TIMBER (CHARGES) (NO. I) ORDER, 1940. (Hansard, 6 August 1940)

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply (Mr. Harold Macmillan)
I beg to move, That the Timber (Charges) (No. I) Order, 1940, made by the Treasury under Section 2 of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, 1939, a copy of which was presented to this House on 4th July, be approved. This Order is asking the House to confirm an Order which was made before it on 4th July, and very briefly I will explain its purpose to the House. At the beginning of the war maximum prices were fixed for existing timber stocks. These are ordinarily called opening stocks, Since the war began the import of. timber has been on Government account, and the prices which have had to be paid, partly owing to the fallen exchange and partly to increase of freight, were naturally higher than the prices ruling before the war. Now we have reached the point when the opening stocks—that is, the stocks which existed at the beginning of the war—have been so far encroached upon that they are coming to an end, and it is necessary to sell, and make use of, stocks of timber imported by the Government since the war. It is necessary, therefore, to raise the price of timber in order to recoup the Treasury for the extra cost of post-war imported timber.
At the same time it is inconvenient to have two prices, namely, the price for
151 opening stocks and the price for national stocks, and there were two courses open to us. One was to requisition all that remained of the opening stocks, which would be a complicated transaction involving the valuation of each particular item of stock, which are widely held and cover a wide raneg, and the alternative was to put an additional charge upon the remaining parts of the pre-war stocks corresponding to their increased value. That is really what this Order does. Obviously it would be unfair if people who happened to own stocks obtained the advantage of additional profit caused by increased cost since the war. Therefore, in order to strengthen the position between post-war and pre-war stocks, there is an additional charge put on stocks held before the war began, and the extra cost of post-war importation is spread by making some increase of price to pre-war holders. This evens up the advantage of pre-war stocks with the disadvantage of the more expensive stocks we have had to purchase since the war began, and it evens it out in a way by which no chance of war profit could accrue to the holder of any particular stock. The machinery by which this is done is twofold. With regard to the general sale or purchase of timber, there is a general charge and that is recovered, with certain exceptions of which I will give the details if I am asked. The sum that it is expected to recover from the general charge is about £3,000,000. This will be used partly to pay the cost of the new importations and some of it will be placed to reserve.
The only exception to the general charge, put on the sale of timber generally is that it is a different procedure which is to be used in respect of timber sold for pit props. In that case, instead of the charge being put upon the actual timber sold, there is to be a charge of 4d. per ton on the coal. It is merely regarded as a more convenient method of spreading the charge in that case that it should be raised upon the coal tonnage rather than by spreading it on the actual timber used for pit props. In the same way as ordinary timber, there are at the moment two classes of timber which are being used for pit props. One is that imported from abroad and the other is the pit props which we get from home production. The cost of the foreign imports is substantially higher than of home-produced pit 152 props. The purpose of the Order is, first, to make some evening up as between the foreign and the home-produced and, secondly, to even up the price regardless of the cost of transport, so that the price of pit props is the same without regard to the place from which it has been transported. That is in order to allow us to get timber from distant parts of the country which, from an economic point of view, would be very expensive to transport and yet which in war-time it may be wise to use. The purpose of the levy is to finance a fund to even out the charges. So far as the levying is upon the coal rather than upon timber used for pit props, this matter has been agreed both with the mine owners and the Mine Workers' Federation. I hope with this explanation the House will be prepared to pass the Order.

§ Mr. Gordon MacDonald (Ince)
There are a few comments which we who are interested in the mines from the workers' side desire to make. The hon. Gentleman emphasised that this is the result of consultation with the Mineworkers' Federation and the Mining Association. I should like him to tell us whether he knows to what extent the Mineworkers' Federation were consulted. I understand that the consultation took place almost entirely with the Mining Association and, having come to an agreement with them, the Mineworkers' Federation were informed of what had happened and asked whether they had any objections to it. If in future there should be need of negotiations of this kind, I hope the Government will consult in the same way with both sides of the industry. We made a complaint about a fortnight ago to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who pursued the very same course. After all, the two sides in this industry are equally important, and it is not fair to take consultations with one side and ask the other side in an off-hand manner, "What do you say about this?" This placing of 4d. a ton on every ton produced in this country directly affects the workers.
Our method of determining wages and profits is one in which every penny and every ton is taken into consideration. We are told that this Order means £3,000,000. Last Saturday, in Lancashire, I asked what it meant for Lancashire, and I was told that it meant about £210,000. I 153 then asked our accountant what that would mean in percentages with regard to wages, and he told me about £182,000, which means almost 3d. in wages for every day worked. If this levy were not imposed, every colliery worker in Lancashire would receive, provided we were above the minimum, an advance of 3d. a day in wages. I know we shall be told that provision was made for this beforehand. In May, and earlier, when we were discussing wages, it was suggested that provision should be made for this, as it would be coming along. As the war develops, an enormous amount of materials will be needed and coal will become scarcer. The Mineworkers' Confederation approve whole-heartedly of the pooling of this cost. It is the right thing to do. We do not think that some colliery companies should get an advantage over others, and in so far as this Order evens out things, we accept it; but I want to emphasise that in these matters, where the interests of the mineworkers are concerned, they ought to be consulted, not in any offhand way, but in the same way as the owners.

§ Mr. Price (Forest of Dean)
I should like to have some elucidation of one point concerning the charges on timber. I understand there is to be a charge put on all pre-war stocks in order that the owners of those stocks shall not obtain an increased profit as a result of the increased price. Will the charge be equal to the increase in price? Will it be like a duty which will skim off the whole of the increased profit that will come to the owners of that timber as a result of the increase in price, or will it be a percentage of it? When the war began, prices were fixed by the Timber Control. The owners of the stocks existing at that time experienced a certain rise in price over what they had already been charging. If on top of this there is to be an increase as a result of this new fixing of prices, I am inclined to think that, although it is true there is not a very large amount of the stocks left, the size of the profit will be rather considerable. Therefore, I should be glad if the Minister could give us some idea as to what the amount of the new charge is to be.

§ Mr. Harold Macmillan
The amount of the charge will be the amount represented by the difference between the maxi- 154 mum prices ruling before 1st July and the new prices fixed by the Order at which the Timber Control are selling the national stocks of imported timber.

§ Mr. Tinker (Leigh)
Will the Minister tell us how long this charge will continue and the approximate amount it is expected to yield, because the mine workers are very anxious to know? I think it is the fairest method, but a little more openness would better obtain the confidence of the workers. No one seems to know how it came about, and yet there was a charge levied, and we who represented the workers did not know what had happened; consequently one felt aggrieved about it. I hope that the Minister will try to make these matters clearer in future, thereby avoiding a good deal of trouble.

§ Mr. James Griffiths (Llanelly)
It is very essential in these days, when we desire to have the full co-operation of everyone in industry, that the men should be treated as partners. The other day we had some controversy with the Chancellor of the Exchequer about the same point. I urge upon the Minister and upon all Departments that in these days, if they wish to carry the full support of the workers, there should be consultations and not perfunctory statements that this or that has been done. In all their dealings with miners and other sections of workers it is of the greatest importance that the Departments concerned should give the workers a feeling that they are full partners and not just Cinderellas.