§ Again considered in Committee.
§ [Mr. ROBERT YOUNG in the Chair.]
§ Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTERI was dealing with the question of the way in which the price was going to be fixed, and I was giving an example of price-fixing where it was the invariable experience that when you come to fix the prices you do not fix them upon what the most efficient producer does, but something nearer to the least efficient producer. That will undoubtedly be true in this case. If that is so by fixing a minimum price, as you are going to do under this extraordinary Clause, you are not only committed, but you are actually directed and ordered to fix a minimum price for every class of coal sold by every owner in the country. If you are going to fix the price at that which suits the least efficient mine, you ire giving a serious discouragement to efficient selling and to the amalgamation of selling organisations, and you are directly stabilising the quota of the more extensive pits at an unnecessarily high price.
There is no doubt at all that the ten dency will be to fix the minimum prices at prices that will suit the most expensive pits. If you do that you give a double advantage to those pits, and you are giving an unnatural and a thoroughly unnecessary sort of subsidy to the least economic pits. Then let me show how hopelessly inelastic is this provision. You have to fix prices for every class of coal, and in no case must the coal be sold lower than the minimum price which has been fixed. A proposal of that kind cannot be carried out without causing 2189 great inconvenience and loss to the-trade. We do not know on what principle those prices are going to be fixed. How are you going to deal with a mine which accepts a contract for 10 tons of coal and a mine which is dealing with a contract for 10,000 tons of coal? Apparently, the minimum price is fixed for a particular class of coal. A man may have a contract to deliver 10 tons or 10,000 tons of the same class of coal. Under this provision, is the man who is selling 10,000 tons of coal to be compelled to sell at the same price as the man who is selling only 10 tons?
Apparently, under this Clause that man is so bound, unless you have a second series of compulsory prices based on the varying amounts sold as well as on the various classes of coal. I do not believe anybody can conduct their business under a number of restrictions of that kind. You must have elasticity which enables you to have varying prices according to the amount that is sold, and the sellers should be able to vary the price by aggregating it over a number of different classes of coal. The President of the Board of Trade knows the coal trade very well, and I am sure he will not dissent from that proposition, because he knows that where a large buyer comes into the market for a very large consignment of coal, the seller generally quotes an "all-in" price, and he may not be able to do that on one class of coal, and it would suit the pits much better that he should be able to deliver a variety of coal rather than the particular class of coal in regard to which the price has been fixed.
Under this Bill the seller will not be able to do that. If a seller, in making his contract for supplying 10,000 tons of coal, wanted to mix two classes of coal, and he had given an "all-in" price, if that price was rather cheaper than the price fixed for the better class of coal, he could not make up part of his cargo out of the other class however convenient it might be, or however advantageous it might be to him in maintaining the good will of his customer, and that possibly a foreign customer. I put it to the President of the Board of Trade, with all the knowledge which he has amassed of the coal trade, does he believe that anyone can work the inelastic provision which he has put forward? I say that such a proposal is 2190 hopelessly unfair to the consumer, and I do not believe you can put in any amendment to this proposal which will protect the consumer.
I know the right hon. Gentleman thinks that all the machinery he has inserted in the Bill will give effective protection, but you can only have one effective protection for the consumer, and that is to give people freedom to charge a lower price if they find that it is to their business interest. I think these people should be encouraged to compete with each other, limited though they are by the quota. But after forcing the quota upon them, do for heaven's sake let the keen selling pit give the consumer the benefit of its better organisation. You cannot protect the consumer if once you pass this provision, because you will find it unworkable. Not only will you penalise the consumer, but, at the same time, you will be penalising the efficient pits which, according to the President of the Board of Trade, you are desirous of helping under this scheme. This is the acid test, and if you leave this Clause in, you leave the consumer unprotected.
§ 6.0 p.m.
§ The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. William Graham)On my return from Geneva, which is associated with the cause of world peace, I find that a calm has settled down on the face of the Coal Mines Bill, and I will endeavour to act in keeping with that spirit in a necessarily brief speech on each of these Amendments. This Clause of the Bill provides for the fixing of minimum prices under the district schemes, with, in the second part of the Clause, a safeguard that these minimum prices will not be undermined by rebates or private arrangements or other devices, which could of course in practice make a considerable inroad into any minimum price regulation. The large question before the Committee, having regard to the stage of the Bill which, we have now reached, is whether any kind of minimum price provision is necessary at all. In the earlier stages of these Debates I remember the argument that, if there was a proper adjustment of standard tonnage and an appropriate quota, and if that applied to all the pits—as it would apply under this scheme—in any district, the question of price regulation might be left to take care of itself. Up to a point there 2191 is a good deal of support for an argument of that kind, but the argument is very far from being complete. If we take the case of the Westphalian Syndicate, it is true that that syndicate sells through an adjacent body, and by that device it gets price regulation, but that did not relieve the syndicate of the task of regulating output, that is to say, output or quota was bound up with minimum price. Similarly, in the case of South Wales, to take an illustration from this country, I believe that there they began with some form of simple price regulation, but they had to pass to a quota; and to take a case in the reverse direction, in the Five Counties Scheme, which was founded upon the regulation of output in terms of quota, there seems to be no doubt at all that there was a certain weakness in that scheme, owing to the fact that it has not been possible to maintain a complete minimum price control, because of those owners which remained outside the scheme. I suggest to the Committee that, even if the standard tonnage and the quota are complete, there is still a case for minimum price. It is beyond dispute, and this is really the essence of the Government's defence of this Clause, that, even where we had a complete scheme applicable to any district, with all the owners in that district included, and with the standard tonnage and quota complete, the presence of even one or two people who practised weak selling would make a very serious inroad into the success of the plan. I put that forward as a general consideration in defence of this Clause.
Moreover, there are certain facts at the moment which I think the Committee would do well to bear in mind. I am advised that, because of the weakness in foreign selling in the Durham area, there has been a further inroad upon the position of the coal industry in that district, more particularly vis-a-vis Belgium and Germany, whereas, on the other hand, where there has been a more complete regulation, as in South Wales, it has been possible to maintain the price at a somewhat better level, and thus contribute to the stability of the industry. Therefore, in view of the broad features to which I have just referred, and of the concrete 2192 illustrations of what is going on every day under existing conditions, I am satisfied that it is the duty of the Government to retain this Clause in the Bill.
My right hon. Friend who has just spoken has suggested that this is a problem which must have adverse reactions on the home demand. In other words, he seemed to argue that it is the home demand which is going to be penalised and to carry a great part of the contribution, while other sections of the demand will get correspondingly easier conditions. I must not go back to the decision taken by the Committee in regard to the export levy a few days ago, but I would say, on this question of minimum prices, and, indeed, all the other features in the Bill, that the condition of this industry is from many points of view hopeless unless the export trade can be substantially recovered. I do not take the view that there is going to be any generally adverse effect on the home demand. That there will be a higher price for certain classes of home demand is beyond dispute, but that is not to suggest that there is going to be an extravagant price, or anything other than what I have constantly described as an economic price within this country—that is to say, the prevention of the sale of coal at a loss. If we cannot bring that about by this scheme, it is idle to proceed with this Bill at all.
There are far more safeguards than my right hon. Friend suggests. A great deal of the argument which has been led against this Bill has proceeded on the assumption that owners and the industry generally are going to force up prices to such a point as to make conditions almost impossible for the consumer. What would be the inevitable effect of any tendency of that kind? There would be an overwhelming and an irresistible demand for the repeal of this legislation. There would be a widespread encouragement of the use of all alternative forms of fuel—fuel oil and the rest; and it has been pointed out to us again and again what a large part of the Mercantile Marine has been adapted for the use of fuel oil, and how many alternative arrangements to coal have been made. All of these forces would be stimulated, and, therefore, in my judgment, the owners and the industry would be cutting their own throats 2193 if they took any step of that kind. Under this scheme, however, we provide for committees of investigation, not only nationally, but in the districts, and, if there is any abuse under a district scheme, it will be the duty of the committee to investigate it at once. I have previously indicated that, while all these complaints would not be exclusively complaints on price, they would very often be complaints on price, and this machinery comes into immediate operation. Beyond that there is the right to independent arbitration, and, if a remedy is not found, the scheme could be modified in such a way as to provide a remedy, or, in the last resort, the Board of Trade may put in a scheme of its own. AH these safeguards exist, and I suggest that they will be sufficient if there is to be any confidence in this industry at all—and I have never disguised the fact that under this Bill we must trust the industry. That is the only way in which the Bill can operate. We think that the provisions which have been made for safeguarding all legitimate interests are reasonably complete. There is not the slightest doubt that, if we took away this provision from the Bill, it would be open to any class of weak sellers which could survive, and, in my judgment, would survive, even under the complete quota regulation, to do a great deal in an individual district, and it might be in a number of districts, to undermine the whole plan, which is a plan not for maintaining excessive prices, but for safeguarding the sale of coal at an economic level. If that step were taken, it would be just as well to abandon the Bill altogether. For these reasons it would not be wise for the Committee and the Government to accept this Amendment, and it will be our duty to resist it if it is pressed to a Division.
§ Sir ROBERT HORNEI live in constant admiration of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade. He is, without exception, the most lucid speaker that we have in the House, and from time to time I have paid a tribute to him for the clear way in which he has put forward his argument. I confess, however, that I have never known him so halting as this afternoon. That very logical faculty which enables him to put before the House so clear an account of what he is trying to commend 2194 to it, involves that he himself must be one of the first to see the pitfalls of his own argument, and to me it was quite obvious that he was thoroughly aware of the great chasms that were in front of him as he proceeded. Let us look for a moment at the argument which he has presented. By way of a preliminary, I would point out to the Committee that, when you give, in addition to the right to fix a quota, the privilege also of fixing prices, you are giving a double defence. In the ordinary way, a business man is quite content if he can fix the amount of production according to the amount of the demand, because the old doctrine of economics always applies, that, if the demand exceeds the supply, you will certainly get a good price, because no one will be compelled to work for anything less than an economic price. It is when you get a surplus of supply over demand that you have that competition which induces some people to sell, occasionally, at less than an economic price. But if your supply is only equal to the demand—and that is the condition which is being created by this Bill—there is absolutely no need whatsoever to fix a minimum price, and to do it by an Act of Parliament in such circumstances is something that has never been seen in any country in the world.
What are the excuses which the right hon. Gentleman is presenting? He has given two illustrations. One is that of the Five Counties Scheme, where the weakness of the situation was that there was no compulsion upon all the coal-masters to come into the group, and there was no quota of production for the whole district, so that a variety of people stood out, amongst them some of the Friends of right hon. Gentlemen on the bench below the Gangway, who induced them to see the weakness of this scheme, and who were largely responsible for the eloquence of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel), when he addressed the House upon the iniquity of any price-fixing system at all. You have undoubtedly, in these circumstances, what my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade described as weak sellers. Because they were outside the scheme, and nothing could compel them to come in, they took advantage of the fact that there was a certain group which had agreed to keep 2195 up prices, and they came in and undersold them. In such circumstances, of course, you have weak sellers, and you require the fixation of prices. But when the Government compels everyone to come into the group, and fixes the quota for the whole group, there is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for fixing a price, because weak sellers are entirely done away with. The production of a district is fixed only at the amount of the demand. Who is the fool that will come in and sell at an uneconomic price in such circumstances? Where are you going to find weak sellers when they have been eliminated by a system of quota? What is being done is to put a power into the hands of a group who may undoubtedly abuse it very severely.
My right hon. Friend's other illustration was that of South Wales. There there was a voluntary scheme, but no quota, and no power to fix a quota. It is useless to try to keep up prices if production is unlimited, because, immediately the coal is produced, the people who have produced it must find a market for it. Everyone is competing against everyone else, and an attempt to keep up prices is useless. Neither of these cases is at all an illustration for my right hon. Friend's argument. Let us see what is going to happen. His argument, as I have already pointed out, is as to the danger of the weak seller bringing down his scheme, but everyone who contemplates the situation that is going to arise knows that there are going to be no weak sellers against whom protection is required. The situation is going to be settled by the Government under the scheme. But, says my right hon. Friend, look at the safeguards. How is the position being safeguarded? I agree that you can, by the system which has been adopted in the Bill, if the abuse becomes of a very inordinate character, take measures under the Bill to have that abuse destroyed, although that is going to take a considerable time, and it will be necessary to go through a very large number of processes to accomplish it. But in the meantime people who may be hunting for markets may be very severely caught, and may lose the opportunity of making their contracts while all this long process is being gone through of inquiry in 2196 the districts, by the Consumers' Council, and ultimately by the Board of Trade. How long is that going to take, and what is the consumer going to do in the meantime?
That is not really the kind of circumstance that I fear; I do not think that the coalmasters are going to be such fools as violently to abuse the position. What they will do will be to make their increases such as will make attack upon them very difficult, but still such as to be sufficient to affect the market, and undoubtedly to affect injuriously the position of those who, upon very narrow margins, are attempting to make contracts the basis of the price of which is the coal that they have to purchase. This question of the price of coal runs through the whole gamut of their trades—cotton, wool, linen, steel, and so on. They are working on a very small margin, and an increase in the price of their coal is going to make the difference between getting a contract and not getting it in these other trades. I nave not the slightest doubt that these increases of price which the right hon. Gentleman says are inevitable, and which be intends to produce by his Bill—for it is because he regards coal as a sweated industry that he is taking these measures in its favour—I have not the slightest doubt that this increase in prices must be in the home market, because you cannot increase prices in the export market, where you are in competition with other countries. What is going to happen to all these consumers' prices for the coal which is really the food of their industries, when these prices are increased by a figure which they cannot violently attack upon the economic statistics of the coal trade, and yet which makes all the difference in their contracts?
I venture to say to this Committee that, when you gave to the coalmasters the power to fix the quota, you gave all that was economically necessary, if even that is necessary; but to fortify this extraordinary power is more than I can imagine any Legislature in its senses agreeing to. I am sure that my right hon. Friend only succumbed to it under some extraordinary pressure, but why the Liberal party should have chosen this, of all occasions, to desert from their attitude of opposition is almost impos- 2197 sible to imagine by anyone who recalls the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen on this topic. Was ever a proposal so scornfully torn to tatters as he did with this proposal of fixing prices? It seems unconscionable that he should run away to-day from the attack which he so strongly made in favour of the consumers of this, country. Moreover, the Liberals will not even acknowledge the position. They have to find an excuse if they are not to be branded before the country as people who are in favour of dear coal; and, accordingly, they blame the condition of the Naval Conference for the fugitive retreat which they have been making. It was not the Naval Conference; it was another conference at a luncheon that took place the other day. It is unimaginable that that luncheon was arranged while the danger of this sword of Damocles was held over the head of the Government; there was some arrangement about which we have still to learn before this matter is cleared up, although it takes some of the sting out of the Division Lobbies to-night. We, at least, are here to maintain what we believe to be right in this matter, and not what we believe to be expedient, and I, for my part, cannot conceive that even the Ministers who present this Clause for our acceptance can possibly believe that it ought to be commended to the country.
§ Captain PEAKEI want to reinforce my right hon. Friend's arguments by pointing out some of the grave practical difficulties of fixing minimum prices, as we have to do under this Clause for every class of coal. That involves the classification of every class of coal raised in the country. When coal comes out of the mine it passes over the screens. It is sized into six, seven or eight different sizes. Many of those sizes are then sent on to the washery or to the dry cleaner. Coal is sold dry or it is sold washed. Many of those sizes, after they have been washed, are mixed, and in that way you have one colliery producing 15 or 16 and up to 20 different grades of coal. As between colliery and colliery there are vast differences in the grades of coal produced from identical seams. I could give an example of coal raised at two adjacent pits from the same seam. At one colliery the coal has always com- 2198 manded a price of 4s. a ton more than the same coal from the same seam at the adjacent colliery. I do not want to throw too much light upon the secrets of the coal trade, but your classes of coal are not fixed things. They vary according to the state of trade. When trade is good, you can sell your coal very much easier than when trade is bad, and you can sell your washed coal with a higher percentage of dirt and ash in it when trade is good than when trade is bad.
When you have sold washed and graded coal with more ash or dirt in it than it ought to contain, you get a complaint. You send your agent to meet the buyer. You agree, possibly, that the coal was below specification and you are threatened with an action for breach of warranty. You make a reduction in the price to meet that complaint. Under this Bill no owner will be free to make a reduction to meet a complaint of that sort. He would be infringing the Statute and laying himself open to a fine. What has been found about selling coal with fixed prices is that you cannot classify it thoroughly according to scientific, calorific analysis. All that has been done, or ever will be attempted, is to classify your coal according to its destination. That seems to me to be totally unfair. You say to your buyer, "Because you are a public utility company, because you are gas or electricity, you will have to pay a certain price," but the industrial user buying his coal, turning it into electric power or gas, for exactly the same purposes, because he is not a public utility company, will get his coal at a different rate.
Our experience has been in the Five Counties Scheme that output regulation is good for the industry and for the consumer as well. Output regulation has succeeded in doing four things. It gives regularity of work, and regularity is good for every human and inhuman organism. It has concentrated production at the better pits. The pits that have been closed have been preserved as a national asset and not abandoned and thrown away. The day will come when they will be required again. I look forward to a gradual re-expansion of the British coal trade. If you are going to have pits closed and abandoned, pits in many cases partly developed, you are throwing away a great national asset, because no mining engineer is ever going to re-open a col- 2199 liery that has been abandoned for any length of time. The big thing that regulation of output has succeeded in doing is reducing the cost of production. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) has explained this afternoon that he attacked the quota because he thought it would increase the cost of production. In the Midlands you have had regulation of output working for over two years. The quarterly summaries published by the Mines Department show clearly what the effect of regulation has been upon the cost of production. There are four great districts where there has been no alteration in wages in the last 2½ years—Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, South Wales and Scotland. If you look at the cost of production in the last quarter before the Five Counties Scheme operated, the March quarter of 1928, and then at the last quarter available to-day, the September quarter of 1929, you will find that the fall in the regulated districts of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire has been 5d. and 7d. per ton, and the fall in the unregulated districts, South Wales and Scotland, has been, respectively, only 4d. and 2d.
Fixation of prices, on the other hand, to my mind has no saving grace at all. An increase in the all-round price is going to help to keep alive the pits which at present are economic, and some of which are inefficient. The only necessity for fixation of price is to finance the shorter hours that are being introduced under the Bill. We can quite understand and sympathise with the very grave dilemma in which hon. Members below the Gangway have placed themselves in this matter. They refused to support the proposal we put forward for the spreadover of the hours, a proposal which would have made unnecessary any rise in the price of coal. They have, therefore, supported something which makes necessary a rise in the price of coal. Cab drivers have some ugly words for people who hire a taxi and refuse to pay the fare. The other side of the dilemma is this. For many years the consumer has been the best friend of the Liberal party. Many a good proposal advocated by hon. Members on this side of the House has been defeated by the cry of "cost you more." The poor old war horse upon which the Liberal party has ridden to 2200 so many victories is going to be exported for slaughter. It is a very extraordinary thing to me that the Liberal party should have wasted so much of their breath in criticising and attacking the one thing it wants, the quota system, whilst leaving the consumer unprotected in the one dear coal Sub-section in this dear coal Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs said on the Second Reading:
The Government have chosen that crude burdensome method, easy but pernicious, of merely putting up prices.He went on to speak of the consumers of domestic coal,the most defenceless of all God's creatures against a monopoly."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th December, 1929; col. 1677, Vol. 233.]There they are! They have been completely thrown over.Now I come to what I consider the most vicious and dangerous part of the right hon. Gentleman's proposal. He knows the system of wage ascertainment in the industry. If the price of coal at the pit is 14s. a ton, you first of all take off costs other than wages. Those costs are usually about 4s, a ton. That leaves you 10s. to divide between the owners and the men. Under the system obtaining, 85 per cent. of that—8s. 6d.—goes to the miners and is. 6d. to the owners. The pressure to increase the price of coal is not going to come so much from the owners as from the Miners' Federation, because out of every half-crown by which the price is increased, 2s. 2d. is going into the wages of the men and only 4d. into the pockets of the coal-owner. That is what I fear most under the Bill. There is no protection for the consumer other than the coalowner himself. In Germany, where they have compulsory fixation of prices, they have a National Coal Council, consisting of 50 per cent. representatives of the mining industry, men and owners, and 50 per cent. representative of the public and of Government Departments. When the men approach the owners for an increase of wages, and point out that all they have to do to meet the increase is to put up the price, the owners can say, "We will ask the National Coal Council to increase the price." They go to the Council and the increase is rejected. They can then go back to the men and say, "We have done our best to secure this but we have failed." What is going to happen under 2201 this Bill? The owners have no buffer of any sort. They know full well that the public are sick and tired of disputes in the mining industry and they will be tempted to take the easy course of putting up the price of coal. To my mind this is almost the worst proposal in the Bill. It is a real danger to the public. There is a real danger of infinitely dearer coal for every consumer of this valuable commodity.
§ Colonel CLIFTON BROWNMy hon. Friend represents a district which sometimes comes into competition with mine, and I cannot accept entirely as gospel what he has said about the merits of regularising coal output. He said that costs in Yorkshire and the other districts have come down more than in Scotland and elsewhere. But I think there is far more room for costs to come down in Yorkshire than in Scotland, Northumberland or the other districts. I want to pass on to what the President of the Board of Trade said because, he suggested that, owing to congestion on the Continent, trade with Durham was going down. It is true that the trade of Durham is not so good as it was. It is true that there is congestion on the Continent, but the real reason is because this Bill was introduced. There are not the number of demands coming from Scandinavia as have been coming in the past. They are waiting on that side until they can get coal which has been made artificially cheaper to them and dearer to us. That is the reason that trade in Durham and some of these counties is slacking off at the present moment. This part of the Bill is one of the reasons why the exporting districts are almost unanimously against the Bill. Ninety per cent. of our export trade is against the Bill and against this particular part of the Bill, because a minimum price cannot do any good to the export trade and is bound to do harm. In my opinion, it will do harm to miners' wages as well.
I want to call the attention of the Committee to what really happens when you are selling coal. A colliery perhaps at one period of the year secures contracts to enable it to carry on for a considerable time, and then comes a period when additional contracts cannot be obtained. There is an interval. It goes into the market until it can get 2202 another long contract and becomes a weak seller and cuts the price to a certain extent. Unless it does so the pit may grow idle and go on short time for a certain period and the men lose work. If a pit can quote a lower price for a short period and lose a certain amount per ton, that system of competition, although it creates a weak seller at the moment, is a great safeguard to the wages of the men.
I will give another illustration concerning what happens when a contract has been obtained to send coal across the North Sea to Scandinavia. The coal has been obtained at the colliery, but there is a delay in regard to the shipping, and the colliery has either to sell that coal or else it has to stop work. We cannot store coal in this country as they do in Westphalia. Our coal is not of the same kind. Our gas coal, for instance, when once it is on the top, deteriorates. The only way of storing coal is by putting it into coal wagons, and that becomes an expensive job after a short time. Therefore, when an accident of this kind occurs and the ship is delayed, the coal master is bound to go into the market and accept an order for coal at a very low price so as to enable him to keep his colliery running. This Bill fixes prices so near the economic market price that you will not be able to cut prices in that way, and the pits will have to go short of orders and the men will have to work short time.
For these reasons, our export trade is entirely against this proposal of fixing prices. They believe that, with the intricacies and difficulties of the export trade and the necessity for taking quick action, the proposal is inevitably going to do far more harm than good. My hon. Friend the Member for North Leeds (Captain Peake) made reference to the difficulty of classifying coal and fixing prices for every single kind of coal. He mentioned the varieties and sizes of coal at one colliery alone. You have not only to consider the various grades of coal, but also the various qualities of coal. You have gas coal, steam coal and coking coal; all these are divided into various classes, and, when you start to subdivide them into sizes, you are going to get such a long list of mixed prices that the whole thing will become impracticable. A fixed price of this kind is not necessarily going to help coal 2203 masters when they start to sell coal against competitors abroad, seeing that our lowest price is fixed too low. We know exactly what the price is for each particular quality of our export coal. Our competitors will be sure to undercut us and go a little lower and so obtain orders in consequence. For these reasons, the exporting districts are very much against this Bill.
§ Major GEORGE DAVIESAs my right hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Sir P. Cunliffe-Lister) has said, this Subsection is the acid test of the real intention of the Measure. In fact, we have reached the most important obstacle in the grand nationalisation of coal race in which the President of the Board of Trade has been engaged for some time. He has flown some of his fences in the beet possible style. He has pecked here and there but recovered, he has gone a "purler" over Becher's Brook and been able to remount with the assistance of his trainer the Prime Minister, and now as he is coming to the Canal turn the spectators are holding each other's breath to see what is going to happen, all except the late occupants of the Liberal Benches who are so breathless over their audacity in having voted against the President of the Board of Trade on a previous Amendment that they have no breath left to hold. If we did not see this in black and white before our eyes, it would be incredible that a Socialist Government should bring forward a Bill containing a provision of this sort. One could have understood it if the President had presented to us a scheme which, under some of these Clauses was going to break up rings and trusts in the interests of the consumers and set up a maximum price above which it was not to be permissible to sell one of the necessities of life to the people of this country. Here we are facing this Gilbertian state of affairs, that, instead of breaking up trusts and combines and rings, we are actually incorporating them in the Bill, and the President of the Board of Trade and his myrmidons are going out into the districts to the owners to compel them to come in and furnish the wedding of the State and the coal industry.
Instead of protecting the consumers of the country with regard to the fixing of 2204 prices above which they must not sell, the Government are fixing in this Clause which we seek to delete, a price below which they must not go. I cannot understand why a Government which claims to have business-like methods, and claims, above all, to represent the interests of the consumers and the workers of the country, should bring forward a suggestion of this kind. When history is written, it will be found that this was not a question of applying the experiences of the past to a solution of the problems of the present, but what I can only call the optimistic ruminations of exuberant youth who thought that industrial problems only began when they were old enough to take an interest in public life. They suggest that the solution of the problem in the coal industry is to fix minimum prices below which no one is to be allowed to obtain coal, and they give an indication that there are only, apparently, two prices which need consideration.
It is quite true that by regulations with regard to hours, wages, and conditions of safety, and with regard to welfare, pithead baths and so forth, you can by statute, frequently regulate your pithead cost. That is one price which you can fix. You can, as has been tried in this Clause, fix prices at which yon will sell, but there is a third price which the President of the Board of Trade seems to have lost sight of, and that is the price which the purchaser in the world market is willing to pay. That is the serious thing which is contained here. We poor consumers in this country have to carry the coal baby which is being handed to us under this Sub-section; but, when it comes to a question of what is the real primary market of our coal industry—the export market—it is no use fixing minimum prices if the foreign purchaser is not going to pay the price which is fixed. You are immediately faced with a situation where you have a Socialist President of the Board of Trade who is actually going to bring into being the old problem of carrying coal to Newcastle because the minimum price of home-produced coal is such that the foreigner can undercut him and can import coal from abroad at a much cheaper rate. This is the kind of possibility in fixing a minimum price.
2205 Only the other day the Chancellor of the Exchequer came down here and in a spirit of childish petulance charged a section of the community with hatching a conspiracy against him to kill commerce. I wonder what the Lord Privy Seal had to say about that matter. He has not lost opportunities, both inside this House and outside, of paying tribute to the way in which the bankers and other industrial leaders have helped him in the stupendous task which he is trying to carry out. We might talk about a conspiracy to destroy confidence by bringing forward a Clause like this. If there are any conspirators at work in this matter, they are sitting on the front bench opposite. These are the people who are hatching this gunpowder plot. The arch conspirators, the President of the Board of Trade and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, are like a pair of Guy Fawkes who come and threaten us with this Sub-section.
§ Mr. DUNCANOn a point of Order. Is the speech to which we have listened anywhere within 1,000 miles of the Amendment?
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Dunnico)I am following the hon. and gallant Member very closely, and, when he is out of order, I shall rule him out of order.
§ Major DAVIESI am sure you are following me as closely as I am following the Rules of Order. It is unfortunate that the custom has died out of making classical quotations from Latin and Greek writers in this House. That is not because hon. Members are not familiar with the great writers of Latin and Greek, but because that familiarity is regarded with a kind of contempt. I will, however, venture a quotation which has not the same familiarity. It is a Chinese proverb. I would not dare to quote it in the original, though I might if I were unduly pressed. The proverb is:
Don't tie your shoelaces in your neighs hour's cucumber field, and don't scratch your head under your neighbour's apple tree.Or, as St. Paul would say, "Avoid every appearance of evil." The right hon. Gentleman has not only failed to avoid the appearance of evil, but he has failed to avoid evil itself in this extremely evil Sub-section. I ask him to consider this shrewd Chinese proverb and to apply it 2206 to this Measure. [Interruption.] I often feel that when a Scotsman quotes Burns to me, I want him to translate it into English.
§ Mr. J. JONESTranslate it into Chinese.
§ Major DAVIESI am certain that I should be out of order. This is the most dangerous provision in the Bill. It is the coping-stone of all the menaces in it against the welfare of the people of this country, and it is astonishing that hon. Members below the Gangway, realising that fact, have failed to put their real convictions into operation. They are postponing action. What is in store for the President of the Board of Trade at a later stage I do not know, but if the gods are good to him and he gets this Measure on the Statute Book it will be the writing on the wall for the Labour party; they will be weighed in the balances and found wanting in their responsibility to the people who sent them here and in common honesty to the electors who were so foolish as to believe what they said.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI have tried to discover the point the hon. and gallant Member is making and I think he is getting far beyond the Amendment.
§ Major DAVIESI am very sorry. My anxiety in denouncing this vicious provision has led me to denounce the vicious party who have fathered it. I trust that we are going in our full strength into the Lobby against this proposal and show that we realise its implications and do not seek to be in any way identified with a Bill which has for one of its provisions such a thoroughly dangerous and vicious proposal as this.
§ Mr. WOMERSLEYI want to put the point of view, in respect of this provision, of the class of consumer I have the honour to represent—the fishermen. I am surprised that hon. Members of the Liberal party who have professed from time to time to be interested in the welfare of fishermen have not put in a word of protest against this particular proposal. What will be the position of the trawling industry if this is accepted? Their experience under the Five Counties Scheme is that they have had to pay more for their coal, and that those who participate in that scheme, the coalowners, 2207 have been able to give a rebate of 3s. per ton on export coal which places foreign trawlers in a far better position than our own fishermen. Under that scheme they have the option of buying coal in an alternative market, in Blythe or in Scotland, but once this Bill is on the Statute Book they will have no alternative market. The, reason why the fishermen hear the result of such a proposal is this:
I have had some calculations made as to what an increase of 1s. per ton would mean on the earnings of the men on fishing boats. To a vessel which sails into the Icelandish waters to fish it will make a difference of £150 in the earnings for the year. The skipper will be £14 4s. 9d. out of pocket if there is a 1s. increase per ton on coal, the mate £10 7s. 2d., with a proportionate sum for each member of the crew. If you take the Scottish fishing boats into account, where the system of sharing is somewhat different, a 1s. increase in the price of coal will make a tremendous difference and if it happens, as it may, that there is a larger increase, it will be almost impossible to make the industry pay. We have been told by hon. Members who represent mining districts that the sole object of the Bill and this provision is to increase the price of coal; and we are bound to view it from the consumers' point of view. I protest on behalf of the fishermen of this country and I hope that some Liberal Members, as a sort of death-bed repentance will remember the promises they have made to their fishermen constituents and go with us into the Lobby against this proposal.
§ Mr. J. JONESI want to say a few words from an altogether different point of view. The hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Womersley) has just spoken from the standpoint of the fishermen. They are supposed to be arrayed against the miners—a case of divide and govern. Get the fishermen up against the miners—
§ Mr. WOMERSLEYNot a bit of it.
§ Mr. WOMERSLEYOn a point of Order. Is the hon. Member in order in charging me with making a statement 2208 which I have not made, and with charging the fishermen I represent with something that they do not intend to do at all? All they are asking for is a fair and square deal.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThat is not a point of Order. That is a question of different points of view.
§ Mr. JONESI desire to speak from the consumers point of view. The workers in the East End of London want to know why they have to pay 2s. 7d. per cwt. for their coal. They want to know how much the miners get out of that 2s. 7d. [Interruption.] So far as we are concerned we have no objection to the miners getting bettor conditions and we are willing to back them all the way through. But the workers in the East End of London cannot understand why there is all this talk about the price of coal by hon. Members opposite who have only just become our pals. The consumer is, they say, their only interest. Who are the consumers? The producers form 80 per cent. of the population, and they are consumers as well as producers. Why cannot we study the consumer and producer together. You cannot separate the producer and the consumer. People, it is said, must have cheap coal. Later on it will be cheap beer, in the interests of the consumers. Really it is not in the interests of the people who use the coal or drink the beer but in the interests of the people who make a profit out of both. Our export trade is to be this and that. The other day I listened to the Debate on a Vote of Censure when we were told that in order to get trade we should have to have protection—
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThe hon. Member is not entitled to raise that Debate on this occasion.
§ Mr. JONESIt is only as an illustration; it is not an argument. I was trying to point out that the argument then was that we should build up a barrier against foreign countries in our own markets. Now we are arguing that we must not do the same as foreigners. They are giving subsidies to their coal trade and organising their internal markets, while underselling us in the other markets. Yet, when we say that something similar must be done we are told that we must do nothing of the kind. You cannot have it both ways. You 2209 cannot have Free Trade and Protection. This Bill does not go the way we in the East End of London should like it to go by a long way. I should like to see the day when the land, the mines, and the minerals of the country are national property. This Bill is a compromise, and should be accepted as such. We shall not go whole heartedly into the Lobby in support of it, only half heartedly, and with the hope that some
§ day we shall have a Labour Government in power not in office who will be able to carry out the policy of national ownership of all the things that are necessary for the people of this country.
§ Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 274; Noes, 229.
2213| Division No. 228.] | AYES. | [6.58 p.m. |
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Forgan, Dr. Robert | Logan, David Gilbert |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Freeman, Peter | Longbottom, A. W. |
| Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher | Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton) | Longden, F. |
| Aitchison, Rt. Hon. Craigle M. | Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, N.) | Lovat-Fraser, J. A. |
| Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro') | Gibbins, Joseph | Lowth, Thomas |
| Alpass, J. H. | Gibson, H. M. (Lancs, Mossley) | Lunn, William |
| Ammon, Charles George | Gill, T. H. | Macdonald, Gordon (Ince) |
| Angell, Norman | Gillett, George M. | MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham) |
| Arnott, John | Gossling, A. G. | Mac Donald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw) |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Gould, F. | McElwee, A. |
| Ayles, Walter | Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | McEntee, V. L. |
| Baker, John (Wolverhampton, Bilston) | Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.) | Mackinder, W. |
| Baldwin, Oliver (Dudley) | Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Colne) | McKinlay, A. |
| Barnes, Alfred John | Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan) |
| Barr, James | Groves, Thomas E. | MacNeill-Weir, L. |
| Batey, Joseph | Grundy, Thomas W. | Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton) |
| Beckett, John (Camberwell, Peckham) | Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton) | Mansfield, W. |
| Bellamy, Albert | Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | March, S. |
| Benn, Rt. Hon. Wedgwood | Hall, Capt. W. P. (Portsmouth. C.) | Marcus, M. |
| Bennett, Capt. E. N. (Cardiff, Central) | Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn) | Markham, S. F. |
| Bennett, William (Battersea, South) | Hardie, George D. | Marley, J. |
| Benson, G. | Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | Marshall, Fred |
| Bantham, Dr. Ethel | Hastings, Dr. Somerville | Mathers, George |
| Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale) | Haycock, A. W. | Matters, L. W. |
| Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret | Hayday, Arthur | Maxton, James |
| Bowen, J. W. | Hayes, John Henry | Melville, Sir James |
| Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W. | Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley) | Messer, Fred |
| Broad, Francis Alfred | Henderson, Arthur, Junr. (Cardiff, S.) | Middleton, G. |
| Brockway, A. Fenner | Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow) | Mills, J. E. |
| Bromfield, William | Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield) | Milner, J. |
| Bromley, J. | Harriotts, J. | Montague, Frederick |
| Brooke, W. | Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth) | Morgan, Dr. H. B. |
| Brown, C W. E. (Notts. Mansfield) | Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Money, Ralph |
| Brown, James (Ayr and Bute) | Hoffman, P. C. | Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.) |
| Brown, W. J. (Wolverhampton, West) | Hollins, A. | Mort, D. L. |
| Buchanan, G. | Hopkin, Daniel | Moses, J. J. H. |
| Burgess, F. G. | Horrabin, J. F. | Mosloy, Lady C. (Stoke-on-Trent) |
| Buxton, C R. (Yorks. W. R. Elland) | Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield) | Mosley, Sir Oswald (Smethwick) |
| Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel (Norfolk, N.) | Isaacs, George | Muff, G. |
| Calne, Derwent Hall- | Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Muggeridge, H. T. |
| Cameron, A. G. | John, William (Rhondda, West) | Murnin, Hugh |
| Cape, Thomas | Johnston, Thomas | Naylor, T. E. |
| Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S. W.) | Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown) | Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter) |
| Charieton, H. C. | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Noel Baker, P. J. |
| Chater, Daniel | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Oliver, George Harold (Ilkeston) |
| Church, Major A. G. | Jowitt, Rt. Hon. Sir W. A. | Palin, John Henry |
| Clarke, J. S. | Keily, W. T. | Paling, Wilfrid |
| Cluse, W. S. | Kennedy, Thomas | Palmer, E. T. |
| Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R. | Kinley, J. | Perry, S. F. |
| Cocks, Frederick Seymour | Knight, Holford | Pethick-Lawrence, F. W. |
| Compton, Joseph | Lang, Gordon | Phillips, Dr. Marlon |
| Cove, William G. | Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George | Picton-Turbervill, Edith |
| Daggar, George | Lathan, G. | Pole, Major D. G. |
| Dallas, George | Law, Albert (Bolton) | Potts, John S. |
| Dalton, Hugh | Law, A. (Rosendale) | Price, M. P. |
| Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton) | Lawrence, Susan | Quibell, D. J. K. |
| Day, Harry | Lawrie, Hugh Hartley (Stalybridge) | Rathbone, Eleanor |
| Denman, Hon. R. D. | Lawson, John James | Raynes, W. R. |
| Dickson, T. | Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle) | Richards, R. |
| Dukes, C. | Leach, W. | Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) |
| Duncan, Charles | Lee, Frank (Derby. N. E.) | Riley, Ben (Dewsbury) |
| Ede, James Chuter | Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern) | Riley, F. F. (Stockton-on-Tees) |
| Edge, Sir William | Lees, J. | Ritson, J. |
| Edmunds, J. E. | Lewis, T. (Southampton) | Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich) |
| Edwards, E. (Morpeth) | Lindley, Fred W. | Romeril, H. G. |
| Egan, W. H. | Lloyd, C. Ellis | Rosbotham, D. S. T. |
| Rowson, Guy | Snell, Harry | Wallhead, Richard C. |
| Salter, Dr. Alfred | Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip | Watkins, F. C. |
| Samuel, H. W. (Swansea, West) | Sorensen, R. | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline). |
| Sanders, W. S. | Stamford, Thomas W. | Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda) |
| Sandham, E. | Stephen, Campbell | Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah |
| Sawyer, G. F. | Stewart, J. (St. Rollox) | Wellock, Wilfred |
| Scrymgeour, E. | Strachey, E. J. St. Loe | Welsh, James (Paisley) |
| Scurr, John | Strauss, G. R. | Welsh, James C. (Coatbridge) |
| Sexton, James | Sullivan, J. | West, F. R. |
| Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston) | Sutton, J. E. | Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood) |
| Shepherd, Arthur Lewis | Taylor, R. A. (Lincoln) | Whiteley, William (Blaydon) |
| Sherwood, G. H. | Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S. W.) | Wilkinson, Ellen C. |
| Shield, George William | Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Derby) | Williams, David (Swansea, East) |
| Shiels, Dr. Drummond | Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow) | Williams Dr. J. H. (Llanelly) |
| Shillaker, J. F. | Thurtle, Ernest | Williams, T. (York, Don Valley) |
| Shinwell, E. | Tillett, Ben | Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe) |
| Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) | Tinker, John Joseph | Wilson, J. (Oldham) |
| Simmons, C. J. | Toole, Joseph | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Sinkinton, George | Tout, W. J. | Winterton, G. E. (Leicester, Loughb'gh) |
| Sitch, Charles H. | Townend, A. E. | Wise, E. F. |
| Smith, Alfred (Sunderland) | Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Wright, W. (Ruthergten) |
| Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe) | Turner, B. | Young, R. S. (Islington, North) |
| Smith, Frank (Nuneaton) | Vaughan, D. J. | |
| Smith, H. B. Lees- (Keighley) | Viant, S. P. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Smith, Rennie (Penistone) | Walkden, A. G. | Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. Charles Edwards. |
| Smith, Toms (Pontefract) | Walker, J. | |
| Smith, W. R. (Norwich) | Wallace, H. W. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel | Colville, Major D. J. | Haslam, Henry C. |
| Ainsworth, Lieut.-Col. Charles | Courtauld, Major J. S. | Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley) |
| Albery, Irving James | Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L. | Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur p. |
| Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l) | Crichton-Stuart, Lord C. | Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J. |
| Allen, Sir J. Sandeman (Liverp'l., W.) | Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H. | Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G. |
| Allen, W. E. D. (Belfast, W.) | Crookshank, Capt. H. C. | Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar) |
| Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S. | Croom-Johnson, R. P. | Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S. |
| Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W. | Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West) | Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K. |
| Atholl, Duchess of | Cunliffe-Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) |
| Atkinson, C. | Dalkeith, Earl of | Hurd, Percy A. |
| Baillie-Hamilton, Hon. Charles W. | Dairymple-White, Lt.-Col. Sir Godfrey | Hurst, Sir Gerald S. |
| Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (Bewdley) | Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford) | Iveagh, Countess of |
| Balfour, George (Hampstead) | Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H. | James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert |
| Balfour, Captain H. H. (I. of Thanet) | Davies, Dr. Vernon | Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton) |
| Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H. | Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil) | Kindersley, Major G. M. |
| Beaumont, M. W. | Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.) | King, Commodore Rt. Hon. Henry D. |
| Bellairs, Commander Carlyon | Dixey, A. C. | Knox, Sir Alfred |
| Bennett, Sir Albert (Nottingham, C.) | Duckworth, G. A. V. | Lamb, Sir J. Q. |
| Berry, Sir George | Dugdale, Capt. T. L. | Lane, Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R. |
| Betterton, Sir Henry B. | Eden, Captain Anthony | Law, Sir Alfred (Derby, High Peak) |
| Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman | Edmondson, Major A J. | Leigh, Sir John (Clapham) |
| Bird, Ernest Roy | Elliot, Major Walter E. | Leighton, Major B. E. P. |
| Boothby, R. J. G. | England, Colonel A. | Lewis, Oswald (Colchester) |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s. M.) | Liewellin, Major J. J. |
| Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart | Everard, W. Lindsay | Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey |
| Bowyer, Captain Sir George E. W. | Falle, Sir Bertram G. | Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (Handsw'th) |
| Boyce, H. L. | Ferguson, Sir John | Lymington, Viscount |
| Bracken, B. | Fermoy, Lord | McConnell, Sir Joseph |
| Braithwaite, Major A. N. | Fielden, E. B. | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) |
| Brass, Captain Sir William | Fison, F. G. Clavering | Macquisten, F. A. |
| Briscoe, Richard George | Ford, Sir P. J. | MacRobert, Rt. Hon. Alexander M. |
| Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd'., Hexham) | Forestier-Walker, Sir L. | Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham) |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y) | Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E. | Makins, Brigadier-General E. |
| Buchan, John | Galbraith, J. F. W. | Margesson, Captain H. D. |
| Buckingham, Sir H. | Ganzoni, Sir John | Marjoribanks, E. C. |
| Bullock, Captain Malcolm | Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton | Mason, Colonel Glyn K. |
| Burton, Colonel H. W. | Gibson, C. G. (Pudsey & Otley) | Meller, R. J. |
| Butler, R. A. | Glyn, Major R. G. C. | Merriman, Sir F. Boyd |
| Butt, Sir Alfred | Gower, Sir Robert | Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham) |
| Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward | Grace, John | Mond, Hon. Henry |
| Carver, Major W. H. | Graham, Fergus (Cumberland. N.) | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. Sir B. |
| Castle Stewart, Earl of | Grattan-Doyle, Sir N. | Moore, Sir Newton J. (Richmond) |
| Cautley, Sir Henry S. | Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter | Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr) |
| Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City) | Greene, W. P. Crawford | Morden, Col. W. Grant |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth, S.) | Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London) | Morrison, W. S. (Glos., Cirencester) |
| Cazalet, Captain Victor A. | Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John | Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive |
| Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton | Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E. | Muirhead, A. J. |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Edgbaston) | Gunston, Captain D. W. | Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge) |
| Chapman, Sir S. | Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H. | Nicholson, O. (Westminster) |
| Christie, J. A. | Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich) | Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'l'd) |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer | Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford) | Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert |
| Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George | Hammersley, S. S. | Oman, Sir Charles William C. |
| Cohen, Major J. Brunel | Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry | O'Neill, Sir H. |
| Colfox Major William Philip | Hartington, Marquess of | Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William |
| Peake, Capt. Osbert | Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D. | Turton, Robert Hugh |
| Penny, Sir George | Savery, S. S. | Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon |
| Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple) | Shepperson, Sir Ernest Whittome | Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert |
| Pilditch, Sir Philip | Skelton, A N. | Wardlaw-Milne, J. S. |
| Power, Sir John Cecil | Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam) | Warrender, Sir Victor |
| Pownall, Sir Assheton | Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine. C.) | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Preston, Sir Walter Ruebon. | Smith-Carington, Neville W. | Wayland, Sir William A. |
| Purbrick, R. | Smithers, Waldron | Wells, Sydney R. |
| Ramsbotham, H. | Somerset, Thomas | Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay) |
| Rawson, Sir Cooper | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) | Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.) |
| Reid, David D. (County Down) | Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East) | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Renter, John R. | Southby, Commander A. R. J. | Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl |
| Rentoul, Sir Gervais S. | Spender-Clay, Colonel H. | Withers, Sir John James |
| Reynolds, Col. Sir James | Stanley, Maj. Hon. O. (W'morland) | Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount |
| Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) | Steel-Maitland, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur | Womersley, W. J. |
| Roberts, Sir Samuel (Ecclesall) | Stewart, W. J. (Belfast South) | Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley |
| Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Rennell | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) | Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L. |
| Ross, Major Ronald D. | Sueter, Rear-Admiral M. F. | Wright, Brig.-Gen. W. D. (Tavist'k) |
| Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A. | Thomas, Major L. B. (King's Norton) | Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton |
| Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) | Thomson, Sir F. | |
| Salmon, Major I. | Tinne, J. A. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham) | Todd, Capt. A. J. | Captain Wallace and the Marquess of Titchfield. |
| Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) | Train, J. | |
| Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart | Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement |
§ Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTERI beg to move, in page 7, line 15, at the end, to insert the words:
Provided that in the determination of such price the following matters shall be taken into consideration, namely:—We have now decided that the coal-owners are to have the power not merely to have a quota, but to fix the price without any direction being given so far as to the terms on which that price has to be fixed. I submit to the Committee that, having passed this provision giving a price-fixing right to coalowners, it is absolutely essential that we should put in some directions as to the conditions to which they are to have regard in fixing the price. Otherwise, it is a plain invitation to fix the price as high as they think they can get. Now that you have put them into a compulsory price ring from which they cannot escape except under penalties and are forcing them to fix prices, the least the President of the Board of Trade can do is to give some directions as to how this price ring is to operate. I submit that the reasonable provision to put in is that the district board, in fixing prices, should have regard, firstly, to the prices which have 2214 been paid during recent months, secondly, to the average profits which have been made in the district—on that, there is the periodical ascertainment—and, thirdly, to the economies in the cost of production or the methods of distribution which might reasonably be expected from an efficient conduct of this business. We are asking very little in asking for those three things. The first two are obvious. As to the third, we are told that the whole object of this Bill is to make the industry more efficient—though I do not believe it will have that effect. If that is the object, then let us put in, as a direction to the people who are fixing the prices, that they must take into consideration the economies that can be looked for if the industry is reorganised under this Bill.
- (a) the price or prices usually paid during the previous 12 months for coal of the class concerning which the price is to be determined;
- (b) the rate of profit, if any, per ton made on the average of each coal mine in the district during the previous 12 months;
- (c) the economies in the cost of production and in the methods of distribution and sale that might reasonably be expected to he effected with regard to any class of coal by organisations for the production and sale thereof."
Those considerations ought to be there when the district board fixes prices and also when there is an appeal. If you put in no provision at all and people complain of the price, they have a right to go to arbitration or to the district committee which the President of the Board of Trade sets up in the next Clause. Unless you put in a general rule by which the tribunal is to be bound in fixing prices, the considerations to which they are to have regard, how will your appeal tribunal or your arbitral tribunal decide whether the price is reasonable or unreasonable? There is no test of reasonableness. The coalowner will say, "Under the Statute I am told to fix a price; I fixed a price to give myself a reasonable return and to pay wages. There is nothing else in the Bill. How can you convict me of fixing an unreason- 2215 able price when there is no test?" What are the conditions which the President of the Board of Trade thinks the district board will be bound to have regard to in fixing the prices and what are the conditions which the court of appeal will have regard to? If he does not put in those provisions or some similar provisions, the district board will be free to do as they like and the appeal will be completely useless.
§ Mr. W. GRAHAMI am afraid it will be impossible for the Government to agree to the insertion of these words. I will try, as briefly as possible, to give the reasons for that attitude. My right hon. Friend asks me how these prices will be fixed in the different districts and what conditions will be taken into account. The Bill at the present time provides for the standard tonnage and quota, and now, in the provision which we have passed, for the fixing of minimum prices below which coal will not be sold by the owners within a district scheme. At the present time, the price schedules in these colliery districts are very elaborate affairs. These price schedules will be continued in all their elaboration and all their detail under this scheme, subject, however, to a district regulation that as regards classes of coal there will not be disposal of that coal below these minimum prices. There may be cases, and probably will be cases, in which owners are able to get a better price, and there is nothing to stop that better price being obtained, so long as the minimum price regulation is not infringed.
That will be the ordinary way, and I have not the least doubt that the executives of the owners in the different districts will take into account the kind of demand for the different classes of coal, the prices which have been ruling within recent times, and the importance of keeping the market, both at home and abroad and if possible improving the market. All these elementary conditions in daily business will be before them under the district schemes, as they are before them now for the whole industry so that in that way the minimum prices will be fixed, and there will be power to vary them from time to time, together with the safeguard to which I alluded on the previous Amendment.
2216 I quite appreciate the desire of my right hon. Friend to introduce safeguards, but I suggest that it is altogether impossible to put these words in the Bill with the idea that they will have any practical meaning at all. Let the Committee observe what we are asked to do. First of all, we are invited to take into account the prices which have been ruling during the previous 12 months for the class or classes of coal, but in practice these prices might not be any criterion at all. There might be all kinds of exceptional conditions or difficulties, which would make the enforcement of a direction of this sort—and it is no use putting it in unless it will be a direction—virtually impossible or at any rate very difficult.
In the next place, it is suggested that we should take into account
the rate of profit, if any, per ton made on the average of each coal mine in the district during the previous 12 months.The suggestion may be that the object is to fix a minimum price in such a way as to safeguard the position of the efficient mine and thereby confer on the efficient undertaking a much larger profit. No doubt, up to a point, there is something in that argument, but this Amendment would not appreciably affect that, because if it is a profit, it can only be an average rate of profit for the previous 12 months, and in this average the inefficient and the efficient, the good and the bad pits, or the profit and loss are all mixed up so that on this point the arrangement does not appear to me to be calculated to achieve any practical result. I have always been satisfied, personally, that with the quota regulations and basic tonnage on a sound footing, and with price regulation, the tendency in this industry, if the industry itself is to survive or to regain its strength, will be inevitably in the direction of getting rid of the weaker pits, and that, of course, is strengthened by the new amalgamation proposal.In the third place, we are to take into account economies in the cost of production in determining what the minimum price is to be. Although I do not for a moment question the sincerity with which my right hon. Friend or the Opposition advance this Amendment, I am satisfied that they will at once appreciate the great difficulty of making a practical proposition of such a provision. How 2217 could we place any precise figure on the economies which may result over a period? I submit that an Amendment of this kind would not really achieve the object which my right hon. Friend has in view, and that the effective safeguards are those which I described in reply to the previous Amendment, namely, that it must be to the interests of this industry in its present condition to dispose of its coal at the most favourable price, but at an economic price. In any case, such attention will be directed to the price level as will inevitably lead to cases being put before the investigation committee. The industry does not desire that at all, and I suggest that those safeguards are reasonable. I will, therefore, ask my right hon. Friend not to press his Amendment, which, even if it were inserted, could have no practical application.
§ Sir LAMING WORTHINGTON-EVANSI hope my right hon. Friend will press this Amendment. What does the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade amount to? It amounts to this, that he will leave everything to chance, and that he will leave the safeguards to chance, because the appellant will not be able to say that any particular price is wrong. All that he can say is that he disagrees with it. There is no guidance given to those who fix the price to enable the appellant to point out whether or not it is fair. The right hon. Gentleman said that the minimum is fixed, but that he expects that in most districts the owners will be able to get something more. He contemplated that the minimum price would not be the price, but that there would be from some customers a higher price to be exacted. Take, for example, the next Amendment, which will not be called, to the effect that there should not be a differentiation in price between one customer and another. Under the right hon. Gentleman's scheme he contemplates that the owners will be able to fix one price for one type of customer and a totally different price for another type of customer, and he is not going to give the customer who has been picked out for the higher price any chance of making good his appeal by giving directions in the Bill as to how the price is to be fixed. I do not want 2218 to delay the Committee, but I hope we shall divide upon this Amendment.
§ Major COLVILLEI want to sound a note of very grave concern, on behalf of those great producing industries of this country which are dependent on coal, because I do not see in this Bill sufficient safeguards for them in the matter of the fixing of prices. I support the Amendment, not because I think it is perfect, but because it adds some safeguard to assist these consumers. These basic industries certainly have some rights under the Bill. They have a costly and slow procedure to go through if aggrieved before they can get justice. There is the national committee of investigation, there are the local committees of investigation, and finally there is the Board of Trade. But contracts do not wait for committees of investigation. In the iron and steel trade we have been through hard times, and our contracts abroad are snapped up quickly. While this slow machinery is being gone through, Australia, South Africa, and other Empire countries and foreign countries are buying and will buy elsewhere, and then what happens? Furnaces and mills go off, and coal pits dependent on them go off too, and then what is the good of a minimum price if a coal pit has to shut down because it cannot get its coal sold?
I ask the right hon. Gentleman very earnestly to consider what he is doing to-night. This Amendment, at any rate, does add some safeguard for these consumers. It may be said that this question of fixing prices is not a new question, because trades other than the coal trade have adopted the method before now, and particularly the iron and steel trades, which have adopted national agreements to fix prices. Yes, they have adopted national agreements, and have done so successfully, but the whole difference between those agreements and what we are asked to do here is that they were entirely voluntary, and the safeguard of the consumers lay in that fact; whereas, for the first time in the history of this or any other country that I know of, we have before us now a proposal to place the whole might of Parliament behind a ring or combine to keep prices up. It seems to me to be paradoxical that such a proposal should come from Members of the Labour party, who 2219 have gone up and down the country talking against rings and combines; and I strongly urge the Government to accept this Amendment.
§ Mr. RAMSBOTHAMI expect the President of the Board of Trade is familiar with the details of the first marketing scheme, namely, that of the South Yorkshire owners, and I believe it is the case that in that scheme there were set forth four different classes of consumers according to the order in which they were to be shot at. The first on the list were the gas and electricity, municipal and public utility undertakings; then came the household and domestic users; then locomotive coal, and then coal for industrial purposes. For that very
§ reason, I should have thought it would have been advisable for the right hon. Gentleman to accept this safeguard, which would turn the attention of the price-fixing committee to the classes of coal and the prices previously ruling in those classes, rather than to the classes of consumers of the coal in question. I suggest that in order to remove apprehensions from the classes set forth in the order of vulnerability, he should accept some sort of safeguard like this, in order that the prices ruling should be the criterion, and not the class of consumer who is going to be charged.
§ Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 220; Noes, 274.
2223| Division No. 229.] | AYES. | [7.30 p.m. |
| Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel | Crookshank, Capt. H. C. | Home, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S. |
| Ainsworth, Lieut.-Col. Charles | Croom-Johnson, R. P. | Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K. |
| Albery, Irving James | Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West) | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) |
| Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l) | Cunliffe-Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip | Hurd, Percy A. |
| Allen, Sir J. Sandeman (Liverp'l., W.) | Dalkeith, Earl of | Hurst, Sir Gerald B. |
| Allen, W. E. D. (Belfast, W.) | Dairymple-White. Lt.-Col. Sir Godfrey | James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert |
| Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S. | Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford) | Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton) |
| Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W. | Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H. | Kindersley, Major G. M. |
| Atholl, Duchess of | Davies, Dr. Vernon | King, Commodore Rt. Hon. Henry D. |
| Atkinson, C. | Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil) | Knox, Sir Alfred |
| Baillie-Hamilton, Hon. Charles W. | Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.) | Lamb, Sir J. Q. |
| Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (Bewdley) | Dixey, A. C. | Lane Fox, Rt. Hon. George R. |
| Balfour, George (Hampstead) | Duckworth, G. A. V. | Law, Sir Alfred (Derby, High Peak) |
| Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H. | Eden, Captain Anthony | Leigh, Sir John (Clapham) |
| Bellairs, Commander Cariyon | Edmondson, Major A. J. | Leighton, Major B. E. P. |
| Bennett, Sir Albert (Nottingham, C.) | Elliot, Major Walter E. | Lewis, Oswald (Colchester) |
| Berry, Sir George | England, Colonel A. | Liewellin, Major J. J. |
| Betterton, Sir Henry B. | Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.) | Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey |
| Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman | Everard, W. Lindsay | Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (Handsw'th) |
| Bird, Ernest Roy | Falle, Sir Bertram G. | McConnell, Sir Joseph |
| Boothby, R. J. G. | Ferguson, Sir John | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Fermoy, Lord | Macquisten, F. A. |
| Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart | Fielden, E. B. | MacRobert, Rt. Hon. Alexander M. |
| Bowyer, Captain Sir George E. W. | Fison, F. G. Clavering | Maitland, A. (Kent. Faversham) |
| Boyce, H. L. | Ford, Sir P. J. | Makins, Brigadier-General E. |
| Bracken, B. | Forestier-Walker, Sir L. | Marjoribanks, E. C. |
| Braithwaite, Major A. N. | Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E. | Mason, Colonel Glyn K. |
| Brass, Captain Sir William | Galbraith, J. F. W. | Meller, R. J. |
| Briscoe, Richard George | Ganzoni, Sir John | Merriman, Sir F. Boyd |
| Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham) | Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton | Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham) |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y) | Gibson, C. G. (Pudsey & Otley) | Mond, Hon. Henry |
| Buckingham, Sir H. | Glyn, Major R. G. C. | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. Sir B. |
| Bullock, Captain Malcolm | Gower, Sir Robert | Moore, Sir Newton J. (Richmond) |
| Burton, Colonel H. W. | Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.) | Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr) |
| Butler, R. A. | Grattan-Doyle, Sir N. | Morden, Col. W. Grant |
| Butt, Sir Alfred | Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter | Morrison, W. S. (Glos., Cirencester) |
| Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward | Greene, W. P. Crawford | Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive |
| Carver, Major W. H. | Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London) | Muirhead, A. J. |
| Castle Stewart, Earl of | Gritten, W. G. Howard | Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge) |
| Cautley, Sir Henry S. | Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E. | Nicholson, O. (Westminster) |
| Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City) | Gunston, Captain D. W. | Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'ld) |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herb, R. (Prtsmth, S.) | Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H. | Oman, Sir Charles William C. |
| Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton | Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich) | O'Neill, Sir H. |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Edgbaston) | Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford) | Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William |
| Chapman, Sir S. | Hammersley, S. S. | Peake, Capt. Osbert |
| Christie, J. A. | Hanbury, C. | Penny, Sir George |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer | Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry | Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple) |
| Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George | Hartington, Marquess of | Pilditch, Sir Philip |
| Colfox, Major William Philip | Haslam, Henry C. | Power, Sir John Cecil |
| Colville, Major D. J. | Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd. Henley) | Pownall, Sir Assheton |
| Courtauld, Major J. S. | Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P. | Purbrick, R. |
| Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L. | Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller | Ramsbotham, H. |
| Crichton-Stuart, Lord C. | Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G. | Rawson, Sir Cooper |
| Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H. | Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar) | Reid, David D. (County Down) |
| Remer, John R. | Smithers, Waldron | Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert |
| Rentoul, Sir Gervais S. | Somerset, Thomas | Wardlaw-Milne, J. S. |
| Reynolds, Col. Sir James | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) | Warrender, Sir Victor |
| Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) | Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East) | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Roberts, Sir Samuel (Ecclesall) | Southby, Commander A. R. J. | Wayland, Sir William A. |
| Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Renneil | Spender-Clay, Colonel H. | Wells, Sydney R. |
| Ross, Major Ronald D. | Stanley, Maj. Hon. O. (W'morland) | Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay) |
| Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A. | Steel-Maitland, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur | Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.) |
| Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) | Stuart, Hon. J, (Moray and Nairn) | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Salmon, Major I. | Sueter, Rear-Admiral M. F. | Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl |
| Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham) | Thomas, Major L. B. (King's Norton) | Withers, Sir John James |
| Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) | Thomson, Sir F. | Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount |
| Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart | Tinne, J. A. | Womersley, W. J. |
| Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D. | Titchfield, Major the Marquess of | Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley |
| Savery, S S. | Todd, Capt. A. J. | Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L. |
| Shepperson, Sir Ernest Whittome | Train, J. | Wright, Brig.-Gen. W. D. (Tavist'k) |
| Skelton, A. N. | Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement | Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton |
| Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam) | Turton, Robert Hugh | |
| Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.) | Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Smith-Carington, Neville W. | Wallace, Capt. D. E. (Hornsey) | Major Sir George Hennessy and |
| Captain Margesson. | ||
| NOES. | ||
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Duncan, Charles | Law, Albert (Bolton) |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Ede, James Chuter | Law, A. (Rossendale) |
| Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher | Edmunds, J. E. | Lawrence, Susan |
| Aitchison, Rt. Hon. Craigle M. | Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty) | Lawrie, Hugh Hartley (Stalybridge) |
| Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro') | Edwards, E. (Morpeth) | Lawson, John James |
| Alpass, J. H. | Egan, W. H. | Lawthor, W. (Barnard Castle) |
| Ammon, Charles George | Forgan, Dr. Robert | Leach, W. |
| Angell, Norman | Freeman, Peter | Lee, Frank (Derby, N. E.) |
| Arnott, John | Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton) | Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern) |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, N.) | Lees, J. |
| Ayles, Walter | Gibbins, Joseph | Lewis, T. (Southampton) |
| Baker, John (Wolverhampton, Bilston) | Gibson, H. M. (Lancs, Mossley) | Llndley, Fred W. |
| Baldwin, Oliver (Dudley) | Gill, T. H. | Lloyd, C. Ellis |
| Barnes, Alfred John | Gillett, George M. | Logan, David Gilbert |
| Barr, James | Gossling, A. G. | Longbottom, A. W. |
| Batey, Joseph | Gould, F. | Longden, F. |
| Beckett, John (Camberwell, Peckham) | Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | Lovat-Fraser, J. A. |
| Bellamy, Albert | Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.) | Lowth, Thomas |
| Benn, Rt. Hon. Wedgwood | Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Colne) | Lunn, William |
| Bennett, Capt. E. N. (Cardiff, Central) | Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Macdonald, Gordon (Ince) |
| Bennett, William (Battersea, South) | Groves, Thomas E. | MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham) |
| Benson, G. | Grundy, Thomas W. | MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw) |
| Bentham, Dr. Ethel | Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton) | McElwee, A. |
| Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale) | Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | McEntee, V. L. |
| Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret | Hall, Capt. W. P. (Portsmouth, C.) | Mackinder, W. |
| Bowen, J. W. | Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn) | McKinlay, A. |
| Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W. | Hardie, George D. | Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan) |
| Broad, Francis Alfred | Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | MacNeill-Weir, L. |
| Brockway, A. Fenner | Hastings, Dr. Somerville | Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton) |
| Bromfield, William | Haycock, A. W. | Mansfield, W. |
| Bromley, J. | Hayday, Arthur | March, S. |
| Brooke, W. | Hayes, John Henry | Marcus, M. |
| Brothers, M. | Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley) | Markham, S. F. |
| Brown, C. W. E. (Notts. Mansfield) | Henderson, Arthur, Junr. (Cardiff, S.) | Marley, J. |
| Brown, James (Ayr and Bute) | Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow) | Marshall, Fred |
| Brown, W. J. (Wolverhampton, West) | Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield) | Mathers, George |
| Buchanan, G. | Herriotts, J. | Matters, L. W. |
| Burgess, F. G. | Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth) | Maxton, James |
| Buxton, C. R. (Yorks, W. R. Elland) | Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Melville, Sir James |
| Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel (Norfolk, N.) | Hoffman, P. C. | Messer, Fred |
| Calne, Derwent Hall- | Hollins, A. | Middleton, G. |
| Cameron, A. G. | Hopkin, Daniel | Mills, J. E. |
| Cape, Thomas | Horrabin, J. F. | Milner, J. |
| Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S. W.) | Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield) | Montague, Frederick |
| Charieton, H. C. | Isaacs, George | Morgan, Dr. H. B. |
| Chater, Daniel | Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Morley, Ralph |
| Church, Major A. G. | John, William (Rhondda, West) | Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South) |
| Clarke, J. S. | Johnston, Thomas | Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.) |
| Cluse, W. S. | Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown) | Mort, D. L. |
| Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R. | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Moses, J. J. H. |
| Cocks, Frederick Seymour | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Mosley, Lady C. (Stoke-on-Trent) |
| Compton, Joseph | Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W. | Mosley, Sir Oswald (Smethwick) |
| Cove, William G. | Jowitt, Rt. Hon. Sir W. A. | Muff, G. |
| Daggar, George | Kelly, W. T. | Muggeridge, H. T. |
| Dallas, George | Kennedy, Thomas | Murnin, Hugh |
| Dalton, Hugh | Kinley, J. | Naylor, T. E. |
| Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton) | Kirkwood, D. | Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter) |
| Day, Harry | Knight, Holford | Noel Baker, P. J. |
| Denman, Hon. R. D. | Lang, Gordon | Oldfleid, J. R. |
| Dickson, T. | Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George | Oliver, George Harold (Ilkeston) |
| Dukes, C. | Lathan, G | Palin, John Henry |
| Paling, Wilfrid | Shiels, Dr. Drummond | Townend, A. E. |
| Palmer, E. T. | Shillaker, J. F. | Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles |
| Perry, S. F. | Shinwell, E. | Turner, B. |
| Pethick-Lawrence, F. W. | Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) | Vaughan, D. J. |
| Phillips, Dr. Marlon | Simmons, C. J. | Viant, S. P. |
| Picton-Turbervill, Edith | Sinkinson, George | Walkden, A. G. |
| Pole, Major D. G. | Sitch, Charles H. | Walker, J. |
| Potts, John S. | Smith, Alfred (Sunderland) | Wallace, H. W. |
| Price, M. P. | Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe) | Wallhead, Richard C. |
| Quibell, D. J. K. | Smith, Frank (Nuneaton) | Watkins, F. C. |
| Raynes, W. R. | Smith, H. B. Lees. (Keighley) | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline). |
| Richards, R. | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) | Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col D. (Rhondda) |
| Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) | Smith, Tom (Pontefract) | Wellock, Wilfred |
| Riley, Ben (Dewsbury) | Smith, W. R. (Norwich) | Welsh, James (Paisley) |
| Riley, F. F. (Stockton-on-Tees) | Snell, Harry | Welsh, James C. (Coatbridge) |
| Ritson, J. | Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip | Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J. |
| Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich) | Sorensen, R. | Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood) |
| Romeril, H. G. | Stamford, Thomas W. | Wilkinson, Ellen C. |
| Rosbotham, D. S. T. | Stephen, Campbell | Williams, David (Swansea, East) |
| Rowson, Guy | Stewart, J. (St. Rollox) | Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly) |
| Salter, Dr. Alfred | Strachey, E. J. St. Loe | Williams, T. (York, Don Valley) |
| Samuel, H. W. (Swansea, West) | Strauss, G. R. | Wilson, C. K. (Sheffield, Attercllfle) |
| Sanders, W. S. | Sullivan, J. | Wilton, J. (Oldham) |
| Sandham, E | Sutton, J. E. | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Sawyer, G. F. | Taylor, R. A. (Lincoln) | Winterton, G. E. (Leicester, Loughb'gh) |
| Scrymgeour, E. | Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S. W.) | Wise, E. F. |
| Scurr, John | Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Derby) | Wright, W. (Rutherglen) |
| Sexton, James | Thurtle, Ernest | Young, R. S. (Islington, North) |
| Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston) | Tillett, Ben | |
| Shepherd, Arthur Lewis | Tinker, John Joseph | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Sherwood, G. H. | Toole, Joseph | Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. William Whiteley. |
| Shield, George William | Tout, W. J |
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI do not select the next two Amendments—
(1) In page 7, line 15, at the end, to insert the words:
Provided that no price rates shall be fixed differentiating to the disadvantage of coal used for the production of gas and electric light or power or in relation to the supply of water in comparison with those for coal sold for any other purpose";(2) In line 15, at the end, to insert the words:Provided that the owners of coalmines shall not in respect of any coal sold or supplied by them, which is used, or intended to be used, for carbonisation or gasification, show any undue preference in the matter of prices in favour of such coal as against coal of the same nature and grade supplied to gas undertakers.The following Amendment—in page 7, line 24, at the end, to insert the wordsand of paying any compensation that may be due from the district fund in consequence of an order by a committee of investigation or by the judicial commissioners as hereinafter provided.anticipates Amendments later on the Order Paper.
§ Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTERI take it that we could, if necessary, have a general discussion on this subject, and that we shall not be prejudiced?
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANIt would be inconvenient to have a discussion on this Amendment, at this stage, anticipating the results of Amendments;, not 2224 yet reached, which provide for the setting up of judicial commissioners. If the subsequent Amendments are carried, the consequential Amendment required here could be moved on Report. The Amendment in the name of the right hon. Gentleman for St. Ives (Mr. Runciman)—in page 7, line 24, at the end, to insert the words
Provided that no moneys so raised shall be applied to facilitate the sale of any coal to he exported at a less price than is charged for such class of coal for bunkering ships.is not required now. Clause 2 (3, a) has been deleted. The central scheme no longer provides for collecting levies for facilitating the sale of coal.
§ Mr. SMITHERSI beg to move, in page 8, line 4, to leave out from the word "by," to the word "of," in line 6, and to insert instead thereof the words
an accountant authorised by the executive board for this purpose.This Amendment relates to the following Amendment—in line 7, at the end, to insert the words:and for the submission by him of a report to the executive board.Clause 3 deals with the provisions of the district schemes and the powers of the executive board. One of the powers is given in paragraph (k), which providesfor the production to and inspection by the executive board or any person authorised by them of books and accounts relating to any coal mine in the district;2225 The executive board is composed of coalowners, who either own coal mines in the districts or are competitors with the owners of other coal mines in the district, and it seems to me that it would not be fair that one coalowner in an official position should be able to examine the books, accounts and papers of his competitors. Although we on this side do not agree with the Bill, I think that if the Bill is to be passed it is necessary for the executive board to be provided with necessary information, and my submission is that the executive board shall employ an accountant to examine the books and papers, and make a report to them.
§ The SECRETARY for MINES (Mr. Ben Turner)As this Amendment and the following Amendment which stands in the name of the hon. Member are very serviceable Amendments, we will accept them.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§
Further Amendment made: In page 8, line 7, at the end, to insert the words:
and for the submission by him of a report to the executive board."—[Mr. Smithers.]
§ Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANSI beg to move, in page 8, line 9, after the word "by," to insert the words:
the amounts of the standard tonnage, or the quota, or the price below which coal cannot be sold or.It may be that the general words in the Clause were intended to cover these three subjects for arbitration; indeed, I think they were so intended, because the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, in the course of the discussion on another Clause the other day, said that owners would be protected, that it was one of the safeguards given to a dissentient owner in that he could go to arbitration both on the quota, the price fixing, and the standard tonnage. In order that that shall be made quite clear, I am moving to insert these words in the Clause. The words in the Clause as printed simply provide that the scheme shall set up a method of arbitration for securing that any owner of a coal mine in a district who is aggrieved by the act or omission of the executive board may refer that matter to arbitration. I do not think it follows that these three particular matters would come within the general words, and, if it be the intention 2226 of the Government that arbitration should be followed in respect of these three matters, it cannot do harm to insert them in the Clause.While I am moving this Amendment, I would ask the Government to give us a little more information with regard to this arbitration. Under Clause 11 the Arbitration Act is barred. In the ordinary course, when a person aggrieved is given by Statute the right to go to arbitration, the Arbitration Act provides how the arbitrators are to be appointed and what is to happen if one of the parties claims arbitration and the other party refuses to appoint an arbitrator. It deals with obstruction of that sort, and it enables any legal question that arises in the course of arbitration to be referred to the Court, and, generally, it regularises what would otherwise be a very obscure, catch-as-catch-can sort of procedure of arbitration.
For some reason, the Government have struck out this well-recognised form of arbitration and have provided that the scheme shall secure to an owner an arbitration without any of the safeguards which this House in the Act of 1889 thought its duty to insert into general arbitration matters. Now we are asked to give up a well-understood procedure and to accept a procedure which is not defined at all. It is no answer for the Government to say "the scheme is going to set up the procedure." That means that the Government do not intend to follow the provisions of the 1889 Act. If that is so, they should say now in what way they mean not to follow the 1889 Act. I do not know what the Government mean. They say at one moment, in order to pacify doubts, that they are providing a form of arbitration, and yet in their Bill they minimise that and prevent a person who has gone to arbitration from going to a Court of Law in the event of a legal question arising. It may be for that purpose that they have knocked out the 1889 Act. If so, let them say so, because some legal question may arise which an ordinary lay arbitrator cannot deal with. If the 1889 Act is incorporated, there is power then to go to the Law Courts to have that legal point settled.
The only reason, it seems to me, that the Government should decide to bar this 1889 Act is in order to deprive the 2227 claimant from having his legal right of going to the Law Courts in the case of a legal point arising. I must wait and hear what the Government are going to say. If that is so, then this arbitration is a pure farce. You are putting compulsion on owners of collieries without giving them a satisfactory means of appeal; and I am not wrong in saying that the means of appeal would be unsatisfactory. Parliament considered in 1889 the form of arbitration and passed the Act of that year. They did that because they thought the provision then made was fair and would secure justice. It seems to me to be setting back the hands of the clock if the Government now are going to say that, notwithstanding the unsatisfactory nature of arbitration without the Act, we are still going to insist upon arbitration without the Act, because we are going to deprive the appellant of his right to go to law.
§ Mr. W. GRAHAMThe Amendment moved relates to paragraph (l) which is designed to give any owner in a district scheme agreed to within this scheme the right to go to an independent arbitration with a view to finding a remedy. I have always understood that the words "act or omission" and more particularly, for this purpose, the word "act" covers all the steps that will be taken by the referees in any district scheme that would cover the standard tonnage or quota or fixing of minimum prices. That is the plain intention of this Clause as it stands and in practice I think I can say to the Committee, with safety, that there would not be a moment's doubt. My right hon. Friend says, "If this is the case why not specify it in the Clause?" I am advised that the danger of specification is that it may make it appear that these three duties he enumerates are not duties of the executive body. We are on much safer ground in relying on the word "act," it is comprehensive.
As regards the other points, I cannot pronounce on the law regarding arbitration in the Act of 1889, but, if I may anticipate, I should like to say, regarding Clause II, that the Attorney-General will deal with any legal considerations involved. My opinion is that that is elaborate legislation, and for purposes of this kind, namely, direct business arbitration, all that machinery is not required. 2228 The machinery of the Act of 1889 for arbitration is provided for parts of this Bill, but the machinery is not required for the whole of the Bill. This Clause makes provision for the parts to which it shall apply. That is the position as I understand Clause 11 of this Bill.
My hon. and learned Friend reminds me that Clause 11 is now part of the legislation which has been passed.
§ Sir BOYD MERRIMANIt is true it became part of the Bill, in the face of this sort of discussion, at four minutes to Eleven, when the matter was last under discussion. I intervene for half-a-minute to obtain the assurance that when it came up for consideration on Report, we should be free to re-open it.
§ Mr. GRAHAMThere is no misunderstanding on that point. That is quite true regarding the Report stage of the Bill. What I say is that for the Committee stage, in which we are now engaged, this matter is already passed.
§ Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANSThe right hon. Gentleman has not answered the questions which I put, or else I cannot understand him. I understand that Clause 11 is part of the Bill until we get to the Report stage, but am I right that by Clause 11 it is intended to deprive those who go to arbitration under Clause 3 of the rights under the Arbitration Act of 1889? If the right hon. Gentleman cannot answer that question, or if he prefers that the Law Officer himself should answer it, then I hope the Law Officer will advise the Committee on the matter, for it is important. If he says that this is arbitration for the protection of a dissentient coalowner, we must see what value there is in the protection. There are two forms of protection: one provided by the Act, which is real protection; the other is protection by arbitration provided for in this scheme. But the right hon. Gentleman has not given any direction as to what is to be contained in the scheme. As the Bill now stands, it debars the Act of 1889, and it puts nothing in its place.
8.0 p.m.
There are two different values to be placed on arbitration, dependent on whether Clause 11 excludes arbitration under the Act of 1889, or whether it does not do so. I ask, which is the case. I 2229 hope that the Law Officer will reply. May I ask this further question: This is a Clause by which it is intended to enable the coalowner—what I call the dissentient coalowner—in a district, to go to arbitration, first of all, on the question of the quota. He may say his quota is too little. What are the parties to do? First of all, each district has a district allocation, and then each pit has a quota. The allocation will, presumably, be spread among all the owners in that district. Supposing that there are 100 owners and one of them goes to arbitration after the allocation has been made—after each of the 100 has got his quota—and the arbitrator says "Your quota is too little and we are going to give you some more. You shall have 50,000 tons a year more." Where is it going to come from? It has to come from the rest, out of the quotas which have been given to the other 99. Are they to go to arbitration, and, if so, is it to be before the same arbitrator, or are you to have 99 or 100 separate arbitrations? Do not forget that this is a compulsory Bill and is quite different from a voluntary scheme. In the case of a voluntary scheme, they are working together to get the scheme through, or they can go out of the scheme, but under a compulsory Measure the dissentient will go to his advisers and say, "How can I get out of this?" and it will be pointed out that he can break the scheme down if there are to be 100 arbitrations. If his quota is increased, it has to come from somebody else and the question will arise: Are they all to be parties to the arbitration? Are they to be bound by the arbitration, or, if not, is each of them in turn to be entitled to go to arbitration because his quota has been cut down? If the executive Board have said "We think your quota is such and such a figure" there is a good prima facie case for that man to go to arbitration, for by means of further arbitration he may hope to get back some of that which is being taken away from him.
Having done that as regards the quota, then comes the question of price. How is the dissentient to have his price altered? Are you to take into account his efficiency and the cost of production and the fact that if the district price were kept in his case, he might be profiteering to a large extent. Would he be entitled to say to the arbitrators, 2230 "I want to sell at a lower price. I could do better business and more business by selling at a lower price." Are the other owners of pits in the district to be able to go each to his arbitrator and say, "I want mine altered because the other fellow has had his altered." We ought to know these things. It may be that such cases would not arise, but if they did it would lead to absolute chaos, and there is nothing in the Bill which can reassure us. The right hon. Gentleman should assure us whether everybody is entitled to arbitrate on all these questions, and who are to be parties to the arbitration. Is each arbitration to breed a fresh one and is each owner in the district to be entitled to go to arbitration?
§ Mr. W. GRAHAMAs the right hon. Gentleman has suggested, my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General will deal with the arbitration point, and I propose to answer on the other matter that has been raised. I should be very sorry indeed if I thought for a moment that the results of the arbitration proposed under the Bill would be anything like the picture which has just been drawn by the right hon. Gentleman. But let us be quite clear as to the arrangements in the Bill, and I think a description of those arrangements will very largely remove any doubts which remain on this matter. There is a central or national machinery for determining or ascertaining the total output of the country as a whole. That national machinery is representative of all the 21 districts, or whatever the smaller number of districts will be after they have been amalgamated under the Bill. In each district there is a district allocation, which is, of course, a portion of the aggregate national demand. Within that district allocation there is the application of a quota to each pit within that district, which quota is uniform, but may be varied from time to time, and which relates to the standard tonnage fixed for each pit within the district.
§ Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANSEach district can alter it?
§ Mr. GRAHAMI will come to that point in a moment. The real test, as I have always tried to explain to the Committee, is the fixing of an accurate standard tonnage for the individual pits. I have not the least doubt but that that 2231 standard tonnage will be fixed for the individual pits or undertakings in this country with relation to some recent period, and to what those undertakings have actually been doing, and will be related also, of course, to the aggregate demand and the district allocation. If the standard tonnage is fixed as I have described, and if the application of the quota is uniform to all the undertakings in that district, only varying in the way I have mentioned, therefore, the field for dispute and for arbitration about the quota is appreciably reduced, and it is much more likely indeed that there might be dispute about the standard tonnage. Then let the Committee observe that the district machinery is represenative of all the owners in that district and in most of the districts there are majorities—in some cases large majorities, in other districts email majorities, and in only one or two districts minorities—who will be concerned, but they do not apply for arbitration in the way suggested. They go forward as a representative body, of which they themselves are members, and they discuss the situation of the undertakings in the district upon which the standard tonnage has been fixed. They know the circumstances and may be trusted, if they know anything about their business, to come to a sound arrangement. Supposing some of them are aggrieved or disaffected. Then they have the right to go to an independent arbitrator, some competent person who will take into account all the factors mentioned by my right hon. Friend, and ascertained whether the quota is a fair one, having regard to the history of the undertakings. If it is not fair, then he will give a decision which is enforceable, and of course if that decision involves a higher standard tonnage it must be carried out by means of adjustment with the other undertakings in the district.
§ Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANSWho makes the adjustment?
§ Mr. GRAHAMThe ninety-nine others are bound to accept it because they themselves are parties to the arbitration, or at all events have submitted the case from their body to this independent individual. That is the way in which it will be fixed, and I suggest it is the only way in which it ever could be fixed, and I do not 2232 anticipate anything like the wholesale disputes and arbitrations which have been visualised to-night. Do let us remember that it is to the interest of the industry to get on with the scheme when this Bill becomes an Act of Parliament, and it is not to the interests of the industry or any other industry to spend the remainder of its days in disputes and arbitrations.
§ The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir William Jowitt)It may be convenient if I endeavour to answer the right hon. Gentleman at this stage, only prefacing my remarks with an expression of regret that I cannot answer him more fully at the moment. I think I am right in saying that the questions which he asked are not indicated in the actual Amendment, but those questions were raised quite recently, and I remember collecting a most formidable list of precedents showing the number of recent Acts which contain this very provision that the Arbitration Act of 1889 should not apply. I am afraid I have forgotten most of them for the moment, but I remember that the list started with the Unemployment Insurance Act of 1920 and included a great many Acts passed during the lifetime of the last Administration. I had those facts in readiness on a former occasion, but the discussion on this point for some reason did not take place.
§ Sir B. MERRIMANThe actual reason was that in order to keep faith we allowed a Clause to go through, there being no suspension of the Eleven o'Clock Rule on that occasion, and although we wished to have an explanation on this point, only three minutes were left, and it was impossible to have it.
§ The ATTORNEY-GENERALNo doubt that is the explanation. At any rate, I am sorry that I am not quite so well primed with information to-night as I was on that occasion, but I think I can advise the Committee to a certain extent. Of course it is the fact, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that the Arbitration Act of 1889 sets out the general scheme under which arbitrations are to be taken, and it is part and parcel of the provisions of that Act, among other things, that if you accept arbitration you have to take the arbitrator's law as well as his facts. But in all these 2233 recent Acts to which I have referred, it has been found desirable to exclude the Arbitration Act of 1889, and probably the right hon. Gentleman is aware that many judges have expressed the view that sometimes it is unsatisfactory to combine arbitration proceedings with legal proceedings. Many proceedings start with arbitration, and then the case goes before a Judge from whose decision there is an appeal to the Court of Appeal and then to the House of Lords. This procedure has been described as combining the worst features of both law and arbitration. In these circumstances I can well understand that the Legislature in recent years has very frequently taken the course which we have adopted here, of excluding the Arbitration Act of 1889, except in so far as any of its provisions may be applied by the scheme or the rules made under this Measure. I understand that my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade has already said that this matter will be considered before the Report stage, and I repeat and emphasise that statement. We will look into this matter very carefully, and on Report stage I shall come prepared and armed with the authorities which I had on a previous occasion, in order that I may be able to answer the right hon. Gentleman more fully.
§ Sir B. MERRIMANI am perfectly prepared to accept the Attorney-General's statement that a Clause to this effect appears in several other Acts, but that does not justify putting it into this Bill without some better reason than mere precedent. There is one feature about this Bill which we ought to bear in mind in discussing this question. There are no fewer than 21 different districts, and the Attorney-General will agree with me that there are various matters of law which quite obviously will arise under this scheme. There is one of the duties of the executive board of which we were reminded in the Debate on the Clause immediately preceding this, which struck me at the time as a very forcible illustration of what I mean. Let me call attention to Subsection (2, f) of Clause 3 and the provision for ensuring that the actual consideration, obtained by the sale or supply of the several classes of coal, shall not be less than the minimum price. I suggest 2234 that there you might get a very difficult question of law of the sort I mean. You have a scheme providing for the classification of coal. As has been pointed out you may in fact, get different qualities of coal, even from the same seam in the same district, and you might have questions arising of different qualities in coal which is classified as being all the same. The sort of point which might arise in this. If in order to meet a defect of quality of a particular coal got from a particular classification of coal you make an allowance for that, if you like in anticipation of threatened litigation, is that or is it not a diminution in the price paid? Obviously, that sort of device might be used collusively.
I am pointing out that you might get in one district or another the arbitrator saying that this is or is not to be taken into account in saying whether or not the proper price has been obtained. You might get in one district one decision and in another district another decision, and no means of deciding as between the coal owners of one district and the coalowners in another the propriety of the decision. The particular illustration may be a good one or it may be a bad one, but I am sure that the Attorney-General will agree that it is at least not inconceivable that points of law may very frequently arise in which you may, as the whole thing tends to be final, have one determination made by an arbitrator in one district, and a different determination by one or more arbitrators in the same district; but, at any rate, you may get a conflict between a decision in one district with the decision in another district, with the result that you get a state of chaos between the coalowners of the country.
I understood the right hon. Gentleman, when the point was brought up before but not discussed, to say that it was intended definitely that there should be no appeal to the Courts from the case stated by the arbitrators. I understood him to say that that was to be the effect of it, unless, of course, a scheme provided for it—as it could—but unless the scheme provided that there might be reference to the Courts, a reference to the Courts would be excluded. I am bound to say that, whatever precedents there may be in other Acts which do not raise problems of this sort, it is a very serious thing in this Bill, which raises 2235 the sort of problems which we are now discussing, that there should be no machinery for referring this matter to the Courts at all.
§ Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 199; Noes, 272.
2239| Division No. 230.] | AYES. | [8.20 p.m. |
| Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel | Forestier-Walker, Sir L. | O'Neill, Sir H. |
| Albery, Irving James | Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E. | Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William |
| Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l) | Galbraith, J. F. W. | Peake, Capt. Osbert |
| Allen, Sir J. Sandeman (Liverp'l., W.) | Ganzoni, Sir John | Pilditch, Sir Philip |
| Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W. | Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton | Power, Sir John Cecil |
| Atholl, Duchess of | Gibson, C. G. (Pudsey & Otley) | Pownall, Sir Assheton |
| Atkinson, C. | Glyn, Major R. G. C. | Preston, Sir Walter Rueben. |
| Baillie-Hamilton, Hon. Charles W. | Gower, Sir Robert | Purbrick, R. |
| Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (Bewdley) | Grace, John | Ramsbotham, H. |
| Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H. | Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.) | Rawson, Sir Cooper |
| Bellairs, Commander Carlyon | Grattan-Doyle, Sir N. | Reid, David D. (County Down) |
| Berry, Sir George | Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter | Remer, John R. |
| Betterton, Sir Henry B. | Greene, W. P. Crawford | Rentoul, Sir Gervais S. |
| Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman | Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London) | Reynolds, Col. Sir James |
| Bird, Ernest Roy | Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Gritten, W. G. Howard | Roberts, Sir Samuel (Ecclesall) |
| Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart | Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E. | Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Renneil |
| Bowyer, Captain Sir George E. W. | Gunston, Captain D. W. | Ross, Major Ronald D. |
| Boyce, H. L. | Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H. | Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A. |
| Bracken, B. | Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich) | Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) |
| Braithwaite, Major A. N. | Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford) | Salmon, Major I. |
| Brass, Captain Sir William | Hanbury, C. | Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham) |
| Briscoe, Richard George | Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) |
| Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham) | Hartington, Marquess of | Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks Newb'y) | Haslam, Henry C. | Sassoon, Rt. Han. Sir Philip A. G. D. |
| Buchan, John | Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley) | Savery, S. S. |
| Bullock, Captain Malcolm | Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P. | Shepperson, Sir Ernest Whittome |
| Burton, Colonel H. W. | Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J. | Skelton, A. N. |
| Butler, R. A. | Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller | Smith, Louis W. Sheffield, Hallam) |
| Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward | Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar) | Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.) |
| Carver, Major W. H. | Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K. | Smith-Carington, Neville W. |
| Castle Stewart, Earl of | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) | Smithers, Waldron |
| Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City) | Hurd, Percy A. | Somerset, Thomas |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth, S.) | Hurst, Sir Gerald B. | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) |
| Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton | Iveagh, Countess of | Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Edgbaston) | James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert | Southby, Commander A. R. J. |
| Chapman, Sir S. | Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton) | Spender-Clay, Colonel H. |
| Christie, J. A. | King, Commodore Rt. Hon. Henry D. | Stanley, Maj. Hon. D. (W'morland) |
| Colfox, Major William Philip | Knox, Sir Alfred | Steel-Maitland. Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur |
| Colville, Major D. J. | Lamb, Sir J. Q. | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) |
| Courtautd, Major J. S. | Lane Fox, Rt. Hon. George R. | Sueter, Rear-Admiral M. F. |
| Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L. | Law, Sir Alfred (Derby, High Peak) | Thomas, Major L. B. (King's Norton) |
| Crichton-Stuart, Lord C. | Leigh, Sir John (Clapham) | Thomson, Sir F. |
| Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H. | Leighton, Major B. E. P. | Titchfield, Major the Marquess of |
| Crookshank, Capt. H. C. | Lewis, Oswald (Colchester) | Todd, Capt. A. J. |
| Croom-Johnson, R. P. | Llewellin, Major J. J. | Train, J. |
| Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West) | Locker-Lampeon, Rt. Hon. Godfrey | Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement |
| Cunliffe-Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip | McConnell, Sir Joseph | Turton, Robert Hugh |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) | Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon |
| Datrymple-Whlte, Lt.-Col. Sir Godfrey | MacRobert, Rt. Hon. Alexander M. | Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert |
| Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford) | Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham) | Wardlaw-Milne, J. S. |
| Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H. | Makins, Brigadier-General E. | Warrender, Sir Victor |
| Davies, Dr. Vernon | Margesson, Captain H. D. | Wayland, Sir William A. |
| Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil) | Marjoribanks, E. C. | Wells, Sydney R. |
| Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.) | Mason, Colonel Glyn K. | Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay) |
| Dixey, A. C. | Meller, R. J. | Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.) |
| Dugdale, Capt. T. L. | Merriman, Sir F. Boyd | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Eden, Captain Anthony | Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham) | Withers, Sir John James |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | Mond, Hon. Henry | Womersley, W. J. |
| Elliot, Major Walter E. | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. Sir B. | Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley |
| England, Colonel A. | Moore, Sir Newton J. (Richmond) | Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L. |
| Everard, W. Lindsay | Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr) | Wright, Brig.-Gen. W. D. (Tavist'k) |
| Falle, Sir Bertram G. | Morrison, W. S. (Glos., Cirencester) | Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton |
| Ferguson, Sir John | Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive | |
| Fcrmoy, Lord | Muirhead, A. J. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Fielden, E. B. | Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge) | Captain Wallace and Sir George Penny. |
| Fison, F. G. Clavering | Nicholson, O. (Westminster) | |
| Ford, Sir P. J. | Oman, Sir Charles William C. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro') | Arnott, John |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Alpass, J. H. | Attlee, Clement Richard |
| Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher | Ammon, Charles George | Ayles, Walter |
| Aitchison, Rt. Hon. Craigle M. | Angell, Norman | Baker, John (Wolverhampton, Bliston) |
| Baldwin, Oliver (Dudley) | Hoffman, P. C. | Perry, S. F. |
| Barnes, Alfred John | Hollins, A. | Pethick-Lawrence, F. W. |
| Barr, James | Hopkin, Daniel | Phillips, Dr. Marlon |
| Batey, Joseph | Horrabin, J. F. | Picton-Turbervill, Edith |
| Bellamy, Albert | Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield) | Pole, Major D. G. |
| Benn, Rt. Hon. Wedgwood | Isaacs, George | Potts, John S. |
| Bennett, Captain E. N. (Cardiff, Central) | Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Price, M. P. |
| Bennett, William (Battersea, South) | John, William (Rhondda, West) | Quibell, D. J. K. |
| Benson, G. | Johnston, Thomas | Raynes, W. R. |
| Bentham, Dr. Ethel | Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown) | Richards, R. |
| Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale) | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) |
| Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Riley, Ben (Dewsbury) |
| Bowen, J. W. | Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W. | Riley, F. F. (Stockton-on-Tees) |
| Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W. | Jowitt, Rt. Hon. Sir W. A. | Ritson, J. |
| Broad, Francis Alfred | Kelly, W. T. | Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich) |
| Brockway, A. Fenner | Kennedy, Thomas | Romeril, H. G. |
| Bromfield, William | Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M. | Rosbotham, D. S. T. |
| Bromley, J. | Kinley, J. | Rowson, Guy |
| Brooke, W. | Kirkwood, D. | Salter, Dr. Alfred |
| Brothers, M. | Knight, Holford | Samuel, H. W. (Swansea, West) |
| Brown, C. W. E. (Notts, Mansfield) | Lang, Gordon | Sanders, W. S. |
| Brown, James (Ayr and Bute) | Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George | Sandham, E. |
| Brown, W. J. (Wolverhampton, West) | Lathan, G. | Sawyer, G. F. |
| Buchanan, G. | Law, Albert (Bolton) | Scrymgeour, E. |
| Burgess, F. G. | Law, A. (Rosendale) | Scurr, John |
| Buxton, C. R. (Yorks, W. R. Elland) | Lawrence, Susan | Sexton, James |
| Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel (Norfolk, N.) | Lawrie, Hugh Hartley (Stalybridge) | Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston) |
| Caine, Derwent Hall- | Lawson, John James | Shepherd, Arthur Lewis |
| Cameron, A. G. | Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle) | Sherwood, G. H. |
| Cape, Thomas | Leach, W. | Shield, George William |
| Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S. W.) | Lee, Frank (Derby, N. E.) | Shiels, Dr. Drummond |
| Charieton, H. C. | Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern) | Shillaker, J. F. |
| Chater, Daniel | Lees, J. | Shinwell, E. |
| Church, Major A. G. | Lewis, T. (Southampton) | Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) |
| Clarke, J. S. | Lindley, Fred W. | Simmons, C. J. |
| Cluse, W. S. | Lloyd, C. Ellis | Sinkinson, George |
| Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R. | Logan, David Gilbert | Sitch, Charles H. |
| Cocks, Frederick Seymour | Longbottom, A. W. | Smith, Alfred (Sunderland) |
| Compton, Joseph | Longden, F. | Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe) |
| Cove, William G. | Lovat-Fraser, J. A. | Smith, Frank (Nuneaton) |
| Daggar, George | Lowth, Thomas | Smith, H. B. Lees- (Keighley) |
| Dallas, George | Lunn, William | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) |
| Dalton, Hugh | Macdonald, Gordon (Ince) | Smith, Tom (Pontefract) |
| Davles, Rhys John (Westhoughton) | MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham) | Smith, W. R. (Norwich) |
| Day, Harry | MacDonald, Malcolm (Basset law) | Snell, Harry |
| Denman, Hon. R. D. | McElwee, A. | Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip |
| Dickson, T. | McEntee, V. L. | Stamford, Thomas W. |
| Dukes, C | Mackinder, W. | Stephen, Campbell |
| Duncan, Charles | McKinlay, A. | Stewart, J. (St. Rollox) |
| Ede, James Chuter | Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan) | Strachey, E. J. St. Loe |
| Edmunds, J. E. | MacNeill-Weir, L. | Strauss, G. R. |
| Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty) | Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton) | Sullivan, J. |
| Edwards, E. (Morpeth) | Mansfield, W. | Sutton, J. E. |
| Egan, W. H. | March, S. | Taylor, R. A. (Lincoln) |
| Forgan, Dr. Robert | Marcus, M. | Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S. W.) |
| Freeman, Peter | Marley, J. | Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Derby) |
| Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton) | Marshall, Fred | Thurtle, Ernest |
| Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, N.) | Mathers, George | Tillett, Ben |
| Gibbins, Joseph | Matters, L. W. | Tinker, John Joseph |
| Gibson, H. M. (Lancs, Mossley) | Maxton, James | Toole, Joseph |
| Gill, T. H. | Melville, Sir James | Tout, W. J. |
| Gillett, George M. | Messer, Fred | Townend, A. E. |
| Gossling, A. G. | Middleton, G. | Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles |
| Gould, F. | Mills, J. E. | Turner, B. |
| Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | Milner, J. | Vaughan, D. J. |
| Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.) | Montague, Frederick | Viant, S. P. |
| Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Morgan, Dr. H. B. | Walkden, A. G. |
| Groves, Thomas E. | Morley, Ralph | Walker, J. |
| Grundy, Thomas W. | Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South) | Wallace, H. W. |
| Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton) | Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham. N.) | Wallhead, Richard C. |
| Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Mort, D. L. | Watkins, F. C. |
| Hall, Capt. W. P (Portsmouth. C.) | Moses, J. J. H. | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline). |
| Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn) | Mosley, Lady C. (Stoke-on-Trent) | Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda) |
| Hardie, George D. | Mosley, Sir Oswald (Smethwick) | Wellock, Wilfred |
| Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | Muff, G. | Welsh, James (Paisley) |
| Hastings, Dr. Somerville | Muggeridge, H. T. | Welsh, James C. (Coatbridge) |
| Haycock, A. W. | Murnin, Hugh | Wheatley, Rt. Han. J. |
| Mayday, Arthur | Naylor, T. E. | Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood) |
| Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley) | Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter) | Whiteley, William (Blaydon) |
| Henderson, Arthur, Junr. (Cardiff. S.) | Noel Baker, P. J. | Wilkinson, Ellen C. |
| Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow) | Oldfield, J. R. | Williams, David (Swansea, East) |
| Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield) | Oliver, George Harold (Ilkeston) | Williams Dr. J. H. (Llanelly) |
| Herriotts, J. | Palin, John Henry | Williams, T. (York, Don Valley) |
| Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth) | Palmer, E. T. | Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe) |
| Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan) | Wilson, J. (Oldham) |
| Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) | Wright, W. (Rutherglen) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Winterton, G. E. (Leicester, Loughb'gh) | Young, R. S. (Islington, North) | Mr. Hayes and Mr. Paling. |
| Wise, E. F. |
§ Mr. MONDI beg to move, in page 8, line 25, at the end, to insert the words:
(o) for the completion of contracts entered into prior to the publication of a scheme.If this, or a similar Amendment, be not inserted in the Bill it will not be possible for people who have entered into contracts prior to the scheme being imposed to complete those contracts. It would be impossible for manufacturers to have any idea of their coal costs for the future, and that would naturally create a very unsatisfactory condition of affairs. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade has an Amendment on the point on the Paper later, and if he will give me an assurance that be will move that Amendment I shall not press this one.
§ Mr. W. GRAHAMI rise at once to give my hon. Friend that assurance. This subject was very carefully considered, and in the Clause which will later be submitted and explained by the Attorney-General my hon. Friend will see that his point is met.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Colonel LANE FOXI beg to move, in page 8, line 42, to leave out paragraph (b).
This Amendment is really complementary to the Amendment passed some days ago by which we took out of the Bill the provision for a central levy on home coal to raise a subsidy for export coal. Paragraph (b) provides for a district scheme, and by asking the Committee to delete this paragraph I am asking them to delete the power to impose a district levy. The proposal in this paragraph is not so serious in one respect as the former one, because it affects only a district instead of the whole country, but the principle is the same. There is the same element of unfairness to home industry as compared with foreign industry, which would be able to obtain British coal at a lower rate. I do not wish to go into the arguments raised on the former Amendment, which was fully debated at the time, but I think it must be admitted on all sides that if, as a result of this or any other scheme, home producers have to pay more 2240 for their coal than their competitors abroad there must be a distinct grievance, which will react very badly on industry and on employment in this country. That it merely affects a district is no reason for permiting a "coal ring" to have statutory power to raise a levy to the detriment of our home industry. As has been shown by the operation of the Five Counties Scheme it is quite possible for this sort of arrangement to be made voluntarily, and there is far less objection under a voluntary arrangement, because obviously competition can come in if the operations become too serious and are really detrimental to the country; but when by an Act of Parliament we make it a Statutory provision, of course the element of competition disappears, and the chance of a consumer getting redress is taken away.
There is an even stronger reason against this paragraph being left in the Bill. Without the provision as to a central levy, which we struck out of the Bill a few days ago, this district levy cannot possibly operate, because any district scheme has to receive the consent of the central council, and it is obvious that a council which represents the whole of the districts will not consent to one particular district having an advantage in the sale of its export coal which is not common to the other districts, and so there will always be a majority on the central council against any district which tries to secure to itself an advantage which other districts would not be able to obtain. The provisions of this paragraph therefore become absolutely unworkable and absolutely futile, and in the interests of tidiness alone I suggest to the Government that this miserable fragment of an undesirable whole should be removed. We have been heartened in regard to this proposal by the Liberal speeches which have been made in support of it. One source of our information in support of this Amendment has been that derived from the speeches we have heard in this House made from Liberal benches which have absolutely convinced us that the proposal of a central levy in the Bill was both mischievous and unworkable. I hope hon. Members will agree to delete 2241 this provision also and treat it in the same spirit of common sense as that which has been shown in regard to other proposal.
§ Sir HERBERT SAMUELI have always regarded this Clause as being closely connected with the one which the House recently decided to delete. The export levy was contained in two Clauses of the Bill in relation to the central scheme and the district scheme. Powers were given to the Central Committee to impose the levy in order to cheapen the export of coal from the country as a whole, and after full debate it was decided that the provision should be omitted. Now we come to the corresponding provision in the Clause that is before us, which empowers the district to impose a similar levy on all coal raised in the district in order to promote the export. I should be very interested to learn from the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade whether he can distinguish between these two provisions, and whether the decision which has been reached in the one case should not also apply to the other. Prima facie, I should have thought that it would, but before making any statement upon the subject I shall be interested to hear the statement which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will be ready to make to inform the Committee why, while the House has rejected the principle of the export levy, he should retain it when applied to the district.
§ Mr. W. GRAHAMI quite agree that from some points of view we are discussing substantially the same problem in the district levy as was discussed a night or two ago when the national proposal was rejected by a narrow majority in the House. I should be out of order in recalling the circumstances of that Debate except in so far as they correspond, but I think I am entitled to say that probably there is a certain amount of misunderstanding, and the position is one of which I do not exclude the possibility of review, because, rightly understood, it is very largely a question of differential prices, and of an effort to keep certain classes of coal on the market, which can only be done by steps being taken to ease the price in that market, whether for a short or a long time as may be required. That part of the national scheme is, however, for the time being out of the Bill, and 2242 my right hon. Friend the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) quite properly put the question whether there is any distinction between a national or central scheme and the corresponding district scheme, and he added that if there is any distinction of that kind he hoped that the Government would accept this Amendment.
I have no hesitation in saying at once that in my view there are vital distinctions between the national and the district levies, and I can give a very good illustration as to what would happen in Scotland as between Lanarkshire, and other parts, and the Fifeshire district. That really accounts, to some extent, for the appearance of this permissive district levy scheme. Assume for a moment that the difficulties among the owners in Scotland are overcome, and that a marketing scheme is provided for that part of the country, the effect of which is to improve the pithead price level for pithead coal, and to strengthen the general return to the industry and its resources. Then one of the effects will be to increase the amount available for miners wages in the Scottish wages ascertainment district, but the immediate result will be to place the Fifeshire district in Scotland, which is overwhelmingly an export district, at a disadvantage compared with other parts of the Scottish coalfield. Unless there were some method of adjusting prices within the scheme as a whole Fifeshire would not be able to retain more than a fraction of its export trade. Accordingly, that matter was under discussion with the Scottish owners among others and indeed owners in other districts in the country where the conditions correspond. It was suggested that it would not be possible to work the scheme, or the scheme would not become applicable unless it included a device of that kind.
The object of a levy on the whole of the coal within say the Scottish area, or any other of the 21 districts, would be to ease the export prices, in order to retain the export market, and incidentally to meet those different conditions in ways applicable within that district, according to the variety of the trade as between home and export. Therefore, there is a vital distinction when we come to the district levy as compared with the national pool. It may be suggested that, if you have a district levy in all the 21 2243 districts in this country, you will, in fact, achieve the national levy which has already been deleted by the House. I would say at once that there is no possibility or danger of any result of that kind developing. In the first place, I have already reminded the House that it is purely permissive in character, and that the only effect of the decision of last week was to take away from the Board of Trade the power of bringing the central levy into operation. I am perfectly satisfied that in some of the districts where these schemes are established a levy will be proposed. It might also be on a national basis, but, of course, on voluntary lines, subject to the consideration that all the owners come in. There can, however, be no question of an accumulation of, say, 21 district levies having a national pool on the lines of the proposal which has been deleted.
In the first place, I am satisfied that there would never he a levy in more than, perhaps, a small number of districts, because this is a part of the Bill which has always been permissive, and only to be applied where it was necessary to facilitate the sale of certain classes of coal, particularly export coal and coal for the heavy industries, and where the market should not be retained on any other basis. This is where, in the absence of a scheme of this kind, the trade would be lost, and that is the central consideration. In the first place, therefore, there will a levy of this kind, probably, only in a number of districts, but certainly in a district of the nature of Scotland, which I am assuming would be covered by the scheme, and where the problem is between exporting Fife and the rest of the country, which is more particularly devoted to inland demand. Moreover, there is this further safeguard, if the House desires a safeguard in any district levy—and that is all that is before us now—that the proceeds can only be used to facilitate the sale of certain classes of coal within that district. They can never be transferred to any central organisation, and, in the absence of the provision which has been deleted, cannot become part of the central scheme. I regard this provision as essential in the district schemes. Otherwise, there will be a very serious problem in Scotland, and that problem might be so large as to prevent the appearance of a 2244 scheme at all, which in my opinion would be a disaster, in a very important part of the coalfields. I trust that with this explanation the Amendment will be rejected.
§ Commodore DOUGLAS KINGThe President of the Board of Trade has made an effort to draw a distinction between a central scheme and the district scheme with which we are now dealing, but the difference is merely a matter of volume, a matter of size. The problem is exactly the same whether it applies to the whole country or whether it applies to the district. The right hon. Gentleman has given us an example, as he says, between Lanarkshire and Fifeshire. He says that the inland market must assist the export market if the export trade is to be maintained. I should like to put to him the biggest example that we have at the present time of a levy for the assistance of export trade, namely, that of the Central Collieries Commercial Association. I think he will agree with me that the main reason for the levy in that case, and the main reason why a subsidy on exports was ever agreed to in that district, where there was no compulsory control, no 100 per cent. control as there is at the present time, was that the inland market came to the conclusion that it was to their advantage to entice other collieries, or a cerain number of collieries, to send their coal abroad. They were actually subsidising the sending of coal abroad in order to relieve the pressure which then existed in the home market. It was not really a public-spirited effort to increase the export trade, but in order to relieve themselves of a certain amount of competition in the home market.
We know that under the Five Counties Scheme the export coal from that district is somewhere about 8 per cent. of the total output, and they have a levy of 3d. a ton to give a certain subsidy to that 8 per cent. of export coal. But that, as I have said, was not done with the idea of saving the export trade, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested may have been the case as between Lanarkshire and Fifeshire. It was done really with the idea of relieving the home trade of additional competition. It was found that when the export trade from Yorkshire and the other counties in the scheme was bad, and they were not able to com- 2245 pete against their foreign competitors, they were, instead of exporting their coal, coming into competition with the companies which had been dealing in the home trade. That, of course, pushed down the price, and acted adversely on the collieries producing for the home trade. I do not call that a selfish reason. It was a business reason. It was not a public-spirited idea of helping the export trade so much as a desire to relieve themselves of competition that induced the 92 per cent. of home trade producers to subsidise the 8 per cent. of export trade in those counties. Unless some such situation arises as between, say, Lanarkshire and Fifeshire, I do not think that the home trade will be found to be public-spirited enough to act in that way. The right hon. Gentleman knows his own countrymen from a business point of view better than I do, but, if they are able to enjoy their home trade at an increased profit, I cannot quite visualise them sharing that profit and saying that, as the conditions are rather hard on the export trade, they will hand over to them some of the profits that they are making on the inland market. I can no more visualise that than I can visualise the four-fifths of the country's production which is used for home consumption putting a levy on itself for the purpose of subsidising and assisting the export trade.
What is going to happen in South Wales, for instance, under a district scheme? We know that something like 80 per cent. of the production of South Wales is exported, and only 20 per cent., or something less, is consumed in this country. It is quite impossible, on that 20 per cent., to raise a sufficient levy to provide what would really be an adequate subsidy to assist the export trade in South Wales. Suppose that the Five-Counties Scheme, if it still continues as a scheme, were to carry on the subsidy or to increase it, or suppose that Northumberland and Durham raised a subsidy on their home-consumed coal to subsidise their export coal. We know that the types of coal are not identical, but at the same time it is not likely that the South Wales representatives on the Central Scheme would consent to the subsidising of export coal from other districts, when they in South Wales could not possibly 2246 obtain a subsidy from any scheme that could be raised in that district.
I maintain that the levy under the central scheme which we defeated last week only differs from the district scheme in the matter of scale. Obviously, the district scheme is bound to be smaller in extent than the central scheme, but its object is exactly the same, its incidence would be the same, and, therefore, I have been hoping that the right hon. Gentleman would almost consider this Amendment as consequential on the Amendment of last week, and would allow it to be carried. I was certainly surprised that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) failed to see the similarity between the two cases, seeing that, when we went into the Lobby last week to defeat the central scheme, after very powerful speeches from below the Gangway, the position was perfectly clear to the right hon. Gentleman and other Members on those benches. I should certainly be very surprised indeed if they could find anything in what the President of the Board of Trade has told us which will show any very real distinction as between the central scheme which we defeated last week and the district scheme which we are hoping to defeat to-night. I hope we shall repeat the process of last week and defeat the district scheme.
§ Major GLYNI am really astonished that the President of the Board of Trade has not at once said this is practically the same thing in another dress as what was decided on last week, that it is, therefore, consequential and that the matter is settled by last week's vote. I was rather concerned to hear the right hon. Gentleman hint that even the decision of last week must be subject to some form of review. It makes it all the more important that on this question, which is a matter of local arrangements, which in a cumulative condition become a national arrangement, we should see whether the Committee would have preferred something carried which is against the opinion of those who expressed themselves in the Lobby last week. But there is something even more important. I believe all the industries of the country which depend on coal are up against a very serious position, and the mere hint of any increase in the cost of coal for our own industries in order 2247 to subsidise the export trade will have a paralysing effect to a very great extent upon trying to enable our people to key themselves up to face a very serious situation. No one knows better than the President of the Board of Trade that in his office, which he adorns in many ways, he must in his heart of hearts wish to see British industry assisted.
The problems of our industry depend on the basic price of fuel. Cheap coal means more employment. None of us wishes to see one industry suffer in order to benefit the rest. I have frequently heard that the miners have paid for other industries, but surely the miners realise one thing. I admit that, all through the War, and after it, they bore very heavy burdens on their shoulders. I sat for a mining constituency till they turned me out, and I gained a very high respect for miners. I recognise the difference between their trade and any other. I recognise the extraordinary heroism they showed in times of danger. I never met an unpatriotic miner in my life, but I have met people in the House who seem to assume that the miner wishes to be treated as a man apart from the rest of the country. I believe the miners would be the very last to say they wish to put one man out of employment by any selfish action of their own.
9.0 p.m.
None of us represents industries. We represent constituencies, which are in miniature the whole national life of the country. We are not thinking of a section or a class. We think of the good of the country as a whole. Surely the whole Debate last week showed that the opinion of the House, as representing the national feeling, was opposed to taxing one part of the trade which had an immediate effect on our industry for the benefit of giving a competitive impulse to our coal for export. Therefore, I believe in this Amendment we must realise that there is no distinction, and the right hon. Gentleman, usually so clear, was to-night in some difficulty be show the difference between 21 districts all with this power, should they all have the same impulse to do this thing, and a national agreement. It is very hard to see any at all except, as he said, that the Board of Trade, in the first idea which was turned down last week, would have something more to say to it. I was in Scot- 2248 land last week, and I visited some of the coal areas in Fife, and I feel very strongly that this House has to think most carefully what it does, because the opinion, as far as I was able to gain it in a short time, was that the Bill is going to do irreparable damage to the mining industry in Scotland. None of us know how the Bill is going to emerge after these changes, but one thing we have to be quite consistent about is that the cost of fuel to our own industries shall not be put up, because that must be bad for British trade. As far as I can understand from the Debate last week, it is bound to put up the price of coal. That, after all, is the whole object of the scheme. If it does not do that, it will not help our export trade. I am told already that the Westphalian coal people and others are now saying, "We are not quite sure about the position of British coal for export, but if it is going to be a form of subsidised coal, we will also start subsidising," so are we really going to get the benefit that some hope they may get by stimulating export trade? At the same time we are certain only of one thing, that our industry will suffer detriment. Is this the time and place where anyone would suggest that we should do anything of that sort?
I should like to mention one other point. I believe the public utility organisations, which depend entirely on cheap coal, will get their fuel at no very greatly increased price. Obviously, great undertakings like electricity, railways, gas and so on can make forward contracts and get advantageous terms. I believe they can effect even greater economies than they have done in matters of distribution. It is not only that. You cannot get prosperity for any of the public utilities until you restore confidence to the industries of the country, which at present have a feeling of insecurity. I am convinced that this Bill has contributed more towards the feeling of insecurity to British industry than any other Bill that has been put through the House. Until you can restore confidence, you are not going to improve trade. It seems to me that this Amendment is really consequential on what was decided last week, and I hope the President of the Board of Trade will be able to give us some explanation which will prove that it is indeed a different thing altogether in principle and in fact from what was decided last week. I am cer- 2249 tain, if the Amendment passes, a great many things which we fear, and which when presented to the Committee were defeated last week, will in effect be brought about, greatly to the detriment of British industry, at a time when we want to do everything to stimulate trade and get confidence back to employers of labour, without which they cannot employ men whose only fault is that they have not an opportunity of contributing towards the wealth of the country by getting to their proper employment.
§ Captain AUSTIN HUDSONWe have come to a rather perplexing situation with regard to this Amendment because in spite of what the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade has said, this Amendment is, in many respects, consequential on the one which we dealt with last week. I cannot see how, if one is out of the Bill, the other can possibly remain in. My right hon. Friend quoted the words of the Subsection, and I should like to quote them again because the President of the Board of Trade did not deal with the particular point. Sub-section (b) says:
for empowering the executive board, subject to the consent of the central council,"—these are the words which I want to emphasise—to collect from the owners of coal mines in the district levies.Whatever the President may say, the arguments for the central and for the district schemes are exactly the same. His speech to-night, although naturally, under the circumstances, shorter, was exactly on the same lines as the speech which he made when he pleaded for leaving the central levy in the Bill. I cannot see how we can possibly leave in this district levy after the Committee, in their wisdom, have decided to get rid of the central scheme. He says that there are 21 districts and that all of them will be able to make their own arrangements. I cannot imagine any greater chaos than that which will be created if we have 21 different levy schemes for the different districts, and no central scheme.I shall be interested to hear—and I hope that we shall hear from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel)—exactly what is the Liberal position. The right hon. Gentleman said that he wanted to hear what the President of the Board of Trade had 2250 to say, and I think that we now want to hear what he has to say. We on this side are definitely against the levy, and the grounds which we gave in great detail last week for rejecting the central levy are equally applicable for rejecting the district levy. I do not see how we can possibly pass a scheme for subsidising the export trade. It will immediately add an additional burden to the industries which have to meet competition from abroad, particularly the iron and steel industry. I do not intend to go into that question, but I know from my own experience the amount of unemployment which at the present moment is being caused in all the big iron and steel districts in this country by reason of the fact that cheap iron and steel and cheap manufactured goods are coming into the country. If we give a levy deliberately to our foreign competitors by selling them cheap coal while putting up the price to our own customers in this country the position will become worse than it is at the present moment.
I would like to emphasise the small point made by the Mover of the Amendment that even for the sake of tidiness it would be right to accept the Amendment and turn out the district levy, just as the central levy has been got rid of I cannot conceive what may happen if we allow the district levy to be left in the Bill when we have prevented the central body from making any levy whatever On many occasions it has been said that we consider this a dear Coal Bill, and it is this provision for a levy and the provisions in respect of prices dealt with earlier this evening which have given the Bill that name. I hope that even now the President of the Board of Trade may reconsider his decision, even though it might be necessary in later stages of the Bill to make a drastic alteration, and will accept this Amendment allowing this Sub-section to be left out as was done in the case of the central scheme.
§ Mr. LEIF JONESI must confess that the attitude of the Government towards this Amendment has taken me by surprise. I certainly thought that when the central levy was left out the Government had accepted the decision of the Committee that we were not to have a levy for subsidising the export trade. I listened carefully to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman just now. He is generally 2251 lucid but I confess that he did not indicate what the difference is between a district levy and the central levy. He said that you could establish a pool in Scotland by which the export trade could be subsidised at the expense of the home trade. That was exactly the point upon which I have given practically the only vote which I have given against the right hon. Gentleman upon this Bill. I do not like any of the Bill. I throw the whole responsibility for it on to the Government, but I did vote against the export levy because I thought that that was the worst feature of the Bill.
I certainly do not like this part of the Bill and I shall be compelled to go into the Lobby against the right hon. Gentleman to-night if he persists in retaining this Sub-section. The principle is exactly the same as that which was dealt with last week. By means of district levies the country will find itself in the very position which we wished to avoid when we rejected the Sub-section last week. I beg of the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider this matter and see whether he cannot meet us by accepting the Amendment or amending the Clause so that we shall not have this particular feature of putting a tax upon the home trade for the benefit of the export trade.
§ Sir H. SAMUELI feel it my duty to emphasise what has been said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne (Mr. Leif Jones). We are greatly astonished at the attitude which has been taken by the Government in this case. We should certainly have expected that on this matter the Government would have accepted the very deliberate decision of the Committee last week, which was, that in the view of Parliament the home consumer ought not to be taxed by means of levy in order to give a subsidy to the coal which is exported to the advantage of the foreign consumer. I listened attentively to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade in order to see whether there was any substantial difference between the issue which was decided last week and the issue which is before us now. I cannot find that he had in any way distinguished between the two. The principle is exactly the same. Indeed, the very illustration which he 2252 gave emphasised that. He said that in Scotland you have two coalfields. You have Lanark and you have File, and the proposal now is that the consumers of Lanark coal shall be made to pay a levy in order to promote the export of Fife coal. If those districts had happened to be two separate districts, or if under this Bill, if it becomes an Act, they afterwards decide they will be two districts, then the application of such a levy would be impossible. But it is because they happen to be one district now that you adopt the very principle which the Committee condemned last week and are going to tax one section for the benefit of the other.
It was decided that the Lancashire consumers should not be taxed in order to promote the export of Durham coal, but you are proposing that the Lanarkshire consumers shall be taxed in order to pro-mote the export of Fife coal. But what was done last week was not so much on account of the varying interests of one district and another, but what the House had principally in mind was the home consumer and the foreign consumer. And now you are proposing, in any district of the country which happens to adopt this scheme, deliberately to raise the price of coal to all the home consumers in that district in order to give a levy so that coal sold abroad to the competitors of British trade should be at a cheaper rate than that which obtained to the home consumer. That is what the Committee condemned last week, and I think it is bound to reassert its opinion to-night. If it does not, the matter will have to be considered on Report stage.
The Committee is taken by surprise at finding this matter raised again. It was fully argued last week. It is not necessary to repeat the arguments because it is impossible to find any new one's on one side or the other. All the contentions raised on the former Amendment apply for and against the present provision. It is true that this is voluntary. It is true that after the Amendment was carried last week we left the power to the coalowners to raise these levies in a voluntary fashion. That is true; and so it would be if we accepted this Amendment. They would still have power to do it in a voluntary fashion in the districts, but Parliament would not be responsible. It would be a trade arrange- 2253 ment, and it might be a question later on whether Parliament should intervene and by Statute forbid it.
§ Mr. T. WILLIAMSIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that once the power is taken from the Central Board to overlook any district arrangement for this purpose, that once each district has the power of forming a scheme, the Government and the Central Board would not have any say at all in the matter? The only safeguard is taken away if the Amendment is accepted.
§ Sir H. SAMUELI do not agree. If the matter became an abuse it might be necessary for Parliament to legislate to prevent it. That is a matter on which I express no opinion at the moment; but the hon. Member is not right. Subsection (3, e) says:
for empowering the executive board, subject to the consent of the central council, to collect from the owners of coal mines in the district levies, imposed upon them at such times and for such periods as may be determined in accordance with the provisions of the scheme in proportion to the output or disposal of their respective coal mines in the district, for the purpose of facilitating the sale of any class of coal produced in the district";Therefore, there is still consent to be obtained from the Central Council, although Parliament has decided that the Central Council is not to do it itself. The Bill is left in a state of confusion. The fact that there is still left to the whole country voluntary powers is not conclusive on the matter. Our view is that Parliament ought not by legislation to tax, for this is indirectly a tax, the home consumers of coal in order to give a subsidy to our foreign competitors, and I still adhere to that contention. The matter was argued fully on the last occasion and there is nothing new to be said on either side.This Amendment is not in any way fatal to the Bill. When we carried the Amendment last week the Government accepted the decision, quite rightly and wisely, and went on with the Bill; and the same applies to this Amendment. If it is carried it would not be in any way vital to Part I or to the Bill as a whole. The considerations which led my hon. Friends to abstain on an earlier Amendment do not apply now. We did not feel that we could at this juncture take the responsibility of defeating the Govern- 2254 ment on a provision which they might probably regard as vital to Part I, which they might regard as vital to the Bill as a whole. We did not desire to take that responsibility at this juncture, for reasons which were given by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). But those considerations do not apply now. This Amendment is not more vital to the Bill than the one carried last week and, therefore, for those reasons we on these Benches feel obliged to vote in favour of the Amendment.
§ Commodore KINGIt is gratifying to know that hon. and right hon. Members below the Gangway are at the last moment going to support us in the Lobby. [Interruption.] I was only expressing my gratitude. This Amendment has been on the paper for some weeks, and it cannot have escaped the astute Parliamentarians in the Liberal party. They must have realised that it was not consequential, and that we should have to carry it against the Government. They have had ample opportunity to make up their minds as to their position—
§ Sir H. SAMUELI assumed that it would have been accepted by the Government.
§ Commodore KINGI do not think anybody could rightly anticipate that the Government would voluntarily accept an Amendment which was contested so strongly last week. I was under no such misapprehension, although I have not the benefit of the close counsels with the Government which hon. Members below the Gangway apparently enjoy.
§ Sir H. SAMUELI do not want the hon. and gallant Member to misunderstand me. I have had no assurances from the Government on the point.
§ Commodore KINGI realise that, but the right hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members below the Gangway do apparently have frequent consultations and come to agreements with Members of the Government on the Front Bench. We do not enjoy that privilege, and I should have thought the right hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) would have known the mind of the President of the Board of Trade with regard to this Amendment. I can only imagine that this last minute change of front 2255 on the part of the Liberal party is the fact that so many of their own Members have left the Committee that it is safe for them to vote against the Government.
§ Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out" stand part of the Clause."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 267; Noes, 220.
2259| Division No. 231.] | AYES. | [9.23 p.m. |
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | Marcus, M. |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.) | Marley, J. |
| Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher | Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Marshall, Fred |
| Aitchison, Rt. Hon. Craigle M. | Groves, Thomas E. | Mathers, George |
| Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro') | Grundy, Thomas W. | Matters, L. W. |
| Alpass, J. H. | Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton) | Maxton, James |
| Ammon, Charles George | Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Melville, Sir James |
| Angell, Norman | Hall, Capt. W. P. (Portsmouth, C.) | Messer, Fred |
| Arnott, John | Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn) | Middleton, G. |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Hardie, George D. | Mills, J. E. |
| Ayles, Walter | Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | Milner, J. |
| Baker, John (Wolverhampton, Bilston) | Haycock, A. W. | Montague, Frederick |
| Baldwin, Oliver (Dudley) | Hayday, Arthur | Morgan, Dr. H. B. |
| Barnes, Alfred John | Hayes, John Henry | Morley, Ralph |
| Barr, James | Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley) | Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South) |
| Batey, Joseph | Henderson, Arthur, Junr. (Cardiff, S.) | Mort, D. L. |
| Bellamy, Albert | Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow) | Moses, J. J. H. |
| Benn, Rt. Hon. Wedgwood | Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield) | Mosley, Lady C. (Stoke-on-Trent) |
| Bennett, Captain E. N. (Cardiff, Central) | Herriotts, J. | Mosley, Sir Oswald (Smethwick) |
| Bennett, William (Battersea, South) | Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth) | Muff, G. |
| Benson, G. | Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Muggeridge, H. T. |
| Bentham, Dr. Ethel | Hoffman, P. C. | Murnin, Hugh |
| Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale) | Hollins, A. | Naylor, T. E. |
| Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret | Hopkin, Daniel | Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter) |
| Bowen, J. W. | Horrabin, J. F. | Noel Baker, P. J. |
| Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W. | Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield) | Oldfield, J. R. |
| Broad, Francis Alfred | Isaacs, George | Oliver, George Harold (Ilkeston) |
| Brockway, A. Fenner | Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Palin, John Henry |
| Bromfield, William | John, William (Rhondda, West) | Paling, Wilfrid |
| Bromley, J. | Johnston, Thomas | Palmer, E. T. |
| Brooke, W. | Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown) | Perry, S. F. |
| Brothers, M. | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Pethick-Lawrence, F. W. |
| Brown, C. W. E. (Notts, Mansfield) | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Phillips, Dr. Marion |
| Brown, James (Ayr and Bute) | Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W. | Picton-Turbervill, Edith |
| Brown, W. J. (Wolverhampton, West) | Jowitt, Rt. Hon. Sir W. A. | Pole, Major D. G. |
| Buchanan, G. | Kelly, W. T. | Potts, John S. |
| Burgess, F. G. | Kennedy, Thomas | Price, M. P. |
| Buxton, C. R. (Yorks, W. R. Elland) | Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M. | Quibell, D. J. K. |
| Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel (Norfolk, N.) | Kinley, J. | Raynes, W. R. |
| Calne, Derwent Hall- | Kirkwood, D. | Richards, R. |
| Cameron, A. G. | Knight, Holford | Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) |
| Cape, Thomas | Lang, Gordon | Riley, Ben (Dewsbury) |
| Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S. W.) | Lathan, G. | Riley, F. F. (Stockton-on-Tees) |
| Charieton, H. C. | Law, Albert (Bolton) | Ritson, J. |
| Chater, Daniel | Law, A. (Rosendale) | Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich) |
| Church, Major A. G. | Lawrence, Susan | Romeril, H. G. |
| Clarke, J. S. | Lawrie, Hugh Hartley (Stalybridge) | Rosbotham, D. S. T. |
| Cluse, W. S. | Lawson, John James | Rowson, Guy |
| Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R. | Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle) | Salter, Dr. Alfred |
| Cocks, Frederick Seymour | Leach, W. | Samuel, H. W. (Swansea, West) |
| Compton, Joseph | Lee, Frank (Derby, N. E.) | Sanders, W. S. |
| Cove, William G. | Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern) | Sawyer, G. F. |
| Daggar, George | Lees, J. | Scrymgeour, E. |
| Dallas, George | Lewis, T. (Southampton) | Scurr, John |
| Dalton, Hugh | Lindley, Fred W. | Sexton, James |
| Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton) | Lloyd, C. Ellis | Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston) |
| Day, Harry | Logan, David Gilbert | Shepherd, Arthur Lewis |
| Denman, Hon. R. D. | Longbottom, A. W. | Sherwood, G. H. |
| Dukes, C. | Longden, F. | Shield, George William |
| Ede, James Chuter | Lovat-Fraser, J. A. | Shiels, Dr. Drummond |
| Edmunds, J. E. | Lowth, Thomas | Shillaker, J. F. |
| Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty) | Lunn, William | Shinwell, E. |
| Edwards, E. (Morpeth) | Macdonald, Gordon (Ince) | Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) |
| Egan, W. H. | MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham) | Simmons, C. J. |
| Forgan, Dr. Robert | MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw) | Sinkinson, George |
| Freeman, Peter | McElwee, A. | Sitch, Charles H. |
| Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton) | McEntee, V. L. | Smith, Alfred (Sunderland) |
| Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, N.) | Mackinder, W. | Smith, Frank (Nuneaton) |
| Gibbins, Joseph | McKinlay, A. | Smith, H. B. Lees- (Keighley) |
| Gibson, H. M. (Lancs, Mossley) | Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan) | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) |
| Gill, T. H. | MacNeill-Weir, L. | Smith, Tom (Pontefract) |
| Gillett, George M. | Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton) | Smith, W. R. (Norwich) |
| Gossling, A. G. | Mansfield, W. | Snell, Harry |
| Gould, F. | March, S. | Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip |
| Sorensen, R. | Townend, A. E. | Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood) |
| Stamford, Thomas W. | Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Whiteley, William (Blaydon) |
| Stephen, Campbell | Turner, B. | Wilkinson, Ellen C. |
| Stewart, J. (St. Rollox) | Vaughan, D. J. | Williams, David (Swansea, East) |
| Strachey, E. J. St. Loe | Viant, S. P. | Williams Dr. J. H. (Llanelly) |
| Strauss, G. R. | Walkden, A. G. | Williams, T. (York, Don Valley) |
| Sullivan, J. | Walker, J. | Wilson C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe) |
| Sutton, J. E. | Wallace, H. W. | Wilson, J. (Oldham) |
| Taylor, R. A. (Lincoln) | Wallhead, Richard C. | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S. W.) | Watkins, F. C. | Winterton, G. E. (Leicester, Loughb'gh) |
| Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Derby) | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline) | Wise, E. F. |
| Thurtle, Ernest | Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda) | Wright, W. (Rutherglen) |
| Tillen, Ben | Wellock, Wilfred | Young, R. S. (Islington, North) |
| Tinker, John Joseph | Welsh, James (Paisley) | |
| Toole, Joseph | Welsh, James C. (Coatbridge) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Tout, W. J. | Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J. | Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. B. Smith. |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel | Elliot, Major Walter E. | McConnell, Sir Joseph |
| Albery, Irving James | England, Colonel A. | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) |
| Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l) | Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s-M.) | MacRobert, Rt. Hon. Alexander M. |
| Allen, Sir J. Sandeman (Liverp'l., W.) | Everard, W. Lindsay | Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham) |
| Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S. | Falle, Sir Bortram G. | Makins, Brigadier-General E. |
| Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W. | Ferguson, Sir John | Margesson, Captain H. D. |
| Aske, Sir Robert | Fermoy, Lord | Marjoribanks, E. C. |
| Atholl, Duchess of | Fielden, E. B. | Mason, Colonel Glyn K. |
| Atkinson, C. | Fison, F. G. Clavering | Meller, R. J. |
| Balfour, George (Hampstead) | Foot, Isaac | Merriman, Sir F. Boyd |
| Balfour, Captain H. H. (I. of Thanet) | Ford, Sir P. J. | Millar, J. D. |
| Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H. | Forestier-Walker. Sir L. | Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham) |
| Beaumont, M. W. | Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E. | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. Sir B. |
| Bellairs, Commander Carlyon | Galbraith, J. F. W. | Moore, Sir Newton J. (Richmond) |
| Bennett, Sir Albert (Nottingham, C.) | Ganzoni, Sir John | Moore, Lieut.-Colonol T. C. R. (Ayr) |
| Betterton, Sir Henry B. | Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton | Morrison, W. S. (Glos., Cirencester) |
| Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman | Gibson, C. G. (Pudsey & Otley) | Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive |
| Bird, Ernest Roy | Glassey, A. E. | Muirhead, A. J. |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Glyn, Major R. G. C. | Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge) |
| Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart | Gower, Sir Robert | Nicholson, O. (Westminster) |
| Bowyer, Captain Sir George E. W. | Grace, John | Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'ld) |
| Boyce, H. L. | Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.) | Oliver, P. M. (Man., Blackley) |
| Braithwaite, Major A. N. | Grattan-Doyle, Sir N. | O'Neill, Sir H. |
| Brass, Captain Sir William | Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter | Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William |
| Briscoe, Richard George | Greene, W. P. Crawford | Peake, Capt. Osbert |
| Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham) | Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London) | Penny, Sir George |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y) | Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John | Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple) |
| Buchan, John | Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro' W.) | Pilditch, Sir Philip |
| Bullock, Captain Malcolm | Gritten, W. G. Howard | Power, Sir John Cecil |
| Burgin, Dr. E. L. | Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E. | Pownall, Sir Assheton |
| Butler, R. A. | Gunston, Captain D. W. | Preston, Sir Walter Rueben |
| Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward | Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H. | Purbrick, R. |
| Carver, Major W. H. | Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich) | Pybus, Percy John |
| Castle Stewart, Earl of | Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford) | Ramsay, T. B. Wilson |
| Cautley, Sir Henry S. | Hanbury, C. | Ramsbotham, H. |
| Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City) | Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry | Rawson, Sir Cooper |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtemth, S.) | Hartington, Marquess of | Reid, David D. (County Down) |
| Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton | Haslam, Henry C. | Remer, John R. |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Edgbaston) | Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley) | Rentoul, Sir Gervais S. |
| Chapman, Sir S. | Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P. | Reynolds, Col. Sir James |
| Christie, J. A. | Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J. | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) |
| Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George | Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller | Roberts, Sir Samuel (Ecclesall) |
| Cohen, Major J. Brunel | Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G. | Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Renneil |
| Colfox, Major William Philip | Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar) | Ross, Major Ronald D. |
| Colville, Major D. J. | Hore-Belisha, Leslie | Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A. |
| Courtauld, Major J. S. | Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K. | Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) |
| Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L. | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) | Salmon, Major I. |
| Crichton-Stuart, Lord C. | Hurd, Percy A | Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham) |
| Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H. | Hunt, Sir Gerald B. | Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen) |
| Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro) | Iveagh, Countess of | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) |
| Croom-Johnson, R. P. | James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert | Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart |
| Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West) | Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton) | Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D. |
| Cunliffe-Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip | Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne) | Savery, S. S. |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Kindersley, Major G. M. | Shepperson, Sir Ernest Whittome |
| Dairymple-White, Lt.-Col. Sir Godfrey | King, Commodore Rt. Hon. Henry D. | Skelton, A. N. |
| Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford) | Knox, Sir Alfred | Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam) |
| Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H. | Lamb, Sir J. Q. | Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kine'dine, C.) |
| Davies, Dr. Vernon | Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R. | Smith-Carington, Neville W. |
| Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil) | Law, Sir Alfred (Derby, High Peak) | Smithers, Waldron |
| Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.) | Leigh, Sir John (Clapham) | Somerset, Thomas |
| Dixey, A. C. | Leighton, Major B. E. P. | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) |
| Duckworth, G. A. V. | Lewis, Oswald (Colchester) | Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East) |
| Dugdale, Capt. T. L. | Liewellin, Major J. J. | Southby, Commander A. R. J. |
| Eden, Captain Anthony | Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey | Spender-Clay, Colonel H. |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | Long, Major Eric | Stanley, Maj. Hon. O. (W'morland) |
| Steel-Maitland, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur | Turton, Robert Hugh | Womersley, W. J. |
| Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) | Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon | Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley |
| Sueter, Rear-Admiral M. F. | Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert | Worthington-Evans. Rt. Hon. Sir L. |
| Thomas, Major L. B. (King's Norton) | Waterhouse, Captain Charles | Wright, Brig.-Gen. W. D. (Tavist'k) |
| Thomson, Sir F. | Wayland, Sir William A. | Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton. |
| Tinne, J. A. | Wells, Sydney R. | |
| Titchfield, Major the Marquess of | Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Todd, Capt. A. J. | Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.) | Captain Wallace and Sir Victor Warrender. |
| Train, J. | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George | |
| Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement | Withers, Sir John James |
§ The CHAIRMANThe next Amendment in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hendon (Sir P. Cunliffe-Lister) and other hon. Members' and subsequent Amendments appear to hang together.
§ Commodore KINGI beg to move, in page 9, line 20, after the word "make," to insert the word "additional."
We have had a certain amount of talk about the last Amendment being consequential upon the Amendment which we dealt with last week. I would submit to the Attorney-General that this Amendment really is on exactly the same lines as the one which he accepted in the previous Clause, also last week. The object of it is to obtain the positive approval of Parliament when any alterations or additions to this particular Section in the Act mentioned in this Sub-section are to take place. Last week, I pointed out to the Committee that, under this Sub-section, it is suggested that it may be possible to bring in matters in addition to or in substitution for matters mentioned in Sub-sections (2) and (3) of this Clause. The point here is exactly the same. Authority is given here under this Act for the Board of Trade to amend the Bill and to add to it and actually to alter the terms of the Measure. I maintain that it is extremely wrong for this Committee or this House, later on, to give sanction for a Bill to be amended without the positive approval of this House.
The Attorney-General agreed with me last week on a very similar Amendment, and I do not think he can draw any distinction between this Amendment and the one he accepted last week. Last week the Amendment he accepted was on Sub-section (4) of Clause 2 and this is Sub-section (4) of Clause 3. In both Clauses the Bill originally laid down that an order was to be laid before the House for negative approval. I maintain that the position is exactly the same. If he considered that that Amendment should be accepted last week, I maintain that 2260 he should also show the same spirit of acceptance on this occasion. [Interruption.] He will notice that it appears rather more complicated now. With regard to any Amendments within the scope of the Act, we agree that it is reasonable that they should receive only the negative approval of the House, even if it requires that, but we maintain that when it is a question of amending, actually altering, what will be an Act of Parliament, it is essential that that should be the subject of a special resolution of approval by both House of Parliament.
§ The ATTORNEY-GENERALThe prospect of the Board of Trade having power to amend a scheme without coming to this House to get approval in one form or the other, positive or negative, is one which seems to fill the right hon. and gallant Member with horror. He seems not to have remembered that the part of the Bill which we have previously passed, namely, Sub-section (5) of Clause 1, expressly states that any scheme may be amended with the approval of the Board of Trade.
§ Commodore KINGNot that the Act should be amended.
§ The ATTORNEY-GENERALI have had to apply my mind to these Amendments to see exactly what is contemplated by the word "additional" which he desires to insert, and I am bound to say that I regard it as very difficult to see whether that word has any meaning at all. In the first place, we start with the assumption that a scheme may be amended according to the provision I have just pointed out, in Sub-section (5) of Clause 1, with the approval of the Board of Trade and without any other sanction whatever. Next, we observe that in Sub-section (3, c) of Clause 3 a scheme may provide
for such matters as appear to the Board of Trade to be incidental to, or consequential on, the foregoing provisions of this section.2261 What then, I ask, are these additional provisions which are here contemplated? I hear it said they are within the Act. Of course they are. I appreciate the exceedingly subtle distinction between additional provisions and provisions for any matters in addition to, but what I am quite unable to undertand is this: What are these additional provisions which we are here talking about, unless they are Amendments? They are something manifestly within the scope of the Act, and an Amendment commonly takes the form of an addition. I agree that under the guise of an Amendment we cannot introduce new matters, and I appreciate that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had that in his mind. He deals with that is his proposed paragraph (b), but I am at a complete loss—and I say this quite seriously—to understand what is being dealt with in paragraph (a) which is not an Amendment already covered by Sub-section (5) of Clause 1, or is not an incidental or consequential provision already contemplated by paragraph (c). Therefore, in so far as the first part of this Amendment is concerned, in which the word "additional" comes, I would suggest that really the additional provision for matters mentioned comes to nothing more than the Amendments already provided for which can be approved by the Board of Trade without any further sanction at all.When we come to the proposed paragraph (b), which is really the gist of the matter, what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman wants here is to substitute a positive approval for a negative approval. I quite follow that we had the same subject matter for discussion a week ago, and that then, with regard to the central scheme, I was authorised to accept the Amendment. That perhaps shows the disadvantage of being too reasonable, because I am bound to say that I cannot extend—I have no authority to extend—that concession to accepting any such Amendment here, and I would suggest that neither is it a matter of authority alone, because I have discussed the matter with the President of the Board of Trade. It is one thing to say you are prepared to accept a provision for positive approval where you are dealing with a central scheme, with one scheme of one body, and it is another and a wholly different thing to say you will accept the principle of positive approval where you are deal- 2262 ing with district schemes, in which case you are concerned with a considerable number.
Many people nowadays are complaining of the great demands made upon Parliamentary time, and people are suggesting that by reason of the excessive demands made upon Parliamentary time, Parliament is finding it impossible to be the adequate machine which it ought to be. It is impossible for us to say that we can accept an Amendment that any provision of these 31 district schemes, any Amendment, or any alteration, or any matter in addition to those mentioned, cannot be introduced unless you get the positive approval of Parliament. Is it to be said there is no logical distinction between the concession we made with regard to the central scheme and our refusal of that concession in the case of the district schemes?
I am speaking from recollection, but I think I am right in saying that the Amendments, some of which were tabled in the name of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, and most of them at any rate in the names of the Members of the party opposite, have throughout borne that principle in mind, and those very Amendments have made it quite plain that, in the case of the central scheme, they wanted a positive approval, and in the case of the 21 district schemes, they were content with a negative approval. That is the position which the Government take up. It is impossible for us to say that, with regard to each of these 21 district schemes, we can have exactly the same machinery as we can for one central scheme. We consider that, by providing for the negative approval, we have provided a perfectly adequate safeguard in the case of the 21 district schemes; and, therefore, I cannot in this case accept the Amendment.
§ Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTERWe are discussing the whole of the Amendments in connection with this Clause. In regard to the small but rather complicated Amendments with which the Attorney-General has dealt, I think it is not unreasonable, having regard to the decision which the Committee has previously arrived at in reference to the power to make variations in the schemes which are strictly, within the terms of the Bill, vested in the President of the 2263 Board of Trade, it would not be reasonable for us to press those Amendments, which I think all cover the same point, and exactly the same issue, which was decided against us in a previous decision. But when it comes to the paragraph (b), which we seek to insert, exactly the opposite is the case. Therefore, if it seems reasonable that we should refrain from asking the Committee to express an opinion contrary to that which was expressed a few days ago, it seems to us wholly unreasonable for the Attorney-General not merely to reverse a decision taken by the Committee but to reverse a principle which he himself accepted. This is not a question of a small matter of convenience; it is a very real question of principle, which the Attorney-General accepted on the last occasion.
There are two types of amendment that might be made to schemes. There are amendments which might be made which are within the scope of all the Clauses which we have passed. That is a variation within the scope of something which the Committee has already approved. Then we come to Sub-section (4), which is wholly outside that:
If … it is necessary or expedient that the district scheme should make provision for any matters in addition to or in substitution for the matters mentioned in Sub-sections (2) and (3) of this Section, the Board may lay before each House of Parliament the draft of an order.and unless either House resolves that the Order shall not be made the Board may make such an Order. That is wholly a different matter. That, in fact, is a complete variation of this Act of Parliament. It save so in terms. It says that what it is proposed to put into the scheme is not something incidental or consequential but something additional to the powers that Parliament is now giving to the Board of Trade, or a substitution for the powers which Parliament by this Bill confers upon the Treasury and the Board of Trade. If hon. Members look through all the bureaucratic Acts of Parliament which have been passed they will not find that this House has devolved upon a Minister of the Crown the power to make an Order, which does not require a positive Resolution, which alters an Act of Parliament which this House has passed, and here we have an Act of Parliament of such importance that we are 2264 taking the whole Committee stage of it quite rightly, upon the Floor of the House.If the Attorney-General can find a precedent, I am sure it is a bad precedent. He said that people were becoming anxious because Parliament was getting overworked and that we must not put on Parliament the duty of considering all these Orders, because it had more important things to do. I do not know about that. I should have thought that if there was one thing that the country was really anxious about it was not that Parliament should hustle its business and be able, by delegation of its work to a Minister, to find time to pass a great many new Acts of Parliament. I should have thought that what people were really anxious about was that there should be proper Parliamentary control over Government administration. I understand that there is sitting at the present time a Royal Commission to consider this very question. That Royal Commission would not have been set up if there had not been some ground for establishing such a Royal Commission. Very strong criticism has been advanced by the Lord Chief Justice in regard to the growing tendency—we have all been guilty of it and must stand in the dock—of inviting Parliament to delegate its powers. I may have sinned in common with some of my right hon. Friends in the past, but I am certain that we never did anything like this. I have no recollection of ever having invited Parliament to give me power to alter an Act of Parliament and I am certain that what the country is interested in is that Parliament should retain a very direct control over the administrative action of the Government.
Think what this Bill is. This Bill, and the operations of the executive boards under the Bill, is going to touch the life of every single person in this country, and those who operate it are going to operate with very few principles laid down for them, except a wide charter of self-interest. This is surely a case where we should be very careful to preserve Parliamentary control. Last week we were dealing with the central scheme. The words in the Clause dealing with the central scheme were absolutely identical with the words dealing with the district scheme. I would ask the Committee to 2265 look back at Clause 2 where we were dealing with the central scheme. In Clause 2 (4) there are these words:
If it is necessary or expedient that the central scheme should make provision for any matters in addition to or in substitution for the matters mentioned in sub-sections (2) and (3) of this Section, the Board may lay before each House of Parliament the draft of an Order, etc.It was on that Section that the Attorney-General said that it was quite reasonable and fair that Parliament should be required to express positive assent before an Amendment of the Act was effected. To-night, he refuses to accept that principle, although the provision is exactly the same, and exactly the same matters are involved. There is no limitation as to what may be done in the district scheme "in addition to or in substitution for matters." The Attorney-General says, "We were prepared to give you this concession when we were dealing only with one scheme, but now that we are dealing with 21 schemes and not one we are not going to give it to you; we are going to keep the power in our own hands." What justification, in the name of logic or commonsense or constitutional reality, is there for doing that? Under the central scheme there is one opportunity and one opportunity only for amending the Act, but in these 21 district schemes there are 21 opportunities for amending the Act, yet the Attorney-General, with his great sense of logic, says that it was right and proper that Parliament should retain its control where one scheme was involved, but that where 21 schemes are involved giving power to amend the Act in 21 different ways, then Parliament ought to divest itself of control. I do not think that I ever heard a more illogical or, if I may respectfully say so, a less constitutional defence than that which is now put up by the Attorney-General. I sincerely hope that he will reconsider this matter. He said that he was not authorised to make such a concession. This is a very grave matter of principle, and I hope that we may have some consideration of the matter from the President of the Board of Trade.
§ The ATTORNEY-GENERALI said that I had discussed this matter with the President of the Board of Trade.
§ Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTERI accept that assurance from the Attorney-General. Therefore, he was speaking with the full authority of the Government. This is plainly a matter which must be pressed to a Division. In dividing on the matter we are dividing in favour of a principle which the Attorney-General thought to be right and which he advised the Committee to accept a week ago. I cannot for the life of me conceive what change has taken place which should make us go back on that which seemed wise to the Committee a week ago, and which the Attorney-General advised us to do.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTERI beg to move, in page 9, line 36, at the end, to add the words:
(b) If the executive board for any district make to the Board of Trade representations that, for the purpose of regulating or facilitating the production, supply, or sale of coal, or any class of coal, by owners of coal mines situated in that district, it is necessary or expedient that the district scheme should make provision for any matters in addition to or in substitution for the matters mentioned in sub-sections (2) and (3) of this section, the Board may lay before each House of Parliament the draft of an order providing that the scheme may be amended so as to provide for the matters with respect to which the representations were made, and those matters shall be specified in the draft order, and, if each House before the expiration of a period of twenty days on which that House has "at next after the draft is laid before it resolves that the order shall be made, the Board shall make an order in the terms of the draft to take effect on such date after the expiration of that period as may be specified in the order, and the scheme shall he amended accordingly in manner provided by the scheme.
§ Question put, "That these words be there added."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 213; Noes, 272.
2269| Division No. 232.] | AYES. | [10.0 p.m. |
| Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel | Atholl, Duchess of | Beaumont, M. W. |
| Albery, Irving James | Atkinson, C. | Bellairs, Commander Carlyon |
| Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l) | Baillie-Hamilton, Hon. Charles W. | Bennett, Sir Albert (Nottingham. C.) |
| Allen, Sir J. Sandeman (Liverp'l., W.) | Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (Bewdley) | Betterton, Sir Henry B. |
| Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S. | Balfour, George (Hampstead) | Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman |
| Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W. | Balfour, Captain H. H. (I. of Thanet) | Bird, Ernest Roy |
| Aske, Sir Robert | Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H. | Bourne, Captain Robert Croft |
| Bowyer, Captain Sir George E. W. | Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter | Penny, Sir George |
| Boyce, H. L. | Greene, W. P. Crawford | Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple) |
| Bracken, B. | Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London) | Pilditch, Sir Philip |
| Braithwaite, Major A. N. | Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John | Power, Sir John Cecil |
| Brass, Captain Sir William | Gritten, W. G. Howard | Pownall, Sir Assheton |
| Briscoe, Richard George | Gunston, Captain D. W. | Preston, Sir Walter Rueben. |
| Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham) | Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H. | Purbrick, R. |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y) | Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich) | Ramsbotham, H. |
| Buchan, John | Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford) | Rawson, Sir Cooper |
| Bullock, Captain Malcolm | Hanbury, C. | Reid, David D. (County Down) |
| Burgin, Dr. E. L. | Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry | Remer, John R. |
| Butler, R. A. | Hartington, Marquess of | Rentoul, Sir Gervais S. |
| Carver, Major W. H. | Haslam, Henry C. | Reynolds, Col. Sir James |
| Castle Stewart, Earl of | Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley) | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) |
| Cautley, Sir Henry S. | Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P. | Roberts, Sir Samuel (Ecclesall) |
| Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City) | Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J. | Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Renneil |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth. S.) | Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller | Ross, Major Ronald D. |
| Cazalet, Captain Victor A. | Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G. | Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A. |
| Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton | Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar) | Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Edgbaston) | Hore-Belisha, Leslie | Salmon, Major I. |
| Chapman, Sir S. | Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K. | Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham) |
| Christie, J. A. | Hudson, Capt A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) |
| Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George | Hurd, Percy A. | Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart |
| Cohen, Major J. Brunel | Hurst, Sir Gerald B. | Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D. |
| Colfax, Major William Phillp | Iveagh, Countess of | Savery, S. S. |
| Colville, Major D. J. | James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert | Shepperson, Sir Ernest Whittome |
| Courtauld, Major J. S. | Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton) | Skelton, A. N. |
| Crichton-Stuart, Lord C. | Kindersley, Major G. M. | Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam) |
| Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H. | King, Commodore Rt. Hon. Henry D. | Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.) |
| Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro) | Knox, Sir Alfred | Smith-Carington, Neville W. |
| Croom-Johnson., R. P. | Lamb, Sir J. Q. | Smithers, Waldron |
| Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West) | Lane Fox, Rt. Hon. George R. | Somerset, Thomas |
| Cunliffe-Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip | Law, Sir Alfred (Derby, High Peak) | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Leighton, Major B. E. P. | Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East) |
| Dalrymple-White, Lt.-Col. Sir Godfrey | Lewis, Oswald (Colchester) | Southby, Commander A. R. J. |
| Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford) | Llewellin, Major J. J. | Spender-Clay. Colonel H. |
| Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H. | Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey | Stanley, Maj. Hon. O. (W'morland) |
| Davies, Dr. Vernon | Long, Major Eric | Steel-Maitland. Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur |
| Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil) | Lymington, Viscount | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) |
| Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.) | McConnell, Sir Joseph | Sueter, Rear-Admiral M. F. |
| Duckworth, G. A. V. | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) | Thomas, Major L. B. (King's Norton) |
| Dugdale, Capt. T. L. | Macquisten, F. A. | Thomson, Sir F. |
| Eden, Captain Anthony | Mac Robert, Rt. Hon. Alexander M. | Tinne, J. A. |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham) | Titchfield, Major the Marquess of |
| Elliot, Major Walter E. | Makins, Brigadier-General E. | Todd, Capt. A. J. |
| Elmley, Viscount | Margesson, Captain H. D. | Train, J. |
| England, Colonel A. | Marjoribanks, E. C. | Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement |
| Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s. M.) | Mason, Colonel Glyn K. | Turton, Robert Hugh |
| Everard, W. Lindsay | Meller, R. J. | Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon |
| Falle, Sir Bertram G. | Merriman, Sir F. Boyd | Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert |
| Ferguson, Sir John | Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham) | Wardlaw-Milne, J. S. |
| Fermoy, Lord | Mond, Hon. Henry | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Fielden, E. B. | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. Sir B. | Wayland, Sir William A. |
| Fison, F. G. Clavering | Moore, Sir Newton J. (Richmond) | Wells, Sydney R. |
| Ford, Sir P. J. | Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr) | Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay) |
| Forestier-Walker, Sir L. | Morrison, W. S. (Glos., Cirencester) | Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.) |
| Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E. | Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Galbraith, J. F. W. | Muirhead, A. J. | Womersley, W. J. |
| Ganzoni, Sir John | Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge) | Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley |
| Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton | Nicholson, O. (Westminster) | Worthington- Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L. |
| Gibson, C. G. (Pudsey & Otley) | Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'ld) | Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton |
| Glyn, Major R. G. C. | Oman, Sir Charles William C. | |
| Gower, Sir Robert | O'Neill, Sir H. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.) | Ormsby-Gore. Rt. Hon. William | Captain Wallace and Sir Victor Warrender. |
| Grattan-Doyle, Sir N. | Peake, Capt. Osbert | |
| NOES. | ||
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Bellamy, Albert | Brown, C. W. E. (Notts. Mansfield) |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Benn, Rt. Hon. Wedgwood | Brown, James (Ayr and Bute) |
| Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher | Bennett, Captain E. N. (Cardiff, Central) | Brown, W. J. (Wolverhampton, West) |
| Aitchison, Rt. Hon. Cralgie M. | Bennett, William (Battersea, South) | Buchanan, G. |
| Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro') | Benson, G. | Burgess, F. G. |
| Alpass, J. H. | Bentham, Dr. Ethel | Buxton, C. R. (Yorks. W. R. Elland) |
| Ammon, Charles George | Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale) | Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel (Norfolk, N.) |
| Angell, Norman | Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret | Caine, Derwent Hall- |
| Arnott, John | Bowen, J. W. | Cameron, A. G. |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W. | Cape, Thomas |
| Ayles, Walter | Broad, Francis Alfred | Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S. W.) |
| Baker, John (Wolverhampton, Bilston) | Brockway, A. Fenner | Charieton, H. C. |
| Baldwin, Oliver (Dudley) | Bromfield, William | Chater, Daniel |
| Barnes, Alfred John | Bromley, J. | Church, Major A. G. |
| Barr, James | Brooke, W. | Clarke, J. S. |
| Batey, Joseph | Brothers, M. | Cluse, W. S. |
| Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R. | Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle) | Salter, Dr. Alfred |
| Cocks, Frederick Seymour | Leach, W. | Samuel, H. W. (Swansea, West) |
| Compton, Joseph | Lee, Frank (Derby, N. E.) | Sanders, W. S. |
| Cove, William G. | Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern) | Sandham, E. |
| Daggar, George | Lees, J. | Sawyer, G. F. |
| Dallas, George | Lewis, T. (Southampton) | Scrymgeour, E. |
| Dalton, Hugh | Lindley, Fred W. | Scurr, John |
| Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton) | Lloyd, C. Ellis | Sexton, James |
| Day, Harry | Logan, David Gilbert | Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston) |
| Denman, Hon. R. D. | Longbottom, A. W. | Shepherd, Arthur Lewis |
| Dickson, T. | Longden, F. | Shield, George William |
| Dukes, C. | Lovat-Fraser, J. A. | Shiels, Dr. Drummond |
| Duncan, Charles | Lowth, Thomas | Shlliaker, J. F. |
| Ede, James Chuter | Lunn, William | Shinwell, E. |
| Edmunds, J. E. | Macdonald, Gordon (Ince) | Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) |
| Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty) | MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham) | Simmons, C. J. |
| Edwards, E. (Morpeth) | MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw) | Sinkinson, George |
| Egan, W. H. | McElwee, A. | Sitch, Charles H. |
| Forgan, Dr. Robert | McEntee, V. L. | Smith, Alfred (Sunderland) |
| Freeman, Peter | Mackinder, W. | Smith, Frank (Nuneaton) |
| Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton) | McKinlay, A. | Smith, H. B. Lees- (Keighley) |
| Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith. N.) | Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan) | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) |
| Gibbins, Joseph | Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton) | Smith, Tom (Pontefract) |
| Gibson, H. M. (Lancs, Mossley) | Mansfield, W. | Smith, W. R. (Norwich) |
| Gill, T. H. | March, S. | Snell, Harry |
| Gillett, George M. | Marcus, M. | Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip |
| Gossling, A. G. | Markham, S. F. | Sorensen, R. |
| Gould, F. | Marley, J. | Stamford, Thomas W. |
| Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | Marshall, Fred | Stephen, Campbell |
| Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.) | Mathers, George | Stewart, J. (St. Rollox) |
| Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Matters, L. W. | Strachey, E. J. St. Loe |
| Groves, Thomas E. | Maxton, James | Strauss, G. R. |
| Grundy, Thomas W. | Melville, Sir James | Sullivan, J. |
| Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton) | Messer, Fred | Sutton, J. E. |
| Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Middleton, G. | Taylor, R. A. (Lincoln) |
| Hall, Capt. W. P. (Portsmouth, C.) | Mills, J. E. | Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S. W.) |
| Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn) | Milner, J. | Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Derby) |
| Hardie, George D. | Montague, Frederick | Thurtle, Ernest |
| Hastings, Dr. Somerville | Morgan, Dr. H. B. | Tillett, Ben |
| Haycock, A. W. | Morley, Ralph | Tinker, John Joseph |
| Hayday, Arthur | Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South) | Toole, Joseph |
| Hayes, John Henry | Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.) | Tout, W. J. |
| Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley) | Mort, D. L. | Townend, A. E. |
| Henderson, Arthur, Junr. (Cardiff, S.) | Moses, J. J. H. | Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles |
| Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow) | Mosley, Lady C. (Stoke-on-Trent) | Turner, B. |
| Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield) | Mosley, Sir Oswald (Smethwick) | Vaughan, D. J. |
| Herriotts, J. | Muff, G. | Viant, S. P. |
| Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth) | Muggeridge, H. T. | Walkden, A. G. |
| Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Murnin, Hugh | Walker, J. |
| Hoffman, P. C. | Naylor, T. E. | Wallace, H. W. |
| Hollins, A. | Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter) | Wallhead, Richard C. |
| Hopkin, Daniel | Noel Baker, P. J. | Watkins, F. C. |
| Horrabin, J. F. | Oldfield, J. R. | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline). |
| Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield) | Oliver, George Harold (Ilkeston) | Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda) |
| Isaacs, George | Palin, John Henry | Wellock, Wilfred |
| Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Paling, Wilfrid | Welsh, James (Paisley) |
| John, William (Rhondda, West) | Palmer, E. T. | Welsh, James C. (Coatbridge) |
| Johnston, Thomas | Perry, S. F. | West, F. R. |
| Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Pethick-Lawrence, F. W. | Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J. |
| Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Phillips, Dr. Marlon | Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood) |
| Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W. | Picton-Turbervill, Edith | Whitetey, William (Blaydon) |
| Jowitt, Rt. Hon. Sir W. A. | Pole, Major D. G. | Wilkinson, Ellen C. |
| Kelly, W. T. | Potts, John S. | Williams, David (Swansea, East) |
| Kennedy, Thomas | Price, M. P. | Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly) |
| Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M. | Quibell, D. J. K. | Williams, T. (York, Don Valley) |
| Kinley, J. | Rathbone, Eleanor | Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe) |
| Kirkwood, D. | Raynes, W. R. | Wilson, J. (Oldham) |
| Knight, Holford | Richards, R. | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Lang, Gordon | Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) | Winterton, G. E. (Leicester, Loughb'gh) |
| Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George | Riley, Ben (Dewsbury) | Wise, E. F. |
| Lathan, G. | Riley, F. F (Stockton-on-Tees) | Wright, W. (Rutherglen) |
| Law, Albert (Bolton) | Ritson, J. | Young, R. S. (Islington, North) |
| Law, A. (Rosendale) | Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W Bromwich) | |
| Lawrence, Susan | Romeril, H. G. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Lawrie, Hugh Hartley (Stalybridge) | Rosbotham, D. S. T. | Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. B. |
| Lawson, John James | Rowson, Guy | Smith. |
§ Question put, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
2270§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 272; Noes, 210.
2273| Division No. 233.] | AYES. | [10.11 p.m. |
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Aitchison, Rt. Hon. Craigle M. | Ammon, Charles George |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro') | Angell, Norman |
| Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher | Alpass, J. H. | Arnott, John |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth) | Palmer, E. T. |
| Ayles, Walter | Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan) |
| Baker, John (Wolverhampton, Bilston) | Hoffman, P. C. | Perry, S. F. |
| Baldwin, Oliver (Dudley) | Hollins, A. | Pethick-Lawrence, F. W. |
| Barnes, Alfred John | Hopkin, Daniel | Phillips, Dr. Marlon |
| Barr, James | Horrabin, J. F. | Picton-Turbervill, Edith |
| Batey, Joseph | Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield) | Pole, Major D. G. |
| Bellamy, Albert | Isaacs, George | Potts, John S. |
| Benn, Rt. Hon. Wedgwood | Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Price, M. P. |
| Bennett, Captain E. N. (Cardiff, Central) | John, William (Rhondda, West) | Quibell, D. J. K. |
| Bennett, William (Battersea, South) | Johnston, Thomas | Rathbone, Eleanor |
| Benson, G. | Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown) | Raynes, W. R. |
| Bentham, Dr. Ethel | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Richards, R. |
| Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale) | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Richardson, R, (Houghton-le-Spring) |
| Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret | Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W. | Riley, Ben (Dewsbury) |
| Bowen, J. W. | Jowitt, Rt. Hon. Sir W. A. | Riley, F. F. (Stockton-on-Tees) |
| Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W. | Kelly, W. T. | Ritson, J. |
| Broad, Francis Alfred | Kennedy, Thomas | Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich) |
| Brockway, A. Fenner | Ken worthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M. | Romeril, H. G. |
| Bromfield, William | Kinley, J. | Rosbotham, D. S. T. |
| Bromley, J. | Kirkwood, D. | Rowson, Guy |
| Brooke, W. | Knight, Holford | Salter, Dr. Alfred |
| Brothers, M. | Lang, Gordon | Samuel, H. W. (Swansea, West) |
| Brown, C. W. E. (Notts. Mansfield) | Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George | Sanders, W. S. |
| Brown, James (Ayr and Bute) | Lathan, G. | Sandham, E. |
| Brown, W. J. (Wolverhampton, West) | Law, Albert (Bolton) | Sawyer, G. F. |
| Buchanan, G. | Law, A. (Rosendale) | Scrymgeour, E. |
| Burgess, F. G. | Lawrence, Susan | Scurr, John |
| Buxton, C. R. (Yorks. W. R. Elland) | Lawrie, Hugh Hartley (Stalybridge) | Sexton, James |
| Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel (Norfolk, N.) | Lawson, John James | Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston) |
| Calne, Derwent Hall- | Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle) | Shepherd, Arthur Lewis |
| Cameron, A. G. | Leach, W. | Sherwood, G. H. |
| Cape, Thomas | Lee, Frank (Derby, N. E.) | Shield, George William |
| Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S. W.) | Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern) | Shiels, Dr. Drummond |
| Charieton, H. C. | Lees, J. | Shillaker, J. F. |
| Chater, Daniel | Lewis, T. (Southampton) | Shinwell, E. |
| Church, Major A. G. | Lindley, Fred W. | Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) |
| Clarke, J. S. | Lloyd, C. Ellis | Simmons, C. J. |
| Cluse, W. S. | Logan, David Gilbert | Sinkinson, George |
| Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R. | Longbottom, A. W. | Sitch, Charles H. |
| Cocks, Frederick Seymour | Longden, F. | Smith, Alfred (Sunderland) |
| Compton, Joseph | Lovat-Fraser, J. A. | Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe) |
| Cove, William G. | Lowth, Thomas | Smith, Frank (Nuneaton) |
| Daggar, George | Lunn, William | Smith, H. B. Lees- (Keighley) |
| Dallas, George | Macdonald, Gordon (Ince) | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) |
| Dalton, Hugh | MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham) | Smith, Tom (Pontefract) |
| Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton) | MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw) | Smith, W. R. (Norwich) |
| Day, Harry | McElwee, A. | Snell, Harry |
| Denman, Hon. R. D. | McEntee, V. L. | Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip |
| Dickson, T. | Mackinder, W. | Sorensen, R. |
| Dukes, C. | McKinlay, A. | Stamford, Thomas W. |
| Duncan, Charles | Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan) | Stephen, Campbell |
| Ede, James Chuter | Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton) | Stewart, J. (St. Rollox) |
| Edmunds, J. E. | Mansfield, W. | Strachey, E. J. St. Loe |
| Edwards, E. (Morpeth) | March, S. | Strauss, G. R. |
| Egan, W. H. | Marcus, M. | Sullivan, J. |
| Forgan, Dr. Robert | Markham, S. F. | Sutton, J. E. |
| Freeman, Peter | Marley, J. | Taylor, R. A. (Lincoln) |
| Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton) | Marshall, Fred | Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S. W.) |
| Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, N.) | Mathers, George | Thomas, Rt. Hon J. H. (Derby) |
| Gibbins, Joseph | Matters, L. W. | Thurtle, Ernest |
| Gibson, H. M. (Lancs. Mossley) | Maxton, James | Tinker, John Joseph |
| Gill, T. H. | Melville, Sir James | Toole, Joseph |
| Gillett, George M. | Messer, Fred | Tout, W. J. |
| Gossling, A. G. | Middleton, G. | Townend, A. E. |
| Gould, F. | Mills, J. E. | Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles |
| Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | Milner, J. | Turner, B. |
| Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.) | Montague, Frederick | Vaughan, D. J. |
| Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Morgan, Dr. H. B. | Viant, S. P. |
| Groves, Thomas E. | Morley, Ralph | Walkden, A. G. |
| Grundy, Thomas W. | Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South) | Walker, J. |
| Hall, F. (York. W. R., Normanton) | Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.) | Wallace, H. W. |
| Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Mort, D. L. | Wallhead, Richard C. |
| Hall, Capt. W. P. (Portsmouth, C.) | Moses, J. J. H. | Watkins, F. C. |
| Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn) | Mosley, Lady C. (Stoke-on-Trent) | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline) |
| Hardie, George D. | Mosley, Sir Oswald (Smethwick) | Watts-Morgan, Lt-Col. D. (Rhondda) |
| Hastings, Dr. Somerville | Muff, G. | Wellock, Wilfred |
| Haycock, A. W. | Muggeridge, H. T. | Welsh, James (Paisley) |
| Hayday, Arthur | Murnin, Hugh | Welsh, James C. (Coatbridge) |
| Hayes, John Henry | Naylor, T. E. | West, F. R. |
| Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley) | Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter) | Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J. |
| Henderson, Arthur, Junr. (Cardiff, S.) | Noel Baker, P. J. | Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood) |
| Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow) | Oldfield, J. R. | Whiteley, William (Blaydon) |
| Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield) | Oliver, George Harold (Ilkeston) | Wilkinson, Ellen C. |
| Herriotts, J. | Palin, John Henry | Williams, David (Swansea, East) |
| Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly) | Winterton, G. E. (Leicester, Loughb'gh) | |
| Williams, T. (York, Don Valley) | Wise, E. F. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe) | Wright, W. (Rutherglen) | Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr. Paling. |
| Wilson, J. (Oldham) | Young, R. S. (Islington, North) Paling. | |
| Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) | ||
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel | Fison, F. G. Clavering | Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrst'l'd) |
| Albery, Irving James | Ford, Sir P. J. | Oman, Sir Charles William C. |
| Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l) | Forestier-Walker, Sir L. | O'Neill, Sir H. |
| Allen, Sir J. Sandeman (Liverp'l., W.) | Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E. | Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William |
| Allen, W. E. D. (Belfast, W.) | Ganzoni, Sir John | Peake, Captain Osbert |
| Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S. | Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton | Penny, Sir George |
| Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W. | Gibson, C. G. (Pudsey & Otley) | Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple) |
| Atholl, Duchess of | Glyn, Major R. G. C. | Pilditch, Sir Philip |
| Atkinson, C. | Gower, Sir Robert | Power, Sir John Cecil |
| Baillie-Hamilton, Hon. Charles W. | Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.) | Pownall, Sir Assheton |
| Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (Bewdley) | Grattan-Doyle, Sir N. | Preston, Sir Walter Rueben |
| Balfour, George (Hampstead) | Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter | Purbrick, R. |
| Balfour, Captain H. H. (I. of Thanet) | Greene, W. P. Crawford | Ramsbotham, H. |
| Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H. | Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London) | Rawson, Sir Cooper |
| Beaumont, M. W. | Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John | Reid, David D. (County Down) |
| Bellairs, Commander Carlyon | Gritten, W. G. Howard | Remer, John R. |
| Bennett, Sir Albert (Nottingham, C.) | Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E. | Rentoul, Sir Gervais S. |
| Betterton, Sir Henry B. | Gunston, Captain D. W. | Revnolds, Col. Sir James |
| Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman | Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H. | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'te'y) |
| Bird, Ernest Roy | Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich) | Roberts, Sir Samuel (Ecclesall) |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford) | Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Renneil |
| Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart | Hammersley, S. S. | Ross, Major Ronald D. |
| Boyce, H. L. | Hanbury, C. | Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A. |
| Bracken, B. | Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry | Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) |
| Braithwaite, Major A. N. | Hartington, Marquess of | Salmon, Major I. |
| Brass, Captain Sir William | Haslam, Henry C. | Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham) |
| Briscoe, Richard George | Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley) | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) |
| Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l d'., Hexham) | Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P. | Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y) | Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J. | Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D. |
| Buchan, John | Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller | Savery, S. S. |
| Bullock, Captain Malcolm | Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G. | Shepperson, Sir Ernest Whittome |
| Butler, R. A. | Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K. | Skelton, A. N. |
| Carver, Major W. H. | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) | Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam) |
| Castle Stewart, Earl of | Hurd, Percy A. | Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine. C.) |
| Cautley, Sir Henry S. | Hurst, Sir Gerald B. | Smith-Carington, Neville W. |
| Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City) | Iveagh, Countess of | Smithers, Waldron |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth. S.) | James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert | Somerset, Thomas |
| Cazalet, Captain Victor A. | Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton) | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) |
| Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton | Kindersley, Major G. M. | Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Edgbaston) | King, Commodore Rt. Hon. Henry D. | Southby, Commander A. R. J. |
| Chapman, Sir S. | Knox, Sir Alfred | Spender-Clay, Colonel H. |
| Christie, J. A. | Lamb, Sir J. Q. | Stanley, Maj. Hon. O. (W'morland) |
| Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George | Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R. | Steel-Maitland, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur |
| Cohen, Major J. Brunel | Law, Sir Alfred (Derby, High Peak) | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) |
| Colfox, Major William Philip | Leighton, Major B. E. P. | Sueter, Rear-Admiral M. F. |
| Colville, Major D. J. | Lewis, Oswald (Colchester) | Thomas, Major L. B. (King's Norton) |
| Courtauld, Major J. S. | Llewellin, Major J. J. | Thomson, Sir F. |
| Crichton-Stuart, Lord C. | Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey | Tinne, J. A. |
| Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H. | Long, Major Eric | Titchfield, Major the Marquess of |
| Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro) | Lymington, Viscount | Todd, Capt. A. J. |
| Croom-Johnson, R. P. | McConnell, Sir Joseph | Train, J. |
| Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West) | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) | Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement |
| Cunliffe-Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip | Macquisten, F. A. | Turton, Robert Hugh |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | MacRobert, Rt. Hon. Alexander M. | Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon |
| Dairymple-White, Lt.-Col. Sir Godfrey | Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham) | Wallace, Capt. D. E. (Hornsey) |
| Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H. | Makins, Brigadier-General E. | Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert |
| Davies, Dr. Vernon | Margesson, Captain H. D. | Wardlaw-Milne, J. S. |
| Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil) | Marjoribanks, E. C. | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.) | Mason, Colonel Glyn K. | Wayland, Sir William A. |
| Duckworth, G. A. V. | Meller, R. J. | Wells, Sydney R. |
| Dugdale, Capt. T. L. | Merriman, Sir F. Boyd | Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay) |
| Eden, Captain Anthony | Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham) | Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.) |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | Mond, Hon. Henry | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Elliot, Major Walter E. | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. Sir B. | Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount |
| England, Colonel A. | Moore, Sir Newton J. (Richmond) | Womersley, W. J. |
| Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s-M.) | Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr) | Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley |
| Everard, W. Lindsay | Morrison, W. S. (Glos., Cirencester) | Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L. |
| Falle, Sir Bertram G. | Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive | Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton |
| Ferguson, Sir John | Muirhead, A. J. | |
| Fermoy, Lord | Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Fielden, E. B. | Nicholson, O. (Westminster) | Captain Sir George Bowyer and |
| Sir Victor Warrender. |
-
cc2275-90
- CLAUSE 4.—(Committees of Investigation.) 6,564 words, 1 division c2290
- NEW CLAUSE.—(Duration of Part I.) 212 words cc2290-303
- NEW CLAUSE.—(Effect of schemes on contracts.) 5,782 words, 1 division cc2303-6
- SCHEDULE 7.—(Part I: Districts for Purposes of Part I of the Act. Part II: Provisions as to Amalgamations and adjustment of Districts.) 568 words