INDUSTRIAL COURTS AMENDMENT BILL. [H.L.] (Hansard, 13 May 1924)

§ LORD ASKWITH
My Lords, in moving the Third Reading of this Bill I should like to make a brief comment on the remarks made during the Committee stage by the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack. I have had an opportunity of reading the OFFICIAL REPORT of that day, and I understand him to have said that there could be little if any doubt that the Government would not afford facilities for the Bill in another place. He put his argument upon the basis that it would increase strikes. I entirely join issue with him as to the possibility of this Bill increasing strikes. It is only when the Minister chooses to intervene that there will be an Inquiry, and during that Inquiry there may be some opportunity of finding a settlement without a strike or lock-out taking place. It is probable also that the Bill would have the effect of largely diminishing sympathetic strikes The leaders of other trade unions might take the view that it was not advisable for them to involve their unions in sympathetic strikes while a Court of Inquiry was sitting, and where a Court of Inquiry had been ordered, even if a strike had already taken place, they might decide to keep their own trade out of it.
I do not wish to cite at great length the many strikes which, if this Bill had been a Statute, might have been avoided. If it were known that it was the will of Parliament that a fair time should be, allowed for inquiry, a strike or lock-out might have been averted in very many cases, at any rate for the time being. I may quote one instance where over a hundred thousand persons engaged in the cotton trade in Lancashire were locked out for ten days as the result of a dispute concerning one man. An Inquiry took place while that dispute was going on, but it might never have happened at all if it had been realised that the public and Parliament desired that a fair time should be given for inquiry. In the 387 recent case of the locomotive men, I have been assured that such skilled men as those engaged in this work, had they known that it was the desire of the country that an Inquiry should be held, would have hesitated to follow the line which they took and to throw the whole country into disturbance. I am anxious to bring about an atmosphere in which those who are engaged in industrial disputes shall keep calm while an opportunity is given for an Inquiry to be allowed a fair chance. At the present moment the miners have taken the view that the country wants them to be quiet and calm. That is the atmosphere which I wish to create. At present there is a small strike of coal tippers and trimmers in Leith. The Minister has ordered an Inquiry. Will the coal tippers and trimmers and the rest of the country remain quiet while that Inquiry takes place? It is, to a certain extent, a, test case.
We have heard a long and not uninteresting discourse from the noble Lord opposite upon a theory that was preached nineteen hundred years ago: "Love thy neighbour as thyself." That is a great doctrine, but it has been preached for nineteen hundred years, and unless something direct is done to assist that doctrine by human endeavour it will not have the effect of preventing these internal disputes. Did that theory put down piracy or slavery? Some practical steps should be taken, and I would ask that the door be not bolted and barred at once to prevent any consideration of this small measure, which is not advanced for any political purpose, and not promoted for reasons of theory, but is an attempt of a practical character to solve a real difficulty. I hope that the Government will not sit down and continue to preach the theory of "Love thy neighbour as thyself" without doing anything practical. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a third time.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
My Lords, I waited for a moment to know whether the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack would respond to my noble friend's last appeal. I think it is worth your Lordships' while to draw attention to this evening's proceedings. The time of your Lordships' House has 388 been occupied entirely with two efforts that have been put forward to solve the difficulties of industrial unrest, and they have both been put forward from the Conservative side, and His Majesty's Government have no contribution whatever to make to the solution. That is the important thing to consider. The Labour Government cannot deal with labour questions. They are unable to find any solution, so the noble and learned Viscount upon the Woolsack puts forward, as he always does, points of difficulty and criticism and detail. He says this cannot be done and that cannot be done, but he has no proposal to make of Ins own. Yet he told us upon another occasion that the Government was composed of men of vast industrial experience. That is true, and we expected something to emerge from them—something more than a mere reduction in the price of sugar—which would do something to solve these great industrial questions.
Yet the Government have no answer. They do not even promise an Inquiry. The Labour Government are bankrupt, apparently, of any method of dealing with these problems, and although my noble friend Lord Askwith, who is, of course, an expert upon this subject, is able to make a proposal, he receives no encouragement from the Government. The noble and learned Viscount upon the Woolsack thinks the Bill will do more harm than good, and that certainly no time can be given it in the House, of Commons. My noble friend and relative. Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, made another proposal, and the same thing happened. The Lord President of the Council had certain feelings of approval, but the Lord Chancellor had nothing to offer but criticism. Nothing, he said, could be done, and so I suppose this Session will go through and no proposal will be made by the Government to deal with the only vital question of internal politics which is really before the country—namely, the question of industrial unrest. I hope that the country will take notice of our proceedings to-night, and will draw the necessary and inevitable moral therefrom.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
The noble Marquess appealed to me, and I will answer him in a few words. He made, I think, a slight error in his logic. It is true that these proposals which we have been discussing will not be accepted, but 389 it is quite another thing to infer from that that nothing will be clone. The Government is engaged on the lines of proposals some of which have appeared and other of which will appear later, but they are not the proposals which we have been discussing to-day. We recognise ourselves to be only poor human beings, but when we know that things will not do and will not work, it is our duty to say so.