Commons Sitting of 1 May 1936

Preamble
The House met at Eleven of the Clock,
Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Bristol) Bill,
Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Falmouth) Bill,
Read the Third time, and passed.

BILL PRESENTED.
  TITHE BILL,
  "to extinguish tithe rentcharge and extraordinary tithe rentcharge, and to make provision with respect to the compensation of the owners thereof and rating authorities and to the liabilities of the owners of land charged therewith in respect of the extinguishment thereof; to reduce the rate at which tithe rent-charge is to be payable pending its extinguishment and to make provision with respect to the recovery of arrears thereof; to make provision for the redemption and extinguishment of corn rents and similar payments; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid," presented by Mr. Elliot; supported by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Attorney-General, and Mr. Ramsbotham; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed.—[Bill 93.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  RETAIL MEAT DEALERS (SUNDAY CLOSING) BILL.
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  RETAIL MEAT DEALERS (SUNDAY CLOSING) BILL.

    CLAUSE 1.—(Business of retail dealer in meat not to be carried on on Sunday.)
    11.6 a. m.
    Mr. LIDDALL: I beg to move, in page 1, line 9, after "shall," to insert "for the purposes of that business."
    I hope that hon. Members will not be unduly alarmed by the number of proposed Amendments which appear on the Order Paper. They do not in any way affect or interfere with the principle of the Bill, and have been put down in order to meet certain criticisms which, I understand, have been raised by the Home Office, and to bring the Measure into line with the Shops (Sunday Trading Restriction) Bill. The whole of the proposed Amendments on the Order Paper in the name of myself and of the hon. Member for South Croydon Mr. H. G. Williams) are, in effect, nothing but drafting Amendments. This first Amendment has been put down to meet those cases, few in number, where the business of a retail dealer in butchers' meat is carried on in a shop from which other commodities are also sold. Although a shop may remain open on Sundays for some purposes it will be unlawful to sell butchers' meat from the same shop.
    Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: I beg to second the Amendment.
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): I rise only to express my agreement with what has been said by the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Liddall). All these Amendments are, in fact, of a drafting character.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: On a Private Members' Bill everybody is entitled to his own opinion, but I appeal to all those who agree with me to support the hon. Member and the representative of the Home Office. These appear to be nothing but drafting Amendments.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 2.—(Exemption as respects Jewish retail dealers in meat.)
    Amendment made: In page 1, line 13, after "in," insert "Kosher."—[Mr. Liddall.]
    11.9 a.m.
    Mr. LIDDALL: I beg to move, in page 1, line 13, after "meat," to insert:
    "and may keep open a shop for the serving of customers for the purposes of that business."
    This Amendment is proposed in order to make it perfectly clear that people of the Jewish faith who sell Kosher may keep a shop open.
    Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendments made: In page 1, line 16, leave out "that."
    In line 20, after "business," insert:
    "and, if he carries on the business in a shop, he shall not keep open the shop for the purposes of the business."—[Mr. Liddall.]

    CLAUSE 3.—(Modification of Shops Act, 1912.)
    Amendment made:
    In page 2, line 14, leave out "subsection," and insert "section."—[Mr. Liddall.]

    CLAUSE 4.—(Provisions as to delivery of goods.)
    Amendment made:
    In page 2, line 34, leave out "goods," and insert "butchers' meat."
    In line 35, leave out "goods," and insert "butchers' meat."—[Mr. Liddall.]
    Mr. LIDDALL: I beg to move, in page 2 line 36, to leave out from "Act," to end of Clause, and to insert.:
    "the shop may not be open for the serving of customers."
    This Amendment is put down in order to bring the Clause into line with the provisions of the Shops Act already on the Statute Book.
    Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 5.—(Saving for ships.)
    Amendments made:
    In page 2, line 38, after "prevent," insert:
    "the sale, despatch, or delivery of butchers' meat or Kosher meat required by."
    In line 38, leave out "from being served on Sunday with meat."—[Mr. Liddall.]
    Mr. LIDDALL: I beg to move, in page 2, line 39, after "ship," to insert "or aircraft."
    This Amendment and the one which follows have been put down to meet possible developments in aviation. The rapid development of aviation may bring in its train a state of affairs similar to that existing with regard to ships, namely, that aircraft may arrive at aerodromes on a Sunday and require a supply of meat.
    Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendment made:
    In page 2, line 41, at end, to insert "or aerodrome."—[Mr. Liddall.]
    11.13 a.m.
    Mr. LIDDALL: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
    This Bill provides for the total closing of retail meat traders' shops on Sundays and for the prohibition of the delivery of meat from such shops on Sundays. There are only three exceptions to its provisions, and they are in respect of bona fide members of the Jewish faith and the supply of meat to ships and aircraft. In this country there are several large towns and cities where it is impossible to purchase butchers' meat on Sunday, Manchester and Sunderland being examples of places where the shops are closed by voluntary agreement and there has been no public outcry. On the other hand, in several parts of London, Newcastle and Bristol, and in many industrial towns in the North, there is a growing tendency for the shops to open, because when one or two traders in a town open the others, much as they may dislike the practice, feel compelled to follow suit. I presented the Bill at the request of the National Federation of Retail Meat Dealers and it has the hacking of good employers, large and small, their employés and a large public.
    1244
    It is gratifying to me that on no occasion, on Second Reading, in Standing Committee or during the Report stage this morning, has one word of objection or opposition been raised. I express my appreciation and grateful thanks, first to you, Mr. Speaker, for enabling the Bill to be given a Second Reading when the time at the disposal of the House on that day was so limited; to the Secretary of State for Home Affairs for the sympathetic and valuable help in Committee and inside and outside the House, and to Members of all parties who have assisted the passage of the Bill in what, I believe, has been a record time. The Bill, I repeat, commands the support of practically everyone in the industry, and I confidently appeal to the House to give it a Third Reading. If the Bill is eventually placed upon the Statute Look, we shall confer upon a very large and worthy body of people the priceless boon of one day's rest in seven.
    Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: I have very much pleasure in seconding the Motion. I congratulate my hon. Friend on his skill and tact, and I join with him in thanking hon. and right hon. Members for the helpful consideration they have given to this Measure.
    11.17 a.m.
    Lieut.-ColonelSir ARNOLD WILSON: As a Member whose name appears on the back of this Bill, I endorse what has been said by the two hon. Members who have just spoken. This is an excellent example of what a Private Member's Bill should be. It is limited to a single topic and to a single trade. It has the universal consent of the consumer and of the industry, and it has been so carefully drafted that no changes have been made in Standing Committee and only formal changes since. It seems in all respects worthy of the consideration that this House has given it.
    11.18 a.m.
    Mr. LLOYD: The House may wish to have a few words from the Home Office. The Bill is of interest only to butchers. It appears to the He me Office that the position of this trade is such as to justify exceptional legislation. The requirements of those who are of Jewish faith can be very easily met in this trade by limiting the privilege of Sunday opening

    1245
    to those shops which are permitted to sell Kosher meat. The position in respect of the Jewish faith can be met much more simply here than in regard to shops in general, as the House was aware from the discussion which took place upon another Bill last Friday. It is understood that the Kosher licences are subject to stringent conditions, and are issued to a strictly limited number of butchers. It is possible and justifiable to deal with Sunday closing of this class of shop by framing legislation on simple lines and without attempting any legislation for shops in general. I note that the hon. and gallant Member for Hitchin (Sir A Wilson) is a supporter of the Measure, the provisions of which appear to be workable. There will, of course, be details requiring consideration in another place, but the House may reasonably give the Bill a Third Reading.
    11.20 a.m.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: I also join in congratulating the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Liddall). I understand that he is a journalist, and not a butcher. The Bill is a remarkable illustration of what private Members are able to achieve in this House. I was a little alarmed at the ominous attitude of the hon. and gallant Member for Hitchin (Sir A. Wilson) as it bears upon the Bill which is next to come before us. The reason why we support this Bill on this side of the House is that we have learned enough about shop life to enable us to make up our minds that the only chance for every shop assistant to secure one day's rest in seven is through Parliamentary action.
    11.21 a.m.
    Sir PERCY HARRIS: I should like to add my blessing to the Bill, and my congratulations to the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Liddall), who has fathered it through. It has had a very easy journey. This is the kind of subject, simple, straightforward and understandable, that rightly provides the subject for a Private Member's Bill. We shall soon approach a more controversial and more complex problem, but this Bill, I am satisfied, will work. In the borough which I represent, the problems presented by Sunday opening arises in a complex form, but the shape and
    1246
    character of the Bill, simplified as it is to deal with only one article of trade, will secure its smooth and satisfactory working.
    11.22 a.m.
    Sir FRANCIS FREMANTLE: I would say a word from the point of view of public health. The Bill shows how the whole scheme of public health is associated with Sunday trading. I do not want to develop that particular point, but to say that there is a growing feeling of the necessity for public health and for the Sunday rest, quite apart from any question of religious observance. We who are concerned with public health have viewed with grave anxiety the growing infringement of the Sunday day of rest, which should be the one day of rest in the week. When one set of people have opened their businesses on Sunday it has been very difficult for others not to follow suit. There is a slippery slope, and we have been sliding down it for several years. There has been an increasing desire for liberty and a resentment at what is called D.O.R.A., and with the regulation of the private affairs of the people. The Bill is an instance of how we must turn on the reverse. We must take definite action, and it can only be done, as was said by the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies), by Parliamentary action. I hope the Bill is a presage of what may be done in that direction in order to return to the one day's rest in the week, especially the same day as far as possible, for everybody, and not a makeshift of giving alternative hours on other days of the week. I am sure that the public health community will welcome the Bill.
    11.24 a.m.
    Mr. W. H. GREEN: I am wondering whether the Bill covers the opening of stalls and shops for the sale of horseflesh for cats. One knows that there are a number of shops which do that trade.
    Mr. LIDDALL: The object of the Bill is to deal with butchers' meat and not with cats' meat.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read the Third time, and passed.

  SHOPS (SUNDAY TRADING RESTRICTION) BILL.
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), further considered.
  SHOPS (SUNDAY TRADING RESTRICTION) BILL.

    CLAUSE 7.— (Provisions as to delivery of goods.)
    The following Amendments stood upon the Order paper:
    In page 7, line 38, leave out Clause 7.
    In page 8, line 5, leave out "Christmas Day," and insert "a public holiday as defined in the Shops Act, 1912."
    In line 5, at the end, insert,—
    "(c) in the case of shops exempted under section five of this Act on any Sunday when the succeeding Monday is a Jewish holy day."—[Sir A. Wilson.]
    Mr. SPEAKER: The first Amendment which I shall call is the Third Amendment in the name of the hon. and gallant Member for Hitchin (Sir A. Wilson).
    11.26 a.m.
    Sir A. WILSON: I beg to move, in page 8, line 5, at the end, to insert:
    "(c) in the case of shops exempted under section five of this Act on any Sunday when the succeeding Monday is a Jewish holy day."
    We understand, from petitions and circulars which have reached us and from statements which have been made by the promoters of the Bill or on their behalf, that, when the question of exemptions under Clause 5 comes up for consideration, Jewish traders who have signed the statutory declaration will be willing to undertake the close their shops on the 15 Jewish holy days on which conscientious Jews are required by their religious laws to abstain from all work; and, that being the case, it seems reasonable that they should be permitted, as Christians are on Christmas Day, to deliver goods on the previous day, although it may be a Sunday. The 15 holy days cover the whole year, and are fairly equally distributed. I doubt whether I should have put this Amendment down had I not anticipated that my previous Amendment—in page 8, line 5, to leave out "Christmas Day," and insert, "a public holiday as defined in the Shops Act, 1912," would also be called. Under that Amendment, public holidays, whether of Jews or of Christians, if preceded by a Sunday, would have been the
    1248
    object of special exemption in order to make easier the regular delivery of goods. The present Amendment would simply give, to conscientious Jews who have signed the statutory declaration and have given the undertaking and certificates prescribed by the Home Office, exemptions with respect to deliveries made on the days immediately preceding the days on which they will be compelled, as I anticipate, both by the Home Office prescription and by their own religion, to keep their shops closed.
    Sir P. HARRIS: I beg to second the Amendment.
    11.29 a.m.
    Mr. LOFTUS: I hop, the House will not agree to this Amendment, and I ask my hon. and gallant Friend to withdraw it, in view of the fact that his previous Amendment has not been called. The position to-day is that, if Christmas Day falls on a Monday, there is an exemption allowing the delivery of goods on the previous Sunday. That is the only exemption. My hon. and gallant Friend's Amendment would give 15 possible exemptions, for, in the case of every Jewish holy day falling on a Monday, there would he an exemption for delivery of goods on the previous Sunday; but there would be no exemption for any day in the case of any other religion, with the one exception of Christmas Day. I submit to the House that such a position could not be accepted, and I would appeal to my hon. and gallant Friend not to press it.
    11.30 a.m.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: I am glad that the promoters are unwilling to accept this Amendment. I cannot understand the hon. and gallant Gentleman's attitude. In the Committee he told us that the Bill would be unworkable because there were too many exemptions, but today he is moving exemptions that would very nearly destroy the purpose of the Bill. I would appeal to him not to press the Amendment and so make the Bill appear ridiculous; and, if he will pardon my saying so, I am not sure that, in trying to make the Bill appear ridiculous, he night not in the end be making himself also appear ridiculous.
    11.31 a.m.
    Sir A. WILSON: I cannot allow my hon. Friend's remarks to pass unchallenged. The 15 Jewish holy days to which I refer could not conceivably, in more than two or three cases, fall on a Monday. They do not depend upon the seven days of the week, and it would be quite exceptional for more than two, or three at the most, to fall on a Monday. I confess, Mr. Speaker, that I am in somewhat of a difficulty because of your decision not to call my previous Amendment. The intention of the two Amendments was to make possible the delivery of goods on, say, the Sunday before the August Bank Holiday, or the Sunday before any Bank Holiday. I see no reason in the Bill why this should be restricted solely to Christmas, except that Boxing Day, which is a Bank Holiday, follows immediately after Christmas Day, that being the only case where there are three public holidays in succession. In view of the fact that under Clause 5 statutory exemption has been promised to Jews, on lines which have yet to be decided, and that the Jews themselves, between the Committee and Report stages, have made it clear that they contemplate a voluntary acceptance of the obligation to close on these 15 days, I think it would be perfectly reasonable to place their holy days on the same basis, so far as the Bill is concerned, as—
    Mr. EDE: On a point of Order. May I ask how many times the hon. and gallant Member is allowed to speak on Report?
    Sir A. WILSON: I can only speak again with the consent of the House. I rose merely to rebut the suggestion that I was trying to destroy the Bill, and was not serious. Having done that, I willingly respond to the appeal of my hon. Friend the promoter of the Bill, and beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

    CLAUSE 8.—(Miscellaneous savings.)
    11.33 a.m.
    Mr. LOFTUS: I beg to move, in page 8, line 31, after "hour," to insert,
    "by reason of his having served a customer after that hour."
    1250
    I have been asked to move this Amendment by the draftsman, who says it is necessary in order to emphasize and make clear the point that, under the provisions of the existing Shops Act, the shop has to be, as it were, physically closed after the closing hour.
    Mr. DUNCAN: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.
    11.34 a.m.
    Sir A. WILSON: I beg to move, in page 8, line 42, after "hotel," to insert "or club."
    Sub-section (4) of Clause 8 refers solely to hairdressers and barbers, and the object of this Amendment is simply to make it possible for hairdressers and barbers to attend members of clubs not less freely than residents in hotels. It is a widespread custom throughout the country for hairdressers and barbers to be in attendance at clubs on Sundays, and, if the Bill permits them to be in attendance at hotels, I can see no reason why that permission should not be extended to clubs. I should have preferred to give the hairdressers and barbers a full day's rest on (Sunday and exclude hotels, but the Standing Committee decided that hairdressers and barbers should work seven days a week in hotels. I suppose there are some 4,000 or 5,000 hotels which have their barbers' shops, and I see no reason why the 1,000 or 2,000 clubs which have hairdressers and barbers should not also be able to obtain their services on Sundays. It does not, in the long run, affect the working hours of the men, as they are governed by the Shops Act and other legislation outside the scope of the Bill altogether. By putting in "or club" we simply put clubs in the same position as hotels in this respect.
    Sir P. HARRIS: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Captain GUNSTON: Will not the acceptance of the Amendment mean that barbers or hairdressers working in clubs will be obliged to work seven days a week?
    Sir A. WILSON: Not more than in hotels. The Shops Acts, 1912, and other legislation makes it quite clear that if a person works on a Sunday be should get

    1251
    compensatory holidays at other times in the year. It will not affect the law as hours of employment are concerned.
    Mr. LESLIE: Is this to be limited to clubs which already possess hairdressing establishments?
    Sir A. WILSON: The Amendment does not preclude fresh clubs opening fresh hairdressers' shops any more than it precludes fresh hotels opening fresh hairdressing shops. So far as a barber who comes into a club is concerned, he differs in no way from a barber who enters a hotel in order to give his services to some private person. That, according to Halsbury's Laws of England, is legal, provided the man is a resident in the club.
    Mr. LOFTUSThere is a growing tendency to use what are called residential or week-end country clubs. They are to a large extent almost identical with hotels. The promoters feel that there is a case made out for this Amendment, and that these clubs should be treated exactly like hotels. They authorise me to suggest that the Amendment should be accepted.
    11.39 a.m.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: I would ask the Home Office to look very closely at this Amendment. There does not seem on the face of it to be any reason why hairdressing should not be carried on in respect of people who are resident in the club, but the Barbers Act, passed a few years ago, has been violated very severely in some parts of the country. There is no definition of club in this wording. A few people living in a house might call themselves a club and they could carry on the business of hairdressing in that way. Would this riot extend the employment of barbers on Sunday? I am very much afraid it would. We are not catering for the 98 per cent. of decent folk who will carry out their obligations under the law. We have to deal with the two or three per cent. who find all manner of ways and means of getting round the law. Before we part with the Amendment I should like to hear what the Home Office has to say about it.
    11.40 a. m.
    Mr. LLOYD: In view of the fact that the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr.
    1252
    Loftus) and his friends have accepted the Amendment, we see no reason to oppose it, but in view of what the hon. Gentleman has said we will certainly look into it more closely than we should otherwise have done. It was legal to employ barbers in hotels for seven days a week before this Bill, but they will now come under the compensatory holiday provisions. Therefore, there is a very considerable element of protection from that point of view, and that will apply to employés of barbers who work in clubs as well.
    Mr. GEORGE GRIFFITHS: If a steward in a working men's club has not had time to shave himself on Saturday and is a resident in the club, a barber can walk in and shave him, can he not?
    Sir A. WILSON: Certainly,
    Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: The Amendment is much more dangerous than that. This will not be confined to the hairdressing of men. It will apply to what is a much more extensive business—the hairdressing of women. An Amendment of this kind will lead to the formation of clubs for that purpose. It is most inadvisable to let it go to another place as if this House has approved it.
    Mr. LLOYD: I do not know if the right hon. Gentleman appreciates that this has to be a residential club. I do not imagine that women will be ready to immure themselves in a special institution for the purpose of having their hair dressed.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: There are several clubs in London already for women. I should not be surprised if there are tens of thousands of women in clubs in London, and the institution is still growing.
    11.44 a.m.
    Mr. EDE: Surely there is a further difficulty. It was only a few weeks ago that the hon. Gentleman's chief was explaining to us the difficulty of bogus clubs. Large blocks of residential flats frequently have arrangements whereby food can be obtained, and they are not very dissimilar from clubs. What is to prevent a hairdressing club being formed by all the residents in a block of flats with a room provided where a hairdressing business can be carried on? All the ingenuity of men and women will be used

    1253
    to get round the law. This is really a most dangerous addition to the Bill unless there is some very strict definition of what a residential club is.

    Division No. 156.]

    AYES.

    [11.45a.m.

    Allen, Lt.-Col J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)

    Grimston, R. V.

    Orr-Ewing, I. L.

    Apsley, Lord

    Hamilton, Sir G. C.

    Palmer, G. E. H.

    Aske, Sir R. W.

    Hannon, Sir P. J. H.

    Patrick, C. M.

    Beaumont, M. W. (Aylesbury)

    Harris, Sir P. A.

    Penny, Sir G.

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

    Harvey, G.

    Radford, E. A.

    Briscoe, Capt. R. G.

    Heneage, Lieut. -Colonel A. p.

    Ralkes, H. V. A. M.

    Brocklebank, C. E. R.

    Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

    Rankin, R.

    Castlereagh, Viscount

    Hulbert, N. J.

    Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

    Cautley, Sir H. S.

    Kerr, J. G. (Scottish Universities)

    Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)

    Cnannon, H.

    Lamb, Sir J. Q.

    Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)

    Choriton, A. E. L.

    Law, R. K. (Hull, S.W.)

    Ropner, Colonel L.

    Cobb, Sir C. S.

    Llewellin, Lieut-Col. J. J.

    Rowlands, G.

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

    Lloyd, G. W.

    Salmon, Sir I.

    Critchley, A.

    Loftus, P. C.

    Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree)

    Cross, R. H.

    Lovat-Fraser, J. A.

    Southby, Comdr. A. R. J.

    Cruddas, Col. B.

    Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

    Spears, Brig. -Gen. E. L.

    Davies, Major G. F. (Yeovil)

    Manningham-Buller, Sir M.

    Strickland, Captain W. F.

    De Chair, S. S.

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

    Tate, Mavis C.

    Duncan, J. A. L.

    Markham, S. F.

    Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)

    Elliston, G. S.

    Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

    Tufnell, Lieut. -Com. R. L.

    Foot, D. M.

    Meller, Sir R. J. (Mitcham)

    Turton, R. H.

    Fremantle, Sir F. E.

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

    Wakefield, W. W.

    Ganzoni, Sir J.

    Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)

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

    Gledhill. G.

    Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

    Wayland, Sir W. A.

    Gluckstein, L. H.

    Moreing, A. C.

    Womersley, Sir W. J.

    Goodman, Col. A. W.

    Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H.

    Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.

    Naylor, T. E.

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

    Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbre, W.)

    Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H. H.

    Sir Arnold Wilson and Mr. Liddall.

    NOES.

    Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke

    Gardner, B. W.

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

    Adamson, W. M.

    Green, W. H. (Deptford)

    Oliver, G. H.

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

    Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

    Paling, W.

    Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

    Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

    Parkinson, J. A.

    Banfield, J. W.

    Gunston, Capt. D. W.

    Potts, J.

    Barnes, A. J.

    Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)

    Rawson, Sir Cooper

    Batey, J.

    Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

    Reid, Sir D. D. (Down)

    Benson, G.

    Harbord, A.

    Ritson, J.

    Broad, F. A.

    Henderson, J. (Ardwick)

    Rowson, G.

    Brooke, W.

    Holdsworth, H.

    Simpson, F. B.

    Burke, W. A.

    Holland, A.

    Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

    Charleton, H, C.

    Holmes. J. S.

    Smith, E. (Stoke)

    Chater, D.

    Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

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

    Crossley, A. C.

    Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)

    Taylor, R. J, (Morpeth)

    Daggar, G.

    Keeling, E. H.

    Thorne, W.

    Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

    Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.

    Tinker, J. J.

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Leckie, J. A.

    Viant, S. P.

    Day, H.

    Lee, F.

    Watkins, F. C.

    Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)

    Macdonald, G. (Ince)

    Whiteley, W.

    Eastwood, J. F.

    McGhee, H. G.

    Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

    Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

    Mainwaring, W. H.

    Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

    Errington, E.

    Marshall, F.

    Furness, S. N.

    Mathers, G.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

    Mr -Ede and Mr. Leslie.

    11.53 a.m.
    Sir A. WILSON: I beg to move, in page 9, line 2, to leave out "sea-going."
    This is an exceedingly brief Amendment to Sub-section (5) which reads:
    "This Act shall not apply to any shop, or to the carrying on of any trade or business, in any sea-going ship."
    The object is to make the position clear. Some Members of the shipping community take the same view as I do of the Bill that "sea-going ship" unduly limits the action of the Clause in that
    Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."
    The House divided: Ayes, 81; Noes, 67.
    there is a good deal of coastwise shipping which would not be regarded as sea-going by the Board of Trade. For example, the pleasure steamers which run from Bristol to Avonmouth, and from Avonmouth across to Cardiff or to Weston-super-Mare are not sea-going vessels for the purposes of this Clause and they would not be included in the Sub-section. There are other pleasure-going ships—quite a number of them—upon which passengers spend four, six, seven or eight hours. They run up and down the

    1255
    Thames, or as far as Southend and Clacton, and there are other ships on the Humber and the Mersey making quite a number of extensive trips. It is not reasonable that this Clause and the Act as a whole should apply to them. The Shops Act contemplated that they should be dealt with under the general law as applied to ships and should not be regarded as ships for this part of the Act. If we cut out the word "sea-going" and put in the word "ship," I think the Home Office would agree that it would be far easier for the Board of Trade and themselves to administer the Act, than if it was restricted to sea-going ships, leaving it to them to decide whether a ship running, say, from Bristol to Cardiff or Avonmouth to Cardiff, or a pleasure steamer running from Blackpool for a few hours, is or is not included.
    Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMAN ALLEN: I beg to second the Amendment.
    11.56 a.m.
    Mr. LOFTUS: I hope that the House will not accept the Amendment. Under the Bill as it stands shops on sea-going ships are exempt. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Hitchin (Sir A. Wilson) wishes to remove the word "seagoing" and to allow any pleasure steamer, for instance, which may be cruising up the Thames and going from one pier to another pier a few miles away to sell anything of any kind on Sundays. These pleasure steamers under the Bill as it stands can sell any kind of refreshment, food, drink, and can also sell flowers, fruit and vegetables. Is it reasonable to give this extension just for pleasure trips and to allow them even to sell boots or anything they like? I hope the House will reject the Amendment.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: It is the first time that I have ever heard that the Irish Sea is not a sea.
    Sir A. WILSON: I did not say that.
    Mr. DAVIES: When ships leave Liverpool for Ireland they are certainly seagoing ships. The Bristol Channel is a sea. If we carry the Amendment there is no reason why people should not build little boats and put them out along the banks of the Thames, call them shops and do all the trade that we are preventing
    1256
    the ordinary shopkeeper from doing a short distance away. I hope the House will not accept the Amendment.
    11.58 a.m.
    Mr. LLOYD: Hon. Members will recollect that in the Standing Committee the Amendment with regard to sea-going ships was inserted at my suggestion, on representations from the Board of Trade to the Home Office, on the common-sense basis that the great ocean-going ships should be exempt from this restriction. When the hon. and gallant Member for Hitchin says that this exemption ought to apply to river steamers and boats of that kind, it no longer fulfils the requirement of commonsense. It is a fact, as the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Loftus) has said, in resisting the Amendment, that the vessels alluded to by the hon. and gallant Member for Hitchin will, under the Bill, have exemption with regard to refreshments, tobacco, newspapers, magazines aid other things in the First Schedule. That, surely, will meet all the requirements.
    Sir A. WILSON: If a ship is, for instance, running as a purely pleasure steamer from, say, Blackpool to Fleetwood, will it not be required completely to come under all the other provisions of the Act, unless some limiting provision is put in such as I have suggested in regard to coastwise ships? It is only coastwise shipping with which I am dealing.
    Mr. MICHAEL BEAUMONT: Is it not a fact that the word "sea-going" means any vessel going to sea, including coasting traffic. I would remind the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) of the origin of this proposal. It was introduced six years ago at the instance of an hon. Member who raised the same point as that now raised by the hon. Member, against the advice of the Labour party, on a Bill to deal with Sunday barbers, introduced by the lateMr. James Stewart. I am glad that the hon. Member for Westhoughton has become a convert to that view.
    Amendment negatived.
    12 noon.
    Sir A. WILSON: I beg to move, in page 9, line 3, at the end, to insert:
    "for the convenience of bona-fide passengers, or to any railway train or air-

    1257
    craft, or to any fair lawfully held, or any bazaar or sale of work for charitable purposes from which no private profit is derived, as defined in. sub-section (2) of section nineteen of the Shops Act, 1912."
    In moving this Amendment I have in mind ships which are laid up for a long period and allowed to be used virtually as hotels and restaurants, thus escaping the normal provisions of the Sunday Closing Act—ships brought out almost for exhibition purposes, or say, a "Queen Mary," going to Southampton and running a most remunerative trade in supplying food, liquor and other things during prohibited hours and, in addition, possibly providing other services. We have the case of exhibition ships which have been common in the past and may be common again. I cannot help thinking that the words "for the convenience of bona-fide passengers" would be a useful addition to the Bill. I do not intend to exclude the convenience of the officers and others on the ship or workmen on board, but I think that "bona-fide passengers" is a necessary limitation to prevent an abuse that might very well grow up around the words "sea-going ship."
    "any railway train or aircraft".
    These words are a matter of common sense. We have barbers' shops and shorthand typists, etc. on railway trains, and they may be developed as our railways become more up-to-date and more anxious to meet public need, and it seems unreasonable to restrict them while we are giving sea-going ships such privileges. The words
    "or to any fair lawfully held, or any bazaar or sale of work for charitable purposes."
    are taken from the Shops Act, 1912, and they are intended simply to assimilate the law as far as possible as it is laid down in the Bill to that of the Shops Act, 1912, which, although it is not specifically stated in this Bill, is the principal Act by which we shall continue to be guided. There is no great likelihood that fairs will be held to a great extent on Sundays, but there are certain customary fairs which are held and have from time immemorial been held on the Sunday. There is no great likelihood of sales of work or bazaars for charitable purposes being covered by this Bill, but the Shops Act, 1912, having specifically excluded bazaars and sales of work for charitable purposes from the operations of that Act,
    1258
    I suggest that this Bill, which is designed to cover the same ground, should have the same limiting words.
    Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMAN ALLEN: I beg to second the Amendment.
    12.6 p.m.
    Mr. LOFTUS: Again I find myself in disagreement with the hon. and gallant Member for Hitchin (Sir A. Wilson), and I hope the House will not accept the Amendment. It will drive not a coach-and-four but an omnibus through the Bill. It is much too wide. It speaks of:
    "the convenience of bona fide passengers, or to any railway train or aircraft".
    In Committee we gave every reasonable facility to passengers by train, by ship or by air, or by motor-car. The word "passengers" is extremely wide and will be difficult to define in a court of law. Then the Amendment goes on:
    "or to any fair lawfully held"
    I do not know of any instance of a fair being held on a Sunday, and I do not think that we should give facilities for fairs to be held on Sunday. In the third place it says,
    "or any bazaar or sale of work for charitable purposes from which no private profit is derived".
    The hon. and gallant Member says that these words are taken from the 1912 Act. Yes, but in that Act they did not apply to Sunday trading, but to an ordinary day in the week. No bazaars or charitable sales of work are held on Sundays, and it is against the whole idea of the Bill that they should be held on Sundays. The Amendment will open an immensely wide door, and I hope the House will not accept it.
    Captain STRICKLAND: There is one point upon which I am not satisfied. Schedule 1 excludes a railway station from the provisions of the Bill. Is the sale of refreshments on railway trains on Sundays protected in any way? Are the ordinary facilities fro refreshments on trains exempted from the Bill?
    Mr. LOFTUS: All sales of refreshments in places where meals are served are exempted.
    Captain STRICKLAND: Are they exempted only under the First Schedule?
    Mr. LOFTUS: No.
    Captain STRICKLAND: Then why is it necessary to insert in the First Schedule—
    "The sale of meals or refreshments for consumption on or off the premises, including the business carried on at a railway station refreshment room,"
    if it is already exempted elsewhere?
    Mr. LOFTUS: It is difficult to remember the exact details of every discussion in Committee, but the words were inserted in order to make the matter quite clear.
    12.10 p.m.
    Mr. FURNESS: This is rather an extraordinary Amendment. One part of it widens the exemptions and another part cut them down. The word "passengers" has rather a narrow meaning, and would cut out the officers and crew of a ship. If a shop is to be opened on a seagoing ship, we should not put any limitation on the people who may use the shop. If it is a sea-going ship it can only be used by those on board, and the word "passengers" would limit the people who would be able to use the shop to those who have paid a certain sum for the trip. It would shut out the officers and crew of the ship.
    Sir A. WILSON: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment, in order to move it in a different form.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Sir A. WILSON: I beg to move, in page 9, line 3, at the end, to insert "for the convenience of bona fide passengers."
    Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMAN ALLEN: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. LLOYD: The Home Office can accept the Amendment in this form, as it will serve a useful purpose.
    Mr. TURTON: I hope the Under-Secretary will reconsider the insertion of these words. They must limit the area of exemption because "bona fide passengers" cuts out the officers of the ship. If you are to allow shops to be open on board ship, you will make it an offence if any of the officers of the Ship are served with anything. The courts of law have decided -that "passengers" is a narrow term. I hope the Amendment will not be accepted.
    12.13 p.m.
    Mr. ORR-EWING: I would like to reinforce the appeal that has been made by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). Running across the Bristol Channel are a series of passenger boats which carry large numbers of passengers to the Somerset coast. They are sea-going ships, and it will be a ridiculous position if the officers and crew are liable to be prosecuted if they purchase anything in a shop.
    Mr. LLOYD: I entirely agree, but the purpose of the Amendment is that only bona fide passengers should be served, and not purely casual members of the public. However, we will give this matter consideration in collaboration with the Board of Trade and see whether any necessary alteration should be made.
    Mr. TURTON: In that case I hope the House will not insert the Amendment at the moment.
    Sir P. HARRIS: It is clear that if something of this nature is not inserted in the Bill, all and sundry will be able to go on board ship and buy what they cannot purchase on land. It would be a distinct inducement for the shop side of ships to be developed. I hope the words will be put in the Bill, and then, if necessary, they can be modified in another place.
    12.15 p.m.
    Mr. M. BEAUMONT: The House seems to be in considerable confusion. Cannot we have the guidance of someone on the Government Benches as to what this Amendment really means? My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) and my Hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland (Mr. Furness) have given one definition. They say that crews are excluded. The Mover of the Amendment says that crews are not excluded. The Under-Secretary asked us to accept the Amendment, which he says would serve a useful purpose, but he does not tell us which of the hon. Members who have given us guidance on the subject is right. The Government must know whether it does exclude the crew and officers, and if so whether it would be better to insert these words now or to make the necessary alterations in another place.
    12.16 p.m.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: I am sorry to intrude, again. If we read this Clause with the Amendment incorporated it clarifies the position. The Clause will then read:
    "This Act shall not apply to any shop, or to the carrying on of any trade or business, in any sea-going ship for the convenience of bona fide passengers."
    That is a very simple proposition. It is news to me that officers are anxious to buy anything on board their ships. So far as I know they always want to go to a port and buy what they want at the port, because the prices of goods on board ship are very often twice what they are on shore. I think the House is exaggerating the importance of the Amendment.
    Mr. RADFORD: Would it not meet the views of all Members if the Mover of the Amendment would alter its terms so that it read, "For the benefit of bona fide passengers and for the officers and crews of ships"?
    12.17 p.m.
    Mr. DINGLE FOOT: It seems to me that the form of words which we are now discussing on this Amendment may not achieve anything at all. The Amendment is to add the words, "for the convenience of bona fide passengers". The Amendment deals only with the main purpose for which the store on board ship is run. I am not trying to give any ruling on the point, but may it not be that if we were to insert these words and if the authorities were satisfied that the shop was run primarily for the convenience of bona fide passengers, it would still be open to anyone to walk up the gangway of a ship at any port and purchase the goods which they could not purchase elsewhere under the provisions of the Bill? Whatever hon. Members may have in mind, it appears to be very doubtful whether the Amendment would achieve any purpose whatever. In those circumstances I hope the Amendment will not be pressed.
    Sir A. WILSON: I am uninfluenced by the threats of the law lords held over our heads, but in view of the appeals made and not wishing to intervene when doctors differ, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment in the hope that the promoters of the Bill and the Home Secretary would consider the matter further
    1262
    and make any necessary alteration in another place.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

    CLAUSE 9.—(Provisions respecting Shop Assistants.)
    12.20 p.m.
    Mr. LIDDALL: I beg to move, in page 9, line 16, after "half-holiday," to insert:
    "and the person so employed shall not be employed on more than three Sundays in any one calendar month."
    There is a subsequent Amendment on the Paper in my name, in page 9, line 24, to leave out paragraph (c). These Amendments have been placed on the Order Paper at the instigation of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents, which since its inception in 1919 has done much to raise the status of the trade of the newsagent and to improve the conditions of the employés. No one has striven harder than the president, the executive committee and the general secretary of that federation to achieve the ideals of the Sunday Closing Association. They were quite willing to accept the original Clause of the Bill, which provided that if an assistant or deliverer of newspapers was employed for four hours on a Sunday, he or she would have an additional half-day off in the week, and if employed for over four hours an additional whole-day holiday in the week. That Clause, however, was amended in Standing Committee, and as the Bill now stands a person employed on Sunday for any time, even if the delivery of newspapers takes only an hour or two, shall not be employed more than three Sundays in any calendar month.
    I feel sure that hon. Members have a good idea of how the delivery of Sunday newspapers is carried out. In many parts of the country it is not a long job. But everywhere it is a job for the specialist; the sorting of the various publications and the delivery of them to the correct addresses is almost as important as the delivery of letters. Woe betide the boy who neglects to leave a copy of the "Dispatch" for the daughter who dreams of Randolph Churchill at the same time as he leaves a "Reynolds" for a father who dreams of a co-operative commonwealth. To improvise deliverers for this work on the off

    1263
    Sunday would be a difficult task. On behalf of a, well-conducted and efficient trade I ask the House to accept this Amendment, which will enable a person delivering newspapers for one, two, three or four hours to do so every Sunday, but if that person works over four hours he shall have one clear Sunday off in four, or two Sundays in five, as the case may be.
    Mr. HARBORD: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. LOFTUS: I feel that my hon. Friend who moved the Amendment has made out the case that it is a difficult business in dealing with seven or eight or even three or four separate newspapers which have to be delivered at one house—
    HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.
    Mr. LOFTUS: I am glad to say that the promoters support the Amendment. Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendment made: In page 9, line 24, leave out paragraph (c).—[Mr. Liddall.]
    12.26 p.m.
    Sir JOSEPH LAMB: I beg to move, in page 9, line 37, at the end, to insert:
    "or
    (iii) to any person employed in connection with the sale or distribution of milk and other farm produce."
    This Amendment does not seek to alter the structure of the Bill, but is more in the nature of a machinery Amendment. It has as its object the remedying of a position which was not foreseen in Committee. I was not a Member of the Committee myself, but it has been brought to my notice by those who are affected by the Bill that in this respect it is impossible as it stands. We all agree that an adequate supply of milk and other farm produce on 'Sunday is necessary to the public. We do not wish to try to prevent that, nor is it the object of the Bill to prevent it, but if the Bill remains as it is, a certain section of the community which is providing the service would of necessity, under this Bill, have to give their employés a day and half's holiday during the week. That is absolutely impossible in the case of a very large majority of those employed in the service.
    1264
    There are two classes of people concerned, the producer-retailer—who is the farmer—and the retail distributor, and in both these cases the position is practically one which could not be sustained. The producer-retailer is generally a small farmer, and where the delivery on Sunday is not carried out by a member of his own family, it is often done by the only other employé he has besides his own family. It would be impossible for such a man, who is very often employed on the other work of the farm, to be given a day and a half's holiday during the week.
    Sir FRANCIS ACLAND: Would such a man work in a shop? Does this Clause not apply only to people working in shops?
    Sir J. LAMB: That is the point. It does not apply only to people who work in shops, but to those who deliver the articles. The second case is that of the retail distributor. Again, many of them do not employ many men and it would be found impossible to arrange for the employé to have the day and half's holiday. There is, incidentally, another reason which supports my Amendment; it is that many ladies when purchasing milk like to see the same man delivering it. [An HON. MEMBER: "Who told you that."] Many of the ladies have said so themselves. That, however, is not the main point, which is that it is impossible to give this holiday of a day and a half during the week. I do not want the Committee to think that I or any of those supporting me wish to deprive the employés in either of these sections of adequate protection as far as the conditions of their employment are concerned. Let me remind hon. Members that such protection already exists. In the case of the producer-retailer, there is the Agricultural Wages Board, on which the employé is equally represented with the employer, there being an independent chairman. That Board regulates the conditions of employment in the industry, so that the employé is adequately protected. In the case of the retail distributor, there is a trade board which has the duty of looking after the hours of labour and conditions of work of the employés. This Board has already considered the matter and I am informed on the best authority that the resolution which was put forward in that Board

    1265
    concerning the regulation of the conditions of this class of work was not only moved but seconded by a representative of the employés.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: Has the hon. Member a copy of that resolution, and if so, would he be good enough to read it?
    Sir J. LAMB: I have not a copy of it, but I have been informed that that was the case. If I am challenged at all, will not press the matter, except to say that I have given the information in good faith and only on the authority which I have stated. There is no attempt whatever to deprive these employés of the best and most reasonable conditions of employment which can be given to them, but, as I have mentioned, a day and a half's holiday during the week, which the Bill as it stands would necessitate, would be impossible in the two sections to which I have referred.
    Mr. DUNCAN: I beg to second the Amendment.
    12.31 p.m.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: The hon. Gentleman really cannot get away with his statement that his Amendment is nothing but machinery, for it raises one of the most important points that has arisen under this Bill. Moreover, the hon. Gentleman is wrong in assuming that the Standing Committee never had cognisance of this problem. I can assure him that some of us had this issue well in mind when discussing the Bill in Committee.
    Sir J. LAMB: Was this question discussed in Committee?
    Mr. DAVIES: Surely we were discussing the whole problem of employment on Sundays, and if the hon. Member does not mind my telling him so, I at any rate had in mind the fact that during the last 20 years or so there have come to be employed for wages on Sunday an enormous number of people distributing milk, and there are tens of thousands of them apparently working every day in the year. If this Bill means anything at all it means that we are going to do all we can to provide a six days' week for everybody including those who deliver milk on Sunday.
    Sir J. LAMB: Would the hon. Member make arrangements that the cows should
    1266
    only give milk on six days a week so that nobody would have to milk them on the seventh day?
    Mr. DAVIES: Surely the hon. Gentleman has not done what I did, worked three years as a farm servant, so that I ought to know what the cow does.
    Sir J. LAMB: Probably I have worked longer on a farm than the hon. Member.
    Mr. DAVIES: Length of service does not always denote knowledge and intelligence.
    This Amendment is a very important one indeed, and I would like to tell the hon. Member that he must not use the resolution passed by the Trade Board—a resolution which I have seen—as an argument in favour of his contention. If any hon. Member intends to use that resolution, I would ask him to read every word of it, and then he will see what the resolution means. There is no reason why milk distributors should not provide a compensatory holiday for their employés who work on Sunday, as is done in every other trade under this Bill. I have yet to learn that those in the milk business are unable to afford decent conditions for their employés. Most of them in London are of my nationality. They attend Welsh chapels on Sunday and sometimes ask me to speak to them. If my speech here to-day has no influence, then the next time they invite me to speak I shall appeal to them from their own pulpits to put their Christian principles into operation by granting one day's rest in seven to their employés. We shall of course oppose this Amendment. The Trade Union to which I belong has succeeded in a great measure in securing one day's rest in seven for co-operative employés. People in the milk trade, if they care to do so, can arrange their business—as some of them already do—to provide for one day's rest in seven.
    Sir J. LAMB: Only the large ones.
    Mr. DAVIES: Why should not the small ones do the same? [HON. MEMBERS: "Because they cannot."] We are tying down by this Bill shopkeepers both big and small. We are legislating for the shopkeeper who only employs one assistant, whether his business pays or not, and we are saying that the provisions

    1267
    of this Bill are to apply to the small shop just as they do to Selfridges. I have yet to learn, as I say, that the people in the milk trade cannot afford to treat their employés decently. I am surprised indeed at the hon. Member moving the Amendment at all. Civilised countries like ours have to face the stubborn fact of unemployment. There are 2,000,000 unemployed in this country and they are unemployed, in part, because a goodly number of those who are employed, work too long hours and work overtime. Speaking frankly of members of my own people, the working class, I am afraid that some of them are employed far too many hours on jobs that could be performed by some of their own brothers who are out of work. I think Parliament ought to follow the modern tendency throughout the world towards a reduction in the hours of labour. At any rate we on these benches will stand up whenever we can for that principle. [Laughter.] We shall do what we can to maintain what is called the English week-end. We hope to defeat this Amendment and to see that people employed in the distribution of milk have their week-end or one day's rest in seven like everybody else.
    12.39 p.m.
    Mr. TURTON: It would help the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) and his friends to stand upright if they would agree to this Amendment, because it appears to me that, in the competition between intoxicating liquor and milk, it will help the latter. The person who sells intoxicating liquor is being exempted from the Bill. We want the man who is selling milk to be in the same position.
    Mr. E. J. WILLIAMS: But is not the employé in the other case mentioned given a compensatory holiday?
    Mr. LESLIE: He is given a whole day.
    Mr. TURTON: The hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. E. J. Williams) is referring to the provisions of the Licensing Act but I am referring to this Bill and under this Bill the seller of intoxicating liquor is being exempted by paragraph (i) and we merely ask that the seller of milk should also be exempted. I see the force of the argument in regard to the large combines which sell milk in London and which we are told—except for the right
    1268
    hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander)——are mostly in charge of persons of Welsh nationality. Those big combines are able to work their employés in shifts and have no need for exemptions but I refer to the small producer-retailers, the small dairymen in country towns and villages and throughout the country districts. The big profits made by dairymen in London are not the common experience of those producer-retailers. I do not think that the same argument applies in favour of the second part of the Amendment which refers to farm produce. Those words appear rather too wide but I think we have a reasonable claim for such an Amendment as regards milk, which is a much-needed beverage. I regret that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West-houghton should have taken unkindly to a proposal which would have the effect of furthering the sale of milk. It is not a good omen for the Milk Marketing Board.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: I am not objecting to the sale of milk, but I want those engaged in selling milk to be in the same position as shop assistants, in relation to holidays.
    Mr. TURTON: I realise that the hon. Gentleman is not objecting in that open way to the sale of milk but what he proposes to do would hamper the sale of milk in the countryside and in the small towns and villages. I do not believe that his proposal would do any harm in big centres of population like London and Manchester but it will do a, great deal of harm in the country districts and for that reason I ask the House to take a contrary view to that of the hon. Gentleman and to accept the Amendment.
    12.43 p.m.
    Sir WILLIAM WAYLAND: I support the Amendment. I think that the hon. gentleman opposite may have overlooked the fact that if hs ideas were carried out the wages of the ordinary roundsman would be reduced. Those wages are calculated on the basis of a seven-day week, consisting generally of 51 to 52 hours. Taking the country generally, roundsmen are well-paid. I speak, not of London, but of the district which I represent, in which there are three towns none of them very large, acid quite a number of small dairymen. It would be impossible

    1269
    for them to allow their roundsmen a day off in the week and to continue to make a profit. If hon. Members wish to do away entirely with the small man, let them say so at once. They will certainly do away with the majority of the small dairymen if this Amendment is not carried. What hours do these men work to-day? I speak from personal knowledge of certain small dairy companies and I believe that their conditions in regard to hours and wages apply generally throughout the country. The men come in about 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. and finish the first round about 8.30 a.m. On Sunday they usually finish about 9 a.m. There is one delivery on Sunday and two deliveries on weekdays. The hours of work are about 8 hours a day on 6 days of the week and 3 hours on Sunday.
    I am absolutely certain that the great majority of roundsmen would support our Amendment, because they would not like to accept a wage lower than they are obtaining at the present time. The present practice does not prevent their going to church if they want to do so, as they are always free from about nine o'clock on Sunday morning until the following Monday morning. Therefore that is no argument in favour of not accepting the Amendment, and when it comes to hon. and right hon. Members opposite attempting to fix the same working arrangements with regard to milk as they would with regard to the ordinary trade in the country, it is absolutely absurd. It cannot be done, and it would not work.
    12.46 p.m.
    Mr. E. J. WILLIAMS: I think the last speaker must be incorrect when he says that it is not possible to regulate wages and working hours in a proper manner, because I think the trade board has decided what should be paid per week for persons engaged in the industry. If the Amendment were carried, it would mean that persons who are occupied in this way would be occupied for 365 days in the year.
    Sir W. WAYLAND: No, the trade arranges with regard to all roundsmen that they should have every year a Summer holiday of never less than a week.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: I am afraid then that the effectiveness of the argument for the Amendment falls rather flat. If it is possible for the trade to find the surplus
    1270
    labour to take the place of any person for any given time at all, whether for a week or less in the Summer, although I have yet to find out that this is the practice, it cannot be difficult, because we know there is a surplus amount of labour in agricultural areas, for them to find persons to do this necessary work even on a Sunday for a few hours. It really comes to this, that if the Amendment is carried, these persons will be obliged to work for 365 days in the year and that for Sunday labour they will be paid on the same scale as for any other day. The trade board has decided that the working week should be of a certain length and that the wages for that week should be of a certain amount. If this Amendment is carried, it will cut across all the essential principles that have been laid down by the trade board as to the working week and the amount of wages, and surely this House ought not at this stage to accept an Amendment that will violently cut across all the principles that have been laid down by the trade board in this country.
    I do not accept the argument put forward by my hon. Friend about appealing to persons of his nationality, either in London or elsewhere, particularly about appealing to them from the pulpit. If these persons were practising the principles of Christianity, they would not exploit people in this way at all, either on Sunday or any other day in the week. However, I am hoping that the House will reject the Amendment, because it certainly cuts across the trade board practice. We are not opposing the delivery of milk on Sunday, but I am not prepared to agree that that milk should be delivered by persons who are exploited specifically on that day and who work for 365 days in the year. This House sits on five days in the week, and a five-day working week should be adequate for all.
    Sir J. LAMB: In agriculture?
    Mr. WILLIAMS: A five-day week is sufficient for legislative purposes, and it should be adequate for industrial purposes, too, if we had anything like proper co-ordination in industry generally. I hope the House will reject the Amendment.
    12.51 p.m.
    Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMAN ALLEN: I wish to support the Amendment very

    1271
    strongly indeed. The numbers of producer-retailers in the country in this trade are approximately 70,000, and there are about 16,000 other retailers, and it is only the retailers with rounds of six or over who can afford to give this extra time, so that it will only be the large combines and co-operative societies who can do it. I expected opposition to this Amendment to come from the Socialist benches. I was certain they would oppose the Amendment on account of their desire to back up the Co-operative societies, but I do not wish to see all retailers put out of business by this Amendment not being accepted by the House. There is a very large number of producer-retailers who are small people, and they would have very great difficulty in working the Bill, if it became an Act, unless this Amendment were carried. I put it to the House that the small man is worth supporting, and particularly against the Co-operative societies.
    12.53 p.m.
    Mr. HARBORD: I should like to throw a little more light on the conditions that appertain to those who are employed in the dairy trade. Working under Trade Board conditions, they have a 48-hour week, and if they exceed a given number of hours on Sunday, they have to get double Sunday pay. My own workpeople for eight months in the year come to work from six in the morning, and the dairy is closed down for the day at half-past two in the afternoon, but in the summer, when, of course, they work longer hours, they get extra pay accordingly. There is a Trade Board regulating wages in the industry, and those employed do not regard themselves as either underpaid or overworked. The Bill as it stands would place more business in the way of the Co-operative societies, which are already so powerful and which might become even more powerful in the future, and thus put a great many people in the industry up and down the country out of business. I am sorry this Bill has been put forward, because the effect would be that where men work for more than four hours on Sunday, they would have 12 hours' recompense by being granted 1½ days' holiday during the week. If more onerous charges are to be inflicted on a trade that is already
    1272
    harassed enough, it will mean the death-knell to many thousands of those engaged in the milk industry.
    12.55 p.m.
    Mr. LOFTUS: This Amendment appeared on the Paper only this morning, and I have not had time to consult the promoters of the Bill about it although we discussed it with some of them last night. The Amendment is an instance of the appalling difficulties that are bound to crop up in trying to deal with such a complicated subject. We must be careful when cases are brought to our notice not to judge all England by London or city conditions. That is of vital importance. If we do—and we have done so in many kinds of legislation—it promotes justifiable discontent in the country. What I have to consider is whether a case has been made out for special exemption. The first point is, that the employés of the milk trade are protected by the trades boards, the Agricultural Wages Board and so on. The second is that cows give the same amount of milk on Saturday and Monday as on Wednesday and Thursday. The third and most vital point is the interest of the small farmer, the small struggling man who has gone in for milk because beef and everything else in farming has crashed. He has hoped great things from the Milk Marketing Board but he has been disappointed, and he is just struggling along. As a producer-retailer he can hardly keep going and he is just praying for things to take a turn for the better.
    Mr. E. J. WILLIAMS: If this matter is so serious, why was it forgotten in Committee?
    Mr. LOFTUS: I apologise to the House for having forgotten it. I did not realise that there are 70,000 producer-retailers, and I hope that, after the discussion this morning, the Milk Marketing Board will take up their case. I am not satisfied with the wording of the Amendment and I wonder whether, as time is passing and the chances of the Bill receiving a Third Reading are receding, my hon. Friend who moved it would agree to omitting the last four words, and other farm produce". If that were done we might then be able to accept the Amendment. I know that I shall be accused of making concessions, but in a Bill like this

    1273
    we have to be careful to meet beforehand legitimate grievances in order not to do injustice. I would sooner lose the Bill than consciously support any action which might cause a legitimate feeling of injustice.
    Sir J. LAMB: By the leave of the House, may I reply to the request of my hon. Friend? These words were put in the Amendment because it is the custom for eggs and butter to be sold by the same man who sells milk. If it will help the position, sooner than lose the Amendment, which is of vital importance to so many small men, I will agree to the omission of the last four words.
    HON. MEMBERS: No.
    1 p.m.
    Sir A. WILSON: I hope that the House will not agree to the modification suggested by the promoter of the Bill and assented to by the Mover of the Amendment. It is vital that the feeling of the House should be taken on the Amendment as it stands. I assure the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. E. J. Williams) that I should vote against it if I thought that anything we put into the Bill would have any effect upon the trade boards or the conditions of the workers. There is a perfectly clear case for milk, but there are many other forms of produce which are sold by smallholders, of whom I have a goodly number in my constituency, such as butter, eggs, mushrooms and a great variety of minor farm produce, which is sold by the roadside to passers-by in cars. There is also honey, which is not easy to retail or transport. This Amendment will save a certain number of men who are at present dealing direct with the consumer. It will help to keep them from the clutches—a word I use advisedly—of the middleman and the wholesaler. I think it would satisfy a great number of persons in very influential bodies if this House passed a law which would have the effect of driving many more small retailers out of business. The Amendment would have the effect of keeping the producer-retailer in business, and it is for that reason that I support it so energetically.
    I have repeated representations from my constituency, from persons whom I know, who, if this Amendment is not passed, will be driven out of business and compelled to sell their produce to
    1274
    middlemen, who will retail it at an excessive price to the public. The small man who has his stall by the roadside and his banner out announcing, "Butter, eggs, mushrooms, cheese, Devonshire cream, honey and all farm produce sold here", is a person whom we ought to protect. He has existed for hundreds of years, and I am informed that three-quarters of his business is done from Saturday afternoon to Sunday evening. He does not exploit labour in this way, for it is very largely a family business and mutual holidays are arranged. The world in the rural areas with which this Amendment will mainly deal is not such a flat place as the hon. Member for Ogmore thinks. There is a good deal of give-and-take, and I do not think any of those persons who would come under this exemption would wish to exchange their lives for the lives of the spiritless cyphers in multiple shops or even in the Co-operative Societies. There is a certain virtue still in independence and in being responsible direct to the owner, rather than being a mere item in a great army of men who are regarded as hands and are regulated by law. I beg the House to take the Amendment as it stands.
    Mr. E. J. WILLIAMS: Will not the Amendment apply to monopolies as well, and give them an advantage over the small men?
    Sir A. WILSON: My reply is that monopolies do not in practice sell farm produce. It is sold by farmer retailers.
    1.5 p.m.
    Mr. LESLIE: We are now considering a proposal which will give privileges to the small producer-retailer which are denied in the Bill to a small shopkeeper. Those people will be allowed to sell what the grocer will not be permitted to sell. Already we have dealt with a request to permit the sale of butter and eggs. The Committee decided against that application, because it was felt that it would be unfair competition with the grocer. People can get butter and eggs on six days in the week and do not need to wait until Sunday to buy them. Then we have heard a good deal about the trade boards and what they have done, but a trade board, in fixing wages, fixes them in such a way as to enable the smallest trader in the meanest street to pay his

    1275
    way and a trade board wage is not anything like a trade union wage. Further, we were told about the generosity of these people, told that they actually give a whole week's holiday for 365 days' work. In the distributive trades the holidays are usually on the scale of one day for each month's service, and that means a fortnight's holiday with full pay. I hope this Amendment will be defeated.
    1.7 p.m.
    Mr. LLOYD: I must say a word on this Amendment, because the House is in a very difficult position. The fact that the House is in a difficulty over this Amendment is not anybody's fault. It is typical of the difficulties with which the House has to contend on this Bill. We had better be frank about the matter. It is a private Member's Bill and it has gone through its various stages rather quickly. I understand that the dairymen only realised the effect which might be produced by the Bill upon their trade a very few days ago—certainly they made representations to us only a few days ago. I am not necessarily blaming them, but thus it has come about that the hon. Member has put down his Amendment only to-day, and the House will appreciate that in the circumstances it is difficult for everybody concerned to examine the position closely and come to a definite and reasonable conclusion. Listening to the Debate today, I agree that the hon. Member for Stone (Sir J. Lamb) and other Members have made out their case that there are special conditions operating in certain sections of the dairy trade. I understand that the big combines and the co-operative societies have introduced a six-day working week for roundsmen, and I think we are pleased that they have been able to do so, but it must be remembered that it is easier for them, with their large staffs, to do that than it is for the small man, particularly one who is employing fewer than seven roundsmen. The technical complications are rather difficult to explain, but it all depends upon whether an employer has a man regularly available to do another man's work on that man's off day. To work such a system you need more than seven roundsmen.
    Therefore, the small retailers are in a difficult position. It is true that there is a trade board in this case, and that
    1276
    there is, accordingly, a measure of protection for employés, and it is also true that the trade boards have sent round a letter recognising the difficulties the small retailent have in establishing a 6-day week for their employés. The farmer-retailer—the producer-retailer—is also in a special position in that very likely he employs as roundsmen those who are engaged at other times in agricultural work, and it would appear at first sight that the holiday provisions in this Bill would not he properly applicable in such a case, and the wages conditions there are also settled under another procedure. There is, in our view, a case for giving some special protection to the farmer-producers and the smaller retailers, but then comes the sort of difficulty which the House is bound to get into and which it is difficult to get out of by reason of the short time now available to us. The position is that the Amendment as it stands goes rather beyond what is required to meet that particular difficulty. It appears to us that the Amendment would not only exempt milk roundsmen and persons on farms engaged in distributing milk, but also exempt shop assistants and others in shops engaged in the sale of milk and farm produce and in corn merchants' shops. I do not think people would want to give exemption to shop assistants in those shops.
    There is the difficulty, and I must say frankly that 1 do not believe, with all the wisdom at present available in the House, that we could work out a plan or devise a form of words which would accurately effect the purpose which I and other hon. Members desire, and at the same time not be open to the disadvantages which I have pointed out. The House is in a genuine difficulty. What is it to do? It, seems to me the alternatives are either to ask the hon. Member to withdraw the Amendment, or that the House should not pass it but leave it to another place to bring forward an Amendment in another form, or that the House should pass the Amendment now arid leave it to another place to put in restrictive provisions. I do not see any other alternative policy, and for my part, I should prefer to see the House supporting the Amendment as it is and relying on another place to amend it to meet the difficulties which have been pointed out.
    1.13 p.m.
    Mr. ALEXANDER: Obviously this matter cannot be left where the Under-Secretary has left it. With all those who desire to see a tightening-up of the provisions regarding Sunday trading I want to see the Bill on the Statute Book; but the more we leave matters of great substance to be settled in another place, knowing the difficulties which will occur in getting Lords Amendments discussed in this House later in the Session, the more difficult it will be to bring about the object which the promoters of the Bill have in view. I would repeat what I have said privately to the spokesman of the promoters of the Bill, and that is that the more they give way to pressure for widening the provisions of the Bill the more unlikely they are to get it on to the Statute Book.
    Next I should like to answer one or two points which have been put forward in favour of this Amendment. The hon. Member for Thirsk and Mahon (Mr. Turton) asserted that the profits of milk distribution in the larger centres of population were far higher than the profits realised by smaller produced retailers. May I suggest to him, speaking not perhaps without a little experience, and having recently attended a long inquiry into milk prices, that he had better not rely too much upon that argument. In the main the town distributors of milk go in for expensive dairy plants for the up-to-date treatment of milk, whereas in the country districts and among producer-retailers, what is done in the main is to sell milk direct from the cow without putting it through any of these more up-to-date processes, and a sufficent reply to the hon. Member will be found in the prices asked for the goodwill of any of these small retail milk distribution businesses—producer-retailers or retailers on a small scale in provincial towns. One can see at once the margins which are available to them because of the lack of expense at which they stand through not treating the milk so hygienically as do the larger concerns. One can see in the milk trade papers cases in which £500 to £1,500 is asked for some small dairy business with a distribution of 30 to 40 or 50 gallons. On that basis there is no case whatever for saying that those people are not able to do the same as the larger people who have a more scientific plant and have extra expenses to meet.
    Sir W. WAYLAND: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us the figure of the net profits of the little businesses?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: I should be very glad if the hon. Member could decide what the profits should be, in view of what is demanded for goodwill by the sellers of those businesses. That is about the best commercial test that can be applied.
    Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMAN ALLEN: Why do the trade boards say that the small retailer cannot afford to do it? If they say so there must be some substance in it.
    Mr. ALEXANDER: The trade boards say that because they are composed of representatives of the employers.
    Mr. GLUCKSTEIN: What about the workers?
    Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMAN ALLEN: There are 50 per cent. workpeople.
    Mr. ALEXANDER: From the point of view of the workers I quite understand that large bodies of employers do not want any discussion to bold up agreements which have been entered into.
    Mr. KELLY: The matter is decided by the independent members.
    Mr. ALEXANDER: The hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Kelly) puts a very salient point. The balance is held by the neutral members. I do not wish to speak inconsistently about that. I feel I know a good deal about the distributive side of this trade, and the arguments which have been put up contain no real case against the Bill, which makes it incumbent upon those engaged in this distributive business to work a 6-day working week. The point made by the hon. and gallant Member for Hitchin (Sir A. Wilson), who, unfortunately, is not here at the moment, supports me in that. He says that he wants to have as much as possible of the trade in these commodities done between the small man and the consumer directly. He says that there is no difficulty in those trades because they are mostly upon a family basis, and are always able to arrange holidays. If that is the case, there is no difficulty as to one day in seven among groups of that kind. From my experience in the old days, in the West country and in Somerset, I would imagine that that is

    1279
    continuously done in farming families who have a retail milk business. I do not believe that the head of a farming family wants to work his family seven days a week all the year round. I believe those families would not be found in opposition to the Bill, which deals with a very different class of person, the one who handles milk as a middleman and who wants to make the largest amount of profit he can get by his middleman transactions.
    I submit that the hon. and gallant Member for West Birkenhead (Lieut.-Colonel Sandeman Allen) was unfair in his suggestion that the attitude of my hon. Friends is entirely due to co-operative societies being in die business. That is not so, and it is an absurd proposition to say so. My hon. Friends openly and legitimately represent the trade unions, who are organising in order to improve conditions as to working hours, reliefs and wages in all trades. The co-operative societies, with all their trade, are only doing about 23 per cent. of the trade, while the trade unions have negotiated agreements with any number of organisations, apart from co-operative societies, for a 6-day working week. It is not fair to say that we hold our view simply because of the co-operative societies. We want to see every worker in the country guaranteed a reasonable wage, a reasonably short working week and a reasonable number of days off during the working year. There is no reason why those conditions cannot be applied to any trade if the Government, the House and the country make up their minds that that shall be done. The argument which is being raised this afternoon is the same kind of argument as to difficulty which has been raised against any social reform carried in this country in the last 120 years. Every social reform has had the same opposition. I beg the Under-Secretary to have this question settled now. Let the Amendment be rejected now. There is no difficulty in carrying the Bill into effect as it stands. If there has been any difficulty, I cannot believe that the interests which have been so vocally represented here would not have moved long before the Second Reading and the Report stage of the Measure.
    1.22 p.m.
    Mr. C. S. TAYLOR: I agree with nearly every word that has been said by the last speaker, because he knows something about the distributive trade. I am connected with various dairy businesses throughout the south of England, some large, some small and some of medium size some are making profits and some are not. Much as I would like to get every penny of profit from the businesses, I do not see that there is any excuse for making a dairyman work seven days a week.
    Sir J. LAMB: I understand that the hon. Member is connected with the distributive trade. Is he prepared that a man shall milk cows for seven days a week in order that the hon. Member may retail the milk?
    Mr. TAYLOR: I am not talking about the milking of cows.
    Sir J. LAMB: No, certainly not.
    Mr. TAYLOR: The man can have a day off in the week, as can any other worker. I do not see any difference. The hon. Member will remember that when child labour was abolished there was no looking into the cost to the manufacturers to see whether they would be able to afford to abolish child labour and long hours. Those humane reforms were carried through, and no ill effects have been found. The dairy business has very much to struggle against at the moment, and the margin is very small indeed. I can prove that to hon. Members who may doubt me. If you deal with milk properly and efficiently and if you put down machinery and see that the machinery is clean and efficient, you will not make much money out of milk, if any at all. If any hon. Member doubts what I say, I can prove it to him by showing him the accounts of the businesses to prove that he is wrong. The distributors may lose certain profits by allowing this six-day week, but I certainly welcome the reform. Perhaps the Government or the Milk Board may see fit to compensate the distributors for any loss which they may incur.
    1.25 p.m.
    Sir PATRICK HANNON: I agree largely with what has been said by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. I think

    1281
    we are whittling down the Bill a great deal too much. The object of the Bill is to restrict Sunday trading, but time after time we are giving a great deal too much—
    Mr. LOFTUS: May I point out to my hon. Friend that this Clause does not raise the question of restricting Sunday trading at all? It is simply a question of hours.
    Sir P. HANNON: I should be sorry to find myself in disagreement with my hon. Friend, with whom I am a joint collaborator in the Bill, but I think the House would be well advised to allow this matter to be discussed more carefully and thoughtfully in another place, as has been suggested by the Home Office. A case has been made out by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir J. Lamb) on behalf of the farmer-producer, and it would be a pity if this House, by any Measure that it passed, were to inflict inconvenience and difficulty upon a class of the community who are having a very hard struggle to make a livelihood in agriculture in these difficult days. I think that the great majority of the House desire to get the Bill on the Statute Book, and I would appeal to hon. Members not to prolong the Debate, but to limit their speeches a little more than has been the case this morning, and to give every facility that they can for the progress of the Bill, so that it may, if possible, receive its Third Reading to-day.

    Division No. 157.]

    AYES.

    [1.30 p.m.

    Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke

    Foot, D. M.

    Liddall, W. S.

    Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)

    Ganzonl, Sir J.

    Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.

    Assheton, R.

    Gluckstein, L, H.

    Lloyd, G. W.

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

    Goodman, Col. A. W.

    Loftus, P. C.

    Bottom, A. C.

    Granville, E. L.

    Lovat-Fraser, J. A.

    Boyce, H. Leslie

    Grattan- Doyle, Sir N.

    McKie, J. H.

    Bracken, B.

    Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.

    Manningham-Buller, Sir M.

    Brocklehank, C. E. R.

    Gridley, Sir A. B.

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

    Bull, B. B.

    Grimston, R. V.

    Markham, S. F.

    Burgin, Dr. E. L.

    Gunston, Capt. D. W.

    Maxwell, S. A.

    Butler, R. A.

    Hacking, Rt. Hon. D. H.

    Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

    Cary, R. A.

    Hamilton, Sir G. C.

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

    Cautley, Sir H. S.

    Hannon, Sir P. J. H.

    Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)

    Channon, H.

    Harbord, A.

    Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H. H.

    Cobb, Sir C. S.

    Harvey, G.

    Orr-Ewing, I. L.

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

    Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.

    Palmer, G. E. H.

    Critchley, A.

    Heneage, Lieut-Colonel A. P.

    Patrick, C. M.

    Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

    Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-

    Penny, Sir G.

    Cross, R. H.

    Holmes, J. S.

    Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

    Davies, Major G. F. (Yeovil)

    Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

    Radford, E. A.

    Denville, Alfred

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

    Rawson, Sir Cooper

    Dower, Capt. A. V. G.

    Jackson, Sir H.

    Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

    Dugdale, Major T. L.

    James, Wing-Commander A. W.

    Reid, W. Allan (Derby)

    Eastwood, J. F.

    Jones, Sir G. W. H. (S'k N'w'gt'n)

    Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)

    Edmondson, Major Sir J.

    Keeling, E. H.

    Ropner, Colonel L.

    Errington, E.

    Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)

    Rowlands, G.

    Findlay, Sir E.

    Law, R. K. (Hull, S.W.)

    Salmon, Sir I.

    Fleming, E. L.

    Leighton, Major B. E. P.

    Sandeman, Sir N. S.

    1.28 p.m.
    Sir JOHN HAS LAM: I should have liked the Home Office to have put the case the other way round. Why should the House include this Amendment at so late an hour, and ask the other House to whittle it down and send it back to this House for reconsideration? Would it not be far better to let the Bill go as it stands, leaving the other House to make an Amendment if the Home Office should find it to be necessary? What are we voting upon? I believe the Mover of the Amendment said that he would be prepared to withdraw the words "and other farm produce," but other hon. Members objected to that deletion, and I take it that our vote will include other farm produce. What comprises farm produce? Is there an article of human consumption that is not farm produce, and do we want people who produce farm produce to be exempted from the Bill? The complications of an Amendment of this description are, I might almost say, outrageous. I think we ought to reject the Amendment and get the injustice, if injustice there be, remedied in another place, and not create a greater injustice by including the Amendment and leaving it to another place to remedy the injustice that we have created this morning.
    Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."
    The House divided: Ayes, 103; Noes, 73.

    Sanderson, Sir F. B.

    Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

    Wayland, Sir W. A.

    Scott, Lord William

    Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)

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

    Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree)

    Touche, G. C.

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

    Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

    Turton, R. H.

    Wise, A. R.

    Southby, Comdr. A. R. J.

    Wakefield, W. W.

    Womersley, Sir W. J.

    Stourton, Hon. J. J.

    Wallace, Captain Euan

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

    Strickland, Captain W. F.

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

    Sir Joseph Lamb and M. Duncan.

    NOES.

    Adamson, W. M.

    Green, W. H. (Deptford)

    Mathers, G.

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

    Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)

    Montague, F.

    Ammon, C. G.

    Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

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

    Aske, Sir R. W.

    Groves, T. E.

    Oliver, G. H.

    Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

    Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

    Paling, W.

    Banfield, J. W.

    Hardle, G. D.

    Parkinson, J. A.

    Barnes, A. J.

    Harris, Sir P. A.

    Potts, J.

    Bennett, Capt. Sir E. N.

    Haslam, Sir J. (Bolton)

    Pritt, D. N.

    Benson, G.

    Henderson, J. (Ardwlck)

    Proctor, Major H. A.

    Broad, F. A.

    Holland, A.

    Simpson, F. B.

    Burke, W. A.

    Hopkin, D.

    Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

    Charleton, H. C.

    Hume, Sir G. H.

    Smith, E. (Stoke)

    Chater, D.

    Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Cluse, W. S.

    Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)

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

    Daggar, G,

    Jones, A. C. (Shipley)

    Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)

    Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

    Kelly, W. T.

    Thorne, W.

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.

    Thurtle, E.

    Day, H.

    Lathan, G.

    Tinker, J. J.

    Ede, J. C.

    Lawson, J. J.

    Viant, S. P.

    Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough E.)

    Leckie, J. A.

    Watkins, F. C.

    Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

    Lee, F.

    Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

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

    Mabane, W. (HuddersReld)

    Windsor, W (Hull, C.)

    Frankel, D.

    Macdonald, G. (Ince)

    Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

    Furness, S. N.

    McGhee, H. G.

    Gardner, B. W.

    Mainwaring, W. H.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

    Mr. Leslie and Mr. Naylor.

    1.37 p.m.
    Mr. LLOYD: I beg to move, in page 9, line 37, at the end, to insert:
    "or (iii) to any person wholly employed in the transaction of Post Office business."
    There is complete exemption so far as the Post Office and its employés are concerned. In Committee an Amendment was put in to regularise the position of postmasters who perform certain Post Office functions on Sunday. This is a further Amendment in the same sense to give that part of Post Office work the same exemption that ordinary Post Office work has.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: This is a reasonable provision, but there is one thing that ought to be put on record. Where there is a sub-post office and other business is carried on in the same room it is presumed, of course, that only Post Office business will be allowed under this provision.
    Mr. LLOYD: Yes.
    Amendment agreed to.
    1.39 p.m.
    Mr. WAKEFIELD: I beg to move, in page 9, line 37, after the words last inserted, to insert:
    "(iii) to any registered pharmacist within the meaning of the Pharmacy and
    1284
    Poisons Act, 1933, employed in connection with the sale or supply of medicines or medical or surgical appliances in any premises required to be kept open on Sunday for the serving of customers in pursuance of a contract between the occupier of the premises and an insurance committee within the meaning of the National Health Insurance Acts, 1924 to 1935, if he is not employed for more than two hours on that Sunday, and has not been employed on the previous Sunday, and if on a week-day (other than the day of the statutory half-holiday) of the previous week or of the week commencing with the Sunday upon which he is so employed either he has not been, or will not be, employed before half-past ten o'clock in the morning, or has not been, or will not be, employed after six o'clock in the afternoon."
    The Amendment is in a. different form from that in which it appears on the Paper. As originally drawn it is ambiguous. Hon. Members may think this is another exemption to make it a Sunday trading rather than a Sunday Trading Restriction but on examination I think this will be found not to be the case. The Amendment does not drive a coach-and-four through the Bill, but provides something that is necessary. Under the contracts which National Health Insurance societies have with chemists a service must be provided at reasonable hours. Under the regulations a chemist is required to supply with reasonable promptness to an) person who presents

    1285
    an order for drugs on a prescription form provided by the committee for the purpose and signed by any practitioner on the medical list of the committee or his deputy or assistant, such drugs or appliances as are so ordered. It is clear, therefore, that a chemist must be in a position to supply medicines and urgent surgical appliances. I have here a copy of the arrangements which National Health Insurance committees enter into with chemists. It says that in each district for the purpose of supplying drugs and appliances
    "places shall be open during the hours specified in the schedule to this scheme."
    The usual times for opening on Sunday are from 5 to 6, or 6.30 to 7.30 or some similar time. It is, therefore, quite clear that a service must be made available to the general public for this purpose. The object of the Amendment is to ensure that qualified assistants who are employed in this way shall receive time off. In the Bill as it stands, if a qualified assistant was dispensing for just that one hour, or for half an hour, some of these urgent medicines or drugs it would be necessary for the employer to give him an additional four hours off. It is clear that that would place the chemist, especially a small man in a small town, in an impossible position. He requires his qualified man during the week when business is at its peak and dispensing is most required. This service is not a dispensing service operated for profit; only urgent medicines and goods can be supplied upon a Sunday. It is kept open for the convenience of the public and in accordance with agreements.
    Therefore, it is clear that some arrangement must be made along the lines indicated in this Amendment. The Amendment has the full approval of the various pharmaceutical interests, that is to say, the insurance committees, the National Pharmaceutical Union and the Pharmaceutical Society. The Pharmaceutical Society has 22,000 registered pharmacists in membership. The registered pharmacists are the only people referred to in the Amendment. It is not proposed that there should be any exemption for any unqualified assistant, or anybody other than the registered professional pharmacist. All these pharmacists are in membership with the Pharmaceutical Society.
    Sir A. WILSON: Can my hon Friend say what communication has been received from the insurance committees?
    Mr. WAKEFIELD: I have seen their representative, and he told me that they have, in conjunction with the other pharmaceutical interests, discussed this matter. Of the 22,000 qualified men in membership with the Pharmaceutical Society, about 8,000 of them are employers or in business on their own account. This Society agrees that this is a reasonable Amendment. It enables the dispensing to be done, and, at the same time, enables men to have compensatory time off. It has been put to me that the usual hours during the week for a qualified man to come in are from 9 o'clock in the morning, and in that case it may be that he may be dispensing for two hours and would get only an hour and a half compensatory time off. But in actual fact it will be found that the usual amount of dispensing time that he has to put in on a Sunday is just one hour. So that in actual fact, if he has not to come in until 10.30, lie will have an hour and a half at least of compensatory time for the usual hour's dispensing which is done, or, if he is able to go off at 6 o'clock in the evening, he will have off two hours compensatory time for the usual one hour's dispensing on a Sunday. If he is required to dispense urgent medicines on Sunday for more than the two hours, he will be entitled to his full half-day compensation.
    These men are professional men and not ordinary shop assistants. They have to supply this urgent service to the public, and if the Amendment is not accepted by the House, I can foresee difficulties. It will mean that this service will not be available, because the chemists, especially the small men, cannot afford to give a half day off for an hour's dispensing. Therefore, to the employer working in the absence of his qualified assistant, it will mean that on every Sunday in the year, if he keeps his shop open for this urgent dispensing service, he will have to do the work himself. Under this Amendment, it means turn and turn about. The qualified assistant can only be employed on alternate Sundays. He gets his complete Sunday off, and takes it turn and turn about with his employer, and he has the compensatory time off as described in the Amendment. I hope, therefore, that the

    1287
    House will see fit to approve the Amendment, which has been approved by the various pharmaceutical interests and is necessary for the general convenience of the public.
    Captain STRICKLAND: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. POTTS: May I ask for your ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, as to whether the hon. Gentleman the Member fox Swindon (Mr. Wakefield) can alter his Amendment without the unanimous decision of the House.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Captain Bourne): The consideration of manuscript Amendments is always permissible on the Report stage.
    1.51 p.m.
    Mr. LESLIE: I was hoping the hon. Gentleman the Member for Swindon (Mr. Wakefield) and myself might have found an accommodation, but we have had several interviews, and representations from representatives of the qualified men who are organised in a trade union. They feel that they cannot accept the Amendment, because if I read the Amendment aright—
    Captain STRICKLAND: Of what Union is the hon. Gentleman speaking as not being in agreement with the Amendment?
    Mr. LESLIEI am speaking for the qualified men who are organised in the pharmaceutical section of the Shop Assistants' Union.
    Captain STRICKLAND: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Pharmaceutical Society has approved the Amendment?
    Mr. LESLIE: I am aware that the Executive of the Pharmaceutical Society have approved it, but I am not aware that there has been any plebescite taken of the members of that Society, and if I read aright the "Pharmaceutical Journal" there is a very strong body of opinion against any alteration of the Bill at all. I am informed that the usual time during which they have to serve on Sunday is for two hours, usually in the evening. They take the two best hours of the day away from the dispenser, and they give him in lieu of that, one hour and a half in the morning, because the
    1288
    average chemist does not open until 9 o'clock. We would not have objected if there had been a definite time off. The Bill as it stands at the present time has been welcomed by the dispensers—I mean by the employés—and by a growing number of the employers throughout the length and breadth of the country who do not want Sunday work. I will quote from one or two letters which appeared in the "Pharmaceutical Journal." Here is one, the sentiments of which are repeated in several letters:
    "There is no real need for the opening of premises on a Sunday, as 90 per cent. of the requirements are toilet and similar articles. I am a director of a limited company, not because I want to be, but because I have to be owing to my employer being unqualified, and as a director of the company I am denied my weekly half-holiday and I am also denied the statutory holidays."
    Another letter says:
    "For the last three years I have taken duty every Sunday morning, and evening; also Christmas Day and Good Friday, and we open all day on every Bank Holiday. This is for private, and not just a 'public service' as the N.P.U. so glibly puts it. On looking up our prescription book I find that in three years, on Sundays, I have dispensed fewer that half-a-dozen prescriptions. I can safely say that we have not dispensed more than half-a-dozen N.H.I. prescriptions".
    That is in three years. Many others could say the same. These letters are written by small men, employers, who appreciate what is being done in this Bill and say that they do not want to be open on the Sunday. Under the National Health Insurance Act they have to give certain service on Sunday, but they do not necessarily have to keep their shop open on Sunday. They have a door bell in order to deal with urgent cases. Doctors' surgeries are not open on the Sunday except to deal with urgent cases. That is the usual course throughout the country. If it is not considered necessary for the panel doctor to keep his surgery open on Sunday, why should it be necessary for the chemist to keep his premises open? If the doctor has a door bell and the chemist has a door bell and there is an urgent case, all that the patient requires to do is to ring the bell and the service will be given. Speaking from the dispensers' point of view, they feel that if they have to give their services on Sunday they should get the time off which is allowed to other assistants. I am very

    1289
    sorry, but I have to oppose the Amendment and I hope that the House will vote for the Bill as it stands in this respect.
    1.57 p.m.
    Mr. ROWLANDS: I have listened very carefully to the hon. Member, and I have not heard better arguments in favour of an Amendment than those he gave. He obviously represents the pharmaceutical section of the Shop Assistants' Union. I understand that the pharmaceutical profession have an organisation of their own. Surely that organisation ought to deal with this question and not a political section of the Shop Assistants' Union.
    Mr. LESLIE: It is not a political section. As a matter of fact there are very few of these people who have contracted in.
    Mr. ROWLANDS: Whether they have contracted in or not, they are associated with the Shop Assistants' Union, which has allied itself with the Socialist party. They have not associated themselves with their own profession in connection with the National Pharmaceutical Union. The hon. Member has quoted letters showing that only a few prescriptions have been dispensed by certain people in some particular shops. That is the best argument I know for exempting these people. If the hon. Member had been the only person who needed a prescription dispensed, and upon the dispensing of that prescription his health for the following week depended, he would consider the matter important enough to have the shop open to dispense that one prescription. The matter is very important. I do not think that in any village there should be such a condition of things that no prescription can be dispensed when required on the Sunday. The argument that only a few prescriptions are dispensed in such places, coupled with the fact that the pharmaceutical chemist has contracted to dispense these few prescriptions, is the strongest argument for the Amendment.
    2.0 p.m.
    Colonel GOODMAN: I have sympathy with the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Leslie) who opposed the Amendment, but I feel that in the case of chemists' assistants this Amendment meets the case. These assistants will be on duty only every second Sunday, and
    1290
    where they have to work an hour—in country districts it is usually even less—provision will be made for them so that they may have a compensatory holiday. They are not being deprived altogether of the compensatory holiday, because they will get one and a half hour off in the morning, or two hours off in the evening during the week. I do not suggest that I should not like to see them on the same plane as other shop assistants, but this is a special case. In so many country districts where there is only one chemist shop and it is necessary for the shop to be kept open for the dispensing of prescriptions, the shop must be open for that purpose. It may be the case, as it so often is, that there is one chemist with one assistant, and we have to consider also the employer in this instance, where the shop must be kept open for the purpose of the National Health Insurance Act. The Amendment does, in a way, protect the interests of the assistant, because he has not to work every Sunday throughout the year and he does get some compensatory holiday, either in the morning or the evening during the week, as the case may be. Therefore, I suggest that the House will be well advised to accept the Amendment.
    2.2 p.m.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: I should have liked the hon. Member who moved the Amendment and the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Leslie) to have come to some agreement, and I am not without hope that that will be done. I had hoped that the hon. Member who moved the Amendment might have consulted the people he represents and given way a little in order to meet the point put by my hon. Friend. There is not much difference between them and there might be some accommodation made. Unless we can have some assurance that that can be done, we shall have no alternative but to vote against the Amendment, much as we dislike doing that. I do not know whether the hon. Member opposite thinks that it would be proper to withdraw the Amendment, in order to see whether he can arrange matters with my hon. Friend who represents the dispensing employés, and arrange with the Home Office to deal with the matter in another place?
    Captain STRICKLAND: The value of a Second Chamber.
    Mr. DAVIES: If we were discussing the value of a Second Chamber I should have something to say about it, but we are not discussing that subject. I should like to deal with the argument of the hon. Member for Flint (Mr. Rowlands). Both the hon. Member and the mover of the Amendment have made a fundamental mistake in the way they have dealt with the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield. There are tens of thousands of persons who are members of the Pharmaceutical Society by virtue of their technical qualifications. It is obvious that those who are members of the Pharmaceutical Society are divided into employers and employés, and that those who are employed for wages will take a different view from those who employ them, although they belong to the same Pharmaceutical Society. It is just as if I were to say to the hon. Member for Flint that there are two classes of Members of Parliament, those who take the sensible view and those who do not, the sensible people, of course, being on this side and the other on that.
    Mr. ROWLANDS: Does the hon. Member mean to say that the Shop Assistants' Union is the only Union that is open for the qualified pharmaceutical assistant to join?
    Mr. DAVIES: Certainly not. They can join other Unions. Those who are in the employment of the Co-operative movement belong to my Union. We are not seeking that the shop shall not be open for National Health Insurance prescriptions. That is not the point. The hon. Member must distinguish between the man who owns the shop and runs it for his own private gain, and the person he employs who receives wages. We have never been able to understand why the promoters of the Bill or the hon. Member who has moved the Amendment can put these highly qualified men in an inferior position, in respect to compensatory holidays, to the average shop assistant. Unless we can get an assurance that some accommodation will be arranged in regard to this matter, we shall have to vote against the Amendment.
    2.6 p.m.
    Mr. WAKEFIELD: I will try to deal with one or two points raised by the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Leslie)
    1292
    and the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies).
    Mr. THURTLE: I should like to ask, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, whether it is in order for the hon. Member to address the House a second time without asking permission?
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Yes, in the case of a Bill which has been referred to Standing Committee upstairs it is the right of the hon. Member in charge of the Bill or an hon. Member who has moved a new Clause or an Amendment to address the House a second time.
    2.7 p.m.
    Mr. WAKEFIELD: The Pharmaceutical Society has 22,000 members, of whom between 8,000 and 9,000 are employers and the remainder employés. The employés, therefore, are a majority and it, is the Council of this Society which has approved the Amendment I have moved. The interests of the employés are studied because they are all professional men and members of the same society. They are not in an inferior position as compared with shop assistants. Their position, being professional men, is safeguarded by their society. They are in the same position as an assistant who is employed by a doctor. They- are looked upon more in the nature of partners, and in this respect a qualified assistant employed by a qualified man comes under the same description.
    Mr. LESLIE: Can the hon. Member give us any idea hew many of the employés are on the Council of the Pharmaceutical Society?
    Mr. WAKEFIELD: I have no definite information, but they are in a position to elect whom they please. They are in the majority. In the letters which the hon. Member read it is said that certain employing chemists are opposed to the Amendment and wish their shops to be shut. Under the agreement which the chemist enters into with the insurance committee, he undertakes to keep his shop open during certain hours and if he does not provide the services required under the agreement he can be fined up to 250. It is obligatory upon him to keep his shop open by the terms of his contract. I suggest that the Amendment is in the interests of the people for whom the hon. Member spoke. If a chemist has to give

    1293
    a man a half-day's holiday during the week for half an hour's dispensing on a Sunday, which is not profitable, he will have to employ some one else and thus pay less wages to his qualified assistant. No one would like that to happen. There is also going to be great difficulty in small areas where there is only one chemist shop, and perhaps only one or two qualified men available. It is not possible to obtain qualified men to do this work on a Sunday in the same way as you could find a man to do a milk round. The Amendment has been moved with the approval of the Pharmaceutical Society.
    Mr. POTTS: May I ask whether the owners of these shops are all certified chemists?
    Mr. WAKEFIELD: The owners of all these chemist shops—I am not speaking of the chain stores which are able to give compensatory holidays because they have sufficient men available—are qualified men, without exception.
    Mr. POTTS: If the owners are qualified men, why cannot they work on Sunday instead of the employé?
    Mr. WAKEFIELD: They do, and if the Amendment is not accepted it will mean that the qualified employer will never get a Sunday off. It is to enable him and his qualified man to take turns in supplying this necessary service for the public on Sundays during one hour.
    2.14 p.m.
    Mr. MARKHAM: I am a little confused on this matter, and I should like some information before making up my mind as to how I shall vote. The hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Wakefield) says that pharmacists are unanimously in favour of the Amendment. The hon. Member opposite challenges that statement. The employing section may be in favour of it, but the employed section is against it. I should like to ask what justification there is for the statement of the hon. Member for Sedgehill (Mr. Leslie). It has been said that the employés governed by the Clause are not all in the Pharmaceutical Society, that some are in the Shop Assistants' Union.
    2.15 p.m.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: The hon. Gentleman must not misunderstand what has been said. They are all persons who are qualified, but as members of the Pharmaceutical Society they may be Catholics or Protestants or Freemasons or trade unionists. A goodly number of them are trade unionists, and my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Leslie) was speaking on behalf of those who are trade unionists.
    Mr. MARKHAM: That is the point. You have here a professional man who looks to his professional organisation in place of the trade union, or vice versa. My point is, is that portion of employés in the chemists' shops who are in the Shop Assistants' Union the dispensing portion or the non-dispensing portion? We all know that chemists' shops sell everything from pills to pearls.
    Mr. LESLIE: The people concerned are the qualified men, and they had a special meeting on this matter as recently as last Tuesday.
    Mr. MARKHAM: That is exactly the sort of information I want to elicit. It is, then, a fact that a percentage of the dispensers who will be affected by this. Amendment are in the Shop Assistants' Union, and as members they have protested, directly or indirectly, against this Amendment? If that is the case, I would like to know what is to be said from the opposite point of view before I come to a decision.
    2.18 p.m.
    Sir A. WILSON: I agree with the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) that we ought to have further elucidation before we can reasonably vote in favour of this Amendment. The figures are by no means as clear as they have been represented to be. The Industry Census of 1931, which I have looked up, shows (at page 8) 20,000 people who classify themselves as chemists' assistants, and there are only 8,000 retail chemists' shopkeepers. That may or may not be accurate, but it suggests that there are about 8,000 in the position of managers and rather more than 20,000 as assistants. These assistants, I gather, have shown themselves opposed to this Amendment. In Stand-

    1295
    ing Committee I myself had on the Paper an Amendment on a far more restricted basis, and I regret that the Committee decided in favour of discussing an Amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Wakefield) and rejected it by a very small majority. The good will of the House is now being sought to undo the good work that was done in Committee. I confess that while I see much strength in the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon, I also see that there is strong ground for reminding ourselves that this is a Bill to restrict Sunday trading and is intended to restrict employment on Sundays; and if the shop assistants have made their position as clear as the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Leslie) has suggested, and the Pharmaceutical Society has made its position as clear as the hon. Member for Swindon has suggested, I can only suggest a ballot of the Pharmaceutical Society be taken in same form to make the position still clearer before we can rely on the ex parte statements of either side.
    There is one another aspect of the matter. The chain store chemists have been foremost, at considerable expense to themselves, in propagating in this House the doctrine of the five-day week. They tell us what a splendid thing it is. We have received expensive booklets declaring how virtuous it is to be able to produce things on five days and to let the employé have a two days' holiday; but when it comes to the retailer and the chain store retailer, how unwilling they are to apply the five-day week. There is a certain inconsistency between the repeated suggestions that a five-day week ought to be universal in industry and the indignant repudiation of the idea that a six-day week is good enough in the retail trade. I shall be compelled to vote against the Amendment, and I can only echo the desire of the hon. Member for Westhoughton that it be withdrawn, reconsidered, and put forward afresh in another place.

    Division No. 158.]

    AYES.

    [2.25 p.m.

    Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke

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

    Brocklebank, C. E. R,

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

    Baxter, A. Beverley

    Bull, B. B.

    Albery, I, J.

    Beaumont, Hon. R. E, B. (Ports'n'h)

    Cary, R. A.

    Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)

    Bennett, Capt. Sir E. N.

    Cautley, Sir H. S.

    Aske, Sir R. W.

    Bossom, A. C.

    Channon, H.

    Assheton, R.

    Boyce, H. Leslie

    Clarke, F. E.

    2.21 p.m.
    Mr. LLOYD: My hon. Friend the Member for South Nottingham (Mr. Markham) and the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) have appealed to me to bring about, if possible, a reconciliation in this matter. Of course the hon. Member for Westhoughton knows that I have always to pay great attention to what he says. Therefore, I have seriously considered his point. But I wonder whether he has forgotten that this Amendment itself is the result of a certain agreed compromise? The first suggestion put forward was a general exemption for chemists who were supplying medicines and certain appliances. There were other suggestions of various kinds, resulting in the rejection of an Amendment which came before the Standing Committee. The matter was further considered by the various interests and the proposal in this Amendment is brought forward. Therefore it is in the nature of a compromise. Let us examine it on its merits. It is now proposed that registered pharmacists employed on Sundays in those shops which have to be open for the serving of customers in pursuance of a contract with an insurance committee shall not be required to receive the compensatory half holiday, subject to the conditions that the pharmacists must not be employed for more than two hours on the Sunday and have not been employed on the previous Sunday, that is to say must be employed on alternative Sundays only, and must receive compensatory time off in the week.. The Amendment is of a very restrictive character. It applies only to those chemists' shops which have to be open on Sunday under contract. It applies only to qualified assistants, and only to those who are employed for not more than two hours on alternative Sundays. After consultation with the Ministry of Health we think that the Amendment should be accepted, in view of its extremely limited character.
    Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."
    The House divided: Ayes, 120; Noes, 61.

    Cobb, Sir C. S.

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

    Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)

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

    Hume, Sir G. H.

    Rawson, Sir Cooper

    Critchley, A.

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

    Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

    Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

    Jackson, Sir H.

    Reid, W. Allan (Derby)

    Cross, R. H.

    Jones, Sir G. W. H, (S'k N'w'gt'n)

    Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)

    Crossley, A. C.

    Keeling, E. H.

    Ropner, Colonel L.

    Davies, Major G. F. (Yeovil)

    Kerr, J. G. (Scottish Universities)

    Rowlands, G.

    Denville, Alfred

    Lamb, Sir J. Q.

    Salmon, Sir I.

    Dugdale, Major T. L.

    Law, R. K. (Hull, S.W.)

    Sandeman, Sir N. S.

    Duncan, J. A. L.

    Leckle, J. A.

    Sanderson, Sir F. B.

    Eastwood, J. F.

    Lelghton, Major B. E. P.

    Scott, Lord William

    Edmondson, Major Sir J.

    Liddall, W. S.

    Selley, H. R.

    Emmott, C. E. G. C.

    Liewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.

    Shakespeare, G. H.

    Errington, E.

    Lloyd, G. W.

    Shaw. Major P. S. (Wavertree)

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

    Loftus, P. C.

    Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

    Findlay, Sir E.

    Lovat-Fraser, J. A.

    Southby, Comdr. A. R. J.

    Fleming, E. L.

    Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

    Storey, S.

    Foot, D. M.

    McKie, J. H.

    Stourton, Hon. J. J.

    Furness, S. N.

    Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.

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

    Ganzonl, Sir J.

    Manningham-Buller, Sir M.

    Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)

    George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)

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

    Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

    Gluckstein, L. H.

    Markham, S. F.

    Taylor, C S. (Eastbourne)

    Goodman, Col. A. W.

    Maxwell, S. A.

    Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)

    Granville. E. L,

    Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

    Touche, G. C.

    Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.

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

    Turton, R. H.

    Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)

    Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)

    Walker-Smith, Sir J.

    Grimston, R, V.

    Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H. H.

    Wallace, Captain Euan

    Gunston, Capt. D. W.

    Orr-Ewlng, I. L.

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

    Hamilton, Sir G. C.

    Palmer, G. E. H.

    Wayland, sir W. A.

    Hannon, Sir P. J. H.

    Patrick, C. M.

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

    Harbord, A.

    Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

    Wise, A. R.

    Haslam, Sir J. (Bolton)

    Proctor, Major H. A.

    Womersley, Sir W. J.

    Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.

    Radford, E, A.

    Holmes, J. S.

    Raikes, H. V. A. M.

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

    Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

    Rankin, R.

    Mr. Wakefield and Captain Strickland.

    NOES.

    Adamson, W. M.

    Groves, T. E.

    Naylor, T. E.

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

    Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

    Oliver, G. H.

    Ammon, C. G.

    Hardle, G. D.

    Paling, W.

    Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

    Harris, Sir P. A.

    Parkinson, J. A.

    Banfield, J. W.

    Henderson, J. (Ardwick)

    Pritt, D. N.

    Barnes, A. J.

    Holland, A.

    Simpson, F. B.

    Benson, G.

    Hopkin, D.

    Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

    Broad, F. A.

    Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

    Smith, E. (Stoke)

    Burke, W. A.

    Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Charleton, H. C.

    Kelly, W. T.

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

    Cluse, W. S.

    Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.

    Thome, W.

    Daggar, G.

    Latnan, G.

    Thurtle, E.

    Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

    Lawson, J. J.

    Tinker, J. J.

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Macdonald, G. (Ince)

    Viant, S. P.

    Day, H.

    McGhee, H. G.

    Watkins, F. C.

    Ede, J. C.

    Mainwaring, W. H.

    Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

    Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough E.)

    Mathers, G.

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

    Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

    Messer, F.

    Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)

    Frankel, D.

    Milner, Major J.

    Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

    Gardner, B. W.

    Montague, F.

    Green, W. H. (Deptford)

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

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

    Mr. Potts and Mr. Leslie.

    CLAUSE 12.—(Extensions of provisions of this Act to retail trading else-where than in shops.)
    2.33 p.m.
    Mr. LOFTUS: I beg to move, in page 11, line 32, at the end, to insert "(including shell-fish)."
    In moving this Amendment, I would like to say to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Hitchin (Sir A. Wilson), who also has an Amendment down on this matter, that I am advised that the word "shell-fish" includes everything which is mentioned in his Amendment, with the exception of eels, which are covered by
    1298
    the word "fish." I would point out that the Act of 1861 held that fish included crayfish and oysters, and my hon. and gallant Friend has taken the wording of his Amendment from the Sea Fishing Industry Act, 1933, but that Act dealt with sea fishing only. I am quite content that the word "fish" covers fish of all kinds, and that the word "shell-fish" includes every possible kind of shell-fish.
    Mr. HARBORD: I beg to second the Amendment.
    2.35 p.m.
    Mr. THURTLE: The House will realise from certain information which I got the

    1299
    other night how wide are the ramifications of this Bill. It was my privilege to attend a costermongers' dinner in Hoxton. Naturally, as the Member for the borough, I was the guest of honour and I sat next to the chairman. In the course of the evening the chairman told me that it was his habit at week-ends to purchase a considerable supply of cockles and whelks from as far away as Scotland, to cook them on Saturday night and to sell them on Sunday morning. He said the people bought them in order that they might enjoy that addition to their Sunday tea. It was unusual for them to have cockles or whelks on any other day of the week. My informant explained to me that if the Bill passed in its present form he would not be able in future to buy cockles and whelks for the families of Hoxton, who would therefore have to go without that particular relish for their tea on Sunday. Therefore, I am glad that the Amendment has been moved. It may be that it will cause a certain amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth among the members of the Lord's Day Observance Society, of which the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence is such a distinguished supporter and ornament.
    Mr. GORDON MACDONALD: There are others as well as the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. THURTLE: Yes, including Members on my own side of the House, and I very much regret that they do support the Lord's Day Observance Society which. I think, represents a shortsighted and narrow view. I welcome this Amendment, although it may cause distress both to those hon. Friends of mine and to the right hon. Gentleman opposite. I think it well that the families of Hoxton should be allowed to have their cockles and whelks at Sunday tea.
    2.38 p.m.
    Sir A. WILSON: I think the hon. Member is under a misapprehension and that what he is referring to is the absence from Schedules 1 and 2 of these particular comestibles. However, I welcome the Amendment and accept it with some etymological doubts. I find it hard to believe that in our English language, which is so accurate, particularly in Acts of Parliament, all these crustaceans,
    1300
    molluscs and gastropods may be simultaneously included within the single word "shell-fish." It seems doubtful, though I accept the assurance or my hon. Friend that shell-fish includes oysters and also lobsters. I have already made myself aware of the fact that eels and fish are the same thing. I hop: the House will accept the Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 15.—(Short title, citation, application and commencement.)
    2.40 p.m.
    Sir A. WILSON: I beg to move, in page 12, line 22, to leave out "thirty-seven," and to insert "thirty-eight."
    This Amendment would have the effect of deferring until 1st January, 1938, the coming into operation of this Measure. It is not a wrecking Amendment, nor is it designed merely to waste time. I have followed the progress of this Bill with the closest interest for the past two or three months. It has changed its nature radically since its emergence from the Second Reading debate. Standing Committee have made important alterations in it—alterations which are much more important than people outside the House realise. I am certain that if this Bill, as amended in Committee, were referred back to the various associations who originally expressed approval of it, there would be a chorus of disapproval. We have had in our mails this week the first indication of the manner in which the Bill is being received in the few areas where the people concerned have had an opportunity of studying it. We have had from Blackpool, for example, an earnest circular stating:
    "There is no mandate for the Act which represents an attempt by a small and highly organised minority to force their opinions on the overwhelming majority by Act of Parliament."
    I do not accept that as being accurate, but there is a small and highly organised minority of persons with great financial interests in shopkeeping, who regard the Bill with favour, while it is regarded with disfavour by a body which is, probably, numerically much greater. We have heard the promoters undertake that certain changes will be made in another place. Speaking for myself, I am mildly surprised that the promoters of a private Bill should feel so confident of the decisions that will be reached in another

    1301
    place in regard to their own particular proposals, upon a matter which has no party significance and on which, from the legislative point of view, there must be a great many different opinions. I do not like to hear another place referred to as if it were in the pockets of the promoters of a private Bill any more than I care to hear it referred to from the Front Bench as a place in which the wishes of any particular set of persons in this House will be accepted without demur.
    Mr. THURTLE: But the hon. Member must realise that that is a mere statement of fact. The wishes of the present Front Bench are always respected in another place.
    Sir A. WILSON: I have sufficient acquaintance with English history in the past 30 years to realise that there have been some critical occasions when there has been a profound difference of opinion between the two Houses.
    Mr. THURTLE: Not when there was a Conservative Government.
    Sir A. WILSON: If I am not to be called to Order, I must neglect further observations on that point. I wish to see the corning into operation of the Bill delayed for another 18 months instead of having it brought into force practically within six months, simply because I believe that when it comes to be examined by all the Departments concerned, by chambers of trade and commerce, by trade unions of shop assistants and other bodies, it will be found to bear a totally different complexion from that which those bodies now imagine it to bear. The radical difficulty in connection with the Bill is inherent in a private Member's Bill. In the first place it has not been drafted with the same expert technical knowledge and care as that which is lavished on a Government Bill. In the second place, it makes no attempt to abrogate any existing legislation. The earliest Acts of Parliament dealing with this matter are still on the Statute Book and they ought not to remain there. We are assured for example, in the Act of Geo. III of 1761:
    "Nothing in this Act shall be construed to prevent any fish being bought and sold before and after Divine Service on Sunday."
    That Act is still in force and any policeman any prosecute any person who, under
    1302
    the Clause which we have just passed, sells fish on Sunday during hours of Divine Service. The existence of that Act will sooner or later be discovered by some ingenious chief constable, and we shall have once more what happens only too often, the Statute law of Great Britain being brought into disrepute by the fact that the House of Commons has not been sufficiently careful in drawing up its legislation and eliminating the differences between Acts passed in successive Sessions. I take another Act, an Act of Henry VI, which is still in force and which provides as to
    "certain days wherein fairs and markets should not be kept considering the abominable injuries offered to Almighty God and Ins Saints … who are always singularly assisting us in our necessities, because of fairs and markets upon their high and principal feasts, as the Feasts of the Ascension, Corpus Christi, Whitsuntide, and Trinity Sunday."
    and it adds other Saints' days which I need not particularise. It goes on:
    "…holden in the realm of England, on which principal and festive days for great earthly covetousness the people more willingly abandoned their bodily labour."
    I will not continue, but this is the Statute law of Great Britain, and I submit that we ought not to pass a Bill which leaves that on the Statute Book, open to any person to use as a basis for a prosecution. Before we pass a Bill on a matter like Sunday trading, which has been covered by the legislation of four centuries, we ought to consolidate or amend or, better still, completely abrogate all the mass of ancient legislation on the subject which remains on the Statute Book. I have given one case where there is a definite clash between the law of George III and the Bill which we are just passing. That was a case which I picked almost at random, and then there was the second case which I mentioned. Then you have the Sunday Observance Act of 1677, of Charles II's time, "for the better observance of the Lord's Day, commonly called Sunday"—a long Preamble and a long Act, the whole of which is on the Statute Book to-day and is enforceable except to the extent that it is abrogated or modified by this Bill. I suggest that that is absolutely wrong in principle. We ought to begin by taking Statutes as they are and either wiping them out by means of a schedule at the end of the Bill or else amalgamating them and producing an intelligible Act

    1303
    which any shopkeeper can buy for 6d., read and study, and then apply.
    This Bill is a mine of industry for solicitors. It is a considerable source of wealth, I hope, to barristers, for it is certain that, these eases will come before the courts, and, the public mind about Sunday observance being what it is, the public will be offended and will take these cases higher and insist upon decisions. It is not reasonable to have, as we have now, an undertaking that seaside resorts shall do this and inland resorts shall not do this, that one particular category of His Majesty's subjects in a particular area, such as Bethnal Green or Shoreditch, shall have certain rights because they are old established, and those just outside shall not have those rights. If the House will agree to defer the operation of the Bill till 1938, they will have done what they fondly but erroneously imagine their constituents wish, which is to pass something or other about Sunday trading, more or less, and, having done that, there will be 18 months in which the Home Office, in whose legislative capacity I have, in spite of this Bill, undiminished confidence, will have time to work out a new Bill which will consolidate and amend, which will be intelligible, and which will act upon some known principle.
    The reason why this Bill looks so bad on paper, and why it will act so badly in practice, is that there is no philosophy behind it, that the promoters have not made up their minds whether they wish to restrict trading on Sunday because it is Sunday, or whether they wish to restrict employment on Sunday because it is the weekly rest day. If this Amendment is accepted and the House agrees that the Bill should come into force not before the 1st January, 1938, it will give us at least a breathing space in which the Home Office and the others concerned, in consultation with traders and employés, who, by the way, will be badly hit under this Bill, can have an opportunity of producing a Measure which will be a credit to the House of Commons; and that cannot be said of this Bill.
    Mr. ALBERY: I beg to second the Amendment.
    2.50 p.m.
    Mr. LOFTUS: We have heard a long and erudite speech from my hon. And
    1304
    gallant Friend the Member for Hitchin (Sir A. Wilson), a speech appropriate to a Second Reading or possibly a Third Reading debate, but having very little to do with the Amendment before the House. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said the promoters of the Bill had no concrete idea, no philosophy, but 1 made it clear on the Second Reading that this was not a sabbatarian Measure, but was a Measure put forward in response to the demand of tens of thousands of shopkeepers all over England who are forced' by increasing competition to open on Sunday and who appeal to this House to give them the opportunity of rest and healthy recreation on Sunday. It is the effort to do that, while not restricting the amenities of the people, that has made the Bill so difficult a problem. I believe the Bill, as amended by the Committee and during the Report stage, does fulfil the outline that I put forward on the Second Reading. I believe it is a good Bill and a workable Bill, and I beg the House not to agree to the Amendment to postpone its operation.
    2.52 p.m.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: I have followed the proceedings on this Bill from the very commencement, and I ask the House to reject the Amendment for two or three very obvious reasons. One is that the hon. and gallant Member for Hitchin (Sir A. Wilson) declares that the Bill has changed its nature since it received its Second Reading, but I can assure him that this is not the only Bill which has changed after being under consideration by a Standing Committee upstairs. The hon. and gallant Member think there will be a difference in the application of this law if it comes into operation at the beginning of 1938, and then he talks of the Government producing a new Bill in the meantime. Surely, it this House gives this Bill its Third Reading and it becomes an Act of Parliament, it will be the Act of Parliament for the time being. When the hon. and gallant Member talks of a small minority being in favour of the Bill, I am almost certain—nay, I am bold enough to venture lo predict—that if a plebiscite of the shopkeeping community of this country and of the shop assistants were taken on this issue, 98 per cent. of them would be in favour of closing all shops on Sunday.

    1305
    With regard to the leaflet from the Blackpool association, when they say there is no mandate for this Bill, all that the hon. and gallant Gentleman has to do is to study what his own Government do without a mandate. They have done a great deal without a mandate, and if this were done without a mandate, it would not be anything new in the work of this Parliament. The hon. and gallant Gentleman tells us that this not a wrecking Amendment. Frankly, my experience of this House leads me to the conclusion that when an hon. Member gets up and says that his Motion is not a wrecking Amendment, I am compelled to believe that the very opposite is intended. This Bill has had a fairly rough passage, and the only criticism that I would be inclined to make of the promoters would be that they have been too ready to accept Amendments from all quarters. In the main, the principles of this Bill are still sound. There has been an unnecessary growth in this country of Sunday trading in retail shops. It is for Parliament to put a stop to it, and the sooner this Bill become an Act of Parliament and is implemented by the authorities, the better the shopkeepers will like it.
    Amendment negatived.

    FIRST SCHEDULE.—(Trades and Businesses exempted front the provisions of section one.)
    2.56 p.m.
    Mr. BANFIELD: I beg to move, in page 13, line 7, to leave out "or off".
    I am moving this Amendment to enable me to move a further Amendment in page 13, line 10, at the end, to insert:
    "The sale of meals or refreshments for consumption off the premises at any such premises as aforesaid (other than at a fried fish shop) if the sale of meals or refreshments for consumption on those premises forms a substantial part of the business carried on therein."
    It has appeared to me and my friends that it is necessary to have a better definition of what constitutes premises for the purposes of refreshments than is laid down in the Schedule. Unless there is some definition along the lines I am suggesting, it may be possible for somebody to put four chairs and a marble top table inside the door of a baker's
    1306
    shop or some other kind of shop and declare it is a place for refreshments.
    Sir J. HASLAM: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. LOFTUS: The promoters are much obliged to the hon. Member. They think that his series of Amendments really improves the wording and the objects of the Bill.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. ROLAND ROBINSON: I beg to move, in page 13, line 10, after "fish" to insert "and chip."
    I feel that this Amendment should have been moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend-on-Sea (Mr. Channon), but he thought it better that I should move it. The purpose is to improve the definition and to make clear that" fried fish shop "refers to" fish and chip shop."
    Mr. FLEMING: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. R. ROBINSON: I beg to move, in page 13, line 10, at the end, to insert:
    "except in the case of seaside and holiday resorts during the months of June to October inclusive."
    In moving this Amendment, I am, asking the House to agree to an exception to an exception in the Bill, and I am doing it at the request of the National Federation of Fish Friers. When the words were originally inserted the Committee believed that they were fulfilling the wish of that Federation, but that was not so. The general policy of the Federation is Sunday closing, but they feel that some exception should be made in favour of their members who run fish and chip shops in holiday resorts. There it is an entirely seasonal trade, and those who carry it on need to be able to open on every possible day in order to make their businesses pay. Another reason why I move the Amendment is that in holiday resorts a large number of the patrons are working-men. As the Bill stands, if you can spend 3s. or 4s. you can get a meal at a restaurant, and we feel it is important that the workingman who can spend only 6d. on his meal should be able to eat it in a fish and chip shop where he is accustomed to do so.
    Mr. FLEMING: I beg to second the Amendment.
    3.3 p.m.
    Mr. LOFTUS: This Amendment raises two points, one of principle and the other of wording. Last Friday this question was discussed under a wide Clause which was defeated by the House. For some reason, the mention of fish-shops raises laughter, and when I put in a plea last Friday for the poor people, such as cotton operatives, who go in their hundreds of thousands to Blackpool and are used to getting a cheap and healthy meal of fish and chips, I was jeered at from certain quarters. It would be a real injustice to these people if Parliament stopped them from getting fish and chips on Sunday. The wording of the Amendment, however, is too wide and provides no machinery. The Second Schedule gives power to local authorities only to allow opening to 2 o'clock, but the people at the seaside resorts want meals after that hour. The best procedure would be not to press the Amendment in its present form, but to withdraw it and to hope that the Home Office may be able to frame another Amendment to put forward in another place. Until I had the misfortune to take charge of this very complicated Bill, I never realised the extraordinary utility and necessity of having another House.
    Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMAN ALLEN: If this Amendment is accepted, I hope that the definition to be put in the interpretation Clause will define without any doubt what is a seaside and holiday resort, because it may lead to malpractices if it is not clearly laid down.
    3.5 p.m.
    Captain HAROLD BALFOUR: Having the honour to represent a seaside resort, I cannot feel quite content with the proposal of the hon. Member who is piloting this Bill. He says that because the Amendment raises a matter of principle which the House would not accept last week, it should now be withdrawn and we should leave it to another place.
    Mr. LOFTUS: I am sorry if my hon. and gallant Friend misunderstood me. I said that the Amendment raises two questions: that on the question of whether people who go to places such as Blackpool should be allowed to have meals on Sundays, I was sure the whole
    1308
    House was in sympathy with the proposal, but on the second point, regarding the machinery of the proposal, I said that the wording was impossible.
    Captain BALFOUR: As to whether people going to Blackpool should have meals or not I would hesitate to express an opinion. I should say, personally, that no one ought to go to Blackpool at all when there are such very satisfactory and pleasant seaside resorts in the south of England as Margate and Ramsgate. If the promoter of the Bill, instead of leaving this to the Home Office in a sort of vain hope that something may be done, will give me an assurance that he will take steps to see that in another place an Amendment is inserted which will really give effect to the wishes of this House, then I am willing to see this Amendment withdrawn; but with that vague promise that he will, as we may say "hand the baby on to the Home Office", I cannot be content.
    2.7 p.m.
    Sir P. HARRIS: I hope the House will not be so ready to show this almost childish and simple faith in another place. I have great respect for another place, but I cannot feel so certain about the knowledge it possesses regarding fried fish shops. The hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Loftus) has shown great skill in manipulating the House of Commons, but there is no reason to believe that there will be anybody equally skilful in manipulating another place. I think that if we want another place to function we ought at least to put in some words which will force their hands.
    3.8 p.m.
    Mr. LLOYD: I think those hon. Members who were in the House last Friday will have very little doubt about our attitude on the question of whether fish and chips may be supplied on Sunday or not. I spent some time in trying, unsuccessfully, to champion the right of the working man to have fried fish and chips at the seaside on a Sunday afternoon in the summer. Now we find that that meets the wish of the National Association of Fish Fryers, who do not wish to be open on Sundays in other parts of the country, but it is now understood, do desire that their members should be allowed to open their shops at the seaside resorts, Therefore, I am naturally in favour of the Amendment:

    1309
    but again the question of the wording arises, and again we are faced with the same difficulty which we have had to face before, and that is the difficulty of finding satisfactory words in the short time we have had to consider the matter. I can- not say now whether these words are fully satisfactory or not. We are rather inclined to doubt it. On the other hand, I think that the hon. Member for South- West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) and the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Thanet (Captain Balfour) put an interesting point. I think we ought to give some lead to another place in a matter on which we, as the Commons of England, may be said to have special knowledge. I myself, therefore, would be inclined to accept this Amendment, but we must rely upon another place to deal with the difficulties of the situation.
    3.9 p.m.
    Mr. THURTLE: As a Member who is jealous for the reputation of this House, I desire to enter a protest against the invidious references which are being made to another place. It seems to me that it is derogatory to the dignity of the House of Commons, in fact very humiliating to the House, that we should be frequently put into the position, by the promoter of this Bill, of having to dele- gate our responsibility to another place. This is the assembly where matters of this kind ought to be settled. If the Bill is so badly drafted that it is not possible for the House of Commons to give a decision on important points, and that they have to be referred to another place, I submit that that is not a reflection upon the House of Commons but a reflection on those responsible for introducing the Bill. As a House of Commons' man I object to the way in which we have made ourselves subservient to another place in the course of these Debates.
    3.10 p.m.
    Mr. A. REED: One important point appears to have been overlooked. I see that the exemption for seaside places is between the months of June and October. We have heard the views of hon. Members representing only the places which have a hostile climate and are fit to be visited only in those months. I can speak for a charming part of the country where we have a winter sea-son. Visitors to the resorts in Devonshire, for example,
    1310
    are not confined to the summer months. Can they not be allowed to have their nutritious meal of fish and chips if they are spending their holidays in Devonshire during the winter? Fish and chips are eaten in Devonshire just as they are in the towns on the East coast.
    3.11 p.m.
    Mr. FURNESS: The fish friers in my constituency feel very strongly about the proposal that their shops should not be open on Sundays. The Amendment proposes that fried fish shops should be open in seaside and holiday resorts, but it is a dangerous Amendment unless we are given a strict definition of seaside or holiday resort. The constituency which I represent is primarily concerned with shipbuilding, but it also has a certain part which can well be called a seaside resort. That peculiarity applies to many places on the North-East Coast. Fried fish shop proprietors are put in an impossible position if one part of a town is called a seaside resort and another part is called industrial. The Amendment should not be carried unless its proper purpose is made clear and it is strictly limited to places such as Blackpool, and to seaside resorts in the ordinary sense of the term.
    3.13 p.m.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: The position in the first instance of the fish friers was that they did not want to open on Sunday at all, but when the Bill passed through the Committee stage we were informed by a section of their organisation that they wanted to open at certain seaside resorts. With regard to the suggestion that we are asking another place to correct the mistakes of the House of Commons, I have seen so much of this Bill that I have come to the conclusion that few hon. Members dreamt, when we embarked upon it, of the colossal nature of the problem of distribution. We have spent weeks in discussion on agriculture, weeks on coal mining and days on shipbuilding, but the industry of distribution is bigger than coal-mining, agriculture, shipbuilding and textiles combined. At the end of our discussion of this Bill we find ourselves faced with the biggest industry in the land. For that reason I hope that the hon. Gentleman, in consultation with the hon. Member for Blackpool (Mr. J. R. Robinson), will find a way out of our

    1311
    difficulties in another place. I was glad to hear the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Reed) pleading for fish and chips for Devonshire. I can understand fish and chips in Brighton and Blackpool, but I could never understand fish and chips in Torquay. The habits of the people are different.
    Sir COOPER RAWSON: May I ask the hon. Member to explain what he meant by his allusion to Brighton?
    Mr. DAVIES: If I have offended the town of Brighton, or especially the adjoining town of Hove, I withdraw at once. From what has been said by the the hon. Member for Brighton (Sir C. Rawson), I suspect that they do not eat any fish and chips there at all.
    Mr. LOFTUS: The Under-Secretary has suggested that, while the Amendment is probably too widely and loosely drawn, and therefore will have to be amended, it should be accepted, and that, the House of Commons having laid down the principle, the technical and legal method of applying that principle might fitly be left to another place. I ask the House not to accept that suggestion.
    3.16 p.m.
    Sir A. WILSON: I should like to remind the promoters that three-quarters of the white fish consumed in this country is consumed in fried-fish shops. The Amendment is of far wider application than appears at first sight, and I think the House would be better advised, if it accepts the Amendment, to consider widening it rather than restricting it. I am credibly informed on pretty good authority that the Fish Friers' Association is not by any means in all respects representative of the whole body of fried-fish merchants in this country, and that their ex parte statements are not entitled to be regarded as fully representative.
    Amendment agreed to.
    3.17 p.m.
    Mr. BANFIELD: I beg to move, in page 13, line 10, at the end, to insert:
    "The sale of meals or refreshments for consumption off the premises at any such premises as aforesaid (other than at a fried fish shop) if the sale of meals or refreshments for consumption on those premises forms a substantial part of the business carried on therein."
    1312
    In moving this Amendment I propose to follow the course that I outlined in moving the first Amendment. The reason for the Amendment is that it would be most undesirable if, in our reasonable desire to give people facilities to buy meals or refreshments at certain places on Sundays for consumption off the premises, we opened a very wide door to people who did not mean to use their premises for that purpose. I think the promoters of the Bill will see that my only desire is to make the Measure a little fairer and more helpful.
    Sir J. HASLAM: I beg to second the Amendment.
    3.19 p.m.
    Sir ISIDORE SALMON: I think it is important that the House should realise the effect of this Amendment. I myself have ventured to put down an Amendment which I think would really deal with the situation. The hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Banfield) started by saying that he feels that it is desirable that there should be a limitation in regard to the supply of meals for consumption off the premises. It will be noticed that the exempted trades and businesses set out in the First Schedule include the sale of flour confectionery, and the hon Member, in the course of his series of Amendments, is suggesting that the sale of flour confectionery should be excluded from the list of exempted businesses. The effect of that—
    Mr. BANFIELD: On a point of Order. If the hon. Gentleman is going over the whole range, including the subject of flour confectionery, I take it I shall be able to do the same thing.
    Mr. SPEAKER: The Second Amendment is consequential on the first. The hon. Member for Hat row (Sir I. Salmon) wishes to insert some other words. I do not know whether it would alter the character of the Amendment.
    Mr. BANFIELD: I think it would. I have a further Amendment which deals specifically with the point that the hon. Gentleman is now raising, and he can raise it on that Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.
    3.21 p.m.
    Mr. BANFIELD: I beg to move, in page 13, line 11, to leave out "The sale of flour confectionery."
    When this matter was before the Committee these words were in the Second Schedule. The hon. Member for Harrow (Sir I. Salmon) moved an Amendment, which was accepted, which put them into the First Schedule, the effect of which is that flour confectionery is exempt altogether from the provisions of the Bill. I want the House to realise the position in which the hon. Gentleman landed the baking trade. Under the Bill the sale of bread and fancy rolls is forbidden at 10 o'clock on Sunday morning. A baker's shop in the main is a shop where you can buy bread, but you can also buy cakes, fancy confectionery and so on; in other words, it is a baker's and confectioner's shop. The effect of the Amendment that was accepted in the Committee is that a baker can open his shop on Sunday up to 10 o'clock and can sell bread. After 10 he could not, but his shop could be open all day for the sale of cakes.
    At a large meeting last night I was authorised to say to the House that it is the wish of the employers in the baking trade that bakers' shops should not open on Sundays for the sale of confectionery and they beg the House to realise that it is impossible to separate bread and confectionery. One of the main purposes of the Bill is bound to be defeated. It is a temptation to break the law if a shop is open for the sale of a 6d. cake and you cannot supply a, penny roll. They desire to have the shops closed altogether. The hon. Member for Harrow is very anxious that people who go out on Sunday should be able to call at a shop and say, "We want two penny sponge cakes because we are on the verge on starvation." I am not satisfied that sponge cakes are refreshment at all. I have made a, good many of them in my time.
    Sir I. SALMON: Is that the reason why the hon. Member has gone into politics 1
    Mr. BANFIELD: I suggest to the House that the words "flour confectionery" in this part of the Schedule need not be put into the Schedule at all. Every one wishes to enable people to have a chance on Sunday to buy suitable refreshments. We believe that the Bill
    1314
    already makes ample provision for that purpose and can see no reason at all why the words "flour confectionery" should be inserted. If a person went into a restaurant or cafe and said, "I want to buy a penny bun and two sponge cakes," it might be argued "We do not know whether we can sell them because of the words flour confectionery' in the Act." Provided the request is bona fide and the people want the food for the sake of refreshment, there is no reason at all why it should not be supplied. We do not want restaurants and cafes on Sundays to be turned into bakers' and confectioners' shops under a different name altogether. The Bill gives ample protection for all who want refreshment on Sunday. I have gone into this matter because I am anticipating the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Harrow, but I would remind the hon. Gentleman that thousands of bakers up and down the country have asked for this provision to be put into the Second Schedule, and for the chance to close their shops. Even the hon. Member for Harrow, as the head of a big business, can well afford to say that, if the baking businesses of this country ask that flour confectionery shall be taken out of the First Schedule and that their shops shall be shut, he will agree to support the Amendment.
    Mr. DUNCAN: I beg to second the Amendment.
    3.28 p.m.
    Sir I. SALMON: It is a little difficult to follow the arguments of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Banfield). In so far as he admits that the baking trade as a whole are not desirous of having their shops open on Sunday, the Amendment which I have suggested covers the position. All that I am anxious to do is to provide that the House shall make the intention of the Bill absolutely clear, as we do not want to have a Bill which will be impracticable in its operation and administration. In the Committee upstairs the Home Secretary admitted that, for administrative purposes, it was desirable to put in the words "flour confectionery". When the promoters of the Bill introduced it, they said that they did not desire to interfere with the amenities of the people. Is it not a very absurd thing that, if persons desire to purchase on a Sunday such

    1315
    things as sponge cakes, buns or biscuits, they will be precluded from doing so unless they consume them on the premises?
    That is the doubt, and it is because such a doubt exists that I am desirous of moving a later Amendment, first of all, to meet the position of the bakery trade. At the same time, I hope we are not going to re-introduce D.O.R.A., so that on every day of the week it would be possible to buy a sponge cake, a bun or biscuits, but on a Sunday one would be precluded from doing so. It does not mean that you are going to have any special places open. It is provided that refreshments and meals may be served. The hon. Member says that refreshments and meals include these things for sale off the premises. I am advised that that is not clear, and all that I am asking the House to do is to say definitely and explicitly what it means. My Amendment would not be widening the door or doing anything to cut across the objects of the Bill, with which a large majority of the House agree and with which I have great sympathy. People who supply refreshments are the servants of the public. We have heard a great deal about what shopkeepers want. There is a big public to be considered, but for some extraordinary reason the view seems to be held that the public are not to be considered.
    I remember that two or three years ago the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) seconded a Bill, which passed through the House, to permit local authorities to advertise this country abroad, in order to show visitors the amenities and beauties of this country. Does the House think that it is sensible when visitors come from abroad that we should tell them that on Sunday they may buy an ice cream, with a wafer—the hon. Member opposite, who objects to my Amendment, provides that you may buy an ice cream with a wafer—but that they cannot buy an ice cream with a sponge cake? Is that not absurd, on the face of it? It is because of these absurdities that the House ought to understand what they are doing. If they support my Amendment they will be doing nothing more or less than giving a definite expression to the intention of the promoters that the introduction of the Bill shall not interfere with the amenities of the people.
    1316
    If what I propose is not done, the Bill will interfere with the amenities of the people in the way I have described and will make the purchase of buns, biscuits or sponge cakes, illegal for anyone who wants to consume them off the premises. That is a preposterous proposition. We have had enough of D.O.R.A., and we do not want a super D.O.R.A. I do not wish to detain the House, because I should like to see the Bill through.
    3.34 p.m.
    Mr. ORR-EWING: I should like some definition of what will be the position of the wild animals in the Zoological Gardens at Whipsnade, unless we are able to buy our buns and biscuits to throw to those animals I do not wish to speak about the hardship to those animals, but we must have some definition as to the position of a. visitor to the Zoo at Whipsnade unless some assistance is given to him in the buying of biscuits and buns on Sundays.
    Mr. LOFTUS: If the position were as described by the hon. Member for Harrow (Sir I. Salmon) it would be a preposterous position. If people were forbidden to obtain buns, cakes or biscuits, it would be intolerable. The Amendment is clear, and avoids any danger of that kind. It says:
    "The sale of meals or refreshments for consumption off the premises."
    Surely buns, biscuits and cakes are refreshments, and as such they are allowed to be sold in any place where the sale of meals and refreshments is a substantial portion of the business. That answers the point put by the hon. Member for Westonsuper-Mare (Mr. Orr-Ewing). I hope the House will accept the Amendment. I can assure the hon. Member for Harrow that it is so framed that refreshments can be consumed off the premises, but it stops a baker who has never yet opened for the sale of refreshments suddenly putting a small cake in a small room and then selling bread off the premises the whole day.
    Mr. THURTLE: This is rather a complicated issue and I hope we shall have some advice from the Under-Secretary of State. But I hope he will not suggest that we should leave this issue to another place.
    Sir A. WILSON: I am in as much doubt as other hon. Members on this matter, but

    1317
    I prefer to err with the hon. Member for Harrow (Sir I. Salmon) rather than to think rightly with the promoters of the Bill. If there is any doubt, I prefer to accept the authority of the hon. Member for Harrow in any matter which refers to the feeding of the people, and, equally, to leave the wild animals to the tender mercies of the promoters.
    3.37 p.m.
    Mr. LLOYD: This question is a good example of the complicated difficulties with which we have to deal in regard to this Bill. Flour confectionery was originally in the Second Schedule, but in Committee it was moved into the First Schedule, because the Committee accepted the view that it would be impossible to distinguish between buns and cakes sold as refreshments and those which were sold for consumption at home. Administratively it was difficult to distinguish between the man who wanted to buy a bun or cake to eat in the street and the man who wanted to eat it at home. But when this had been done the bakers and all interests concerned came to the conclusion that while the effect would be to meet the particular difficulties which the Corn-mitt had in mind, it would also enable bakers to open, and indeed would give a direct incentive to certain bakers to open on Sundays. Further consideration therefore was given to it, and this compromise has been worked out. It is not easy to get a solution of this problem, but we think that the hon. Member has found a reasonable and practical solution of the problem.
    Amendment agreed to.
    3.40 p.m.
    Mr. BANFIELD: I beg to move, in page 13, line 13, at the end, to insert "(including wafers and edible containers)."
    This is a drafting Amendment in order to make it clear that any one who buys an ice cream on a Sunday shall be allowed to buy the wafer or edible container with it.
    Amendment agreed to.
    3.42 p.m.
    Mr. RICHARD LAW: I beg to move, in page 13, line 17, after "newspapers," to insert "and at railway station bookstalls of stationery."
    The effect of this Amendment is very important. Newspapers can be sold anywhere on a Sunday, but periodicals and
    1318
    magazines are only to be sold at railway station bookstalls. The purpose of the Amendment is to strengthen the Bill and to fulfil those objects that we all have in view by giving necessary leisure to the community and at the same time doing it without detracting from the ordinary services which the public enjoy on a Sunday. It is obvious that the sale of newspapers on a Sunday is not so much Sunday trading as the provision of an essential service to the community. On the other hand I think it is equally the case that the sale of periodicals and magazines, commodities which can be obtained equally well on any other day of the week, is not an essential service to the community, but is in fact Sunday trading. Though it may seem rather a fine distinction it is not really a fine distinction at all, but is a most vital distinction to a very large class of the community and a very industrious class. I mean the numerous small newsagents who are scattered up and down the countryside.
    The present position, I understand, is this: Apart from London and the Home counties the great bulk of Sunday newspapers are distributed either by the newsagents in the mornings without opening their shops, or they are distributed by hawkers on the streets. The newsagents have never had any objection to this form of competition, but I understand that about four years ago the publishers of periodicals and magazines began sending their publications to these street sellers direct and not through the regular newsagents, and this has had a considerable effect upon the newsagents' trade. In the City of Hull, where this sort of thing has been happening to a great extent—it happens particularly throughout the North of England—the sale of periodicals and magazines in the streets on Sundays has gone up during the last four years by something like 150 per cent., but at the same time the total sale has remained more or less constant. That means that an enormous amount of trade has been diverted from the newsagents to these Sunday traders, who appear only on Sundays with their barrows, pay no rates and are now becoming most formidable competitors of the newsagents. If this is allowed to continue, the inevitable result will be that newsagents throughout the country will be compelled to open their shops on

    1319
    Sundays in order to meet that competition from the street sellers. If the Amendment is rejected, and the Bill passes as it now stands, the result will be that thousands of shops will be open on Sundays which are not open on that day at present.
    The only substantial argument I have heard against the Amendment is the fact that the National Federation of Newsagents is said to be against it and that the Hull branch is the only one which supports it. It is true that officially the National Federation of Newsagents opposes the Amendment, but I think there is very grave reason to suppose that in this matter it does not represent the views of its Members, for it is a fact that less than a year ago there was a. meeting of the Federation at Bournemouth which unanimously carried a resolution to the effect that it was desirable that all newsagents' shops should be closed by 2.30 p.m. on Sunday. That implies that there is no great enthusiasm for Sunday trading on the part of newsagents. I appeal to the House to accept this Amendment. These small newsagents are a very honourable section of the community. Many of them are one-man businesses and they have to work very long hours during the week. If this Amendment is not accepted. we shall be compelling them almost by Act of Parliament to work very long hours not only on six days of the week but on seven days. I hope the House will consider the matter very carefully before it rejects this Amendment.
    Sir I. SALMON: On a point of Order. May I point out that the Amendment in my name was not called?
    Mr. SPEAKER: It could not be called as there was another Amendment which was almost identical with it.
    Sir FRANK SANDERSON: I beg to second the Amendment.
    3.48 p.m.
    Mr. LIDDAL: I hope the House will not accept the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hull (Mr. Law). The National Federation of Retail Newsagents consists of 320 branches, and the only branch which requires this Amendment is that referred to by my hon. Friend, namely, the Hull
    1320
    branch. The reason the National Federation opposes this Amendment is not that it desires to have Sunday trading. I would remind the House that the Shops Act, 1928, classed the sale of newspapers, periodicals and magazines as one trade, and if this Amendment were accepted the trade would be faced with a great deal of difficulty in saying what constitutes a newspaper and what constitutes a periodical or magazine. If hon. Members realise that papers such as "Tit Bits" and "John Bull" and other papers are registered as newspapers, they will understand the difficulties that would arise. I am sure that if the hon. Member for South West Hull had considered the matter from that point of view, he would have hesitated before moving this Amendment, which I hope will be rejected.
    Mr. LOFTUS: The weakness of the case put forward by the hon. Member for South West Hull (Mr. Law) is, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, the fact that of 320 branches of the National Federation of Newsagents, one branch asks for this and the others object to it. Therefore I would ask the hon. Member to withdraw the Amendment.
    Sir A. WILSON: I think we should be well advised to accept the Amendment and allow the matter to be dealt with further in another place. This is the first attempt we have had this afternoon to restrict Sunday trading and the promoters of the Bill immediately demand that we should reject it. Let us have at least one Amendment which restricts Sunday trading.
    3.51 p.m.
    Mr. LLOYD: With regard to the Amendment dealing with railway book stalls I think the hon. Member for South West Hull (Mr. Law) would be well advised not to press it because there is another and, I think, a better Amendment on the same subject in the name of the hon. and gallant Member for Hitchin (Sir A. Wilson). As regards the second Amendment which the hon. Member has on the Paper to leave out "periodicals and magazines," if a newsagent is allowed to open for the sale of newspapers, it seems reasonable that he should be allowed to sell periodicals and magazines as well. Therefore we are not disposed to accept that Amendment.
    3.52 p.m.
    Mr. LAW: I am sorry that the Under-Secretary of State is unable to accept the Amendment. I still believe that the effect of rejecting it is to compel newsagents to open when they do not want to open. The hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Liddall) said that the National Federation was against it because of the Shops Act, 1928, which allowed magazines and newspapers to be treated in the same way. Since 1928 there has been

    Division No. 159.]

    AYES.

    [3.55 p.m.

    Cary, R. A.

    Hume, Sir G. H.

    Thurtle, E.

    Chater, D.

    Keeling, E. H.

    Touche, G. C.

    Clarke, F. E.

    McKie, J. H.

    Walker-Smith, Sir J.

    Cobb, Sir C. S.

    Nall, Sir J.

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

    Duggan, H. J.

    Pownall, Sir Assheton

    Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)

    Glucksteln, L. H.

    Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)

    Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.

    Scott, Lord William

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

    Gunston, Capt. D. W.

    Stourton, Hon. J. J.

    Mr. Law and Sir Frank Sanderson.

    Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.

    Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (N'thw'h)

    NOES.

    Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke

    Fleming, E. L.

    Mathers, G.

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

    Frankel, D.

    Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

    Adamson, W. M.

    Furness, S. N.

    Messer, F.

    Albery, I. J.

    Gardner, B. W.

    Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)

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

    Goodman, Col. A. W.

    Montague, F.

    Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)

    Gower, Sir R. V.

    Morrison, R. C (Tottenham, N.)

    Ammon, C. G.

    Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.

    Naylor, T. E.

    Aske, Sir R. W.

    Green, W. H. (Deptford)

    Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H. H.

    Astor, Major Hon. J. J. (Dover)

    Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddi'sbro, W.)

    Oliver, G. H.

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

    Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

    Orr-Ewing, I. L.

    Banfield, J. W.

    Guest, Hon. I. (Brecon and Radnor)

    Paling, W.

    Barclay-Harvey, C. M.

    Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)

    Palmer, G. E. H.

    Barnes, A. J.

    Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

    Parker, H. J. H.

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

    Hamilton, Sir G. C.

    Parkinson, J. A.

    Bennett, Capt. Sir E. N.

    Hanbury, Sir C.

    Plugge, L. F.

    Bird, Sir R. B.

    Hannon. Sir P. J. H.

    Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

    Bossom, A. C.

    Harbord, A.

    Potts, J.

    Bower, Comdr. R. T.

    Hardie. G. D.

    Pritt, D, N.

    Boyce, H. Leslie

    Harris, Sir P. A.

    Proctor, Major H. A.

    Briscoe, Capt. R. G.

    Harvey, G,

    Purbrick, R.

    Broad, F. A.

    Hallam, Sir J. (Bolton)

    Rankin, R.

    Brocklebank, C. E. R.

    Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

    Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)

    Bull, B. B.

    Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-

    Rawson, Sir Cooper

    Burgin, Dr. E. L.

    Herbert, Captain S. (Abbey)

    Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

    Burke, W. A.

    Holmes, J. S.

    Reid, W. Allan (Derby)

    Castlereagh, Viscount

    Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

    Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)

    Channon, H

    Jackson, Sir H.

    Ropner, Colonel L.

    Charleton, H. C.

    Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

    Rowlands, G.

    Cluse, W. S.

    Jones, A. C. (Shipley)

    Salmon, Sir I.

    Cocks, F. S.

    Jones, Sir G. W. H. (S'k N'w'gt'n)

    Selley, H. R.

    Colman, N. C. D.

    Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

    Shakespeare, G. H.

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

    Kelly, W. T.

    Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree)

    Critchley, A.

    Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.

    Simpson, F. B.

    Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

    Lamb, Sir J. Q.

    Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

    Cross, R. H.

    Lathan, G.

    Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)

    Crossley, A. C.

    Lawson, J. J.

    Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

    Crowder, J. F. E.

    Leckie, J. A,

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Daggar, G.

    Leighton, Major B. E. P.

    Southby, Comdr. A. R. J.

    Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

    Leslie, J. R.

    Spens, W. P.

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Llewellin, Lieut.-Col, J. J.

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

    Day, H.

    Lloyd, G. W.

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

    De Chair, S. S.

    Loftus, P. C.

    Strickland, Captain W. F.

    Denville, Alfred

    Lovat-Fraser, J. A.

    Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

    Dugdale, Major T. L.

    Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

    Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

    Duncan, J. A, L.

    McCorquodale, M. S.

    Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)

    Ede, J. C.

    Macdonald, G. (Ince)

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

    Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough E.)

    MacDonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)

    Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)

    Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

    MacLaren, A.

    Thorne, W.

    Eimley, Viscount

    Mainwaring, W. H.

    Tinker, J. J.

    Errington, E.

    Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.

    Viant, S. P.

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

    Manningham-Buller, Sir M.

    Wakefield, W. W.

    Findlay, Sir E.

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

    Walkden, A. G.

    an enormous development of direct distribution to street sellers, as distinct from newsagents and the situation has changed materially. Whatever the Federation may say, it is this House which is considering the Bill and I think that in defence of the newsagents the House ought to pass the Amendment.
    Question put, "That these words be there inserted in the Bill."
    The House divided: Ayes, 23; Noes, 162.

    Wallace, Captain Euan

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

    Watkins, F. C.

    Winterton, Rt. Hen. Earl

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

    Wayland, Sir W. A.

    Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

    Mr. Radford and Mr. Liddall.

    Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

    Mr. LOFTUS rose—
    It being after Four of the Clock, and objection, being taken, to further Proceeding, further Consideration of the Bill, as amended stood adjourned.
    Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be further considered upon Friday, 8th May.
    The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
    Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 2..
    Adjourned at Four Minutes After Four O'Clock, until Monday next, 4th May.