CONVICTION AND SENTENCE SHETTLESTON. (Hansard, 12 December 1932)

§ Mr. KIRKWOOD
I wish to raise the case of a miner in Shettleston, adjacent to Glasgow, which was the subject of a question I put recently to the Secretary of State for Scotland. On 19th November 163 last this miner was sentenced to 30 days imprisonment for stealing 2 cwt, of coal from a refuse heap. He has been unemployed for two or three years and he has eight children, and at bile time he was caught taking this coal one of his children was lying seriously ill with pneumonia, and the weather was extremely severe, much more severe than we have had in London this November, and that was bad enough. I asked the Secretary of State to release this man from prison and let him go back to his home. The Secretary of State replied that he had made inquiries into the matter, and had found that this miner had been guilty of stealing 2 cwt. of coal from a refuse bing—not stealing it from a siding on the railway, from wagons full of coal, from a bing of coal at the colliery or from coal lying in a coal contractor's yard, but from a refuse bing. This happens all over the country. Other men go to these refuse bings and take out coal, and that is what this man was doing. Nobody would go to a refuse bing and take coal in this manner unless force of circumstances compelled him to do it. He was not taking it for gold. It is not a pleasant job—a dirty job—in dirty weather—out in all the elements. Because he did it he has got 30 days.
Why did he steal? Because his children were starving with cold. I wish I could get the Secretary of State for Scotland to understand what this man's home must be like. In his reply to me he said the man had an income of 35s. a week. That was the sum coming into this household of 10 persons. 35s. a week—not in Russia, not under the Bolsheviks, but in Scotland, under the Union Jack. 35s. a week, all told, to maintain 10 souls!

§ Mr. KIRKWOOD
Eight shillings of this money went in rent. The Secretary of State for Scotland knows that that is God's truth. That is, 27s. a week to provide food, clothing and heat, and all the other things that human beings require—because, remember, a collier is a human being just as much as a Member of Parliament. So is a collier's wife just as 164 much a woman as is the Queen of England. A collier's children feel cold and hunger, and they have just as good a right to a decent life as any other children in Great Britain. Yet the Secretary of State for Scotland, in order to appease the House of Commons and to take the House away from me when I put the Question, has to tell it that the man had this huge salary of 35s. a week. Was I aware that he had 35s. a week? That is 4d. a day to supply food and clothing to a human being. This is not happening in the Ruhr, or in Austria or Vienna after the War, when it was fashionable for the intelligentsia, aye, even in our own movement, and for all the middle-class element to run after poor little Belgium and the distressed people in Vienna. Maybe, if this were happening in Russia, we should have the Tories rising from their benches to tell us about the terrible trade conditions existing in Russia.
This is not happening in Russia, but in Scotland, at this moment. A man whose children were cold went out to a rubbish bing—a refuse bing is the right word—and took coal. The wild beasts of the field will defend their young. This man did what was the most natural thing in the world, because the assistance that he was getting was not sufficient to keep body and soul together. I have asked in the House of Commons, of every Government that has come in during the last 10 years, to give two extra bags of coal, during Christmas and New Year week, to the unemployed. The answer has always been that it could not be done, that it was not a practical suggestion, because it would cost too much money. Here is a man driven by sheer force of circumstances to break the law. Personally, I would have no hesitancy in breaking the law, and I make this statement here, which I have made in every part of Britain as well as in the House of Commons: The man that would stand betwixt me and mine would take my life or I would take his. Breaking the law would never deter me if my wife and family were "up against it" they would have to lay me by the heels; and so would every other man with a spark of manhood in him. He would not stand idly by and see his poor child lying in bed with pneumonia, dying for want of a fire. This man knew, because he had worked at the colliery, that he could go 165 to that refuse bing, where he would have a chance of getting some coal, and he went and took it. They put it at 2 cwt. And, because he did that, they give him 30 days in prison.
I do not wish to detain the House any longer. I think that in common fairness, apart altogether from justice, if there is any spark of humanity left in the Secretary of State for Scotland, he will reply to my appeal. There is only one reply, and that is that he will liberate this man and let him go back into the bosom of his family at the very earliest possible moment. 1 appeal to the Secretary of State for Scotland along those lines.

§ Mr. D. GRAHAM
I desire to add my appeal to that of my hon. Friend. I am surprised, if the statement be true that two cwt. of coal was taken from a dirt bing at the colliery, that a man should be accused of stealing it. It is purely a question of trespass, and not a question of stealing. Coal that is put on the bing is coal that is not paid for, and not intended to be sold; it is simply waste. It is as much waste as the dirt or refuse that is put on the bing, and that is why it is called a refuse bing. It is part of the useless material that comes up with the rubbish and is never intended to be used as ordinary coal. I am not saying to the Secretary of State that the taking of this material should be encouraged to any extent, because there is a considerable element of danger in gathering it, and that is the main reason why the local authorities are anxious to keep it within reasonable limits; but it is well known that there are any number of people in unfortunate circumstances who are getting their coal there, and they are not looked upon as really stealing it. I weal to the Secretary of State for Scotland to view the matter from that standpoint. I do not know the man or the colliery named, but, having heard the statement of my hon. Friend in reference to the answer that was given, it seems to me perfectly clear that, whatever fault the man may have been guilty of, he certainly was not guilty of stealing.
I am anxious to avoid taking any line that would appear to encourage youngsters in this sort of thing—it is not men, unfortunately, that do this, but boys and girls and women—for it is not something that should be encouraged, but I want to 166 plead another point, namely, that no miner would attempt to go to a dirt bing, or would send his children to a dirt bing, to get coal, unless it were through absolute stress of circumstances. A miner, when he is working, gets his coal at a lower rate. It is not very costly to him and there is really no inducement for him to steal it if he is working. But when he is idle and there are 10 members of the family that is a reasonable ground for a man doing something which, in other circumstances, he would not have thought of doing. In the circumstances, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider his decision and accede to my hon. Friend's request.

§ The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Sir Godfrey Collins)
The hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) has made a powerful and moving appeal to me to mitigate the sentence passed on a miner for stealing two hundredweights of coal. I do not deny the hardship which the case involves, and when my attention was drawn to it originally, I, like the hon. Member, was moved. If the former sentences were of a lighter character, that has a. very great bearing upon the particular sentence that we are discussing. I am speaking from memory, but I think my memory is fairly accurate, as to the exact sentences passed upon him on four previous occasions within the last 20 months for the very same offence. For the first he re-received a fine of 10s., or seven days. On the second occasion he received, I think, the same sentence. Neither sentence had any effect on him, and the third sentence was increased to 15s. with the option of ten days' imprisonment. On the fourth occasion the sentence was 20 days' imprisonment with the option of a fine of 20s. I understand from the hon. Member that he had been unemployed for nearly two years. These sentences undoubtedly reveal that he has been disobeying the law during that time —whether the law is right or wrong is not the question at the moment—and has been brought before the local magistrates and sentenced accordingly. I submit that if a man deliberately, on four occasions, for the same offence, receives sentence, in the first instance a small sentence, and subsequent sentences grow 167 in intensity, according to the number of convictions, the magistrate was right on the fifth occasion in inflicting punishment without the option of a fine. We all know that the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs is moved by generous impulses and a warm heart. I in my office have to temper mercy with justice and in this case, having regard to the four previous convictions and the information at my disposal, although I came, like the hon. Member, in the first place to think that this was a harsh sentence and should be mitigated, I thought that on the whole the law should take its course. I do not deny for a moment that it is a hardship. The hon, Member for Dumbarton Burghs has put before me some facts and information which were not in my possession before. I do not wish to raise any hopes in the mind of the hon. Member, but I will give him this undertaking. I know how interested he is in this matter, and how keenly he feels that an injustice has been done, and that, as he stated in the course of his remarks, if he himself suffered from an injustice no one would stop him from trying to 168 rectify it. He has taken the very proper course of raising this question on the Floor of the House, where these matters can be debated in the light of day. He has given me notice of this question.
I am sorry I have not been able to give the exact sentences passed on the four previous occasions, but I will look into the matter. I want to safeguard myself, however. I do not want in any sense to raise a hope in the mind of the hon. Member who has put the question to me, but we have been old Members together for many years and I know that from the earliest years, from 1918 onwards, he has always been moved with wide and generous human sympathies. But I will endeavour to look into the matter from that point of view. I do not want to encourage any hope that the sentence will be mitigated, but I readily give that assurance to my hon. Friend.