UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE.

HC Deb 29 January 1930 vol 234 cc1088-146

Mr. GRUNDY

I beg to move, That, in the opinion of this House, unemployment insurance should be extended to include agricultural workers. I am encouraged to hope that this Motion will receive the unanimous assent of the House, because I notice that, of the two Amendments which have been put down by the Opposition, one only asks for additional information, which I hope that I and other speakers will be able to give sufficiently to induce the hon. and gallant Member who put down that Amendment not to press it. The second Amendment asks, not only that additional information should be obtained, but that the action proposed in this Motion should be delayed until further assistance is given to the farming industry in this country. I do not think I shall be able to satisfy the hon. Members in whose names that Amendment stands as regards further assistance being given, but I see no justification for delaying the giving of just and proper treatment to the farm labourers until some Government offers a subsidy or a tariff barrier to help the farmers of this country. I see no reason why a body of men like these sturdy sons of the soil should not be properly dealt with until a certain period of millennium comes round. These men are helping the Divine Being in a wonderful way. Every day we pray to the Lord to give us our daily bread, and these men are helping the Divinity to carry out that prayer.

We have also to remember that the farm labourers do not unduly press their claims upon this House. They have sent some fine representatives here, whom we remember with great reverence and admiration, and in the preset it House they have representatives of their trade organisation who are a great credit to them, but no one can say that their claims have been pressed unduly on the House. Farmers have many representatives here, and it cannot be said that their side of the case is neglected, but very little has been said with respect to the farm labourers, and I think they are entitled to the sympathetic consideration of the House. Looking around them, they see all their fellow-workers—the great human family of toilers in this country—provided for in times of unemployment, and they feel that they are shunned and ostracised by reason of their omission from the Unemployment Insurance Act. At one time, probably through some misrepresentation or misunderstanding, there was a feeling among the farming industry in this country against their inclusion in the Unemployment Insurance Act, but years ago that indifference and lukewarmness was removed, and the farm labourers to-day see that only their inclusion in the Unemployment Insurance Act stands between them and the workhouse or Poor Law relief. Their wages are very low, and quite insufficient to make any provision for periods of unemployment. Their wages do not leave much to provide for the proverbial rainy day, and even if they deny themselves—and that is the only way that they can save—the necessities to which they are entitled, there may come two rainy days, and then, even with that provision, they would be helpless.

Several questions have been asked in this House as to the numbers that are unemployed, but we have found that the Government have been unable to give any accurate figures, and that has been made an excuse for not bringing these labourers into the Unemployed Insurance Bill. I should say that it is the fault of the Government themselves if they have neglected to get accurate information, and that that is no excuse. All that I am asking the House to agree to to-night is the principle of the inclusion of agricultural workers in our Unemployment Insurance scheme, and I shall try to supply at least some of the information that has been asked for. To-day unemployment hangs over the farm labourer like a great cloud. It worries him all the year round, and the young men in the villages, in order to escape it, are rapidly drifting into the industrial areas. I have said that a change of opinion has occurred among the agricultural workers of this country, and that is proved by the fact that, at their last three biennial conferences, there has been a unanimous vote in favour of their inclusion. I think that in fairness I ought to say—and if I do not put their case as well as my friends would like, I would ask later speakers to make up for the omission—that, if I do not put the case very well, it is not the fault of the Agricultural Workers' Union, for every bit of information that they have has been placed at my disposal.

While I cannot pretend to be a farm labourer, I can pretend to have been partly so as a lad, and I think that this entitles me to speak for them. As a lad, for a wage of 8d. a day, I followed a man with two dibbles, putting beans in the holes that he made. I scared crows with clappers at 10d. a day—which was not bad money then. I made bands in the harvest field at 1s. a day and drinks. Two years after that, I went into the pit at 1s. a day, and I would much prefer making bands if it went on all the year round, because you do get sunshine and you get a drink as well. As I have said, at the last three conferences there has been a unanimous expression of opinion in favour of their inclusion—

Mr. R. W. SMITH

May I ask if the resolutions to which the hon. Member refers were in favour of a special scheme for the agricultural labourer?

Mr. GRUNDY

I am coming to the question of a special scheme; the hon. Member has not given me a chance to deal with it. I was saying that at their last three conferences they have voted unanimously in favour of their inclusion in the Unemployment Insurance Act. I hope that the Government are going to get some data with regard to this matter I think it is due to the farm labourers that they should do so. We must remember that, even in the Tory days, there was an Inter-Departmental Committee, which reported in 1925, and that Committee was unanimously in favour of some insurance scheme for farm workers, though they had no more reliable data than we have at the present time—indeed, not so much. I am not going to commit myself to any special scheme; I am asking the House to vote for the principle.

I believe the agricultural workers themselves desire a special scheme be- cause of the insufficiency of their wages to pay the ordinary contribution. That is no credit to the country. A man who works in all kinds of weather and gives of his best ought to be able, as the result of his honest toil, to make a contribution, not only for that, but for sickness, death, superannuation and a decent old age. In January, 1920, there were no fewer than 7,306 agricultural workers registered at Employment Exchanges, not for the purpose of receiving benefit, but in the hope of betting jobs elsewhere. Last October the Agricultural Workers' Union tried to make up for the neglect of the Government in gaining reliable information. I will give a summary of the result which, I hope, will induce the hon. Member to withdraw the first Amendment. They sent out a questionnaire to all their branches. They got 474 replies, representing 990 parishes, dealing with 44,281 farm workers—not a great number out of the 700,000, I agree, but you must take the figures I give as being typical of how the farming industry stands in regard to unemployment. There were 2,011 unemployed in this number. I think that is a general average of between 4 and 5 per cent. In the winter of 1928–9 the same questionnaire was sent from the same area and there were 4,367 unemployed, and they estimate for this winter a number of 5,515, and the time of unemployment three months. [An HON. MEMBER: "What area is that?"] You can have the list when I have done with it.

Sir ROBERT HAMILTON

Do any of these figures relate to Scotland?

Mr. GRUNDY

I am glad the hon. Gentleman has asked me that. I am missing Scotland out of my remarks, because I understand there is a very divided opinion in respect to this, though I am told by those who ought to know that there is a growing opinion in favour of inclusion, and that it is advocated by the secretary of the Scottish Farm Labourers' Union. I have the Scottish figures if the hon. Gentleman would like to see them. The figures I have quoted are sufficiently important to justify the House in at least asserting the principle. They have sent me some later figures. I may mix some of them up, but it will not be the first mix up I have been in. On 10th January the unemployed in the Bourne urban area were, registered, 48; and unregistered, 43; out of an approximate number of 375. In the surrounding villages of Morton, Tongue End, Witham, and Haconby there were approximately 85 unemployed agricultural workers. I have also been given the figures of the Faversham rural district and the parishes of Boughton, Hernhill, etc., where there are at least 40 farm workers unemployed since November last, mainly living in tied houses. Here is a tragedy. If farm workers obtain more remunerative employment they have to give it up to go back when the farmer wants them or they are evicted. I do not like that part of it. Unemployment, eviction and the workhouse—those are their three chances. I do not say that all farmers do it, but there is nothing to be proud of in the system that allows it. The better class farmers would not do it, but some have done it and they ought not to have the right. The parish council of Hernhill and Boughton passed a resolution urging the rural district council to put an unemployment scheme into operation for the benefit of some of the farm workers, but the council states that the owners refuse to sell land to enable them to do it. It is, no doubt, one of those old stick-in-the-mud places where, if the owner says "No," they will not obtain some paltry power to make him, because I understand it has been going on for 11 years.

I should like the Government to say what they are doing. This is a statement of what the other side have not done. Is there any question between the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Agriculture? If so, how near are they to agreement? I dare not ask how far they are apart. If there are any difficulties, could we be told what they are? If a scheme has been agreed, can we know to-night what it is? I am pledging myself to no special scheme. All I am asking the House to do is to sanction the principle of a scheme for a body of men who are a credit to the country. It is the oldest profession there is. One cannot conceive, as soon as God made the earth, that someone did not begin to farm it in some shape or form. It is the second greatest industry and, if the House is satisfied that it ought to be brought in, the manner in which it should be done can be a matter of actuarial arrangement.

Mr. GOULD

I beg to second the Motion.

8.0 p.m.

There is no subject on which it would give me greater pleasure to assist in trying to win the support of all sections of the House than this extension of the social services to this much-needed and very considerable section of the working-class population. The fact that the second largest unit of the tremendous industrial population of the country is still outside any provision for unemployment is an indictment of those who have held power in Parliament. If I had any definite pledge or mandate which was clear and articulate from the last election, it was the provision of unemployment insurance for the agricultural workers of my division. I represent the northern part of the County of Somerset. They tell me that it is the only part of that beautiful county to lapse politically. I hardly know what "lapse" means. To me, it is a birth and not a lapse. But, whatever it may be, I regarded the voice of the agricultural worker as ringing most clear and definite throughout the whole of that campaign, asking incessantly, at village after village, for one definite piece of reform. It was not so much wages. Housing, yes. But the chief claim in regard to their political burdens was that they ought to have extended to them the privileges and provisions which other workers in their parishes and villages had already, and which were being denied to them. My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Grundy) has stated that there are some 700,000 silent, scattered, agricultural workers living in our rural areas where there is very little group life and where they are cut off from many of the amenities. They are very frugal and most industrious men, women and children deserving of the best that this House can give to them. I do not forget the depression of agriculture. That matter is outside the scope of the Motion. I regard the claims of the workers as important as the claims of those who are behind the industry and whose interests are vested in the capital and in the land. We are to-night pressing the claims of the workers alongside of the claims of those who are responsible for this very large industry. We are not asking for prior consideration, but we do ask that the immediate attention of the Government shall be given to this immediate need.

There are four points which I wish to stress very briefly. I believe that in a Debate like this it would be better that 20 speakers should make their contribution than that one or two should make very long speeches. The first point is that there is known unemployment. I am not going to repeat the statement which has been made by my hon. Friend. In my Division, there are 82 parishes, but, if in reviewing the country you only take 990 parishes, you will find that in October last, at the beginning of the winter, there were 2,000 unemployed, while in the December returns the number was 4,800. I know that the figures are not proportionate to the respective parishes and areas, because you have the milk and dairies areas where unemployment is light and the arable areas where it is heavy. We have in reply to the questionnaire which the Agricultural Workers sent out, very reliable, and, as far as it goes, scientific data proving that there is a tremendous burden of unemployment in various localities, where there is no social service rendered in the way of a national scheme. We ask, in the light of that data, that, if the Minister is not prepared to act upon it, he will immediately get more complete data. I hope that to-night the Minister will be able to announce that data is available and that with the general cooperation of all parties—a council of State, surely—he will endeavour to formulate a scheme peculiar to agriculture and to the needs of agriculture. I am not going to say that there has been a scheme propounded which ought to be forced upon the House, but I believe that, if we could get unanimity on the principle to-night, it would make the way clear for the Minister to introduce a Bill, and that, by co-operative effort on the part of all parties, we could forge a scheme adaptable to the industry and the immediate needs of the people concerned.

Mr. SCOTT

Will the hon. Gentleman make clear whether he has any data with regard to Scotland and whether he is making that proposal in the interest of England only? Is it to apply to Scotland?

Mr. GOULD

At present, the data relates to England and Wales. I do not want to go outside the scope of the data which has been laid before us. I believe that the workers have their own organisations in Scotland, and that, in co-operation with their own agriculturists, they could at least give an indication of their position. Personally, I would go all out for an all-inclusive scheme for Scotland, England, and Wales because I know the need of the unemployed agricultural worker.

Mr. SCOTT

In consequence of what the hon. Member has just said, may I again ask whether he has any reliable data with regard to Scotland?

Mr. GOULD

In the nature of unemployment, no. I am hoping that the agricultural representatives of Scotland will make their contribution. It would be presumptuous of a Somerset and English representative to teach Scotland anything about economy and national schemes. The second point is that these workers are consumers and taxpayers. These people smoke, and sometimes they drink, though rarely, and they have to buy these commodities from which Imperial taxation is obtained for these funds. Here you have the anomaly of the lowest-paid workers in the countryside, scattered as they are with no clear, articulate voice except through an organisation, paying liberally to the national funds, and yet when the bad days come they are excluded from the benefits of unemployment insurance. We claim that as consumers and taxpayers, in the interest of the ratepayers of the localities, common sense should induce agriculturists and landowners, as well as the workers, to demand for the agricultural workers the benefits of a fund so largely contributed to by Imperial taxation.

The third point is that the low wage level of the worker necessitates the agricultural worker's family, sometimes a small family, and sometimes a large family, living from hand to mouth. It is not their fault. It is easy to imagine that, when unemployment occurs, within two weeks there is only one resort, and that the Poor Law. These people have the same feeling about the Poor Law as we have. They detest the stigma of the Poor Law. I have seen it operate. There are low wages, and often, owing to the fear of unemployment, workers acquiesce in receiving low wages. Sometimes the employer who refuses the minimum is a guardian of the Poor Law helping to administer Poor Law relief. The invidious position of these workers has a tremendous effect upon their individuality and independence, such as I am sure most hon. Members of this House would desire to eliminate.

Lastly, there is the fear, not only of the men who are out of employment, but of the men who are in employment which arises owing to the absence of unemployment insurance. I believe that the fear caused by the absence of such a provision is the worst factor in the whole of the areas. I did not get a demand for this provision from the unemployed so much as I did from the men who were in work and who feared unemployment. It is difficult to imagine, if one does not know village and hamlet life, how isolated these people really are. Their only amenity very often is the village "pub" or the village club. Their independence is often destroyed by fear, because unemployment often means eviction, and it often means stark privation, and that the family is haunted by the Poor Law with all its rigours. I submit that these four points are substantial points upon which we should all agree in this House, and that there is a tremendous case on the data available of the present unemployed figures. The wage level does not permit of any man or any home facing unemployment and the probabilities and possibilities of unemployment without tremendous fear.

What are the objections to the proposal? First, that the workers would be stood off. Very frankly, as a trade unionist with some administrative experience, I know that to be a correct statement of the position. It is a fact that employers do stand men off when they know that provisions are made out of national contributory funds. But that is not in any way the essential part of this case. It is part of the general case. You can turn to the whole of these social services, and on that test: you can prove your case. As a boot operative, I have seen workers approach the factory where there has been only three or four days' work and ask that "an arrangement" should be made. I do not think that upon those grounds you can deny the workers in the industry of agriculture such a provision as I advocate.

The second objection is that the milk and dairy sections do not compare with other sections. It is true that in the arable areas there is greater distress, greater privations, and larger sections of labour involved, and more unemployment. The unemployed agricultural worker should be brought into the insurance scheme on the basis of a fifty-fifty grant. The balancing power of a State grant of 50 per cent. should make it a feasible proposition. In a provisional scheme for the agricultural worker contributions were suggested of 1½d., 1½d. and 3d. After all, if the State proposed to contribute such a proportion there could be no hardship to the milk and dairy areas such as Somerset and parts of Devon and Cornwall. I think that that objection is minimised to a very large extent.

It is said that the industry cannot bear it. I have never yet known an industry which could bear any new imposition. I realise the unsatisfactory state of agriculture at the present time, and I come back to my point with regard to the burden on the arable farmer. I know that the consumers and taxpayers in those areas are paying contributions into the common fund in which the present insured workers are participating. They have to pay, and they are left high and dry in very difficult days. Commonsense ought to impel them to say, "We will come in and make our contribution, and we desire to receive an equitable share according to the needs of our unemployed." That is as far as I desire to go. I wish to press this last point upon whoever speaks for the Government, that this is definitely a Labour party pledge to these 700,000 workers. I gave no pledge so definite as this one. It would give me great pleasure to honour it. I hope that we shall co-operate in bringing necessary pressure, and I trust that it will be a great co-operative effort, in making such a scheme possible in view of the tremendous needs of these people this winter, in the hope that by next winter we shall have a scheme on a solvent actuarial basis, on an experimental basis, including England, Scotland and Wales, and thus fulfil not only the pledge to the party but the pledge to these men and women whose voices are rarely heard articulately in this wonderful House of Commons.

Captain DUGDALE

I beg to move to leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words: this House urges the Government to obtain accurate information as to the prevalence of unemployment in agriculture, and is of the opinion that it would be premature to extend unemployment insurance to agricultural workers until such information is available. In moving the Amendment, I crave the indulgence of the House on the occasion of the first time that I have addressed it. My one consolation at the present moment is the fact that hon. and right hon. Members who are present have been through this ordeal on one occasion during their Parliamentary career. In dealing with the question before the House, I would refer to insurance as a whole and to the insurance system from the general point of view. It may seem curious to hon. Members that in regard to the very system of insurance which is so generally accepted in industry to-day one should oppose to a certain degree the inclusion of a section of the community who, we all admit, are a worthy section. But there are two considerations which are absolutely essential before the Government, of whatever party, as justified in extending State insurance. The two conditions are, (1) that the risk to the insurer does actually exist, and (2) that the parties concerned are not only in a position to pay but also have shown themselves, from the general point of view, as being willing to pay their contributions or premiums towards the insurance scheme.

The hon. Members who moved and seconded the Motion told the House that in their view and in their constituencies the main mass of the agricultural population are in favour of becoming included in the scheme of general unemployment insurance. I speak only from what I know, and in my Division, which is one of the largest if not the largest Division in the country, consisting of more than 600,000 acres, entirely agricultural, I can say with absolute confidence that there is no desire whatever amongst the general mass of the agricultural labourers to be included in the scheme of general unemployment insurance. From where, then, does the pressure come? I think I am right in saying that the pressure for the exten- sion of the scheme of unemployment insurance to the farm labourer comes from the Agricultural Labourers' Union. For my part, and I think I speak for all hon. Members on this side of the House, when a question regarding agricultural workers comes before us we are the first people to take guidance and advice from the Agricultural Labourers' Union, but it must be remembered that the membership of that union to-day to put it on a generous estimate, is between 30,000 and 40,000, out of an agricultural labouring population of 770,000—a little less than 5 per cent. That being so, I do not feel that I am justified in taking the view of this union as expressing the general opinion of the agricultural labourers throughout the country.

Does the risk of the agricultural labourer becoming unemployed really exist? Again, it is only for me to refer to the part of the country from which I come. I will not refer to my own constituency, but to the whole of the North Biding of Yorkshire, which consists of more than 1,000,000 acres. On the 24th January of this year there were in the whole of that great district only 77 agricultural labourers registered at the Employment Exchanges. I fully appreciate the fact that at the present time it is not essential for agricultural labourers to become registered at the Employment Exchanges, but I have made inquiries from what I know to be a reliable source, and I find that, from the returns that I have received, on the same day there were estimated to be an additional 75 people unregistered, and yet unemployed, and that is accepting the most generous figure. That is a very email percentage of the labouring population. There are, no doubt, black spots throughout the country, parishes where unemployment conditions in agriculture are bad, but, taking it as a general rule, I am convinced that it is essential the House should ask the Minister of Agriculture to obtain more statistics to prove whether or not we are justified in forcing legislation upon this large section of the community, until we know that the situation demands it in the country as a whole.

May I turn to the question as to whether or not the farm labourer can afford to pay the contribution that is demanded? It may not be a pleasant topic, but we must face the question as to whether he can or cannot afford to pay. I do not know whether the Minister of Agriculture has any scheme in mind as to what the amount of contribution the agricultural labourer should be asked to pay. I assume that if they come into the general scheme of unemployment insurance they would pay the same contribution, that is 7d. per week, as men engaged in other industries, and if that is so it will take away from the agricultural labourers of this country more than £1,100,000 every year. Are we justified in taking this large sum from them and putting it into a common fund, which this House will admit is already hopelessly in debt, in order to benefit other sections of the community, unless we are confident that the need is great and that the benefit which agricultural labourers will receive will be as much as, if not greater, than that which they put in? Unless we have further statistics, I think the House would be wrong to pass legislation forcing an unemployment insurance scheme on agricultural labourers.

The view of the mover of the Motion seemed to be that the agricultural farm labourer should be included in a general scheme of unemployment insurance because the labourers in all other industries are included. Hon. Members know it already, but let me repeat it, that the agricultural industry to-day, and always, has been entirely different from the other great industries of the country. In agriculture we have what is known as the family business, and I am sure it is the wish of the House to encourage this family business. Out of 400,000 holdings throughout the country no less than 260,000 are holdings of 50 acres or less, and these holdings of 50 acres or less are for the most part farmed by farmers and their sons. Is it the intention of the Minister of Agriculture to embody in his scheme sons working for their fathers? If so the House will realise the hardship which would be caused to these individual families. If not then the House will realise the hardship to other agricultural workers who happen to be farming for someone who is not their father. In either case you are going to do great injustice to this family business, which I am certain the House wishes to encourage.

Let me refer to the farmer, who is the second party in this transaction. Is this a time to add a further burden on the farmer and the agricultural industry? At a time when prices are at their bottom, when farmers are suffering from subsidised foreign competition, when everything in agriculture is as difficult as it can be, is it right that we should add a further burden on the industry which indeed might prove to be the last straw? In my view an extension of the Unemployment Insurance Scheme to agricultural workers would result in farmers being obliged to turn away their permanent employés and take in more and more casual labour, which would be to the disadvantage of the genuine agricultural worker and to the disadvantage of the industry as a whole. Finally, let me turn for a moment to the State, which is the third party in this transaction. No doubt the hon. Member who has moved the Motion has satisfied himself that the money which is necessary for the State to pay would be found by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, It is not my intention to argue the question as to whether the House would be justified in voting that money or not, but let me refer to the attitude of the Minister of Labour. When the right hon. Lady was referring to farm workers in this House on the 9th December, 1929, she used these words: They are what I call the 'good lives' in relation to the national insurance scheme, and we want the good lives as well as the bad ones."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 9th December, 1929; col. 198, Vol. 233.] Is it right, unless we are fully satisfied that unemployment exists in this industry to a far greater extent than I think it does, to take money from farm labourers throughout the country with a view of swelling the general pool. Having regard to the situation of the industry as a whole and to the welfare of the farm labourer I have come to the conclusion that the money which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is able to give in this case would be far better spent on a scheme which would benefit the industry as a whole and thereby benefit not only the farmer but also the farm labourer.

Major GEORGE DAVIES

I beg to second the Amendment.

I am sure I am voicing the feeling of every hon. Member in every part of the House when I offer to my hon. and gal- lant Friend my hearty congratulations on the maiden speech which he has just delivered. He not only showed that he was master of his subject, that he had studied it, but also that modesty which should accompany a first speech in this House, and it kindled a hope in all those who have had the pleasure of listening be it that it will not be too long before he again intervenes in our Debates. I should like to take this opportunity of congratulating the Minister of Agriculture that at long last he is able to take part in an agricultural Debate. For seven months he has been yearning for an opportunity to bring forward an agricultural subject before the House of Commons, which looks to him as its father confessor on the subject, and but for the introduction of the Supplementary Estimate in connection with sugar beet, the Debate on which was naturally narrow, and this Motion, which comes to him on a silver salver by chance of the ballot, he would still be looking for an opportunity of propounding to the House of Commons and the country his great schemes for the development of agriculture. It does not require a very vivid imagination to picture him, surrounded by his Cabinet colleagues, lamenting that all the sympathy is given to "Jimmy" and that there is none for himself, because his colleague merely promised to cure unemployment, while he was pledged to make farming pay. At the same time he dangles before the farmer the prospect that at some future time, not too distant, the country will be dotted with new village halls, at each of which will be sitting one of the inspectors of his Department, seeing that the farming community do not underpay their labourers, and that if they do, as St. Paul says in the New Testament, "haling men and women and putting them in prison." That is the great objective that the farmer is looking to.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Dunnico)

I would remind the hon. and gallant Gentleman that the Question before the House is Unemployment Insurance for agricultural workers.

Major DAVIES

I was hoping that I was finding employment for at least one of those who regard themselves as interested in agriculture. But I will pass to another point. My hon. and gallant Friend who moved the Amendment has shown that this matter is a much broader one than was appreciated by the Mover and Seconder of the Motion. Incidentally I am glad that a colleague from Somerset has taken part in the Debate. What is the reason why we have before us the problem that a large section of the industrial workers of the country are not included in the Unemployment Insurance provision? We all remember that when the Unemployment Insurance Act was first brought into operation many industries wanted to contract out. It was said that a particular industry was a better risk than the others, and it did not want to come in under the whole scheme. But it was pointed out that if we began to make exceptions like that we got away entirely from the principle of insurance, by which, generally speaking, good risks must take their chance with the bad. Why was agriculture left out? Because it is intrinsically a different industry from any other.

My first point is this: As far as could be ascertained, the prospect of unemployment in agriculture was so small that there would have been an unfair burden on the industry in its contributions as a good risk compared with those employed in other industries who might be a bad risk. Agriculture was excluded in the interests of the agricultural workers themselves. The purpose of the Amendment is not to rule out consideration of the whole question, for it is not a party matter. It is a very important question as to whether we are wise in excluding agricultural workers from a principle which has been advantageous in other directions; but if we are to make a change surely there should be every opportunity given to find out what the facts are. In spite of the eloquence of the Mover and Seconder of the Motion, I submit that they did not satisfy the House that the facts are at their disposal. One of the difficulties of those of us who like to get into touch with agricultural workers in our constituencies or elsewhere, is that such an infinitesimal number of them are members of any organisation through which we can get at them en masse. There are only 40,000 or 50,000 who are at present organised. It is impossible to get from them the data which are necessary for a big national movement like this.

There are three parties to whom we have to be fair. We have first to be fair to the agricultural worker. The Mover and Seconder of the Motion maintained that our present principle inflicts an unfairness on the agricultural workers, because they are excluded. But there are two sides to that question. I admit that there are points in favour of the scheme that have not been mentioned. For instance, a farmer wants to take on casual labour for two or three months' employment. A lot of men at present unemployed do not like to undertake such work because they would then be classed as agricultural workers at I he Employment Exchanges. It is difficult for the agricultural worker in the village to see a building labourer, who is held up on account of bad weather, drawing unemployment benefit from which the agricultural worker is himself debarred. These things are admitted. But there is the other side. If the agricultural worker, with his present miserable and too low wage is to have an additional financial burden placed upon him weekly, he will be unfairly penalised. We do not know what the general opinion among the agricultural workers is. Questions have been put to the Minister of Agriculture and to his Parliamentary Secretary, and the reply has been that they are not in a position to give reliable figures. The Amendment calls upon the Minister to undertake the task of getting reliable figures before schemes are submitted to the House of Commons.

My second point is this: While it is true that in certain directions certain branches of agriculture are not so hard hit as others, the difficulty of the employing farmer is to find the necessary weekly cash. By a proposal of this sort we are going to add to the actual weekly cash outgoing of the farmer. That will result in the farmer, in spite of what he would like to do, having to contract his liabilities, to think twice before he takes on additional hands or keens those that he has. Before the House blindly accepts the Motion it would do well to consider acceptance of the Amendment. We know that the Government is by no means backward in setting up committees of investigation in various directions. In an industry like agriculture, which all parties agree is fundamental to the well-being of our industrial state, it is not too much to ask that the Minister of Agriculture should take the necessary steps to get reliable data, so that we can decide whether the agricultural worker should be included in the general scheme or a special scheme or no scheme.

My hon. colleague from Somerset suggested what he called a fifty-fifty scheme. I understand his idea is that the State should pay threepence, the farmer three-halfpence and the labourer three-halfpence. The hon. Gentleman is labouring under a misapprehension. It is not so long since the Parliamentary Secretary said that people who thought that a scheme for agriculture could be carried by 6d. a week in that way were basing their ideas on groundless hopes, and that it would be nearer 11d. or 1s.

Mr. GOULD

May I ask the hon. and gallant Member if that implies that the burden of unemployment is far greater than when the Inter-Departmental Committer reported?

Major DAVIES

I am not prepared to answer that question. I am merely indicating that even those who have made some study of this subject consider that we are not in possession of sufficiently accurate data. I second this Amendment not from any lack of sympathy with those who have brought forward the Motion, but because I think that from a practical point of view it is not desirable that we should try to run before we walk or that we should legislate, and thus tie the hands of the Government, until we have all the facts before us. It is in order to enable the Government at the express wish of the House to take steps to get the facts that I commend the Amendment to hon. Members.

Mr. GRAY

Those who sit on these benches are bound to give a sympathetic hearing to this Motion, because the Liberal party were the pioneers of insurance both as regards health and unemployment. That party initiated the system of legislation which has brought such great benefit to the industrial workers of our country. Those who are familiar with the history of the early days of insurance will remember the violent opposition which it aroused, mainly from the party above the Gang- way. They will recall the cry of "nine-pence for fourpence" and the noble ladies and others who said they would die rather than lick stamps. It is interesting to find to-day that all parties are agreed as to the benefits of insurance. One may commend to His Majesty's Ministers the suggestion that perhaps on other subjects they might do well to follow the advice which comes from these benches.

I wish to point out, however, that possibly there is no more difficult class of persons to whom to apply unemployment insurance than the body of agricultural workers, mainly for the reason that the conditions under which they are employed vary so much throughout the country. It is not merely that the conditions in Scotland are different from those in England and perhaps in Wales. Even in England the conditions vary tremendously. For instance, in my own constituency, which is very largely a market gardening constituency, quite a number of agricultural workers are employed on piece rates, and, obviously, they fall out of employment when the particular job on which they are engaged is finished. In a large number of English counties, agricultural labourers are employed on an ordinary weekly basis, but there are, even in England to-day, a number of areas in which the old hiring system is still followed, and workers are taken on for periods of 12 or six months according to the practice of the district.

I suggest that it is time that we applied the principle of unemployment insurance to the agricultural community. I am faced with the knowledge that at this moment, in a considerable portion of my constituency, practically all the market garden employés have been out of employment owing to the failure of the winter crop over a fairly large area. I refer to the Biggleswade and Sandy area of mid-Bedfordshire. If I may-make an interpolation at this point, I wish to express the thanks of my division and of these people, for the assistance given by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Labour in connection with the schemes of relief which we had to undertake so as to enable these workers to get any kind of employment at all, and to keep them off the poor law. I agree that, in other areas, unem- ployment in agriculture is comparatively small, and I suggest that the proper method unquestionably would be to introduce a special scheme for agriculture. I certainly could not ask, and I do not think there are many Members representing agricultural communities who could ask, that the farmers or workers should make the contributions which are payable to-day, by employers and employed in industry.

If the suggestion were made to bring in the agricultural community as a whole, and add them on to the present unemployment scheme with its deficit of something approaching £40,000,000 and if we expected to get the contributions of the agricultural workers and farmers and use them to help the country out of its difficulties in regard to unemployment insurance, I certainly would oppose such a suggestion with all my strength. But I still urge that it is desirable to bring a scheme of unemployment insurance into agriculture and to do so with the minimum of delay. I agree that in drawing up a special scheme—and the Ministry or Ministries concerned would have to draw a special scheme—some kind of provision might have to be made to prevent injustices. It might be necessary to delay its application to a country like Scotland and it might be necessary to make some provision to deal with cases where engagements are for long periods of time and where the worker is, perhaps, definitely employed by the farmer for a period of a year. There might be, in some form or another, a provision for contracting out, at any rate in the first stages of the scheme. I further suggest that a scheme of unemployment insurance should not be a charge on the industry, but an assistance to the industry. Unless that is done we are not justified in laying additional burdens on the agricultural industry.

This industry, as the primary industry, ought to be encouraged and developed in every possible way. If it is put on a strong economic basis it is one of the most promising means of absorbing a considerable number of the men who are now crowding into the towns, to be employed there for a short period and then to go upon the Unemployment Fund and become a charge on industry and on the community. That is a point which we ought to recognise. Members of this House of whatever party who have to address gatherings of farmers know how difficult it is to say anything to a farmers' meeting which can give them any pleasure at all. In addressing such a gathering, I said one thing which did appeal to them. I mentioned that, at least, it could be said for the agricultural community that they had not placed a burden of 1,250,000 or more unemployed people on the Insurance Fund. A proper insurance scheme will assist the farmer as well as the worker and that is one of the reasons why it is not advisable to delay introducing this proposal until all the information has been obtained to which the Mover of the Amendment alluded. I join in congratulating the hon. and gallant Member upon a very able maiden speech, but in reply to that point I say that until you introduce some scheme of unemployment insurance, you will not get the information. We have addressed question after question to the Minister of Agriculture, and time after time he has told us he has not got the information and really does not know quite how to get it.

A further point is that the mere introduction of the principle of insurance itself tends to change the actual conditions of employment. Even hon. Members opposite, who at least in theory are opposed to capitalism and to capitalists, will agree that the average employer is a human being, after all, and has a certain amount of interest in the lives and conditions of the men whom he employs. The mere fact that there is nothing for the agricultural worker but Poor Law relief does induce the farmer frequently to keep him and to put him on to work which is not essential, merely because, if he does not, the man has no other resource than the Poor Law. If you speak to any farmer to-day and talk to him about his business and the way in which he is carrying it on, he will tell you, "It is true there is not a great deal of unemployment, but if we cannot get on the land, I look round the buildings, and I make a job of work for them." If agriculture is really to endure the competition which it has to meet, it cannot afford as an industry even to be philanthropic to that extent.

I want to put in a plea for the employer who does frankly use the Unemployment Insurance Act to assist him in carrying the burdens of his employés. It is a common practice in an industry which is subject to depression, and, if they are wise, both employer and worker, by arrangement, will divide the burden. We do it regularly in my own town of Luton, in the hat industry. When we come to a slack time, and we have work for only half our people, we divide it into sections. They are in the factory one week and on insurance the next, and that is one of the essential values to industry of an unemployment insurance scheme. You are able, without feeling that you are injuring the decent conditions of your workers, to run your industry at the lowest wage cost for your profit.

Let every farmer consider this. Suppose he has got his workers, and in the course of a year he only puts them off for two or three weeks and allows them to fall on the Unemployment Insurance Fund for that period, the amount of wages that he will save in those two or three weeks will probably much more than pay for the cost of contributions that he will have to pay throughout the year, and he will not have to put his workers in the position of having to fall upon the Poor Law, so that the payment of rates for that cannot fall upon him, in so far as he lives and pays rates within his own district. I urge that the provision of an unemployment insurance scheme is, first of all, the only way in which you will really arrive at an effective knowledge of what is the actual measure of unemployment in any particular industry, and that, if properly used, it will give a definite assistance in actual cost to the farmer himself.

9.0 p.m.

I do urge on the Government and on this House that in arranging a special scheme of insurance for the agricultural industry we ought not to go on the percentage, or fifty-fifty, basis. I will put this claim for the agricultural industry, that we ought to be prepared as a State to pay the same amount per insured person for an agricultural worker as we ask the State to pay for an industrial worker, and that is where I should start in building up an insurance scheme for agriculture. This House should ask itself on what ground it should say that the contribution per head by the State should be less for a man who is employed in agriculture than the contribution that we are prepared to make, and are making, to a worker who is employed in industry. If you accept that position, you solve a great proportion of your difficulty in working out an insurance scheme for the agricultural worker, because if you allow that industry to have from the State the same amount per head, the contribution that will be required from the fanner and the worker will be a contribution that they can pay; it will not be a charge upon the industry, and it can be so used as to be of definite assistance to the industry by really reducing the wage cost, because the contribution made by the State will, when fully taken into account, be one which will go into the total wage fund, if you include in the wage fund insurance benefit, that will be available for the payment of the agricultural worker.

It has already been pointed out that there are other advantages, but I would like to stress the one that was mentioned by the last speaker. You may consider that in an agricultural community all your workers are uninsured against unemployment, but that is not in fact the case. There is probably no village in this country, however small, in which, while the great bulk of the agricultural workers are not insured, possibly some half-dozen or more people are living in the village who come under the Unemployment Insurance Act and who, if they are unemployed, are receiving unemployment insurance, which, let it not be forgotten, if they have a family, is something very near if not as much as what the agricultural worker is receiving when in employment. I think it is a most undesirable state of affairs, causing a great deal of dissatisfaction in the agricultural industry, and it is an additional reason for the tendency to move out of that industry into other industries, that in the same village you may have a man out of work and receiving nearly as much as his neighbour who is in work, and who, if he is thrown out of work, has nothing whatever coming in and has to fall back upon Poor Law relief.

It would be a tremendous advantage to industry in securing the casual labourer that you should bring to all the workers of this country the benefit of unemploy- ment insurance, and if the scheme is devised as I have suggested, on the basis, first, of taking the contribution that we pay to the industrial workers, and merely adding to that the necessary contribution to make a sound scheme, I believe we can bring in a scheme of unemployment insurance for the agricultural industry that will be a relief to the master, that will remove from the worker the great shadow of the fear of unemployment, and that will be, perhaps, one of the first steps in assisting to place this great primary industry on a sound economic basis.

Mr. HAYDAY

It appears to me that we approach this subject of unemployment insurance from quite a wrong angle. We appear to wait until some distressing circumstance through unemployment becomes associated with any particular industry, and at once there is a call for its inclusion in a scheme of unemployment insurance. It would have been much better had a wise Government promoted its scheme in 1911 to include all industrial workers, rather than to experiment with 2,250,000 from selected trades, then in 1916 to extend that to another 1,750,000 industrialists in a few other selected trades, and then to wait until 1920, when they were faced with the possibility of a huge army of unemployed, and to throw wide the sphere and scope of unemployment insurance and bring in another 8,000,000 or thereabouts so that at the moment there are between 12,000,000 and 12,500,000 covered by Unemployment Insurance, and 16,000,000 covered by Health Insurance.

I support in principle the inclusion at once of the remaining industries which are not included in unemployment insurance, but which may be included in national health insurance. While supporting it in principle, I do not commit myself to special schemes. I want to see, and I am sure that the country is desirous of seeing, grow up a complete co-ordination of the whole of our social services in place of the present chaotic method, with its victims falling between the various gaps and step-overs from one form of insurance to another; and instead of waiting until distress is upon us and funds are not solvent, we should build them up in times of prosperity to meet times of adversity. Then you would not have a plea from a section who desired, because of the fear of unemployment coming more rapidly upon them than in past seasons, to come at once into unemployment insurance, a section who would not be able to provide a full quota of financial contributions that would assure them a safe fund. It would be better if, some time or another, the Government could overhaul the whole of the insurance schemes, and so rearrange them that the general level of contributions from the employés could be reduced. There has always been the constant plea, which was put up in 1911 by members of the Labour party, for a non-contributory insurance scheme, on the ground that it was to the benefit of the State in good times to insure its citizens against bad times If that had beeen done in 1911, and 16,000,000 persons had been included, the long run of trade prosperity would have so fortified the fund, that we would not have had occasion to complain in the House of Commons that it is impossible for a section of the community to come into the unemployment insurance scheme. I would rather the Government faced the difficulties and met the circumstances of the agricultural worker, but they should bring him within a general scheme.

Why do I suggest that? There are times when we must be deadly practical. If you start a separate scheme on the ground of low wages, you will at once have industrialists already insured, whose wages are almost as low as that of agriculturists, and some less, asking permission to contract out in a separate special scheme with an increased Government grant to meet the contingencies and deficiencies. You would have further large industries, more prosperous than others, renewing their applications to contract out, and to create special schemes. Contracting out was abolished because it was found that the best lives would contract out under special schemes to such an extent that if you permitted sections which had 5 per cent. unemployment to contract out, those remaining in would be called upon to pay greater contributions. I would not like a separate scheme of unemployment insurance administered by the Minister of Agriculture. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why not? "] Because at the moment in our social services there is such confusion that we do not make the most effective use of those services. You get one service administered by the Ministry of Health, you get the overlooking power of the Treasury in the widows', orphans' and old age pensions scheme; you get another old age pension scheme under the Post Office; and unemployment insurance under the Ministry of Labour. If you bring in the Minister of Agriculture to administer another scheme, how are you going to unravel all this intricate network of separate and overlapping schemes, so that you can bring in one great scheme of social service administered under one Department, as I think it could well be, at much less expense than is the case to-day.

How could you support a special scheme for one section, which is not at present in insurance, and refuse a special scheme for another section which desires to go out? You cannot have a mixed up policy, and I would much prefer that the Government should consider how they can get over the difficulty of the inability to pay; that, however, must come just as much within a general scheme as any other section, and not be kept separate. The Government might well consider the possibility of making a special grant to make up for the deficiency represented in the inability of the employé engaged in farming to pay the full contribution. I would prefer it that way than that there should be a separate scheme. With the development of the beet sugar factories in connection with the land, the time is fast approaching when the land worker will intermingle more with the town and factory worker, and surely you are not going to have one type of Exchange for one class of worker, and another type of Exchange for another class. Why have an exclusive class at all? I feel keenly that there should be one great social service scheme that should include Unemployment Insurance, Health Insurance, Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Pensions—a comprehensive consolidated scheme under one central department, so that they might take into account all these difficulties.

Good lives in insurance must always pay for bad ones. It is the good fortune of good lives that they never have occasion to seek the benefits for which they make provision, and those who are better able to pay ought to be only too delighted to ease the pressure of others who suffer. While I accept this Motion in principle, I would like the Govern- ment to consider the possibility of including other classes who are outside un employment insurance. If 16,500,000 people can be insured under one form of social service, and they are in industrial occupations, they ought equally to be insured under the other branch of social service. It ought to be known that there was a time when the farming interest had an opportunity of coming within the unemployment scheme, but I am not allocating responsibility for what happened. It is always said that we have to be faced with adversity before we realise the necessity of making provision for it. Whatever may be the reasons for the exclusion of agricultural workers in the past, I wish to express my fullest support for an all-inclusive scheme of unemployment insurance. Agricultural workers, no less than any other body of workers, ought to have extended to them the right to be included in insurance against unemployment.

Lieut.-Colonel RUGGLES-BRISE

I feel quite sure that the appeal which was made by the Mover and Seconder of this Motion on behalf of agricultural workers will find an echo in every quarter of the House. Probably we have all come into contact with members of that class at some time in our lives, and I happen to be very intimately associated with them. I work in close co-operation with them in farming, and they are a class for whom I have the very highest regard and sympathy. The Mover and the Seconder of the Motion are evidently profoundly sincere in bringing it forward, and think that if it is passed it will in all probability be followed in due course by a Bill which will put into operation some measure of unemployment insurance for agricultural workers. But although the House may be entirely convinced of the genuineness of the motives of both the Mover and the Seconder, it is none the less the duty of the House to examine the proposal before consenting to pass it. This Motion requires very close scrutiny I think, because I am not by any means satisfied that the boon which they intend to confer on agricultural workers is a boon at all. Before we pass this Motion we ought to be quite certain that it is a water-tight one and that it is founded on sound and safe calcula- tions and reasonably certain facts and figures; and here several questions undoubtedly arise.

Obviously, the first question is as to whether there is any great amount of un employment in the industry. We were given certain figures by the Mover, but he would be the first to admit that those figures were hardly conclusive. It is generally admitted that there is a certain measure of unemployment amongst agricultural workers in some few black spots which were described by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Richmond Division of Yorkshire (Captain Dugdale); but so far we have had no evidence that there is any general measure of unemployment in the agricultural community. Only on Monday last the Minister of Agriculture stated in reply to a question that he was not in a position to provide the House with any statistics on this important matter. He was then asked by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Molton (Mr. Lambert) whether he could give any general indication of the position of affairs, but the Minister was not in a position even to give that general indication.

This is not a question out of which one wishes to make any party capital or into which one wishes to introduce any party bias, but I think this observation may be permitted. It is now eight months since the Government took office. Their General Election manifesto, in its proposals for the agricultural community, definitely included a promise of unemployment insurance. From the absence of this information I can only assume that the Government, on taking office, found that after all there was not a sufficient measure of unemployment in the agricultural community to justify them in going to the trouble, and perhaps expense, of collecting statistics. In fact they seem to find no adequate ground which would justify them in pursuing the inquiry. That is the conclusion to which one is driven.

What is the truth as to the position? I am not in a position to make any general statement about unemployment in the agricultural community, nor is anybody else in the House. In common with other hon. Members, I can speak only of the locality in which I live, and in my locality the position is this: From fairly close inquiries which I have made I find that there is virtually no unemployment at all amongst skilled labourers; in fact, in some places there is a shortage of really skilled agricultural labourers. It is an arable district. In a neighbouring village a very large farm, which was very highly farmed, recently changed hands. Up to Michaelmas a larger number of bands had been employed on that farm than is normal, because it was so highly farmed. Every man on that farm was given notice when it changed hands. A few weeks later a demand for seasonal labour to deal with the sugar beet crop arose in my village, and inquiries were made in the village where these men had received notice to see whether their services could not be secured for this work I am happy to be able to say that those inquiries proved abortive, because in every case the men had been reabsorbed into the industry in one way or another. It is true that two of them had left the village, but they were highly skilled workers and they had found agricultural employment in neighbouring villages.

I should like to make one reference to the very important question of the arable districts, and to draw attention to the great importance, to this country and to agricultural labour, of keeping as much land as possible under the plough. It is almost a matter beyond dispute, and I make no apology for bringing this very important point to the attention of the House. What I have found in my pursuit for information on this question of unemployment has shown me that where unemployment exists to-day in agriculture it is almost entirely in places where a large area of land has been taken away from arable and put down to grass. There I have found black spots where there is, unfortunately, a measure of unemployment, but even there my inquiries as regards individual workers have shown it is not the really skilled workers who are out of a job. Generally speaking, the men who have lost jobs and are really out of work are the second-rate men—I am speaking in no disparagement when I say that—the lesser skilled men, and, of course, the casuals.

If it be true, as I believe it is, that there is no general measure of unemployment in agriculture, taking the country as a whole, we have got to be very care- ful that, in the absence of evidence as to the numbers of unemployed—and I support the Amendment of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Richmond Division, which is designed merely to get further evidence—in the absence of further and much more conclusive evidence than we have at this moment, it would not be right for this House to take a decision which would definitely impose a burden of contributions upon three different classes. First and foremost, there is the agricultural worker himself, then his employer, the farmer, and, finally, the State. Let us deal with the case of the agricultural worker himself. I think it is true to say that it is the skilled men who are less likely to lose their jobs. That is obvious. What are we going to do? By setting up an unemployment insurance system we are going to extract from the pockets of the skilled men, who are not likely to lose their jobs, and who are almost certain to have jobs for life, week by week, month by month and year by year a contribution to a fund out of which there is probably no likelihood whatever that they can ever get any benefit at all. Surely, before we take such an important step as that, we ought to be perfectly certain that we have adequate evidence to justify it.

Coming to the position of the farmers, I know it will be said that the contribution that they will have to pay is a very small one. It may be a very small one, and judged as a weekly contribution you might, perhaps, almost call it negligible, but, of course, there is such a thing as just another little straw breaking the camel's back. I was surprised by a figure which I happened to come across in the course of my business recently. I was looking through the accounts of a group of farms, and certain items of expenditure had been put in categories over a long period of years. I was rather startled to find that, as regards this particular group of farms, the cost of national health insurance, since that fund was started some years ago, had amounted up-to-date to no less than £1,000. I should never have believed it if I had not seen the figures for myself. It so happens that that particular group of farms is being operated to-day, owing to the agricultural depression, largely with the assistance of a bank overdraft running into four figures. That overdraft to-day is £1,000 greater than it would stand at had it not been for the contribution made towards national health insurance. I am not arguing for the moment against national health insurance, but merely trying to illustrate to the House how these little contributions, small as they look week by week, represent a very substantial burden upon the industry when you add them up month by month, year by year and for a decade of years. At a moment when agriculture is in very low water, we should he very careful, even from the farmer's point of view, before we put still another burden upon those already on his shoulders, however small that burden may be.

When we come to the State contributions, I quite agree that if a case can be made out for unemployment insurance for agricultural workers, then the State should contribute, because it would obviously be unfair that any fund should be set up in which, for the agricultural worker, there should be no State contribution, while for the town worker there is a fund to which the State does contribute. Therefore, I think that if an insurance scheme is set up, the same rule should apply. At the same time, we must ask ourselves if we are quite certain that we want to throw another burden, however small, on to the State. If we do decide to throw that burden on the State, let us be perfectly certain that we are going to spend the money to the best effect.

I would like to say a word on this question from another point of view. There has been, of course, during the last half century, a considerable drift of population from the countryside to the towns. There have been two main causes The first cause has been that urban industry has required a great deal of labour. Urban industry has been in a position to pay higher wages, and has had to pay them, than have been paid in the countryside, in order to attract the labour to the towns. Having got it there, they have had to pay a level of wages which would be sufficient to give the worker the necessary amount to meet the advanced cost of living in the town. It is beyond dispute that there has been this considerable drift from the countryside to the towns during the last 50 years, but to-day we have got an altered position. You have got urban industry no longer requiring labour, but saturated and surfeited with too much labour. I plead, therefore, that when we are discussing this matter of un employment, all those engaged in urban industry should take a greater interest in the agricultural industry, and they should be prepared to assist the industry back to prosperity. From their own narrow point of view they should want to stop this drift from the countryside to the towns, because when people get from the countryside to the towns, and there is no employment for them in the towns, they merely become burdens on urban industry. I say the same to organised labour in the towns. It is, obviously, to the interest of those—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

The hon. Member is really wandering somewhat beyond the scope of the Motion. The question before the House is whether agricultural workers should or should not be brought within the compass of the Insurance Act. He is dealing with the general subject.

Lieut.-Colonel RUGGLES-BRISE

I quite appreciate that point. I was leading up to this, that we must not confuse this great drift from the countryside to the towns and draw the deduction that it necessarily follows that there is unemployment in the countryside. The two things are not directly connected. But I must not pursue that point any further. I will pass on to the question of unemployment insurance. We have just heard a speech from the hon. Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Hayday), and what I am going to say is rather in contradistinction to the line which the hon. Member took. There are some people who regard unemployment insurance as an end in itself. I think it might be summed up in the phrase "Work or maintenance." I regard that view as a mistake, and I think it is a pity that unemployment insurance should be regarded as an end in itself. We must rely upon the prosperity of industry. We have passed successive Acts of Parliament dealing with unemployment insurance. We have had in successive sessions from successive Governments a great deal of our time taken up in discussions upon the problem of unemployment and unemployment insurance. Nobody realises more than the Lord Privy Seal that we have been attacking this problem very much from the wrong end and that it is no solution of the problem. We should get away from terms of unemployment and concentrate on employment, because that is the only solution of the problem.

I know that there are signs of unemployment in the agricultural industry, but, happily, the disease of unemployment is not deep-seated in agriculture. I think there is general agreement upon that point, but if it is not yet too deep-seated, there is still time to ward off the disease before it becomes malignant. There is only one way to meet that difficulty, and it is to make farming pay. The Labour party, in their Election manifesto, stated that it was their intention to try to make farming pay. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, in a speech which he made in the Agricultural Hall last September, said that he entirely agreed with those who said that the proper way to attack this problem was to make farming pay, and that when that was accomplished, unemployment would completely vanish from the countryside. That is the proper way to attack this problem. All our ills will disappear if only we concentrate on this problem from that angle. Not only will our ills disappear in the country districts when we succeed in placing agriculture on its feet again, but there will be a remarkable reaction in the case of urban industries, because the purchasing power of agricultural workers will overflow into the towns. Consequently, the urban industries will gain just as much as agriculture. The reason why I support the Amendment which has been moved by my hon. and gallant Friend is that I do not think we shall be justified in attacking the problem of unemployment in agriculture from the end suggested by the Mover and Seconder of this Motion, because there is not sufficient evidence to justify a conclusion of that-kind. I have pointed out some of the mistakes into which we might fall by the adoption of a Motion of this kind until the facts and figures have been placed very clearly before us.

Mr. DALLAS

The hon. and gallant Member for Maldon (Lieut.-Colonel Ruggles-Brise) gave a very curious illustration from his own constituency in the course of which he said that there was an inquiry made at the time that a beet-sugar factory was being opened amongst the agricultural workers in the district to find work in the factory for some of the unemployed, and strange to say they could not find enough workers to start the factory because there were no unemployed in the Maldon area. The truth of the matter is that the workers in that district had been attracted to an engineering establishment because they were paying better wages. Not very long ago the farmers wrote to the head of this firm and asked them not to pay such high wages, because they were denuding the land of agricultural workers.

Lieut.-Colonel RUGGLES - BRISE

There is no beet-sugar factory in my Division.

Mr. DALLAS

No, but this factory is on the outskirts of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's Division, at Felsted. I was very much interested in the maiden speech made by the hon. and gallant Member for the Richmond Division (Captain Dugdale). Having made a maiden speech myself only a few weeks ago, I can quite understand the hon. and gallant Member's feelings, and I congratulate him upon the way in which he got through that ordeal. The hon. and gallant Member made a typical Conservative speech, presumably full of sympathy for the poor agricultural workers in his district, but it was a speech telling the agricultural worker that he was different from any other kind of worker, and that while other workers deserved unemployment insurance, he did not deserve it. The agricultural labourer has been told that by the Conservative party for generations, and he is not going to take very much more of it even from the Conservative party, as hon. Members will find out when the next General Election comes round.

It is quite true that we cannot get the exact figures relating to the number of agricultural workers who are out of employment, but we do know that when they are out of employment they are compelled to get parish relief, and there is no section of the community that abhors that kind of thing more than the agricultural worker. If it is right that an unemployed engineer or an unemployed chemical worker should be provided for by means of insurance when he is unemployed, then it is right and just that the agricultural worker should be treated in exactly the same way. The hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Gray) was quite correct in saying that, when the scheme is set up, the facts and figures will be obtained, and then it will be possible to adapt any scheme to suit the exact needs of the moment. We may quarrel about the figures and percentages, but there can be no denial that there is a large amount of unemployment, taking the agricultural industry as a whole. I was at a meeting in Bedfordshire only a few days ago where there were over 20 unemployed agricultural workers, whose great desire was for unemployment insurance. I was told that in that area over 100 bona fide agricultural workers are out of employment. What does it matter about high or low percentages? Unemployment can be found, not only in Bedfordshire, but in Kent, Lancashire, Essex, and even in Yorkshire. When the hon. and gallant Member for Richmond was speaking of his own constituency, he certainly was not speaking for the constituency of Buckrose, because the hon. and gallant Member for Buckrose (Major Braithwaite) has repeatedly bombarded my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture with inquiries as to when he is going to introduce an insurance scheme for agricultural workers. If, therefore, there is no unemployment, it must only be in a very small area.

One aspect of this question was hinted at by the hon. and gallant Member for Maldon, who said that the people in constant work are skilled men. Let me give some figures to show what has actually happened, and the dangers that will confront the industry in the very near future. Taking the Census returns as far back as 1861, we find that in 1861 there were 1,098,000 agricultural workers employed in the industry. The figure went steadily down in 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901. It rose slightly in 1911, but went down again in 1921, to 560,000, so that there was a drop of one-half in that period. The figures which, as agriculturists will know, are taken out by the Ministry of Agriculture on the 4th June each year, are not exactly comparable with the census figures, because they do not relate to exactly the same set of people, but, according to these figures, the number employed in the industry in 1921 was 869,000, and in 1929, 770,000, so that between 1921 and 1929 there were nearly 200,000 fewer people in the agricultural industry. [Interruption.] These figures are for England and Wales. If the United Kingdom figures were taken, the decrease would be still larger. That means that thousands of young men, with their lives in front of them, having to choose an occupation or trade, are definitely declining to enter the agricultural industry. Let me give the figures in another way. Between 1921 and 1929 the total number of all agricultural workers declined by 11.3 per cent. The number of regular workers declined by 6.1 per cent., and the number of casual workers by 31.3 per cent. The number of adult male workers declined by 5.3 per cent., while the number of youths under 21 declined by 25 per cent. That shows that every year numbers of lads and boys who normally would go into the occupation of agriculture, if the conditions offered a reasonable life and fair prospects, are going into some other occupation.

We need normally in agriculture between 10,000 and 15,000 boys to come in every year; we are getting a little over 6,000 every year. During the next few years, therefore, the farmers of this country are going to be confronted with one of the greatest problems that has been presented to them in their whole history; they are not going to find sufficient men to work on the land unless the conditions on the land are made comparable with the conditions in general industry. This is a very small country in geographical extent, and you cannot maintain two standards of life in a small country like this—you cannot maintain a standard for the town worker at a comparatively high level, and a low standard for the country worker in the village. Every day is bringing the town nearer to the village; every year is breaking down the distinctions between town and country; and all the forces of modern society and modern life are tending to draw the enterprising, ambitious, clever and able boys out of our schools in the villages and to carry them into the towns and cities. Therefore, what we have to do, not in the interests of the agricultural worker alone, but in the interests of the industry, is to give the agricultural worker the social services that are given to the town worker, and to make his wages and housing conditions approximate to those of the town worker. That, in my judgment, is the only thing that will save the farmers within the next 10 years from having to change completely the whole form of cultivation in this country, and will save arable land from going out of cultivation even more rapidly than it is now.

There is no radical reason why any hon. Member should vote against this Motion. We are not entering into the question of a general scheme or a special scheme. If I may give my own opinion, I am in favour of a special scheme, and I do not accept the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Hayday). We had to take away from the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Labour the administration of the Wages Board Department, which was part and parcel of the Ministry of Labour, and to put it under the Ministry of Agriculture, and I venture to say that anyone who knows anything about the working of the original Wages Board will be willing to certify that no wages board in this country, ether at that time or now, has been administered so efficiently, or has given such general satisfaction to both workers and employers, as the old Wages Board did under the chairmanship of the late Lord Ailwyn, who was the original chairman. There we had complete self-government in industry, with the workers and employers co-operating together. That, in my judgment, could be carried out with unemployment insurance. If agricultural workers are brought into the general scheme and pay the same contribution, we are faced with the difficulty that the unemployed agricultural worker will draw more money—I do not object to that, and I do not think he would—when he is out of work than when he is employed because the benefits for a married man would be on the average larger than the wages that he would get for his normal working week. Therefore, taking things as they are, there will have to be some re-arrangement. We must face this. Until we grant the agricultural worker unemployment insurance, and put him on exactly the same level and treat him as exactly the same kind of human being as the town worker, agriculture will never be in a satisfactory condition in this country. This is an act of goodwill. What will the burden on the employer be even if it is more than 1½d. and 1½d., as it may be. No one would say that is a burden which will be too great and which they cannot afford to bear. I am certain that would help to retain a good number of persons in agriculture and, if we do not do it, we are only accentuating the problem.

This was promised in the Labour party's election manifesto. It is a definite pledge to agricultural workers. Wherever I and my friends go, not only in my own organisation, in the Agricultural Workers' Union, but in every county I visit, there is a definite demand for unemployment insurance, and I hope the Front Bench will be able to give us some measure of comfort and assurance. I know that both the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Labour have had very great problems. I regard it as really a bit of cheek on the part of hon. Members opposite to twit the Minister of Agriculture and ask him why he does not bring in his policy. Why do not hon. Members on the other side put down a Motion to discuss agriculture? Some of us are quite ready to discuss agriculture at any time. It is interesting to know that in this particular year, with its labour problems and with its agricultural depression, the problems with which agriculture is confronted, though they have become worse, are not very much worse. We had the same problems last year and the year before and for several years, and hon. Members opposite were as quiet as the proverbial church mouse. I hope we all shall see the justice of this case and that our friends opposite will not go to a Division, but will agree that this first step should be taken and that it is right and proper that the principle of insurance should be extended to agricultural workers. They may divide when it comes to a question of a special scheme or a general scheme, or on the different benefits, but on the general principle of insurance for agricultural workers I hope that we shall be unanimous, and, if there is a Division, I hope that every agricultural Member in every part of the House will vote for the Motion.

10.0 p.m.

Captain BRISCOE

I support the Amendment, not because there is no information available, but because all the information which is available and which has been examined in the past has shown that it is not desirable that the agricultural worker should be included in the insurance scheme. I am not prepared to vote for a reversal of that authoritative opinion which has been expressed without a further unbiased and exhaustive examination of the question. The last time it was examined at all exhaustively was by the Blanesburgh Committee, which reported three years ago that they did not recommend such a course. That Report was signed by the Minister of Labour. What has occurred during the meantime to make her entirely alter her decision? it is a matter of amazement that the party opposite, of all parties, should be prepared to vote for the inclusion of the agricultural worker without further inquiry. I think I am right in saying that the right hon. Lady recommended that they should not be included.

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Miss Bondfield)

If the hon. and gallant Gentleman asks me, if he reads the Report he will find that the details were not under the consideration of the Committee at all. They were considered by the Hew Committee, and we were largely guided by the result of their examination of it.

Captain BRISCOE

They definitely stated, after examining the Report of the Rew Committee, that they should not be included. One would imagine the party opposite would only wish to include the agricultural worker if they considered that the position in the future was going to be worse than it was three years ago, but they have been led to believe, I understand, by the Prime Minister that in the future, under his gracious guidance, farming is going to be made to pay. One would, therefore, imagine that in the future there would be a smaller case for the inclusion of the agricultural worker than there was in 1927 and not a greater. We have had a further statement from the Minister of Agriculture that, generally speaking, he does not consider that the agricultural industry to-day is in such a state that it wants special legislation. From that we may infer that, in his opinion, the industry is not materially worse than it was three years ago. There, again, we cannot see how the party opposite can, without further inquiry, possibly vote for including the agricultural worker within the scheme. In addition, we have the statement of the Lord Privy Seal not so long ago that, generally speaking, he expects unemployment to improve, which again would rather imply that if there is slight unemployment at the moment, there would be a better chance in the future of getting employment out of the land.

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Noel Buxton)

I said that it would not be correct to describe the depression as universal, though it was very severe.

Captain BRISCOE

I think mine was a fair statement of what the right hon. Gentleman said. It is amazing, after the Report signed by the right hon. Lady, after the party opposite being led to believe that in the future farming is going to be made to pay under the guidance of the Labour Government, and after the assurance of the Minister of Agriculture that agriculture is not in such straits as all that and is not materially worse than it was three years ago, they should completely reverse their opinion. I cannot help feeling suspicious, like many in this House and in the country outside, that this change of opinion is not because they have suddenly a desire to help the agricultural worker, but because they wish to extract payments from the agricultural worker and from the farmer in order to help the industrial insurance fund.

Mr. DALLAS

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade and myself in 1920 sat on a Committee set up by the Minister of Agriculture, and at that time the agricultural workers were against it, and both of us were in favour of it.

Captain BRISCOE

I do not deny that at all, but I am stating events which have happened since then. The fact still remains that the present Minister of Labour two years ago definitely reported against it. That was after examining all the information which was then available. The report definitely stated that she examined the evidence of the Rew Committee as having definitely reported against the agricultural worker being included. I am really concerned about this matter. There is a great divergency of opinion throughout the country and throughout the ranks of the agricultural workers themselves. We have heard it stated this evening that there are definite spots in England where the agricultural worker is against being included. In my constituency there are agricultural workers who are in favour of it. I do not deny that fact at all, but there is a great divergency of opinion. The opinion is not divided politically. There are men who supported me in my constituency, very keen Conservatives, who are definitely in favour of it, but I can quote cases the other way round. If there is this great divergency, we ought to have a very careful examination of the whole question. Really, the opinion of the hon. Member opposite is not worth more than my own opinion. I have taken great trouble to find out what is the feeling in my constituency. It is impossible to say that there is a unanimous feeling one way or another.

Mr. DALLAS

The majority in the hon. and gallant Member's constituency are in favour.

Captain BRISCOE

It varies enormously. I know that the hon. Gentleman has a very great knowledge of my part of the world. My opinion is that it is not as decided as that. I am sure that if the agricultural workers were included, large sections of them would object. There is not the slightest doubt that the cowmen and shepherds and all the skilled men would definitely pay into the fund far more than they would ever hope to get out of it. There are large sections of agricultural workers who would be forced to pay, and would have no chance of getting any benefit out of the fund. I implore the House not to force a proposal of this kind on to the agricultural industry, and especially on to the agricultural labourer, unless it is perfectly certain that the Measure will be one of real benefit. It should not run the risk of compelling him to fall into a scheme which may well prove to be a great hardship upon him, and upon the industry as a whole.

Mr. KEDWARD

I do not wish to detain the House long, because most of the points have already been covered. There has been a good deal of dispute as to the actual facts, but I think that everybody is in favour of getting all the facts we can. At the same time, it is futile to deny that there is very great unemployment and hardships in agriculture just now. The industry is greatly depressed, and you are getting a drifting away from agriculture to the towns which is increasing your problem also there. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Richmond Division (Captain Dugdale) said as far as he could ascertain that in Yorkshire or, his part of Yorkshire at any rate, the problem did not exist at all; in fact there was no unemployment there. If he had read the "Farmer and Stockbreeder" he would have found something which had not been put in from any political point of view, but which was just a report of the representative in that area. I will give it to him now: Ploughing has been delayed by unusual wet and windy weather. Low-lying districts have been flooded. Ploughing is generally well advanced. The low prices for corn and potatoes, together with an advance of 1s. a week in wages, is having a very serious effect on employment. There are both married and single men out of work in many villages. One large village at the foot of the Wolds has 27 married men unemployed. That is from the "Farmer and Stockbreeder" of this week's issue and concerns Yorkshire. I take it that the man who wrote that report had no particular interest in unemployment insurance, but was just reporting these facts to the paper, as it was his duty to do. A little time ago my brother, who is farming in Kent, advertised for a waggoner. He told me when I called upon him, that if he had known what was going to happen, he would not have inserted an advertisement in the paper. Some 30 or 40 men turned up expecting to be put on. He was very distressed at seeing some of these men, who had walked 10 or 12 miles on the off-chance of getting a job. I have heard a great many speeches from the Opposition on my right, and while they put forward all kinds or arguments in balancing the probabilities in regard to pin-points, no one has said that he is definitely in favour of the principle of applying this scheme to agriculture. You can have your inquiry. You will have to have the most searching inquiry. You cannot put this into operation without an inquiry. But are hon. Members in favour of bringing these men within unemployment insurance? That is the point.

Mr. DUNCAN

Or leaving them to starve.

Mr. KEDWARD

Two men came to me last week. One asked for a reference as he was going into the Coldstream Guards. He said he was going out of agriculture, because he did not feel that it was fair to get married and take the risk of the uncertainty in the industry, and he did not feel that he would like to face the fact that he might be discharged. Another man came for a reference because he was going out of agriculture into the police force. He said that while he was there, with unemployment hanging over him, he did not feel free, and a man who is not economically free is not politically free. We think it is right that agricultural labourers should be put on the same basis as other workers. I find a great difference of opinion. I have talked to a number of farmers. There are farmers who say, "Yes, but we cannot bear this burden." There are others who say that they are carrying too heavy a burden already, having, because no provision has been made, to keep their men on in periods of slackness and find something for them to do. If provision had been made for the industry to take care of the margin of labour in time of depression, they would not feel called upon, at any rate, to make a sacrifice they could ill afford to make in the depressed state of the industry, of maintaining labour which does not pay for itself. Then, I find that there are some of the workmen to whom I have spoken who are not in favour of this proposal. They think that probably, so far as they are concerned, they will never be unemployed. They have not been unemployed, and they are afraid that they would have to carry on their backs the people who drift in and out of agriculture, without getting any benefit themselves. Where you have an industry that is seasonal, that demands much more labour in the summer time than in the winter time, it is absolutely unfair to expect the country to provide for that margin of labour, and to keep on providing and making adequate provision for it.

The House would do well to approve the principle of the Motion. A number of hon. Members from Scotland feel that this proposal could not be applied to Scotland, and that it is not needed there. Other hon. Members feel that it ought not to be applied to Wales. Some go so far as to say that it would be a good thing to try a regional experiment at this time, and that that is not new. I do not know whether that can be done, but so far as my constituency goes, which is largely agriculture, I believe the best type of farmer is anxious to get his workers the best conditions, and the younger workers who are looking to the future with the hope that agriculture will be made decent and give them a decent standard of life, are asking that they shall be put on the level of their fellow employés in the town. I hope that the House will not vote for a cut and dried scheme, but for the principle. The time has arrived when these workers ought to be insured against the worst that can come.

In court, the other day, it was a pathetic thing to see the magistrate give an order to evict a family which had fallen out of employment. I went to their aid. They were turned out of their house and had to go to a hoppers' hut, which had a concrete floor, and exist there for a number of weeks until someone took pity on them. That is a scandal, and I am not prepared, surrounded by the luxuries of modern civilisation produced in this House, to see these people robbed of a fair and decent way of life.

Mr. GUINNESS

Both the first speaker and the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Kedward) joined in an appeal to the House not to worry about details, but to agree to the general principles of Unemployment Insurance for agriculture, as a result of the Debate. The mover of the Motion said that he had an open mind as to details. He referred to the Rew Report, but apparently he did not feel satisfied that the proposal made by the majority, of a small contribution of only 1½d. from the employers and the employed in agriculture, was satisfactory. He said that the proposal was debatable. By sticking to generalities hon. Members who support this change have avoided controversy, but in a case of this kind it really is the detail which matters. It is all very well to talk in generalities on the platform, but we have to do something a little more definite.

Mr. W. B. TAYLOR

Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that his Amendment is a direct negative?

Mr. GUINNESS

I have not moved any Amendment.

Mr. TAYLOR

The Amendment which has been moved from your side.

Mr. GUINNESS

Our Amendment asks for more information.

Mr. TAYLOR

It seeks to cut out the practical part of the Resolution.

Mr. GUINNESS

It is not in order to put down a direct negative. The Amendment which has been moved from this side asks for information before coming to a decision. Is it not reasonable that I should put the case for further information? Details do matter on this issue. It may be that if unemployment insurance was extended to agricultural workers at the low cost of 1½d. for employer and employed, as against 7d. or 8d. in the case of other workers, that they would come into the general scheme. It is only reasonable to ask the advocates of this policy to tackle these difficulties of detail. The Rew Committee which went into all the available information were very evenly divided, and the acceptance of the principle of unemployment insurance for agricultural workers was only carried by one vote, and that the vote of the Scottish representative who had already voted against the application of unemployment insurance to the agricultural workers in Scotland. That seems to me to shatter the whole basis of that recommendation.

An HON. MEMBER

When was that?

Mr. GUINNESS

The report was issued in October, 1926. The inter Departmental Committee on unemployment insurance in agriculture, after a careful examination, came to the conclusion that to bring agricultural workers into the general scheme was unacceptable. They could not afford it. Their incidence of unemployment is very low, and if they came into the general scheme it would mean that the poorest paid section of the whole community, with the lowest incidence of unemployment, would give their contributions very largely to the relief of unemployment in the case of people who are far better off and to the relief of the responsibilities of the State in case of a deficit. The right hon. Lady, the Minister of Labour, agreed with this point just before Christmas. I have not her exact words, but I think she told the House how low the incidence of unemployment was in the ease of agricultural workers and that they were, so to speak, good lives which it was very proper to bring in for the solvency of the Fund. Everybody who sits for an agricultural constituency, if he has really discussed the matter with the workers, knows that some would like to come into an agricultural insurance scheme, because they have understood it is going to cost them practically nothing, but if they are told that there is any question of paying 7d. per week, they emphatically express their indignation at any such suggestion. A special scheme would have great advantages from their point of view, but we have no indication whether the Government consider a special scheme practicable and it will need very much stronger justification than anything which is contained in the Hew Report.

Unemployment insurance has gradually developed in this country. Originally there was an expectation of special schemes in the case of one or two industries, like the banks, but the general scheme has become stronger and stronger on the basis of one unified Fund, making no allowance for varying rates of wages or varying risks of unemployment. The finance of the general scheme has also become pretty well settled. In the way of contributions the State does not pay even one-third of the total cost.

Mr. BUCHANAN

It does now.

Mr. GUINNESS

I said "in the way of contributions." Ultimately the State has the responsibility for the solvency of the fund, and that would apply equally in any special scheme. But I am anxious to stress the very big departure from the accepted principle which would be involved both in taking out one particular business, and in the general finance—in giving to one industry with a low incidence of risk a larger contribution from the State than has been afforded to other industries. If you once begin to pick and choose between industries which are to come into the general scheme, it seems to me that there is a great danger to the efficient continuance of that scheme, and that you are subjecting the scheme to very serious dangers of disruption and breakdown. The Hew Committee Report which offered this advice was only passed by the vote of a Scottish member who would not have it at any price for Scotland but wanted to try this unpleasant medicine on the dog. This Committee was able to give no convincing statistical evidence as to what would be the position of the scheme. There was a suggestion that there would probably be 5 per cent. of unemployment amongst regular agricultural workers, and about 3 per cent. among casuals, but these figures were mere surmises. On the other hand we are told by the minority, which after all represented an equal number of English votes, that there is a serious shortage of labour in England.

The problem is not merely one to be looked at from the point of view of insurance, but also from the point of view of finding some better system to secure mobility of labour, to enable an agricultural labourer to transfer easily to a place where there is employment. Where statistics are unexplored the finance based on them is an absolute shot. We know that farmers keep men on if they possibly can, because they know that if the men drop out of employment, even for a few weeks, it means very great hardship. Farmers will not do that in future if they are included in a scheme. It is only human nature. So that will necessarily to a great extent vitiate the figures which have been obtained as to the incidence of unemployment under the present system. I suppose it was these considerations which caused the Blanesburgh Committee to recommend that the matter be left alone. Let me remind the Minister of Labour what the Blanesburgh Committee said. It is true that they did not themselves hear witnesses, but they had the whole available information about agriculture before them. In paragraph 112 they reported that they had had the advantage of re-reading the recent Rew Report. They gave a summary of their conclusions, and they said: In this matter, we are for leaving things, as they were. If the Government have changed their mind, no doubt the right hon. Lady will tell us what new factors have come to her knowledge and what new developments have taken place to justify a change of view. Apart from the practicability of the scheme we ought to know whether it is really wanted by those for whom it is suggested. Agricultural workers were deliberately left out in 1920, and I was very much interested to hear an hon. Member, who speaks with great authority for one of the unions, say that, although the unions were against it in 1920, he was in favour of it. I wonder whether he has had any conclusive evidence of any change of mind.

Mr. BEN RILEY

The Corn Production Act was operating in 1920. That made a great difference.

Mr. GUINNESS

I only want to know whether there is any evidence of a change of mind. I am not raising the point in any controversial sense, but we know the conditions and we know that it is difficult for trade unions to operate in the country. I am sure that he would be the first to admit that they have not the same facilities in the country as they have in the towns, where they are in close touch with all their members. Of course, it is difficult to ascertain the views of the agricultural workers, especially when we have not a concrete scheme about which to consult them. A committee of the Agricultural Wages Board in 1921 examined the matter again, and they came to the same conclusion. What is very interesting is that, admittedly, on the evidence of the Rew Committee the conditions were worse then. I quite see that it is not fair to take as a criterion the number of men registered at the Exchanges. One example has been given where the number on the Exchange was shown to be only half that which the trade union found to be out of work. Still they probably remain in roughly the same proportion and there were between four and five times as many people registered as agricultural workers at the Exchanges in 1921 as there are to-day, according to the figures given before Christmas by the Minister of Agriculture. The conditions therefore are improving and it is natural that they should improve, because we have gone through a period of very sharp contraction in agriculture. That contraction we hope cannot continue indefinitely, naturally, during a period of contraction distress is more acute than it is when agriculture gets to a level below which we hope it is not going to fall any further. Anyhow, the fall in employment is not as great as it was in the days immediately after the slump.

Mr. DALLAS

I think the right hon. Gentleman will admit that things were, a little worse this winter.

Mr. GUINNESS

I am very doubtful. We have to go on very fragmentary information, but I would not say that they are any worse. I have made inquiries and I generally find that where people are out of work there is some local reason such as that land has been sold, or that a farmer has gone bankrupt. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is not all that!"] Naturally, in our own interests, we find out as far as we can what the conditions are, and I would say, generally speaking, that they are very much the same as they were a year ago. The Rew Minority Report gave reasons which appeared to me to be fairly cogent why conditions would become easier. I have not got any evidence that agricultural workers would be anything but bitterly opposed to coming into the costly scheme which would be involved for people of such a small wage. Of course, we are debating all this under a handicap to-night. I do not want to make a party point, but it is evident that at any rate a material factor in the case is what the Government are going to do for agriculture. There will be no case for unemployment insurance if they are going to make the industry profitable. I should be out of order in discussing that, but that just shows the difficulty of these generalities and the necessity for more information. Until we learn more definite y what is to be the policy of the Government to make farming pay, until we have evidence that the evil is so serious that agricultural workers want to make the sacrifices necessary to go into an unemployment insurance scheme, until we know on what basis and on what terms such a scheme is actuarially possible, we are not justified in committing ourselves to the terms of the general Resolution which has been moved to-night.

Miss BONDFIELD

I think we have had an immensely interesting Debate to-night on a most important subject, and I can assure those Members who have taken part in the Debate that the discussion will be borne in mind and the points raised carefully scrutinised by the committee which has this matter under consideration. The question affects practically four Departments, namely, the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Secretary of State for Scotland, and the Treasury, and those four Departments have been in consultation on this matter for some little time now, and hope to be able to prepare some basis, for schemes which we can submit to the Cabinet for a general discussion on the part of those interests concerned, as to whether it can or cannot be regarded as a practicable proposal. I agree that it is to some extent talking in the air, unless there is a concrete scheme to discuss, and, while to-night I shall be most happy to support the Motion before the House, it is a Motion, as has been pointed out, on general principle". When we come to details we have to face the fact that there is a very strong difference of opinion. May I remind the House that when they were trying to extend unemployment insurance in 1920 to many trades, they were in much the same position. The only statistics available in connection with a number of the trades were those supplied by trade unions which happened to be paying unemployment benefit or which had some other form or register of unemployment of their members, and at that period, in 1920, the actuary said about the estimated rates of unemployment: Wherever possible these have been based on the main annual percentages of trade union members unemployed, as supplied to the Board of Trade over a prolonged period, with certain adjustments, and in certain groups of industries no information as to the experience of unemployment appears to be available. In these cases, the rates submitted to me have no statistical basis, though it is evident that they have been very carefully considered. It is clear that while, in order to obtain a financial basis for the scheme, some estimate of the general rate of unemployment is necessary, the material available for the purpose is far from satisfactory. That is inevitable under the circumstances, and the defect is only to be cured by the institution of such a scheme of insurance as is now proposed. In other words, we build up our statistics of unemployment by the operation of an Unemployment Insurance Act. We discover where the unemployment is by the operation of the general register.

May I deal with the point with regard to the Blanesburgh Committee's action in relation to agricultural workers. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Guinness) said that the Hew Committee reported in the autumn of 1926. They were sitting concurrently with the Blanesburgh Committee, and we were not charged with the responsibility of investigating the position of agriculture. There was a regular patchwork of committees about this time. The domestic servants had been considered by a committee under the chairmanship of Mrs. Woods, the question of the lowering of the age of insurance was being considered by another committee, and agriculture was being considered by a committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Rew. All these committees were considering the question, simultaneously with the Blanesburgh Committee, who were considering other issues of the Insurance Acts. We were unable to do anything except report that we proposed nothing in relation to those people who had been considered by those other committees. It was quite impossible for us to analyse the Rew Report, although I can say without a breach of confidence that the tendency of our Committee was to broaden the basis of insurance in every possible way.

Mr. GUINNESS

Did not the Blanesburgh Committee report a good many months after the Rew Committee?

Miss BONDFIELD

As a matter fact, our report was being drafted before we got hold of a copy of the Rew Report.

Captain BRISCOE

Is it not true that the Blanesburgh Report was signed in January, 1927, and the Rew Report in August, 1926?

Miss BONDFIELD

Our Report was being made up in December. The point is that the statement was made that we examined the position of agriculture. We did nothing of the kind. What I want to point out is that since the issue of the Rew Report there has quite obviously been a change of opinion. With regard to the one signatory in the Rew Report who was referred to, we are informed to-day that the secretary and executive of the Farm Servants' Union have been converted by the sequence of events. Just now there is a difference of opinion as to how we are to deal with the question whether agricultural workers should be included in a special scheme or whether we are to try and make some adjustment to bring them within the general framework of the main scheme. That is a matter that will require considerable discussion and debate with the interests concerned. I want to warn hon. Members, especially those who are pinning their faith on the Rew Committee's recommendations, that we cannot do it on the cheap. We must try and find a financial basis which will not merely make a possible scheme, but which will he within the competence of the agricultural labourer to pay.

In relation to the general insurance scheme, there are millions of men and women paying into that scheme whose incidence of unemployment is exceedingly low. They pay year after year, and never suffer a week of unemployment. They do it because they recognise that, at any rate, the risk is covered, and it has a psychological value for them, because it is there in case they want it, but they are also helping to make it possible to pay the benefit for those who have to take greater risks. I take the opportunity of saying this to the agricultural workers of Scotland, and to agricultural workers who are working under the better conditions in the industry: I hope, for the good of other agricultural workers, who are working in the black belts, in the belts where it is almost casual labour, they will come in and add their resources to a general pool scheme of unemployment insurance. The fact that there are a good many good lives in connection with agricultural employment—I mean good in the sense of their having a fair certainty of employment—is all the more reason why those persons should be willing to add their contributions in order to make the lot of their fellow workers a little more easy and a little more secure.

I want to bring them in because I am convinced of the necessity, as the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Dallas) said, of bridging the gap between the conditions obtaining in the countryside and the conditions obtaining in the factories. I want to see the inter-changeability of labour. What is happening in industry to-day? Factories are being taken to the countryside. Workers in those factories are working under regulated wage conditions, perhaps trade board rates. They have their rates of wages fixed. The son or daughter of the agricultural labourer who is working in the fields goes to work in an adjacent factory. They pay their contribution every week into the Unemployment Fund. In time they may go back to the land, but they are not likely to go back to the land if by doing so they will forfeit all the benefit of their insurance. The engineer is coming into agriculture. The big mass production machinery is bringing a new class of labour into the countryside. A man is insured if he works the machine in a town. If he goes into the country to work the machine, whether it be one of electric power or oil power or steam power, he wants to take his wages with him and to take his insurance with him. We do not want to build a wall round agriculture. We want agricultural workers to share in the general social advantages. We want them to be able to feel that a man will be insured whether he works in a factory or on the land, and that standards of life will be more equalised, and I believe one of the ways in which we can help to do that is by evolving a scheme of insurance under which agricultural labourers will not be outclassed in the troublous times of unemployment.

In conclusion, I would say that, while it is perfectly clear that we must do a great deal more investigation, we are using every opportunity of doing this, both through the officers of the Ministry of Agriculture and officers in connection with Employment Exchanges. Where Exchanges are near certain areas of agricultural work, we regularly get labourers coming to them to register for employment, and we are getting their statistics brought into our normal unemployment figures. But there are other areas where we have no Exchange within reach, purely rural areas where, because there is no industry, an Exchange system will have to be developed. I realise, therefore, the difficulties of the task, but difficulties are there to be surmounted, and I assure the House that I should welcome the support which a unanimous vote in favour of this Motion would give us in our task. We could go on with the work knowing that there was general approval of it. We should proceed on the lines of evolving a scheme which would not come straight into this House, but would first be discussed by the farmers and farm workers concerned, and which we should hope to be able to present to this House as an agreed scheme.

Sir HARRY HOPE

I venture to intervene in this Debate in order to bring forward, in a very few words, the Scottish case. That case has not been spoken of to-night, and I hope that hon. Members representing constituencies south of the Tweed will bear with me in saying something about it. The position in Scotland was fully examined a short time ago by the Rew Committee, which was composed of 11 members, who reported unanimously that Scotland should not be brought within the scope of that Measure. The Blanesburgh Committee, in considering the Rew Report, held that nothing should be done. All that was after very exhaustive inquiry, and when we come to consider this question to-night, it is only right that attention ought to be paid to the findings of that Departmental Committee. One might ask how it is that in Scotland there was such unanimous opinion, that the whole of the members of that Departmental Committee reported against inclusion? I think one very important reason is that the system in Scotland has always been that men are engaged for a fairly long and definite period. There are far fewer weekly-rate engaged men than there are working south of the Tweed. Most of the farm workmen in Scotland are engaged either for a fixed six months period or for a yearly period. Therefore, that may have had some effect in determining the Departmental Committee against inclusion.

Consider, for one moment, the position of the agricultural worker at present. I should be out of order in making much reference to it, and I will only say that men engaged in arable agriculture are absolutely in despair as to how they are going to keep going. In these circumstances, what is going to be the effect if the right hon. Gentleman opposite says that the only thing he can offer them, and which he does offer them, is to bring them within the dole system? I think an announcement of that sort will create absolute despair and chaos throughout the ranks of agriculturists in Scotland. Consider the effect which this will have upon the industry in another way. Most of the men working on our Scottish farms are engaged for a lengthy period, either for six or 12 months. With men engaged for that lengthy period there are, of course, times when they are put on to do somewhat unnecessary work in the less-busy times of the year. If these men are brought under the Insurance Act, and a heavy burden is placed upon these farmers, I think one of the first effects will he that those farmers will discontinue keeping up these long-term engagements, which have been of such a very helpful nature to the men in Scotland. Instead of a Measure of this sort, we want the right hon. Gentleman to consider this question seriously, and take steps to make the industry profitable. I am sure that if the right hon. Gentleman does that he will have the support of the people in the agricultural districts of Scotland.

Mr. GRUNDY 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.

Mr. ROSBOTHAM

The Motion before the House is one which asks us to approve of the principle of the extension of unemployment insurance to agricultural workers, and I rise to support that principle. I wish to express my thanks to the Minister of Labour for her kind promise to give consideration to the proposal. On this question I speak as a farmer, and I believe it will be in the interests of farmers generally that the agricultural workers should be brought within the scope of this proposal. For these reasons I give it my whole-hearted support.

Mr. GRUNDY rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question he now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

Mr. R. W. SMITH

I wish to express my regret that the Minister of Agriculture has not up to the present made any reply to this Motion on behalf of the Government. I think we ought to have heard from the right hon. Gentleman what is the condition of agriculture at the present time, and what he thinks the effects of this proposal would be upon the agricultural industry. The Minister of Agriculture might have told the House whether the Government have any agricultural policy, and I regret that the right hon. Gentleman has not taken this opportunity of giving us some idea of what is the policy of the Government with regard to unemployment insurance. We have been left with no advice whatever from the Government on that point. The Minister of Labour said that the Blanesburgh Committee had not considered this question, but I believe that Committee was set up in order to consider

the whole question of unemployment.

Miss BONDFIELD

The hon. Member is mistaken. His own Government set up the other Committee to consider that question.

Mr. SMITH

The right hon. Lady says that the evidence was taken on this question by the other Committee.

Mr. GRUNDY rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put accordingly, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 185; Noes, 82.

Division No. 121.]	AYES.	[11.0 p.m.
Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, Went)	Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)	March, S.
Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)	Gray, Milner	Marcus, M.
Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher	Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)	Markham, S. F.
Alpass, J. H.	Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro' W.)	Marley, J.
Arnott, John	Grundy, Thomas W.	Mathers, George
Aske, Sir Robert	Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)	Maxton, James
Baldwin, Oliver (Dudley)	Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)	Messer, Fred
Barnes, Alfred John	Hall, Capt. W. P. (Portsmouth, C.)	Mills, J. E.
Batey, Joseph	Harbison, T. J.	Morgan, Dr. H. B.
Benn, Rt. Hon. Wedgwood	Harbord, A.	Morley, Ralph
Bennett, William (Battersea, South)	Hardie, George D.	Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)
Benson, G.	Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon	Mort, D. L.
Bentham, Dr. Ethel	Hastings, Dr. Somerville	Muff, G.
Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)	Hayday, Arthur	Muggeridge, H. T.
Birkett, W. Norman	Hayes, John Henry	Murnin, Hugh
Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret	Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)	Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Bowen, J. W.	Henderson, Arthur, Junr. (Cardiff, S.)	Noel Baker, P. J.
Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.	Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield)	Oliver, p. M. (Man., Blackley)
Broad, Francis Alfred	Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)	Owen, H. F. (Hereford)
Bromfield, William	Horrabin, J. F.	Palin, John Henry
Bromley, J.	Hunter, Dr. Joseph	Paling, Wilfrid
Brown, C. W. E. (Notts, Mansfield)	Johnston, Thomas	Palmer, E. T.
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)	Jones, Rt. Hon Leif (Camborne)	Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Buchanan, G.	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Perry, S. F.
Buxton, C. R. (Yorks, W. R. Elland)	Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W.	Phillips, Dr. Marion
Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel (Norfolk. N.)	Jowitt, Rt. Hon. Sir W. A.	Pole, Major D. G.
Cameron, A. G.	Kedward, R. M. (Kent, Ashford)	Potts, John S.
Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S. W.)	Kelly, W. T.	Price, M. P.
Clarke, J. S.	Kennedy, Thomas	Quibell, D. J. K.
Cocks, Frederick Seymour	Kinley, J.	Ramsay, T. B. Wilson
Daggar, George	Kirkwood, D.	Raynes, W. R.
Dalton, Hugh	Lang, Gordon	Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)	Lathan, G.	Riley, Ben (Dewsbury)
Devlin, Joseph	Law, Albert (Bolton)	Riley, F. F. (Stockton-on-Tees)
Dickson, T.	Law, A. (Rosendale)	Ritson, J.
Dudgeon, Major C. R.	Lawson, John James	Romeril, H. G.
Dukes, C.	Leach, W.	Rosbotham, D. S. T.
Duncan, Charles	Lee, Frank (Derby, N. E.)	Rothschild, J. de
Ede, James Chuter	Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern)	Rowson, Guy
Edmunds, J. E.	Lees, J.	Russell, Richard John (Eddisbury)
Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)	Lewis, T. (Southampton)	Salter, Dr. Alfred
Foot, Isaac	Lindley, Fred W.	Samuel, H. W. (Swansea, West)
Forgan, Dr. Robert	Lloyd, C. Ellis	Sawyer, G. F.
Freeman, Peter	Logan, David Gilbert	Scrymgeour, E.
Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)	Longden, F.	Sexton, James
Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith. N.)	Lovat-Fraser, J. A.	Shepherd, Arthur Lewis
Gibbins, Joseph	Lowth, Thomas	Sherwood, G. H.
Gibson, H. M. (Lancs, Mossley)	Lunn, William	Shield, George William
Gill, T. H.	Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)	Shillaker, J. F.
Glassey, A. E.	MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)	Simmons, C. J.
Gossling, A. G.	McEntee, V. L.	Smith, Alfred (Sunderland)
Smith, Ben (Bermundsey, Rotherhithe)	Vaughan, D. J.	Wilkinson, Ellen C.
Smith, Frank (Nuneaton)	Viant, S. P.	Williams, David (Swansea, East)
Smith, Tom (Pontetract)	Walker, J.	Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
Smith, W. R. (Norwich)	Wallace, H. W.	Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip	Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)	Wilson, J. (Oldham)
Sorensen, R.	Wellock, Wilfred	Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)
Stephen, Campbell	Welsh, James C. (Coatbridge)	Winterton, G. E. (Leicester, Loughb'gh)
Strauss, G. R.	West, F. R.	Wise, E. F.
Sutton, J. E.	Westwood, Joseph
Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S. W.)	White, H. G.	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Tinker, John Joseph	Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood)	Mr. Dallas and Mr. Gould.
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles	Whiteley, William (Blaydon)
NOES.
Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel	Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.	Ross, Major Ronald D.
Alien, W. E. D. (Belfast, W.)	Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton	Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart
Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.	Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)	Shepperson, Sir Ernest Whittome
Atholl, Duchess of	Greene, W. P. Crawford	Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's U., Belfst)
Balfour, Captain H. H. (I. of Thanet)	Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John	Skelton, A. N.
Beaumont, M. W.	Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.	Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)
Boothby, R. J. G.	Gunston, Captain D. W.	Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Bourne, Captain Robert Croft	Hanbury, C.	Smith-Carington, Neville W.
Bowyer, Captain Sir George E. W.	Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Bracken, B.	Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller	Southby, Commander A. R. J.
Braithwaite, Major A. N.	Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)	Stanley, Maj. Hon. O. (W'morland)
Briscoe, Richard George	Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)	Steel-Maitland, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur
Cautley, Sir Henry S.	Lamb, Sir J. Q.	Thomas, Major L. B. (King's Norton)
Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth, S.)	Leighton, Major B. E. P.	Thomson, Sir F.
Christie, J. A.	Little, Dr. E. Graham	Todd, Capt. A. J.
Colville, Major D. J.	Lymington, Viscount	Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon
Courtauld, Major J. S.	McConnell, Sir Joseph	Wallace, Capt. D. E. (Hornsey)
Crookehank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)	Makins, Brigadier-General E.	Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert
Croom-Johnson, R. P.	Margesson, Captain H. D.	Warrender, Sir Victor
Dalkeith, Earl of	Marjoribanks, E. C.	Wayland, Sir William A.
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)	Mond, Hon. Henry	Wells, Sydney R.
Dixey, A. C.	Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. Sir B.	Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)
Dixon, Captain Rt. Hon. Herbert	Muirhead, A. J.	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Duckworth, G. A. V.	Oman, Sir Charles William C.	Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton
Edmondson, Major A. J.	O'Neill, Sir H.
Elliot, Major Walter E.	Peake, Captain Osbert	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Everard, W. Lindsay	Penny, Sir George	Captain Dugdale and Lieut.-Colonel Ruggles-Brise.
Ferguson, Sir John	Rentoul, Sir Gervais S.
Flson, F. G. Clavering	Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Rennell

Main Question put accordingly, and agreed to.

Main Question again proposed.

It being after Eleven of the Clock, and objection being taken to further Proceeding, Mr. SPEAKER proceeded to interrupt the business.

Whereupon Mr. GRUNDY rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Resolved, That, in the opinion of this House unemployment insurance should be extended to include agricultural workers.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

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1. ADJOURNMENT. 16 words