MERCHANDISE MARKS (IMPORTED GOODS) BILL. (Hansard, 14 December 1926)

§ LORD CAWLEY
My Lords, I will not inflict a speech upon your Lordships and I need only detain you for a couple of minutes. The noble Viscount twitted me Yesterday with not having read the Bill and especially with knowing nothing about the Committees that are to be formed under it. The omission on my part to refer to those Committees was due to forgetfulness at the time, but I want to say now that I have a strong objection to those Committees. I am not, however, going to enter into all the objections against delegating the powers of Parliament to Committees. Doubtless, the President of the Board of Trade in appointing a Committee will do so to the best of his ability and will appoint those people that he thinks would act justly. But I can conceive that these Committees may be a source of grave danger and I do not think it is a system that ought to be used to any great extent. I spoke yesterday and the noble Viscount said that I had made a Second Reading speech. No doubt I did, but I thought that yesterday was the best stage of the Session at which to say what I did say. I do not wish to say anything further now except to observe how strongly I object to the Government relegating so much of its administrative work to Committees—work which ought to be performed on the floor of the House and not delegated to Committees the members of which nobody knows.

§ LORD ARNOLD
My Lords, like the noble Lord who has just spoken, I shall only intervene for a few moments. I would not have done so had it not been for certain remarks made by the noble Viscount, Lord Peel, yesterday and, I may say, it is quite agreeable to the noble Viscount that this matter which I am going to raise should be brought forward now. It is a matter of some importance and this is our last opportunity, but I will deal with it very briefly. The point has to do with the damage done to our re-export trade by the Safeguarding of Industries Acts. I gave figures last week showing how seriously that trade 1633 has been injured by the Duties under the Safeguarding of industries Acts. In some cases the trade appears to have been almost wiped out. What did the noble Viscount say in reply? He said last Thursday that the damage had been made good, or may have been made good, by increased trade in home production, but he not give any figures, and I think I can claim that yesterday I disposed of that contention by conclusions drawn from figures.
As regards the lace trade, I said it was very bad. Since then I have obtained a quotation from the Drapers Record, a recent issue of which says: "The lace trade is so bad, indeed, that things could not be worse." in replying yesterday the noble Viscount somewhat changed his ground, suggesting that my contention about the injury to the re-export trade would be altered a good deal if transhipments in bond were taken into account. Again the noble Viscount did not give any figures and said he was not able to do so. I gave the figures about trade, and to-day I ask the noble Viscount to give them about transhipments in bond. It may be that transhipments in bond will at first sight, to some degree, appear to help the noble Viscount in this matter, but about that I will say two things. First, even if he has the figures and gives them, even if it is the case that by taking transhipments in bond into account the damage done to the re-export trade as shown by the figures which I gave is reduced—it may be reduced possibly by 30 per cent. or 40 per cent. or 50 per cent. or even more—even so, the damage will remain very serious. I am not saying it is so reduced. Secondly, and this is very important, this system of transhipment in bond as regards these goods is of course due to the new Duties and it has a decidedly adverse effect upon trade as a whole and, in particular, upon London trade, because it means that goods which would come up from the docks to London warehouses and to London showrooms do not do so to the same extent, as formerly, but are kept in bond until they are transhipped.
Therefore buyers who come to London from all over the world to see and to choose goods do not have the same selection as formerly. That not only injures the entrepot trade but also, I am afraid, there is only too much reason to suppose 1634 that it does an injury to our export trade, certainly so far as lace is concerned. Not only has the re-export trade been very seriously injured, but export trade in lace has been cut down a great deal. This point, if I may say so, was made very well last Thursday by the noble Lord, Lord Emmott, to whose memory yesterday tributes were paid in your Lordships' House. He pointed out that it was vital to keep London as the market, in a sense, for the world for entrepot goods and, for the reasons I have explained, this transhipment in bond is going to mean that that will not be so with anything like the same degree as formerly. I would, therefore, suggest to the noble Viscount that taking everything into account this point about transhipment in bond is not really going to help him; in fact, would contend that it makes matters worse in regard to the total damage done to trade by the Safeguarding of Industries Acts.
If you are going to have these Duties, if there is going to be this messing and muddling and mischief done by tariffs, the Government ought really to consider whether they will not do here what was done in Germany—it may be so to-day—before the War. Hamburg was made what is called a free port and, if you are to guard against mischief of the kind which I have been outlining, the Government really ought to make London, or part of London, a free port. There should be other free ports in this country, because we have such a big seaboard. That would not by any means put the matter right, but it might do something to lessen the mischief which is growing and is likely to grow. I think I have put that quite clearly to the noble Viscount and I think also I have put it fairly. If he will give the figures I shall be much obliged.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
My Lords, Lord Cawley declared that he has read the Bill. I charged him yesterday with not having read the Bill. The noble Lord assures me he has read the Bill and I therefore withdraw the accusation against him. Another point the noble Lord made was in regard to the Committees, which he said he did not like. Upon that I will only say this. The Committees are, of course, not the last word. When they have reported to the 1635 Department and if an Order is made, that comes before your Lordships' House, so that even though the members of the Committee be the obscure individuals to whom the noble Lord alluded—

§ LORD CAWLEY
I did not say they were obscure.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
Well, whoever they be, obscure persons or not, your Lordships will have a full opportunity when the Order comes of pronouncing upon the Order as you, choose. I think everything is pretty well safeguarded. The only reason I objected to the noble Lord making what I called a Second Reading speech on the Report stage was that he should have given the House the benefit of his experience on the Second Reading and not have waited until your Lordships had approved of the Bill in principle. The noble Lord's speech would have been more effective if it had been made before your Lordships had pronounced upon the Bill on Second Reading.
The point raised by the noble Lord opposite, Lord Arnold, dealt with our re-export trade in connection with the lace trade and also with the silk trade. I am not very well posted at the present moment to reply as regards the lace trade, bat I happened to be at Nottingham recently and I was informed that the lace trade was suffering, not because the lace produced was not good but because the fashion was declining among women of having lace curtains to the same extent as they formerly used to make use of them. With regard to the specific question the noble Lord asked me—namely, whether I could give figures about the transhipment trade—I enquired yesterday if I could obtain them, but I have not been able to get them and I very much regret that I have not. The noble Lord's point was, of course, that the re-export trade has suffered very heavily, but I tried to point out that, if the re-export trade went on under another name, then we had not suffered very heavily. As I say, I have not got these figures, but the Customs authorities who have been consulted say that large quantities of such goods which were formerly included in the re-export figures are now dealt with by transhipment under bond and that so far as information is avail- 1636 able it seems that the increase in transshipment of silk and other things under bond since the Duties came into force accounts for a large part of the decrease in the recorded figures of re-exports of such goods.
The noble Lord raised a further point as to whether the transhipment of goods was a really useful substitute for the re-export of goods, and on that point discussed the interesting question whether the Port of London should be a free port as Hamburg was in the old days. That is a large question which I am glad to be able to refer to my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade. But this discussion, though a very interesting and important one, is one which I do not think is really relevant to the Bill actually before us because in that case a Duty is levied on the silk, the Duty has to be assessed and paid, and that, of course, must mean a certain amount of delay, though I believe when the matter gets into working order the trade passes very rapidly through the Customs. But here there is no question of a Duty being levied at all. Here, it is only a question of marking goods, and all that the merchant has to do is to give a bond that the goods are for re-export. Then they pass quite rapidly through the Customs. There is no Duty levied and there is no delay. Even if there was any delay in the original setting up of the Silk Duties in the matter of levying Duties on goods passing through the Customs, that would not apply to this case, because, as I say, you have only to sign this bond and the whole matter is dealt with at once and there is no further trouble and no further delay.

§ EARL BEAUCHAMP
My Lords, the figures to which the noble Viscount has referred will be very interesting, and though I can understand that he is not able to give the full details this afternoon, I rise to ask whether he would be good enough to consider some method of making them public at an early date, whether by communicating them in a letter to the Press or having them published in a Paper for circulation amongst members of your Lordships' House. I can assure him that these are matters of very real interest and if the figures were laid on the Table of the House I 1637 am sure some method might be found by which your Lordships could secure copies even during the Recess.

§ VISOUNT PEEL
I shall be glad to consult my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade on that point.

§ VISCOUNT PEEL
My Lords, I accept the Amendment.