CLAUSE 15.—(The Rayon Committee.) (Hansard, 6 July 1939)

§ Mr. Cross
I beg to move, in page 20, line 24, to leave out from "say," to "selling," in line 26, and to insert:

"(a) the business of manufacturing rayon fibre;

(b) the business of spinning yarn from staple rayon fibre or weaving, fabrics from rayon yarn;

(c)the business of finishing yarn spun from staple rayon fibre or fabrics woven from rayon yarn; and

(d)the business of."
My hon. Friend the Member for East Willesden (Mr. Hammersley), in the course of the Committee stage, moved an Amendment to this Clause to provide for two representatives of staple fibre spinners on the Rayon Committee when it is set up. This Amendment was accepted by the Committee and my hon. Friend did not raise the question of whether staple fibre spinners should be added to the list of interests who were to be consulted as to the desirability of setting up the committee. I think that the House will agree that, if the staple fibre spinners are to be added to the committee, there is a good deal to be said for consulting them as to-whether the committee should be set up or not. To constitute this particularly-small body of staple fibre spinners as a separate section to be consulted would, I think, be unreasonable, and would, moreover, be inconsistent with the attitude that my right hon. Friend has adopted towards all the interests concerned with this Rayon Committee. In these circumstances, he came to the conclusion that it would be best that the spinners should be grouped for the purpose of consultation with the weavers, and this Amendment, as drafted, gives effect to that decision.

§ Mr. Rhys Davies
I take it that in this connection we have the authority of the 1603 Joint Committee of the Cotton Trade Organisations that they agree to these new provisions?

§ Mr. Cross
Yes, Sir. I am informed that they are not opposed to them.

§ Mr. Cross
I beg to move, in page 20, line 33, to leave out from "may," to the end of the Sub-section, and to insert: constitute a committee in accordance with the following provisions of this section. This Amendment and the following five Amendments, that is, to the end of Clause 15, all deal with the same point, and I think it would be for the convenience of the Committee if we could take them together. The last four Amendments are all consequential. As the Clause stands at present, the Rayon Committee is to be set up by the Board of Trade when the Cotton Industry Advisory Committee are satisfied that the majority of persons in all the four sections, the producers, the weavers, the finishers and the merchants, desire that the committee should be set up. This provision in the Bill was adopted by my right hon. Friend as a compromise to meet the conflicting views of the cotton industry and of the rayon producers. The rayon producers were very well represented on the Committee stage by a number of my hon. Friends, who never ceased to urge that the committee should be established. The cotton interests, however, in the meantime stood by the Clause. I think that we have at last found a means of reconciliation between these two opposing forces. The rayon interests, I understand, attach consider able importance to the Amendment which is now upon the Paper, and the Joint Committee of Cotton Trade Organisations are prepared to agree to it. I might be permitted to express the hope that, in view of this measure of agreement between those two forces, it may be a contribution to fruitful collaboration between those two bodies who have such common interests.

§ Mr. Rhys Davies
It is not for me, on behalf of my hon. Friends, to say any thing at all about the quarrels of the two capitalist factions on this Bill, because that is what they are. We have had great enjoyment indeed in seeing the fight proceeding between these two sections.
1604 I am a little disturbed, however, at the absolute silence of the hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Fildes) in our proceedings this evening after his eloquence in Committee upstairs. I quite understand the compromise, but I cannot understand why the right hon. Gentleman accepts the principle of this committee, and then says in the same sentence that he will not call the committee together until 12 months have expired from the date of the operation of the Act. I should have imagined that, once he had accepted the principle of setting up a committee in this form, the problem of a period would not arise as a problem for him to decide at all. The hon. Gentleman opposite smiles, but I can see through it all right away, and I think I had better leave it at that.

§ Sir H. Williams
I would like to congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade and his Chief and all concerned upon having found a solution of what was evidently a very difficult problem. Those of us who are connected with neither industry found it a little difficult to discover why one industry was desirous of having a committee whose powers were not, superficially at any rate, very great, and another industry bitterly opposed to such a committee. It really was a very strange battle in which not only the capitalists were concerned on both sides, but the two industries as a whole were fighting one another, work people and employers alike, and we should not be misled by a little prejudice which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. R. Davies) likes to drag in. However, they have come to this ingenious compromise. A year can go by and nothing happen, but, on the other hand, those concerned know that at the end of the year Parliament, on the initiative of the President of the Board of Trade, can submit a motion which, if carried, will cause all concerned to constitute the committee.
We are giving to the President of the Board of Trade a big stick which he may or may not find necessary to use, but both sides have made concessions and for the first time they have seen eye to eye. That is, I hope, an indication that what has really been a stupid quarrel between two industries is coming to an end. It is a policy of appeasement. [Interruption.] I am very greatly surprised 1605 that the party opposite has ceased to be the party of peace and is now proclaiming itself as the party of war. At all events, I hope that there is going to be friendship between these two interests whose real purpose should be to co-operate in the national interest and not to quarrel. The fact that this Amendment is accept able to both sides is an indication of a better spirit, and my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade and those who advise him are to be cordially congratulated upon having found a settlement of what was obviously a very bitter dispute.