HL Deb 21 August 1917 vol 26 cc690-700

[The references are to Bill No. 90.]

Clause 5, page 4, line35, leave out subsection (2) and insert: (2) The Agricultural Wages Board shall appoint district wages committees for such areas as the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries may by regulation prescribe. Provided that if at any time the Agricultural Wages Board are satisfied that in any area a representative joint committee, consisting of a chairman and persons representing in equal numbers employers and workmen engaged in agriculture, exists for purposes which include the fixing of minimum rates of wages for workmen engaged in agriculture, the Hoard may recognise and appoint that committee to be the district wages committee for the area. (3) Subject as hereinafter provided, a district wages committee shall fix minimum rates of wages for able-bodied workmen employed in agriculture in their district for time-work, and they may, if and so far as they think necessary or expedient, fix minimum rates of wages for workmen employed in agriculture in their district for piece work. Provided that any rate so fixed shall not have effect until it has been approved by the Agricultural Wages Board.

The Commons disagree to this Amendment for the following reason: Because it is desirable (1) in the circumstances applicable to England and Wales for securing uniformity of policy that the duty of fixing minimum rates should be vested in a central authority; and (2) that minimum lime rates should be fixed for non-able-bodied as well as for able-bodied workmen.

VISCOUNT MILNER

My Lords, I move that this House do not insist on this Amendment. Perhaps I may briefly explain this proposal. If accepted by your Lordships it involves a large number of consequential Amendments which I dare say may be taken en bloc afterwards. But the point is this. We are going back to the original Bill in which the wages were to be fixed by the Agricultural Wages Board on the recommendation of the District Committees, instead of those wages being fixed by the District Committees themselves and submitted for the approval of the Agricultural Wages Board. The Amendment which has been disagreed to by the Commons is a Government Amendment. We put it in ourselves, and I am sorry it has been disagreed with. The reason why we put it in as I explained at the time, was that it seemed to us to state more clearly what was the intention of the Government, and the procedure will remain, if the Bill is altered back to its original shape, what we have always intended that the procedure should be. There will be the District Wages Committees. They will make their recommendations to the Agricultural Wages Board. It is difficult for me to understand what substantial difference there is between the two proposals. I do not believe there is any. The only reason for putting in the Amendment in this House, from my point of view, was that by making the course of procedure clear on the face of the Bill it removed certain doubts and uncertainties as to what that course of procedure was to be. I honestly do not think it makes any substantial difference, and I hope your Lordships will not insist upon your Amendment.

Moved, That this House do not insist upon the said Amendment.—(Lord Milner.)

LORD PARMOOR

My Lords, the noble Viscount has quite accurately said that this Amendment was supported by himself and proposed by the representative of the Board of Agriculture in this House—the noble Duke opposite. I have read through what the noble Viscount said on that occasion. It was a very forcible support of the Amendment introduced on the Government's initiative in your Lordships' House, and it is to that Amendment that the Commons have disagreed. When it is said that the Commons disagreed, I would point out that the Commons accepted the suggestions of the Government on every point. There was no question of the Commons taking a different view from the Government. It is simply that what the Government proposed in this House and said was the best solution they advised the Commons not to accept. Surely that is a very strong proposition for the Government to make.

May I remind the noble Viscount of the two main reasons why he supported the Amendment? His desire was to give stronger authority to the local bodies on the ground that in their particular localities they would be the best bodies to deal with this question of the minimum wage. I entirely agree with him on that, as I think everybody must agree. The second point of the noble Viscount was this. He mentioned with approval the proviso which I proposed, and which was accepted, in order that after a time we might possibly have in this country the same Conciliation Boards as have been accepted in Scotland. But he went further. He pointed out that under the Trade Boards Act, which was introduced in the Schedule for the purpose of minimum wages, there had been thirteen cases in which conciliation by means of arrangement between employers and employed had been accepted and adopted, and I that this had acted thoroughly well in I every case without friction or difficulty. What he is now doing is this. He is asking I your Lordships' House to delete what in his own view was the best possible conciliation system, which according to his own observations had been adopted in thirteen cases under the Trade Boards Act and which in every case had acted without difficulty or friction. Surely that is a very strong matter. I agree with what the noble Marquess (Lord Salisbury) said, that it is one of the duties of this House to see that provisions of this kind should work fairly. What the Government are asking us to do is to delete one of the most important provisions inserted in order that this Bill may act fairly and work without friction as between the workmen on the one side and the farmers or the employers upon the other.

Let us look for a moment at the reasons which the Commons give. The first is "Because it is desirable in the circumstances applicable to England and Wales "—your Lordships will notice that Ireland and Scotland are eliminated, because they have the terms which they think best for dealing with questions of this kind, whereas England and Wales are not allowed to have the provisions which your Lordships desire—" for securing uniformity of policy that the duty of fixing minimum rates should be vested in a central authority." I venture to think that this is the worst possible argument. You cannot have a general system of minimum rates applicable to the country as a whole. I thought that this was made clear in the discussions which we had here. You must have variety between different parts of the country. What becomes of this plea for uniformity? Does the noble Viscount contemplate one uniform minimum rate for England and Wales irrespective of local conditions and local customs? Unless he contemplates this, the reason given by the House of Commons means nothing at all. If he does contemplate it, then. I say that the Bill will be quite unworkable upon any such principle.

The second reason given by the Commons is that "it is desirable, that minimum time rates should be fixed for non-able-bodied as well as for able-bodied workmen." I do not intend to travel into the next Amendment which deals with that question, but I want to ask this, How can you fix minimum rates for non-able-bodied men irrespective of the particular conditions of the particular individual? Is it conceivable that you can fix minimum rates for non-able-bodied men, the class of person to whom the noble Marquess referred, the old men engaged in agriculture, who, I believe, have the sympathy of every one interested in the farming industry? How can you lay down a general rule applicable to all men of that kind? I have a man working for me who is between 80 and 90 years of age; I have hardly a man working for me who is not over 60 or 65. Are we to be bound to discharge these old men, whom it has been our pride to preserve in their homes and cottages and away from the workhouse in order that they may live where they have always lived and be buried in the churchyard of the church which they have always attended? Are you going to have a Central Board and say that no one is to employ a non-able-bodied man unless he pays him an impossible Wage? I feel very strongly about this first reason for disagreement with the Amendment which your Lordships introduced. We suggested a practical working system, reducing friction and trouble to a minimum. We suggested the principle of people deciding for them selves in their own localities. The noble Viscount said that this was the best system. Why has it been eliminated from the Bill?

VISCOUNT MILNER

It is not eliminated

LORD PARMOOR

It is.

VISCOUNT MILNER

Everything which the noble and learned Lord wishes can be done under the Bill as it stands.

LORD PARMOOR

We inserted provisions in the Bill enabling these things to be done.

VISCOUNT MILNER

They can still be done.

LORD PARMOOR

I do not believe that they can be done under the other form of the Bill, and the House of Commons have disagreed with is on the ground that they should not be done. If they took the view of the noble Viscount, why should they disagree? I regret intensely that provisions inserted for the smooth working of this Bill, and in my view entirely in favour of the agricultural labourer and inserted for his protection by people who know the conditions of his life, should have been eliminated by the House of Commons, and I should like your Lordships to disagree to what the House of Commons have done, though I know the difficulty of the Board of Agriculture at a time like this.

LORD DESBOROUGH

My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will permit me to say a few words on this most important matter, touching as it does the very poorest, and, as I think, in a great many instances the most deserving of our population. My noble friend Lord Lansdowne introduced this Amendment because he was very anxious—

VISCOUNT MILNER

I beg the noble Lord's pardon. We are not discussing that Amendment. The Amendment of Lord Lansdowne comes on the next page.

LORD DESBOROUGH

Lord Lansdowne's Amendment does come in here. The whole object of his Amendment was to get rid of the system by which these poor old men had to go off before they could be employed and get a certificate of mental or physical incapacity. Can your Lordships imagines a more odious proceeding than that? In harvest time many men who are capable of doing perhaps only half a day's work turn up and ask for employment. Supposing one of these men came to me or to any of my tenants and said "I should like work," the answer—unless you wanted to become liable for a fine of £20 and a criminal prosecution and a further fine of £1 per day would be, "Where is your permit? "and if the man could not produce a permit certifying him as being physically or mentally incapable, you would have to say to him "You must go and get your permit." But how long will it take him to get that permit? He will then ask you, "Where am I to go in order to get a permit?" I want to know whether these Boards are going to sit permanently for dealing with the case of casual labourers so that the men can without delay get permits, in the absence of which they cannot be employed without very great risk to the employer. The result of foregoing this Amendment will be that the farmers in the country, to whom in the autumn I hope this Bill will be explained, will be incurring very grave risks in getting that additional labour which is necessary but which is not worth full time labour.

I should like to make a suggestion to the representative of the Board of Agriculture. To my mind this Bill as it stands is unworkable. At the same time, to enable this difficulty to be got over to some extent—because it is no me taking a month to refer the matters up to London before permits could be given to these men whom one wants to employ at once—I suggest that in the Regulations of the Board of Agriculture power might be given to the District. Committees to say whether a man is able-bodied or not at the time. If that were done, a very great difficulty would be overcome. I trust that the House will seriously consider this point in the interests of a very large portion, old I admit, of the agricultural community.

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

My Lords, the noble Viscount said that he does not see any real difference between the system which he proposed himself and which we inserted in the Bill and the system which is now placed in lieu of it. There is every difference in the world. One is extreme centralisation; the other gives effect to local knowledge and the consideration of the questions by local bodies. Just think what a Board means. How big is the Board going to be? Because you are proposing that it should deal with wages all over the kingdom.

VISCOUNT MILNER

indicated assent.

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

Very well. I low large is your Board going to be? How long do yon think it will take them to establish a system of wages all over the country? Think of the delay there will be; and how can any one Board really know about the circumstances of different parts of the country? As Lord Milner altered the Bill, this difficulty was surmounted. But now he is proposing to revive it. I do not understand what he means when he says that there is very little difference between the two systems. Let us see what were the arguments which were used against this Amendment in the other House. The whole argument of the President of the Board of Agriculture was in favour of the Bill as Lord Milner had altered it; but he said that the difference between the two methods was small. I think your Lordships must all see that this is not the case. He said that personally he was in favour of the more independent system—the system which, when it came to a vote, he was proposing to supersede. His argument in favour of the Board was of the weakest possible, description. As I have said already, I do not think this strong Central Board can possibly do its work in a satisfactory way to the whole kingdom; and certainly it will take a very long time over doing it.

In the Commons reasons for disagreeing they say that "minimum time rates should be fixed for non-able-bodied as well as for able-bodied workmen." This is the first mention of fixing time limits for non-able-bodied workmen of which I have ever heard. There is nothing about that in the Bill—I am told by a noble Lord near me that there is—possibly I may be wrong. But how can you arrange time rates for non-able-bodied men? I suppose there are a hundred different sorts of these men, differentiated by all kinds of differences of conditions of life, of habit, of everything. I regret that your Lordships should now take a step which is against the opinion of the whole of the Front Government Bench, unless they were deceiving us the other day, which of course they were not. The other day they proposed a system which they now say they must give up. I regret extremely that a retrograde step of this kind should be taken. What your Lordships may see fit to do with the Amendment I cannot at this moment say, but in any case I greatly regret the course which the Government have adopted, and which I think is not for the interest either of the country or of themselves.

THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE

My Lords, there seems to be an idea that these non-able-bodied agricultural labourers will have to rush off to the various centres to get a permit, but under the Schedule there is power to delegate this to small sub-committees. We are going to do that in our county. We shall delegate one or two persons to go to the different farmers or to the different labourers and give permits to the men who are not absolutely able-bodied. There seems to be no difficulty at all about that, and as far as I can sec it will be a protection to the man who is not capable of doing a full labourer's day's work; and at the same time it guarantees what we all desire—namely, the 25s. minimum to the able-bodied men without any possible doubt.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

My Lords, I do not propose to discuss the question of the non-able-bodied men, because really it is not in order, as it comes on the next Amendment. But I wish to say something about the very peculiar position in which we now find ourselves. We are asked to agree with the Commons in cutting out of the Bill an Amendment which the Government inserted in this House. My noble friend who is in charge of this Bill made no secret of his opinion that the Amendment introduced in your Lordships' House was a great improvement on the scheme of the Bill as it left the House of Commons; and as I read, in The Times to-day, the speech of Mr. Prothero, I should say that he is of exactly the same opinion. Yet he asked the House of Commons to disagree with the Lords' Amendment! Why was that? I do not know. But I can make a shrewd guess, as the result of thirty-two years experience of the two Houses of Parliament. I should guess that the Labour Party were, present in great force and that the Unionist agricultural Members were not. That is how I should reconstruct the situation.

I have complete sympathy with the jealousy of the Labour Party on behalf of the agricultural labourer, and I also quite understand that the Labour Party would approach Amendments made by your Lordships in this matter with suspicion—wholly unfounded suspicion—but we have to take prejudices as they exist. This is a very interesting instance of the unfortunate fact that the Labour Party in the House of Commons, as constituted at present, has practically no knowledge of agricultural or rural conditions. There are, hon. Members of that Party, personal friends of mine, who have that knowledge; but the Party as a whole is an urban and industrial Party, and it has lost touch altogether with country conditions and agriculture. Indeed, the same may be said to a great extent of the House of Commons itself. Therefore it was most regrettable that, in addition to the large number of agricultural Members of the House of Commons serving with the Army in France whose absence from the debates on this Bill we have always deplored, there was at the end of the present sittings, quite intelligibly, an absence of the remainder who might have put the case to the Labour Party from personal knowledge.

I said that the suspicions of the Labour Party were wholly unfounded, and I can prove it because there was not one provision in the original Bill as it came from the House of Commons for the protection of the labourer and for his advantage that was not carefully reproduced in the Amendments which your Lordships passed in this House. But wherein consisted the difference? I do not entirely agree with my noble and learned friend Lord Parmoor. I say that the noble Viscount in charge of the Bill is quite right in saying that everything which we provided for in our Amendments can be done under the Bill, can be done by Regulation under the Schedule. Why did we alter the Bill? For two reasons. While, in the first instance, we have complete confidence in Mr. Prothero, and while he is President of the Board of Agriculture we know that everything for which we contended in this House in the interests of the labourer and of agriculture and the smooth working of the Act will be done by Regulation, none of us can tell who is going to succeed. Mr. Prothero at the Board of Agriculture; and the Bill is one which is not going to last for one session only but for five years at least. Therefore we considered it of great importance to amend the provisions so that in essential matters they should not be dependent on the personal knowledge and character of the President of the Board of Agriculture.

We put this matter into a much better form as the provisions left this House. The Amendments were the work of men who understood every phase of agricultural life and were in complete and absolute sympathy with the labourer. As the provisions have been reinstated in the House of Commons, I do not doubt they are the work of men in sympathy with the labourer, but they are the work of men who do not understand the conditions of agricultural life. What is the moral to be drawn from this? The moral is that unless agriculturists of all classes, labourers, farmers, and landowners, combine in the same way as other classes do, we shall never have our interests properly attended to in the House of Commons. That has always been of importance. It is of vital importance in the future, because it is only by the organisation of men who thoroughly understand their subject that the well-meaning intentions of men who do not understand it but are organised can be frustrated. I have said that I do not agree entirely with Lord Parmoor as to the effect of the rejection of your Lordships' Amendment. I am quite sure that we improved the Bill immensely, but I believe that the points for which we contended can be carried out by Regulation by the President of the Board of Agriculture. Therefore as far as I am in a position to state an opinion I think, though with great regret, that your Lordships would be well advised in not insisting on your Amendment.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

The Commons disagree to the Amendments made by the Lords in page 5, lines 2, 7, 21 and 22, 24, 29, 31 and 32, 37 and 38 and 39; page 6, line 6, to the Amendment in page 6, line 9, to insert subsection (a) and to the Amendment in page 6, lines 11, 10 and 17, 21, 26, 27, 36, 38; page 11, lines 19 and 25; page 12, line 12; page 14, lines 9 and 13; page 15, line 26; page 18, lines 31, 34 and 36; page 19, lines 10, 12, 13, 14 to 23, 33, 36, 41 and 42; page 21, lines 3, 16, 25 and 26, for the following reason:

Because, these Amendments are consequential on the Amendment made by the Lords in Clause 5 page 4, line 35, to which the Commons have disagreed.

VISCOUNT MILNER

My Lords, I move that we do not insist on these consequential Amendments. They all follow on the decision just taken by the House.

Moved, That this House do not insist on the said Amendments.—(Viscount Milner.)

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

Can the noble Viscount assure us that each one of these Amendments is strictly consequential?

VISCOUNT MILNER

I have no doubt that is so.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

In as much as the Commons desired to strike out the substantive Amendment, they also struck out the consequential Amendments.

On Question, Motion agreed to.