Commons Sitting of 19 February 1930

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Dartford and Purfleet (Thames) Tunnel Bill (Certified Bill) (by Order),
Second Beading deferred till Wednesday next.
Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Conway and Penmaenmawr Joint Hospital District) Bill,
Read a Second time, and committed.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  EGYPT (ENGLISH SCHOOL, CAIRO).
  Colonel CLIFTON BROWNasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to continue the grant in aid of the English school at Cairo after the expiration of the seven-year period for which it was originally made?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Arthur Henderson): The grant was originally made with the object of enabling the school to tide over the difficult initial period until it could become self-supporting. It is impossible at this stage to say whether this object will have been attained by 1933, when it is at present contemplated that the grant should terminate, for although attendance has greatly increased many of the children are such as would receive free or assisted education in this country. The increase of numbers has imposed a heavy strain on the school's revenue, and great efforts are being made locally to raise an endowment fund to take the place of the present grant when it ultimately expires.
  Colonel BROWN: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that this money is being well spent?
  Mr. HENDERSON: At such a distance as that, it, is nearly impossible for me to say.

  KELLOGG PACT.
  Mr. RAMSBOTHAMasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if his attention has been drawn to the proposal that all the nations who are signatories to the Kellogg Pact should be invited to add a rider giving the Government of each the authority, if and when necessary, to prohibit the export of mineral products to any nation violating the Treaty; and whether he will consider the possibility of taking action on these lines?
  Mr. A. HENDERSON: I understand that a proposal of the nature indicated by the hon. Member was recently made by a distinguished scientist. So far as States Members of the League are concerned, any such proposal is superfluous, in view of the obligations imposed by Article 16 of the Covenant.

  OPIUM CONVENTIONS (TURKEY AND PERSIA).
  Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Foreign Office, either independently or in conjunct on with other Powers, has taken any steps to induce Turkey and Persia to ratify the Opium Conventions; and, if not, whether it will do so, having in view how far the success of the anti-drug campaign depends upon united international action?
  Mr. A. HENDERSON: His Majesty's representatives in Turkey have from time to time urged upon the Turkish Government the desirability of their acceding to the Opium Conventions, and the question of Persia's attitude to these Conventions has been the subject of discussion at the Council of the League of Nations, of which Persia is a member. Neither the Turkish nor the Persian Government can be in any doubt as to the importance which is attached by His Majesty's Government, as by other parties to the Opium Conventions, to their undertaking at an early date the obligations of these instruments.

  CHINA (EXTRA-TERIUTORIALITY).
  Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can give the terms of the instructions given to Sir Miles Lampson in initiating with the Chinese Government the conference respecting the abolition of extraterritoriality in China and kindred questions?
  Mr. A. HENDERSON: Negotiations on the subject of abolition of extra-territoriality are now in progress, but no general conference is being held. I regret that I cannot disclose the instructions to Sir Miles Lampson while negotiations are in progress. No kindred question has been or is to be discussed unless the Provisional Court at Shanghai can be termed such. As to this, the agreement mentioned in the answer to the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Woolwich West (Sir K. Wood), on the 12th February, was to be signed on behalf of His Majesty's Minister and other Ministers concerned and the Chinese Government on the 17th instant.
  Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: Can the right hon. Gentleman satisfy this House that the terms of reference to Sir Miles Lampson are such as to safeguard the lives and properties of British subjects in that country?
  Mr. HENDERSON: I think they are.
  Sir ASSHETON POWNALL: Will the House have an opportunity of expressing an opinion with regard to these negotiations before they are finally ratified?
  Mr. HENDERSON: We have already undertaken to lay all treaties and to have a discussion before ratification.

  LEAGUE OF NATIONS (MEXICO).
  Mr. MANDERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will use the good offices of the Government to endeavour to persuade the Government of Mexico to apply for membership of the League of Nations?
  Mr. A. HENDERSON: His Majesty's Government would, of course, be very glad to see Mexico make application for admission to membership of the League of Nations, but the question whether, and, if so, when, such application should be made is one which only the Mexican Government can decide.

  RUSSIA.

    RELIGIOUS SITUATION.
    Mr. L'ESTRANGE MALONEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received any Reports from His Majesty's Ambassador at Moscow regarding the religious situation?
    Captain EDENasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has yet received any Report from His Majesty's Ambassador at Moscow as to the religious persecutions within the territory of the Soviet Government?
    Sir KINGSLEY WOODasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has now received the Report from the British Ambassador at Moscow on the religious situation in Russia?
    Colonel HOWARD-BURYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has yet received a Report from the British Ambassador at Moscow with regard to the religious persecution in Russia?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: The Report to which I referred in reply to questions in this House on Monday last has not yet reached me.
    Sir K. WOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman say when he expects that Report?
    Mr. HENDERSON: No. I understand at least, I hope—the Ambassador is doing his best to inform himself of the actual facts.
    Sir K. WOOD: Has not the right hon. Gentleman already slated that lie has sent in advance a summary of this Report and that he is expecting another one later?
    Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Has not the right hon. Gentleman seen the official reports in the Russian Press stating that they have had a very successful week on the anti-God front?
    Captain EDEN: In view of the very great concern in this country, cannot the right hon. Gentleman at least give the House the assurance that he will see that there is not a moment of avoidable delay in making public the principal findings of our representative in Moscow?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I cannot give that undertaking.
    Mr. MALCOLM MacDONALD: Is my right hon. Friend aware that just two months ago I worshipped peacefully with 1,000 other people in the Cathedral of the Redeemer in Moscow?
    Mr. HAYCOCK: Is it not true that, ever since the November Revolution, we have had nothing but lie after lie?
    Earl WINTERTONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is yet in a position to state if the despatch from His Majesty's Minister in Moscow on the subject of the attitude of the Government of Soviet Socialist Republics towards religious observance in Russia is to be published as a White Paper?
    Mr. HENDERSON: The despatch I have already received is only of a preliminary character, and I am not prepared to undertake to publish it. It must be obvious that the value of diplomatic correspondence would be prejudiced and the position of His Majesty's Representatives abroad seriously compromised if the impression were encouraged that despatches received from them must necessarily be published. His Majesty's Government are anxious to ascertain the facts and would welcome specific evidence from any quarter concerning the allegations which have been made. As I stated on Monday I am awaiting a report from His Majesty's Representative at Moscow.
    Earl WINTERTON: Do we understand from that reply that it is not the right hon. Gentleman's intention at any time to make public what the purport of this despatch is?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I think there must be left a discretion with His Majesty's Government, whatever Government is in office, as to the publication of despatches. I have already informed the House that I do not intend to publish this despatch.
    Earl WINTERTON: What I asked was whether we were to understand from the right hon. Gentleman's answer that it is not intended at any time to inform the House what the purport is?
    Mr. HENDERSON: The trouble is as to who is going to decide what is the purport of the despatch.
    Earl WINTERTON: Is not that the job of the Foreign Secretary?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I answered a question on Monday in which I said that if I was to give a summary of the despatch, that would be called in question, because I had already been informed from the Front Bench opposite that I must not quote from documents unless I laid the documents.
    Sir K. WOOD: Why does not the right hon. Gentleman give a direct answer? Is he going to give the purport of this despatch?
    Mr. COCKS: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these questions on religious topics are put by hon. and right hon. Members who never come in to prayers?

    BRITISH SUBJECTS.
    Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many British subjects there are in Soviet Russia?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: As I informed the House on the 10th of February, there were in 1927 some 340 registered British subjects in Moscow and the provinces. No later figures are available.
    Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: Does that include British subjects who are resident as a rule in India—that is. British-Indian subjects?
    Mr. HENDERSON: No I think the question only applies to British subjects.

  JAN MAYEN ISLAND.
  Commander SOUTH BYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether there have been any negotiations with regard to the ownership of Jan Mayen Island, in the Arctic Ocean; and what is the present position of the different claims to the ownership of the island?
  Mr. A. HENDERSON: His Majesty's Government are now discussing with the Norwegian Government the position created by the Norwegian decree of annexation of Jan Mayen Island, of 8th May, 1929. I am not at present in a position to make any further statement.
  Commander SOUTH BY: Is the right hon. Gentleman hopeful that this matter will be brought to a satisfactory conclusion in the near future?
  Mr. HENDERSON: I am afraid I cannot add to the answer I have given.

  UNITED STATES LIQUOR LAWS (BRITISH SHIPS).
  Commander SOUTH BYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give the number and names of British ships which have been seized by the American Government within the prescribed ocean limits as the result of the prohibition enforcement campaign within the last six months; and whether we have made any protests in respect of any of them and, if so, which?
  Mr. A. HENDERSON: According to my information, six British vessels suspected of being engaged in the illicit liquor trade have been seized by the United States Preventive authorities during the last six months. No protests have been made in any of the above cases. With the hon. and gallant Member's permission, I will circulate the names and details in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  Following are the names and details:
  The "Jupie," of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, 22nd August.
  The Bahamian schooner "Betty R," 24th August (subsequently released with her cargo of liquor).
  The "O.C.L.," of Belize, British Hon duras, 4th November (also released).
  The "Flor del Mar," of Halifax, Nova Scotia, 3rd December.
  The Newfoundland steamship "Mary Mother of Elizabeth," 10th December, and
  The "Irene," of Weymouth, Nova
  Scotia, 26th December.

  CONGO BASIN TREATIES.
  Mr. RAMSBOTHAMasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any negotiations and, if so, of what nature have been set on foot in connection with the coming expiration of the Congo Basin Treaties?
  Mr. A. HENDERSON: No, Sir; but the matter is being carefully considered by the competent Departments of His Majesty's Government, several of whom are concerned.

  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

    EMBASSY BUILDINGS, CONSTANTINOPLE.
    Mr. RAMSBOTHAMasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether,
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    in view of the construction of the new British Embassy at Angora, it is proposed to continue or dispose of the existing embassy at Constantinople; and, in the latter case, what is proposed to be done with the building?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: In view of the fact that the new British Embassy at Angora is not yet completed, it would be premature to take any decision regarding the embassy buildings at Constantinople, which are still in use.

    NEW ADMIRALTY BUILDINGS.
    Sir NICHOLAS GRATTAN-DOYLEasked the First Commissioner of Works to what use it is intended to put the new Admiralty buildings now in course of construction at Charing Cross; and whether, in view of possible reductions in naval strength, he will give instructions for the construction of the new buildings to be suspended pending the result of the Naval Conference?
    The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Lansbury): It is proposed to house in this new building certain Admiralty headquarters staffs which are at present accommodated in hired premises in Kingsway. In regard to the second part of the question, I am satisfied that, even if it should be found possible for any reason to effect substantial reductions in the staff of the Admiralty, this accommodation can, with advantage, be occupied by other official staffs.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    BUILDING PROGRAMMES (REDUCTION).
    Commander SOUTH BYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he consulted his technical advisers before deciding on the reductions in the 1929–30 shipbuilding programme?
    The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. A. V. Alexander): The reductions in the 1929 programme of naval construction were decided upon by His Majesty's Government after careful consideration of all the relevant considerations, including the advice tendered by their naval expert advisers on the Board of Admiralty.
    Sir BERTRAM FALLE: Was the advice from the technical advisers unanimous or not?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: I should not dream of answering a question like that. In these matters, the Government are the responsible body for giving a decision.
    Sir BASIL PETO: Was the decision of the Government in general accord with the advice tendered by His Majesty's advisers?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: I have nothing to add. We must take the responsibility.
    Mr. MALONE: Can we be assured that this country is governed by Parliament and not by the Admiralty?
    Captain EDENasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will state by categories the number of warships of all classes upon which work has been suspended or abandoned since the present Government came into office; and how much money had been spent upon these ships up to the time of the suspension or abandonment of work?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: As the reply is rather long, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the reply:
    The Prime Minister, in his statement made in this House on the 24th July last [OFFICIAL REPORT, columns 1304–11] to which I referred the hon. and gallant Member last week [OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th February, columns 393–4], stated that His Majesty's Government had decided:
    To suspend all work on the cruisers "Surrey" and "Northumberland."
    To cancel the Submarine Depot Ship "Maidstone," and
    To cancel two contract submarines.
    In my reply of the 29th January [OFFICIAL REPORT, columns 970–6], to the hon. and gallant Member for Devonport (Mr. Hore-Belisha), to which I also referred the hon. and gallant Member, I stated that it had been decided as a matter of administrative convenience in connection with the framing of the Navy Estimates to regard the two cruisers, which were of the 10,000 ton class, as cancelled.
    As regards the latter part of the question I have, pending the investigation and consideration of the contractors' claims, nothing to add to the reply of the 6th November [OFFICIAL REPORT, column 1066],
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    referred to in my reply last week in which the hon. and gallent Member for Abingdon (Major Glyn) was informed that the Royal Dockyard expenditure incurred was approximately £44,000, but that it was not possible to give any accurate information of the value of work done by the private contractors.
    I should make it clear that what I have said excludes all reference to the ships deleted from the programme for the current financial year. As has already been stated, no orders had been placed for any of these vessels, a list of which was given in my reply of the 29th January to the hon. Member for Devon-port [OFFICIAL REPORT, columns 1019–20].

    DEVONPORT DOCKYARD (NEW CRUISER).
    Mr. HORE-BELISHAasked the First Lord of the Admiralty when it is intended to lay down the new cruiser which is to be built in Devonport dockyard?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Ammon): Instructions to Devonport dockyard have already been issued that the new cruiser is to be built there and the work will now take its normal course. The actual date of laying down the keel cannot be stated at present.

    CHINESE WATERS (ARMED GUARDS).
    Sir B. PETOasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he can state the circumstances in which armed guards are put on board merchant ships on the China coast; whether his attention has been called to the valuable service rendered by these armed guards in the case of the steamship "Haiching," when this ship was attacked by pirates on the 8th December last; whether any decision has recently been taken to stop the supply of armed guards for these merchant vessels; and, if so, in what way it is proposed to afford protection to our merchant seamen from the attacks of these pirates in Chinese waters in future?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: Indian guards are supplied by the Hong Kong Police on application by the shipping company requiring them. They are then seconded from the police and placed on the ship's articles, being paid and controlled by the shipping company. It is from this force that the guards that rendered such conspicuous service in the case of steamship

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    "Haiching" were drawn. This force will still continue to be available after the 1st of April this year, when supply of armed guards from His Majesty's forces will cease.
    Sir B. PETO: Will these armed guards be available up to 1st April this year, and am I right in understanding that after 1st April no armed guards will be supplied to His Majesty's forces?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: That is so. The provision of armed guards for His Majesty's forces in these ships was a temporary expedient introduced for a short period, I think, about 1928 by the last Government.
    Sir B. PETO: Is the First Lord quite satisfied that the situation with regard to piracy in eastern waters is such that it is not still necessary to continue to supply armed guards to His Majesty's forces?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: I think it is not necessary to continue these guards, but the general position is under consideration by the shipping companies, which have made certain suggestions.

    HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP "HOOD" (PAINTING).
    Mr. KELLYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty why 130 naval ratings are employed on painting work on His Majesty's Ship "Hood" at Portsmouth Yard in view of the number of men who are unemployed in Portsmouth?
    Mr. AMMON: It is the long standing practice of the Admiralty to employ naval ratings on work on board His Majesty's ships which is within their capacity when they are not required for other duties.
    Mr. KELLY: What is meant by longstanding practice, seeing that this has been civilian work until recently?
    Mr. AMMON: My hon. Friend is misinformed. It was suspended during the War, but it had always been the practice up till then, and it has been resumed.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is considerable disquiet about the growth of this practice of allowing naval ratings to encroach on trade union work and to increase unemployment?
    Mr. AMMON: I am not aware that there is a growth of the practice, that there is any disquiet, or that there is any encroachment on trade union work.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Does the hon. Gentleman deny the facts in this question?
    Mr. AMMON: I deny all the statements made by the hon. Gentleman in his supplementary question.
    Commander SOUTHBY: Has it not always been customary for His Majesty's Navy to paint His Majesty's ships?
    Mr. AMMON: Yes, that has always been customary, and also all necessary cleansing work.

    CHATHAM DOCKYARD (EMPLOYMENT).
    Mr. MARKHAMasked the First Lord of the Admiralty how many men have been set on in the royal dockyard at Chatham since the present Government have taken office; and whether the allocation of a second sloop and additional constructive and repair work will result in more men being employed?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: I am not sure that I clearly apprehend the; meaning of the first part of my hon. Friend's question, but I can say that the total number of men employed at Chatham Dockyard under Vote Eight (the Shipbuilding and Ship Repairing Vote) has not materially altered from what it was when the present Government assumed office. As regards the second part of the question it is anticipated that this work can be undertaken without any increase in the number of men employed.
    Mr. MARKHAMasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether it has now been decided to proceed with the construction of the new surveying vessel for the Department of Fisheries; and, if so, to which dockyard it will be allocated?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: Yes, Sir. The vessel will be built at Chatham Dockyard.

    CRUISERS.
    Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty how many years he reckons between the completion of a cruiser and the date on which she becomes obsolete; and how many cruisers it will be necessary to build before 1st April, 1940, in order

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    that the 50 cruisers, stated to be necessary for the defence of the Empire, may be in existence (not including obsolete ships) at that date?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: The life of a cruiser from the date of completion may be taken as 20 years. It is not possible to give an exact figure as to the replacement programme up to 1940, pending the result of the negotiations at the Naval Conference.
    Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that, allowing 20 years for the life of a ship, 25 ships will be required to keep up our strength at the end of 10 years?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: I said that that depends entirely on the Naval Conference.
    Lieut. - Colonel ACLAND - TROYTE: Has it not been laid down that 50 cruisers are our minimum requirement, and did not the right hon. Gentleman say that a ship's life is only 20 years? This being so, how can the Naval Conference affect the number of new ships required in any way?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: My answer is quite right, because the matters before the Naval Conference include the question of scrapping as well as of construction.

    SERVICES OF INTERCESSION (CHRISTIANS IN RUSSIA).
    Commander BELLAIRSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, in view of the fact that it is laid down in the King's Regulations that Divine Service is to be performed every Sunday according to the Liturgy of the Church of England, whether the appointed day of intercession in the Church of England for the Christians in Soviet Russia will apply throughout His Majesty's ships carrying chaplains of the Church of England?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: No, Sir. The only service in His Majesty's ships to which this would apply would be the parade service and the Board are of opinion that this service does not lend itself to the introduction of a special service of the nature indicated.
    Commander BELLAIRS: Will the right hon. Gentleman give facilities for officers and men to attend churches on shore on the day of Intercession?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: The officiating chaplains in the Navy have always had their own arrangements with the personnel for such services as the men desire voluntarily to attend. If there be any desire for an intercessory service of this kind, there is no objection, but it would obviously be very wrong to ask them to introduce a service of this kind as a compulsory parade.
    Mr. THURTLE: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the ratings have expressed any strong desire for this service?.
    Mr. BROCKWAY: Is not political propaganda definitely prohibited under King's Regulations?

    DOCKYARDS (TENDERS).
    Mr. HORE-BELISHAasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will give a list of articles for which tenders have been sought from His Majesty's dockyards and rejected in favour of contract work outside, and for what reason?
    Mr. AMMON: The compilation of a detailed list of the articles in question would entail an expenditure of time and labour which I do not think would be justified. The dockyards are invariably invited, in competition with private contractors, to submit tenders for articles which they can economically manufacture, and the dockyard tender is accepted if the price is satisfactory.
    Mr. MARKHAM: Is it not a fact that the dockyards have overhead expenses which are grossly unfair in comparison with the overhead expenses of private firms?
    Mr. AMMON: I would not say that they are grossly unfair, but certain overhead charges are imposed in order to make comparison fairer with competing firms outside.
    Mr. MARKHAM: Is it not a fact that museums, policemen and firemen are included in overhead charges in the Royal dockyards, whereas in private firms there are no such charges?
    Mr. AMMON: My hon. Friend is allowing his imagination to run away with him.

    COMPENSATION SCHEME (INQUIRIES).
    Mr. HORE-BELISHAasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he

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    is aware of the practice of employing the police to inquire into the particulars of the employment and earnings of men who are entitled to awards under the Government scheme of compensation, 1921, and have reason to change their addresses; whether he is aware of the embarrassment and concern these inquiries are apt to cause to the men concerned; and whether he will institute some other means of ascertaining the information desired?
    Mr. AMMON: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative; but according to my information the police invariably conduct these inquiries with consideration and discretion, and I do not think they should cause embarrassment to the men concerned. Instructions have, however, lately been issued which should ensure that such inquiries shall be conducted by police officers in plain clothes.

    WELFARE CONFERENCES.
    Mr. MARKHAMasked the First Lord of the Admiralty the approximate date when the Naval Welfare Conference will meet?
    Mr. AMMON: It is intended to hold Welfare Conferences shortly but it is not possible to give an approximate date for the first meetings as this must depend on local exigencies.

  FIGHTING SERVICES (MEAT AND WHEAT SUPPLIES).
  Mr. DOUGLAS HACKINGasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in view of the recent Government instruction to all Departments of State to buy British goods, it is his intention in future to purchase British meat and wheat for the Navy?
  Mr. ALEXANDER: I am unable to recommend any departure from the decision already announced. The difficulties in the way of adopting the hon. and gallant Member's suggestion have not changed.
  Mr. HACKINGasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether, in view of the recent Government instruction to all Departments of State to buy British goods, it is his intention in future to purchase British meat and wheat for the Royal Air Force?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Mr. Montague): The meat and flour requirements for the Royal Air Force at Home are obtained through the agency of the War Office and the replies given and to be given to questions in regard to the supply of such commodities to the Army can be regarded as applicable also to the Royal Air Force.
  Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: Are we to conclude that the Air Force is behind the Army in regard to the use of British meat and British wheat?
  Mr. MONTAGUE: I would rather see the Air Force as good as the Army in this respect.
  Captain CAZALET: Is any English wheat or English meat being used at the present time?
  Mr. MONTAGUE: Yes, I think that some proportion of both English wheat and English meat is used in the Royal Air Force.
  Mr. LEACH: Are the Government not carrying out the policy of their predecessors?
  Mr. MONTAGUE: I think the answer is in the affirmative.
  Mr. HACKING: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that the late Government gave instructions to the Departments that they should purchase British goods, and is it not a fact that the War Office and the Air Force are not carrying out those instructions?

  FIJI.

    STATE-AIDED SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS.
    Major GRAHAM POLEasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is able to give figures showing the number of teachers in the state-aided secondary schools in Fiji; and how many of these are East Indians?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Dr. Shiels): I am unable at present to give the figures asked for, but inquiry is being made of the Governor.

    FRANCHISE.
    Major POLEasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has received a report of the

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    proceedings of the conference called by the Governor of Fiji to consider the franchise question in the Colony; if it is proposed to take any steps to meet the objections of the Indians in Fiji to the division of the electorate for the legislative council along racial lines?
    Dr. SHIELS: The Secretary of State received on Monday last a despatch from the Governor of Fiji enclosing a report of the conference referred to. The situation is being considered in the light of this despatch but the Secretary of State is not yet in a position to make any further statement in regard to it.

  WEST INDIES (COMMISSION'S REPORT).
  Mr. MARJORIBANKSasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies when he proposes to publish the Report of the Commission recently sent, to the West Indies?
  Dr. SHIELS: I am not yet able to name a date. The hon. Member is already aware from the reply given on the 5th of February to my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Camberwell (Dr. Morgan) that there will be no avoidable delay.
  Commander BELLAIRS: May we know before the Budget is introduced?
  Dr. SHIELS: I can only say that there will be no avoidable delay. I cannot give any date.
  Mr. MARJORIBANKSasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies at what date his Department received the text or was informed of the conclusions of the West Indian Commission?
  Dr. SHIELS: Two parts of the Commissioners' Report were forwarded by them to my Noble Friend on the 28th of January, and a third on the 1st of February.

  ZAMBESI BRIDGE.
  Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLEasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in estimating the amount of money required for the Zambesi bridge and railway extensions connected therewith, adequate allowance has been made
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  for insuring against the possibility of the Zambesi and other rivers in the district changing their courses as a result of floods; and whether, in view of the recent unprecedented inundations, any further investigations are to be made in this connection?
  Dr. SHIELS: As the result of special investigations during recent flood seasons modifications were made in the estimates, which are considered adequate to meet all such contingencies as those mentioned.
  Mr. SOMERVILLE: The estimates were increased, then, from the original estimates?
  Dr. SHIELS: The estimates were modified. I cannot exactly state whether they were increased or not, but they were modified in deference to the alterations suggested by the consulting engineers who were sent out.

  UGANDA (MALAKITES).
  Mr. HORRABINasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any information as to the growth in Uganda of the Christian sect known as Malakites; whether the Government of Uganda has decided on any steps for the suppression of this sect; and, if so, for what reasons?
  Dr. SHIELS: As I am giving a full answer to my hon. Friends question, and it is rather long, I will, with his permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  Following is the answer:
  The Malaki sect, so called, from the name of one of its founders, made its appearance in Buganda in 1914, and made rapid progress in many parts of the Protectorate of Uganda during the first two or three years of its existence. The tenets of the sect are based on a literal and distorted interpretation of the Bible, the main plank in its platform being a strong objection to all medical, sanitary and veterinary measures, an objection which is traceable to the fact that, in modern Luganda, the word employed to signify a medical practitioner is the same as that which, in the Luganda version of the Bible, is used to translate such words as wizard and sorcerer.
  The policy of the Government towards the Malaki sect, from its inception, has

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  been one of non-interference, provided its adherents have not, by endangering public health or public property, transgressed against such Ordinances as those providing for the control of smallpox, plague or rinderpest. The attitude of the members of the sect, as a whole, has been one of passive resistance to medical and veterinary activities, and it is only within the last three years, and then only in a portion of the Bulemezi county of the Mengo district that any active opposition has been shown. As recently as March last the Governor received reports from all Provinces which indicated that the Malakites were steadily decreasing both in numbers and influence. The recent incident referred to in the Press was not a general movement, but the work of a few-fanatics.
  Mr. HORRABINasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether a judicial inquiry is being held into the deaths of six persons, members of the religious sect of Malakites, which occurred as the result of an affray at Kalagala, Uganda, on 20th July last; and, if so, whether the findings of such inquiry will be published?
  Dr. SHIELS: A magisterial inquiry was held by the District Commissioner at Kampala last July immediately after the disturbance. The finding of the magistrate was that the five persons killed died from the results of injuries to the skull due to blows from heavy sticks received in the course of a riot provoked by the murderous assault by the deceased upon the persons of Mr. W. V. Kendall and Chief Susani Muinda; that the persons causing the deaths of the deceased were only carrying out their duty in law of using every effort to assist their lawful chief and to protect him and a British public servant from being assassinated; and that it was a case of "Justifiable Homicide." A full summary of the magistrate's report and finding was made public in Uganda. This was repeated in a telegram from Nairobi of the 31st July published in the "Times" of the 31st August.

  AGRICULTURE (IMPORTED PRODUCE).
  Sir HARRY HOPEasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the
  1366
  resolutions being unanimously passed at mass meetings of farmers, landowners, smallholders, and farm workers throughout Scottish counties appealing to the Government to check the importation of German subsidised oats and Algerian new or luxury potatoes, he can announce any remedial action being taken in this direction?
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): I can add nothing at present to what I have already said in reply to questions on this subject.
  Sir H. HOPE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that by the importation of these Algerian potatoes it is considered that there is a serious risk of disease coming into this country?
  The PRIME MINISTER: Perhaps the hon. Member would be good enough to address that question to the Ministry of Agriculture?
  Mr. ALLENasked the Prime Minister whether he proposes to introduce legislation to provide for the stabilisation of prices by the collective purchase of imported grain and meat?
  The PRIME MINISTER: This proposal is being carefully examined by the Departments concerned. I am not in a position to make any further statement at present.
  Mr. ALLEN: Could not the right hon. Gentleman dispense with the support of the Liberal party in introducing such legislation?

  IMPERIAL CONFERENCE.

    ECONOMIC RELATIONS.
    Mr. ALLENasked the Prime Minister, (1) if he will state when he proposes to announce his policy for the development, in co-operation with the other States composing it, of the economic resources of the British Commonwealth of Nations;
    (2) what steps he proposes to take which will ensure closer economic relationships between Great Britain, India, the self-governing Dominions overseas, and the other constituent communities of the British Commonwealth of Nations?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The hon. Member's questions cover a wide field,

    1367
    and it is difficult to deal with them in a brief answer. But he can rest assured that some at least of the aspects of the problems raised will be discussed, and I hope that definite conclusions will be reached, at the forthcoming meeting of the Imperial Conference.
    Mr. ALLEN: May I ask if the right hon. Gentleman is aware that the words of these questions are taken, word for word, from "Labour and the Nation," and is it not time that some steps were taken to ensure further co-operation?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Yes, I was fully aware of it, and that was why I gave the answer I have given.

    MARKETING.
    Mr. MANDERasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs if he will consider putting on the agenda for the next Imperial Conference the question of inviting the Dominions to set up in their own countries an organisation similar to the Empire Marketing Board or, alternatively, that the Dominions should be invited to make an appropriate contribution to the funds of the Empire Marketing Board?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. Lunn): As regards the first of the suggestions made by the hon. Member, I would refer him to the reply given by my predecessor to the hon. Member for Gillingham (Sir R. Gower) on 18th November. Having regard to the history of the Empire Marketing Fund, the second suggestion is not one which the Secretary of State would feel disposed to put forward. The hon. Member is, however, no doubt aware that Dominion Governments are in a number of cases actively supporting the work of the Empire Marketing Board whether by sharing expenditure upon new schemes for scientific research or by reinforcing the Board's publicity in this country by increased expenditure of their own for the same purpose.

    DATE.
    Mr. STANLEY BALDWIN(by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister whether he is now in a position to make an announcement regarding the date of the next Imperial Conference?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I am glad to announce that it has now been arranged
    1368
    that a meeting of the imperial Conference should be held in London this autumn. The date of the opening meeting has been fixed for 30th September.

  HOUSING (SLUM CLEARANCE).
  Colonel HOWARD-BURYasked the Prime Minister when it is proposed to introduce a Bill dealing with slum clearance?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the answer which I gave on the 3rd February in reply to a question by the hon. and gallant Member for North-East Bethnal Green (Major Nathan).
  Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that the Trade Disputes Bill is more important than this Slum Clearance Bill, seeing that the former is being introduced shortly?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I have not given a thought to the question of precedence.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    COLONIAL CONTRACTS (BRITISH PREFERENCE).
    Sir NICHOLAS GRATTAN-DOYLEasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Crown Agents for the Colonies in placing contracts for supplies give a preference to products of British manufacture; and, if so, of what nature?
    Dr. SHIELS: As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs informed the hon. Member for Woodbridge (Mr. Fison) on the 20th of November last, about 99 per cent. of the orders of the Crown Agents are placed in this country.

    EGYPTIAN CUSTOMS TARIFF.
    Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can make any statement as to the attitude of the Government towards the new Egyptian Customs tariff; and whether he proposes to take any steps to secure modifications in the tariff in the interests of British trade?
    Mr. GILLETT (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): His Majesty's Government

    1369
    have notified the Egyptian Government that they accept the new tariff, but they have drawn the attention of the Egyptian Government to a few items of the tariff which appear to call for reconsideration. The tariff is provisional in character, and further suggestions for its amendment will be made to the Egyptian Government if experience of its working show such action to be desirable.
    Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLE: Does the hon. Gentleman think, in regard to this and other very high tariffs, that the question of a tariff truce is going to be to the advantage of manufacturers in this country?
    Mr. HANNON: Will the hon. Gentleman say how we can deal with questions of this kind with the fiscal policy that at present obtains in this country?
    Mr. GILLETT: The subject seems to me to be too large a one to be debated by question and answer, but the policy is the same as that which the last Government was following out.
    Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLE: Could not the hon. Gentleman in his official and responsible position give us his own opinion?
    Lord EUSTACE PERCY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, ever since this Government came into office, there has been a steady worsening of British trade with Egypt?
    Mr. GILLETT: I am not aware of that fact.

  PALESTINE.

    POLICE ORGANISATION.
    Mr. MARCUSasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether an interim report has been received from Mr. H. L. Dowbiggin, inspector-general of police, Ceylon, upon police organisation in Palestine; and, if so, whether any preliminary steps have been taken to ensure the safety of Jewish colonies in Palestine?
    Dr. SHIELS: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative, but certain preliminary steps are being taken, and Mr. Dowbiggin's advice is being sought in so far as the proposals
    1370
    referred to in my reply of the 22nd of January to the hon. and gallant Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) affects the matter of his investigation.

    COMMISSION OF INQUIRY (REPORT).
    Mr. MARCUSasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the report of the Palestine commission of inquiry will be completed by the end of this month; and whether, when ready, it will be published simultaneously in Palestine and Great Britain?
    Dr. SHIELS: I am not yet in a position to say when the report will be completed. I do not anticipate that it will be practicable to arrange for publication in Palestine at the same time as in Great Britain.

  IRAQ AND NEJD (SURRENDERED TRIBESMEN).
  Mr. MALONEasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that certain Arabs who have been in rebellion against the King of the Hejaz and Nejd are now at Basrah; whether their escape from armed pursuit by the forces of King Ibn Saud was facilitated by British aeroplanes and motor transport being placed at their disposal; and what reply it is proposed to return to the demand for their immediate surrender received from King Ibn Saud?
  Dr. SHIELS: The answer to the first and second parts of the question is in the negative; the last part of the question does not therefore arise. Several thousand tribesmen who had rebelled against King Ibn Saud's authority surrendered with their leaders to contingents of the British Royal Air Force in Koweit early last month. After guarantees had been obtained that they would receive humane treatment, they were handed over to King Ibn Saud, who expressed his deep gratitude for the assistance rendered by His Majesty's Government. A small party of tribesmen of doubtful nationality, who had previously been in association with the rebels, surrendered to Iraqi police at the end of December last. The question of the disposal of this party is now under discussion between the Governments of Iraq and Nejd.
  Mr. MALONE: Will the hon. Member see that none of these gentlemen are sent to their doom?
  Dr. SHIELS: Yes, Sir; safeguards were obtained in all these cases.

  BECHUANALAND (MINERAL CON CESSION).
  Mr. CHARLES BUXTONasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he is aware that the paramount chief and chiefs of the Bamangwato tribe, in Bechuanaland, are under the impression that it is the express desire of His Majesty's Government that an agreement giving rights to the British South Africa Company to prospect and mine for gold anywhere in their territory shall be signed without delay by the paramount chief; and what steps he proposes to take to remove this impression?
  Mr. MANDERasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he is aware that the paramount chief of Bechuanaland is about to leave his country in order to make a personal appeal in London to the Secretary of State not to compel the Bamangwato tribe to sign any agreement permitting the exploitation of their country for gold and other minerals; and whether he will request the High Commissioner to inform the chief that the matter of signing the agreement is one solely for the chief himself, and that his refusal to sign will not prejudice relationships between the Bamangwato tribe and this country?
  Mr. LEIF JONESasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether it has been brought to his notice that the Imperial Secretary to the High Commissioner for South Africa has arranged that on or about the 20th of this month a public meeting shall be summoned in Bechuanaland at which it is proposed that the Resident Commissioner shall explain to the Bamangwato tribe a suggested agreement with the British South Africa Company permitting the exploitation of their territory for gold; and whether, as the chief of the Bamangwato and his people are opposed to mining operations in their territory, he will instruct the High Commissioner to make it clear to the paramount chief and his people that the Imperial Government has
  1372
  no wish whatever to press or persuade them to sign the proposed agreement?
  Mr. HARRISasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether any interview or interviews have taken place during the last few weeks between the High Commissioner of South Africa and representatives of the British South Africa Company upon the question of a mining concession in Bechuanaland; and whether the Secretary of State has been kept fully informed of the nature and results of these discussions?
  Mr. OLIVER BALDWINasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he is aware that the British South Africa Company has stated that the former Secretary of State for the Colonies was unwilling to agree to the use of administrative compulsion upon the Bamangwato tribe of Bechuanaland to permit mining in their territory; whether any departure from this policy has been made; and, if so, whether the High Commissioner of South Africa has been informed of any change in policy?
  Mr. CECIL WILSONasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he is aware that Tshekedi, the chief of the Bamangwato tribe, has been informed that, if he persists in his refusal to sign an agreement for exploiting his country for gold, the High Commissioner will issue to the directors of the British South Africa Company, on behalf of the Imperial Government, a proclamation giving the company permission to proceed with its operations; and will he inquire into this matter?
  Mr. DENMANasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he will arrange for the suggested proclamation of mining regulations for the Bechuanaland Protectorate to be deferred until he has had an opportunity of receiving representations on the question on behalf of the native interests which will be affected.
  Dr. MORGANasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he will fake steps to ensure that no pressure of any kind is brought to bear on the Bamangwato tribe or their chief, Tshekedi, either officially or unofficially, so as to secure their consent to any mineral concession or signature to any document granting mineral rights in native territories and land in Bechuana

  1373
  land; and whether he will give an undertaking that no steps binding on the tribe will be agreed to by the Colonial Office until this question has been thoroughly investigated and, if necessary, ventilated in the House of Commons?
  Mr. WALLHEADasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he has been informed that the paramount chief and regent of the Bamangwato tribe is about to leave Serowe for London; whether any impediments have been put in the way of the chief visiting London; and whether he will take steps to see that no official action is taken which would make it difficult for the chief to follow the practice of his predecessor, Khama, in paying a visit to the Secretary of State in London?
  Mr. LUNN: The agreement which has been proposed to the Chief of the Bamangwato tribe is one to be substituted for the existing mineral concession granted to the British South Africa Company by Chief Khama in 1893. The question has arisen in connection with the proposed issue of a proclamation regulating mining in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, a matter which has been under consideration for some years, and is still being discussed with the British South Africa Company, who are interested, by virtue of the concessions and rights which they hold in the Protectorate. The proclamation, which will be referred in draft to the Secretary of State for approval before it is issued, is to be in a form in which it could be applied separately to Crown lands and to native reserves, the intention being that, before it is applied to the reserves, the old concessions held in the reserves should be revised so as to make them more favourable to the natives.
  The Chief of the Bamangwato reserve was reluctant to enter into a new agreement with the company, and was granted an interview in the matter with the High Commissioner for South Africa on the 7th of August. The High Commissioner, while advising the Chief to accept the new agreement on the ground that it was more advantageous to the Bamangwato tribe than the existing concession of 1893, made it clear to him that no pressure was being placed upon him by the Government to sign it, and that the decision rested entirely with the Chief and the tribe. There is no reason to suppose that this
  1374
  was misunderstood by the Chief, but he subsequently intimated that he wished to proceed to England for discussion with the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State deprecated this proposal, on the ground that he could not at an interview add to the full explanation already given to the Chief by the High Commissioner, who is fully acquainted with the position and with the views of His Majesty's Government; and it is not known yet whether, in the circumstances, the Chief has decided to come to England. As regards the reference to a public meeting to be held at Serowe on the 20th of February, the Secretary of State is informed that this meeting, which the High Commissioner had proposed to summon in order that the terms of the agreements could be explained to the Bamangwato tribe, has been cancelled.
  Mr. BUXTON: While thanking the hon. Member for the fullness of his reply, may I ask him whether, in view of the very strong feeling that exists on this subject, he will receive a deputation to go into the whole matter, and, particularly, into the subject of the verbatim report, cabled to-day, of the speech of the Governor-General at Serowe?
  Mr. LUNN: The Dominions Office have no knowledge whatever of the meeting that took place on 20th January, but, if those who are interested in this matter desire it, I will suggest to my Noble Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies that he should receive a deputation.
  Mr. WALLHEAD: Is it true that the Chief has been given until to-morrow to come to a decision with regard to the agreement, and that, if he does not come to a decision, action will be taken over his head?
  Mr. LUNN: As far as I am aware, there has been no compulsion whatever on the Chief to sign, and he can take his own course; if he chooses to sign, ho may do so; otherwise, he need not.
  Mr. WALLHEAD: Has the Chief been threatened with action and told that he must decide by to-morrow?
  Mr. LUNN: Certainly not.
  Mr. MANDER: Do I understand that there has been nothing to prevent the Chief visiting this country if he wishes to do so?
  Mr. LUNN: I suppose if the Chief is determined to come he will be received by the Secretary of State, but he has been advised not to come, and told that it was not necessary.
  Mr. WALLHEAD: Will the Under-Secretary see that his answer "Certainly not" is cabled out to-morrow?
  Mr. LUNN: I do not see that there is any necessity for doing that. I have given my answer to the hon. Member's question, and it is a very definite one.

  EMPIRE SETTLEMENT (AUSTRALIA).
  Mr. HURDasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether, in view of the abandonment of Western Australian farm schemes as a result of the discovery of alkali deposits, he will draw the attention of that Government to the success which has attended farming on alkali lands in the Canadian Pacific belt in Western Canada as a result of corrective scientific treatment?
  Mr. LUNN: I will bring the hon. Member's question to the notice of His Majesty's Government in the Commonwealth of Australia.
  Mr. HURD: Can the Under-Secretary say whether a despatch has been received from the Western Australian Government as to the abandonment of the farm schemes?
  Mr. LUNN: I cannot say.
  Sir K. WOODasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he can state the result of the communications by the Government with the Australian Government concerning the suspension of the grant of assisted passages to Australia?
  Mr. LUNN: I am not in a position to add anything to the telegrams between His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and His Majesty's Government in the Commonwealth of Australia which were published in the Press of 13th December and 18th January last. From these the hon. Member will have seen that, in addition to the exception originally made in favour of the dependants of people already in Australia, the Commonwealth Government have agreed
  1376
  to accept as assisted migrants domestic workers as requisitioned by the State Governments and boy farm learners as approved by the States under proper safeguards regarding employment.
  Sir K. WOOD: Am I to understand that nothing further has transpired since the telegrams which have been passing?
  Mr. LUNN: If the right hon. Gentleman had listened to my answer, he would have heard that something further has transpired. We have got further additions to the class of migrants that the Commonwealth of Australia would accept.

  IRISH GRANTS COMMITTEE.
  Sir B. PETOasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he can arrange for the Irish Grants Committee to hold special sittings to hear cases which came before them and in which fresh evidence has been produced but could not be put before the Committee before it reached the end of its sittings?
  Mr. LUNN: The Irish Grants Committee heard its last case on the 3rd of February and is no longer in being for the purpose of hearing cases. The Secretary of State regrets that it is not possible to accede to the proposal made by the hon. Member.
  Sir B. PETO: Before making that decision final, will the hon. Gentleman consider the very few extremely hard cases referred to in the question, and see whether some arrangement cannot be made in regard to them?
  Mr. LUNN: I cannot hold out any hope to the hon. Member that any further consideration will be given.

  COMMERCIAL AVIATION (SUBSIDIES).
  Mr. WISEasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if he will furnish comparative figures showing the amount of the subsidies paid in respect of commercial aviation, or the carrying of air mails, by the following nations; the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, France, and Italy?
  Mr. MONTAGUE: The subsidies voted in this country, Germany, France and Italy in respect of the financial year beginning at different dates in 1929, were respectively £354,000, 10,550,000 reich marks (excluding financial assistance from local authorities), 172,300,000 francs and 56,500,000 lire. No comparable figure can be quoted for the United States of America, since financial assistance for this purpose is there given in the shape not of direct subsidies but of mail contracts placed at higher rates than those recoverable from the public through air mail surcharges; the amount thus voted for payments to air mail contractors for the year beginning 1st July, 1929, was $17,600,000.
  Mr. WISE: With regard to the German figures, could the hon. Member get the figures for the subsidies from the local authorities which I think are by far the biggest factor?
  Mr. MONTAGUE: I agree that they are by far the biggest factor, but there is some difficulty in getting them; if possible, I will get them for my hon. Friend.

  TRANSPORT.

    RAILWAY ELECTRIFICATION (LIVERPOOL STREET-ILFORD).
    Sir GEORGE HAMILTONasked the Minister of Transport whether he can give the House any information as to how his negotiations with the London and North Eastern Railway are progressing with regard to building a tube to Ilford?
    The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which was given him yesterday by my right hon. Friend, the Lord Privy Seal, to a question which he asked on this subject.
    Sir G. HAMILTON: That had to do with unemployment, but I want to know whether the Minister of Transport has done anything to further this matter?
    Mr. MORRISON: The answer is the same.
    Sir G. HAMILTON: I thought there was a liaison between them.

    ROAD TRAFFIC COMMISSIONERS.
    Colonel BROWNasked the Minister of Transport if he intends to make previous local knowledge of roads and conditions an essential qualification for the appointment of area chairman of the proposed traffic commissioners?
    Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: I cannot make any definite statement at present as to the qualifications necessary in the case of the chairmen of the road traffic commissioners who will be appointed if the Road Traffic Bill becomes law in its present form; but, as the remaining two commissioners for each traffic area would be nominated by the councils of local authorities in the area, it does not seem to me that local knowledge on the part of the chairman need be an essential condition of appointment.
    Colonel BROWN: Is it the fact that it is proposed to earmark these appointments for civil servants?
    Mr. MORRISON: No decision has been come to.

    CORBRIDGE-HEXHAM ROAD.
    Colonel BROWNasked the Minister of Transport if he has yet persuaded the Northumberland County Council to commence work on the Corbridge-Hexham road?
    Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: I am informed that the County Council are now making arrangements for the acquisition of the property required, and that it is likely that the scheme will be included in a list of works which are to be put in hand during the ensuing financial year.

    ROAD GRANTS.
    Mr. SHAKESPEAREasked the Minister of Transport whether he will increase the grants for roads definitely scheduled as trunk roads?
    Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: In order to expedite work for the relief of unemployment, the Government authorised last summer a special programme of approved works of reconstruction on selected Class I roads. The rate of grant from the Road Fund to such works is 75 per cent., which is increased in special cases, according to the character of the area and the conditions regarding the recruitment of labour. I am not prepared to increase the existing scale of grants.
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: Does the Minister realise that some county councils are paying three or four times as much for road construction work as they were before the War; and is he aware that the refusal to treat the roads as a national charge is keeping scores of thousands of men at the Employment Exchanges?
    Mr. MORRISON: I am not aware of the fact stated in the latter part of the supplementary question. With regard to the first part, it is because of the increase in highway maintenance costs that State grants on a substantial scale are given.
    Mr. SKELTON: Could the hon. Gentleman give the House the number of unemployed men who are being employed on this scheme?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That matter does not arise.

    CHILDREN (REDUCED FARES).
    Mr. FREEMANasked the Minister of Transport whether it is his intention to secure for children under 15 similar privileges to those now enjoyed by those under 14, when the school age is raised, on railways and other conveyances?
    Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: I have no power to require transport authorities to extend any special concessions which they at present give by way of reduced fares for children. Railway charges are subject to the Railway Rates Tribunal, who recently approved a proposal of the railway companies to extend the age up to which children are carried at half fares from 12 to 14 years. In other cases any each concession is a matter within the discretion of the authority concerned.
    Major GEORGE DAVIES: Is it not the fact that all children travelling by rail are under the age of 14?

    ROAD FUNCTIONS (DELEGATION).
    Major the Marquess of TITCHFIELDasked the Minister of Transport whether his attention has been drawn to the dissatisfaction in the rural district councils of Nottinghamshire caused by the delegation to the county council of the care and maintenance of the unclassified roads; whether he is aware that the Retford and Basford Councils have been given the right to maintain these unclassified roads, and that the South-well
    1380
    Rural District Council have asked the reason from the Ministry of Transport why the care and maintenance of these roads have been taken from them; that the absence of reply on this matter is causing dissatisfaction; and whether he will give the reasons for his action in the matter?
    Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: It has been represented to me that certain of the rural district councils in Nottinghamshire are dissatisfied with my decision on appeals made by them to me under Section 35 of the Local Government Act, 1929, against the refusal of the county council to grant their applications for delegation to the county councils functions in respect of unclassified roads. The grounds on which an application of this kind might be refused by a county council are clearly set out in the Act, and I kept them most carefully in mind when considering these appeals. I have investigated the complaint of the Southwell Rural District Council, and a reply will be sent to that council in the course of the next few days.
    Mr. ANEURIN BEVANasked the Minister of Transport whether he has now decided all the appeals which were lodged with him by rural district councils under Section 35 of the Local Government Act, 1929, against refusals of county councils to grant them delegation of highway powers; and, if so, if he will state the total number of such appeals, the number of cases in which the appeal was allowed, and the total number of rural district councils that will have these powers delegated to them?
    Mr. MORRISON: I have now decided all the appeals made to me by rural district councils under Section 35 of the Local Government Act. The total number of such appeals was 231. Of these 88 were allowed and 115 disallowed. The remaining 28 were withdrawn or not proceeded with. The total number of rural district councils who will have these powers delegated to them is 262, out of a possible 643.

    HALLSANDS, DEVON (ROAD COMMUNICA TIONS).
    Major HARVEYasked the Minister of Transport if he proposes to take any steps in order to remedy the existing situation in regard to road communications with Hallsands?
    Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: These roads are at present maintainable by the Kingsbridge Urban District Council. The county council will become the responsible authority as from the 1st April next, and I am informed that consideration will then be given to their improvement.
    Major HARVEY: Are not these roads maintained by the Kingsbridge Rural District Council?
    Mr. MORRISON: I am advised that they are at present maintained by the Kingsbridge Urban District Council.
    Major HARVEY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that they are about nine miles from Kingsbridge, and cannot possibly be within the area of the urban district council. I think there must be some misapprehension.
    Mr. MORRISON: It is always possible that there may be a mistake, but that is the only answer that I have this afternoon. If I am in error, I will advise the hon. and gallant Member.

  CENTRAL ELECTRICITY BOARD (CHAIRMAN).
  Mr. KELLYasked the Minister of Transport whether, in the appointment of the chairman of the Central Electricity Board, a condition was made that he should devote his whole time to the work?
  Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: Yes, Sir.
  Mr. KELLY: In view of the laying down of that condition, can my hon. Friend say why it is that so many other appointments are being added in connection with this work?
  Mr. MORRISON: I think that the phrase "so many other appointments" is not justified. At present, in each of these cases, the Minister for the time being has been consulted, and he has come to the conclusion that these duties are not inconsistent with a full-time appointment.

  ELECTRICITY SCHEMES, NORFOLK.
  Mr. W. B. TAYLORasked the Minister of Transport how many schemes for the provision of electricity have been completed in Norfolk under the municipal
  1382
  authorities; and how many by the private company to which certain areas have been allocated for the provision of such schemes?
  Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: There are nine authorised undertakers in the county of Norfolk, four local authorities and 5 companies, and four have schemes of further development which have been under consideration with the Commissioners. The position in each case is as follows:
  The Corporation of Yarmouth's Special Order was approved by this House this morning.
  The King's Lynn Corporation have a Special Order which is now before me for confirmation.
  The Corporation of Norwich have a Special Order which will shortly be submitted to me for confirmation.
  The East Anglian Company have a scheme of development for the whole of their area under the Act of 1927, including proposals in the county of Norfolk. This scheme has now been approved by the Electricity Commissioners.
  Mr. TAYLOR: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Electricity Commissioners held an inquiry in Norfolk, in the Fore-hoe Rural District area, nearly two years ago, and can a report now be furnished as to what is likely to be done in that area?
  Mr. MORRISON: I could not say on the spur of the moment whether the facts as stated by my hon. Friend are correct; it may be so. But my hon. Friend must remember that Parliament, in dealing with the private property interests associated with electricity, has been so careful to provide safeguards for the protection of private interests that the procedure is necessarily slow.
  Mr. TAYLOR: May I ask my hon. Friend to approach the Electricity Commissioners and suggest to them that they abolish the speed limit in regard to expediting rural development?
  Mr. MORRISON: I am all for the abolition of speed limits.
  Mr. C. WILLIAMS: Arising out of the original answer, may I ask the Minister if he is taking any precautions to ensure that in this electrical development British materials are used almost entirely?
  Mr. TAYLORasked the Minister of Transport if the Electricity Commissioners are taking any steps to expedite the provision of facilities for and the development of electricity schemes in Norfolk?
  Mr. MORRISON: The Electricity Commissioners are at present engaged in preparing a regional scheme for East England, covering the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, and expect to be in a position to transmit the scheme to the Central Electricity Board in the course of a few weeks.
  Viscount LYMINGTON: Is the Minister prepared to introduce a similar scheme for the South of England, including Hampshire?

  ROYAL PARKS (ALTERATIONS).
  Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLEasked the First Commissioner of Works whether he has taken any advice from expert landscape gardeners as to the alterations he is making in the public parks; and, if so, whether he will give their names?
  Mr. LANSBURY: I have taken the advice of members of my Department, including the park superintendents, who are fully qualified to advise on questions of landscape gardening or other alterations such as are being carried out in the Royal Parks.
  Mr. SOMERVILLE: In view of the general uneasiness of the public in regard to the right hon. Gentleman's activities, could not some prominent architect be engaged to "vet" these schemes before they are put into operation?
  Mr. LANSBURY: I am not aware of any uneasiness on the part of the public.

  WESTMINSTER HALL (EXHIBITION).
  Mr. HACKINGasked the First Commissioner of Works whether he granted permission to the Society for the Preservation of Rural England to exhibit in Westminster Hall photographs showing the detrimental effect of advertisements on the countryside; and, if so, whether he will grant the same facilities for other societies and institutions to show the beneficial effect of advertisements on the industries of this country?
  Mr. LANSBURY: The exhibition at present in Westminster Hall does demonstrate the advantage of well-placed and well-designed hoardings. I am not prepared to permit the use of Westminster Hall for the benefit of any particular industry.
  Mr. HACKING: Why should one society be treated differently from another society in this matter?
  Mr. LANSBURY: The, right hon. Gentleman asked me, in his original question, to allow particular industries to show particular exhibits—
  Mr. HACKING: No.
  Mr. LANSBURY: I understood that to be the question. The exhibit in Westminster Hall shows good advertising and very bad advertising.
  Mr. HACKING: Do I understand that the right hon. Gentleman will not allow other societies to exhibit in Westminster Hall?
  Mr. LANSBURY: Not any particular industry.
  Mr. HACKING: Why should this particular association be given preference over any other?
  Mr. LANSBURY: Because it is considered desirable to do so. We shall judge each application on its merits.
  Mr. SANDERS: May I ask my right hon. Friend, in view of the great historic associations connected with Westminster Hall—with regard to which, I expect, he is as sensitive as I am—not to allow in future any exhibitions in the Hall at all except those that in no way injure its beauty and its dignity?
  Mr. LANSBURY: I am not aware that the present exhibition injures the beauty of Westminster Hall in any sort of way whatever.
  Mr. HACKING: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow this exhibit to be a permanent exhibit?
  Mr. LANSBURY: No, certainly not.
  Mr. HACKING: If it is so desirable and so beautiful, why is it only temporary?
  Mr. LANSBURY: For the purpose of instructing the right hon. Gentleman

  1385
  and several other Members of this House as to the proper way to advertise goods throughout the country.

  INDIAN STUDENTS.
  Mr. MARJORIBANKSasked the Secretary of State for India whether he can state the number of Indian students tried for sedition or political offences who are known to have been resident or educated in Soviet Russia?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Wedgwood Benn): I have no information as to this.

  UNEMPLOYMENT (PUBLIC CONVENIENCES).
  Dr. MORRIS-JONESasked the Minister of Health whether he has received representations from local authorities in regard to the desirability of constructing public conveniences in connection with schemes of new road development; and whether he is prepared to recommend to the Unemployment Grants Committee that the cost of these should be borne out of Exchequer grants?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Miss Lawrence): My right hon. Friend has received such representations. He understands that the Unemployment Grants Committee are prepared to consider for grant, schemes for the provision of public conveniences.

  CINEMA DISASTER PAISLEY.
  Mr. MARCUSasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he expects to receive the Report of (the Committee appointed by him to inquire into the causes of the recent cinema disaster in Paisley?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. William Adamson): The question of criminal proceedings is under consideration by my right hon. Friend the Lord Advocate, and until this matter has been determined I am not in a position to make any statement as to whether any, and if so what, further form of public inquiry will be necessary.

  EDUCATION (MAINTENANCE ALLOWANCES).
  Mr. HAYDN JONESasked the President of the Board of Education whether the proposed maintenance allowances will be available for scholars of 14 years of age who attend secondary and intermediate schools?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Sir Charles Trevelyan): If the hon. Member is referring to the powers to be conferred by the Education (School Attendance) Bill, the answer is in the affirmative.
  Lord E. PERCY: Is it a fact that, under that Bill local education authorities will be under a statutory obligation to give maintenace allowances in secondary schools to children between 14 and 15 but will be under no such obligation to give it to the same children between 11 and 14 and between 15 and 18.
  Sir C. TREVELYAN: Yes, Sir.
  Lord E. PERCY: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that that is a reasonable provision?
  Sir C. TREVELYAN: I do.

  POLICE AND PRISON STRIKERS' ASSOCIATION.
  Mr. NAYLORasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has received a request from the Police and Prison Strikers' Association for the reception of a deputation; and whether he will consider the desirability of affording the representatives of the association an opportunity to place their views before him?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Short): Yes, Sir, but as my right hon. Friend is fully aware of the views which this association desires to put before him, he does not, think that any useful purpose would be served by my receiving the proposed deputation.

  DISTEMPER (EXPERIMENTS ON DOGS).
  Mr. FREEMANasked the Home Secretary whether, as a result of the

  1387
  experiments on 451 dogs performed during 1929, in addition to any performed prior to last year, there has been any diminution of distemper; and, if so, to what extent?
  Mr. SHORT: I have no information on this matter. The hon. Member is mistaken in speaking of "experiments on 451 dogs." My right hon. Friend made it clear in his reply of 14th February that only 74 of the 451 experiments were performed on dogs.

  ADVERTISEMENT REGULATION ACT.
  Mr. HURDasked the Home Secretary how many county councils have failed to use the powers conferred upon them to regulate roadside and other advertisements; and whether he will take steps to make it clear to them that the disfigurement of the countryside is contrary to public policy?
  Mr. SHORT: Only two counties in England (Huntingdonshire and the parts of Kesteven) and five in Wales (Brecknock, Carnarvon, Cardigan, Flint and Monmouth) have not made by-laws either under the Advertisements Regulation Act, 1907, or the Act of 1925 for the protection of amenities against disfiguring advertisements. There does not appear to be a need for my right hon. Friend to take any special steps in the matter.
  Mr. HURD: Having passed the by laws, do they use them?
  Mr. SHORT: I understand that they are fully aware of their powers.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. S. BALDWIN: May I ask the Prime Minister whether there is any alteration in the business as announced for to-morrow?
The PRIME MINISTER: In accordance with the agreement come to two days ago, the business to-morrow will be as follows: The first will be the Motion in the name of the Minister of Transport for the Instruction to the Committee on the Road Traffic Bill, followed by the
1388
Committee stage of the Road Traffic (Money) Resolution. In Committee of Supply, Supplementary Estimates will be considered in the order I indicated last Thursday, with the exception that the Estimates for the Forestry Commission and for the Mines Department will not be taken.
Mr. BALDWIN: The right hon. Gentleman does not contemplate taking the whole of the rest of the Estimates?
The PRIME MINISTER: No. I said on Thursday that I was only giving the list in the order in which they would be taken.
Ordered,
"That the Proceedings on any Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means for consideration at half-past seven of the clock this evening, be exempted at this day's sitting from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House).—[The Prime Minister.]

QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE.
Colonel BURTON: I wish to bring to your notice, Sir, a statement which has appeared in a daily paper to-day which I consider to be a gross breach of the Privileges of this House. Over the head of the column, it says "Bondfield lies deliberately." Further down in the reading matter, it says:
"We have no hesitation in categorically telling Margaret Bondfield that she is a deliberate and calculating liar."
I wish to ask your Ruling as to whether it is not a gross breach of the Privileges of the House?
Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Gentleman kindly gave me notice that he was going to raise this question, and I have given it some consideration. Questions of breach of Privilege are always rather difficult to decide, and I have looked up precedents which affect this particular case. I have come to the conclusion that I should not be justified in allowing the hon. and gallant Gentleman to make a Motion to refer this to the Committee of Privileges as a question of breach of Privilege because it is very distinctly laid down that Privilege cannot be claimed for a Motion containing imputations on the character of a Member

1389
not immediately connected with, in this case, her action in Parliament. As far as I can gather from the quotation from the newspaper that the hon. and gallant Gentleman has read, it does not reflect on the character of the Member in any particular immediately connected with any action of her's in Parliament. Therefore, that does not constitute a case for submission to the Committee of Privileges by a Motion of the House. I am fortified in the Ruling which I am now giving, because in the only case in which I could find that the Speaker of the time allowed a Motion of that kind to be put it was rejected by the House on the ground that it did not impute anything in connection with the Member's immediate duties in Parliament.
Colonel BURTON: In Erskine May there is a case on 22nd July, 1861—I think perhaps that is the case to which you, Sir, refer—when the Speaker said the quotation made from a paper on the conduct of the Member then concerned was such that it would reflect on his general moral character so far as his conduct in the House was concerned. The Speaker allowed a debate to take place, and, although it was rejected, it seems to me that with such a scurrilous statement as this there might be some record in the House that we dissent from it. Therefore, if I may, with the leave of the House, I would like to move a Motion to the effect that the passage complained of in the article in the "Daily Worker" to-day is a gross libel—
Mr. SPEAKER: I have given a Ruling that it would not be in order to move a Motion of that kind in this particular case, and I do not think that the hon. and gallant Gentleman would be justified in debating that point.

SELECTION (STANDING COM MITTEES).

  STANDING COMMITTEE A.
  Mr. Frederick Hall reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee A: Captain Balfour; and had appointed in substitution: Lieut.-Colonel Windsor-Clive.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

BANK AMALGAMATIONS.
Sir JOHN FERGUSON: I beg to move,
"That this House is of opinion that large banking units have proved of so great assistance to industry through times of severe depression, while at the same time securing the interests of depositors, that it is expedient that a Standing Committee, consisting of representatives of the banks and of the business men of the country, should be set up to advise the Government, on all questions affecting the relations between finance and industry."
Hon. Members are, of course, aware that a committee was recently appointed under the chairmanship of Lord Macmillan to inquire into banking and credit, and their relation to industry. The Motion which I now submit does, not in any way cut across the functions of that committee, which I trust will supply the House with many valuable and practical suggestions for improving the economic conditions of the country. That committee, I take it, will submit its report and thereafter will dissolve. But the Measure to which I would more particularly refer is the Joint Stock Banks Amalgamation Control Bill, 1919, which never received the sanction of this House and was worked subsequently on a Treasury Minute. As was said in the banking papers at the time, a more extraordinary document it would be almost impossible to find. It was ridiculous that the whole interests of the banking profession should for an unlimited period of time be determined by a council of two individuals—one appointed by the Treasury, and the other by the Board of Trade—and, as was remarked at that time, it was like putting a straight jacket on the bankers, whom the Treasury had congratulated again and again for the part which they played in the 1914–1918 period. It is somewhat distasteful to me to refer to the age of two members of that committee. To-day you will find it in any book, so I may as well inform hon. Members that one of them is well over 70 and the other almost 80 years of age.
I hope hon. Members will pardon me if I speak with some confidence regarding this subject as it is one of which I claim to have had a long and not unsuccessful experience. That experience has taught me that in banking, as in other trades and industries, there is a constant tendency towards change or modification in one direction or another,
1416
and bankers must ever be prepared to move with the times if the high standard of service which has always been characteristic of English banking is to be maintained. For the past 100 years the banks have steadily and enormously enlarged the sphere of their duties and activities, and they have done it in a way which, far from weakening them, has gradually added to their strength and stability. In 1823–25, a grave crisis overtook the different banks in the country, and no fewer than 500 banks failed in different parts of the country. In his speech to the shareholders at the meeting of the Midland Bank the other day, Mr. McKenna, the chairman, said that in the five years to 1843 there were 82 private bank failures. To-day, I hope that the failure of one of our big banks is absolutely unthinkable. One hundred years ago the country was studded with small private banks. They were very popular in the neighbourhood in which they were at work, and indeed it was stated in this House exactly 100 years ago that the country people of England would rather take the notes of a private banker with £10,000 a year in land than all the Bank of England notes in the world. But when pressure came, as was so well described by Stanley Weyman in "Ovington's Bank," there was something to be said for the logic of the old Scottish banker, who, when asked to make an overdraft, said that he did not want any "Kathleen Mavourneen" overdraft, and when asked to explain said:
"It may be for Years,
And it may be for Ever."
4.0 p.m.
The era of British banking, as we know it to-day, began with the birth of the London Joint Stock Bank and the London and Westminster Bank, and so quickly did these banks and others forge ahead that the House of Commons became seriously alarmed and a committee of inquiry was appointed. The committee was asked for by Sir William Clay in a speech in this House which for knowledge of the subject and directness of demand deserves to rank as a classic, and even now may be regarded as an unequalled exposition of Joint Stock banking. The committee made its reports, and its findings rang the death knell of private banking in England. Decentralisation of operation and concentration of power was the keynote of its finding. I venture to think that that was a decision

1417
with which every thoughtful student of banking at the present day is entirely in agreement. A close examination of the subsequent history of our banks shows a most curious cycle of panic periods which instantly disclosed the weak points in our private banking system. We find these panics occurring practically every 10 years. We began with 1925, then 1836–39, 1847, 1857, 1866, 1878 and 1890. Let me take the last two. 1878, hon. Members will remember, marked the failure of the great City of Glasgow Bank, which brought about the limited liability company. The failure of that bank left a train of disaster behind it. The holder of stock had to pay, under the unlimited liability, 37½ times his holding of stock. If he had £1,000 in the bank, he had to pay £37,500. Then we come to 1890. That was the year of the Baring crisis, and at that time Consols, which were then 2¾, rose a few years afterwards to 111, and the Bank Rate, which was 2 per cent., remained at that figure for a very long time. From then onwards the banks had to write down very heavily their investments. The year 1907 was the year of the American crisis. That crisis caused us really much more inconvenience than damage. Then we come to 1914, which was the most disastrous year the world has ever known. I recollect well the paralysing effect that the outbreak of war had on the City of London and the dazed feeling which permeated the whole market when the Bank of England rate was raised from 5 to 10 per cent. Nor shall I ever forget the wonderful assistance which the Treasury gave in restoring the Money Market, which had, of course, come to a standstill. I recollect leaving the Treasury in those days. Coming down the steps to the Treasury, the chairman of one of the big banks said to me, "The Treasury have offered us something to-day, had we asked for which we should have expected to be kicked downstairs." That is the part that the Treasury took in rehabilitating the Money Market. What the effect of the War would have been had the country been studded with small single banks, instead of great Joint Stock Banks, it is impossible to contemplate.
My Motion to-day touches more particularly the period subsequent to the War. Previous to 1913 we had 58
1418
different banks operating in this country, and to-day we have 24. There are between 30,000 and 40,000 different banks in the United States of America. As an indication of the increase in magnitude of the figures of the banks in Great Britain and Ireland, I would like to give a very few figures, omitting the Bank of England. I may mention that deposit money has increased from under £900,000,000 to over £2,000,000,000; bills discounted from about £100,000,000 to just under £240,000,000; advances from £450,000,000 to over £1,000,000,000; and paid-up capital and reserves at all the banks from £90,000,000 to £150,000,000. The point I want to emphasise is that in that time the profits have risen practically less than double, and now stand at £10,000,000. In this connection, I would point out that the profit percentage of the banks has fallen from 4 to 3 of deposits and liabilities added together.
I have often been asked how every pound of profit a bank makes is divided, and it may interest the House to know that, after careful examination over a period three years, we find that one-third of every pound, or 6s. 8d., roughly speaking, goes to the depositors by way of interest. Another third goes to the staff in payment of salaries, pensions and other benefits, including yearly allocations to the superannuation fund, leaving only one-third to meet all other expenses, such as rent, rates and taxes, stationery, special allocations to premises and other accounts, provision of bad debts and, lastly, dividends for shareholders. As regards the large increase in advances, it may surprise hon. Members to know that in the case of over 80 per cent. of the total number of overdrafts, the average overdraft is only about £600, which shows not only how well spread a bank's advances are, but also that thoughtful bankers will also keep in mind that the small man of to-day is the big man of to-morrow.
My point in submitting these figures is to illustrate the great part that our banks have so generously played, and continue to play, in the trade of the country. While the percentage of English bank advances—and in advances I am including loans, overdrafts and bills—to deposits has increased from about 62 to 64 per cent., in Scotland from 45 to 54 per cent., and in Ireland from 42 to

1419
50 per cent., cash and money at call, which, of course, is the big bank's first line of defence in any kind of trouble, have fallen from 28 to about 23 per cent. Certainly, the banks cannot be accused of timidity if the magnitude of these figures is taken into consideration and thoroughly appreciated. I am not going to divulge any special case which is within my knowledge, but the necessity does exist of obtaining sympathetic consideration for any small bank that wishes to come into the fold of one of the larger banks, in order that it may be in a position to lend its clients every assistance when an increase in trade, for which we all so earnestly look, materialises, and it must be allowed to negotiate with the bank its own directors consider is in its best interest. As I say, I am not discussing an academic question, but a thoroughly practical one. As it is not a question at all of party politics, I would ask the House to support my Motion.
Hon. Members will naturally wish to know what it was that caused bankers to adopt a progressive policy of amalgamation and consolidation. The answer is the needs of trade and industry. Bankers were quick to realise the tendency towards larger and more powerful units of production, and they also realised that they must proceed ahead of those units of industry. They proceeded to rationalise themselves long ago, and, thanks to this process of rationalisation, they are stronger than they ever were. Let it not be imagined for a moment that there is any sort of money trust, or that the bankers have eliminated competition from among themselves. They recognise that the interest of banking and commerce must proceed together. Competition in banking never was keener than it is to-day. Recent deplorable events in the City have proved to be partly due to excessive competition; in fact, I am sure that if there were less competition, there would be fewer bad debts without any injury to any deserving industries. Speaking as a banker, I can assure the House that banks have handed back to industry practically every shilling of extra profit they made during the period of inflation. They did not retain those profits, but gave them back to industry during the trying period of the last decade. The great
1420
amalgamated banks to-day render services to the public greater than ever, and, what is more, they render them at a less cost to the public. Many services, for which in the old days a small charge was made, are now rendered free of charge. All this has been done without in any way sacrificing the interests of the worker. On the contrary, the remuneration of bank clerks has greatly increased in the past 10 years in a variety of ways. All this has been possible by reconstruction and reorganisation, by employing new methods and generally improving the efficiency of the banking machine.
There are some misguided people who would seek to set back the clock of banking progress. Some are anxious to stop altogether the process of amalgamation and consolidation. Nothing could be more dangerous or more short-sighted. This much, however, is certain, and is really the reason for my Motion. It is impossible for a small bank working in a special area to enjoy the stability of a great bank whose roots are everywhere. Thus, if disaster falls upon one area, the big bank has other areas from which to draw its sustenance. It is, therefore, a very grave responsibility for anyone to seek to prevent a small bank being absorbed by a large institution, for if anything were to happen to the small bank owing to its forced dependence mainly upon a group of industries in a particular area, the moral liability for that would rest upon the person who had forbidden the amalgamation. It is particularly necessary at this juncture, when an industrial revolution is in progress, to keep our minds free from prejudice and preconceived ideas, and I believe the banks can assist in a very large measure the industrial reorganisation which is so obviously desired at the present moment. The chairman of one of the big banks at its annual meeting the other day said:
"No doubt banks have an important and useful role to play in providing the necessary temporary finances 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 have no doubt at all that banks will be willing in such an event to do their part."
But they can only render such assistance if they are strong and powerful. Unity and consolidation in banks, above all things, alone can give strength. Let

1421
me quote the words of another bank chairman, who said;
"Our great basic industries—cotton, iron and steel—are all clamouring for further supplies of capital to instal new machinery, to bring processes up-to-date, and to effect such improvements and reorganisation as they confidently hope will enable them to compete successfully in the markets of the world."
Here we have rationalisation at its best. It has been said that ideal rationalisation of industry would include in its objects the abandonment or the scrapping of obsolete or superfluous plant, the concentration of certain factories on particular work and particular classes of production, the establishment of united selling institutions and organisations, and the avoidance of over-lapping. To put such schemes on their feet must involve a considerable writing down of assets, represented by superfluous and obsolete plant, and an inevitable demand for fresh accommodation for the combine, until its anticipated commercial success enables it to raise the money which hitherto has been lent by the bank. That is the position to-day as I see it.
It is within my knowledge that the smaller banks recognise that if and when the time comes that they are asked to give assistance to these schemes they will be unable to do so because their percentage of advances to their deposit money is already so high that it is in some cases periodically raised to what we know as the danger level. They recognise that a cardinal point of sound English banking is that there should be no locked-up capital. It will mean certain death to the little bank because it is unable to retain its customer who requires large amounts, and his business will therefore be taken to another bank. No one is in a better position to know what is best for an industry than the banker who is that industry's banker. My advice or the advice of anyone capable of giving it, far from being resented by men who are in difficulties as regards money advances, would be welcome. I am sure that the people who want money are the last to resent the advice of the banker. It is one of the most heartening things in one's business life to receive, many years afterwards, letters of grateful thanks for service one has been able to render to an institution when one was an official of a bank.
The bankers' knowledge of the present critical position is unrivalled, and with their help a solution of the present difficulties could quite easily be found. As an illustration, let me tell hon. Members that I know of a company which by putting in new and up-to-date machinery not only did away with difficulties in its work, but increased its profits to threefold what they were when it introduced the new machinery. The industrial revolution is not less great in the merchanting and distributing of goods than in manufacture, and those companies that are well equipped and well managed are successful. It is only those that are badly equipped and badly managed that are unsuccessful. I am sorry to say that the former are in the minority and the latter are in the majority, and mostly in the distressed areas. There must be a ruthless scrapping of the inefficient and the obsolete, and I would suggest that that should apply to men as well as to materials. There is no other way to restore prosperity to those industries which are in such a bad state at the present time.
I am not losing sight of the human element in banking. I have myself grown up with banking amalgamations, and I am deeply conscious how much depends on the chairman, the general management and the staff of the big banks. While the maintenance of the present high standard may be difficult to maintain, I think a committee such as I have suggested in my Resolution would be found to be of the greatest assistance, and I feel sure, speaking from a long experience, that it would not be resented. I am firmly of opinion that the best interests of the country and the interests of the requirements of trade and industry can only be served by large and powerful combinations such as our great banks, whose untarnished history is the envy and the admiration of the whole world.
Mr. WARD LAW-MILNE: I beg to second the Motion.
I do not claim to have had as long and intimate a knowledge of banking from within, as my hon. Friend, who so ably moved the Motion, although I possibly began my banking knowledge even earlier in life than he did, for I was born in a bank house and brought up in one, and my first job in life was in a bank. Since

1423
then, I am afraid that I only know banking from without, except as a director of a bank for a time, and perhaps I know banking conditions best as a borrower. Therefore, I can look at the Motion from the point of view, not only of the banker and of the advantages to banking of the amalgamations that have taken place in the last few years, but also from the point of view of the advantages of those amalgamations to the public at large. I would ask the House, in considering this Resolution, to examine what has been done for trade and industry by the great banks, especially since the War. There can be no question, I think, that the amalgamations to which my hon. Friend has referred have been of the greatest advantage to trade and industry in this country. It is probably true to say that had it not been for some of these amalgamations there would have been failures which would have caused widespread loss in industry. It is essential from the public point of view that we should have a continuance in this country of a strong, well-established banking system.
I do not want to consider the prosperity of the banks particularly from the point of view of the shareholders—not that I do not think that that is an important matter—but I want to look at the question in its wider aspect. These amalgamations have made for stability, and have avoided serious losses, but there are one or two points from which the country might gain if certain advantages of the old private banks could have been continued under the great amalgamations. There can be no doubt that the close and intimate touch which existed between the local private banker and his customer was an advantage, particularly to the small man, and it was inevitable that these great amalgamations would to some extent mean a loss of that intimate touch. That is, however, a matter which is perhaps outweighed by the advantages which the public have gained from the amalgamations. Yet I do not think that it is impossible by a little change in the detailed system of working at some of the great banks, to regain a good deal of what has been lost as regards local knowledge and requirements. It is not for me to enter, into details, but it is a matter For the banks themselves. Perhaps there is too much centralisation at the present
1424
time. There is perhaps too much of the system of having details always sent to headquarters in London, thereby creating in the mind of the district bank official a feeling that he has no real responsibility to take a direct decision. I do not know what the remedy may be, whether it could best be applied in the shape of more full-time directors or in the shape of officials being entrusted with more power, but, whichever way it is worked, I do believe that very small changes in the present system would gain for the banks of to-day much of what was lost by the change from the old local banks of the past, and it is most important that that loss should be recovered.
I want to turn now to the effect of these amalgamations upon industry, a matter which is dealt with in the latter part of the Motion. In considering the effect of banking amalgamations and the effect of our banking system upon industry, it is essential that we should consider the position of the Bank of England itself. Does the currency system of this country help industrial expansion or are we working on a system which, however valuable it may be to bankers and financiers, and perhaps to some of the greatest borrowers, is not really of advantage to the producer and the industrialist? I would ask the Members of the House to cast their memories back to last year, when the bank rate had to be raised. The bank rate was raised for the purpose—I do not think there was any concealment of the fact—of bringing back to the Bank of England some of the gold that it had lost. The 10 clearing banks of this country had about £1,000,000,000 at that time in bank advances, in addition to many millions of pounds on short loans and discounts.
It is no exaggeration to say that the rise of 1 per cent. in the bank rate last year was equivalent to an extra charge upon the industries of this country at the rate of £10,000,000 a year. That increased rate did not last a year, but had it lasted a year it would have been equal to an extra charge of something like £10,000,000 upon industry. The inevitable result of the rise in the bank rate was an immediate drop in our trade figures. If that rise in the bank rate had been due to over-trading or over-speculation in this country, there would be nothing to say against it and there

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could not be any possible criticism, because that would be the proper remedy to deal with such a situation. But it was not due to over-speculating or overtrading. Everyone knows that last year our industries were in the depths of depression. The whole object of the rise in the bank rate was to bring back gold to this country, but the remedy was not successful in curing the ailment. It did not bring back the gold, at any rate not immediately, and probably not at all. The bank rate was raised on the 26th September, and yet in December the Bank of England had only gained £1,500,000 more gold, and was still £20,000,000 below the quantity of gold they had in their vaults a year before.
It cannot be forgotten that the rise in the bank rate was a definite detriment to industry, and caused a distinct decline in our trade figures. I do not want to suggest that the Bank of England could have taken any other course. Under the present system it was the only action they could take, and they waited till the last possible moment before taking that action, almost to what my hon. Friend described as the danger point. They waited until they were bound to act, but the fact is that their action did not effect the result that they wanted, but it did add a heavy burden to industry.
There was, however, another possible remedy that might have been adopted under the provisions of the Currency Act which was passed by this House a year or two ago. If it be the primary function of gold, as I hold it is, to enable us to meet international obligations, it is surely the duty of the Bank of England, as far as our system permits it, to meet the demands of industry for currency. We know quite well that the rise in the Bank Rate was caused by the tremendous attraction of high money rates in New York, and it was clear that nothing that could be done in this country in the way of raising the Bank Rate would help us to compete with the attraction offered from the United States. It is clear that, although application might have been made for an extension of the fiduciary issue limit as a temporary measure, the only real remedy was a diminution of the lending of money abroad and a reduction in imports. A high Bank Rate can improve the exchange at the expense of
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our trade, but a reduction in the amount of manufactured imports improves both the exchange and our trade balance. I feel on familiar ground in regard to this matter, because I see the Financial Secretary to the Treasury present. I have exchanged views with him across the Floor of the House on this subject, and my views are, I believe, to some extent in agreement with his.
In considering the appointment of a committee to consider and advise on the problems of industry as affected by finance such as my hon. Friend has put forward this afternoon, we should seriously consider whether our financial and currency system is one which enables our bankers really to help industry in the way we want industry to be assisted. On the still larger question of the extent to which our international obligations affect the supply of credit we must really look further even than the Bank of England. Last year we lost a great deal of gold owing to the demand in New York, but is there any reason anyone can tell me why a loss of gold from this country because of the international demand should immediately be followed by a drop in our currency and a curtailment of the internal note issue? I think it is worth while considering how this thing works. Immediately trade shows any sign of improvement there is, of course, an increase in the total of wages and an increased demand for currency. The position of the Bank of England is that the moment they curtail circulation they automatically help to create unemployment. It is bound to be so. And, alternatively, when a period of depression is passed and the total of wages is larger, and the demand for currency is increasing, the Bank themselves are bound to put pressure upon industry to reduce its demands, and thus actually retard the coming prosperity. The Bank of England cannot help itself. It is forced into this position under present conditions.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has appointed a Commission to examine the Bank Charter Act of 1844, and other kindred matters, a Commission which many of us were very anxious to see set up years ago. I congratulate him on setting up this Commission and also upon having as members of it representatives of both sections of fiscal

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thought. The only doubt in my mind is whether with these two conflicting views so freely expressed, as I have no doubt they will be, and so well represented, there is any possibility of getting a report, because it seems to me these views are bound to cancel each other out. I have only one regret, and that is that it was not possible to have upon the Commission more direct representatives of industry itself. There are many well-known names on the Commission but I should like to have seen a few more industrialists upon it. I do not propose to deal with the points which are bound to be raised in this report because we must await the report itself. At the present moment, however, this country is working under the system laid down by the Cunliffe Committee, which decreed that, notwithstanding, changed economic conditions and advances in wages and costs of production the selling price of gold should be fixed and stabilised at prices ruling pre-War. It is one of the most extraordinary resolutions I have ever heard of; to say that we shall work the whole of our system on the pre-War value of gold, although we know that for many years past gold has become more difficult to get and has increased in value owing to falling production and the increased cost of winning it.
In the 10 years previous to 1917 the total world production of gold was £934,000,000, but in the following 10 years from 1918 to 1928 it was only £749,000,000. Is it any wonder that the system under which the Bank of England is compelled to supply gold at a standard price under the conditions of 80 years ago results in other countries immediately taking gold from us? Let me give an example of what has happened. Although gold mining is very largely a British industry and worked with British capital and we imported in 1928 from British goldfields the enormous sum of £33,500,000 worth of gold, we exported the whole lot, plus another £12,500,000. It is clear why this is so. Before we returned to the gold standard gold was to some extent finding its own level as a commodity. In February, 1920, the price of gold was £6 7s. 4d. In 1921 it was £5 7s., and in the last five years it has been, of course, the standard price of £4 4s. 11d. I maintain that the bringing of this about and thus enabling us to return to the so-
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called gold standard has really been deflation, a very serious measure of deflation, which has had far more, to do with the loss which trade and industry has suffered in the last few years than most people imagine. Let me give an example. My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Sir J. Ferguson) quoted from a speech made by Mr. McKenna a few months ago. May I refer to one he made a year ago on the same occasion when addressing the shareholders of the Midland Bank. On the 9th of January, 1929, he showed that the proportion of deposit to current accounts had fallen from 1919 to 1928 from 71.4 per cent. to 55.3 per cent. That is a definite drop by absence of trade demand on the one hand or by a restriction of credit on the other.
A still better example perhaps is our own national accounts. The Budget expenditure in 1920–21 totalled £1,195,000,000, representing 199 million ounces of gold. In 1925–26 the accounts were £826,000,000, representing 194 million ounces of gold. The value of gold in 1921 was £5 7s. 4d. and in 1926 it was the standard rate of £4 4s. 11d., so that while there appears to be an actual saving of £136,000,000 the real cost in gold to the country was almost exactly the same. In making these comparisons I am not suggesting that we were wrong, and I am not opposing the policy of a return to the gold standard. I think it was bound to come, although perhaps it was made too rapidly and perhaps too drastically; but with gold as the standard of international payments and obligations the matter we have to take into consideration is how to avoid a heavy handicap upon our industries as a result of that return to gold. The mind of man has not yet invented anything better than gold, and until we can find something better gold must remain the standard for international payments. But I cannot see why gold should be considered the standard for our internal obligations and transactions.
When the Bank Charter Act was passed 80 years ago conditions were entirely different. Payments were made in sovereigns or in notes. All that has been superseded long ago by cheques, and currency notes are only required now for wages and small payments. What possible reason is there, because a large number of people are speculating in

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America and offering enormous rates of interest for loans that industries in this country should have to pay extravagant rates for the use of currency which is really only wanted in small amounts and for small payments? To connect our gold reserves too closely with our note issue is to destroy in advance the possibility of extension of currency which industry rightly demands. It is well for us to consider the effect these great banking amalgamations will have in the future and the possibility of their development and still greater value to trade and industry. I want to emphasise that while I believe in what has been done in the past, provided real competition is always preserved, I think it is worth considering what measure of support we can give to the banks to enable them still better in the future to discharge their function of helping industry. In the United States there are over 30,000 banks, but the point in connection with the United States which interests me is not the number of banks but the system under which they work.
I have studied this matter with some attention, and for what my opinion may be worth it seems to me that from the industrialists' point of view the Federal Reserve system is almost ideal. Something like 9,000 banks and trust companies claim membership of the Reserve Banks, and these banks can lend on arrangements which enable them to issue notes against 40 per cent. of gold with the balance covered by good commercial paper. I cannot see any reason why our currency system should not be based on something of that kind. It is true that we have a large Fiduciary issue, but apart from that we are limited by the supply of gold and we are constantly in difficulties because of the increasing shortage of the precious metal. In Germany the Banks of issue have only to keep 33⅓ per cent. of gold or foreign exchange against their Note issue, the balance is covered by commercial bills. Lastly, we have a new factor in the whole procedure in the setting up of an International Bank as the result of The Hague Conference and the Young Plan. I see by the documents submitted to this House that it is to be a central bank for central banks, but apart from that it is empowered to buy and sell gold for itself. I hope and trust that this House before
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it approves of these arrangements will get some assurance from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that our representatives on the Board of the International Bank will be well aware of the policy of this country and will ensure that we are not setting up another competitor for the limited supply of gold there is in the world. We are very susceptible to monetary changes owing to the advanced state of our industrial development.
It is clear that the gradual increase of world population means that credit must keep pace with development in production otherwise prices immediately fall resulting in hardship and distress. The profits or products of industry are divided into money which goes to labour, to management and to capital. If the volume of that profit tends to fall, and if labour keeps the same proportion in wages as its present share, that is if we maintain our standard of living, then the balance to management and capital must necessarily decline, and if it declines enterprise gradually fades away. It is only the profits and savings of the people of this country which provide the capital necessary for industry.
I should like the House to turn their attention to this further fact. It is all very well for us to talk about reorganisation and rationalisation in industry, but industrialists in this country know that in many cases industry is not nearly so backward as many people would have us believe. There are doubtless many cases in which our plant could be improved, but there are many cases in which it is up to date and probably the best in the world. You cannot teach the bulk of our industrialists anything about rationalisation or reorganisation which they do not know already. The fact of the matter is that reorganisation means money. Where is industry in this country going to get the money? That really is the problem before the country. It is not a question of inducing certain industrialists to put their house in order; it is a question of providing them with the means of putting their house in order. You may say they should have preserved the means to do this in some way from the past, but we have to consider the facts as they exist to-day. To-day the industrialist has eight bad years behind him, in which, largely from no fault of his own, his record of profits will not enable him to go to the public for money. He cannot hope to

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raise it in the ordinary way. The banks, perfectly correctly and rightly, as they stand at present and under existing conditions cannot possibly fill that want. It would be quite improper for banks to invest large sums of money in bricks and mortar with a doubtful date for the redemption of such loans. It is not a feasible suggestion for our banks as they exist to-day.
Therefore it comes back to this: Where is the industrialist going to get the money? I suggest that a new outlook is needed. It would be out of order, perhaps, to go too far now into what is required. There are many suggestions that have been put forward. Whether some form of Government assistance or semi-Government assistance is necessary; whether some great institution fathered by the banks, in the way of a trust company which will be able to lock up money, is necessary; or whatever the means that may be adopted, I suggest that the thing to which this country wants to turn its attention more than anything else at this moment is not to keep preaching to the industrialist to re-organise, but to show him how he can get the money to do it. That is what he wants to know, and until we face that question we shall not get that prosperity in industry which we all want to see. Banks, however, are as dependent on industry as the rest of us. In the end their prosperity must depend upon the country having a prosperous industry.
We have forgotten too long in this country the producer, and I think we have forgotten the small man. The people whom we want to consider are the men who really produce, upon whom everyone else is dependent, whether we be lawyers or doctors or tradesmen or anything else. Everything we get comes out of productive industry, and it is productive industry that we have to consider. I want to see this committee which my hon. Friend has suggested set up, because I believe that the banks themselves must be made still stronger with a new and wider field of usefulness, and must be given new facilities to help industry. In what form I cannot say, but they must be given assistance, so that they will be in a position to give the country real help in the reorganisation of industry, and, above all, to give this country, and
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particularly the industrialists of this country, new hope that they will be able to compete on reasonable terms with the many competitors that they have abroad.
The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence): I had hoped that many other hon. Gentlemen might have addressed the House on this question before it became necessary for me to say a few words from the point of view of the Government. The House, I am certain, is much indebted to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir J. Ferguson), who moved the Motion, for introducing the House to matters which too rarely come before us for discussion. I am sure that the House followed with great interest, as I did, the information which he gave us, from his long experience and great knowledge, as to the part which the banking community plays in the affairs of the country. I need hardly say that the remarks of the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Wardlaw-Milne), who seconded the Motion, were also of very great interest. He quite correctly said that on several previous occasions in former Parliaments he and I had debated on the matters to which he alluded. His speech was largely devoted to discussing questions of currency and the relationship of the Bank of England to the monetary policy and to the Joint Stock Banks. That is a matter of very great moment and importance, but I am not quite clear how much it is directly concerned with the particular Motion that is before the House.
I should hesitate to follow him in discussing those very interesting matters. Though I have no complaint to make of his doing so, I think that, perhaps, I ought to confine myself more particularly to the Motion and to the proposal which is definitely made in it. I do so more especially as there is already sitting a Committee, to which the hon. Member for Kidderminster referred, which is discussing the very question to which the hon. Member directed our attention. Until that Committee has ended its labours and produced a report I think it would be premature for me to express any opinion on those matters.
The Motion before us expresses the view
"That this House is of opinion that large banking units have proved of so great assistance to industry through times of severe depression, while at the same time

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securing the interests of depositors, that it is expedient that a Standing Committee, consisting of representatives of the banks and of the business men of the country, should be set up to advise the Government on all questions affecting the relations between finance and industry."
I gather that the object of the hon. Member for Twickenham was that he wanted to see additional amalgamations. The actual fact is this We have had two committees which have dealt with this question. The first was the Colwyn Committee which was set up, I think, in 1918. It must not be confused with the Colwyn Committee of 1924. The Colwyn Committee of 1918 was set up to discuss this question of bank amalgamations. That Committee recommended that legislation should be passed requiring the prior approval of the Government before any amalgamations were announced or carried into effect. There was some proposal actually to introduce legislation into this House, but that proved abortive. However, the objects that the Colwyn Committee had in view have been effected for practical purposes in another way. As the Mover of the Motion incidentally mentioned, there is already in existence a committee which advises the Treasury on these matters, and in giving that advice it takes into account the recommendations which form part of the proposal of the Colwyn Committee.
The words of the recommendation are to the effect that where a scheme is proposed for amalgamating or absorbing small local banks, and that scheme would give additional facilities to the public, it should be viewed with favour, but that where there was proposed an amalgamation which would rather limit the interests and rights of the public and tend to something in the nature of a money trust or money monopoly, that was to be avoided. It is along the lines of those general principles that the committee of the Treasury has acted since. There has been an honourable understanding on the part of the banks that they would submit their proposals to the Treasury before carrying them into effect, and that they would not carry out amalgamations unless the Treasury, after the advice of its committee, expressed a favourable opinion.
Mr. GRANVILLE GIBSON: Were there any industrialists sitting on the Committee?
Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: Yes. As the hon. Member knows, the Committee consists of two individuals, one appointed by the Board of Trade to represent industrialists, and the other appointed by the Treasury to represent banking interests. The names of those two individuals are quite well known. They are Lord Colwyn and Lord Inchcape. They advise the Treasury on these matters.
Mr. WARD LAW-MILNE: I understand that the Committee has no statutory authority at all?
Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: No, that is quite correct. The Committee has no statutory authority, but there is an understanding that the banks have agreed not to promote amalgamations unless they are favoured by the Treasury, and the Treasury has appointed this committee to advise it in such matters.
Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: There are only two members?
Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: Only two members. It was the recommendation of the Colwyn Committee that it should consist of two members. The Colwyn Committee recommended that a special statutory committee should be set up to advise the Treasury and the Board of Trade, consisting of one commercial representative and one financial representative. Apart from the fact that it is not a statutory committee, that has been done. It is now suggested that a different committee should be set up. I am not quite sure why the hon. Member wants a different committee. I think he wants a committee with a different type of personnel, in the first place, but I do not know that there is any particular ground for that view. In the second place, I think the hon. Member wants the committee, to start from different premises and to work on different principles; he wants it to promote amalgamations instead of sitting in criticism upon them. With regard to that matter, I have only to say that since the Colwyn Committee was set up we have had another committee, the Balfour Committee, which examined this question, among others. The House will remember that the Balfour Committee issued its Report last year, and that it took the view of the Colwyn Committee. The Report states;

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"The fact that bank amalgamations have not so far resulted in any of the evils of unrestrained monopoly should not, of course, make us disregard the possible danger that some change of policy might take place,…"
The general effect of this recommendation was that the policy which was being pursued, of preventing amalgamations on a scale which I rather gather that the hon. Member for Twickenham favoured, was sound. Let me say what the actual policy is. It was announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer during his term of office in the previous Government. My right hon. Friend then said:
"Any proposal for amalgamation is now submitted to the Treasury and the Board of Trade, who take the advice of an advisory committee. I may add that further amalgamation of the larger banks would not be likely to be viewed with favour."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th May, 1924; col 228, Vol. 170.]
5.0 p.m.
My right hon. Friend's successor, the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the late Government, took the view of his precedessor, and the same policy was pursued. As the Treasury have taken up the position recommended by a committee specially appointed to consider this question; as that is the policy which my right hon. Friend announced to the House in 1924, and to which no exception was taken, and is also the policy announced by his successor, the late Chancellor of the Exchequer; as it has been recommended by a committee which reported as recently as last year, and as we have no body of opinion taking a contrary view, I think, in view of those facts, we Cannot be expected, and the Government certainly do not intend to take a line diametrically opposed to the policy which has been pursued during all these years. Therefore, although, as I said at the beginning, I have been most interested in this discussion, I am afraid that the Government could not possibly accept the Motion proposed by the hon. Member for Twickenham. I hope that when the time comes for the House to give its decision on thi3 Motion the hon. Member, having had this discussion, will see his way to withdraw it. If he does not take that course, I am afraid I shall have to ask those Members
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of the House who agree with the Government in this matter to vote against the Motion.
Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: May I ask, with all respect, if the Financial Secretary is not labouring under a slight misapprehension. The words of the last line of the Motion are:
"to advise the Government on all questions affecting the relations between finance and industry."
That, I submit, is quite a different proposition from the one to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. The committees to which he referred were, as he pointed out, dealing with amalgamations between great groups of banks, but that is not the point in the Motion at all. It may, or it may not, be desirable to have such a committee, and I can quite understand that the hon. Gentleman may not wish in this Debate to commit himself to having it, but it seems to me that the point of the Motion has not been met by the argument which he has put forward.
Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: We must take the earlier part of the Motion in relation to these final words. The two parts of the Motion hang together, and I certainly understood that the final words related to a committee having as its main subject of discussion the question of bank amalgamations. If the final words of the Motion are to be taken in a wider sense and if they have nothing to do with bank amalgamation, I do not see why these two matters have been put into one Motion. But I have no wish to quarrel with the hon. Member on that point at all. The fact is that we already have the Macmillan Committee which is discussing the whole question of the banks. If that committee were to make a recommendation of a certain kind, such as that some permanent body should be created to advise on these matters, no doubt that recommendation would be considered carefully by the Government. What I understood the Motion to ask was that the Government should forthwith set up a special committee whose main preoccupation would be the question of bank amalgamations. To that proposal, as I understood it, I replied that the Government could not accept it. If the definition intended by the hon. Members opposite is wider than I understood, then

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it is a matter which can be considered by the Government in the light of any interpretation which may be put upon the Motion by other hon. Members who speak in the Debate. As it is, so far as the Motion relates to the question of bank amalgamations, I cannot go beyond what I have already said, namely, that the Government could not accept it, and I think probably the hon. Member for Twickenham when the time comes will see his way to withdraw it, since the question has now been discussed and to that extent he has achieved his object in putting it forward.
Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: I take it from what the Financial Secretary has said that, after the report of the committee which has been set up by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the hon. Gentleman is not opposed to considering the idea of having a Standing Committee to advise the Government, but that he is not prepared to accept the suggestion at this moment?
Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: There is a committee advising the Government on this question of bank amalgamations, but it is not a statutory committee, because it has been found simpler to proceed according to the existing arrangement. There are special reasons involved which have not been elaborated in this Debate, but perhaps there will be further speeches now in which they will be elaborated. Of course, the Government will give full consideration to any arguments put forward for changing the status of the committee, but I certainly could not promise that this proposal would be accepted.
Sir J. FERGUSON: In the case of a small bank, wishing to amalgamate with a large bank—will that receive consideration from the Treasury now?
Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I think that is covered by the quotation which I have already given. I do not want to go outside the actual words which have been used because the words are of importance in this matter. They are:
"Further amalgamations of the larger banks would not in principle be regarded with favour."
That does not solely mean amalgamations of two of the larger banks with each other, but it does mean amalgamations between one of the larger banks and other banks up and down the country. I
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cannot go beyond that statement in those broad general terms, but no doubt any particular application would be considered on its merits when the time came.
Mr. HAMMERSLEY: I find considerable difficulty in understanding this Motion. It is supposed to deal with bank amalgamations, and it sets out by reciting that bank amalgamations are acceptable, and then it suggests that a committee ought to be set up to advise the Government on all questions affecting the relations between finance and industry. It seems to me that two important points are involved here, one a narrow point concerning bank amalgamations and the other the very much wider issue raised in the last line of the Motion. I quite appreciate that the Government would say in reference to the last line of the Motion that the Macmillan Committee had already been set up and that it was dealing with that side of the problem. We have to consider, however, this narrow issue of bank amalgamations. The Financial Secretary pointed out that a committee had already reported on that subject, and that their main recommendation was that there should not be any more large scale bank amalgamations, but that statement does not quite cover the point raised by the Motion. My hon. Friends who put forward the Motion, as I understood them, were concerned about smaller banks with limited financial resources who desired to amalgamate with larger banks.
I wish to put a specific point in relation to the smaller north country banks which are prevented by their financial commitments from giving those credit facilities which they themselves may regard as desirable. Because of their financial commitments those banks find that to give the desirable credit facilities, they would have to stretch the ratio of their cash to their liabilities to a point beyond what they regard as safe. It is within the knowledge of most people and particularly of Members for north country constituencies, that in the boom period in Lancashire the local banks did provide a great deal, of credit facilities which they anticipated, in the light of their special knowledge, would quickly be liquidated by good trade. Unfortunately, the good trade did not materialise and they are now left with, at least, frozen credits and with their liabilities bearing such a ratio

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to their cash that they do not consider it safe to give assistance, however financially desirable or industrially sound any scheme which is put before them may be. They are forced to say that their commitments in a particular industry, as, for example, the cotton industry, are so great that they cannot do anything to help. That is the narrow point which has been raised, and I think it is not entirely met by quoting from the Colwyn Committee Report or the Balfour Committee Report, because the circumstances which have led to further credit facilities being required from these small banks are new circumstances. They are circumstances which have been brought about by the recognition on all sides of the desirability of rationalisation and large-scale amalgamations, and I think the Government ought to consider whether or not applications on the part of smaller banks to be absorbed in one or other of the larger banks, are not worthy of consideration.
I do not know whether it is in order or not to discuss the wider issue raised by the suggestion that a permanent committee should be set up to consider the relationship between industry and the banks. When we look around the country and appreciate the depressed state of industry and the gloomy prospect which faces most producers, it seems a strange thing that while our productive machine should be criticised, while our men are described as not being efficient and our employers are described as not being sufficiently up to date, the only thing which is not criticised is our financial policy. It may well be that in such a depressing state of affairs we have not been sufficiently careful in looking after our producers. I do not wish to emphasise that point however, because it seems to me that it would lead to an argument in which we would never find a solution, and which would not be appropriate to a small Debate like this. As far as the Motion suggests that it is advisable to bring the producers of the country into closer relationship with the direction of the State, I think a Motion of that character would be welcomed by a large section of opinion represented in all parts of the House.
Sir WALTER PRESTON: If the proposal in the Motion means that it is sought to limit still further the number of large banks to which the trader can
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go for assistance, then from my point of view, it is a Motion to which the House ought not to agree. In the old days when we had a large number of banks every trader and everybody who wanted to borrow money from a bank, was personally known to the bank manager, and the bank manager really lent money on the strength of his knowledge of a man more than on the assets which the man possessed. Nowadays when loans are sought, everything is referred to head quarters. It may be that there is a trader in a town in the North who wants accommodation. A report upon his application goes up to headquarters from the local bank manager. That report is considered only by the general manager of the bank and the chairman of the bank. I believe I am right in saying that the directors of the banks take very little interest, or are allowed to take very little interest, in these matters. The banks are run by the chairmen and general managers and I understand from directors of banks themselves that their interference is not welcomed, although they may be experts.
Any bank will lend 20s. on an asset worth 30s., but the distressed traders at present, who are finding it very hard to fight against the world, I know to my cost, are finding it very hard to get accommodation from their banks unless some rich person will step in and personally guarantee an overdraft. An hon. Friend behind me said there was plenty of competition among bankers still. I venture to challenge that. If you have a fat bank account of seven figures, then there is competition, and every big bank wants your account, but if you are in the unfortunate position of having an overdraft, I believe that any trader would find it almost impossible to get any of the big banks to take over an account from any of the other five.
I want to refer to another remark of my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Sir J. Ferguson), when he said that the trader welcomed advice from the banks and never resented it. May I put it this way? Can a borrower resent advice from the mat from whom he is trying to borrow? Dare he? I can tell the House, from personal knowledge, not only of advice given by banks, but of actual interference with commerce by banks. I know of one big concern whose

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chairman was forced upon the directors by one of the big banks. The other directors did not want him, because they did not think he was the right man to be chairman, and they held the appointment over, but the bank's message was, "Unless you appoint him as your chairman, and on the terms which we state, we shall withdraw our accommodation." That man was appointed chairman. Unfortunately, he was the wrong man for chairman, and that company has gone steadily downhill year after year. The bank themselves finally had to step in and remove the man whom they had appointed. They appointed somebody else, and he did not please them, so they pushed him out, and now they have appointed still another chairman. That, to my mind, is gross interference by a bank with the duties of the shareholders of a company. In my humble opinion, as a trader, if your bank account is on the right side, and your bank is your servant, then it is a most excellent servant, but if your bank is your master, it is a very hard taskmaster; and I suggest that any proposal still further to limit the very limited competition which there is among banks is opposed to the commerce of this country.
Mr. WISE: The speeches that have been made have raised some very interesting points, and I think we are all very grateful to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir J. Ferguson), who moved the Motion, for the interesting survey which he gave of the development of the banking system. I think he is qualified for that high post of bank chairman which one day, no doubt, he will occupy. But he did not carry us very far into the details of the proposals which he had in mind. I think most of us on this side would agree that an arbitrary limitation of the number of big banks to five is just arbitrary, and that any attempt to stop it at five, instead of four, or three, or two, or one requires far greater justification than has been given either in the Report of the Committee which sat, in quite different circumstances, in 1919 or thereabouts, or in the later Reports to which references have been made.
When the hon. Member talks about the efficiency, the resources, the capacity, and the public spirit of the great banks, I do not think we should challenge very
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strongly his very great authority to speak on these matters, but, as later speeches have shown, other hon. Members do not share to the full his enthusiasm for the wisdom which the banks have always shown in the use of their resources. It is true that they have safeguarded their depositors' money; it is equally true that over a period of years they have paid a steady 17 or 20 per cent. or more, apart from occasional bonus shares, to their shareholders; and it is perfectly true that, apart from occasional awkward incidents such as that which happened a few weeks ago, to which I need not refer, because I am aware that it is a painful subject in banking circles, they have not lost very much money in their operations. But, as things are, industry expects a little more from the great banks than that they should successfully play for safety.
The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Sir W. Preston) has referred to the difficulties of the small manufacturer, of the man who is trying to branch out on a new enterprise, just that type of enterprise which, in the present circumstances of the industrial position of the country, ought to be encouraged. When the bankers congratulate themselves on the successful way in which they have maintained their reserves and paid their profits during these last 10 years, it is only fair to point out that, though the bankers have been prosperous, the rest of the country has been very far from prosperous, and that the two things are not entirely unconnected. I do not say that the bankers by making an enormous profit have hurt industry, though I should like to know a little more as to what are called the hidden reserves, which, with super-caution, they hide away, but which are displayed on the best streets in the best sites in every country town. You will generally find that the five best buildings in the town are the hidden reserves, very obvious, of the great banks. Except for the Mover of the Motion, we are not able to express any opinion on these matters, because, apart from the general observations, very interesting and sometimes quite helpful and relevant, with which the bank chairmen delight us at their annual meetings, they give us very little information about their internal operations—far less information than is vouchsafed by the American or German bankers or by the bankers of most other countries.

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The hon. Member for Twickenham refers in his Motion to the relations between the banks and industry, and he proposes to set up a committee to deal with that very important problem. I think it is very important that we should reconsider the whole relation of the banking system to industry at this moment. Some 80 per cent. of all the available current capital, the working capital, in the country is more or less under the control of the five big joint stock banks. That is a tremendous power, a power which could be used, if they so desired, to thwart the policy of any Government or of this House, a power which can make prosperous one industry and destroy, or send into bankruptcy, another, a power whose exercise seems to me to be entirely at variance with those conceptions of democratic government which we all so loudly protest on election platforms.
I am not for one moment suggesting that in the exercise of that power the bank chairmen and the bank directors are moved by any but the highest considerations of public duty, but the fact is that they are a more or less self-appointed oligarchy controlling the bulk of the trading resources of this country, responsible in a sort of way to shareholders who never attempt to exercise any direct form of control over them, and to whom very little information on which they could, if they so desired, exercise control is vouchsafed. I dare say it will be said by hon. Members opposite that if any of the great banks showed signs of getting into a financial mess, their shareholders would quickly sit up and take notice, but, as a matter of fact, on the only occasion when that happened, when the real test was made as to the solidity and safety of the banking system of this country, in 1914, as the hon. Member for Twickenham said—and he was very frank in his expression of gratitude—the first thing that happened with the shareholders was that the State had to step in and save the banks from bankruptcy; and, of course, it is plain that if any of the big joint stock banks got into financial trouble, such as happened not so many years ago to one of the corresponding institutions in Italy, the State would have to step in.
The real guarantee of the operations of these joint stock banks at the present
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moment is not the shareholders, but the community as a whole. We could not afford to let them go bankrupt, and we should have to prevent the discord and chaos which would result. Therefore, we are entitled to examine a little more closely the relations which exist. Here is this great organisation, exercising powers of immense importance to every industry, to every trader, and, I would add, to every worker in the country, controlled by men who are, despite their merits, responsible practically to nobody but themselves. Yet, as a matter of fact, this enormously important and powerful institution has behind it, not really the money of its shareholders, but the whole forces and resources of the State, which, as they know, and as we know, would have to come to their rescue if they got into trouble at all.
Add to that, as the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Wardlaw-Milne), who seconded the Motion, said, in the present circumstances they are inadequate, they are unable to deal with the problems of financing with which industry is faced. Their methods are suited to the ordinary short-term day-to-day finances, admirably suited to the operations of the stock market, fairly well suited, though not perfectly, to the operations of foreign trade, but not at all suited to those longer term operations, the lack of facilities for which is the chief trouble in industry at this moment. As the hon. Member opposite indicated, though he did not proceed very far with it, the only way in which they could meet that situation—and, I suppose, it is one of the points with which it is contemplated that this Committee which has been referred to will have to deal—would be if the State came in behind them.
I want to submit that, as things are, as the banking system is developing, and as the policies of Governments and the problems of industry as a whole are becoming more and more interlocked with the day-to-day operations of the banking system, it is impossible that it can stand out in its present position of more or less irresponsible and dangerous independence. We have had the spectacle in this House, on two or three occasions lately, of the Minister responsible for dealing with unemployment telling us, in a vague and uncertain sort of way, that he hoped that the City would come to his assistance.

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He told us that he could not answer any questions about it, that he could not in any way be held to explain exactly how it was going to be done, but that he was making an appeal, in some sort of way, to the City to come in and help him to discharge functions which the City can discharge, because of its control of the resources of the country, but which, as we understand, the Government cannot discharge, because it has not that control.
This is a suggestion which, sooner or later, we shall have to face. It is absolutely illogical and anomalous that the banks should exercise these vast powers without any sort of reference or responsibility to public control. If they had exercised them in the last few years with great wisdom, criticism no doubt would be stilled, but right through industry, not only among working people, but among manufacturers, traders, merchants, importers and exporters, there is constant criticism. Only the other day I was talking to a great export merchant who was explaining to me a phenomenon which I have observed in my own business experience, by which it is easier for foreign manufacturers to get credits from this country to sell goods abroad, than it is for British manufacturers to get credits from British banks for exactly the same purpose. An Italian manufacturer, selling cotton goods to Egypt, can get finance from the Italian banks, which comes direct from London, but a British manufacturer, selling to the same customers, in the same way, can go to a London Bank, as happened in this particular case, and be refused.
The joint stock system, with all its merits, is out of touch with the industrial and commercial problems of the country, and the whole relation of it to the State needs to be reconsidered. I am not going to discuss the question of the gold standard or the relation of the Bank of England to industry. The Bank of England and the joint stock banks are part of an enormously important financial machine, which at the present moment controls industry. That machine has within its hands the power to make decisions, which are of vital importance to industry, and for these decisions it cannot be held to account by anybody. There is only one way out, and that is for this House by using all the great skill
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of those who have conducted banks in the past, and using all the expert advice inside and outside the House, to provide machinery, which I cannot explain at this moment, to take into its control the responsibility which it ought to exercise, and which, sooner or later, it must exercise.
This proposed committee might pave the way for such a development, although I would point out the extraordinary omission that it is proposed to set up a committee to deal with the relations between finance and industry, without, apparently, putting any representatives of labour upon it. Has the hon. Member forgotten the existence of the trade union movement, and the important interest which it represents? The Mond-Turner Conference has been doing valuable work on a recognition of precisely the fact which the hon. Member has overlooked. This Debate has been very useful in drawing our attention to a very important question, but I cannot agree with the very narrow view of the problem which the hon. Gentleman has taken. I am sure that we are all grateful to him for having raised it.
Sir J. FERGUSON: In view of the helpful and courteous reply which I have received from the Financial Secretary, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

INCIDENCE OF TAXATION ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRY.
Mr. MOND: I beg to move,
"That, in the opinion of this House, the effects of high taxation are detrimental to the progress of industry and commerce; and that existing taxation is too high, is increasing, and ought to be diminished."
I move this Motion with some hesitation, because I am fully aware of my deficiency to deal adequately with this grave and serious topic, a topic usually treated with a great deal of acrimony and recrimination. Yet nothing is more important to the nation and to our industrial recovery than its proper and thorough apprehension. I might be regarded as one of those likely to object to taxation as a so-called wealthy man, but I do not bring forward this question in its personal but in its economic aspect. Having had the good fortune and the opportunity

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to take a practical part in providing employment for many thousands of men and women, and having had the privilege of inheriting the tradition of treating them well and looking after their interests, and of providing for their continual progress, as many hon. Members on the other side who have worked with us know, I feel entitled to bring this question forward in a serious vein, and to ask the House to join in a dispassionate examination of the economics of the question.
The first question which I ask is, whether a high rate of taxation is detrimental to the progress of industry? In order to determine this, it is first necessary to discover who, in reality, bears the taxation that is imposed by this House. We listen to Budget speeches, we discuss them at great length, and we vote upon them, but who pays, in reality, is a matter which is very often obscured. Although, when you hear all the arguments brought forward from the Treasury Bench, it may appear on the surface that taxation is going to be borne by one class or another class of the community, it is by no means certain that the taxation is borne in the place where the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day intends it to be borne. It is my belief that a great many of these efforts are shots in the dark, which very often hit extremely different targets from those which they were intended to find.
In the economic system of the country as it stands to-day, one can largely rule out agriculture as a comparatively negligible quantity as far as national revenue and income are concerned. Therefore, one has to look to industry, to mining and manufacture, as the real source of revenue. Income from the land is mainly an income resulting from industrial activity in one form or another; in the present economic system, land can be looked upon as an interest-bearing security which enters, in a greater or less degree, into all our transactions. There are profits from pure finance as such, but these are for the most part dependent on industry or essential to industry, and one can safely say that industry alone is the real source of revenue in this country, and in one relation or another bears by far the greater part, if not the whole, of the taxation which is imposed.
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In industry there are in reality only two charges. The first is wages, and the second is the return to capital. Except for the return to capital, all the costs to industry are wages costs. Raw material costs are, except for the capital return, wages costs in some other direction. But all costs are fundamentally wages costs, and all human endeavour can be set down to wages. Capital is essential in order to pay these wages, until the result of the endeavours of labour yield some return. Before the world accumulated adequate capital for the purpose, progress was lamentably slow, and human endeavour, which was largely agricultural, consisted in people picking up the best living they could in some primeval forest. They were unable to embark on any long distance work, because they had no accumulated capital behind them which would keep them alive during the process. Then, in the very early stages there was some accumulation of capital which enabled men to start on some form of work which achieved no immediate return. That was the commencement of capital. When it came, it was seen that it must receive a return, as it does in nature, in exactly the same way as the planting of seed corn makes a return to the man who plants it several times over. The representation of that seed in a factory—that is, capital—must receive its true and proper remuneration in an economic system. Capital must be remunerated at its own rate which is not a rate which is decided by some body of capitalists sitting in a room. Capital is not national but international; it is world wide, and it cannot be confined in any particular national system. It has the charm and elusiveness of the will-o'-the-wisp, both to the theorist and practical man alike. It comes and goes very easily when you have it.
Capital is of two kinds, fixed and liquid. Fixed capital is mostly represented by machinery, by money spent on work which has been done, and unless that machinery can earn a profit, it is simply money that has been wasted or lost; somebody has paid for making the machine that nobody wants. One of the greatest fallacies which I continually see put forward, very often by men of industry and frequently by economists, is that capital as represented by factories and machinery is necessarily a fixed asset. It is not necessarily an asset at all. It

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can become a complete liability, and unless it is making money and unless it is yielding a return, and a sufficient return, not only to remunerate the capital put into it, but also to pay for replacement and the wearing out of the machine, it is making a loss and is useless; the capital put in becomes obsolete. As against that, you have your money as liquid capital in the form of securities, coin, notes, bullion, land, and in any other form which is easily convertible at option for goods or services. If you curtail the earning power of liquid capital, you arrive even more rapidly at the same position as with fixed capital, because it is either very seriously impaired or disappears altogether.
We had a concrete example of that in this House not very long ago. The unpremeditated observation of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, on the subject of War Loan interest, produced a depreciation in War Loan of about two points. That was because he had given the idea that he might propose to restrict the interest. That is a very clear example of how capital can vanish. I have made no calculation, but I believe calculations have been made, as to the amount which this fall of ½ to ⅛ per cent. meant over the total amount, and it would be a very large figure. In this country money is represented very largely by a system of cheques based entirely on credit. The idea that so many people, even Members of this House, seem to have, that money in reality exists, is the greatest fallacy. Money is metaphysical in its character; it is not a pile of sovereigns in the vaults of a bank.
The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Mr. Montague): Did not the hon. Member say at the beginning of his speech that this money capital was what the workers lived on before the results of an enterprise came to fruition? Do they live upon metaphysics?
Mr. MOND: "Man shall not live by bread alone."
Mr. MONTAGUE: They live upon what they produce.
Mr. MOND: They live on bread, and in order to obtain that bread there is a very widespread organisation which brings them bread from abroad to feed them—bread which is not grown, and
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never could be grown, in this country. That is a fact which I would recommend to the attention of hon. Members, a fact which lies at the very bottom of the economic system of this country and one of the facts which puts this country in such a very dangerous position; because if the economic metaphysical system broke down, that bread would not be there, and I do not think the workers would like to eat the bank deposits, which are the only form of money which exist.
Mr. WALLHEAD: The wheat which comes from abroad is paid for by goods produced by workers here.
Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Dunnico): The hon. Member is entitled to state his case and ought not to be interrupted so often.
Mr. MOND: I think there will be plenty of opportunity for hon. Members opposite to state their case. Further to the point I was making, one can take the case of the destruction of capital both in Germany and Russia. Both those countries, where their credit has been destroyed, have been seeking capital throughout the world ever since, and have never managed to get hold of enough. There you have two great countries, one of them one of the greatest industrial countries, and the other one of the greatest agricultural countries, both crippled to a greater or less degree by the lack of capital, which has, in fact, disappeared. That is an actual matter of fact to which I would direct the attention of hon. Members opposite, who seem to imagine that these things exist in a concrete and not in an abstract way.
Mr. HAYCOCK: May I ask—
Mr. MOND: I would suggest to the hon. Member that he should put his point at a later stage. As capital must be remunerated at its own world rate or vanish there remains only one variable in the mercantile and industrial system, and that is wages. Nobody in this country wants to see wages vary downwards and, as a matter of fact, the trade union system makes it extremely difficult for the wages to be varied. Nowhere are the workers better organised to maintain their standards of living, and I, for one, am very glad indeed to see that that is the case. But the economic results of that position have to be faced. There

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are only two possible sources from which taxation comes—the return on capital which, as I have shown, is largely fixed, and the wages paid to the workman, which are not fixed, except by their trade union organisation and that is why, when taxation is imposed, it falls in the long run, and for the greater part, on the wages of the workmen. It is there alone that we get the continual economic restriction which is holding this country back to-day.
It is perfectly true that in the case of moderate taxation the lag that exists in the fulfilment of the economic law is probably not taken up for a long time, and taxation may be borne in a great many different quarters without any particular strain on the economic system as a whole; but where taxation is heavy, and as it becomes heavier, so you get increased disturbance and great economic friction as the tax is passed on, as it must be, to the wages of the workmen. That is not done at the volition of any particular capitalist sitting in his room wondering how he can pass it on; it is a natural operation over which no one has any control, and over which the State would have no control whatever. Even if it owned all the factories and all the capital in the country the position would remain precisely the same. The ownership makes not the least difference; that is what would happen in any event. The result is that you get a restriction of industry, you get stagnation, and you get lack of enterprise and initiative, because you are asking industry to shoulder a double burden, first, of wages which are prevented from coming down—and I am very glad that is so—and of return on capital, which cannot come down; and so the customer is called in to ease the burden. Very often prices go up, or perhaps he does not get the reduction that he might have expected to get, but in one form or another it is through the customer that complete readjustment has to take place.
It is often argued that industry earns a higher rate of remuneration than is justified. As a matter of fact that is another great fallacy. The total return to capital is something between 4 per cent. and 6 per cent. at the present time; that is a world figure, which does not vary very much in any country. It is true that some
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institutions trading for profit or manufacturing for profit may make 100 per cent., and others may lose 100 per cent.; it varies with the skill and the good fortune which attend their enterprises. It is argued that national ownership would save capital, but that is very far from being the case. At the present moment national capital is managed by a vast committee of millions of small investors, governed and selected by the rule and law that a fool and his money are soon parted. All you would do, if you concentrated this money under one hand—under one committee, possibly a Cabinet—would be to provide a body of people, very likely selected, under popular franchise, for their gift of the gab rather than for their knowledge of finance and industry, with the opportunity, by mischance and mismanagement, of losing the whole lot with even greater rapidity and facility. The cry of "the idle rich" in the matter of taxation will not wash. It is a very useful one, and it serves the purpose of hon. Members from time to time; but it really does not represent sound economics. The idle man is not rich very long, and fools, who may exist in all walks of life, attract more attention in the case of the wealthy than possibly in the case of those less fortunately situated; but the psychology of wealthy scamps is the same as the psychology of scamps in other walks of life.
It must be realised that there has never been a wealthy country without wealthy people in it. In the United States the federal income tax return for 1928 showed that the number of people with incomes of more than £200,000 a year was 496, an increase of 206, or about 40 per cent., and that there were 20 people with more than £1,000,000 a year, as compared with 11 in the previous year; and yet we, sitting here, envy from time to time the great and growing prosperity of America and the fortunate situation in which the workers of America find themselves, their high standard of living, their high wages and everything else in which that great country abounds. I just make that point to show that great wealth spreads throughout the whole community, and it is idle to say that a rich class in any way affects or depreciates the wealth of the other parts of the community. You will find that in a community where the

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conditions have brought riches and improved standards to the working class there is usually at the top of the scale a number of extremely wealthy individuals.
American prosperity has not been produced by high taxation. Our taxation is 250 per cent. heavier than taxation in the United States. We pay £16 a head in taxation, and in America they pay under £6. Compared with France, our taxation is 58 per cent. heavier; and compared with Germany it is 100 per cent. heavier. Those countries are reducing taxation, and not increasing it. In the United States a out of 1 per cent. in the income tax is foreshadowed, in France there is a reduction of taxes amounting to £11,500,000, and in Germany every kind of industrial tax is to be lowered and the income tax is to be reduced by a progressive reduction of 25 per cent. in the next five years. Those taxes are to be reduced in order that the industries of those countries may recover with the greatest possible speed, and get back to prosperity. We are not reducing our burdens. In this country this year we have added £8,500,000, and next year we are adding £21,000,000.
This is the question which underlies the fundamental principle of the whole of this topic—whether it is possible to use taxation as a means of redistribution of national wealth without causing such a diminution of industrial progress that it makes the worker no better off than he was before. What you want to arrive at is not national redistribution, but national prosperity, with high wages, and in order to get high wages you have got to have good prices and low taxes. To obtain the first it is necessary to eliminate competition with low wage commodities, and to obtain the second it is necessary to eliminate Socialist Chancellors of the Exchequer. This Government offers no possibilities of either of these happy events coming to pass. So far as I can see, the best chance of their coming about through the party opposite is by the continual growth and development of the trade union movement, the members of which are taking more and more interest in this House and are studying taxation and finance in relation to industry in a practical way, and are coining to some interesting conclusions on the subject.
6.0 p.m.
Nothing is more apparent than that continual new impositions by the Treasury have to be met out of industry, and that means that commerce and manufactures are crippled and confined, and workmen's wages are poured into Whitehall and are doled out again all over the country at the rate of about 17s. to the £. Let us leave the earnings of industry where they are earned, and not be continually dragging them up to Whitehall in an attempt to redistribute them on a different basis. High taxation produces a series of economic falsehoods which destroys the incentive to the accumulation of capital. It is a very undesirable thing to destroy the habit of thrift, which is acquired with great difficulty anywhere except in Aberdeen; and any national action which tends to reduce the thrift of the people in the long run only leads to a diminution of the amount of return on capital which is available and which is necessary to our prosperity. High taxation makes borrowing an economy. It is an extraordinary fact that it is so much cheaper to form a company anywhere else in the world than in the City of London. In dealing with industry to-day you will find that in international negotiations foreigners will always stipulate that it must not be an English company in London, because the cost is so high and the taxation imposed is so great. As far as direct taxation on industry is concerned, nothing is more important than that there should be a relief of taxation on undistributed industrial reserves of industry which constitute the whole, bulwark against bad fortune, because it is a defence against the big changes which may have to be made as a result of technical progress.
There could not be a greater mistake than to say that it is impossible to make a differentiation between industrial reserves and other accumulations of this character. An arbitrary division will have to be made and could be made, and I would appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to take this matter seriously into consideration in the next Budget. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would find in the long run that the results to industry would repay him for employing this particular form of relief. Unfortunately, these are not considerations which move the Chancellor of the Exchequer because he is actuated by wholly different motives. The right hon. Gentleman

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seems to me rather to enjoy the petty side of national finance and the meaner aspect, whether the victims suffer under his maladministration, or. whether a few poor fools excite his avarice or offend his temperance principles by the conjunction of unnecessary expenditure and good spirits. A few quotations from the right hon. Gentleman's article in the "Morning Post" of February last year will be sufficient to show the principles which are really behind his camouflage of serious economics. Writing in the "Morning Post," the Chancellor of the Exchequer said:
"The existence of a rich class is responsible for the poverty of the mass, and for the social evil of the slums, physical deterioration, ill-health, inadequate education and industrial inefficiency."
[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] That quotation seems to find approval with some hon. Members opposite, but I would like to refer them to the United States as a complete contradiction of what lies behind that statement. The quotation proceeds:
"When money raised by taxation is spent in these ways we have the assurance that it is saved, whereas if it is left with the individual, there is no such assurance, but the reasonable assumption that it will be wasted in luxury and riotous living."
That seems to cause no comment amongst hon. Gentlemen opposite. The quotation goes on:
"There is a case for the heavy taxation of very large so-called 'earned' incomes, because they have in them a large element of 'social increment.' "
It is clear that the Chancellor of the Exchequer not only believes in increased taxation, but he would if he dared largely increase taxation in order to provide himself with the opportunity of bringing about his idea of the chimerical equalisation of wealth by means of general taxation. The right hon. Gentleman seems to me to Buffer from such an inflammatory condition of myopia that he no longer cares for economic truth, providing that he can imagine himself at the head of a sort of fiscal reformatory. In all these matters, unfortunately, the burden will fall upon the wage-earners. The national income is distributed in a peculiar manner, and on ths point I should like to give a few figures. The sum of £90,000,000 goes to about 300,000 unoccupied persons, and the State takes
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a large proportion of that sum. This 300,000 goes right down to spinsters living on invested incomes, to widows, and to pensioners, and others with under £150 a year. Another £780,000,000 goes to 2,700,000 occupied persons who are doing some kind of work for the earned part of their income, which is really too small to bear very much more tax without entirely ending their private savings, and they are the people who are the greatest sufferers from high taxation. About £880,000,000 goes to higher salaried and professional people, and I think it would be very unwise to penalise this important class any further, because you might discourage them from exercising their special abilities. The ordinary wage-earners receive about £1,900,000,000. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the Supertax?"] That is quite another matter, and it is not one with which I propose to deal at the present moment. That £1,900,000,000 forms a permanent fund on which the State relies for the bulk of its revenue. That is where this form of taxation finally ends in almost every case.
Hon. Members opposite do not seem to like that idea, but it seems to me that they approach this question from the wrong angle, because economics and morals are two very different branches of philosophy, and when they are mixed together to supply political party pie for street-corner consumption, the result is very indigestible. I should like to ask the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he has ever heard of a wealthy country without a wealthy class? If the Financial Secretary in guiding the financial destinies of this country has ever heard of such a country, I shall be very glad if he will mention it, because I have never discovered one in my reading of history or of finance.
There are other hon. Members who wish to deal with this very important and serious problem, but there is one thing which I should like to say in conclusion. The theory of high taxation strikes at the root of all sound economics. This country, Europe and the rest of the world cry out for a real and lasting recovery, and that can only come about by the accumulation of capital savings of the people in small streams and small amounts year by year. That is a long

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and painful process, but the earning of the capital will provide the income by which the world can return to prosperity, and it is by this means alone that real prosperity will come back to this country, a prosperity based not upon spending, but upon saving. That is the kind of saving which is so much affected by any increase in taxation. This saving has to go on slowly, a little at a time, and it is only in that way that the world's capital, which was impaired, dispersed and destroyed by the War, can be built up again. The building up of that capital by earnings is the world's real income. Any attempt to finance the industrial world in any other way is bound to end in disaster.
Since the Chancellor of the Exchequer assumed office he has been agreeing with all sorts of things, but he seems to have recanted many of the theories which he advanced when the glow of office was impending. At one time I had come to look upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer as the strong man of this Government, and believe he has been called "The Iron Chancellor." I cannot understand the right hon. Gentleman's deflection since the responsibilities of office descended upon him. It may be that we were wrong in our estimate of the quality of the iron and that we have, perhaps, not an Iron Chancellor, but a corrugated-iron Chancellor. No one desires to see progress and prosperity in this country more than I do, but such a development must be a cumulative tendency made up from many directions. We have in this country beyond any other country in the world geographical and natural advantages in skill, both amongst the workers and in regard to administration. We have a technical skill which is second to none in the world, but any attempt to force a national redistribution of wealth by means of high taxation can only have the result of bringing with it poverty, despair and starvation to the millions to whom we in this House are responsible. Therefore, I ask the House to agree with this Motion.
Mr. BOOTHBY: I beg to second the Motion.
I do so with great pleasure, because I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree with me in most sincerely congratulating the Mover on
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having made an extraordinarily interesting and stimulating speech. I am in a position of great difficulty at the moment, because my hon. Friend has left me extremely little to say from our point of view on this side of the House. I do not think that there was any aspect of this question upon which he did not touch, and touch so well that I can add very little. I want just to throw out a few suggestions. Except in so far as some hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are concerned, this is not really a political issue at all. The objective of what I might call the Left Wing of the Labour party in this country is avowedly the redistribution of wealth in this country, and the use of the powerful engine of taxation in order to bring it about; but that view is certainly not shared as yet by the majority of hon. Members opposite, and, therefore, I think that with that exception we can say that we are considering this question to-day, not as a matter of purely party politics, but from an economic point of view.
I would like to point out that we in this country at the present time do form part, whether we like it or not, of an international system of trade and industry and commerce. We cannot get away from it; indeed, in some respects it would be a very bad thing for us if we did get away from it, because probably we are the greatest money-lending centre in the world. It is part of our business as a nation to lend money to other countries. We do it with the greatest mobility and with the greatest facility and speed. [Interruption.] An hon. Member opposite says that we do not gain anything, but, in point of fact, we gain a great deal by lending money to foreign countries, and hon. Members opposite and those whom they represent gain also, by the social services rendered to the people of this country through the taxation levied upon the profits which we make by lending money to foreign countries, and which help materially to give us the finest system of social service and insurance of any in the world. I think it will be agreed, even by hon. Gentlemen opposite, that it is a better system of social service than is to be found in any other country.
If we accept the fact that we are part of an international system, and that we lend money with the greatest fluidity and mobility to other countries, we must

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also face up to the fact that at the present time, chiefly owing to the high rates of taxation levied in this country, there is less return upon capital in this country than there is in most foreign countries. Most foreign countries are able to pay the lender of capital a higher rate of interest. He gets a bigger proportion of his money out of the products of industry in Germany, France, America and many other countries. What does that mean? It must, and in fact does, mean that capital will flow out from this country into other countries. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in replying to a question in this House the other day, deprecated the idea that we in this country should seek to put any check upon that outflow of capital from this country. Mr. Keynes takes a different view. On the whole, I agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do not think that we can possibly afford to check the outflow of capital into foreign countries from this country. We are very largely dependent upon it for our present position. But the reason why it is going out to foreign countries is because it can earn more there than it can here, and the reason for that is chiefly that, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, taxation in this country is so very much higher—in some cases 100 per cent. higher—than the taxation in the countries to which that capital goes.
In this country during the last 10 years we have, in my opinion, tried to achieve the impossible, and that is one of the reasons why we are going through very difficult times at the present moment. In 1919 we decided to restore the gold value of the pound to the pre-War parity of exchange with the dollar. I am not going into that question now, but I have always had my views upon it, and I think that that decision is very largely responsible for the difficult condition in which our exporting industries find themselves, and, above all, for the difficult condition in which agriculture finds itself, at the present moment. I do say that, in the position in which we found ourselves, immediately after the War, it was over-ambitious to attempt to restore the pound to its pre-War exchange value. What has followed? Since 1919 we have, more or less invisibly, increased the real value of wages in this country by no less
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than 10 per cent., and hon. Members opposite ought to realise that fact. In addition to that, we have imposed this very high taxation which, as I have said, makes capital leave this country. Finally, we have decided that, although we form part of an international system, we are not going to put any form of Protection against the import of manufactured goods made under strikingly different conditions from those which obtain in this country. I do not see how any large industrial community such as we are, occupying a small island, unable to feed itself or provide itself with raw materials, can be expected to survive indefinitely under these conditions, with a higher taxation rate than any other country, a higher wage rate than any except the United States, and a wage rate which has been increased, by the return to the gold standard, to the extent of no less than 10 per cent., almost as it were, when the workers were not looking, and also without putting any form of Protection or duty against the import of manufactured goods. I do not see how such a community could carry on that process without suffering very considerably.
Reverting to the actual subject under discussion, namely, high taxation, what does that mean? It must involve, and I challenge any hon. Member opposite to deny it, a check on the investment of capital in the heavy industries of this country. I am one of those who believe, with many hon. Members opposite, that the complete reconstruction, or rationalisation, as it is called, of the British heavy industries, is the most urgent requirement at the present time if ever we are going to compete again as a first-class industrial Power. We are about 10 years behind our rivals, both in America and in Germany, so far as the organisation of the iron, steel, and coal industries is concerned. We are gradually and painfully trying to catch up, and we have made some headway recently; but the rationalisation of the British heavy industries will never be carried through unless a substantial flow of capital into them can be maintained at a reasonable rate of interest, and the present high taxation is one of the causes of capital not flowing into British industries, but, on the contrary, flowing into those very industries abroad with which we are in the fiercest competition. This decreases the amount

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of capital available for the use of industry, but it also decreases the margin of living expenses when it is applied to individuals in the form of Income Tax and Surtax. That must mean, so far as it is carried out, some reduction in savings, and that, in turn, must involve a slackening of demand. Hon. Members opposite are always talking about demand and about purchasing power. High taxation does more to diminish purchasing power than any other single factor.
In addition to checking the flow of capital by way of investment into the heavy industries of this country, high taxation, to an even more marked extent, checks the development of completely new enterprises. The whole essence of the capitalist system, which, whatever hon. Members opposite may think or feel, still operates in the world, at any rate outside Russia, is that the man who is prepared to take risks—and really hazardous risks—must get a reasonable return upon the capital which he expends when he is starting a completely new enterprise. Many hon. Members opposite will admit that, although they think it desirable to nationalise some of the basic services, or even industries, in this country, they do not, at present at any rate, intend or propose to nationalise new industries. In the case of the new enterprises which are just getting under way, what we are doing in this country by our taxation at the present moment is cutting down the profits which any man might reasonably anticipate if he were to go into the somewhat hazardous business of starting an altogether new industry or enterprise. I am certain that, in nine cases out of 10 at the present moment in this country, people are deflected from that course by the thought that, even if it comes off—and under the capitalist system there is almost a 50 per cent. chance that it will not—they will not earn on the capital they expend a sufficient amount of profit to make the thing worth while, and, accordingly, they would much rather turn over their savings into some industry in America or in Europe, or, if you like, into some municipal enterprise in Europe, where they will get a safe return of, perhaps, four or five per cent. on their money, and they will not bother to launch out into new enterprises. That means less expansion, and checking both the flow of capital in to the heavy industries and the establishment of new enterprises,
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and the effect of both these checks due to high rates of taxation is to raise the rate of interest and to increase the cost of production.
I spoke just now about the slackening of demand. That must mean a decrease in productivity in the general production of this country, and I want to point out to hon. Members opposite, as my horn Friend the Mover of the Motion pointed out, the extraordinary situation in the United States of America at the present moment. There there is a cycle in operation which is almost the direct antithesis of what is happening in this country. They have got increased production, involving increased wages, and these two factors in combination are bringing about a decrease in commodity prices. It has been proved during the last seven or eight years that these three things can go forward together, and that you can at the same time increase production and wages and reduce the cost of living commodities. This is what the United States have proved. What is happening in this country? We are writhing in a sort of vicious circle of decreased production, lower wages, and higher commodity prices, and it seems to me that that process is bound to continue, and can never be checked, unless and until we can bring about some reduction in the volume of general direct taxation.
When it comes to the question of public as against private expenditure, I am perfectly prepared to admit that it is a matter of the most delicate balance as between the advantages of the two. I should be the last to advocate the ruthless cutting down, for example, of the social services of this country, simply in order to save direct taxation. I think that our system of industrial insurance, health insurance and pensions is a magnificent and fruitful method of spending the money which ought to be taken out of industry and out of wages, as it is in fact, because all taxation ultimately comes out of wages. That is money which ought to be taken out of those wages in order that it may be more profitably and more scientifically spent by the State. I am perfectly prepared to admit that, but I say that there is a just balance in this as in all other things, and we must compromise. Compromise is an essential condition of modern existence, both in private and in public life.

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When, however, we come to the question of productive as against unproductive expenditure, then I say that I am all out for productive expenditure, and the complaint that we on this side of the House have against hon. Members opposite is that they have concentrated, ever since they came into office, upon wholly unproductive expenditure, and have let productive expenditure go by the board altogether. Develop the capital resources of this country if you like, develop your docks, develop your harbours, spend the money so that you may hope to get some return upon it some day; but it is no use carrying on an endless process of just shovelling out money in the form of unchecked doles for doing nothing and of pensions upon which you can never expect to get any return, in any circumstances.
I was not entirely opposed to some parts of the policy put forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) at the last Election. I thought that he concentrated far too much on roads, and that the amount he proposed was too large, but I am prepared to see the Government raise a loan and spend the money productively in order to establish a short-term policy for dealing with unemployment. But a Government can only do that if their credit stands high, and I am afraid that the present Government has no hope of raising a loan anywhere merely for unprofitable expenditure. To what, then, are they reduced? They are reduced to increasing and piling up taxation in order to pay for their unproductive expenditure. If they are ever to get any money out of the taxpayers at all, it is necessary that the capital shall be replaced. The old capital must be replaced and new capital must be accumulated, and that is quite impossible if unproductive expenditure is allowed to run riot, as my hon. Friend has pointed out that it is doing in this country at the present time. You cannot seize wealth from the people and at the same time prevent people from producing any wealth, and that is what hon. Members opposite are attempting to do.
It seems to me that one of the main difficulties confronting economists and politicians in, every country is to try to
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adjust supply to demand. That is really the essence of the whole economic problem. I agree that you have to keep up the consumer's income to keep pace with the capacity for producing goods. If you bring it higher than the capacity for producing goods, you are drawn into an inflationary process. Taxation is taken out of wages just as much as is it taken from the middle class or from the well-to-do people. There is nothing that is more certainly calculated to reduce the purchasing power of the whole of the people of the country than excessive, injurious and oppressive taxation. It never pays, as Mr. Keynes pointed out, to render the entrepreneur or the producer poor. We have to try to bring some assistance to the producer as such. Only one attempt has been made in the last 10 years, and that was in the derating proposals of the last Government. That is the only constructive attempt that has been made since 1918 to bring assistance to the actual producer of wealth as such. [An HON. MEMBER: "What is it doing?"] It is doing a lot of good. But for it you would have your unemployment figure up to 2,000,000 and more.
We are living under capitalism, and we are going to live under it for another 200 years, at any rate. We shall not know anything about Socialism. We shall be spared that. The whole of capitalist industry depends upon confidence. There is no confidence in the country to-day. People feel that they are sagging, that they are going down, that there is no hope. They know perfectly well what increased expenditure the Chancellor of the Exchequer has already imposed. They do not know what expenditure he may not propose in the future. They know it is all unproductive and it all has to be raised out of taxation, and they feel a sense of heavy oppression and apprehension with regard to the next Budget. When you have a psychological atmosphere of that kind and a total lack of confidence, you will never get business or trade, or commercial or industrial expansion of any kind. What the poor people of the country have to put up with, what with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Rothermere! All they want is to be allowed to lead a quiet life. They want confidence and a suitable foundation and

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a reduction of direct taxation. The rich never did anyone any harm, except possibly to themselves by over-eating and drinking, but the poor do a great deal of damage. I hate the poor. George Bernard Shaw hates the poor, too. I want to eliminate them and get rid of them. In order to do that, I want to remove some of the root causes of poverty, and I am certain that oppressive and injurious taxation is one of the root causes of the poverty of the people.
Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I intervene for a few moments in what ought to be a Private Member's Debate, because I think a few words will be required from me explaining the Government attitude on this question. This matter of taxation is one on which we all have a feeling in favour of having no higher taxes than is necessary and, in so far as that is the purport of the Motion, I am sure we are all agreed, from whatever section of the House we come. But, in fact, the Motion is something very different. It has been considered by the two hon. Members who have spoken from the point of view of politics, and in the case of the opener certainly party politics, and from the point of view of economics, and it can also be considered as a social question. I would say to the Mover that, when he has been a little longer in the House, he will know that if you want to have the House discuss a question quietly and restrainedly from an economic or a scientific point of view, it is not very desirable to drag in party political issues. It is very easy to deflect the Debate in consequence of a series of cheap gibes such as he made at the Chancellor of the Exchequer, into a purely political atmosphere. I am going to refrain from that except to say two things. The hon. Member who moved the proposal, in the terms of his Motion attacks the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, because he says present taxation is too high. The taxation we have at present was imposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) and comes as a result of four and a-half years of the party to which he belongs. The right hon. Gentleman, apart from reductions that he was able to make in his first year of office as the result of the way finances had been conducted before he came into office, did nothing but put on taxes of
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all sorts and kinds during the whole period of his term as Chancellor of the Exchequer. [An HON. MEMBER: "Does that apply to the Tea Duty?"] At the very end he made one or two slight remissions, but in the main his whole work was to put on taxes. The hon. Member who seconded the Motion also attacked the late Chancellor, because he attributed most of the troubles through which we are passing to the direct action of the right hon. Gentleman in restoring the gold standard.
Mr. BOOTH BY: I was careful to point out that that policy was decided upon in 1919. My right hon. Friend only completed the process which was carried through by every successive Government after 1919, including the Labour Government of 1924.
Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: The hon. Member can make a point of that kind if he likes, but the step which in his opinion was not only a fateful, but a fatal step, was taken by his right hon. Friend. So that if it comes to a political issue, both the Mover and Seconder showed that they differ fundamentally from the late Chancellor of the Exchequer in his actions in these matters.
I dismiss that side of it. I want to come to the economic issue. It is true that, in certain circumstances, taxation can be a hindrance to industry, but it certainly is not true in the indiscriminate way in which the Mover put forward the proposition. In order to buttress it up. he brought forward a great deal of muddled economics. Stripped of phraseology, what are the three claims in favour of believing that high taxation cripples industry? The first claim is that it enters into the cost of production, and thereby makes it difficult to compete with other countries, where taxation is different. The answer is that it entirely depends on the kind of taxation imposed. There is the definite assertion of the Colwyn Committee to that effect. [Interruption.] The Noble Lord's knowledge of economics no doubt, surpasses that of all the Members who sat on the Colwyn Committee, but I prefer to take their considered judgment to taking his. They said perfectly distinctly that direct taxation did not, in their opinion, enter into costs. The second claim is made that high taxation checks the flow of capital. That, again, entirely depends on what the taxation

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is for, and the source from which it is taken. A great deal of the taxation we have at present is required to pay interest on the War debt and to pay off capital, in so far as it is done at all, by means of a Sinking Fund. Do hon. Members really maintain that such transference of money has the effect of withdrawing capital from industry? The third claim is that money taken in taxation reduces the demand for goods. That is wholly false in this sense, that if the money taken in taxation is spent in other ways, the demand for goods owing to the expenditure of the money, the proceeds of taxation, is exactly equal in amount to the demand for goods which would have been exerted by the people from whom the money is taken. That claim, in the way in which it is made, is wholly incorrect.
Those are the facts with regard to the economic question. I turn now to the social side. What really is at the back of the mind of a great number of people who are misled by a Motion of this kind? I am sure that what the Mover of the Motion is trying to get at is that high taxation exists because of certain expenditure which has been decided upon as necessary in the opinion of this House. We do not raise a penny more taxation than we need in order to finance expenditure. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping, of course, did not raise all the money he required for expenditure by taxation. He raised a great deal of it by borrowing and a great deal more by pilfering. He evaded the full taxation burden that he was, in fact, imposing on the community, so that they appeared to escape it by the camouflage that he succeeded in putting up. But what is it that most of those who support the Motion really have in their minds? What do they want to cut out of the expenditure of the State? Do they want to cut down the Army and Navy? On the contrary, to a very large extent they oppose the reductions that this Government is making, and believes it perfectly safe to make, because they want a particularly large Army and Navy. Do they want to cut down the interest on the Debt? They do not want that. They would hold up their hands in horror if we proposed anything of the kind.
What they are really out for is to cut down the expenditure on the social services.
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[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] "Hear, hear," they say. They do not want us to give the children better education which is going to cost more money. They do not want to see the pensions scheme improved and advanced. They do not want to see these things. They believe it is more important to have the money in the hands of private individuals than to take it in the form of taxation to benefit the people through social services. If they have their way they would not only oppose the social services which are being put forward by the present Government but they would, and in some cases actually did, oppose the social services which even the late Government put forward. We take an entirely contrary view. It is because we take an entirely contrary view on that question and believe that the social services are of vital importance not only to this country but indirectly to the industry of this country that I for my part—and I am quite sure that I speak for the Government—could not possibly support this Motion, even though on the face of it the reduction of taxation sounds a thing with which we could all agree.
Mr. GRAY: The House is indebted to the hon. Member for East Toxteth (Mr. Mond) for bringing forward a Motion which allows us to discuss very widely and fully the effect of taxation upon industry. The whole House would readily agree with the broad substance of his Motion that high taxation is in itself undesirable. No community of people really wants taxation, certainly not taxation for itself. One is reminded of Mr. Gladstone, who, when he was dealing with a Budget which was very small as compared with our present Budgets, stated that what was desirable was to leave money to fructify in the pockets of the people, and on that broad statement I think the House will be more or less in agreement.
There are one or two points on the broad statement as applied to the existing facts of to-day put forward, both by the Mover and by the Seconder of the Motion to which I should like to draw the attention of the House. I want, first of all, to remind the House—it has already been pointed out by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury—that a great deal of the present expenditure of this country is due to the service of the

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War Debt. When we compare this country with the two countries which were mentioned by the Mover of the Motion—Germany and France—we must, for a moment, compare the position of this country with those countries as regards War Debts. Germany succeeded in wiping out entirely its internal debt by the printing press, with the entire disappearance of the old German mark. The company with which I am connected happens to possess quite a number of old German marks, but they do not appear in our balance-sheet as an asset. France did not go as far as that, but France, by a process of stabilising the franc at five times its pre-War value has —[Interruption.] I think I was right. It was 25, and it is now about 125. I think that my figures are approximately correct. France has succeeded in wiping out 80 per cent. of its capital debt and 80 per cent. of its annual charge. If we were to follow that same course, we could very considerably reduce the taxation of this country.
The hon. Member who seconded the Motion referred to the stabilising of our currency on the pre-War value of the dollar and the gold standard. What we did, and I think the House should recognise this fact, was to give a definite bonus to capital. I am speaking purely from memory, but I think that the pre-War value of money lent to the State was round about 3 or 3½ per cent. Consols stood somewhere round about £70 in pre-War days just before 1914. That was the standard pre-War rate at which capital was prepared to lend money on the finest recognised security of the world, the credit of the British Government. From that basis of money lent to the British Government, all demands for capital are related. You get a higher return on capital according to the increased risk, and you find, as those various speculative investments become solvent, that, if you try to get into them, you may buy a pound's worth of original capital, but, if it is making a 20 per cent. return, you cannot get it at £1, but have to pay a sum commensurate with the risk involved. Hon. Members would see that if they entered into speculation in tobacco shares at the present time.
There was another point which struck me when I was listening to the statement made by the hon. Member who opened
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the Debate. I think we have to recognise that it is true that the whole of the interest charges on capital does come out of the possible wage fund. I do not think that it is correct to say that all taxation comes out of wages. It does not come out of wages; it comes out of the product of industry. That is not wages. Wages are only part of the product of industry. [An HON. MEMBER: "They say that it is the whole."] The possible wage fund and the actual wages received are not necessarily the same. At any rate, the wages paid to-day are not the whole product of industry. It is perfectly certain that all taxation does come out of the total product of industry. In other words, wealth does not produce itself. The Mover dropped into a certain fallacy when he referred to the loss of wealth owing to the statement, I think it was, of the War Minister which reduced the War funds by two or three points. There was no loss of wealth in that transaction at all. What simply happened was that certain people got frightened and sold their holdings, and other people bought them. The people who sold later on wished that they had not done so, and the people who had bought were glad that they had done so. The actual amount of wealth was not changed at all. It was simply a case of speculation in which money was transferred from the pockets of certain individuals to the pockets of other individuals. The only point of value to bear in mind there is the question of credit and confidence. In industry, that is a very Teal question, and it is the only thing which this country has gained as a result of the transfer of the gold standard. We have unquestionably, by means of the gold standard, secured an increase in the credit of this country as regards the other countries of the world.
This question of the incidence of taxation on industry is, in my judgment, one of the most important questions that we can consider. I would rather not consider it so much from the point of view of the Mover and Seconder of the Motion, who seemed to be regretting the whole volume of taxation. The question involved is as to whether the State is spending that money better or worse than the individuals who possessed it before. That is the question involved in dealing with the whole volume of taxation.

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Taxation does not destroy wealth. All that it does is to divert its use, taking it from certain individuals who might have spent it in another way, and expending it, through the State, in another form.
This House is quite conscious of the astounding experience which we had during the War years when State expenditure was abnormal, when trade and industry throughout the country was making profit so fast that they did not know how to stop making it, and when we introduced the Excess Profits Duty. We had a condition of affairs in which all trades and industries throughout the country were as prosperous as they could be, and it arose from a vast expenditure of public money by the State. It was realised that we could not go on many years longer doing that. There were, some people who were very much exercised in their minds as to whether in the end the problem of the War would not be a problem as to whether the manpower of Germany would outlast the money-power of the Allies. We could net go on indefinitely spending money of the State because there was a process going on at the same time, a process of inflation arising from the increase of debt and prices. That process of inflation which gives the appearance of prosperity, and to a certain extent for a short while actual prosperity, is very similar—in fact, I am not sure whether we might not say that it is exactly similar—to the individual who is spending beyond his income and is able to make a, very fine show and have a very bright and happy time as long as his credit lasts. But the moment his credit stops down comes the crash, and the bigger the credit the larger the crash.
I would like to ask the House, and the Treasury bench in particular, to take this broad point into consideration. Industry in this country is bearing not merely the taxation which is levied by the State but also the taxation which is levied by the landlord. I do not mean the men who build shops and factories and so on. I am not talking of the capital invested in land, but of the taxation levied by the landlord in the steadily increasing rise of land values in this country. The whole amount of that added value on land—I am not considering the
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remedies—is further taxation of industry. It is the first charge. What you want to do as far as possible is to avoid making taxation a direct incidence on industry in an increased cost of production. What are the things which affect the actual problem of industry? I am going to claim that a direct tax on income does not increase at all the cost of production. I will tell the House what it is bound to do. The present method of levying Income Tax is so horribly unfair that it does increase the cost of production.
7.0 p.m.
The point has been raised of taxing reserves in business. It is a very important point. The system under which Income Tax is levied in this country not only taxes profits on industry but also taxes every effort to raise capital. I will give a simple illustration. Take a small but expanding business making, according to its profit and loss account, very large profits. These profits do not consist of liquid capital. They may consist of developments in the business, and of stock-in-trade. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer would only accept his Income Tax in either book debts or stock, many of us would be glad to give him stock. As he will not do that, one has to raise capital. If you raise the capital, you are immediately taxed upon the raising of the capital. Of the whole of your legal expenses involved, of the whole of your Stamp Duty paid, not a single solitary expenditure incurred in raising this capital is allowed to be charged against the profits of the business. You have therefore to pay taxation, not merely upon the money reserved in the business and not distributed, but also upon these inevitable, unavoidable expenses in the business, and to that extent Income Tax is a direct tax on the productivity of business.
The bulk of the taxes to which we ought to direct attention are those which are levied irrespective of profit". I am speaking on this matter purely for myself and putting broadly what I consider would be the biggest reform we could have in the incidence of taxation. I would like to clear away the whole of indirect taxation. The unfortunate thing is that we, as a British public, hate direct taxation and do not mind indirect taxation. Hon. Members on

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this side of the House who smoke expensive cigars are not very much disturbed at the fact that they pay a very high price for them. Hon. Members on the other side are equally bad. They do not mind when buying an ounce of tobacco or a packet of cigarettes paying sixpence and receiving a halfpenny worth of tobacco, the other 5½d. being tax. Because they are getting some tobacco for their 6d., they are quite satisfied.
A few years ago one of my employés in a business in which I was interested came to me and said "Look at this, Mr. Gray, I have a claim for Income Tax." When I looked at it, I saw it was in order and that it was due. I said to him: "There is only one way of getting out of it; I can reduce your wages so that no Income Tax is payable, but otherwise there is no way out of it." He decided to pay the tax. My point is this: In dealing with taxation, you are dealing with the psychology of the citizens, which is an important problem. The real truth is that a working man will object very much more to paying a direct tax than a tax on his beer, tobacco, or spirits. He does not see it. Here is a striking thing. The Colwyn Committee investigated the incidence of taxation, and it is an incredible fact that to-day the agricultural labourer in this country is taxed more heavily in the pound than a man earning an income of £1,000 a year. That is, of course, if he is a moderate drinker. I was brought up a total abstainer, and have not contracted the habit of smoking, and, consequently, I am evading a large proportion of the taxes borne by other citizens. If you take an indirect tax, a large amount of it is a direct charge upon industry. Your twopenny cheque stamp, your twopenny receipt stamp may each seem totally unimportant, but, if you take a large distributive business with a large number of customers with small accounts of from £2 to £10 and issuing a large number of cheques and receipts, you find that it is a direct charge.
The reform I would urge upon citizens of this country, upon Members of the House, and upon the occupants of the Treasury Front Bench is that we ought to have reached the stage in the incidence of taxation when we should recognise that we ought to levy our taxation from two sources. We should levy it first in
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the form a Land Value Tax, the direct return to the community of those values which are created by the community. That tax is at the moment levied upon industry by others, and, if you bring it into the public purse, you will relieve the public purse of that share of its burdens. Secondly, levy a graduated tax and ask your workers to accept it right up from practically the beginnings of earnings up to the highest income. If you do that you may even do what we have never considered doing, combine local taxation with Imperial taxation, and have one taxing office which would collect your proportion for local taxation on the income earned in the locality, and would collect your proportion due to Imperial taxation from the amount of income you possess. I am not proposing that the Treasury Bench or the Chancellor of the Exchequer should incorporate a scheme of that sort in this year's Budget, or that we are likely to see it in my time, but the principle involved is that that method of raising money takes the money from the person who is able to pay. You have to retain your fund for capital services, but that fund for capital services does come, after all, from the poor man as well as the rich man. The man who keeps half-a-crown in the Post Office Savings Bank is contributing to the capital fund for investment. That sum in millions of pounds is available for investment. The amount of money which we do not expend at the time on consumable commodities is the money which, as a community, we are putting on one side available for investment.
We are going to help in two ways if we can devise taxation along these lines. The poorer section of the community, whose depressed state has to be helped by expenses from the public purse in various forms of social service, will find their measure of taxation reduced. The astounding thing is that under our present system we are to-day levying a rate of taxation upon the very poor people of this country which we should be aghast at if we measured it directly and saw the amount in money. That is a fact which cannot be resisted if you bring the whole amount of taxation under review. The more those people are left in possession of money, the larger will be the demand for consumable commodities, the greater the demand for consumption. We must recognise that

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our problem to-day is not so much a problem of production. Yet we are devising all kinds of schemes for restricting output, and a Bill which we shall be considering before long will be a Bill to compel people to work less and produce less.
The great problem is the problem of consumption. If you tax less the lower level of your community, that amount of money will be brought immediately into the demand for consumable commodities. You have to see that you do not, even in consumable commodities, expend the whole of your available capital. You have to have a fund available for capital development. If your taxation is levied along those lines, you release industry at once from that large volume of taxation, partly in rates and partly in taxes. The seconder was congratulating the late Government on the De-rating Bill. I do not for a moment congratulate them on that. It took the rates off the factory and left the whole of the rates on the people working in the factory, and surely they have to be paid out of the products of the factory just as much as if the factory paid. The other absurdity about it was that, having taken it off the product, it raised the money by a direct tax upon the progressive form of transport and put it back on the goods before they reached their destination, the most astounding system I ever heard of.
You can by a graduated scheme of taxation take off industry to-day every single tax which is a direct charge upon production, and you can raise the whole of the sum within the reserves left after the wage fund has been paid and still leaves a margin for capital. This is not the time nor is it right that we should in this House allow it to go forward in any sense whatever that capital is being defrauded in this country of its fair return. From the very point of confidence, we ought to make it clear that is not true. Of all the countries involved in the War except the United States of America which came in at the end, we are really the only country which has absolutely nursed and safeguarded the capitalist, securing him in his capital fund, and giving him an added interest to that which he was receiving.
Mr. BENSON: I listened with a great deal of attention to the speech of the
1476
Mover, and, if one eliminates, all those little jokes and sweeps away the bulk of the verbiage, we find that he tried to establish two points, and two points only. The first point was that taxation definitely depletes the resources of the country, particularly the fund that goes to capital replacements and capital reproduction. He instanced the damage clone to industry by the taxation of undistributed reserves in the hands of limited companies. I am not going to dispute as to the effect of taxation upon the fund that goes to capital, but I am going to quote the second point which be made. He argued that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he tries to tax the rich, really finds that the whole of the taxation is paid by the working class. The hon. Member quoted the total income of the working class as £1,900,000,000. He definitely allocated the expenditure of taxations primarily to that £1,900,000,000. If the incidence of taxation is on the working class, he cannot at the same time claim that it depletes the source of saving because we know perfectly well the working class are not the source of saving.
The two points are mutually destructive. Either the hon. Member ought to take a stand upon the ground that it is a shame to tax the poor or upon the ground that capital is being definitely interfered with and that the replacement and reproduction of capital is being definitely hindered. He cannot claim that taxation is doing both these things, that it is falling on the workers alone and on capital alone. As the Financial Secretary said, their objection is that the social services are still growing. What is the alternative to these social services? There is no alternative to the social services but the workhouse. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is also a social service!"] The muddle-headedness of our captains of industry on this question if extraordinary. They object to taxation because they say that it interferes with industry, that it falls upon industry and prevents our competing efficiently with less taxed countries. The bulk of the taxation which goes to our social services, which are nationally organised, does not fall directly upon industry, does not enter into the cost of production and does not interfere with our competitive power. If you send your industrial unemployed to the work house, which is financed out of the rates,

1477
it is a definite and direct charge upon production, it enters into the cost of production and is a definite costing charge. If you prefer the workhouse to national social services, you still have to pay for the keep of the inmates, and often more expensively than under national services. Moreover, you are arranging your taxation then in such a way that instead of falling upon the profits that have been made it falls directly upon the cost of production and is a definite hindrance to our competitive power. Nobody likes high taxation, but if we must have high taxation I suggest that it is far wiser that that taxation should be nationally controlled and nationally imposed on the product of industry than that it should be locally imposed on the industrial processes, because in the one case it does not in any way interfere with our productive or competitive power, while in the other case, if locally imposed, it is a very serious hindrance.
Lord EUSTACE PERCY: In view of the very crowded state of the House —[Laughter]—I do not think that even on a Private Members' night I shall be keeping any Private Member from speaking. I should not like to miss the opportunity of thanking the Financial Secretary for having so clearly shown in his speech what is the difference between this Government and not only the last Government but preceding Governments. All Governments during the past few years have imposed high taxation. Some of them have reduced taxation during their term of office.
Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: Is the Noble Lord suggesting that the Labour Government did not reduce taxation?
Lord E. PERCY: I meant that previous Governments have maintained high direct taxation, but this Government, according to the Financial Secretary, does not believe that high direct taxation is of any serious detriment to economic processes in this country. That is what distinguishes it from the preceding Governments. The reasons which the hon. Member adduced for that belief were very peculiar. I do not think he adduced any real reason. He appeared to be somewhat ruffled at the mild remarks made by the hon. Member who moved the Motion, and retaliated by talking about my hon. Friend's muddled economics, but when
1478
he came to produce his own they amounted to very little except references, explicit or implicit, to the Colwyn Report. He said that the Colwyn Report was drawn up by very eminent economists. That is so, but the objection I have is not so much to what it said but what it enables other people to say that it said. I do not accuse the Financial Secretary, who is an acknowledged authority on these matters, of not having read the Report closely, but he gave an extraordinarily misleading account of its purport. That Report was not as well drafted as it might have been. It discussed the effect of direct taxation and, roughly speaking, it came to the conclusion that for the purposes of maintaining a higher Sinking Fund for the repayment of debt, direct taxation at its present level could not be said to be seriously hampering to industry. That conclusion was very distinctly based upon the premise that high direct taxation was to be used for the repayment of debt.
That is a very large question, into which it is too late for me to enter now, but the real point that needs to be driven home is that it is quite true that as between various forms of taxation some, semi-directly and obviously and injuriously, increase the cost of production. All taxation has, in the long run, the effect of increasing the cost of production, but the fact that a particular form of tax is not obviously and immediately related to any of the elements in the cost of production does not affect the argument that its ultimate incidence is upon the cost of production. You cannot subject the proceeds of capital, the return on capital, to high taxation without making capital dearer. Cheap capital is the thing which industry needs above all things else at the present time. As the hon. Member for East Leicester (Mr. Wise) said in a previous Debate, that is one of the chief needs of industry. High taxation does, pro tanto, make capital dearer. High direct taxation, therefore, can only be justified on the demonstration of the benefits which it confers as a consequence of the way in which the proceeds of that taxation is spent.
The thesis, more or less, of the Right Wing and the Left Wing of the party opposite is that high direct taxation is justified for social services, because they redistribute wealth. What needs to be

1479
driven home at the present time is the terrible fallacy and illusion of that statement. What are you redistributing by taxation? In what form is all this wealth that the State collects in taxation passed on to the poor? Is it in the form of property? Is it in the form of wealth upon which the working man can rely, as the comparatively rich man can rely upon his accumulated or inherited savings? No. It goes to the working man in the form of weekly benefit, sufficient only for his weekly needs, Health Insurance benefit, Unemployment Insurance Benefit, reduction in the amount of his weekly rent for a subsidised house, the right to the use of one-fortieth of a school class-room and the right to one-fortieth of the services of a State-paid teacher. These are the things that you are passing on.
What is it that creates the inequality between the rich and the poor at the present time, which all social policies seek to relieve? It is that the comparatively rich live by the year, while the comparatively poor live by the week and cannot look beyond it, and we are not doing anything by this redistribution of wealth to improve that position or to remove that disability. We are only intensively making the working man live by the week, and not able to look beyond it. In addition, every one of these weekly benefits which we pass on are subject to State regulation and State control of one kind or another, so that the cumulative effect of these things is not to give the working man what all of us want to give him, namely, increased economic independence but, on the contrary, its effect is, if anything, to give him increased economic dependence upon the State, to force him more and more to comply with and to conform to State regulations, local and central, and always on a weekly basis.
That is the will o' the wisp that all parties in this country have been following. We have built up social services of enormous value, which have conferred great benefits upon the working classes, but we have not taken the first step towards increasing the working man's economic independence, and the time has
1480
come when we should clearly recognise that a new chapter of social policy must be opened, a chapter which aims at greater economic independence for all classes in this country, and which can be reached not by a policy of high taxation but by a policy of low taxation.
Mr. HAYCOCK: In the two minutes that are left to me I should like to say a few words on this important subject. Realising the importance of the question of high taxation, I am surprised that there are not more hon. Members opposite present. There are only 14 Conservative Members in the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Count your own side!"] We did not put down the Motion. You put down the Motion. The Noble Lord deplores the fact that we are spending so much money upon the social services. I wonder what we are to do with our unemployed. What are we to do with those who fall by the wayside I When people, through no fault of their own, find that their services are not required, are we to treat them as the thrifty house wife treats the frequent progeny of the female cat? Shall we starve them, drown them, or what shall we do with them? What should we do without our social services? As to the question, who is to pay for them, I would say that the people should pay for them who have the money. No one likes paying taxes, but someone has to pay taxes. I would remind hon. Members opposite that all the Income Tax and Super-tax that is paid goes towards paying the interest on the War debt. Not one farthing of Super-tax and Income Tax goes to pay for social services. The workers pay in indirect taxation.
Mr. MOND rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
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.

  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (CHARING CROSS BRIDGE) [By Order].
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: This Bill ought not to be allowed to go through without further consideration. I had hoped to speak later in the Debate, but, as the hon. Member for the English Unversities (Sir M. Conway) who was to have moved the rejection of this Bill is not present in his place, I will take the opportunity of making my speech now. This is perhaps the greatest improvement that has ever taken place in London, and it is therefore essential that no mistake is made. It will involve an expenditure of £15,000,000, and if any mistake is made now it will be irrevocable and irreparable. The Royal Commission which dealt with this matter some two years ago did so on the basis that the South Eastern railway station at Charing Cross had to remain on that site. Its Report was based on that assumption. The Royal Commission recommended a two decker bridge, the under-deck to carry the railway to its present position, and the upper deck to carry the roadway up to the Cavell Statue. All schemes since then seem to have been based on the assumption that the railway station had to remain on its present site, but that premise has now ceased to exist.
  If the scheme now before the House is persisted in many hundreds of yards of viaduct will cut off South London from future development. It is essential that all possible opinion should be consulted on such an enormous improvement. It is a remarkable thing that practically the whole of professional opinion is against the London County Council's proposal. The Royal Institute of British Architects is practically unanimous against it; the London Society is against it; the London Town Planning Institute is against it, and, so far as I know, all societies interested in the improvement and aesthetic future of London are opposed to it. Whether they are right or wrong it is quite certain that inadequate consideration
  1482
  has been given to the present proposal. Only this afternoon I went to see a very interesting scheme prepared by Mr. Murray, a model of which I saw in the Sun Life Office of Canada. Unfortunately, owing to the fact that the consideration of this Bill has not been postponed, there is no model of this scheme. Another great drawback to the proposal is that it prevents any great thoroughfare like the Victoria Embankment being constructed to take the traffic to the City on the south side. It will also gravely interfere with the traffic coming from the City by the Victoria Embankment. Anyone wanting to come from the City by cab or car will have to go as at present down underneath the new bridgeway, up Northumberland Avenue, across Trafalgar Square, into the new Place, which it is proposed to form in the Strand, and then go back over the new Charing Cross bridge.
  Colonel ASHLEY: They can go over Waterloo Bridge.
  Sir W. DAVISON: The late Minister of Transport says they can get over Waterloo Bridge, but in order to do that they would have to have an aeroplane. The late Minister of Transport knows the difficulties of getting down Fleet Street and the Strand from the City at any working time of the day. The best way is down Queen Victoria Street and the Victoria Embankment.
  Mr. ALFRED SMITH: Why not Waterloo?
  Sir W. DAVISON: The best way is down Queen Victoria Street and the Victoria Embankment. I am mentioning this because a very interesting plan has been prepared by Mr. Caröe showing how by slightly altering the Thames Embankment it is possible to get switch roads coming from the new bridge on to the Embankment. There are five or six different ways in which this matter might be dealt with and the House should consider whether they are satisfied that this is the best way of dealing with this tremendous London improvement. Whatever is decided to-night will bind us practically for all time. I suppose every hon. Member has seen the Paper which has been circulated and I need not amplify the statements which are set out in it. They will

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  notice the hundreds of yards of tunnels and the hundreds of yards of viaducts cutting off the development of South London. They will see how, instead of getting valuable frontages on what ought to be a magnificent highway, which would produce betterment and reduce the cost of the scheme, you have yards and yards of station wall. I suggest that the House should take time before approving the scheme. There is another great drawback from the railway travellers point of view. A person coming to Waterloo and desiring to get to the Southern Railway Station will have to take a cab.
  Mr. SMITH: I hope you are right.
  Sir W. DAVISON: That, of course, is special pleading. The station might be pushed back to a level with Waterloo, if, indeed, a station is still required having regard to the fact that the Southern Railway will only run suburban trains in future. If that is the idea I would like to ask the House to consider whether all suburban traffic should not be put underground. The more you go into this question the more it teems with ideas, and I appeal to the House to give time for further explanation and inquiry before tying their bands and the bands of posterity to a scheme which has very grave defects and which is unanimously condemned by all professional opinion of the day.
  Sir WALTER GREAVES-LORD: We have had a very interesting but not entirely impromptu speech from the hon. Member for Kensington South (Sir W. Davison). I propose to deal with some of the objections which he has raised, but before doing so I want to say something about the reasons why this Bill is brought forward and also about the necessity for avoiding any delay in dealing with the matter. The hon. Member's speech was nothing more than a dilatory speech, for the purpose of delaying an improvement which is absolutely necessary and which the Royal Commission said should be carried out with, the smallest delay. What is the history of the matter? It arose from the difficult position of Waterloo Bridge which, overburdened by traffic, was becoming dangerous. The London County Council at first came to the conclusion that it was better
  1484
  to rebuild Waterloo Bridge on an entirely new plan. Those who have now raised aesthetic objections to the present scheme raised their voices very determinedly in favour of saving Waterloo Bridge. I am not disposed to disagree with those who think that Waterloo Bridge is a priceless possession which ought to be retained for the State. They were able to make their voice heard so that the Prime Minister decided that a Royal Commission should be set up to consider the whole question of London bridges in order to get some-think like a considered opinion on the subject.
  The Royal Commission came to the conclusion that it would be wise to save Waterloo Bridge, but they also pointed out that if Waterloo Bridge was to be saved it was absolutely necessary that a new bridge should be constructed in the neighbourhood of the present Hunger-ford Bridge. There were cogent reasons why any new bridge should be constructed in that neighbourhood, but once that neighbourhood was chosen as the site a number of questions arose. What were the conditions upon which the new bridge could be built on that site? The conditions are not without difficulty. There is one thing which, I should have thought, all those who opposed this scheme on aesthetic grounds would have agreed upon at once—that the first thing necessary was to get rid of Hungerford Bridge. In fact one of those bodies who have been referred to and who form part of what is now known as the Thames. Bridges Conference, issued a little booklet in June of last year, in which, with the permission of the proprietors of "Punch," they expresed, through a cartoon from "Punch" their opinion of Hungerford Bridge. They represent the Spirit of Ugliness gloating over the Thames in the neighbourhood of Hunger-ford Bridge and saying "So long as I have anything to do with London you shall not go. You are my masterpiece." So much for their view about Hungerford Bridge.
  If you look at some of the schemes which they have rather commended from time to time, although they have never given complete sanction to anything, because you can never get them to agree about anything—if you lock at some of the schemes that they have partially commended, you find one condition of a

  1485
  lot of the schemes is that the spirit of ugliness shall have his way. A distinguished architect, Sir Reginald Blomfield, has in the public Press said a great deal on this question of the present scheme for Charing Cross Bridge, but so far as he put forward a scheme, although he is associated with those who regard Hungerford Bridge as something which must be done away with, he retained it, So they go on.
  When one considers the present plans and suggestions, it is necessary to consider some of the difficulties that have to be faced. You are dealing with a site which is very important but which has considerable peculiarities. First of all you are very restricted. Hungerford Bridge takes a line across the river which must be taken by any bridge that is built in that neighbourhood. And for one reason: You cannot move very far either to the East or to the West, because on either side of Hungerford Bridge there are two tubes over which it is impossible to construct a bridge. You may say, "Why not go further afield? Why cannot you go midway between the present Hungerford Bridge and Westminster Bridge, or midway between the present Hungerford Bridge and Waterloo Bridge?" If you do that you destroy the navigable features of the Thames. If you attempt to move the bridge nearer to Westminster Bridge or to Waterloo Bridge anyone who is acquainted with the river traffic will at once tell you that a tug going up or down the river with a string of barges would have no time to get this string straight before arriving at the next bridge.
  There is another question which has to be dealt with, and that is the question of the condition of the river. A low-level bridge becomes almost impossible if you consider the nature of the river at that point. It has a curve, and the Middlesex side is the outside of the curve. The channel of a river, wherever there is a curve in it, is to be found on the outside of the curve. So far as the navigation of the Thames is concerned at that point where the Hungerford Bridge crosses the river, it is essential that craft beyond a certain size, going up and down the river, must go to the Middlesex side of the river. If you have an ordinary level roadway you have great
  1486
  difficulty in so constructing the arches of the bridge that navigation can take its ordinary course. If it cannot take its ordinary course the river will not take the navigation at all.
  That is an extremely important matter, having regard to the traffic which passes up and down the river at that point and past Westminster Bridge. It is an important factor which has been disregarded by a great many of those who raise aesthetic objections to the bridge. I find that in a number of the schemes to which individuals who are represented by the Thames Bridges Conference have given their approval, the bridges are so constructed that the navigation of the Thames above the bridges would have to stop altogether. There is one gentleman who is a professor of town planning. He has drawn up a design for a new bridge at Charing Cross. Whether it is that, being a professor of town planning, he thinks that water always runs in pipes and that therefore the centre is the deepest part, I do not know, but he has shown his biggest arch in the centre of the river, where it would be completely useless, and has put arches at the side where not a bit of Thames traffic could pass. Those are conditions which have to be considered by anyone putting forward a scheme.
  Another matter which has to be taken into account is that if you are to put a new bridge across at that point it must be a bridge that is going to relieve the Embankment and not discharge more traffic on to it. The Embankment is already very fully occupied by the traffic which goes along it to and from North umberland Avenue. If you put your bridge across the river at that point, it is essential, and it was the considered view of the Royal Commission on London Traffic, that any bridge must be carried over the Embankment and must not discharge its traffic on to the Embankment. My hon. Friend says that this new bridge is going to make it extremely difficult for anyone to get from the City to Waterloo. Frankly, I do not follow his point. He seems to think of this bridge as being constructed for those who want to go from the City to Waterloo. I should have thought that anyone who did not want to go a long way round would have found it easier, if he did not go across Southward Bridge, to go across Blackfriars

  1487
  Bridge and along Stamford Street. But if he did want to go on a high level bridge why should he not go to one of the streets near to an approach road on to the Strand and cross Waterloo Bridge? Why should he go past Waterloo Bridge and up Northumberland Avenue to this bridge? Perhaps my hon. Friend prefers a circuitous route to one which is of easy access. Whatever the reason, I do not imagine that the House will think that there is very much point in the suggestion that it is in fact difficult to get from the City to Waterloo.
  But my hon. Friend says that there are some other considerations which have to be applied. If the railway has to go south that, says he, brings in the difficulty that you are putting a band around certain territory in the south and preventing its development. But immediately he said what is nevertheless true, "If you are to get rid of that band there is only one way to deal with it, and that is to put it underground." Anyone with knowledge of the various railways on the south of the Thames knows that you cannot deal with one and not with the other. Is it suggested that this great city should throw its money away by putting all these various railways underground, with all the attendant expense? You would not only have to deal with this railway. Why should you have the railway which comes into Waterloo overground, and why have the railway which comes across Blackfriars Bridge overground? If you carry the thing out logically you must put them all underground, and the expense would be prohibitive.
  Let me deal with the point in another way. The Royal Commission formulated their suggestion on the basis that the railway under no circumstances would take itself to the other side of the river, and therefore the Royal Commission did not fully consider the position that would be brought about if the railway could be persuaded to go to the other side of the river. The result was that they put forward a scheme which made things almost worse than they are now, except that it did provide a roadway. But when you take the railway to the other side what have you to consider? That that station shall be easy of access, and shall be connected with those means of
  1488
  traffic through the City which those who go into the new station are likely to use.
  A great deal has been said by those who take the aesthetic objections to the scheme, to suggest that the new station should be on the site of she present Waterloo Junction. Only the other day Sir Reginald Blomfield said that it was essential to take the station to the Waterloo Junction site, because that was the only place where you could get reasonable and convenient access to the tubes. The fact of the matter is that the ground of objection of the Southern Railway to those proposals is that if your station was at Waterloo Junction there would not be that access to the tubes which is desirable. When you take the station to the site that is suggested in the present scheme you have access to the tubes, which makes the site superior to any other position that you could choose.
  8.0 p.m.
  It is also known now that the underground railways are prepared to reconstruct their Waterloo stations so that there shall be direct access from the new-station that is to be built, when this scheme goes through, to both the Bakerloo Tube and the Hampstead Tube, which pass practically underneath the line of the station. It is also pointed out that another tube, a very short length of tube of considerable importance, namely, the tube which runs down from Holborn to Aldwych, was built at a low level with the intention some day of carrying it across the river, and that it will be, comparatively speaking, an easy thing, but a very valuable thing, to carry that tube through to a site underneath this new station, so that you will at once have easy access to the Bakerloo Tube, the Hampstead Tube and the tube which goes up to Holborn, and joins there with the Piccadilly Tube and gives access to every part of London. Not only that, but it will be possible when the scheme is carried out, to construct on the south side of the new bridge an omnibus concourse which people can reach from the station without going out into the elements. It will be possible in bad weather to reach it without danger of getting wet and to catch omnibuses going in practically every direction where persons arriving at the station would wish to go. In these

  1489
  circumstances, this new station provides almost perfect access to all parts of London.
  There is another point with regard to this station. It is said that the scheme is objectionable because it brings a railway station on to the river front and this body of architects are very keen that a station should not come on to the river front because, they say, it will destroy the beauty of the river front. I have here a little volume about the London bridges put forward by one of those who took part in the Thames Bridges Conference, and there is a view which is described as "the Surrey Riviera," showing the bank of the Thames immediately adjacent to the present Hungerford Bridge. If they think there is any beauty which can be destroyed on that bank of the river at the present time, they are the most curious artists I have ever come across; but so far from it destroying the beauty of the river bank, it is going to have the opposite effect. True, it is going to bring a railway station there, but what a terrible confession of failure that objection is on the part of a body which we are told is supported by practically all the greatest architects who are fit to be considered in this matter. What a confession of failure on the part of the architects of the country to say that they think it impossible to construct a railway station with architectural features which are pleasing to the eye. I do not believe for one moment that it is true. I do not believe that there is one of them who could not put forward a design that would make a railway station entirely in accordance with the architecture which we have opposite this House, going along with the County Hall and in keeping with all the other buildings to be found on the river bank at that point.
  Then it is said, "You are going to perpetuate slums on the south side of the river." I fail to understand how you can perpetuate slums by getting rid of an enormous amount of slum property, and putting up a number of buildings which will be in keeping, not with the neighbourhood as it now is, but with the neighbourhood as it will be when buildings of decent design which will match the present County Hall have been erected. That point, again, seems to me to fail, but there is a further point, which they have stressed very much, in
  1490
  regard to tunnels. I heard it said the other day by one of the more extravagant opponents of this scheme that the two proposed tunnels, one of which is to be 300 feet and the other 406 feet, will be a cause of serious danger to the health of the population of London because of the terrible fumes of carbo-monoxide. I happen nearly every day of my life to pass through a tunnel which is as long as any of these proposed tunnels. That is the covered roadway which leads from Vauxhall Bridge to the South Lambeth Road, and I have not yet heard of anyone being affected by carbo-monoxide poisoning through using that roadway, although there is an enormous amount of motor traffic along it.
  Lest I should be misunderstood let me say, at once, that the promoters of this Bill are not going to enter into a competition of ugliness with the covered roadway at Vauxhall. There is no idea of constructing any such hideous covered roadway as that which at present exists on the other side of Vauxhall Bridge: but, on the other hand, to-day a covered roadway can be made even attractive, and I suppose that it is not entirely without relevance to consider how attractive is the covered roadway in Piccadilly Circus at the present time. After all, the resources of those who deal with matters of this kind are not so slight that they cannot make a roadway which is really attractive and which can also be used for reasonable business purposes. What is there to prevent arcades of shops being made in one of these two covered roadways?
  Again, the opponents of the scheme say, "You will have a long unsightly wall at the side of the station," but, again, what is there to prevent a building being put up, allowing for shops of a reasonable character accessible from the roadways on either side? My hon. Friend also says, "There will be no proper access to this station, and you will destroy the access to Waterloo." As a matter of fact, we are improving the access to Waterloo, because we are providing ways from that station which do not exist to-day, and which will be of great advantage to those who arrive at that station. In the same way the new station which is to take the place of the Charing Cross Station, will have access to the new bridge and access to Waterloo Bridge; and by its access to Waterloo Bridge it provides easy access

  1491
  to Blackfriars Bridge, while by its access to the new bridge, it provides easy access to Westminster Bridge—though nobody desires that an enormous amount of traffic from the new Charing Cross Bridge should be diverted over either Black-friars Bridge or Westminster Bridge, which are at present pretty well over-laden.
  It is also said that the scheme has not been properly considered. That surely is the last resort of those who are completely destitute of argument. The Royal Commission has sat and has made its recommendations. Since then, there have been published over 30 different designs for this bridge, every one of which has been thoroughly considered by the County Council and the Ministry of Transport. The nature of these various designs I need not dilate upon, but one, referred to with affection by my hon. Friend, was the design of Mr. Caröe. Mr. Caröe is a member of the firm of Niven, Caröe and Muirhead, and, so entirely in agreement are these architects, that he has two schemes, one being the scheme of Messrs. Niven, Caröe and Muirhead, and the other the scheme of Mr. Caröe. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] I agree, but at the same time if you are trying to concentrate on one scheme why should you, directly you have arrived at one design, suggest another design, because you cannot agree with your partners?
  Some things have been disregarded in both these schemes. The Victoria Embankment is at present below high-water level, and it is certainly not desirable to take traffic along a roadway any further down than the Victoria Embankment is at present, but both these schemes are dependent upon sinking the roadway to a point which is almost below low-water level in order to take the trams under the suggested bridge. In order to get the ordinary traffic through you are to take it up an incline and then down an incline from the outlet of the new bridge. In other words, these schemes are not only dependent upon altering the present levels of the Embankment, and taking the trams under the new roadway, but they are also dependent upon taking the whole of the ordinary traffic which goes along the Embankment directly across the traffic which is coming out at the new bridge. That is not giving proper consideration to the factors which
  1492
  are essential, if this bridge is going to be a relief to the traffic and not a means of congestion.
  Then there is another scheme to which my hon. Friend also referred with affection, and which he said he had seen today or yesterday at the Sun Life Assurance Office. I wonder what he would think if such a bridge were ever constructed across the River Thames at that point. We have all seen the designs. We have all had this wonderful invitation. It is a design rich in Eastern architecture—so much so that in order to make it perfect you would want to have a seraglio and a mosque at each end. Then one realises how much it would be in keeping with those ancient buildings which are not a long distance away from this point. The fact of the matter is that, if you take these 30 or more schemes which have been suggested, there is not one of them which has not in it something which is absolutely objectionable, and is vital to the considerations which must be taken into account in building a bridge at this point. There is not one of these schemes, other than that before the House, which does not disregard some essential, the disregard of which leads to the complete destruction of the scheme.
  In these circumstances, are we to be asked by those who now, after their 31 schemes, have put forward no alternative, to defer this scheme in order that they may consider again? In the meantime, is a matter which the Royal Commission said "brooked no delay" to be held up, and are the traffic facilities of London to be held up, when there is a considered scheme waiting to be carried into operation which will not only relieve traffic conditions, but will also, at a very necessary time, bring great help to the unemployed? Finally, they say, "You ought to have taken your architect into consultation before." I say without fear that, primarily, the building of a bridge of this description is an engineering job; but when you come to the final lay-out it is very well and, indeed, essential, that you should consult architectural opinion. Before the final lay-out of this bridge was decided upon one of the most eminent architects in the country, or, indeed, in the world, was taken into consultation. He has made himself responsible for those details which affect the architecture of the final lay-out, and he is now working upon all those details of the scheme which

  1493
  are essential to its architectural success. After all, when a man of such eminence is working upon the scheme, it is rather ridiculous to say that those who have produced over 30 schemes, each of which neglects an essential consideration, should have another chance of delaying the public of London while they produce a further scheme.
  Frankly, I cannot help feeling that the engineering scheme which the London County Council have put forward gives a real opportunity of dealing with the traffic problem, and also an opportunity, which Sir Edwin Lutyens is taking, to produce something which subsequent generations will recognise as a credit to the City and the County of London, and with which the name of Sir Edwin Lutyens will be for ever associated as one who did his best not merely to produce a scheme pleasing to the eye, but one which dealt with the essential problems at the same time.
  Sir MARTIN CONWAY: I beg to move, to leave out the word "now," and, at the end of the Question, to add the words "upon this day six months."
  I rise to utter every word I can in opposition to this scheme. The House of Commons has always been very kind to me, and I venture to-night to appeal for its indulgence as I speak under a great disability. If this were to be my last speech in this House—as I hope it may not be—I should he glad to think that I spoke on behalf of London. I think everybody in the House, without exception, is a lover of London. We may differ about this or that, but this great London, in which we pass a great part of our time and in which some of us live, is one of the most wonderful places on the earth. There is nothing like it, East or West, in any other country in the world. There is just London, and London stands alone. If I could speak on behalf of London I should want, like some college professor, to have a screen and a lantern, so that I could show views, and have the plans on the walls, and deal with all kinds of details, as the hon. and learned Member for Norwood (Sir W. Greaves-Lord) has done, but the fact is that all his learning, and knowledge of detail, and all the rest left me entirely cold, because I could not follow the sense of what he was saying. We wanted to see these various tunnels and so on and
  1494
  have them explained. We are not sitting here with plans in our laps, and we have not all the designs of these tunnels and underground stations and so on; and it is useless, to my mind, to talk about all these details, as one might easily do under other circumstances.
  Therefore, all that I can do is to treat the whole question broadly, to get away from all these details, and to look at the great broad question of London, and what is good for London in the future. There have been great discussions, and discussions, and discussions about this proposal to make a change in the Charing Cross bridge and railway station, there have been Commissions, there have been engineer's reports, there have been all kinds of things; and the London County Council, I take it, has busied itself in this matter for many years, has taken all kinds of advice, has looked at all kinds of plans, and has done all the kinds of things that a representative body can do, and has ultimately got thoroughly tired of the whole thing and wants to get rid of it. It has come to this House with a Bill which will enable it to get rid of this troublesome question, and that Bill, I am going to contend, is a miserable and a hopeless proposition.
  After all these negotiations and discussions, what is the result? There is the London County Council coming before us with a Bill, but the City of Westminster is against it, and the Borough of Lambeth is against it. The two great boroughs which are most affected by this proposal on that side of the river, bodies equally representative in their own areas as the London County Council is in its own area, are against this Bill. They say it is a bad Bill, they say the proposition is a bad one, and they oppose it. There you have the two most powerful and influential bodies that are affected by this Bill petitioning against it. I do not know who is in favour of it.
  Sir W. GREAVES-LORD: I am!
  Sir M. CONWAY: My hon. and learned Friend stands alone. Who is against it? Every body of intelligent men in this country. There is the Royal Academy against it, there is the Royal Institute of British Architects against it—I have a list of them here—there is the Surveyors' Institution against it, there is the Town Planning Institute against

  1495
  it, there is the London Society against it, and there are the Architectural Association and the Architectural Club, very eminent bodies, also against it; and, when you go into Kent and Surrey, you find boroughs all over the place against it. I know of four, but there are a great many more. There are Croydon, and Chislehurst, and Bromley, and Sid-cup against it; and I do not know any corresponding bodies which are in its favour. That is a prima facie ease against this proposal.
  I want to pass to more general considerations, and the first thing that I want to say is that this is not a problem of a bridge, but a very much larger problem. It is a problem of town planning. Anybody can build a bridge when you tell them the two ends to which it is to go, but the first thing is, not to design a bridge and then fit roads to it, but to design roads and then fit a bridge to them. I have nothing to say whatever, therefore, about the bridge. It may be double-decked or single-decked or anything you please, so far as I am concerned. I am concerned with the land on both sides of the river and in the neighbourhood of the ends of the bridge.
  There is, on the South side of the Thames, a square mile of land right in the very heart of London, occupied partly with slums, partly with mean buildings, partly with industrial buildings of some kind, ramshackle affairs, and the only good thing it has got is the shot tower, which I should be sorry to see disappear. There is a square mile of land right in the very heart of London, and that square mile of land might be made to be the very centre of London's world. There is no reason why, in that square mile of land, you should not have streets as fine as Regent Street, Piccadilly, the Strand, or any other big street in London. That is what you want to arrange for on that South side of London, that you shall have a really splendid centre, because it would be very nearly the centre—I think it is the absolute centre—for London. You should have fine streets, fine buildings, a splendid, useful, and valuable creation, standing there in the heart of London, in place of the mean stuff that exists there to-day.
  1496
  To make that square mile of London amount to what it should amount to, you ought to have a proper system of town planning, and that is the first thing to consider—the town planning of this great square mile, which is now wasted, in the heart of London, on the South side of the river. I hear that the Ministry of Transport has considered this problem of the bridge, but I have not heard that the Ministry of Health, which is the town planning authority, has been consulted at all; and it is much more the business of the Ministry of Health than of the Ministry of Transport to pass upon this proposal. Town planning, which, as I have shown, is a point of fundamental importance, has never been, as far as I know—and I believe I am right in saying it—carefully and officially considered by the Ministry of Health, and there is no report upon it from that Ministry. If the Ministry of Transport, therefore, has anything to say in favour of this proposal, I shall cite the Ministry of Health against it, and ask what is its view.
  The plan, as I see it in the paper that was sent to me, the plan which we are discussing to-night, seems to lack every amenity. It lacks lucidity, it lacks simplicity, it lacks breadth, it lacks imagination, and it lacks suitability for human life and town development. We may say that it is botched on the very face of it. It contains six tunnels extending over 800 feet. The criticism of the tunnels that carbon monoxide poisoning might result is not at all to be passed lightly over. It depends on the ventilation. If you have artificial ventilation to save you from carbon monoxide poisoning, that is a further complication. Then you have roundabout after roundabout for the traffic to waltz around in; you have ramps one in thirty on a main principal road; you have long blank walls—for posters, I suppose. All these things are liable to destructive criticism. I am not going to propose any alternative scheme; all I say about this scheme is that it is bad in conception, bad in working out, and bad in presentation.
  What is that we want? Let me set out five points for consideration. The first thing is to open up a splendid square mile in the South of London. The second is to provide two through roads, one from north to south, and another from east to west. The third is to relieve traffic by

  1497
  scattering it. The fourth is to relieve the site famine on the north side of the Thames. The fifth is to pay the whole cost of whatever you do by the great increase in site values which you can obtain by treating the area in South London in a bold, broad and fine manner. I have reason to think that the whole of the expense of the proposed change could be borne by the increase of site and rating values of the square mile of South London if it were treated boldly, broadly and with imagination. We are asked to spend £15,000,000 upon this rubbishy scheme, and there is no ghost of a chance of getting very much of it back. It is a bankruptcy of imagination that leads us into that scheme.
  Let me take these five points in turn. I have said that to open up South London is the first and main problem. A new station is to be put up on the other side of the river, a wedge-shaped station, which blocks the whole place. According to the plan, it has a blank wall along two sides of it—over a quarter of a mile of blank wall. A friend told me that it is not intended to be a blank wall, but that holes are to be burrowed into it, and glass fronts put in them, so that they can be turned into shops. That is no very great comfort to me. If you have not got frontage in that area, I do not imagine that you want rat-holes with glass fronts to them; you want on each side of such a road great fine buildings of five or six storeys high, which will bring you in good rents, good rates, and good revenue. This new station blocks the whole place up. Here you have this wedge, and you cannot drive across it or over it or under it; it blocks the whole development of that part. This south part of London already labours under a tremendous disability with the railway cutting across it from London Bridge to Waterloo Junction towards Charing Cross. That was a mischievous thing ever to have been allowed. That railway ought to have been sunk into the ground, and it ought now to be sunk, and tall buildings ought to be raised on top. In America they do that without thinking twice about it. By putting up tall buildings on top, you will amply repay the cost of sinking the railway and will open that area up for development.
  There exists now a road called Belvedere Road, with which I had occasion to make personal acquaintance on many
  1498
  occasions when the War Museum had a store off that road. It is a pretty disgraceful road, but there it is. It might be widened and made useful, but what does this proposal do? It cuts it in half, and makes a blind end to it, so that the only way of getting into it is down some steps at one end and up some steps the other. What kind of property are you going to build fronting on a road which you can only get into by going down steps and only get out of by going up steps? In the immediate neighbourhood of the County Hall, you are going to make a great area of land perfectly useless., and you will atrophy and stultify any conceivable development. That is characteristic of this whole scheme from one end to another. Then there is a great silly curving road, which goes round and leads nowhere, and it is apparently intended to be nothing in the world but a car park. That is the purpose for which you condemn one of the finest sites in London, which ought to carry buildings of a fine character.
  My second point is that we want a great north to south road across the river, which will take you right through London and will bring you down into the south of London. What do we find there? On the north side of the river we find roundabout after roundabout; the idea of roundabouts seems to have got possession of the people. I hate roundabouts, and I share that dislike with a great many other people. You would have to go a distance of three-quarters of a mile to get from the end of Northumberland Avenue on to the bridge, though in point of fact the bridge would be only 30 or 40 yards away. Under the present planning arrangements anyone coming from the north to go over the bridge would have a magnificent vista along the road—away and away up, with, I suppose, the Surrey hills in the distance on the two days in the year when the sky is clear enough for them to be seen. Away and away up you would go, and what would you come to at the end? You would come to a curving ramp, and the road twisting at a slope of 1 in 30. At the end of two miles of straight road that is what you would get. So bad was that silly proposal that when it was shown to the architect he said, "Oh, we will put up an obelisk or a monument there." What bad planning it must be if it has to be corrected by sticking up a monument to

  1499
  save it from being ugly. Picture it for yourselves. Here comes the road. You are looking right up the road. You come to this silly ramp, and then there is a circular roundabout, where you go spinning around and around.
  But far more important than a north-and-south road is an east-and-west road, and there is no pretence at supplying that. In this House I am always troubled as to the position of the points of the compass. I think the river is behind me as I am standing now. If you cross Westminster Bridge, as soon as you are on the other side there is no need to twist very much before you find yourself heading straight for the City of London. What we want more than anything else is a big, fine avenue leading from the other end of Westminster Bridge direct to London Bridge. People do not often realise it, but the Thames curves between Westminster Bridge and London Bridge, and we want a road to cut straight across between those two points. A fine broad avenue from the other side of Westminster Bridge to London Bridge will open up the whole of that district, and the development of south London can be undertaken. The first essential is this broad east and west road, cutting through all the slums, cutting through whatever comes in its way until it comes to London Bridge.
  Such a road would relieve the Strand of half its traffic. Half the traffic which now travels east and west on the north of the river would take this short cut, because it would get to the City in half the time that is now consumed. Traffic blocks in the Strand are no modern affairs. I was reading recently in Pepys' Diary his account of how when he was coming to Westminster on one occasion and had got somewhere near to what is now Charing Cross, the block of carriages became so great that he had to get out of his conveyance, walk down to the river, and take a boat to Westminster. Such was the state of traffic near Charing Cross in the 17th century. They improved the roads and did one thing and another, and the block disappeared—for a time: but when I was a boy living in Westminster and going to school in Essex, we always allowed an hour and a quarter to drive in a four-wheeled cab from Dean's Yard to Bishopsgate Street Station, which stood then where Liver
  1500
  pool Street is now, or thereabouts. Time and time again in those days I have sat on top of an omnibus going along the Strand and taken three-quarters of an hour, and even an hour, to get from Charing Cross to Temple Bar. Then they made the Thames Embankment and Queen Victoria Street, which relieved that traffic for a time, but we shall have that same problem of the Strand traffic everlastingly repeated unless we build a new route to diminish the pressure on the Strand. The one thing that would finally solve the problem would be this great highway, broad as Regent Street, or broader, running from the other end of Westminster Bridge to London Bridge.
  I have spoken about the new station being on the wrong side in relation to the development of South London, but there is another reason against the new station being where it is, and that is that it will be separated from Waterloo Station by a road. That will be a perfect nuisance to people arriving at one station and wanting to go to the other station. It is all very well to say that there will be bridges across, and this, that and the other, but you know how it is when you arrive at a station and a porter has to take your things over a quarter of a mile to get to a train in the other station. It is all bother and confusion. We do not want two stations, we want one station, and that one station approximately where Waterloo Station is now.
  We shall be sterilising the development of this area. Instead of relieving traffic and scattering it in many parts of the area covered by the plan v. e shall be concentrating traffic. I understand that my friend Sir Henry Maybury thinks the traffic arrangements are good. He is a great authority, but I differ from him. Another point to be remembered is that there is a famine of sites on this side of the river, and the value of land is being driven up to an enormous figure. If we open up the other side of the river to development it will diminish that site famine we can sweep away those poor, miserable properties, wretched houses and slums, and erect there fine tall buildings—in fact, I would like to see skyscrapers put there, though perhaps this country is not ripe for them. However, there could be fine buildings for industrial purposes and for residences and for the accommodation of large masses

  1501
  of the working classes in comfort and in healthy surroundings.
  I want to say a word or two in regard to the question of finance. I have already referred to that subject. The county council are asking us to put up £15,000,000 to make a bridge and a road, and there is nothing coming back to us at all for that expenditure. By this scheme, you are spoiling the areas that might be built over by good property, and the dead-weight of the cost of this scheme will be laid upon the shoulders of the taxpayers of this country, whereas if you proceeded on a large scale, you would carry out something worthy of London and of the capital of the British Empire; not only that, but you would get back most of the cost. I believe by the adoption of proper arrangements you could sweep in to the public Exchequer the whole of the annual increment, and then you would be able to make a profit upon the undertaking. I believe any contractor could undertake such a scheme as I have suggested, and make a thundering good profit out of it. If what I have suggested were adopted, the taxpayers would not be called upon to pay anything at all towards the cost.
  Officially, we have been told that it is necessary for this Bill to be pushed through at once, because it would do much to relieve unemployment. The Lord Privy Seal is always telling us that, no matter whether a scheme is a bad or a good one, and we are always told that we must not go against schemes because they are going to provide employment I want this money to be spent on something that will be worth while in the development of South London and which will be worthy of a great city, Under my suggestion, you will provide more employment by opening up a square mile of valuable sites for property and rebuilding the whole of that vast area.
  Finally, I come to the question of beauty. If you build rightly you build beautifully, and this is a question of beauty. I remember a French Prime Minister who, when he wanted a thing done, said "I want this and that, and, finally, no architecture." I remember one of the Vanderbilts to whom somebody once said, "Why don't you talk grammar; you are talking terrible English? "Vanderbilt replied," Grammar. Why, for 5,000 dollars a year I can
  1502
  employ a man who knows all the grammars in the world. I tell him a thing, and I say, 'Grammar this' and 'grammar that.' "The county council have provided a scheme, and, when it is all done, they call upon my friend Sir Edwin Lutyens, and they say to him, "Grammar that." That is the contribution to beauty which comes from the London County Council, I think I have now knocked the bottom out of the proposal of this Bill, and, if I never speak in this House again, it will be a pleasure to me to think what a delightful evening I have spent among so many old friends.
  Mr. WILLIAM STEWART: I beg to second the Amendment.
  In rising to address the House for the first time, I am sure that the House will extend to me the indulgence which is usually extended to one who makes his first speech here. I am sorry that my maiden effort should be made against this scheme, because, in common with my hon. Friend the Member for the English Universities (Sir M. Conway), I am a lover of London, having had my home here for many years. I oppose this scheme, not putting forward any alternative, but merely because I think that the scheme has not had proper consideration. The experts themselves do not agree on the scheme, and, as we have been told, many of the boroughs in London are opposed to it. It is only the London County Council and the officials who support this scheme. It may be good or bad in itself, but I submit that the scheme has not-received that consideration which a scheme like this should receive. In the present circumstances, to put this scheme forward without considering the whole of London is to my mind a great mistake. A writer who is not often read to-day, Ruskin, says—I cannot give his exact words, but this is the general effect—that, for every 100 who can speak, one can think, and for every 1,000 who can think, one can see. I submit that it is vision that is wanted in this matter, not talk and not thinking.
  The Southern Railway has seven stations in London within a space of two miles, and, of those seven stations, four are in the City of London. As my hon. Friend has said, if any man had the money and could take up this matter, he could afford to put every railway under-ground,

  1503
  and he would make a lot of money out of the sites that he would save. Those who know the City of New York know that there is a central railway station there which is all underground, and built over with large buildings. Into that Central Station all the traffic comes from the underground railways and from many of the main lines. The four stations in the City of London run on to one line, on to which, also, Charing Cross runs, and to my mind the idea of perpetuating Charing Cross Station should not be considered. My friend Sir Henry Maybury admitted to me that the project had not been considered from the point of view of concentrating these railway stations and eliminating those which were surplus.
  To me it seems to be bad management to have all these stations within this small compass. A short time ago I was wanting certain information, and telephoned to what I thought was the head office to ask them a question. They referred me to another station. That station referred me to yet another station, and this other station referred me to a fourth station. Then the fourth station referred me back to the first station to which I telephoned, and there eventually I got the information. I am not making any complaint at all; I do not wish to make any complaint; I only wish to make this point, that those of us who have the interests of London at heart, as we all have, should not support this Bill until it has been considered from every point of view.
  Let me give some figures. At Charing Cross Station, 50,000 people come and go each day. That is not 100,000 altogether, but 50,000 who come in and go out, and, dividing that number by two, it means about 25,000 actual people. On the other hand, at Liverpool Street Station there are 250,000 to deal with. Let it be remembered, moreover, that the passenger traffic is decreasing, and not increasing, and yet it is proposed to perpetuate a station at Charing Cross and give it a fine new site simply to accommodate 25,000 people, most of whom could go on other lines to some of the other railway stations. At Waterloo there are 121,000 passengers, and at Victoria 96,000; and, dividing these figures by two, as you may do generally,
  1504
  you have only 40,000 or 50,000 people using the station. I submit that before this Bill is passed it should be considered from a general point of view. Anyone who looks at the map will see that some of these stations cut across the line which goes into Liverpool Street. Instead of spending money on such a proposal as this, let us see if we cannot amalgamate these stations, or cut them, out, and put the lines underground for some distance out of London, having one central station for short-distance traffic, and letting the long-distance traffic go to these other stations.
  9.0 p.m.
  The question of employment comes in, and, as my hon. Friend has said, unemployment is usually put forward as a reason for these schemes. I do not think, however, that this scheme will assist employment. It is a very difficult scheme. There are roundabouts and tunnels, and there is a good deal of property about which there will have to be negotiations. All this will take a very considerable time. I do not want to appear to condemn the scheme without having some definite and concrete suggestion to make, and the suggestion that I would make is this: There are many hon. Members here who have not very much to do. We wander about here, and yet, while the Chancellor of the Exchequer appoints economic committees, and someone else appoints other committees, Members of this House are rarely appointed to anything. After all, however, it is not the Members on the front benches who form the majority of the House. I think that the private Members are very much neglected, although there is a great deal of talent in the House. On the Labour Benches there are many Members with whom we agree and who agree with us, and, if a few Members were appointed from each party in the House to get together and endeavour to visualise what would be the result of amalgamating these stations and putting the railways underground for a distance of two or three miles out, thus saving all this land, I believe that time would be saved. It would not take years to do this; it could be done in a few weeks. It is only the idea of the doctors and lawyers and architects that it would take years; it would not. I speak on this matter as a practical man. It does, however, take years to dream, and,

  1505
  when the dreaming is over, you are in a hurry, you get into a panic, and put forward a scheme which has not been considered and thought out. If a few of us could get together with a map, together with the engineers—very able men, who. are told, as my hon. Friend has said, to "grammar that"—we should try to give them something to grammar. At the present time this scheme has only been considered from one point of view, that is, from the railway point of view and the point of view of the London Traffic Advisory Council. They have only been told to "grammar it" from that point of view. Let us tell them to "grammar it" from the City of London point of view.
  Take the case of Marylebone Station, which deals with 10,500 passengers per day. Halving that number, we have 5,000 people actually using the station. That joins up with another railway, the very Liverpool Street railway about which we are in trouble. Again, take St. Pancras Station. That is kept open for 40,000 passengers a day, or 20,000 people; It is monstrous that in this City of London a scheme should be put forward which to my mind is entirely a parochial scheme, which is entirely local, without any consideration having been given to its possibilities. I do not want to pursue the matter any further; I thank the House very much for their kind attention to my remarks.
  Colonel ASHLEY: The Bill which we are now considering is, in my opinion, by far the most important Bill affecting London which has come before Parliament since the Bill which enabled the Victoria Embankment to be constructed, and it is one which ought to receive the very serious consideration of all Members of this House. We should never have had this Bill if Waterloo Bridge had not shown signs of falling down. In 1926, the London County Council, who are the bridge authority for the Metropolis, in their absolute discretion, decided, after a great deal of discussion, that Waterloo Bridge should be pulled down and that a new bridge should be erected in its place, taking six lines of traffic and capable of meeting the extra weight and volume of traffic. Then' the learned societies, of whom my hon. Friend the Member for the English Universities
  1506
  (Sir M. Conway) spoke, raised a great outcry against the proposed action? of the County Council. They wrote to the "Times" and pointed out that it was very important that this bridge should be, preserved. No doubt Waterloo Bridge, is a fine structure, but I venture to say that nine-tenths of the people who protested against the pulling down of Waterloo Bridge never discovered how beautiful it was until it was going to be pulled down. I sympathise a good deal with the members of the County Council in the outcry that was raised against them when they exercised their perfect right of deciding that that bridge should be pulled down. However, be that as it may, a Royal Commission was at once appointed to go, into the question not only Of Waterloo Bridge but of all the Thames bridges, and Lord Lee of Fareham was appointed Chairman. To the members of that Commission one ought to bear public tribute, because in the course of three or four months they got through their very difficult task, and among their recommendations was one that dealt with Waterloo Bridge and Charing Cross Bridge. Everyone admits that that ugly iron railway bridge that still stands there is a monstrosity and a disgrace to the chief City of the Empire, and the sooner it can be swept away the better.
  They offered a compromise, and a not unfair compromise. They suggested, with all respect to the County Council, that they should not pull down Waterloo Bridge but should reconstruct it so as to take four lines of traffic, which could be done without materially affecting the outline of Rennie's masterpiece. They also suggested that the existing railway bridge at Charing Cross should be pulled down and that a double-decker bridge to carry passengers, road traffic and the railway should be erected in its place—incidentally, I think that bridge would have been very ugly indeed—and that the site of Charing Cross Station should be moved somewhat to the East., On investigation by experts it was found that the estimate of the cost by the Lee Commission for. these improvements was at least 35 to 40 per cent. under what it really was, and their £8,000,000 was easily swollen to £12,600,000. I had, as Minister of Transport, to consider that question in conjunction with the County Council, who

  1507
  behaved extremely well in the matter. If I had been a member of the County Council and, in the exercise of the rights given me by Parliament had decided that a certain bridge was to be pulled down, I should have felt inclined to be a little resentful if the Minister of Transport came in and suggested that I should not exercise my rights and should stay my hand. But all the members agreed to wait for an investigation by an expert committee of engineers, of which the County Council's chief engineer was a member, to see, after expert investigation, whether the recommendation of the Lee Commission could really be carried out. They found that they could not carry it out as there were grave structural difficulties in the way of moving the station to the East, and that a double-decker bridge would not add beauty to the landscape, and they also came to the conclusion that the estimated cost would not be £8,000,000 but round about £12,000,000 or £13,000,000.
  It seemed to me and my advisers that we should explore further, and see whether it was not possible on this occasion, with this opportunity, to do something that has been the dream of lovers of London and the improvement of London for 20 or 30 years, namely, to remove Charing Cross Railway Station, lock, stock and barrel, right away from where it stands at present, and re-erect it on the south side of the river, because, after all—it is not the fault of the Southern Line-no one could say Charing Cross Station, as it stands at present, is beautiful. It is a most lugubrious building. It looks, in my opinion, like a rather dilapidated aerodrome, and the pity is that this ugly building stands on so valuable site. On further investigation, we found that the removal was possible, and we approached the Southern Railway Company. Here, again, I received nothing but help from the chairman and directors and their general manager. After all, it was a rather big request to make to the company, immersed as it was in the electrification of their line, passing through bad times in the way of traffic, that they should add to their enormous burdens the investigation of the problem of moving one of their stations to a new site, estimating what the loss would be and, above all, facing the possible unpopularity that they would incur from
  1508
  the travellers on their Charing Cross section who might say, and some of whom did say, they would be hurt by having the station put on the south side of the river, because they would have to walk some considerable distance further than at present.
  I need not go into the prolonged negotiations that took place, but finally, having got the expert opinion of the company, I decided, with the consent of the Government as a whole, that the only possible site for the new station was the one that is now scheduled in the Bill. The Waterloo Junction site was impossible for various reasons. The first was that it would not enable the railway to work properly and, what is still more important, the passengers would have to walk much further than if they were taken to the bank of the river. If we agree, as I think the majority of Members do, that it is a good thing to remove Charing Cross Station to the other side of the river, there is every advantage in placing it on a site overlooking the river. In the first place, the distance the passengers would have to walk, or ride in omnibus or taxicab, is reduced by 600 yards. In the next place, the passengers delivered there are, or will be when the escalators are made, in a position to get to the tube railway far more easily than if the site was at Waterloo Junction. As to the objection of the hon. Member for the Combined Universities that the station must be an ugly thing, I cannot conceive why a railway station planned by an eminent architect, with steps running down to the front of the river, should not only be ugly but should not be a great addition to the view of the South of London from the north bank. As regards traffic;, this is really a London matter. At present, the traffic from north to south is gravely hampered. If Westminster Bridge failed, with Waterloo Bridge more or less out of the picture I do not know how London life would be carried on. It is absolutely essential that we should have a new road bridge somewhere in this region to take the traffic from north to south.
  It is said that no one supports this scheme. I submit that the people who support this scheme are very numerous and very important In the first place, it has the support of the London County Council, which represents 8,000,000 people, and is the great governing autho

  1509
  rity in the metropolitan area. It has the support of His Majesty's Government as represented by the Minister of Transport. It is supported by the Southern line; it is supported by the Underground line; it is supported by the omnibus companies, and last, but not least, it is warmly supported by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bewdley (Mr. S. Baldwin). He authorises me to inform the House that, if he had not had an important engagement, he would have come here and not only have voted but would have spoken. With all those authorities in favour of this scheme, who would be against it? We have a certain number of what I call learned societies who I should have thought would have assisted this scheme and not have criticised it. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] For this reason. You may say it is not a complete improvement. Surely it will not be contended by anybody that it will not be an immense improvement on the present condition of things in London.
  Mr. LEIF JONES: Why does the right hon. Gentleman expect that these learned societies, as he called them, should support him?
  Colonel ASHLEY: Because learned societies, I understand, are in favour of the improvement of London. This scheme would improve London. It would open up that dreary area round Waterloo Station, The whole of that space in 20 or 30 years' time, if the plans of the county council are carried out—and I have no reason to think that they will not be carried out—will be covered, not by mean dwellings two storeys high, but by fine buildings. We shall have the completion of the County Hall itself. We shall probably have a fine hotel built there for the accommodation of the large number of people who arrive there from Southampton. We shall have this fine railway station there. I understand that the London County Council will see to it, having acquired this land, that nothing but fine buildings are erected there. My hon. Friend the Member for the Combined Universities has made a great point of saying that we were sterilising the development of one square mile. How can that square mile be developed unless there is access to it and unless this bridge is built?
  1510
  Finally, I must put this point very strongly. This is primarily a traffic improvement of London. With the traffic improvement and the main line station laid down, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Transport will only be too anxious to do all that he can to beautify the scheme. How could the Minister of Transport allocate 75 per cent. of the total cost of £12,500,000 for anything other than transport and traffic considerations? He could not give £9,000,000 purely for aesthetic considerations. This £9,000,000 which the Road Fund is to find is given to transport, and transport first, second and third. After that, we will do what we can to make the scheme as beautiful as possible from the aesthetic point of view. Surely, also, the London ratepayer is finding £3,250,000 in order that the traffic in the great metropolis can be improved.
  We are not unmindful of the aesthetic considerations. Over a year ago Sir Edwin Lutyens was asked, by me as a matter of fact, to advise on this scheme. Sir Edwin Lutyens is known as the most eminent man in the profession, a Royal Academican, an architect, and a man who laid out the new Delhi, a man whose name is a household word. I carefully considered the matter, and I could not think of anybody better qualified to advise the Minister of Transport and the Government. He has taken the greatest care and every precaution in regard to this proposal. As this proposal is supported by all the authorities which I have named and the Government have taken every care over the aesthetic considerations, I beg and pray of the House to give the Bill a Second Reading. Objections can perfectly well be heard upstairs, and, although I have no authority to speak for them, I know, from my knowledge of the London County Council, that legitimate questions or any suggestions for improvements will be readily adopted by them when the Bill is considered in Committee upstairs.
  Mr. SCURR: Before I address myself to the subject which we are discussing, there is one thing which I should like to say. I feel that I am speaking on behalf of all the Members of this side of the House as well as on behalf of hon. Members on the other side when I express the very sincere regret we all feel on hearing of the illness of the hon. Member

  1511
  for the Combined Universities (Sir M. Conway). I hope that we have not in any sense of the word heard his last speech to-day and that in many years to come he will be able to stand in his place in this House and admit the mistake he has made this evening in opposing this bridge. Are we discussing the question as to whether we are to have a bridge at Charing Cross, or are we discussing the question of the general town planning of the whole of London? I have been rather puzzled in following the statements of the hon. Members who Moved and Seconded the rejection of this Bill. As far as the hon. Gentleman the Member for Belfast South (Mr. W. Stewart) who seconded the Amendment, is concerned—and we congratulate him on his maiden speech—he seemed to be much more concerned with some plans for providing a central railway station for London, and he gave us a good number of statistics regarding Liverpool Street, Marylebone, and other stations of that kind. No doubt they were very interesting, but, after all, Marylebone and Liverpool Street are not Charing Cross, and it is the traffic considerations of Charing Cross with which we are concerned this evening.
  It must be emphasised—and I want to follow the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Christchurch (Colonel Ashley) in that regard—that the whole of this question has been raised because of the condition of "Waterloo Bridge. Waterloo Bridge cannot remain in the condition in which it is to-day for very long. It is a very expensive liability to the London County Council at the present time and is always giving them a considerable amount of alarm when they have the report of their engineer concerning it. If the governors of London had been allowed to do what they desired, we should have simply pulled Waterloo Bridge down and rebuilt it with six lines of traffic which we thought would have been essential for dealing with the traffic problem. I was a member of the London County Council at the time this question was being considered, and it had practically the unanimous support of the council irrespective of party. But someone came along, and they discovered that London, whatever else it possessed, possessed a great architectural masterpiece, namely,
  1512
  Waterloo Bridge, and, as a result of the agitation which was begun, the late Prime Minister appointed a Royal Commission.
  We have heard that this question is one which has come up after only very cursory consideration. There has not been time enough we are told to consider all the questions involved. This question has been before the public of London for the last 30 years. How much longer are we going to wait? Are we to wait another two generations before we can decide? Are we going to keep that ugly thing which we call Hungerford Bridge? I venture to suggest that the London County Council have given adequate consideration to every possible point in connection with the bridge. Their point was that the traffic problem could have been dealt with by rebuilding Waterloo Bridge. The County Council has been informed practically by Parliament that this is not to be the solution, and it has to turn to the other solutions What other solution could it bring forward? It has consulted with the Ministry of Transport, and has examined the 30 or more schemes put forward. Some of these are very beautiful on paper, but I am very much inclined to think that the gentlemen concerned, and the various societies who have issued a pamphlet to us, know very little about the navigation difficulties. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Whitechapel (Mr. Gosling) is not able to be in his place, because there is no man in this House who has so much knowledge of the navigation of the River Thames. If he were here he would support me in saying that the majority of the schemes put forward, pretty as they are on paper, are absolutely impossible from the navigation point of view. After all, even if we are considering the traffic on the roads of London, we also have to consider traffic on that great waterway the River Thames.
  Then there is the question of placing the railway station on the other side of the river. It is perfectly true that the Southern Railway was in no sense enamoured of that scheme. The directors of the Southern Railway Company say, "Here will be a considerable expenditure, and what are our shareholders going to get in return for it?" That is the point of view they have got to take as directors, and, as far as they are concerned, they can get no

  1513
  benefit from it at all. They say "Leave us alone," but London does not want them left alone, because of that ugly bridge which spans the Thames at the present time at Hungerford. Therefore the Southern Railway Company, in the interests of the people of London, have met the wishes of the Ministry of Transport and the London County Council and an agreement has been entered into. If you look at the plan and consider all the questions involved, finance, architecture, engineering and so on, you will find that, broadly speaking, the plan in the proposals which are now before the House is the best plan which has been proposed. Every consideration has been given to the traffic question. I was rather astounded in the earlier part of the Debate to hear of the very curious way in which one could get from the City to the other side of the river. I should think my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland (Mr. A. Smith) would be quite pleased to know that the taxicab drivers, whom he represents in London so well, were able to get Scotland Yard to sanction the route which the hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) put forward. I fear they would not receive encomiums for their knowledge of London.
  All traffic considerations have been considered. We have to bear in mind that it is absolutely impossible, first of all on account of the fact that we have these tubes under the river east and west of the present bridge, to consider any other site except approximately the site of Hungerford Bridge. The tubes are too near to the bed of the river to make it at all possible to build over the top of them. Further than that it would mean that we should have to go over at a high level. We do not want to pour any more traffic on to the Embankment, because there is already quite sufficient. A certain amount of fun has been made over roundabouts, but, really, I do not see any reason why we should make fun of them, because they have added very considerably to the traffic facilities of London. With what is proposed under this plan I feel absolutely certain you will find that the traffic difficulty has been dealt with in a way which will be beneficial to the people of London. Of course, if we had unlimited millions and unlimited time at our disposal, it would be perfectly possible to town-plan the whole of London,
  1514
  but if we were to begin that, I should not be so much concerned with places round about Westminster as with re-planning places in the East End of London, where it is more necessary to have beauty than at the centre of the City. So far as the architectural and beauty side of this is concerned, surely the pledge which the London County Council has publicly given, and which has been issued on their behalf in support of the Second Reading of the Bill, will be sufficient to convince everyone that this great London authority is quite prepared to pay every attention to all the aesthetic conditions which have to be considered. They say:
  "Within the limits of the present proposals the Council will willingly consider any suggestion for the best possible architectural treatment of the scheme and the appropriate Committee of the Council have decided, if the present Bill becomes law, to recommend the Council to throw open to competition the designs of the main features of the scheme, including the new bridge and viaducts and circuses in the Strand and Waterloo Road."
  I feel certain that gives every possible pledge, and it ought to remove every fear of those who think we are going to try to create something ugly for the people of London. Therefore, from the traffic, engineering, architectural and other points of view I consider this Bill should have a Second Reading and should go upstairs, where the details will be considered, and I am confident that this House will feel the greatest satisfaction in having brought about a very great improvement for London.
  Sir KENYON VAUGHAN-MORGAN: I rise to support the Second Reading of the Bill, having been asked to act for the London County Council in this respect. I will not, if I can avoid it, go over the grounds which have already been covered by my hon. and learned Friend (Sir W. Greaves-Lord), nor will I repeat what the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Scurr) so effectively expressed. I will try rather to meet some of the very general objections which the hon. Member for the Combined Universities (Sir M. Conway) put with such a large measure of condemnation of the Bill. I share with him the honour of belonging to London, and I give way neither to him nor to any other hon. Member in my affection for this great City, and my desire to see it improved, beautified and rendered far nearer what we should regard as the ideal

  1515
  than it is at the present day; but I contend that this great London improvement, which London has signified through its accredited and senior authorities, its willingness to lend its hand to, to say nothing of its resources, deserves the support of everyone who has genuinely at heart the welfare of our City.
  The hon. Member for the Combined Universities pointed as an alternative to the proposal to build a main thorough fare across the chord of the arc, from Westminster to London Bridge. That is an interesting proposal, and if he will look at the map, and study the proposals which are already in partial execution by the London County Council, he will see that such a thoroughfare is in the course of being provided. The great improvements on the Surrey side which the County Council has in hand, including the improvements at the Elephant and Castle, the improvements which will result from the building of this bridge, the widening of Oakley Street, the building of Lambeth Bridge and the improvement of the exits from where that bridge lands, all tend in the direction desired by the hon. Member.
  With regard to the proposals of the hon. Member who seconded the Amendment, I share with him the desire that the railways which at present obstruct the free passage of traffic on the Surrey shore might be put underground, but even Charing Cross, much as we may condemn it, deals with 20,000,000 passengers per annum, and the other stations that have been mentioned add their quota to the vast numbers who come in and leave the City every day. If we are to wait until a practical scheme can be adopted and passed we shall have to wait far too long, almost metaphorically until doomsday, far longer than we can afford to wait, and far longer than we have a right to condemn the traffic conditions of London to continue in their present state.
  We are making a start. The Southern Railway have agreed to move their station. That is a step in the right direction. From the traffic point of view, whatever advantage there may be from the town planning point of view, the removal of the station further from the present site to Waterloo Junction would not be as convenient as the proposal in the Bill. There we shall have a con
  1516
  venient point of access to three tubes at present, and four tubes in the future. I should like, particularly, to refer to the improvement that will take place on the northern or Middlesex side at the termination of the proposed bridge and roadway, where it joins the Strand. There it is proposed that there shall be a traffic circus, giving access to all points of the compass, and acting as a diffuser of traffic conveniently to the north or to the east. At that circus there will be a tube railway station, combining all the advantages at present attaching to the new Piccadilly Circus station, and many other advantages suggested by the experience already gained. So well do the London Electric Railway companies view this scheme that they are prepared, at their own expense, to develop this great underground combined tube railway centre. I would refer also to the fact that, whereas criticism has been offered with regard to the scheme that it does not pour traffic into Trafalgar Square, one of the advantages that it will possess is that it will by-pass Trafalgar Square and carry traffic to the north by a number of existing thoroughfares, and will be more easily accessible from the point to which I have referred.
  Objections have been raised from the Westminster City Council on this particular matter, but I think it can be said, with a fair degree of authority, that before this bridge is completed, and it is bound to take time, plans will be approved and ready for carrying out to improve the ingress to and egress from the traffic centre towards the north. Whether those improvements take the form of widening Charing Cross Road and St. Martin's Lane, or whether they take the form, which I would rather see, of a development to the east, coupled perhaps with the removal of Covent Garden from its present site, there is certainly a great opportunity for development, and it would be a fallacy to suppose that the London County Council or the Ministry of Transport would not take full advantage of the opportunities presented. As a Londoner who is fairly familiar with the district which we are discussing, I might mention, for the benefit of those to whom it is not quite so familiar, the great problem that is presented in dealing with the matter because of the variations in levels. It is for that reason that we have to have a high level bridge.

  1517
  Whatever conveniences and advantages might attach to a bank to bank bridge, you cannot have them, because, for one thing, it would be difficult to meet the navigation requirements, and you would also have to alter the level of the embankment. If you desired to provide access to Northumberland Avenue you would have to destroy half of that thoroughfare. No bank to bank bridge which intended to provide access to Northumberland Avenue could do so without the practical destruction of that thoroughfare and of an immense amount of valuable property.
  Another criticism that has been offered is that the scheme now proposed will involve the acquisition and destruction of certain valuable property in the Strand and immediately adjoining it, notably Coutts' Bank. Hon. Members may, perhaps, be aware that the scheme favoured by the Royal Commission involved not only the destruction of that property, but rather more property, and also interference in the churchyard of St. Martins-in-the-Fields, which, under the present scheme, is left intact. Although we cannot proceed as the hon. Member for the Combined Universities would wish, with a free hand for town planning, we desire to respect ancient monuments, and our schemes are handicapped to that extent. If one had to choose, one would seek to preserve St. Martins Church even at the expense of acquiring some valuable property a little further east.
  But all that is destroyed is not lost. Property of great value will be erected on the new street sites and there will come a recoupment which we are naturally most anxious to see. I should like to reassure hon. Members who think that a large sum of money will be expended from the Road Fund on what they may regard as a purely London improvement. London itself will contribute between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000 out of the county rate. Londoners, too, are large contributors to the income of the Road Fund. If I make an estimate, I should not be exaggerating if I say that the contribution of the County of London, directly and indirectly, will amount certainly to one-third of the total cost of the scheme. That is a very large sum for London to contemplate, and if the provinces and provincial hon. Members think that the Minister of Transport is
  1518
  being unduly generous towards a London scheme I hope they will remember that London could hardly be persuaded to undertake its obligations towards this great proposal unless there was a reciprocal contribution on behalf of the country as a whole.
  This is not only a London scheme; it is a great national improvement. The problem of London traffic by itself might be met by another scheme altogether. If, therefore, London is asked, and is willing, to contribute to and co-operate in furthering this great proposal, then London's contribution and London's share to the cost must be borne in mind and full credit allowed for it. The criticisms which have been offered to the scheme have shown a total absence of an alternative and a clear divergence of opinion among those who object to it, except those who say that it is a bad scheme because it is proposed at all. To those who object to the scheme I would say that, looking at it from the point of view of London, and that of the leaders of London government, it is a case of now or never. London has waited not 30 years, but three-quarters of a century, for the opportunity of carrying out this proposal.
  A scheme of this kind was first suggested in 1854 by a Royal Commission which considered the cross river facilities which required to be provided. We have waited for just over three-quarters of a century. It is typical of London that we should have to wait so long. Do not let us lose this opportunity. It will be unwise to neglect the chance. We now have a generous contribution from London, a generous contribution from the Road Fund, the railways are willing to assist and co-operate in providing the additional facilities necessary, and it would be ungrateful to those who have given so much time and attention to working out the scheme to allow this opportunity to pass. It is folly to pretend that experts have not examined the proposal. What greater experts on traffic questions can you have than the officials of the Ministry of Transport? Who will suggest more important, more well informed, or more capable engineers than those who have been called into consultation? In these circumstances it would be ungrateful and unwise, and London as a whole is unwilling to allow this great opportunity to be lost.
  Mr. STRAUSS: I am glad, to have the opportunity of putting one or two considerations before the House because a large part of my constituency is going to be wiped out by this Bill. The greater part of the developments which will be carried out, if the Bill goes through, will take place almost entirely in my constituency on the Surrey side of the river and, therefore, my constituents are not only interested but somewhat alarmed by the introduction of the Bill. Naturally I have been very interested in the scheme from its beginning. I have studied this proposal and almost all the others which have been put forward. I do not pretend to be an expert on architectural, engineering or traffic matters, but I have studied the criticisms of the experts and all the plans, and I have quite definitely come to the conclusion that this plan is by far the best and most practical scheme which has been put forward. I stress the word "practical." Any number of schemes have been submitted which look very pretty on paper, but they entirely ignore essential conditions such as the flow of traffic or the navigation of the river.
  The scheme in the Bill will open up the south side of London which, so far, has been entirely neglected to a development which will be worthy of the site, which, after all, is in the very centre of London. We have heard a great deal about vistas and blank walls, but not a word has been said on what surely is an important matter, and that is the fate of the people who are going to be displaced. Nearly 5,000 people are going to be turned out of their present homes by the development on the south side of the river. The streets to be pulled down and replaced by the station and other streets are poor and dreary at the moment. One would think hearing some hon. Members, that a beautiful garden was to be destroyed and replaced by an ugly structure. Instead of that, it is a network of ugly miserable streets. The poor people who live there do so because it is near their work and extremely convenient. These people have been alarmed at the prospect of being sent miles away by the London County Council when they come to carry out their development plans. Many of them are night workers, many of them have to start early in the morning before there are adequate traffic facilities, and
  1520
  the inconvenience of going far away would be great indeed. But, even more important than that, is the fact that the extra fares which these families would be called upon to pay prove an intolerable burden to the family budget. Therefore, I have been very worried on behalf of these people, and of course they have been very much more worried than I have been. I have gone into the matter very closely with the appropriate department of the London County Council of which I happen to be a member, to see what could be done properly to safeguard their interests. I am sure that Members in all quarters of the House would like to feel sure that these people are not put to any undue hardship because of the scheme. As a result of conversations which I have had with the appropriate department and of a letter which I received yesterday, I am absolutely satisfied that the people are going to receive reasonable treatment. This is the letter:
  "With reference to your conversation today with the Chairman of the Improvements Committee, I am directed to inform you that the provisions to be made for rehousing the persons of the working class displaced by the Charing Cross Bridge scheme will have to satisfy the Minister of Health. Arrangements have already been made which will enable provision to be made for about 1,000 persons within the Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth. I am also to give you an assurance that it is the explicit aim of the Council to secure suitable sites to provide accommodation for the balance of the number who will be displaced, within a reasonable distance of their residence or place of employment. It is not the intention to compel the persons displaced to remove outside the County of London."
  That is a reasonable assurance which the County Council, of course, will loyally carry out. Therefore, I submit to any hon. Members who may be doubtful about supporting the Bill that at any rate in the opinion of one who has studied the matter as a layman they need have no hesitation from the aesthetic or the practical points of view in supporting the Bill, and they will be the more willing to do so, I am sure, in the knowledge that those to be displaced are adequately safeguarded by this letter and the conversation that I have had.
  10.0 p.m.
  Mr. HARRIS: I feel that I ought to say a few words about this Bill, because I have already taken a considerable part in the controversy in the palace on the other side of the river. There

  1521
  I have been a considerable critic of the action of those persons who are responsible for carrying through the scheme. The Royal Commission, appointed by the late Prime Minister reported in 1926. We owe him a great debt of gratitude, for it is quite clear that if there had been no Royal Commission Waterloo Bridge as we know it would have disappeared, and it is doubtful whether this particular scheme would now be before the House. For over three years there has been a lot of mystery. I asked questions of the late Minister of Transport, but nothing would draw him. There was absolute silence and unwillingness to give an expectant country any enlightenment as to what was happening. It was the same with the London County Council. For three years questions were asked, but complete secrecy prevailed. Naturally, there are plenty of busybodies about, and the silence was an encouragement to everyone with an idea or a plan to get busy. As a result we have had a great deal of creative art.
  I do not know why the modest London County Council has not published the proposals. Here they are, 33 pictures, and I invite any hon. Member to study them. Not every crank, but every artist and every town-planner has created a different design and different plant. The County Council, keeping to its mysterious way under the direction of the late Minister of Transport, has confined its information to one of those small printed formal documents that we receive every other day and generally throw into the waste-paper basket. It is not surprising that because of these methods there has been a lot of opposition created. It is very easy to criticise a bridge. We all have our ideas as to what the right kind of bridge should be. Some prefer a bridge of stone, some prefer concrete, others prefer steel; some want a low level bridge and some a high-level bridge.
  Sir KINGSLEY WOOD: Hear, hear!
  Mr. HARRIS: No doubt the right hon. Member who has interrupted has a design of his own, which in due time he will produce. He is always prepared to produce anything from up his sleeve or anywhere else. His scheme, however, is not amongst these pictures. The whole trouble has been that, while there has
  1522
  been plenty of criticism, there has been no unity. A very influential body of artists, architects and town-planners have signed an objection to the proposal. They have been very prolific in writing letters to the "Times." When we ask them what their alternative is they take refuge in silence. The whole difficulty of any alternative is that there is complete disunity; there is no agreement as to an alternative. I admit that I have a leaning to a particular scheme. If I had my way, if I was a Haussmann, if I were allowed to plan London in my own way, I should favour the scheme that was the result of the action of the late Prime Minister, the scheme of the Royal Commission back by Lord Lee. I considered it a good scheme. It was a good thing to preserve the railway station on the north side of the river. I was attracted to the idea of a double-decked bridge, and of a road going over the Strand, instead of traffic being poured into the Strand.
  But I am conscious that just as there are artistic objections to the present scheme, so there is an even greater artistic objection to the scheme of the Royal Commission. All the criticism about viaducts and about the creation of blank walls applies equally, perhaps, to the Royal Commission's proposal. So we are forced to fall back on the scheme that is before us. It is said that "when thieves fall out honest men come into their own." When two Ministers of Transport agree, it is time for the House of Commons to be awake. Yet, although there is this curious and unhealthy conspiracy, I realise that London has waited long enough. I realise that if this Bill were rejected we should be back to the quarrels of architects and artists and there would be no agreement, and the result would be that someone else would have the £12,000,000.
  I was very much impressed with the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was sitting watching the Minister of Transport very closely. I wondered why he was there. I came to the conclusion that if he saw any real opposition to this proposal that £12,000,000, a nest egg, would come in very handy and go to swell the Budget. Chancellors of the Exchequer sometimes raid the Road Fund. The late Chancellor fell to that temptation. I am most anxious to protect the present Chancellor

  1523
  of the Exchequer from this new temptation, if this money is not practically voted to-night. I also realise that there are Members from the North, the South, the East and the West all looking for money from the Road Fund, and I think that London, which pays the highest proportion, is entitled to this money. Therefore, I say that we should let this scheme go to the Private Bills Committee, a Committee of this House which has great traditions and a Committee where the scheme will receive impartial investigation. That Committee will have the advantage of being able to cross-examine witnesses, including the architects and engineers who are, I understand, to appear to criticise the scheme. The Bill has still a long journey before it, but I think it is entitled to a Second Reading, and, in spite of my suspicions and in spite of some heart-burnings, I am going to vote for the Second Reading.
  I hope that, at the same time, the House will pass an Instruction to ensure that the County Council will employ the best possible architects. This matter ought not to be left to chance. I am a great admirer of the County Council of which I have been a member for a quarter of a century, but I realise that in aesthetic matters it is rather loath to assert itself. I notice that the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Scurr) was weeping over the fact that Waterloo Bridge was not destroyed. I was one of the small minority who resisted the destruction of Waterloo Bridge. I am glad that it has been saved but that was not due to the majority on the London County Council and in this case they might be content with a cheap and nasty bridge. That would be a "penny wise pound foolish" policy. I want the best brains in the country, the best brains in the Empire, to be available for the design of this bridge. It is a great occasion and a great site in the very heart of the Empire, and the centre of its capital. Therefore I shall move an Instruction which I hope will be accepted by the promoters of the Bill and by the Minister, designed to secure that the architectural features of the bridge and viaducts shall be open for competition so as to ensure that the best brains available will be applied to the design.
  Mr. L'ESTRANGE MALONE: I think one misconception has arisen in the minds of hon. Members which ought to be removed before we proceed with this discussion. It has arisen because hon. Members have spoken about opposing the Charing Cross Bridge scheme. I wish to make it clear that those who are opposing this Charing Cross Bridge scheme, as it is called, are not opposing the idea of a Charing Cross Bridge. Everybody is agreed that Charing Cross Station ought to be moved from the north to the south side of the river. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Those of us who are opposing the Bill are doing so because we feel that the best re-organisation has not been put into operation in the Bill, and we want to see that reorganisation considered before we give a Second Reading to the Bill. The late Minister of Transport said that it was an ordinary Private Bill and that the details could be considered upstairs but I submit that it is not an ordinary Private Bill. It involves a sum of £15,000,000, a large proportion of which is to be raised through the medium of this House. A very large proportion is being found from the Road Fund and transferred by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Therefore the House has a great responsibility in regard to the Bill.
  So little consideration, so little preparation has been given by the London County Council to the Bill, that they come before the House for a Second Reading without having prepared a model of the scheme. If one were going to build a ship, costing only a few hundreds of thousands of pounds, one would not lay a plate of it until a model had been built which designers could examine. If one were building a house costing £4,000 or £5,000, one would not lay a brick of it until a model had been built. [HON. MEMBERS: "Not at all."] Not in the case of a new design. But to-night this revolutionary scheme involving £15,000,000 is presented and they have not taken the trouble to prepare a model of it. It is not appropriate to discuss all the technical arguments on the Floor of the House, but the gravamen of the charge against the Bill is that it is promoted as a transport Measure and not even as a general transport Measure, but as a rail transport Measure, first and foremost in the interests of the railway companies. Road

  1525
  transport interests, town planning interests and housing interests have been ignored. The hon. Member for North Lambeth (Mr. Strauss) in whose constituency most of the work will take place, has gone into the scheme, but I should like to feel assured that learned bodies such as the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Town Planning Institute have been fully consulted as well as the Westminster City Council and the council of the area represented by the hon. Member for North Lambeth.
  There are two big questions which are typical of the technical opposition to the Bill. First there is the desirability of an east and west arterial road South of the Thames. Stamford Street could be used as a great east and west arterial road leading from this part of London to the City, but if the present scheme is proceeded with, any idea of that development will be stopped. There has been some talk about the danger of disgorging the traffic from the North end of the bridge on to the Embankment where there is already so much traffic, but is there no traffic along the Strand? I ask any hon. Member who has tried to go along the Strand in a humble omnibus whether there is any traffic there or not? But under this proposal, the whole of the traffic from the South of London is going to be disgorged into the middle of the Strand. There is a very much more important question, however, and that is the question of subsidies. There is nothing in the Bill to indicate what subsidies are going to be paid, and I hope that before we give a Second Reading to the Bill, we shall be told something about the nature of the subsidies to be paid out of the £10,000,000 which this House is asked to vote. What subsidy, for example, is to be paid to the Lion Brewery Company and the other big interests that will benefit under this Bill?
  Then there is the question, lastly, of unemployment. It will be argued by those who are responsible for this Bill that we must push on with this Measure in order to provide employment for many unemployed men. At the most, this Bill can only provide work for 6,000 men over a long period of years. What we are concerned with is the whole trade and commerce of London, and if this Bill does not provide a satisfactory solution for the reorganisation of the road traffic in
  1526
  the centre of the Metropolis, the employment of very many more men than those who are going to be employed under this Bill will be concerned. Therefore, I suggest that, before this House gives a Second Reading to a Bill which is going to expend £15,000,000 of public money, £10,000,000 of which is going out of the Exchequer, it ought to be referred to a Select Committee, and I urge the Minister to move that as an Amendment to the Amendment, and to see further that this Bill is not considered by a Committee until a proper model and proper plans have been prepared.
  The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Herbert Morrison): The House has listened to a fairly complete statement for and against the Second Reading of this Bill. Both the present Government and, as the late Minister of Transport has said, the late Government are very much involved in this Bill, and therefore I hope the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. G. Balfour), when he reads that I have been supporting this Bill definitely on behalf of the Government, will forgive me taking a clear and definite side on the question of a private Bill. It is to the credit of the late Minister of Transport that he has stated his own position perfectly clearly, and that, notwithstanding the controversy, he has not in any way shifted from the position which he took up in the last Administration; and in view of the particularly heavy responsibilities of the late Prime Minister in the situation which culminated in a decision not, at that time at any rate, to demolish Waterloo Bridge and to open the whole question of Charing Cross Bridge, and having regard to the controversy which now exists, it is to the credit and the honour of the late Prime Minister that he has authorised the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to say to-night that he definitely supports this Bill and that, if he had been in the House, he would have spoken in support of it.
  There has been in the newspaper Press a very great deal of controversy, not so much in the more popular newspapers, but from the heavy guns of the "Times" newspaper. I am afraid there is an idea that if a letter appears on the leader page of the "Times" newspaper, there is something so sacrosanct about that journalistic position that it is conclusive

  1527
  and that it must be so. With great respect, I cannot accept that view. A letter must be judged upon its merits, whether it appears on the leader page of the "Times" newspaper, or whether it is a letter from a late Liberal Minister on the Empire Crusade appearing on the front page of the "Daily Express." And, really, the attempt to decide great engineering, traffic, and architectural questions by a newspaper controversy—I do not resent that controversy at all, and the more of it that can go on, the better I like it—must not be regarded as conclusive, and this House to-night has the responsibility of settling the fundamentals of this question on the Bill which is now before it.
  It is said that the Bill is bad from a whole series of points of view. It is said that it is a hopeless Bill from the point of view of traffic. There have been a series of alternative schemes, if many of them can be called schemes, because so many of them have been produced without a knowledge of the engineering facts upon which we must work in this or any other scheme. Quite a number of these schemes traverse the Embankment, not upon the level, but by an overhead bridge; therefore, when it is said by hon. Members that this scheme must be wrong, because you cannot get from the bridge to the Embankment, I would remind them that some of the schemes that have been proposed as alternatives go over the Embankment. Suppose that we go on to the Embankment. It is extraordinary that people should stand up and expect to be listened to for one moment as traffic experts, and ask us to consider a proposal to bring the traffic from the bridge right on to the Thames Embankment, thus impeding the east-to-west traffic. The Embankment is one of the most important fast-moving routes for that east-to-west London traffic, and a bridge which would interrupt that flow of traffic is really not worth serious consideration.
  What does it mean? As the hon. Member for Norwood (Sir W. Greaves-Lord) says, it means that you would have to lift the Embankment to the level of the bridge, because, unfortunately, ships must go under the bridge, and all the pretty lines will not solve that problem. The Embankment would have to be lifted,
  1528
  and the tramways would have to go under the bridge head. I cannot believe that the House of Commons would take anybody seriously as a traffic expert who made proposals and suggestions of that kind. A traffic problem is not going to be settled by mere superficial thinking about traffic requirements. We have in the Ministry of Transport far better traffic experts than exist anywhere else. The House of Commons must really face that, because the House of Commons are paying us to do the work, and we are doing it pretty well. We are doing it exceptionally well at the present moment, and really, when it is said that there is no expert opinion behind this scheme, I am sure that the late Minister of Transport will agree with me—[An HON. MEMBER: "What about town planning?"] I am coming to that; I have been following that for many years, and I am very interested in it. I am sure that the late Minister of Transport will agree with me that when it comes to experts on the question of London traffic, we can both claim with due modesty that you will not get any experts superior to the combined officers of the Ministry of Transport and the London County Council. I submit that with every confidence to the House. We happen to know what the needs are.
  It was made a great grievance that we were not going to allow the traffic to go over the new bridge, across the Embankment and up Northumberland Avenue into Trafalgar Square. That was an objection put forward by people who, for some curious reason, are described as traffic experts. What are the facts? The number of vehicles going up Northumberland Avenue into Trafalgar Square now number 1,035 per hour. We estimate that by 1940, by which time the new bridge should be built, 1,635 vehicles will go up there. There was an increase in four years of 25 per cent. in the number of vehicles going up Northumberland Avenue. Can I ignore that fact? These alleged experts come along with all the confidence in the world and say, "Now let us get some more stuff up Northumberland Avenue, and have direct access from the bridge to Northumberland Avenue." Take Trafalgar Square. We have a merry-go-round in Trafalgar Square, otherwise know as a roundabout. The hon. Member for the Combined Universities (Sir M. Conway), whom we are glad to

  1529
  see with us to-night—and I join with my hon. Friend the Member for Mile End (Mr. Scurr) in the hope that we shall see him here for many years longer—said he did not like roundabouts, but there is no doubt that they have been very conducive to the freer flow of London's traffic.
  But Trafalgar Square is no easy problem. If hon. Members doubt it, let them have a go at it by driving a vehicle through it themselves. It is fairly well congested. On the west side of the square the north bound traffic reaches to 1,050 vehicles an hour and is estimated to reach the figure of 1,348 in 1940. On the north side of the square east bound traffic reaches 2,263 vehicles an hour, and it is estimated that it will reach 3,063 in 1940. And so one goes on. It is perfectly obvious that what we have to do is not to encourage additional traffic coming up Northumberland Avenue into Trafalgar Square, but to discourage it. We may have an isolated case of some one with a car at the National Liberal Club wanting to get on to Charing Cross Bridge in order to get somewhere else. [Interruption.] I am not pulling anyhody's leg, but I have seen the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown) over there, and. I have it in mind that he might want to do this journey. It is true that he could sail up Northumberland Avenue and into the Square, or go into Whitehall and get into the Square that way, and go round the top, by the new merry-go-round and get on to the new bridge in that way; but the journey from the National Liberal Club to the new bridge will be safeguarded.
  But what will happen when a person wants to get from the south of the river to Trafalgar Square? He need not go over Charing Cross Bridge at all—that is not compulsory, it is still a free country.—and he can go over Westminster Bridge and up Whitehall. All I say is if he wants to get from the New Cut or the Waterloo Road or the Westminster Bridge Road and to go up North—not necessarily West into Piccadilly or the Haymarket, but North—up St. Martin's Lane way—as a lot of traffic does, I say with every respect that I do not want him in Trafalgar Square or Northumberland Avenue, and I am going to make him go somewhere else. That is the proper thing to
  1530
  do. [Interruption.] Certainly let him go another way if he wants to, and if he can find it, but I am going to make it difficult.
  We have been told that we must accept the criticisms as conclusive. Lo and behold we were circularised by various people, who said that traffic experts had told them that there must be free access between this bridge and the Thames Embankment. I should be glad if anybody would introduce me to those experts because their idea is totally wrong. There has been a good deal of talk about the tunnels involved in this scheme. If a road is of insufficient width it does not make it any more difficult to get through because there is a covering on the top. of it, because the space for getting through is exactly the same, and yet this has been put forward as one of the traffic objections to the scheme. Then it has been argued that these tunnels must be dark because they are covered. Has anybody ever heard of electric flood lighting. By this means you can make a place like the scene which you see in Aladdin and the sort of thing you see in the pantomime.
  Has nobody ever heard of electric lighting? Why, we can make these tunnels if we like a thing of attraction; and even a thing of beauty. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bethnal Green (Mr. Harris) is quite right when he insists that every pains should be taken to make the very best we can out of the scheme and make these places beautiful. Has anybody been to High Street, Kensington Station, through the arcade at the shop of Derry and Tome. I am quite aware that we are bound to disagree upon these matters. I rather like the arcade of which I have spoken not because of the ladies clothes that are displayed there—[Interruption.]—I gave that arcade simply as an illustration and it may be that what I have just stated offends my hon. Friend. A covered way can be made attractive and needs not be such an ugly thing. As a matter of fact what have been described as tunnels are not tunnels at all in the ordinary sense; they are not burrowings under the earth; they are only covered ways which are necessary because we want a station in a certain place and these places must be covered up. I have been asked why under this scheme we do not amalgamate

  1531
  the old South Western station and the South Eastern station. Unfortunately the angles of the rails are very sharp and you cannot join them up and consequently it is not practicable to amalgamate those two stations. There is no room for shunting or the reversing of the trains.
  A number of hon. Members have asserted that we have to get an East-to-West route South of the Thames. My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland (Mr. A. Smith) as an old London cab-driver will agree with me that it is surprising how relatively few people know that there is already a much more effective way of getting from the County Hall to London Bridge Station than going over Westminster Bridge, along the Embankment, and so on. Taxi-men know it, because they always take the shortest route in order that they may charge their passengers the minimum fare. Even now, you can go through York Road and Stamford Street, over Blackfriars Road, and along another street, the name of which I forget at the moment, crossing Southwark Bridge Road, up to the Hop Exchange, and there you are. All this time the hon. Member for the Combined Universities has been wanting to know the best way. I give him the free tip that that is the best way now, and it can be made a much better and a much clearer way perfectly consistently with the scheme which is now before the House.
  The House must face one or two central facts. The first is that we have not only to consider the convenience of the railway company, although, after all, even the Southern Railway Company must live—[An HON. MEMBER: "Why"] Really, hon. Members do not live there, or they would know. The Southern Bail-way, with its suburban electric service, is a very important line indeed, and the time when you can make too many jokes about the Southern Railway is rapidly going. I use that line myself, and appreciate it. That company has certainly no right to block everything and hold up everything else. Parliament can make the Southern Railway do anything that it likes, as it can make anybody do anything that it likes. Parliament is supreme. But Parliament knows that everytime it makes a private under-taking
  1532
  do something that it does not like, it increases the Bill for compensation, and that is a factor that we have in mind. The company has the right to say, and its passengers have the right to say, that they do not want to be left at York Road, but want to be brought as near to the existing Charing Cross Station as possible; and the fact that the tube station is there, and not at York Road, and the fact' that the omnibus park can be there, and not so conveniently at York Road, are considerations on traffic grounds which have been in the minds of the Government and of the London County Council in considering this matter. As a matter of fact, the putting back of the station would not of necessity reduce the amount of viaduct; it might, indeed, increase it.
  Reference has been made to the town planning aspect of the matter. There is in existence a Greater London Town Planning Joint Committee. I was a member of it for a year. It is a young body, and has not yet had a great deal of experience of town planning in Greater London, and it has no executive powers. It must be remembered that the town planning authority for the London County area is the London County Council itself, and I am confident that the London County Council is paying due regard to town planning considerations. But what some of the town planners seem to want me to say is that the area of this scheme is hopelessly insufficient, that we might go a long way farther out and cover a bigger area. Some of them even have their eye on Surrey and on Tottenham. If we had an unlimited purse. I should not mind having my eye on the universe, and town planning that, if I had the necessary powers; but we have not an unlimited purse. I do not know whether the House realises that there is already £12,500,000 of public money in this scheme, and at one blow that is not a bad expenditure for the improvements that we are going to get.
  I can assure the House that there is nothing in the present scheme which prohibits further improvements on the south side of the river, as time goes on, and all of us will do our best to further those improvements, which we agree are needed. There is, however, a limit to the Road Fund. I am not sure whether the argument of the hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green was a helpful argument

  1533
  or not, because it was a little bit of an incitement to provincial Members to vote against the Bill, in order to get a share of the money that would thereby be released. Therefore, I hesitate to associate myself with it; but it is true that there are plenty of applicants for the Road Fund, and, really, the House must face the fact that there are limits to what we can do out of the Road Fund. We cannot spread ourselves all over London, particularly on the basis of a 75 per cent. grant which was agreed upon between the last Government and the London County Council. Already, the County Council are doing other things in South London. They have agreed a great improvement scheme in the neighbourhood of the Elephant and Castle, which is intimately connected with this scheme, and also a great improvement scheme at Vauxhall, which will be an enormous improvement, and which in some ways is more urgent than that at the Elephant and Castle. I cannot answer for the London County Council as to how much they will spend on further schemes, but we can promise the House that the Labour party on the Council will make all the efforts they can in the matter, and will push as hard as they can. The Council is already in possession of a good deal of land in that southern area between the County Hall and Waterloo, so that very great improvements will be taking place, and I do not think the House can say that the County Council is taking a narrow view of its responsibilities.
  Let us examine this town planning aspect of the matter. In the first place, the scheme provides for embanking the river with a fine promenade and gardens along the river front. Next, the whole line of the river from the County Hall to Waterloo Bridge will be available for fine buildings, the designs of which, including that of the station, will have to be submitted for approval. The county council will control them. The county council intends to develop the area immediately behind the County Hall, and these improvements will be continuous with those under the present scheme and will transform the whole area from Westminster Bridge to Waterloo Road. The lay-out of the large circus in the neighbourhood of the Old Vic, now a fairly dreary spot, as planned by Sir Edwin Lutyens will
  1534
  be found to be in accordance with sound town planning principles both from the point of view of traffic, appearance and architectural treatment.
  There has been wide misapprehension as to the use of the space between the new station and the County Hall and it has been assumed, on account of the difference in the levels, that this land could only be utilised for the construction of small properties. It is the intention of the county council to secure, by building restrictions, that these sites shall be occupied by fine buildings fronting the new roads, namely, the approach to the bridge and the road facing the river which will link the bridge-head with York Road. This will obviously afford a magnificent architectural opportunity and it is a mistake to lose sight of the great advantages of the scheme in exaggerated and largely misconceived objections to the so-called tunnels. They are really covered roads and need not be in themselves unattractive. Therefore, it is untrue that we are perpetuating slums. Many of the slums there will be cleared away. It is even alleged that we are perpetuating poverty, though how that can be alleged I do not know.
  An enormous amount of trouble has been taken over the scheme. Ministers of Transport, late and present, have had their traffic experts on it and they are front rank experts on London traffic. The County Council and ourselves have had first class engineers on the work. We have had Sir George Humphreys, the chief engineer of the County Council, we have had Mr. Palmer, one of the front rank consulting engineers in the country, on the scheme and we have been assisted in other directions. Finally we have taken the great pains of retaining the services of one of the most eminent, if not the most eminent architect in the country, Sir Edwin Lutyens, and I do not think the late Minister could have done better than to retain that distinguished gentleman to advise us on the architectural lay-out. As the result of all the criticisms and all the discussions with the traffic interests, the expert engineers and so on, we have this scheme, and it is a good scheme. I ask the House to believe me. Surely one is entitled to ask the great army of critics—I do not know how many they are but some of them are very important—to produce

  1535
  an alternative upon which they can agree. Do they do so? Every Member of the House has had a document from the Thames Bridges Conference signed by Mr. Keen. He says explicitly that it does not advocate any alternative scheme. Does that help the House of Commons in this great difficulty? It does not assist us at ail.
  The scheme, which has been produced with the greatest care, must hold the field. Our critics can only unite in saying our scheme is bad but they do not agree among themselves on an alternative. If one of them produces a scheme someone else gets up and knocks it over. That is the difficulty in which they are. Various other schemes have been suggested. Lord Lee, who rendered important service as Chairman of the Royal Commission on Cross River Traffic, urged the merits of his own scheme yesterday, but the Lee Scheme of the Royal Commission would lengthen the viaducts still more, would have given much longer viaducts than the scheme that the Ministry of Transport and the County Council propose. From the point of view of vista down the river, it is more objectionable, for it would be higher than the existing railway bridge, while our scheme will give parapets lower than the existing railway bridge, which is an important consideration. Therefore, I say that this scheme, which gives an important new route for north-to-south traffic, is vitally important, holds the field and ought to be supported by the House of Commons.
  There is one other matter of considerable importance to which I wish to refer. It has been asserted that we have not taken sufficient trouble to be sure of the architectural merits of the proposals which the Government and the County Council have in view. May I suggest this fact to the House. The architect is always important and I hope that he always will be important in any scheme of London improvement, but really before you can get an architect effectively on the job, he must know his engineering and traffic limitations. With great respect, I cannot accept the architect as an expert on engineering or as an expert on traffic. I will listen to him on engineering and traffic, but other people really must be regarded as the experts. I promise the architects in return that I will not listen too much either to the
  1536
  engineers or to the traffic experts on architectural questions, and I know that that will please my architectural friends. The architect must be limited by the engineering and traffic essentials of a scheme. He cannot have a free hand. There must be physical limits. Sir Edwin Lutyens was brought in before the final engineering and traffic considerations were settled. I will not say that he had a free hand in this case; he did not—no architect could have—but he was consulted before these considerations were finally fixed. Therefore, when the necessarily protracted investigations had been completed, and the essential technical requirements of the problem were known, the advice of Sir Edwin Lutyens, the very eminent architect, was sought as to the possible layout of the scheme within the known requirements, and his services were in fact retained on the 15th March, 1929, by my predecessor in office.
  It is important that the House should understand his position in the matter, because his position has not. been quite fairly treated in some quarters. Sir Edwin Lutyens devoted a great deal of time to the examination of the scheme, and after many discussions with the technical advisers and the promoters as to what could or could not be done under the circumstances, he prepared a set of plans showing the layout which he advised, and he signed those plans jointly with the engineers and so on. A copy of this plan has been exhibited in the Members' tea rooms for some time past. The model is not yet ready. The model is taking its normal course. I would inform my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Malone) that models are produced for the service of the Committee upstairs, and models are not much use for the mass of the Members of the House unless they are explained by technicians and subject to cross examination by lawyers. Sir Edwin Lutyens on the 1st August, 1929, wrote to Sir Henry Maybury, and in the course of his letter he said:
  "I have no doubt that the bridge and the approaches, as we finally agreed upon, are capable of distinguished expression in their architectural treatment."
  Sir Edwin Lutyens adheres entirely to the view which he then expressed, and when this Bill is in Committee he will give evidence for the promoters of the Bill.

  1537
  I want the House to be perfectly clear as to the position of Sir Edwin in the matter. The London County Council and ourselves took the view, after the fullest exploration of the many alternatives, that the line of the present bridge would have to be followed and that the railway station on the south side would have to occupy the brewery site. I do not know whether my hon. Friend behind me was looking for the temperance vote, but be need not be worried about extravagant payments for the brewery site as the land has already been bought and is in the possession of the London County Council.
  Mr. MALONE: I am sorry to interrupt, but may I ask what percentage of the £15,000,000 is going to be expended on compensation?
  Mr. MORRISON: No, I cannot say, but I can assure the hon. Member that not a penny more is being spent on compensation than is necessary. You have to pay compensation. I do not want to argue the question of compensation now, but you have to pay it, and, as a matter of fact, as far as the railway company is concerned, it is mainly on a basis of reinstatement. I think the House may congratulate Sir Percy Simmons and the Council Committee on the ability with' which the negotiations were carried on. Those conditions were necessary, and Sir Edwin Lutyens was asked to accept them, as any architect would have to do. Apart from these conditions, he was entirely free. I made all this perfectly clear to an important deputation representing the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Thames Bridges Conference, and other Associations which came to see Sir Percy Simmons and myself at the Ministry of Transport before Christmas. I told them the whole position quite frankly. Since then they have said that they have discovered that Sir Edwin Lutyens was not entirely free from engineering and traffic limitations, though I had already told them so. There was nothing to hide, for it was obvious to everybody.
  I think the House ought to know the kind of pressure which is being exerted in support of this agitation. Sir Edwin Lutyens was out of the country on important public work in India when this deputation was received. On his way home, when he would not have first hand knowledge of the controversy, he received a letter dated the
  1538
  14th January of which he has, quite properly in my judgment, taken no notice, except to place it in my hands with the request that I should make what use of it I thought proper. It is written on the official notepaper of the Royal Institute of British Architects, but whether it has the authority or represents the views of that body, I do not know. In fact I have been informed that this subject has never been on the agenda of the Council of that body. It is signed by Mr. Arthur Keen, Chairman of the Thames Bridges Conference, whose letter on the 11th of February is probably in the hands of most Members, covering a memorandum dated the 3rd of February. I want the House to remember that Sir Edwin Lutyens was retained by us as an expert architectural adviser. His relations with the Government and the London County Council must be relations in which there is complete confidence between the Government, the County Council and himself. In those circumstances, this is the letter which Mr. Keen sent on the 14th of January and which reached Sir Edwin Lutyens at Aden:
  "Dear Sir Edwin,
  Charing Gross Bridge.
  The official scheme for the bridge is receiving a great deal of very damaging criticism, and the "Times," in particular, has attacked it very resolutely more than once. From every standpoint it is criticised: traffic, the interests of railway passengers, cost, time to be occupied in getting the work done, stopping the development of South London, architectural character, and so forth.
  The Minister of Transport and Sir Percy Simmons are using your name to justify the whole thing, whereas it has really been found out that the three principal things, the position of the station, the position of the bridge, and the level of the northern approach (from the Strand and not from the Embankment) were given to you as unalterable items in the scheme. We believe, also, that it was settled that the southern approach should start at the New Cut.
  In my judgment your reputation is suffering by your name being identified with a scheme that is very severely criticised in print, and I suggest that you should do something about it. Could you not write to me or to the President, R.I.B.A., to say that you had no free hand, but that the items mentioned were already settled? I feel sure that the Bill will be rejected in Parliament, and if we could publish a few lines from you "—
  Let the House remember this is to the adviser to the Government and the County Council—
  "stating that in all essentials the lay-out was settled without reference to you, it would be a good thing for you as well as for us who are opposing the Bill."
  I will read the last part of the letter again:
  "I feel sure that this Bill will be rejected in Parliament, and if we could publish a few lines from you stating that in all essentials the lay-out was settled without reference to you, it would be a good thing for you as well as for us who are opposing the Bill."
  I venture to say that that is a most improper letter, and that Sir Edwin Lutyens took the proper course in placing it in my hands, unanswered, and telling me that I could do what I liked with it. I have done what I liked with it. I thought the House of Commons ought to know the kind of tactics that are being employed and the kind of pressure that is being exerted in this matter. It is a wrong letter to have sent to an eminent architect who had been retained by the Government and the London County Council to advise them on this question, and I am sure that the majority of the House will agree with me in objecting to its being sent.
  This scheme has been born after much anxious thought. It has been worked out very carefully, and I suggest to the House that we are not likely to get a better one. If we reject the scheme the London County Council will be entirely freed from their understanding with the late Government, that they were to retain Waterloo Bridge and build Charing Cross Bridge. If the House rejects the present scheme, that agreement ceases and the County Council—and indeed the Government—is free not to build a new bridge at Charing Cross, to pull down Waterloo Bridge and build a new bridge or do whatever they may wish to do. It would be serious to reject this carefully thought out scheme. There are the unemployment aspects. It is true that the preparations will take time, but the House ought not lightly to reject a Bill which will mean employment for a considerable number of persons. The Bill has not been certified. I asked the Lord Privy Seal not to certify it, be-
  1540
  cause that might be regarded as unfair pressure from our side, and we thought that we ought not to put it upon that basis. There are, however, unemployment aspects to be considered. Upon its merits, however, because there is no agreed alternative, and for all the reasons that I have given, I hope the House will not only give the Bill a majority, but a very definite majority, so that they will approve the general principle of the Bill, leaving it to a Committee upstairs to examine the Bill in detail and to modify it if they can find room for improvement in a scheme which I believe to be fundamentally sound.
  Mr. MILLS: I have listened to this Debate, and I have listened to the Minister of Transport. When he first took on the job it was reckoned that the mantle of John Burns had fallen upon him as a great Londoner, but I have listened in vain to hear whether this scheme is a really tangible proposal for dealing with the problem of London as a whole. I want to speak on behalf of thousands of working men and working women, including my own family, who have to come from as far away as Chatham and Gravesend and who are at the mercy of the Southern Railway and a southern outlet, without even considering the possible pressure that can be brought to bear on the existing means of access by underground traction. At the present time we have New Cross Gate terminus, New Cross South-Eastern terminus underground railway, the Elephant and Castle terminus of the underground railway, and all that this Bill will do will be to add to the congestion already apparent at the Elephant and Castle, above ground. Is the House aware that traffic from London Bridge, Southwark Bridge, Waterloo Bridge, Blackfriars Bridge, Westminster Bridge and Vauxhall Bridge, all converge on the Elephant and Castle. I have heard a lot about underground traffic but the South side of the river has always been the Cinderella of the Metropolis in this respect. It has never been considered, and until the possibility of underground traffic in this area has been thought out, we have a right to ask what is going to be done. You talk about replacement and compensation; what about reinstatement?
  What is the history of the attack upon Woolwich—where I have been an alder

  1541
  man and councillor—and upon Poplar and East Ham? In the jigsaw puzzle which you call London—it is not our fault; it is due to private enterprise—you have carved up blocks of houses in the centre of the ground that they were insanitary and replaced them with huge offices and banks, head offices and stores. The people have been forced into the districts outside, into Woolwich and East Ham. In the old days the cry was that Parliament had guaranteed that they should have workman's fares at 2d. a day. You could go any distance, from the Bank to Shepherd's Bush, for 2d. But to-day the skilled engineer has to pay 9s. per week to get to and from his work. I am not against the improvement of London traffic, but if London's traffic is to be improved we want safeguards against the removal of the population to the ends of London unless you preserve the spending value of their wages. That is the point upon which I intend to insist.
  If hon. Members take a bird's eye view of the seven bridges of London they will get an idea of the problem, for all of them converge on the Elephant and Castle. That is all due to the obstinacy of the London Electric Company, with Lord Ashfield behind them. They will not listen to any proposal for the extension of the Southern Railway or the Underground Railway in order to carry-workers from the South of London into the heart of the City. They stop at the two termini, one at New Cross and the other within half a mile of that spot, and here are the people streaming from the trains and wanting to get into the heart of London. I think every hon.
  Member ought to do a workman's journey, either night or morning, in order to get some idea of the conditions. I submit that the working-class population have had their earnings impaired by the extra cost of travelling and their hours have been added to by the time which they have to spend in travelling. This will simply extend the problem. If you shift 1,000 people from this area in Southwark, what are you going to do with them? Have you guaranteed to build tenements for them? Are you going to push them into Kent and Surrey? What is our rateable value in Woolwich? We have to spend 1s. 2d. in the £ to get the equivalent of a 1d. rate in Westminster, and then the millionaire press accuse us of extravagance because our rates are higher than those of Westminster. This is a problem which ought not to be dismissed without looking at it from all aspects. As we have embarked upon the underground method of travel as a means of dealing with London traffic, let us carry the principle further and use it as a means of lessening the congestion and as a means of bringing in our people. When you have done that carry on with your terminus south of the Thames, where a wealthy passenger can take a taxicab. That sort of thing is all very well for the person coming from the Continent, but I have in mind the tens of thousands of people who are coming up to their work in the City and who have a right to be safeguarded.
  Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 230; Noes, 62.

  Division No. 171.]

  AYES.

  [11.6 p.m.

  Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)

  Bromfield, William

  Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

  Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)

  Brown, C. W. E. (Notts. Mansfield)

  Dawson, Sir Philip

  Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro')

  Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)

  Denman, Hon. R. D.

  Alpass, J. H.

  Burgess, F. G.

  Devlin, Joseph

  Ammon, Charles George

  Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel (Norfolk, N.)

  Dickson, T.

  Arnott, John

  Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward

  Duncan, Charles

  Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.

  Cape, Thomas

  Ede, James Chuter

  Aske, Sir Robert

  Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S. W.)

  Edmunds, J. E.

  Atkinson, C.

  Cautley, Sir Henry S.

  Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)

  Attlee, Clement Richard

  Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton

  Egan, W. H.

  Ayles, Walter

  Chapman, Sir S.

  England, Colonel A.

  Barnes, Alfred John

  Charleton, H. C.

  Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston. s.-M.)

  Batey, Joseph

  Cluse, W. S.

  Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)

  Bellamy, Albert

  Cocks, Frederick Seymour

  Forgan, Dr. Robert

  Bennett, William (Battersea, South)

  Colvlile, Major D. J.

  Freeman, Peter

  Benson, G.

  Compton, Joseph

  Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.

  Bentham, Dr. Ethel

  Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L.

  Gardner, B. W. (Wort Ham, Upton)

  Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)

  Cove, William G.

  Gibson, C. G. (Pudsey & Otley)

  Bowen, J. W.

  Daggar, George

  Gill, T. H.

  Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.

  Dallas, George

  Gillett, George M.

  Boyce, H. L.

  Dalton, Hugh

  Glassey, A. E.

  Bracken, B.

  Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford)

  Gossling, A. G.

  Broad, Francis Alfred

  Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset, Yeovil)

  Gould, F.

  Gower, Sir Robert

  Mathers, George

  Skelton, A. N.

  Gray, Milner

  Matters, L. W.

  Smith, Alfred (Sunderland)

  Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)

  Melville, Sir James

  Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)

  Gunston, Captain D. W.

  Merriman, Sir F. Boyd

  Smith, Frank (Nuneaton)

  Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.

  Messer, Fred

  Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)

  Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Milner, J.

  Smith, Rennie (Penistone)

  Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn)

  Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Stroathan)

  Smith, Tom (Pontefract)

  Hanbury, C.

  Morgan, Dr. H. B.

  Smith, W. R. (Norwich)

  Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry

  Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)

  Snell, Harry

  Harbord, A.

  Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.)

  Snowden, Thomas (Accrington)

  Harris, Percy A.

  Mort, D. L.

  Sorensen, R.

  Hastings, Dr. Somerville

  Mosley, Sir Oswald (Smethwick)

  Spender-Clay, Colonel H.

  Haycock, A. W.

  Muff, G.

  Stamford, Thomas W.

  Hayday, Arthur

  Nathan, Major H. L.

  Stanley, Maj. Hon. O. (W'morland)

  Hayes, John Henry

  Naylor, T. E.

  Strauss, G. R.

  Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow)

  Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)

  Sullivan, J.

  Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield)

  Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert

  Sutton, J. E

  Herriotts, J.

  Oldfield, J. R.

  Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S. W.)

  Hoffman, P. C.

  Oliver, P. M. (Man., Blackley)

  Thomas, Major L. B. (King's Norton)

  Hopkin, Daniel

  Palin, John Henry

  Thurtle, Ernest

  Hudson, Capt. A. U. M.(Hackney, N.)

  Paling, Wilfrid

  Tillett, Ben

  Hunter, Dr. Joseph

  Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

  Tinker, John Joseph

  Isaacs, George

  Peake, Capt. Osbert

  Titchfield, Major the Marquess of

  Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)

  Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)

  Tout, W. J.

  John, William (Rhondda, West)

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

  Train, J.

  Johnston, Thomas

  Phillips, Dr. Marion

  Vaughan, D. J.

  Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)

  Picton-Turbervill, Edith

  Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Pole, Major D. G.

  Viant, S. P.

  Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W.

  Potts, John S.

  Wallace, Capt. D. E (Hornsey)

  Kennedy, Thomas

  Power, Sir John Cecil

  Wallace, H. W.

  Lamb, Sir J. Q.

  Ramsay, T. B. Wilson

  Wallhead, Richard C.

  Lang, Gordon

  Raynes, W. R.

  Watkins, F. C.

  Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George

  Remer, John R.

  Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)

  Lathan, G.

  Reynolds, Col. Sir James

  Wellock, Wilfred

  Law, A. (Rosendale)

  Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'te'y)

  Welsh, James (Paisley)

  Lawrence, Susan

  Richardson. R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

  Welsh, James C. (Coatbridge)

  Lawrie, Hugh Hartley (Stalybridge)

  Riley, Ben (Dewsbury)

  Westwood, Joseph

  Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle)

  Romeril, H. G.

  White, H. G.

  Leach, W.

  Rosbotham, D. S. T.

  Whiteley, Wilfrid (Blrm., Ladywood)

  Lee, Frank (Derby, N. E.)

  Rowson, Guy

  Whiteley, William (Blaydon)

  Llewellin, Major J. J.

  Salmon, Major I.

  Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)

  Lloyd, C. Ellis

  Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)

  Williams. T. (York, Don Valley)

  Longbottom, A. W.

  Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)

  Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

  Lowth, Thomas

  Sanders, W. S.

  Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)

  Lunn, William

  Sawyer, G. F.

  Wilson, J. (Oldham)

  MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)

  Scrymgeour, E.

  Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)

  McElwee, A.

  Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

  McEntee, V. L.

  Shepherd, Arthur Lewis

  Winterton, G. E.(Leicester, Loughb'gh)

  McKinlay, A.

  Sherwood, G. H.

  Womersley, W. J.

  Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)

  Shield, George William

  Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton

  Mansfield, W.

  Shiels, Dr. Drummond

  Young, R. S. (Islington, North)

  March, S.

  Shillaker, J. F.

  Marcus, M.

  Shinwell, E.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Margesson, Captain H. D.

  Simmons, C. J.

  Sir W. Greaves-Lord and Mr. Scurr.

  Marley, J.

  Sinkinson, George

  NOES

  Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel

  Granville, E.

  Muirhead, A. J.

  Baldwin, Oliver (Dudley)

  Greene, W. p. Crawford

  Nicholson. Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'ld)

  Balniel. Lord

  Groves, Thomas E.

  Oman, Sir Charles William C.

  Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

  Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)

  Owen, H. F. (Hereford)

  Beaumont, M. W.

  Hammersley, S. S.

  Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)

  Beckett, John (Camberwell, Peckham)

  Hartington, Marquess of

  Rathbone, Eleanor

  Bellairs, Commander Carlyon

  Henderson, Capt. R. R.(Oxf'd, Henley)

  Ruggles-Brise. Lieut.-Colonel E. A.

  Bevan, S. J. (Holborn)

  Hills. Major Rt. Hon. John Waller

  Russell, Richard John (Eddisbury)

  Birkett, W. Norman

  Horrabin, J. F.

  Salter, Dr. Alfred

  Bourne, Captain Robert Croft

  Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield)

  Sandeman, Sir N Stewart

  Bowyer, Captain Sir George E. W.

  Hurd, Percy A.

  Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

  Bromley, J.

  James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert

  Southby, Commander A. R. J

  Brown, Ernest (Leith)

  Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

  Stewart, W. J. (Belfast, South)

  Bullock, Captain Malcolm

  Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne)

  Todd, Capt. A. J.

  Church, Major A. G.

  Kedward, R. M. (Kent, Ashford)

  Waterhouse, Captain Charles

  Colman, N. C. O.

  Kelly, W. T.

  Wilkinson, Ellen C.

  Courtauld. Major J. S.

  Little, Dr. E. Graham

  Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)

  Duckworth, G. A. V.

  Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton)

  Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley

  Dudgeon, Major C. R.

  Mason, Colonel Glyn K.

  Edmondson, Major A. J.

  Mills, J. E.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Foot, Isaac

  Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)

  Sir M. Conway and Sir W. Davison.

  Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton

  Morrison, W. s. (Glos., Cirencester)

  Question put, and agreed to.

  Mr. HARRIS: I beg to move,
  "That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Bill to insert Clauses or obtain an undertaking from the promoters to secure by competition, or otherwise, designs for the bridge and for the architectural treatment of the viaducts."
  I have an Instruction on the Order Paper, but after consultation with the representatives of the London County Council and with the Minister of Transport, he has agreed to the words I have moved instead. I am all for co-operation. This means that the House will secure that the designs both for the bridge and the viaducts shall be worthy of London.
  Major NATHAN: I beg to second the Motion.
  Ordered,
  "That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Bill to insert Clauses or obtain an undertaking from the promoters to secure by competition, or otherwise, designs for the bridge and for the architectural treatment of the viaducts."—[Mr. Harris.]
  The Orders of the day were read, and postponed.

  ADJOURNMENT.
  Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Parkinson.]
  Adjourned accordingly at Nineteen Minutes after Eleven o'Clock.