§ Mr. H. G. WILLIAMSIn the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Sir A. Wilson), I desire to say that we do not propose to move any of the other 16 Motions which stand in his name on the Order Paper.
§
The following Motion stood upon the Order Paper:
That the Scottish District (Coal Mines) Scheme (Amendment) Order. 1936, a draft of which was laid before this House on the 19th day of May. 1936, pursuant to Subsection (4) of Section three of the Coal Mines Act, 1930, be not made until adequate safeguards for consumers have been included and means provided for ascertaining that a living wage has been paid to the miners engaged in the production."—[Mr. Stephen.]
§ 11.25 p.m.
§ Mr. STEPHENMy friends and I have been approached by the Glasgow Corporation, who put before us what we thought 1909 were very sound arguments for the rejection of this Order. We recognise that on that authority there is a majority of Labour party and Independent Labour party Members, and we thought it only courteous to our colleagues that their objections should be expressed in the House of Commons. Since the deputation met us, the Minister for Mines has made certain statements, but the corporation, continues its objection and sees no reason why it should be withdrawn in spite of what are evidently regarded as concessions by some other Members of the House. My friends and I object to this Order for other reasons than the fact that the great corporation which we represent objects to it. We realise that the Coal Mines Act was the only thing the miners got out of the general strike and the Labour Government with regard to their conditions, and everyone in the House will recognise, in view of the conditions of the miners to-day, that it was not enough. It has made a very pitiful contribution to their welfare. When the Act was before the House, some of the supporters of the Labour Government were not so trustful as the majority of the party with regard to the coalowners, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) tried to get introduced into it a definite minimum wage. We were attacked for moving that Amendment, and the miners' Members told us that, if only they got the Act, the Union would be able to look after the interests of the men and they did not need any such thing in the Act. Since then the miners have been back trying to get a minimum wage put upon the Statute Book.
Although I listened to a great part of the previous Debate, I do not want to go into any of the general arguments that were put forward, but I will say that my hon. Friends above the Gangway are very much more trustful than I and colleagues below the Gangway. The miners have got practically nothing at all out of the Act so far, and yet here we are in the position that again the miners' Members in this House are trusting to this Government, to the Secretary for Mines, and to the coalowners that things will be different this time, and that they are going to get something out of these schemes. I would not trust this Government any distance. It is just about as mean and pitiable a Govern- 1910 ment as any that this country has ever had. We have already seen how they are preparing to go back upon everything that was said at the Election with regard to pledges in the matter of the means test. I only mention that as an illustration. As far as the working class and their interests are concerned, I would not trust the Government any distance at all. As for the coalowners, and the coalowners in Scotland in particular, how Labour Members can put any trust in them is quite beyond me. So far as their dealings with the Scottish mine workers are concerned, they have been as mean and pitiless a body of employers as it is possible to find anywhere. They are the kind of people that would steal a worm from a blind hen, and yet to those people is being entrusted a complete monopoly with regard to the selling of coal. It is hoped that those people, with a little oversight from the Government, are going, within this monopoly, to provide a living wage for the miners. Maybe they are. Miracles have possibly happened in the world at some time, and maybe those Scottish mineowners are going back on all their past, but I say to the Minister, and to the Labour Members, that surely there should be a statutory obligation before the Members of this House agree to give these powers to the coalowners. Put the condition that there shall be a living wage for the miners into your agreement
§ Mr. SPEAKERUnless the hon. Member is prepared to leave out of his Motion all the words after "made," this Motion will not be exempted business, and I shall have to rule it out of order at this time of night. The only Motion which the hon. Member can move under the provision of the Act of Parliament is "That the Order be not made." That will make the Motion pursuant to an Act of Parliament, and consequently exempted business.
§ Mr. STEPHENMay I say that the Motion does not say that these things are to be included in the Order to-night. It says that the Order should not be made, and a reason is indicated. All that the Motion conveys is the reason why the Order should not be made. I am not now moving an amendment of the Order.
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe Motion is "That the Order be not made." If the hon. 1911 Member will end his Motion at "made," I can put it.
§ Mr. STEPHENI beg to move,
That the Scottish District (Coal Mines) Scheme (Amendment) Order, 1936, a draft of which was laid before this House on the 19th day of May, 1936, pursuant to subsection (4) of section three of the Coal Mines Act, 1930, be not made.I have no option but to obey your ruling, Mr. Speaker, and I do so with respect. I should have thought that hon. Members on this side of the House, in view of their past experience and in view of what the miners have hitherto got out of promises, would have refused absolutely to agree to these Orders until the Government were prepared to put into the Orders a definite statutory pro-.vision for a living wage for the miners. I would draw attention to Part II, paragraph (2) of the Schedule where the Order makes provision for compensation. There are not only the interests of the wages of the miners affected, and those wages are left undetermined, but there are the coalowners' interests concerned with the Order. In the second paragraph of Part II it is laid down as a statutory obligation that there shall bepayment by the executive board of such compensation as may be determined in accordance with the provisions of the scheme to the owner of any coal mine in the district who has been deprived of a- fair and equitable share of the trade of the district in consequence of his compliance with such provisions of the scheme as may for that purpose be specified therein.Why should that not have been left indefinite? Why should it not have been said that there would be a provision made for the owners in those circumstances? Why should it not have been said that the Government when they see the scheme in operation will see that the coalowners in these circumstances get compensation? Why put in a statutory obligation because the coalowners are involved? There is not a statutory obligation so far as the workers' wages are concerned, but if a coalowner may lose anything, then there is to be a compensation and a statutory obligation put in the Order. My hon. Friends above the Gangway seem to be content. These selling schemes appear to me to be the biggest ramp of which I have ever had experience in this House since I came here in 1922. I know nothing with regard to legislation passed by this House which gives such 1912 an opportunity for a ramp as is contained in the Orders before the House to-night.I am sorry that our numbers did not make it possible for us to oppose the previous Motion, but we are taking this opportunity of expressing our opposition against handing over such a monopoly to the worst body of employers in the country. A body of employers who have exploited the public and the miners as the coalowners have done are the last people to whom such a monopoly should be given. In my opinion it is an outrage. As I listened to the previous Debate I imagined a different House of Commons, a House with a working-class majority of Members, and the business a Bill for the nationalisation of the coal industry. I imagined that I could hear the Labour Minister of Mines explaining that when the Bill got into operation and proved successful the coalowners who were being deprived of their mines by the measure would have suitable compensation; he would give them his word and the honour of the Government that adequate compensation would be provided. Do hon. Members above the Gangway think that hon. Members opposite would have sat quiet? Would there not have been an uproar, hon. Members insisting that the compensation should be a statutory obligation? Those who represent and are closely associated with the working class movement have no right to hand over the interests of the working classes in the way now proposad without a statutory obligation being provided. Although we have not a majority in this House we shall get a majority in the country, and the whole of the working classes will support us in our rejection of this scheme, which will do nothing for the miners, but will put the coalowners in a more solid position for a further exploitation of the consumers and the miners.
§ 11.45 p.m.
§ Mr. BUCHANANI beg to second the Motion.
I wish to say a few words regarding the request made not merely by the Glasgow Town Council, but by practically all the local authorities and public utility societies in Scotland. The other day I and my hon. Friends met a deputation of Scottish local authorities and many of the Scottish public utility undertakings, and they unanimously requested us that this proposal, particularly in so far as 1913 Scotland is concerned, should be opposed. Before dealing with that point, may I say that the situation seems to be constantly arising in this House that hon. Members who used to oppose these things from the back benches are now always becoming the apologists of the Front Bench? I remember that when the Secretary for Mines sat on the back benches, he was very keen to see that Parliament preserved every one of its rights and allowed nothing to pass out of its control. To-day we are handing great interests practically outside the control of the House. We are not even handing them over to a representative committee, but merely to a representative section of the coalowners. The public utility societies and these great corporations, reinforced to-day by the city of Glasgow, asked us no later than six o'clock to-night even to go into the Division Lobby against this proposal.
What are the facts? These public utility societies and corporations manufacturing electricity and gas, under the powers that this House has given, must manufacture those commodities at a certain standard. They must sell gas at a certain standard, and if they sell below that quality, they are punishable by fines imposed by courts of law. But they can only supply those commodities at the standard insisted on by this House if they are supplied with the proper class of coal with which to do so. Under these Orders, the Glasgow Corporation, as a producer of gas, must take the coal that the coalowners and selling agents give it. If that coal is not up to the required standard, the local authority obviously cannot produce a commodity of the standard laid down by Act of Parliament. That is the position. You have a corporation, the biggest producer of gas in the whole of Scotland, at the mercy of the selling agencies; it has to take whatever coal they like to give it, while the Act of Parliament says that it must produce gas of a certain standard. The Glasgow Corporation, which is possibly to be placed in the dock and fined because it cannot manufacture gas of the required standard, has no defence against being supplied with, coal not meant for the purpose.
That was the position in which the local authorities were placed. Apart from the important considerations of 1914 price they had to take the supplies whenever the selling agencies gave them the supplies, even if it was at a time of year when they did not want those supplies. That meant storing the supplies, and double-handling, in addition to the local authorities having to lay out capital for. a period when they had no need to do it. These were sound arguments which had not been answered by the Minister. It might be said that there was some kind of appeal. Obviously if the local authorities were supplied with an inferior type of coal and were brought before the courts for supplying an inferior quality of gas they had a right of appeal, but their case was that the appeal was of too roundabout a kind to be of value and that by the time the necessary representations had been made they would be in the dock. Hon. Members associated with him, acting as they did at the unanimous request of local authorities of every shade of opinion in Scotland, would divide on this matter.
The Minister of Mines had sought to make the defence that if the technique of selling could be improved the standard of living of the miners would probably be raised. But he had only said that it might rise; he had never said that he would make it his duty to see that the standard of living of the miners must be raised. All that the Minister had said in reply to the hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Paling) was that it was hoped to improve selling facilities, that it was hoped as a result that better prices would be secured, and that the miner would therefore be given a better chance. He had not said that he would make it his duty to see that if technique was improved the miner must have a charge on the extra money coming into the industry. The assumption underlying the Minister's argument was that you raised the standard and consequently gave a better chance for the miner to get more out of the pool. But that depended on two things—first, the strength of the miners' organisation, and secondly, how much unemployment was affecting the miner. The miner cannot face impossible odds, and if there is an unemployed army outside that largely determines his wage. The thing that determines the miner's wages in the absence of some kind of statutory enforcement is the fact that every day his position is becoming more difficult in 1915 spite of all your selling agencies. Every day sees the machine entering more largely into the work of the mines and displacing the men. While the argument for this proposal may appear all right on the face of it, it is a fictitious argument because it leaves out of account the progress of science which is constantly making it more difficult for the miner to get anything out of the pool as the years go by.
We think that this proposal is a wrong approach to the problem. The Government are doing here what they have done elsewhere. They have a record, as the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) well said, of pleasing their own friends. One day we are discussing the handing out of a shipping subsidy and next day it is a beet sugar subsidy. One day it is the farmers and the next day it is the railways, but every time it is a section of the friends of right hon. Gentlemen opposite. Every time it is the rich. To-night, when it comes to the miners, you are going to give them a make-believe a mockery and a sham. You say you are going to give the miners some kind of chance but you first take steps to secure your own friends and we on. this side will divide against this proposal.
§ 11.57 p.m.
§ Mr. BARRI shall refer only to one or two remarks will fell from the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen). He reminded the House that his colleague the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), in 1930 proposed the insertion in this Act of a national minimum wage Clause, and he said that those who now sit on these benches, or many of us, did not respond to the hon. Member's appeal on that occasion. To that statement I have three answers to make. First, when about the same time the hon. Member for Bridgeton on a Friday afternoon brought in a general Minimum Wage Bill we gave general support to that Measure and I myself voted for it. Secondly, the Clause which the hon. Member proposed to introduce into this Measure was permissive, providing, as it did, that the National Board "may" fix a minimum wage. It was not compulsory. We have heard the appeal repeated and reiterated for a statutory Clause but that was not statutory, in the sense of being binding. Thirdly, we could not at that time command a majority in the House and if we 1916 had insisted on the insertion of that Clause it would have meant the wrecking of the Measure and the Miners' Federation declared that they would rather have the Bill without that Clause than imperil the Bill by insisting on it.
I have always acted on one principle in matters of this kind. I have a considerable number of miners in my constituency but I have no technical knowledge of their interests and concerns. When I have been approached by local authorities in my constituency on this matter I have always said that I would consult the mining Members of this House and act along with them, in what they thought to be the best interests of the miners. That is the position that I take now. I would only add one thing more. My hon. Friend the Member for Camlachie spoke of the record of the owners, and I have certainly had a good deal of experience of that and would be the last to say a word in their favour. I am just as keen a supporter of the nationalisation of mines as my hon. Friend is, and when I heard the hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. James Griffiths), who is, I believe, an ex-President of the South Wales Miners' Federation, in his most eloquent, moving, and convincing speech this afternoon say that he was supporting this Measure to-night because it was another milestone on the march towards making the mines a public service, a public, national service, that was enough for me. With all respects, although I recognise the arguments that have been put forward from below the Gangway, I choose rather to follow the advice and the moving speech of one so intimately identified with the interests of the miners, the Miners' Federation, and the welfare of the working classes.
§ 12.2 a.m.
§ Mr. TINKERI too recognise the sincerity of my hon. Friends below the Gangway, but they have, referred to us above the Gangway in their criticisms, and I want to tell them that this matter has been discussed by the Executive of the Miners' Federation, who have examined it in all its features, and their opinion is that we had better support these selling agencies. I have fought for these selling agencies for Lancashire, where we have already got them in use, and there is some slight benefit from them. We are hoping that more will come, but unless we can get all the other 1917 districts adopting selling agencies, we in Lancashire will be faced with this, that the other districts will undercut Lancashire and, therefore, break down whatever attempt is being made to stabilise prices. We have had this competition, because it must be realised that the Scottish coalowners are attempting to get custom wherever they can, and in order to get it they are cutting prices to obtain other districts.
§ Mr. BUCHANANThey are in favour of this scheme, are they not?
§ Mr. TINKERYes, but I understand that pressure has been brought to bear upon them because of the Government having given a pledge to the miners in their attempt to get better wages. There was a threat of the miners coming out, and the Government, in their difficulty, said, "If you will accept certain conditions, we are prepared later on to try and get the coalowners to adopt selling agencies." It is not that the Government, in their heart of hearts, have the welfare of the miners at heart, but they were in a difficulty and had to make these offers. We are placed in this position, that if we turn down these schemes to-night, the Government will likely say to us, "You refused to accept our offer; there is no money in the till, and you have defeated your own purpose. Why therefore come to us?" If on the other hand, we get these selling agencies in operation, and they fail to give us what we desire, then we can say to the Government, "We have done all that it is possible to do to improve the men's wages. Our efforts have failed, and it is now up to you to do something more definite." If we refuse this offer, we shall hardly have any case to put before the country. It is because of that that we support the scheme, not because we have any love for the Government or for the coalowners. I am always distrustful of them, but I cannot in a case like this refuse to adopt what the Miners' Federation have asked us to accept. The men in the industrial field have examined this matter from every angle. When they advise us to accept them it is our duty to do so, and if a Division is forced to-night, I shall be obliged, much as I dislike voting against my hon. Friends, to vote in support of this scheme.
§ 12.5 a.m.
Lieut.-Colonel C. KERRI should like to congratulate the last speaker on his support of the Government, which I am sure is appreciated. One point fell from the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) which is very material to my constituents, and I have had a great many letters about it. They are perturbed about the question where they shall be allowed to buy their coal and whether they will have absolute freedom to buy the coal they want where they like. I was not here when the Minister made his opening speech to-day, but I understand from those who were here that it was clear there were no restrictions, and that they will be free to buy coal of the qualities they require where they want. I shall be grateful to the Minister if he would reassure me on that point.
§ 12.6 a.m.
§ Captain CROOKSHANKThe speeches of the two hon. Members opposite have more or less cancelled out the two speeches from below the Gangway.
§ Mr. STEPHENYou do not call that an answer?
§ Captain CROOKSHANKIt was an answer the House was interested to hear, and all I rise to do is to answer one or two specific points which were put to me. I do not know whether the hon. Gentlemen who moved and seconded this Motion were here when I made my opening speech, but it was at the end of that speech that I dealt with the problem they have been discussing.
§ Mr. MAXTONThe hon. Gentleman need not disturb himself about that. We took care that there was at least one representative of our group here all through the day and we have been fully informed of everything the hon. Gentleman has done. We regret very much that we spent so much time to get so little.
§ Captain CROOKSHANKPerhaps the representative was feeling the heat and did not report that I dealt specifically with the difficulties and fears which many people have felt in regard to this matter. My hon. and gallant Friend was not here, and as the rules against repetition in the House are, and they must be, very 1919 strong against repetition on the same day, I might suggest to hon. Members that they should see what I said on that point. Actually the hon. Member for Newport (Sir R. Clarry) in the earlier Debate raised the question of the safeguards of the consumers and I indicated then that various points about prices and supplies were questions which were within the competence of the Committees of Investigation.
§ Mr. STEPHENThey are no good.
§ Captain CROOKSHANKThe hon. Member will have to look at a detailed report of what I went on to say. I said that it was desirable, in my view that these committees should have chairmen who were not representative of either consumers' or mining interests, but that they should have independent legal chairmen. I also said it was clear that one of the important things which emerged in my consideration of all the fears that were expressed to me was that these committees should be in such a position as to be able to make speedy and final decisions. I indicated that when the question came up of extending the Act o the opportunity would be taken by me for proposing to the House an amendment to the powers and functions of the Committees of Investigation on those lines. I was careful to add that even then all the difficulties might not have emerged, and that we would have the position watched in order to prevent anything which might give rise to a feeling that the powers were being abused to the detriment of the consumers. I also made it clear that no changes of that kind were to be taken as meaning that there was any variation in our belief in the need for organised selling.
§ Mr. STEPHENI heard all that, but as a lawyer myself I do not think that getting a member of the legal profession as chairman will make all that difference. My point that this Order does not give liberty of buying to local authorities is still not met.
§ Captain CROOKSHANKI would ask the hon. Member to study carefully what I have said. I knew that a great many hon. Members had had these representations made to them and I tried to explain the position as clearly as I could, and he will see my statement in the 1920 OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow. As to the other point, the hon. Member, if I may respectfully say so, in spite of being a lawyer, has slightly misunderstood the effect of the word "compensation." I explained in my earlier speech that in order to prevent evasion it was important that the distribution of trade shares should be on the basis of past performance. But, under a central control system, the system which applies to Scotland and 11 other districts, there will be nothing to prevent a particular undertaking getting more than its trade share. In such a case the theory would be that it was getting this advantage at the expense of some other undertaking in the district; that if A got more B would be getting less, and therefore A would pay a contribution which would be available for B, which had not been able to sell up to its trade share. But that is a transaction between two colliery undertakings and the hon. Member is under a misapprehension in thinking that it affects the wages bill of the district.
§ Mr. STEPHENIt is not obvious that if A loses part of its trade there will be less employment for its miners? But they will get no compensation for being on unemployment pay instead of drawing wages, although the owners are to be compensated by B. Therefore, the men are in an inferior position.
§ Captain CROOKSHANKThat may be, but I do not think it is likely that there will be much compensation because the whole point of providing for the payment of compensation was to secure the abolition of evasion. All I say is that it will not materially affect the wage position. The general answer I make to the speech of the hon. Member is the answer I have given all through in support of these schemes, and it is the Labour party's defence of them also. They have been devised with a very sincere intention on the part of the coal-owners—in spite of what the hon. Member may say—of acting for the benefit of the industry in which they themselves are so vitally interested; they have been endorsed by the Government as being the most useful way available now of helping to increase the proceeds of the industry; and their reception, as evidenced in the case of the central draft Order, shows that they have secured the 1921 assent of the House—I presume with the exception of the four hon. Members who sit below the Gangway.
§ 12.15 a.m.
§ Mr. WATSONThe hon. Member and his Friends are doing right in representing the City from which they come. I have received a telegram to the effect that a meeting in the City of Glasgow supported these draft Orders. The hon. Member is exercising his right in opposing them. I have not the representation of the Labour party in this matter, but of a conference in the City of Glasgow. He is doing his duty in representing his constituents, and I am representing my constituents in opposing the proposition of the hon. Member. I have to support this scheme. I am the representative of the miners, in a sense, and the miners have come to a certain decision in regard to these proposed schemes. So far as I know, the Scottish miners have not objected, and the British miners have approved. More than that, the power to make these schemes is in the Act of 1930, so that if the miners were against the making of the schemes, they have had sufficient time to make up their minds. They have not objected to the making of the schemes during the period which has elapsed since the passing of the 1930 Act. o To-night we are faced with the making of the schemes, arid the Miners' Federation have agreed to support that development. We are not making ourselves responsible for the schemes. The Government are responsible, and we are simply letting these schemes go through. We approve them in the hope that they are going to achieve the purpose of increasing the wages of the British miners.
§ 12.18 a.m.
§ Mr. MAXTONI am sorry to intervene, but the last speaker brings me to my feet. I was proposing to ignore a previous speech in which an hon. Member gave his reasons for not supporting the minimum wage in the Bill of 1930. I accept his reasons, and I do not want to hark back to the quarrels of six years ago. Since then the circumstances have fundamentally altered. I can remember that the guiding principle in the minds of the majority of Members was loyalty to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer of that time. That certainly does not operate now, and I just leave that. But this is the point which 1922 remains standing out in front of us tonight—that in 1930 we did not get the wage figures statutorily fixed for the miners in the Bill. The Government told us that it would come along by the benevolent operation of the Act in general. The miners thought it would come along and that they would have a fighting chance to do something. It has not happened. Six years the miners have waited for some reasonable improvement in their conditions. Have they had it? What did they get? They got a miserable 6d. or 7d. a few months ago. That is all they have got as the fruit of the Act of 1930. To-night the miners are asked to wait again for the rare and refreshing fruits that are to come from the selling agencies when they are set up and operating.
Obviously there is a difference in point of view. If a Cabinet Minister's salary, a teacher's salary, or a civil servant's salary is to be statutorily laid down—aye, if a minister's stipend is to be made an absolute minimum guaranteed all over the country—there is absolutely no reason why a miner's wage should not be laid down also, at a level below which the wage of no miner in this country can fall. They are the most patient body of workers in the country; theirs is the most arduous, fundamental toil; and yet to-night the miners are fobbed off by being told to wait for the bringing about, at some possibly distant date, of a situation in which their wages may be improved.
We know that the miner's wage to-day is somewhere in the £2 area. We know that the worst unemployment regulations that we can imagine the Minister of Labour bringing forward will provide more in unemployment assistance for an unemployed man who is married and has a large family than the average miner gets in Britain to-day. We make statutory provision for the man who is doing nothing—the unemployed man—and rightly so; and yet the same old arguments are brought forward to justify a refusal to make statutory provision for the miner. We do not take that view. It is a fundamental difference. We believe that the miner should be guarded by Act of Parliament before anyone—before the soldier, the sailor, the policeman or anyone else; and we are going to indicate it here to-night by casting our vote in that direction.
§
Question put,
That the Scottish District (Coal Mines) Scheme (Amendment) Order, 1936, a draft of which was laid before this House on the 19th day of May, 1936, pursuant to Sub-
§ The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
§ It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock upon Wednesday evening, Mr.
1924§ section (4) of Section three of the Coal Mines Act, 1930, be not made."
§ The House divided: Ayes, 3; Noes, 151
1923| Division No. 248.] | AYES. | [12.23 a.m. |
| Leonard, W. | Stephen, C. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Maxton, J. | Mr. Buchanan and Mr. McGovern. |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J. | Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester) | Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J. |
| Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G. | Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. | Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H. H. |
| Apsley, Lord | Gridley, Sir A. B. | Nicolson, Hon. H. G. |
| Aske, Sir R. W. | Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.) | Orr-Ewing, I. L. |
| Baldwin-Webb, Col. J. | Griffiths, J. (Llanelly) | Paling, W. |
| Balfour, Capt. H. H. (Isle of Thanet) | Grimston, R. V. | Palmer, G. E. H. |
| Banfield, J. W. | Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E. (Drake) | Patrick, C. M. |
| Barclay-Harvey, Sir C. M. | Gunston, Capt. D. W. | Peake, O. |
| Barr, J. | Guy, J. C. M. | Perkins, W. R. D. |
| Benson, G. | Hall, G. H. (Aberdare) | Potts, J. |
| Bernays, R. H. | Hannah, I. C. | Power, Sir J. C. |
| Blindell, Sir J. | Hannon, Sir P. J. H. | Pritt, D. N. |
| Boulton, W. W. | Harbord, A. | Radford, E. A. |
| Boyce, H. Leslie | Hartington, Marquess of | Ramsbotham, H. |
| Bracken, B. | Hellgers, Captain F. F. A. | Rayner, Major R. H. |
| Briscoc, Capt. R. G. | Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan- | Reid, W. Allan (Derby) |
| Bromfield, W. | Holmes, J. S. | Remer, J. R. |
| Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith) | Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J. | Ropner, Colonel L. |
| Browne, A. C. (Belfast, W.) | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hack., N.) | Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge) |
| Bull, B. B. | Hulbert, N. J. | Rowson, G. |
| Carver, Major W. H. | Hunter, T. | Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A. |
| Cary, R. A. | Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir T. W. H. | Russell, A. West (Tynemouth) |
| Channon, H. | Jenkins, A. (Pontypool) | Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen) |
| Chapman, A. (Rutherglen) | Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath) | Salmon, Sir I. |
| Christie, J. A. | Joel, D. J. B. | Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree) |
| Colville, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. D. J. | John, W. | Simpson, F. B. |
| Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C. | Jones, L. (Swansea, W.) | Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich) |
| Cross, R. H. | Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose) | Smith, E. (Stoke) |
| Cruddas, Col. B. | Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.) | Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen) |
| Daggar, G. | Kirby, B. V. | Smith, T. (Normanton) |
| Davies, C. (Montgomery) | Law, R. K. (Hull, S.W.) | Southby, Comdr. A. R. J. |
| Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil) | Leckie, J. A. | Stewart, W. J. (H'ghf"n-le-Sp'ng) |
| De Chair, S. S. | Leech, Dr. J. W. | Storey, S. |
| Dixon, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. | Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J. | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) |
| Dobbie, W. | Loftus, P. C. | Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth) |
| Dorman-Smith, Major R. H. | Logan, D. G. | Tinker, J. J. |
| Duncan, J. A. L. | Lyons, A. M. | Tree, A. R. L. F. |
| Dunn, E. (Rother Valley) | Mac Andrew, Colonel Sir C. G. | Wakefield, W. W. |
| Ede, J. C. | M'Connell, Sir J. | Wallace, Capt. Rt. Hon. Euan |
| Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty) | Macdonald, G. (Ince) | Ward, Irene (Wallsend) |
| Elliston, G. S. | MacDonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness) | Waterhouse, Captain C. |
| Emery, J. F. | McKie, J. H. | Watson, W. McL. |
| Entwistle, C. F. | Makins, Brig.-Gen. E. | Williams, E. J. (Ogmore) |
| Errington, E. | Manningham-Buller, Sir M. | Williams, T, (Don Valley) |
| Everard, W. L. | Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R. | Windsor, W. (Hull, C.) |
| Fleming, E. L. | Markham, S. F. | Womersley, Sir W. J. |
| Fraser, Capt. Sir I. | Marklew, E. | Young, A. S. L. (Partick) |
| Fremantle, Sir F. E. | Marshall, F. | |
| Furness, S. N. | Mathers, G. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Gluckstein, L. H. | Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J. | Sir George Penny and Lieut.- |
| Goldie, N. B. | Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest) | Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward. |
| Goodman, Col. A. W. | Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Unlv's.) |
§ SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
§ Adjourned at Twenty-nine Minutes before One o'Clock.