HL Deb 03 August 1909 vol 2 cc876-98

[SECOND READING.]

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL

My Lords, before I deal with this Bill I feel that I ought to offer a word of explanation and perhaps of apology regarding another Bill which stood in my name—the Trade Boards Bill; and I think that an explanation is particularly to be asked of me by those many Members of the House who take a deep, and, I believe, a benevolent interest in that measure. The Second Reading of that Bill has now been twice put off. I am afraid that I was the innocent cause of the postponement on Wednesday last, and I beg to offer my apologies for that. To-day the Second Reading has again been postponed and the Bill has been replaced, for reasons which, I believe, will commend themselves to your Lordships, by this Bill dealing with labour exchanges. The Government attach very great importance to both of these Bills, to one as much as to the other; but there is a special reason for urgency in the case of this Bill which does not exist in the case of the other.

This Bill deals with unemployment, and it is in the highest degree desirable that the machinery which it sets up should be in readiness to commence operations before the winter comes. I think your Lordships will appreciate that and also the reasons which have caused us to press it on. The Bill entails the establishment of a great number, I think this year some 125, of different offices with the necessary staff, and preparations for them are being pressed on as far and as fast as possible. But the House will understand that the Treasury will not part with the money necessary to enable the scheme to be in working order until the full consent of Parliament has been given, and therefore we propose to ask your Lordships to so far co-operate with us as to agree, if you approve of this Bill, to its passing through all its stages during the current week.

I have said that this Bill deals with unemployment. I do not think it is necessary for me to elaborate in any way the great distress and misery which arise from lack of work. I am sure that this House will be as ready as any other humane and thinking body of men to do anything it can to cure that evil, and I therefore assume that your Lordships will approve of the object of this Bill and that you will only require to be convinced of the desirability and the efficiency of the means by which that object is to be arrived at. There have been many attempts of late years to deal with unemployment, but perhaps the most important have been the relief works which have been started by many of the great municipalities. That, of course, is an old way of dealing with emergencies of this kind. It has been resorted to in all such emergencies. Anyone who has travelled in Ireland cannot fail to have been struck by the huge walls which surround many of the domains there. Many of your Lordships have such walls on your own property which were built in times of famine. Those works are monuments to the benevolence of your predecessors, but I am afraid they are rather expensive monuments to maintain and that they embody almost all the disadvantages of these relief works. As a rule these works are not wanted; their cost is altogether disproportionate to the amount of relief they give, and after the emergency which they were designed to meet has subsided they continue to cost money every year. In fact, relief works cannot seriously be regarded as a cure for unemployment. At the best they are only a palliative. What is wanted is not a drug to still the pain of this disease, but a cure which will reach deep down to its roots.

The closest study has been given to this problem, and as a result of that study a scheme has been evolved—a practical and economical scheme, which seems to go as far as it is possible to go in the direction of the cure of unemployment. The Bill which is before the House does not contain the whole of that scheme. In fact, I doubt whether it can be said to contain half of it, but as far as it goes it contains a scheme which is complete in itself, and which, though it is an essential part of the whole, is nevertheless complete in itself and capable of doing a very great amount of good. It is proposed by this Bill to establish a network of labour exchanges all over the country. A labour exchange is really quite a simple thing. It is what its name implies—a place where the man who wishes to buy labour will be put in touch with the man who has labour to sell. Its object is the same as that of any other exchange—to bring buyer and seller together. That is the simplest aspect of a labour exchange, and I think that if it did nothing more than that it would amply justify its existence.

I would ask the House to consider for a moment what happens when a man is looking for work. It surely ought not to be necessary that he should have to hawk his labour round to every likely employer in the town where he lives, or perhaps walk great distances from one town to another in search of work. As a business process one cannot imagine anything more wasteful or cumbrous than that. One can hardly imagine it; but by a stretch of imagination one may think of what might happen if there was no such thing as a Stock Exchange, and if every share that was for sale had to be hawked round the City of London in search of a possible purchaser. That is exactly what happens when a man is looking for work, and that is a thing which can very easily be prevented by a properly-arranged system of labour exchanges. It is not only the time of the man who is looking for work which is wasted, but the employer suffers also, because it often happens that an employer may require men to do some particular form of work and may not be able to obtain them, while all the time there are men seeking employment at no very great distance who are perfectly capable of doing that work. That is a state of affairs which, of course, does not arise as a rule in regard to unskilled labour, but it is by no means uncommon in skilled trades, and that is a thing, again, which could clearly be put an end to by a system of labour exchanges.

In regard to unskilled labour the evil which has to be met is of a different nature. There are certain trades, of which the building trade is, perhaps, the best example, which give employment of a more or less intermittent character to a large number of men. Each building firm gives employment of that nature to a number of more or less unskilled labourers. Some of those men get employment which is practically regular, but there are many others who go down every day to the office or to the gate to see whether they can get a job. If trade is brisk, they are engaged; if it is slack, they are not. That sort of thing may be going on at half a dozen different builders' yards in a town, and the result is that each of them is maintaining on half rations more men than it is able to give regular employment to. That may be, to a certain extent, a convenience to those firms, though it is probable that they would be better served by men who were in receipt of regular wages, and, what is much more important, getting regular food and properly clothed and properly housed. Such men would do better work and earn their wages better. But whether it is convenient to the employers or not, I would ask your Lordships to consider what it means to the men themselves. It means that their life is made up of an alternation of full wages and of semi-starvation, and that is a state of affairs, again, where a labour exchange can come in, and where, by putting various employers in touch with each other, continuous work may be found for a number of those men and the evil of casual labour reduced to a minimum.

Then my Lords, there are trades in which employment, as a rule, is brisk at one time and slack at another, and here, again, the labour exchange, by a sort of process of dovetailing, will be able to arrange that men will get continuous employment, perhaps at one trade at one time of the year and at another trade at another time. As an instance of what I mean I would quote the case of building and brick-making, at which men may get work in the summer, and the same men may be found employment in gas-works and at docks in the winter. There are many other cases of the same sort. I have mentioned a very few of the more obvious uses of a labour exchange. Many others must suggest themselves to anyone who gives the matter a moment's consideration. I do not claim, of course, that this system will do anything to increase employment. Obviously it will do nothing of the kind, but what it will do will be to secure that wherever there is a vacancy for a man you will be able to put a man into it, and a vacancy will not go begging in one place while men are seeking work in another. There is another claim which can be made for this system, and that is that it will prevent any necessity for men tramping about the country in search of work, and in that way it will remove all excuse for vagrancy. That is, I think, an important consideration. The most important thing which I would urge in favour of this scheme is that it will prevent hard-working, decent men from being forced into the ranks of the unemployed and the casual labourers, as they often are at present, because the facilities for finding work for all such men will undoubtedly be increased.

As far as the Bill itself goes, it is a short, and, I think, a simple Bill, and it does not require, as far as I can see, any explanation. What I think I ought to do is to inform the House what the Board of Trade propose to do under the regulations they are given power to make. It is proposed to set up a system of 240 exchanges—that is ultimately —grouped in ten principal divisions. The largest of these exchanges will be in towns of above 100,000 inhabitants, and will provide for the separate registration of several classes of workpeople, such as skilled men, labourers, and women. The smallest exchanges will be in the smaller towns of from 25,000 to 10,000 inhabitants and in the suburbs of the larger towns; and in each of the ten divisions there will be a divisional clearing house, the object of the clearing house being to receive and collate the regular returns of situations unfilled and of men unemployed at all the exchanges in the division, thus enabling the demands for labour in one place to be met, if necessary, from another place. The divisional clearing house will be linked up with a national clearing house in London. It is proposed for the present that the exchanges shall be housed in premises which shall be hired; but it will he found more convenient and economical that, at all events in the case of the larger exchanges and clearing houses, premises shall eventually be built for the purpose, and it is proposed to carry out that building programme gradually.

The annual expenditure which this Bill will entail will amount for the present year, which, of course, is only part of a year, to £100,000; next year it will amount to £210,000 and will remain at that figure till 1912, when it is estimated that it will fall to £200,000, and finally in 1919–20, when it is estimated that the building programme will be completed, the expenditure will reach its normal level, which will amount to £180,000. These details, my Lords, are given much more elaborately in the financial statement which has been presented to Parliament, and which I daresay your Lordships have in your hands. I have already said that this Bill contains only a part of the scheme of the Government for dealing with unemployment. The other part of that scheme is contained in the Bill which it is intended to introduce next year, but which has been announced by my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade in the other House of Parliament. My right hon. friend gave an outline of that scheme. It is not possible for me to give more than an outline myself.

Broadly speaking, it is proposed by that scheme to establish a system of compulsory insurance to which workpeople and employers will both contribute, and to which the State will also make a contribution. It is not proposed, at present at any rate, to do more than include certain trades in which unemployment is chronic. The trades which my right hon. friend mentioned are these: house building and works of construction, engineering, machine and tool making, ship, boat, and vehicle building, including sawyers and general labourers working at those trades. That Bill and the Bill now before the House are a part of the same system. The one is the necessary adjunct of the other. Without some system of unemployment insurance it is not possible to deal completely with unemployment; and also without some system of labour exchanges, even if those exchanges are only regarded as a test of the willingness of the men to work, it would be folly to set up any system of State-aided insurance against unemployment. By the system of labour exchanges we hope to fill all the vacancies in the country for men who are able and willing to work, and by the other system we hope to provide for those for whom perhaps no work may be able to be obtained. The remainder —the unemployable and the unwilling—will have to be dealt with in some other way. I imagine, and I think that it is a common idea, that that will be done by some reform in the system of Poor Law Administration. That, of course, is not a question which is. before the House, but, as everyone knows, it is a question which is receiving earnest consideration.

This system of labour exchanges is not a new one. It has already been tried with success in London and particularly at the docks. It is in operation in half a dozen different countries on the Continent at the present time—in France, in Germany, in Austria, in Belgium, in Switzerland, and in Norway, and I understand that its establishment is contemplated in the United States of America. There is another thing I should like to say about this system of labour exchanges. It enjoys this unique distinction, that I believe it is almost the only proposal which is to be found in both the Majority and the Minority Reports of the Poor Law Commission. This proposal has been very favourably received by both masters and men. It is a purely voluntary system. There is no compulsion whatever on anybody to use these exchanges. It is recognised that it will be most important that masters and men shall meet us on this neutral ground, and the leading trade unionists have admitted that it is extremely important that that neutral ground should exist. They are aware that if that neutrality disappears there will be many employers who will not use the exchanges, and for that reason we have been assured that trade union leaders will do their best to maintain the neutrality of these exchanges. This is not a charitable scheme; it is an economic scheme; and I recommend it to your Lordships above all on the ground that it is a practical and honest attempt to deal with a very great evil. I beg to move.

Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Hamilton of Dalzell.)

THE LORD BISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM

My Lords, I should be glad if I might be allowed to say a few words, partly of welcome to a measure for the like of which some of us have been looking for a long time, but also, if I might, of warning against exaggerated expectations of what labour exchanges by themselves are at all likely to accomplish. So much has been said, and justly, about the necessity for labour exchanges that there have been in the minds of a great many people expectations excited as to the good that is to come from the establishment of labour exchanges which are quite certain to be falsified and to lead to widespread disappointment and disillusionment if these exchanges are allowed for any length of time to stand alone. I am sure that the Bill ought to be welcomed, and that most cordially, by this House and by the country, because it is a step in the right direction, and a sign that we have at last learned the lesson of the futility of some of the remedies to which we used to look, as, for example, the remedy of relief works. We have learned many bitter lessons as to remedies that are no true remedies. It is at least a great thing that we should be in this Bill set upon a path of reform which certainly, as far as I know, economists and social reformers of all kinds believe to be the path of real progress.

But, my Lords, I hope we shall not, even in welcoming this Bill, allow ourselves to hide from our eyes that all that labour exchanges, even if they answer to all the best hopes of their advocates, can accomplish is something very limited, and that the institution of labour exchanges must be followed up by other measures besides that which was mentioned by the noble Lord just now as forming already part of the Government programme. Of course, what we hope from labour exchanges is that they will do something, not actually to meet the evil of unemployment, but to meet an evil which is so very closely allied to it—that is to say, to decasualise or to regularise labour. Since I have been at work in Birmingham I think nothing has impressed my imagination with such terrific force as the vast and growing amount of casual labour. It is deplorable to hear those who know best the state of parish after parish bear witness to the fact that the area of persons who never expect to be in regular work is a growing area. I believe that that lamentable state of things is so far true. The area of casual labour is growing, and that for certain assignable causes, and there seems to me no doubt in the world that the path of real progress is the path of ascertaining how much labour can be regularly employed. Even if the immediate result of that is that we have more and not less unemployment to deal with, I think it is better that there should be a smaller number of persons in regular work. What we have to recognise is that the institution of labour exchanges may be hoped, if they are well and wisely worked, to do something of a very real kind to decasualise labour. If that is so, then I think it is of great importance that all of us who are interested in this matter should realise that the institution of labour exchanges and anything which tends in the direction of decasualising labour must be followed up by other remedies.

The noble Lord spoke of this as being only part, and perhaps not the larger part, of the Government programme, and he spoke of the extremely important measure which is announced of compulsory insurance against unemployment. I may say that no one in this House could welcome that proposal more cordially than I do, but I still feel that there are one or two other remedies on the necessity of which social reformers and economists of all kinds and schools are practically agreed, and which must also follow very rapidly on the heels of the institution of labour exchanges if they are not to lead to real disappointment. I will mention three. First of all, something effective must be done, and very speedily done, to resist the influx from the bottom of the great mass of untrained and unskilled labour which comes from the improper or unwise employment of boys. I do not think anyone can really contemplate the social situation at the present moment without seeing the disaster which comes from the extraordinary facility with which boys at the age of fourteen can get into posts by which they are enabled to earn small wages, which, of course, they and their parents hail with great enthusiasm; but when they are seventeen or eighteen they are turned out without any skill, without any real preparation for taking a permanent place in life, inevitably to swell the ranks of casual labour and to look forward to life without any hope of obtaining a permanent place. I have been very much struck with the evidence of those who have had close experience of the vast number of boys who, at the age of seventeen or eighteen, have not really any hope or expectation of doing anything else except picking up a job.

For the last two or three days I have been acting as chaplain to the Warwickshire Territorials in their camp in the New Forset, and I talked to a good many of the lads of eighteen who were there. The very facility with which they had been able to come to camp was due in part to the lamentable cause of slackness of employment. It was pathetic to see so many who were in casual employment, and there is no doubt that one of the very first things we have to do is to dam the influx of totally unskilled labour from the ranks of boyhood. I do earnestly hope that His Majesty's Government intend at an early date to take the step which it seems to me social reformers of all kinds are now urging upon us, and that is to raise the age of compulsory schooling and to continue compulsory training at night in such a manner as shall do something to put boys into a more effective path towards skilled permanent labour. I do earnestly hope that none of us who are interested in this project of labour exchanges will fail to see that one great part they are qualified to play in decasualising labour they will be unable to do unless we are at the same time diminishing the influx of totally unskilled labour from the unregulated condition of the boy market.

Secondly, I hope His Majesty's Government are really prepared at an early date for the establishment of detention colonies for those who are proved—awl we shall have now, with the assistance of the labour exchanges, better opportunities of putting them to the proof—to be what the Germans call "work-shy." That, again, is a matter which is pressed upon us by reformers and economists of all kinds. It is hardly realised how great an invasion of the liberty of the subject it will be, but I think it is an invasion which ought to be altogether hopeful in its results. I venture to put that second among the other remedies not mentioned by the noble Lord which are quite essential, and which must follow upon the institution of labour exchanges if such exchanges are not to lead to disappointment, disillusionment, and reaction.

The third is the institution of training colonies for those whom the labour exchanges reveal to be necessarily for the time out of work because there is no work for them, but with regard to whom there is no reason to believe that they are not willing to work when work can be found. I venture to think that a great deal could be done if there were training colonies for such persons, where the interval in which they are out of work could be used, either in teaching them some new trade, or making them more efficient in the trade which they at present exercise, and I do not doubt that money expended on that line would be money profitably spent. I do not wish to do more than welcome very cordially the institution of labour exchanges, but at the same time to give voice to what is in the minds of a great many people who are interested—namely, to the fear that undue hopes may be excited as to what labour exchanges of themselves can do; and while we greet with the greatest satisfaction the statement of the Government that it is only half their programme, I hope it will not be forgotten that besides the other half there are measures which are absolutely necessary if the institution of labour exchanges is not to prove deficient in the results for which those who have longed for such an institution are constrained to hope.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

My Lords, I think that no one could have listened to the eloquent speech of the right reverend Prelate who has just sat down but must have been tempted to go into a far wider field on this subject than perhaps there is time to enter upon on the present occasion. He touched on the most critical problems which await solution in respect of the reform of the Poor Law and social reform generally. I am not qualified, even if I thought it were suitable, to follow him in all his most interesting remarks, but I cannot refrain from adding my humble testimony to the enormous importance, as it appears to some of us, of dealing without delay with boys who are being brought up in so unsatisfactory a manner for their subsequent battle in life.

I would add to what the right reverend Prelate has said this further remark, that what is borne in upon us by all the evidence is the complete failure of the educational policy of this country to deal with this problem. I often think when we have education debates in your Lordships' House and in another place, and when Minister after Minister comes before Parliament with the demand for untold millions and with an air of confidence that they never can be refused, that these gentlemen scarcely realise how profoundly upon its trial the whole educational system of this country really is. When the present educational system was introduced confident prophecies were made that it would banish all sorts of social evils; those prophecies have completely vanished, and now we are face to face with more misery and more poverty than when the Education Acts were passed. I earnestly hope that the eloquent words of the right rev. Prelate will not fall upon an infertile soil. I for one should welcome a change in the Education Acts, not only in the direction of a reform of the curriculum, but also in prolonging the age at which children are kept at school. I have always been in favour of evening continuation schools and not of prolonging the age in respect of day schools, and for this reason, that it is evident that you would meet with great resistance—I think legitimate resistance—on the part of the people of this country if after their children had reached an earning age they were precluded from earning money. That difficulty does not present itself in evening continuation schools, and the great waste that now takes place might thereby be spared.

The right reverend Prelate has impressed upon us that this measure for the establishment of labour exchanges will have only a limited effect. That is no doubt true, but that does not in any way diminish my approval of the Bill as a whole. I do not think we must look to violent changes. Slight improvements are all that we can expect, and if this Bill makes a slight improvement we ought to be thoroughly satisfied. I think the noble Lord who introduced this Bill was justified in saying that the establishment of labour exchanges meets with general approval. He said it was the only point on which the Majority and the Minority Reports of the Poor Law Commission agreed. I think the noble Lord did less than justice, if I may say so, to those two wonderful documents, and I think it will be found that there are a good many points upon which they agree.

LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL

I said it was one of the few points on which they agreed.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I entirely accept the noble Lord's correction. This is one of the points on which they agree. I go a step further than the noble Lord and say that I think this Bill will even tend to increase employment. I think that a better distribution of labour and an increase of supply where it is required will no doubt tend to the general prosperity of the country and the improvement of the conditions of labour as a whole. But I think your Lordships will agree that, this Bill is rather skeleton in form, and does not very clearly upon the face of it explain the method by which it is to be carried out. Like many other Bills introduced nowadays, this Bill is really to be carried into effect by regulation; and I thought we had every reason to be grateful to the noble Lord that he was good enough to add a little flesh and skin to the skeleton which the document itself presents to us by detailing some of the regulations that the Board of Trade propose to establish in pursuance of this Bill when it becomes an Act of Parliament. But I am to some extent a little doubtful as to the working of the Bill. There was one point on which the noble Lord did not dwell. I understand that the proposal is to carry on these labour exchanges as national and not as local institutions—that is to say, that the whole of the authority under which the Bill is to be worked is national, that it is to be worked by the Board of Trade and not by or with the assistance of any local authority whatever.

LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL

That is so.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

And although I do not think that, in terms, the existing labour exchanges such as there are, are abolished, yet it is proposed that no future such exchanges shall be established. The Bill may even go further than I have stated, but at any rate labour exchanges which exist at present under the control of local authorities are not to be any further encouraged. If, then, this system is to be a national system, its finance is to be national, and the financial clauses, if I may say so, are rather incomplete. I do not feel quite certain what expenditure is authorised under Clause 4. It appears that certain what may be called administrative expenditure is authorised, but one of the most important provisions of the Bill, though that in itself is rather sketchy, which is, as it were, hinted at in Clause 2, is the power to aid workmen who have to travel from one place to another in order to take up a particular job. I do not find any direct authority in Clause 4 authorising this expenditure, but perhaps when another member of the Government addresses us he will explain how that may be carried out. In the same way the drafting of Clause 2 seems to be of rather an incomplete character. I see that the Board of Trade may, with the consent of the Treasury, authorise advances to be made by way of loan, but the Bill does not say to whom the loan is to be made. On the face of it, one would think it was a loan from the central authority to the particular labour exchange, but I gather from other sources that what is intended is really a loan by the labour exchange to the workman who wishes to travel from one place to another. That is so, I have no doubt, but I think the noble Lord will agree that the phrasing of the clauses is not very complete.

The same kind of criticism applies to other parts of the Bill, especially to subsection (2) of Clause 2 as it now stands. That is a subsection which was not in the original Bill as it was introduced in the House of Commons, but was inserted in the course of its passage through that House, and it is a provision which, as your Lordships will recognise, deals with matters of great complexity and delicacy. I hope that when the noble Earl the Leader of the House speaks, if he is going to speak, he will tell us what is really intended by subsection (2) of Clause 2. This is the provision which says that— The regulations shall provide that no person shall suffer any disqualification or be otherwise prejudiced on account of refusing to accept employment found for him through a labour exchange where the ground of refusal is that a trade dispute exists, or that the wages offered are lower than those current in the trade in the district where the employment is offered. I do not pretend for a moment that I do not understand the general intention of that subsection, but I think it is important that the Government should explain exactly what their policy is in that respect. The general intention, no doubt, is to prevent the operation of this Bill affecting trade disputes. Taken in that general sense it is a very natural provision to insert in such a Bill as the present. I do not think any of your Lordships would desire that these labour exchanges should be used as a weapon on the one side or the other in trade disputes; but it must be admitted that the particular language used is very vague and seems to carry us a long way.

I should like in that connection to make this observation. As I understand, these labour exchanges are to be managed by a committee consisting of equal numbers of employers and workmen, with a neutral chairman. Therefore, the workmen, who are to be representative, as I understand, of local trade unions, will have a very important position in administering the Act. I am not sorry. On the contrary, I am glad. I think it is proper that both the interests into which the industrial world is divided should be represented on the committees which are to manage these labour exchanges, and I am in hopes that the trade union representatives themselves will profit by the experience which they will thus gain. There appears to be a profound dread existing lest any provision in such a Bill as this should tend to lower the rate of wages. I am not surprised. When one looks back at the history of trade unions and sees the great battles which they most properly and successfully fought for their own interests and for the interests of their fellow workmen in years gone by, one is not surprised that they should shrink from any legislation which might have the effect of lowering the rate of wages. I have always spoken with profound respect of trade unions. I believe they have done splendid work in the industrial world, and I believe that the fact of the organisation of labour is in itself a tremendous benefit to the community, because it enables the community as a whole to deal with labour questions with some hope that they will be disposed of, because you have a settled organisation with whom to deal.

But, at the same time, one cannot help feeling that there are occasions when this dread of any legislation which may affect wages may carry us rather too far. For what will be the natural operation of such a Bill as this? You will have a place where there are workmen of a particular trade who cannot get a job. There will be another place where there will be particular jobs of that trade to be done and not sufficient workmen to do them, and the labour exchange will have the effect of transferring the surplus workmen to the place where there is a demand for them. The effect undoubtedly will be to, I hope, raise the wages in the place from which the workmen come, for it will reduce the surplus labour; but it will also undoubtedly have some effect towards lowering the wages in the place to which they go, because they will fill a demand for labour which otherwise would not be filled. I do not think we ought to shrink from that consequence. I cannot help hoping that the trade unions will take the same view, and that they will see that in the administration of a great national system it is right and proper that where there is a demand for labour in a particular part of England and a surplus of labour in another part, the surplus ought to be transferred to where there is a demand notwithstanding any effect it may have upon the rate of wages.

I am specially tempted to make these observations because it has always seemed to me a very doubtful policy on the part of the Labour leaders to resist variation in the rate of wages when they have to deal with workmen different in calibre and ability. All of us know that as men grow older they cannot do quite as good work as when they were in their prime. Properly considered, these men should receive a lower rate of wages, but as the trade unions will not allow them to accept lower wages the result is that these men receive no wages at all and they help to increase the ranks of the unemployed. I believe that this policy of casting out workmen who are past their prime and no longer able to earn the full rate of wages of fully effective workmen has been carried a very long way and has been seen even in Government Departments. I have heard—I do not know whether it is authentic—of workmen being turned out of Woolwich Dockyard at an age when they were beginning to go a short way down the hill. I hope that when the trade union leaders find themselves upon these labour exchange committees brought face to face with these problems from the point of view of workmen out of employment through no fault of their own, but because they are past their prime, they will become convinced that this rigid policy of maintaining in all circumstances and in all cases a fixed point below which wages should never be allowed to fall is a great as well as a cruel mistake, and is contrary to the public int rests.

While I welcome most warmly the introduction of this Bill and hope that your Lordships will pass it into law, I trust that His Majesty's Government may be able to give us some explanation as to how they think Clause 2, and especially subsection (2) of that clause, is intended to work. As for the actual prospects of this Bill, I am quite sure I may say on behalf of my noble friend who sits beside me—indeed I say it with his authority—that we shall offer no hindrance to the rapid passage of the Bill through your Lordships' House. A certain limited amount of delay is necessary in order to insert any Amendments that might be thought necessary, but within that limit every facility will be given to His Majesty's Government in order to carry it into effect. I conclude by congratulating the noble Lord on the introduction of the Bill and the facility with which he explained it to your Lordships.

THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

I am sure that the noble Lord who introduced the Bill and His Majesty's Government must feel encouraged by the reception which the Bill has received. I think the discussion to-night has been of real value and interest, not only for its own sake but also because of the evidence it will give to all who are interested in this subject, and who, perhaps, have hardly realised the difficulty which attends legislation respecting it, that they must take one step at a time towards the solution of the problem. That this Bill by itself could produce momentous results scarcely anyone would, I imagine, be prepared to maintain; but when followed by other Bills such as those which were sketched, and by the treatment of the other subjects referred to by my right reverend brother the Bishop of Birmingham, I have no doubt that the legislation will produce a vast effect upon the difficulties with which we are at present face to face.

But it is worth noting that in all these matters we are face to face with this difficulty. When we attempt to deal with this subject as a whole, as soon as the initial discussion is raised we find it to be so vast that its solution would take, not one Bill, but half-a-dozen Bills. On the other hand, we are deterred from taking one of these steps by itself because it seems hardly by itself worth a great deal of effort. It is because I believe that this Bill will fit in with other things that I welcome it with special cordiality to-night. The noble Marquess drew a gloomy picture of our educational system. That the educational prospects of forty years ago and the hopes founded on them by reformers have been altogether falsified I am not prepared to say, any more than I can agree with the view of the noble Marquess that there is more poverty and misery now than prevailed forty years ago. I am convinced that the contrary could be shown to be the case, and that where more misery and more poverty do exist they are attributable to other causes than the failure of our educational policy. That our educational policy needs amending I most cordially and firmly believe, but whether it should be amended exactly in the direction sketched by the noble Marquess I am not quite sure.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I was only referring to a remarkable passage in the Majority Report, with which, no doubt, the most reverend Primate is familiar.

THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

I am familiar with that passage, and it was one of the points on which I had hoped to dwell in the course of a discussion which I had looked forward to raising tomorrow. But to meet the general convenience of the House this discussion will not take place till later, and I will await that opportunity to expound my views on the particular point to which the noble Marquess called attention. The whole subject, indeed, of which this Bill deals with a small portion, must necessarily be touched upon in any adequate discussion on Poor Law reform as a whole. But at present I enter a caveat of objection as to the words of the noble Lord who introduced the Bill when he spoke of the few points on which the whole of that great Commission is practically unanimous. I shall be prepared to show when the time comes, and I think conclusively to show, that in respect of the larger principles which are at stake the recommendations are practically one. But that is a big subject into which I will not enter now, although I hope to have an opportunity of doing so before very long. All that I desire to do to-night is to congratulate His Majesty's Government and to say how cordially I for one welcome this measure as part of a greater whole. I am certain that the subject will require treatment in more directions than one before this Bill fits in its proper place if we are to get a coherent and unified system dealing with, on wise lines, some of the larger problems with which we are confronted.

THE EARL OF CREWE

My Lords, my noble friend has no reason to complain of the reception of this Bill. On the contrary, the reception has been all through of a cordial character. It is partly, perhaps, due to the fact that the discussion has wandered in some respects a considerable distance from the Bill itself, but it is no doubt also due to the fact, which every speaker has emphasised, that this meaure forms only one part of a great scheme. I cordially agree with what has been said by the most rev. Primate, that there always is a difficulty in dealing with these slices of a great subject. It is impossible, by common consent, in any session of Parliament to deal with the whole subject of the Poor Law and kindred matters, whereas a single attempt to deal with one particular aspect such as is represented in this Bill may lie in some degree open to the imputation of being imperfect. But I am very glad that the House has so thoroughly understood that this is one step in the direction of what we hope may be a solution of the entire matter, and that it has been received in that spirit.

Both the right rev. Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham and the noble Marquess opposite dealt for a time with some of the questions, educational and others, which are germane to this subject. The question of boy labour, one of the most difficult, as I should think, to deal with, was dealt with by both. It seems sometimes to be concluded, though it was not either by the right rev. Prelate or by the noble Marquess, that this question of boy labour, relatively well paid for a time and then ceasing altogether, is a simple one to cure. It seems to me to be one of the most difficult sides of the problem. Those noble Lords who are in the habit of indulging in the game of golf sometimes, I think, pause to reflect what is to be the future career of the active and intelligent little boy who is carrying their clubs. We see also the no less active and intelligent boy messengers belonging to institutions and also a large number in private employment, and we wonder what their future is to be. It is impossible to prohibit that kind of labour, at least so it seems, and its regulation undoubtedly is a subject of the very greatest difficulty. The noble Marquess, I gather, looks for help on this branch of the subject from further development of continuation schools, and I venture to assume that he is not one of those who would object to at any rate some application of the principle of compulsion as far as they are concerned. The right rev. Prelate, who is not now in the House, the Bishop of Hereford, has more than once attempted, as your Lordships know, to deal with this question by a Bill, and I think it has generally been the case when he has brought it forward that he has received a great deal of sympathy; but it has been generally pointed out that public opinion in the country is not ripe for such a change. I think there is some reason to hope that it is ripening in that direction, and I, for one, trust that before very long by common agreement more may be done in that direction than anybody has yet ventured to attempt.

Then the right reverend Prelate asked whether other Poor Law questions, such as detention colonies for those who will not work and training colleges for those who would like to work but cannot get work, form part of the programme of His Majesty's Government. I am sure the right reverend Prelate will forgive me if I do not attempt to give him any definite answer to that question, because I might be holding out hopes for the production of particular measures which it might not be possible to fulfil, and therefore, although unintentionally, misleading the right reverend Prelate and the House. But, of course, it is true that we have the whole subject in our minds, and we shall do our best to produce proposals dealing with it generally. As regards the Bill itself, the noble Marquess, as I said, treated it very kindly. My noble friend behind me said that the Bill could not be expected to create labour but merely to organise it, and the noble Marquess generously went a little further than my noble friend and seemed to think that in some respects it might do something in the direction of even creating labour. I am disposed there to agree with the noble Marquess opposite, because I can quite conceive cases where, while it would not actually create labour, it might have the effect of accelerating the doing of work which might otherwise be postponed. I can imagine cases in connection with public authorities and private individuals where the certain knowledge that you could get the particular kind of labour you required would be a distinct inducement to begin work which might otherwise be postponed.

The noble Marquess said that the Bill was in something of skeleton form; that, no doubt, is perfectly true; and he asked one or two questions on matters which he thought my noble friend had not entirely cleared up. He said he understood—and rightly understood, indeed—that the Bill was to be carried out by the national authority of the Board of Trade, and he asked how the finance of the Bill, especially with relation to Clauses 2 and 4, was to be worked. I am sure the noble Marquess will not expect me to give a definite answer to that question, but my noble friend will, of course, have noted what he said and will see whether the intention of the Bill, which is clear enough, is properly carried out in the wording of the clauses. Then the noble Marquess asked a question with regard to subsection (2) of Clause 2, which, as he said, was inserted in the course of the passage of the Bill in another place. The fear, I take it, that was felt by those who speak for labour was that these exchanges might, in certain circumstances, conceivably become offices for obtaining what they would call blackleg labour, and it was to meet that, in part, at any rate, I take it, that the provision was inserted. What they desire to avoid is that any man should be placed on an employers' black-list because he refuses to work under the conditions set forth in the subsection. That, I think, is a reasonable provision, and I do not understand that the noble Magness objected to it as such.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

Does the noble Earl say that the disqualification or the prejudice contemplated is that the workman might not be afterwards well treated by particular employers?

THE EARL OF CREWE

No; it is that he should not be prejudiced in obtaining future work through the exchange. Of course, the exchange cannot tell what may happen to a workman who engages in work at some future time, but the desire is that so far as the exchange is concerned he may not be prejudiced in any way by the fact that he has refused work under certain conditions. Then the noble Marquess asked about the committee. He went, I think, perhaps a little beyond the mark in describing this committee as having duties of an administrative character. Speaking generally, the committee is of an advisory character, because the actual administration of the exchange in the last resort belongs to the central authority; and I might add that the creation of these advisory committees seems to me of itself to be a very good thing, because there is no reason why they should not be able to exercise other functions of an important character relating to labour, possibly, for instance, the settlement of local labour disputes or matters of that kind, composed, as they will he, of representatives both of employers and of employed.

Towards the close of his speech the noble Marquess entered a caveat against what he conceived to be the excessive rigidity of the trade unions in the matter of wages, and he expressed, I think, the hope that the establishment of these labour exchanges might do something to induce a greater elasticity in that respect, and especially in relation to the possibility of differentiating wages as between the older men whose work is supposed to be not so valuable and those in the full activity of life. I confess I do not exactly share the noble Marquess's view as to this particular result following the establishment of a labour exchange. I think he dwelt excessively, if I may say so, on the supposed economic result upon wages of the flow of labour from one district into another. Economically, no doubt, the result which he foretold would follow; but, as a matter of fact, in a country like this, where, so far as most trades are concerned, there is a standard rate of wages, I should have thought that the effect, if it followed at all, would only follow to a very limited extent, and in certain trades not very highly organised; and with regard to the special point which he mentioned of the wages of older men, it does not seem particularly likely that the special influx of labour into a particular district caused by the existence of a labour exchange would be wholly composed, or even mainly composed, of men who would he prepared to work, perhaps, and who, in the noble Marquess' opinion, ought to work, at the lower rate of wages. I confess I do not, therefore, entirely see the bearing of that particular question on the establishment of these exchanges. It only remains for me to repeat that my noble friend and I are very grateful for the really unqualified approval which this measure has received, and we certainly do not complain of the pointing out by noble Lords opposite, and by right reverend Prelates that it is only a part of a great whole, but as such, and within its limits, we hope that its operations will be of real value to the country.

On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next, and Standing Order No. XXXIX. to be considered in order to its being dispensed with.