COST OF LIVING.

HC Deb 22 December 1937 vol 330 cc2067-126

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Lathan

I beg to move, That this House, taking note of the upward trend of prices without a corresponding increase in the income of the average household, is of opinion that the public, especially that section of it already suffering on account of inadequate resources, should be protected by measures for the better organisation of production and distribution and the elimination of profiteering in order to keep the cost of living within proper limits. I have, at the outset, to ask the indulgence of the House, because I am suffering, as hon. Members can hear, from a disability which will render it impossible, I fear, for me to do the justice I should have desired to the Motion. Incidentally, it may be that some hon. Members will view my affliction with a measure of equanimity, as it will relieve them from the possibility of my occupying their time. While it certainly would appear to some of us on these benches that there is a peculiar appropriateness in discussing a question of this character at this time of the year, a different opinion obtains in other quarters, if the attendance on the other side is an indication of their view.

When I gave notice, a fortnight ago., that I would draw attention to this matter, I believed that there were few subjects occupying the minds of the people of this country to a greater extent. If I had had any doubt, that would have been dispelled by the state of my post-bag since. From all quarters and all sorts of people, communications have rained in upon me—from organisations, from individuals, from those who are deeply affected by the present state of affairs, and from those who are not, but who desire to see a remedial improvement effected and a burden removed from the shoulders of their less fortunate fellow-citizens. I have received communications from public men and women, from the women with the basket—the housewives—and from the aged poor. Most pitiful of all have these been, putting to me problems that I cannot answer, and I would invite the Government to give some consideration to them. From some, I have had prayers; from some, with the desire that I should pass them on, terms that would bear a different kind of interpretation. One gentleman, in condemning very emphatically the tax on the workman's Christmas dinner, quoted Dickens, and asked me to read the quotation to the House. I will spare the House. He invited me, in particular, to read it to the Minister, whom he took to be the modern prototype of Scrooge.

If hon. Members have any doubt as to the feeling on this question, let them consult the housewives in their divisions, and I prophesy that those doubts will be speedily removed. Those housewives know that during the last four years food prices have risen 16 per cent.; bread has risen by 2d. per 4-lb. loaf, potatoes by a 1d. for each 7 lbs., bacon by 2¾d. per 1b., butter by 4d. per lb., and eggs by ¼d. each. The position in regard to milk is little short of a scandal. Milk in Great Britain is dearer to-day than in any other country in Europe. On 1st November, the price of milk in London rose from 7d. to 7½d. a quart. That means that thousands of people who can afford to buy milk only in half-pints at a time, are charged 2d. for each half-pint, and the milk for the poorest costs in effect 8d. a quart. Milk, one of the chief necessities of life, is for the poorest people the dearest of all things. The Advisory Committee on Nutrition has stated that the desirable amount of milk for children is from one to two pints a day. At the present time, and with present prices, one and a-half pints of milk a day would cost 5¾d., or 3s. 4¼d. a week. It is more than the whole sum allowed by the Unemployment Assistance Board for the maintenance of a child under five where there are other members in the family.

I will not depend alone on the point of view of the housewives in regard to this question. There is ample independent corroboration and authority. The "Financial News," which will hardly be regarded as an organ of Left Wing thought, on 23rd November last, said: It is perhaps a little anomalous that at a time when commodity prices are falling and unemployment is threatening to rise, the increase in the cost of living should be a matter of major economic and political concern. Incidentally it does not appear to be so to hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House. But at the recent by-elections, the rising cost of food has shown itself to be a political issue of first-class importance and in the United States, where the increase during the last 12 months has been only three-fifths as great as the increase here, President Roosevelt has felt himself compelled to initiate an inquiry into the reasons for the increase and into any 'monopolistic practices' which may have stimulated it. Here, there is so far no sign of official action by the Government. But, nevertheless, the problem is an acute one, not only for the wage-earner, but also for all those who receive fixed money incomes. The advance has been serious. Other papers and other bodies have given attention to the matter. I have no doubt my hon. Friends on the Liberal benches will desire to tell us of the journalistic investigation in which they are specially interested, and I will not encroach upon their territory. These rises are not recent or spasmodic; they are continuous and substantial. The Food Council, in its report for 1936, drew attention to the high prices of bread and fish. First, as regards bread, they said: We consider that bread prices are of special importance, because it has been estimated that bread and flour represent some 20 per cent. of the total expenditure of poor families on food, and that the addition of 1d. to the price of the 4 lb. loaf, with a corresponding increase in the price of flour, represents an increase of over 2 points in the cost of living index. In regard to fish, they said: Although the port prices of fish have for some years been in general far from satisfactory to the catching side of the industry, the retail price of fish still stands higher in relation to pre-War than that of any other food. In 1926 the Ministry of Labour's index for fish averaged 101 per cent., while their general food index averaged 30 per cent. above July, 1914. To-day, so far as fish is concerned, the position is worse. The "Ministry of Labour Gazette "for December shows that the average for the country on 1st November, 1937, was 102, but in the large towns, and that is where the pressure is felt most, it was 108.

Lest it be thought that I am looking at the question from the point of view of the consumer only, let me now quote a representative of the distributors. British meat tops the list, so far as prices are concerned, in the Ministry of Labour statistics. In the "Times" of 28th September last Mr. Coggan, President of the Meat Traders' Association, is reported as saying: The matter which is foremost in the minds of all our members. … is the continued climb in the cost of all classes of meat, a climb which has, in my judgment, been due to a very considerable degree to the quota policy of the Government. He was supported, according to the report in the "Times," by others, and a resolution giving effect to his views was carried by a very large majority.

Mr. H. G. Williams

Was the resolution strictly on the lines of his speech?

Mr. Lathan

Yes, as far as I am able to gather from the report. I will arrange for the hon. Member to have the report in extenso if he wishes.

Mr. Williams

I was present when the resolution was carried.

Mr. Lathan

Then I am sure that, with his regard for strict accuracy, the hon. Member will confirm the statement I have made.

Mr. Williams

I do not.

Mr. Lathan

If the hon. Member differs from my interpretation, his quarrel is not with me, but with the "Times," because I am quoting as literally as I can the "Times" report. I have said that these increases are continuous. Ample support for that contention is to be found in the Ministry of Labour's figures, but I will not take up time in proving what is well within the knowledge of most hon. Members. As a short time only has elapsed since the matter was last discussed by the House, it may be appropriate to compare the figures with those prevailing in July, when the question was last before the House, and also the figures which were then alluded to for the end of last year. In December last, the index figures were: for all items, 51 per cent., and for food only, 36 per cent. In July last they were: for all items, 55 per cent., and for food only, 40 per cent. To-day, they are: for all items, 60 per cent., and for food only, 46 per cent. That, it will be observed, is an increase of nine for all items and 10 for food since December, and five for all items and six for food since July. Since the question was last debated here, these increases have taken place—again, I quote from the Ministry of Labour figures for six essential foods—bacon has increased by ¾d. per lb., tea by ½d. per lb., fresh butter by 2½d. per lb., salt butter by 2¼d. per lb., cheese by ¾d. per lb., eggs by 1d. each and milk by 1d. a quart.

Mr. Marcus Samuel

Has the consumption gone down as a consequence of these increases, or has the consumption increased?

Mr. Lathan

I think what I shall say a little later will prove beyond doubt that consumption has gone down, because people are compelled to do without, because they have not the resources to buy the necessities of life. Let us consider the matter from another point of view. The Government have set up committees, and are engaged in considerable propaganda in regard to nutrition, cookery and allied subjects. All that is justifiable in its way, although it is my view that, in present circumstances, it looks very much like a mockery to a large number of our people. The women with whom I come in contact in my own constituency, who are concerned with these questions, suggest that there is something else which the Government might do. They might set up another committee to show them how to get the money necessary to buy these essential foods. The House also will not need instruction upon what are well known as the British Medical Association's minimum diets. They set out the very minimum upon which life can be satisfactorily maintained. The organised working women of the country are much interested in this question. A standing joint committee representing women engaged in industry and commerce, the co-operative women and the women organised within the Labour party, representing approximately 2,000,000 women in all, recently invited the housewives in different parts of the country to ascertain costs of the minimum diet for a family of five—man, woman and three children. When the diet was constructed in 1933 by the British Medical Association, the cost was said to be 22s. 6½d. per week.

I have here a summary of 60 cases relating to all parts of the country, which shows that the cost of this minimum diet on the 26th November last ranged from 26s. 8½d. the lowest to 36s. 2d. the highest. If there is any desire on the part of hon. Members for details of places or particulars of the diet—I am assuming that they are sufficiently acquainted with the subject to have these facts in mind—I shall be very pleased to give these details. It will be observed that the minimum increase is 4s. 2d. per week and the maximum increase 13s. 7½d. A moderate average would be 30s. The women responsible for the collection of these figures were asked to quote the cheapest prices at the shops doing ordinary working-class trade. In a number of cases they even went to the street markets in order to secure the cheapest possible prices. It must be remembered that the diet is a bare one, a minimum only. Medical opinion takes the view that it allows too little of milk and butter, and there are no eggs at all.

I will trouble the House with a little further information of this character. I have in my hand a document, or, what the lawyers, I believe, would call, an exhibit, which may not be very well known to hon. Gentlemen opposite although I strongly suspect that more than a few of my colleagues on this side of the House have assisted in entering up records in such books. It is the weekly order-book of a grocery store, and it has been sent to me by one of my constituents. She gives me the actual figures checked up by the assistant and entered at the time, when there was no idea in the mind of anybody concerned, that they would be used for the purpose for which I am now using them. They show the prices of articles of regular consumption in 1932. This book is accompanied with information which is confirmed in regard to the prices of those same commodities at the present time. The commodities are flour, butter, lard, sugar, bacon and coal. I will not trouble the House—though I am perfectly prepared to give the details if desired—but the total increase in the price of those articles alone is 2s. 10¾d. It will be observed by the House that there are no extravagances and no luxuries. There is nothing to justify the comment that was made when last we discussed this question in this House about unnecessary expenditure upon cosmetics and that kind of thing.

Major Mills

The hon. Member has said that there was an increase of 2s. 10¾d., and it would be interesting to know the proportionate increase in respect of these commodities.

Mr. Lathan

I shall be very pleased to do so. It was only consideration for the time of the House that prevented me from reading out the details straight away. The quantities and prices are as follows. One stone of flour, price in 1932, 1s. 7d., to-day 2s. 7d.; one pound of butter 1s. 1d., now 1s. 7d.; one pound of lard 6d., now 9½d.

Mr. H. G. Williams

Does the hon. Member say 1s. 7d. for butter? It is 1s. 4d. in London—at the Army and Navy Stores, half a mile away. [An HON. MEMBER: "You mean cart grease!"] It is dairy butter.

Mr. Lathan

I am dealing with the facts of the case, and the facts are that two pounds of sugar in 1932 cost 2¾d., and to-day the price is 5d.; one pound of bacon was 8d. and to-day it is 1s. 6d.; coal was 1s. 9d. a bag, and to-day the price is 1s. 10d. If hon. Members will take the trouble to cast up the figures which I have given, I think they will find that they confirm the statement which I have made as to the total increase being 2s. 10¾d.

Mr. H. G. Williams

Did the hon. Member say that sugar was double in price?

Mr. Lathan

Yes.

Mr. Williams

The price is the same today as it was in 1932.

Mr. Lathan

I am giving the figures that were given to me, and I am not questioning for a moment the knowledge which the hon. Member possesses on this subject. These articles were bought at a co-operative stores where there is not the same incentive, it will be admitted, to profiteer, because whatever profit is made is distributed among those who make the purchases. This morning I had a similar communication from another woman constituent. In this case the woman says that the commodities were bought from leadings firms, Maypole, Limited, Meadow Dairy, Limited, Home and Colonial Stores, Gallons, Limited, and other similar companies. She gives the prices to-day, which are almost, but not precisely, the same as those which I have given, and they show that there has been, in fact, a heavier increase than was the case in regard to the budget of the woman to which I have already referred. Increases, however, are not limited to food alone, in connection with which, I say at once, it is not difficult, in some instances, to understand or indeed to justify advances, but in necessaries other than food are also very high.

The secretary of one of the largest cooperative societies in the country operating in my constituency informs me that, during the last two years, furniture has advanced by 5 per cent. in the retail price, hardware from 10 to 15 per cent., carpets 20 per cent., crockery from 15 to 20 per cent., and cheap clothes have advanced by 20 per cent. Woollen and textile goods have advanced similarly, but in the case of woollen and textile goods the reports which I have received will be confirmed wherever you make inquiry, that cheaper goods are now being bought owing to the increase in the cost of food. The average increase in the price of meat is 6 per cent. The average increase in the price of boots and shoes since 1933 has been 10 per cent. There again, as in the case of clothing, lower-priced articles are being purchased because of economies imposed on the housewives and others in connection with the cost of bare existence. He confirms the housewife's statement which I read with regard to food prices.

So far my comments have been made in relation to people who are fortunate enough to be in work and whose situation is difficult enough, but what is the position of the 1,500,000 unemployed? Some indication may be gathered from a report which I have here. The standing joint committee to which I have already made reference recently circulated 1,000 questionnaires among employed and unemployed workers in all parts of the country, and 476 unemployed families supplied details. I would remind the House that the Ministry of Health published a report on diet in 1932 in the case of Poor Law children's homes, which showed that the cost of food alone at contract prices was about 4s. 6½d. per week. Sir John Orr, whose authority in this matter will not be questioned by hon. Members—

Mr. H. G. Williams

Yes, every time.

Mr. Lathan

—says that full health demands 10s. a week. This is the position of the 476 families. Eighty-seven per cent. of them have no more than 4s. per week each for food; 77 per cent. of them have less than 4s. per week; 41 per cent. no more than 3s. per week, and a number have actually less than 2s. per week. Only 30 of the 476 families have no children. As far as milk is concerned—and hon. Members will all be aware of the extent to which we are being urged on the hoardings and elsewhere to drink more milk—179 of the families buy no fresh milk, as they simply cannot afford it. Thirty-two buy one pint as a special treat apparently on Sundays. One hundred and two buy from a quarter to half a pint per day, and the remainder buy from four to six pints per week. or from one to one and a-half pints or more per day.

There are other members of the community keenly concerned in the question —the old age pensioners. To-day there are no fewer than 236,570 in receipt of Poor Law relief. Among my correspondence yesterday there was a letter from a poor old lady. I am prepared to produce it if anybody desires to see it. She has apparently seen better days. She has 10s. a week, and has to pay 5s. for a room, and the cost of coal to her is 2s. 7d. per cwt. She says: I am too proud to beg or ask for relief and then, with pathetic moderation, she says: only get us a little more than bread, margarine and tea and we shall bless you for ever. In Sheffield, which I have the honour and responsibility to represent, along with six other hon. Members, there are 5,433 people over 65 years of age in receipt of out-relief, of whom 4,678 are old age pensioners. In 1931, a year to which I have no doubt reference will be made before to-night's Debate concludes, there were only 3,086 old persons in that position, and these are supposed to be times of prosperity, at least for Sheffield, if not for other cities.

I state in my Motion that there is no corresponding increase in average household income. I think that is almost universally agreed. The workers and their wives will need no convincing on that point. I am not overlooking the progress that has been made in particular directions, thanks to the trade unions. Nor do I forget that much that is spoken of as increase is the restoration of cuts which were imposed during the world depression. I am not forgetful that last month the position of 1,126,000 persons was improved to the extent of £126,000 a week, which is a rather meagre improvement. Nor do I forget that during the current year the full-time wages rates of rather less than 5,000,000 people have been improved to the extent of £723,000 per week. I am not neglecting the fact that winter allowances have been or are being made to the unemployed. But the fact remains that salaries, wages, incomes, lag behind. There is ample independent confirmation for this view, although I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will agree with me that there is a shortage of basic information of the character we would desire in order to make our comparison as satisfactory as we would wish.

It is a matter of common knowledge to hon. Members in all parts of the House that questions have been raised very frequently in past years in regard to the basis of the Ministry of Labour cost of living index, which is now the subject of investigation by a special committee. With regard to the position of wages and income, this is what the "Financial News" said on 23rd November: The increases in wage rates which have taken place in the last year have been insufficient to offset this big increase in costs. Since November last wage rates have actually risen by only 4 per cent. The "Economist," on 27th November, drew attention to the fact that the Ministry of Labour wage index was 3 or 4 per cent. above last year's level, whilst the cost of living was about 6 per cent. The hon. Baronet the Leader of the Liberal party has pointed out that it is false to assume that wages have kept pace with prices. The Trades Union Congress, which on this matter may be fully trusted not to distort figures, for obvious reasons, says in its published index figures that whilst money wages have steadily increased in recent years, the position in regard to real wages, that is, wages interpreted in terms of purchasing power, has rapidly become substantially worse. The figures are: in January of this year, money wages 98.0, real wages 109.5, at the end of November, money wages 102.0 and real wages 107.5.

What is the remedy and what is the reply? May I say, with respect, to the Government representative and to those who are responsible for the Amendment on the Paper, that there is no need to lecture us on the danger of abnormally low prices? Abnormally low or abnormally high prices are harmful, in the long run, to all concerned. We do not contest that. Our business or the business of the Government is to ensure that prices are such as are reasonably consistent with a fair return to the producer and fair wages to the worker; that startling fluctuations are avoided and profiteering is prevented. Is that being done or is it contemplated? Read the reports of the Meat Traders' Association in relation to Government policy. Perhaps the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. G. Williams) will enlighten us as to what they said. Read the report of the Food Council for last year, about fish prices and milk. It is a devastating document. Then read the reports of the dividends declared by some of the firms engaged in producing and distributing the necessaries of life—the dividends of millers ranging from 15 to 20 per cent. and dairies paying 12½ per cent.

The Government claim credit when prices are low, just as they do when wages rise, as a result of trade union action, and they cannot repudiate responsibility when prices rise. I hope that we shall not have the same kind of reply that was given in July of last year. This talk about world prices, world tendencies and markets, quotas and tariffs, may all be important in some respects, and may be intellectually interesting to those to whom a 5 per cent. increase of prices means only some encroachment upon an adequate margin, but I ask the Government and the House to remember that to millions of our fellow citizens it means anxiety and difficulty, and to many the difference between bare sufficiency and want. These people are asking what Parliament is doing. I pass that question on to the Government, and await their reply.

8.9 p.m.

Mr. Ridley

I beg to second the Motion.

I shall have the House with me in saying that there was no need for my hon. Friend to apologise for physical difficulties. His speech was one of cogency and clarity, and the House will be anxious to hear him again when he is free from a disability which was not obvious. While my hon. Friend was speaking an hon. Member opposite interrupted him, very courteously, with an inquiry. He asked whether the increase in food prices meant a decrease in food quantity consumption. I should not like to be either unkind or discourteous to the hon. Member, but the nature of his question indicated the very wide gulf which exists between his own personal experience and the experience of the average working class home.

Mr. Samuel

I was speaking about the total consumption of the country and not about individuals. I was asking whether the consumption of the whole country, butter, meat, sugar and so forth, has not constantly increased. Does not the country consist of the people?

Mr. Ridley

It may be that the average consumption has been maintained, because a great many people are eating more than they ought to do, but it is a fact that the average is weighted down because a great many people consume far less food than they ought to do. Whereas to most hon. Members an increase in the cost of living means paying more this week in order to buy the same quantity of food which a smaller amount of money was able to purchase last week, it means for thousands of unemployed persons, with low, restricted incomes, that they are paying the same sum of money this week for a smaller amount of food than they were able to buy with the same amount of money last week. In other words, less food is now being purchased because owing to the cost of living having increased, a smaller amount of food is purchased with the same amount of money. Every increase in the cost of living means that the shopkeeper receives the same amount of money for less food.

I have gone to the trouble of testing this point with a shop in my own constituency. The volume of every prime necessity in November, 1937, compared with November, 1936, in that working class town shows a volume decrease in consumption, with one exception, and that exception is margarine. Therefore, with every increase in the cost of living as far as working class people are concerned, the total consumption of food inevitably falls. There has been a fall in working class consumption in the last 12 months of flour, lard, bacon and milk which, as my hon. Friend said, has now in London and elsewhere risen to a price unknown for years, namely 3¾d. a pint, at the very moment when all sorts of publicity are being employed to encourage people to consume more milk, when they have not the money with which to purchase it. The only thing that has risen in the total quantity of consumption is margarine as a substitute for butter. This means that in distressed areas, in particular, the conditions are being seriously accentuated in regard to the food of the population.

When I first became acquainted with my constituency one of the things which struck me was the complete absence of fruit shops. The wage standards were so low and unemployment benefits so inadequate, that the people were unable to purchase those fruit foods which hon. Members regard as an important if not an essential part of their diet. My hon. Friend has referred to the British Medical Association diet scale. That diet laid down a minimum of food quantities worked out in terms of what was required by a man with a wife and three children. In July, 1933, in the town of which I am speaking, to purchase the British Medical Association's food quantities for those five people cost 22s. 6d. In November, 1937, it cost £1 9s. 1½d. In other words, for the British Medical Association scale there has been a rise in the past four years in the town from which these figures are derived a rise in price of 22 per cent. If these figures are applied to people on unemployment benefit or public assistance, or to those on low wage standards, it will be seen how totally inadequate are their wages to meet this increase. The Unemployment Assistance Board's figures for a man with a wife and three young children is 33s.; the cost of the British Medical Association scale for the bare minimum of food is £1 9s. 1½d., leaving a balance for rent and clothes, the replacement of utensils, and other things, of 3s. 10½d. If we generously assume that in many areas the normal wage standard is 50s. per week, there would be left after paying a rent of 7s. 6d., a balance for the satisfaction of all these other requirements of 13s. 4½d. I have taken the trouble to discover that if the same foods bought in April, 1936, for 10s. 11d. had been purchased in 1937 they would have cost 13s. 3½d.; but if in November, 1937, only 10s. 11d. was available for the purchase of food, as was the case in 1933, it must be obvious that a smaller quantity of food could be purchased 18 months later.

I suggest that the Government's policy is largely to blame for the rise in food prices. We have gone back in the last five years to economic nationalism, which must remind every informed politician of the days before the age of Peel. Food restrictions, bacon quotas, sugar and tea taxation, and the general operation of a tariff must inevitably mean a rise in essential food prices, and must have been known to the Government. The tariff system, the quota system, the scarcity system of the Government, is deliberately designed to create food scarcity in a hungry world. The Amendment on the Order Paper, together with the speech made by the Secretary of State for Scotland in the Debate last Thursday, rather suggests that hon. Members on this side are guilty of some inconsistency in recognising the need for lifting the price of primary products as the basis of world prosperity and then objecting to the consequent rise in retail prices. I should like to invite the hon. Member who is responsible for the Amendment on the Order Paper to spend half an hour in the Library reading the Linlithgow report. Let me give a short extract from it: Agriculturists resent a state of affairs which leaves the food producers inadequately remunerated while the agencies standing between them and the consumer remain apparently undisturbed in the enjoyment of their rewards.

Mr. H. G. Williams

I should like to know what the co-operative societies are getting?

Mr. Ridley

The hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. G. Williams) need not ask that question, because I shall always assume that it is constantly in his mind. The marked difference between the consumer of primary products and the producer is; a common feature of every industry at the present time, but it is doubtful whether it has ever been so much in evidence as during the past two years. Our investigations have led us to the conclusion that the spread between producers and consumers is unjustifiably wide. Taken as a whole it casts a far higher burden than society will permanently consent to bear. I invite the hon. Member to tell us in what way the fair price of primary products has been raised in the last few years, and has, as a natural result, contributed to the rise in retail prices. I invite the attention of the House to one or two figures. In the Wisbech potato area, King Edward VII potatoes are now being sold at an average figure of £5 per ton. They are landed in London, and the carriage is 9s. 5d. per ton. They are landed at King's Cross and St. Pancras and are sold in London at £11 per ton. In other words, the cost of the potato on my table has increased by 100 per cent. There is another inferior potato called the Majestic, which is landed in London for £4 a ton and sold at a retail figure of £8 per ton. There is every room for a rise in the price of primary products without disturbing at all the already inflated retail prices which are imposed on the working classes. Take milk. The spread between the wholesale price of milk and the retail price is, according to the Linlithgow report, an entirely unjustifiable spread. The United Dairies Company has managed to pay a profit of 12½ per cent. for several years, and their £1 ordinary shares have in the last 18 months gone up to a figure which would make the mouths of most investors in this House water.

Take coal. The average price of coal at the pit head is 15s. a ton, and the price of graded coal 18s. to 20s. It is sold in London for 53s. per ton. There is no relation at all between primary product prices and retail prices. There is every room for inquiry and action on the part of the Government to bridge this entirely unjustifiable gulf between the reward of the primary producer for the adventurous work he undertakes, either in the raising of stock or the raising of crops or the excavation of coal, and the entirely unnecessarily inflated prices which are extracted from the consumer by a wasteful retail system which is in urgent need of modernisation and rationalisation. The Government cannot be indifferent to the fact that the prices of foodstuffs are increasing beyond the purchasing capacity of large sections of our population, and unless some promise is given by the Parliamentary Secretary that the Government are aware of this unjustifiable spread between the price of the primary product and the retailed article, it will be convicted of being a conniving party at the existence of this unsatisfactory and unjustifiable state of affairs.

8.25 p.m.

Mr. Raikes

I beg to move, to leave out from "House," to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof: recognises that the upward trend of prices from their previous low levels was essential to trade recovery, also that the rise in the cost of living reflects a general revival of demand due to better employment and earnings, and welcomes the efforts of His Majesty's Government to facilitate increased efficiency in production and distribution and to secure satisfactory returns to efficient producers consistently with reasonable prices and adequate supplies to consumers. I appreciated the moderation and fairness with which the hon. Member for the Park Division of Sheffield (Mr. Lathan) moved the Motion. He made an admirable speech in which he endeavoured to avoid exaggeration. I might have said the same thing about the speech of the hon. Member for Clay Cross (Mr. Ridley), who seconded the Motion, except that I think he allowed himself to be drawn into a little exaggeration when he dealt with what he described as the scarcity policy of the Government. In moving the Amendment, I shall endeavour to be brief. Recently my hon. Friend the Member for West Leeds (Mr. V. Adams) made demands for a new clock in order that hon. Members in certain positions in the House might be able to keep their speeches short. Now, we have that new clock, but as the hands have pointed to three minutes past four since the House met, I am afraid that if I looked at that clock, I might go on speaking for the whole night.

I was delighted to hear the hon. Member for the Park Division say that the rise in the cost of food and other commodities was a political issue of the first magnitude, and I am delighted that that issue has been brought before the House, because I know of no better wicket upon which His Majesty's Government can bat than upon the rising cost of living. I am delighted to have this opportunity of justifying the Government's policy down to the hilt. The hon. Member was good enough to say that he was not one of those who objected to a rise in the prices of primary commodities, but he complained about the great difference between the retail and wholesale prices. I am afraid that the hon. Member was a little disingenuous, because if that is the case, why, when he was comparing the 1937 figures with those of an earlier year, did he always choose 1932, during the slump, when wholesale prices were at their lowest level since the War, and a year in which retail prices were almost at their lowest level. The same applies to the arguments of the hon. Member for Clay Cross, who took as his basis 1933, which had the lowest level of retail prices during the slump. I think I am justified in asking both hon. Members whether they wish to go back to the wholesale prices of 1932 or the retail prices of 1933. If they do, I will tackle them on the whole question of the price level. If they do not, I suggest that they had no business, when dealing with the cost of living, to take those particular years as a comparison.

Mr. Lathan

If the hon. Member reads my speech in the OFFICIAL REPORT, I think he will find that I did not, in fact, invariably choose 1932 in making my comparisons. I took the years that have been quoted in the Debates in the House on previous occasions. I think the hon. Member will find that those figures give quite a fair comparison.

Mr. Raikes

I think the hon. Member will agree with me that when he was referring to the family budget, he took the year 1932 as a comparison, and that 1932 was an incredibly bad year to take, if he believes that the prices of primary products ought to be increased and that low prices for primary products are bad. On the question of food prices, I am able to shorten my remarks to a certain extent, in view of the fact that hon. Members opposite are prepared to admit that a low primary commodity price is a bad thing. There is no need for me to give copious quotations from the report of the Royal Commission on food prices in 1924, which pointed out with considerable vigour that where you have, in a consuming country, manufactures too high and food too low, you are bound to get a period of friction when those prices are readjusted.

So far, hon. Members opposite and I are in agreement. I propose to see whether we cannot remain in agreement a little longer before we part company. It is very much better to see what it is on which we part company than to start fighting one another vaguely on matters on which there can be no real difference of opinion. I have the agreement of hon. Members that any rise in commodity prices is an advantage to trade and to employment. Hon. Members know as well as I do that when prices are rising the buyer goes into the market to sell because he knows that there is a chance of selling goods at higher prices than those at which he bought them. He sells the goods, and buys new goods, and goes into the market again to sell them, so that industry and employment are stimulated. Hon. Members will also agree that when prices are rising it is far easier for men going into industry to borrow money; with rising prices they can pay the interest on the loans and at the same time get the industry going. I think that hon. Members will probably agree on the third point, that when prices are rising it is easier for any Government to collect taxation, because although taxation may be higher in the pound, it is at the same time lower in the commodities which the producers produce. So far hon. Members and I are in agreement.

I come now to the point where I think we part. We agree with a rise in the price level up to a point, but how far? At what point is it to stop? I venture to remind hon. Members of the report of the Macmillan Committee which was, I suppose, one of the most expert committees which ever dealt with the question of the world depression. That committee laid down that an ideal price level would be the price level of 1928, a year which was not mentioned by either of the hon. Members who have spoken. I wish to draw the attention of the hon. Members to a statement made by the hon. Member for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter) who is something of an economist. The hon. Gentleman took the year 1929 as being the year that ought to be taken as a basis for the price level if we wanted to get back to prosperity. If hon. Members opposite wish to criticise the Government, I think that rather than make comparisons with the years 1932 and 1933, it would be more fair if they considered the condition of affairs to-day, over the price level and over wages, as compared with 1929, the last year of prosperity, and 1928, instead of taking a year when we were in the trough of the world depression and had over 2,000,000 unemployed. I am prepared to quote both the wholesale and retail prices, but I do not wish to hide myself behind them. Taking 1929 as the basic year for wholesale prices, at a figure of 100, in 1928 wholesale prices were 101.2; in 1929, on an average, 100; and in October of this year they were 96.4. Therefore, roughly speaking, in the last quarter of 1937 we are still 3.6 below the 1929 wholesale prices, which the hon. Member for Oxford University wants, and no less than 4.8 per cent. lower than the wholesale prices asked for by the Macmillan Committee.

Now I come to retail prices. Taking the Ministry of Labour figures and comparing 1929 with the present year we find that in 1929 the figure, in 1914 terms, was 164. In the September quarter of 1937, which is the last full quarter in respect of which we have information, the figure was 155. That is to say that retail prices, which are said to be so much swollen compared with wholesale prices, were nine points below the figure for the last year of prosperity, namely, 1929, and were practically level with the figure of the year 1930. At the same time, we have to consider wages. It is all very well for hon. Members opposite to talk lightly about the course of wages and to point out that during last year the cost of living rose by a higher percentage than wages. Let us compare ordinary weekly wages in 1929 with wages to-day. Taking the 1929 figure as 100, the figure of wages for the September quarter of this year, the last full quarter which it is possible to give, is 103.5. So, in fact, the cost of living, both wholesale and retail, is lower than the year 1929 and wages are higher than they were in 1929. But that is not all. Since 1929 there was a fall in both wholesale and retail prices, far more rapid in proportion than the fall in wages. The difference is not simply one of actual earnings of a man per shift or per week. It is the difference between part-time wages and whole-time wages, between ordinary wages and overtime, between short time and full time. I assert with confidence, quite outside ordinary dry figures of statistics, although these statistics prove a lot, that the consuming power of the nation has risen steadily as compared with 1929.

Mr. Lathan

The hon. Member is anxious that we should go together as far as possible. I am sure he will agree that it is desirable that we should understand each other. Will he, then, explain whether his idea of progress is that we are all right as long as we are not worse off than we were eight years ago?

Mr. Raikes

I assure the hon. Member that that is not what I was endeavouring to indicate. I thought I had made it plain that we are better off both in wages and in cost of living than we were in 1929. There is no hon. Member opposite who can deny the figures I have given. There is a further feature. Apart from ordinary weekly wages, each year during the last few years there has been less short time and more full time and more overtime which, again, expands the amount of wages earned by the individual. I hope I have now made it plain to the hon. Member.

I pass to the question of tariffs. The hon. Member for Clay Cross pitched it rather high when he spoke of the policy of scarcity under which, he said, the Government were deliberately moving with the aid of the tariff. I presume his intention was to show that the cost of living is rising unfairly in this country in relation to the rest of the world, as a result of the Government's tariff policy. Let us consider one or two figures in that connection. Taking the figure for 1930 at 100, the wholesale price of all articles in November of this year had risen to 108.5. Manufactured articles had risen from 100 in 1930, to 114.4 in November of this year. They were 115.4 in August of this year.

Now I come to the important point, namely, the figures in regard to basic industrial materials, because they are practically all on the free list, and therefore their rise or fall does not depend on the tariff policy of the Government, but rather on the world prices of those commodities. Again, taking 100 as the figure of price of basic industrial materials in 1930, we find that it fell to 70.9 in 1933, in August of this year it was 128.5 and in November of this year it had fallen rather sharply to 110.4. If we compare the non-taxed basic industrial materials with the taxed manufactured articles, there is a difference in August of this year of no less than 13 points. The untaxed articles are 13 points higher than the taxed manufactured articles, and in November there is a shift a very little bit the other way, and actually the manufactured taxed articles are four points above the untaxed basic raw materials. Surely those figures prove that whatever else our tariff policy has done or has not done, it has not raised prices generally in this country, because the price figure of the untaxed article for the whole of this year, until last month, has been actually higher, on the world level, than that of the taxed manufactured article.

Let us go a step further. We have heard a great deal about various food commodities such as potatoes and bread. Let us consider, first, wholesale prices of potatoes. The hon. Member for Clay Cross made a passing reference to the Potato Board. Is he prepared to say that as a result of the establishment of the Potato Board, which has given a market for British potatoes, the wholesale prices of British potatoes compare unfavourably, as far as the wholesale consumer is concerned, with the price prior to the establishment of the Board?

Mr. Ridley

I did not, obliquely or in any other way, refer to the Potato Board. The point I was making was that the margin now between the price of the primary product and the retail price was so wide that there was plenty of room for a rise in the primary product price without increasing the retail price.

Mr. Raikes

I, of course, accept the hon. Member's statement that he did not refer to the Potato Board. He referred to potatoes among various other articles which have been affected by the Government's agricultural policy, and I thought he made a passing reference to the Potato Board. We now come to the question of retail prices in this connection, and I think I am justified in saying that potatoes to-day are actually selling, retail, at 2d. a lb. cheaper than they were before the Potato Board was established. It may be that there is too wide a margin between retail and wholesale prices, but—

Mr. Ridley

What figure did the hon. Member give?

Mr. Raikes

I said 2d. per lb. cheaper as compared with 1931.

Mr. Ridley

Impossible.

Mr. Raikes

Well, my hon. Friend who is going to second the Amendment will give the exact figures when he speaks.

Mr. Ridley

The average retail price of potatoes is in the region of 1d. per lb., and if they were 2d. less, they would obviously have fallen by 66⅔ per cent.

Mr. Raikes

I have the figures here. The figures for potatoes per 7 lbs. [Interruption.] Why not per 7 lbs.? The figures for potatoes per 7 lbs. in 1929 were 6½d.; in 1930, 5¾d.; in 1931, 8¼d.; in 1933, 5½d.; in 1936, 7½d.; and in October, 1937, 6½d.—a fall. My original statement, before the hon. Member interrupted, was that I thought I was correct in saying that there had been a fall in potato prices since the Potato Board was set up, which only goes to prove that tariffs do not of necessity increase prices. They do provide a market, and they do give a safe market where that market did not exist before. In regard to retail prices, it may be that to-day at times we get too big a gap between wholesale and retail prices, but I would like to ask the hon. Member who played that up so strongly whether in fact in those great co-operative societies to which reference has been made, they set an example by selling at what is a reasonable profit as against the exorbitant profit which apparently is charged everywhere else, and if they do so, why have they not killed the trade of the profiteer?

Finally, I should like to say one word upon what is still an important point, and it is a matter which His Majesty's Government, I know, have very closely in mind. It is true to-day that wages are higher than in 1929, it is true that the cost of living is lower than it was in 1929, and it is true that the general consumption of goods throughout this country has risen. As a matter of fact, it was quoted in the House, in reply, I think, to my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Sir A. Wilson) a few months ago, that in the course of the last six years you had had no less an increase than 20 per cent. in the amount of money spent by the community on semi-luxuries, such as tobacco, sweetmeats, and so on; and it was also quoted that during the last six years there had been an increase of somewhere about 10 per cent. in the consumption of alcoholic refreshments. Whether or not we approve of alcoholic refreshments—and I may say that I do—the very fact that you have a large increase in the amount spent upon semi-luxuries, such as tobacco, sweetmeats, beer, or what you will, proves that during the last six years, during the tenure of office of His Majesty's Government, the conditions of the people have improved, and steadily improved. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for that money to have been spent.

You have somewhere about £300,000,000 a year spent upon these semi-luxuries by the community to-day, and I do not know of any other community in Europe that is in a position to spend anything like that amount upon commodities outside of food. It is indeed an example of the good work which has been done by the Government, work which has made it possible for that increase, not only in consumption, but also in Post Office savings, which is again one of the best examples of the improved conditions of the people of this country. At the same time, we realise—no Member of this House, to whatever party he belongs, does not realise—that there are still those who are lagging behind in their conditions, those who are unemployed, those who are on public assistance, those who are bound to some extent to be affected by any rise in the cost of foodstuffs or any other cost of living question; and I should like, if I may, to quote from a circular which was issued by the Ministry of Health, in November of this year, to all the local councils of this country, in regard to unemployment assistance. I want to quote it for this reason, that I think it cannot be made too clear to the councils throughout this country that it is the desire of the Government and of Members of this House, to whatever party they belong, that the unemployed should be treated fairly. This is what the circular says: In order to ensure that relief granted is adequate in amount, the council will appreciate the importance, with the approach of winter and at a time when the prices of certain commodities are showing some tendency to rise, of keeping the position of recipients of relief under close review, in order to satisfy themselves that the relief they are giving is not in fact inadequate. I ask the hon. Gentleman who is representing the Government to-night to make that assurance once more plain this evening, before we part for Christmas, in order that it shall be as clear as crystal to the country as a whole and to every council that we desire the cost of living to be considered when giving relief to those who are still sufficiently unfortunate not to have found work. There is one more quotation before I finish this rather rambling speech, which has gone on quite long enough, and I should like to take that quotation from the Macmillan report. I know that many hon. Members opposite think that the cost of living will rise too sharply and that we shall have a form of inflation, but this is what the Macmillan Committee said. They suggested that inflation might be caused by prices rising too high, but they said: Nevertheless, we think it much more likely that attempts may be made to stop the revival prematurely than to allow it to proceed too far. We believe that this would be a great mistake. It is often argued, and it may well be true, that the power of the banking system to hold a business expansion in check is greater than its power to revive business when depression has set in. If, however, we are overprompt to check every expansion, yet hesitant in the face of every depression, the net result will be a steady lowering of the price level with all the attendant evils of such a prospect. The danger still to-day is a check, and the bigger danger is a fall in the price level rather than a rise in the price level. A fall in the price level to-day means a gradual return to the conditions from which we have drawn ourselves in the course of the past few years, and I am surprised that, in view of the increased employment, in view of the general improvement in business in the past few years, hon. Members opposite, whom I thank for the courtesy with which they have listened to me and for the fairness with which they have produced their case, nevertheless have the temerity to attack His Majesty's Government on a point where they have cleared up the mess which the Opposition played some part in creating, and which beyond that, the Government are going to continue to work for still further improvement in the lot of the people. The nation knows full well that conditions have improved and will not be carried away by any cheap talk in regard to the cost of living which obscures the fact that to-day the purchasing power of this nation is higher than at any time in its existence.

8.55 p.m.

Captain Macnamara

I beg to second the Amendment.

I would like to join with my neighbour in Essex in expressing appreciation of the speech of the Mover of this Motion and of the fact that we are debating this subject. If there are talk, rumour and discontent in the country, it is naturally the duty of the Opposition to watch for it and to raise it in Parliament. Nobody welcomes it more than we on this side of the House do, for we are more than ready to face anything which may be put to us. I must say in passing that, although the Opposition are anxious to make capital out of the discontents of the moment, they would have been more than human had they spent a Wednesday evening congratulating the Government in 1933 when the cost of living was very low. It is true that every little penny on this and that commodity counts. It is true, on the other hand, that every penny counts in the other direction, in, for instance, wages or any other way in which income may be slightly higher than it was before. The pennies count in both directions, and if we are to talk about the case fairly we must consider whether the pennies we take on the one hand are balanced on the other. Although we may not yet be perfect, every quarter in the House will agree that our object is to see that no one through insufficient wages or other sources of income lacks the normal necessities of life and reasonable comforts. On the one hand, a great rise in the cost of living would undoubtedly defeat our object, but, on the other, it should not be forgotten that the lack of wages and income would equally defeat our object.

The Opposition have made an attack on the Government both in the House and in the country for the rise in the cost of living. Of course there has been a rise, and no one on this side of the House will attempt to deny it. There has been a general rise in the cost of living in other countries besides England, and it is only fair to point out that it is considerably higher in France, Germany, Italy and the United States of America. It is going up in all those countries, and surely the general rise must have some effect on the cost in this country too.

Mr. Dingle Foot

Would the hon. and gallant Member give the figures for the United States?

Captain Macnamara

I am sorry I have not the figures with me, but I thought that it was a generally accepted fact. One hon. Member opposite raised the question of bread. The price of bread largely depends on the cost in other countries, and, incidentally, on the harvests abroad. What is happening in other countries does, therefore, affect this country. The Opposition blame the Government, first, for deliberately causing a rise in the cost of living; and, second, for allowing the cost to rise through their own mismanagement. They say that the burden on the people has become so great and intolerable that it would be better to turn out the Government and substitute for it one of their own.

I will trace the story of the cost of living through the graph since 1929. In 1929 the cost of living was very high, and running along that curve was the wages curve, which was also fairly high, while employment was fairly good. By 1933 the cost of living had dropped as low as it ever was. At the same time, wages were also at their lowest and many people drew no wages at all, for unemployment was at its worst. Then we see the curve turn, and in 1937 the cost of living line has gone up again. It is higher than in 1933 although not so high as in 1929, whereas the wages line is also higher than in 1929 and 1933. Added to that, there are more people drawing wages now than there were then. In 1933 the wage-earners were often working on short time, whereas now they are working overtime. Surely hon. Members, to be fair, must admit that there is a relation between slump prices and low cost of living. That is a thing we have to make very clear, for sometimes it is glossed over.

The Opposition have suggested in their attack that the Government's agricultural policy has virtually been carried out at the expense of the consumers. I seem to remember being on certain Committees of the House when we were talking about subsidies at a time when the policy of the Government was deliberately to subsidise the farmer out of the general revenue, so that the consumer should have to pay and so that there should be no direct rise in the cost of foodstuffs. No one will deny the necessity for saving agriculture, which is still the greatest industry in the country. If we take 1911 as the basis, with an index figure of 100, in 1924 the producers' prices were 161, but they fell by 1931 to 120. Employment was falling and bankruptcies were rising. Now the index figure has, including subsidies, risen to 137. That is not as good as it should be, but it has had the effect of saving agriculture. Agricultural wages, which fell in 1933 to 30s. 6½d., have now risen by 10 per cent. to an average of 33s. 6½d. Since 1933 they have been increased in every one of the 47 county districts. We must not forget the question of national defence in that connection.

In addition to accusing the Government's agricultural policy, the Opposition accuse the import duties and the marketing schemes, which may or may not be accompanied with the quantitative regulation of imports. Import Duties are part of a general policy to which this Government have adhered and on which we stand. They are modest, and in any case agricultural products come in free from the Dominions. No one can deny, not even those on the Liberal benches, that the protective policy which has been followed since 1931 has stimulated employment in this country. From an unemployment figure of 2,812,000 in 1931 we have come down to the figure of 1,339,000.

Mr. Foot

Were we not told by the hon. Mover that we must take the year 1929?

Captain Macnamara

We had the slump in 1931. Hon. Members will recall that in that year other countries were using us as a dumping ground, simply shoving in butter, corn, eggs, and other things, and is it denied that our protective policy has been entirely responsible for protecting the working people of this country, so that now we find there are 1,500,000 more in work than there were then? The marketing schemes of the Government affect only three commodities.

Mr. Lathan

The hon. and gallant Member has been fastening upon us on this side a responsibility which really does not belong to us. I think he will find that the attack really came from newspapers which normally support the Liberal party.

Captain Macnamara

I was not in any way intending to couple the official Opposition with that attack. I was dealing with the Liberal Opposition. I know perfectly well that the Labour Opposition are in complete accord with the Government's excellent policy of Protection. I thought I had made it quite clear that I was speaking to the Liberal benches. The marketing schemes affect only three commodities—milk, potatoes and bacon. It is perfectly true that the price of milk has risen, and risen considerably, but I would point out in all fairness that the number of animals kept has risen since 1931—risen by 316,000, which is a 10 per cent. increase. That increase in the number of animals has meant extra work all round in this country, and therefore more wages instead of unemployment assistance. As a mitigation, to a certain extent, of this rise in the price of milk it must be remembered that the Government are helping to finance such schemes as the milk-in-schools scheme, by which 2,750,000 children are now getting milk at 1½d. a pint instead of the normal 3d. or 3¼., and they are also helping to finance other schemes for necessitous people and for those in the depressed areas. I know that the consumers' committee under the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1931, are asking for an investigation into the costs of the distribution of milk, and if there is any chance of cutting out waste in distribution we on this side of the House will be just as glad to see it done as hon. Members opposite. If there is any waste in distribution which causes a rise in the price of milk to the public we shall be only too glad to see it cut out, but at the same time I think this side of the House also stands for a fair profit for the middleman.

Bacon, another commodity affected by the marketing schemes, has risen in price but, as I have pointed out, markets are no longer glutted by foreign dumping, and the pig population of the country has increased by 40 per cent., probably because of the increase in the price of bacon.

Mr. Foot

From what countries was the bacon dumped?

Captain Macnamara

Denmark was one.

Mr. Foot

Dumped?

Captain Macnamara

I say it was dumped from Denmark into this country; and it was dumped also from Germany. I am asked, What is the definition of dumping? I do not propose to give a sort of dictionary definition, but dumping normally means that when too much is produced by one country for its own consumption the surplus is sent, with the assistance of the Government of that country, into this country—which had no protection to keep it out—doing anything to keep its own markets going at our expense. Our own production of pigs has gone up from 3,180,000 to 4,444,000. Bacon is now no higher than it was in 1930, and actually less than it was in 1929. If farming in this country has been protected against unfair competition and organised against chaos, I am sure there is no Member of the National Government on either side of the House who will object. In connection with the rise in the cost of living, although we often hear objections lodged against agriculture we never hear any objection to the increase in the price of fuel, light and so on, which is largely due, and rightly due, to the fact that coal miners' earnings have gone up per shift from 9s. 1d. in 1933 to nearly 10s. 10d. in 1937.

Now I want to ask whether, in fact, the cost of living has risen. Since 1933, the slump year—Yes, it has risen; since 1929—No, it has not risen. Taking into consideration food, rent, clothing, light, fuel, and miscellaneous items the cost-of-living index figure—taking it at 100 in 1914—was 143 in 1933, 160 in 1937 and be it noted 167 in 1929. There has been no real rise except from the slump period; but wages have also risen since that period. One of the points in the Motion is that the income of a family has not risen proportionately to the rise in the cost of living. I will discuss wages in some of the trades and industries, taking them at random. In the engineering trade in 1929 the skilled man was earning an average of 58s. 9d. a week, in 1936 63s. and in 1937 67s. 2d. The unskilled man was earning 41s. 10d. in 1929, 45s. 10d. in 1936, and 49s. 10d. in 1937.

Mr. Kelly

Will the hon. and gallant Member give the hours of work? Assuming the figures are correct, is that the wage for an ordinary week, or does it include overtime?

Captain Macnamara

That is for an ordinary week, and not for overtime. I am giving the figures published in the "Ministry of Labour Gazettee," which most people in this House will accept. I will take the boot and shoe trade. In 1929, men earned 56s. a week. That wage went down to 54s. in 1933 and it was still 54s. in 1936. It has now gone back to 56s. There was a wage of 34s. in 1929 for women, of 33s. in 1933, of 36s. in 1936 and of 37s. in 1937. Selecting at random, let me now take shipping. Take the position of the able seaman. He was drawing 180s. per month in 1929. That figure went down in 1933 to 162s., up again in 1936 to 175s. 6d. and it is now 180s. again. I will take agriculture. The wage there was 31s. 7½d. in 1929, it went down to 30s. 6½d. in 1933, went up in 1936 to 32s. 3½d. and went up again in 1937 to 33s. 6½d. So I might go on with many other trades.

Taking the average of the lot, on the published figures and with index figures as though the year 1924 stood for 100, in December, 1929, the rate of wages index figure was 98½, it went down in 1933 to 94—a great drop—in 1936 it had risen to 99—a considerable increase—and since 1936, in the last 12 months, has gone up again, and is now about 104. That is, in the last quarter of 1937. Although there has been an increase in prices between 1933 and 1936, wages have also increased. Although prices are not as high as they were in 1929, wages are considerably higher. I hope I may mention, in addition, the position of the unemployed, because the Mover asked what was the position of the 1,500,000 unemployed. I do not want hon. Members to think that one does not speak with great sympathy on this subject, but I want, none the less, to point out the figures. A single man in 1929 was drawing 17s. This figure went down in 1933 to 15s. 3d. and it has gone back in 1937 to 17s. In 1929, a man with wife and three children was drawing 30s. per week, a figure which went down in 1933 to 29s. 3d. and which has gone up again now to 35s. So the unemployed man is better off now than he was in 1929, although prices are not so high.

Mr. McGovern

Would the hon. Gentleman, when he is giving—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Captain Bourne)

Many hon. Members want to speak and there are far too many interruptions.

Mr. McGovern

I rose to ask a question upon a point, and the hon. and gallant Member gave way. I understood that the procedure of this House allowed for a question being put if the Member speaking was willing to give way. I wanted to ask him, while he was giving that favourable statement, whether he was aware that a large number of families in this country had suffered great reductions in income because of the means test and that a large number of people were drawing no allowances who were formerly doing so; and whether he would deal with that point?

Captain Macnamara

It would be almost impossible for me to go into the question of the means test, I tried to do so, but it varies so much that it is difficult to do so in the course of the Debate. I will try to cut the figures short. We are now going through a period when prosperity is rising and wages are rising and may possibly lag a little behind the increase in the cost of living. On the other hand they may just about keep level. I think hon. Members will find, if they look into the question of wages, that the increased family budget will cover the increases in the actual cost of living. It was right of the Opposition to raise this matter and it was equally right on our part to explode the bubble. I feel that the Opposition Whips were probably going hunting, looking for something to hunt, and their hounds thought they had raised a hare, instead of which they have discovered that the hare is but a field mouse. Their followers are looking with some disdain at the pack. It is right to show up these comparisons, but it would be trite on our part to show up the comparison with the slump figures, the increasing depression, rising unemployment and falling wages, coupled with a decrease in the cost of living, and not the present growing prosperity, rising employment, and rising wages, coupled with a slight increase in the cost of living.

9.22 p.m.

Mr. Foot

There was a certain lack of co-ordination between the speeches of the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment. When the mover spoke about prices, he objected to any comparison with 1931 or 1932, and we were told that the only possible years for comparison were 1928 or 1929. When the Seconder was speaking there was a change of front. Then the comparison had to be with 1932 or 1933. We imagine that history began for hon. Members on the other side only in 1931. Those two entirely different sets of figures are always adopted by hon. Members opposite when they are speaking respectively of the cost of living and the state of trade. I would very much like to hear the Seconder on some occasion define where the dividing line lies between normal and legitimate trading and dumping, because it was quite fantastic to suggest, in the matter of bacon, that the Danes have simply sent their surplus bacon here, or that they did at any time with Government assistance. Their bacon is sent here as by far the greater part of their output, and at a legitimate profit.

The hon. Member for the Park Division of Sheffield (Mr. Lathan) did a very useful service when he raised this subject this evening. Because there can be no doubt—and I do not think it was really denied in the speeches of hon. Members opposite—that the rise in the cost of living must inflict, and is inflicting, very severe hardship on the poorest classes of the community. That there is a rise in the cost of living neither of the hon. Gentlemen opposite has sought to deny. There have been a number of figures quoted, and I do not want to add greatly to the total, but the figures given, I think, are mostly from shops in London and in the Midlands. I was in my constituency last week-end, and one of my constituents who is a grocer supplied me with two lists of prices taken from his own advertisements in the local newspapers. One was the list in 1934 and the other the corresponding list at the end of November, 1937.

There are 22 items in these lists, all items of common consumption in Scotland. Of these 18 show an increase, in most cases a substantial increase, only one shows decrease, and in three cases the figure is the same. The hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. G. Williams) has spoken about the price of butter. These lists show that colonial butter was 10d. a lb. in 1934, and it now stands at 1s. 3d.; Danish butter was 1s. 2d. and is now 1s. 5d.; fresh butter rose from 1s. 1d. to 1s. 6d.; imported eggs rose from 1s. to 1s. 2d.; colonial cheese rose from 8d. to 10d. lb.; cheddar cheese from 6d. to 9d. lb. and margarine from 3½d. to 5d. lb. I could go through a long list of items, nearly all of them showing very substantial increases. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about sugar?"] I have not got sugar here; I am merely giving the list supplied to me, and the items were supplied as being strictly comparable. The Motion refers to that section of the public which is already suffering on account of inadequate resources.

The hon. Member for South-East Essex (Mr. Raikes) referred to the circular issued to public assistance committees by the Ministry of Health. That circular was very much on the same lines as the circular that was issued two or three months ago by the Unemployment Assistance Board to its officers in the various areas. Of course it was admitted by implication, in issuing that circular, that difficulties were being occasioned to unemployed households by the rise in the cost of living, because it will be recollected that the Board advised its officers to give additional relief in certain cases where hardship would be occasioned by the increase in prices. The cases which were to receive relief were those cases where over 50 per cent. of the total personal income was represented by allowances from the Unemployment Assistance Board. Everybody naturally is glad—and I dwell on this because these points were rather stressed by hon. Members opposite—that these increases should be made.

But what of the other households who come under the jurisdiction of the Board? What of those who do not get the extra 2s. or 3s. per week because more than 50 per cent. of the total household income happens to come from some other source? Will it be suggested by hon. Members opposite that they are not also hit by this additional burden—that this increase in the cost of living, and particularly in the cost of food, is not going to be an extra hardship for them? Of course, they will have to bear the burden as well. They will have to carry it in a different way, because in the vast majority of these cases which are not to get the additional allowance it means that the extra burden will have to be carried by the other members of the household. The effect, therefore, is to intensify the operation of the means test.

My only quarrel with the Motion before the House lies in the analysis that is put forward at the end of the causes of the rise in prices. It does not seem to me that that analysis is complete, and I attach considerable importance in this respect to the policy that has been pursued for the last five years by His Majesty's Government. Since 1932 the Government have pursued a policy deliberately designed to make commodity prices higher than they would otherwise have been. The hon. Member for South-East Essex gave some figures as to the prices of goods which come into this country duty free, and of goods which come into this country and upon which a duty has to be paid. That does not really meet the point. I do not think the hon. Member or any other hon. Member opposite would deny that, in the case of food at any rate, if we were to take the duties off to-morrow the prices would fall. Certainly that has never been denied in any Debate on this subject that I have heard in this House. If that is admitted, of course it means that prices are kept higher than they would otherwise be, and the Government must take the responsibility for the present level in prices. The rise in the cost of living is not an accident; it is the effect which the Government deliberately intended to bring about.

In this matter of tariffs, which has been discussed so much this evening, hon. Members opposite are always trying to give the impression that this country is only a moderate offender. I heard with interest the hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford (Captain Macnamara) when he spoke of our "modest" tariffs. It is not always easy to make an exact comparison of the duties imposed by different countries, but I have here a number of figures which were compiled only a month or two ago by the World Business Information Centre for the information of the delegates at the International Chamber of Commerce in Berlin. They compiled figures representing the percentage ratio of Customs duties collected to the value of the imports on which those duties were levied. I am taking the figures for 1935, the last year for which complete returns were available. The figure for Great Britain is 26.9.

Mr. H. G. Williams

Does that include tobacco?

Mr. Foot

I cannot say. I agree that it does represent excise, but in order to satisfy the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. G. Williams) and show what a difference there is, I can also give the figure for 1913. In 1935 the figure was 26.9 compared with 4.9 in 1913.

Mr. Williams

What was the tobacco duty in 1914?

Mr. Foot

I am ready to admit that the tobacco duty was lower, but I do not think even the hon. Member for South Croydon with his well-known capacity to misrepresent statistics—

Mr. Williams

May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that our Customs duty from tobacco exceeds our Customs duty from every protected source whatsoever—that single duty is more in value than all the other put together?

Mr. Foot

I am not prepared to deny that. But, even so, that does not account for the rise between the years 1913 and 1935 from 4.9 to 26.9. Other countries also impose an excise duty upon tobacco, and the comparison I was proposing to make is a comparison between this country and other countries. We are told that our own tariffs are very modest, but, while this country has a figure of 26.9 the United States has a figure of 18.9, Argentina 23.1, Holland 10.6, Norway 13.5, Switzerland 23.9, and Belgium 8.6. In fact, the only countries in this list which have a higher figure are Germany, with 27.5, and Italy, with 41.3. In view of figures like these, it is completely illogical to suggest that we have only modest tariffs, which can have no effect on the level of prices in this country.

It has been argued from the opposite side of the House that this rise in retail prices reflects only a normal world recovery, that it is something for which we ought to be grateful. That would be a sound argument if prices had only risen in this country in the same proportion as prices have risen elsewhere. I have a further set of figures showing the movement of wholesale prices in 30 countries from May, 1935, to May, 1937. I will not read them all. We come eighth in the list of 30, and we show a percentage increase of 20.4. An hon. Member opposite has quoted the United States, where an inquiry is being held into this matter. There the increase is only 11.2 per cent. In Norway it is 19 per cent., in Canada 18.5 per cent., in Sweden—which has probably a much higher degree of industrial recovery than this country—17.8, in Denmark, 16.6, and so on throughout the list. Taking this list of countries to some of which I have referred, it is obvious that the price level here does not just reflect the trend of world prices. We have experienced a rise considerably greater than has occurred in some of the other countries to which hon. Members opposite have referred.

The last argument that was used, and it is, I think, the most formidable argument that has been used from the other side of the House, was in relation to wages. It was said that the rise in the cost of living was being offset by higher wages. All of us on the Opposition side can, I think, understand the force of the argument that most people would prefer to be in work and drawing wages, even if they have to pay more when they go to do their shopping. No one on this side has denied that; it was not denied by either the Mover or the Seconder of the Motion. But the hon. Member opposite referred to the race that was going on between the rise in wage levels and the rise in prices. Our complaint on this side is simply that the rise in prices is winning that race. The hon. Member shakes his head. I would refer him to the calculations that were made in the "Economist" of 27th November last. Taking the average for the whole year up to 27th November, according to those calculations wages have been between 3 and 4 per cent. above last year's level, while the cost of living figure has been 6 per cent. higher, and food prices taken by themselves have been 8 per cent. higher, showing, therefore, something like twice the increase that there has been in wages. Surely, when prices are rising faster than wages, and when they are inflicting these hardships, which hon. Members opposite do not seek to deny, that is a situation which demands the anxious and constant attention both of the Government and of this House.

Some reference has been made to the fiscal views of Members on these benches. We do not abate in any way our objection to a system of food taxes. We opposed them in 1931, and we oppose them now. The hon. Member opposite referred to the question of agricultural subsidies. I dislike agricultural subsidies, but, as between the two, I would far rather have a subsidy than a tariff. At any rate, a subsidy is raised out of national taxation imposed on some kind of scientific principle, but a food tax, as we see it, is simply an inverted Income Tax, designed, and deliberately designed, to place the heaviest burden upon the shoulders least able to bear it.

Captain Macnamara

Is there any tax on food coming from the Dominions?

Mr. Foot

There is not at this moment any tax on food coming from the Dominions, but I think a quota is imposed on certain foodstuffs from the Dominions.

9.42 p.m.

Mr. Henderson Stewart

I am very glad to hear from the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot) that he is not entirely opposed to subsidies. I may take it now that whenever it is necessary for me to appeal for some assistance for my sugar-beet factory at Cupar, the hon. Member will not forget his important announcement to-night to the effect that he does not oppose subsidies so much as he opposes something else.

I shall not detain the House for more than a few moments, because I recognise that there are some other Members who are anxious to take part in the Debate. I want, not only to acknowledge the temper of the speeches of the Mover and Seconder, but to congratulate them on their good fortune in the Ballot, and on their good sense in choosing this particular subject, because without doubt it is a subject of very great importance to the whole country, to our industries, to which the cost of living is a matter of vital importance in assessing the cost of production, and to the whole general body of our citizens whose livelihood is involved. I think that the House is fortunate to-night to have had this opportunity.

I would suggest that we shall approach the subject with, perhaps, more success if we distinguish at the very start between the various effects of this rise in prices. Of course, we all recognise the rise in prices, and it is mentioned specifically in the Amendment. But I would suggest to the House that we have to consider two things separately, first, the general effect of the rise in prices upon the nation as a whole, and, second, its effect on certain limited sections of the nation. With regard to the latter, no one here denies that a rise in prices, no matter how small or gradual or upon what commodities it may fall, has an immediate adverse effect upon the unemployed, pensioners, and others with fixed incomes. But I submit that, taking the country as a whole, even taking the working classes as a whole, the people to whom I have been referring only represent a minority, and that the majority of people in this country, and, indeed, the majority of working people in this country, not only do not suffer from this rise in prices, but gain actual advantage from it. [HON. MEMBERS: "How?"] I will try to explain. I suggest that they gain an actual advantage from the rise in prices that has taken place during the last two or three years. I admit, of course, that the ideal system for this country would be a low price level and a large volume of employment. That would satisfy all of us. But we know that that is not what happens.

I am not going to attempt to discuss the economics of the situation—there is not time; but it is within the memory of Members of the House that it works the other way. In 1933, you had a period of very low prices and high unemployment. In 1929, you had a period of high prices and much employment. We have come round again this year to a situation somewhat similar. We have more employment than ever before in the history of this country; more people registered as in work than ever before, and there has been a rise in the general level of prices. I do not think that any hon. Member can really suggest that that increase in employment, that increased demand for goods, and all the other things that have accompanied it—the increase in unemployment assistance, the improvement in the terms of the Unemployment Insurance Act, the great extension in housing and so on—affecting the general body of the working classes, are not for their definite advantage. I have been in this House only five years, but I can recall hon. Members over there saying repeatedly that the main cause of the trouble during the depression was the low level of commodity prices, and every hon. Member was urging the Government to take action with foreign Governments somehow or other to raise that low level of commodity prices. I fail to understand how they can complain when this Government, having acted on their counsel, have succeeded, in association with others, in raising very considerably the general level of prices. We have done the very thing they asked us to do.

Mr. Gallacher

Would you care to go and tell this very interesting story to the miners of Fife?

Mr. Stewart

I did so only last Friday. I do not think any one on this side makes any apology for this increase in prices. On the contrary we take pride in the fact—[Interruption]—let me complete my sentence—that there is a substantial recovery in the level of commodity prices—which was the unanimous demand of all Members of this House in the days of depression. I feel that I have substantiated my first claim, that the general body of workers do not suffer, but in fact gain, by this. The hon. Member who seconded the Motion complained that there had been a fall in the consumption of foodstuffs. He was not taking the country as a whole: he knew he could not do so, for of course the consumption of food supplies generally has been very largely increased. In food and tobacco, the increase in consumption in the last six years has been 20 per cent., and in boots and shoes 25 per cent. The hon. Gentleman was referring to the limited class of unemployed persons, and he said that this rise in prices had caused a definite reduction in consumption by those people. I should have thought that a very dangerous argument for any hon. Member on that side to take, because while they were in office there were more people unemployed and the cost of living was much higher, and if these people are suffering now, they must have been starving during the Labour party's period of office. Actually that was not so.

If I may say so, the danger at the moment—I imagine I have all hon. Members with me when I suggest this—is not the actual level of prices, which is a good deal lower than when hon. Members opposite were in power, but rather the speed with which prices are rising. I am sure that that is what is causing anxiety. In that respect, I agree with hon. Members opposite. The hon. Member who moved this Amendment quoted the Mac-Millan report in warning against over-restricting price recovery. It appears to some of us that in America President Roosevelt has actually restricted too quickly the recovery in prices. There is one danger. But do not let us neglect the other danger—allowing the rise to be too steep. I would give two examples of the ill effects that may be felt by allowing the price rise to continue unchecked. I take the case brought constantly to my notice in East Fife, of old age pensioners; and of these people I will take just two classes. One is the single man of over 70, living alone on 10s. a week. The other is the married man of over 70 whose wife is yet too young to get the pension, so that there are two people living on 10s. a week. These classes are really having a difficult time now. It would be out of order for me to go into this, but nothing would give me greater pleasure than if some little improvement in the pension rights of these people could be made. [An HON. MEMBER: "Would you vote for that?"] If I saw any way to do it, I would introduce a Bill or Motion, but I have been unlucky in the ballot.

I hope the Government, in their reply, will give us the assurance, that although welcoming the rise in prices, they do not propose to let it go unchecked or un-watched. It is vital that we should prevent profiteering. I do not think anybody on this side would seek to defend profiteering. The Prime Minister has been repeatedly urged to prevent it in the case of rearmament, and I am sure the House will be equally determined that it should be prevented in the case of food prices. I ask the Minister for an assurance that wherever profiteering is evident, corrective steps will be taken, and that, in addition, his Department, the Food Council and any other appropriate organisations will constantly scrutinise the position.

Mr. Gallacher

You are for and against.

Mr. Stewart

I am taking the practical view. I ask the Government to do that, remembering always that this country is a great industrial country, that the cost of production here is a vital element in our export trade, and that it would be an ill day for us if our costs became so high as in any way to reduce our essential exports.

9.55 p.m.

Mr. Banfield

I listened with a great deal of interest to the speeches made by the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment. The speech of the Mover put me in mind of the small boy whose parents did not believe that such a thing as pain existed. One day the small boy had a very bad attack of the bellyache and complained to his mother, who said, "You have no pain, my son." The boy replied, "I have got inside information." He tried to persuade the working people of this country that all they had to do was to count their blessings one by one—blessings given to them by the National Government. He said that there may have been a rise in prices but that everybody, on the whole, is more comfortable. He forgot a very important point. You cannot deceive the women of this country by telling a tale of that kind. His other comment was quite right. This is going to be a political issue, and I want to draw the attention of the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment to this fact. There are millions of men in this country who have wives and families, and who are paying the high rents that are paid to-day in our industrial centres, whose wages never reach, even with overtime, anything like 50s. a week. In my constituency, thousands of men are working for 40s. or 42s., or round about that sum. Cannot hon. Members see as well as I can, the position of the wives of these men, with their little children around them and food prices going up to an extent which means an additional 2s. or 2s. 6d. a week out of the little money they have with which to buy food? It is not sufficient to tell the working people of this country of the blessings of the National Government in face of the rise in food prices. The women will want to know where the money is to come from with which to pay for the rise in prices.

The hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford (Captain Macnamara) said something about bread. He recognises that there has been a rise in the price of bread. Do hon. Members realise that when bread goes up a penny per quartern loaf it means a total extra expenditure of £9,000,000 per year, the greater part of which comes out of the pockets of the poorest of the poor—the men on low wages, the unemployed men, men on short time and the old age pensioners? These people cannot afford to buy anything else but bread, which is their mainstay. The hon. and gallant Member says "We cannot help that; it is dependent upon the harvest." The hon. and gallant Member represents an agricultural constituency and I do not, but I can tell him that during this year there have been wild and violent fluctuations in the wheat market. Gambling has been going on ever since the beginning of the year, and it still continues. The price of wheat has fluctuated as much as seven and eight points in a month. The price of flour goes up by 1s., 2s., 3s., 4s. a sack. It comes down by 1s., 2s., and 3s., and then, up it goes again. It means that gambling goes on in the main food of the people of this country, and that fortunes are made by people who gamble in wheat and cargoes.

Have we not the right to call the attention of the Government at least to this phase of the question of the rise in food prices? The price of bread has gone up in about 18 months to the extent of £18,000,000. Cannot something be done to stop the speculation in food and in wheat? No one has said anything tonight about the excessive costs of distribution in relation to food prices. Bread is produced in this country, including wages and everything else, for something less than a penny per 4 lb. loaf. If you go to a baker in London, Manchester or in any of the great cities, he will tell you that, while it costs less than a penny to produce it, it costs more than 1½d. to distribute it. We have not a sane system in this country either of distribution or of production. If so, we should not have the silly system we have now in which a baker in Manchester makes bread and delivers it in Liverpool, and a baker in Liverpool makes bread and delivers it in Manchester, the poor consumer having to pay the price.

The Labour party has never stood for low prices for the primary producers. We believe and proclaim that the primary producer is entitled to the fruits of his labour. Agricultural labourers' wages to-day of 35s. or 36s. a week are an absolute disgrace to the country that pays them, but between the price that the farmer receives for his commodity and the price that the consumer has to pay, someone or other robs the people of this country, and that accounts in very great measure for some of the high prices. The hon. Member referred to the question of wages. He said that prices have gone up, but so also have wages. Whose wages have gone up? The Ministry of Labour Gazette quotes certain figures, and shows where it gets the returns. It gets them from the trade unions. I make a return every time my people receive an advance in wages. I give the number of people, and so on. But does that really account for the great masses of the people in this country? There are people who had their wages cut in 1931 who have never yet received any of those wages back again. The condition of millions of our people is such that they have only a bare existence from one year's end to another. Their wives grow old before their time, and their children cannot be looked after as they ought to be, simply and solely because we have a system under which we can produce everything we want, and yet we have not the sense to know what to do with it when we have produced it.

Why should the workers of this country be tied to a fodder system. If one comes down to brass tacks, he must realise that the wages of the workers are dependent upon the price of food. You have to give them so much on which to live even if it is only bread and butter. The standard of life, in view of the rapid growth of productivity, should rise fast and continuously, and should not be bound down to food prices at all. I want the Minister to realise that the question of food prices is fundamental so far as our people are concerned. It is all very well for the supporters of the Government to be so self-complacent. I do not think that any right-thinking men or women on any side of the House can be complacent if they look round this country and see the poverty and destitution which exist now, as they always have. Surely, with all the advantages of a modern age, we ought to make the lives of our people more comfortable, and to remove their poverty. There is not a man in this House who has a clear conscience about the question of the old age pensioner and his 10s. a week. Why do we not do something to alter that position? It is all very well to quote figures. We have had figures quoted to-night until everybody has become confused. We cannot feed the people on figures. We cannot put figures on the breakfast table. We cannot deceive the woman, when she has done her shopping, by quoting what has been said to-night. If I said to my wife: "My dear, you are a lot better off than you were in 1929," I should have to dodge out at the back door.

It is the avowed object of the Government to raise prices. My complaint is that they do not pay the primary producer as they ought to do. As a trade unionist and as the secretary of my own organisation I say that in the trade union movement it is our duty, in face of rising prices, to say to our members that they must have more wages in order to pay the increased prices. It is our job to see to it that if prices are to be raised the wherewithal must be found for our people. That argument also applies in regard to the unemployed, the old age pensioner, the health services and the social services. It is no use disguising the fact that the people who are hit by rising prices are the people who can least afford them. It does not matter much to hon. Members of this House if there is a rise in prices. A rise of 2s. or 3s. is nothing to them, but I know from long and bitter experience what the position is in the homes of poor people. I was brought up in a house of poverty. Our income was 17s. a week, and there was my mother, father and six children to be kept out of it. If the price of bread went up one halfpenny, we little children had to go short of something.

What is the use of hon. Members declaring that consumption is as high as it was before? Every hon. Member on these benches, knowing the inside of working-class homes, knows that when the price of bacon went up the working people could no longer afford to buy it. In working-class homes in any constituency, where the husband was bringing home 45s. a week, when bacon went up to 1s. 6d. a lb. the wife could not afford to buy half a lb. in order that her husband might have a bit of bacon on the Sunday morning. It is no use hon. Members telling us that we are not doing so badly, and that we are making the best of our case politically. As far as I am concerned, I care nothing about that. I stand for the working people and I speak on behalf of the dumb millions who do not know why prices rise, who do not understand economics, but who struggle on from one year to another on the verge of poverty, just keeping their heads up and making a brave fight of it. Nobody admires the working man's wife more than I do. I admire the fight she puts up for her husband and children, in order to keep the home together.

On these grounds I support the Motion, and I see no reason for the moving of an Amendment which is simply self-complacency, declaring that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. That is a policy that will not do. It is a policy for which hon. and right hon. Members opposite will have to answer in the country. It is a policy about which the women electors will challenge them. If they continue with such a policy, the country will be well rid of them when it gets the opportunity.

10.11 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Captain Euan Wallace)

The hon. Member for South-East Essex (Mr. Raikes), on whose speech all those who listened to it would like to congratulate him, emphasised the point that it would be well if at this last Private Members' Debate before we go home for the Christmas holidays, we could see how far we agree. I should like to endorse everything he said in regard to the moderation and good temper in which this very important Motion was moved. I think we can start by agreeing that the recent rise in the cost of the main foodstuffs, which nobody seeks to deny—is not due to any enlargement of the credit basis but is simply a matter of supply and demand. Then we can go most of the way together in agreeing that the main reason for the rise, as the Amendment suggests, is the widespread strengthening of demand, owing to the general economic revival.

I hope we can go still further in agreement and say that no one in this House or outside it is likely to deny that the lowest price level of recent years coincided with the worst period of depression and the period of the most severe unemployment. The highest unemployment figure recorded in this country was 2,955,000 in January, 1933, and the lowest cost of living figure, 136, was reached in May, 1933. Finally, I do not think that any responsible person will deny, and certainly no one in this Debate has sought to deny, that a rise in prices was declared by the leaders of all parties, during the depression, to be an essential condition of recovery. I will not detain the House by reiterating the wise words of the late Mr. William Graham, whom we all knew, respected and loved, nor will I repeat what was said by the right hon. Member for South Hackney (Mr. H. Morrison). In these circumstances it seems to me that for any hon. Member in any quarter of the House to cavil at these increased prices, which are the cause as well as the effect of better times, would be the height of ingratitude and illogicality. The hon. Member who moved the Motion was much too wise to do anything of that sort. He did not seek for one moment to attack the rise in prices as such. What he did attack was the alleged disproportion in the increase of the price level, compared with the improvement in purchasing power, which he admitted had taken place.

It is true that the prices to which the Mover referred have increased since 1933, but a comparison of prices with wage rates at that date does not give a complete picture as to the well-being of the community as a whole. I am bound to remind the House that in November, 1933, when prices were very low, 9,960,000 persons were in employment, and that in November, 1937, four years later, that figure had gone up to 11,573,000. I know there has been a slight change in the method of computation but the House will certainly not regard that as making any material alteration in the value of the figures. It is true that the man who was fortunate enough to have been in constant employment throughout the entire period of the depression might to-day find himself slightly worse off than he was four years ago; but there is not the slightest doubt that the mass of the insured population are better off to-day than they were then. It has been mentioned by my hon. Friends that not only are there more now in employment, but that those who are actually at work are working less short time and in many cases are working overtime. Therefore, the figures of the increases in wage rates do not represent the full extent of the increase in money which people are taking home.

The whole argument put forward by hon. Members opposite, that wages have not risen to the same extent as prices, is based upon their taking the depth of the depression as their datum line. It seems to me that it is unsound to take an admittedly abnormal period as a yardstick for measuring prosperity or anything else, and the fact that that particular year was taken by the mover of the Motion has vitiated the whole of the comparisons he sought to draw from it. The year 1929 is generally admitted to be the last normal year. It was the year to the conditions of which the Macmillan Committee said we should endeavour to return. In those circumstances, I think it is a fair assumption that the wage rates and prices in that year were in reasonable equilibrium, and I would ask the House to note in the first place what happened between December, 1929, and December, 1933. During that period food prices fell by over 20 per cent., the cost of living index fell by over 14 per cent. and wage rates fell by only 5 per cent. Therefore, it seems not only probable but almost inevitable that during the process of restoring equilibrium to the economy of this country prices must rise rather more than wages for the simple reason that they have so much more leeway to make up. It is not surprising, therefore, that there has been a small decline, 3 per cent. to be correct, in real wages since 1933, despite the fact that money wages have increased by 9 per cent.

To make a real comparison, one must look at the position as it is to-day vis-à-vis December, 1929. If one compares December, 1929, with December, 1937, the cost of living index to-day is 4 per cent. lower, the index of food is 8 per cent. lower, and wages are 3½ per cent. higher. A simple calculation will show that on that basis, real wages to-day are 8 per cent. higher than they were in December, 1929. Therefore, although I do not for one moment seek to question the figures which the hon. Member who moved the Motion presented to the House, the point which I wish to make with the greatest emphasis, is that by taking the depth of the depression as the datum line, the whole of the rest of the hon. Member's comparison was hopelessly vitiated for practical purposes. The Motion goes on to talk about people with inadequate resources. I must admit that it rather gave me cold shivers, sitting here after a good dinner and knowing that all of us are going home to-morrow for our Christmas-holidays, to have myself compared even indirectly with Scrooge.

Mr. Banfield

The right hon. and gallant Gentleman does not look it.

Captain Wallace

I admit that I was somewhat comforted on being told by my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Essex (Mr. Raikes) that I have to-night an excellent wicket to bat on, which Scrooge certainly never had. I do not propose, in the time available this evening, to go into the general question of the condition of the people in this country to-day. That has been discussed recently and at length. I merely draw the attention of hon. Members to the Debate which took place as recently as 24th November and the speech of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health. One cannot get away from the fact that the consumption of food, drink and tobacco in this country is 20 per cent. greater than it was in 1929. No one will contend that that extra consumption is being absorbed by a few millionaires. No one can deny that the total expenditure in this country upon social services has risen from £468,000,000 odd in 1930, when hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite were in office, to over £503,000,000 in 1935, which is the last year for which figures are available. No one can deny that there are to-day 3,000,000 children receiving cheap milk, and 400,000 children receiving free milk. No one can deny that when hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite were in office, 27,500,000 free meals were given to children by local education authorities, and that now 100,000,000 are being provided. We have heard something about liquid milk. The sale of milk, for consumption in liquid form, in England and Wales has under the marketing scheme gone up by 16,000,000 gallons during the last year.

I come now to the question which I think is really the crux of the whole problem before us to-night, the question which was touched upon particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart). A man who was out of work during the depression and who is in work now, is obviously very much better off, whatever the cost of living; but we recognise as much as hon. Members opposite that the people who have fixed incomes and who have not shared in the wage increases, have felt the increase in prices since the worst period of the depression, of which, admittedly, low prices were among the causes. But here again at the risk of being thought unsympathetic I must ask the House to look at certain facts. Let us take first of all people on unemployment insurance benefit. When allowance is made for the changes in the cost of living, the purchasing power conferred on the people drawing unemployment benefit shows these changes: Between 1st December, 1929, and the 1st of the present month, the benefit for a single adult man has gone up by 4½ per cent.; the benefit for a man and wife by 13 per cent., and the benefit for a man and wife and two dependent children by no less than 19 per cent. In all these cases the higher rates are now being paid than were being paid when hon. Gentlemen opposite were in office.

Then we come to those unfortunate people who are drawing not benefit, but unemployment assistance. My hon. Friend the Member for South-East Essex made particular reference to Circular 82 issued by the Unemployment Assistance Board instructing their officers to give special attention to households where a substantial part of the total income was represented by allowances from the Board. My hon. Friend asked me to give the House some assurance, even at such short notice, that the policy adumbrated in that circular was being carried out. I am glad to be able to do so without any qualification. I have since heard that the first review of cases receiving assistance since the circular was issued was completed on 30th November, and that as a result increased allowances are being made in some 250,000 cases.

Mr. Foot

Is it not a fact that in a substantial number of cases all that has been done is to forego making the cuts which would otherwise have been made?

Captain Wallace

I do not think that is the case at all; but that is not a question I can pursue at the moment. To pass on to another point—

Mr. Batey

Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman not saying anything further about that matter?

Captain Wallace

I have promised to leave some time for the right hon. Gentleman opposite. The hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) referred particularly to old age and widows' pensions. I am bound to remind the House that these pensions were fixed when the cost of living stood at 215 as against the present figure of 160. I must also draw attention to the fact that it would be impossible to run a contributory pension scheme on the basis that payments should fluctuate with the cost of living. If that had been done, as my right hon. and gallant Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury pointed out not long ago, the 10s. old age pension would be worth 6s. 9d.

In the Motion we have some reference to the duty of the Government to ensure the better organisation of production and distribution, but that is about as far as we have got. I have sat here during the whole of this Debate, and I have not heard even a whisper, either from the benches opposite or from the hon. Gentleman who represented the Liberal party and made precisely the speech that I should have expected, how the better organisation of production and distribution was to be brought about. It is perhaps a rather curious thing that we should, during the earlier part of to-day, have had an interesting discussion upon conditions in the distributive trades. I understand not only that it is generally admitted that conditions in those trades have considerably improved, but that it is suggested that they should be even further ameliorated, and I think the House will have to recognise that in so far as you ameliorate the conditions of people in the distributive trades, you are likely to accentuate the margin between wholesale and retail prices.

Now I want to touch on the point made by the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot), who said that if you took off all duties and all restrictions on imports, it would have a substantial effect in lowering the cost of living. Actually, I think it is very doubtful whether such action would achieve anything substantial on the lines which he hoped. Broadly speaking, it may be said that the normal interplay of the forces of supply and demand has had much more effect on the prices of foodstuffs than anything else, whether duties or quantitative regulation. If you take the retail prices on 1st December of this year and compare them with the retail prices on 1st December, 1930, the greatest increases in prices appear to be in flour and bread. These are cases in which the increase is due entirely to supply factors and not to Government action, because there is only a small duty on foreign wheat, and the greater part of our wheat is imported duty free from inside the Empire, and there is no quantitative regulation at all.

Mr. Banfield

Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman point out to the House that for a considerable period, in fact, for four or five years, at least ½d. per quartern has had to be paid by the consumer so far as wheat subsides to farmers are concerned?

Captain Wallace

There is, finally, the question of profiteering, and here again no evidence has been produced, either by the Mover or Seconder of the Motion nor by any other hon. Member opposite, to show that profiteering does exist.

Mr. Lathan

Does not the right hon. and gallant Gentleman regard 20 per cent. profit and dividend as being in the nature of profiteering?

Captain Wallace

It is absolutely impossible to tell; you cannot lay down any specific figure. We have a Food Council, and if the Food Council had reason to believe that profiteering was going on, they would have no hesitation in approaching my right hon. Friend on the subject. The Motion, quite rightly, does not condemn the upward trend of prices; it merely asks for better regulation of production and distribution. But nobody has given any clear explanation of what the Government are asked to do. It demands the elimination of profiteering, which it has not sought to prove, in order to keep the cost of living within proper limits which it has not sought to define, and which I think I have defined on the only fair basis. The Amendment, on the other hand, recognises two essential factors —first, that the upward trend of prices is not only the effect, but also to a certain extent the cause, of our return to prosperity; secondly that reasonable prices and adequate supplies to the consumer must in the long run rest upon a proper return to the efficient producer. For these reasons I would ask the House to vote for the Amendment.

10.36 p.m.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence

Before I begin my speech I should like to read the Motion which the House is discussing and which ultimately will be put to the Vote. It says: That this House, taking note of the upward trend of prices without a corresponding increase in the income of the average household, is of opinion that the public, especially that section of it already suffering on account of inadequate resources, should be protected by measures for the better organisation of production and distribution and the elimination of profiteering in order to keep the cost of living within proper limits. We have had an exceedingly interesting Debate, but I cannot help thinking that many hon. Members who have spoken from the other side have addressed their criticism of what has been said from our benches to objects of straw that they have set up and not to the Motion before the House. The hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford (Captain Macnamara) said that the Opposition no doubt thought they had got a hare which they were pursuing in this Motion, but that they would find out it was only a field mouse after all. I would really beg the House, I would beg the hon. Gentleman himself and I would beg the Government not to take that view of this very serious and grave subject. I can warn hon. Members opposite that if they take that view in their constituencies, they will find that their constituents do not take the view of them they expect. After what the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. H. Stewart) has said, he certainly ought to vote for the Motion. He said he wanted to secure that there were no undue profits and that the cost of living was kept within limits, but I have no doubt that, as he has done on other occasions when some policy he advocates is put forward, he will abstain from voting and certainly not vote for this proposal.

Mr. Henderson Stewart

The right hon. Gentleman will not deny that the Motion concludes with a proposal which, if I understand it properly, is Socialism, and I cannot possibly vote for that.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence

It concludes with the words: better organisation of production and distribution and the elimination of profiteering.

Mr. Stewart

What is that but Socialism?

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence

The elimination of profit-making is Socialism, but we are here making a distinction between profit-making and profiteering. The speech to which we have just listened has distinguished between them, so that the hon. Gentleman's interruption has no merit. With regard to the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary, I want to say we are all very fond of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman in this House. He is always very polite and courteous, and I feel sure that his sympathies are always very well placed in many of these matters, but that fact does not prevent us from differing very strongly from him and from the views of the Government which he represents. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman tried, I think with the best of motives, to discover at the outset how far we were in agreement with him, and he put forward three propositions on which he thought we could go a very large part of the way with him, if not all the way. I do not agree with him at all. I radically differ from the views he put forward.

Let us see what has really come out of this Debate. In the first place, it is indisputably admitted on all sides that there has been a very considerable and rapid rise in the cost of living during the last few years. Hon. Members may say, "Why take the last few years?" and I shall come to that point in a little while, but the Motion is one calling attention to the rise in prices in the last few years, during which this Government, and this Government alone, have been responsible.

Brigadier-General Sir Henry Croft

May I ask—

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence

No. I cannot give way. I do not wish to be interrupted any more. My time is very short.

Sir H. Croft

The Minister gave way.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence

Well, I will give way this time, but I shall not do it any more.

Sir H. Croft

Is it not a fact that every leader of the right hon. Gentleman's party demanded that rise in prices as the sole hope of world recovery?

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence

If the hon. and gallant Member had waited I was going to deal with that. That is a vital part of the subject we have been discussing. I was saying that no attempt had been made to deny that there had been a considerable rise in the cost of living in the last few years. It would be ridiculous to deny it, because it is patent. Put broadly, the facts are these: Taking the 1914 figure as 100, the index figure rose from 144 in December, 1934, to 160 in December, 1937. Measured in the terms of so much in the £, that amounts to a rise of no less than as. 3d. in the £ and if we had taken the rise in the cost of food only the figure would have been no less than 3s. in the £. It is true, also, that during those years wages have gone up. They have not risen quite as much, but, broadly speaking, it is correct to say that the rise in the wage-rates of those in work has nearly corresponded with the rise in the cost of living. Just as hon. Members opposite do not deny the rise in the cost of living, so we on this side do not deny the rise in wages, or the fact that there are more people employed and that more full time is being worked.

We come, however, to the position of pensioners and others with small fixed incomes. It must be clear to every Member who faces the facts that to-day those people are suffering a grievous reduction in their standard of life. When I followed the Prime Minister after his Budgetary announcement on 21st April of this year I pointed out that for old age pensioners, Army pensioners and others who come under the Ministry of Pensions, other superannuated people and, on the top of all those, people in humble circumstances living on small fixed incomes, the rise in the cost of living was a very serious matter indeed, and that it amounted at that time to a hidden tax of no less than £30,000,000 a year. That was on the basis of a rise in the cost of living of 1s. 8d. The rise with which we are dealing now is 2s. 3d., equivalent to a tax on that section of the population to no less than £45,000,000 per year. Those are the people referred to in the Motion. It is no use hon. Members attempting to deny that they represent a considerable section of our population and that a rise in their cost of living has been a very serious and grave matter. I shall show presently how it has been reflected in their consumptive power.

It will be apparent to every hon. Member that there has been a change in the cost of living when he dines in the refreshment room. In the days when the cost of living was low we used to have a dinner that cost 3s. 6d. in the ordinary Members' room, if you took the full dinner, and 2s. 6d. if you took the shorter meal. In the last few weeks hon. Members will have realised that there is a very considerable difference between the substantial fare that was provided only a few months back and the somewhat exiguous meal provided for the same amount at the present time.

Mrs. Tate

That is the fault of the Kitchen Committee.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence

The hon. Lady must address her observations to the chairman of the Kitchen Committee.

Mrs. Tate

They are a most incompetent body.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence

The hon. Lady may attack the whole of the Kitchen Committee if she likes; the fact is that the committee are charged with the necessity of not throwing on to the taxpayer any part of the cost of feeding Members of Parliament. I am not complaining about those prices at all. Members have had a considerable increase in their salaries. I am only saying that if Members of Parliament were dependent upon meals at the same money as they paid before, they would feel very acutely the different size of that meal from what it used to be. The hon. Member for Putney (Mr. M. Samuel) asked what was the total effect upon consumption. A good many figures have been given in different parts of the House, but I do not think that any hon. Member will challenge the figures that I shall give. Let us take some of the most staple foods. I am going to consider bacon, beef, mutton, potatoes and milk. I will answer the most important question which has been put in the Debate.

My figures are based upon very strong evidence. I cannot go further than 1936 because I believe that they have not been brought up to date. But I am going to compare 1932 with 1936. I find that the amount of bacon consumed per head of the population in 1936 was no less than 6½ lb. less than it was in 1932. Beef on the other hand had gone up 7 lb., but I find that mutton was down 3 lb. per head, potatoes were down 33 lb. per head, and with regard to milk I find this: there was a very small increase in the consumption of liquid milk—about two pints per head per annum. But I find that at the same time there was an immense reduction in the import of all tinned condensed milk; and therefore when you have taken that very small increase in the consumption of liquid milk together with the very great reduction in the import of condensed milk, I am inclined to think that the total consumption of milk per head was considerably less in 1936 than in 1932. Therefore, so far from it being a fact that these staple foods of the people are being consumed in much greater quantities per head, as every hon. Gentleman opposite seemed to assume, the facts are exactly the reverse. With the one exception of beef, all these foods show a decrease, which is most marked in bacon, potatoes and, as I believe, in milk.

Now what is the apology of the Government? They have said, though not in to-night's Debate, that there was no increase in the cost of living at all. In the second place, they have said it was not their doing; and in the third place they have said they ought to be praised for bringing it about. It reminds me of the classic answers of the old lady who was brought into court for injuring a dress that she had borrowed. Her three answers were, first, that she had never borrowed a dress; secondly, the dress that she borrowed was injured at the time that she borrowed it; and, thirdly, the dress when she returned it was in perfect condition.

First, as to the fact of the rise in prices. Hon. Members opposite have argued that we have not chosen the right date. They can go back to 1929 if they like, but what we are discussing is what has been changed during the years the National Government has been in office. They are perfectly entitled to say, "We want to get prices back to 1929," but that is not the issue. If that were the issue, we should have a very good answer. The increase of production is something like 3 per cent. every year. Our knowledge and control of the forces of nature and invention produce 3 per cent. more, and we are certainly not going to be satisfied if all that addition of the last eight years, amounting to 24 per cent., goes to certain sections of the community while the working people have to be thankful for an increase of 2 or 3 per cent. in their real wages since 1929. What we attack is that, while the Government say they are making such progress, in fact the position for large numbers of the people of this country is worse than it was in 1932.

In the second place, they take no responsibility. It is perfectly clear, and nobody will deny it, that it does arise from two things which the Government have done. The first is their financial policy, and the second is the restrictive policy that they have followed with regard to individual commodities. I am not going to criticise the financial policy of the Government, because, on the whole, I agree with it. I agree that the policy of deflation had to come to an end, and that a reflation policy had to be substituted for it. Though, when we come to a certain stage of the trade cycle, and to an inflationary policy which results from unbalancing the Budget at the present time, I disagree.

It is not, however, on the monetary side of their policy that I would take the Government to task; it is on their restrictive policy—their tariffs, quotas and other devices. I do not think they can deny that the rise in prices has been due very largely to the policy they have adopted. No one on these benches denies that selling prices must be such as to provide proper remuneration for the producers, and particularly for the wage-earners. No one denies that some rise of prices from the slump was not only justifiable but necessary. Where we find ourselves in

disagreement with the Government is as to the method of creating the increase. The policy of scarcity has been pursued by the Government, and we say that the policy of scarcity is the wrong policy. We believe in the policy of abundance. But the economics of abundance presuppose production for use and not for profit. The economics of scarcity not only involve the ordinary consumer not getting the value of what could be produced for his benefit, but involve the producer only very occasionally securing the real profits. The profits go, under the policy of scarcity, to a small section of the population, who are able, through their stranglehold on a part of the process between production and distribution, to squeeze the consumer and the producer at the same time.

We on these benches believe in a steady price and a steady production. These fluctuations of prices up and down are injurious to the mass of our people. When prices are falling, those in control of industry pass on the effect to the workers by reducing their wages and bringing about unemployment. When prices are rising, the profits go to a small section of the community, and the Wage-earner only comes in at the very end, while pensioners and others suffer grievously. For these reasons I commend the Motion to the House as against the Amendment, and demand that the Government, if they are not prepared to nationalise industry, should at any rate check profiteering and secure that the rise in prices does not continue.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 95; Noes, 174.

Division No. 76.]	AYES	[11.0 p.m.
Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple)	Ede, J. C.	Hayday, A.
Adams, O. (Consett)	Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)	Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)
Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)	Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)	Henderson, J. (Ardwick)
Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)	Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.	Henderson, T. (Tradeston)
Ammon, C. G.	Foot. D. M.	Hills, A. (Pontefract)
Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)	Frankel, D.	Hollins, A.
Banfield, J. W.	Gardner, B. W.	Hopkin, D.
Barnes, A. J.	Garro Jones, G. M.	Jagger, J.
Batey, J.	Green, W. H. (Deptford)	Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)
Bellenger, F. J.	Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.	Jones, A. C. (Shipley)
Brown, C. (Mansfield)	Grenfell, D. R.	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Charleton, H. C.	Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)	Kelly, W. T.
Chater, D.	Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)	Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.
Cluse, W. S.	Groves, T. E.	Lawson, J. J.
Cripps, Hon. Sir Stafford	Guest, Dr. L. H. (Islington, N.)	Leach, W.
Daggar, G.	Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)	Lee, F.
Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)	Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)	Leslie, J. R.
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)	Hardie, Agnes	Macdonald, G. (Ince)
Dobbie, W.	Harris, Sir P. A.	McEntee, V. La T.
Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)	Harvey, T. E. (Eng. Univ's.)	McGovern, J.
MacNeill Weir, L.	Ritson, J.	Walkden, A. G.
Marshall, F.	Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. 0. (W. Brom.)	Walker, J.
Mathers, G.	Seely, Sir H. M.	Watkins, F. C.
Milner, Major J.	Sexton. T. M.	Westwood, J.
Montague, F.	Silverman, S. S.	Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Hackney, S)	Simpson, F. B.	Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A. (C'thn's)	Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)
Muff, G.	Smith, Bon (Rotherhithe)	Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)
Naylor, T. E.	Smith, E. (Stoke)	Young, Sir R. (Newton)
Oliver, G. H.	Sorensen, R. W.
Pethick-Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.	Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Quibell, D. J. K.	Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)	Mr. Lathan and Mr. Ridley.
Rathbone, Eleanor (English Univ's.)	Tinker, J. J.
NOES
Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)	Erskine-Hill, A. G.	Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)
Albery, Sir Irving	Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)	Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Allen, Col. J. Sandeman (B'knhead)	Everard, W. L.	Moore, Lieut.-Col. Sir T. C. R.
Amery, Rt. Hon. L. C. M. S.	Findlay, Sir E.	Moore-Brabazon, Lt.-Col. J. T. C.
Anderson, Sir A. Garrett (C. of Lun.)	Fox, Sir G. W. G.	Moreing, A. C.
Apsley, Lord	Fremantle, Sir F. E.	Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
Assheton, R.	Furness, S. N,	Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J,
Atholl, Duchess of	Fyfe, D. P. M.	Munro, P.
Baillie, Sir A. W. M.	Ganzoni, Sir J.	Nall, Sir J.
Balfour, Capt. H. H. lisle of Thanet)	Gluckstein, L. H.	Neven-Spence, Major B. H. H.
Balniel, Lord	Glyn, Major Sir R. G. C.	Orr-Ewing, I. L.
Barrie, Sir C. C.	Goldie, N. B.	Palmer, G. E. H.
Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H,	Gower, Sir R. V.	Patrick, C. M.
Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)	Grant-Ferris, R.	Petherick, M.
Beechman, N. A.	Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)	Ponsonby, Col. C. E.
Bernays, R. H.	Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.	Pownall, Lt.-Col. Sir Assheton
Blair, Sir R.	Gridley, Sir A. B.	Procter, Major H. A.
Bossom, A. C.	Grimston, R. V.	Radford. E. A.
Boulton, W. W.	Guest, Lieut.-Colonel H. (Drake)	Ramsbotham, H.
Brocklebank, Sir Edmund	Guest, Hon. I. (Brecon and Radnor)	Rayner, Major R. H.
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)	Guest, Maj. Hon. O. (C'mb'rw'll, N. W.)	Reid, W. Allan (Derby)
Bull, B. B.	Guinness, T. L. E B.	Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)
Burghley, Lord	Hannah, I. C.	Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)
Butcher, H. W.	Hannon, Sir P. J. H.	Ross, Major Sir R. D. (Londonderry)
Butler, R. A.	Harbord, A.	Royds, Admiral P. M. R.
Campbell, Sir E. T.	Haslam, Henry (Horncastle)	Russell, Sir Alexander
Cayzer, Sir C. W. (City of Chester)	Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.	Salmon, Sir I.
Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)	Hely-Hutchinson, M. R.	Samuel, M. R. A.
Channon, H.	Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan.	Savery, Sir Servington
Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)	Higgs, W. F.	Selley, H. R.
Clarke, Lt.-Col. R. S. (E. Grinstead)	Hoare, Rt. Hon. Sir S.	Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree)
Colman, N. C. D.	Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.	Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)
Conant, Captain R. J. E.	Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hack., N.)	Somervell. Sir D. B. (Crewe)
Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)	Hudson, R. S. (Southport)	Spens. W. P.
Courthope, Col. Rt. Hon. Sir G. L.	Hume, Sir G. H.	Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'I'd)
Cox, H. B. Trevor	Hutchinson, G. C.	Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)
Cranborne, Viscount	James, Wing-Commander A. W. H.	Storey, S.
Craven-Ellis, W.	Keeling, E. H.	Stourton, Major Hon. J. J.
Croft, Brig.-Gen. Sir H. Page	Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)	Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)
Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.	Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)	Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)
Croom-Johnson, R. P.	Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)	Stuart, Lord C. Crichton. (N'thw'h)
Cross, R. H.	Keyes, Admiral of the Fleet Sir R.	Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Crossley, A C.	Latham, Sir P.	Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.
Crowder, J F. E.	Law, R. K. (Hull, S. W.)	Tate, Mavis C.
Davidson, Viscountess	Lennox-Boyd, A. T. L.	Thomas, J. P. L.
Dawson, Sir P.	Lewis, O.	Touche, G. C.
De Chair, S. S.	Liddall, W. S.	Turton, R. H.
Denman, Hon. R. D.	Lindsay, K. M.	Wallace, Capt. Rt. Hon. Euan
Duckworth, Arthur (Shrewsbury)	Llewellin, Lieut.-Cot. J. J	Watt, Major G. S. Harvie
Dugdale, Captain T. L.	Locker-Lampson, Comdr. O S.	Wayland, Sir W. A
Duggan, H. J.	Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)	Whiteley, Major J. P. (Buckingham)
Eastwood, J. F.	McCorquodale, M. S.	Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)
Edmondson, Major Sir J.	MacDonald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)	Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl
Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.	McKie, J. H.	Womersley, Sir W. J.
Elliston, Capt. G. S.	Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.	Wright, Wing-Commander J. A. C.
Emery, J. F.	Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.	Young, A. S. L. (Partick)
Emmott, C. E. G. C.	Markham, S. F.
Emrys-Evans, P. V.	Marsden, Commander A.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Errington, E.	Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.	Mr. Raikes and Captain Macnamara.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.

Question proposed, "That the proposed words be there added."

Mr. Dunn

rose—

It being after Eleven of the Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.