§ Debate on the Motion of Lord BUCKMASTER—viz., "That there be laid before the House Papers relating to the present industrial and economic conditions"—resumed(according to Order).
THE MARQUESS OF CREWEMy Lords, in rising to say a few words on the fourth day on which this subject has been under discussion, I am anxious not to detain your Lordships at any length, because the whole subject has been threshed out during the three previous days in a manner which, it seems to me, does the highest credit to the debates of your Lordships' House. Indeed, I think it is some time since that any of us could recall a discussion which has been signalised by so many admirable speeches, beginning with the masterly analysis of the situation which my noble and learned friend Lord Buckmaster made three weeks ago.
During that period various changes in the situation have occurred, or, if not 472 actual changes of substance, at any rate the pattern of the kaleidoscope has changed several times, and it cannot be said even yet to be set into anything like a definite form. During these three weeks there have been all the agitations connected with the threatened coal strike, with the meeting of what is called the "triple alliance," and also the first attempt at gathering together a great industrial council. Most of the speeches in the debate have tended towards the side of the question of industry rather than that of finance, although the financial aspect of the situation has been by no means entirely neglected. I think that as the debate has begun so it is likely to proceed, and it may well be that at some later period in the session a more regular financial debate will be initiated from one part of the House or another, in which I hope all those noble Lords will take part who are specially competent to deal with financial matters, and, as we know, they are highly distinguished, and not few.
As regards the industrial situation, I think the note of all the speeches that we have heard has been a demand for more light to be thrown on the subject—more information to be acquired, not only by the workers but also, as we have been reminded by some speakers, by ourselves and other members of the capitalist classes generally. Indeed, there were some speakers—my noble and learned friend Lord Haldane, and also Earl Russell—who stated that so far as information was concerned we stood in a good deal more need of it than the Labour Party, or at any rate than many of the workers. In one sense there is no doubt a great deal of truth in those observations. The exertions of such an admirable body as the Workers' Educational Association, of which it is impossible to speak too highly, and the distribution of literature of all kinds, with some of which we might agree, with some of which again we might find ourselves in profound difference—all these things have no doubt produced an amount of knowledge amongst the workers very different from that which obtained fifty or even perhaps twenty-five years ago. But when the demand for more light and information is made, I do not think that it is doctrinaire knowledge or knowledge of the theory of political economy or of the distribution of wealth which is needed. When more light is asked for it is meant that misunderstandings exist regarding 473 particular industries, and indeed regarding particular enterprises within those industries, which might be dissipated by a more complete interchange of knowledge between those concerned with them.
Take, for instance, one subject that has been widely discussed throughout our debates—that of the extra profits which have been obtained by some capitalists and regarding which there has no doubt been much ill-feeling created. Very few of us, I think, know very much about those extra profits. We have seen produced in the course of the debate large figures of the sums which have been subjected to excess profit taxes, and some noble Lords, such as Lord Emmott for instance, explained that it would not do to attach too much importance even to that enormous volume of figures, because in practice but a comparatively small fraction of it reaches the pockets of those who in popular belief may be supposed to get it all. It is most highly desirable that the real facts regarding the supposed gigantic profits made by certain capitalists should be known, and it may be hoped that some misapprehension might be removed and some discontent allayed if the actual figures and facts can be published. Of course, it has to be realised that where these large profits arise they are due to a great extent to the necessary inequality of circumstance in certain industries. There is no industry to which that statement is more applicable than that of coal or iron mining. The difference between the profits to be gained from the most advantageous conditions of the industry and the slender profits to be wrung from these concerns which are on the margin of profit, is simply enormous. Something similar, though on a smaller and less dramatic scale, is equally true of the industry of agriculture. We are told in quite general terms of the vast profits supposed to be made by some farmers; but there again, if you examine the whole business and attempt to measure the inequalities of circumstance, you will see how it arises that in a few cases what appears undue profits must necessarily be made.
The real question is, Do the workers seriously desire that all the elements of adventure and of good fortune should be eliminated from the prospect of the capitalist? Perhaps, to some extent, they may, and if they do one cannot be altogether surprised, because those elements, as industry is carried on in this country, are the exclusive property of the capitalists. 474 The manual worker has no such chance. He may work under conditions which enable him to earn a somewhat larger wage than the average of his employment, but he has none of the excitement of the gold miner in the early days of California and Australia. He has no chance of striking a vein which will make him a prosperous man at once. Those streaks of good fortune are only open to the capitalist. But I am very far from believing that the manual workers generally would desire to eliminate those prospects of exceptional benefit entirely, if the general condition of their obtaining a definite share in the profits of capital could come into effect. Then, of course, in certain trades the element of skill means something exceptional with regard to the gaining of high or of extra profits. In the colliery-owning business instances may be found of quite solid and hardworking capitalists who have kept a mine going and made it pay sufficiently not to shut it down, and where their places have been taken by persons of exceptional skill and enterprise who have trebled or quadrupled the percentage of gain on the capital involved over a whole series of years. There, again, one has no reason to suppose that workers generally would desire to destroy that element altogether. I do not wish to weary the House by developing this line of argument, except to point out that it has a very definite bearing on schemes for the nationalisation of different industries. It has a very real bearing upon those schemes, although I do not wish to dwell upon it longer at present.
There is a second matter on which I am quite certain that more light is required—not light which can be obtained from text books, from works of political economy, or from leaflets issued by this or that association—I mean the effect on the workers of increased production. As the most rev. Primate the Archbishop of York stated in his speech, to which we all listened with such deep and continuous interest on the last occasion, everything depends on increased production; and, as the most rev. Primate added, it can only be obtained by the good will of the workers. That I believe to be profoundly true; and how are we going to set about persuading the workers as a rule that somehow or other they are not going to lose by increased production? I am certain there is no more difficult task than to hammer into the minds of those engaged in a great many 475 industries the belief that it is a pure fallacy to suppose that you must limit the amount of work done or there will not be enough to go round. That is an ingrained belief with a large section of labour and somehow or other that belief has got to be dissipated.
The old-day memories of over-production, of statements all through the Press that there was a glut of this, that, or the other, and the consequent enforcement of short time—these things are fresh in the memories of the workers in many industries, and it will be no easy matter to persuade them generally that arguments in favour of cutting down production are founded on the sand. I remember a rhyme, often repeated in my boyhood, which must have dated I should think from a good many years earlier, back to the days of the Chartists. It ran—
Eight hours work, eight hours play,Eight hours bed, and eight shillings a day.In those times that was regarded as a mere fantastic dream almost too remote from fact to be even amusing. Now the full accomplishment of that ideal presents nothing extraordinary. There are a great many workers who to-day enjoy it and a good deal more; just as, indeed, I may remind your Lordships, practically all the points of the Charter (which in their turn in those days were thought fantastic) have now practically become the law of the land. Therefore, the workers can feel that at any rate from the time of their grandfathers and even of their fathers no small progress has been made; but the plea that further progress is being made and is to be made can undoubtedly only be maintained, as has been already said by more than one speaker in this debate, by the association of Labour with Capital and with the management of the actual conduct of as many businesses as possible. It is no doubt a good thing that there should be a great Industrial Council on which Labour and Capital can sit side by side and discuss all the high problems of industry, but it is in the works themselves, and even in the shops of those works, that there must be perpetual and continual association, both to some extent in control as well as in the share of the profits of capital, if this state of industrial uneasiness is to be abated.It has to be borne in mind, when we speak of the views of Labour as opposed to the views of Capital, that the views of Labour and of the highly informed and educated persons who speak and write on 476 behalf of Labour are by no means identical. There are many warmly and sharply opposed views to be found among those who are ready for the time being to make common cause against the capitalist in certain industries. For instance, when we hear—and one or two noble Lords seem to me to have slightly approached that error—of the possible charm of nationalisation in certain great industries, whether it be mines, railways or shipping, or of the land generally, it has to be borne in mind that there is a very large and important section in the labour world and among the writers and thinkers who support labour to whom nationalisation combined with centralisation possesses very little charm indeed. You only have to see anywhere the keenness of the sort of argument that is carried on between the collectivist socialist pure and simple on the one hand, and what is called the guild socialist on the other, and you will get quite as keen, often acrimonious, an atmosphere of controversy as you could have if an unhappy capitalist was engaged with either. These are matters which have to be borne in mind, because what will have to be done in arriving at final conclusions on all these points will be to balance on the one hand the interests of the particular industry or craft against the interest of the nation as a whole. That is one of the tasks which will be found to be imperative but exceedingly difficult to fulfil by the industrial councils of the future.
It is interesting to ask, when we speak of a further share for labour of the profits of capital, why is it that so large a proportion of the most capable and vocal advocates of the labour cause appear to flout and to reject schemes of co-partnership and profit-sharing? That is a point which deserves the careful consideration of all those who study this subject. It cannot be disputed that these expedients, quite admirable as they appear to many of us, are regarded by many of those who speak for labour as being mere soporifics offered to them to lull them into a state of helpless quietude in order to avoid the approach of the real questions between labour and capital which they would desire to bring forward. I thought, if I may say so, that the most rev. Primate offered us one most valuable comment which is germane to this matter—namely, that it was altogether wrong to suppose that because the personal relations between a good employer and his employees were 477 amiable and pleasant, that for that reason those employees were willing to set aside or abandon the particular ideal of improving their conditions which they and their friends hold. That seems to me a most valuable contribution to our discussions.
At the other end of the scale we have what has been described as Bolshevism. Perhaps it is unfortunate that that word has been so freely used in the discussions, not especially here but outside, in the sense of an extreme or anarchic socialist. It is a word which means, I take it, either simply an extremist or simply a member of the socialist majority. I am not a Russian scholar and I do not know much about the word, but, as we hear, it means "most" in Russian, and I have seen it explained in both those ways. The word has obtained an association of bloodshed and horror which naturally make us unwilling to ascribe similar ideals to any of our fellow-countrymen. But there are a certain number of persons in the United Kingdom—I believe them to be very few—who may actually aim at a sanguinary revolution in order to obtain their desires because they think they can obtain them in no other way. I do not doubt that. Nor do I doubt that so far as they exist they ought to be carefully watched. But I do also believe that they are very few in numbers, and that their aims and methods are simply abhorrent to the workers taken as a whole. The word "unrest" has been in everybody's mouth, and it no doubt expresses as well as any other the sort of thunderous condition of the atmosphere which we all feel.
I confess I agree with those who are unwilling to ascribe the unrest entirely, or even mainly, to the war. No doubt it has been coloured by the different circumstances of the war, by the utter dislocation of labour, even to some extent by the high wages, by the diminution of the purchasing power of money; but that it is in the strict sense due to the war—that is to say, but for the war it would not have existed—is I am sure not true. When one looks back to the position of affairs in 1913 and 1914 I cannot help feeling that in some respects if there had been no war this industrial crisis might have taken an even more dangerous course. Party spirit ran very high, class feeling was more acute in some respects and less disposed to be reasonable than it is to-day. After all, during the war, both at the Front and at home, there has been an amount of com- 478 radeship and of association between people who would never have come together but for it, which must have a beneficial tendency even in the solution of these difficult questions. Consequently, looking forward, as one tries to do, as hopefully as possible, I cannot join those who say that but for the war this critical position would never have arisen.
I do not want to dwell at all to-night on the financial side of the position except to say that I hope that there also we may continue to receive more light in the way of information than we have received in the immediate past. There have been many departures during this last year or two from the customary procedure of Parliament and the ordinary lines of administration, some of them, as I think, unfortunate and ill-considered, but in the present financial condition of the country I venture to think that there is one departure which ought to be made. I do not believe that we ought now, as regards our general financial position, to be told that we must wait for the Budget speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer before we can receive general information as to our condition, as to our national solvency, if that is not (as I think it is not) too high to put it. Clearly there are certain matters, such as the imposition of particular taxes, or, what we less expect to see, a reduction in others, which must wait, for fiscal reasons, until the actual terms of the Budget are disclosed; but I think that there ought to be something in the nature of a continuous public audit of our finances in the House of Commons or by publication by the Treasury in order that we may know, to an extent which we certainly do not now, how we stand in relation to certain definite facts.
Every now and then, of course, information is obtained. Yesterday Mr. Churchill's statement upon the probable expense of the Army—an exceedingly capable utterance, as one would expect—led us to suppose that the ordinary cost of the Army, when the present situation had somewhat cleared up and demobilisation had taken place, would at present be something like £400,000,000 a year. That is a formidable figure, because many of us had hoped that it might soon have touched half that amount, which, again, we must remember is equal to the entire expenditure of the country immediately before the war. I do feel that it would be a great advantage, and that it is really almost due to us from 479 His Majesty's Government, that there should be a continuous stream of financial information proceeding from the Treasury, and, if necessary, from the different Departments.
One or two noble Lords seemed to assume that the original Motion represented something like an attack on His Majesty's Government, and appeared to resent some of the comments which my noble and learned friend Lord Buckmaster made. I thought some of those complaints were exaggerated. It is true that in certain points my noble and learned friend thought that the negotiations of the Government had not been altogether happily conducted, but it appears to me that he was quite within his rights in saying so, holding the views that he did. In fact, I think that His Majesty's Government have to some extent their more injudicious friends and supporters to thank for what they considered to be the undue criticisms of my noble and learned friend. In some degree also those criticisms are the consequence of certain declarations of their own, especially during the General Election, but more I think are they due to the character which has been ascribed to them by some of their supporters on the platform and in the Press. They have had ascribed to them the quality of perpetually dealing with emergencies by happy strokes of intuition rather than by the results of solid study and thought. It is quite clear that great industrial problems of this kind can only be settled by close study and by anxious thought, such as the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack stated His Majesty's Government were giving and were prepared to go on giving to them, and in arriving at such solutions His Majesty's Government can undoubtedly rely upon the support of all persons both in your Lordships' House and elsewhere. We certainly do not expect that solutions can be reached by happy coups de main. They are bound to be the result of anxious examination and sometimes of what must be a hesitating advance. Therefore I, for one, am not at all inclined to complain or to blame His Majesty's Government if they do not come down every morning with a fresh solution of a great industrial problem.
It appears to me that there are two objects, if our public life is to regain its solidity, which we have to attain. In the first place, I think that His Majesty's 480 Government have to set themselves to obtain in the country the same confidence in their stability of thought and general solidity as the country has already in their energy and in their resource. In the second place, I venture to think that Parliament has to regain its position as the "grand inquest" of the country. There is a tendency to conduct inquiries and to arrive at solutions outside Parliament. I hope that His Majesty's Government will not be tempted to have too frequent recourse to expedients of that kind, carrying out a series of petty inquests instead of the "grand inquest of the nation." Because I feel sure that extra-Parliamentary inquiry and the direction of affairs by those who are not responsible to Parliament must in the long run tempt others to extra-Parliamentary action of all kinds. That is, perhaps, the most serious prospect that could befall this country if it came to be generally believed that things could better be done outside Parliament than in—whether it be the conduct of an inquiry or the obtaining of an advantage for industry by what people are pleased to call "direct action" rather than through legislation or the administration of Departments which are subject to Parliament. Those, I think, are the two objects which His Majesty's Government ought to have before their eyes in connection with these industrial questions; and if they pursue that path I firmly believe that we shall in due course find our way out of the somewhat dense thicket in which we are now involved.
§ THE EARL OF SELBORNEMy Lords, I think we are all agreed that this has been a very remarkable debate, and I hope that when I sit clown I shall be able to obtain from your Lordships the verdict that I have said nothing that has been already said in this debate. But I feel that we can make a real contribution to the "grand inquest of the nation" on its social order by saying with perfect frankness what we think ought to be said and by making our protests against any want of publicity or any of the methods of secret diplomacy in dealing with this question, with which is bound up the very life and existence of the nation.
In the speech to which we listened with so much interest from the most rev. Primate a few nights ago, he summed up the position somewhat thus—that what the great mass of what are called the working classes are after is not pay but status. We cannot conceal from ourselves that the 481 thoughts of a great many of these men towards this House and those whom we represent are unkindly. But this debate, I hope, will show those who study it that there is no reciprocation in this House of any such feeling. Quite the contrary. I say without any fear of contradiction that the general sentiment of this House and of those classes whom we specially represent is wholly and whole-heartedly with the workers in their desire for improvement of status. More than that, we have a most profound belief in our fellow-countrymen—in their common sense, in their sense of justice, and in their capacity to deal with questions. The only thing we are afraid of is lest they should try and deal with very complex questions too hastily and expect a realisation of their hopes without the essential preparation.
We have heard a lot in this debate about profiteering, but we have never had any definition of profiteering. Profiteering cannot mean that a man is better off after the war than he was before the war, because, if that was the definition of the profiteer, then a very large proportion of the working classes would be profiteers. The definition of a profiteer must be somebody who has become to an undue degree better off after the war than he was before the war. I wonder how many members of the organised unions realise that, while they are actually better off to-day than they were before the war, vast numbers of their fellow-countrymen whom they are accustomed to think of as more fortunate than themselves are very much worse off now after the war than they were before the war. Take that great mass of the population which is embraced within the general term of the middle classes—the agricultural landowners, the professional classes, many of the smaller tradesmen. In respect to them, all people with fixed incomes or with incomes flexible to a very small degree, it is true to say that they are paying at the present moment anything from 33 to 50 per cent. of their income in Imperial and local taxation, and that as to the remainder of their income which they are not so paying their expenses have doubled, even after they have made all possible economy. Therefore that great mass of their fellow-countrymen are relatively much worse off at the end of the war than they were before the war, and in respect to them the members of the trades unions have relatively greatly improved their position. I doubt very much whether 482 any consideration of that kind is often present to those who take part in the debates of the trade unions. Of many members of your Lordships' House it would be true to say that they are paying in Imperial and local taxation half their incomes, and that their expenditure is double in respect to the other half.
The particular occasion of this debate and of the national anxiety arose from the demands particularly of the Miners' Federation—demands for wages, for hours, and for the nationalisation of the industry. It was wholly reasonable that the Federation should put forward those demands if they thought these were questions that required investigation; but what was really wholly unreasonable was the expectation that such a complicated question could be answered quite shortly and simply; and it was still more unreasonable—I think this ought to be said—to put forward those demands at a moment when the heads of the Government were absolutely immersed in the most critical negotiations at Versailles. It was absolutely impossible—and those who put forward these demands must have known it was impossible—for the principal members of the Government to give their attention at the same time to the question of the peace of the world, to the League of Nations, and to these industrial demands; and I do not think there was any justification for putting them forward at that moment. I am very glad that the Prime Minister and his colleagues did not abandon their work on the League of Nations but pursued that for the moment to the end at that particular stage and then came over here. They really ought not to have been put in the position of having to consider two such sets of questions at the same moment. There is no body in this country more loud or honest in their profession of attachment to the principle of the League of Nations than organised Labour at the Trade Union Congress. But what an extraordinary inconsistency is it that, at the moment when we are trying to get the nations of the world to put to the arbitration of some Court questions affecting their vital interest, this should be the moment chosen by those great trade union organisations to present an ultimatum—because it was an ultimatum—and to rattle the sabre in the scabbard.
How is it possible to expect nations to follow the way of arbitration and of law as long as trade unions refuse arbitration 483 or law, and resort to the old discredited methods of the ultimatum and of the threat? Surely it is impossible to expect the realisation of our hopes about the League of Nations unless these great industrial questions can also be submitted to some kind of arbitration or some system of law. The inconsistency is so great that I hope the members of the trade unions will consider whether there is not some justice in my criticism. What is it that we hope the nations will do? We hope that the nations will consent to abandon what may be declared as their selfish claims for the sake of the good of mankind as a whole. That is exactly the problem which confronts the trade unions. The nation is greater than the trade union; and unless and until trade unionists will admit—as a great many of them, like Mr. Thomas, have again and again admitted—that the nation is more important than the trade union, it is impossible that they can be in the right frame of mind to approach the solution of these questions.
Nothing has been more common than the accusation that in past days when they had the power the landowners used their power for their selfish interests, or that the manufacturing classes used their power for their selfish interest; and I think the accusation up to a certain point was true. The fact is that selfishness of that kind is almost always unconscious; it arises from a want of imagination. The class in question does not put itself into the position of other classes, or realise what effect the policy is going to have on others who are at the moment less powerful to make their voices heard. But to-day it is no longer the landowner or the manufacturer, it is the trade unionist who is the governing class in that sense; and surely we may hope that he will benefit by the example of the past and the criticism that he himself has made, and that in dealing with these questions he will remember that it is not his own class alone which he has to consider but the effect of his proposals on the nation as a whole.
This leads me to draw attention to another aspect of the question—lightly touched upon by my noble friend Lord Crewe—which is to my mind one of great importance, and really of great peril, namely, the tendency to establish alongside the National Government another Government that is sectional, an imperium in imperio. I do not think it is any ex- 484 aggeration to say that there is a tendency in that direction. Hitherto all classes in this country have only looked up to one Government to which they owed allegiance, the King's Government, the Government that is reposing in the last resort on the will of the majority of the people of this country who for the moment have the vote. But at the present time that people is a very large proportion of the country. There are 17,000,000 electors on the Register. A Government elected once every five years by those people must be held to be the only Government in the country entitled to the national allegiance. To put up alongside of that a Government with no constitutional position, but to which a section of the population, two or three or four millions, render their allegiance in preference to the National Government, is the sure road to national disintegration. Remember also that the Labour Party are themselves likely to be the King's Government within a few years. If we live I have no doubt that we shall see a Party in power which is neither Conservative nor Liberal nor Coalition, but the Labour Party. Surely it is unwise, with that prospect before them, that they should encourage this tendency to establish a rival Government which the Constitution knows not and which only represents a section of the people.
With that tendency there is also the tendency to take out of Parliament, to some outside authority, the decision of questions which can only be decided in Parliament. That, again, is a disruptive tendency, leading I know not whither, and in that connection I have only two more suggestions to make to your Lordships. The first is that there is a constitutional aspect of this problem which was lightly touched upon by my friend Lord Brassev the other night, and which may be referred to tomorrow night. It must be evident to all of us that the Parliamentary machine has hopelessly broken down, and that unless we can mend it in time this great and irreparable misfortune may occur, that the great masses of the people will lose faith in the machine and in the form of Government. It is in that connection that I want to ask organised labour if they have really realised what nationalisation means as applied to our system of Government. To nationalise the railways, or the mines, or land, may be a wise or unwise thing, but I say it is absolutely incompatible with our Parliamentary system of Government.
485 I go back to the observation which I made at the beginning of my remarks, as to how extremely unreasonable it was on the part of the Miners' Federation to expect a prompt and indeed immediate answer to their demand for nationalisation. I have seen it stated even in the organs of the Press which are not the organs of the Labour Party, "Oh! why could not the Government say they were in favour of nationalisation in principle." I can conceive of nothing more dangerous and unwise. It might mean half a dozen things. Lord Haldane said that if you go to the top end of Tothill-street you can obtain literature dealing with all these things. I have no doubt you can find at least half-dozen schemes dealing with nationalisation, and for the Government to accept it in principle would be a certain forerunner of misunderstanding. As Lord Crewe said, a Socialist and a Syndicalist have totally different views of what nationalisation means, and they are not the only people who have different ideas on the subject.
I wish to drive this point home—that, whatever form it may take, nationalisation is quite incompatible with our Parliamentary system. Consider the railways, the mines, the transport services, and the land, in addition to the post-offices, the dockyards, and the police, as Government institutions. Every Member of Parliament when a candidate would be subjected to a series of questions from the representatives of each of these industries and all their branches, asking hint to pledge himself, when he went to the House of Commons, to vote for improvements in wages or other conditions of employment. It is bad enough to-day with the few dockyard constituencies and with the Post Office, but what would it be when all the great industries were nationalised? The House of Commons would become nothing but a wage auction. It would be the total and absolute destruction of the House of Commons and of our present system of Government. When I see this question of nationalisation mooted in the Labour Press, or by Labour speakers, I never see that side of the question even alluded to; vet nobody who has had experience of the House of Commons, or been a candidate for Parliament, can possibly say that I am uttering an unnecessary or futile warning. Therefore, my Lords, I have endeavoured to put these points forward, because I do not think any of them have really been touched upon in this 486 debate. What we have tried to do in this debate is to put our contribution forward towards the solution of this question. The struggle, as the most rev. Primate said, is status. Status can only be surely founded by taking into account all these facts, which cannot be ignored, and if ignored will defeat the attempt to improve conditions.
§ VISCOUNT WIMBORNEMy Lords, I do not rise at this late period of the debate with the object of adding to or attempting to restate the general propositions stated by previous speakers. My object is a different one. I do not think that there has been great difference of opinion between the various speakers on the main fundamental broad propositions. The Government have stated their attitude, which we also gathered from the Speech from the Throne and from Ministerial utterances. They seemed to me to indicate that the programme of the Government is both comprehensive and bold and well-deserving. The analysis to which they have submitted the present condition of unrest seems to me to be both sympathetic and penetrating, and their determination to redress inequalities on the one hand and to resist the dictations of any section of the community on the other is at once sincere and statesmanlike. I think that on the main propositions we are all more or less agreed; therefore it is only on the application of those general propositions that I think further emphasis may be laid with some advantage.
In dealing with the present situation two instruments lie to the hands of the Government. The one is legislative and the other administrative. Legislation, however well conceived and however beneficial in its ultimate results, must necessarily be deferred, whereas administrative action can be immediate. I do not think the urgency of the present situation is in dispute. Therefore it seems to me that it is to administrative action that we must look for redress and for improvement. Indeed, my Lords, one of the objects of the Coalition, so far as domestic affairs are concerned, and the reason which obtained it a very large measure of support at the General Election, was that there should be in existence at this time an Administration in which there was the general confidence of all Parties and of all classes; and I think the result of the Election did in fact produce that very state of affairs.
487 What, then, is the duty of the Administration at the present time? There seem to me to be two salient facts in the industrial situation, both of them, I admit, presenting very formidable difficulties. One is the vicious circle that exists in regard to wages and the cost of living. Cost of living goes up, and that constitutes a ground for a demand for additional wages. The granting of that demand in its turn forces up the cost of living further, and provides another ground for additional wages. There is also the equally vicious anomaly of unemployment on the one hand and a shortage of commodities and services on the other. It is to break this vicious circle of ever-hardening irreconcilability which forms the administrative problem at the present moment. The question is where to begin. Where can the most effective blow be struck, and a return to more normal and more wholesome conditions be begun? It is a curious fact that food—which certainly played a very important part in bringing the war to an end, and which still is, I believe, one of the most formidable weapons in the Allied armoury for bringing about the peace which we are determined to have—should be again the key to our national difficulty; because it is the price of food which more than anything governs the cost of living. It forms by far the most important part in the ordinary working man's budget, and, as we all know, the price of food to-day is at least double what it was before the war.
A very interesting and instructive debate took place in your Lordships' Chamber last week. I wish it lad been better attended. It was raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Devonport, on the question of food prices. He speaks with all the knowledge and authority of a Minister who has been Food Controller. He went most exhaustively and in great detail into a great many of the staple articles of food, tracing their origin, showing the cost they were to the Government and the retail price at which the Government dole them out to the retailer. As far as I can summarise that statement, it amounted to this—that the Government had been, and indeed for all I know may be to-day, in the practice of making something between 20 and 30 per cent. profit on many staple articles of food—meat, sugar, and several other articles. That statement on his part has not been contradicted or challenged. The noble Earl the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in reply, relied 488 mainly for his defence upon what I think is a rather curious point. He thought that in the interests of the efficiency of the public service the Government were entitled to make what he called an "honourable profit" out of the transaction. It is not very difficult to make such an honourable profit when you happen, in the first place, to be a monopolist and, in the second place, to be armed with such authority as the Government have for fixing prices. But I feel, my Lords, that to take that attitude in view of present conditions is really quite unjustifiable. It is all very well for the Treasury, as no doubt they do, to say, "We have to set off this profit against loss." I do not know how far that theory can be carried. It really is to utilise the distribution of food as a means of raising money, and it surely could not be contended that other public services should be paid for out of the profits derived from the food transactions.
But I go a great deal further. I say that not only are the Government unwise in making a profit on food, but they ought to be prepared, if necessary, even to incur a loss; and if I am accused of encouraging further expenditure on the part of the State, let me draw your Lordships' attention to this. Only the other day, in response to the original demand of the miners, the Cabinet proposed to grant an addition of 6s. per week to the miners' pay on the very ground that the cost of living had gone up by that amount since the last arrangement had been come to. I am sure your Lordships will not deny that to add even 6s. to the miners' wages must add to the price of coal, and that, of course, is nothing less than a tax on the community and a tax on industry which must come back to the general consumer. It is the most vicious form of taxation possible. Even if you were to incur a loss by adopting my suggestion, you are incurring a burden in the other direction. It would be far more satisfactory to reduce the general cost of living and to get back to a more normal condition than to increase the illusory inflation of wages.
Let us consider the second question—that of unemployment and of shortage of commodities and shortage of services. Unemployment is considerable, and may indeed rise to very serious proportions. There is a great deal of inevitable dislocation, and this has threatened the country with something like stagnation. 489 Business has not revived as we had hoped it would, and the labour market is not absorbing as many of the men coming back from munition work and from the Army as one would have hoped. But it is not entirely the fault of industry. Industry is faced with great difficulties. There is a lack of raw material; there are falling markets, which discourage the early and prompt resumption of business; and, further, there is the uncertainty with regard to conditions of labour and with regard to taxation. I have no doubt that this state of things may slowly right itself, but there is a gap which must be bridged, and so far as I can see it can only be bridged by State action. If ever there was a case for public works of a reproductive and remunerative kind the case exists to-day. If we look across the Channel we see that the French authorities are proposing to put into execution the long-contemplated plan for razing the fortifications and bringing the land into profitable use. That is in the nature of a public work to tide over the present difficulty until trade and industry are restored. I do not say we need go so far as to contemplate anything of that kind.
But take the public services. They are depleted, and that is bad for the public services and for business generally. For instance, our railway service might be restored to something like its pre-war condition. That would give employment. Then nobody can pretend that the postal, telegraph, and telephone services are at anything like full strength. Delay is notorious, and I cannot help feeling that these services are depleted. Then there are other public works. There are roads, which in many districts are in a deplorable condition. Surely work might be instituted on roads. Then, with regard to the housing scheme which we are promised, I quite believe there may be difficulties in getting it started; but could not something be done in the direction of assembling materials for that purpose? My point is that anything of that kind would be better than having a million people out of work, as we are informed is the case to-day, and paying something like £1,000,000 a week on unemployed benefits to those who are not working.
Let me come to my third point with regard to taxation. What I think is needed is a clear pronouncement on the future of the Excess Profits Tax. That 490 would go a long way to restore confidence on the part of manufacturers and labour. Speaking in this House the other day Lord Emmott claimed that profiteering had been immensely exaggerated in the public mind, and I agree with him in what he said. It is quite true that most of us are much poorer as the result of the war than we were before. On the other hand, there is no doubt that profiteering has occurred on the part of a few, and it has produced a very bad impression in labour circles. With regard to the fact that labour itself has received some eight or ten times more profit than capital it must be remembered that all wage profiteering has to a great extent been discountenanced by the increased cost of living. I think a statement on that subject would go a long way to reassure labour that excess profits were not going to be countenanced, and it would also enable manufacturers to know what amount of liabilities they may have to meet. The three points I have tried to make are in the first place, that it is necessary to reduce the cost of food, and that even though it cost you money it would be the cheapest in the long run; secondly, that you should give employment and not doles; and, in the third place, that you should attempt to define the liabilities which manufacturers will have to meet. I think those three points would constitute a sensible advance in dealing with the practical issues which lie before us at the present moment.
§ THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT PEEL)Probably your Lordships will forgive me if at this hour I do not make a complete attempt to answer every point that has been raised in this widely-ranging debate. I should like to make this observation, that I cordially agree with that was said by Lord Selborne. He said that throughout this debate there was shown the utmost sympathy with the desire of the working classes for an improvement of their status. Anyone who knows this House will consider that that was the case, but it is perhaps as well that this statement and feeling should be recorded and reiterated as it has been through all the speeches during this debate.
Many of your Lordships—more particularly the most rev. Primate, Lord Russell, and others—have rather told us not to look at the temporary causes of this industrial 491 unrest, but rather to consider that it is more a revival in a different form of all those causes of disturbance in the industrial world which have gone on for many years before the war, and which would perhaps have appeared in a much stronger form if there had been no war. No one contests that as a general proposition, but I am one of those who would like to lay some stress on the actual causes of unrest due to the war itself, because I believe that a good deal of the special form of impatience shown is due to special causes arising out of the war itself. When one talks about industrial unrest it is difficult to limit the causes of the unrest. There is a state of unrest everywhere. We are all in a state of unrest, and some of the symptoms exhibited by the working classes are only part of a more general disturbance which has agitated us all.
I had rather special opportunities at the Ministry of National Service of observing the movement of industry, the disturbance of trade and of labour, which went on during the last two years of the war. One saw an elaborate process, described as selection, dilution, substitution, and many other phrases of that kind, by which labour was drawn from all sorts of industries and poured into the Army. You saw all these industries running with greater and greater difficulty, and making greater efforts to cope with decreased production and suddenly increasing charges. That was done slowly. As the war progressed your industries became either war industries or gradually diminished in force and volume. When you had almost a condition of atrophy in industry the reverse takes place, and you have to fill the old veins of industry with this rapidly returning labour. That task of adjustment is enormous, and supposing there existed no feeling between Capital or Labour, or any of these troubles, it would alone in my own opinion account for a great deal of the existing disturbance. Here we were during these years of war as one nation braced for this tremendous and single effort of dealing with the war and beating Germany. Suddenly that pressure is relaxed and at once we are thrown on the thousand distracting and disturbing aims which beset us the moment we get back again into ordinary civil life. There are so many little matters, physiological causes, which one ought to note. There is the question of food, and the curious substitutes we have been living on; the restrictions in drink, and the changes in 492 drink. All these matters are quite enough to produce a disturbance in temper, and possibly promote physiological changes in us of which we are hardly conscious, but which issue in disturbance and unrest.
This debate has taken a wide range. In some ways the Government have been almost ignored and forgotten. There has been, I think, some appeal to the Government to act in certain ways, and a little criticism. I think it was Lord Buckmaster who was one of the few who suggested the shadow of a criticism on the Government. I think his objection was that these difficulties were enhanced by the Government because they were rather apt to wait until a strike took place and then merely to act under the pressure of necessity. Of course, there have been some cases where no doubt a strike and the action taken by the Government were so nearly contemporaneous that it did suggest a sequence of cause and effect, but those cases, after all, were very few, and gave a very unfair picture of the Government's general activity. The noble Lord ignores those hundreds of cases—I think I am justified in saying that—where these disturbances were settled without any great announcement in the Press, without matters being discussed in Parliament, but settled by the action of the Department, or by the action of those industries acting collectively among themselves. There must in a time of war be a lack of adjustment between the Government machine and the movements in industry. One is going rapidly, and the other can hardly adjust itself in a moment to the different requirements which arise, and which arise from so many causes that the keenest administrator and the sharpest officials are unable to keep track with them all. I think we have known cases where such matters as honours and positions have been granted, not always to the most worthy persons but to those who have been most active in pressing their own claims.
The noble Lord referred to the question of Election promises, and seemed to suggest that an abundance of Election promises had produced rather a larger measure of discontent. In the course of the Election I read a considerable number of election addresses from persons on many sides, and professing many views. I am bound to say that many of them were written with a certain breadth and largeness, and a profusion of detail, which suggested that the war had broadened the view of many of these gentlemen. May 493 I remind the noble Lord that, after all, a very large number of the Members of Parliament are new Members without political experience, and no doubt after they have had a little more experience of another Assembly they will have the caution which is generally characteristic of older politicians. But there is one cause, which I do not think has been alluded to in this debate, for the general disturbance, and that is the immense fatigue that many people are suffering, the terrible reaction from all the labours that they have put forth during the war, whether at home or abroad. Certain disturbances—unwillingness to work if you prefer to put it that way—are not really due to sloth but to weariness, and a few months of change no doubt may cure, or largely cure, that defect.
On the question of profiteering, which has been so much discussed, the noble Marquess (Lord Crewe) declared, I think, that it would be a good thing if some inquiry were made to ascertain the extent and nature of the profits that have been made. I was, I confess, rather surprised to hear an observation coming from Lord Russell who admitted that a very large proportion of these profits inured to the Government and were collected in the form of excess profit tax by them, yet said that that did not satisfy the industrial classes. I do not understand that statement. I should have thought that the question whether these profits went to the Government or to private individuals would make an immense difference, and indeed the reason very largely that they were introduced was not only to obtain money but also to satisfy the feeling of the industrial classes against the making of excess profits.
There is another matter which was alluded to the other day by Sir George Askwith in a statement that he made at one of these conferences. The feeling of the working classes that they have had considerable increase in wages, that they have had, many of them for the first time, more money to handle than they have had for years past, and the deadly fear gnawing at their hearts that that might stop and that there might be a large fall in wages, and that they might be in a worse position than they had been during the last few months, explained to a large extent the unrest. Undoubtedly that anxiety exists, and it does account to a large extent for the unrest. My noble friend Lord Lever- 494 hulme, took I think, in his speech a very cheerful and rosy view of the whole situation, and rather attributed these disturbances to a general discontent which he was good enough to characterise as divine. No doubt much of the discontent prevailing may be due to the desire, with which we all sympathise, of people to improve their position and status; yet when some of those disturbances result in the sufferings of others and in general annoyance, as in the case of some recent strikes, one is inclined to think that part of this discontent at least arises from a less celestial origin. We can look forward, I think, with perhaps a little more degree of hope than was aroused by some speakers, because, after all, the causes that are sufficient to account for much of the unrest are causes which are passing away as we gradually move from the time of war.
The business outlook, it must be admitted, is difficult enough, even if there were no industrial unrest. We are still a creditor nation. We have not got that pleasant balance of imports which we used to have before the war, and it must be admitted, too, that some of our assets, some of what bankers would call our loans to customers—our loans, for instance, to Russia—will have to be considerably written down before they can be entered in any honest balance sheet. Then the concentration of all our efforts on war industries has necessarily shaken our hold on foreign markets, and there must be a long and tedious effort before we can recover the position which we held before we can recover the position which we held before the outbreak of the war. Not only must we expend great effort before we can begin that task, but we have to spend much time, trouble, and labour in making our industries the profit-earning machines that they were before the war. So much has to be expended in repairs and improvements before the machines of industry will be equal to starting again on their victorious race for production. In addition to that we have those matters that have been already alluded to—the great burdens of taxation, and the question of indemnities. Indemnities are very difficult to assess and take long to collect. Prices of commodities and materials are so high that the working capital for industries has to be more than doubled. Thus there are obstacles necessarily in the way of industry. There are, too, those difficulties alluded to by my noble friend Lord Wimborne—that the Government has large 495 stocks of various kinds the sale of which may affect the price of commodities and therefore may be disturbing to those who are trying to base their future calculations on existing prices.
There are difficulties enough in the industrial situation, and if we were all skilled economists, if we were all as well read in Fabian and other essays as the noble Viscount, Lord Haldane, thinks the working classes are, we should, I think, take up this very simple attitude. We should say, "Let us set our industry going, let us do our repairs, let us regain our position in foreign markets, let us put our currency on a new basis, then, when we have got again a large production, let us agree among ourselves as to the division of the profits of industry, as between employer and employed." Unfortunately we are not all political economists in that sense, and the necessity of that vast increase of production so essential to our national life is not fully recognised in many industrial quarters.
One lesson I think of political economy is being appreciated and understood, and that is the proposition, known among economists, of the difference between real wages and money wages. I think that every housewife now understands that a certain amount of money goes less far in the way of purchasing bread and other commodities than it did. It is now realised that when it is a question of increasing, say, the price of coal, it is not only every industry which is affected by it, but every hearth in the country also. That is the difficulty, as my noble friend Lord Wimborne pointed out. You have a rise of wages in a particular industry, and unless that is followed by a rise in other industries the persons working in those other industries are penalised, because they have to pay more for the commodity while their own wages have not risen. Some are bound to be penalised until you have an equilibrium, and when you get that equilibrium you find that it has brought with it an increase in prices all round, and those whose wages have been raised find that they are no better off than they were before. There is, however, this difference—that those who have to live on fixed incomes are much worse off than they were before. The difficulty is that, if one element gains any particular advantage, that has first of all to be shared by the 496 others, and then is neutralised when they all share it.
There have been a great many problems touched on during this debate. The Archbishop of York made a very interesting suggestion as to what he called the democratisation of industry. That is a very large phrase and needs some interpretation, according as he means that the workers in a particular industry should have the control of that industry, or partial control of that industry, or simply a share and interest in that industry. There is unfortunately this difficulty as regards the democratisation of industry, that you must have decisions rapidly taken or your industry may disappear. You cannot get decisions rapidly taken in democratic government, because you must consult everybody, and until they are satisfied, or fairly well satisfied, you can take no action. Nobody, for instance, from a business point of view would have dreamt of carrying on the war on a voluntary basis, but you would have put it at once on a compulsory basis and distributed your man-power among your various industries and among your Army. That is a difficulty which we have to take into consideration. With large numbers of people concerned you cannot come to a definite decision quickly and your industries may suffer. It is a very different thing, of course, when you come to giving them an interest in the industry—such an interest that they may understand and realise the difficulty and the risks that are run by manufacturers, merchants, and capitalists; they have then, no doubt, more sympathy and understanding of the way in which business is carried on. The Archbishop of York referred to the possibility of getting the employees interested in the whole business in which they are engaged. Great sympathy on the part of the Ministry of Labour would be shown to them, but of course it must be left to the different industries themselves as to the precise and practical application of this matter.
I had intended to give some slight sketch of the policy followed by the Ministry of Labour before, during, and after the war, but it is difficult at this late hour to deal with it fully. Generally speaking, there was during the war very great control; strikes and lock-outs were made illegal, and arbitration was made compulsory. The Government before had observed the fair wages clause, and taking its cue, as it were, from other industries, 497 became during the war a great employer, and therefore it has had to set the rate of wages, making allowance, of course, for extra compensation where high prices of living necessitated it, and leaning somewhat the other way when great demands for labour led to undue inflation in the price of labour. After the war, of course, the whole situation is changing. Then it was necessary to get commodities at any price; now the question of the price at which those commodities can be obtained is again of larger importance. All those arrangements for compulsory arbitration and the forbidding of strikes have now been relaxed, and the Government are reverting as far as they can to the position which obtained before the war and allowing these industries—with certain limitations, of course—to settle their wages and hours of labour.
One of the matters on which the Ministry of Labour lays great stress, and which has been, I think, commended by various speakers in the course of this discussion, is the Whitley Councils—those joint industrial councils formed as the result of the Whitley Report. Great progress has been made in the establishment of those Councils. Something like twenty-four have been already set up in very important trades; another eighteen are in progress of formation, so that you will soon have no less than forty-two of these permanent industrial councils, embracing something like 2,500,000 workpeople, in such trades as building, baking, electrical contracting, furniture, printing, waterworks, and the non-trading services of the municipalities. In addition to that, there are certain other trades where interim industrial councils—a smaller kind of council—has been set up covering some 200,000 workpeople. There is another set of great industries which have organisations of their own, not going so far into detail as the Whitley Council; and the Ministry of Labour are now applying the Whitley Report to the Civil Service, which numbers 230,000 people, and have realised that these Councils are equally applicable to the employments and clerical occupations and professions.
Before the industrial situation absolutely re-establishes itself a great many interim measures have been found to be necessary. There has been first the question of the temporary regulation of wages—maintaining for six months the wages, with the bonus, at the same rate as at the Armistice. 498 This is in the case both of men and of women, and elaborate arrangements are made for finding out precisely what the prescribed rate is, and seeing that it is paid. Then, of course, great changes have been made in the matter of hours. The Government gave the lead in the case of the railwaymen with their eight hours day, and then an arrangement was made with the Engineering Federation and the engineers for a forty-seven-hours week. I will sum up the general result by saying that these arrangements for reducing hours have been effected in the case of 3,000,000 workers and are already in progress in the case of 1,000,000. Then the Bill for dealing with the war pledges is in draft and is being considered by the employers and the employees concerned—that is to say, to do away with the changes which were voluntarily agreed to by the trade unions during the war. These mainly affect the distribution of work between skilled and unskilled workers and women. Appeal committees will be set up to deal with any difficulty that may arise.
There is no doubt an impression, which you see reflected in the newspapers, that there is general industrial unrest all over the country. As against that, it is rather remarkable to cite the number of disputes about wages and so on which have been settled without any public announcement and without any blowing of trumpets. In the Courts of Arbitration 292 of these have been settled, 134 by single arbitrations and another six by Courts set up for the purpose. So that besides the disturbances which those who study the newspapers observe in the important trades—the coal trade, for instance, to which I am not now referring—there is an immense amount of quiet settlement of every kind of industrial dispute going on. With regard to the particular industries in which these Whitley Councils have not been set up the Government is very anxious and is pressing that they should be set up, in the hope that by constantly meeting together and by interchange of information there will be a better spirit, less suspicion, and more trust engendered between the employer and employed in those particular industries.
I should like to mention one more point on the question of investigation into the causes of disputes, and publication. No doubt that would be a very valuable thing. The public is marvellously uninstructed as to the causes and issues in many of these 499 labour disputes. You have reports in the newspapers not always setting forth with cold, scientific, implacable accuracy a statement of the case; and it would be valuable if you were able to get some neutral body which would examine into the matter and place before the public the exact position of the case and the views of the parties, thus enabling them to form on these matters an impartial judgment. There is no doubt that the Government have before them a gigantic task in dealing with these labour questions, a task which requires all the tact, judgment, and patience that could be demanded from any Government. These are possibly only matters of machinery, but they are a symptom of a much broader spirit in the relations between Capital and Labour; and when this machinery is set up and these industrial councils are in full working order that spirit will be widened, enlarged, and deepened by the fresh sympathy it must engender through masters and men getting a far greater knowledge of each other than they have had an opportunity of obtaining before.
In spite of certain threatening symptoms—which I am bound to say have been very forcibly dealt with by many noble Lords, notably by Lord Emmott, who took, shall I say, a sadder view of the situation than any other speaker—there are nevertheless many hopeful signs. First of all, during the war a great many persons have learned to work very much harder than before. Then we have shown that we had far larger resources of labour of various kinds on which to draw, which have been disclosed to us by the stress of the war. There is also the gradual feeling of relief more and more realised from the perils which we have escaped, and the growing freedom which we are enjoying through the continuous relaxation of Government controls and Orders, in which we were necessarily so much involved during the war that even the most industrious citizen would hardly 500 escape the halter. Then I think, in contrast to disturbances in some countries we could name, a very comforting fact is that among all the leaders of Labour there is a strong demand for higher and improved education. I think the great extent to which the status of teachers is being raised in this country is a sign of the greater value that is attached to educational necessities. That desire for education can hardly be consistent with a country which wishes to plunge into the throes of revolution.
Then there is further—this, I think, was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Selborne—a greatly increased sense of responsibility shown by the leaders of the working classes, knowing as they do that they may very likely soon have the government of the country in their hands, and they may be unwilling to start precedents which may have a tendency to re-act upon themselves. Moreover, I think it is incredible, considering the great development of that spirit of co-operation between classes and of comradeship shown in the war between officers and men, that this spirit should not have a reflex effect upon civil struggles and industrial warfare. So that I think many of these cases show that without undue optimism, we need not look upon the future with such comparative gloom as some noble Lords have looked upon it. We have heard of nations beaten in war succumbing to the stress of industrial disturbance and civil commotion, but I do not think you can point to any precedent of a great nation which has sunk into civil struggle after having victoriously emerged from a war. That is a precedent so disastrous that I hope we shall never set it up; and I trust that a country which has so gallantly surmounted the waves of war will not founder in the dismal abyss of internecine broils and civil strife.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
§ House adjourned at five minutes before eight o'clock.