minister outlined, that these great industrial problems should be taken out of the hands of the politicians who have never been fit to handle them. We might well say with an English King, that they only could depose us to make the party opposite king. For here you have a party which, after four and a half years' record such as we have recently witnessed, now comes before the country without a policy of any kind.
  11.0 p.m.
  There is only one man in the party opposite who has a policy, and that is Lord Beaverbrook, but he is likely soon to be turned down. The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook agrees with that policy, and went as far as he could in its support, but he had not quite the pluck to commit the Conservative party to it. The oracle from Bewdley has been quiet on this vexed topic. Hon. and right hon. Members opposite when asked to define their position are utterly incapable of doing so. If by any mischance they ever return to power then, by the paucity of their counsels and the lethargy of their policy, the country will be doomed to another five years of inaction. If our policy was as indefensible as right hon. and hon. Members opposite represent, we shall, at least, be happy in the assurance that, with a record such as theirs and with a policy so barren, the challenge from such an opposition will not be very serious. But we rely on a stronger case than that. We did not
  1646
  pledge ourselves to conquer unemployment within the space of eight months, but we did pledge ourselves to deal with it with energy and determination. In these few months we have done something tangible. As my right hon. Friend said, we have got plans through involving some £50,000,000 worth of work, and we are beginning to lay the foundations of reconstruction and to repair some of the havoc that our predecessors caused.
  Sir B. PETO: I shall not detain the House for more than a few minutes, and I should not have intervened had it not been that there is something to be said after the speech of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He drew a comparison between the position of the Lord Privy Seal in the present Government and the position of the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery) in the late Government. He said that my right hon. Friend had made representations which were not always carried out. That is a statement of the position of any Cabinet Minister, but the Lord Privy Seal is in a wholly different and very peculiar position. He has been trusted with the sole responsibility of dealing with the major question with which this Government were entrusted to deal, namely, unemployment. Now, the Chancellor of the Duchy says that he has to work through other Departments, That may be true, but what we complain of is not that the Lord Privy Seal has to work through other Departments but that he has to work against other Departments. That is why he has the commiseration of the Opposition and of every party in the House.
  I could not help wondering as I listened to the Lord Privy Seal how long he was likely to continue under the extremely adverse conditions in which he finds himself. He has announced over and over again his policy for dealing with unemployment, but on every hand he is opposed and defeated by other Departments of the Government. Not only the Chancellor of the Exchequer but the Minister of Health and all the other Departments are pursuing a policy which is bound to defeat any effort to deal with the question of unemployment. Indeed the policy of the Government as a whole is winning all along and is increasing weekly the number of the unemployed. The Lord

  1647
  Privy Seal in his speech relied entirely on what he termed the rationalisation of industry as a solution of unemployment, but he indicated that in carrying it out it would temporarily add to the number of unemployed. He regarded it as a cause. That is an absolutely hopeless outlook. It is not a cause in industry; it is an effect on industry. If you get the industries of this country on a sound financial basis, with the command of the home markets to start with and power to go abroad and sell their goods in competition with other countries, rationalisation will come about without the intervention of any special Minister called the Lord Privy Seal or anything else. If you attempt to reverse the process and rationalise industries like the great textile industry, our steel industry, which are now decaying and factories and workshops "losing, weekly adding to the fearful total we have now of unemployed, if you attempt to rationalise industries which are bankrupt, or verging on bankruptcy, you are going to ask the banks to undertake a perfectly hopeless task from the financial point of view. If you take hold of the right end of the stick—[Interruption]—which give these industries that which they have a right to demand, the command of their home markets and the great market overseas within the Empire as a foundation, you will not need the Lord Privy Seal to go to the issuing houses and the banks cap in hand and say, "We have threatened to nationalise you, but we will put that by for the moment if you will come to the relief of industry." That is a degrading policy. The Lord Privy Seal has compelled me even at this late hour to say a word or two to the House.
  I should like to call attention to another aspect of the Lord Privy Seal's speech. It was not until the last few minutes that he came to grips with the problem as a whole. The major part of his speech was devoted to such questions as asking Members on both sides not to block Bills that had been certified—private Bills. [Interruption.] In one case, in which I was partly responsible—the Dartford Tunnel Bill—if there had not been delay the Bill would have been put through without any consideration from this House. The scheme was one which
  1648
  was far more likely to do harm to the interests of the Port of London than to find employment. I am certain the country, and not least Lancashire, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred so pointedly, will to-morrow be asking the very serious question as to what is the solution of our trouble The Government was returned eight months ago for the purpose of dealing with unemployment and the right hon. Gentleman has told us to-day that he has no hope of any decrease in unemployment but rather that he sees the certainty that next week 18,000 will be added to the number of unemployed. A further great burden will be cast upon industry by Clause 4 of the Unemployment Insurance Bill. [Interruption.]
  The right hon. Gentleman also said that he could clearly foresee that towards the middle and close of the year there would be further numbers added to the total on account of the breakdown of that industry which has always regarded Free Trade as its citadel—the textile industry of Lancashire, which is about to pass a resolution condemning the Government's proposal for a two years' tariff truce. It used to be said that "What Lancashire thinks to-day, England thinks to-morrow." Now it is the case that Lancashire thinks to-day what the country has been thinking for a long time. Lancashire is coming round to the country's point of view. Whenever the Government accepts the challenge of an appeal to the country, we shall find that the great mass of the working classes are determined to return to power a Government which has a policy to deal with industrial troubles. [Interruption.] The country will insist on a Government which has a policy to deal directly with the fundamental causes of this trouble, and will turn out the party which has shown itself to have got into power by false pretences. [Interruption.]
  Question, "That the Bill be now read the Third time," put, and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

  COAL MINES [MONEY] (No. 2).
  Resolution reported.
  "That, for the purpose of any Act of the present Session (hereinafter referred to as "the said Act") to provide for regulating

  1649
  and facilitating the production, supply, and sale of coal by owners of coal mines, for the temporary amendment of Section three of the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1908, for the constitution and functions of a Coal Mines National Industrial Board, and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid, it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys provided by Parliament:

  (i) of any expenses incurred by the Board of Trade in paying—

  (a) such remuneration (if any) to the chairmen of the committees of investigation constituted by the said Act, such travelling and subsistence allowances to the chairmen and members of those committees, such remuneration to the secretaries to those committees and such remuneration to accountants, officers, and servants employed by those committees, and such other expenses of those committees, as the Board of Trade may, with the approval of the Treasury, determine;

  (b) such remuneration (if any) to the chairman of the Coal Mines National Industrial Board to be constituted under the said Act, such travelling and subsistence allowances to the chairman and members of that Board, such remuneration to the secretary of that Board, and such other expenses of that Board as the Board of Trade may, with the approval of the Treasury, determine;

  (c) such remuneration to the members of the Coal Mines Reorganisation Commission constituted by the said Act, and to the secretary, officers, and servants of that Commission, and such other expenses of that Commission as the Board of Trade may, with the approval of the Treasury, determine;

  (d) such remuneration as the Board of Trade may, with the approval of the Treasury, determine to such technical and professional agents as may be employed by the said Commission for the discharge of the functions of the Commission under the said Act, so, however, that a sum equal to the amount of any expenses incurred by the employment of such agents as aforesaid for the purpose of promoting or assisting the amalgamation of any undertakings consisting of or comprising coal mines shall, in the event of the undertakings being amalgamated, be repaid to the Board of Trade by the owners of the amalgamated undertaking; and

  (ii) of such other expenses as may be required to be defrayed for the purposes of the said Act."—(King's Recommendation signified.)

  Resolution agreed to.
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

  CASUAL WARD, WOODLEY.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."
  Brigadier-General CLIFTON BROWN: I am afraid that at this hour, it is rather late to raise the matter which I intended to raise, or to give the Minister a chance of answering my points. I wonder if he would receive a deputation from those who are interested or would he prefer that I should proceed as far as I can now?
  The MINISTER of HEALTH (Mr. Arthur Greenwood): I think the point has been settled and I see no advantage in receiving a deputation representing the local authorities, but if the hon. and gallant Member himself and such of his Friends in the House as care to be associated with him wish me to hear their full story I shall be very glad to see them.
  Captain RONALD HENDERSON: If I might associate myself with what the first speaker said, I should be very-grateful if the Minister could see his way to allow myself and one or two other Members to come and lay the facts before him. There is an extremely strong feeling on the point throughout my constituency, and the matter is of burning moment in the three constituencies concerned, and if I could myself, with other Members, be allowed to lay some of the facts which possibly have not struck the right hon. Gentleman at the time, before him, we should be very grateful.
  Mr. GREENWOOD: I should be very glad indeed to see the Members for the constituencies affected, but I think I could not, at this stage, receive the local authorities themselves.
  Mr. ANNESLEY SOMERVILLE: As a Member representing a constituency on the borders of which Woodley lies, and a constituency very intimately involved in this matter, I shall be very glad if the Minister will consent to see us. I have had 25 years' experience as a member of a board of guardians, and I know the effect of concentrating the vagrants applying for admission. Here you are concentrating some 400 vagrants a week in one of the most beautiful spots in England, and in order to keep the nuisance, as far as it is a nuisance, outside Reading. You have three small authorities,

  1651
  Sonning, Earley, and another, and a rural district, all opposed to this scheme. In that 25 years' experience, I have never known an instance in which the Minister of Health has refused an inquiry asked for by the local authorities concerned, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is of any use our seeing him, whether it is a chose jugée or not. I put it to him that it ought not to be, that it is only common justice and fairness that the authorities of the districts concerned should be heard. If he will receive us, we shall be grateful.
  Brigadier-General BROWN: We shall be glad to accept the Minister's offer, and I hope he will allow me to bring my other hon. Friends and, I hope, some hon. Members from the other side of the House. For instance, I should like the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Hastings) to come too. The hon. Lady, the Parliamentary Secretary, knows that I have discussed the question with her a great deal, and I am afraid she is very obstinate about it, but we feel that we have a genuine case, and that the countryside should not be put upon by the town, as it is in this case. The Minister has not really heard the point of view of the countryside outside, and we shall be very
  1652
  grateful if four or five of us can represent our point of view. I am certain that the right hon. Gentleman will do what he can then to meet our views. I realise his difficulty from my conversation with the hon. Lady. It is a very difficult problem, but you are creating trouble between the town and country by treating those outside as they are being treated, and I do not know why the Minister finds it necessary to have this ward in that spot. The least we could expect from him is some statement that we could send to the Wokingham Rural District Council and to the people of Woodley, Earley, and Sonning.
  Captain R. HENDERSON: If I may, I should like to bring force to what has been said, for the local authorities have very strong feelings in this matter, and we would be glad to have the opportunity of bringing their views against this site before the Minister. Apart from what I might describe as the practical reasons against this site, we could lay before him good reasons to justify the case we have put before him.
  Question put, and agreed to
  Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-six Minutes after Eleven o'Colck.