INDUSTRIAL UNREST.

HL Deb 18 February 1919 vol 33 cc117-63

LORD BUCK MASTER rose to call attention to the present industrial and economic conditions; and to move for Papers. The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, the Motion that stands in my name upon your Lordships' Paper this afternoon is kindred to the one standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Islington, and it might be for the convenience of your Lordships' House—it certainly would be in agreement with the views both of the noble Lord and of myself—that the two should be considered together. It may, of course, be thought that this would lead to a prolongation of the debate. The subject with which this Motion deals is urgent and grave, and I am certain that your Lordships will not grudge the fullest possible time for its discussion.

How grave this question is can, I think, best be seen by contrasting the position in which we stand at home with that in which we stand abroad. If we look across the seas, it may be doubted if this country has ever stood at such a high pinnacle of power as that on which it stands to-day The last four years of our history, whether they be measured by the achievement of individual acts of valour or by the directing skill of Statemen and Generals, or by the united self-sacrificing patriotism of the people at home, will stand comparison with long periods of even our great and crowded history. Places that to many of us were nothing but names and spots upon a map, places that we might even find with difficulty in an Atlas, to use an old phrase "regions that Cæsar never knew," have to-day felt the full shock of our arms and enjoy the security of our justice. Yet every one who watches what is happening at home must realise that events are fast gathering there which threaten to rob victory of its triumph and peace of its repose. Your Lordships' examination of such questions cannot, I think, be too early or too earnestly undertaken.

It is of the utmost importance that we should all discuss, with the most perfect frankness and with no reservation, exactly what we regard as the sources of these troubles, and suggest for consideration whatever remedies we think may help for their removal. But I am sure that we shall discuss the question on a wrong foundation if we begin by assuming that this country is divided into two hostile camps. I do not believe it. I believe in truth that the overwhelming majority—I would say 90 per cent.—of the men who are engaged in earning their living by manual labour have no desire whatever to do anything that they believe would be to the prejudice of the national safety. I believe also that all classes of society are united in their sincere and anxious wish to see that for the future labour does enjoy some bigger and better share of the national prosperity than it has enjoyed in the past. I am sure that we are all willing, just as we were in time of war so now in time of peace, to make sacrifices—not the cheap and easy one of sacrificing somebody else's prosperity, but a united sacrifice in which all join—if we can, consistently with the maintenance of our national industries, upon whose existence the entire future of this country absolutely depends, give some expression to the demands of the labouring people with which we sympathise and which we understand.

It will, I believe, be a mistake to think that these demands of labour are demands that, without any warning and without any preparation, have suddenly been levelled at the nation in the time of great emergency. For what is the position at the present moment? We find that the mining industry is joining hands with the railway industry and the transport industry, and that they are preparing for united action to enforce their demands. For what? Roughly speaking, it is for an eight-hours' day of labour, for better wages, for better home conditions, and, in two instances possibly also, for the particular object of securing the nationalisation of the industries. My Lords, most of these are very old, stale stories. It must be twenty-five years ago since the demand for what was called an eight-hours' day was, if not actually incorporated into the programme of the Liberal Party, at least adopted by very many of its members as a cardinal article of their creed, and your Lordships will all remember that Lord Morley, with characteristic courage, declined to accept it, and said that he was unable to believe that he could cure industrial trouble by forcing an Eight Hours Bill like a ramrod through all the delicate machinery of British industry. My point about it is that it is nothing new. That Eight Hours Bill is the forty-four-hours week which has been the subject of trouble in Belfast. It has been the subject of political debate and discussion for upwards of a quarter of a century. And yet, except so far as the regulation of hours in mines is concerned, I cannot for the moment put my finger on any legislation that has been undertaken in order to give effect to that figure.

Let us take the question of wages. Over and over again people have expressed their genuine distress at the knowledge of the low wages for which much of the weak, cheap labour of this country was done. Yet just before the war broke out what was the condition with regard to wages? It appears that by an agreement that was made in July, 1913, between the Midland Employers' Federation and the Workers' Union—the Amalgamated Union of Labour—relating to the employment of female labour, these were the wages that then were fixed. The rate for females was 6s. a week for a girl of 14, and it ended at 12s. a week for a woman of 21. There were wages for labourers of 23s. a week, and in certain industries outside this agreement women were engaged in cartridge-making at 10s. 4d. a week and in cordite making at the rate of 3½d. an hour or 12s. 4d. a week. It is really no answer to the claim of labour for better consideration to be told that these were the wages for which people were willing to work. That is not at the back of their demand. At the back of their demand is the intention to see that wages are paid which will enable the person who receives them to live a decent life, enjoying some of the pleasures of leisure and some of the pleasures of relaxation which hitherto have been too frequently regarded as the monopoly of the rich.

If this was the position with regard to wages, what was the position with regard to homes? There has been a Report recently made on the housing of the industrial population of Scotland. It is a Report that has been made by Commissioners, Judges, landlords, and Dr. Mackenzie (of the Scottish Local Government Board), with Sir Henry Ballantyne as chairman. They say that the broad results of their survey are these—that there are unsatisfactory sites of houses and villages, unsatisfactory provision for drainage, grossly inadequate provision for the removal of refuse, widespread absence of decent sanitary conveniences, the persistence of the unspeakably filthy privy-midden in many of the mining areas, badly-constructed, incurably damp labourers' cottages, whole townships unfit for human occupation in the crofting counties and islands, primitive and casual provision for many of the seasonal workers, gross overcrowding and huddling of the sexes in many of the villages and towns, Occupation of one-room houses by large families, group 3 of lightless houses in the older boroughs, clotted masses of slums in the great cities. I could read further accounts elaborating this, and give you some account of the appalling condition which the Commission discloses as that in which the Scottish population lives.

One cannot help thinking that the population who occupy these places must have become permanently degraded had it not been for that strange, strong, unconquerable self-respect which, as much as courage, is the great and valuable heritage of our race. And how great that self-respect must have been can be measured by remembering that it is from these places that men marched with the Scottish regiments to battle, and back to those dens the scattered remnants of those regiments will bring the imperishable glory of their deeds. Is it surprising that people living under conditions like those when the war broke, out were getting restless, and that even then there was being placed on foot a movement primarily directed and. governed by the three great controlling industries, but, believe me, having behind it the discontent and the power of all those other scattered industries too? There was then on foot that organised effort to effect by interference with the whole national life of this country some improvement and alteration of the conditions under which they lived.

The war broke out in August, and every one who knows anything of the details of labour movements knows quite well that in November of that year there was contemplated precisely the same movement directed by the mines and the railways that is being threatened at the present time. Directly this nation went to war the men sank all their difficulties and proceeded to throw themselves whole-heartedly into the nation's struggle. And I think few of us quite realize—though some of us do—how much we owe to the patriotism of labour leaders like Mr. Thomas, who from time to time throughout the war threw the whole of his personal weight against a vast mass of angry, discontented men, who were declaring that their grievances received no attention, and that they would be compelled in the last resort to use the strike for their enforcement.

The war broke out, and what was the result? One of the results was this. These women earning 2½d. an hour making cordite and women of that class found themselves in a position by which they might be earning £3 and £4 a week—it may even have been more—and for the first time in their history they were able to have the luxury of spending spare cash. It is quite useless to attempt to criticise the way in which they spent it. They worked for it and they spent it as they thought best, but on the whole they did spend it in an attempt to beautify their homes. They made large demands for carpets, to such an extent that a big carpet manufacturer told me at an early stage of the development of this matter that he was stopping export trade in order to supply these people at home; and some people speak scoffingly—though I do not—of their anxiety to enliven their homes, even at the expense of their neighbours' comfort, by the introduction of pianos. The point is that these people, hard-worked as they were, did experience during the war some of the conditions so far as wages, though not so far as hours, were concerned, that they had been hoping for before the war began, and now that the war is over there is the natural resentment against going back to the conditions from which they emerged.

Apart from this the war did something else. It produced, as an object-lesson for all industrial classes to see, the most amazing profits that this country has ever witnessed. It is found that in one year 80 per cent. of the profits made due to the war, over and above the profits made in industry before the war, amounted to about £360,000,000; and the remaining 20 per cent. would be about another £90,000,000, making about £450,000,000 of profits made owing to the war and during the war and in excess of the profits made before the war. They know perfectly well, of course, that this does not cover anything like the whole of the profits made, because vast quantities of profits never found their way into that account at all. The result is that—as Mr. Frank Hedges, the General Secretary of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain said two days ago—in view of the extent of the excess profits there was sufficient to meet the proposed advance of wages with a reduction of the hours. That is, I believe, unfortunately a fundamentally false economic proposition. But is it surprising that the man should make it? When you find that profits of this kind have been made and that men, out of the nation's necessities, have grown rich to an extent that was inconceivable before the war, is it surprising that the workmen should say: That fund of profits would be abundant for what we want, or only a fraction of it, and we shall not rest content until we see that some means have been devised—I myself do not think they can be devised, but they think that they can be—by which this money (which they regard as having been diverted from the national pockets) can go back there once more to swell a fund out of which wages may grow?

It is too late now, of course, to check the growth of those profits. There were some of us who were conscious of the confusion and the waste that were going on during the war. We hesitated to say all that we thought, because at the end of it, in spite of all, there was the outstanding fact which we always had before our eyes that, however costly the process might be, however extravagant and careless the methods employed, our soldiers were fed, our soldiers were clothed, and, in the last stages of the war, they had before them the guns and the weapons that enabled them to win. Therefore people were not prepared then to go carefully into this matter. But that has gone by now, and the time for critical investigation has come. Is it impossible to have some inquiry as to how these profits grew? Is it impossible to see whether they really were legitimately acquired? Have they really gone quite beyond the power of public control; and is it impossible that once more, by some means even of discriminate taxation, they can be used for the purpose of helping in the big scheme of national development which we have before us? Could such a thing be done it, would go a long way to allay the labour difficulty. If it cannot be done, I am afraid that economic argument will have a very small weight against such a resolution as that I mentioned, moved by Mr. Hedges.

The war did something more. It led the people to believe that there was an absolutely unfathomable reservoir of public wealth into which anybody could dip their hands if they could only secure the assistance of the Government. There were many exhortations put forward to people to exercise personal economy; but I cannot remember any exhortation addressed to the big spending Departments to do the same; nor can I remember one startling example shown by the Government which would bring home to the people the fact that the economy which they were asking patriotic citizens to exercise in their own homes was nothing but a reflex and a double of the careful economy that the Government were exercising in the National Exchequer. It is not easy to undo what has grown up in circumstances like these; and when the war ended, the conditions being as I have described, they were, I think, aggravated by the fact that an Election was suddenly sprung upon the people at a moment when, of all moments in the preceding two years (I should say), they least desired it. I am not going to argue the wisdom or folly of that now; I do not want to embarrass this debate with it; but incidents occurred in connection with the Election which have a very important bearing on that which we are discussing to-day.

What was it that the Government told the people of the country? Whether they meant it or no, I do not know, but they managed to convey the impression that the vast burden of our Public Debt was going to be relieved by indemnities obtained from Germany. There is no doubt whatever about that. So little doubt is there about it that you may have seen that one of the big miners' associations the other day solemnly passed a resolution that they were going to pay no taxes until the Government had redeemed the promise they had made that the burden of taxation on this country should be relieved by money obtained from Germany. Again, I am not going to discuss that question in any detail. It depends upon an assumption—namely, the assumption that to obtain vast indemnities from Germany is within the limits of the terms upon which the Germans laid down their arms. It may be or it may not be; I am not going to discuss that now. I only say that if it is not, I cannot understand any public man who desired to show his face in public and state that he was prepared to attempt to extract from an enemy who had laid down their arms on certain conditions something which the conditions did not justify. I am not going to discuss whether I think it does or no; but let us assume that, it does.

Did the members of the Government who laid this attractive picture before the people ever consider how it was going to be realised? In gold?—they knew it was not. In goods?—they are going to introduce a Bill for the purpose of keeping manufactured goods out of this country under the cost of their creation in the country of origin. In service?—you cannot keep a nation in chains. In coal?—a pleasant thing to allay mining distress to tell the miners that we are going to import coal from Germany free of cost. What were the means by which this asset was to be realised? Did any member of the Government attempt to suggest to the electorate that there were grave difficulties, but that to the utmost of the Government's power and within the limits of the terms of the Armistice they were prepared, and everybody was prepared, to see that Germany paid the uttermost farthing she could? It was nothing whatever of the kind. The people—it is not surprising—have been led to believe that the fund of wealth is going to be vastly increased by these contributions; they have been led to believe that the burden of taxation will be lightened, and that there will be yet further opportunity for the use of State funds for the purpose of providing the relief which they believe the State can offer.

That is not all. Further things happened in connection with that Election which have a very close and intimate bearing upon what we are witnessing to-day. In the middle of the Election a man who by his office might be regarded as a responsible Minister of the Crown, suddenly announced that they—I do not know whether he said the Government—were determined to nationalise the railways of this kingdom. Do we at this present moment have the faintest notion what authority there was behind that statement? Was it then or is it now the careful and deliberate and considered policy of the Government with regard to the railway difficulty—that is one alternative—or was it nothing but the hasty and ill-considered utterance of a wayward politician, who had no desire but to obtain an instant and immediate effect? We ought to know, the country ought to know, and the railway men ought to know. It is not a matter which affects one Minister, or the conduct of public affairs. It is affecting our national security at home at this moment. The railway men want to know where they stand. But all the Government oracles are conveniently dumb. I trust that before this debate closes there will be given in your Lordships' House an answer which I submit the Government are bound to give. Did that Minister of the Crown speak for the Government or did he speak for himself, and if he spoke for the Government and not for himself what steps will the Government take to remedy the general misapprehension which the statement has caused?

My Lords, then the war ended, and when the war ended this trouble very quickly broke out again. What was it that was the first symptom of the trouble that arose? It was on the railways, and what was it that the men asked? They asked for an eight-hours' day. I say nothing whatever about railway management, for I know nothing about it. I only say that it was not a new demand, but one which is very stale and which must have been present to the minds of the Government and their advisers throughout the whole period of the war, and earlier. The Government had appointed—I made a feeble pro- test against it—a Minister of Reconstruction whose object it was to consider this very question as one of the many to which he had to devote his attention. Had it been considered. Had the Government, made up their minds whether an eight-hours' day could be granted to the railway men? If so, they ought to have announced it at once. What they did was to wait till the men threatened to strike, and three days afterwards announced that they were going to grant this measure. A method more fruitful of national disaster it is impossible to imagine. The atmosphere which we desire to create to-day is that we are prepared to concede to the utmost limits of justice what they ask, but that we are prepared to concede nothing to threats of violence; yet the Government allow the threat to be made and instantly honour it, and having honoured it we are told that the railways, which brought in a net profit of £50,000,000 a year before the war, have now had £90,000,000 of extra burden thrown upon their expenses. Did the Government contemplate that or not?

What followed upon that trouble is, I think, even more unfortunate. It instantly was suggested that the time which the men had had from the previous nine hours, for their meals, was not to be taken from, the eight hours which had been granted. It seems to me perfectly plain that a matter of that kind ought never to have been left in the least doubt. It ought to have been made abundantly clear. It was not. It seems that first of all there was a refusal to allow the men some five minutes they wanted at some time, and then came a question about meals. What followed upon that? There were then negotiations, and in the middle of those negotiations with the usual recrimination as to the agreement having said something and the men having thought it meant something else, Mr. Bonar Law writes to the papers to say that, if the President of the Board of Trade had in fact agreed that these hours should be excluded, he had gone beyond the powers which had been conferred upon him by the War Cabinet, and the War Cabinet had carefully considered the matter and decided it was to be excluded and he knew it. Just see what the effect of such a statement must be on a body of irritated, discontented and suspicious men—"I want you men to understand that we did not clothe our agent with plenary powers." What concern was that of the men? The men were dealing with a man, who they believed, had the fullest powers. Whoever heard of a representative going from the Government to persons who were dealing with a labour dispute, clothed with only limited authority? I cannot understand it. I have read it again and again, and I cannot understand what was the meaning of Mr. Bonar Law, when he put in the front of his statement that the War Cabinet had agreed that it should be excluded, and that it had been communicated to Sir Albert Stanley. It had nothing whatever to do with the dispute between the men and the Board of Trade, and it was calculated to make further suspicious men who had been irritated enough.

I assume that for the moment the dispute has been settled, but how it has been settled I do not think the public have the smallest idea. I have followed the matter carefully, and I do not know now whether the men are entitled to have the half-hour or not. It may be understood between the men and the Department, but there are other people concerned in this dispute. The whole of the public are intimately concerned—the public whose judgment is the last and ultimate resort, who have got to say whether or no they think a thing right and just, or whether they do not, and speaking as a member of the public I do not know at this moment what the true position is.

We then go from that to the mines. Of course, just the same difficulty had been brewing with regard to the mines; and what has happened there? The miners have put forward an ultimatum, called for a ballot which will come in a day or two for a general strike on March 15. The Government have made certain concessions, and have promised inquiry and discussion with regard to others. That is how the matter stands with regard to the mines, and the newspapers congratulate the Government upon the frankness with which they have laid their cards upon the table for the public to see, as if, my Lords, the question of a dialectical success between the Government and the miners is a matter of public concern. That is not what the public are concerned about. They want to know something about which they are profoundly ignorant. They know the miners' work is hard and dangerous, and they have profound sympathy for men who say they live all the time they are working in the darkness, and so demand a bigger share of leisure than men whose work is done in the light of day. What the public want to know is what is the margin of profit that is available for the purpose of paying these men's demands; they know nothing about it, and yet it is perfectly easy to ascertain.

It ought to be possible for one of these not infrequent Government Departments to inquire into the whole thing. They ought to have had it before them now. They ought to be able to say that the cost of hewing the coal at the pit's face is so much and that is given to the man who hews it. They ought to be able to say that a ton of coal is laden with these expenses as it passes from the pit's face to the furnace where it is consumed. They ought to be able to say—"We will show you at each stage how the price grows. We shall show you that royalties, instead of being, as the public believes they are, a kind of middleman's profits capable of indefinite expansion, are fixed and immovable; and we will show you each commission, each charge for labour. We will show you how it is that the price of coal, for which a man gets paid some shillings—whatever it may be—for hewing, becomes converted into pounds when it is delivered down the coal cellars of the consumer." If they knew that, they would then be able to have the statistical matter upon which this question has ultimately to be decided. They would then be able to see whether the miners' demands could be conceded or not, and, if they could not be conceded at the present price, they would be able to see how much was required to be added to the price in order that they could be conceded. These matters—every one of which to my mind is of the heart and essence of this quarrel—are not matters on which the public are informed by the Government, though the Government surely must know them. We are told that it is a great thing to have had the letters and the answers placed before the public in order that they might see that somebody, writing on behalf of the Government, has been able, to use a common expression, to "score off" somebody writing on the part of the miners. That is not the way in which these disputes have got to be settled.

There is something which I think should be done, not only with regard to this in- dustry but with regard to all industries. The same class of thing should take place everywhere. It should be possible to avoid the misunderstanding, too frequently arising and too easily occurring, of a man who says, "I was paid so much for making this article, and I can see it in shop windows sold for much more. What is done with the difference?" I hesitate to refer to institutions in unpopular places, but it is sometimes well to learn even from your enemies. At Düsseldorf before the war men who were being trained for their special trades—as they are trained there, compulsorily, from the ages of sixteen to eighteen—were taught that fact as a part of their training. They were taught to calculate the cost from the cost of manufacture to the cost of sale. Every workman when he went to work knew exactly how it was that the cost had been increased, so that when he wanted to strike he knew himself beforehand exactly where the margin was out of which he was to get his money, and where the price was to be raised. I should have thought that something of the sort might have been done here. At any rate it might be done now, and it might be possible to have these disputes conducted under conditions which enable every one to form a more careful and more intelligent judgment on the matter than is possible under present conditions. There, then, is the position with regard to the mines and railways, which represent at this moment the most formidable difficulty with which we have to deal.

But the difficulty does not end there. Associated with this labour trouble is, beyond all question whatever, our present financial position. The currency has been inflated and the purchasing power has been so reduced that the mere arithmetical value of wages ceases to have the same relation that it formerly possessed to their purchasing power. That will go on until some step is taken to check our expenditure and to restore our currency, little by little—and it will be a slow and difficult process—to a stable and sound basis. What is it that is being done in that direction? I must say I look at it with alarm. We have a Debt at the present moment of £7,600,000,000 odd, as I understand from the latest figures. We are no longer a rich nation. It is no use our imagining that we are, and going on as though we were. We are a nation that is crippled and burdened with debt, and even the wisest financiers find it difficult to say what is the best means that can be adopted for paying the annual charges which we must pay in order to keep up the interest on our Debt and the cost of our Administration.

Let us take one simple instance. We owe some £1,200,000,000 to the United States of America. We shall have to export between £60,000,000 and £70,000,000 a year for nothing in order to pay the interest. Of course, gold is out of the question. We have to produce for nothing the goods that are to go to America to pay the annual interest; and how are we going to get them in when America, who cannot get our gold, does not want our goods, and is busily constructing tariff barriers for the express purpose of keeping them out? That is nothing but a simple illustration of one of the innumerable difficulties to be met with in regard to the paying of our annual charges. There is only one way in which they can possibly be paid, and if that way is not adopted, in spite of the most sincere and heartfelt desire of every one, they cannot be paid at all. The only way they can be paid is by resuming and increasing our industrial activity and multiplying the output of our factories. And when we are in need of some stimulus to be applied for that purpose, we find that there is growing evidence of industrial stagnation and difficulty; that the industries are not being made more active, that output is not increasing, and that we have to face the difficulty of having the greater part of our industrial work broken—even if it be not for a long period—arrested by labour troubles that are before us.

Then we shall be told "Oh yes, a considerable effort has been made by the provision of large sums for unemployment." Indeed it has; and it is a matter, I think, to be regretted that these payments were, by some odd and unexplained circumstance, increased while the Election was on. It is not a very satisfactory feature, and it makes us sometimes wish that the Act which regulates Elections had made some reference to the use of public funds as well as private moneys. How is it regarded and how is it received? Mr. Clynes, who is certainly one of the most outspoken and patriotic of the Labour leaders, says at once in the House of Commons that he does not regard this payment as a settlement. He says that this is not a solution; that it is a mere device to delay the task of facing the difficulties; and that labour did not want unemployment benefit of that kind. It did not want idle pay; it wanted wages for work. That is what it had not got, and not only has it not had it, but everybody must know that the result of keeping people, induced to be idle, for a period of six months by paying them fairly large sums, can only have a very serious demoralising influence on their character at the end of that time.

There is only one thing further with which I wish to deal. We speak here often of the tendency to Bolshevik opinions among the working classes. I am satisfied that it is not extensive, but I am equally certain that it does exist. I am quite convinced that we have in this country an echo, faint and far away it may be but none the less clearly perceptible, of the trouble in which Russia seems to be hopelessly involved. What is the answer to that? I believe there is only one answer. It is that efforts should be made to satisfy the people, not that Bolshevism is bloody-minded and violent, but that it is a failure. The dissemination of brutalities from Russia have, I believe, ceased to affect the public mind, and for two reasons. First of all, people are bruised by brutalities already; the sensitiveness that we felt four years ago has been so broken and blinded by what has happened in the last four years that they have ceased to shock and horrify people as they did. But the other thing which is far more important is this, that to a great extent they are not believed, and it is not surprising. There have been a number of detailed and terrible accounts of the way in which the unhappy Tsar of Russia met his end with his family, and only two days ago we saw in one of the leading newspapers a report that he was alive after all. We found a few days back a statement that there had been an attempt to assassinate the Crown Prince of Rumania, and the next day we were told that no reliance could be placed upon the report. The people do not believe these things; they have ceased to believe statements that are made, and unless they can be made with some greater authority than at the present moment they are disregarded. But there is something, I think, which could be done if, instead of accumulated stories about atrocities, accumulated stories, carefully sifted, were published with some authority at their back as to the economic condition of Russia.

What is at the back of this Bolshevist movement? All of you who have read Karl Marx know what it is. It is summed up in that final sentence of his when he appealed to the proletariat to revolt. He said— The proletariat has nothing to lose but its chains. It has all the world to win. It is a tremendous sentence, and I believe it is absolutely false. But it is not a statement that carries its refutation on its face. It is necessary to show that the chains they would put on are harsher and more bitter than any chains they could throw away; that so far from having the world to win, they have the world to lose; that the things which every man seeks for in life—peace, justice, and security—are all swept away; that the violent divorce of directing intelligence from efficient manual labour, the severance of capital and work, the destruction of property, the abrogation of law—that these have produced hunger for the poor: that they go ill-fed, ill-clad, with no protector, and no resource. It ought to be possible to show that the factories have ceased their output, that industrial stagnation has overtaken the country—and the people of this country are willing to learn. If they had information of that kind given them I believe they would readily accept it, and the vast solid sober and loyal majority of workmen would welcome the news in order that they might combat the views of the less careful and thoughtful of their own ranks.

I began by saying that the position is grave, but grave as it is I am confident that good will can conquer it, if we can only avoid the last danger of being put into violent collision and having to take our place in one camp or the other. In the last resort it may come to that, but, if it comes, there is one thing I would earnestly beg those who have influence with the Government to secure. It is this—that every concession that can be made to the very last limits should be made before a decision is taken that nothing further can be done, and when that line has been reached that it is never abandoned. Then if trouble does break out we shall be able to know that there is no justice left in the demands that are being denied and that there is nothing further that can be done; that we are not fighting against mens' reasonable desire for an easier, better, and happier life, but that we are fighting for the maintenance of society, the permanence of this country at home, as we fought for it abroad.

I do not believe it will be necessary. I believe, given good will and understanding, a little patience, an abandonment of official language and a resort to simple, plain, rough terms, if you will, that express your ideas—tell everything and keep nothing back—the difficulty may go by, and we shall be able to find that the phrases, Liberty and Justice, a decent life, and a living wage are not merely cant phrases, not merely useful words to decorate a speech from the platform, but that they are strong threads out of which has been woven the mantle of our national life, and that within its folds there may well be found shelter and warmth for all. I beg to move.

LORD ISLINGTON had the following Notice on the Paper— To call attention to the present condition of industrial unrest throughout the country, and to inquire of His Majesty's Government what steps are being taken to develop and improve the present machinery with a view to averting strikes. The noble Lord said: With the permission of the House, I would ask your Lordships' indulgence if I intervene for a short time at this stage of the debate, as your Lordships may have observed that I have a Motion on the Order Paper almost identical in substance with that moved with such eloquence and illumination by the noble and learned Lord. I suggest, therefore, that it would be to the general convenience of the House if, instead of moving my own Motion, I speak to the Motion of my noble friend. I am sure it will be generally agreed that the subject of this Motion is so pressing and so immediate in its importance that it requires no apologies for bringing it forward in this House at the earliest possible date of the session. Neither am I going to make any apology for addressing myself to this subject. Not that I do not fully realise there are many noble Lords in this House far better qualified to deal with the subject than I myself, but the problem of industrial unrest has become so critical and so universal throughout the country that it requires immediate and precise action by the Government, and I feel that any one, whatever public capacity he may hold, has a right to invite discussion, and to afford His Majesty's Government an early opportunity of disclosing to the full their policy. This subject, above all other problems, is one that I venture to say justifies no secrecy. It is one that the whole community is concerned in, and therefore it is one about which fall information should be given.

I do not propose this afternoon to detain your Lordships by going over the ground which has been so well covered by the noble Lord as to the causes alleged to be responsible in great measure for the existing state of affairs. These causes have been repeated outside this House by many speakers. They have also been discussed at length in the public Press. Perhaps I may be allowed, very briefly, to summarise at any rate some of the cardinal reasons why in my view we have reached this state of affairs. In the first place, I believe that it is due to a need for propaganda so that the public and the workmen may understand the exact position of affairs. I will not labour that point further because it has been already dealt with in the noble Lord's speech, but I would add this to what he said. I think it is to be regretted—I am not sure that it is not reprehensible in character—that more publicity has not been given to the economic conditions of the country, and the economic condition under which the workman is situated to-day, and the results that would accrue if some of the proposals that are now being made collectively by trade unions were to be carried out.

Secondly, I would say that there is a very widespread misunderstanding, which has not in any way been counteracted, as regards the Armistice. A very large number of people in this country think that we are to-day in the enjoyment of Peace, and they have not yet been shown how to discriminate between what is an Armistice and what is the conclusion of Peace. I myself hope that the period of the Armistice will not be prolonged unduly, and that those who are concerned with the conclusion of the Peace will complete their arrangements at the earliest possible date, so that we may have a set of proposals and a set of terms to place before the Central Powers and thereby enable us to revert to peace conditions. There is another undoubted reason for the state of affairs in the country, and that is the cost of living and the continual margin of difference between such increased cost of living and the rise in wages. Again, there is the war strain and the demand for a general higher standard of conditions. That matter was dealt with at length by the noble Lord, who reminded us that such a demand prevailed before the war. It undoubtedly has been greatly accentuated as a result of the war. Lastly, there is widespread anger over what is known as profiteering, whether that be well or ill-founded. Those, I think, are some of the chief reasons for the state of affairs as regards the grievances of the workmen throughout the country.

Many of these grievances are undoubtedly of a quite legitimate and reasonable character, and in spite of what has been done during the war to advance the conditions of the workman there is, I think, by general consent many distinct grievances that have not yet been dealt with. There are, on the other side, alleged grievances which we are told—and which are now formulated into very urgent and menacing demands—are of so extravagant a character that if they were conceded the result would be only to aggravate discontent elsewhere, and to check and paralyse our industrial reproductive effort upon which we must depend for our national recovery. I will not attempt to deal with the merits of these grievances, because I am not competent to do so. What I would ask you Lordships to consider is this. What is the machinery and procedure existing to-day to deal with this extremely grave situation? On the one side you have large bodies of workmen organised in their trade unions. I would remind your Lordships that these trade unions are unincorporated, and therefore they do not possess any statutory responsibility, and they are accordingly indulging in anarchical measures within their own ranks. We see repeated day by day the unmoral attitude taken up by sections of workers of repudiating their own appointed leaders and refusing to abide by the results of collective agreement. I am not by this for one moment suggesting a word against the trade union movement, still less am I saying a word against the men within the union. What I desire to say is that the trade union movement has, I think by common consent, become an indispensable element in our modern industry. What I add is this, that the trade union movement in its present immature and undeveloped condition, unendowed by Parliamentary or any statutory responsibility, is to-day in a large extent the prey of any anarchical section within its own ranks, and as long as it remains in this immature and undeveloped condition it must continue to constitute a menace not only to the State but to all the workmen within the union itself.

This has been very eloquently and very courageously stated by many of the chief and most prominent labour leaders throughout the country. We have read speeches quite recently by Mr. Clynes, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Appleton, and others denouncing the lack of discipline within the ranks of the trade unions, and so, my Lords, we witness day by day the workmen of our great industries in their collective capacity hurling at the heads of their employers whole sets of demands. Some of these demands perhaps are quite reasonable, some of them we are told are quite unreasonable; and coupled with these demands is the menacing ultimatum of a threat at an early date of a large and often a combined strike. My object this evening in speaking to your Lordships is to discuss the importance of establishing machinery, representative and elective, for the purpose of remedying this evil.

What is the next method that is employed in these troubles? When agreement has failed, as it so constantly does now, between the master and the men, and a crisis of a strike is either impending or has indeed commenced, resort is had to the Government to mediate, to act as referee. By this time the collective mind of the men has consolidated and matured in a determination to insist upon their terms. What happens then? The Government appoints one of their Ministers to act as umpire at a stage when the parties are hardened in their determination. We have seen in the past few years, where the case became very acute in the most critical times of the war, that the Prime Minister himself has had to be called in. On other occasions we see sometimes the Minister of Labour, sometimes the Home Secretary, sometimes the President of the Board of Trade called in. I do not wish to disparage for one moment the ability of those high officers of State; indeed in the case of one, the President of the Board el Trade, I have had the privilege and advantage of working in great intimacy with him during the past two years, and I know his great ability in all matters in which he is concerned in his Office. But I do feel this—and I cannot help hoping that your Lordships may share the View—that by themselves individually these gentlemen, in the face of the situation in which we find ourselves to-day, constitute a wholly inadequate form of machinery to deal with such acute and critical problems.

Past experience certainly does not afford us much satisfaction as regards this particular method employed for settling these quarrels. Sometimes you find that an agreement is arrived at on very extravagant terms; at other times merely a truce is secured, and invariably that truce is of a very unstable character, leaving behind it almost invariably a universal suspicion on the part of the men. I venture to suggest that labour in the position and with the influence it has to-day in the country, labour in the frame of mind it is in to-day and—coupled with those two facts—the Government composed as it is to-day, quite clearly points to the necessity for adopting an authority at the centre, an authority on a far wider and representative basis, composed in even measure of representatives of the community, the masters, and the men. I do not mean by this a Committee hurriedly called together to cope with a particular crisis that arises, or that has arisen; I mean a body of people constituted expressly for the purpose, sitting continuously and selected with the greatest possible care, so that they possess to the full the confidence of all those interested in the three branches that I have described.

I see in the paper to-day that His Majesty's Government are going to call together a conference. That, I understand, is a conference to consist of the different sections of the men, the masters, and the community. That will be, I take it, a very large body; it will be almost an industrial Parliament, and it does not seem to me that that particular body will be likely to come to those precise and prompt conclusions that the conditions of the time demand. I have no doubt that the discussions which will take place in that conference—and I hope that there will be insistence that they will be fully and frankly reported to the public—will be of general benefit. But I do not believe that a body of that size will bring to concrete conclusion the really immediate questions that now lie before us.

What are the questions that lie before us? That is the review of the whole industrial situation, as was very clearly stated by the noble Lord who spoke before me. There is the examination of the cost of living, there is the advice to be given as to the extent to which articles of consumption can now be released for general distribution—a very important point in regard to the whole question of the cost of living; then there is, lastly (and this is a point where I would ask your Lordships' attention for a few moments), the consideration of the development and the extension throughout the country of what are known as the Whitley Councils. This machinery was first proposed, as your Lordships know, by Mr. Ernest Benn. It was adopted by the Whitley Commission about eighteen months ago. But those joint industrial councils, upon which are placed representatives of labour organisations and of the employers in equal numbers, with the selection respectively by each of their own chairmen, were to be established for the express purpose of preventing and remedying the causes which lead to strikes directly they appear, to secure for the workpeople a greater share in the responsible work within their own industry, and to settle the conditions of employment, the questions of wages and of the hours of labour. It is to be deprecated that these councils have not taken deeper and wider root throughout the country, and I think that a great deal more might have been done by the Ministry of Labour during the past eighteen months, not only to establish them but to encourage and assist and develop them.

But it must be remembered that these Whitley Councils are entirely voluntary. That was, of course, inevitable at first. A fresh proposal like this, invariably in accordance with our practice, has to be made on permissive lines. Where they have been in operation on voluntary lines during the past year I am afraid they have proved somewhat ineffectual to prevent strikes. I think that a very proper and a very urgent matter for consideration by what I may call a representative super-Whitley Council, sitting in Whitehall, might be as to whether these Whitley Councils should not be made statutory, established and constituted by Statute, with a permanent secretary, and so be in constant session. I am perfectly aware that a proposal of this character will meet with considerable opposition. It will meet with considerable opposition within the ranks of the trade unions themselves at first, but it is quite useless now to leave great questions such as we are confronted with to-day purely to voluntary organisations, dependent on the good will of employers on the one side and workmen on the other.

If this question is considered, along with it and dependent on it must also be considered the trade unions themselves. At present, as your Lordships are aware, these bodies are inchoate, they are unincorporated bodies; they are naturally essentially militant and very aggressive bodies, and I think the explanation why they are militant may be atrributed partly to their history and partly to the psychology within their ranks. Historically the trade unions have had to fight, in the teeth of bitter opposition, against employers and even political parties, for everything they have gained during the last forty years. Psychologically they have to depend—largely on account of that—on their appeal to the workers by always shouting on the top notes, and the louder their claim the more likely they are to appeal to their people.

Surely the time is approaching, if it has not already arrived, when these unincorporated trade unions should be definitely recognised as a part of the industrial machinery of the country, constituted and established by statutory recognition, incorporated under a common seal, capable of suing and of being sued. At present the lack of uniformity in the position and. power of trade unions is very marked. Some are large, some are small; some are strong, some are weak; and it by no means follows that the largest are the strongest, or that the smallest are the weakest. I say that a machinery should be created whereby trade unions should reach the status of being incorporated bodies very much on the lines of the procedure of the friendly societies under the Friendly Societies Act, or of limited liability companies under the Companies Acts. Some of these unions are sufficiently developed to come in now; others would require undoubtedly a good deal more fostering and assistance before they were ripe to come into these Councils.

The second stage of evolution—and this is a very important one—in trade unions is that they should be endowed with compulsory powers. I mean by "compulsory powers" that they should be able to compel every one in a trade to be a member of that trade's trade union. There should be no non-trade unionists. If that were carried out I believe it would be welcomed by the whole of the most responsible of the trade union leaders in this country. At this juncture I think that employers must bury their sneaking affection for the non-trade unionist. I am of opinion that there is nothing to prevent the setting up of Whitley Councils at once with the particular trade unions that are now ripe for the position; and the machinery, once set up, could be gradually extended to that trade throughout the country.

The foregoing observations with regard to trade unions apply, of course, with identical force to all employers' organisations and federations. There, again, you find that some are powerful and some are weak; some large and some small. These would require incorporation exactly on the same lines as the trade unions; and so you would have an ideal which should be aimed at—or at any rate should be commenced at as early a date as possible—with a view to obtaining statutory industrial councils, composed on the one hand of incorporated trade unions with every man in that trade a member of the union, and on the other hand of incorporated employers' federations with every employer engaged in that trade in the federation. On these councils the representation of employers and workmen should be equal. By that means you would set up an organisation in the country which I believe would by degrees—it can be only by degrees on account of the situation in which we find ourselves to-day—acquire the confidence of all parties concerned in the industry of the country. It could by general assent, as time proceeds, have plenary and penal powers.

It is no good talking to-day of indiscipline in the ranks of trade unions, of the violation of collective agreements. Is it not a matter of simple reason that the enforcement of collective bargaining is incompatible with the existence of unincorporated bodies? Collective bargaining in the end must imply incorporation. I think that these facts have to be faced, and I hope they will be faced at an early date; otherwise the whole issue in the industrial controversy will be obscured, and I believe we shall only go from bad to worse. It may be said in this debate, in reply to what I have said, that compulsory arbitration has been unsuccessful when tried elsewhere—in Australia and in New Zealand. I am not in the least shaken by that argument. Compulsory arbitration on the Whitley basis—on a basis of absolute equality between the master and the man—will attract, in my opinion, the full confidence of labour throughout this country in the process of time; and, provided that the proceedings in those Councils are in open court, so that the whole public may know them, that confidence will be fully assured.

Again, it will be said that England does not like compulsion; that the people may be led, but cannot be forced. I would like to point out briefly to your Lordships how we stand in regard to that matter. Take first of all our adoptive Acts, which are the Acts delegated to local authorities to make compulsory if they desire. Most of our social legislation under the head of adoptive Acts is now compulsory if the local authorities see fit to impose compulsory clauses—housing, public health, infectious diseases; I could go through a long list. I think that the problems which face us to-day would be nothing like so acute if many of the Acts upon the Statute Book had the little word "shall" instead of "may" attached to their chief provisions. Take, again, those more universal matters which have come under compulsory clauses within most recent years. I have only to mention old-age pensions, the feeding of school-children opposed most bitterly by very influential sections of the community only a few years ago—national insurance, and a great many more. All these were declared to be impossible; yet they have been placed upon the Statute Book and are compulsory, and it is only because they are compulsory that they are effective. They would not be worth the paper upon which they are written if they were permissive. I say with all the force of which I am capable that what is important for those matters is of equal importance in the grave industrial situation in which we are placed to-day; and provided always that you lay down the conditions of a complete and absolute equality as between Capital and Labour, Labour itself would welcome its organisations and its councils being clothed with the proper Parliamentary power to enforce the decisions of those bodies.

I would like to repeat what I read only the day before yesterday in a speech made by Lord Robert Cecil at the Peace Conference. I would like to apply it to this condition here. In France the represen- tatives of the Powers are trying to evolve a scheme, known as the League of Nations, to ensure peace among nations hereafter. It is our business to-day to erect as scientific and as fair a form of machinery as possible in order to ensure a League of Industry against industrial war within our own country and among our own people. This cannot be done in a day. You cannot produce a finished and complete building in all respects in a day. But what I venture to say you can do—and it should be commenced at once—is to lay down the foundations sure and sound; and I believe that the only sure and sound foundations are those which I have with great respect endeavoured to indicate to your Lordships' this afternoon, and to which I hope your Lordships will give your favourable consideration.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD BIRKENHEAD)

My Lords, I should have desired to ask the kindness which this Assembly always gives to those who address it for the first time on a less formidable occasion, but I have been assured that it might be convenient to your Lordships if a few words were said at this stage of the debate on behalf of the Government. I listened with great pleasure to the speech which my noble friend Lord Islington has just made. He speaks with great knowledge and great experience upon this subject. Much that he has said contains, if I may say so, valuable suggestions. Some of it, I confess, I thought a little more disputable. I am not sure that he will not find, after he has studied its details and arrangements, that the very scheme which he has in his mind is to some extent at least being adopted by the Government in the proposals which your Lordships will have seen adumbrated in the papers.

My noble and learned friend (Lord Buck-master) made, as he always does, a most powerful and impressive speech. I do not gather that it was his object to make a general attack upon the Government. I do not gather that he wished to suggest that the Government had in grave matters either done that which they ought not to have done or left undone those things which they ought to have done. If my noble and learned friend had made such a suggestion, I think you would have thought it right that I should remind him of one or two circumstances by no means irrelevant in that connection. I am sure my noble and learned friend will not forget that the Government have, after all, only been in office for about three weeks or a month, and that during this period a great many of their ablest and most representative members have been continuously engaged at Paris in perhaps the most momentous discussion in which British statesmen have ever taken part; and so far as any permanent solution is concerned, those who have necessarily been absent are just those without whose actual contribution no permanent solution would be possible.

But it would be entirely wrong to suppose—and I do not think my noble and learned friend intended to give an impression—that nothing has been done. I assure your Lordships that it is no exaggeration to say that every Public Department to whom control of these grave matters is committed has been exploring every line, and attempting to foresee every difficulty and to make plans for dealing with difficulties if and when they arise; and whatever else the Government has done in relation to this matter, your Lordships will believe me when I say it would be very wrong to suppose that in any single Department of the State there has been idleness or neglect on matters of such gravity.

When my noble and learned friend became more particular in his observations, he complained that in relation to the railway strike some unnecessary doubt in reference to meals had been allowed to arise, either through an ambiguity or through the incompetence of the draftsman who had arranged the settlement. I do not think this complaint was, if he will allow me to say so, a particularly substantial one. My noble and learned friend rather suggested that others had seen the ambiguity, and he stated that he himself had been unable to understand why it had not in fact been arranged. I do not think there was a real ambiguity, and your Lordships will bear with me for a moment if I give the reasons for this opinion. Had there been an ambiguity which justly entitled those who were the victims to come to the Government and say the arrangement must be wrong because it did not give them that which they thought they were entitled to receive, does anybody suppose that the responsible leaders of the trade union concerned would not have embraced this quarrel? Your Lordships know that the contrary was the case, and that the responsible leaders of that particular trade union discountenanced and condemned the strike by every means in their power. It is not saying too much if it is assumed that the fault lay with the men who stated that the strike was being encouraged and fomented not to expose and remedy any real grievance but in order to show sympathy and support to other strikes, equally unjustifiable, and repudiated by the responsible leaders of the men, which were then in progress on the Clyde and at Belfast.

My noble and learned friend made another complaint. He said, with reference to the method up to the present adopted by the Government of dealing with that crisis, that the Government were attaching far too much importance to a mere dialectical success. I assure him that on this point he is completely in error. At one moment my noble and learned friend complained that we did not use sufficient lucidity, and, I think, employ sufficiently the measures of publicity, in dealing with the railway strike. It is suggested that the Government were taking credit to themselves for a dialectical success. Nobody is thinking in these days—they are too grave—of dialectical success. What the Government has attempted to do—and with all respect to my noble and learned friend what I think the Government has succeeded in doing—is from the first moment when the cloud began to threaten to take every means in their power to instruct every section of public opinion as to the rights and wrongs of the controversy, the extent of the demands made by the men themselves, and as to the reasons which have precluded assent to every demand that has been made.

My Lords, there was indeed little I had to complain of on behalf of the Government in the speech made by my noble and learned friend, and indeed, if I may say so, I think he rendered great public service by calling your Lordships' attention to the circumstances, menacing as in many respects they are, in which we live to-day. Nothing is gained by ignoring realities, and I agree with my noble and learned friend that the situation of to-day is most grave. It is one which your Lordships are wise to look at with clear and unclouded eyes. The difficulties admit of being described by a simple enumeration. My noble and learned friend has summarised some of them. Let me attempt, if your Lordships will allow me, to follow him. It is true that our Debt is or is likely to be nearly £8,000,000,000. It is true, as he said, that on that sum we must pay and continue to pay interest. It is true that the most formidable economic difficulties that can be conceived will attend the payment of that part of our Debt which must still be paid to the United States of America. All these things are formidable, and what makes them still more formidable is that on every side we are confronted by new demands upon the Treasury, some of which, it is within the knowledge of all your Lordships, are and must be irresistible. Future Chancellors of the Exchequer must budget in this country upon a scale that would not merely have staggered our fathers but which would have staggered the youngest member of your Lordships' House. To underrate these difficulties is an ill-service; to conceal them from the country is at this moment a crime. Every one in the country is demanding new conditions of life. The nation has been living upon its capital, and liking it. In this spirit every One wishes to work less and to receive more. The tendency is quite simple and quite universal, and this is at a moment when, unless we produce upon an enormous scale, the nation will most certainly perish.

Is the prospect hopeless? My noble and learned friend, in his concluding observations, sounded—I heard it with great pleasure after the necessarily melancholy note of much of his speech—a note of hope. I share that hope. The situation is, as I have said, charged with the most pregnant anxieties, but I do not believe that it is hopeless. It is, however, idle to talk of cure, unless one has made some attempt, however superficial and incomplete to analyse the cause of the mischiefs by which we find ourselves confronted to-day. I have no doubt as to the first of these causes, the first in order, the first in importance. It is the consequence of the reactions of the war, the agony of bereavement, the hysteria of hope deferred, through which the whole community has passed. You cannot lay the iron hand of authority upon a community, little accustomed as is this country to compulsion; you cannot take middle-aged men away from their single businesses; you cannot scatter them in all the corners of the earth and leave their families, as the families of such men have been left in the last five years, without producing wounds in the body politic the effect of which is not easily to be obliterated. Your Lordships will not have forgotten that after the Battle of Waterloo England passed through what were, I suppose, four of the most anxious years of its history in time of peace. Your Lordships will remember the tragedies of Cato-street and of Manchester. Your Lordships will recall, too, that there were many who in those days thought that it would be impossible for this country ever again to re-establish its trade and prosperity.

Further evidence of the reality of this cause is to be found in the fact that if you extend your diagnosis you find it to be even truer. This unrest is not particular to this country. The waves of the tide which we observe are washing upon the shores of every continent and almost of every country. The United States of America to-day is not exempt from the same menaces as those by which we are confronted. Civilisation in all the world may have conquered Germany, but it has almost swooned in the exertion. The cure for this cause can only consist of time, of patience, of the gradual obliteration of painful memories; and, so far as the cure is applied to those who have actually suffered, something doubtless can be done by showing the practical sympathy which all sections of the nation feel for those soldiers, thanks to whose exertions, and to whose exertions alone, your Lordships are to-day deliberating in security. Carrying out, as with your Lordships trained and expert help it is hoped by the Government to carry out, the important land proposals which will be brought before your Lordships, it is hoped that these sturdy English fathers will become the fathers of sturdy English children leavening the whole body politic by the high traditions of duty nobly done. In this way the mischiefs of Bolshevism may be arrested and countered in our midst.

If I were to attempt to take second in order—again following my noble and learned friend's attempt—of these causes, I should say that the second in order of gravity was the derangement of every sound and reasonable financial standard. Thoughtless people say quite simply, as my noble and learned friend pointed out—they can be heard saying it in the streets, and, if your Lordships use them, on the omnibuses—"There is plenty of money; look what has been spent in the last few years." My Lords, that dangerous spirit is everywhere. There is no section of the community which to-day is not spreading these most dangerous fallacies. My noble friend said that a great part of the fault for this is chargeable on Government Departments. He says that there has been great waste in the war. Of course, it is true that there has been great waste in this war. I have been a Minister for four years, and my noble friend was a Minister, and an important Minister, for a considerable period in Mr. Asquith's Government He knows, and I know, and every Minister who speaks candidly to your Lordships will say this, that in time of war, and more than all in a war like that from which we have just emerged, there must be waste. Who is going to take the responsibility of refusing to send that last shell to Russia, which, in one event that did not unfortunately arise, might have restored the Russian situation? Who is going to hesitate, at whatever cost of money, to make experiments and purchases in munitions, in aircraft, in guns, and in those elusive discoveries of which it is promised that "this at last is certain to win the war"? The true line for every Government and for any Public Department which is accused of waste in war is to promise to inquire into, and to rectify and to correct and to punish, any proved abuses, and to say boldly, "We were all wrong, but if we had not been wrong, if we had not dared to be wrong on many isolated occasions, that nation and that civilisation of which we were the trustees might well have perished." Therefore, my Lords my noble and learned friend may be right—I think he is right—in saying that a great incentive had been given to the growing and dangerous spirit of private extravagance by the example of the Government.

I would remind my noble and learned friend that he, as a member of the Cabinet, must not only hold himself accountable for such waste as may have taken place in the period when he was a member, but my noble friend knows, as those of your Lordships who have not been members of the Cabinet cannot know, how impossible it is in days so gravely critical to observe the doctrines which are suitable to peacetime economy. The remedies, and the only remedies, for this danger are explanation, education, and propaganda. I myself most gravely regret that the Ministry of Information came to an end so soon. I have no doubt at all that with the grasp they had of the methods of instructing public opinion they could have rendered invaluable service in the work which lies in front of us. What is that work? It is to teach the people of this country, and most important to teach the manual labourers of this country, that the very burdens necessarily bequeathed to us as the result of our past expenditure made it imperative that we should avoid any fresh expenditure which is not absolutely vital. In this connection I think we must place three great anxieties by which at this moment we are confronted. I say I think we must place them in this connection because I am most anxious not to prejudge this matter. To do so would be unwise and indefensible. But I suspect that the three grave menaces of the moment, the threat of the mining strike, the threat of the railway strike and of the transport strike, may on ultimate analysis be referred to this particular branch of the cause of industrial unrest.

What is the policy of the Government in relation to these menaces? I can say plainly that it has never varied from the moment when the anxieties of the war somewhat diminished and it became possible that general attention could be given to the interests of the country. The policy of the Government has never varied. It has been inquiry and publicity—inquiry upon every point, the most full discussion and the most complete candour. On this point I certainly express deep regret that Mr. Smillie should have told the balloting miners, at a most grave moment in the fortunes of the country, that the Government had declined to accede to the request of the men. The matter could have been and ought to have been put in a very different way. When a leader is committing men like the miners to this tremendous decision, on which the whole fortunes of this country and Empire may depend, what could be more vital than that they should be told the whole truth and informed as to the whole strength of their case, and that their feelings should not be embittered against the community and against the Government by any other impression which corresponded very ill with the true facts of the case. If my voice could reach the miners I would say, "Trust the Government; trust your fellow-countrymen, and if you can point to one remediable wrong it shall be remedied." And, following out another suggestion made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Buckmaster, I would add this, "If your case is that others are in receipt of more than their share of the products of the mines, that can be weighed and examined at the Conference to which we invite you."

The position of the Government is that they exclude no topic and shrink from no discussion which in the opinion of the responsible leaders of the men will assist lucidity of thought and swiftness of conclusion. If the miners refuse, which I hope and trust they will not do, they will do well to consider that in the long result, whatever injury it be in their power to inflict in the interval on the people of this country, no strike ever has succeeded, and no strike, however formidable its weapons, in my humble opinion ever will succeed, which does not have the aid and support of the great and silent majority which constitutes the people in this country. This, perhaps, is the greatest source of hope still open to us. At this moment the desire and hope of the Government is that it may be found possible to persuade the men of all the three classes that they are being given at the present moment, in relation to what is economically possible, the fullest fruits of their toil; that they are being given the greatest consideratien in those matters of hours upon which the noble and learned Lord spoke so feelingly, and that the Government will be lacking in no effort which may, as far as possible, afford to these men the amenities and enjoyments which any man who discharges toil necessary to the State ought to find to constitute the moments of his leisure.

I am not apprehensive that in the long run, and before it be too late, the people and the manual workers of this country will realise (though we are sometimes slow, we are not a stupid people) that it is impossible for ever to live on your capital, and that it is impossible for a nation which has made the tremendous financial sacrifices we have made in the last four years to look at every field of human activity—cast our eyes at every industry—and say that here, there, and everywhere, and upon an immense scale, we can increase expenditure and yet avoid disaster.

I would add to the three causes of disorder one which has deeply engaged the attention of the Government, and must deeply engage the attention of any Government. There is a small, relatively small, section of this community who are gravely tainted by mischievous and revolutionary doctrines. Men, neither insignificant in numbers nor contemptible in influence, have undoubtedly become converts to that inscrutable disease, the bitter enemy of democracy, Bolshevism. My noble and learned friend said with great force that what was wanted in relation to Bolshevism, in order to combat its strength and destroy it where its seeds have already been cast, was publicity. He added, with no special encouragement to those whose duty it would be to carry out this task, that nobody would believe anything that was published on the subject. My noble and learned friend, who took a gloomy view, said that quite a short time ago he read of horrible outrages upon the Tsar and his family, and not long after the publication of that he saw an account in another paper saying that the Tsar was still alive.

LORD BUCKMASTER

It was in the same paper. Two days ago it was in The Times.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I am glad to hear from my noble and learned friend that the rumour—I suppose it was a rumour—was certainly in the same paper two days later. My noble and learned friend will not expect that any responsibility or any blame should be accepted by any whom he is addressing in connection with this episode, which I confess had escaped my notice. But it is quite true that nothing could be more important than that you should let the community as a whole know what the true character and the real crimes of Bolshevism have been. I confess that on this point I have one advantage over almost any other member of your Lordships' House, because within the last eight weeks I contested, as some of your Lordships may have happened to notice, a Parliamentary constituency against a Labour opposition, and in the course of that campaign I suppose that I spoke in some thirty or forty constituencies. In those constituencies I encountered every kind of audience, and almost every variety of Labour candidate. I came away from addressing those great democratic audiences with a profound and unconquerable belief in the faith and stability of the overwhelming majority of the people of these Islands. Those impressions are greatly confirmed by the reflection, so comforting to all of us, that while this war has swept over Europe, submerging and sweeping away Dynasties, there never was a moment, as the events of the last few months have shown, in which the Dynasty in this country was more securely and permanently founded in the affections of the people.

I can only add upon this point that there will be no want of firmness in the Government in dealing with this section of the population. We do well to remember that, formidable in some parts of the country as the growth of these mischiefs has been, it is far less than for the four years after the Napoleonic Wars. I think we should remember this, too, that while many qualifications may be uttered with reference to the results of the General Election, no one at least can dispute that every man who held Bolshevik views, and who could procure his selection as a candidate, was rejected. Moreover, no one can dispute that, whatever extent of apathy there may have been among other sections of the population, the Bolsheviks at least exercised the franchise where they had it.

To enable one to steady ones judgment and adjust one's perspective, let me ask your Lordships to carry your minds back to a period three, four, six, and twelve months before the Armistice. There was hardly a moment at any one of those periods which I have selected at which the country was not full of the most alarming rumours as to the condition of things on the Clyde, and the spread of revolutionary feeling on the Clyde; and, indeed, as your Lordships well know, there is no industrial centre in the whole of these Islands which has occasioned more constant anxiety to the Government than the area of the Clyde. That matter was contested at the General Election in a way which I think your Lordships will find most interesting and illustrative. Mr. Barnes, after all, was a representative of Labour—I speak untechnically—in the Government. His opponent, John Maclean, was the very hero of all that movement in its most extreme and revolutionary form. At the time when the Election ought to have taken place Mr. Maclean was actually in gaol, where he had been placed for offences, and the demand was widely made in Glasgow that he should be released. I am not concerned with the question of why he was released; I am concerned with the result. He came back to Glasgow. He was received, I am credibly assured, by the largest procession which had ever met any political hero in the streets of that city. It was generally assumed, especially by those who were in sympathy with him, that he would be a formidable opponent of Mr. Barnes; and when the appeal was taken, my Lords, he obtained a few thousand votes as compared to the overwhelming number that were given to Mr. Barnes. We may comfort ourselves from this illustration, which may be multiplied in a lesser degree in other places, with the assurance that those who hold these view are extremely noisy in proportion to their numbers. We shall be able to appraise their threats at their real value.

These are some comforting facts. But in the meantime we may say to those who have quite definitely arranged themselves on the side of disorder, to those who have no concern at this moment except to destroy first one industry and then another by means of what are known as lightning strikes, that if they think the community will yield to threats like these they little know England and the ancient spirit of these Islands. My Lords, if this Government fails to deal with menaces plainly put forward in the light of day, it would be necessary for some sterner instrument than the present Government to take such steps as are necessary to ensure the safety of the community.

I come to the last of the particular class of causes to which I will assign this unrest. This class is in many ways the gravest of all, and it is certainly not the least deserving of your Lordships' consideration, because it is the class of those citizens of this country who live under circumstances of real grievance. It is the complaints, in other words, to which your Lordships' ears, I know, have seldom been deaf, of people who in foul surroundings are leading unspeakably filthy and wretched lives. I heard what my noble and learned friend said about the report of the Scottish Land Commission. I have read that Report. I think that it is one of the most horrible and tragic documents that has ever been presented to Parliament by any Commission. My noble friend has read a short description of it. I do not think it necessary to reinforce that which he read further than to ask your Lordships to listen to one very short description which is symptomatic of a very large area. It is stated that upon such a sanitation has swept a vast overcrowding, the workers shoving into the foulest accommodation if only a roof can be obtained in a one-roomed or two-roomed hovel, and something like a bed. Here is a quite typical illustration— A two-roomed house, the kitchen occupied by a husband and wife and three children and two lodgers, and the bedroom sub-let to a husband and wife and one child. In another case the kitchen was occupied by the tenant, his two brothers, and his mother, all adults, and the room by a man and wife and four children. In another case there were two families consisting of five adults and eight children in a two-roomed house; and in still another, a family of twelve, six adults and six children. Those conditions are, as any one would admit, a disgrace and a shame to a Christian country, and in some of those very districts the worst symptoms of unrest proceed at this very moment. Whatever the cost may be it is an imperative duty cast upon the Government, cast upon our very civilisation, that at least no grievances of that kind shall be capable of allegation by the people who are to come and confer on everything in the council chamber.

One is able to speak with some freedom to your Lordships upon this point, because every one knows, first of all the sacrifices which your Lordships have made on your own estates in the matter of housing, and every one knows in the second place the great store of expert information which is to be found among members of your Lordships' House upon this point. But I quite agree with my noble and learned friend that it is a shocking reflection that, when these Scottish soldiers went to the Battle of Loos—the largest Scottish Army that ever fought under one banner since the Battle of Bannockburn—these, as my noble friend most movingly said, were the homes to which they were to return. I remember a little-known but simple and affecting ballad describing the feelings of a British private soldier shortly before his death. He said— Far Kentish hopfields Round him seemed like dreams to come and go, The smoke above his father's house In grey, soft eddies hung. If these boys, just before they gave the supreme proof of their devotion to their country, thought of the home to which they would return, a far different picture from that which is attributed in the ballad to the Kentish soldier must in many cases have been before their eyes, and our wonder at their valour and their devotion can only multiply a hundredfold.

It is the confident belief of the Government that they will not fail to meet with your Lordships' support in the attempt which they contemplate to deal, so far as it is humanly possible, with every one of those basic causes, and to correct the specific mischiefs which have flown from, them all. But I do most earnestly appeal to your Lordships not to come to the Government and demand a remedy for every difficulty at the point of the sword, not to approach the question in the atmosphere that there is no peril so great or so swift in its origin that you cannot expect and demand that a Government Department shall produce from a pigeon hole an immediate remedy. Believe me, the gravity and the difficulty of these problems are so great that no man can exaggerate them. All that your Lordships are entitled to ask of the Government is that its ablest men shall labour night and day in the attempt to find solutions, that they shall explore every road which promises success, that they shall count no labour too arduous, no examination too detailed. All these I can promise your Lordships for the Government. I can promise your Lordships that they will consult and use the labours of all men of good intention in any station of society who will contribute and help. And on behalf of the Government I specially ask your Lordships' contribution and helpful suggestion. I say plainly that the Government know well that in a great part of these problems your Lordships are qualified by long experience of building in the country to offer views which may be put forward; and I express—I am sure I shall not express in vain—the hope that in these efforts the Government may count upon the co-operation of your Lordships' House.

THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE

My Lords, I hope I may be permitted, as an old member of this House, to express the pleasure with which we have listened to the speech just delivered by the noble and learned Lord, I think upon the first occasion, or at any rate upon the first important occasion, that he has spoken to us from the Woolsack. I was attracted in particular by the note of hopefulness which ran through his observations. He, perhaps, did not give us quite so much information as some of us would like to obtain, but upon one or two points, he did tell us what was of importance. I noticed in particular what he said as to the inten- tion of His Majesty's Government to deal with a part of this question upon the lines suggested by my noble friend Lord Islington in his closely-reasoned speech. But there were other points upon which he was not so explicit. I noted in particular that he passed without any mention the question which was put to him by the noble and learned Lord on the Front Bench opposite (Lord Buck-master) as to the intention of His Majesty's Government to nationalise the railways. That statement was made some months ago. It was made by a very important member of the Government, and although it is quite true that the present Government has been for only a few weeks in office, that, I should have thought, was a matter of such moment that the noble and learned Lord might have noticed it in the course of his speech.

I am glad that it was decided to take in one and the same debate the two Motions made by the noble and learned Lord opposite and by my noble friend Lord Islington, because, although no doubt either of these Motions would have afforded ample materials for a debate, there can be no doubt that the two questions raised in them are very intimately connected. Yon cannot consider the industrial unrest which now prevails without considering also the nature of the great economic crisis through which the country is at this moment passing. It is quite true, as stated by the noble and learned Lord (Lord Buckmaster), that these deplorable strikes are not new to us. In the years before the war these questions became extremely acute. In 1911 you had strikes, and again in 1912; but there can, I think, be no doubt that the present troubles have been greatly aggravated by two facts. One is the suspicion—I would almost say the knowledge—of the working classes that immense profits have been made by persons engaged in various industries connected with the war. The other aggravating cause is, I think, this—that although the nominal value of the wages which the workers have been receiving of late has mounted up with I would almost say alarming rapidity, the recipient finds that the purchasing power of the wage is a very different thing from its face value.

I do not believe we shall get a juster view of these industrial problems until we have returned to something like normal con- ditions; until we have succeeded in placing our finances on a sounder basis; until we have got away from this era of inflation, and, I am almost tempted to say, of reckless borrowing, and return to an era of sobriety and carefully-regulated expenditure. I wish I could say that I see any signs of a return to such an era. On the contrary, I never open a newspaper without reading of some new and expensive venture, without hearing of new commitments, of new largesses, and of the creation of Government Departments which, whether you have regard to the salaries of the officials who compose them or to the funds which they will dispense, must inevitably open a new leak in the public treasury.

Our indebtedness is increasing in an appalling manner. May I give these figures, which are simple and easily carried in one's mind? During the twelve weeks before the Armistice the daily expenditure from Exchequer issues was £6,970,000; during the twelve weeks since the Armistice the daily expenditure has been £6,738,000. That is to say, the daily expenditure since the Armistice has shown a very slight falling off as compared with the daily expenditure before the Armistice. I think we may safely assume that if our daily borrowing averaged £5,000,000 before the Armistice it averages only a very little under £5,000,000 now. Unless I am mistaken the national income, according to the Budget estimate, is a little over £2,000,000 a day. If, therefore, we are spending £7,000,000 a day, or nearly that amount, we are adding to our national indebtedness, now that the Armistice is signed, at the rate of about £5,000,000 a day. I think these figures are really most portentous and alarming.

I do not think anybody has yet told the country what our real financial position is, or whether there is any prospect of putting things upon a sounder footing. I never read a speech delivered by any of our great banking and financial authorities without noticing a deep note of anxiety running through all that is said. I wish that His Majesty's Government would take the country a little more into their confidence upon this vital point, and would tell us the worst. The burden of taxation is hard to bear, but I honestly believe it would be borne more cheerfully if you would tell people quite frankly where you are and at what kind of result you expect to arrive in the end. What people feel now is that they are being bled white by taxation and that all the time this constant increase to our Debt is proceeding unchecked.

I should also be very glad if, whenever a stock-taking of this kind comes to be made, we could be told, also quite frankly, a little more about our supposed assets. For example, we are often comforted by the assurance that if we owe a great deal of money to other people, ether people owe a great deal of money to us. That is quite true. But I should like to know, for instance, at what value does His Majesty's Government rate the (I think it is) £570,000,000 for which Russia is indebted to us. Then there is the question that was raised by the noble and learned Lord (Lord Buckmaster)—what about these indemnities? This is not a question that we can pursue to-night, but we ought to be told by and by—we have not been told yet—distinctly and unequivocally what the policy of His Majesty's Government is with regard to this question of indemnities; whether they really mean to extract, or to try to extract, from Germany, outside of anything that may be due to us for the purpose of reparation, restoration, compensation to the poor people whose homes have been ravaged in France and in Belgium—whether they propose to extract, outside that, a colossal sum to be paid as a solatium to the victors in this great war.

We have heard a good deal about the strikes now threatened. I do not think it is possible to overrate the gravity of the prospect which confronts us. There is, perhaps, rather a tendency to belittle its gravity. These strikes are represented as a sort of natural reaction after the war. I think there was a phrase in the speech of the noble and learned Lord which suggested something of that kind—peoples' nerves have been "rattled" during the war, we are told, and it is not a matter for surprise that they should do foolish things. Let us, in the first place, remember—indeed, I think I reminded the House of it a moment ago—that the year 1912 surpassed all previous years so far as the number of men who went out on strike and the number of working days lost by strikes are concerned. Therefore we must not get into the way of talking of these strikes as if they were merely a by-product of the war. They are nothing of the kind. They are a blow—a deadly blow—aimed at the community, and instigated by people who desire to produce chaos and confusion wherever they can. During the war, at a time when affairs were very critical for us, we were threatened by strikes, at a moment when industrial disorder in this country would have been worse for us almost than a military reverse in the field; and new, my Lords, at this moment when peace is in sight, we are going to be held up again. We are going to be held up at the very moment when the country is engaged, or ought to be engaged, in the great work of post-war reconstruction.

The noble and learned Lord spoke of "lightning strikes." What are the characteristerics of a lightning strike? Let me run over one or two of them. The first is a complete disregard of the public welfare or of the public convenience. That is part of the Syndicalist creed. Next is indifference to humans suffering. The community may be deprived of fuel in the dead of winter and when the deprivation of fuel means the suffering and the death of women, children, and invalids. We may be deprived of light, without which a great part of the community cannot do its work. We may be deprived of the means of locomotion, without which the greater number of us cannot get to our work, wherever it may be. Then there is the further characteristic of the complete defiance of leaders. Negotiations, if they are in progress, are ignored; and finally coercion, ruthless coercion, is applied to the dissentient minority, if there happens to be one.

All of these characteristics were more or less present in the case of some of the recent strikes. In the case of the Tube strike an agreement had been reached for a forty-seven-hours' week. It was to come into operation on February 1. One or two details had not been provided for. The noble and learned Lord spoke of an ambiguity in the terms. I do not know whether the terms were ambiguous, but the public certainly was puzzled, and found it difficult to decide where the blame lay. The leaders of the union may not have thought the ambiguity was there. They objected, I gather, on the ground that it was not worth while having a strike upon points of detail, but, as we know, a strike took place.

Do let us remember what these strikes mean in a highly organised community such as ours. An attempt is sometimes made to distinguish between one industry and another. Some are supposed to be essential and some to be less essential, but in a community such as ours the whole of our industries are interdependent, and it is impossible to tamper seriously with the foundation of one industry without running risk of a disastrous collapse all along the line. It is with that disastrous collapse that we are threatened and we are being threatened with such a disaster at a moment when the country is still reeling from the effects of the war. We have accumulated this colossal Debt. We are no longer, as we used to be, a great creditor nation. We have become a debtor nation. We have lost a considerable part of our export trade, which has passed into the hands of our competitors in different parts of the world. We have, I am afraid, lost a great part at any rate of the advantage which we held in regard to our carrying trade, to which we mainly owed our commercial supremacy in the world. Our business is, I am afraid, slipping away from us. And this is the moment which is chosen by some of those who engineer these strikes in order to drive industry—that is what they are doing—away from our shores. I dare say your Lordships noticed a statement which appeared not long ago, with regard to the great Yarrow firm of Glasgow. They are a firm which, as far as I have been able to learn, were known for their considerate treatment of their employees. They have made special concessions to them at various times; but the Yarrow firm are moving a great part of their plant to Vancouver because they expect to find there the security denied to them in this country, and because the output of labour of a man in the Vancouver yards is said to be 200 per cent. in excess of the output of the same man in our yards in this country. My Lords, that will happen in the case of other industries if we are not careful.

There is surely only one way of salvation open to us, and that is the way of frugality and industry, and it is that way which is being blocked for us by the men who are attempting to drive industry away from these shores.

I trust that your Lordships will not think that I make these remarks in any spirit of hostility to trade unions or to labour. I recognise, every bit as much as the noble and learned Lord on the Front Bench, that we are under a great obligation to labour, that we were under an obligation to labour before the war—to improve the standard of living, to deal in particular with the urgent question of housing—and that that obligation is a stronger one at this moment after the war, and after all that has been done for us by the working classes, than ever it was before. I recognise all that, and I have always been one of those who believed that trade unions were not only useful as a part of the economic machinery but essential to the efficiency of that machinery. I believe in them because they seem to me the means of bringing a sense of collective responsibility to the working classes which might otherwise not have come home to them. So little am I jealous of or ill-disposed towards the trade unions that I remember one occasion at least when I incurred the displeasure of a great many of my political friends because I supported some of the more stringent provisions of the famous Trades Disputes Act. So little am I hostile to these labour organisations that if I am asked for my remedy for our present difficulties to-day I say at once that to my mind the remedy is to be found in asking these labour organisations to take a still higher place at the economic table than the place which they fill at the present time. The whole progress of enlightened thought has been in that direction.

Most of us can remember a time when trade unions were regarded with almost rooted antagonism by a great many people belonging to the educated classes. Antagonism gave way in time to toleration; toleration gave way to encouragement; encouragement at last carried us the length of actually conferring upon trade unions privileges which no other body, so far as I know, have ever been given by Act of Parliament. I venture to think that the time has come for a new definition of the position and of the responsibilities of the trade unions. I should like to see them made a part of the statutory machinery for dealing with these labour difficulties. To a great extent the way has been cleared for us by the Whitley Report. The Whitley Report was received with acclamation by almost everybody. It was welcomed by then Government, but I think it has been said with truth in this debate that a good deal more might have been done to set up and to set in motion the machinery of the Whitley Councils. I say frankly that I should like to see the Whitley system carried a great deal further. I should like to see every industry with its council. I should like to see a national joint council, district councils, and shop committees, and I should like to place that organisation in the closest and most intimate touch with the proper Government Department. That was, I think, very much the plan which my noble friend Lord Islington sketched out, and I understood from the noble and learned Lord that some such plan is in the mind of His Majesty's Ministers. If that is so, I would say to them—Lose no time, proceed at once to set your machinery going.

For one reason in particular it seems to me that the Whitley plan is an admirable one. The Whitley plan affords opportunities not only for conciliation but for education, and to my mind it is the education, not only of the working people but of all concerned in these matters, that is most urgent at the present time. We teach our boys and girls at the elementary schools a great deal of, I should have thought, not particularly useful knowledge. We do not teach them anything of the fundamental principles which govern these particular questions. Our ignorance of them is lamentable. The most hopeless fallacies pass muster and are never corrected. Take, for example, the fallacy that you can cure unemployment by shorter hours. Your Lordships know what an absolute fallacy that is, but I doubt extremely whether it is realised by the average working man. Then again take the belief, which I suppose is widespread, that there is no limit, or almost no limit, to what you can squeeze out of a sufficiently hard-pressed industry in the way of increase of wage. You see every day examples to show the vicious circle in which these men's ideas move, mainly as I believe through ignorance. A man finds that the sovereign which you pay him only purchases what 10s. used to purchase. He thereupon strikes for, we will say, 30 per cent. increase of wages. The effect of that is to send up prices. Your friend comes round and says you must increase his wages again, and so on.

Is it not true that in all these cases, where the wage difficulty arises, you must reach a point where the increased wage becomes prohibitive, where you put the price of the commodity up so high that the maker cannot afford to make it or the buyer cannot afford to buy it? Then there comes a strike of a different kind, the strike of the consumer, a silent, respectable strike—simply the consumer does not buy the commodity any more, and the labourer finds himself deprived of his work. What you want in all these cases, it seems to me, is some recognised authority which will determine and make known to those concerned whether there is or is not room in a particular industry for the demanded increase of wages. The great advantage of this Whitley procedure seems to be this, that you get a frank and open discussion, at the end of which it is up to the employer either to close his works or to pay more wages; it is up to the worker to take less or to remain idle; and it is up to both parties to decide whether they will, each of them, sacrifice something, or whether they are prepared to see the particular industry in which they are concerned driven out of the country by their conduct.

A policy of this kind involves no denial of the men's right to strike. To my mind you cannot get away from this, that if the man chooses not to work you cannot make him work, any more than you can make an employer pay if he chooses not to pay. In the last resort, therefore, you must contemplate the possibility of the strike. I do not myself believe very much in the possibility of compulsory arbitration, which I think was suggested by my noble friend Lord Islington, but if labour claims for itself the right to destroy an industry by driving it out of the country, I think labour must consent to be held bound to exhaust the resources of conciliation before it proceeds to extremities. Certainly it should be the business of the Government to make it perfectly clear to labour that in no case is it to be allowed to use any methods encroaching on the personal liberty of that section of their body which prefers not to act with the main block. I say, then, that I believe it to be the duty of the Government to provide an organisation which will afford the fullest opportunities of investigation to the parties concerned, to protect the dissentients, if there are any, and to punish those who precipitate hostilities before proper steps have been taken to ascertain whether they can be avoided.

There are, I think, other points at which the law requires reconsideration. I will only mention one which was referred to by my noble friend Lord Islington. I think the time has come when we should insist on the incorporation of the trade unions, and when they should assume the privileges and the responsibilities of an incorporate body. Legislation of this kind would not be capitalist legislation or class legislation. It would be legislation required, I believe, in the interests of labour, which if it does not take care may find itself idle and without pay; in the interests of the freedom of society, which is threatened by a ruthless and exacting tyranny; and in the interests of the whole country, which is trying to recover from the consequences of an exhausting war, and is at this moment threatened, in addition, by the unwise action of men who misjudge the problem they have to solve, in a great measure because they wholly fail to understand its real significance.

LORD RIBBLESDALE

My Lords, I beg to move that the debate be now adjourned.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, debate adjourned until to-morrow.