DYESTUFFS (IMPORT REGULATION) BILL. (Hansard, 22 December 1920)

HL Deb 22 December 1920 vol 39 cc821-73 821

§ Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.

§ Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Earl of Crawford.)

§ On Question, Motion agreed to.

§ House in Committee accordingly.

§ [The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]

§ Clause 1:

§ Prohibition on importation of dyestuffs.

§ 1.—(1) With a view to the safeguarding of the dye-making industry, the importation into the United Kingdom of the following goods, that is to say, all synthetic organic dyestuffs, colours and colouring matters, and all organic intermediate products used in the manufacture of any such dyestuffs, colours, or colouring matters shall be prohibited.

§ (2) Goods prohibited to be imported by virtue of this Act shall be deemed to be included among the goods enumerated and described in the Table of Prohibitions and Restrictions Inwards contained in section forty-two of the Customs Consolidation Act, 1876, and the provisions of that Act and of any Act amending or extending that Act shall apply accordingly.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER moved, in subsection (1) after "dyestuffs" where that word secondly occurs, to insert "except 822 those mentioned in the Schedule hereto." The noble and learned Lord said: Your Lordships have accepted the principle of this Bill, and nothing that I shall say will attempt to challenge that decision. I am, I own, very apprehensive as to its result, and I only hope that my fears may prove ill-founded. But at least your Lordships will be in agreement with me as to the enormous importance of preventing the operation of this Bill interfering in any way with any of our industries except the particular one which it is designed to protect. The Bill as it stands not only restricts the importation of dyes and dyestuffs but also of all intermediate organic products used in the manufacture of such dyestuffs. The number of these intermediate organic products is immense. If your Lordships in a leisure moment turn to a great book by a man called Julius on dye colours you will find pages of these intermediate products. I have taken a selection of some which I am assured, by people connected with the interests they affect, are really important items, and I have asked your Lordships to say that the Bill shall not apply to these specific products, as it would unquestionably do as the Bill is drawn.

§ If your Lordships will turn for a moment to the Schedule which I propose you will see a list of the products. Some are, no doubt, unfamiliar, but many are very common objects, not only in many industries but in the very life of the people. Let me take two or three simple ones. One is salicylic acid, another formic acid, and a third carbolic acid. Salicylic acid, as everybody knows, is one of the commonest cures for rheumatism. Carbolic acid is essential in every home. I can hardly imagine any product that is in more general and common use, and more beneficent use, than carbolic acid. Is there any reason why it should be impossible to import carbolic acid into this country? It cannot possibly affect the dye-making industries. It may affect a large number of other industries.

§ I would ask the noble Viscount in charge of the Bill to give not only this Schedule, but the principle which the Schedule is designed to embody, the most careful consideration, because I think it would be agreed that if I am right in the theory that the exclusion of these products—and they will most assuredly be excluded—would be an unnecessary and, indeed, an 823 unwarrantable interference with a good deal of our domestic trade which this Bill is not designed to cover, then surely they ought not to be within the ambit of a Bill introduced for a totally different purpose. This Amendment is not moved in any way for the purpose of impugning the principle which your Lordships have accepted. It is for the purpose of preventing that principle operating in a manner which I hope your Lordships will think might be detrimental to the domestic concerns of British life.

§ Amendment moved— Page 1, line 9, after ("dyestuffs") insert ("except those mentioned in the Schedule hereto").—(Lord Buckmaster.)

§ THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT PEEL)
I note the observation of the noble and learned Lord that he has not introduced this Amendment for the purpose of contravening in any way the decision arrived at by your Lordships yesterday by a very substantial majority. He has, I suppose, introduced it in order to give your Lordships the opportunity of an interesting discussion on the use of certain chemical compounds, and perhaps I may respectfully congratulate him on the success of his labours in the laboratory.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
I do not know what the noble Viscount means. That is not my purpose. My purpose is plain, and nothing that I said justifies the noble Viscount's comment.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I am extremely sorry if I have misinterpreted the object of the noble and learned Lord. I was only going to point out, had he allowed me, that this Amendment is in many ways unnecessary. He refers to a very large number of compounds, such as acetic acid, methyl alcohol, acetone, tartaric acid, carbolic acid, and others, but I will deal only with carbolic because that is one to which he specifically referred.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
Salicylic acid.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I will deal with that in a moment. As to the particular items of which he spoke I would suggest to the noble and learned Lord that it is really unnecessary to place them in a Schedule because they are not excluded by the Bill 824 at all. So far as this Bill is concerned they will come in with precisely the same freedom as they did before. They are not intermediates; they are not colouring matter; and also they are not synthetic organic dyes. Therefore I can relieve the anxieties of the noble and learned Lord on that point altogether. Then let me take certain other articles he mentions. Neither vanillin (in the second column of his Schedule) nor commarin is used in the manufacture of these dyestuffs, so that neither will be in the least affected by this measure.
Now I deal with another class, including benzoic aldehyde, benzoic acid, salicylic acid, naphtol, gallic acid, and resorcin. It is quite true that some of these chemicals are used either in medicine as drugs, febrifuges and also as sweeteners, as the case may be. And they are used also, much more largely, in the manufacture of these dyestuffs. It would be quite clear that you would really defeat the object of the Bill if you were to except from its operation a large number and possibly large amounts of particular dyestuffs, and leave them perfectly free to come in, simply because they are to a certain small extent used for other purposes. That really would almost destroy the Bill.
I should like to say further, to show that there is no risk of what the noble and learned Lord imagines, that one of the independent representatives appointed by the Government will be a distinguished chemist, and one of his special duties, I believe, will be to see that there is completely free import of these particular chemical articles which are used for drugs or medical purposes. Therefore that which the noble and learned Lord wishes provided against in his Amendment is I think already safeguarded, and I hope he will not further press his Amendment.

§ VISCOUNT HALDANE
I rise, not to enter into a discussion of the general principles which were examined last night, although there is a point which I was anxious to make but the exigencies of the debate rendered that impossible. I entirely agree with my noble and learned friend Lord Buckmaster as to the necessity for putting some limitation on these words. The words prohibit the importation of "all organic intermediate products used in the manufacture of any such dyestuffs, colours, or colouring matters." It is said 825 that a licence may be granted for the import of these things. Perhaps it will be; but I, for my part, demur very much to seeing the manufacturers of this country put at the mercy of the view of anybody who has to give a licence, based upon his own point of view as to the importance of these things. This is not referred to a Committee of expert chemists dealing with the whole range of matters in which these materials are used. It is a Committee of people who are there for the purpose of restricting imports of dyestuffs. I agree that there is a minority with wider knowledge, but the majority is what is important and they will guide the application of the Bill.
Lord Buckmaster has referred to certain things. I will take just one instance—acetone. I cannot tell whether in this country acetone is being used in practice in the production of these colours. It may or it may not be. Nor am I certain whether it is being used in Germany. But I want to draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that acetone may at any moment be a requisite in some new stage of the process. I had a good deal to do with acetone when I was at the War Office and also with colouring matters at other times at the beginning of the war, and I saw something of the condition of things in which we then stood. Acetone has this property, that it is the most powerful of all solvents. It is used for all purposes in a great variety of processes, and it may in the future be used in a great many more. Acetone is an excellent illustration of the dangers of this Bill. When I was at the War Office I found, to my alarm, that we were importing from Austria the acetone which both the Navy and the Army required for the making of cordite. I took steps to endeavour to deal with this situation at once. We applied to the British manufacturers, and they said they could produce it quite well, but their prices were prohibitive and their quantities not satisfactory. We then set up a Government department to manufacture acetone out of the wood of certain of the Government forests.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I do not want to interrupt the noble and learned Viscount, but I think his speech is based upon the assumption that acetone is dealt with in the Bill. I have stated already that the Bill has nothing to do with acetone, and will not affect its import.

826

§ VISCOUNT HALDANE
Acetone is the most powerful of all solvents, and may be used, for all I know, in dyestuff processes. You propose to prohibit the introduction of all organic intermediate products used in the manufacture of any dyestuffs, etc. That covers acetone if it is ever required.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
No.

§ VISCOUNT HALDANE
But it does. The word in the clause, "used," means used from time to time, not used in the past, and I have taken acetone as an illustration of this. What you ought to have done with this Bill, and what you would have done if you had paid attention to the question, which has been a burning one for twenty years, would have been to see why the Germans gained the advantage with these particular products. They gained the advantage not by stealing any secrets of ours. It is true that Perkin discovered mauve, and that this was the first discovery of synthetic colouring, but the Prince Consort brought over Hoffmann with a view of developing the whole industry, and our manufacturers would not listen to him, and he went to Berlin and there introduced the industry which I have seen. It is an industry which does not stand still. The processes are constantly being changed. Chemists were trained at the University of Berlin for Charlottenburg under Prof. Hoffmann and Prof. Fischer, and the best young men, having been thoroughly trained, were reported on and the manufacturers picked them out and employed them on special terms. The result was that the colour industry in Germany got so well stocked with experts, and inventive experts, who were constantly changing the processes, that before the war the great concerns were paying 20, 25 and 30 per cent.
If we wish to have that result in this country we must take the same steps and concentrate on knowledge and not upon shutting out our competitors. That may take time. But what I miss in this Bill is its accompaniment with the policy which the Government might have adopted. They might have set up two great Chairs in two of our Universities, by which they would have trained people and encouraged manufacturers, as they have not by this Bill, to make use of these men, as the Germans have done. In that way the Government would protect our industry. This Bill is one that encourages people 827 to remain safely in their beds, and from that point of view I dread it, and if the Amendment can do anything to mitigate that condition of things I shall be heartily glad.

LORD SHEFFIELD
This is a most important question, as to how far we shall limit the mischievous operation of this Bill in hampering our trade at large as compared with restricting competition for British dyes. This question was raised in Grand Committee, and I think Major Barnes urged that the synthetic products of coal tar should only be excluded if imported to make dyes, and not if needed for another industry. That is a really important point. But I think the noble Lord in charge of the Bill, taking exception to one or two of the items in the Schedule proposed, said some were not included in the Bill at all and others could not be excluded because although used for other things they were mainly used for dyes. The question is whether, in the case of an article which is mainly used for some other purpose than making dyes, the users of that article ought to be hampered by having to go through this long process of obtaining licences from the Committee, instead of being able to give a free order in a free market and obtain what is necessary for their business in that way.
The main point to which I wish to call your Lordships' attention is the line that Sir Robert Horne, the President of the Board of Trade, himself took before the Committee. The intermediates excluded, he said, are the products used in the manufacture of dyes. Colonel Williams, a member of the Committee, then said that so long as it was understood they were excluding only the intermediates used in dyeing he was satisfied, and the matter dropped. I agree that if you have some intermediate product of the coal-tar industry of which four-fifths is used in the dye business and only one-fifth in ordinary industry you may fairly put that particular intermediate under the Committee, and let the Committee give a licence in respect of it to those who desire to import it for their purposes. Stated in that way it becomes a question of adjustment. But when one of these articles is used to a very limited extent only in the making of chemical dyes from coal tar it is not worth while, the thing being so trivial, to put it under the hampering restriction of a 828 Committee, seeing that the great bulk of that particular article is required for the usual purposes of trade outside dyeing.
If your Lordships will not accept the Amendment moved by Lord Buckmaster, at any rate we should have, I contend, some protection against, the hampering intervention of this Committee. If the Government were to put in the Bill such words as "except such as the President of the Board of Trade may put on an exempted list as not mainly used in the manufacture of dyes," that might meet the case to some extent. The new Committee which was inserted in the course of the Bill is to advise generally upon the industry and its development and efficiency, and the President of the Board of Trade would have very competent advisers who might say, "You need not bother about this particular thing, whether it is celluloid or whatever it may be; it is not material for the dye-producing industry, but it is material for many other industries." The President would then at once notify those concerned whether or not the particular article required a licence. If, on the other hand, an article is used for the making of dyes, or may begin to be used for the making of dyes, I should see no objection in that case to the President of the Board of Trade having power to vary his exempted list from time to time, and to put things up or to put them down. It is important, especially having regard to the fact that Sir Robert Horne pacified his Grand Committee by intimating that it was only in so far as they were used for dyeing and not for other purposes that chemicals were to be excluded, that we should have words to the effect I have suggested. I am not a chemist and know nothing about these things.
The noble Lord himself tells us that Lord Buckmaster has put in his proposed Schedule things which are not included in the Bill because they are not used in the manufacture of dyestuffs, but in the case of anything made of gas tar neither the manufacturer nor importer can know ipso facto whether it is in the list or not, and I do not know how the Customs Officers would deal with it. We ought to have some provision whereby people in the ordinary course of business might know whether they could order these things from the ordinary producer, or whether they should have to go cap in hand to the Committee for a licence.

829

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
I am a supporter of this Bill, and I voted for the Second Reading because I am in favour of giving protection to "key" industries, although the definition of "key" industries is an extremely difficult thing. I should like, for the information of your Lordships, to ask a question of the noble Viscount. It may be that I did not hear something, which he said. I want to know, first, where will be found the list of what is prohibited under this Bill? The list is provided for in the second subsection of Clause 1. It cannot be in any other provision of the Bill unless it is there. I presume, therefore, that there are some words in the Customs (Consolidation) Act which provides a list that is published in some way or other. Although I ask that question I cannot have very much doubt as to what the reply is.
I also want to know what power Parliament will have of calling in question any item on that list. I have listened as carefully as I can to the debate which has just taken place. I am no judge of any of these chemicals, but it is quite clear that there must be a great number of them which are partly used for dyeing and partly for other purposes. The other purposes may be of great importance to the country, and there must be every shade and every degree in which those two functions are distributed. In some cases the drug or chemical may he used a great deal for dyeing and very little for other purposes, and in other cases it may be used very little for dyeing and a great deal for other purposes. There must be, indeed, every variety of case, and it certainly seems to be a very strong measure to entrust any body except Parliament itself with the authority of settling which drugs are to be absolutely prohibited (except under licence, of course) and which are not.
I would like, therefore, to ask the noble Lord first, in what form will the list of chemicals which are to be prohibited subject to licence be published, and how is it to be communicated to Parliament and the public; second, what power the Government provide that Parliament may, if it thinks fit, question any particular item in the list? If those two questions can be answered satisfactorily—I am not, of course, in the confidence of the noble and Learned Lord or his friends—a good deal of difficulty would be eliminated. As long as there is a grave doubt as to what is used for dyeing and what is not, and in 830 what proportion things are used, I think that a very legitimate grievance must arise. I would repeat to the noble Viscount that we are not merely dealing with articles which are at present used for dyeing, but with articles which may hereafter be used for dyeing. At any moment a chemical which is in great request in ordinary chemistry may be used for dyeing, and may suddenly find itself prohibited under the powers of this Bill.

§ LORD EMMOTT
I should like to ask the noble Viscount if he can tell us what real practical objection there is to this Amendment being adopted with the Schedule, and why he cannot suggest Amendments to the Schedule if there are certain articles in the Schedule which he thinks ought to be prohibited. What, object of policy is there in putting those particular chemicals on his prohibited list rather than leaving them on the free list? In all licensing—and I have had a good deal to do with it, as your Lordships know—questions similar to this arise. So complicated is modern business, owing to the inventions of science, that in every industry there are always questions of this kind in regard to commodities that come on the border line. In the days of the war our committees made their own interpretations for themselves. If we wanted to exclude a thing we excluded it by an interpretation which, very likely, would not have held water for a moment on investigation. If we wanted to admit it, we said "This does not come within the prohibition," and so it was done by rough and ready methods. But now we are asked to rely on a Committee. I understand that some of these drugs are used in the production of dyes. Is there any reason of public policy why these should not remain on the free list? I do not say there is not any reason, for I noticed that the noble Viscount in his speech said that in regard to some of these chemicals the object of the Bill would be defeated if they were kept on the free list. But he said there is going to be an expert chemist as one of the Committee and he will take care that they come in quite freely when they are used for other than the dyeing trade. But the chemist is only one out of eleven, and that element is not going to have a majority on the Committee at any rate.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE
Before the noble Viscount answers the questions 831 that have been put to him, I should like to ask him a further and more general question. I listened with the closest attention to the statement that was made by the noble Viscount yesterday in moving the Bill, and I think he never stated in general terms why the intermediates were included in the Bill at all, and perhaps he will explain why that is. One understands that a number of dyes and colours are desired to be excluded for this reason, that it is hoped that in time, by research, we shall be able to make them all. It is the hope, undoubtedly, of those concerned with the British Dyestuffs Corporation that in ten years' time they will be able to compete with Germany on equal terms for all purposes. They will tell you there is no reason why in ten years' time by a series of chemical researches there should be any dye or colour of which the secret is known in Germany which has not by that time been ascertained here. And it is felt that if dyes of such character are allowed now to be freely introduced into this country that will be impossible, because it will not pay to attempt to make the discoveries here. But so far as I am aware that argument does not apply to the intermediaries taken generally. The manufacture of most of them is quite familiar to all chemists, and therefore, so far as the making of dyes and of special colours is concerned, I cannot understand why they should not be admitted on the free list, and of course at the works of the company they could be applied in the way in which they have to be applied for the purpose of making the complete dye. Therefore if the noble Lord would strike out all words "and all organic intermediate products used in the manufacture of any such dyestuffs, colours, or colouring matters" it seems to me it would achieve the purpose aimed at in my noble friend's Amendment. It would create a special Schedule in a shorter way, and I should have thought in a more generally effective way.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
The noble Marquess has raised the point as to why intermediates cannot be struck out of the Bill, and why they should not be allowed to come in perfectly freely in the way the finished dyestuffs come. I think the answer to that question is a very ready one. It is because we were dependent for these intermediaries very largely upon Germany before the war. Obviously if 832 you cannot make the intermediates you cannot make the dyestuffs.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE
No, but they are easy to make separately.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
You must have the manufacture of the intermediates here in order to make your dyestuffs; I think that is a sufficient answer. The point has been made already as to why certain articles which are used to some extent for other purposes and are used also in dyes should not be put on what Lord Emmott calls the free list. I think I explained that if they are substantially used for the purposes of dyestuffs they really come within the general ambit of the Bill. It is quite true that they may in some cases be used for other purposes, and if they are used very little for dyestuffs and substantially largely for other articles it is perfectly obvious that they would get a licence to come in, and therefore there would be no objection to be raised on that score. I think the noble Lord seemed to suggest that this Committee might act improperly in excluding things which ought to come in although they do not really affect the dyestuffs industry. Let me point out that there is an over-riding power in the Board of Trade to do anything it likes if it finds that the Committee is not doing its duty in a proper manner.
The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, raised two points. The first was the general Parliamentary point, I think, as to what power the House of Commons had of dealing with the operations of the Committee. I suppose it has the power which the House of Commons has of dealing with the operations of any Ministry. They are all under Parliament.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
I did not say "the House of Commons"; I said "Parliament," which includes your Lordships' House.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
The noble Marques knows very much more than I do about the powers of your Lordships' House. They are very free and very large, and any member can at any time raise a debate on any subject. Therefore I think on that point your Lordships can ask questions of His Majesty's Ministers and they are bound to reply. That is so far as your Lordships' House is concerned. So far as the lower branch of the Legislature is 833 concerned, the noble Lord knows it is always possible to raise these questions on the salary of the President of the Board of Trade, for instance, and these questions are continuously asked in Parliament. The House of Commons has precisely the same power, and no more, that they have to criticise the operations of any other Public Department. I do not know that I can answer hint further than that.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
Where will the list of prohibitive articles be found?

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I was about to deal with that point. The second point raised by the noble Marquess was as to where the list of prohibitive articles would he found. I understand there is to be no list, because it is extremely well known in the trade what these articles are that are used in dyestuffs. I could not help overhearing the observation just made by the noble Marquess, who said it was "entirely outrageous."

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
I did not mean the noble Viscount to hear that, because it is not a Parliamentary expression.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I apologise for overhearing an un-Parliamentary expression. I really do not think there is any difficulty about it at all, because all these synthetic organic dyestuffs, colours, colouring matters, and intermediates are prevented from coming in unless a licence is obtained. Therefore those who wish to obtain a licence for these articles must apply to the Committee. There is no necessity, therefore, to publish any list at all. It would not assist anybody, because those who apply for licences are perfectly well aware of the things they want to import.
I do not like to say anything further to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Buckmaster, on the point, but I have consulted very learned persons; I have taken the opportunity of doing so in the last few minutes, and I am informed that there is really no such danger as he suggests in regard to acetone, because acetone, I believe, is not manufactured from one of the intermediates of the coal tar derivatives.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
Yes, it is; I think there is no doubt about that.

834

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
No doubt the noble and learned Lord is a very high authority, but I have been consulting, I believe, the highest authority on the subject, and I am so informed: I cannot speak of my own knowledge on that point. However, there is no question that acetone is not excluded by the Bill and does not come within its ambit.
Then I was asked a general question as to why a list of the subjects that do not come within the ambit of the Bill cannot be put into the Schedule. It would be almost impossible to do it. You would have a huge range of articles, which would make it a gigantic Schedule.

§ VISCOUNT HALDANE
There is nothing about coal tar in this Bill. The words are "all organic intermediate products used in the manufacture of any such dyestuffs, colours, or colouring matters" shall be prohibited. There is nothing about coal tar. It must be organic—that is to say, it must be carbon compound. Acetone is a carbon compound made front burnt wood.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I understand that those particular products are in some form or other derivatives from coal tar.

§ VISCOUNT HALDANE
The Bill does not say so.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I am informed that is so. The Bill says "all synthetic organic dyestuffs."

LORD SHEFFIELD
I agree with the noble Viscount so far as concerns the right to retain the words "intermediate products." A product might in one sense be a dye, and in another sense it is an intermediate for making a dye. There is no doubt when you have a product which is specifically used for making dyes it comes within the Bill. It seems to me there could be no difficulty in drawing up a list of those products which are specifically required for making coal tar dyes, and I should like to know if the noble Viscount would consent to modify the Bill so that the clause should run "organic dyestuffs, colours, and colouring matters and all such organic intermediate products as are mainly used in the manufacture of any such dyestuffs, colours, or colouring matters, such as the President of the Board of Trade may from time to time include and 835 publish," shall be prohibited. That meets the point that a substance not specifically used for making dyes may be imported. It is quite fair that the President of t he Board of Trade should have power from time to time either to exclude or include products, and I think we should know how far the general trade in articles which may be mainly used for some other purpose should be liberated from the necessity of going to a Committee. The Committee is to advise the Board of Trade, but the real authority is the Board of Trade, and therefore no doubt in drawing up this list the President of the Board of Trade would consult either the whole of this Committee or more probably the other Committee who are to be largely chemical experts, who would advise him upon the processes. The President of the Board of Trade would no doubt take advice, but the responsibility for drawing up the list would rest upon him. I suggest that the Government should in the interests of trade meet us in this respect, because if the President of the Board of Trade had power to vary the list from time to time he could not say he was obliged to include something which would be injurious to the development of this industry.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
The noble Viscount received my Amendment with some suspicion. I regret it. It was sincerely meant, and I am sorry that I was unable to impress him with its sincerity. It is of the utmost importance to see what it is that this Bill is going to deal with, and what is the industry which it is going to protect. There can be no doubt that the result of this Bill—I will not say its purpose—is to grant a complete monopoly in the whole of the protected matters to the big company to which we referred yesterday.

§ VISCOUNT MILNER
No, no.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
I am glad to hear the noble Viscount say that. Though it was pointed out yesterday that other companies might be formed at any time, I would be glad to know if any other company can he formed in successful rivalry to a company that is endowed with £1,750,000 of the British taxpayers' money, and that has by the very essential character of its constitution—

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
It is not endowed. The British Government has invested 836 in it just like any other shareholder. The Government are in the same position as a shareholder.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
You do not really mean to tell me that the Government has put £1,750,000 of the British taxpayer's money into a company. Such a thing would be wholly unjustifiable.

§ VISCOUNT MILNER
That is what happened.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
Something more than that happened. The Government has associated with this company one of its nominees as director.

A NOBLE LORD
Two.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
Be it so. Am I to understand that these other companies are also going to have associated with them nominees of the Government as directors?

§ VISCOUNT MILNER
What commercial advantage does a Government nominee give one company over another?

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
I should have thought, when you were considering dealing in a prohibited trade which was entirely bound, and which was let loose by Government interference by means of licences granted by Government Departments, that the association of a representative of the Government as director of the company was of the very highest value, and I should have said that any person connected in any way with the conduct of commercial concerns would have recognised that at once. It is not possible for the Government to ask us to believe that this company incorporated with a capital of £10,000,000 which has, as I say, £1,750,000 of the British taxpayers' money invested in it, and with the prestige that is given to every investor who knows what the Government has done, is not in a different position from any other company who may attempt to start in this industry. Therefore I say that the character and constitution of this company, the way in which it was formed and the purpose for which it was formed, has the effect practically—I will not say absolutely—to endow them with a monopoly. It is a monopoly not only in the making of dyestuffs, but of intermediate products that are used in the manufacture of any 837 such dyestuffs. The noble Viscount spoke somewhat slightingly of what he was pleased to call my chemical researches.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I did not in the least desire to detract from your efforts.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
It would be impossible for anybody to place an Amendment before your Lordships without having taken some care to try and see what articles should be included in the Schedule. They have teen included in the Schedule first of all because they are without doubt organic intermediate products. Of that there is no question. The only question is whether they are used in connection with the manufacture of dyestuffs. The noble Viscount says one is and another is not so used. Can we really accept that without any opportunity for examination? This is precisely the kind of thing on which we ought to be exact. If in point of fact there is no risk whatever with regard to a particular product there would be good reason to include it, but there is grave apprehension that there is such a risk, and this apprehension is not allayed when the noble Viscount tells us that a Committee is going to sit upon it.
What in the interests of British industries ought to be done is to let people know what it is they may buy and what it is they may sell, because otherwise a person who orders in accordance with his usual trade custom something which he may not know is used in the manufacture of dyes may find himself suddenly confronted with a restriction against the import and his trade may be gravely embarrassed. I am at a loss to understand why it is that the Government are unable to meet us in the matter. My Schedule may be imperfect. I am quite prepared to hear the noble Viscount suggest it is. No one is more willing than myself to consider how amendment could effectually be made. We are told that the number of products is immense, that the list is not to be published, that nobody is to know whether they can trade in these things or not, that they are to take the risk and hazard of the control that this Bill creates; and I submit that that is not a state of things that your Lordships ought to permit to continue.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE
In order to cleat up this question of intermediates, may I say that I understand that the noble Viscount stated that all the inter- 838 mediates used for the production of dyestuffs are coal tar products, and as a matter of fact, as the works are carried on at the particular manufactory of which the noble Viscount is speaking, I take it that is so, and that no others are employed. Whether the House accepts my noble friend's schedule or not, would the noble Viscount be prepared after the words "all organic intermediate products" to insert the words "produced from coal tar"; and then in subsection (2) it would have to be "goods of this class or such goods" prohibited to be imported.

§ VISCOUNT MILNER
There is just one point which has been raised about which I should like to say a word, as I think we might be coming to decisions under a complete misapprehension of the facts. The noble Marquess has made a very strong point of the fact that there is no need to extend the provisions of this Bill to organic intermediate products, inasmuch as the process of them is familiar and well-established and there is no need to protect them in this country, merely because you are protecting dyestuffs. All I can say is that my technical information is precisely to the contrary effect, that it is the organic intermediate products—some of there—which are the most difficult, and which, if we wish to establish a strong dye industry in this country, most need protection. It is no use protecting the capital of the building if you do not protect its foundations. And so far from its being the case (I only give the information which is given to me) that we are, so to speak, safe with respect to the production of these organic intermediate products on a commercial scale, it is just in this respect that the industry as a whole most stands in need of being upheld at the present time.
Another point of great importance is that these organic intermediate products are produced on a large scale by various companies in this country which are entirely independent of this Corporation, which, according to Lord Buckmaster, is specially benefitted by this Bill. He seems to think that one of the reasons of introducing this Bill is the desire to support a Corporation in which the Government is directly interested. Nothing of the kind. The object of assisting the Corporation was to create a powerful industry in this country, but the benefits which producers in this country may derive 839 under this Bill from the prohibition of introduction except by licence extends to a great number of other companies—not only to the companies, other than the Corporation, which are engaged in the actual production of dyes, but to a great number of other companies which are engaged in the production of organic intermediate products. It is of a far wider application than merely to the Dyestuffs Corporation, about which so great a point has been made.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE
May I explain what I meant? As I understand, the noble Viscount thinks the phrase "organic intermediate products" is a term of art referring to the production of certain organic intermediate products as used at dye works for the production of dyes. So far as my very limited knowledge goes, he is quite correct in saying that their production and application is a matter of extreme delicacy, and it was in consequence of that fact that we used to rely on their being made in Germany and in Switzerland and to import them from there. If "organic intermediate products" only meant that I could quite understand the noble Viscount's position, but I should have supposed that the term might be taken in a far more general sense—that it would apply to these products made on a large scale, not specially connected with dyeing, and used in a great number of other manufactures. What I think is in the mind of my noble friend behind me is the fear that all sorts of persons who want these particular articles—not described as a term of art but generally, for all sorts of manufactures totally unconnected with dyeing—may have to apply to the Dyeing Committee before they can import any of them; all manner of products resulting from the

840

§ distillation of coal or of oil or of peat—and indeed of products derived not from any of those but from wood pulp, from corn, and maize—might have to be included in the term "organic intermediate products." Of course, if the noble Viscount is speaking only of coal tar products then I quite understand his position, but I do not understand the phrase is necessarily thus limited.

§ VISCOUNT HALDANE
There is one question on the wording of the Bill which is the only thing I am concerned with. The expression in the Bill is the prohibition of "all synthetic organic dyestuffs, colours and colouring matters." "Synthetic" is to some extent a term of art in chemistry. It means what you can produce artificially and what is also a natural product. One of the best examples with which chemists are familiar is urea, which you can produce chemically, but which is also produced naturally. But the point arises not only from the word "synthetic," because, when you come to the next line the word "synthetic" is dropped, and the words are "all organic intermediate products used in the manufacture of any such dyestuffs." I read that, as a lawyer, "all carbon compounds used as material in the manufacture of any such dyestuffs." That is a tremendous provision to put into the Bill, and to what extent it may restrict trade I am unable to conceive, but to an enormous extent anyhow. I do not think that can have been the intention of the Government, and I do not believe they have considered the words sufficiently.

§ On Question, whether the proposed words shall be here inserted?—

§ Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 18; Not-Contents, 58.

841

CONTENTS.
Canterbury, L. Abp.	Askwith, L.	Lamington, L.
	Avebury, L.	Muir Mackenzie, L.
Crewe, M.	Buckmaster, L. [Teller.]	Ritchie of Dundee, L.
	Cawley, L.	Shaw, L.
Bryce, V.	Denman, L.	Southwark, L.
Haldane, V.	Emmott, L. [Teller.]	Stanley of Alderley, L. (L. Sheffield.)
Knollys, V.	Knaresborough, L.
NOT-CONTENTS
Birkenhead, L. (L. Chancellor.)	Ancaster, E.	Mar and Kellie, E.
	Chesterfield, E.	Morton, E.
Richmond and Gordon, D.	Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queens-berry.)	Onslow, E.
		Strafford, E.
Ailsa, M.	Lanesborough, E.	Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)
Bath, M.	Lucan, E.	Sandhurst, V. (L. Chamberlain.)
Linlithgow, M.	Lytton, E.	Cave, V.
Salisbury, M.	Malmesbury, E.	Chaplin, V.
Hood, V.	Donington, L.	O'Hagan, L.
Milner, V.	Douglas, L. (E. Home.)	Ranksborough, L.
Peel, V.	Dunmore, L. (E. Dunmore.)	Rathcreedan, L.
	Ernle, L.	Romilly, L.
Annesley, L. (V. Valentia.)	Erskine, L.	Sandys, L.
Barrymore, L.	Greville, L.	Somerleyton, L. [Teller.]
Blythswood, L.	Harris, L.	Stanmore, L. [Teller.]
Cheylesmore, L.	Hylton, L.	Stewart of Garles, L. (E. Galloway.)
Clinton, L.	Killanin, L.
Colebrooke, L.	Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.)	Stuart of Wortley, L.
Crawshaw, L.	Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.)	Sudeley, L.
de Mauley, L.	Lee of Fareham, L.	Wigan, L. (E. Crawford.)
Dynevor, L.	Montagu of Beaulieu, L.	Wyfold, L.

§ Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE
I did not understand from the noble Viscount whether it is certain that the term "all organic intermediate products" refers only to coal tar products, or whether it is used in connection with dyeing and does not cover the same articles which may he produced from other sources. Therefore I should move, at the end of subsection (1), to insert the words "provided that they are produced from coal tar."

§ Amendment moved— Page 1, line 10, after ("prohibited") insert ("provided that they arc produced front coal tar,").—(The Marquess of Crewe.)

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I have inquired as to that point, and I am told that the word "intermediate" is a governing word, which is intended to mean and does mean that the products are derivatives from coal tar and intermediates between the primary products of coal tar and finished articles.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE
The insertion of my proposed words would make it clearer for ordinary purposes.

§ VISCOUNT HALDANE
As a lawyer, I can only assure the House that, so far from being clear, there is nothing in the term "intermediate" to limit it to coal tar products. It is an expression very often used in chemical terminology, and it means anything in the intermediate stage of the process. If the Bill is to mean what it really intends, something limiting it to coal tar ought certainly to be put in. "Intermediate" will not do it.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
Will it not do it with the words that come before? I was speaking rather as a chemist titan as a lawyer.

842

§ VISCOUNT HALDANE
The word "synthetic" does not come in here. I am speaking as a lawyer, and not as a chemist, and of how the Customs House officials would interpret it. They would say that this is an organic product, used in the intermediate stages of manufacture. If the noble Viscount can find some words which would limit it to coal tar products it would be a great comfort to some of us.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
What is the objection to that? The noble Viscount has assured us twice that that is the meaning of the Bill. Why then should we leave it to be a matter of future controversy, when we are assured by the Government that the matter is intended to be clear? I would ask your Lordships to require that these words of the noble Marquess should be inserted, for I really cannot see why in the circumstances we should hesitate to put in the one or two words which the Government themselves can furnish to make their meaning plain on the face of the Bill. We have known before now what has happened with regard to legislation when a Minister has declared most solemnly that legislation is intended to mean one thing and the lawyers have afterwards declared that on the plain meaning of the words it means something entirely different.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
Between the lawyers and the chemists on both sides there seems a wide difference of opinion, and I would ask the noble Marquess to allow us an opportunity of considering the matter before the Report stage. I do not know when that stage will be taken, but I believe there is some idea of taking it to-day. I do not know whether between Committee and Report stage it is possible to take some other business, so that we might have a little time in which to discuss this point.

843

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE
If there is no Report stage then it can be dealt with on the Third Reading. Perhaps the simplest plan would be to insert the words "coal tar" after the words "organic intermediate."

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I think it would be rather imprudent to accept those words at this stage.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE
I quite agree, and will withdraw my Amendment now.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ LORD SHEFFIELD moved in subsection (2) after "1876," to insert "and a list of such prohibited goods shall be published yearly by the Board of Trade." The noble Lord said: The object of this manuscript Amendment is that the traders should plainly know what is excluded and what is included. My Amendment leaves the Board of Trade perfectly free to put in what they consider at the time to be articles used in the manufacture of dyestuffs. I do not see how in the absence of such a list either the manufacturers or the Customs authorities will know what to do.

§ Amendment moved— Page 1, line 15, after ("1876"), insert ("and a list of such prohibited goods shall be published yearly by the Board of Trade").—(Lord Sheffield.)

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I do not think that the suggestion of the noble Lord would be quite practicable, because it really is not the way in which this Bill would work. These licences are both general and particular— general as regards the import of certain chemicals—and they will be all those articles which are not produced in this country, among ether things, and therefore could be imported freely. Now this list will, I understand, be published by the Board of Trade as soon as possible. There will be a general licence for these articles, and the list of articles will be given no doubt to the Customs authorities; but I do not know that it would be possible to publish a list of prohibited articles. It would be rather the list of what can be brought freely in that people would desire to know.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
Surely it is better to know the things that you are forbidden to do than to know the things 844 which you are permitted to do, and all that this Amendment asks is that traders should know what they are forbidden to do. How is anyone to know what is forbidden if he has not got a list. We are told that we shall be able to know by being told what we are permitted to do. We ought to know what it is that people are not at liberty to import, and that is what this Amendment asks. It asks, indeed, that this list may be as flexible and elastic as circumstances may require, and that it may he varied from year to year and from time to time.

§ VISCOUNT MILNER
I think that this Amendment is totally impracticable. I am told that the list of these articles would be enormous. Of course, the people in the trade know what articles fall within the general description of the Bill, but the general public would not be able to understand 5 per cent. of this list. The moment you put forward a list of prohibited articles the importer would change the name of the article, giving the same thing a new description, and bring it in under its new description. There is an enormous number of these descriptive names. We are most anxious to do everything in our power not to make these restrictions inconvenient to the trade. The objection to publishing a list of prohibited articles in the circumstances which I have attempted to describe seems to me to be an insuperable difficulty, and we cannot accept the Amendment.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
I can see the difficulty and I do not very much like the Amendment of the noble Lord, but I think we are up against a problem which requires a solution. What is proposed to be done? I speak from the point of view of a supporter of the Bill. Here is a Bill which is going to protect the dye industry of this country for great national reasons which were explained last night. In order to do that it is proposed that certain articles should be prohibited from coming into this country. Who is going to prohibit them? The Board of Trade. How is the Board of Trade going to act? It is going to direct the Custom House, or whoever has control of the Custom House, to prevent the entry of certain articles into this country. What is the Board of Trade going to say to the Custom House? You are going to prevent any articles coming in which may be used for the organic intermediate making 845 of dyes. How is the Custom House officer to know what those articles are? The Custom House officer is not even a highly educated man. He is an ordinary individual. He must know what he has to prohibit. How can he possibly act? He must know what particular article he has to stop. When the goods are put upon the quay he says, "I think there is something suspicious about that. Open it." It is opened and he says, "These things, I think, ought to be prohibited." What things? He does not know. There is no list, no guidance for him. How can you work a system like that? I venture to say with absolute confidence that a list pill be made. Those of us who have been engaged in administrative work, notably the noble Viscount himself, who is a great administrator, knows that the first thing to be done would be to make a list and to say to the Custom House officer, "You have to stop everything in this list." A list there must be. That is as certain that the sun will rise to-morrow.

§ VISCOUNT MILNER
What would be the use of a list containing 900 or more articles which would not be intelligible to the Custom House officer?

THE MARQUEDSS OF SALISBURY
Will the noble Viscount explain then how the Act is to work? How are these things to be prevented from entering this country? Where is the machinery? I am ignorant of these things, and there may be a means.

§ VISCOUNT MILNER
I cannot tell the noble Marquess what the means are, but of course there are means. The point is that the noble Marquess's proposal will not help me to give to the unfortunate Custom House officer the name of 150 things of which neither the noble Marquess nor I would know anything, and of which the man himself would know no more. That would not help the man.

§ LORD NUNBURNHOLME
We have heard a great deal about the dye-users, but what about all the other trades who wish to buy important colours and dyes from Germany or from wherever they have been buying them even up to this minute? I myself have just put up a large factory for the manufacture of colours. Under this Bill I am to be prevented from buying in Germany certain colours which you cannot get from the Dyestuffs Corporation 846 or from any other company in England. I should like to ask the noble Viscount, Lord Milner, and the Government whether even now they will not pause before they go on with this Bill. The debate which is now taking place shows what a muddle we get into as soon as we dabble with anything in the form of protection. What helps one trade damages another.

§ LORD EMMOTT
I am afraid that I should be out of court if I entered into a discussion of the large question mentioned by the noble Lord opposite. I said yesterday on that large aspect what I have to say. At the same time I entirely agree with the noble Lord who has just spoken. But, I ask, how is the Custom House officer to know? The noble Viscount has left the House in a position of absolute bewilderment. Here is a Bill which is going to prohibit the admission into this country of certain things which are named in the Bill, and the Custom House officer, we are told, does not know what is prohibited and what is not. That is entirely wrong. It must be wrong. The Custom House officer will stop these goods fast enough and he must have a list. Why should not the public have that list?

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I should be very glad to consult with the President of the Board of Trade on that point. Of course, instructions we given to the Custom House; otherwise they could not know what to prohibit. There are many grave reasons of public policy, I understand, why these lists should not be published. If you publish instructions of this kind given to the Custom House officers it is obvious that the mere publishing to the world of the list will enable those you wish to keep out to take advantage of the information thus given, so that they may manipulate their names and arrangements in order to avoid the prohibition. I will, however, consult with the President of the Board of Trade, and ask whether I am at liberty to give an undertaking on behalf of the Government that these lists, which are given to the Customs House officers for their guidance, can be made public. That is all I can do at the present moment. I could not possibly assent to a request of this kind without more consultation.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
Speaking for myself I am very grateful to the noble Viscount for what he has just said. 847 I think I will ask the Government not to finish the stages of the Bill this evening, but to postpone till to-morrow the Report stage or Third Reading. I accept entirely the assurance of the noble Viscount, and he will do his best, I am quite certain. For my part I shall not say another word about the Bill if he will promise not to take the final stages to-day.

§ VISCOUNT MILNER
I think we can give that undertaking to the noble Marquess.

LORD SHEFFIELD
do not think the noble Viscount in charge of the Bill has at all cleared up the situation. He has now admitted that the Custom House officers must have a list in order to know what is to be admitted and what excluded. The Custom House officer will be presented with a package on which there will be a trademark or some elaborate chemical enigma, and he will not in the least know what are the contents of the package. Yet the Custom House officers, it is admitted, must know what they have to exclude before they can exclude anything. That being so, it is clear that the importer must also know that the particular parcel he is sending is excluded. It is futile to imagine that you can keep the trade or the public in the dark in respect to the particular articles to be prohibited if the names of those articles are to be supplied in a list to the Custom House. It is ridiculous to think that persons who manufacture articles are not to know whether those articles they manufacture are excluded or not. I shall press my Amendment.

§ VISCOUNT MILNER
I hope the noble Lord will not do that. We are going to do what we can to meet his views between now and the later stages of the Bill. We will consult the experts of the Board of Trade, and see what can be done to meet the point of the noble Lord. If nothing can be done, it is perfectly certain that any Amendment he presses now, even if it were carried in this House (which I do not believe it would), would be deleted in the House of Commons.

LORD SHEFFIELD
The noble Lord says he will do what he can, which, properly interpreted, means that he will do what he will.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
I hope that the noble Lord will not press his Amendment 848 now, because I fully appreciate what has been said on behalf of the Government, and I realise—as I try to realise although I do not think they quite credit me with it—the difficulties in which they stand. I appreciate them, and I think the offer we have had is one that is reasonable, and I hope the noble Lord will so regard it, and give them time between now and to-morrow to see whether it is not possible to meet what is admitted on both sides to be a very grave and difficult situation. Perhaps the noble Viscount will permit me to add that it was only yesterday that I warned the House when the £3,000 a year was fixed as the cost of administering the Bill that it would be necessary to have expert chemists at every quay and that the cost would be many times £3,000.

LORD SHEFFIELD
I do not press my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ LORD CAWLEY moved, at the end of the clause, to insert the following new subsection— (3) The prohibition of the import of any specified class or description of goods under this Act may be terminated by order of the Board when it has been proved to the satisfaction of the Board that goods of such specified class or description manufactured in the United Kingdom are being sold by the manufacturers thereof for exportation at a price lower than the market price of similar goods in the United Kingdom at the time of such sale.

§ The noble Lord said: The object of the Amendment standing in my name is to prevent makers of dyestuffs selling their products abroad cheaper than they sell them in this country. A great deal of the opposition of Lancashire has been because it was thought that the textile trade may be injured. What might happen in this case? This large Dyestuffs Corporation may want to make colours in very large quantities in order to make them cheaper. They will not have a call in this country for them, so they will want to sell abroad. They cannot sell them abroad at anything like a reasonable profit, so they sell without any profit at all, trusting to make their profit out of their customers in this country because they can charge them exactly what price they like. That would place the user in the foreign country in a very much mere advantageous position than the user in this country.

849

§ Supposing Japan or China, who are developing the dyeing industry, are able to buy a colour 40 per cent. or 50 per cent. cheaper than the dyer in England can buy it, the dyed and finished textiles would cost a great deal more in this country than if they were sent out to China and dyed there. Therefore the dyeing industry in this country would be injured to that extent and it would not have the work. But it is still more injurious to the home producer if a dyer in Holland or Belgium is able to get colour a great deal cheaper than the English dyer can, with the result that if there is competition the merchant in Holland can buy his goods much cheaper than the merchant in this country.

§ This Amendment is designed to protect the home consumers against being charged more than their foreign competitors. We all remember that a great deal was said about the Cartel system under which sugar was sold here at a very low price, cutting our sugar refiners out, while the price in Germany was very much higher and the profit was made in that way. I do not know whether it is correct or not, but I remember hearing that the German consumer had to pay 4d. a lb. for sugar which the consumer here bought at 2d. We do not want that sort of thing in the case of dyes, so that we have to pay a great deal more for dyestuffs here than our foreign competitors are paying in their own countries. Therefore I hope your Lordships wall support this Amendment. It will prevent us dumping goods in Germanys without any profit or often at less than cost prices. This big Dyestuffs Corporation will have, to make their profits not out of the fine dyes which have been talked about so much, but out of common dyes that can be made anywhere, and if they charge our home dyers so much more for the common dyes than the foreign dyer can get them at it will certainly injure our textile trade very much.

§ Amendment moved— Page 1, line 16, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Cawley.)

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
This Amendment has the intention of preventing these particular goods being sold at a cheaper price abroad than at home, and of course if that was likely to happen or could happen under the Bill no doubt it might he a useful Amendment to accept. But I think the noble Lord will plainly see that he is deal 850 ing with a danger which really will not occur. There are two real answers to the necessity for this Amendment. The first is that, as we know, the Government is a large shareholder and has two directors on the Board of the Dyestuffs Corporation. Also, the Government has lent money on certain conditions to some other companies, and in these cases in the articles of association and through their control over these loans they have the power of saying what prices shall be charged.
But there is a much more general power than that. First of all, let me remind my noble friend of the composition of the Committee. There are five users of these dyes out of a Committee of eleven, besides the independent representatives. Is it credible that these people will sit down and acquiesce in these goods being sold to them at a higher price than they are sold to their competitors abroad? It is not credible, and, of course, they would not permit it. Obviously their first action would be to prevent that being done. If it was not done, of course the Board of Trade would step in and state that the price at which the articles were sold in this country was an unreasonable one and they would either have to be lowered to the price at which they were selling abroad or the foreign price brought up to the price at which they were selling at home. Therefore dye users are fully safeguarded in these three ways— first, by the powers the Government have under the arrangements with the Dyestuffs Corporation and these other companies; Secondly, by the Committee and the representatives upon it; and thirdly, by this reserved power which the Board of Trade has of dealing with the question of prices if what the noble Lord referred to was done. I would urge my noble friend, therefore, not to press his Amendment because it is so fully safeguarded by existing considerations.

LORD SHEFFIELD
How is it safeguarded?

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
The position is really this—is it not?—that the safeguards against what the noble Viscount admits would be an evil are safeguards which are not to be found in the Bill, and which are apparently to be found in the articles and memoranda of association of a variety of companies, which we have not before us.

851

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
That is one safeguard.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
We cannot deal with them all at once. So far as the Committee is concerned, possibly the noble Viscount who knows this Bill very intimately will point out to me which clause it is in the Bill that enables any Committee set up under the Bill to regulate the matter to which the noble Lord has called attention. Will the noble Viscount tell me?

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
Clause 2, subsection (3) reads: "For the purpose of advising them with respect to the granting of licences the Board shall constitute a Committee." It is quite possible that if high prices were being charged here these gentlemen would advise—and of course the Board of Trade would act upon their advice—the free import of these particular articles into the country. That is usually the most effective way of bringing down prices.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
The point is that the Committee has no power whatever to advise with regard to the prices. That is not to be found in the Bill. The operation of the Committee is to be found apparently in another way. It will be at liberty to grant licences to import the goods in competition with the company at home. Surely it is a very inadequate protection. If the Government has advanced other moneys to other companies; I did not know that till now.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I think I stated it generally.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
I certainly did not know it. Apparently the Government have subsidised some other companies. Really if we are going to see whether the terms upon which they are subsidised are of such a character as to afford adequate control over what they do, this House, if it is to exercise any useful function at all, ought to see what those powers are. We have not an idea. I very much doubt if the noble Viscount has the powers before him. I do not suppose he has the articles and memorandum of association of those various companies. Certainly the one I saw does not give the Government any such control at all. All it does is to 852 enable the Government to say the goods are to be sold at a reasonable profit here. It has nothing whatever to do with the price at which they are sold overseas. We have been told before that dumping was effected by making a profit upon the goods at home and being able thereby to distribute the surplus proceeds abroad below cost price, the idea being that you get rid of stuff that you otherwise could not sell and which would be unmarketable at a price below its cost of production, but none the less good in the way of salvage money. I cannot see how it is protection to provide that they are sold at what is called a reasonable cost at home for the purpose of providing a reasonable profit. A reasonable profit I beg your Lordships to remember will represent something like £700,000 per annum on the capital of one company alone, and as the total amount of goods which were said to be imported into this country before the war was £2,000,000, it represents an interest of 35 per cent.

§ LORD EMMOTT
I must confess I agree in one thing with the noble Lord in charge of the Bill. I do not think there is a very great risk of this particular danger occurring. I do not think it is going to be a very easy matter for the Dyestuffs Corporation to make ends meet, and they certainly will not be anxious to sell their wares abroad at a very much lower price than they will sell them at home. But at the same time I think the Amendment is a very reasonable one. Cheap dyes are absolutely necessary to this country. I am afraid the Bill will result in dyes being made sufficiently dear to trouble our cotton trade very much, and anything that will help to keep dyes cheap in this country I shall be very glad to support.

LORD SHEFFIELD
I cannot say that I am prepared to support this particular Amendment. It is an Amendment against dumping, and it was moved in Committee in the House of Commons. I cannot find for the moment the reference, but if I recollect aright the Government opposed this Amendment and said that in certain cases they might be quite prepared to dump. If you were wanting to push your foreign trade you would sell cheaply to get the market, and afterwards you would put up your prices. The noble Lord in charge of the Bill is mistaken, I think, in saying that the Government has the 853 power to regulate the prices of this great company, the British Dyestuffs Corporation. The Government lent sums of money, which are put from £20,000 to £40,000 to smaller companies, and in those cases they gave an absolute power to the Board of Trade to order at what price those companies should sell their goods. But in the case of the British Dyestuffs Corporation if the Government think they are selling their goods too dearly all they can do is to write to them pointing that out. It is merely a matter of opinion and advice. One of the peculiarities is that this company which has nearly £2,000,000 of public money is perfectly free with regard to its dividend and prices, whereas the smaller companies who have started during the war are very much under the power of the Government. I could not help admiring the Government representatives who are supposed to be generally in favour of an anti-dumping policy coming to the conclusion that dumping might be a useful way of pushing a new trade.

§ LORD CAWLEY
I do not think the noble Viscount has given any answer at all. The first answer he gave was that there were two nominees of the Government on the board of directors. I do not remember how many directors there are, but probably the number is ten or twelve. To say that two directors nominated by the Board of Trade will have any influence upon a board of a dozen directors I think is rather absurd. In addition to that, it is not at all certain that the two Government nominees will not agree with their colleagues. Where is the protection in that?
With regard to the Licensing Committee, I do not understand that they have anything in the world to do with the matter. Their business is licensing; it is not to stop goods from being dumped abroad. My whole case is that a foreign country may have a great advantage in the production of textiles because of their ability to obtain much cheaper dyes. They will be able to sell the whole of their calico in a neutral market at a cheaper price than we can, and therefore we shall lose a great deal more than we gain. I do not agree that there will not be much margin between cost price and selling price. Lord Milner interrupted me last night when I said I would rather have a Customs duty of 20 or 30 per cent. than this Bill, and he said that that protection would be no use at all. 854 If that means anything, it means that the dyestuffs manufacturers in this country are going to get 30, 40, or perhaps even 50 per cent. profit; and if they get 50 per cent. profit on the dyestuffs they sell here they might very easily sell them abroad without any profit at all, because by that means they would have a larger and consequently a cheaper production. If they sell at prices 30, 40, or 50 per cent. more than they are selling to our competitors abroad, it would be very bad for the textile trade. I am of opinion that this Amendment ought to be included in the Bill, so that textile manufacturers in this country may feel some confidence that the Bill is not to sacrifice their trade as well as other trades.

§ On Question, Amendment negatived.

§ Clause 1 agreed to.

§ Clause 2:

§ Provision as to licences and constitution of advisory committee.

§ 2.—(l) The Board of Trade have power by licence to authorise, either generally or in any particular case, the importation of any of the goods, or any class or description of the goods, prohibited to be imported by virtue of this Act.

§ (2) A licence granted under this section shall not be transferable.

§ (3) For the purpose of advising them with respect to the granting of licences the Board shall constitute a committee consisting of live persons concerned in the trades in which goods of the class prohibited to be imported by this Act are used, three persons concerned in the manufacture of such goods, and three other persons not directly concerned as aforesaid.

§ Such one of the three last-mentioned persons as the Board shall appoint shall be chairman of the committee.

§ (4) If on an application for a licence under this section the committee are satisfied that the goods to which the application relates are goods wholly produced or manufactured in some part of His Majesty's dominions, a licence shall be granted in accordance with the application.

§ (5) An applicant for a licence shall be entitled to object to any member or members of such committee dealing with his application on the ground that he is prejudiced, owing to the fact that such member or members is or are trade competitors, and if such objection is sustained by the Committee the member or members so objected to shall withdraw from further consideration of the case, and shall not have access to any information or documents concerning it.

§ (6) For the purpose of advising them with respect to the efficient and economical development of the dye-making industry, the Board shall constitute a committee of persons concerned in the trades of dye-maker or dye-user and of such other persons riot directly concerned in such trades as the Board may determine.

855

§ (7) For the purpose of providing for the expenses incurred by the Board in carrying this Act into execution, the Board may charge in respect of a licence a fee not exceeding five pounds.

§ LORD EMMOTT moved, at the end of subsection (1) to insert the following new subsection— (2) A licence authorising the importation of any of the goods prohibited to be imported by virtue of this Act shall in no case be refused unless the committee constituted under subsection (3) of this section is satisfied that an adequate quantity of British made dyestuffs of kind and quality equal to those in respect of which a licence has been applied for is actually available at a reasonable price.

§ The noble Lord said: I accept for the purposes of argument the statement—which I know is quite a sincere statement—that the Government do not desire in any way to injure the textile trade. Of course, my point of view is that this Bill must almost inevitably injure the textile trade, and may injure it very seriously indeed. To my mind the Committee is not an adequate safeguard. The Committee may be absolutely first-rate, it may work very well indeed in the very difficult circumstances in which it has to work, or it may not. The Government has managed in the composition of this Committee to get the interests extraordinarily entangled, because when they insist, as they are constantly insisting, on the five dye users as being the saving of this Committee, it must be remembered that those dye users were the original investors in the £960,000 subscribed by the public towards British Dyes, Limited. For the £960,000, £1,500,000 was given in the British Dyestuffs Corporation. In addition to that, out of the £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 otherwise subscribed by the public towards the British Dyestuffs Corporation I believe very large amounts were subscribed by dye users. Therefore the dye user who is going to be represented on this Committee has a double interest. He will also have this financial interest iu the success of the British Dyestuffs Corporation, and I have not the confidence in this Committee that I should have if, instead of the five dye users, they were five people representative of the export trade of this country in dyed materials, who were not shareholders in the British Dyestuffs Corporation.

§ The object of this Amendment is to provide that, unless the Committee is satisfied that an adequate quantity of British dyestuffs of kind and quality equal 856 to those in respect of which a licence is applied for is actually available at a reasonable price, then the licence shall be issued. As it is, it will be in the power of the Committee to refuse licences when licences ought to be issued, and it may be that there are some cases in which that will happen. It seems to me that what the Government profess to aim at by this Bill will be accomplished much more effectively if this Amendment is carried than it will be under the Bill in its present form.

§ Amendment moved— Page 1, line 20, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Emmott.)

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I trust that my noble friend will not press this Amendment, because what it really amounts to is telling the Committee to do its duty. The noble Lord says that he has not got confidence in this Committee. If so, no doubt he was quite right in voting against the Second Reading of the Bill, because, as I then stated, this Committee is the whole pivot of the Bill. This is the Committee through which the whole Bill is to be worked, and if he has not confidence in it there is nothing more to be said. These things that he orders the Committee to do are what they will be doing every day, and it is no use putting into the Bill as a specific order the thing which is the general duty of the Committee. If they do not act in a reasonable way they are not fit to be trusted with the administration of the Bill.

§ LORD LAMINGTON
As bearing on the question of the Committee determining whether the supply is adequate or not, I suppose it is almost impossible that the supply would exactly meet the demand. Then the Committee has to consider what amount they are to allow to be introduced into the country. Then how are they going to settle about the price? After all, the question of price must bulk largely in. the whole conduct of the work of the Committee. A trader or traders may have their demands supplied. Then comes another demand, and there is an insufficient supply in the country, and it has to be imported. Presumably it will be imported at a far less cost than that which has already been supplied by the home producer. How are the Committee to reconcile those two sets of prices? This seems to me to bear largely on the whole question of the Committee regulating 857 the amount that shall be admitted into the country. It is obviously a very great grievance for those who have been supplied by the home producer if they have to pay two or three times the amount that a man coming later into the field would have to pay for dyestuffs got from abroad.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
There is a point about this which the noble Viscount has not quite met. The effect of this Amendment is to change the burden of proof. As the Bill stands it will be necessary for any applicant for a licence to satisfy the Committee that he could not get the goods of the kind and quality that he wanted to import. If this Amendment be carried the Committee must be satisfied that these goods cannot be obtained, or else prima facie the application must be granted. It really is a very important and material distinction. When the noble Viscount says this is exactly what the Committee will do I beg leave to differ. I think it is exactly what the Committee will not do, unless you introduce this express provision—and that not because of any inherent infirmity in the Committee, but because the normal course of procedure would be the exact reverse of what this Amendment proposes.
I submit that the right course of procedure is that which the Amendment indicates. There is one thing to which I myself attach the very greatest importance, and that is the question of quality. It can only be tested by actual experience. There has already been before the notice of many of us the fact that the dyes that have hitherto been produced have not got the same permanent quality that was formerly possessed by the German dyes. If our textile manufacturers are to be subject to the danger of dyeing their materials with dyes which will not stand they will lose their markets, and the reputation of British trade will go. This Amendment does give some slight protection, because it requires the committee to be satisfied about the quality of these dyes, or, if they are not so satisfied, the licence ought to be granted. If the Government will for a moment turn their anxieties to the development and protection of our textile industries, instead of merely seeking to keep their gaze fixed upon the dye-producing industries, I think they will realise this and not persist in opposing the Amendment.

858

LORD SHEFFIELD
I do not know whether I should be in order in addressing myself now to the constitution of the Committee. Except by moving the rejection of the clause, which is not practicable, I do not know whether this is the proper time.

THE LORD CHAIRMAN
The Amendment is to add this new subsection after line 20.

LORD SHEFFIELD
The constitution of the Committee comes before that.

THE LORD CHAIRMAN
It seems to me to come in subsection (3).

§ LORD CAWLEY
If the Government would accept this Amendment, or something a little more than this, it would take away a great deal of the opposition of the textile industry. What that industry would like is that colours should come from Germany, not so much in bulk as in quality, without having to get a licence, until it is proved that they can be produced in this country. We want to throw the onus of proof that these goods can be produced on the English manufacturer or Committee. We want a man to have the colour unless the dyestuffs producers at home can prove that they can do it. That throws the burden on other shoulders. My noble friend Lord Buckmaster spoke about quality, which is extremely important, and these dyestuffs makers will never admit, until they are absolutely compelled to do so, that they cannot produce a certain colour as well as the Germans. A case came to my notice the other day. It was the case of a shirt something like the one I am wearing. It had been produced from an English colour which they said was as good as the German colour. The printer printed the goods with this colour and took the precaution of washing it by hand. He sent out a considerable quantity of the stuff to be made into shirts. In a short time complaints came and the shirts were returned because they had been to a laundry. They had only been washed by hand in a tub before, but at the laundry chemicals were used in the washing. The dye people protested that their colour was as good as the German colour, but it was not. What we want to do by this Amendment is to put the onus of proof on the manufacturers of dyestuffs to show that his colour is as good as that which can be 859 procured from Germany. If that is not done our textile industry will suffer very much. Acceptance by the Government of something on the lines of the Amendment would not do harm because as soon as the goods can be made here as well as in Germany they will be prohibited. On the other hand, it might do good.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE
After the appeal of the noble Lord who has just sat down, I venture to press the Government to consider very carefully whether this Amendment ought not to be accepted. It is to be remembered that the whole of this Bill is in restraint of trade, and it is the case of His Majesty's Government that the restraint is necessary in order to build up the dyeing industry in this country. It does not seem, therefore, a hard thing to ask that in a matter of this kind the onus of proof should rest on those who are receiving, as is stated, in the general interests of the country, not merely the material support but the moral support of His Majesty's Government; whereas the traders generally, as represented by my noble friend opposite, are admittedly and explicitly asked to subject themselves to a disadvantage in the national interest. That being so, I confess it seems to me in the highest degree reasonable that this Amendment should be accepted, and so far I have not heard any adequate reasons from the bench opposite why it should not be included in the Bill.

§ LORD STUART OF WORTLEY
I have supported the Bill up to the present stage, but all the same I did not hear from the noble Viscount in charge of it any argument against the Amendment, except that it is already in the Bill. I have been making some study of the Bill since, and I cannot find it there. It is true there is an obligation on the Committee to see to it that before they refuse the licence they are satisfied that goods of the kind in question can be made somewhere, by somebody, in some quantity within His Majesty's Dominions. That is not the same thing. The requirement in the Amendment is that goods of the kind in question should be made in sufficient quantities to satisfy the needs of the trade. It seems to me that by the provisions of subsection (4) the duties of the Committee are restricted in such a manner that they will not regard it as their duty to see to the requirements to which the noble Lord, 860 Lord Emmott, asks it to consent. I think it is a pity that an Amendment should be refused which we are assured by very competent authority might do much to disarm the objections of the trade to this Bill as a whole.

LORD SHEFFIELD
May I say another word? It has been urged that where special dyes of extra quality are wanted for remote trades like those of South. America or India promptness of delivery is important. In answer to that it was said in regard to these special dyes which are of a very superior quality—Java was given as an illustration—that dye users know well beforehand the type of dye, though they do not know the exact dye, that will be wanted in South Africa, or Java, or India. I do not profess to pledge myself to the accuracy of the statement, but at any rate it was said that they kept six months stock in hand, and that therefore this question of time was not so urgent, because the dye seller—called the dye user, though really he is the seller—would have such a stock that it would be a long time before it was exhausted and before it was necessary to apply for a further stock from the Board of Trade or a Committee. But it is quite clear, on the other hand, that if you have in respect of these very delicate points to lay in substantial stocks, say for six months use, the Committee must be very liberal in the amount of dye which they allow. It is not a question of one particular man going to print a thousand pieces of calico, but the large buyer wants a stock sufficient to deal with a particular trade. Therefore the Committee will have to be satisfied as to quantity, that not merely a little paltry order for one man shall be satisfied but that the large dye-seller shall have a large stock, sufficient to deal with what I may call a continental trade of immense size for a long period. It is quite clear that there should be some instructions to the Committee that there should be a liberal allowance of dyes to the user, or else either the man who orders the dye or a particular amount of dye will be kept waiting for a long time Or there must be rationing on a liberal scale.

§ LORD EMMOTT
Subsection (4), to which Lord Stuart of Wortley referred, is merely Imperial Preference, and does not bear upon this point at all.

861

§ LORD STUART OF WORTLEY
I used it as the only indication that I can find of the duties of the Committee.

§ LORD EMMOTT
I was referring to the effect of it, but the noble Lord is perfectly correct in saying that it is the only indication. But when I hear this official defence, that the purpose of the Amendment is already in the Bill, I am filled with despair, because it shows such lack of knowledge on the part of the Government, or at any rate of the real authors of the official apologia put into the mouths of members of the Government. Of course there is an immense difference according to where we throw the onus of proof. There must be; and when my noble friend in charge of the Bill says that what I am now proposing is what the Committee will be doing every day, he does not understand the Committee at all. There are on the Committee, as an integral part of it, three members who are there to look after the interests of the dye producers. Those men will always be inclined to argue that the dyes they are making are as good and fast as the German, and it will be a question of pull devil, pull

§ Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

§ LORD ASKWITH moved, at the end of subsection (2), to insert "and shall continue in force until the Board of Trade 862 baker, who succeeds in carrying his point. That is how the textile trade of this country, in so far as they depend upon dyes, are going to be managed under the Bill. The Government do not understand what it means. Lord Milner told us last night that this Bill had to be introduced in hot haste to save the industry of the dye producers in this country. If they are going to save that industry it means that they are either going to put up prices very touch higher or to insist upon the dyes produced here being used in this country, although they are not as good as the dyes coming from other countries. One or other result must certainly follow. I cannot see that anything is going to happen under this Bill except what I predicted yesterday—namely, that the dyeing business as well as the production of dyes is going to be driven out of this country.

§ On Question, whether the proposed new subsection shall be here inserted?—

§ Their Lordships divided: Contents, 18; Not-Contents, 46.

861

CONTENTS.
Crewe, M.	Buckmaster, L.	Nunburnholme, L.
	Cawley, L. [Teller.]	Pentland, L.
Mar and Kellie, E.	Emmott, L. [Teller.]	Shaw, L.
Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)	Hamilton of Dalzell, L.	Southwark, L.
	Lamington, L.	Stanley of Alderley, L. (L. Sheffield.)
Knollys, V.	Montagu of Beaulieu, L.
Askwith, L.	Muir Mackenzie, L.	Stuart of Wortley, L.

NOT-CONTENTS
Birkenhead, L. (L. Chancellor.)	Onslow, E.	Desborough, L.
	Strafford, E.	Dynevor, L.
Richmond and Gordon, D.	Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)	Donington, L.
		Douglas, L. (E. Home.)
Ailsa, M.	Sandhurst, V. (L. Chamberlain)
Bath, M.	Hood, V.	Ernle, L.
Exeter, M.	Milner, V.	Greville, L.
Linlithgow, M.	Peel, V.	Hylton, L.
Salisbury, M.		Killanin, L.
	Annesley, L. (V. Valentia.)	Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.)
	Barrymore, L.	Lee of Fareham, L.
Chesterfield, E.	Beaverbrook, L.	Ranksborough, L.
Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queens-berry.)	Blythswood, L.	Rathcreedan, L.
	Cheylesmore, L.	St. Levan, L.
Jersey, E.	Clinton, L.	Somerleyton, L. [Teller.]
Lucan, E.	Colebrooke, L.	Stanmore, L. [Teller.]
Malmesbury, E.	Cottesloe, L.	Wigan, L. (E. Crawford.)
Morton, E.	de Mauley, L.	Wyfold, L.

862

§ is satisfied on the application of manufacturers in the United Kingdom that goods of the same class and description and quality as the goods to which the licence applies can be produced and manufactured in the United Kingdom or some 863 part of His Majesty's dominions and be supplied in the United Kingdom in sufficient quantities to meet the demand of users of the goods at a price not greater than that at which goods imported under the licence are sold."

§ The noble Lord said: The Amendment of Lord Emmott met the case of where a licence was, under certain circumstances, refused. My Amendment has to do with the case where a licence is granted, and its object is to prevent the man who has got the licence from having to go back again continually to this Committee in order to get a new supply. It says that when the licence is granted it shall continue in force until the President of the Board of Trade is satisfied, on the application of the manufacturers, that goods of the same class and description and quality can be produced and manufactured in the United Kingdom or some part of His Majesty's Dominions, and be supplied to the United Kingdom in sufficient quantities to meet the demand of the users of the goods at a price not greater than that at which goods imported under the licence are sold.

§ The importance of this Amendment is that merchants should not be harried or insecure in their business when they are dealing with the dyers. If they know that the dyers have goods on hand, and have not to go backwards and forwards in order to get these licences, they will have much greater security than they have under the Bill as it stands. My noble friend Lord Emmott the other day made the remark that this licence system inevitably means delay, uncertainty, and friction for the export trade on which the country is so dependent. This Amendment would be some mitigation of that possible fatality. It would give much better security for the merchant, and particularly for his agent abroad, say in South America, if he knew that the bleacher or dyer or calico printer to whom he sent his goods had the licence which would enable him to obtain the materials without having to go continually to this Committee. Thereby he would be able to take with speed an order which otherwise he might miss his market for and lose. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 1, line 22, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Askwith.)

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I am inclined to think that my noble friend has not clearly 864 distinguished in his Amendment between general and particular licences. Particular licences are for the specific quantity of a particular article, and therefore the time question does not come in. General licences are not for a particular quantity, and they are issued when the article is not made in this country. The noble Lord says in his Amendment, "and be supplied… in sufficient quantities to meet the demand of users of the goods at a price not greater than that at which goods imported under the licence are sold." It is obvious that if the goods are not made in this country the question of comparative price does not come in at all, as the price depends solely on the price at which the goods are imported. If the licences are particular licences, then the noble Lord's desire to limit the time, or to put in a low limit of time is quite unnecessary, because when they are told they may import a certain quantity the time question does not arise. As to licences being allowed upon a limited time, that I submit would be very inadvisable, because very large stocks might be brought in, and if at any particular time it was thought that it was better to limit the importation of this particular thing the object of limitation would be altogether avoided. It is far better that every six months or every year, the general licences should be reviewed by the Committee, otherwise the whole object of the Bill might be defeated. In the case of the particular licence the Amendment clearly does not apply, because, being a quantity that they can import, the time question is not involved. I hope, therefore, that my noble friend will not press the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ LORD EMMOTT moved, in the last line of the first paragraph of subsection (3), to leave out "three other persons" and insert "one other person," and at the end insert "who shall be chairman of the Committee." The noble Lord said: This Amendment deals with the composition of the Committee. Although I am sorry to say that I have done nothing hitherto to soften the hard heart of my noble friend in charge of the Bill, I move this Amendment in order to bring to a test this question of whether the dye-users on the Committee are to be in a majority or not.

§ I have explained to your Lordships why I am not specially enamoured of the com- 865 position of this Committee. To begin completely to reconstruct a Committee of this kind is a very difficult operation. I do not want to see it enlarged. 1 would rather see it lessened in number, if it is to be a practical working Committee. I desire to see dye-users, for what they are worth in this matter—and they may be worth a great deal—in an absolute majority. I understand that it is the policy of the Government that dye-users are to have a majority in this matter. That will be very easily secured if, instead of three extra members being nominated by the President of the Board of Trade over and above the dye-users and the dye-makers, the nomination of the President of the Board of Trade is limited to one, and the number of the Committee reduced. I think from the point of view of practical working that a Committee of nine will be just as good if not better than a Committee of eleven.

§ Amendment moved— Page 1, line 28, leave out ("three other persons") and insert ("one other person"), and at the end insert ("who shall be chairman of the Committee").—(Lord Emmott,)

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I have no doubt that my noble friend will not desire me to argue the very difficult point as to whether the Committee should consist of nine or eleven. There are more substantial matters in connection with the Amendment than that. I will mention two reasons why I think it will be difficult for the Government to accept this Amendment. One is that the noble Lord limits the number of what I may call independent members who can be appointed by the Government to one. It is intended that among those nominated by the Government the chairman shall be one. It is also intended that a very eminent chemist shall be one of the members nominated by the Government. Many very eminent chemists are not very good chairmen, and it is obvious if you limit the nomination of the Government to one the eminent chemist would have to be the chairman of the Committee. I think it much better, therefore, that we should leave a little more play to the Government, who should be able to nominate three individual members rather than limit them to one.
My noble friend said that he wished to ensure that the users of dyes should have a majority on the Committee. That was not the intention of the Government, though they did have a majority over the 866 manufacturers on the Committee, being as five to three. It would hardly be wise, I think, to allow the users to have an absolute majority on the Committee, because it would then be in their hands to defeat the whole object of the Bill and not to secure the making of any of these dyes in this country.
I think the most conclusive point in opposition to my noble friend is that though this Committee could be constructed in a great many ways—and I dare say ideally my noble friend could invent and devise a far better Committee than that which has been agreed upon by the Government—this particular Committee is the result of a great deal of consultation with the different trades and interests concerned, and they have agreed upon it. The manufacturers have agreed to limit themselves to three representatives, and the consumers, I understand, are satisfied with a representation of five. If you try to alter this Committee in ally particular way you alter the whole balance of it, and it would be necessary again to go through the whole of the rather tedious procedure of negotiation in order to get a fresh balance. Therefore I hope my noble friend will not seek to alter the number to one instead of three, because it would undo the whole of the work that has been done and the agreement which has been arrived at after many weeks of negotiation.

LORD SHEFFIELD
The composition of the Committee is a very serious question. As I understand it, the due makers' representation is made up in this way—one from the great British Dyes Corporation, one from the smaller dye producers, and a third from the chemists, who are not necessarily dye producers and are not the outcome of the dye industry but the foundation of it. I say that because I was surprised last night to hear the noble Viscount affirm just the opposite—that dye-making was the foundation of chemistry, whereas I should have thought that chemistry was the foundation of dye-making.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I do not think I said that.

LORD SHEFFIELD
Yes, the noble Viscount said it twice.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I will tell my noble friend afterwards what I did say.

867

LORD SHEFFIELD
Although it is possible that the chemist who is one of the three representatives of the dye makers may not be a thick and thin supporter of that branch of the industry which makes dyes, he is put on, I suppose, to represent the interest of the man who makes either the foundation or the superstructure of dyes, so to speak. It is said that the users are to have five representatives, but there are not five users' representatives, because four are to be elected by the trade and one is to be nominated by the Board of Trade. I rather think it was stated on behalf of the Board that lie was really to watch over the interests of the medical side; that where matters useful for making dyes are also useful for making drugs and medicines there should be a representative on the Committee on behalf of the drug trade to see that they should not be shut out from important constituents.
Taking the remaining four persons who are supposed to represent the dye users I think we were told that they are to be elected by the Dye Users' Association. I want to point out that the Dye Users' Association, acting as an association, is not at all a satisfactory body to elect those who are to represent the interests of dye users as a whole. This is what Sir Robert Horne said on December 15 in Grand Committee— In the election of a member of the Committee the small members of the Colour Users' Association vote equally with the largest firms. When we had a discussion about that meeting of dye users it was said, first of all, that at the meeting 90 per cent. of the whole of the dye users voted in support of the Bill. That was afterwards whittled down to a statement that the Dye Users' Association who were 90 per cent. had voted in support. Afterwards it came out that in a not very largely attended meeting, as Lord Emmott said, about three to two voted on a division to support the Bill, but they voted as units, and Lord Emmott told your Lordships last night that the machines employed (which, of course, is the unit of production) were more numerous in the minority than they were in the majority.
I think Viscount Peel said he had other information, but I should prefer the information that comes both from Lord Emmott who is very familiar with the trade in Lancashire, and from the evidence I gather from the Lancashire newspapers. 868 I strongly believe that if you took the capital and industry employed by the dye users you would find a considerable majority among those who are opposed to the Bill. We ought not to be told in the first place that 90 per cent. of the users are in favour of the Bill; then that an Association representing 90 per cent. is in favour of the Bill, and finally that in a small meeting three to two voting as units of production support the Bill. That ought not to be taken as a proper constituency to act on behalf of the dye users.
It should be remembered that the dye users are not merely the merchants but the whole of the Lancashire trade which is interested in printed and dyed goods. The man who buys dye for the purpose of dyeing goods is, as Lord Cawley explained yesterday, merely the hireling of these other people. The goods do not belong to him; he is simply employed to do a job for the people who are greatly interested. But the dyer is interested in getting a good dye because he has to consult the varying tastes of his particular customers who supply India, China, South America and so on.
My impression of this Bill as affecting the supply of foreign dues is that it is not so very important as to the great bulk of them. We are told that last year the English production of dyes was 20,000 tons; that is to say, that we manufactured 20,000 tons of dyes in 1919 and only imported 2,500 tons. I have no doubt those figures are correct, and I have no doubt also that the Dyes Corporation can produce these ordinary dyes and obtain a good market for them. It would be very useful, however, if the noble Lord in charge of the Bill could tell us that the Dyes Corporation, Ltd., was producing the very fine dyes which are the essentials of our most important trade, our best calico printing, and other things. The Dyes Corporation have not had occasion to do it, because they have had a very good market for these 20,000 tons of ordinary dyes, some of which have gone into foreign markets, and some into the home markets. But the preservation of our calico printing trade and our fine dyeing trade is exceedingly important. That refers not only to our cottons but to our woollens, and I have no doubt that if the West Riding of Yorkshire was represented in your Lordships' House a good deal of interesting information on that subject would be 869 forthcoming. Lord Emmott told us something about the trade in the west of Scotland, which is perhaps even more important than Lancashire from the point of view of the quality of dyes required. I am satisfied that the representatives of the dye users are not merely the people who buy dyes in order to dye with them but manufacturers and merchants.
I am told that this Association of Dye Users is very largely a Lancashire Association, and is not so strongly representative of Yorkshire nor of Scotland, and we ought not to constitute a body to determine who shall protect the interests of the dye users unless it is a body on which the dye users of that special type of dye (this 2,000 or 2,500 tons, which is what we used to import from Germany I think before the war though not from Germany only) should Le represented. That is really the keystone of the arch. If you lose the power of getting these best dyes for our best trade, it is comparatively unimportant whether we get dyes for what I call the commonplace dye trade. Certain people say that they have always come from Germany, but according to a speech of Sir Robert Horne we imported last year more of these better dyes from Switzerland and the United States than from Germany. Of course Germany will make an effort, and quite rightly, to recover, and if it can recover and produce good dyes We ought to buy them.

NOBLE LORDS
Question!

LORD SHEFFIELD
I am on the question of the composition of the Committee. I say the composition of the Committee does not give to dye users the security of a free market for the best dyes. That is my point, and I am not aware that I have strayed from that point. I do not undertake to say that every noble Lord has as much interest in the matter and comes as much into contact with those engaged in the cotton trade as I have the fortune to do. A body made up of dye users many of whom use common dyes which are not vital and are not represented according to their relative importance in the interests of the trade, is not the best body to represent the dye users.

§ LORD NUNBURNHOLME
I should like to support Lord Emmott in this proposal. Is there any reason why paint 870 manufacturers and other people who are large users of dyes and colours should not be represented on this Committee? There is no doubt that on the Committee there is too much of the producing element and not a sufficient quantity of the consuming element to ensure that we shall be able to obtain a supply of the 2,500 tons of dyes which we have to import. I am sure none of us want to import dyes, but we have had to import them from abroad because that is the only way in which we can get these high-class dyes which are absolutely essential for certain industries. I hope the noble Viscount, Lord Milner, will consent to accept this Amendment.

§ On Question, Amendment negatived.

§ LORD CAWLEY moved, at the end of the first paragraph of subsection (3), after "aforesaid," to insert "and not being members of the British Dyestuffs Corporation, Limited." The noble Lord said: This is an Amendment to an Amendment. The Bill has been so rushed that I think there is no need to make an apology for bringing up a manuscript Amendment. My idea is that any member of the British Dyestuffs Corporation should not be one of the Committee for granting licences. Nearly every Amendment that has been proposed has been opposed by the Government on the ground that the consumers and users of dyes are protected by the three directors representing them on the Committee. It is therefore absolutely necessary, as those three directors have watching briefs for so many interests, that they should be absolutely and entirely above suspicion. My Amendment asks that the three men appointed to the Committee should not be members of the Dyestuffs Corporation because in that ease their interests may conflict.

§ The users of dyes have a very large holding in the Dyestuffs Corporation, because when the company called British Dyes was amalgamated with Messrs. Levinstein they got £1,500,000 of shares for their £960,000 of shares. Even if they have not taken any further shares at all, they hold £1,500,000 of capital of the Dyes Corporation. Therefore when they come to decide whether licences shall be granted or not their interests are undoubtedly conflicting. If they decide against a licence it very likely means more profit for the Dyestuffs Corporation. Some of these users were 871 unquestionably very largely instrumental in the British Dyes Company being amalgamated with Messrs. Levinstein. When the British Dyes Company was formed they were glad enough to consent to their dividend being limited to 6 per cent., on condition that they got £1,500,000 from the Government. They thought that was a very fair and reasonable bargain. So it was. As time went on and the war continued they saw shareholders in Levin-steins making huge profits, and I presume they thought 6 per cent. was not good enough and that it would be very much better, instead of having their 6 per cent. from the British Dyes, that they should have their capital nearly doubled and should get 7 per cent. or 8 per cent. for it. That was the condition. Now that these men have thrown in their lot with the Dyes Corporation they are to be allowed to be on the Committee to decide whether licences shall be granted or not. Their interests, as I have said, will be conflicting because they do not all use the same dyes.

§ Suppose a calico printer wants a certain colour. None of the three users makes use of the particular colour, but they are members of the Dyes Corporation. I do not say they do it intentionally because it does not affect them personally in their business, but it affects them as shareholders of the Dyes Corporation, and therefore without intending it they lean a little towards the Dyes Corporation. Therefore I want the members of the licensing committee to be absolutely above suspicion. There will be enough grumbling, whatever happens. There will be all sorts of charges of corruption made and other charges that always arise in this licensing business. Nobody should be able to say "It was your business to do this, it was your business to do the other."

§ Amendment moved— Page 1, line 28, after ("aforesaid") insert ("and not being members of the British Dyestuffs Corporation, Limited").—(Lord Cawley.)

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
The words in the Bill are "and three other persons not directly concerned as aforesaid." Disinterested persons are to be appointed by the Government. The Board of Trade wants and intends to appoint independent persons, and the noble Lord wishes to inflict an offensive legislative stigma—I use the word deliberately—on one particular set of persons, who are by the words of the Bill excluded. As if there were no 872 other people interested in it! There are other companies which are subsidised by the Government. But no, they are not to be mentioned; it is only the British Dyestuffs Corporation which is mentioned. I utterly refuse on behalf of the Government to allow an Act of Parliament to be made the engine merely of some objection to a particular Corporation, and I hope your Lordships will join in saying you will not assist those who wish to assist in putting a stigma on this Corporation.

§ LORD CAWLEY
That is all very fine, but it does not answer my objection at all. There is no stigma inflicted. If the noble Lord likes I will make the Amendment read "not being members of any other dyestuff manufacturing firm." That would not be invidious. But, as, this British Dyes Corporation represents 75 or 80 per cent. of the dye-making industry and they have been very much connected with the promotion of this Bill it was natural for me to frame the Amendment in the way I did. I think it is much more important to have this licensing committee absolutely free from any suspicion, so that nobody can cast a stone at them, than that the indignation of the noble Lord should be accepted as a reason why it should not be done.

§ VISCOUNT MILNER
The noble Lord's first proposal was offensive; his amended proposal is perfectly otiose. Because the clause says in the distinctest language that the three other persons are not to be directly concerned. The committee consists of five representatives of the dye-users, "three persons concerned in the manufacture of such goods"—that is to say, including the British Dyestuffs Corporation and all other manufacturers of dyes—" and three other persons not directly concerned as aforesaid." That directly excludes members of the British Dyestuffs Corporation and of all similar companies.

§ LORD EMMOTT
As a matter of legal interpretation the noble Viscount may be right. I doubt whether these words are wanted. But I rather resent the attack made on my noble friend, Lord Cawley, for having been offensive. It is a perfectly proper and reasonable proposal, and he showed at once that he wished it to apply to other concerns as well. This Bill is intended to save this Corporation. There is no crime, in regard to a matter of 873 this kind in asking that the people on this committee should not be members of the Corporation.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
I did not say the noble Lord was offensive; I said he wanted to put an offensive legislative stigma in the Bill.

§ LORD CAWLEY
I am sorry there is no legal representative of the Government here, but if my Amendment is superfluous, I will gladly withdraw it. But I think it is not certain whether it is or is not.

§ On Question, Amendment negatived.

§ Clause 2 agreed to.

§ Clauses 3 and 4 agreed to.

§ Clause, 5:

§ Duration and short title.

§ 5.—(1) The provisions of this Act shall continue in force for a period of ten years from the commencement thereof and no longer.

§ (2) This Act may be cited as the Dyestuffs (Import Regulation) Act, 1920.

§ (3) This Act shall come into operation on the fifteenth day of January, nineteen hundred and twenty-one.

§ LORD EMMOTT had an Amendment on the Paper to leave out, in subsection (1), "ten years," and to insert "one year." The noble Lord said: I put this Amendment down in order to ask why ten years is mentioned, because, after all, it is some years since any of these pledges were given about which we have heard so much. Why should it not be a shorter period than ten years?

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
That ten years was a period mentioned over and over again and especially by Sir Albert Stanley, the then President of the Board of Trade, in the House of Commons, as a reasonable period for which this system might last, and, indeed, I understand that a great deal of the money of these corporations was subscribed on that understanding. Ten years was suggested as a reasonable compromise, mainly on the ground that the establishment of a big industry of this kind and its development is a very difficult uphill business, and a shorter period would not be sufficient to enable these companies to get upon their feet and to be able to meet German competition on equal terms.

§ Clause 5 agreed to.