§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
§ THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (VISCOUNT PEEL)My Lords, this is a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Board of Trade which increases by 25 per cent. the royalties payable to the authors of musical works in respect of records, perforated rolls or other contrivances for the mechanical performance of those works. Under an Act of 1911, payment by way of royalty was 5 per cent. This 25 per cent. increase, therefore, raises that figure to 6¼ per cent. The Bill represents advice given to the Government by a very competent Committee, which went into the whole, thing and which suggested that remuneration of composers at the present moment was not fair. I hope that your Lordships will appreciate also that, owing to the change in the value of money, the 454 6¼ per cent. really represents only that which the 5 per cent. represented under the Act of 1911. The Government feel that this is fair remuneration, and accordingly I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Peel.)
§ LORD ASKWITHMy Lords, I entirely endorse all that my noble friend has said with regard to this Bill and its importance. I happened to be plenipotentiary for this country at a Conference at Berlin to amend the Convention of Berne so long ago as 1908, and when we came back there was a battle royal between the gramophone producers and the composers of musical works. In the Statutes of those days the arrangement in regard to authors and composers was really scandalous, and that has gone on from that day to this. The gramophone people have increased their production and made large sums of money out of the brains of other people, and we are behind all other countries in the remuneration that we give to the composers. This Bill is an instalment, at any rate, of a fairer state of affairs than has existed in the past.
§ VISCOUNT HALDANEMy Lords, after the concurrence of testimony in favour of this Bill I shall make no criticism of it. It fell to me to conduct the Act of 1911 through this House, and I thought at the time that the proportions provided by it were somewhat arbitrary. After considering this matter with the assistance of the noble Lord who has just spoken, the Government have decided to take a course which, on the face of it, seems reasonable—namely, that there shall be an increase in the proportion to be paid to the composer. In those circumstances I think the testimony that we have heard ought to have weight and that we should offer no opposition to this Bill.
§ On Question, Bill read 2a.