HC Deb 25 February 1936 vol 309 cc411-23

11.13 p.m.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Dr. Burgin)

I beg to move, That the Bacon (Import Regulation) Amendment Order, 1935, dated the eighteenth day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, made by the Board of Trade under the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1933, a copy of which was presented to this House on the nineteenth day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, be approved. The House will be aware that imports of bacon into this country have been regulated for some time past under the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1933. There have been two previous Orders, and this is the third. The object of this one is to alter the quantity of bacon which may come in weekly from unregulated countries, and the effect of the Order is to reduce from 400 cwts. a week to 225 cwts. a week the supplies of bacon from unregulated countries. The bacon market, as the other agricultural markets of this country, is intended first for the home producer, with the possibility of expansion, than for the Dominion producer, with the possibility of expansion, and the balance for foreign producers. The foreign imports into this country have gone down very rapidly, but countries that have been unregulated have tended to send to this market very much larger supplies than was anticipated, and since 1932 the quantities of bacon coming from unregulated countries have multiplied by some 20 times. The result is that the regular suppliers, the normal countries, which sent large quantities have had their markets interfered with, and the object of this Order is, while keeping the total quantity of bacon that comes in the same, to alter its distribution and see that these unregulated countries have a lesser weekly proportion.

11.15 p.m.

Mr. ALEXANDER

At this late hour, no one wants to keep the House with a long Debate on the subject of this very sectional Bacon Marketing Order, but, having regard to the effect of this and similar Orders upon the bacon market in this country, and the very grave injury it will cause to the breakfast table of the working classes, we must oppose it. The Government are actually introducing this amending Order within a few days of the grocery trade representatives having waited upon the Board of Trade in order to point out the great severity and hardship of the present high prices of bacon. Danish bacon is quoted at 94s. per cwt. compared with 84s. for the corresponding month of last year. The "Grocer" in its leading article pointed out that for the best cuts you have to pay as. 9d. and 2s. per lb.; and yet at this stage, in order still further to extract from the pockets of the working classes this extra sum, the Government introduce this Order. It must be resisted.

11.17 p.m.

Mr. EDE

I want to complain about the paltry way in which the hon. Member presented the Order to the House. We were entitled to considerable more explanation than we received. I have taken the trouble to read the Order of which this is an amending Order, and I should have thought there was sufficient complexity in it to warrant more explanation, and this amending Order makes the original Order even more complicated. At the moment there are seven Orders dealing with pigs and the bacon market. Very soon the imports will be so small that we shall have one pig one Order. The original Order said: If at any time the Board of Trade is satisfied that the rate of importation into the United Kingdom of bacon produced in any foreign country, not being a country named in the schedule to the Order, exceeds 400 cwts. per week, the Board of Trade shall make a declaration to that effect. That was a simple calculation. Now we have the amount reduced to 225 cwts. for certain countries, and apparently for those who in some way or another have managed to exceed the 400 cwts. it is to be nine-sixteenths of the average weekly weight, based on the total annual weight of bacon produced in that country and imported in the year 1934–35, or whichever is the greater when compared with the 225 cwts. It gives no definition of the period over which the present imports are to be calculated in order to be compared with the average import during the years 1934–35.

We are given no statement as to the countries to which this will apply. Apparently it is to apply to countries which are not named in the Schedule. The countries in the Schedule are Argentina, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland and Dantzig, Sweden, United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. I do not know of any country inhabited by the civilised pig which is not included in that list, and I think we might have been told what other countries there are that have been supplying so much more than 225 cwt. per week during the last few months.

I gathered from an answer given by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade to-day that the effect of this Order had already been so great that he was considering some alteration of the quota that was being fixed. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that the present position with regard to the availability of bacon in this country was causing hardship to the trade and to the consumer. That was how I understood his answer, and I do not think there is any dispute about that. It seems to me that inasmuch as this Order came into force on 1st January, 1936, and is only now being submitted to this House for confirmation, we might have had some explanation as to why the answer of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade had to be given this afternoon and this Order presented this evening. I hope that before the House passes the Order we shall receive from the right hon. Gentleman some further explanation and some indication of the countries implicated.

I represent a constituency that firmly believes in free trade. At the last election there were three candidates and they were all free traders. I believe that the hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) was born in my constituency—at any rate he started work in it—and his name is still held in great honour there. He will agree with me that no candidate will get a vote at all in South Shields unless he is a free trader, because we are firmly convinced that, much as we may differ from the Durham coalminers on many things, they will not be such fools as to export their coal unless it is going to be paid for, and there is no way in which it can be paid for except by imports. Every one of these restrictions that is being placed on imports makes the export trade of the great exporting ports of the North East Coast of this country more difficult. I only regret that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, who is a fellow-townsman of my hon. Friend the Member for Spennymoor, is not here to express to us how that particular document is wrong when applied to the town in which he was born.

11.23 p.m.

Mr. R. ACLAND

I cannot allow to pass without challenge, however brief, the fourth paragraph of the Preamble to this Order, in which it is said: that there have been or are being taken all such steps as are practicable and necessary for the efficient reorganisation of the bacon industry. I want to say that it has not been possible for foreign and Dominion bacon industries to win their position in the markets of this country except by standardising and regularising their products. Danish bacon, and even Irish bacon, is known to wholesalers and retailers; they are able to recognise it by its mark; they are able to purchase it with confidence, knowing every time that they will get exactly the same article, whether they buy to-day or next month, whether in London or in Newcastle. But nobody knows at all what British bacon is. On the one day a man will say, "My dear, this is the best bacon I have ever tasted," and on the following day, when there is British bacon again, he will say—whatever it is one does say. There is no standardisation and regularisation. That being the case, there is one British industrial town after another where British bacon is utterly unknown, because the housewife will not be bothered with its variations in quality.

It seems to me that there is no reason whatever why we should not hold a concourse of British bacon to ascertain ten or a dozen of the best grades. Thereafter the factories should be instructed in the means and processes by which bacon of those grades should be produced, and then they should be compelled to produce at first, say, 75 per cent., rising gradually to 100 per cent., by those methods of curing, and by those methods only, so that at last we should get something in this country which could be known as British bacon and recognised as British bacon. It is fantastic when our industry is definitely less efficient than the foreign industries competing with us, that we should ask for this exclusion of the more efficient, in order to bolster up the less efficient. We cannot accept the premise on which the Order is based and we must therefore oppose it.

11.26 p.m.

Mr. SPENS

I cannot allow the speech of the hon. Member for Barnstaple (Mr. Acland) to pass without challenge. The hon. Member has in mind exactly what everybody has in mind who is interested in this industry, but in order to get the British bacon industry not only on to its legs but into a position to progress and gradually to reach a. standardisation of bacon, we have first to get some control over the home market. One of the obstacles in our way has been the fact that a certain number of unregulated countries which were supposed to send in only 400 cwts. or less per week, were, especially during last summer, sending in vastly increased quantities which resulted in the home market being seriously jeopardised and caused a serious crisis in the industry. I know that the right hon. Gentleman who opposed this Motion has his own reasons for doing so, but every pig producer and bacon curer in this country desires the Order as a necessary measure in the interests of the industry. I hope the House will support the Order, as a further stage in the effort to make our own industry efficient.

Mr. ACLAND

Can the hon. and learned Gentleman explain how the importation of foreign bacon can prevent or delay the setting-up of the standards to which all British bacon should conform?

Mr. SPENS

It would take some time to explain, but the answer is easy. First we have to put the industry on its legs, in order that we may progress slowly, but steadily, to standards of efficiency. It is a very big business and is going to take some time, and if hon. Gentlemen opposite try to obstruct every step that is going to assist the industry that is their look-out and not mine. I ask the House to support the Government.

11.29 p.m.

Mr. BUCHANAN

I wish to make a protest. We are becoming more and more familiar with the raising of important issues in the House at a time when we cannot discuss them properly. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander), who is connected with one of the biggest consuming organisations in the country, has had to confine himself to a speech of a few minutes duration en this Order, and we have had two further brief speeches from hon. Members who obviously speak with some knowledge of the subject. This is an important issue to be dealt with so hurriedly. It affects the food of the people. We have been debating the Navy, but what is the use of the Navy if we make the cost of food outside the means of the mass of the people? An hon. Member shakes his head. Does he know that in the east ends of our great cities bacon is practically out with the people, and especially the men on unemployment pay? Hon. Members may say that it will be all right when these schemes are working. Would they like to argue before a judge in that way? The judge would say, "How are the people to live in the meantime?" Hon Members should not fob stuff on us that they would not say in a court. It is not paying us any compliment. We are not discussing this question on its merits; we are discussing it to see whether we can get the Order through by 12 o'clock. This House is perhaps the greatest court in the country, but no court conducts its business by time and with an eye on the clock. Justice ought to come before time. We are not discussing things tonight from the point of view of their rightness or wrongness; we are trying to see whether we can debate them in a particular time.

I would say to the hon. Member for Barnstaple (Mr. Acland) that there is no need to lecture the Parliamentary Secretary on Free Trade. He made whatever reputation he has on Free Trade. He used to walk about with a blackboard demonstrating that Free Trade was the only system that would work, and that no other system could work. He was the one man who even outbid Ramsay Muir in explaining Free Trade. Who are we to lecture him nowadays? I say frankly to those who sit on the Government side that the House cannot go on discussing great issues concerning the food of the people at this time of night. It may be that the hon. and learned Member for Ashford (Mr. Spens) has something to say for his theories, but at least the House of Commons ought to discuss them at a proper time. This Order closely affects masses of poor districts, and to pass it in this perfunctory fashion is lowering the standard of the House of Commons. If we were discussing naval issues or issues of defence, no Tory would stand for it, and he has no right to allow other issues of equal importance to be dealt with by a different code of conduct.

11.34 p.m.

Mr. MARKLEW

There is one aspect of this question with which I am concerned as a representative of a port where a great deal of imported bacon is landed. The introduction of such an Order at this hour provides no opportunity for full discussion of its effects upon the housewife who has to dispose of the small wages coming into her home. The Order will unnecessarily increase the cost of living in one of the first articles of consumption on the working man's breakfast table. I want the Parliamentary Secretary to say one word at least on the effect of Regulations such as these on the employment of men engaged in discharging cargoes of bacon coming to this country. Here is a proposal which will practically reduce the employment among those men by one-half. The Parliamentary Secretary shakes his head. I am anxious to know what his view is, but the position is obvious to me. I know from actual contact with the dockers who discharge those ships, and some of them are supporters of the Government in other respects, that they are complaining bitterly. An indication of how their support of the Government is being whittled away is found in the circumstances of the hon. Member for Grimsby (Sir W. Womersley). At the Election in 1931 he had a majority of 17,000, but, largely owing to the effect of legislation such as this upon work at the docks, that majority fell to 1,700 at the last Election. In the interests of the Government themselves, and more particularly in the interests of these workmen and their wives, more opportunity should be given for the consideration of these important issues.

11.38 p.m.

Dr. BURGIN

The House is at all times entitled to any information it likes about Orders of this kind. There can be in the memories of Members few instances of—

Mr. McGOVERN

On a point of Order. I wish to know whether, under the Rules of the House, the hon. Gentleman is entitled to speak again?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Sir Dennis Herbert)

The Mover of a Motion has a right of reply, and it is obvious from the questions addressed to the hon. Gentleman that hon. Members wish to hear him.

Mr. MAXTON

I could understand your Ruling if you said that the spokesman for the Government was entitled to reply to questions which had been put to him, but I would like you, Sir Dennis, to refer me to any Standing Order which permits any hon. Member to speak twice when the House is not in Committee.

Dr. BURGIN

Further to that point of Order. I thought, with great respect, that on the substantive Motion I had the right of reply.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

I am not sure whether it is one of the Standing Orders, but my impression is that it is. At any rate it is the practice of the House on an occasion like this that the Member who moves the Motion would, without any leave of the House, have the right of reply.

Mr. MAXTON

Neither I nor my hon. Friends would be anxious to prevent the Minister from speaking but it is the usual practice of the House, and preserves the rights of the House, for the Minister to say, "By leave of the House," and if that ordinary courtesy had been observed I am sure my hon. Friend would never have dreamed of raising the point of Order.

Dr. BURGIN

Perhaps by leave of the House—I am as anxious as any hon. Member to preserve the traditions and rights of the House—perhaps by courtesy of the House and by leave of the House I may be able to answer the questions which have been put to me.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

Even if this point is not dealt with in Standing Orders, which do not cover the whole of our procedure, I think hon. Members will accept Erskine May as an authority. There it is stated: A reply is only allowed to the peer or member who has proposed a substantive question to the House; and this privilege is accorded to the Mover of a substantive Motion for the Adjournment of the House. My Ruling was, therefore, in accordance with the practice of the House. The Mover of the Motion has the right to reply. It is obviously for the convenience of the House that the hon. Member should do so, and while I have been considering this point I think he has endeavoured to meet the criticism which was made that he ought to suggest that he was speaking again with the leave of the House.

Dr. BURGIN

I was suggesting that the House is under some misapprehension with regard to the purpose of this Order. Hon. Members have seemed to think that it has some relation to home-cured bacon, and a good deal of one speech was addressed directly to the question as to whether home-cured bacon would he helped by the Order. The hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) seemed to think that an answer given by the President of the Board of Trade with regard to the admission of further bacon to this country was in some way a variation of the Order. It is nothing of the kind. May I explain briefly something which I thought was generally understood and to which, otherwise, I would have devoted time in introducing the Order? There was only the desire on my part to minimise the discussion by taking as read the Order, as one of a series of Orders dealing with a similar topic.

The hon. Member for South Shields asked to what country these regulations apply. I will give him in a moment a list of those that I know of. The system on which bacon is regulated is to take the great suppliers who have won a place in this market and to treat them as the regulated countries, and to treat every other country as an unregulated country. What has happened since 1932 is that a large number of countries who never before engaged in the bacon trade and in the export trade have suddenly come into the market, endeavouring to sell goods which they hitherto did not export at all. That has created an entirely new situation. Instead of allowing these countries that were unregulated and were few in number, to have up to 400 cwts. of bacon a week, it is necessary in view of the large number of additional countries to have 225 cwts. of bacon a week to arrive at the same total. We are not talking here of further restricting the total of foreign bacon; we are talking of dividing the total sum of bacon in a different way among a larger number of countries. I apologise to the House at once if, in the few sentences with which I introduced that Order, that point had not been made clear to hon. Members who have not followed the series of bacon Orders. We are neither discussing home-cured bacon nor the total amount of foreign bacon coming into this country; we are discussing whether a limited number of foreign countries shall be allowed to export to us 400 cwts. a week, or whether a greater number should be allowed to export 225 cwts. a week; and the mathematical totals of the two are precisely the same.

What we are discussing, therefore, is the distribution among a number of unregulated countries of the total amount that is permitted to come into this country. That is the only point in this Order to which I desire to draw the attention of the House. It is the only paragraph of the main bacon regulating Order which is being amended. There is no question of Free Trade or restriction arising here. The point is the equity of the distribution of a given total among a number of countries fairly. The countries are: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg. Norway, Rumania, Spain, Switzerland and Yugoslavia. The right way to divide the amount which is available for foreign countries in all is to obey our treaty obligations to the regulated countries, to divide up the remainder among the unregulated countries, to endeavour to treat them all with equality and to say that their maximum cannot exceed 225 cwts. a week. It does not alter tile total that comes here; it alters the quantities sent by the different countries, reducing sonic, which have hitherto sent 400 cwt., to 225 cwt., and permitting some, which have sent less than 225 cwt., to send nine-sixteenths of that quantity. It endeavours to deal with those countries which were regarded as no considerable exporters of bacon on some sort of rough and ready equality by saying that no one is to exceed 225 cwt. per week; that is the sum total of the effect of the Order. No question of the breakfast table, no question of the food of the people, arises or is in order or is germane to this question; we are discussing the distribution of a certain quantity of bacon among a rather larger number of countries. I apologise for not having made t hat clear at the start; I had thought t hat it was clear from the Order itself.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

Before I put the Question, I should like to explain a little more clearly the point of Order that was raised. I have already referred to the statement of Erskine May that the. Mover of a substantive Motion has a

right of reply. I think that perhaps some hon. Members may not have distinguished between an Order of the Day and a substantive Motion. This is not an Order of the Day; if it were, the Mover would not have the right to reply. It is a substantive Motion, and, that being so, the Mover has the right to reply, and has not to ask the leave of the House to do so. If hon. Members will be good enough to look at page 139 of the Manual of Procedure and the following page, they will see there confirmation of what I have said, and the reference to Erskine May.

Question put, That the Bacon (Import Regulation) Amendment Order, 1935, dated the eighteenth day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, made by the Board of Trade under the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1933, a copy of which Was presented to this House on the nineteenth day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, be approved.

The House divided: Ayes, 191; Noes, 104.

Division No. 61.] AYES. [11.47 p.m.
Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J. Cruddas, Col. B. Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)
Agnew, Lieut. -Comdr. P. G. Culverwell, C. T. Holmes. J. S.
Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd) Davidson, Rt. Hon. Sir J. C. C. Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.
Anderson, Sir A. Garrett (C. of Ldn.) De Chair, S. S. Horsbrugh, Florence
Anstruther-Gray, W. J. Dugdale, Major T. L. Howitt, Dr. A. B.
Apsley, Lord Duggan, H. J. Hunter, T
Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.) Duncan, J. A. L. Jackson, Sir H.
Baldwin-Webb, Col. J. Dunglass, Lord Jones, L. (Swansea, W.)
Balfour, Capt. H. H. (Ish of Thanet) Eckersley, P. T. Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)
Barclay-Harvey, C. M. Edmondson, Major Sir J. Keyes, Admiral of the Fleet Sir R.
Beauchamp, Sir B. C. Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E. Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h) Ellis, Sir G. Latham, Sir P.
Beit, Sir A. L. Elliston, G. S. Leech, Dr. J. W.
Bernays, R. H. Elmley, Viscount Lennox-Boyd, A. T. L.
Birchall, Sir J. D. Emery, J. F. Levy, T.
Blindell, Sir J. Emrys- Evans, P. V. Lindsay, K. M.
Borodale, Viscount Entwistle, C. F. Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.
Bossom, A. C. Errington, E. Lloyd, G. W.
Boulton, W. W. Erskine Hill, A. G. Locker- Lampson, Comdr. O. S.
Bower, Comdr. R. T. Everard, W. L. Loder, Captain Hon. J. de V.
Bowyer, Capt. Sir G. E. W. Findlay, Sir E. Loftus, P. C.
Boyd-Carpenter, Major Sir A. B. Fleming, E. L. Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)
Briscoe, Capt. R. G Fraser, Capt. Sir I MacAndrew, Lt.-Col. Sir C. G.
Brocklebank, C. E. R. Fyfe, D. P. M. McCorquodale, M. S.
Brown, Col. D. C. (Hexham) Ganzonl, Sir J Mac Donald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury) Gledhill, G. McEwen, Capt. H. J. F.
Bull, B. B. Glyn, Major Sir R. G. C. McKie, J. H.
Burghley, Lord Goodman, Col. A. W. Maclay, Hon. J. P.
Burgin, Dr. E. L. Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral) Magnay, T.
Butler, R. A. Greene, W. p. C. (Worcester) Maitland, A.
Campbell, Sir E. T. Gridley, Sir A. B. Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.
Cartland, J. R. H. Guest, Maj. Hon. O.(C'mb'rw'll, N. W.) Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Cary, R. A. Grlmston, R. V. May hew, Lt.-Col. J.
Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.) Gunston, Capt. D. W. Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)
Channon, H. Guy, J. C. M. Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Chapman, A. (Rutherglen) Hamilton, sir G. C. Mitchell, H. (Brentford and Chiswick)
Christie, J. A. Hanbury, Sir C. Moreing, A. C.
Clydesdale, Marquess of Hannah, I. C. Morgan, R. H.
Cobb, Sir C. S. Hannon, Sir P. J. H. Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H.
Coiville, Lt.-Col. D. J. Harbord, A. Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)
Courtauld, Major J. S. Harvey, G. Morrison, W. S. (Cirencester)
Crooke, J S. Heilgers, Captain F. F. A. Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.
Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C. Heneage, Lieut. -Colonel A. P. Munro, P. M.
Cross, R. H. Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan- Nicolson, Hon. H. G.
Palmer, G. E. H. Russell, R. J. (Eddisbury) Tate, Mavis C.
Penny, Sir G. Salt, E. W. Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)
Perkins, W. R. D. Samuel, M. R. A. (Putney) Thomson, Sir J. D. W.
Petherick, M. Scott, Lord William Tufnell, Lieut.-Com. R. L.
Pilkington, R. Shakespeare, G. H. Turton, R. H.
Ponsonby, Col. C. E. Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree) Wakefield, W, W.
Procter, Major H. A. Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar) Walker-Smith, Sir J.
Radford, E. A. Shepperson, Sir E. W. Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)
Raikes, H. V. A. M. Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A. Ward, Irene (Wallsend)
Ramsay, Captain A. H. M. Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's u. B'lf'st), Warrender, Sir V.
Ramsbotham, H. Smith, L. W. (Hallam) Waterhouse, Captain C.
Ramsden, Sir E. Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen) Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.
Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin) Southby, Comdr. A. R. J. Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)
Rayner, Major R. H. Spears, Brig. -Gen. E. L. Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Reed, A. C. (Exeter) Spens, W. P. Womersley, Sir W. J.
Rickards, G. W. (Skipton) Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde) Wragg, H.
Ropner, Colonel L. Strauss, H. G. (Norwich) Young, A. S. L. (Partick)
Ross, Major Sir R. D. (L'derry) Strickland, Captain W. F.
Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbrldge) Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (N'thw'h) TELLERS FOR THE AYES —.
Rowlands, G. Sueter. Rear-Admiral Sir M. F. Major George Davies and Mr.
Rugglcs-Brlse, Colonel Sir E. A. Sutcliffe, H. James Stuart
NOES.
Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple) Harris, Sir P. A. Potts, J.
Adams, D. (Consett) Henderson, A. (Kingswinlord) Pritt, D. N.
Adamson, W. M. Henderson, J. (Ardwick) Richards, R. (Wrexham)
Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.) Henderson, T. (Tradeston) Riley, B.
Ammon. C. G. Hollins, A. Ritson, J.
Anderson, F. (Whitehaven) Jagger, J. Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Brom.)
Banfield, J. W. Jenkins, A. (Pontypool) Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)
Batey, J. Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath) Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)
Bellenger, F. John. W. Rowson, G.
Benson, G. Jones, A. C. (Shipley) Seely, Sir H. M.
Bevan, A. Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth) Sexton, T. M.
Bromfield, W. Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) Silverman, S. S.
Buchanan, G. Kelly, W. T. Simpson, F. B.
Burke, W. A. Klrby, B. V. Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)
Cluse, W. S. Lathan, G. Smith, E. (Stoke)
Cocks, F. S Lawson, J. J. Smith, T. (Normanton)
Compton, J. Lee. F. Sorensen, R. W.
Daggar, G. Leonard, W. Stewart, W. J. (H'ghfn-le-Sp'ng)
Dalton, H. Leslie, J. R. Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)
Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill) Logan, D. G. Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)
Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton) Lunn, W. Thurtte, E.
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr) Macdonald, G. (Ince) Tinker, J. J.
Day, H. McEntee, V. La T. Viant, S. P.
Ede, J. C. McGovern, J. Walkden, A. G.
Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwelity) MacLaren, A. Walker, J.
Evans, D. O. (Cardigan) Maclean, N. Westwood, J.
Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H. MacMillan, M. (Western Isles) Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)
Frankel. D. Mainwaring, W. H. Williams, T. (Don Valley)
Gardner, B. W. Marklew, E. Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)
Garro-Jones, G. M. Maxton, J. Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)
Green, W. H. (Deptford) Milner, Major J. Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.) Young, Sir R. (Newton)
Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbru, W.) Oliver, G. H.
Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth) Paling, W. TELLERS FOR THE NOES —
Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel) Parker, H. J. H. Mr. Whiteley and Mr. Mathers.
Handle, G. D. Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.