HC Deb 14 July 1949 vol 467 cc822-30

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Joseph Henderson.]

11.9 p.m.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge (Bedford)

I want to raise tonight a subject which seems particularly appropriate on a day on which the economic position of the country has been discussed. I refer to the question of British craftsmanship, its present decline, its possible revival, and some aspects of it which particularly affect my own constituency in that regard. The subject is, I know, a very big one, and I can obviously only touch on the fringe of it in the course of my remarks. First of all I wish to make some general observations so as to present to the House the broad picture of the setting of my speech. Then I hope to direct my hon. Friend's attention to one or two specific matters about which I believe he can give us some help and encouragement. Finally, I want to say a word about the developments already referred to in my constituency, which shows what can be done locally, and which may encourage others to be active in the same way as people are active in Bedfordshire.

We all know of the disappearance of the spacious and gracious living for those who once enjoyed it, and of the disappearance of all chance of its revival for those people and others who, in the past, ought to have enjoyed more of it. In place of it, what have we got? A suburban-minded vulgarity is cursing millions of our people, turning many of them into automata who appear to react only to the blandishments of Hollywood or the appeal of all-in wrestling or the dogs. The invention of the internal combustion engine and the discovery of electric power really started the rot, but the decay of religious practice and the neglect of good reading are partly contributory factors, as is also the general press of world events. Speed and noise can never help in raising the standard of taste and culture anywhere. It is a tragedy that the rise in the standard of living has in many cases led to a landslide in the quality of the personal standards of our people.

No one has any time to stand and stare in these days, least of all we Members of the House of Commons. That is a very bad thing, for unless a person can stand back from the events surrounding him it is not easy to see them in their proper proportions. Small wonder, in the circumstances, that we are not producing any more Chippendales, or anyone the equal of Sheraton, the Durham cabinet maker, or of Wedgwood, the humble rural potter who has influenced the world. I recently read an account of trap questions set by the Town Planning Institute to young planners taking one of its examinations. These youngsters were invited to give advice to the council of an old agricultural village proposing to turn the village pond into a model yachting pond, with a fountain, concrete paths and flower beds. Ninety per cent. of the candidates lovingly and tenderly elaborated their refinements of vulgarity to almost unendurable degrees, even specifying the kind of crazy paving they would use on the paths.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Bowles)

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but where does the Government responsibility for all this come in?

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge

I am leading up to that, and to asking my hon. Friend who is to reply to support and encourage the view I will shortly express. These youngsters detailed the shrubberies, privet hedges, begonias, and all the rest of their confectionary, and thereby, I suggest, reflected the outlook and standards of many in our country. It is against this background that we must view the noble efforts of the Rural Industries Bureau and British Handcrafts Export Council, to which the Government contribute financially. The latter recently staged an exhibition in the Drapers' Hall, attended by the American Embassador, at which the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke. His wife, incidentally, is chairman of the Council which is running this excellent organisation.

Power, in the old-fashioned meaning of the word, seems to have passed from us for ever, on the one hand to Soviet Russia and on the other hand to the United States of America. What are we left with? We are left with the opportunity of developing on a quality basis, and it is all the more vital, in these circumstances, that we should impress on the rest of the world those standards which have hitherto always been associ- ated with our goods and with our national character. I believe we can still compete on a price basis in many cases if we really go in for more thorough-going industrial reorganisation. I am certain, however, that, despite the somewhat gloomy picture I have painted, it is not too late to recapture the former high standards for which British craftsmen have always been noted.

But many things besides those I have mentioned are being done to kill the tradition of craftsmanship which used to be passed on from generation after generation. Why, I ask my hon. Friend, should we be importing £750,000 worth of white Italian marble every year? Why bring black-enamelled headstones into our country to desecrate our village churchyards? Surely our own stonemasons are fully equal to fashioning tombstones torn from our own native soil, in Scottish, Welsh or Cornish granite, in sandstones from Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, in slates from Cornwall and Westmorland, in limestones from Dorset, Somerset or the Pennine country.

A North of England monumental sculptor has written on this subject as follows: British workmen have for generations made thousands of beautiful memorials in British stone and granite which will be in a good state of preservation when those of Italian marble have crumbled to dust. Let us bear that simple fact in mind, and profit by it. What can be more depressing to mourning relatives than to visit burial grounds where the eye meets row upon row of white marble headstones—one ghastly, unrelieved colour effect of bleached whiteness, for all the world like the silent ranks of a ghostly army in white shrouds. Why does the Government allow our craftsmen to be put out of business and our own quarrying industry to be thus penalised?

Many of our great export industries actually stem from the traditional hand workers of Britain in silver, furniture, wood-carving, textiles and wrought iron. I would refer the House to the splendid example of choice wrought iron which exists in the Crypt Chapel, which is all too often ignored by visitors to that part of the Palace of Westminster. I suggest that the Government should help British handcraft export all they possibly can. We have a heritage which few indeed seem to realise today. My own constitu- ency provides something of an exception to a general and deplorable rule. There is in Bedford, in the Pyghtle works, a wonderful craft centre with traditions and workmanship second to none. I hope that the next time Members of this House visit Westminster Abbey they will take the trouble to inspect the carved English walnut lectern presented to that church by the Baptist Missionary Society, and produced in the factory in my own constituency which I have named.

In other respects, too, Bedfordshire seems to be ahead of other areas. I told recently, in a debate in the House, of Bedford's tree-planting activities. Now, an Association of Master Thatchers has been formed, and a census taken and register of craftsmen drawn up. I suggest that my hon. Friend might well see his way to give encouragement tonight to those steps being followed in other counties. I feel that in all this, local authorities can do a lot more to help than they are doing. The trade unions, also, which have real experts among their members might encourage some of them, for instance those in the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers, to volunteer to take evening classes which could be arranged in appropriate areas and centres. I would even advance the proposal that we might have, in this House, a Minister of Culture and the Arts. I wonder what my hon. Friend's reaction is to that suggestion.

The implications of this whole subject, in the light of our export position, should be obvious to everyone. I should like the Minister to say a few words about that aspect. Even in this rather depressing age of mass production and large-scale industry, when perhaps it is inevitable that the work of the individual craftsmen can be enjoyed only by the few, the individual craftsman can, I feel, still set the standard of design; he can still be the brains of the machine. He can, in very many cases, determine whether the machine-made article of ordinary commerce is choice in its pattern, and whether it is ugly or beautiful. He can thus be of key-importance in helping our country to face the competition of Sweden, Finland, and other European communities, and to maintain and, where necessary to get back to, the position in which we were once quite truthfully called a nation of shopkeepers.

11.24 p.m.

Mr. Keeling (Twickenham)

I was a little surprised, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that, you doubted the responsibility of the Government in this matter, because there has not only been more than one Act of Parliament recently which has deliberately set out to encourage craftsmen, but we have a statutory body, the Royal Fine Art Commission, which has the general duty, under the Government, of encouraging beautiful design. I want to devote my very brief remarks to one particular craft which is, perhaps, one of the most neglected and the most worthy of encouragement. That is the craft of the stonemason. It is very satisfactory that the Ministry of Works, in the light of the report on the. Recruitment of Masons, has recently issued a circular saying that it wishes it to be known that to secure an adequate force of stonemasons for the building industry, it has instructed its regional officers to license as freely as possible schemes involving the use of stone.

There is a good deal of evidence that the question of cost is not insuperable. There is a good deal of evidence that by the co-operation of the architect, the master quarryman and the contractor, stone houses in stone areas can be built at not much greater expense, or, indeed, any greater expense, than brick houses. Not only have we that circular, but also the Housing Bill, which has passed through this House and is now in another place, which provides special grants for stone building, in addition to the ordinary grant for other houses. Of course, it is very important that any encouragement given to a revival of the use of stone should not only provide employment for existing stonemasons, but should also create a demand for more stonemasons. It is not sufficient to employ only the stonemasons who may now be out of work, but it is necessary to encourage young men to enter the industry.

In the Cotswolds, and the West Riding, and other stone areas, there is an alternative to the actual use of stone in the ordinary sense of the word, which alternative is far more suitable than brick in such areas. I refer to the crushing of local stone, of which hon. Members can see a very good example on the Holland Martin estate at Overbury. Not far away from Overbury one can see an example of what not to do in the lovely town of Chipping Campden, where the old houses look as though they belong to the ground on which they stand. But in Chipping Campden there is a remarkable example of the wrong thing, perpetrated by the North Cotswold Rural District Council. They have erected a group of houses in pink Fletton brick, and another group in red. If there is one place where red brick should not be used it is Chipping Campden; but that applies, more or less, to every other part of the stone country. I think that no worse injury can be done to the beauty of this country and to its attractiveness to foreign visitors than the indiscriminate use of red brick in stone areas.

11.27 p.m.

Mr. Rhodes (Ashton-under-Lyne)

There are just one or two points I would make in support of my hon. Friend who raised this subject. He has done a service in bringing it forward. I would point out that, in the craftsmanship to which he has referred, he is talking of something which has a pastoral background. A lot of the craftsmanship which has come to us has been preserved on account of the manual dexterity handed down by the individual, even during the machine age. But the problem is where automatic machines are being installed throughout the length and breadth of the land in industry; there is a danger that the individual becomes an automaton, and it is that side of the subject that I have studied for some time.

I think we should take the attitude that inefficiency in our industries and mills is ugly for a start. If we can begin in our new factories, or in those being altered to suit modern needs, to understand that that is a primary condition, a lot of good will result. I have tried it in my own factory; I have tried to bring a realisation of the necessity for craftsmanship in the handling of woollen manufacture and I think we shall succeed. But in my opinion, it will have to be done through the removal of ugliness and we shall all have to start with a will at the present time to get rid of it.

11.30 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. John Edwards)

My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeffington-Lodge) has shown a consistent interest in British craftsmanship, and I should like to assure him at the outset that the Government share his concern and think it important to safeguard and encourage British handcraft. The skill and training of craftsmen are not lightly acquired and ought properly to be regarded as an extremely valuable national asset, and not least at the present time when all the missions that go overseas—and this is particularly true of those who go to North America—come back and say we really must pay closer attention and more care to problems of design.

I hold the view that the healthy basis of craft-work is an essential condition for the success of any measure that may be taken to improve the design of industrially-produced goods. Only yesterday I saw for myself in Manchester, in the School of Art, some of the work that was being done by the education committees of the country in the way of the training of craftsmen, and I was most impressed by the quality of the work I saw which had been done in this place. So, through the educational system, we want to do everything we can to help in maintaining high standards of craftsmanship both as a vocation and as an occupation for leisure.

Reference has been made to the Craft Centre. This centre was formed in 1948 to bring together in one organisation, the five existing major societies for the maintenance of craftsmanship. This centre, which has an indisputably national status, is planning to hold exhibitions, hoping to acquire premises, and is providing a common meeting ground for craftsmen from different trades. It was thought wise to use this organisation for the scheme which the Government introduced last October to give relief from Purchase Tax on furniture, textiles, and articles made of precious metals provided they were handmade and reached approved standards of design and craftsmanship. Although since the scheme has started, we have paid out in relief under the scheme only £6,274, we have nevertheless set on one side £75,000 in the present financial year for this purpose if it is needed.

Then there is the British Handcrafts Exports which was founded in July, 1948, to find markets overseas, especially in dollar-earning countries, for good quality hand-made articles of every kind. It is at the present time interesting itself especially in the United States, Australia, and Switzerland. The first consignment of goods has already been shipped to the United States and a close survey has been carried out of that particular market. The United Kingdom Trade Mission in the States has given us frequent help with the survey and plans are now very well advanced for a selling organisation in the States which would be under the control of B.H.E. headquarters in London. I believe that what this organisation—British Handcrafts Exports—would be able to do, may not appear to be great in volume, but it would, I think, have very considerable influence. I have talked about the States. Actually, the organisation has already appointed an agent for Australia, and the first consignment of goods has left for Australia this week. Also this week, the first consignment went to Switzerland. The organisation is now taking steps to appoint a suitable agent in Canada.

Here in London there will in due course be showrooms and offices under the personal exports scheme by which the B.H.E. will sell to overseas visitors who happen to be here. All this work is going on. B.H.E. has already commissioned work from 100 craftsmen and has personal contacts with at least 200 more who are considered to come up to the standard required. On the question of getting known to craftsmen, B.H.E. is receiving the active assistance of regional export officers and the organisers who work in conjunction with the Rural Industries Bureau. I doubt whether it is necessary to have any census of craftsmen, because I think that both the Craft Centre and B.H.E. maintain lists of craftsmen which are constantly being added to and kept up to date. I think that as these two organisations develop we shall get a comprehensive knowledge of the craftsmen throughout the country.

My hon. Friend was particularly worried about the imports of Italian marbles. I would point out to him that while it is true that the current Anglo-Italian Trade Agreement permits Italy to send £500,000 of rough marbles and £50,000 of worked marble to the United Kingdom during the current year, the imports on this scale are only 50 per cent. of pre-war quantities in the case of rough marble and less than 10 per cent. in the case of worked marble. And so, if this be an evil, it is not as great an evil as it was. In any case, I have to make it plain that we cannot possibly use import licensing restrictions for any other purpose at the present time than to safeguard the balance of payments, and that when we are negotiating with other countries for supplies of essential foodstuffs and raw materials, we must permit certain imports to come in which we may not require in any fundamental sense but on the sale of which the other people have to live.

I hope I have said enough to indicate the Government's full approval of many things which my hon. Friend has said. Perhaps I might be permitted to conclude by saying that what he said touched me rather nearly, because one of my grandparents was a stonemason in my hon. Friend's constituency. There are examples of his work still to be seen in many of the graveyards there, but what his view would be about Italian-worked marble I cannot even begin to think.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-two Minutes to Twelve, o'Clock.