Commons Sitting of 17 December 1935

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Rothesay Corporation Gas Order Confirmation Bill [Lords],
Read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.
Perth Corporation Order Confirmation Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Consideration deferred till To-morrow.

PRIVATE BILLS.
The CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS reported, That, in accordance with Standing Order 87, he had conferred with the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords, for the purpose of determining in which House of Parliament the respective Private Bills should be first considered, and they had determined that the Bills contained in the following List should originate in the House of Lords, namely,

Bath Corporation.

Bedwellty Urban District Council.

Birmingham Corporation.

Bognor Regis Urban District Council.

Brighton Corporation.

Cornwall Electric Power.

Dover Corporation.

Epsom and Walton Downs Regulation.

Fishguard and Goodwick Urban District Council.

Foundling Hospital.

Gravesend and Milton Waterworks.

Great Grimsby Water.

Great Orme Tramways.

Harrow Urban District Council.

Hornchurch Urban District Council.

Huddersfield Corporation (Trolley Vehicles).

Ilfracombe Urban District Council.

Imperial Continental Gas Association.

Kingston upon Hull Corporation.

Lee Conservancy Catchment Board.

Liverpool Corporation.

London County Council (General Powers).

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Manchester Corporation.

Manchester Ship Canal.

Mortlake Crematorium.

North Metropolitan Electric Power Supply.

North-West Kent Joint Water.

Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Traction.

Rhymney Valley Sewerage Board.

Rickmansworth and Uxbridge Valley Water.

Rochester Corporation.

Royal National Pension Fund for Nurses.

South Metropolitan Gas.

South Staffordshire Water.

South Suburban Gas.

Swansea and District Transport.

Swansea Corporation.

Tring Gas.

Winchester Corporation.

Wrexham and East Denbighshire Water.

PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACTS, 1899 AND 1933.
The CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS reported, That, after conferring with the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords, for the purpose of determining in which House of Parliament the following Bill, introduced pursuant to the provisions of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Acts, 1899 and 1933, should be first considered, they had determined that the said Bill should originate in the House of Lords, namely:

East Lothian County Council (Substituted Bill).

Report to lie upon the Table.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  COAL INDUSTRY.

    EXPORTS (HUMBER PORTS).
    Mr. MUFFasked the Secretary for Mines what complaints he has receiveo from shipping companies or coal exporters at Hull on the question of shortage of coal supplies; whether he is aware that ships are leaving Hull in order to get supplies of bunker coal at continental ports; and whether he has inquired into the circumstances and, if so, with what results?
    The SECRETARY for MINES (Captain Crookshank): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave on 12th December to the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. T. Smith). I would add that I am informed that a public statement with regard to the position at the Humber ports will be made immediately by the chairman of the Midland Executive Board of Colliery Owners.

    STATISTICS.
    Mr. POTTSasked the Secretary for Mines the coal tonnage consumed inland for the year 1934; the tonnage quantity sold through agency sources, other than coal sold direct from collieries to consumers; and the average price per ton received for all coal sold through agencies, other than coal sold direct from the collieries to the consumers?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: The total quantity of coal available for consumption in Great Britain in 1934 was 161.48 million tons. The other information asked for is not available.

    PRICES.
    Mr. WHITELEYasked the Secretary for Mines whether in view of the increased price of household coal, which is attributed to the increased pit-head price, he will ascertain under what item of cost this additional price falls?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: I am not quite clear what the hon. Member means, but if he suggests that the increased prices arise out of any increase in the costs of production other than wages, the answer is, so far as I am aware, that they do not. I understand that the object of the increase in pit-head prices is solely to provide more money for the payment of wages.
    Mr. SHINWELL: Can the hon. and gallant Member explain the excessive rise in wholesale prices in various parts of the country, which have no relation whatever to the pit-head price?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: The hon. Member had better put that question on the Order Paper.
    Mr. WHITELEY: Are we to understand that the extra pit-head price is being reserved for increasing miners' wages?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: Perhaps the hon. Member will read the reply, which says as much as I can about it.

    WAGES.
    Colonel GOODMANasked the Secretary for Mines whether with a view to removing doubts caused by the conflicting figures of the earnings of underground and surface workers in coal mines, he will issue a statement showing in respect of each coalfield typical cases for the various classes of workers of actual earnings and deductions in normal weeks?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: The information in the possession of my Department does not distinguish between the various classes of employés. It would take a long time to compile such a statement as my hon. and gallant Friend has in mind, and even when it had been done it would still be incomplete and liable to misinterpretation, because not only do deductions and allowances vary widely, but even the names applied to the various classes of workers sometimes bear different meanings in different districts. In the circumstances, therefore, I am afraid that I should not be justified in undertaking such an inquiry.
    Mr. D. L. DAVIES: Are we to assume from the answer that at least 60 per cent. of the men employed underground and on the surface are in receipt of subsistence wages?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: In these matters of statistics I must have notice of the question.
    Mr. TINKERasked the Secretary for Mines whether he has considered the copy sent to him of a resolution carried by the Leigh Town Council, protesting against the attitude of the colliery owners in refusing to meet the Mine Workers' Federation of Great Britain, to discuss the application for an advance in wages of 2s. a day, and urging the Government to use their powers to get the matter settled; and will he state what the position is?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. With regard to the second part, as the hon. Member is aware, the Mineworkers' Federation have accepted an invitation to meet representatives of the coalowners to discuss the position, and this meeting is taking place to-day.
    Mr. TINKER: Will the hon. and gallant Member make a statement to the House before we adjourn as to what happens?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: I think we had better see what does happen.

    HORSES.
    Mr. RITSONasked the Secretary for Mines, whether he is aware that certain colliery companies are requiring horsekeepers in their employ to be responsible for more than the number of horses and ponies under their charge according to the limits of the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1911, Sections 86 and 109, and Third Schedule, paragraph 4; and whether it is his intention to have the Act carried out as stated in the above-named Sections?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: I have made inquiries and none of the divisional inspectors

    Year.

    Number of pneumatic picks in use.

    Number of mines at which pneumatic picks were in use.

    Great Britain.

    Durham.

    Great Britain.

    Durham.

    1927

    …

    …

    …

    …

    Not available

    1928

    …

    …

    …

    …

    2,252

    261

    281

    21

    1929

    …

    …

    …

    …

    3,005

    309

    284

    33

    1930

    …

    …

    …

    …

    4,167

    887

    318

    43

    1931

    …

    …

    …

    …

    4,730

    1,270

    327

    46

    1932

    …

    …

    …

    …

    4,908

    1,552

    316

    48

    1933

    …

    …

    …

    …

    5,943

    1,770

    347

    53

    1934

    …

    …

    …

    …

    7,174

    2,435

    387

    74

    WELFARE SCHEMES.
    Mr. RITSONasked the Secretary for Mines whether he has considered the report of the proceedings of the annual conference of the various districts of the mining industry, held on 20th November, 1934, at the Board of Trade offices, to discuss the administration of the Miners' Welfare Act; and, as there was a general demand for funds to administer existing schemes, will he take steps to provide funds by granting the ½d. per ton that was taken from the welfare levy recently, the said ½d. to be used for those schemes for culture and recreation that exist throughout the coalfields?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: I have nothing to add to the answer given on behalf of my predecessor in office to a similar question on 12th December last
    knows of any recent instance of a failure to comply with Clause 4 of the Third Schedule of the Coal Mines Act, 1911. If the hon. Member will let me have the information on which his question is based, I will make further inquiries.

    PNEUMATIC PICKS.
    Mr. RITSONasked the Secretary for Mines the number of pneumatic picks in use, and the number of collieries using them, for Great Britain, with separate figures for Durham, for the years 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, and 1934?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: As the reply involves a statistical table, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    The information is as follows:
    year by the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson).
    Mr. RITSON: Will the hon. and gallant Member make further inquiries in this matter?

    SUBSIDENCE.
    Sir ROBERT YOUNGasked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware of the damage done to the property of local authorities and private individuals by mining subsidence in many parts of the country; and whether he will consider dealing with this matter in the proposed Bill to deal with the unification of mining royalties, so that owners, lessors, and lessees of such royalties will bear their share of the expense incurred in making good the present and the probable future damage from such underground workings?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. With regard to the second part, I will bear the hon. Member's suggestion in mind, but I cannot undertake to deal with the matter in any Bill relating to Coal Mining Royalties.
    Sir R. YOUNG: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman consult with the Minister of Health in relation to these matters in so far as municipal housing is concerned?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: That is another matter.

    MINE LIGHTING.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMSasked the Secretary for Mines whether he has yet appointed a committee to watch the progress of the new lighting order in mines; and, if so, can he state the personnel?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: The administration of the Mine Lighting Regulations of 1934, is proceeding satisfactorily and there is no need to appoint a committee. If, however, the hon. Member has in mind the Regulations relating to firedamp detectors, which came into force on 1st October of this year, and were limited as to their operation to a period of two years from that date, I would remind him that the undertaking given was that towards the end of that period, a committee would be set up to study the working of the Regulations in the light of experience, and to make recommendations. In view of the short time which has elapsed since the Regulations came into force, the appointment of this committee now would be premature.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: Does the Secretary for Mines suggest that no committee is to be appointed until two years have elapsed? If so, what information does he expect to get as to the use of oil for automatic gas detectors?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: One can get a certain amount of information by setting up a committee, but I do not think it is necessary to set up one much before the time I have mentioned.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: In view of the persistence of colliery explosions, ought not the committee to be in existence long before two years have expired in order to influence colliery managers to make use of these automatic gas detectors?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: We have had only two and a-half months so far.

    WORKMEN'S INSPECTIONS.
    Mr. DUNNasked the Secretary for Mines the numbers of inspections, under the Coal Mines Act, 1911, Section 16, carried out at the New Lount and Collorton collieries, Leicestershire, for the years 1927 to 1934, inclusive, giving each year separately?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: No inspections were made at these collieries by workmen's representatives, under Section 16 of the Coal Mines Act, 1911, during the years 1927 to 1934.
    Mr. PALING: Can the Secretary for Mines say why?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: No.
    Mr. GEORGE GRIFFITHS: Will the hon. and gallant Member see that while the present Government are in power they will bring in legislation so that workmen's inspections shall be paid for out of some source other than their own pockets?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: That is another question.
    Mr. PALING: Where a long period has elapsed without any workmen's inspection, is it the custom of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's office to inquire why these inspections are not carried out?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: Perhaps the hon. Member will put that question on the Order Paper.

    NEW LOUNT AND COLLORTON COLLIERIES.
    Mr. DUNNasked the Secretary for Mines whether he will cause inquiries to be made as to the amount of overtime being worked at the New Lount and Collorton collieries, Leicestershire, between 1930 and 1935, and to report on the same?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: I am afraid that it is not possible to carry out an inquiry of this nature over the period suggested, as no records are required to be kept for longer than 12 months. I will, however, have inquiry made as to the overtime worked recently at these collieries, and will let the hon. Member know the result.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Has the Secretary for Mines satisfied himself that overtime in collieries is not so prevalent as it used to be?
    Mr. DUNNasked the Secretary for Mines whether he will cause inquiries to be made at the New Lount and Collorton collieries, Leicestershire, into the working of the Minimum Wages Act, 1912, and any cases of evasions of it?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: I cannot undertake to make general inquiries of this nature at particular collieries. The minimum wage, under the Act of 1912, is an implied term of every contract for employment, and can be enforced as such by the individual workman. If the hon. Member has any reason for believing that the Act is being infringed and will furnish me with his evidence, I will have it examined, and, if necessary, will make inquiries.
    Mr. SHINWELL: Is it not the duty of the Department over which the hon. and gallant Gentleman presides to conduct special inquiries at all times as to possible evasions on this point?

    SAFETY IN MINES (ROYAL COMMISSION).
    Miss WARDasked the Prime Minister whether he is now in a position to make an announcement about the proposed Royal Commission to inquire into the provisions for the safety of workers in mines?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): I am able to announce that His Majesty has been pleased to approve the appointment of the following to serve on this Commission:

    Lord Rockley (Chairman).

    His Honour Judge George Clarence Allsebrook.

    Sir Malcolm Delevingne.

    Sir Henry Walker.

    The hon. Member for Gower (Mr. D. Grenfell).

    Mr. Edward Otto Forster Brown.

    Mr. Ebby Edwards.

    Mr. William Thomas Miller.

    Mr. William Hamilton Telfer.

    Mr. John Walker.

    The terms of reference are:
    "To inquire whether the safety and health of mine workers can be better ensured by extending or modifying the principles or general provisions of the Coal Mines Act, 1911, or the arrangements for its administration, having regard to the changes that
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    have taken place in organisation, methods of work, and equipment since it became law, and the experience gained; and to make recommendations."
    Miss WARD: Can my right hon. Friend say when these gentlemen will start their deliberations?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I hope, forthwith.
    Mr. D. L. DAVIES: Pending the Commission reporting, will the right hon. Gentleman see to it that the existing law is put into operation to protect the miners?
    The PRIME MINISTER: That question should be addressed to the Mines Department.

  IRON-ORE MINES (CUMBERLAND).
  Mr. ANDERSONasked the Secretary for Mines the average number of persons employed in iron-ore mining in Cumberland for the years 1932, 1933, and 1934, respectively; the total output each year; the average output per head in tons each year, and the number of iron-ore mines closed down during the years 1932, 1933, and 1934, and the causes?
  Captain CROOKSHANK: I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate the figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT. No mines have been closed down during the years 1932 to 1934.
  The information is as follows:

  Iron Ore Mines in Cumberland.

  Year.

  Average Number of Persons employed.

  Output of Iron Ore.

  Output per Persons employed.

  Tons.

  Tons.

  1932

  1,536

  492,157

  320

  1933

  1,411

  529,829

  375

  1934

  1,710

  711,243

  416

  OIL PROSPECTING (LICENCES).
  Mr. DAYasked the Secretary for Mines the number of licences that have been granted by his Department for the purpose of oil prospecting in Great Britain during the last 12 months; and will he give particulars?
  Captain CROOKSHANK: Thirty oil prospecting licences have been granted during the last 12 months. These licences were granted to the D'Arcy Exploration Company, Limited, and particulars of the situation and the boundaries of the licensed areas were published in the London Gazette of 19th November, 1935.
  Mr. DAY: Can the Secretary for Mines say when boring for oil will commence?
  Captain CROOKSHANK: No, Sir.
  Mr. PALING: Are any conditions imposed in granting these licences to see that the amenities of the countryside are preserved?
  Captain CROOKSHANK: The details of the conditions on which licences are granted have been published in the Petroleum Regulations.
  Mr. MATHERS: Will the hon. and gallant Member bear in mind that without prospecting there is an area in this country where oil can be produced from shale? I am referring to Mid and West Lothian.

  CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS ACT, 1927 (DOMINIONS).
  Mr. DAYasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs which of the Dominions have introduced legislation corresponding with the quota clauses contained in the Cinematograph Films Act, 1927?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the DOMINIONS (Mr. Douglas Hacking): Legislation of a nature similar to that referred to by the hon. Member has been passed in New Zealand, the State of Victoria in Australia, the Provinces of Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia in Canada, and in Southern Rhodesia.
  Mr. DAY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether other Dominions will be brought into line?
  Mr. HACKING: I am rather surprised that that should be the hon. Gentleman's desire.

  NEWFOUNDLAND.
  Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion
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  Affairs whether he has yet considered the desirability, raised in debate in this House in 1934, of the direct representation of Newfoundland in this House?
  Mr. HACKING: I am aware that suggestions to this effect were made during the passage of the Newfoundland Bill of 1933. It is clear that a proposal raising such wide issues could not be considered in relation to Newfoundland alone. Apart from this, however, my right hon. Friend does not consider the suggestion a practicable one as regards Newfoundland.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: Has the right hon. Gentleman who has just taken over the Dominions Office yet inquired into this matter, or does it await his return to the House?
  Mr. HACKING: My right hon. Friend has inquired into it.
  Earl WINTERTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is in Newfoundland considerable sympathy with the suggestion made by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite; and will he consider the case on its merits apart from other Dominions which are in a very different position from Newfoundland?
  Mr. HACKING: Yes, Sir, but the case has already been considered on its own merits. There are many difficulties, and one of them is the danger of the Newfoundland representatives in this House being in disagreement with the Commissioners in their own country.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is it not precisely those matters on which it is important that the House should have information?
  Mr. LUNNasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he has considered the copy sent to him of resolutions passed at a public meeting in the Majestic Theatre, St. John's, Newfoundland, on 30th October, 1935, complaining of the destitute condition of the people and urging the speedy abolition of the present form of Government in the Colony and the restoration of the former constitution with full legislative status; and what reply is being given to this request?
  Mr. MAXTONasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he has considered the petition

  1529
  from Newfoundland citizens calling attention to the depressed condition of the people of that country and praying for redress of their grievances; and whether he proposes to take any action?
  Mr. HACKING: My right hon. Friend has received the resolutions through the Governor and, in accordance with the request of the signatories, has laid them before His Majesty the King. He is satisfied, however, that the terms of the resolutions are not founded on any substantial basis, and he has been unable to advise His Majesty to take any action thereon.
  Mr. LUNN: Is it not a fact that the economic circumstances of the people of Newfoundland are worse to-day than they were when the commission was appointed?
  Mr. HACKING: It does not follow that those conditions would be improved by any change of Government. There are economic reasons for the present depression.
  Mr. MAXTON: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that his right hon. Friend knows the feelings of the people of Newfoundland better than they do themselves?
  Mr. HACKING: This Resolution cannot be regarded as in any way representing the feelings of the majority of the people of Newfoundland.
  Mr. MAXTON: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that this petition was sent here by a large and representative gathering in the town of St. John's, which is the most representative town in the Divisions?
  Mr. HACKING: Yes, I am aware of that. I am also aware, having read the Press reports, that at the meeting the speeches were not regarded very seriously by those present. It is clear that the resolution cannot be regarded as representative of public opinion in the island.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    BRITISH ELASTICS (AUSTRALIAN DUTY).
    Mr. PERKINSasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (1) whether he is aware that the Australian manufacturers of elastics have applied to their tariff board for a heavy
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    duty against British elastics over one inch in width; and whether in view of the terms of the Ottawa agreements, he will make representations to the Australian Government;
    (2) whether he is aware that before the signing of the Ottawa Agreements, British elastics under one inch in width were admitted free of duty into Australia, and that a duty of approximately 27½ per cent. against British elastics under one inch in width has been imposed by the Australian Government since the signing of the Ottawa Agreements, and that the Australian manufacturers are now applying for a heavy increase of these duties; and whether he has made or will make any representations to the Australian Government?
    Mr. HACKING: My right hon. Friend is aware that a duty has been imposed by His Majesty's Government in the Commonwealth of Australia on United Kingdom apparel elastic under one inch in width since the signature of the Ottawa Agreements, and that the duty is now 26¼ per cent. ad valorem, excluding primage duty. He is also aware of the fact that the Commonwealth Tariff Board have been requested to review the existing duties upon all widths of apparel elastic. The board's inquiry took place, he understands, in October, and, in accordance with the provisions of Article 13 of the United Kingdom-Australia Agreement concluded at Ottawa, full rights of audience were given to United Kingdom producers at the inquiry. The procedure contemplated by the Agreement has, therefore, been followed, and, subject to any points which may arise when the report of the board is issued, my right hon. Friend is not aware of any ground upon which he could make representations to the Commonwealth Government on the subject.
    Mr. PERKINS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it was agreed at Ottawa that British manufacturers should have equal opportunities to compete with Australian manufacturers in their own market; and that if this new application for a big increased tariff is granted, it will be impossible for British manufacturers to compete in the Australian market?
    Mr. HACKING: I do not think we are aware of that yet, but Article 10

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    of the Agreement covers this matter. It provides that tariffs may not be prohibitive, but may be competitive. Until we have the details of this increase, we are not in a position to make any representations.
    Mr. PERKINS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is not an isolated instance, but that there are five or six other instances in other industries; and does he not consider that the time has come when the Government ought to retaliate in some of these cases?
    Mr. BUCHANAN: What is the Navy for?
    Mr. HACKING: We cannot take any steps, providing the Agreement is being maintained.
    Mr. CHARLES BROWN: Is it desirable that the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Perkins) should thus sow dissension in the ranks of the party opposite?

    COTTON SPINNING INDUSTRY BILL.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIESasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has information as to the percentage of employers and employés, respectively, in the cotton-spinning industry which is in favour of, or in opposition to, the provisions of the Cotton Spinning Industry Bill?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Runciman): The scheme upon which the Bill is based was approved in October, 1934, by owners representing nearly two-thirds of the cotton-spinning industry. It is understood that the owners of about one-quarter of the industry are opposed to the Bill. I am unable to give any corresponding information regarding employés.
    Mr. DAVIES: Has the right hon. Gentleman yet had any representations made to him, from the Unions covering the textile operatives, as to this Bill?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Yes, Sir, some communications have passed.
    Mr. REMER: Is it not vitally important that before the House debates the Second Reading of the Bill we should have complete information from both employers and employés and their views on the merits of the Bill as affecting Lancashire and Cheshire?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Yes, Sir. We are doing all we can in that matter and communications and conferences are proceeding with the various interests.
    Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: Has the right hon. Gentleman had any representations from Scottish employers?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I could not say without notice.
    Mr. CROSSLEY: Has the right hon. Gentleman any reason to believe that a lesser percentage of employers is now in favour of the Bill than was in favour of it previously?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: No, Sir, I have not any reason to believe that.

    COKE OVEN GAS (NORTH-EAST COAST).
    Mr. STOREYasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he proposes to set up an inquiry into the advisability of providing a gas grid for the North-East Coast as suggested by a joint committee of the north-east sections of the Institute of Chemistry, the Chemical Society, and the Society of Chemical Industry?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The question of the possible disposal of coke oven gas for towns' purposes is primarily a matter for the interests concerned, and I am informed that, since the preparation of the report of the committee to which my hon. Friend refers, further contracts for the sale of coke oven gas to gas undertakings have been announced.
    Mr. STOREY: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a large quantity of coke oven gas produced in the county of Durham is not used, and does he not think it worth while to make it available to industry?
    Miss WARD: Does not my right hon. Friend think it a good thing to ask the Commissioner whether he would encourage the production of this material?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am quite ready to communicate with the Commissioner on the subject. For the information for which my hon. Friend asks, I think he had better give me notice.
    Mr. SHINWELL: Will not the proposed gas grid for the North-East Coast be a contributory factor in dealing with the unemployment problem of that area?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I do not know what they are going to do. When I know, I shall be better able to answer the question.

    BELGIAN CARPETS.
    Mr. GLEDHILLasked the President of the Board of Trade what increase has taken place during the last six months in the imports of Belgian carpets; and to what extent such increase is due to currency devaluation?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The quantity of carpets, carpeting, etc., of wool imported into this country and registered as consigned from Belgium during the six months ended November, 1935, was less than 2 per cent. greater than in the corresponding period of 1934. Imports of jute carpets, carpeting, etc., from Belgium during the same period increased from 3,600 square yards to 18,000 square yards, but the latter represented only 2 per cent. of the total imports of carpets from Belgium. The average value per square yard of the imports of both woollen and jute carpets was, however, higher in the six months ended November, 1935, than a year earlier. It would not, therefore, appear that such increase as has taken place in these imports can be ascribed necessarily to the devaluation of the belga.
    Mr. HERBERT G. WILLIAMS: Does not my right hon. Friend think the total importation is much too great?
    Mr. LEVY: Does not my right hon. Friend think the increased importation is detrimental to the textile industry of this country?

    EXPORTS TO ITALY.
    Mr. RILEYasked the President of the Board of Trade the quantity and value of all kinds of coal exported from Great Britain to Italy for the month of November in 1933, 1934, and 1935, respectively?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The desired information is given on page 129 of the issue of the Trade and Navigation Accounts for November.
    Mr. RILEY: Are the Government considering or taking any steps to prevent the exportation of coal to Italy until she has ceased to invade Abyssinia?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The hon. Member had better put that question on the Paper.
    Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: Is the quadrupled export of coal to Egypt really destined for Italy?
    Mr. RILEYasked the President of the Board of Trade the total value of imports and exports between Great Britain and Italy for the month of November in 1933, 1934, and 1935, respectively?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The particulars for November, 1935, will not be available until next week, and as soon as they are ready I will send the hon. Member the information for which he asks.

    TIMBER (IMPORT).
    Major CARVERasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can give any details as to the effect of the recent international agreement between the European timber-growing countries for the better regulation of timber exports to this country; and whether any such agreement is likely to conflict with the timber import trade from Canada?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: At the moment I am unable to add to the information given in the Press about an agreement between timber export organisations in eight European countries to limit total exports of softwoods from those countries in 1936. It does not appear that the agreement provides for limitation of supplies to individual countries or that the Canadian timber trade can be adversely affected by the agreement.

    FOODSTUFFS.
    Mr. LEACHasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the total amounts received in import duties on foodstuffs during the years 1930–31, 1931–32, 1932–33, 1933–34, 1934–35, and the estimated amount for 1935–36; and also for the same years the amounts received by home producers in subsidies, levies, or other financial assistance?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain): I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a statement giving the information asked for as to the total amounts received in import duties on foodstuffs, including tea, coffee and cocoa, and certain foodstuffs used in part as feeding stuffs for animals, which cannot be separately distinguished. The statement gives also the amounts received by home producers in subsidies

    1535
    and levies, and such information as is available regarding other forms of assistance.
    Mr. LEACH: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether those figures do not warrant a reduction in the food taxes?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Perhaps the hon. Member will wait until he has seen the figures.
    Sir JOSEPH NALL: Will the figures indicate the classes of duties according to the purposes for which they were imposed?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir.
    Following is the statement:

    Year.

    Amount received in Import Duties on foodstuffs, including tea, coffee and cocoa, and certain foodstuffs used in part as feeding stuffs for animals, which cannot be separately distinguished.

    Amount received by Home producers in subsidies* and levies.

    £

    £

    1930–31

    13,949,000

    6,114,000

    1931–32

    16,489,000

    2,211,000

    1932–33

    27,083,000

    6,936,000

    1933–34

    32,896,000

    10,573,000

    1934–35

    31,265,000

    14,753,000

    1935–36 (estimated)

    No figure available.

    15,314,000

    *Note.—The figures for subsidies cover certain forms of indirect assistance to particular classes of producers, e.g., livestock improvement, etc., assistance to the Herring Industry, etc., but do not take account of the benefit derived from measures of general application such as the Land Drainage Act, 1930.

    Other Forms of Assistance to Home Producers.
    During the period referred to the rebate of taxation in connection with the Beet Sugar Subsidy amounted to £11,890,000.
    While figures are not available as to the amount by which agriculture has benefited by derating during the years in question, the amounts included in the block grants in respect of the year 1928–29 on the basis of benefit to agriculture in that year totalled approximately £10,800,000.
    Home producers have also received substantial benefit from the operation of the import duties and from reductions of taxation, but it is not, of course, possible to express such benefit in terms of money.

    PECTIN.
    Sir ERNEST SHEPPERSONasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that an American company, with a Canadian branch, has increased its imports of pectin from Canada by practically 50 per cent. during the present year, and that this firm is selling pectin in England at, approximately, half the Canadian price; and, therefore, will he consider taking special steps to impose a dumping duty on similar lines to that applied by Canada on pectin exported from this country?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am aware of the position stated in the question. The imposition of an import duty on Canadian pectin would be contrary to the agreement concluded at Ottawa with His Majesty's Government in Canada.
    Sir E. SHEPPERSON: Is my right hon. Friend aware that if this pectin were manufactured in this country, it would mean a consumption of something like 25,000 tons of apples, and will he not, in view of the fact that this pectin comes from America through Canada, open some negotiations with Canada in order to save this important British industry?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I shall be glad to consider any representations that my hon. Friend cares to make.
    Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: Will my right hon. Friend tell us what pectin is?

    AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS (IMPORTS).
    Major MILLSasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will arrange to obtain fortnightly returns of imports of agricultural products in respect of which quantitative limits have been fixed; and whether he will ensure that, when such imports from any country appear to him to be excessive in view of the limit, immediate steps are taken to neutralise the excess?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I see no reason for arranging for such returns where imports are regulated on a quarterly or longer-term basis or by the issue of ad hoc licences. In the case of bacon and certain

    1537
    other commodities weekly returns are, however, published by the Imperial Economic Committee. In general, my hon. and gallant Friend may, I think, be assured that everything practicable is done to secure that any quantitative limitation of imports is observed. If there is any particular commodity about which he is in doubt, perhaps he will communicate with me.

  EMPIRE MIGRATION.
  Sir JOHN BIRCHALLasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs what steps are being taken to prepare for the re-opening of emigration and settlement?
  Mr. HACKING: I would ask my hon. Friend to await the Debate on to-morrow's Motion on Migration by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Captain Macnamara). I hope to deal with the present position in the course of that Debate.

  IRISH FREE STATE.
  Mr. BROOKEasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether new negotiations have been commenced, or are contemplated, with the Irish Free State Government to settle outstanding differences between the two countries?
  Mr. HACKING: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave last Tuesday to the hon. Member for Rothwell (Mr. Lunn), to which I have nothing to add.

  BECHUANALAND.
  Mr. CREECH JONESasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, what is the position as regards the proclamations isued in 1934 dealing with native administration and native tribunals in Bechuanaland; whether the objections raised by the acting-chief, Tshekedi Khama, have been considered; and whether any modification has been made in the text of the proclamations as a result of his representations?
  Mr. HACKING: The position is that these proclamations are in force but that, as stated in the Press, application
  1538
  has been made by the acting-chief, Tshekedi, for permission to take proceedings against the High Commissioner in the Special Court of the Bechuanaland Protectorate on the ground that the proclamations are ultra vires in terms of the Order-in-Council of 9th May, 1891. The application has been granted. The proclamations were discussed in great detail with the chiefs before they were enacted. The points raised by the chiefs, including those on which the present application by the acting chief is based, were carefully considered, and the proclamations were revised in order to meet, as far as possible, the suggestions made by the chiefs.

  INSURANCE COMPANIES.
  Mr. KELLYasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that assets of a British insurance company recently wound up were certified in its last balance sheet as being worth £100,000, but realised on sale less than £100; and what steps under the 1935 Assurance Companies Act he has taken to test the correctness of valuations of assets certified by directors of insurance concerns domiciled in the United Kingdom?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am not aware of the company to which the hon. Member refers. The returns of all insurance companies deposited with the Board of Trade are carefully examined by reference to the statutory powers and duties vested in the board, including those conferred by the Assurance Companies (Winding-Up) Acts, 1933 and 1935.
  Mr. KELLY: In any of the tests which were made was there discovered such a set of circumstances as are related in the question?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: We have not been able to identify the company. If my hon. Friend would give me some means of identifying the company, I might be able to answer the question.
  Mr. PALING: Did not the right hon. Gentleman indicate some time ago that he was taking steps to look into this matter; and has anything been done?
  Mr. KELLYasked the President of the Board of Trade in how many cases he exercised his powers in 1934 to ascertain

  1539
  that the total liabilities and the correct market values of assets were published in the balance sheets of foreign and Colonial insurance concerns doing life and annuity business in the United Kingdom?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: The form of balance sheet to be deposited by insurance companies with the Board of Trade is prescribed in detail in the Third Schedule to the Assurance Companies Act, 1909, to which I would refer the hon. Member. All balance sheets deposited with the Board of Trade in 1934 have been examined to ensure that they have been compiled in strict accordance with the statutory requirements.

  FIXED TRUSTS.
  Mr. KELLYasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the managers or trustees of fixed trusts can control a limited company in which one or more fixed trusts hold a majority of its capital, and that an industrial company will thus be controlled by persons non-accountable to the fixed-trust shareholders as to the purpose of that control, whether for the benefit of the fixed-trust shareholders or for the benefit of the managers or the trustees of the trusts; and will he request the economic advisers of the Government to find a legislative remedy for these developments?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: As the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) was informed on 10th December, the question of fixed trusts is engaging the attention of the Committee of the Stock Exchange. Before considering the matter further, I propose to await their conclusions.
  Mr. KELLY: Can the Govenment, with all the information at their disposal, not deal with this matter without waiting for the Stock Exchange Commitee?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: We are very glad to have assistance from whatever quarter it comes.
  Mr. BELLENGER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Stock Exchange Committee are likely to give him the information he needs?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I do not think there will be any undue delay.

  MERCANTILE MARINE.

    PALESTINE ORANGES.
    Mr. HALL-CAINEasked the President of the Board of Trade the approximate proportion of Palestine orange exports to this country during the ensuing season to be carried in British vessels; and whether he is satisfied that all possible steps have been taken by the British shipping industry to secure such trade?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am informed that approximately 37 per cent. of the exports of Palestine oranges to this country will be carried this season in British ships. I know that the British shipping companies concerned have made, and continue to make, great efforts to secure this trade.

    WRECKS (SEAMEN'S LOSSES).
    Mr. R. J. TAYLORasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the total loss accruing to a seaman whose ship is wrecked and whose personal belongings are thereby destroyed; and whether he proposes to take any steps to make such a loss a liability on the shipowner?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: My attention has been called to one case of this kind recently. I understand that the risk is covered to a limited extent by union arrangements in the case of members of the National Union of Seamen and by direct insurance in some cases.
    Mr. TAYLOR: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether, in any proposed Amendment of the Merchant Shipping Act, he will deal with this matter?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: It is primarily a matter for conference between the seamen and the authorities.

    EMPIRE SERVICES.
    Colonel GOODMANasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the abandonment of regular British shipping services in the North Atlantic between this country and the United States of America; whether such abandonment is due to the impossibility of unsubsidised British services competing with American subsidised services; and, if so, whether he proposes to take action to prevent British services being relinquished for such reasons?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I presume that my hon. and gallant Friend refers to the disappearance of the services under the British flag maintained by the Atlantic Transport Company and the Leyland Line. These lines were under the control of an American corporation, and I do not think that the change supports any inference as to the ability of British shipowners to maintain their services in the North Atlantic.
    Colonel GOODMAN: Are we to understand that the Board of Trade does not intend to take any effective action to keep British shipping services on the sea and to prevent their being chased off the sea by unfair foreign competition?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: No; my hon. and gallant Friend is not justified in that assumption.
    Mr. STOREYasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has considered the decision announced at the annual meeting of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company to withdraw the service of Empire ships between Australia, New Zealand, San Francisco, and Vancouver, on account of highly subsidised foreign competition; and whether it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to initiate action with the Dominion Governments concerned so as to secure that passengers and mail between Australasia and North America may be carried on Empire ships?
    Sir PERCY HARRISasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that there is a probability that both the mail services from Vancouver and San Francisco to New Zealand and Australia will be withdrawn, though they have been established over 30 years; and whether, seeing that this will be a serious loss to the trade and commercial interests of Great Britain, he proposes to take any action in the matter?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am aware of the statement that the British service between Australia, New Zealand and San Francisco is to be withdrawn and of the further statement in the Press as to the possible withdrawal of the British service between Vancouver and those two Dominions. The position of the British
    1542
    lines concerned has been under discussion between His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and His Majesty's Governments in New Zealand and the Commonwealth of Australia. The understanding is that in view of their special interest in the subject, the Governments of those Dominions should consider what action they could take to deal with the position. The matter is receiving their consideration.
    Mr. STOREY: Will my right hon. Friend give the House an assurance that every effort will be made to maintain these Empire shipping services?
    Sir P. HARRIS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the All-Red route from Vancouver has been carrying mails to New Zealand for over 30 years, and does he not realise the grave inconvenience that will be caused to commercial interests if it is stopped?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: That is one of the facts that we are taking into consideration, but I can make no statement at present.
    Mr. HERBERT G. WILLIAMS: Will my right hon. Friend consider denouncing the most-favoured-nation under taking with the United States so that we can discriminate against their goods as long as they discriminate against our shipping?

    TRAMP SHIPPING SUBSIDY.
    Mr. THURTLEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is keeping under close supervision the profit-and-loss accounts of those owners of tramp shipping who are receiving the State subsidy; how frequently such accounts are submitted to his Department; and what action, if any, he takes when he finds that excessive profits, over and above the average return on industrial capital, are being made as a result of these subsidies?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am keeping under close observation the general condition of the tramp shipping industry, and it is in view of that condition that Government assistance is being given, as will be seen from the reply given by my hon. Friend to the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Wight (Captain P. Macdonald) on 10th December.
    Mr. THURTLE: Will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to withdraw the subsidy in any case where he finds that excessive profits are being made?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am afraid there are no signs of excessive profits at present.
    Mr. BELLENGER: Will the right hon. Gentleman give that undertaking?
    Mr. THURTLEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, for the information of new Members of the House, he will state where full information can be obtained regarding the tramp-shipping subsidy and its method of operation; and whether he proposes to make known to the House any of the information obtained by the detailed examination of the operation of the subsidy which has recently been completed?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Full information, regarding the tramp-shipping subsidy and its method of operation is to be found in the British Shipping (Assistance) Act, 1935, and in the Memorandum on the Financial Resolution which preceded it (Cmd. 4754). As regards the second part of the question, a statement will, of course, be made on behalf of the Government when the legislation to provide subsidy for a further year is before the House. Meantime, I would refer the hon. Members to the interim report of the Tramp-Shipping Administrative Committee which was laid before Parliament in October last (Cmd. 5004).

    SEAWORTHINESS AND MANNING.
    Mr. EDEasked the President of the Board of Trade (1) whether he has considered the report of the inquiry into the loss of the "La Crescenta"; and what action he proposes to take thereon;
    (2) whether, in view of the recent reports on the losses of vessels at sea, he proposes to introduce legislation to strengthen the requirements of the law as to the seaworthiness of ships and manning regulations?
    Mr. GALLACHERasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the findings announced by the Wreck Commissioner in connection with the loss of the steamship "La Crescenta," he proposes to introduce amending legislation to the Merchant
    1544
    Shipping Acts, altering the regulations regarding the manning of merchant ships and generally strengthening the provisions of the Act for safeguarding the lives of men at sea?
    Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMAN ALLENasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been drawn to Lord Merrivale's recommendation in the "La Crescenta" case; and whether he will consider a review and revision of the Merchant Shipping Act?
    Mr. BENJAMIN SMITHasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will make public the findings of the Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee in regard to the question of manning?
    Mr. NEIL MACLEANasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the committee appointed to inquire into the steering-gear of cargo vessels has yet completed its task, and whether he intends to make public the findings of that committee?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Notice of appeal has been given in respect of the findings of Lord Merrivale's Court in the case of the "La Crescenta" and this appeal will in due course be heard in the High Court. These findings are therefore at present sub judice. Apart from the question of overloading, the findings deal with questions of the manning and the seaworthiness of the ship. Respecting manning, the questions raised are in the main similar to those raised in the reports of the earlier inquiries. The Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee already have this matter under consideration at my request. As regards seaworthiness, the points raised by the report relating to ship surveys are similar to those brought out at the previous inquiries, and the matter is under discussion between the Board of Trade and the Classification Societies. The question of the type of steering gear used on some of the ships which have been the subject of these inquiries is under examination by an expert committee, set up by me in July and their report will reach me I hope early in the New Year. The action to be taken as a result of the formal investigations depends largely upon the outcome of the inquiries and discussions referred to above. The reports of the Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee on Manning and the Steering Gear Committee

    1545
    will be published as soon as they are received, and the results of the discussions between the Board and the Classification Societies will also be made public. I should add that the Board of Trade, after consultation with the Classification Societies, issued through the shipowners' organisations in August last recommendations to the shipowners as to certain precautions which should be taken forthwith in view of the questions raised by these inquiries.
    Mr. EDE: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance, in view of the grave anxiety existing among the members of the Mercantile Marine, that as soon as he receives these reports he will consider promoting legislation to give effect to them?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Yes, if fresh legislation is necessary I will certainly do so. I need hardly assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that I look upon this matter just as gravely as they do themselves.
    Mr. GALLACHER: Is it within the province of the right hon. Gentleman's Department to advise the Public Prosecutor to watch the proceedings to which he has referred with a view to taking criminal action if the results demand it?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The particular case which, I think, the hon. Gentleman has in mind is sub judice at present. I would, therefore, prefer not to say anything on the subject at present.
    Mr. B. SMITH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Advisory Committee on Manning decided their policy as far back as October, 1934, and will he publish their report forthwith?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I must have notice of that question.
    Mr. SMITH: I have given notice of it in my question.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I have given all the information that I can make available.
    Mr. MACLEANasked the President of the Board of Trade whether it is his intention to cause an inquiry to be held into the loss of the "Joseph Medill," in the North Atlantic?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I have just received a reply from His Majesty's Government
    1546
    in Canada consenting to the holding of a formal investigation in the United Kingdom if thought desirable, and a formal investigation is, accordingly, being ordered.
    Mr. J. J. DAVIDSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman also inquire into the loss to the "John Public" during the last four years?
    Mr. MACLEANasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his Department sanctioned the sailing of the "Joseph Medill" from England to Canada without wireless equipment; and if he will review the conditions under which such exemptions are granted?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part, it is the duty of the Board of Trade to carry out the provisions of the law incorporated in the Merchant Shipping (Wireless Telegraphy) Act, 1919, as qualified by the Merchant, Shipping (Safety and Load Line Conventions) Act, 1932. The latter Act was passed in pursuance of International Conventions including the Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, 1929. As I informed the hon. Member on 5th December the exemption in question was granted in accordance with a definite provision of that Convention. Applications for exemption will continue to be most carefully scrutinised on their merits but, as at present advised, I see no reason for a review of the conclusions reached by the International Conference of 1929.
    Mr. MACLEAN: Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider it advisable, in view of the fact that this ship went down with all hands, that a more careful investigation should be made before ships are allowed to undertake voyages without having wireless apparatus on board, as it is almost certain that if this vessel had been equipped with wireless the crew might have been saved?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am afraid that is a matter of conjecture, but certainly every case is very carefully scrutinised on its merits.
    Mr. MACLEAN: Is it not the case that this vessel went along what is considered to be the main route of American shipping and would, consequently, have got

    1547
    into touch easily with other vessels when the danger was discovered if there had been wireless equipment?

    STEAMSHIP "QUEEN MARY."
    Mr. BUCHAN-HEPBURNasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of growing local interest, he will recommend the Cunard-White Star Company to allow the "Queen Mary" to proceed during her maiden voyage to Liverpool, her port of registry, there to be open to view by members of the public?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I will communicate my hon. Friend's suggestion to the company.

    Statement as to crew accommodation of the "Queen Mary."

    Ratings.

    Number of Bunks fitted.

    Average sleeping space per man in cubic feet.

    Number of seats in mess rooms.

    Wasbing Accommodation.

    Total Area.

    Number of showers or baths.

    Seamen

    …

    …

    …

    62

    198

    59

    275 sq. ft.

    4

    Engine Room Ratings (not Engineers).

    143

    218

    142

    495 sq. ft.

    16

    Stewards

    …

    …

    …

    588

    212

    —*

    1,964 sq. ft.

    41

    * Messing arrangements for the Stewards are not yet settled, but the owners have given an assurance that satisfactory arrangements will be provided, and the Board of Trade are awaiting particulars of the actual proposals.

    Notes—

    1. The above table refers to basic grades. Higher ranks and ratings have superior accommodation.

    2. The Company state that the spaces available for recreation, approximately one-third of which are open-air spaces, amount to about 2,080 superficial feet in the forward part of the ship, and 3,080 superficial feet in the after part of the vessel. It is contemplated that the Deck and Engine room staff will normally use the forward part and the Stewards the after part.

    FREIGHT (QUOTAS AND TRADE RESTRICTIONS).
    Sir P. HARRISasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the adverse effect on freight of the policy of quotas and trade restrictions; and whether, in the interests of British shipping, he can undertake that the policy of the Government will be directed to see that these restrictions shall be removed?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am aware that shipping is suffering from the reduction in international trade due, among other causes, to quotas and trade restrictions. The policy of the Government is to promote the increase of trade through
    Mr. SHINWELLasked the President of the Board of Trade what accommodation has been proided for the crew of the "Queen Mary"; how much cubic space of sleeping accommodation has been allotted per man; what accommodation for meals, recreation and washing is being provided; and whether he is satisfied that the arrangements comply with the needs of the crew?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: As the answer is long and contains a table of figures, I will circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT. The messing arrangements for the stewards are not yet settled. For the rest, the provision made satisfies the Board of Trade requirements.
    Agreements providing for the removal of such obstacles as far as possible.
    Sir P. HARRIS: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the statement by the chairman of the P. & O. Company pointing out what a serious effect quotas and restrictions have had on the shipping trade between Australia and this country, and that it may lead to a decrease in the number of ships carrying goods between this country and Australia?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: We shall certainly pay attention to any representations.
    Mr. REMER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the imports and exports of this country have both increased?

  MEDITERRANEAN FLEET.
  Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Prime Minister why His Majesty's Government sent the British Fleet to Alexandria?
  The PRIME MINISTER: In accordance with the programme for its autumn cruise the Mediterranean Fleet was due to leave Malta on 29th August and proceed to ports in the Eastern Mediterranean. A number of visits to Italian ports were also included. In view, however, of the hostile Press campaign against this country, which was then in progress in Italy, it became clear that visits to Italian ports would not be opportune, and it was consequently decided to confine the cruise to the Eastern Mediterranean. The Fleet left Malta for its cruise on its original programme date. The whole of the Fleet has never been at Alexandria, but in view of the limited number of suitable ports in the Eastern Mediterranean it has been necessary for a considerable proportion to remain there, as Alexandria is the only port capable of accommodating a large number of ships under winter conditions. Individual squadrons have, however, periodically made short cruises in neighbouring waters.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman one question? Would not the Fleet be safer if it were actually in the Suez Canal so that any Italian bombs would do equal injury to the British Navy and Italian communications?
  Mr. MANDER: May I ask the Prime Minister whether it is the policy of the Government to use the British Fleet if necessary, or to run away?

  IMPERIAL DEFENCE.
  Earl WINTERTONasked the Prime Minister whether an opportunity will be afforded in the new year after the resumption of the Sittings of the House to discuss the problem of Imperial Defence as a whole?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I have noted my right hon. and Noble Friends' suggestion and agree with him that a discussion on Imperial Defence as a whole would be desirable before the Estimates for the Defence Services are taken.

  TUGS, RIVER THAMES (CREWS).
  Mr. B. SMITHasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the growing practice of tug owners on the River Thames to reduce the number of persons employed in the engine room; that in many cases only one man is so employed; and whether, in view of the congested traffic upon the river and the inadequacy of tug crews having regard to safety, he will cause regulations to be made providing for minimum crews?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: The Board of Trade have no power to make regulations providing for minimum crews for tugs on the River Thames.
  Mr. SMITH: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider legislation to provide for the safety of these crews?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: The matter is, in the first instance, the concern of the London Port Authorities.

  FISHING INDUSTRY.

    CREWS (HOURS OF WORK).
    Mr. GARRO-JONESasked the President of the Board of Trade what are the regulations restricting the normal hours, particularly successive hours, of duty worked by the crews of fishing vessels; and whether, having regard to the share system worked in Aberdeen trawlers, which tends to give the master of these vessels an incentive to work his crew for excessive periods, he will consider whether some further regulations are necessary to promote both efficiency and more satisfactory conditions?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: There are, so far as I am aware, no regulations on this subject. I understand that the Sea-Fish Commission, constituted in accordance with the Sea-Fishing Industry Act, 1933, have received representations about the conditions of employment of the crews of fishing vessels and when their report is available further consideration will be given to the points raised in my hon. Friend's question.

    STEAM TRAWLERS (ABERDEEN).
    Mr. GARRO-JONESasked the President of the Board of Trade whether

    1551
    he has received any complaints regarding the condition of steam trawlers fishing out of Aberdeen; whether he is aware that many of these vessels are unseaworthy; and whether he will institute a special inquiry into the effectiveness of existing measures for the supervision of the condition of these vessels?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I have received occasional complaints as to the condition of trawlers fishing out of Aberdeen, but investigation has not shown the ships to be unseaworthy. The supervision of fishing vessels is under special consideration by the Board of Trade at the moment.
    Mr. GARRO-JONES: Has the right hon. Gentleman noticed that my inquiry calls into question the efficacy of existing measures of supervision, and that it does not satisfy my question merely to quote measures which exist, as in my submission they are totally unsatisfactory? Will the right. hon. Gentleman make further inquiry into the measures which exist in Aberdeen and other places?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member's question is too long.

  BRITISH ARMY.

    TERRITORIAL FORCES (MARRIAGE ALLOWANCE).
    Mr. STOURTONasked the Secretary of State for War whether, in order to stimulate recruiting for the Territorial forces, he will consider extending the marriage allowance to all such married men as attend camp, and raising the proficiency bounty to £3?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Duff Cooper): I propose to deal with these questions when introducing the forthcoming Army Estimates which are now under consideration.
    Mr. STOURTON: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that it is only on the lines indicated by my question that Territorial units will be brought up to establishment?

    SUICIDES.
    Mr. MAXTONasked the Secretary of State for War how many of the 37 suicides which took place in the Army during the last 12 months were in this country; and how many were committed by gunshot wounding?
    Mr. COOPER: The numbers were 29 and 19, respectively.

    BACON SUPPLIES.
    Mr. SANDERSasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether arrangements have been made for the Army to be supplied with bacon produced in the United Kingdom?
    Mr. COOPER: No, Sir. Home-produced bacon is at present ruled out on price alone.
    Mr. SANDERS: Will the right hon. Gentleman consult with the Minister of Agriculture to see whether he cannot arrange for a scheme is connection with the Bacon Development Board whereby the arrangement indicated in my question might be carried out?
    Mr. COOPER: I will consult with my right hon. Friend on any subject, but though I mentioned "price alone," that is not the only reason that exists.
    Mr. THORNE: May I ask who is responsible for the extraordinarily high prices for Englanh bacon?

    ANTI-TANK WEAPONS.
    Major LEIGHTONasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether an anti-tank gun has yet been approved for the British Army?
    Mr. COOPER: Two anti-tank weapons have been designed and tested, and their issue to the troops will begin as soon as manufacture permits. One is a light weapon which will be issued to all units, and the other is a heavier weapon which will be manned by specially trained detachments.
    Major LEIGHTON: How soon will they be issued to troops?
    Mr. COOPER: I am afraid that I cannot give any undertaking on that point, but it will be as soon as they have been manufactured?

  SCOTLAND.

    INDUSTRIES (DEVELOPMENT).
    Mr. HARDIEasked the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) whether he intends to take steps to prevent the transfer of work from Scotland to England;

    1553
    (2) whether, as a result of the investigation made by the Commissioner concerning the depressed areas in Scotland, he has any proposals to put before the House?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Sir Godfrey Collins): Scotland has shared in the general improvement in employment in recent years and cases of transference of establishments have been relatively few. The work of the Commissioner for the special areas is being developed and extended along the lines indicated in his report, of which I am sending the hon. Member a copy. Proposals are under discussion for amalgamation of the Scottish National Development Council and the Scottish Travel Association and for the development of the work of the united body for the promotion of industry and the tourist traffic in Scotland.
    Mr. HARDIE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that works at Rather-glen, Wishaw and Coatbridge have been brought south?
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir C. MacANDREW: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that this tendency might be checked by a reform of the Scottish rating system?
    Sir G. COLLINS: No, Sir; but that is another question which I cannot answer at the moment. In reply to the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie) I would say that it must be borne in mind that the number of persons in insurable employment in Scotland shows an increase of 113,000 in comparison with three years ago.
    Mr. N. MACLEAN: Is not the additional number in insurable employment accounted for by the number of young persons between 14 and 16 years of age who are now under the insurance scheme?
    Sir G. COLLINS: No, Sir. The numbers which I quoted cover the ages, 16 to 64 and refer to the month of October in the years 1932 to 1935, and there is an increase of 113,000.

    SHEEP FARMS (SALE).
    Mr. HARDIEasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware that the whole of the black-faced sheep, numbering about 4,000 head, belonging to Lord Breadalbane, on the extensive hill
    1554
    grazings of the farms of Acharna and Innerliner, Loch Etive side, have been sold to make room for deer and that farm houses are to be converted into shooting lodges; and if he is prepared to take steps to prevent this destruction of industry?
    Sir G. COLLINS: I am informed that, for about two and a-half years, the sheep farms in question remained unlet notwithstanding every effort made by advertisement and otherwise to find tenants. Both farms were sold by Lord Breadalbane this year to purchasers who did not wish to take over the sheep stocks, and consequently he was obliged to sell the sheep, which entailed a loss of about £2,900. There is no question, therefore, of the sheep being disposed of by Lord Breadalbane to make room for deer as he would have been glad to find tenants to take over the sheep on reasonable terms. I have no power to intervene in connection with transactions of this nature.
    Mr. HARDIE: Does not the Scottish Office consider that here is an opportunity for preventing land becoming a deer derelict area and for making use of it for the unemployed?
    Sir G. COLLINS: No, Sir; the whole matter of deer forests is under consideration, and I shall be very glad to have the assistance of hon. Members opposite in any legislation on the subject.

    FISHING INDUSTRY.
    Mr. HENDERSON STEWARTasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has considered the application of the two parties to the recent inquiry regarding the ring-net-drift-net controversy in the Firth of Forth for a grant towards the cost of legal expenses incurred?
    Captain McEWENasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has yet arrived at a decision in the matter of the expenses incurred by certain fishermen in connection with the Maconnachie inquiry into seine-net fishing in the Firth of Forth?
    Sir G. COLLINS: I have carefully considered the suggestion that grants should be made by the Government towards the expenses referred to, but regret that I am unable to adopt the suggestion. As

    1555
    the reasons for this decision are somewhat lengthy I am writing to my hon. Friends on the subject.
    Mr. STEWART: Will not the right hon. Gentleman consider that this was a rather special inquiry called for the direct benefit of the Government?
    Mr. MAXTON: What about the Greenock inquiry?
    Sir G. COLLINS: No, Sir, the inquiry was called in order to elicit the facts in the interests of all concerned. I have no power to find the money for the expenses concerned, but I will write a letter to my hon. Friends on the subject.

    MILK REORGANISATION COMMISSION.
    Captain McEWENasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether, in view of the delay in the publication of the Milk Reorganisation Commission's report, it will be possible, in the interests of milk producers generally, to arrange for the publication of an interim report?
    Sir G. COLLINS: As the matters under examination raise wide issues of policy common to both England and Scotland, the commission do not consider it practicable to make a report until they have reached their final conclusion. With that view I agree. In these circumstances if will not be possible to arrange for the issue of an interim report.

    VAGRANCY (COMMITTEE'S REPORT).
    Lieut.-Colonel MOOREasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he expects the report of the Committee on Vagrancy in Scotland?
    Sir G. COLLINS: I understand that the committee are at present considering the terms of their report and that they expect to complete it shortly.
    Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether he will give an opportunity to the House of discussing this report when it is published?
    Sir G. COLLINS: I am afraid I cannot do that.

    PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS (KELVINGROVE).
    Mr. J. J. DAVIDSONasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware of the widespread dissatisfaction at the incidents relating to the
    1556
    decision given in the Kelvingrove division at the last General Election; and whether he will take action to prevent such happenings in future?
    Sir G. COLLINS: The conduct of elections in Scotland is, under Statute, a matter for the sheriffs as returning officers. I am aware, however, that difficulties have been encountered in this and other divisions and I am causing inquiries to be made.
    Mr. DAVIDSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that irregularities are alleged by prominent newspapers in Scotland to have taken place in this Division, and in view of the dissatisfaction that exists will he make inquiries and obtain an official report in order to submit it to the Scottish electors?
    Sir G. COLLINS: I am making inquiries into the matter referred to in the question and into other matters. Further than that I am unable to go at the moment.
    Mr. MAXTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman making the inquiries of the Sheriff who was responsible for the conduct of this election or is he making them anywhere else?
    Sir G. COLLINS: These inquiries are on a very wide basis.

    FARM WORKERS (COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY).
    Mr. MATHERSasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is now in a position to state the personnel of the committee he is appointing to examine the conditions of employment and remuneration of farm workers in Scotland; what are the terms of reference; and when their report may be expected?
    Sir G. COLLINS: I regret I am not yet in a position to make an announcement regarding this committee.
    Mr. MATHERS: If I repeat the question on Thursday does the right hon. Gentleman think tint he might be able to answer it? May I ask in the meantime what proportion of labour representatives he proposes to include in the Committee of Inquiry?
    Sir G. COLLINS: In reply to the last part of the hon. Member's supplementary question I will say that every step will

    1557
    be taken to secure an impartial and representative authority. If I am in a position to answer on Thursday I will communicate with the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. H. STEWART: Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that the collective agreements between farm servants and their masters may be considered in the course of this inquiry?
    Sir G. COLLINS: That will undoubtedly be considered.

    WATER SUPPLY (COUSLAND, MIDLOTHIAN).
    Captain RAMSAYasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what progress has been made in regard to the water supply to the houses in the village of Cousland, in Midlothian; and when he expects this work to be completed?
    Sir G. COLLINS: The scheme for the improvement of the water supply to this village has now been completed, and the local authority are in communication with the owners about the introduction of water into those houses which at present have no indoor supply.

    MONEY PAYMENTS (JUSTICE PROCEDURE) ACT.
    Mr. BUCHANANasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has considered the applying of the provisions of the Money Payments (Justice Procedure) Act to Scotland; and, if so, what action he proposes taking?
    Sir G. COLLINS: During recent months I have been collecting information on this subect. When my inquiries are completed I shall consider how far they reveal a need for an amendment of the law of Scotland relating to imprisonment in default of payment of fines.
    Mr. BUCHANAN: Would the right hon. Gentleman communicate in the meantime with the procurators-fiscal throughout Scotland asking them to be
    more lenient in the default of payment of fines?
    Sir G. COLLINS: I desire to make the inquiries which I have already started, and I shall have to await the result of those inquiries before giving any further guidance in these matters.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. ATTLEE: Can the Prime Minister make any statement as regards the business on Thursday?
The PRIME MINISTER: Yes, Thursday will be at the disposal of the Opposition, as I understand the position, for the purpose of a Debate on Foreign Affairs.
Mr. ATTLEE: In view of that reply, I beg to give notice that I and my Friends propose to put on the Paper a Motion in the following terms:
"That the terms put forward by His Majesty's Government as a basis for an Italo-Abyssinian settlement reward the declared aggressor at the expense of the victim, destroy collective security, and conflict with the expressed will of the country and with the Covenant of the League of Nations, to the support of which the honour of Great Britain is pledged; this House, therefore, demands that these terms be immediately repudiated."
Can the Prime Minister yet state when it is proposed that the House shall resume after Christmas?
The PRIME MINISTER: I am afraid I cannot answer that question to-day. I will answer it as soon as I am in a position to do so.
Motion made, and Question put,
"That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[The Prime Minister.]
The House divided: Ayes, 276; Noes, 117.

Division No. 14.]

AYES.

[3.47 p.m.

Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.

Blindell, J.

Burgin, Dr. E. L.

Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.

Boothby, R. J. G.

Butler, R. A.

Anderson, Sir A. Garrett (C. of Ldn.)

Bossom, A. C.

Caine, G. R. Hall-

Anstruther-Gray, W. J.

Boulton, W. W.

Campbell, Sir E. T.

Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)

Bower, Comdr. R. T.

Cartland, J. R. H.

Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

Bowyer, Capt. Sir G. E. W.

Carver, Major W. H.

Barclay-Harvey, C. M.

Briscoe, Capt. R. G.

Cary, R. A.

Beauchamp, Sir B. C.

Brocklebank, C. E. R.

Castlereagh, Viscount

Beit, Sir A. L.

Brown, Col. D. C. (Hexham)

Cautley, Sir H. S.

Bernays, R. H.

Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)

Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)

Birchall, Sir J. D.

Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)

Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)

Blair, Sir R.

Bull, B. B.

Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)

Blaker, Sir R.

Burghley, Lord

Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. Sir A. (Br. W.)

Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. N. (Edgb't'n)

Holdsworth, H.

Pilkington, R.

Channon, H.

Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)

Hopkinson, A.

Porritt, R. W.

Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)

Hore-Belisha, Rt. Hon. L.

Pownall, Sir A. Assheton

Chorlton, A. E. L.

Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir R. S.

Procter, Major H. A.

Christie, J. A.

Horsbrugh, Florence

Radford, F. A.

Clarke, F. E.

Howitt, Dr. A. B.

Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.

Clydesdale, Marquess of

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

Ramsbotham, H.

Cobb, Sir C. S.

Hunter, T.

Rankin, R.

Colfox, Major W. P.

Hurd, Sir P. A.

Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)

Collins, Rt. Hon. Sir G. P.

Jackson, Sir H.

Rayner, Major R. H.

Colman, N. C. D.

James, Wing-Commander A. W.

Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

Colville, Lt.-Col. D. J.

Jarvis, Sir J. J.

Reid, D. D. (Down)

Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)

Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

Reid, W. Allan (Derby)

Cooper, Rt. Hn. A. Duff (W'st'r S. G'gs)

Keeling, E. H.

Remer, J. R.

Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)

Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)

Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)

Courthope, Col. Sir G. L.

Kerr, J. G. (Scottish Universities)

Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)

Cranborne, Viscount

Keyes, Admiral of the Fleet Sir R.

Ropner, Colonel L.

Crooke, J. S.

Kimball, L.

Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)

Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

Kirkpatrick, W. M.

Rowlands, G.

Crossley, A. C.

Lamb, Sir J. Q.

Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.

Crowder, J. F. E.

Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.

Runciman, Rt. Hon. W.

Davies, Major G. F. (Yeovil)

Latham, Sir P.

Russell, A. West (Tynemouth)

Davison, Sir W. H.

Law, Sir A. J. (High Peak)

Russell, R. J. (Eddisbury)

Dawson, Sir P.

Lees-Jones, J.

Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)

De la Bère, R.

Leigh, Sir J.

Salt, E. W.

Denman, Hon. R. D.

Leighton, Major B. E. P.

Samuel, M. R. A. (Putney)

Denville, Alfred

Lennox-Boyd, A. T. L.

Sanderson, Sir F. B.

Despencer-Robertson, Major J. A. F.

Levy, T.

Sandys, E. D.

Dodd, J. S.

Lewis, O.

Savery, Servington

Donner, P. W.

Liddall, W. S.

Scott, Lord William

Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)

Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.

Seely, Sir H. M.

Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)

Lloyd, G. W.

Selley, H. R.

Dugdale, Major T. L.

Loder, Captain Hon. J. de V.

Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)

Duggan, H. J.

Loftus, P. C.

Shepperson, Sir E. W.

Duncan, J. A. L.

Lovat-Fraser, J. A.

Shute, Colonel Sir J. J.

Dunglass, Lord

Lumley, Capt. L. R.

Simmonds, O. E.

Dunne, P. R. R.

Lyons, A. M.

Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.

Eckersley, P. T.

Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

Smith, L. W. (Hallam)

Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

MacAndrew, Lt.-Col. Sir C. G.

Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)

Elmley, Viscount

M'Connell, Sir J.

Smithers, Sir W.

Emery, J. F.

McCorquodale, M. S.

Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)

Emmott, C. E. G. C.

Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)

Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

Emrys-Evans, P. V.

McEwen, Capt. H. J. F.

Southby, Comdr. A. R. J.

Errington, E.

McKie, J. H.

Spears, Brig.-Gen. E. L.

Erskine Hill, A. G.

Macmillan, H. (Stockton-on-Tees)

Spender-Clay Lt.-Cl. Rt. Hn. H. H.

Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)

Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.

Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'l'd)

Everard, W. L.

Macpherson, Rt. Hon. Sir I.

Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)

Fleming, E. L.

Macquisten, F. A.

Storey, S.

Fox, Sir G. W. G.

Magnay, T.

Stourton, Hon. J. J.

Fraser, Capt. Sir I.

Maitland, A.

Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)

Fremantle, Sir F. E.

Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.

Strickland, Captain W. F.

Furness, S. N.

Manningham-Buller, Sir M.

Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

Ganzoni, Sir J.

Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.

Sutcliffe, H.

George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)

Maxwell, S. A.

Tasker, Sir R. I.

George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)

Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

Tate, Mavis C.

Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir J.

Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)

Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)

Gledhill, G.

Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)

Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (Padd., S.)

Goodman, Col. A. W.

Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)

Gower, Sir R. V.

Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)

Thomson, Sir J. D. W.

Graham Captain A. C. (Wirral)

Moore, Lieut.-Col. T. C. R.

Train, J.

Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.

Morgan, R. H.

Turton, R. H.

Gridley, Sir A. B.

Morris, O. T. (Cardiff, E.)

Wakefield, W. W.

Grimston, R. V.

Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H.

Wallace, Captain Euan

Guinness, T. L. E. B.

Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)

Ward, Irene (Wallsend)

Gunston, Capt. D. W.

Morrison, W. S. (Cirencester)

Waterhouse, Captain C.

Hacking, Rt. Hon. D. H.

Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.

Wayland, Sir W. A.

Hamilton, Sir G. C.

Munro, P. M.

Wells, S. R.

Hanbury, Sir C.

Nall, Sir J.

White, H. Graham

Hannah, I. C.

Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H.

Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.

Hannon, P. J. H.

Nicolson, Hon. H. G.

Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)

Harris, Sir P. A.

Ormsby-Goro, Rt. Hon. W. G.

Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.

Hartington, Marquess of

Orr-Ewing, I. L.

Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

Harvey, G.

Owen, Major G.

Wise, A. R.

Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.

Palmer, G. E. H.

Withers, Sir J. J.

Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-

Patrick, C. M.

Womersley, Sir W. J.

Hepworth, J.

Percy, Rt. Hon. Lord E.

Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley

Herbert, A. P. (Oxford U.)

Perkins, W. R. D.

Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)

Petherick, M.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

Hills, Major Rt. Hon. J. W. (Ripon)

Pickthorn, K. W. M.

Sir George Penny and Lieut.-Colonel

Sir A. Lambert Ward.

NOES.

Adams, D. (Consett)

Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)

Barnes, A. J.

Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)

Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

Bellenger, F.

Adamson, W. M.

Banfield, I. W.

Benson, G.

1560

1561

Brooke, W.

Holland, A.

Riley, B.

Brown, C. (Mansfield)

Hollins, A.

Ritson, J.

Buchanan, G.

Hopkin, D.

Rowson, G.

Charleton, H. C.

Jagger, J.

Salter, Dr. A.

Chater, D.

Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

Sanders, W. S.

Cluse, W. S.

Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)

Sexton, T. M.

Cocks, F. S.

Jones, A. C. (Shipley)

Shinwell, E.

Cove, W. G.

Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

Short, A.

Daggar, G.

Kelly, W. T.

Silverman, S. S.

Dalton, H.

Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.

Simpson, F. B.

Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)

Kirby, B. V.

Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

Davies, D. L. (Pontypridd)

Lansbury, Rt. Hon. G.

Smith, E. (Stoke)

Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

Lathan, G.

Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees- (K'ly)

Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

Lawson, J. J.

Smith, T. (Normanton)

Day, H.

Leach, W.

Sorensen, R. W.

Dobbie, W.

Lee, F.

Stephen, C.

Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)

Leslie, J. R.

Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)

Ede, J. C.

Logan, D. G.

Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough E.)

Lunn, W.

Thorne, W.

Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

Macdonald, G. (Ince)

Thurtle, E.

Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.

Maclean, N.

Tinker, J. J.

Frankel, D.

MacNeill, Weir, L.

Viant, S. P.

Gallacher, W.

Mainwaring, W. H.

Walker, J.

Gardner, B. W.

Marklew, E.

Watkins, F. C.

Garro-Jones, G. M.

Marshall, F.

Watson, W. McL.

Gibbins, J.

Maxton, J.

Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. J. C.

Graham, D. M. (Hamilton)

Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)

Whiteley, W.

Green, W. H. (Deptford)

Muff, G.

Wilkinson, Ellen

Grenfell, D. R.

Naylor, T. E.

Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

Oliver, G. H.

Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)

Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)

Paling, W.

Williams, T. (Don Valley)

Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

Parker, H. J. H.

Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)

Hardie, G. D.

Parkinson, J. A.

Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

Henderson, J. (Ardwick)

Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

Young, Sir R. (Newton)

Henderson, T. (Tradeston)

Potts, J.

Hicks, E. G.

Price, M. P.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

Hills, A. (Pontefract)

Quibell, J. D.

Mr. Mathers and Mr. Groves.

Motion made, and Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

SELECTION (CHAIRMEN'S PANEL) (PARLIAMENT ACT, 1911).
Sir Henry Cautley reported from the Committee of Selection; That in pursuance of Section 1, Sub-section (3), of the Parliament Act, 1911, they had appointed Sir Hugh O'Neill and Sir Robert Young from the Chairmen's Panel, with whom Mr. Speaker shall consult, if practicable, before giving his certificate to a Money Bill.
Report to lie upon the Table.

SELECTION (STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE) (PANEL).
Sir Henry Cautley reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had selected the following Eight Members to be the Panel appointed to serve on Standing Orders Committee under Standing Order 98: Lieut.-Colonel Acland-Troyte, Mr. Frankel, Sir Francis Fremantle, Major Leighton, Mr. Mander, Sir Frank Sanderson, Mr. Annesley Somerville, and Mr. Tinker.
Report to lie upon the Table.

SELECTION (COMMITTEE ON UN-OPPOSED BILLS) (PANEL).
Sir Henry Cautley reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had
1562
selected the following Twelve Members to be the Panel appointed to serve on the Committee on Unopposed Bills under Standing Order 111: Mr. Boulton, Mr. Broad, Colonel Clifton Brown, Captain Crawford Browne, Sir Cyril Cobb, Major Colfox, Sir Geoffrey Ellis, Sir Francis Fremantle, Sir Paul Latham, Mr. Lee, Mr. Logan, and Mr. Moreing.
Report to lie upon the Table.

SELECTION (PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACTS, 1899 AND 1933) (PANEL).
Sir Henry Cautley reported from the Committee of Selection; That in pursuance of the provisions of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Acts, 1899 and 1933, they had selected the following Twenty-five Members to form the Parliamentary Panel of Members of this House to act as Commissioners: Mr. Chapman, Sir Samuel Chapman, Marquess of Clydesdale, Sir Edmund Findlay, Mr. Duncan Graham, Mr. Guy, Mr. Thomas Henderson, Miss Horsbrugh, Lieut.-Colonel Kerr, Mr. Graham Kerr, Mr. Leonard, Captain McEwen, Mr. Maclay, Mr. Neil Maclean, Lieut.-Colonel Moore, Major Neven-Spence, Lord William Scott, Captain Shaw, Sir Robert

1563
Smith, Mr. Henderson Stewart, Sir Douglas Thomson, Mr. Train, Mr. Walker, Mr. Westwood, and Mr. Young.
Report to lie upon the Table.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
  STANDING COMMITTEE A.
  Sir Henry Cautley reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had nominated the following Members to serve on Standing Committee A: Mr. Adamson, Mr. Astor, Sir Reginald Blair, Commander Bower, Major Braithwaite, Mr. Brooke, Mr. Burke, Mr. Cary, Sir Charles Cayzer, Mr. Channon, Mr. Chapman, Mr. Crowder, Mr. Rhys Davies, Major Despencer-Robertson, Mr. Duggan, Mr. Philip Dunne, Mr. Eckersley, Captain Elliston, Sir Gifford Fox, Mr. Furness, Mr. Hannah, Mr. Haslam, Mr. Herbert, Mr. Jagger, Wing-Commander James, Mr. Kelly, Mr. Kirby, Mr. Leckie, Mr. Lovat-Fraser, Mr. Pilkington, Colonel Ponsonby, Captain Cunningham-Reid, Mr. Wilfred Roberts, Mr. Samuel, Mr. Servington Savery, Sir Hugh Seely, Mr. William Joseph Stewart, Miss Ward, Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Woods.

  STANDING COMMITTEE B.
  Sir Henry Cautley further reported from the Committee; That they had appointed the following Members to serve on Standing Committee B: Mr. R. Acland, Lieut.-Colonel Acland Troyte, Mr. David Adams, Mr. Anderson, Viscount Castlereagh, Miss Cazalet, Mr. Daggar, Mr. Davidson, Mr. Denman, Colonel Goodman, Mr. Grenfell, Major Herbert, Mr. Holland, Mr. Holdsworth, Mr. Holmes, Mr. Kimball, Sir Alfred Law, Mr. Leslie, Captain Macnamara, Mr. Magnay, Mr. Messer, Mr. Porrit, Mr. Quibell, Miss Rathbone, Mr. Rathbone, Mr. Rowlands, Mr. Minto Russell, Sir Ernest Shepperson, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles, Mr. Louis Smith, Brigadier-General Spears, Admiral Sir Murray Sueter, Mr. Robert Taylor, Mr. Touche, Mr. Tree, Commander Tufnell, Mr. Wakefield, Lieut.-Colonel Wickham, Lieut-Colonel Windsor-Clive, and Mr. Wragg.
  Sir Henry Cautley further reported from the Committee; That they had nominated Standing Committee B as the Committee on which Government Bills shall not have precedence.
  Sir Henry Cautley further reported from the Committee; That they had agreed to the following Resolution, which they had directed him to report to the House:—
  That after a Bill has been under consideration in Standing Committee, no application for changes in the composition of that Committee in respect of that Bill shall be entertained by the Committee of Selection.
  Reports to lie upon the Table.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  RAILWAYS (AGREEMENT) BILL.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  3.58 p.m.
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. W. S. Morrison): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
  This Bill was before the House so recently, and has been discussed so fully at various stages, that I need not weary the House with any long speech on the present occasion. Further, the Bill has been received with a degree of unanimity which encourages me to think that hon. Members opposite regard it with as much favour as they could bestow upon any financial project emanating from these benches. The purpose of the Bill is to enable the Government to give effect to their part of the agreement which they have made. The agreement, until the Bill becomes law, is, of course, provisional upon Parliament assenting to the Government agreeing as is set out in the Schedule. There are scheduled in the agreement the various works which it is proposed should by means of the agreement get the credit facilities for which the Bill provides.
  The only major point of which I ought to remind the House is that the Government are satisfied, with regard to the general character of the works, that they are works which the railway companies would not normally put in hand at this time were it not for the assistance by way of credit which is afforded by this arrangement. They are altogether additional works, that is works which are additional to the normal programme of renewals and replacements which the railway companies would carry out. As regards these works I ought to remind the House that before the railway companies can carry out all the works in the Schedule they will have to come to Parliament again with a private Bill to get the necessary statutory powers. So that all that is being done at this stage is to enable the agreement to be carried through by the Government.
  As regards the finance of the Bill, the main point is the creation of a Finance Company to enable Government credit
  1590
  to be put at the disposal of the railway companies for the purpose of carrying out the agreed works. This device of a Finance Company has now passed the new and experimental stage, because we have had experience of it working satisfactorily under a similar arrangement for London Passenger Transport. The device is one, therefore, which we can recommend to the House as likely to succeed in effecting its purpose.
  During the discussions which have taken place at earlier stages of the Bill hon. Members from all parts of the House have raised many points, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I have done our best to answer satisfactorily the points of substance which were put forward. We cannot, of course, cherish the hope that we have answered all those questions to the satisfaction of hon. Members; that would be too much to expect. But I think I can say that we have done our best to disclose our minds fully as to what we are trying to do, and why this particular method of carrying out our purpose has been adopted. With these words I commend the scheme embodied in the Bill as a practical and sane use of public credit to further certain purposes which are in the public interest. We believe that this scheme will make an important contribution to employment, to the safety and convenience of the travelling public, and also be in the interest of traders in securing for them a greater degree of swift and safe transport for their goods.
  4.4 p.m.
  Mr. PARKINSON: The Financial Secretary to the Treasury in his short remarks made the statement that a certain amount of the work which is to be done by the railway companies would not have been done but for the financial arrangement between the railway companies and the Government. Of course that is a matter of opinion. We believe that the Government ought to have examined the question more closely and ought to have satisfied themselves that this work is not an accumulation of arrears of work over a period of years, work which ought to have been done with the ordinary finances of the railway companies. I shall not go into that matter at length, but I should have thought that in view of the large amount

  1591
  of money which the Government is to find for the railway companies the Government would have satisfied themselves upon that point, that is, that the work which is to be done is new work and not work which ought to have been done out of the current finances of the railway companies.
  I am not going to debate the question of the financial agreement, which has been discussed sufficiently already. The Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday was very kind in trying to satisfy my hon. Friends on this side of the House who asked questions. I believe my hon. Friends were generally satisfied, but there is one point which I would stress. I would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer again whether the work is something which ought to have been done in the past by the railway companies. I shall come back to that subject on the Schedule. I am of opinion that a large amount of the work which is now to be done, or a proportion of it, ought to have been done a long time ago. Mention has been made of the Wirral railway. I have known that railway for the last 40 years. It was for a long time a kind of ramshackle affair. It is a railway which is helping to open out a large holiday resort, and it is now to be electrified. It has been known for many years in West Kirby and Hoylake that it would be electrified, and that there would be better communications with Liverpool and Chester than those which now exist. It has taken the company all these years to decide to do anything. I am wondering whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer has satisfied himself that the railway companies are not now asking for money to do something which they ought to have done long ago.
  The work mentioned in the Schedule is all right, but I am not sure whether the Government ought not to have taken a much wider view, a view which would bring about a greater unification of the three principal transport services. We are all being driven to the conclusion that sooner or later the Government will have to consider the co-ordination and unification of the whole system of transport in the interests of the country as a whole. This Bill does not enable that to be done. The work mentioned in the Schedule could have been greatly extended if there had been a greater supply
  1592
  of money by the Government. I am not one of those who harp about the Government finding money in a matter of this kind, because I look upon transport not altogether as private enterprise, though it is in the hands of private enterprise, but as something which is essential to the well-being and fuller development of our country. If the Government had been prepared to find a greater amount of money a wider scheme could have been undertaken in the interests of the railways and the travelling public.
  Much has been said about the favourable conditions in the money market. We have cheap money, we have work which requires to be done and we have many people unemployed. Is this not a time for a greater development. I am sure, from the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer only a few days ago respecting the favourable condition of the money market, that we shall not have another opportunity of this kind to get money so cheaply. Much work requires to be done apart from what is being done on the railways. Let me quote a few words from the speech made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other day. The right hon. Gentleman was speaking on the question of finding employment, and he said:
  "As far as this project is concerned, it is a response to an appeal male to the Government very often—and not from one one side of the House alone—that if the credit of the Government can be advantageously and safely used to promote an enterprise which is going to develop the resources of the country, give better conditions and employment to a large number of people, that they should not hesitate to do so. I commend the project to the House not only because it is a response to that appeal, but also because it is a provision for the comparatively near future—and that is a consideration which should be borne in mind."
  I quite agree with that statement. But of course we are confining this effort to one direction, to the railways. There ought to be opportunities for wider development, for better conditions for our people, for finding employment which would give them at least opportunities which they have not got at the moment, and which would provide work that, like that on the railways, would when completed be an asset to the nation as a whole. If large advances to private enterprise are to be made by the Government there ought to be Government representation on the bodies which spend the

  1593
  money. It seems to have been part of the Government's policy during the last few years to provide subsidies, quotas and grants to private enterprise, but we have never found, side by side with those subsidies, provision for representation of the Government. There has been much debate on the question and I do not intend to go into the details again.
  Let me pass to what is contained in the First and Second Schedules. On the question of these works replacing housing as a means of providing employment, let me answer one or two of the points made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Some months ago the right hon. Gentleman did not agree with spending money on unemployment works or works which would facilitate employment. In other words he did not believe that public works would relieve or solve the unemployment problem. I agree that they are not going to solve the problem, but I do believe that they would relieve it to a certain extent. In that same Debate to which I have referred the Chancellor of the Exchequer said:
  "Hon. Members on more than one occasion have said that we shall have to consider in the not too distant future a condition of affairs when the building industry will begin to slacken off, and when the great amount of employment which is brought about by the activities of this industry will therefore slacken, and that we shall have to think of something to take its place. Here is something which will take its place."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th December, 1935; col. 1290, Vol. 307.]
  I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will this work absorb those people who are now working on housing estates? Will the two kinds of work fit in, one with the other? In the development of railways there will be no need for joiners and house builders. The labour required will be of a different class. In my opinion while housing development is on the decline these developments on the railways will not absorb the workers now engaged in building, or it will do so only to a limited extent. It will be largely work for general labourers, but it will not absorb the tradespeople now employed on the building of houses. Other forms of development must be considered. I do not find in the Schedule a mention of one single level crossing which is to be abolished. Every one will agree that the level crossings of this country are most inconvenient and dangerous.
  1594
  They are responsible for a large number of accidents, and they are certainly responsible for much loss of temper, and of conflict between motorists and drivers and the police. The sooner the Government or the Minister of Transport decides that the level crossings of the country must be cleared away the better. It will be a good thing for the country, it will save many lives, it will expedite the transport services along the roads and therefore will be in the interest of the community as a whole.
  Special provision is made in the agreement for material to be purchased in the special areas and for the payment of fair wages. The Chancellor was asked yesterday what was meant by getting material from the special areas. There are many special areas which cannot supply material, and probably within a very short time of these developments taking place they will pass out of the category of special areas on account of the work that has been provided. There is something in Schedule I, Part I, which, I think, the right hon. Gentleman ought to take into consideration—reconstruction and enlargement of important stations including Banbury, Exeter, Llanelly, Oxford and others. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware of what is taking place at Llanelly. There is a very old station there. I understand that they are going to do away with it and to widen the lines, having four tracks instead of two. Just outside the station is a level crossing. There is a lot of difficulty as to what ought to be done and the matter has been under consideration by the corporation and the Great Western Railway Company. Ever since about 1928 the matter has been hanging over, and nothing has been done. The company had promised to a certain extent that it would be prepared to undertake the expense of constructing a bridge.
  The suggestion in the past was that the railway company should bear the cost of the bridge while the local authority would bear the cost of the approaches thereto, subject to a Government grant from the Road Fund or the Ministry of Transport; but now they are disclaiming any responsibility for the construction of the bridge. The company are intent upon placing the whole

  1595
  responsibility for the bridge upon the corporation. Not only will it mean the expense of building the bridge but it will mean the abolition of a fair amount of property, which may or may not be valuable. If the corporation has to undertake this expense, in order that the company may build a new station and widen their lines, I think some of the money for making provision for the crossing of the railway ought to come out of this scheme. We are informed that the company did not contemplate bearing any proportion of the cost, their responsibility being limited entirely to the construction of their railway lines and station building, leaving to the local authority the expense of the bridges and approach roads subject to financial assistance to be secured from the Ministry of Transport. It is a very unfair position in which to place the corporation, simply because the station is out of date and the line wants widening. Now that some alteration has to be made, they are claiming that they should not bear the expense out of the money that is being voted in this Bill. I want the right hon. Gentleman to make some inquiries on the point, because it is a matter that ought to be dealt with.
  I want to ask a question with regard to the West Kirby and Liverpool Railway. It runs from Liverpool, or Birkenhead, or New Brighton to Chester. I should like to know whether there is to be continuous electrification to Chester or if it is to terminate at West Kirby? The area is developing at a rapid rate. There is an item for the construction of 360 locomotives. This looks a formidable amount to be required at one time, unless they have been scamping during the last three years. I do not think any railway could need all these locomotives at once unless they have been running short or have been delaying repairs and building for a considerable time. The London Midland and Scottish Company has big engineering works at Horwich. They built locomotives there for a long number of years, but for the last few years they have been doing nothing there more than repair work, with the result that the numbers employed have dropped from 4,500 to 2,500. Have the Government had any promise from the company that they are going to do some of the building of the
  1596
  new locomotives at those works, thereby bringing back the prosperity which the town has lost? Blackrod, which is almost dependent on Horwich, is almost derelict. If something could be done in this direction it would help very considerably, because the central part of Lancashire, from Horwich to Wigan, is a very depressed area indeed.
  The hon. Member for Anglesea (Miss Lloyd George) raised the question of the construction of 270 new carriages last night. The company has very up-to-date works at Wolverton and also has works at Earlstown in Lancashire. I should like to know if any of this work is to be diverted to Earlstown with a view to helping that area. I notice that at the annual dinner of the company at Black-pool on Saturday the passenger manager of the company made an astonishing statement. He said that, as the result of this Bill, they would be able to put 1,000 new carriages on the line by the end of June. There is a great difference between 270 carriages and 1,000. It is a newspaper report and I accept it for what it is worth, but it cuts directly across the Schedule that we have before us. I think the London Midland and Scottish Railway might have done something towards electrification from Manchester to Blackpool and other places where they are carrying 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 passengers a year and, if they are improving stations, they might have done something for Wigan. There are two stations there not 200 yards apart, and any one coming from the South and going on to Bolton or Southport has to go out of the station and cross the road. The company might take the opportunity of remodelling the station and finding a certain amount of work for the unemployed.
  The question of redundancy was raised last night, and I thank the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the fair manner in which he met the question. I think my hon. Friend who raised it will be perfectly satisfied with the answer. The Minister of Transport stated that, when changes of this kind have been made, the company has never discharged redundant people, but has kept them on until the time came when they could be absorbed in some other part of the works. In the development of the transport services that is one of the things that we must not forget. The services are interlinked and tied together in such a way that you

  1597
  cannot separate them. Road transport is interlinked with the railways, and the railways with road transport. I should say that the railway companies hold nearly as much money as any other party in the road transport business. I believe that the nationalisation of the whole of the transport services will come much sooner than the Government imagine. We cannot get away from the fact that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) stated that this was the Government's policy nearly 20 years ago, and we cannot forget that the Colonial Secretary was all in favour of nationalisation, though that was before he left the straight path and before his vision was blurred, and when he could see the true line of progress. Changes have come since then. The light is now coloured. On the railways we have many coloured lights. His sight may not be as clear as it was before he parted company with what he used proudly to call the "gallant band of railway workers."
  I should like the Government to take a wider outlook altogether. To do a little something for one railway will not carry the country very far. If the Government want to do something really big for the country, there is a big problem here awaiting solution. We believe in the principle of nationalisation, and that where large sums of Government money are granted we ought to have representation in the interests of the Government. We also believe that workers who become redundant through alterations or the institution of new methods ought to be compensated. As transport is so essential to the strength and well being of the nation, it should, as soon as possible, come under the Government as a nationalised service.
  4.31 p.m.
  Mr. LEWIS: The easy passage which this Bill has had in its earlier stages, and the prospect it apparently has of being read the Third time without a Division, appears to be somewhat significant. However much hon. Members of the Labour party may cling to outworn Socialist theories, and however much some Members of the Conservative party may continue to object to any Government intervention in private enterprise, it is evident that there is a growing tendency for combinations between the State and private enterprise in the
  1598
  control of some of our great industries. No doubt, in some cases, this will lead to the evolution of entirely new forms, as, for example, is the case with regard to the London passenger transport. In every case it will result in the strengthening and development of existing arrangements. The tendency is very marked, and I believe that it is one which has very widespread public support.
  This Bill provides that State credit shall be used for the benefit of certain private enterprises. But that is not the whole story. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has emphasised the fact that the railway companies are statutory bodies, that is to say, that they have certain special privileges and liabilities placed upon them by Statute. He has told us that the fact that they are statutory bodies has induced him to bring in this Bill. I hope very much that this combination of State control and assistance with direct management by private enterprise will continue to be the method employed by us in the conduct of our great railway systems for many years to come. Apart from that somewhat wider issue, the objects which this Bill has in view are such as commend themselves to all quarters of the House.
  It has been pointed out that the chance of any charge on the public funds is in fact negligible, and, on the other hand, that the benefits that will accrue from the Bill will be immediate, the efficiency of the railway systems will be increased, the travelling public will reap the benefit in important facilities for passenger and other goods transport, certain industries which will carry out the work described in the Bill will thereby be assisted, and very many men at present unemployed will secure employment. The more I study the Bill, and the more I listen to speeches made about it from all quarters of the House, the more I hope that other somewhat similar schemes may be laid before the Chancellor of the Exchequer and be so fortunate as to gain his approval. I support the Bill for itself and also in the hope that it will prove the first instalment of this method of giving to industry direct access to the exceptional terms on which at present the Government can borrow money.

  GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (REPRINTING) BILL [Lords].
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir DENNIS HERBERT in the Chair.]

  GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (REPRINTING) BILL [Lords].

    CLAUSE 1.—(Division of Government of India Act, 1935, into two portions.)
    The CHAIRMAN: The Amendment on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. Lady the Member for Jarrow (Miss Wilkinson) and the hon. Member for Burslem (Mr. MacLaren)—in page 2, line 15, to leave out from "the," to "and," in line 18, and insert—
    "day on which the Government of India issues an amnesty to all political prisoners now in prison or interned as detenus."—
    is out of order.
    Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Schedules agreed to.
    Bill reported, without Amendment; read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.

  EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN AND YOUNG PERSONS BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  4.39 p.m.
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  At the present time there are some 36,000 women and young persons working under the two-shift system. That does not mean, of course, that anyone works both shifts, but that one group of workers work on the morning shift and another group on the evening shift. It is permitted under temporary provisions in the Act of 1920, and, broadly speaking, the present Bill is to continue the system permanently with certain modifications and additional safeguards. I think it would be for the convenience of the House if I sketched very briefly the developments which have led up to the present situation and the introduction of the Bill. Although it deals with very modern problems, it has its roots deep in the past. Everyone knows how great were the abuses in factory employment in the
  1600
  early days in this country after the industrial revolution, when young persons suffered a full share of abuses, and factory inspectors at the Home Office reported in moving terms of the exploitations and hardships of those days. But those evils were not easy to stamp out, and Parliament, in order to do so, had recourse to drastic legislation laying down rigid legal provisions with regard to factory employment.
  In our factory legislation before the War the employment of women and young persons had to fall within a rigid 12-hour period from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., or 7 to 7, or 6 to 6, and the same period of employment and the same intervals for meals had to be fixed for all women and young persons in a factory and, of course, that prevented any working of shifts. At the same time, we must remember that in those days their full 12-hour period was mostly worked up to the big industries. Then came the War with its necessity for big output, intensive use of machinery, and, incidentally, the researches which showed the value of shorter hours. Then shift working was permitted under Home Office order. In 1920 a Departmental Committee reported that the system should be allowed to continue for an experimental period of five years, and it is of interest to note that one of the reasons which the Committee gave was that the system would afford a passage to shorter hours, and, of course, the system is in keeping with the shorter hours which are now generally worked. As a result of the Committee's report, the temporary provisions were inserted in Section 2 of the Women and Young Persons Act, 1920, and as that Section has been included by every successive Government in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, that is the system under which we are working to-day.
  These provisions empower the Secretary of State, on the joint application of the employer and the majority of the workers concerned in a factory or workshop, to make an order permitting the employment of women and young persons of 16 and upwards on a system of shifts of not more than eight hours each between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. on Monday to Friday and between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturday, and also the Secretary of State has power to lay down any conditions he thinks desirable in the interests

  1601
  and the welfare of the workers concerned. In fact, these powers have been largely used to secure adequate welfare arrangements and also transport facilities for the shift workers to and from the factory. Before any order is issued, the factory inspector visits the works and assures himself or herself that the workers have, in fact, agreed to the application. Under these provisions there have been about 2,000 orders made between 1921 and 1934, and of these about 800 are still live orders to-day, that is, they are still in use or are likely to be used again, and there are 29,000 women and about 7,000 young persons employed under that system. It applies to a great variety of works, but the majority of the workers concerned are employed in half a dozen of the newer industries, such as artificial silk and the making of wireless sets. From time to time this system has been reported upon favourably by the factory inspectors, but, on the other hand, it has been strongly criticised by hon. Gentlemen opposite in successive years on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, except in 1929 and 1930.
  Last year the Home Secretary, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pollok (Sir J. Gilmour), was not satisfied that the situation was satisfactory, and after consulting hon. Gentlemen opposite and obtaining a promise of co-operation, he appointed a committee to investigate the whole working of this system. It was a very strong committee, presided over by Sir Malcolm Delevingne, late Deputy Permanent Under-Secretary to the Home Office. It had on it three hon. Members of this House, the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Howitt) from the Government side, the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. C. Brown) from the Labour Opposition, and the hon. Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George) from the Liberal Opposition. There was another Labour representative, nominated by the Trade Union Council, in the person of Mr. Arthur Shaw, but he had to resign through the pressure of other work and he was succeeded by Miss Julia Varley. Another member of the Committee was Professor Winifred Cullis, Professor of Physiology in the London University. The Committee made most comprehensive investigations and we
  1602
  ought to be grateful for their work. I would ask the House to give careful consideration to their report. The evidence that was brought before the Committee established beyond doubt that the shift system is of considerable use to industry. Those uses fall roughly under two heads. In the first place it meets temporary difficulties of production, such as result from a sudden Christmas demand, or from a change in fashion or from a breakdown of plant, and it has been widely used for that purpose. For that reason for the majority of shift workers, over half of them, the shift system is merely an interlude in their lives and takes the place of overtime.
  In the second place, there is great usefulness in the system in some of the newer industries as part of the permanent organisation of industry. When the plant is very expensive and accounts for a high proportion of the cost of production the advantage of the intensive use of machinery is plainly evident, and that advantage becomes almost a necessity when the factory is in competition with foreign industries using the shift system. The Committee also made very careful investigation into the system from the point of view of the experience of workers in regard to employment, weekly earnings, health, education and home social life. It became clear that for the individual worker the question of earnings was most important. There is an interesting point in connection with earnings in that the normal day working week is in the neighbourhood of 48 hours, while the shift working week is 40¼ to 41¼ hours. The Trade Union Council suggested in evidence that the earnings were not made up to what they would have been under the normal working week, but the Committee made special investigations into that assertion and found that the contrary was the case. They found that the majority of the workers had their earnings fully made up to what they would have been in a normal day working week. For others there was an adjustment. For instance, in some engineering works the earnings were made up to what they would have been in a 45-hour week and to what they would have been for men in the same trade.
  Mr. GEORGE GRIFFITHS: What is the percentage?
  Mr. LLOYD: I cannot give the percentage. I am quoting from the report. From the point of view of health, one disadvantage was the relative lateness of the hour at which certain meals have to be taken. On the morning shift the mid-day meal cannot be taken until 2 p.m., but there does not seem to be any general complaint about that. On the other hand, there are the advantages of shorter hours, greater leisure during the day time and greater opportunities for fresh air and exercise. The conclusion of the Committee was that in general the shift system does not injure the health of the workers. The House will no doubt hear from the hon. Member for Reading his opinion upon this matter and he speaks with special authority upon it.
  The Committee also found that there was very little evidence of much interference with the continuity of education. From the point of view of home social life the shift system, like every other system, has its advantages and its disadvantages. For example, some of the young single girls complain that they dislike the evening shift because it interferes, not every week, but every other week, with their social life in the evenings. Many married women, however, prefer shift work to day work and prefer the evening shift to the morning shift because they can get the housework done in the morning. After taking all this evidence and after visiting many works and considering the system from many points of view, the Committee same to the unanimous conclusion that the system ought to be allowed to continue, with certain modifications.
  Some of those modifications are important from the point of view of the workers. For instance, the Committee recommend that a definite procedure should be laid down for ascertaining the views of the workers. They also suggest that where permission is granted for the system to be worked in response to a temporary demand, the permission should be for a limited time. They further suggest that where the system has fallen into disuse for a considerable time it should expire and that the factory inspector should be informed whenever the system is discontinued or resumed. Further, they suggest that powers should be delegated by the Secretary of State to the Chief Inspector of Factories or the Superintending Inspector of Factories to
  1604
  grant orders in certain specific cases. Finally, they suggest that the Secretary of State should set up an advisory body of leading representatives of the employers and the workers who might be consulted on important questions arising out of the working of the system, and particularly the procedure as to how the opinions of the workers should be ascertained.
  The Government very much appreciate the laborious and comprehensive work that the Committee has done. They consider their report to be a good one, they have accepted its recommendations and this Bill is designed to carry those recommendations into effect in so far as they require legislation. Clause 1 empowers the Secretary of State to make the necessary orders, and there is a proviso which enables the shift to be adjusted where a five day week is worked. Clause 1 (2) deals with the procedure for ascertaining the views of the workers, and there is a proviso enabling the Secretary of State to grant an order on the application of an employer in the case of new works. The rest of the Clauses either carry out the recommendations in the Committee's report or continue the existing provisions of the Section of the Women's and Young Persons' Act, 1920. So far I have been speaking about the report of the Committee and the modifications of legal requirements and so on, but I would remind the House that this Bill deals with the vital and ever-changing organisation of British industry and affects the lives of thousands of our people.
  One of the first things that I did when I realised that I had to introduce the Bill was to visit some of the works concerned and to talk to some of the workers. I do not base myself upon a few visits to works, but I would venture to give concrete illustrations of the Committee's report. One of the works which I visited was a hosiery works producing, by means of very expensive knitting machines, stockings of artificial and real silk for the working women of this country. The women there were working an eight-hour shift and were earning from 35s. to £3 a week. The price of the product has fallen by half in the last two years. The retail price of the stockings was 1s. a pair for silk stockings and 9d. a pair for artificial silk stockings. It is necessary from time to time in

  1605
  response to sudden waves of demand for a particular type of stocking to be produced on machines of a certain gauge, and those machines have to be worked very intensively. When I was there there had been a very sudden and large demand for a particular type of warmer stockings from the women of Yorkshire.
  I talked to one woman who was working on the night shift and asked her why she preferred the system. She replied, quite naturally: "Well, I am married and I can get my housework done in the mornings." I asked her: "Is it not rather a strain to work a shift in the factory and then to do the housework at home?" She replied: "The housework has to be done, anyhow, whether you are on day work or shift work," and she added, confidentially, "We do not have to work very hard here." [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I would remind hon. Members that I am stating what these people really think. I talked to another woman, who was also married. It is an interesting case. She had a small son seven years of age. This woman worked in a different factory. She was engaged permanently on the evening shift. She much preferred shift work and particularly the evening shift because she was able to give her husband and her small son a hot dinner before she came out to work. Her husband, who was a gardener, happened to come home from work at the same time as the child came from school and the arrangement, she said, suited her very well. There was another interesting case in the same factory, where a husband and wife were both working on the shift system. Formerly the woman had been working on day work. We have to take into account in this House the human problems of individuals. She said that she had been lonely because her husband was always out at night working on the shift system, and she applied to be taken off day work and put on the evening shift. She and her husband are highly satisfied with the present arrangement.
  I will conclude by saying that when one studies the report of the Committee, and when one sees the system in actual operation, one comes to the conclusion that there is no good reason why this system should not be allowed to continue. We are not forcing the system upon the women of the country. We are allowing them to do this work if the majority of
  1606
  them are prepared to work the system. Here we are in this country struggling all the time to produce a higher standard of living for the millions of our people and every year we are having new and more luxurious goods brought within the purchasing power of the people. That is being done, as the House knows, by ever more elaborate machinery and ever more costly machinery, and that machinery has to be worked intensively. At the same time we have demands for shorter hours. The only way to reconcile these two things is by the system of shifts, which works machinery long hours but not the workers. By this Bill we are making progressive efforts to arrange for the working of British machinery so that it will help to produce a higher standard of life.
  4.59 p.m.
  Mr. RHYS DAVIES: I beg to move, to leave out "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words, "upon this day six months."
  My first obvious duty is to congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his appointment to the very important position of Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department. I also desire to congratulate him on his maiden speech as a Minister. Having handed out those bouquets, he will not mind if I now proceed to say something else. In moving that the Bill be read a Second time this day six months I want to tell the hon. Gentleman that the picture he has drawn of the Bill is neither a good nor a correct one. He would lead the House to believe that the Bill is based upon the recommendations of the Departmental Committee. I shall endeavour as I proceed to show that that is not so. Before I pass to an examination of the Bill, however, I would point out that we are dealing here not with strongly organised workpeople but with the most inarticulate and most unorganised section of the working community. I have no hesitation in believing that the employers of this country would hesitate before they asked Parliament to degrade the conditions of employment of male factory workers as they are doing in this case. The hon. Gentleman has, as stated, drawn up a glorious picture of the Bill, but let me call his attention to one point—and I am glad to see the right hon. Gentleman who is responsible for this Bill now sitting by his side. I thought the right hon. Gentleman was

  1607
  going to hand over the Bill entirely to his deputy, but I am hoping the Home Secretary himself will be able to answer some of the questions I wish to put to him.
  I would call the attention of the House to the way in which the Bill has been drafted. The hon. Gentleman said it was based largely on the 1920 Act now prevailing. This Bill declares that
  "The Secretary of State may, upon the application of the occupier of any factory or workshop,"
  grant permission to operate the two-shift system. Section II of the 1920 Act, however, states:
  "The Secretary of State may, on the joint application of the employer or employers of any factory or workshop or group of factories or workshops, and the majority of the workpeople concerned in such factory or workshop."
  This Bill, therefore, falls foul of a cardinal principle. There was also a provision in the 1920 Act that there should be a secret ballot taken of the workpeople. There is nothing in this Bill about that. When the Under-Secretary declared that the workpeople in these cases desire the two-shift system, let me tell him that the economic conditions are such that they dare not decline to support it. He knows full well that the jobs of some women and young persons employed under this system would soon be missing if they dared to express their views on this issue. In spite of that, the opinions of the workpeople are not going to be taken under this Bill by secret ballot. The Bill provides that the workers are to be consulted and their opinions ascertained. I worked for years under what is called the capitalist system, and I would not give much for the opinions of any set of workpeople if those opinions were ascertained by the employers. I know too much about their methods.
  The Bill makes temporary provisions permanent, and the hon. Gentleman did not say a word about one of the most important Sections in the original Act. I will read a Section from the Act of 1920 to show that Parliament has not played fair towards the people covered by it. The Section says:
  "This Section shall remain in force for a period of five years from the commencement of this Act and no longer."
  1608
  That was in 1920. It is now 1935, 15 years later. The phrase "no longer" has gone by the board, and we are to-day going to make permanent the provisions of this Bill based on the 1920 Act. We are not dealing here only with the 36,000 people affected by the present Orders in operation. We are probably legislating for a quarter of a century, and at the present rate at which this Government moves we are probably legislating for 50 years hence. When hon. Members vote for the provisions of this Bill they have to make up their minds that they are voting probably to tie at least 500,000 women and young persons ultimately to this two-shift system.
  Let me pass on to another consideration. Why this insane speed and the demand that the machine ought to be continuously working in order to save the employer overhead charges? Where is the demand for greater production? As a matter of fact the problem of the age is not production but distribution. The continuous running of machinery in my view is not always a saving. Even an engine wants a rest and a pause. The hon. Gentleman said that the employés in this case have no objection to this system. I venture to say that no hon. Member in this House will dispute the statement that during our lifetime every class of worker from the top to the bottom of the social scale is doing its level best to start work as late in the morning and to reach home as early as possible in the evening. That is the tendency of the times, and quite frankly I think it is a good and desirable tendency. He talks about family life, the educational system and the social habits of the people not being affected very much by the two-shift system. I wish hon. Members would for a moment try to transplant themselves into the position occupied by these people. What would our attitude be if we were working under the two-shift system ourselves? That is the test. These provisions were made temporarily at the beginning, and the employers of the country have always clamoured that they should be made permanent. We have constantly protested against this system and if the hon. Gentleman does not mind my saying so, I am instinctively against it. I worked on a two-shift system myself when I was a collier. I sometimes worked night shifts and I am

  1609
  bound to say that I always preferred working in the day time. It is more natural that men and women should work during the day. Let me warn the Minister—he is a younger man than I am. Once he admits to the employers of the country that they need two-shifts in industry, what is there to stop them later arguing in favour of three? That is what we are getting to. I object to this Bill not so much for what it contains as for the tendencies that are implied in it.
  For eight years I argued against the system under the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. We were asked early this year if we would agree to a Departmental Committee being set up, and we did. The hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. C. Brown) did very good service on that committee, and the hon. Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George) also sat on the committee. One of the points we make against the Bill is that it has not the relationship to the recommendations of that committee suggested by the Minister as I shall point out. We said that our attitude when we saw the recommendations, might be modified if the cardinal principle was inserted—that a joint standing advisory committee of employers and employed should be set up to watch over the operations of the two-shift system. There is nothing of that kind in this Bill. We are entitled to ask what has become of that recommendation? There ought to be set up a joint committee of employers and employed to watch over the proceedings under this Act.
  Now I come to certain technicalities in the Bill. Sub-section 1 of Clause 1, whilst it fixes an average of eight hours' work a day, would seem to me to permit the working of any number of hours on any one day. Employés could be called upon to work from six in the morning until ten at night, provided that the total number of hours per week did not exceed eight hours per day on the average. Another part of the same Clause declares that within a fortnight women and young persons may be employed for 88 hours, provided the number of hours does not average more than eight per day. It is possible, therefore, that for six or seven days in a fortnight they could be working from six in the morning until ten at night. I shall be glad to have a word of explanation
  1610
  from the right hon. Gentleman on that point when he speaks later.
  Coming to general issues, I have tried to study factory legislation, but what I cannot understand is that for at least a century before the Great War the employers of this country were able to do without this system. Why on earth is it necessary now when one man can produce what 50 persons produced 50 years ago? Still the two—shift system is demanded, and forsooth there ensues an increased production of goods which we cannot sell. This Bill provides that where the owner of a new factory makes a request he is granted an Order without consulting the workpeople at all. Does it not follow that every factory will, at some time, be a new factory? Suppose I said that within 50 years every factory will be new. Then this Bill will not apply. What that really means in the end is not to make the two-shift system permanent, but so to arrange things that all employers of labour may some day work the two-shift system without any regulations of any kind. That is another point of objection that is worth putting, and it is a dangerous innovation in my view.
  There is a maximum fine of £5 for breaking this law. The Celanese Company employ, I believe, about 5,000 people, and are probably making profits of £250,000 a year, and if they break the law they are subject to a £5 fine. That is the maximum, and if they go before some magistrates whose pockets—but I had better not say that. Some magistrates let these people off very lightly. If magistrates administered the law in relation to fines under the Factory Acts of this country more justly the work-people would have a better deal than they get now. We object to such a small fine. It means that they can violate the law as many times as they like, just as some shopkeepers are to-day violating the Shops Acts and paying a fine or 5s. each week out of the ample profits they make on Sundays. There is also a recommendation in this Report that
  "a definite procedure should be laid down for ascertaining the opinion of the workers, where their consent is required."
  I do not know whether that provision can be put into this Bill, but provisions of much less importance have found their

  1611
  way into other Bills. When the Government wants to insert anything, precedent does not matter very much; they will put it in if they want to. Why has not this provision been put into the Bill? The Under-Secretary has said that the Bill is based on the recommendations of the Committee. I would ask him to look at Recommendation No. 12, a very important matter:
  "An unemployed worker who on account of the distance of the work from his or her home or for other reasonable cause, is unwilling to take employment in shifts should not on that account be disallowed unemployment benefit."
  We attach great importance to that recommendation and want to know why it has not been incorporated in the Bill. We shall be told, of course, that it has no relation to unemployment benefit, but if the present Government of all the talents wanted to do the right thing by the working people who decline to work the two-shift system because they are too far away from their place of work, they could and would have done it. They do not want to do it; consequently it is not done, and I am right in claiming therefore that they are not implementing all the recommendations of the Committee. I am sure that the two-shift system has been introduced into this country because women's labour is cheaper than that of men. An hon. Member below the Gangway shakes his head. I will deal with the point. If women's labour was not cheaper than that of men how comes it about that men are not employed in the two-shift system?
  Major PROCTER: Is the hon. Member aware that no woman can be employed at night and that in the three-shift system no women are employed at all?
  Mr. DAVIES: The hon. and gallant Member must not think that I am as ignorant as he suggests.
  Mr. HOLDSWORTH: I know something about the textile industry, and I know that there are certain cases in which men, whatever you paid them, would never be as efficient in the particular job as women.
  Mr. DAVIES: That is the case in some instances, but I can give other cases
  1612
  where women are employed deliberately because their labour is cheaper than that of men. In the main I think my statement is true, and, therefore, I regard this Bill as nothing but an incentive and an invitation to employers all over the land to work the two-shift system and depress the wages of the workers thereby. Employers talk of reducing the running costs of machinery but never say a word about the lower wages which result from the introduction of the two-shift system. I am pleased to think that there is some opposition to the introduction of this system in those parts of the country where women are well organised, and I hope to see a growing feeling against its introduction even in places where the people are inarticulate and unorganised. They have tried to put it into operation in the textile industry in Lancashire and, of course, found great difficulties in doing so simply because the trade unions are very strong there. I can remember 30 years ago the patter of clogs on the pavements of Lancashire at half-past five. All that has disappeared, and we had hoped that we had become a civilised people, but this Government takes us back 25 years at one stroke.
  Mr. BAXTER: Will the hon. Member tell the House why if the two-shift system cuts down running costs it should result in lower wages than a one-shift system?
  Mr. DAVIES: If the hon. Member will read parts of this report he will find that when women are transferred—not in all cases—from normal day work to the two-shift system their wages decline. This report says so—and I have read very carefully every word of it. This system in my view is designed partly in order to avoid the pavement for overtime on normal shifts. There is no overtime here; the two—shift system is rigid. Whereas working people may get 25 or 50 per cent. increased wages for working overtime there is no overtime under this system. Let us look at the figures in connection with the employment of women. In 1919 there were 5,500,000 women gainfully employed in this country; in 1931 the number had increased to 6,250,000. From 1923 to 1934, in 11 years, there was an increase of 6.3 per cent. in the employment of males and 18 per cent. in the employment

  1613
  of women and girls. In the distributive trades there has been in the last 15 years an increase of 600,000 shop assistants and of that number one-third are women and girls.
  The Labour party stands for equality as between men and women. The one thing we will not have however is the degrading of wages and conditions by the employment of women. If we can help it we are not going to allow women to be exploited by the employers under the two-shift or under any other system. Let me deal with my final point. There is nothing in the factory inspector's annual report as to whether the accident rate is higher under the two-shift than under the normal working system, and I should like to ask the Under-Secretary to suggest to his inspectors to take note as to whether the accident rate is really higher under the two-shift than it is under the normal working system. I find from the last report of the chief inspector that the accident rate per 100,000 workers was 4,890 for boys and 2,530 for men, that is to say, the liability to accident among boys was twice that among men. The rate per 100,000 for girls was 1,152, and for women 938. The total accident figures have increased from 17,100 young persons in 1933 to 21,767 in 1934. I am sure that the speeding up of our factory work is responsible in part for this increase in accidents and I object to the two-shift system on that ground.
  This system has been introduced in order to meet the requirements of foreign capitalists who have established factories in this country. There is one thing upon which Members of all parties ought to make up their minds. I have been abroad and have been glad that I have been able to say that in the main our industrial laws are better than in most countries of the world, but I am sorry to say that the introduction of foreign capital into some parts of this country has tended to lower our conditions of employment to the level of those prevailing abroad. This is a proposal which will have that effect also, and, therefore, I decline to accept it. Then we are told that this system is necessary in order to meet foreign competition. Where are tariffs now? What have they done? We were told once upon a time that tariffs would find employment for the 2,000,000 out of work,
  1614
  settle all our problems and that in due course everything would be beautiful throughout the land. Now we are told that this two-shift system is necessary in order to meet foreign competition. But this system is used for the manufacture of chocolates and sweets. I have never understood that there was much competition from abroad in the manufacture of chocolates and sweets. We shall be told, of course, that there are less than 40,000 people employed and therefore why should we bother. This is my last word. We feel that this system is totally unnecessary, that it is contrary to the social habits of our people and opposed to the customs of our families, that it is a form of cheap labour and is a serious departure from our well-established factory legislation. For all these reasons we shall divide against the Bill.
  5.29 p.m.
  Mr. W. H. GREEN: It seems almost superfluous for me to claim the indulgence of hon. Members, because during the last fortnight one has seen it so generously extended on so many occasions but, nevertheless, I will assure the House that I will endeavour to do what every other hon. Member hopes an hon. Member will do, that is, make my speech as brief as possible. I listened with the greatest interest to the Under-Secretary in introducing this Bill, and I was considerably attracted by some of his remarks, particularly when he drew attention to the vital and ever-changing conditions of industry which rendered necessary this Bill, and the fact that the human aspect of the problems of industry must enter into our calculations. In view of those statements it seems extraordinarily significant to me that this Bill is simply a rehash of provisions that have been in operation in a minor degree for at least 15 years. Having regard to the great human considerations that have been mentioned and to the ever-changing conditions referred to by the hon. Gentleman, is it not remarkable that we have advanced so little that we are introducing to-day a Measure to make permanent something which has been in operation for the last 15 years? It seems to me that there are other greater and more worthy considerations which ought to exercise the minds of hon. Members of this House than the mere matter of speed, of mass production, of

  1615
  cheap output. If these larger considerations were kept in mind I have not the shadow of a doubt that the House would refuse to accede to the Second Reading of the Bill.
  This Bill excites greater interest than we are apt to imagine. A great many people who are interested in the social and educational well-being of our young people are concerned about its provisions. It seems to make permanent one of the old bad legacies of the War. There might have been some reason and some excuse for emergency legislation of this kind, during the extraordinary strain of the War and the post-War period. But I cannot imagine that the considerations which applied then would apply at present. The Bill will vitally effect the future well-being of very many women and young persons. It is not sufficient to suggest that it applies only to a small section. In my opinion when it becomes an Act, it will have the effect of making not only permanent but widespread the conditions to which reference has been made by my hon. Friend who opposed the Second Reading. It introduces what is almost a revolution in our industrial and factory procedure.
  Personally, I am very disquieted by these proposals because as an old member of the London County Council I know the very definite expression of view given by that great education authority on the points dealt with in the Bill. Further, I feel that we ought to oppose this Measure because the workers' organisations which are entitled to speak for the workers, without the influence which is always present when an employer consults his workpeople are, I may say without exception, opposed to its principles. My own view is that, from practically every point of view, the Bill is undesirable and contains much that may well play havoc in the future with the welfare of many of our young people. The only argument of substance which can be used to support it, is that it gives fresh and enlarged opportunities to employers of labour to exploit the work of women and young people. In the main, though not entirely, it follows the recommendation of the Departmental Committee. I read carefully the report of that committee, as I have no doubt the majority of hon. Members have done. But now we are considering a wider question
  1616
  than that which previously arose, and I submit that a prior consideration with all of us ought to be: Does this Bill make for the well-being of the young people of the country? I ask hon. Members to view the Bill and its potentialities from the standpoint.
  On reading the committee's report I was struck by the relatively small number of employers who had taken advantage of these facilities, which suggests that there is no overwhelming demand for the Bill even among employers. The latest returns, I understand, show that there are 2,000,000 workpeople who could be effected by the Bill and that out of that number only 35,000 are working the two-shift system. The argument was advanced in a previous discussion that a Measure of this kind would tend to increase employment. I seriously suggest that there is little or no evidence to bear out that contention, But I think there is a good deal of ground for the belief that one result of the Bill would be a definite tendency towards a decrease in wages. That may be the reason why it commends itself to certain sections.
  I wonder whether hon. Members have seriously considered the undesirability of bringing young people and women into the streets on the way to their employment at the early hour that is necessary under this system. I am convinced that if only those hon. Members who have had actual experience of working in factories and workshops and starting at six o'clock every morning were allowed to vote on this question, my hon. Friend's Amendment would be carried unanimously. If I may venture to strike a personal note, I would mention that for many years I was engaged in engineering and had to start at six o'clock every morning. It meant leaving home at a quarter to five o'clock and that, in turn, meant rising about four o'clock in the morning. I suggest that that is an unearthly sort of system to seek to foist permanently on these young people. I have often wondered how we stood it as long as we did when it was in general operation. One of the few things that came out of the War, as far as the industrial world is concerted, was that this six o'clock in the morning business was abolished—as we hoped for good and all. Is it right or is it in the interests of these young people that they should be brought out at such early hours in the

  1617
  morning? Remember they look to this House to safeguard their future.
  Then, again, the question of meal times will present considerable difficulty in the working of the Bill. This system would mean perhaps a cup of tea for the young worker before starting out in the morning, then a hasty snack, not a proper breakfast, about nine o'clock and probably dinner, as it is called in working-class homes, about three o'clock or half-past three. Is that such a reasonable arrangement that we should seek by legislation to make it permanent? One of the serious drawbacks to the system is its effect on the educational side of the young person's life. The years from 16 to 18 are the most fruitful years and it seems strange that, with all our talk about providing greater educational facilities and encouraging our young people to take advantage of those facilities and pressing home the need for taking advantage of those facilities, we should propose to enact something which will make practically impossible the attendance of the young people affected at continuation schools. This scheme has had the opposition of the Workers Educational Association, a body which has done splendid work for education among the working people. The London County Council only last year without any division on party lines decided:
  "That the council is of opinion that no arrangement should be made for young persons between the ages of 16 and 18 years to work on shifts at such times as would prevent them from availing themselves of the facilities for continued education, and that representations in this sense be made to the departmental committee."
  I suggest that the views of a body like the London County Council, particularly when there has been no division on party lines, is entitled to serious consideration by this House when we are dealing with the matter in which they are so vitally interested. I am interested in one of the largest co-operative societies in this country which operates in London. That society is doing an extraordinarily valuable educational work. It is spending £16,000 a year on the education of young people. This education is not of a partisan character. It is not the teaching of co-operation or its principles. The society has about 120 classes at present running in South London, attended mainly by the very type of
  1618
  people who will be affected by this Bill. There are classes in such subjects as social and economic progress, general economic theories, citizenship, local government, English history and literature. That body—the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society—is seriously concerned about the possibilities of this system, if it became general in London, as it well might, hampering and crippling that educational work. A reasonable case and a strong case can be made out against the provisions of the Bill and I believe, if the House were to reject the Motion for the Second Reading of the Bill, countless young people in the days to come would bless the action thus taken.
  5.43 p.m.
  Dr. HOWITT: I wish to preface my remarks by sincerely congratulating the hon. Member who has just spoken on a most persuasive and charming maiden speech. I cannot say that, with all his persuasiveness, he has succeeded in making me agree with him and I am sure the House will understand that there is another side to the propositons which he has laid before us. He suggested that if all London were to adopt this system it would interfere very much with continuation classes. It was put before the departmental committee very clearly that special classes would be arranged to teach these young people, at other hours, during the week in which they were on night duty. When I was invited to become a member of the departmental committee to inquire into the employment of women and young persons on the double-shift system, I had no idea of the immense amount of time that the inquiry was going to occupy. Had I realised the weeks and months of labour which it meant for me, I might have been foolish enough to have refused to serve. I am very glad that I did serve because I learned a great deal about things, of which I knew nothing at all previously.
  I would draw the attention of the House to the very wise method of selection used in the appointment of the committee. Every kind of thought was represented. Each of the political parties was represented and there were also representatives of the masters, the trade unions, the Universities and the Civil Service. Indeed after the first two or three meetings it occurred to me—although I did

  1619
  not say so—that it would prove impossible for us to arrive at a unanimous report at the end of our sittings. Yet all those conflicting opinions were able to produce a unanimous report. It shows that there must be a very great deal to be said for the continuance of the double shift if so many diverse opinions can agree to recommend that it be continued, and I can assure this House that anybody who sat all those months, hearing evidence, questioning, and going to factories, obtained a very good working knowledge indeed of the double-shift system.
  When chosen to sit on that Committee, I thought I was a representative of the Conservative party, and I was told that Labour and Liberal party members had already been selected, but when I got among my colleagues on the Committee, it was very soon made clear to me that my job was chiefly that of a watching doctor and that I had to make inquiries into the effect of the double-shift system on the workers' health. I was very glad to do that, and I can assure the House that if I had found that in any way the health of the people had suffered, was suffering, or was likely to suffer in the future through the use of the double shift, I should emphatically have declined to sign that report. I wish the Home Secretary would include in the Bill that last recommendation of our Committee, in which we advised that there should be an advisory committee to assist the Home Secretary when required on difficult points. We have been assured by the Under-Secretary of State that it is intended that this committee shall exist, but I agree with the mover of the Motion for the rejection that it would be far more satisfactory if it could be included in the Bill.
  Speaking from the medical point of view, we had brought before us the evidence of welfare workers, of doctors, of the workers themselves, of factory inspectors, and of supervisors, and I can assure the House that a very large preponderance of opinion was to the effect that no deleterious results to the health of the people were shown from the use of the double shift. The chief medical inspector of factories told us that he had never had a single complaint brought to him of an individual who had suffered from working on the double shift, and not only
  1620
  was evidence brought before us on the Committee, but when we went to the factories and inquired among the workers we heard the same story, while in many cases both the welfare workers and the workers themselves told us that they were in better health than when they had been working the ordinary hours of work. It seems to me as a doctor that one of the things you have to face, if prosperity is to return to this country, is the question whether it is better for the workers of this country to be perpetually working overtime or working on double shifts. If you adopt the double shift, you do not get the overtime work, and I am sure that long periods of overtime work are not good for any of us, and certainly not for women and young persons. That is one of the points that we have to face.
  Another point is that wherever the double shift is worked, you get a far greater supervision taping place. The amenities of the workers have to be of a very high standard, or else the order is not granted by the Home Secretary or recommended by the inspector. It must be to the advantage of the health of the workers if they work in better surroundings and have better canteen accommodation, better cloak rooms, lavatories, and all that kind of thing. If you want to see the double shift working at its very best, I think you see it when you go to a factory where the whole thing is on the double-shift system and nothing else is worked. I have in mind one factory that we went to where all the people to whom we talked were very proud to be working in that factory, and very happy, and over and over again, on questioning them, one found that they enjoyed better health than when they had been working in the ordinary way beforehand.
  A point that has not been mentioned so far is that not only do they get shorter hours of work and more fresh air, but every other week-end they get free entirely, and the workers very much appreciate getting away from all their routine work for a week-end. I have been struck very much, on visiting factories, with the monotony of the individual work that the workers do, and I am sure that it is beneficial to their health if they can work for shorter hours.
  Mr. G. GRIFFITHS: On a five-day week, does a girl take as much money home for five days as for six?
  Dr. HOWITT: One found in the majority of cases that the wages were made up to the 48-hours rate where they only worked 40 hours. I know there have been cases in the past where that has not been so, but I am certain, from inquiries which we made and from what we heard, that it is the usual thing to-day, when a new order for the double shift is being granted, that the wage question is brought up and that they do have the increased wage for the 40 hours. We found that repeatedly. It is also quite natural from the workers' point of view that they will not vote for a double shift if they are going to be poorer off in money. I grant you that if they were working a great deal of overtime, they would be taking more money home, but I am certain that any considerable amount of overtime is deleterious to the health of the workers, and that it is far better for them, in their monotonous occupation, to be able to get right away for longer hours from the factory and enjoy, as they do, the freedom of getting right a way from everything every other week-end. When I signed this report I signed it with the conviction that it was a good report and that it would be for the good of the health of the people if the double-shift system were extended in this country. I support the Bill, and I hope very shortly to see it become the law of the land.
  5.54 p.m.
  Miss LLOYD GEORGE: The hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) has given proof once again of one of the characteristic qualities of the race to which both he and I are very proud to belong, and that is consistency. He has indeed on every occasion offered resistance to this Measure when it has come before the House. As one of the members of the Committee which was appointed to look into this matter, I should like to say a few words. I went on to this Committee with a completely open mind. I went on as anyone would who was called to serve on a jury and asked to come to a conclusion upon the evidence submitted, and that is what I honestly did. Listening to some of the speeches which we have heard this
  1622
  evening, one would think that the members of that Committee were some of the most reactionary backwoodsmen that one could encounter in a day's march, but I should like to remind the House, as the last speaker has already done, that it was a very representative Committee and that members of all three parties were upon it. The hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. C. Brown) was a member of the Committee, and I understand that he has hosiery factories in his constituency which work on the principle of the two-shift system. There was on the Committee also one who has been regarded as one of the most redoubtable champions of trade unionism, namely, Miss Julia Varley, and indeed so great is the confidence that has been reposed in her by the movement that she has been sent on several occasions to represent trade unionism in international conferences at Geneva. Yet with the varied representation that there was upon the Committee, so overwhelming was the evidence, in our opinion, that we came to a unanimous conclusion. There was not a single reservation, there was not one footnote to this report, which, if we are to believe certain statements made by hon. Members, will bring about such degrading conditions in this country.
  In the opinion of the whole of the Committee, the case for the retention of the two-shift system was definitely made out. The Under-Secretary of State has pointed out the uses of the system for meeting many and various difficulties of production, for example, for rush orders and in seasonal trades. The hon. Member who moved the rejection of the Bill asked, Why this demand that the machine shall be worked continuously? He said, and said very rightly, that the problem in industry to-day was not one of production so much as of distribution. I would like also to remind him that the problem to-day is one of competition, and that if it is not possible to keep down the costs of production, it is extremely difficult to compete with our rivals in the foreign markets. Several objections of a social character have been raised to this Bill. My hon. Friend who served on the Committee and who spoke just now has gone into several of them. One of the objections that was raised—and I have no shame in bringing this before the House, because it was included in our report—was that this system interfered with

  1623
  courting. I hardly think that that is a matter for this House. There were other objections that were brought up by individual workers, but the weight of evidence from the workers undoubtedly was in favour of the two-shift system.
  There has been some criticism to-day of the method used to obtain the consent of the workers in the factories and there was a suggestion from the hon. Member for Westhoughton that there was a kind of unconscious intimidation so that the workers were not able to make their views known for fear of the consequences and that they could not do so in the presence of the employers. I think the hon. Gentleman has forgotten that even under present conditions the factory inspector has to visit the factory and to make sure that the consent of the workers has been obtained by fair means and that their opinions are of value. This matter was raised by the Trades Union Congress when they gave evidence before the Committee, and they brought up several instances where, in their judgment, the opinions of the workers had not been fairly obtained. The Committee went into that question most carefully and came to the conclusion that the evidence of the Trades Union Congress was not substantiated in a single instance.
  As the hon. Gentleman the Member for Westhoughton pointed out, there is a difference between the report and the Bill on the procedure which should be adopted in obtaining the consent of the work-people. The Bill has definitely set aside a recommendation of the Committee that there should be an advisory committee and that there should be on that body representatives of employers and workers to consider matters affecting the industry. Among those matters would be this question of determining to the satisfaction of the workers the best method of obtaining their consent. I cannot see what possible objection the Home Secretary can have to including that provision in the Bill. I am certain that there are grave objections to excluding the provision from the Bill. By far the best way of obtaining consent is by a secret ballot, and it is a most important matter because it is the real opportunity for the workpeople to settle the wage rates that they should have if they consented to work on the two-shift system. I believe that if
  1624
  we want to facilitate the smooth working of this system it is imperative that this advisory committee should be set up. Although I find myself in the unusual position of supporting the Government to-day, I am afraid that if this provision is not included I shall be in the more familiar Lobby of the Opposition.
  Another objection which has been raised is with regard to transport. An hon. Member who spoke to-day complained that the workers had to go out at very early hours in the morning. In the Debate last week an hon. Member on the Labour benches quoted a case from Birkenhead. He said that girls working in the factory concerned were compelled to cross Liverpool at four o'clock in the morning so that they could get to work at six, and that this necessitated crossing the town at midnight or even later after the second shift. I have made some inquiries and have looked carefully into the report in order to refresh my memory, and I found that there were only three firms in Liverpool from whom we had evidence on this question of the two shifts. One was Tate end Lyles, and the evidence we got from them was that they liked the two-shift system, that 80 per cent. of the operatives lived within 20 minutes walk of the refinery, and that a 45-minute tram ride was the longest journey undertaken. Another factory in Liverpool represented the views of 2,400 girls who were employed under the two-shift system. They said they preferred the shift system to day work, that they were on piece-work, and that they could earn more under that system. They said that all the workers in their case lived within a radius of two miles from the factory.
  Mr. KELLY: The firm to which I referred was a Birkenhead firm, not a Liverpool firm, and the girls have to cross Liverpool.
  Miss LLOYD GEORGE: The hon. Gentleman has probably been more fortunate than I have, but I went through the evidence most carefully and failed to find that the Committee had any evidence in that direction. When the hon. Member speaks later he will be able to put me right if I am wrong. It is true that most of the firms employed girls in the near neighbourhood of the factory, but if the supply were inadequate, as it was in some cases, they had to go further

  1625
  afield. According to the evidence, however, half an hour's travelling was the usual thing and the case quoted by the hon. Gentleman was most unusual.
  Another point of considerable substance which was included in the recommendations of the Committee but is not included in the Bill, is that workers should not be disqualified from benefit if they do not take work on shifts which is at an unreasonable distance from their homes. I feel very strongly on this point and I hope that the Home Secretary will be able to insert some provision, or, if he cannot do that, will give some definite assurance that these workers will not be disqualified from benefit for that reason. Another point concerns the question of welfare. It is important that the Home Secretary should issue a special order dealing with the welfare conditions of workers on two shifts. I realise that at the moment factory inspectors have to make inquiries, but I should like to have something a little more definite than that. The provisions in the Bill are rather vague and indeterminate. I believe that in the case of other industries the Home Office issues orders of this kind. If this system is adopted and becomes more generally used, as I believe it may well do, it is vital that a high standard of welfare, particularly in regard to canteens and mess rooms, ought to be established. I can assure the House, as my hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Dr. Howitt) did, that I should not be supporting this Bill if it were to bring about degrading conditions for women and young persons. Nothing has been said this afternoon, nor was anything said in the evidence against the Bill, which has made me alter my decision or the decision of Members of the Committee, which was taken after prolonged and careful inquiries into this matter.
  6.11 p.m.
  Sir JOHN WITHERS: I rise to support the rejection of this Bill. I object altogether to the classification of women and young persons and to dealing with them as one subject. The classification is merely a relic of past days when being a woman was a sex disqualification from the vote, and the classification has remained to this day. There is no justification for it at all. Adult women can be dealt with separately, and there is no reason why they should be dealt with on
  1626
  the same basis as young persons. They are able to look after themselves to a certain extent, but young persons are in a different position. It seems to me that young persons should not be put in the position of having to work from six o'clock in the morning until ten o'clock at night. I appreciate what the hon. Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George) has told us and the judicial attitude of mind which she has adopted, but there have been speakers on the other side who have put the natural and human point of view. It is obvious that if you are to work at six o'clock in the morning you have to get up about four. You have to have something to eat and make some breakfast, and then have to go to your job. Even the hon. Member for Anglesey admits that very likely you would have to travel for an hour, so that you would have to leave your home at five in order to get to your work at six. The same amount of travelling would have to be done on the way home. It makes a very long day. I do not think that young women of 16 ought to be allowed to do that. They are the future mothers of our race, and I object to it from the national and physical point of view.
  I object to it, too, from the educational point of view. It stands to reason that if a person has to get up at four or five in the morning she is much too tired to go to evening classes. Human nature cannot stand the strain. If they are on the night shift they cannot do it because they are engaged on the shift. There may be very few people at present who are affected by this system, but if this Bill becomes law it may be extended very much, and a large increase may have a deleterious effect on the educational facilities which we are now trying to put into operation. I think sufficient attention has not been given to the question of the unemployed. Instead of having the two-shift system a larger number of unemployed people might be engaged. Of course, there are special trades, such as the hosiery trade, which was mentioned by an hon. Member, in which women's fingers prove more deft than those of the men, and they can do work which men cannot do; but there must be a great deal of other work which could be done, and I do not see why it should not be done, by men.

  1627
  I come now to a rather more technical question, concerning the powers of Ministers. I have the greatest confidence in my right hon. Friend the present Home Secretary, and I know that he will not take what I am saying as in any way reflecting on him personally, but I sat for some two years on a committee which was dealing with Ministers' powers, and we came to the conclusion that although it was necessary for Ministers to have powers—that is, that the powers of the House should be delegated to Ministers in certain cases—those powers should be very carefully watched and should not be extended. But in Clause 3 of this Bill I find it stated:
  "The Secretary of State may by order delegate to the chief inspector of factories or to any superintending inspector of factories any of the powers and duties conferred on the Secretary of State by this Act."
  I do not know whether I have ever seen that provision in any other Act. I have always understood that a well-known motto of English law is Delegatus non potest delegare, that is, if powers are delegated to a Minister he should not delegate them in full to others, and I think it is highly desirable that he should not do so. That is a Clause which might serve as a precedent for others and we might have a very improper state of affairs. That leads me to support very strongly the idea of having an advisory committee. If this Bill does go through, as of course it will, in spite of our opposition, I beg the Home Secretary to see that the advisory committee recommended by the Departmental Committee should be set up. That would to a certain extent modify my views as to the powers of the Minister as set out in Clause 3, because it is very desirable, if he has such powers, that he should have proper advice from technical experts on the various points. I am sorry that I have troubled the House so long. I support the rejection of the Bill.
  6.18 p.m.
  Mr. HOLLINS: I occupy a somewhat unique position in the House, because I am the only Member who is a direct representative of the pottery industry, which in its finer arts employs about 73,000 persons, and I hope the House will grant me its indulgence for a short time in which to voice the opinions of the
  1628
  workers whom I represent. Along with a lady colleague of mine I gave evidence before the committee in 1920, and my impression was that evidence was wanted only from those persons who were in favour of the two-shift system, that feeling being so evident that my lady colleague and I were treated, if not with rudeness, at any rate almost with discourtesy. We were definitely opposed to the two-shift system in 1920, and my society, and so many other people as I have consulted, are just as definitely opposed to it now.
  The Under-Secretary gave something of a historical review. My mind goes back also. When that committee was sitting the slogan throughout the country was "Produce more goods," and that committee had either had its instructions or was so obsessed with the idea of increasing production that it gave a report in favour of the two-shift system. It has been ably pointed out by other speakers that the principle underlying its report—more production—has had a very emphatic answer from the course of events, and I feel that we might with emphasis ask the Home Secretary to withdraw this Bill because the problem now is one of under-consumption rather than under-production. As authority for what I have said I would quote from the report:
  "An opportunity for trying the system should be given to those employers and trade union organisations who desire to introduce it as a regular part of the industrial system for the purpose of increasing production."
  Another reason advanced in favour of the system was that it would help us to keep pace with competition. On many occasions I have heard it said from the benches opposite that there is such a thing in the present capitalist system as fair competition. This system does not lend itself to fair competition—if there be such a thing. Again I quote from the report, this time the evidence given by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress:
  "The new type of trading brought about by big concerns who put orders at their own and often uneconomic prices was said to account for 75 per cent. of the shift orders in the hosiery trade. Before the War such orders would have been divided with other firms. For instance, in the woollen industry of Yorkshire there used to be commission spinners who depended entirely on surplus orders, but these firms were now closing down. Again, half the

  1629
  looms in Lancashire were idle, while others were working on double shifts. They did not find more work but simply transferred it from one employer to another."
  There are two points there. One concerns unfair competition, because the report speaks of quoting at uneconomic prices. If we can exclude unfair competition that ought to be a point worthy of the consideration of the Home Secretary. The other point concerns the factories which depended on surplus orders and had been closing down as a consequence of the introduction of the double-shift system elsewhere.
  It has been said by other speakers that there has been no demand for this new Bill; nor has there been any love for the temporary Measure of 1920. In view of the small fraction of industrialists who have taken advantage of the Measure of 1920 is it worth while to bring in this new Bill to bolster up what had been regarded as a temporary Measure? Indeed, it seems to me that the present Bill has been introduced because of the intense disappointment with the working of the temporary Measure. A further inducement is being offered by the Government to get more people on to the two-shift system. I should imagine that the working of the Bill which will involve a lot of expenditure of time and money by the Home Office in investigating the hundreds and hundreds of applications for Orders. No fewer than 400 have been made since last June, and there have been 2,006 applications up to 1934. Only about 40 per cent. of those Orders remain in force, 20 per cent. of the firms only being entirely engaged on the two-shift system and the other 20 per cent. partially engaged. The Under-Secretary spoke of this system giving the working people greater leisure and opportunities for recreation. Here is a quotation respecting the evidence of representative workers:
  "Both, in evidence, said that they had breakfast before starting on the early shift and had their main meal when they returned 2 o'clock. They felt no ill-effects from the alternation of shifts, and did not feel tired on the morning shifts as they either went early to bed or rested during the afternoon."
  That is where they get the greater recreation and leisure. As this statement shows, it is practically a matter of work, eat, sleep and work again. It states that they went very early to bed or rested in the afternoon because they had to be
  1630
  up so early the next morning. Like the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) I should condemn this Bill on many grounds and I will summarise a few of them in conclusion. In opposition to what the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Howitt) said, we have had evidence from Dr. Morton, speaking for the Trades Union Congress; but I should weary the House if I proceed to give a lot of quotations. His evidence is supported by a quotation from a report by the Industrial Fatigue Research Board, in which they stated that shift workers suffer much more than day workers from respiratory diseases, headache, and so on. The Industrial Fatigue Research Board supports the contention that shift workers suffer from these diseases more than do ordinary day workers.
  It is no use my appealing to the Home Secretary to withdraw this—to my mind—abominable Bill. If it is not withdrawn, lots of modifications will be asked for, as has already been indicated in the Debate. The system intensifies competition, impairs the general health of the workers, robs them of every opportunity of enjoying their leisure time and prevents the youth of our country from taking advantage of educational facilities. On the last point I speak from experience as a worker at the bench. During that period I put in four slogging years at the technical school, and I know how utterly impossible it is for young persons working on the two-shift system to take any advantage of the educational facilities. I hope that the Home Secretary will be able to make modifications which will make the Bill more acceptable to the House, or that he will withdraw it altogether, which would suit me better than any modification.
  6.32 p.m.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: I have listened with great interest to the points of view put by hon. Members from all parts of the House during this Debate. Probably most of us, when we read the report, were struck at first with its extraordinary interest and thoroughness, and with the amount of information it gave of the working of the system in this country and other countries. We noted the thorough way in which the Members of the Committee had investigated the benefits or the ills that could accrue should there be a wider use of the system.

  1631
  I thought that the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) was going to say that although he disagreed with parts of the Bill, because there were things in it which ought not to be there, he agreed with the report. At first I thought he was proposing to base his objection on the fact that the Bill did not carry out all the suggestions of the report, but before he sat down he gave us to understand quite clearly that he was altogether against the two-shift system. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] From the applause of hon. Members opposite it appears that there is a very strong feeling. I shall be interested to hear, when the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. C. Brown) speaks on his report, what his feelings are. Generally speaking, hon. Members have approached this subject not from a party point of view but with the idea of discovering the best method under which the people of this country can work. I am absolutely opposed to any unnecessary restriction on women's work. The difficulty we shall see more and more in the days to come will be caused by schemes for restricting the right of women to work, and in a great many cases we shall be told that that is because of concern for their health.
  During the last meeting of the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva, I had the interesting experience of receiving many deputations upon the subject of the economic status of women, which was at that time upon the agenda. Hon. Members who have studied the reports issued at that time will know that there was a great deal of discussion upon the subject. Over and over again, people representing interests in this country and in other countries made speeches in which they said that there was a feeling that, during times of depression, there might be further restrictions upon women's work. The only restrictions that I think are tenable are those for which it can be proved that particular hours of work or types of work are dangerous or detrimental to women's health and are not detrimental to the health of men, or might be detrimental to woman as a mother and detrimental to the next generation. That is one point which we ought to keep in mind.
  In reading the part of the report which deals with foreign countries, I was interested
  1632
  to notice that in many other countries women have more chance of work and less restriction than in our own country. I was interested to hear a delegate at Geneva representing the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. She made an impassioned speech in which she put before us the ideal of those socialist republics that men and women should have equal chances in industry. When I received a deputation with the hon. Member for South Dorset (Viscount Cranborne), we were informed that in Russia and other places women went into the mines. We were asked if we would agree to that in this country and have entire economic equality. In many cases I should not agree with the schemes of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, but any restriction on women's work should be very carefully examined. Only if the work can be proved to be more detrimental to them than to men, should the restrictions be enforced.
  There are certain kinds of work that women can do better, because of their skill with their fingers and their lighter touch. There is work at which both men and women can work. In some cases, as in some mills, it has been found necessary to put on another shift, in addition to the day shift, when a large amount of new machinery has been put in. The shifts have therefore been one day shifts and one night shifts. Women are not allowed to work at night, and therefore men have been undertaking that night work. I have been approached by many women, who have pointed out that if they were allowed to work two shifts in the day time that might prevent in the future a shift being worked at night and eventually giving all the work to the men. I am certain that if we do not make some arrangement of shifts we shall see more and more night shift work. I object to night working if it is not absolutely necessary, and I object to a shift being worked at night on which men have the only chance of working. That forms another restriction upon women taking their part in work.
  If hon. Members on this side or the other side wish to use this Bill in order to restrict women's work and to bring more work to men, it would be far better that that intention should be put forward in a straightforward manner. They should say that the two-shift system will mean more opportunities for women to work

  1633
  and will not lead to an increase in the opportunities for men. That argument might be advanced, but those who advance it must come out boldly and say that they wish to see more opportunities for men and would rather restrict the opportunities for women. I entirely agree with the hon. Member who said that we ought to approach this subject first of all from the point of view of the welfare of the women and young persons. I listened with interest to the speeches of hon. Members for Reading (Dr. Howitt) and Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George), who gave us detailed information as they had worked on the committee. I was not on that committee and I have no official information, but for many months I have been personally investigating a great number of cases in which the two-shift system was worked, and I have been discussing it with workers in places where it was suggested that in future the system might be worked.
  I have come to the conclusion, approaching this matter in no party spirit, that the majority of women in this country would like the chance of working the two-shift system. During the Election some of us heard a great deal of abuse of the system. We heard that a Bill was to be introduced and that it was a Tory Measure put forward after a Committee of Tory people had discussed the matter. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. C. Brown) feels duly flattered. It was stated that this was a Tory Measure that ought to be opposed, and people were asked to vote Labour in order to oppose this Measure.
  I wonder if many people took the trouble to explain the Measure more thoroughly than I found it explained in a great many cases. Among those who had not worked the system but were being asked whether it would be a good thing to try it in the future, I found great misunderstanding. I saw it written that under the two-shift system women would go to work at 6 in the morning, would come off at 2 in the afternoon and would go back at 6. No a.m. or p.m. was given. I wonder if hon. Members think that the system is very clearly defined in that way; I do not. People who are told that they will have to work from 6 to 2 and to go back at 6, may think that they are asked to go back and work overtime. In the textile district of which I am speaking, the hours in
  1634
  the textile mills are from a quarter to eight in the morning until half past five. Where extra time has been worked, increasing the working week from 48 hours to the 55½ which can be worked, women went back at 6 and worked an hour or an hour and a half. They used to go back to work if there was a rush. Saying that the work will be from 6 till 2 and that you will go back to work at 6, without stating whether it was 6 o'clock in the morning or evening, was not a very clearly defined statement of the position.
  It has not been explained that the shifts have been alternating. I should rather like the shifts to change every fortnight, but if the workers want them to be changed each week, that should be permitted. When leaflets and pamphlets are put out concerning this matter, besides giving the exact length of the shift they should state that, after coming off at 2, you go back at 6 next morning. They should also explain that that shift only lasts during one week or one period of time, and that after one week of morning shift the worker would go on at 2 and come off at 10. In interviews which I have had since the Election I have asked those women whom I was told were opposed to the system to come and discuss the matter with me personally. They might be political opponents, but I can still call many of them my friends. When they came to discuss the matter with me I found that they were under a delusion as to what the shift was.
  During the last two months, and especially during the last two weeks, I have discussed the matter with many workers who are working the two-shift system. A minority of them would prefer the day system with overtime where they are in a light trade because they can make more money. In all the cases I have investigated they were getting the same amount for the shorter working week and an extra percentage on piece work, but they were not drawing that extra money for overtime which many of them drew when they got overtime. In the heavy textile industries, I found that the workers did not like overtime, in spite of the extra money. My own opinion is that the two-shift system is infinitely preferable to overtime.
  I was surprised to hear from the hon. Member for Westhoughton that overtime was not the worst system and that there

  1635
  was not an urgent need to get rid of overtime. I can imagine nothing worse for the women of this country than continuous working of excessive hours. That is far worse, with its exhaustion, than getting up early in the morning. The only way to abolish overtime is by the two-shift system. It may be said that there should be neither overtime nor two-shift system. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Might I ask hon. Members how they would deal with rush times? When you are dealing with the products of Nature, as when you are canning vegetables or fruits, you often find that you have rush periods. Do hon. Members propose that the factories should put in extra and very expensive plant in order to deal solely with the extra work of rush periods? In one season you might have no rush period, and, if you are to have sufficient plant always to be able to deal with a rush period, you will find that there is always more machinery than is normally needed, merely in case in any particular season the fruit or vegetables should come on more quickly. In that case, as the extra machinery will only he used occasionally, the expense of the product will be such that you will not have people working two shifts, but people will be unemployed and foreign goods will be coming over here instead.
  Then there are the rush seasons, such as the Christmas season. In the confectionery trade, in many cases, the two-shift system has been worked for, perhaps the three months between September and Christmas. Are we to tell all the confectionery industries that they must have larger factories and extra plant—that, although we realise that for nine months in the year the extra plant will be idle and part of the factory will not be used, it must be provided in case it may be required during a rush season? Only last Saturday I talked with people in the confectionery trade, and I found that various statistics which I had previously collected were absolutely accurate. No one can say that there will not be these rush periods, unless we say that we will have no Christmas, or will have a Christmas two or three times a year. That would be really good Socialist organisation. But, if we are to disregard the rush seasons which may occur through products of the
  1636
  earth like fruit or vegetables coming on at a greater rate, or if we are going to do away with all human fancies or fashions and to say that nothing extra must be spent at Christmas, all these schemes for organising the industry of this country under cast-iron regulations will mean its speedy downfall. If hon. Members opposite do not agree with me that there must be rush seasons, I would ask them to consider perishable articles like confectionery. Would the hon. Member for Mansfield like to be given on Christmas Day chocolates made last April? Would the people of this country buy British confectionery in that case? I must try and see if I can find in my constituency a box made last April, and, if I can, I will send it with the greatest possible pleasure to the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan).
  If we in this country are to get abreast of foreign competition and supply goods equal to or superior to those imported from abroad, we must face the fact that there are times when there is a rush. I believe there is no objection on the part of the women and girls. I have spoken to many of them, and they are greatly in favour of having more free time in daylight. Hon. Members opposite have not yet told us during this Debate whether they really think that the young people and the women do not appreciate having their mornings free during one week and their afternoons free during another week, so that they can go out in daylight. The younger ones have mostly told me that it was an opportunity of going to the shops, and that schemes and clubs could be organised so that they could play more games, while the older women and married women have told me that it was an advantage in their homes to have a clear morning or a clear afternoon. A good deal has been said about the break-up of family life, but I would like hon. Members who say that to inform the House during the Debate if they have asked many people who are working under the two-shift system whether they agree that that is the case. I have asked them over and over again, and have been told that it is a great disadvantage in a small house, where many members of a family live, if they all have to come in in one rush during one hour for their meals. Hon. Members may laugh, but perhaps they have not had to

  1637
  cook a dinner and serve it, as many women of the working class have to do, in a very limited time. If all the members of one household come in at one time, you find over and over again that they have great difficulty in getting their meals properly without being rushed, and getting back to work. There is another thing with which hon. Members opposite will not, perhaps, agree, but which again I know to be true. Many women have told me that they could either have a rest in the morning with the house to themselves when some of the others had gone out, or, if some of the family came home after two o'clock while the others were still working, they could get a rest in the afternoon.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: They might have only one bed.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: That is a very good point. They might also need fewer cups and saucers if they had their meals at different times. Do those who speak of the possible breaking up of family life because the entire family is not going to be at home after half-past five or six think that in one household the entire family, sons, daughters, father and mother, stay at home during the evening or that they all go out together to the cinema? [An HON. MEMBER: "Yes."] The hon. Member says that they do, but I think that, if a census could be taken over Great Britain as a whole, it would be found that it is very rare that the father, the mother, the sons and the daughters all proceed in one body to the cinema, or that they always all spend their evenings at home. In many cases I have asked people—say two sisters, or a mother and a daughter—whether they would rather work together on the same shift or follow one another in different shifts, and in every case I was told that they would rather follow one another, not because in that case they would not have to work together during the day, but because they would be able each to work on the same loom. Many workers do not like other people working on their loom between the time when they finish their day's work and when they go back the next morning.
  Hon. Members opposite seem to decry the idea of foreign competition, but it is interesting to see from the report what has been done on this system in foreign
  1638
  countries. I know that in this country most of us do not like getting up early in the morning. The hon. Member for Cambridge University (Sir J. Withers) thinks that it is necessary for people to get up two hours before they go to work, so that women in the textile industries who go to work at a quarter to eight would probably be getting up at a quarter to six, and, if they went to work at six, they would have to get up at four. I should not like getting up at a quarter to six, and I do not know that I should dislike it much more of I had to get up at four—
  Mr. BUCHANAN: At one time I started at six, and it really did mean having to get up very much earlier. In a city like Glasgow, the transport facilities do not start until seven o'clock, and, if you have to start at six, you must of necessity get up very early indeed, owing to the fact that you either have to walk or adopt some very inefficient mode of transport.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: I quite agree, but I am dealing with the report, which admits that, if this system is adopted, alterations will have to be made in certain matters, including transport. If a large number of workers are going to work much earlier, it will certainly be necessary to see that transport facilities are available at an earlier hour, and there is also the question of cheap fares at different hours. In foreign countries, according to the report, they begin work at earlier hours. I noted that, during the Election, there has been a good deal of talk about Sweden. There the working hours start at 5 a.m., and boys are allowed to work a night shift; and going down the list of other countries you find that earlier hours are being worked. It is, however, really an advantage to the people as a whole if they can start their work earlier and have more free time in the afternoon. A great deal has been said on the subject of education, but I think that people in this country ought to have more opportunities for games and physical exercises in the open air during daylight. I am certain that many of our young people to-day wish to take part in games more than ever before. If this system were adopted, the young people would have more opportunities of joining in organised games either in the morning or in the afternoon. To me it

  1639
  is a terrible thing that so many of our young people, at any rate during the winter months, are never out in daylight; they are in the factories from a quarter to eight in the morning until half-past five in the evening, and can never go about in daylight at all.
  I cannot see any hope of shorter hours in industry in the future unless we look forward to a shift system. I hoped very much that, with the introduction of machinery, we should see shorter hours in industry. We have advanced to a certain extent, and this shift system does result in shorter hours. If we do not have a shift system, overtime will be worked during rush periods, and there will be no hope of shortening the working day. I should like to see an eight-hour day, or even less, universal, but there is no chance of shorter hours unless in the future a shift system is adopted. I think something was said about monotony. We have got so much into the habit of working certain hours that we have sunk into a slough of monotony. To-day in many factories work has become more monotonous than ever it was, and, largely owing to that, there is the difficulty that the worker has in taking an interest in the work. The worker is just part of the machinery. Surely we could to a certain extent break this deadly monotony, even if only in the matter of hours. We have to consider this subject from the point of view of the workers, and it seems to me that there might be less monotony if during one week they had their free time in the morning and during another week in the afternoon.
  It seems to me a great pity that this report and Bill should have been used so much in some districts during the Election as a stick with which to beat the Government. I can only say that those with whom I have come in contact are not opposed to the Bill, and that, when they were definitely asked in pamphlets to vote Labour in order to oppose the Bill, the majority did not do so. I should like to see some alterations made in the Bill. For instance, I should like to see the ballot made secret, so that we could get the opinion of individual workers, and not merely the opinion of groups, or any opinion dictated either by trade union leaders or by employers. We want to know the opinions
  1640
  of individual women and individual young people. I would also like to be quite certain on the question of the delegation of the powers of the Secretary of State. I think that the inspectors, having looked into a joint application, or an application supported by the workers and the employers, ought to be able to make an Order, if only for a short time; but the absolute and final responsibility should rest with the Secretary of State. I do not think that his authority and responsibility ought to be delegated in any way. But in the case of a short period, say, during a rush, it does not seem to me to be necessary that every single Order should be under the hand of the Secretary of State.
  I cannot see that this system is in any way degrading women's work. I think it is merely giving to women, if they wish to have it, an opportunity of regulating their lives on a different basis from that which in the past has been considered to be the best, namely, that the whole of the day should be spent in the factory and that opportunities for recreation should be confined to the evening. I think that many women in this country desire the change, and that many girls and boys want more open-air life and more games and physical exercises during daylight. I suggest that hon. Members opposite should put aside all political bias and consider the matter, not merely from the standpoint of any particular industrial organisation, but from the point of view of the individual workers; and I would ask them if it would not be a good plan to give these people the option of choosing this system if they should prefer to work these hours.
  7.0 p.m.
  Mr. BROOKE: I rise to support the Motion for the rejection of this Measure, and I do so as one who represents a textile area in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and as one who is directly connected with the industrial organisation catering for people working under the two-shift system. As I understood the Under-Secretary for Home Affairs, the reason why the Government have brought this Bill forward at this time is that they think that the method of continuing the Measure under the Expiring Laws Continuance Act is unsatisfactory. I believe that if there is one merit of that Act in relation to this experiment it

  1641
  is that we have the opportunity in this House to criticise and review the working of the two-shift system every year, and of making our observations based on experience in the factory. If this Bill is passed it will become part of the permanent factory legislation of the country. I would much have preferred, instead of piecemeal legislation of this kind, that the Government should have introduced a new and comprehensive Factories Bill, which is long overdue. The present factory laws are overdue for revision in the light of the new conditions in industry. The last Factory Act was brought forward in 1901, and the hours that we are discussing to-day and that are now being worked in the textile industry are based upon that Act. Therefore, there is good reason why the Government should give to consolidation of the factory laws the time and importance that such a subject deserves.
  I do not agree with the hon. Member for Dundee (Miss Horsbrugh) as to the effects of the two-shift system on the health and the daily lives of the women and young people affected by it. I cannot see how anybody who understands the system and who has seen it in operation can claim that the establishment of this system as a permanent feature is a progressive step in British industry. I believe it is a very retrogressive step, and I have not yet heard any evidence in this House or read anything in the report of the Departmental Committee, that has convinced me that the two-shift system is either necessary or desirable. We have been told that the Departmental Committee has conducted a full inquiry into the matter. We have also been reminded, as I expected we should, that the Labour movement was represented on that committee by the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. C. Brown) and by representatives of the Trades Union Congress General Council.
  I have read the report of that Committee carefully, and I have noted that on certain grounds and with certain modifications they recommend the continuance of the two-shift system. Even had the whole of the safeguards recommended by that Committee been adopted by the Government and incorporated in the Bill I would still oppose the two-shift system for women and young persons. The Bill
  1642
  does not incorporate the whole or the main recommendations. It does not include that for the setting up of a joint Home Office committee which would watch the working of the system and the health of the people concerned, and there are many others which have not been included. I understand that in a textile factory at present the normal hours of employment of women and young children are limited by law, and that they must work within the period fixed by the Factory Act—that is from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., or from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., unless there are special exemptions granted by Home Office Order. That is a 12-hour day, or as we call it a 55½-hour week.
  But in the textile industry that 55½-hour week has been abandoned. That step forward was regarded generally in the West Riding as a humane and enlightened advance, and instead of the 55½-hour week being the normal we find that the normal working week is 47 or 48 hours. I understand that according to law the margin between the 48 and the 55½ hours can still be utilised in periods of rush or emergency if it is desired to do so by the employers. Many of our agreements with the employers provide specially for periods of rush work, and provide that on certain occasions and under certain conditions the employer is permitted to work the difference between the 48 and the 55½ hours. But we also have an accompanying provision that in such cases overtime rates or special payments must be paid to the workers. I believe that that provision is one of the chief reasons why the employers do not seem to take advantage of that margin to deal with rush work.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: Is not one of the difficulties of taking advantage of that special condition that it is very exhausting for the workpeople, that there is a larger number of accidents when working that extra time, and would the hon. Member rather see people working overtime or working the double shift? Is it better to work a 55½-hour week when we know that there have been more accidents and ill health, or to work the double-shift system?
  Mr. BROOKE: I have no hesitation in saying that I would prefer to work the 55½-hour week on rush occasions than to work the two-shift system. Under that

  1643
  system the women and young people have to work from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., and on the second shift from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., and during that period of eight hours there is only a half-hour's break for meals. It has been said from the benches opposite that under present factory laws young people of 16 may be called on to work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. if the employer thinks it necessary, and it has been argued from that that the shift worker starting at 6 a.m. has some advantage over the young worker working from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. That may be true for the workers engaged on the first shift, but I believe that such a situation only reveals the glaring absurdity of the whole of our present factory laws. I hold strongly that young persons, especially those aged from 14 to 16, should not be called on to work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., as they can be to-day. I believe that their hours should be somewhere between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. If that were fixed by law employers could arrange their business accordingly. The employer at present is not allowed to work young people after six o'clock, and he has to arrange his business so as to dispense with their services after that time.
  The normal hours of working in the West Riding textile industry are from 7 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. on the full day shift. The workers usually have a stop for breakfast from 8 a.m. to 8.30, and for dinner from 12.30 to 1.15. I understand that according to the factory laws they must have two hours break for meals during the day. That means that ordinarily in a normal period of day-shift working, the worker cannot work longer than 4½ hours at a stretch without a meal. That applies to adult men and all those working under ordinary conditions of daytime work. Let us compare those conditions with what happens to young people and women working under the two-shift system. They are only allowed half an hour meal time within the full eight-hour shift, and it is possible that young people from 16 to 18 and women may be compelled to go much longer than four and a half hours without a break for a meal. In these circumstances they are definitely worse off under a two-shift system.
  It has also been argued that people who are asked to go on the two-shift system have a voice in determining whether they
  1644
  will work under those conditions. That claim may be put forward seriously, but I do not think it would be seriously supported by anybody who is intimate with what happens in the workshop. In most cases the employer draws up the form of ballot and is responsible for the taking of the ballot. I know it will be said by the Home Secretary that the ballot has to be conducted to the satisfaction of the inspector of factories, and that the inspector may supervise the ballot. But we know well that the conditions are arranged by the employers and that the ballot-paper is drawn up by them. I understand further that the voting in the ballot is not necessarily confined to the actual people who have to work under the two-shift system. I may be wrong, but I am informed that there are many people in the departments concerned, such as young people under 16, mechanics' labourers, and the people who are employed in the department but would not work under the system, who are included in the personnel of the department and allowed to take part in the ballot and decide whether other people should work the two-shift system.
  There is another important point. We know from our own experience that if an employer has decided that he is going to make an application, and the people in the factory know that the decision rests in their hands, they are influenced by the fact that, if the application is not successful, the employer can dispense with their services and get other workers who are desperate enough to work under any sort of conditions. In my opinion the two-shift system lends itself easily to abuse unless very careful watch is kept by the factory inspector. There is especially the possibility of abuse in a factory which has been granted more than one Order for shift working. I know a case of a firm which has four separate Orders for four separate shifts. It has to be watched very carefully to see that no abuse takes place. There are many factors that have to be considered. They have to watch the ages of the workers—those under 16 and those who may attain that age whilst the Order is running. There are the varying periods that the Order may run when there are different Orders; there are the different processes affected by the Orders and the different sections of people covered by them.

  1645
  I also during the last week-end made many inquiries from people in my constituency working on the two-shift system to ascertain what their views really were, and, although I may be designated by the Under-Secretary a professional representative of the working classes, I have as much confidence in the people I have interviewed as the hon. Gentleman has in those with whom he has had casual conversations in the factories he has visited. My experience in talking to the women has been very different from that of the hon. Member for Dundee. I have interviewed many and I have not found one woman or young person who is in favour of the continuance of the two-shift system. I wonder whether the Home Secretary is familiar with the domestic life of the working people of the West Riding. Generally, the mother of the family gets up in the early hours of the morning to provide the young workers with hot drink. If they are engaged on the early shift, she has to get up much earlier than she would otherwise have to do. It means that the other members of the household are disturbed and that the mother, having seen the early shift workers off, generally has to wait until the ordinary day workers get up to provide them with a hot drink also.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: Does the hon. Member really think that a daughter going out to work insists on her mother getting up to boil the kettle?
  Mr. BROOKE: It may not be the daughter who insists on the mother getting up. It is the mother who insists. Let us take the position of the people who are on the second shift. It is generally somewhere about 11 o'clock at night when they return home. They have then to be served with their main hot meal of the day, and the mother is there to serve it. After it has been served there is the clearing away. They have to get ready for the morning, and there is disturbance at both ends of the day in the domestic life of these people. If there are two members of the same family working on different shifts the inconvenience is very real and very upsetting. I could quote a case of three girls whom I know very well. They are in one family, two working on one shift and one working on the alternative shift at another factory. The only opportunity they get of family enjoyment and companionship
  1646
  is on Saturday afternoon or Sunday. They very rarely see each other during the week. I think no one can deny the disturbing effect on domestic life, especially of the afternoon shifts. It presents a routine of bed and breakfast, especially for the mothers. It is bad enough when an adult male has to work on shifts but, if we are going to extend the system to women and young people, we are taking a retrogressive step. To say that because the system is being operated in some industries, like mining, and that men do it and that it is therefore to be carried into other industries and applied to a sex to which it has never been applied on a large scale, is a puerile form of argument.
  There is another aspect of the operation of the system upon the home life of the people. In many parts of my division there are married women with children working on the two-shift system. They object to it far more strongly than the single women. It means that, if they are on the morning shift, they have to leave their children in bed for longer hours than they would be compelled to do otherwise, or else they have to take them out earlier in the morning to be looked after by neighbours, or they have to pay more money for neighbours going into the house to look after them. If a mother is working on the second shift, it means that the children are to be without her care from the close of school at about half-past four until she returns at nearly 11 o'clock at night. I wonder if the hon. Member will justify that.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: I am delighted to justify it. I spoke to some married women last year and to some others last week, and some of them said that, working on this shift, for the first time they had a chance of taking the baby out in the morning.
  Mr. BROOKE: If the hon. Lady is prepared to justify such things as I have mentioned I cannot really understand her mentality. Something has been said as to the provision of travelling facilities for people working on the late shifts. It was said that the inspector of factories generally satisfies himself that adequate facilities are provided. That may be so in certain instances and in certain districts, but it is not compulsory for the employer or for the factory inspector

  1647
  to provide cheap travelling facilities. I find that, when women are engaged on the late shift, the menfolk generally go to the factory gate to meet them and see them home, and if their work is any distance from their homes and they are going to use the omnibuses, whether there are cheap travelling facilities or not these people are generally put to increased transport charges because of the fact that the men are anxious to see their women safely home.
  The whole system seems quite indefensible, especially from the point of view of the best interests of the workers concerned. I read the full evidence given before the Select Committee and heard the speech of the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Howitt), who was a Member of the Committee. In listening to the hon. Member I almost concluded that in his opinion it was the most perfect health system that had ever been devised. It may be beneficial comparing present conditions with those of the early nineteenth century, but we are now in the twentieth century, and I believe it must have an effect upon the health of the workers. I believe that effect has not yet been determined. The doctors have not had time to observe it. It is rather remarkable that in the report of the Committee and in the evidence and in this Debate no direct evidence has been quoted. Could the Home Secretary give any statistics or evidence over a period of years of the effect of this system on the health of women, and young people? At present I believe that any evidence can only be drawn from a very rough comparison with men working on a two or three-shift system. It has been said that this is not an English innovation. I believe that the two-shift system has to a large extent been used by foreigners who have come to this country, secured an order from the Home Office and put down machinery of a kind, on a concrete floor in a tin roofed shed, and worked women and young children at a very low rate of wages. They are the industries which cater for the supply of Christmas goods, the paper industry and other industries which employ girls, and I hope we shall not encourage them to introduce conditions of the kind which may operate on the Continent of Europe into the industrial life of this country.
  1648
  It has been said that not many people are affected. That is all the more reason why we should oppose the proposal. If there are not many people working under the two-shift system at the present time, even if we abolished the system it would not have very much effect upon the cost of production. If the numbers employed are as infinitesimal as has been stated, it would have very little effect on the competition which has been mentioned in the Debate to-day. If, as has been stated, there are many jobs in the textile industry operated under the two-shift system which women are doing and can do much better than men because they are more efficient at that kind of work than men, why do we not recognise their efficiency and pay them the same rate of wages as men?
  It has been said, and I believe it was mentioned by the hon. Member for Dundee (Miss Horsbrugh), that the only alternative is overtime work. She asked whether we preferred overtime working to the two-shift system. I do not believe that that is really the only alternative. The Departmental Report points out, especially in the West Riding of Yorkshire in the textile industry, that a good deal of the work previously given out to commission spinners is now being done in the original factory under the two-shift system. It also points out that a good many firms are slack, while others on the same work are employing the two-shift system. It is mainly a matter of re-organisation on the part of those responsible for the industry. If the hon. Member opposite asks me for my personal opinion, I have no hesitation whatever in saying that I prefer the ordinary day and night shifts, in respect of which the men could be employed on the night shift, to the inauguration of the two-shift system. In any case, I object to women being brought under the two-shift system and having to work the unearthly hours they are asked to work while there are so many fathers and breadwinners unemployed but are prepared to work if given the opportunity.
  The Spen Valley Division which is represented in this House by the Home Secretary and my Division of Batley and Morley are neighbouring divisions for many miles. I know the division that is represented by the right hon. Gentleman very well, and he is very lucky to be here and to have his name at the back of the

  1649
  Bill which we are discussing. If it had not been for the vagaries of the weather on the 14th November his name would not have been on the back of this Bill. I frankly confess that I had the pleasure of taking part in the contest in the Spen Valley Division to try and prevent the right hon. Gentleman from taking any part in the discussion on this Bill. There was a good deal of revulsion in the Spen Valley Division during the last four years against many of the things that the right hon. Gentleman had done, and I can assure him that there would have been greater revulsion, and, I believe, a different result in Spen Valley if the textile workers had known before polling day that he intended to come to the House of Commons with a Bill of this nature.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: It was already known that the Bill was to be introduced.
  Mr. BROOKE: The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary is a learned Member of this House, and I wonder whether he is learned in the industrial history of the constituency which he represents. No people in this country played a greater part in the agitation for the 10 hours Bill and in the struggle for better conditions for factory workers and young people than the people in his division, and in my division in the early part of the nineteenth century. The voice of Richard Oastler was more familiar and welcome in that division 100 years ago than the voice of the Home Secretary. [An HON. MEMBER: "How do you know?"] I am glad to contribute to the gaiety of the House. Oastler's voice was much more welcome in that constituency 100 years ago than is the voice of the Home Secretary in that constituency today. It seems to be an ironical trick of fate that the Member of Parliament for Spen Valley, almost a century after the death of Oastler, should be the one person to take the initiative in imposing these unearthly early hours and indefensible late hours upon women and young persons whom Oastler chose to defend. The right hon. Gentleman looks upon himself as a pillar of Liberalism, but judging by this Bill he is a pillar of reaction, and I trust that the House will overwhelmingly reject the Measure that bears his name to-day.
  7.37 p.m.
  Mr. JAGGER: I suppose that everybody rises with diffidence on the first occasion on which he addresses this House. I rise with particular diffidence having opposed to me the hon. Gentleman who introduced the Bill, who can speak as a technical expert on the strength of his association with two married ladies in the hosiery factory, while on my right hand and on my left hand there are Members who would, I think, say that the Bill was the most reactionary that had been introduced by any Member of this House. I saw the Bill presented by the Home Secretary, and moved to-day by the Under-Secretary. I have got up at four o'clock in the morning to start work at six o'clock. I could understand Colonel Blimp supporting this Bill under the impression that chota hazri was at 5.30, and that at nine a four-tier tiffin basket would come round, but that is not the condition under which workers in industrial England live. You get out of bed and have a drink of tea, and you take a tin can to the mill, with four slices of bread and margarine, and, if you are lucky, plastered with a little plum and apple. We adjourned at eight to take our cup of tea and those jam-besmeared margarine slices, which were not very nice. That is not the kind of food which the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Howitt) is convinced made us better and healthier than people who start work at eight and finish at five.
  The report seems to have been arrived at not, as the hon. Member for Reading said, by representatives of all classes, but by a number of people who had not the advantage of a legal representative of the board. Therefore, they did not need to weigh evidence. They proceeded by accepting everything that anybody who gave evidence said in favour of the two-shift system, and anything said by anybody who was opposed to the two-shift system was not accepted. No lawyer would have let them produce a report like this on the evidence given. The hon. Lady the Member for Dundee (Miss Horsbrugh), who has now left the House, seems to have the same sort of faculty for reporting everything. She tells us that at Geneva, when she was waited upon by a representative from Soviet Russia, she recommended that women should be allowed to do anything that men do as they did in Russia, but she carefully

  1651
  suppressed the fact that she also insisted that women should be paid the same rate of wages for doing the same work.
  I am not as much concerned about the Lancashire cotton industry and the Yorkshire woollen industry and the introduction of this two-shift system, as I am about the great flood of unorganised labour employed in the new industries in the North. I should like to take the Under-Secretary into the rubber reclamation works in my constituency and ask him to talk to the people who work there, or into the rubber works next door or the chemical works next door again. If he had not then heard enough of what they told him about the two-shift system, I would take him across into the wireless works, where they never employ anybody over 17 or 18 except when they have to go on the night shift, and then only because they cannot employ young persons on the night shift. Those new industries are coming into this country very largely as a result of the legislation passed by the late Government—legislation which is being continued by this Government. Those industries are being established by foreign capitalists. Hon. Members on the opposite side of the House are boasting about foreign capitalists coming here to introduce these works and factories, when in the main there is no question of consulting the workpeople, because in those new works it is recommended in this report and provided under this Bill, that it shall not be necessary to consult the workpeople in those circumstances.
  It is really industries such as I have mentioned, the rubber industry, the chemical industry and the lighter industries of wireless, electrical fittings where there is no vestige of trade union organisation and where the works are new and consultation with the workpeople will not be needed, that we should watch more seriously.
  To turn to the Bill itself, it has already been pointed out that recommendation No. 4 of the Departmental Committee was very definite not only that the opinion of the workers should be taken in the existing factories, but that the proceedings under which the opinions were to be taken must find a place in any Bill to be introduced. There are no such provisions in the Bill.
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Simon): I would draw the hon. Member's attention to page 31 of the report.
  Mr. JAGGER: I think the right hon. Gentleman will agree that there are no regulations laid down in the Bill. Recommendation No. 6 says, "one or two years," but the Bill says "one year." In recommendation No. 10, the report makes it very clear that proper and adequate canteen and mess accommodation should be provided, but there is nothing about that in the Bill. Recommendation No. 11 with regard to workmen's fares is also conspicuous by its absence from the Bill. The recommendation that it should not be a disqualification from receiving unemployment insurance pay by refusing to work on the shift system if the work is some distance from home, was also clear, but there is nothing in the Bill to deal with it. In regard to recommendation No. 13 as to an advisory committee, the Bill is also silent. I am well aware that it is possible for the Home Office to issue instructions to the factory inspectors and that it is possible for the factory inspectors to make reports to the Home Secretary, out I would remind the House that we are not passing this Bill to be worked as an Act by good employers, but we are passing it with the knowledge that the worst employer is determined to take every advantage of every provision of the Act and that he will use it for that purpose.
  The whole of the pressure behind the demand for the Bill is a desire to be enabled to work females on shift work at half the wage cost of working the shift system by men. There is the provision that two weeks' work shall not exceed 88 hours, but it has been pointed out that that is far from guaranteeing a 44-hour week. I wonder whether the House realises what will happen if we pass the Bill in its present form and we have a laundry after it has been closed, say, on the Bank Holiday, working 44 hours during the remaining four days of the week, if it happens to be one of those factories which work the five-day week visualised in the Bill. I hope the Home Secretary will make it clear whether or not we are making a choice between overtime or the shift system. Several speakers, including the Under-Secretary, have commended the Bill on

  1653
  the ground that the two-shift system is better than overtime. I wonder how far the passing of this Bill will repeal the existing Factories Act, and whether it will be illegal for an employer to work a person at any time more than 88 hours in two weeks, without a repeal of the existing Factories Act. I do not see how this provision is going to be imposed, and I should like to be assured on the point. I should like to echo the hope that has been expressed that if the Bill cannot be withdrawn, at least the minimum safeguards recommended by the reactionary Departmental Committee will be brought into the Bill.
  7.52 p.m.
  Mr. RILEY: I hesitate to inflict another speech on the House from this side, but in view of the fact that I represent a textile constituency which is affected by the Bill, I have some excuse for speaking. I have been surprised to find in the course of the Debate the repeated affirmation on the part of supporters of the Bill, particularly in the case of the Under-Secretary and the hon. Member for Dundee (Miss Horsbrugh) that the operatives desire to have the benefit of the two-shift system. Like my colleague from Batley and Morley (Mr. Brooke) I have had an opportunity of testing the feeling in my constituency, which is almost exclusively textile, and I find that there is absolutely unanimous opposition to any extension of the two-shift system. I should like to offer to the Home Secretary an opportunity of defending the Bill at a public meeting in his constituency. I should be willing to go into the Spell Valley and put the opposite point of view. I am certain that he will not venture to call a mass meeting of the textile workers of the Spen Valley for the purpose of recommending the provisions of this Bill to them.
  I am opposed to the Bill because it seems to me that it is an unnatural effort to deal with working time, and that it is unjust to the persons who will be affected by it. It is retrogressive, reactionary and unnecessary. A good deal has been said as to whether or not people like getting up at 4.30 or 5 o'clock in the morning to go to work. Again, I should like to suggest to the Home Secretary that he might test his constituents as to whether they want to go back in the
  1654
  Spen Valley to the bad old days before the War, when they got up at 4.30 or 5 o'clock, whereas now they go to work at 7 or 8 o'clock in the morning. Many hon. Members have tried to gloss over the disagreeable aspect of going to work so early in the morning. I have had experience of that. As a boy I went to a textile factory and had to get up at five o'clock in the morning, and I would not like to go back to it, nor would anybody else who has gone through the experience. Therefore, in that respect it is an unnatural proposal and it imposes upon the people who are subjected to it a disagreeable hardship, both to the young persons on the one hand and to the married women on the other. Married women who are compelled to seek employment and have to get up so early in the morning must feel the inconvenience greatly.
  You may have a certain proportion of people working on the two-shift system who live comparatively near to the factory, but in the case of the textile industries most of the factories are on the outskirts of the urban areas or in semi-county areas, and a large proportion of the employés go regularly day by day three and even four miles to the factory. We have only to visualise the case of a young married woman, with one or two little children, who is compelled to go out to work and is brought within the two-shift system. In the case where such a woman lives two or three miles from the factory it means that she has to rise at 4.30 or 5 o'clock in the morning and has to get the children out of bed to take them to the house of a neighbour. It is a most unnatural thing to impose upon married women and it is also unfair and unjust to young people from the ages of 16 up to 18.
  The extension of the two-shift system inevitably makes a great inroad into the social, educational, spiritual and political opportunities of the young and rising generation. If young people of 16 years onwards are to be detained working, say, from 2 o'clock in the afternoon until 10 o'clock at night, they cannot take part in social activities. Inclusion in a scheme of this kind shuts them out from any opportunities of that kind. Apart from the question of educational facilities and social recreation, we have to bear in mind that in the summer time, when the days are long and the weather is suitable, it is most undesirable that young

  1655
  people should ke kept working in the factories till 10 o'clock at night, when they ought to be outside. That is an unfair thing to impose upon the young people. It is common ground that from the ages of 16 to 20 is the most important period in a young person's life. It is the period in which, through opportunities of education and other activities, character and decision is formed which affects the future life of the young person. I recall a very pregnant sentence of the historian James Anthony Froude. On one occasion he said:
  "No individual who has not been carried off his feet with enthusiasm for some cause or ideal by the time he reaches 18 years of age will be of much use in the world."
  That is a very broad, general statement. It may not be perfectly applicable, but there is a great general truth in it. The years from the age of 15 to 20 are the foundations of character and decision, and it is therefore an unfair thing to build up a system in which young people are taken away from educational activities and development to go to factory life until 10 o'clock at night.
  It is not only a question of being unfair or unnatural. I also say it is reactionary. It is a reversal of all the development we have had for 70 or 80 years of the reform of factory legislation and work. It is a reversal of the work of the Factory Acts in protecting the workers in the factories, and especially of limiting hours of labour. I do not say that I or any of us on these benches question that in modern circumstances all kinds of precautions are being taken for the welfare and care of employés or that factories are being made in many case more agreeable. It may be that the work is not so arduous as it was. I do not at all question that, but none the less this Bill is a reversal of previous progress, and although the Bill, it may be, reserves certain rights to make conditions which will prevent abuse of the application of the system, it does not take advantage of the opportunities afforded to reduce the hours of labour that it might have done. If, for instance, in this Bill, which is now going to make permanent the use of the two-shift system, conditions had been laid down that instead of power being given to commence work at 6 o'clock in the morning and cease at 2 o'clock and commence again
  1656
  at 2 and continue until 10, it was provided that the commencing hour should not be earlier than 7 o'clock in the morning and the first shift go on until 1 o'clock and the second until 7 o'clock, there would have been some thing to be said for it. But this Bill, instead of improving upon what has been done in the past, is going to make things worse. It is going to lengthen the hours of labour. The first Clause of the Bill provides—
  "Where the work or process for which the system of shifts is authorised is not carried on on more that five days in each week, the system may be such that the hours exceed the said average per day, but so that they do not exceed in the aggregate 88 hours in any two consecutive weeks.
  I submit that under present conditions the number of hours worked, which, for instance, in the textile industry is a maximum of 82 hours per fortnight, are better than those proposed. On the afternoon shifts of five days a week, from 3 in the afternoon until 10 in the evening, you get a total of 40 hours, with a half an hour off each shift for meals, which gives you 37½ hours in the five days. It means that this Bill is going to give an opportunity under Clause 1 for an extension of hours of three hours a week for textile workers, and I say therefore that it is reactionary. I hope we shall have the support of all public-spirited Members of this House in opposing it.
  8.6 p.m.
  Mr. SHORT: We have had a most interesting discussion on this very important Bill, and the very excellent speeches that have been made by my colleagues behind me lighten my own task considerably. But I should like to remind the Under-Secretary and the House that our opposition to this Bill is not something that has arisen in the course of the last few hours or the last few weeks. It is deep-seated and founded upon our wide knowledge of working class life in the homes, and also upon the operation of the factory conditions which govern the working life of young people and of women in particular. From the moment that the 1920 Bill was introduced, on every occasion that has been afforded, we have taken full advantage of it to criticise the operations and provisions of the 1920 Act, and on every successive occasion we have brought to the notice of the House our opposition

  1657
  to the two-shift system. We have always regarded the system as reactionary and retrogressive, and calculated to impose burdens and economic conditions upon the life of the people which are not justified by the facts, and which are not generally required by the industrial community at large.
  So great has been the opposition to this system that the Home Office has had to resort to the greatest care not merely in watching the operation of the shifts or of the orders that apply, but to the circumstances prior to permission being given them to operate. At one time the Home Secretary gave an undertaking to the House that no orders should receive consent, and no person in the Home Office should be permitted to give his consent, except himself and the Under-Secretary without either one or the other seeing the application and satisfying himself of the justice of the claim and the need for the order. I venture to ask the House whether any other provision associated with our code of factory law has ever received such attention, or ever warranted and demanded such intervention on the part of the Home Secretary. I think, therefore, we are entitled to ask the right hon. Gentleman to make a very strong case for this Bill in order to justify its introduction as a permanent feature of our factory life. I would remind him that it was introduced in 1920 for a temporary period of five years, and now we are to make it—I have no doubt it will be passed, because we shall not be able to defeat the Government in the Division Lobby—a permanent feature of our factory legislation. We are to place in the hands of employers a very powerful instrument of which advantage can be taken by any and every class of employer in the country. I know of my own personal observation and experience when I was at the Home Office, in connection with the administration of that section, the need for the greatest attention and care. On more than one occasion we have challenged the justification of the claim, and in some cases the application has been withdrawn.
  Is it essential that the provisions of this Bill should become part and parcel of our industrial life? We have a population of, I think, over 12,000,000 insured persons. I think I should be right in saying that we have over 15,000,000 following gainful occupations. The Under-Secretary
  1658
  told us that there were fewer than 36,000 people working under the two-shift system, and they are not all employed upon time. Some of these orders are occasionally operative. They are not always alive. I ask my right hon. Friend whether we are seriously to believe that British industry needs this as a permanent feature to maintain it upon its industrial legs? That is a question to which, I venture to think, we are entitled to receive an answer. Let me say to the credit of British employers that they have not, as these figures indicate, generally sought to apply the operation of orders under the two-shift system. With all their disabilities and with all the unemployment and suffering, they have been capable of running their industry without this, and I should take a great deal of convincing that it is necessary even in these days. One has great respect for the Home Office and its officials, but I am disappointed and amazed that my right hon. Friend should have introduced this Bill.
  I was speaking about the attitude of employers. Little reference has been made in the Debate to the evidence given to the Committee, but there is some very interesting evidence given particularly by the factory inspectors who have a very wide experience and knowledge of the operation of the shift system. Miss Chinn, an inspector of factories attached to the eastern division, pointed out in her evidence before the Committee that, on the whole, manufacturers preferred day work, and that where possible they introduced additional plant as soon as the demand could be gauged. That has been the general policy of the majority of employers in the country. I do not think that this demand has come from the employers but rather is due to the anxiety of the Home Secretary to avoid the constant discussions and debates which we shall be compelled to challenge across the Floor of the House.
  On the question of transport it is very vital that there should be complete and adequate facilities so far as these workers are concerned. When I was at the Home Office, one of the main conditions of issuing any order was that employers should provide adequate facilities for transport. The report of the Committee and the evidence which was submitted shows that in the operation of the two-shift

  1659
  system this has not been successfully and completely carried out. In their report the Committee say:
  "The inquiry we made left no doubt that in numerous cases workers lived at distances which involved a considerable amount of travelling before and after work. Half an hour's travelling may be taken as by no means uncommon, and in some cases the time spent is found to amount to as much as an hour. Undoubtedly this is not a very desirable state of things and the possibility of workers being drawn from such distances was not apparently contemplated when the system was recommended to Parliament in 1920."
  It is clear, therefore, that the transport facilities have not been as satisfactory as they ought to have been, and that we are asking people to commence work at 6 o'clock in the morning and finish at 10 o'clock at night and then have to travel a long way to reach their homes. Miss Chinn also pointed out in her evidence that
  "in one or two instances she had found girls leaving home as early as 4.30 a.m. for the morning shift."
  We have no guarantee, unless the Home Secretary can assure us, that if provision is not made through the public services it will be provided by the employer himself to bring his workpeople at these hours to his factory. Miss Dennistoun suggested in her evidence:
  "A certain amount of long distance travelling might be avoided by a more careful selection of hands."
  And Miss Johnson, another inspector, said that care had been taken that no shift worker should leave home before 5 a.m. or return later than 11 p.m. It is not reasonable to ask people to leave home at 4.30 a.m. or even at 5 a.m. I was amazed at the speech of the hon. Member for Dundee (Miss Horsbrugh). I have no objection to the racy character of her speech, but she showed little knowledge of working-class conditions. I speak from a very wide experience of workshop practice. I have been right through the workshop. I served my time in the workshop until I was fortunate enough to reach the House of Commons in the Election of 1918. I know all about this working overtime, working at night, and about the disturbance it makes in the home life and the sufferings it causes to a wife or a mother. I want to ask the Home Secretary whether he proposes to incorporate in the Bill a provision for carrying the recommendation
  1660
  of the Committee into effect regarding the provision of transport, and also the provision of cheap fares to which they specially refer in their recommendations.
  Then there is the question of consultation with the workers. Reference was made to this matter by three of the factory inspectors. It is very desirable, when you talk about consultation with the workers, that there should not be in the minds of the workers the impression that work will no longer be available unless they accept the two-shift system. I remember the conditions which prevailed in the 1931 Election. In the constituency which I was wooing, and which I had represented since 1918, the employers put up a notice that "if Short is returned to the House of Commons, these works will close on Monday." What effect would that have upon the minds of the electors? It is clear that in all the consultations which have taken place there is in the minds of the workers a feeling that work will not be available unless they vote for the two-shift system. That must be true, because the Home Office through its inspectors has taken special care to ensue that the consent of the workers is really obtained free from any measure of coercion. That the inspectors of the Home Office should have to intervene in the administration of legislation of this character in order to ensure that there is no coercion is a very discreditable thing indeed.
  Another ground on which we oppose the Bill is that it will interfere with the normal lives and with the health of the workers who are affected by it. I was amused at the hon. Member for Dundee when she said that these people would have greater opportunities of entering into games. If they do enter into games at all it will generally be among themselves and not with their fellows, because as a rule they will be employed at the times when the day-shift workers are free. The operation of the two-shift system undoubtedly interferes with the convenience, with the normal life and with the health of those who have to work under it. That fact is demonstrated by the report of the Committee, and also by the evidence of the factory inspectors. On page 20 of the report the Committee state:
  "The system calls upon the workers to work at unusual hours, and causes some amount of disturbance to their daily habits

  1661
  of life and interference with their social and educational pursuits, and we are satisfied that if the introduction and operation of the system in industry is to be effected smoothly and without friction, the workers must be assured of the maintenance of approximately the same standard of living as they have under the day shift system."
  I think it is only necessary to direct attention to that passage to show that there is interference with the normal life of the workers under the two-shift system, and there are references in the evidence of Miss Chinn, Miss Dennistoun, Miss Johnson and Mr. Roos to show that the health of the workers is affected. Getting up at half-past four o'clock or five o'clock in the morning and rushing off to work with no meal but a cup of tea, and, in the other case, working until late hours in the evening and getting home at 11 o'clock at night interferes with the digestion of the workers, and gives rise to ailments which are, in the main, foreign to those workers who do not come under the system. I would also emphasise the point in regard to education. These young people have no opportunity of attending evening schools or otherwise continuing their education if they desire to do so. They have no opportunity of acquiring that measure of culture which ought to be within their reach under a progressive industrial system. On page 29 of the report attention is called to this matter and it is pointed out that the London County Council supplied the committee
  "with some very interesting figures which showed that of 27,000 young persons between the ages of 16 and 18 attending evening classes in their area more than 3,000 who are employed in factories and workshops have been prevented from regular attendance by reason of overtime or other variations in their normal hours of work."
  I do not think the two-shift system will help to overcome those difficulties, and, on that ground therefore, as well as the others I have mentioned, we shall continue our opposition to the Bill. As far as the home life of the workers is concerned, the system will create unnatural conditions. The hon. Member for Dundee spoke of the system in relation to the persons directly affected by it but did not seem to attach much importance to the disturbance which it will cause in the arrangements in the home, or the work and strain and anxiety which it will cause to the mother in the
  1662
  working-class home. This is a vital consideration. No British mother with the instincts of motherhood and love for her children will hesitate for a moment about rising early in the morning, even at four o'clock in the morning, to ensure that her child will get out to work in proper time. I speak as one of a fairly large family who started life early, who went into the workshop on leaving school and who, for years, had to check in at six o'clock every morning. I know that in my home my mother was always the first up, to see that her husband and her children went off to work at the proper time. The same argument applies with equal force to the condition which requires these young people to finish work late at night. The mother is there waiting for them at eleven o'clock at night. She is always the first up and the last to go to bed. Are these conditions necessary in order to ensure that our economic and industrial system shall continue?
  I have admitted that the great mass of employers have not sought to put this system into operation. Less than 36,000 people have come under it and they have never all come under it at the same time. It is a credit to British employers that they have not thought it necessary to apply for these orders and I cannot understand why the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues desire to introduce this Bill. I am amazed at it. I do not like to accuse the right hon. Gentleman of being reactionary, but the proposals in this Bill are certainly reactionary and warrant our opposition. There is a serious departure in the Bill from the usual practice in connection with the granting of two-shift orders and that is the proposed delegation of powers. I have already reminded the House that as a result of the opposition to these orders, an undertaking was given that no order would be made unless the facts of the case had been examined, either by the Home Secretary or the Under-Secretary. I think a serious position in our industrial life was indicated when an attitude of that kind had to be adopted by Ministers. It is now proposed to hand over the powers conferred on the Secretary of State to superintending factory inspectors. I think that is a retrograde step, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will hesitate to give it his continued support.

  1663
  I should like the right hon. Gentleman to tell us whether he is going to accept the proposal for an advisory committee. The feeling that has been generated in opposition to the two-shift system justifies our having someone whom we can look to, some competent body, particularly if these powers are to be delegated, that would enable us to have our confidence restored. Then there is the question of whether persons who refuse to operate the two-shift system will be penalised under the provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Act. I hope that upon that matter, as upon the others that I have thought fit to emphasise, though all of them have been mentioned by my hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Sir J. Withers) the Home Secretary will be able to give us satisfactory assurances. I can assure him that we shall continue our opposition and fight him on the Floor of the Committee as we are fighting him here to-night.
  8.37 p.m.
  Mr. CHARLES BROWN: I find myself in a somewhat unusual position in this Debate to-night, and it is very much more to my taste to be attempting to answer the arguments of hon. Members opposite and to engage in political controversy with them than to be differing in any way from my colleagues on this side of the House, but I must confess that all the speeches to which I have listened from these benches to-day have failed to convince me that those of us who signed this report in any way betrayed the confidence reposed in us. We were charged with the duty of investigating this two-shift system, of safeguarding the interests of the workers, the women and young people under this system, and of making suggestions which we thought it desirable to apply if the system were to be continued. My hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. Short) has somewhat surprised me, because, if my memory serves me aright, either in 1929 or in 1930, when the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill was before the House and he was on the other side of the House, he said—I am paraphrasing, not quoting, what he said—that if this system came to art end, it would throw British industry into chaos and confusion.
  Mr. SHORT: If my hon. Friend is going to quote me, he should have quoted me correctly, and he should have it with him.
  Sir J. SIMON: What did the hon. Gentleman say?
  Mr. SHORT: I certainly did not say that.
  Mr. BROWN: If I find that I have misquoted the hon. Member, I shall be only too pleased to give him the necessary apology on a suitable occasion, but if he himself turns up the OFFICIAL REPORT of the speech to which I have referred, he will find that I have done him no injustice, because I have had occasion very recently to remind myself of what he did say on that occasion. There are one or two reasons for my intervention in this Debate. I was particularly interested in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Morley (Mr. Brooke), when he made the astonishing statement that he would rather see a return to a day-and-night system in industry than have this two-shift system. I have had some experience of the day-and-night system in the textile factories. In the years before the war and in the early war years I worked on the day-and-night system, a system where we went to work on the day shift at six in the morning and finished at six in the evening, and went to work on the alternative shift at six in the evening and finished at six the next morning. I was very glad indeed when we abandoned that system for what was, for male adults, a two-shift system, and the night work was entirely stopped. I agree that the two-shift system for male adults is very different in some ways from the two-shift system for women and girls, but I was very much astonished to hear the hon. Member for Batley and Morley suggest that we should return to what I did regard as a most atrocious system indeed.
  I do not think the arguments which have been advanced to-day against the two-shift system are very convincing, and they do not seem to me to have been substantiated by evidence. I agree that a lot of statements have been made as to the effects of this system, but those speeches do not seem to me to have rested on any substantial evidence. A great deal has been made about whether or not the members of the Committee really

  1665
  managed to get the ideas or views of the workers engaged on the two-shift system. I think all of us who were on that Committee took a great deal of trouble to get the views of those who were working on the system. We went into a lot of factories, the management did not interfere with us, we were allowed to move about freely among the workers, and only here and there did we find any woman on the two-shift system putting up any opposition to the system.
  It is a mistake for hon. Members on this side of the House to assume, as they seem to have assumed in some of the speeches they have delivered to-day, that the workers in British industry are mainly discontented and dissatisfied. That is not my experience in moving through the factories; it was not my experience in questioning these women who were working on the two-shift system. I must confess that the factories of to-day are, many of them, very different places from the factories with which I was familiar 25 years ago. They are very much improved in structure, and the general conditions of work are very much improved indeed. What astonished me more than anything else in the factories that we visited was that most of the workers were happy and contented. Occasionally, here and there, I agree, we got a complaint, but that was not generally the case. In the main they were happy and contented.
  Let me briefly refer to some of the main objections which have been raised in the course of this discussion. It has been suggested that the two-shift system ought to be abolished on health grounds, and I believe that one of my colleagues from this bench made some criticism of what the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Howitt), who spoke earlier in the Debate, had said about the health of the workers under this system. Here again is a point on which all of us who were on that Committee were very careful to make investigations, as far as we could, by questioning the workers themselves who were actually operating the system, and we did not find many complaints. Here and there we found an odd woman who did complain, but generally speaking we found no complaint. I cannot understand the argument that has been put up from these benches that this system is what is called artificial or unnatural. It seems to me that all civilisation is
  1666
  artificial and unnatural from one point of view. It is quite unnatural for us to be here. If we adhered to nature we should go to bed when the sun went down, but we do not, and society and civilisation are artificial and very largely unnatural. I cannot follow that argument at all.
  I am convinced, in spite of what some of my hon. Friends say, that there are certain developments in industry to-day in which there are continuous processes that must go on throughout the 24 hours if they are to be carried on at all. In some of these industries it is unavoidable that outside the normal day work there must be women taking part in processes ancillary to the main process. The only case that I need give in illustration is that of certain forms of artificial silk manufacture. They necessitate that when the vats are put in action they should be put on for weeks, and in the acid treatment of wood pulp the process goes on week after week. We must face the fact that the character of many British industries is completely changing. Therefore, we must have adaptations of our industrial system to meet the changing processes which are going on. The report of this Committee has been described as reactionary. It is most reactionary to suggest that you must have no modifications of industrial working hours apart from what is called the straight day shift. That suggestion is most reactionary, and the people who make it obviously cannot be conversant with some of the changes that are taking place in modern industrial production.
  As we must have adaptations to meet the changing circumstances, some of the arguments which I have heard from these benches to-day have surprised, and, I must say, dismayed me, especially when I recall the experiences through which I passed during the six months I was serving on the Committee. A point has been made about the interference with what are called educational opportunities. We had singularly little evidence submitted to us that there was any real interference along those lines. I remember my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Mr. Kelly) coming to the Committee on behalf of the London County Council, and we found on investigation that in the London area there were no young persons on the two-shift system at all. There were some women. The

  1667
  figures which have been quoted by an hon. Member really apply to something else that is happening, to which I would like to direct the attention of my hon. Friends on these benches. I will quote from the annual report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for 1934, in which, on page 27, he says:
  "In the Midland, Eastern and three London divisions employment up to the full legal limits on all days except Saturday was frequently found, making a working week of 54 or 56 hours; and employment after midday on Saturday is almost unknown."
  In other words, the report supplies evidence of a return to the hours of labour that are allowed under the present Statutes, namely, 55 hours in textile factories and 60 hours in non-textile factories. I want to suggest to my hon. Friends on these benches that it is far more desirable that their attention should be directed to what is going on in this connection than that they should throw so much of their energy into attacking the two-shift system, which means to the workers engaged in it a less working week than the people referred to in the report I have quoted are experiencing. They have to get to work at six o'clock in the morning in many cases, and that is going on over a large area of industrial England. There is another point I want to make—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I think I am entitled to defend myself.
  We in the Labour and trade union movement are frequently nowadays talking about the coming of a 40-hour week in industry. I do not suppose that any of my hon. Friends are willing to wait for that until the capitalist system is abolished and the Socialist State is inaugurated. They would like to see it as soon as possible; they are all agreed about that. When we have a system in which some people are working only 41 hours a week, it should not be attacked, because, if in the development of British industrial organisation, you are going to have the 40-hour week, it does not mean that everybody will work on day shifts only to the extent of 40 hours during daylight. It means that there must be some sort of adaptation of labour to the changed industrial circumstances which we must visualise if we are to have the 40-hour week. Therefore, I cannot see why we should on the matter of this kind take up the attitude that there must be
  1668
  no variation in the hours of labour which have been observed for 20, 30, 40 or 50 years, or any adaptation of the hours of labour to changed industrial circumstances and organisations.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Clayton (Mr. Jagger) said that we ought to have had a lawyer on the committee. I am very glad that we did not. He suggested that we were incapable of weighing the evidence and that we wanted somebody to weigh it for us. I do not think we were incapable of weighing the evidence. Our crime, if we have committed any crime, is that we weighed the evidence carefully; and, having weighed the pros and cons of the case, we could not find any reason, on health, educational or economic grounds, why the system should be brought to an end. If I may return to my hon. Friend the Member for Don-caster, may I say that we, too, were actuated by similar motives to those by which he was actuated in 1929 or 1930, when he said that if you suddenly brought this system to an end, it would throw our industrial organisation into chaos and confusion.
  8.53 p.m.
  Sir J. SIMON: The hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench opposite began his speech by saying, and saying very truly, that we have had an interesting Debate, but I think the whole House will agree that the most interesting speech was the one which followed from the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. C. Brown). It is not for me to comment on it except to say that I am sure the House, whether it agrees or not with it, is very much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his extremely powerful, good-tempered and effective exposition. Whether we agree with it or whether we do not, we shall agree that everybody is entitled to defend himself. The hon. Member has laid about him with some success, and has shown that he is not a man who is afraid of giving an answer.
  I desire to say a few words from the point of view of the Home Office. It is natural that we should have our contests about this question, but when this sort of measure is brought forward from the Home Department it is brought forward after the most careful consultation with the factory inspectors and the permanent officials, and we at least do not regard this as in any way a partisan Measure. It is for the House to judge whether this

  1669
  should be an enactment which the House of Commons wants.
  When I came to the Home Office I found this report, and I think the House ought to consider what it was that the Committee were asked to do. They were given very clear and simple terms of reference. They were not merely to report about this subject, but to inquire into the working of the temporary provisions under which we had the two-shift system, and to advise whether or not that system should be continued on a permanent basis, either with or without alteration in the existing law and procedure. As the hon. Member for Mansfield said just now, they spent six months on the task, and I know, by looking at the Report, that they heard an immense number of witnesses, and I defy anybody to go through the list of witnesses and say they were not representative or fairly chosen. I am sure no one here will suggest that the membership of this Committee was other than extremely well composed by my predecessor.
  The Committee included the hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George), who spoke so effectively earlier in the Debate, the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Howitt) and the hon. Member for Mansfield from this House. In addition there was another lady, Miss Varley, whose standing in the Labour movement and the trade union movement was perfectly well known. She was suggested to the Home Office as being the most suitable person whom they could propose to take the place of Mr. Arthur Shaw, when he was not able to continue. When I get a report arrived at after six months of hard work by Members drawn from different quarters of the House, and by others who represent employers, employed, medicine and the administration of the Factory Acts, and I find that it is quite unanimous, without there being the slightest shadow of difference between any of the members, the House will consider it a natural thing, I think, that I should present a Bill in the terms of and for the purpose of carrying out this report.
  The hon. Member for Batley and Morley (Mr. Brooke) made a very remarkable point, which was personal to myself, saying that if only I had disclosed this wicked intention of mine before the General Election, and if only
  1670
  the good people of Spen Valley had realised the kind of snake that was in the grass, they would never have returned me to the House of Commons. It seems a great pity that my hon. Friend should not have made a little inquiry before talking like that. I have here a Bill called "The Employment of Women and Young Persons Bill." It was introduced into the last Parliament by myself as Home Secretary. It is in every single syllable, every word, every sentence, every page, every figure exactly the same Bill as is now before the House. The sole difference is that on the back of it, accompanying my name, instead of there being the name of my hon. Friend who has now become the Secretary for Overseas Trade I have the satisfaction of having the name of the new Under-Secretary who made such an excellent speech at the beginning of the Debate. Subject to that single difference there is nothing whatever in this Bill, which was introduced to the knowledge of every-body before the last Election by my miserable self, and the Bill I have introduced now, yet we have been told by one of the most eloquent speakers on the benches opposite that if only this plot had not been concealed by myself at the General Election I should not have had the pleasure of replying to the present Debate.
  Now I wish to deal briefly with a few of the questions which have been raised. One or two hon. Members raised the point that the Bill does not really cover everything which it was intended by the Committee should be included in legislation. To some extent that is rather a Committee point than one for Second Reading. The design of those who introduced the Bill was to include in it everything which could properly be dealt with by legislation. There are two recommendations which I do not think the Committee intended to be the subject of a Clause in the Bill but which they plainly indicated ought to be an effective part of the system. One is recommendation No. 13. If the House will listen to the language of it I am sure they will agree that I am right in saying that the Committee never imagined that it would be put into the Bill.
  "It would be advantageous if a standing advisory body could be constituted by the Secretary of State, composed of leading representatives of employers and workers, who could be consulted as occasion arose on

  1671
  questions of importance in connection with the application and operation of the two-shift system."
  The House will be aware that in the Government Departments, certainly in the Home Office, quite a large number of advisory bodies are appointed, always after consultation with the leading interests, for the purpose of assisting in the working out of regulations and the like; and I wish to state to the House, in answer to the question put to me, that it is my intention, and I give an undertaking, that in connection with the working of this Bill we shall appoint an advisory committee after consulting the leading representatives of the different interests concerned. I hope that one of the first matters on which the advisory committee will assist me or whoever is then at the Home Office will be as to the best way to take the ballot or the vote which has to be taken in any factory before the two-shift system is adopted. I think that is the proper way to do it, though if anybody takes a different view we can discuss it in Committee; but there has never been on the part of the Home Office any desire to exclude from this Bill anything which should properly be made a matter of direct legislative action.
  The second point raised concerned the recommendation in paragraph 12 of the summary of recommendations. That recommended that, in view of the early or the late hours that might be worked—
  "An unemployed worker who on account of the distance of the work from his or her home or for other reasonable cause is unwilling to take employment on shifts should not on that ground be disallowed unemployment benefit."
  I think that unanimous view of the Committee will be very generally shared, but hon. Members must understand that we are dealing here with something which is not the actual subject matter of this particular legislation but is a provision which exists in the unemployment insurance law, a provision that a claim for benefit may be disallowed if it is shown that a claimant has neglected a reasonable opportunity of securing suitable employment. There is no doubt at all, however, that one of the considerations, and a most relevant one, when dealing with people who have to work early or late and have a distance to go is: "Is it reasonable to ask the workman or workwoman
  1672
  to go that distance having regard to the hours of going or returning?" It is not possible for any Government to lay down in the terms of an Act of Parliament how many miles it should be or what all the conditions should be, but the House may take it that there is every intention of securing that the spirit of that recommendation is observed, and I shall watch with a great deal of interest to see that it is. It is now a part of the law and practice of the land that one of the considerations that go to deciding whether work is reasonably or unreasonably refused is the distance from home that the workman has to go.
  Miss WILKINSON: What the right hon. Gentleman is saying is of great importance, but words in this House do not count when it comes to the actual benefit. Can we have a pledge from the right hon. Gentleman that he will bring this matter before his Cabinet colleagues and cause instructions to be given on the lines of the remarks which he is now making?
  Sir J. SIMON: I am much obliged to the hon. Lady. She may be quite sure that I make the remarks with every intention of making them good. It is right for me to point out on the Second Reading, as the hon. Lady knows, that the provision of the law is what I have said. The decision in the individual case is given by the statutory authority. If when we get in Committee there is any ground for thinking that there is a danger about this, I am perfectly willing to implement my promise. It should not go into the Bill as a draft Clause, because that is not the proper way to do it.
  We must remember that the two-shift system is going on. The law which permits it has been a series of annual jumps. The law started 15 years ago, and every year for the last 10 years, at the fag end of the session, somebody has had to explain the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, in which we have carried forward the existing Clause in the Act of 1920.
  The question is whether it is a good plan to go on like that, or whether it is not better to improve the law on the subject, as we can do if we take the advice of this unanimous Committee and enact provisions which are not altogether in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, which is a temporary Bill. This would be a permanent Measure to improve the

  1673
  system. I will give a very important example of that. The Committee unanimously recommend that there ought to be what they describe as:
  "Definite procedure laid down for ascertaining the opinion of the workers."
  At present there is none. I am sure the whole House will believe that His Majesty's inspectors of factories, whether men or women, do their very best to secure that any decision is fairly arrived at although I understand that some hon. Members with experience say that there are cases in which the present system is not satisfactory. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Very well, but which will you have? Will you go on with the present system or will you improve it? To go on with the present system means letting this continue under the Expiring Laws Continuance Act. My submission is that after the Committee have made their unanimous decision we should take advantage of what they say.
  If hon. Members will turn to Clause 1 (2) they will see that very careful provision is laid down for that procedure. This is the very first thing on which I would seek the advice and help of the advisory committee which I mean to appoint. The Clause says:
  "The Secretary of State shall, by Special Order made under section one hundred and twenty-six of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901 (hereinafter referred to as 'the principal Act'), make provision as to the manner in which workpeople concerned are to be consulted and their opinions ascertained before any application is granted under this section, and, subject as hereinafter provided, no such application shall be granted unless the Secretary of State is satisfied"—
  and so on. That is a tightening up, by adoption of a procedure which does not exist at present. The House has to make up its mind. It may, if it likes, say, "We do not want any improvement. We would sooner have the thing as it is. We would sooner go on year by year with the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill", with the result that the Under-Secretary of State of the day will year by year have to say what he thinks appropriate in order to get the Bill through. On the other hand the House can say: "Here is a Committee which has gone into the thing with the greatest care and which points out that there is at present a weakness in the system and proposes
  1674
  to improve it. Let us take the opportunity of improving it." All of us want to do the right thing for the workpeople, and I hope every hon. Member will think that was a right thing to do and not a thing to reject.
  I might remind the House that what is involved, if we get the procedure authorised, is what is called the Special Order procedure. You will have a draft Order issued and published for 40 days before it is made. Any written representations or suggestions received from any public body must be taken into consideration, and notice must be given of the intention to make the Order. There must be places where copies can be found and the Order must be published in the newspapers. When the Order is made it has to be laid on the Table of the House for another 40 days, during which time it may be challenged. Is it not very much better, in a matter in which hon. Members feel that the present system is weak and is being taken advantage of, which none of us want, to adopt a new Bill, which will be on a permanent basis—of course until Parliament decides to repeal it—and to institute a better advised and more tightly knit system than exists to-day?
  A number of minor points have been made by hon. Members, and some of them are more appropriate for the Committee stage. We have just heard from the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. C. Brown) the case as he sees it from the point of view of the Departmental Committee. The Bill as presented to the House embodies that view. I would ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading. It is very desirable to get the Second Reading at once. It is quite right that when we come to the details we should examine each word with care and thoroughness. I believe that the vast majority of hon. Members will, upon reflection, desire to take no other course than to give the Bill a Second Reading and send it upstairs, in order that, when we come back after the holidays, we may find time to pass it into law. I put that point definitely to the House.
  I am very glad indeed that the Debate has taken place and that so many points of view have been put. The Debate has given my hon. Friend and myself—we are perhaps the best example that can be found in this House of the two-shift

  1675
  system in operation—an opportunity of considering all that has been said. I conclude by saying once again that the object of the Bill is not to promote some political scheme. Some hon. Members have talked about this Bill as an abominable Bill or as one imposing degrading conditions. Somehow I do not think that the hon. Member for Mansfield or the hon. Member for Anglesey are the least likely to have subscribed their names to a report which was anything of that sort. We have really to face what the hon. Gentleman said just now. We have to consider whether the conditions of modern industry do not make it desirable to put the law on this subject in a better shape than that in which it is now, when we live from hand to mouth, from the end of one Session to the end of another Session, with no opportunity of improving the law at all.
  I would remind the House, in conclusion, of what was said as long ago as 1927 by the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops. It is in a short quotation from his annual report, and I quote it with the more interest because it was used in the maiden speech of a Member of this House, now dead, who made a very promising beginning—Miss Pickford. In her maiden speech she quoted, from the Report of the Chief Inspector of that day, these words in reference to this subject:
  "This, which was begun somewhat as an experiment in factory legislation, has proved useful and beneficial to employers and workers alike."
  That statement was made by one of very great experience and absolutely without any sort of bias, and I submit that that is the view that we now ought to take, and that the unanimous report of this strong committee amply confirms it. Accordingly, I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
  Mr. G. GRIFFITHS: May I point out that the proviso to Sub-section (1) of Clause 1 states that, if the employer decides that he is only going to work five days on double shifts—10 shifts in the week—he can work 88 hours? I should like to ask where those 88 hours can be got between the hours of six in the morning and 10 at night?
  Sir J. SIMON: I am not quite certain whether the hon. Member has been here throughout the Debate—
  Mr. GRIFFITHS: I have been here almost as long as the Home Secretary.
  Sir J. SIMON: I apologise if I am repeating anything that has been said already. I am not sure whether the hon. Member was here all through the Debate, but I think that my hon. Friend, when he moved the Second Reading, explained that this is, of course, a move towards the five-day week, and in Committee it will be open to the Committee to consider whether they desire to give this amount of help towards that movement. If they do, there will perhaps be some people, if not the hon. Member, actually in favour of it, and in favour of the adoption of this particular proviso, which of course is entirely consistent with the framework of the Bill.
  Mr. JAGGER: Am I right in thinking that the Factory Act is to be repealed, and that in no circumstances can persons employed on the two-shift system work more than 88 hours per fortnight?
  Sir J. SIMON: The hon. Member is quite right in saying that, in so far as the two-shift system is working, a person working in a shift cannot work overtime as well. I should not, myself, express it by saying that the Factory Act is to be repealed, but I think that what the hon. Member means in substance is: Can a person working under this system in one of two shifts work overtime at the same time and on the same day? The answer is "No."
  9.21 p.m.
  Mr. KELLY: We have just heard from the Home Secretary a statement which shows that he has no knowledge whatever of the working of this system. He states that no overtime can be worked under the two-shift system, but, if he had any experience of it, he would know that overtime is worked by the overlapping which takes place under the two-shift system. Do the Home Office really believe in, and are they prepared to support, a system under which young people are compelled to go to work at so early an hour in the morning, or are compelled to work until 10 o'clock at night? If they are, I hope they will tell the public that that is their view. The hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. C. Brown) referred to what happened with regard to

  1677
  evidence from the London County Council. In London they have been able to save themselves, so far as London proper is concerned, from the operation of the two-shift system, but they have seen it in adjacent areas, and they realise what would happen in the matter of educational facilities for their young people if it were operated in London.
  The hon. Member for Mansfield asked those of us in London who are engaged in looking after the young people to consider the hours that are worked, but I may tell him that Members on this side of the House have been using all their efforts to prevent these young people being compelled to work such hours as those to which he referred. It has been said that the Committee was able to weigh evidence, and the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Howitt) said that the Home Office were able under this system to deal with wages, and to arrange about the wages paid to those who are working under the two-shift system. I should like to hear from the hon. Member, or, better, from the Home Secretary, when the Home Office began to interfere with wages. Has there been one instance of interference by the Home Office either in the matter of raising wages or even causing them to remain at the rate at which they were before the operation of the two-shift system? The hon. Member says that there has. I hope we are going to be given some evidence on that point.
  Then the hon. Member for Reading said that this system is not injurious to health, but those of us who have been in contact with people who have been working under the two-shift system since 1920, in the chocolate, confectionery, artificial silk and other industries, know how injurious it is to these young people. It is no use members of the Committee, who evidently had not understood the whole of the evidence, coming here and telling us about continuous processes. The hon. Member for Mansfield spoke about a continuous process such as is worked in the chemical industry, but in the chemical industry we do not ask young people of 16 to 18 to work on a two-shift system. Again, when it was adopted in the manufacture of artificial silk, we did not ask young people of 16 to 18 to work under this system. All the argument to-day has been based on the fact that there is an opportunity of exploiting these young people, of making a little more profit out of them, and now that is to be continued, not as the result of an application made by the employers, but by a Bill which will enable them to continue it. It is a sorry day for this country when it prevents its youth from having the opportunity of developing, and is working them under such conditions as those of the two-shift system.
  Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 231; Noes, 121.

  AGRICULTURAL MARKETING ACTS, 1931–1933.
  9.35 p.m.
  The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Elliot): I beg to move,
  "That the Amendments of the Pigs Marketing Scheme, 1933, which were presented to this House on the eleventh day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, be approved."
  As these matters are somewhat technical, I have done my very utmost to set them out in the clearest possible form, and I hope hon. Members will realise, even if they disagree with us, that we have done our best to simplify the procedure to a point which makes it clear. On the Blue Paper we set out an explanation of the Amendments. On pages 3, 4, 5 and 6 we set out the actual text of the Amendments, and on page 7 we reprint the relevant paragraphs of the scheme with the Amendments clearly shown. I do not think we could do more to set the matter out as clearly as may be before the House. These Amendments were submitted by the Pigs Marketing Board to the Minister on 29th January, 1935, and to the Secretary of State for Scotland on 19th February. They had previously been published to the producers, as required by the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1931, and the producers did not demand a poll. Notices of submission were duly published and a period was allowed for the receipt of objections and representations. That period ended on 16th April. Objections were received from four parties, the Bacon Marketing Board, the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture, the Parliamentary Committee of the Co-operative Congress and the National Federation of Meat Traders' Associations, and in accordance with the provisions of the Marketing Act, 1931, these objections were duly referred to a public inquiry. That inquiry was held by Mr. Macaskie K.C., on 13th and 14th June, and as the
  1682
  result of the inquiry I and the Secretary of State for Scotland made various modifications in the proposed Amendments, which disposed of all the objections except two, one made by the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture which relates to a legal point in the machinery which deals with proxies to persons other than producers, and the other made by the Parliamentary Committee of the Co-operative Congress and the National Federation of Meat Traders' Associations dealing with the power now being taken by the board to regulate transport and insurance. These come on in Amendment 4.
  I think these Amendments will conduce to the more efficient operation of the Pigs Marketing Scheme. Most of them derive from the experience that we have had of its working during the past two years. They may be grouped into three categories. The first deals with the internal administration of the board and concern the producers' interests only. They concern such things as the power to remove the chairman and the vice-chairman of the board from office, payment of members of the board and the procedure for elections. There are others dealing with the marketing provisions of the scheme which affect other interests as well as those of producers, Nos. 3 and 4, 4 being the Transport Amendment, and 6 and 7 which deal with registration and confirmation of contracts. Finally, there are consequential amendments or amendments made for the purpose of bringing the scheme into conformity with the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1933, which was passed subsequent to the passage of the scheme through this House. The first group are mostly the domestic concern of producers. In the second group the main alterations deal with sections relating to the registration and confirmation of contracts. The machinery for the confirmation of contracts is left intact but the procedure for registration has been improved. Under the scheme as it now is the board could refuse registration if a contract were received more than 14 days

  1683
  after it was made, or if it were not in the prescribed form, or if it were received by the board after a prescribed date. That machinery is rather out of date. The Amendments provide that the board shall register all contracts received within a prescribed date and gives certain grounds for cancellation, namely, if the contract is not in the prescribed form, or if there is some other contract in existence made by either of the parties which is incompatible with the prescribed contract, or if the contractor has defaulted in a previous contract. The House will realise the importance of this since on the total of the home supplies the total consumption of bacon is calculated and, therefore, it is greatly to the interest of the consumers that those who contract to supply bacon should properly fulfil the terms of their contract. In the case of a late contract the board have discretion whether they shall register it or not, but they cannot register it unless they are satisfied that the bacon will be taken into account in any regulation of supply or unless the Bacon Board has agreed to the registration. For the greater security of producers, if the board have confirmed a contract or annulled a registration they have to tell the producer that they have done so, and if the producer is aggrieved by the cancellation of the contract he can refer the matter to arbitration.
  There may perhaps be a certain amount of discussion on Amendment 4 which deals with the power to prescribe the manner in which pigs shall be insured or transported by or on behalf of registered producers. Complaints have been laid before the Committee of Investigation referring both to the insurance and the transport of pigs. The question whether a flat rate shall be paid for transport is, of course, a matter of opinion. Sometimes a flat rate is advisable in contracts of this kind and sometimes not. A flat rate is very much desired by Scottish sugar beet producers, whereas in the case of England it is not so desired. Clearly there are cases where opinions differ. The Committee of Investigation went into this and reported that a flat rate transport system was necessary for the efficient operation of the pig and bacon schemes, and the Amendment is to remove doubts as to the power of the board to prescribe
  1684
  the manner in which pigs should be insured or transported. I think the co-operative societies state that under the scheme as it stands the board has no power to prescribe a flat rate for transport and that their prescriptions have, therefore, been illegal. I understand that the Co-operative Congress has announced its intention of testing the matter in the courts. This Amendment would not effect the legality of any action taken by the board before the Amendment becomes law, so that the rights of the Co-operative Congress in the matter are quite unaffected. It clearly is desirable to have the matter cleared up one way or the other.
  As for insurance, it is true that there was general compulsory insurance at first, but it was dropped. The committee investigated that and came to the conclusion that a general scheme of insurance was necessary, although again there are arguments for and against, such as those with which hon. Members will be acquainted in other walks of life, where people say that those who are thoroughly insured may be careless of their actions which are covered by the insurance scheme. But the matter is left just now to compromise, under which a scheme of insurance is in force, but not a compulsory scheme. I have indicated to those concerned that I will examine the working of that scheme and call their attention again to the matter. These are the main points affected by the Amendments now before the House. I hope very much that we shall be able to agree to the Amendments, which are, I think, practical and business like steps designed to improve the working of the scheme in the light of experience. Any point raised will, of course, receive my closest consideration, and the scheme may be amended on subsequent occasions. This is not the first time it has been amended and no doubt subsequent occasions will arise on which it will be amended again, but I hope that we shall be able to treat it as a business mater, and with that desire I commend the Amendments to the House.
  9.47 p.m.
  Mr. T. WILLIAMS: While we are not desirous either of detaining the House or of opposing the machinery and Amendments embodied in this scheme, there are one or two Amendments about which I

  1685
  shall have something to say. If hon. Members have a copy of the scheme in their hands they will be interested in at least two of the minor Amendments which are now being made. The first Amendment, as the right hon. Gentleman has stated, deals with the chairman and vice-chairman. The board shall elect from among their members a chairman and vice-chairman for a period, but the Amendment states, provided however:
  "That the board shall have power to remove a chairman or a vice-chairman from his office at any time during the tenure of that office."
  That is very intriguing, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will throw a little more light on the need for the Amendment. Of many of the Amendments, like his marketing schemes, which are a case of trial and error, we have little or no complaint to make, but the introduction of this power to recall the chairman and vice-chairman of the board, seems to be a good Communist principle. I am not at all sure it could not be extended perhaps to Ministers and Members of the House, and to lots of other people we have in mind. The right hon. Gentleman, we understand, in his early days had a dip into Fabianism, then Conservatism and nationalism, and now he is accepting good Communist principles in the first Amendment of this scheme. He would do well to tell the House exactly why the Pigs Board desire the power of recall so that they may "sack" their chairman or their vice-chairman at any moment.
  The question of remuneration is another innovation, and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be a wee bit more explicit upon it. I notice that the Amendment allows a general meeting to determine what shall be the pay for the board, if any, and that the general meeting shall have the power to determine whether the payment made to members of the board shall be for the past or for the coming year. Can he say, if this Amendment is accepted, whether they should pay members of the board in future or not? It looks like the old principle of payment by results. It may be much or it may be little; it may be anything or it may be nothing. Surely, the right hon. Gentleman ought to tell us why these curious Amendments are really required by the Pigs Board, for, after all, there must be some reason, or the members would not desire to preserve in their own hands the
  1686
  power to decide whether the board should receive any remuneration or not, and should retain the power to decide whether the remuneration should be fixed for what was done last year or what may be done during the coming year. If payment by results is a sound principle, I repeat that it might apply to Ministers and to Members of Parliament, and it might be that at the end of the year or four years many Members would find themselves in debt.
  The most substantial Amendment is that relating to transport. The right hon. Gentleman has already said that the operations of this power which has been exercised by the Pigs Board, whether they were entitled to operate it or not, has called forth a good deal of criticism not only from the Co-operative Society, but from curers in all parts of the country, apart from the Marsh and Baxter combination, and a good deal is likely to be said before the conclusion of this Debate on the question of the simple process of fixing uniformity as the one means of providing equity.
  What does the Amendment really involve? We are informed by the right hon. Gentleman that already 2,000,000 pigs have been contracted for by pig producers to be supplied to curers during the forthcoming year, but that the curers require anything up to 750,000 pigs more than the 2,000,000. The Pigs Board apparently with the consent now of the Bacon Board, are agreed to enter into a contract with the railway companies to fix a uniform rate for the transport of every pig that finds its way from any pig-sty to any curer's establishment in any part of this country. That is to say that if the pigs are transported a mile the owner of the pigs or the bacon curer must pay a uniform rate of 2s. per head. But it has been found in practice that there are hundreds of thousands of pigs which do not require the use of the railways at all. Either the curers or the producers have their own means of transport, or they can hire means of transport at a far less rate than the uniform rate fixed by the Pigs Board to be paid by all pig producers whether their pigs have a ride on the railways or not.
  It is a very remarkable thing for the Pigs Board to come together and to declare that for pigs produced within two miles of a curing factory the same price shall be paid as for pigs that have to be transported on the railways 150 miles. To

  1687
  the person resident 50, 100 or 150 miles away from a bacon-curing factory the transport cost is very cheap, but for the person who is near a factory the transport cost is very dear. It seems to be a very simple thing to declare "We will fix a uniform rate, and whether near or far it shall be the same price." In fact this is working out in such a fashion as to call forth a good deal of criticism not only from the Co-operative Society and from small curers and many producers in all parts of the country. It really is a repetition of the Milk Marketing Board scheme, and most hon. Members will already know that the semi-urban producers of milk have been robbed so that the remote agriculturists shall have a uniform price for the milk they produce.
  I know what has happened in my own Parliamentary Division with regard to that matter. Many farmers who for generations have produced and retailed milk from their own farms find themselves compelled by the Milk Marketing Board to pay a levy so that a uniform price may be paid to milk producers. Now the Pigs Board have followed the lead of the Milk Board and declare that wherever the pig producer may be he must only pay the same transport costs as those who are nearer to the factory. That is not only unfair to the small curers but it is grossly unfair to the co-operative societies, who have their own transport services. Almost always the retail co-operative society is a producer as well as a consumer. Yet they are denied the right to use their own transport service. They may pay for the use of their own transport and pay the same amount to the Pigs Marketing Board as if their pigs had been transported on the railway, except for a slight discount, which is only a matter of coppers compared with the shillings that are paid according to the arrangements entered into.
  There is a great fear on the part of many people that this uniform scheme is designed to bolster up the Marsh and Baxter bacon combine, and that they are benefiting at the expense of the small curers. If there is any doubt the right hon. Gentleman ought not to allow it to exist. He ought to remove the doubt by satisfying himself that the Development Board, who have had large powers handed over to them, have produced a
  1688
  scheme not only for securing the requisite factory accommodation, but a reasonable transport scheme, not necessarily with a uniform price applied to each producer for transport charges, but a scheme which will be equitable to all sections of the pig-producing fraternity and unfair to none. If small curers and producers are to be penalised for the purpose of bolstering up the Marsh and Baxter bacon combine the right hon. Gentleman may be sure that that matter is not going to be allowed to rest, because there will not only be opposition on this occasion, but there will be a good deal of opposition in the country.
  I do not want to imply that these proposals are opposed to efficiency either in production of pigs, efficiency in production of bacon or efficiency in the transport services, but we do think that you can carry uniform prices too far. It may be, for instance, that a producer comparatively close to a bacon factory is paying 30s. per acre for his rent while another producer 70 or 80 miles away is paying £1 per acre rent. If they are to pay a uniform price for the transport of their commodities, well, although in theory uniformity may be nice, in practice it does not work in the same way. The Committee of Investigation who, apparently, have looked into this problem have, I suppose, satisfied themselves that merely to apply uniform charges is an easy proposition, that it does not call for a lot of thought or for serious and hard thinking, that they are satisfied with that system, and have satisfied the right hon. Gentleman that there is no need for further investigation, although he himself seems to doubt whether or not the Pigs Board were justified in applying uniform charges. He tells my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) that the co-operative societies have a chance of going to court to discover whether the Pigs Board were right in the past, but from this time forward he is going to legalise what may have been wrong in the past. In other words, he is saying to my right hon. Friend, "I am locking the door before you have a chance to get out. If you do by any chance sneak through the keyhole, that will be your good fortune, but it will not make much difference."
  The right hon. Gentleman must pay more attention to these national schemes than he appears to have paid up to the

  1689
  present. We want efficiency whether the commodity be milk, potatoes, beef, bacon or anything else, but we do not want uniformity to be fastened round everybody's neck whether it appears to be equitable or otherwise. If the right hon. Gentleman's object is the production of 3,000,000 pigs per annum he ought to know approximately what factory capacity is required. He ought to know whether the bacon factories are allocated in certain areas which will best suit the pig-producing areas, and it ought not to be a difficult proposition for him, within the areas especially, to arrange for a transport charge, not necessarily a uniform one but a fair one for all those who are producing pigs and contracting with the factories for the pigs to be transformed into bacon. That seems to us to be the only fair way upon which the right hon. Gentleman can travel. I suggest, therefore, that this process of handing over almighty power to monopolies, whether of producers of the primary commodity or monopolies of producers of the secondary commodity, is not quite the thing that is going to bring salvation to agriculture. I could understand the right hon. Gentleman establishing a national utility society to operate in certain areas on the lines which I have indicated, but to produce a monopoly for bacon curers or a monopoly for primary producers, with little or no safeguard for the consuming public, is not the right thing to do. It is because we feel that he is carrying uniformity too far that we are obliged to oppose the fourth Amendment, which gives the Pigs Board a power that they are not entitled to, and which certainly they have not used so far in the best interests of pig producers and curers in the country.
  10.3 p.m.
  Mr. TURTON: I should like to pay a tribute to the clarity of the Minister's explanation and to the very clear manner in which he presented the Amendments, and I hope that he will not think me ungracious if I go on to ask for a further explanation of the seventh Amendment. Some hon. Members may be aware that I come from a part of the country where to-night there is great indignation over the refusal of a factory to take the pigs. There is that indignation and there is a desire that that indignation should be appeased. I should like to tell my right hon. Friend what is likely to be the
  1690
  result of the refusal of the Bacon Development Board to grant a factory to Yorkshire. The effect of it is that whilst we have 156,000 contracts for the Yorkshire factory, the factory can only take 120,000. Therefore we have 30,000 surplus contracts. Those contracts under the present scheme are either registered or about to be registered. The question I want to put to the Minister is whether under the new Amendment it will be open to the Pigs Marketing Board to cancel the registration of those contracts on the ground that they have been contracted for a special factory, and that it would be to the disadvantage of the producers to send them to factories which have room for more pigs.
  It is well known to the House that what has happened to the present contract is that factories placed in the producing areas are full, and in some cases more than full. But factories placed in the consuming areas in the Midlands are not only empty but lamentably empty, and the intention, if there be an intention, of the Pigs Marketing Board to keep these surplus contracts in the scheme, would be to transfer them from the producing area factories to the consuming area factories, and that would not be, to quote Sub-section (b), to the advantage of the producer. Does Sub-section (b) cover that case? The long transit from the producing to the consuming area means a loss of weight on the pig and a loss of grade, and also involves a great deal of cruelty to the pig. Instead of being slaughtered at its place of production, it is carried all that way.
  Those are two or three considerations under Sub-section (b). Under Sub-section (c), where you find that if a producer has a registered contract with a purchaser and a purchaser has made default, can we call it making default if, through the action of the Bacon Development Board, that factory is unable to operate? If that is a default within the terms of the scheme, again the Pigs Marketing Board can cancel that contract. These are grave considerations, because in my part of the country the whole future of the pigs marketing scheme rests upon whether the producers are going to be forced to send their pigs away from the producing areas to the consuming areas or whether either by some new action of the Bacon Development

  1691
  Board, which I am unable to discuss to-night, or by the action of the Pigs Marketing Board under the seventh Amendment, they can be released from their contract.
  The hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) dwelt on the flat rate, and I was rather surprised that he was against the flat rate. I thought as a good Socialist he would be in favour of the national agreement instead of the district agreement—in favour of the levelling out of all the rates, under that theory of equal opportunities for all that I heard discussed on so many soap-boxes up and down the country during the Election. I find myself on the question of the flat rate at one with my fellow Yorkshireman, the hon. Member for Don Valley. It may be that he, representing the coal industry, has a sympathy for those who, like myself, represent the pig producers in Yorkshire at this present grave crisis. The flat rate has already proved very unequal and I ask the Minister to consider carefully whether we ought to continue the flat rate as we are advised to do in the fourth Amendment. It is giving an incentive to the Bacon Development Board, and also to the Pigs Marketing Board, to encourage factories in the distant areas from production, and also in the case of the Pigs Marketing Board to encourage producers to have their contract shifted from the areas of production to the factories in the consuming areas. That is not economic. I have had farmers who have tried to send their pigs from Yorkshire to the Midlands, and the pigs lost two stone in transit. They have also lost in grading. They have found that they could not superintend the grading. They mistrust the grading in those distant factories.
  These are difficulties the Minister should not encourage by means of the flat rate. In my part of England there are areas where the railways have not irrigated the country sufficiently to allow farmers to use them for transport to a factory. I have farmers producing on the hills of North Riding who can never send their pigs by rail. They have to send them by road, and I can assure the Minister that they will see no advantage in the flat rate. I think their production should be encouraged as much as the production of those in the railway centres, or those who want to
  1692
  send their pigs miles before they are killed. I hope that when the Minister hands in the new Amendments to the Pigs Marketing Scheme, he will include the deletion of the flat rate.
  I hope the Minister will give encouragement to the producers of the 30,000 surplus pigs in Yorkshire, who are asking him and the Bacon Development Board what they are going to do with those contracts which they signed in good faith, believing they would put in a new factory to give employment to local men. Are they going to be sent against their will to factories in the Midlands? That is the question that Yorkshire wants answered, and if we get an answer that they are, I am afraid the future of the pigs scheme in Yorkshire and in England is very black indeed.
  10.14 p.m.
  Mr. BARNES: I should like to support the point of view of the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton), as to the effect that this scheme will have on the uneconomic distribution of the product, and the inability of producers to use a particular form of transport. The Minister of Agriculture suggested that we should consider these Amendments on a business basis. I rather fancy that if the House was considering to-night the effect of the Pigs Marketing Board and the Bacon Marketing Board on the bacon supplies of this country in a businesslike fashion we should be considering the abolition of the boards instead of equipping them with further powers. There are only one or two short points I should like to make. In the first place the Minister failed completely to advance any argument in favour of these additional powers. He omitted, I submit, with the exception of the explanation of what the powers represent, to give any reason why these powers should be inserted in the Marketing Board's operation. When we are discussing the problem of a flat rate and the equality of a flat rate, it should be borne in mind that it does not apply to all forms of transport. It is an arrangement between the Pigs Marketing Board and the railway companies. The railway companies' services are inadequate and incapable of handling economically the whole of the bacon or pigs transport of this country.

  1693
  When the House is giving special statutory powers to a limited body of producers I suggest that it should think very seriously before allowing these statutory powers to override business organisations who are parties to a contract but who can have no say in the terms of that contract. There are hundreds of buyers of pigs who are not consulted in any way by the Pigs Marketing Board or the railway companies, and that arrangement does not meet the convenience of these purchasers of pigs. We have, therefore, a situation in which Parliament is deliberately giving powers to a body to override the rights of other persons who are involved in the transaction, but who have no place on that body. I submit that the House should not grant the powers asked for in the fourth amendment unless the Minister gives the concession that the flat rate should apply only to any person who chooses to use the railways as a form of transport. If it does not meet the convenience of any buyer to use the railways as transport there is no reason why their business interests should be overridden arbitrarily in this fashion. The fact that the Minister is now submitting these amendments is a proof that the board has been exceeding its powers in the past. Instead of the House legalising these powers it should refuse to accept the advice of the Minister.
  10.16 p.m.
  Sir FRANCIS ACLAND: I have been listening to the discussion, and so far it has tended to centre around the question of transport. I want to put a point of view not as a dogmatic assertion but in order to give those who are more intimately acquainted with the conflict of opinion an opportunity of putting me right. Ought this House to seek to intervene in these matters too much unless a question of the expenditure of public money is concerned, in which case I agree that they have a right and a duty to see that the expenditure of such money is carried out under some public control. But this scheme is being run now without a subsidy, and, therefore, that point does not arise. I have been looking at the words which seem to me to leave the vexed question as to whether you should have a flat rate or a varied rate open and puts it into the hands of the Pigs Marketing Board, where I think it ought
  1694
  to be. I ask, therefore, does not the Pigs Marketing Board represent, is it not elected by all the producers of pigs who want to make contracts? Is it not a question whether they have or have not the power of regulating the manner in which pigs shall be transported by or on behalf of the original producers that has made it necessary to insert these words? Is not this amendment to be put in in order to give them that power, and without any question as to whether the rate should be a flat rate or a varied rate? I know that there has been considerable controversy on this point and that those producers who are quite near to factories get some allowance. You have a very difficult question on which there must be a difference of opinion between those who are near and those who are far away—
  Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what allowance a producer near to a factory gets?
  Sir F. ACLAND: I understand that they get 10 per cent.; I think there is something of that kind from what I have seen in the "Farmer and Stockbreeder." One can realise that there is this difference of opinion between those who live close to the factories and those who live far from them. The question however arises whether there should be a flat rate system such as the Post Office have or varied rates such as apply to most transport. My point is that that question is being left to the board and it seems to me to be a matter which ought to be decided by the board rather than by this House. Supposing that it were possible to move to leave out Sub-paragraph (f) of paragraph 37 of the scheme dealing with transport, would not the result be that there would be no body then in existence to negotiate with the railway companies? The railway companies would have the right to charge what they liked to all pig transporters and to act at their own sweet will in that respect. It seems to me that there ought to be some body to negotiate with these big corporations, the railway companies. The question of the flat rate or the varied rate seems to be left to the proper authority. Those generally are the suggestions which I would make.
  10.22 p.m.
  Mr. BATEY: I hope the Debate is not going to be confined to the question of transport. There are a number of Amendments to the scheme and some of us are sorry that they are to be dealt with as one Resolution because we would like to divide the House upon more than one of them. The Minister seems to have a mania for setting up boards and as soon as he has set up a board he is not satisfied but comes to the House and wants to have the constitution of the board amended. I submit that the first of these Amendments does far more than the Minister suggested. He suggested that it merely took power to remove from office the chairman or the vice-chairman. I submit that the present wording of the scheme is better than the suggested Amendment. The Amendment in my opinion is far more dangerous than the present wording. The scheme at present provides that the board
  "shall elect from amongst their members a chairman and vice-chairman both of whom shall, provided they remain members of the board, hold office until the 31st day of March ensuing next after their election."
  The Minister proposes to delete these words and substitute others. The effect of the Amendment is that the chairman and the vice-chairman will hold office until there is an election of some special member or members to the board. That is a dangerous proposition because it will then be in the interests of the chairman and vice-chairman to try to prevent new elections to the board so that they may hold office as long as possible. I am sorry that we cannot have a Division upon that dangerous Amendment. The same remark applies to the second Amendment which provides that the registered producers may vote a lump sum. I submit that the existing wording is safer than the proposed Amendment. The words at present read:
  "The board may pay to any member of the board any such travelling and other expenses as have in their opinion been reasonably incurred by him in connection with the business of the board and shall also pay to each member of the board such remuneration (if any) as may be prescribed annually by the registered producers in general meeting."
  The Minister proposes to add these dangerous words:
  "or provide among the members in such proportions and manner as the board shall
  1696
  determine such lump sum (if any) as may be so prescribed as remuneration for the members."
  I submit that that Amendment is dangerous, putting the power into the hands of the board of voting a lump sum to be distributed among themselves. It is just one of those Amendments that the House would have been wise to have guarded against. Now I come to the third Amendment, which gives effect to an agreement between the Pigs Marketing Board and the Bacon Board. When one looks at the Bacon Board, there are words there which are difficult to understand. On page 7 there is a paragraph which reads:
  "Provided that, where the board determine the price at, below or above which pigs, or any (kind, variety, grade) description or quantity of pigs may be sold, they shall fix a uniform price for all pigs of a similar weight and grade unless it is otherwise agreed between the board and the board administering any scheme under the Act regulating the marketing of bacon."
  I take it that the first board mentioned there is the Pigs Marketing Board and that the board mentioned second is the Bacon Board, and then follow these words in regard to the Bacon Board:
  "If there is no such board"—
  that is, the Bacon Board. Does the Minister anticipate the Bacon Board's coming to an end very quickly and that there will be no Bacon Board in a very short time?—[An HON. MEMBER: "Then there will not be any bacon."]—There is not much bacon now, but is it the intention that the Bacon Board shall come to an end very quickly? If it is, some of us will be extremely pleased. We have not a bacon factory at present in the county of Durham, and an effort is being made to establish a bacon factory in the county with pig farms in my division. It is because of these pig farms that I am so keenly interested, because they are in a part of the division where there are no industries at all, and the Commissioner for the Special Areas this year established a military camp There for one month just to bring a few pounds into that district. Here is a proposal to establish a bacon factory in Sunderland, with these pig farms in this part of the district, which would mean, in the words of the gentleman who is proposing to start these pig farms, in his letter sent to all the Northern Members:

  1697
  "I have a market for 2,000 sides of bacon per week, and the farms and factory will be the means of finding work for 450 men who are walking the streets to-day, and will, when in full working order, save the country £30,000 in doles and public assistance."
  Here we find this autocratic Bacon Development Board with such powers that it can prevent this new factory being started, and they are doing that in spite of the fact that the one thing we need more than anything else is some new industry in that area. I submit that the time has come when these boards should not have the autocratic powers that they possess. It would be a good thing if we could have a vote to-night to end all these boards because of the big increase in the price of bacon which is such that the working class can scarcely buy it. It seems to be the policy of the Minister of Agriculture to make bacon a luxury for the rich. That seems to be the policy of the Minister with all these boards. I hope that the words in the Amendment to which I have referred may encourage us to believe that there is a possibility of the Bacon Board coming to an early end.
  10.31 p.m.
  Mr. PRICE: I am not one of those who take the view that these boards should be brought to an end, because I remember that the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1931, was put on the Statute Book more or less by the agreement of all sides of the House. We all agreed that it was desirable that boards should be set up for the purpose of giving statutory powers to organisations of producers with the object of stabilising prices. The work which was started in 1931, however, has not been properly carried on. We are faced to-day with organisations—in this case an organisation of curers—who are more or less a law to themselves. I should like to see statutory powers given to organisations of curers, but they should have to come to this House to get their powers, and we should then have control over them. I am not one of those who think that all the boards should be thrown over, but I want to see increasing powers given to this House to control organisations of producers and distributors. Therefore, I make no complaint that the Minister has come to the House and asked for altered powers for the Pigs Marketing Board.
  1698
  On the other hand, I consider that there is a great grievance. There is undoubtedly a powerful curers' organisation in the country. The name of Marsh and Baxter has been mentioned. Everybody knows that that organisation is a very powerful one and we believe that it is using its powers in such a way that it plays no small role in the increase in the price of bacon to the consumer. That is not an argument for throwing over boards, but for this House to keep a more watchful eye on their operations and for greater powers of control over them.
  The complaints from various parts of the House show clearly that the distribution of the bacon factories in this country is not satisfactory. We have large areas where pigs are being produced from which they have to go long distances to the curers, and, on the other hand, there are areas where there are too many factories. We want rationalisation, but we shall not get it as long as there are these private vested interests in the curing industry. As to the flat rate, I am not opposed to it. We are going to get something like a flat rate in transport charges in the milk industry. In one area of the constituency I represent there has been a big controversy over the pooling of the transport charges for milk, and there is no doubt that before long we shall get a flat rate. The same thing ought to be applied here. I see no objection to it—to this 2s. charge for everybody, although it is unfair that those who have alternative methods of transport should still be charged 2s. even when they are able to get their pigs to market easily. We ought not to have such a cast iron system. Cannot the Minister do something for those who are in a position to deliver pigs by their own lorries or to make other arrangements?
  The danger I see in this fourth Amendment is that it may give monopolistic powers to the railways, which in many districts are not in a position to give proper facilities. To the small pig producers—of whom there are many in my constituency, in the distant valleys between the Wye and the Severn—a flat rate should be an advantage, provided there are proper facilities for getting their pigs to the railway stations, but the trouble is that very often there are not. It is true that some of the railways

  1699
  run lorries to carry livestock from markets or outlying districts to the railway stations and if the railway companies can give that facility there is no great danger in an arrangement of this kind, but I am afraid that the giving of monopolistic powers to the railway companies without any guarantee for proper facilities will, in the long run, hit the small man. But I do not oppose the flat rate, because I think we are bound to get it sooner or later, only I fear the effect of the railways having monopolistic powers at a time when there are so many modern facilities of transport on the roads.
  10.39 p.m.
  Mr. EDE: I desire to submit a point of Order arising out of the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey). He said, basing himself on a long experience, that we had to take the whole of these 14 Amendments en bloc and that it was not possible to divide on any one of them. I wish to ask whether it would be in order to move at the end of the Resolution proposed by the Minister the words "with the exception of Amendment No. 1 on the Blue Paper." Otherwise, hon. Members may be placed in a very great difficulty. They may desire to support certain of the Amendments and to oppose others. There are 14 separate and distinct questions here, and one may have to make up one's mind as to whether the things to which one objects are worse than those of which one approves. As I understood it, when I was last in this House, an hon. Member is entitled to have every question so put from the Chair that the Members are enabled to give a distinct vote on every issue that is raised in the matter before the House. I should like to know whether an Amendment such as the one which I have suggested would be in order on this Motion.
  Mr. SPEAKER: No. In this case the Amendments must be taken as a whole and cannot be divided upon separately, nor can an Amendment be moved. That is in accordance with the Act of Parliament under which these Amendments are brought before the House.
  10.42 p.m.
  Mr. WOODS: There seems to be a unanimous opinion that the working of
  1700
  the Pigs Marketing Board is not satisfactory and needs amending. Our complaint is that the Amendments put forward do not in any way affect the vital defects of the scheme. One can hardly expect in such Amendments that much consideration will be given to the pigs, but in any case consideration should be given to the industry as an industry. Like all other industries, this one depends upon prices and upon supply and demand. Price, as we have discovered in a good many other things, decides, more than any other factor, the demand. I have had considerable experience in the administration of a co-operative society and have been associated with the national organisation of that movement, and our experience is that the rise in the price of bacon has put the sale of it into a steady and wasting decline. There is no suggestion in the Amendment to put pigs on the market at such a price as to reduce the price of bacon.
  We had an excellent illustration at Question Time to-day, when the Financial Secretary to the War Office was asked whether arrangements had been made for the Army to be supplied with bacon produced in the United Kingdom. The answer was "No." If this great Empire cannot feed its loyal troops on its own bacon the poor people who produce the wealth of this country can hardly be expected to keep up their strength and energy on British bacon. They will have to find alternatives and substitutes. If there were any Amendment or any consideration to secure that the consumer should have some say in bringing down the price, we should welcome it.
  With regard to the provision of factories, those factories have grown like Topsy; they have just arrived. Some of them were more or leis failures. There are many small concerns who have to register under this scheme which do only a little curing. For example, many pork butchers who have one small curing department connected with their butchering department have to register under this scheme. I happen to live in the constituency of the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) and I live next door to one of his supporters, who is a pig farmer. If I could repeat in this Chamber the language that my Yorkshire farmer friend uses about the Pigs Board, the House would understand the hon. Member's enthusiasm, because he has to

  1701
  meet these farmers, for getting some modification of the scheme. As to the question of transport, the hon. Member is evidently under a very common illusion concerning Socialism and Socialists. I do not know how many of these soapboxes he has stood on before, but I do not think it can be very many, because it is a most absurd fiction that we stand for uniformity. We stand for the most interesting variety that we can have, and for the maximum of freedom and opportunity for the development of individuality, even in pigs.
  Mr. TURTON: I am sorry that I have not had the views of the hon. Member before, but, when there was an opportunity for us to meet to discuss Socialism, he did not turn up.
  Mr. WOODS: That is quite outside the scope of this Debate, but I shall be perfectly prepared at any time by mutual arrangement to debate with the hon. Member in his own constituency Socialism, Capitalism and the Pigs Marketing Board. There seems to have been a fairly conclusive argument—a theoretical argument, I presume—in deciding this issue, and we have had an expression of it in the Debate, when the Postal Service was taken as a sort of model of the transport of pigs. Obviously it is utterly out of order, and it is in no sense a parallel unless we take it in this way, that we all pay 1½d. for our letters, but, if the principle of this scheme were applied to the Postal Service, we should have to pay to the Post Office every time we passed a personal note from one to the other. If you do not use the railway—if the railway is inconvenient, or there is no railway connection between the producer and the bacon factory—it does not matter. You have to take the pigs yourself, and bear the cost of doing so, and you have to pay in addition this 2s. for every pig. I suggest that this idea of equity is entirely erroneous when it is taken to mean the payment of double charges by some people and the making of a fairly considerable concession to others.
  I suggest that we should view this matter from the practical point of view of supplying ourselves with bacon produced from British pigs, and that, if that is going to be done, there should be some consideration at some time for the people who actually care for the pigs—some consideration
  1702
  for the wages of the agricultural labourer as well as the private gain of the curer; and that the main idea should be to produce bacon at such a price that the average British family can afford to buy it and enjoy it. There is another suggestion that I can make to the Minister. This is not merely a question of price and demand, but the question of quality comes in, and, with all due respect to the efforts that have been made up to date, we find, as sellers of as much British bacon as we can possibly sell, that we are having more complaints than ever before from members and customers concerning the present quality of British bacon.
  10.49 p.m.
  Mr. ALEXANDER: I was glad to hear from the Minister of Agriculture that he desires that these Amendments should be discussed, if possible, on a business basis. I cannot imagine that ordinary Members of the Conservative and Liberal parties who are connected with various types of business and businesses which have very important interests to preserve in relation to transport, transport rates and transport procedure could possibly let these Amendments go through, including Amendment No. 4 relating to transport, without devoting some considerable attention to what the business effect is likely to be, not merely upon the pig and bacon industry which is covered by these Amendments, but upon all other forms of industry requiring transport in this country.
  I want, if I may, to give the House a little history on this pig transport question. I have had the not very enviable task of conducting the case both before the committee of investigation and before the public inquiry afterwards into the proposed amendment to the scheme. What are the facts? The first is that you are being asked to-night—to remove doubts, the Minister said—but, in fact to regularise what has been up to the present moment entirely illegal—the application of a flat rate for the transport of pigs under an agreement entered into compulsorily by the Pigs and the Bacon Marketing Boards with the railway companies. It has been perfectly illegal, in the first place because there was no power under the Pigs Marketing Scheme for any such agreement to be made. Any schemes for marketing which

  1703
  were adopted under the 1931 Act came under two special operative Sections—5 and 6. One of those Sections is mandatory, the other is permissive, and whoever was responsible for framing the draft scheme for the marketing of pigs apparently took great care in adopting those parts of the permissive Section. Yet without having these powers the Pigs and the Bacon Marketing Boards agreed to enter into a contract with the railway companies, and that contract has been operated ever since January, 1935. I suppose that Members of Parliament propose to be so docile, while we have a Government calling itself National, that 12 months after, if they are asked, they will regularise something which is illegal.
  I know that the Minister has said that in regard to the past period of operations we do not prejudice, by what we do tonight, any action which may lie at the present time in the courts. I wish I could believe that that was so. Whether we go on or not with the action to decide whether this was ultra vires, I consider it a most reprehensible way of dealing with matters which are so important to the business community. My second point is this. Anyone who understands the scheme for the marketing of pigs knows quite well that it applies only to pigs under contract for bacon. But during the whole of the last 12 months the Pigs Marketing Board, in agreement with the Bacon Marketing Board and the railway companies, have been charging the flat rate for pigs for pork as well as for pigs for bacon. I did not hear anything about that from the Minister. My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) was right when he appealed to the Minister to exercise a much sharper supervision over the operations of these boards and to prevent that kind of thing happening.
  How does this thing really work? It means, as some of my hon. Friends have already pointed out, that although these most efficient and progressive people in a particular trade may have, for a variety of business reasons, capitalised their own transport for a specific purpose, they are only able, if this principle is once adopted, to use that transport by permission of the railway companies, and only on payment to a railway company of whatever is the national flat rate proposed for the commodity,
  1704
  and with a small rebate, which is always lower than the full amount of the flat rate, so that the person who has capitalised his transport is always out of pocket. I sympathise very much with the case put for some of the farmers outside the radius of the railway companies. In many places farmers have had to make their own transport arrangements. They have bought their own lorries and they have to pay the railway companies for the right to transport their owl pigs to market. Could you ever find so stupid a state of affairs as that? To think that that kind of thing is likely to be supported by Conservative Members behind the so-called National Government. We have in Runcorn, in Cheshire, a co-operative concern which has a substantial business in bacon curing and which buys pigs from a farmer very near their own premises. Someone drives the pigs a few yards from the farm to the slaughterhouse. Every one of these pigs is charged a flat rate for carriage by the railway company. [Interruption.] I hear a little dubiety expressed behind me, but I assure hon. Members that that is entirely true.
  Now I come to another aspect of the question? The railways are almost the largest single industry. I think their revenue is about £190,000,000 a year. There are very few sections of business industry which are not dependent to some extent, first upon the operations of the railway companies, and secondly upon the regulations which govern their operations. In the Railways Act, 1921, there was laid down a whole amount of machinery. In the cases of all changes in rates for the carriage of merchandise it was necessary for the railway companies to prove, very often against the opposition of users of the railway who may object, that the standard revenue will not thereby by injured. Therefore, it should be free to every user of the railways to go to the Railway Rates Tribunal and state objections to any change in the rates. What is the fact now? First, the Pigs Marketing Board enters into a contract with the railway companies which lays down a flat rate. We desire, as users of the railways, and as being included in this flat rate arrangement, to appear before the Railway Rates Tribunal in order to state our objection, but if we are to do that in the

  1705
  meantime we must also be able to obtain pigs to carry on our business as bacon curers.
  We are told that unless you sign a contract with the Pigs Marketing Board, which includes the contract with the railway company, you will not get any pigs, and if you sign a contract which includes the agreement with the railway company, then you cannot appear before the Railway Rates Tribunal. That is the position. I am really stating the bare facts to-night to the House, and what I am warning all Members opposite who are engaged in other businesses to consider is that the railway companies, as soon as this point was raised, and as soon as those for whom I speak decided to make an appeal to the Registrar of the Railway Rates Tribunal for the right to be heard in the circumstances, the railway companies appeared before the Registrar to oppose. Why? Let hon. Members be careful to note this. Because the railway companies see as clearly as possible that if they are able to establish this precedent, to exercise a flat rate for transport for this commodity, and in the exercise of that flat rate to insist upon its assessment not only upon goods carried upon the railway, but upon goods carried by any other form of transport outwith their control, they have a wonderful precedent in regard to all your businesses, every one of them. They have only to come back to the precedent of that decision of the Railway Rates Tribunal to propose any other form of flat rate on other merchandise and be, at any rate, a long way towards the achievement of their purpose.
  I submit that it is a most unwise and unusual way for such a revolution in the principle of the application of railway rates in this country to be carried out, through the Pigs Board, in a subsidiary scheme under an Act of Parliament which had no contemplation of a revolution of railway practice in this country. If the railway companies really wanted to get a substantial change in the basis of procedure they should have followed the ordinary procedure before this House and submitted a railway Bill, either from their own companies or have persuaded the Minister of Transport to submit a Bill through the Government for a change in the railway law. But at present the situation is grossly unfair in the light of the present organisation of industry and commerce.
  1706
  The hon. Member opposite was a little short of the mark in his challenge to my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) when he said that he was surprised that he, with his Socialist faith and principles, should be opposed to the principle of a flat rate. We are not objecting to-night to the bare principle of a flat rate in transport being operated by the railway companies for goods carried on the railway. I am not sure that we would be opposed to the principle even in a wider sense, provided that the result of the application of that principle was the same as that which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) mentioned in the case of the Post Office. If you apply a flat rate to the carriage of letters in the Post Office the whole of the surplus accruing to the Post Office inures to the public.
  This proposal continues the old competition in capitalist circles and business, but especially picks out and penalises certain interests within that capitalist competitive society in order that they may more firmly entrench the larger and better organised interests in a particular class of industry. I am not going to make any general protest to-night about the way in which the Bacon Marketing Board, parties to the agreement, is actually controlled. I will only say that the tendency at the present time, because of the method of election, because of the present state of the industry, is that certain of the interests have a predominating voice. I attended a meeting at the Caxton Hall to oppose the adoption of the bacon development scheme. The representatives of the curers were present there and on the voting there was a bare majority of one, I think, for the scheme, but when a poll was demanded, then on the tonnage of the bacon controlled by the combine there was a huge domination in the actual vote. That is what is happening in the conduct and in the management of the curing industry to-day. What effect does that have on the flat rate? It has this effect. The right hon. Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) was not nearly as strongly opposed to it as one would expect an ordinary orthodox Liberal to be. He was a little anxious and not quite sure whether he was saying the right thing for the farmers in Cornwall.
  Sir F. ACLAND: Just as you are about your people.
  Mr. ALEXANDER: I sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman from that point of view, but the real remedy for the farmers of Cornwall is not to get a flat rate but to get a bacon factory in the south-west of England. When we apply for licences for bacon factories in areas which are most suitable and which have a considerable proportion of dairying carried on in part of the areas, we are put off. I should be out of order in pursuing that subject too far, but at the present time co-operative interests are being mulcted in an additional charge of £5,000 per annum under this flat rate in respect of pigs the majority of which are carried in their own lorries, for which they have paid the capital value, and for which they have to pay the operating costs. And that £5,000 inures to whom? I have asked for proof before the Committee of Investigation and before the public inquiry as to where the advantage goes. Those who represent the Pigs Marketing Board say that it is going to the small curers. We were told at the inquiry that this flat rate and transport is saving £50,000 a year. To whom does it go? I should like the Minister to tell us. Where are the small curers who are getting this £50,000? The right hon. Member for North Cornwall seemed to think that there was some allowance for producers who are close to the factory. There is nothing of the kind. The nearer you are to the factory the less allowance you get.
  Sir F. ACLAND: No.
  Mr. ALEXANDER: I am sorry that I have not the contract with me, or I would produce it. The right hon. Gentleman had better look at it. If you have your own transport and you are close to the factory there is not a single advantage that you can get out of the flat rate; it is all loss. You still have to run your transport and employ your driver, and pay something else on top of that to the railway companies. We should like to know to whore this £50,000 is going. It is claimed that it is being saved to the industry. Is it being saved on payments made to the railway companies? If so, have the railways established that the standard revenue is not being injured by the scheme? It is certainly not going to the small curers. Is it, then, going to the large curers? Is it going to those
  1708
  curers who want to bring pigs from Cornwall to one of out Midland centres? This is a question which the Minister should make perfectly clear. If it is really intended, as the hon. Member for Don Valley suggested, that to aim at an adequate amount of British produced bacon a minimum figure of 3,000,000 pigs per annum is required, he ought to be looking at the matter not from the point of view of a section of the industry but from the point of view of the whole country, and bearing in mind the interests of all the pig producers and the consumers as a whole. I do not think that if he does so he can justify the case for flat rate transport.
  The Minister did not say much about insurance. The insurance of pigs has been the subject also of public inquiry before a committee of investigation. I want hon. Members to observe that the Amendment in this section of the scheme makes a very subtle alteration. For the first time, although the board already has power to regulate the insurance of pigs, now it has the power to regulate the quantity of pigs to be insured. That brings you again into the actual history of the scheme. In the first contract operating under this scheme the board prescribed a monopoly of insurance with the National Farmers' Union Mutual Insurance Society. We had to fight that. On that issue we went before the Committee of Investigation. Then because it was claimed that the National Farmers' Union Mutual Insurance Society were losing very large sums of money on the prescribed premium on this particular monopoly insurance, the whole thing went into the melting pot and again the premium was raised. The Co-operative Insurance Society did quite well out of it—there is not the slightest doubt about that. We say that if the business had been properly managed, anybody else could have done very well out of the premium as well.
  Having got rid of the monopoly insurance of the National Farmers' Union Mutual Insurance Society, and having come to the end of the second contract, you take powers in the scheme to be able to say to the Co-operative Insurance Society or whatever of her livestock office may be concerned that you may insure up to 1,000 or 20,000 or 50,000 pigs and no more. You are taking power to have

  1709
  the quantity of pigs prescribed. On making inquiries I got an assurance from the barrister who was appearing for the Pigs Marketing Board that that was not intended. We are not concerned with what is intended, but with what this scheme provides, and the scheme gives power to the Pigs Marketing Board to regulate how many pigs may be insured by organisations A, B, C or D. On all these grounds we must oppose the scheme, and make it clear that if you are going to have this industry properly organised over the whole country you must get rid of these separate competitive interests who are behind the scenes and using this organisation for the purposes of private monopoly and profit. If you get down to a basis of organisation you must work, if you are a good statesman, for the common good and not for the special interests of private monopolists and individuals.
  11.16 p.m.
  Mr. ELLIOT: I am sure that we shall all appreciate the enormous enthusiasm with which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. A. V. Alexander) has returned to this House, and his desire to recapitulate here all the arguments, successful and unsuccessful, which he has conducted in other parts of the country before other bodies of investigation. I doubt whether the House is as anxious to hear them as he would have us believe. At any rate, I am sure the House will be more interested to learn that many of them are singularly unfounded. If the right hon. Gentleman and his friends were Ministers defending their case in this House they would read carefully any documents which were made available to them.
  Mr. ALEXANDER: On all these matters I have found that sometimes your officials are wrong.
  Mr. ELLIOT: That may be. None of us is infallible. [HON. MEMBERS: "Agreed!"] The main accusation launched against us by the Opposition, made in particular by the hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) is that we are carrying out schemes under the Marketing Act. They are within the terms of the Act which was drawn up and passed by the Cabinet of which the right hon. Gentleman was a member, and passed by a majority of this House, of
  1710
  whom the hon. Member for Spennymoor was a Member, and now he wishes that they were all swept away. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman is back again in the House because we can challenge him with all the matters for which he fought as a Member of the Cabinet but which he and his friends have so constantly attacked in the country in order to make political capital. In the first place, he will agree that the Amendments are drawn under the terms of the Act for which he and the hon. Member for Spennymoor voted in the last Labour Parliament.
  Mr. BATEY: I made a huge mistake.
  Mr. ELLIOT: The hon. Member does himself an injustice. It was not a great mistake; it was an honest attempt to bring assistance to agriculture, which we have done our best to secure. We must not be ashamed of our efforts or of the attempts which we are making to amend them. I am not complaining in any way of the arguments used by hon. Members opposite or of the examination which is being given to these schemes. I think that, on the whole, those arguments were fair and I do not complain, even of the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough, who has had very great experience in his official capacity of stating cases on this matter and examining these details. I hope that he does not mind a little friendly chaff. He and I are not so thin-skinned when we argue with each other, either in the House or outside. These schemes are subject to amendment and must be so and therefore let us examine the points which have been submitted. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough attacked the flat rate and the insurance system and he argued, particularly, that one of the Amendments would alter the insurance system so that the quantity of pigs to be insured with any one organisation would be limited by the board. Mr. Macaskie has reported that that argument is unfounded but even if it were as the right hon. Gentleman has suggested, the matter could be argued before the various statutory bodies before which such an accusation could properly be laid, and it would be subject to amendment. It is not our intention to do as the right hon. Gentleman has suggested and the gentleman who was in charge of the investigation has informed us that

  1711
  that argument does not hold water. But if, by some mischance, it appeared that the argument were well-founded, we should do our best to deal with it. Certainly, the machinery exists by which it can be examined. I think that was the right hon. Gentleman's main complaint on the subject of insurance. He said that on a previous occasion some particular prescription had been brought in as to a particular union and had been successfully contested by him. I am sure he will agree that that was a fine example of the successful working of the machinery which he and others did so much to effect and he will not complain of the fact that the machinery works so well. It is as I say, an example of the successful working of an Act, of which none of us need be ashamed.
  Mr. ALEXANDER: I accept the Minister's statement as to the general purpose of the Amendment, but does he not see that the insertion of the word "quantity" will give power to the board to prescribe, both for transport and for insurance, the quantity of pigs? Surely we are entitled to ask him to state plainly whether the Amendment gives that power or not, since he is asking the House to pass the Amendment?
  Mr. ELLIOT: I am informed, by the learned gentleman who was in charge of the inquiry, and before whom this case was put forward, that the argument that it does give the particular power which the right hon. Gentleman indicates is ill-founded. I cannot say fairer than that.
  Mr. WOODS: Then, will the Minister say why these words are being inserted and what they mean?
  Mr. ELLIOT: If the hon. Member allows me to pursue my argument I will deal with his points before I finish. I am dealing at present with the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough and I turn to the question of the flat rate to which he devoted the major portion of his attack. He asked particularly where was the benefit of the flat rate going. Let me quote the report of the Reorganisation Commission, a perfectly impartial body who inquired into the whole question and upon whose report this scheme is based. On page 40, in paragraph 26, they deal
  1712
  with the question of transport costs and say:
  "We have considered whether the nationally agreed price for a standard pig should be 'ex farm' or 'at factory'."
  and they come down finally upon the side of the "ex farm" national price saying:
  "We think … that this system would also favour the more efficient factories; we therefore recommend its adoption."
  When the flat rate was adopted it was subject to examination and inquiry by a committee of investigation. The committee, which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will not accuse of being biased, either in favour of the pig men or of one political theory, consisted of important unbiased gentlemen. It was presided over by the late Mr. Edward Shortt, who was Home Secretary in this House and who gave very great service to the committee of investigation. It had also in its membership Sir Arthur Pugh, whose name will carry, I am sure, a good deal of weight and conviction with hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite. It was definite on the fact that the flat rate was for the benefit of the industry as a whole and said it was inseparable for the success of the scheme, and in fact it recommended that, although it had been of certain prejudice to small curers close to the factories, yet on the whole it had inured very greatly to the benefit of the industry as a whole. It also said there was no question of the railway companies by this arrangement having received a monopoly in the objectionable sense of the word. All interests had been invited to tender for the transport of pigs, but only the railway companies had been able to offer suitable services at reasonable terms. It summed up:
  "On the general issue, we are of opinion, on the evidence and arguments before us, that uniform national transport arrangements are necessary for the efficient operation of the schemes and are in the interest of bacon curers and pig producers as a whole; and we are satisfied that in making the present arrangement the Boards obtained the beat and most equable terms for the transport of pigs on a national scale."
  I beg the House to consider that, while it is difficult to appreciate the arguments for and against on these most complicated questions, this matter was inquired into at considerable length by a committee presided over by the late right hon. Edward Shortt, with Mr. Palmour,

  1713
  Sir Arthur Pugh, and Mr. W. R. Scott on it. We are bound to attach the greatest weight to their opinion, and I submit to the right hon. Member for Hillsborough that I think that on the whole the right hon. Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) is in a sounder position when he says that Parliament has entrusted these matters to the boards to make the best terms they can for their own members. They are working upon the recommendations, first of all, of the Reorganisation Commission. The working of the flat rate has been inquired into by a most impartial committee, which has reported in favour of the flat rate, and I submit that while it is not possible for me to go into all the arguments for and against to-night, on the Floor of the House, we are reasonably entitled to take the inquiries of these bodies and their verdicts as evidence upon which we can continue to leave discretion to the boards, who must in the long run sum up the question as to whether they should or should not have a flat rate in the interests of their own members. Although arguments can be put forward for and against a flat rate, I submit that, with names such as those I have mentioned favouring the continuance of the flat rate, we may reasonably leave the discretion in the hands of the boards, and I submit that that will be the verdict of the House to-night.
  Several more points were raised by other hon. Members. The hon. Member for Spennymoor showed some indignation, first in, regard to the boards in general, about which, I hope, I have disabused his mind by quoting the results of his own careful consideration when he sat on this side of the House; and, second, on the question of factory accommodation, which was also raised by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). There, again, I would call attention to the fact that the arguments are contradictory. On the one side, hon. Members call aloud for rationalisation and more reasonable distribution of the factories; on the other side, they inveigh in unmeasured terms against steps which are taken to see that the distribution of these factories is more rational. The purpose of a licensing body is to see as far as possible, that an orderly development of bacon factories is established. This is not done by the Bacon Board or the Pigs Board, but by
  1714
  a board consisting of four members from each of these boards and three impartial members chosen by the Government to ensure fair play. We cannot have it both ways. If there is to be rationalisation, some ordered plan must be followed, but if there is to be absolute unlimited development whereby anyone who likes can put down a factory, the idea of rationalisation goes by the board. The hon. Member for Spennymoor is perhaps unaware that, as far as can be made out, there was not sufficient support from the farmers in the area for which he speaks to ensure the production of a sufficient number of pigs for such a factory. Nothing could be worse for an industry than to have factory accommodation put up all over the country, raising overheads, which would obviously be thrown back on the shoulders of the industry. If we are to have development, we must be sure that there is, in the areas where it is proposed to put up factories, a reasonable supply of pigs to meet the requirements of the factories.
  Mr. BATEY: The right hon. Gentleman does not want to tell me that in the whole county of Durham there would not be sufficient pigs for a factory?
  Mr. ELLIOT: The county of Durham is not a big pig-producing county, and, in fact, it did not fully make out its case before the Bacon Development Board that there would be adequate supplies to the factory in question. That does not apply to the case put forward by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton. Again, let me call his attention to the fact that there are factories in existence, and that if we are going to set up new plant we must do our utmost to see that there is a reasonable use of the plant already in existence, and that new plant—[An HON. MEMBER: Marsh and Baxter!"] Hon. Members opposite must not think that they can get away by quoting this factory and the other factory. Let me quote from the report of the Pigs Reorganisation Commission, which had no representative of Messrs. Marsh and Baxter upon it:
  "… farmers, situated in those parts of the country from which rail charges to the nearest factory are abnormally high, might find difficulty in securing contracts; this difficulty is due to the uneven distribution of factories throughout the country, and we suggest that it should be given weight by the Pig Industry Development

  1715
  Board when considering the licensing of new factory construction."
  Therefore, it is clear that the Report envisages the licensing of new factory production, and that that licensing system, not at once, but as its operations proceed, should give weight to the question of putting factories beside ample supplies of pigs. No hon. Member cats suggest that that can be done without due consideration, and the Bacon Development Board, which has only just started its operations, has already laid down the principle on which it will act. No one will suggest that it should license factories without carefully considering whether the industry throughout the country will be able to carry these new factories in addition to the existing factories.
  Mr. BARNES: Can the Minister assure the House that if any area or organisation can guarantee economical production by a factory that there shall be a licence for such factory?
  Mr. ELLIOT: Surely the object of setting up the Bacon Development Board, recommended by the Pigs Reorganisation Commission and approved by this House, with a technical membership to give close attention to these points, was to determine just the point which the hon. Member has put to me. There is no sense in creating a board and then attempting to do its work for it.
  Mr. BATEY: Is the Minister aware of the resolution passed by the Bacon Development Board on 5th December stating:
  "… in view of the fact that the present discussions with regard to trade agreements prevent the Government at the moment from declaring the details of their future policy …"
  It is the trade agreements that are stopping them.
  Mr. ELLIOT: The discussion already ranges far and wide, and if I were to begin a discussion on the trade agreements to-night, though it may be a new point to the hon. Member for Spennymoor, there are friends of mine on these benches who would willingly keep the discussion on that point going all night. I beg the House not to be drawn further from the point at issue, which is that the Bacon Development Board, set up in pursuance of the recommendations of an
  1716
  impartial Commission, and operating under power given by this House, is the licensing authority, that these are among the considerations which it has to take into account and that it would be wrong for the Minister to say in advance what the verdict of the board should be on any application brought before it.
  Mr. BATEY: But we have it in the resolution—
  Mr. ELLIOT: I hope the hon. Member will admit the point I am trying to make, which is that the Bacon Development Board are taking these matters into consideration.
  Mr. BATEY: They are not.
  Mr. ELLIOT: The hon. Member insists on reading to me a resolution of the Bacon Development Board saying they are taking these things into consideration, and then tries to maintain that they are not. I say that the licensing authority set up by this House is the proper statutory body to decide, and that if the House attempts, over the head of that body, or in advance of that body, to determine what factories should or should not be licensed, it will stultify its own action and bring confusion into the industry.
  I have dealt with the two main points raised by the hon. Member for the Hillsborough Division, the question of insurance and the flat rate. Other points raised by hon. Members I will run over briefly. The hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) also raised the question of transport and I hope he will agree that I have given the point of view which I and the Government hold on this matter, though he may not agree with it. He said it should not be difficult for the Minister to fix the charge. But it is not the duty of the Minister to fix the fair charge, but for the board to make the best bargain they can, and they are exercising their powers properly. The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton raised certain questions as to the cancellation of contracts. I am sure he will not expect me to go further than the answer which I have already given to the House. It is not for us to determine whether a contract should or should not be cancelled. That must be a matter for interpretation, if necessary, by the board, on examination of any particular contract.
  Mr. TURTON: I was not asking the right hon. Gentleman that question. I want an explanation of what is meant by the provision that gives a discretionary power, exercisable by the board, to cancel contracts.
  Mr. ELLIOT: The discretionary power of the board to cancel contracts deals with certain cases where the contracts are not valid; where, for some reason or other, side contracts have been entered into which invalidate these contracts, where the contracts are received after a prescribed date, or for some other reason. [Laughter.] Hon. Members seem to find matter for mirth in that. I do not think they are right in so doing. The matter is of very great importance to the Yorkshire Members; it is of very great importance to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton; it is of importance even to Yorkshire Members sitting on the Opposition benches. I think hon. Members' mirth is rather ill-timed, and will not be taken well by the Yorkshire farmers to whom these matters are of importance.
  The right hon. Member for North Cornwall rather had the better of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough when he said that rebates would be given in the case of persons carrying their own pigs and that producers and curers may carry their own pigs and livestock, and that the railway companies can claim a rebate which is bigger in proportion to the length of the carriage. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough said that even if you had your own transport and lived near a factory, you did not obtain any advantage from the rebates. That might well be true, because only the big producers are wealthy enough to own their transport, and on the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number—
  Mr. ALEXANDER: In our industrial centres during the last 12 months, the bacon producer has had to pay this flat rate in respect of pigs not only for bacon but for pork, and that has meant great hardship to producers who live close to large industrial areas, and for decades may have been supplying that area with bacon.
  Mr. ELLIOT: I do not challenge that at all, but I say that this House, under
  1718
  the Act of the right hon. Gentleman, entrusted to the producers the power to combine and make their own arrangements.
  Mr. BARNES indicated dissent.
  Mr. ELLIOT: The power to combine and make their own arrangements is in the 1931 Act of the right hon. Gentleman, which the hon. Member supported. The effect of the bargain, whatever it is, should be a reasonable and an equitable one. It is not for us to go into the merits of each particular case. That is properly a matter for the Pigs Board, to which this House has, under statute, entrusted these particular responsibilities.
  The hon. Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Price) agreed, I think, that it was good that this organisation existed, but he thought they ought to be more closely supervised. That may well be, but at the same time he said that they required rationalisation, for which purpose the Bacon Development Board is set up. Therefore I hope that he will do his utmost to convince his hon. Friend the Member for Spennymoor, beside whom he is sitting just now, of the necessity for this rationalisation process, and the necessity for the board. I hope, too, that the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Woods), who also wanted rationalisation, will apply to the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean for an elucidation of the process by which rationalisation is being carried on, and will consult the admirable report of the Pigs and Pig Products Reorganisation Commission, in accordance with which the Bacon Development Board, the rationalising body, is being set up. As to the question of bacon going up in price, I am sure that hon. and right hon. Members opposite will be delighted to know that bacon is much cheaper than it was when they were in power. I think I have dealt with the main points which have been raised in the course of the discussion, and I hope that the House will now be able to pass the Resolution.
  Question put,
  "That the Amendments of the Pigs Marketing Scheme, 1933, which were presented to this House on the eleventh day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, be approved."
  The House divided: Ayes, 190; Noes, 99.

  Division No. 15.]

  AYES.

  [9.25 p.m.

  Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke

  Butt, Sir A.

  Despencer-Robertson, Major J. A. F.

  Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.

  Campbell, Sir E. T.

  Dodd, J. S.

  Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.

  Cartland, J. R. H.

  Dorman-Smith Major R. H.

  Albery, I. J.

  Carver, Major W. H.

  Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)

  Anstruther-Gray, W. J.

  Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)

  Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)

  Assheton, R.

  Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)

  Dugdale, Major T. L.

  Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)

  Channon, H.

  Duncan, J. A. L.

  Atholl, Duchess of

  Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)

  Dunglass, Lord

  Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

  Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)

  Dunne, P. R. R.

  Balfour, Capt. H. H. (Isle of Thanet)

  Chorlton, A. E. L.

  Eales, J. F.

  Balniel, Lord

  Christie, J. A.

  Eckersley, P. T.

  Barrie, Sir C. C.

  Clarry, R. G.

  Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

  Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)

  Clydesdale, Marquess of

  Elmley, Viscount

  Beit, Sir A. L.

  Colfox, Major W. P.

  Emery, J. F.

  Bennett, Capt. Sir E. N.

  Collins, Rt. Hon. Sir G. P.

  Erskine Hill, A. G.

  Bernays, R. H.

  Colville, Lt.-Col. D. J.

  Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)

  Birchail, Sir J. D.

  Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)

  Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)

  Blindell, J.

  Courtauld, Major J. S.

  Fildes, Sir H.

  Bossom, A. C.

  Craddock, Sir R. H.

  Fleming, E. L.

  Boulton, W. W.

  Craven-Ellis, W.

  Foot, D. M.

  Bower, Comdr. R. T.

  Critchley, A.

  Fraser, Capt. Sir I.

  Boyce, H. Leslie

  Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

  Furness, S. N.

  Brocklebank, C. E. R.

  Croom-Johnson, R. P.

  Fyfe, D. P. M.

  Brown, Col. D. C. (Hexham)

  Crowder, J. F. E.

  George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)

  Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)

  Cruddas, Col. B.

  George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)

  Bull, B. B.

  Davies, Major G. F. (Yeovil)

  Gibson, C. G.

  Burghley, Lord

  Dawson, Sir P.

  Gledhill, G.

  Burgin, Dr. E. L.

  Denman, Hon. R. D.

  Goodman, Col. A. W.

  Burton, Col. H. W.

  Denville, Alfred

  Gower, Sir R. V.

  Graham Captain A. C. (Wirral)

  Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.

  Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)

  Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)

  Maxwell, S. A.

  Samuel, M. R. A. (Putney)

  Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.

  Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

  Sandys, E. D.

  Gridley, Sir A. B.

  Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)

  Savery, Servington

  Grigg, Sir E. W. M.

  Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)

  Scott, Lord William

  Grimston, R. V.

  Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

  Seely, Sir H. M.

  Hacking, Rt. Hon. D. H.

  Moore-Brabazon, Lt.-Col, J. T. C.

  Selley, H. R.

  Hamilton, Sir G. C.

  Morris, J. P. (Salford, N.)

  Shakespeare, G. H.

  Harris, Sir P. A.

  Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H.

  Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)

  Harvey, G.

  Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)

  Shepperson, Sir E. W.

  Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.

  Morrison, W. S. (Cirencester)

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.

  Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan

  Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.

  Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)

  Hepworth, J.

  Munro, P. M.

  Smith, L. W. (Hallam)

  Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)

  Nall, Sir J.

  Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)

  Hills, Major Rt. Hon. J. W. (Ripon)

  Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H.

  Smithers, Sir W.

  Holdsworth, H.

  Nicolson, Hon. H. G.

  Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)

  Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

  O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh

  Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, E.)

  Hopkinson, A.

  Orr-Ewing, I. L.

  Southby, Comdr. A. R. J.

  Horsbrugh, Florence

  Owen, Major G.

  Spender-Clay Lt.-Cl. Rt. Hn. H. H.

  Howitt, Dr. A. B.

  Palmer, G. E. H.

  Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)

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

  Peat, C. U.

  Storey, S.

  Hume, Sir G. H.

  Penny, Sir G.

  Stourton, Hon. J. J.

  Hunter, T.

  Percy, Rt. Hon. Lord E.

  Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)

  Jarvis, Sir J. J.

  Perkins, W. R. D.

  Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)

  Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

  Peters, Dr. S. J.

  Strickland, Captain W. F.

  Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)

  Petherick, M.

  Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

  Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Sutcliffe, H.

  Kerr, J. G. (Scottish Universities)

  Pilkington, R.

  Tasker, Sir R. I.

  Lamb, Sir J. Q.

  Plugge, L. F.

  Tate, Mavis C.

  Lennox-Boyd, A. T. L.

  Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

  Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)

  Levy, T.

  Porritt, R. W.

  Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Derby)

  Liddall, W. S.

  Procter, Major H. A.

  Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)

  Lindsay, K. M.

  Radford, F. A.

  Thomson, Sir J. D. W.

  Llewellin, Lieut.-Cot. J. J.

  Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.

  Train, J.

  Lloyd, G. W.

  Ramsden, Sir E.

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Com. R. L.

  Locker-Lampson, Comdr. O. S.

  Rankin, R.

  Turton, R. H.

  Loftus, P. C.

  Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)

  Wakefield, W. W.

  Lovat-Fraser, J. A.

  Rayner, Major R. H.

  Walker-Smith, Sir J.

  Lyons, A. M.

  Reid, D. D. (Down)

  Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)

  Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

  Reid, W. Allan (Derby)

  Ward, Irene (Wallsend)

  MacAndrew, Lt.-Col. Sir C. G.

  Remer, J. R.

  Warrender, Sir V.

  M'Connell, Sir J.

  Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)

  White, H. Graham

  McCorquodale, M. S.

  Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)

  Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir A. T. (Hitchin)

  McKie, J. H.

  Ropner, Colonel L.

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.

  Macmillan, H. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Ross, Major Sir R. D. (L'nderry)

  Wise, A. R.

  Macpherson, Rt. Hon. Sir I.

  Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)

  Womersley, Sir W. J.

  Magnay, T.

  Rothschild, J. A. de

  Mander, G. le M.

  Rowlands, G.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Manningham-Buller, Sir M.

  Russell, R. J. (Eddisbury)

  Mr. James Stuart and Captain

  Waterhouse.

  NOES.

  Adams, D. (Consett)

  Frankel, D.

  McGhee, H. G.

  Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)

  Gallacher, W.

  McGovern, J.

  Adamson, W. M.

  Gardner, B. W.

  Maclean, N.

  Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)

  Gibbins, J.

  Marklew, E.

  Ammon, C. G.

  Graham, D. M. (Hamilton)

  Marshall, F.

  Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)

  Green, W. H. (Deptford)

  Maxton, J.

  Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

  Grenfell, D. R.

  Milner, Major J.

  Banfield, J. W.

  Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

  Montague, F.

  Barnes, A. J.

  Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)

  Morrison, Rt. Hn. H. (Ha'kn'y, S.)

  Batey, J.

  Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

  Muff, G.

  Bellenger, F.

  Hardie, G. D.

  Oliver, G. H.

  Benson, G.

  Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

  Paling, W.

  Broad, F. A.

  Henderson, J. (Ardwick)

  Parker, H. J. H.

  Bromfield, W.

  Henderson, T. (Tradeston)

  Parkinson, J. A.

  Brooke, W.

  Hills, A. (Pontefract)

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

  Buchanan, G.

  Holland, A.

  Potts, J.

  Burke, W. A.

  Hollins, A.

  Price, M. P.

  Cape, T.

  Hopkin, D.

  Quibell, J. D.

  Charleton, H. C.

  Jagger, J.

  Riley, B.

  Cluse, W. S.

  Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

  Ritson, J.

  Cocks, F. S.

  Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)

  Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Brom.)

  Compton, J.

  Jones, A. C. (Shipley)

  Rowson, G.

  Cove, W. G.

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Salter, Dr. A.

  Cripps, Hon. Sir Stafford

  Kelly, W. T.

  Sanders, W. S.

  Daggar, G.

  Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.

  Sexton, T. M.

  Dalton, H.

  Lansbury, Rt. Hon. G.

  Shinwell, E.

  Davies, D. L. (Pontypridd)

  Lathan, G.

  Short, A.

  Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

  Lawson, J. J.

  Silverman, S. S.

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Leach, W.

  Simpson, F. B.

  Dobbie, W.

  Leslie, J. R.

  Smith, E. (Stoke)

  Ede, J. C.

  Logan, D. G.

  Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees- (K'ly)

  Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

  Lunn, W.

  Smith, T. (Normanton)

  Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.

  McEntee, V. La T.

  Sorensen, R. W.

  1680

  1681

  Stephen, C.

  Walker, J.

  Williams, T. (Don Valley)

  Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)

  Watkins, F. C.

  Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)

  Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

  Watson, W. McL.

  Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)

  Thorne, W.

  Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. J. C.

  Withers, Sir J. J.

  Thurtle, E.

  Welsh, J. C.

  Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

  Tinker, J. J.

  Wilkinson, Ellen

  Young, Sir R. (Newton)

  Vlant, S. P.

  Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

  Walkden, A. G.

  Williams, Dr. J. H. (Lianelly)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Mr. Whiteley and Mr. Mathers.

  Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

  Division No. 16.]

  AYES.

  [11.47 p.m.

  Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke

  Fraser, Capt. Sir I.

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.

  Furness, S. N.

  Pilkington, R.

  Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)

  Gledhill, G.

  Plugge, L. F.

  Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.

  Graham Captain A. C. (Wirral)

  Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

  Albery, I. J.

  Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)

  Porritt, R. W.

  Anderson, Sir A. Garrett (C. of Ldn.)

  Gridley, Sir A. B.

  Radford, F. A.

  Anstruther-Gray, W. J.

  Grigg, Sir E. W. M.

  Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.

  Aske, Sir R. W.

  Guinness, T. L. E. B.

  Ramsden, Sir E.

  Assheton, R.

  Guy, J. C. M.

  Rankin, R.

  Baldwin-Webb, Col. J.

  Hacking, Rt. Hon. D. H.

  Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)

  Balfour, Capt. H. H. (Isle of Thanet)

  Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.

  Rayner, Major R. H.

  Balniel, Lord

  Hepworth, J.

  Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

  Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)

  Herbert, A. P. (Oxford U.)

  Reid, W. Allan (Derby)

  Beit, Sir A. L.

  Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)

  Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)

  Bernays, R. H.

  Hills, Major Rt. Hon. J. W. (Ripon)

  Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)

  Birchall, Sir J. D.

  Holdsworth, H.

  Ropner, Colonel L.

  Bossom, A. C.

  Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

  Ross, Major Sir R. D. (L'nderry)

  Boulton, W. W.

  Hore-Belisha, Rt. Hon. L.

  Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)

  Bower, Comdr. R. T.

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

  Rowlands, G.

  Boyce, H. Leslie

  Hunter, T.

  Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)

  Briscoe, Capt. R. G.

  Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir T. W. H.

  Salt, E. W.

  Brocklebank, C. E. R.

  Jarvis, Sir J. J.

  Samuel, M. R. A. (Putney)

  Brown, Col. D. C. (Hexham)

  Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

  Savery, Servington

  Bull, B. B.

  Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)

  Scott, Lord William

  Burghley, Lord

  Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)

  Seely, Sir H. M.

  Burgin, Dr. E. L.

  Kerr, J. G. (Scottish Universities)

  Shakespeare, G. H.

  Burton, Col. H. W.

  Lamb, Sir J. Q.

  Shepperson, Sir E. W.

  Butt, Sir A.

  Lennox-Boyd, A. T. L.

  Shute, Colonel Sir J. J.

  Cartland, J. R. H.

  Levy, T.

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.

  Carver, Major W. H.

  Liddall, W. S.

  Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)

  Cary, R. A.

  Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.

  Smith, L. W. (Hallam)

  Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)

  Lloyd, G. W.

  Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)

  Channon, H.

  Locker-Lampson, Comdr. O. S.

  Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)

  Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)

  Loftus, P. C.

  Southby, Comdr. A. R. J.

  Chorlton, A. E. L.

  Lovat-Fraser, J. A.

  Spears, Brig.-Gen. E. L.

  Christie, J. A.

  Lyons, A. M.

  Spens, W. P.

  Clydesdale, Marquess of

  Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

  Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)

  Colfox, Major W. P.

  MacAndrew, Lt.-Col. Sir C. G.

  Storey, S.

  Colman, N. C. D.

  M'Connell, Sir J.

  Stourton, Hon. J. J.

  Colville, Lt.-Col. D. J.

  McCorquodale, M. S.

  Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)

  Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)

  McKie, J. H.

  Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)

  Courtauld, Major J. S.

  Macmillan, H. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Strickland, Captain W. F.

  Critchley, A.

  Magnay, T.

  Stuart, Han. J. (Moray and Nairn)

  Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

  Manningham-Buller, Sir M.

  Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

  Croom-Johnson, R. P.

  Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.

  Tate, Mavis C.

  Crowder, J. F. E.

  Maxwell, S. A.

  Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)

  Cruddas, Col. B.

  Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

  Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Derby)

  Davies, C. (Montgomery)

  Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)

  Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)

  Davies, Major G. F. (Yeovil)

  Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Com. R. L.

  Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.

  Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

  Turton, R. H.

  Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)

  Moore-Brabazon, Lt.-Col. J. T. C.

  Wakefield, W. W.

  Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)

  Morris, J. P. (Salford, N.)

  Walker-Smith, Sir J.

  Dugdale, Major T. L.

  Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H.

  Ward, Irene (Wallsend)

  Duncan, J. A. L.

  Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)

  Warrender, Sir V.

  Dunglass, Lord

  Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.

  Waterhouse, Captain C.

  Dunne, P. R. R.

  Nall, Sir J.

  Wilson, Lt. Col. Sir A. T. (Hitchin)

  Eckersley, P. T.

  Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H.

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.

  Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

  Nicolson, Hon. H. G.

  Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

  Elmley, Viscount

  O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh

  Wise, A. R.

  Emery, J. F.

  Orr-Ewing, I. L.

  Womersley, Sir W. J.

  Erskine Hill, A. G.

  Palmer, G. E. H.

  Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)

  Peat, C. U.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)

  Penny, Sir G.

  Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward

  Everard, W. L.

  Perkins, W. R. D.

  and Mr. Blindell.

  Fildes, Sir H.

  Petherick, M.

  NOES.

  Adams, D. (Consett)

  Burke, W. A.

  Gibbins, J.

  Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)

  Cluse, W. S.

  Graham, D. M. (Hamilton)

  Adamson, W. M.

  Cocks, F. S.

  Green, W. H. (Deptford)

  Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)

  Compton, J.

  Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

  Ammon, C. G.

  Cripps, Hon. Sir Stafford

  Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

  Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)

  Daggar, G.

  Hardie, G. D.

  Banfield, J. W.

  Dalton, H.

  Harris, Sir P. A.

  Barnes, A. J.

  Davies, D. L. (Pontypridd)

  Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

  Batey, J.

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Henderson, J. (Ardwick)

  Bellenger, F.

  Dobbie, W.

  Henderson, T. (Tradeston)

  Benson, G.

  Ede, J. C.

  Hills, A. (Pontefract)

  Broad, F. A.

  Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

  Holland, A.

  Bromfield, W.

  Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.

  Hollins, A.

  Brown, C. (Mansfield)

  Frankel, D.

  Hopkin, D.

  Buchanan, G.

  Gardner, B. W.

  Jagger, J.

  1720

  1721

  Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

  Marshall, F.

  Smith, T. (Normanton)

  Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)

  Milner, Major J.

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Jones, A. C. (Shipley)

  Morrison, Rt. Hn. H. (Ha'kn'y, S.)

  Stephen, C.

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Muff, G.

  Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)

  Kelly, W. T.

  Oliver, G. H.

  Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)

  Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.

  Paling, W.

  Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

  Kirby, B. V.

  Parker, H. J. H.

  Tinker, J. J.

  Lansbury, Rt. Hon. G.

  Parkinson, J. A.

  Viant, S. P.

  Lathan, G.

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

  Watson, W. McL.

  Lawson, J. J.

  Potts, J.

  Welsh, J. C.

  Leach, W.

  Qulbell, J. D.

  White, H. Graham

  Logan, D. G.

  Riley, B.

  Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

  Lunn, W.

  Ritson, J.

  Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)

  McEntee, V. La T.

  Rowson, G.

  Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)

  McGhee, H. G.

  Sanders, W. S.

  Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)

  McGovern, J.

  Sexton, T. M.

  Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

  McLaren, A.

  Silverman, S. S.

  Maclean, N.

  Simpson, F. B.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.

  Marklew, E.

  Smith, E. (Stoke)

  Mr. Whiteley and Mr. Mathers.

  UNEMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) (EXTENSION) BILL.
  Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; to be read the Third time To-morrow.

  PENSIONS (GOVERNORS OF DOMINIONS, ETC.) [MONEY].
  Resolution reported,
  "That it is expedient to amend the Pensions (Governors of Dominions, etc.) Acts, 1911 and 1929, by making provision—

  (1) with respect to the nature and period of service qualifying persons for the grant of pensions under section one of the Pensions (Governors of Dominions, etc.) Act, 1911:

  (2) with respect to the meaning of the expression 'service in the permanent Civil Service of the State'; and

  (3) for granting in certain circumstances to persons who, after serving as Governors within the meaning of the said Act, have served in the office of Governor-General of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, pensions in respect of their service as such Governors and in respect of their employment (if any) in service in the permanent Civil Service of the State within the meaning of the said Acts as amended in pursuance of this Resolution;

  and to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of the sums required to defray such expenditure as may be occasioned by the said amendments."
  Resolution agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in upon the said Resolution by Mr. J. H. Thomas, Mr. W. S. Morrison, and Mr. Hacking.

  PENSIONS (GOVERNORS OF DOMINIONS, ETC.) [MONEY].

    PENSIONS (GOVERNORS OF DOMINIONS, ETC.) BILL,
    "to amend the Pensions (Governors of Dominions, etc.) Acts, 1911 and 1929," presented accordingly, and read the First
    1722
    time; to be read a Second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 15.]

  GAS UNDERTAKINGS ACTS, 1970 TO 1934.
  Resolved,
  "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under the Gas Undertakings Acts, 1920 to 1934, on the application of the Cambridge University and Town Gaslight Company, which was presented on the 3rd day of December and published, be approved."
  Resolved,
  "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under the Gas Undertakings Acts, 1920 to 1934, on the application of the Cheltenham and District Gas Company, which was presented on the 3rd day of December and published, be approved."
  Resolved,
  "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under the Gas Undertakings Acts, 1920 to 1934, on the application of the Gravesend and Milton Gas Light Company, which was presented on the 3rd day of December and published, be approved."
  Resolved,
  "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under the Gas Undertakings Acts, 1920 to 1934, on the application of the Harwich Gas and Coke Company, Limited, which was presented on the 3rd day of December and published, be approved."
  Resolved,
  "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under the Gas Undertakings Acts, 1920 to 1934, on the application of the Portsmouth Gas Company, which was presented on the 3rd day of December and published, be approved."
  Resolved,
  "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under the Gas Undertakings Acts, 1920 and 1934, on the application of the urban district council of Tyldesley, which was presented on the 3rd day of December and published, be approved."—[Dr. Burgin.]
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
  It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at Twelve o'Clock.