§ LORD STRABOLGI had given Notice that he would draw attention to the need for the adequate mobilisation and use of the industrial and labour resources of the country; and move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, since this Motion was put on the Order Paper in agreement with my noble friend Lord Addison, there have been certain changes in the duties of various Ministers of the Government. I do not know whether it is a case of cause and effect. The announcement of this debate has perhaps also stimulated another place, where, yesterday, a very important pronouncement was made by my right honourable friend Mr. Bevin, the Minister of Labour. I was able to hear only part of the Minister of Labour's speech, and, owing to the lateness of its appearance, I have not been able to digest the whole of that important pronouncement in the Official Report of the other place. Therefore, if I go over some of the ground which has already been covered, I hope my noble friend Lord Moyne, who is to reply, will forgive me. I shall be as brief as I can, because I understand other noble Lords desire to take part in the debate. At the same time this is a very important subject, as your Lordships will agree.
§ May I first of all venture a few remarks about the changes in Governmental organisation? Nobody outside the Government has been found to praise them, and I have not found anyone inside the Government who has praised them cither. They have had a universally bad Press, and therefore there may be something good in them—I do not know. But as I understand them, from the remarks of the Minister of Labour, a number of Committees have been dissolved and other Committees which are now called Executives have been established in their place. One of these Committees is to deal with production and is called the Production Executive; another with imports, called 210 the Import Executive. Over the first one I think the Minister of Labour, who, I should have thought, already had quite plenty to do as Minister, presides, and over the second my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade, who, also I should have thought, was one of the busiest men in the country, presides. Then the conclusions of these two Committees—I do not know whether jointly or not—apparently go to another Committee or Executive under the Chairmanship of the Lord President of the Council, that great ex-civil servant, Sir John Anderson. Then when that sifting process has been gone through, they go to the War Cabinet for final decision.
§ If I may venture to say so, Committees in this country have run riot and have become a curse. There are far too many Committees. What my friends in another place and my noble friends here have been advocating is that for the economic side of the war we should have a General Staff with a whole-time Minister with no other duties as its chief. In the last war—my noble friend Lord Samuel has often described it—the War Cabinet consisted entirely of non-departmental chiefs, except for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had to be there, I suppose. We began that arrangement with the present War Cabinet when it was formed, and three Ministers still are there who are practically Ministers without Portfolio, the Lord President of the Council, Mr. Greenwood, and the Lord Privy Seal. But none of those three, who are without great Departments of State to look after, is on these two Executives. I confess myself much puzzled by this arrangement. It may be marvellous and may produce tremendous results. I hope it will. Take the case, for example, of my right honourable friend the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Alexander. If anyone has a hundred per cent. whole-time executive job it is the First Lord of the Admiralty at the present time, and yet he is to be a member of this Production Executive. Quite frankly, to me it does not make sense. I do not see how he is to double these two duties. However, that is the machinery.
§ I have not risen, my Lords, in any critical spirit at all. I can only confess myself really mystified by this new Governmental organisation. I am asking for Papers. I do not know if the 211 Government have any Papers to lay. I do not press for them, because I am sure that my noble friend opposite will give us all the information he can properly give us on this highly important matter. But I would venture to make, if I may, one or two suggestions which come to me as a result of some activity in the war and in business and from what I know from moving about the country myself. In the first place I believe—and this was not apparently touched on in the debate yesterday in another place—one of the most hampering obstacles in certain parts of the country is the hundred per cent. Excess Profits Tax. It sounds marvellous in theory to take all excess profits so that there should be no profiteering, but in practice it does not work out like that. The business men of this country, the small employers engaged in engineering work—men who are called "little maisters" in the Black Country—are thoroughly patriotic, but while they would die for their country they are very reluctant to have their businesses ruined. What happens in practice is that small businesses with what is called a poor line are seriously embarrassed if the whole of their excess profits are taken in taxation. Small businesses of this kind have small financial resources and, if they greatly increase their output by working three times as hard, their work in progress goes up and their book debts also pile up, and if their profits are tied up in stocks and book debts they cannot pay excess profits without going to the bank or closing down. Plant wears out, they cannot make an adequate allowance for wear and tear, and so production falls because they have not sufficient resources to replace plant.
§ A man with a business showing a profit of £800 or £900 a year before the war, if he is requested to expand that business and put in new plant cannot do it unless he has capital resources behind him, which is not usually the case. If he did it he would be running the risk of financial embarrassment and even ruin. It sounds all right to take all excess profits, but in practice it does not work out like that, and I am afraid it is leading to a loss of production which could otherwise be harnessed to the machine of war production. I hesitate to make suggestion; about taxation in your Lordships' House but nevertheless I think that if the 212 Excess Profits Tax were fixed at 80 per cent. we should get better results. I am not impugning the patriotism of these people at all, and I am not basing these remarks on the need of incentive; but these people throughout their lives have been trained for working at a profit and if you suddenly remove that they are rather at a loss. I believe they will make sacrifices, but if you ask them to ruin their businesses you are going too far.
§ I do not want the Government to be tender to property. I think there has been far too much tenderness to property in this war and too many appeals to property. May I mention a few simple examples? There have been appeals to people to surrender machine tools. Why invite people to surrender machine tools? Why not commandeer all the machine tools you need? It is a common-sense thing to do. Then there have been appeals for 100,000 pairs of binoculars. One man gives his binoculars and the next day sees his neighbour going to the races with a beautiful pair of Zeiss glasses over his shoulder. There was an appeal for heavy motor cars. Why do you not commandeer them? There was the same ridiculous business about aluminium pots and pans. Why did not the Government requisition all the surplus aluminium in the country? It was the obvious thing to do. There has been a great change in the mentality of the British people in recent years in regard to compulsion and conscription. We had a great prejudice in the past against any form of compulsion, but to-day what people want is an assurance that everyone is being treated alike in war time. They do not feel that that is happening when one man responds to an appeal and finds that his neighbour is shirking it.
§ Again, I do not like the way in which factories doing non-essential work are being shut down by the haphazard methods of limiting their raw materials. If a factory with skilled workpeople is doing non-essential work it should be shut down. You may have to compensate people so as not to ruin them, but either it should be closed down and the* workpeople transferred or it should be given war work to do. There are firms with skilled workers who are unable to get war work. It is puzzling to me why that should be the case There is undoubtedly 213 an urgent need of more labour in certain districts, but it is difficult to transfer labour because of billeting and transport difficulties. The easiest thing to do is to take the skilled labourer already in a particular district which is engaged on nonessential work. Then you would not have to move people about from one district to another.
§ One of the difficulties of transferring labour—I have had some personal experience of this—comes from the billeting regulations. I am very glad my right honourable friend the Minister of Labour intends to make some improvement there. The old arrangement of paying 5s. for lodging a workman was grotesque. Very few housewives welcome an extra man in the house at 5s. a week. In some cases he is made so uncomfortable that he wants to go back to the place he came from. I am very glad that matter is being taken in hand. The fact remains that in certain districts where munitions are being manufactured there are still people engaged on non-essential work or on the production of semi-luxury goods which, apart from export trade, we could do without. The obvious policy I should have thought would be to close down the non-essential factories and transfer the labour employed in them. I do not believe you will get the necessary labour for new factories by any other method. I may be wrong, but I am going to make the prophecy that unless you close down non-essential factories, you will not get labour in sufficient quantities for new factories making munitions. I am not giving away any secret when I say we are not yet mobilised for war up to more than 70 per cent. My noble friend will not be able to deny that on behalf of the Government.
§ Another observation I particularly want to make is that those for whom I speak have grave doubts about the wisdom of taking large numbers of fresh recruits into the Army at present, until the production of equipment for them is more fully organised, and we are sure that enough labour is available for the production of munitions and for agriculture. I believe my noble friend Viscount Elibank is going to say something on this subject, and I will only say one word about it. We are very disturbed at the calling up of land workers at the present time. I apologise for having to say this 214 in the presence of my noble friend Lord Croft, because I realise that the War Office have been most helpful in releasing skilled men, and I do not want to labour the point because my noble friend Lord Addison, who has close modern experience of this problem, informs me and asks me to tell the Government that he intends to put on the Paper at an early date a Motion dealing with the question of land workers.
§ Before I leave the question of the land, however, I may say that I think my noble friend Lord Moyne will not deny that in this country to-day there are vast areas of land—I am not exaggerating—still derelict or semi-derelict, land which has not been properly brought under tillage. He will not deny also, I think, that the county agricultural committees with the best will in the world have neither the power nor the capacity nor the resources to take it over. We say that the State should take over this land at once. This country cannot afford to have idle acres.
§ Transport is still a grave problem. I noted with pleasure the remarks of my friend the Minister of Labour about dock labour, but that is only part of the difficulty. There are still grave defects in the transport system of the country, and I believe that the Government are not in a position to deny that the Minister without Portfolio, who has now been transferred to the very important duty of post-war reconstruction, made out an unanswerable case for the Government taking control of all the transport of the country, but it was not approved by the War Cabinet.
§ I should like for one moment to address myself particularly to the acting Leader of the House, my noble friend Lord Snell. My noble friend reads the Daily Herald, as I do, and he is aware that the industrial correspondent of the Daily Herald, whom we both know, Mr. George Thomas, is a very experienced and reliable journalist. My noble friend must have seen the articles that Mr. Thomas has been publishing in the Daily Herald on waste and inefficiency in factories engaged on war work up and down the country. Not all of them, but a substantial minimum of these factories are still not really being employed to their full capacity owing to inefficient management; and for this statement chapter and verse 215 are given in this remarkable series of articles. I am very glad to see that the Minister of Labour intends to deal drastically with inefficient factory executives. ! It is rather late in the day, but better late I than never. Eight months is a long time | to take to discover the need for this. I | know that my noble friend the acting Leader of the House has read the articles to which I have referred, and I hope that he will use his great influence to see that the information contained in them is followed up.
§ Then I should like to say one word on this great question of the compulsion of labour. I am no more in favour of compelling people to do things which they can be persuaded to do than is anyone else. I believe that we are risking trouble if we try to compel labour to work for private industry even on war work; but I do not see that there should be any difficulty at all in a certain measure of compulsion for State services. If I understood the remarks of the Minister of Labour yesterday, it is intended to make the work at the docks a State service. I hope that that is so, and that the State will make itself responsible not only for the efficient working of the docks but for the future employment of the dock labourers. If one result of the war is to decasualise dock labour finally, and make the service in the great ports a national service, I believe that it will be a godsend to the country.
§ I must refer, of course, to the other important pronouncement which was made—namely, that there is to be a complete register of persons in employment or available for employment. I am glad to hear that that is being done, and I do not know why it was not done a year ago; but again, better late than never. A register of people available for employment, however, will not get us anywhere unless we have a real policy behind it and know what we are going to do with them, particularly if we are still going to hesitate and dawdle over the question of allowing luxury manufacturing and non-essential trades to continue. This register by itself will not get us very far. I referred a moment ago to the shortage of industrial labour in certain districts. In one most important industrial district that I know well, the Government training establishments—and this may surprise some of your Lordships—are only half filled; they 216 cannot get more than half the recruits that they require. Moreover, private employers who have acceded to the Government suggestion that they should set up their own training schemes cannot get people at all; they are not there. That is what is happening in one very important industrial district. I think, therefore, that this matter is really very urgent, and there is no time for further debate about it.
§ I have purposely not drawn a black picture; I am pointing out what I think are the defects, as I think it is the duty of a member of this House to do if he thinks that he can help. I think that the general spirit of the workpeople has been magnificent, especially during these months of heavy air raids. They are working very hard and very loyally, and the great majority of the executives and managers are doing their very best by their workpeople and by the country. All that is accepted, and I acknowledge it. I am also aware that the production of many munitions has gone up to a very satisfactory extent. But the problem still remains of completely arming this nation as rapidly as possible, and there is room for improvement. If my premises are correct, I suggest that certain steps should be taken without delay. One or two of these matters were dealt with yesterday in another place. Let me recapitulate. Certain non-essential industries and trades must be closed down immediately—not three months hence, but next week—in order that their workpeople may be absorbed in the war industries. They have people who are factory minded, who are used to working in factories, and they are close to the war factories, so that there would be no trouble about transport, lodgings and the like. There is your reservoir. I could give figures for various parts of the country, though I do not propose to do so. It is astonishing to see the number of skilled workers who are still employed in work which the country can perfectly well do without.
§ Secondly—and here I apologise in advance to the noble Lord, Lord Croft—recruiting for the Forces in the areas where the most important industries are located must be restricted. Go on recruiting in Brighton and Eastbourne if you like, but leave the Black Country, the Tyne and the Clyde alone as far as you 217 can. In these munition-producing areas the Minister of Labour should have discretion to direct men who would otherwise be taken for the Fighting Forces to take up work on munitions. One reason for my not being able completely to digest the speeches made in another place yesterday is that up to the moment when I came to this House I was busily engaged in trying to prevent a skilled artificer, who is on the exempted list, from being taken to Lancashire to join the Air Force as a recruit. He is doing sub-contracting work for Shortt's aeroplane works, and yet the Air Force want to take him away from that work to Lancashire and make him join up as a recruit. I have been spending my time in trying to get this man properly dealt with. It is really absurd to take a man who is essential to the aircraft industry and put him into the Air Force as a raw recruit.
§ The next point is one which I am glad to see was referred to by the Minister of Labour, but I hope that it will be dealt with drastically. There must be an extension of compulsory billeting for workpeople who are moved about on war work, and the rapid provision of hostels, hutments and other accommodation for the extra labour required, near to their work. More attention must be given to proper transport facilities for the workers, because that is highly important. I see that the Minister of Labour is taking steps to deal with the question of the care of children of women who may be available to enter industry and to provide other domestic aids, including communal restaurants and the like. I am glad to hear that, and I hope that this matter will be tackled with energy and drive. The dilatory methods of our magnificent and honourable Civil Service are not really suitable to-day for some of these matters, which have been neglected too long.
§ My last word is with regard to shipping, and merchant shipping in particular. Great progress has been made in accelerating the construction of merchant ships since it was put under the Admiralty, but those of us who are in touch with the problem are coming to the conclusion that the time has arrived when there should be a special Ministry for Merchant Shipping Construction, similar to the Ministry for Aircraft Production, with 218 similar powers. This matter is very important. It is obvious to your Lordships that it is no use raising an immense Army unless we can equip them, and it is also useless to have this Army and modern equipment unless both can be transported to the theatres of war, where they will go into action. That means shipping. We are just carrying on with our available shipping after the losses. Shipping construction is going ahead as fast perhaps as could be expected in all the circumstances; but when we take the initiative we shall need a great deal of extra shipping, and it will have to be provided in time. Lam not sure that shipping is not going to be as important as aeroplanes or any other munitions in the near future. I venture to put forward these few observations on this very important subject, and I invite His Majesty's Government to provide us with all the information they cm. I beg to move.
§ VISCOUNT SAMUELMy Lords, the noble Lord who has addressed us has undoubtedly raised a matter which is one of the crucial issues of the war. Victory depends—no one will dissent from this—not only on the strength, the valour and the efficiency of our Armed Forces, but also on the organisation of national production. The competition for man-power is very keen. It is not only a question of the recruitment of the Forces' employment on the production of munitions and naval shipbuilding, but we also have to provide for many other matters. It was disquieting to hear from the Secretary of the Ministry of Shipping a few days ago that our merchant shipbuilding has not yet reached the point that we attained in the last war. There is also food production—of vital and primary importance—and there is the maintenance and development of the export trade, on which our whole financial position largely depends. In all these matters this question of man-power is involved, and indeed we have cause for rejoicing that our own man-power is now being largely supplemented by that of America, who will help us not only in munition production, but also apparently before long in the provision of shipping, and also in matters of finance. Incidentally, may I remark that, as perhaps your Lordships may have observed in Mr. Bevin's speech of yesterday, the fact is striking and encouraging that many 'planes have now been 219 flown across the Atlantic in the depth of winter without a single case of loss?
But, in the main, however much we may expect to obtain from America, we must depend upon our own resources chiefly; and unquestionably throughout the nation for a long time past there has been much criticism of the way in which this matter has been handled by His Majesty's Government. There has been, I think, a complaint in very many quarters that affairs have not been satisfactorily managed. The task is a threefold one. It is in the first place to secure that all labour that can be released from every other occupation shall in fact be allotted to those various requirements necessitated by the war effort; secondly, that when you have got this large pool of released labour, it shall be wisely and rightly allocated among all the various competing claims; and thirdly, when that is done, that you do in fact secure that the labour and the materials shall actually be brought together as planned—and that is not the least difficult of the three. Those are the matters to which the House is invited to-day to direct its attention and to which the noble Lord has devoted himself in his comprehensive speech.
So far as this last point is concerned it is not only a question of bringing labour to the point where the work is but also, wherever possible, of bringing work to the point where the labour is, which is frequently a much easier task. For when you transfer labour you raise all sorts of human questions of great complexity—billeting, to which the noble Lord has referred, the provision of accommodation in one form or another. You may often have to move whole families. You there may raise a question of the employment not only of the one worker you have in view but of other dependent workers who may not find equal employment in the other place, and you have the fact that the family usually does not wish to be divided. Those are all questions of great complexity and difficulty, not to be easily solved by a stroke of the pen.
There is another issue to which the noble Lord has not referred and this, again, is one of fundamental importance. You have to endeavour to secure a contented population, to remove friction and discontent on matters of wages and remuneration. With a rising cost of living 220 matters of wage adjustment continually arise and are frequently very difficult. The nation may be involved in enormous costs to the taxpayer and a great increase of the National Debt at the end of the war unless this matter is handled carefully. There is indeed, as one of our fellow members, Lord Arnold, pointed out in a recent letter to The Times, very urgent need of a considered wage policy which up to the present the Government do not appear to have developed. That letter was followed up by an interesting article in The Times by Mr. Seebohm Rowntree, one of our foremost authorities on these matters, in which among other things he very strongly advocated a change which many of us in this House have urged again and again—namely, the establishment of a system of family allowances.
It is to my mind lamentable that that question was not taken up at the very outset of the war and before the war, for tens of millions, hundreds of millions, might possibly have been saved if, instead of having a wage system which had to provide for the needs of either the average family or the large family and in default of which great hardship may be inflicted, we had had a wage system which recognised family means, as our system of Army pay, Navy pay and Air Force pay does, and to give family allowances in accordance with the actual need of the household. On more than one occasion before the outbreak of war we raised debates in this House on the subject and implored the Government to set up an inquiry into this matter with a view to considering practical schemes and the possible opposition to them, so that if an emergency arose we should at all events have explored the situation. It is one of the matters for which the late Government are deserving to my mind of great censure that they flatly refused/ for no reason given, even to investigate this subject, with the result that now there has been not even an attempt to secure an agreement in regard to it. It is true that no action can be taken unless public opinion approves and the obstacle has largely been from the trade unions who have adopted a very conservative attitude. I think again that the leaders of the Labour Party are in some degree to blame in not having used their energies to get this whole ques- 221 tion reviewed with a view, now that industry is put upon a war footing, to seeing that the same principle which applies to our Armed Forces is also applied to our industrial army.
I was interested and somewhat surprised to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, a condemnation of the 100 per cent. Excess Profits Duty. I thought that that had been one of the main proposals of the Party of which he is an eminent member and of which he is one of the chief spokesmen in this House. Indeed when the Labour Party came into the Government one of the things done was immediately by a stroke of the pen to apply the 100 per cent. proportion to Excess Profits. Now, to-day, the noble Lord tells us that it has not worked out as was expected and has done in various directions some harm, and with much courage tie has advocated that the matter should be reconsidered.
Sweeping proposals sometimes do not work out as they are designed. For example, the noble Lord urged strongly that we should close down all nonessential factories, not in six months' time but next week, and then, he says, you will have a pool of labour from which you will be able to draw for all your necessary industries. It may be a stagnant pool unless you create unemployment that can be immediately remedied by demand for that specific kind of labour and more or less in that particular neighbourhood. Unless easy arrangements car, be made for removal, you may be creatirg a great deal of hardship and profound discontent. You may have your figures of unemployment rising by leaps and bounds, and a further additional charge may be made upon the Exchequer. That steady pressure should be brought to bear in favour of the transfer of labour from non-essential to essential indusries I thoroughly concur, but to close down next week, by a stroke of the pen, according to schedule, all industries which may be regarded as non-essential may prove, like the 100 per cent. Excess Profits Duty, to have results not designed or desired.
Then, again, the noble Lord says that the Government should take over all transport straight away—that is to say, all the railways should be put under the direct management of a Government Department 222 and other forms of transport similarly treated. That, too, might result not in greater efficiency and less delay, but in less efficiency and more delay. Often ruthless and vigorous methods of compulsion, which are expected to effect greater rapidity of action, work out in precisely the opposite fashion. You seek to create a dictator, and in fact you produce a bottle-neck. The result of your action is precisely the opposite of what you wish.
As to the system of control at the centre of all these matters, I doubt whether anyone can give a really valuable opinion who has not been in close touch with the working of the present system and who knows it from the inside. Prima facie, undoubtedly you ought to have a War Cabinet, small in numbers, all of whose members are free from Departmental responsibility. I have frequently advocated that, and I regret that that principle, which was for the moment, apparently, adopted, has since been largely departed from. At the same time, I should be sorry to express an opinion on the matter, or call down on His Majesty's Government any voice of censure, unless I knew precisely how, in fact, that system was working and how the present alternative is being carried out. It is somewhat disturbing to find that, again and again, within the Government, you have Committees appointed to co-ordinate various branches of the Administration, and then have a fresh Committee to co-ordinate the co-ordinators. I do not know to how many degrees of co-ordination that is likely to proceed.
As to compulsion, certainly, whenever necessary, compulsion must be applied, and the nation would be ready to accept it, but the adoption of compulsion is not in itself a proof of vigour or a guarantee of success. On the contrary, compulsion may be, in fact, a confession of failure, and may be due to slackness and inefficiency in working what is a better system—namely, the voluntary system. The whole nation is willing to contribute its utmost in labour and in every other way to victory. The people only need to be told what they are to do. An appeal responded to willingly is far better from every point of view than the exercise of compulsory powers. I was very glad to find that the Minister of Labour and 223 National Service, in his speech yesterday, said that while he was quite willing to apply compulsion, and thought it essential that there should be an adequate register of all labour, he meant to keep compulsion as a sanction in the background and intended to proceed as far as possible to obtain results by other means, otherwise a worse result might be brought about. Your Lordships will watch with keen interest and not without anxiety the working of the new arrangement that has been announced on behalf of the Government, and will wish all success to the Minister of Labour and National Service in his strenuous efforts to improve a state of things which, in his own view and in the view of his colleagues in the Government, has hitherto been lacking in many of the essentials of success.
VISCOUNT ELIBANKMy Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, on having put down this Motion to-day because it deals with the most important issue facing the country to-day. I should like to preface the very few remarks I am going to make by extending my sympathy to the Government in the task with which they are confronted. I confess that I have been a critic of the Government in the past in these matters. A year before the war broke out I was one of those who advocated in this House that we should have a register of employees so that we could devise methods for employing the man-power of this country if war came, as many of us believed it would; and it was only after war came that this problem was really tackled. If it had been tackled a year before, I believe we should not have been in the position we are in to-day. Nevertheless, that is past history, and what we have got to* do is to face up to the position as it now exists.
It is a very difficult and serious position because, whereas this country has a population of some 45,000,000 people, we are fighting a nation which has 80,000,000 people, which has alongside it in the Axis, so called, another nation, Italy, with over 40,000,000 people—that is 120,000,000—and then, in addition, we have all those countries which have been subjugated by Hitler and whose populations are being taken and employed as slaves in order to produce munitions and other equipment necessary to conduct his 224 war. That is a very difficult proposition, and consequently, whilst we may get up and criticise and make suggestions—I agree that the suggestions made by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, were made in no spirit of hostility at all, because they were framed in language which was very conciliatory and in no sense of enmity—at the same time we have to remember that this is the position in figures with which we are face to face in the enemy countries, and that makes it very difficult to distribute, if I may use that word, the population which we have for use in similar directions in a way that is followed in enemy countries.
Having said that, in spite of the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has said that Lord Addison will have a Motion down very shortly with regard to the utilisation of land workers in the country, I should like to refer very briefly to that particular aspect of the question. I think it is one that is so urgent that it cannot wait, otherwise I should be content to wait until Lord Addison's Motion came forward. There is also this other factor, that I myself may not be able to be present on that day owing to my duties in Scotland. Therefore I propose to say a few words to-day on the subject. I have not read the Official Report of the debate yesterday, not having had time to do so, but I should like to select one sentence from the report of the debate as published in The Times this morning with regard to food production. In the course of his very comprehensive and interesting speech yesterday Mr. Bevin said:
Food production at home is the foundation of the war effort, and in the terms of reference to the Production Executive it has been laid down that vital considerations affecting agriculture shall be taken into account when dealing with essential imports and manpower.That is a very significant and very important sentence—" food production at home is the foundation of the war effort."So it is, for we cannot get on without food. Our man-power is no good without food, our Fighting Forces are no good without food, our men cannot produce the necessary munitions and equipment without food. Consequently it is very true to say that food production is the foundation of all our efforts; indeed food is the first line of our defence. I wish that I could believe that the Government, or those who are responsible for this side 225 of it, will give effect to that particular sentence not only in spirit but in the letter, because it seems to me from what is happening in the country to-day that those who are charged with this duty have not altogether got the spirit and the letter of that particular policy. There is no doubt whatever that agricultural labourers are at the present time being called up for military service all over the country. Already agriculture has been depleted of a very large number of those who can not only help to maintain production but increase it, and if any more are taken away I do not see how farmers are going to carry on their work in a satisfactory manner.
Speaking from the Scottish point of view, I know that farmers in Scotland have responded nobly to the demands that have been made upon them in this respect, and have worked day in and day out, and parts of the night also, in order to carry out the instructions of the agricultural committees who decide what land should be ploughed up. Now, just at a moment when spring is upon us, and when this additional ploughing has to be done on lands that are to give us this increased production which is asked for on the platform, through the air by means of the B.B.C., and in every other direction, you come along and take away these men from this occupation in order to train them as soldiers. It has been suggested that the farmers can have substitute workers in the form, of land girls. I suggest that farming, and especially ploughing, is as much skilled work as any other work, in fact in some respects it is more skilled and takes longer to learn. You cannot take girls and put them on the farms and expect the farmers to get the same results from their farms as they have been able to do by employing the men who are now being taken away. It is absolutely impossible.
Apart from the physical side of the matter, apart from the fact that there are very few girls who are physically strong enough to handle ploughs or do the heavy duties which have to be done upon a farm, or who can stand the hours which the ordinary farm labourer has at certain times to put in, these girls are not able to take the place of the men who are now being taken away because they are not skilled in any way. They would have to learn the craft of the farmer, and the 226 farmer, instead of getting on with his production, would be engaged in teaching these girls how to do their duties. I can assure your Lordships, and I assure the Government, that if that is their plan unless they alter it their present policy of increased production is bound to fail and production will go down in the country instead of going up. Before I leave that point there is one thing I should like to say to emphasize it. A few days ago I was staying with a friend of mine who has a big model dairy farm. I cannot tell you how many cows he possesses, but it is quite a large number. Everything is done in the most scientific way. While I was there he showed me a paper which he had just received under the Service Acts informing him that his chief cowman, a man of 35, might have to present himself very shortly for medical examination with a view to his being called up for military service. My friend was in despair. That man is a highly skilled man and the key man on the farm. Without him the production of milk on that farm is bound to decline.
The noble Lord in the course of his remarks referred to the question of land which is not ploughed up being taken over. I venture to suggest that as far as waste land is concerned the local agricultural committees have very wide powers to give orders for land to be ploughed. If the agricultural committees do their work properly—and no doubt, while some of them do, others may not—much of that land could be taken over and ploughed up. But I see a great difficulty even in that. If the local agricultural committee are going to order certain land to be ploughed and at the same time the agricultural labourers who have to plough that land and get it under cultivation are taken away, I do not see how the thing will work out at all. I suggest to His Majesty's Government that they should remember very clearly the statement of Mr. Bevin that food production is the foundation of all our efforts and that in the light of that they should give the most rigid instructions that every effort should be made to avoid calling up any key men in the agricultural industry, I wish to echo the hope expressed by my noble friend Viscount Samuel at the end of his speech, that the Government may be successful in the efforts which they are now making to regulate man-power, and I can assure the Government that there is no 227 one in the country who will not be in sympathy with them in those efforts and do everything possible to help them.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORDE MOYNE)My Lords, there will be no dissent in any part of the House from the terms of the noble Lord's Motion. It is indeed evident that the adequate use of our industrial and labour resources is vital to our victory in war. In no previous war has the same condition developed. In totalitarian warfare, with extreme mechanisation on land and sea and in the air, the ratio of the makers of instruments of war to those who use them must be far higher than under old-fashioned conditions. As Hitler has the total resources of a much larger population than we have, it is necessary that our lack of numbers should be made up by the utmost efficiency and a greater outturn per head. Industrial resources were dealt with by the noble Lord who opened this debate and his chief point, I think, was in connection with the unexpected effect of the 100 per cent. Excess Profits Tax. This increase from 60 to 100 per cent. which was imposed when the present Government took office was largely based, I think, on public feeling that no one should make a profit out of war work, and I have no doubt the Chancellor of the Exchequer also looked upon the increase as a valuable fiscal instrument. The noble Lord, from his long experience in the House of Commons, will remember that this is the season for much advice about Budget details and he therefore will not expect me to give any kind of indication of what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is likely to decide. I can only say that I will see that his opinions on this matter are brought to the Chancellor's notice.
The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, as well as the mover of the Motion, expressed dissatisfaction with the present system of organisation of our labour resources, but I think they will recognise that we are faced with an extremely intricate problem and that: sweeping changes do not necessarily work out as their authors expect. That I think should be borne in mind in connection with the noble Lord's recommendation on a wage 228 policy. There may be much to be said for family allowances, but their introduction would be likely to cause a very considerable upheaval at the present time which would involve, risks to the present system of negotiating wages and the excellent results which we have seen in the avoidance of trade disputes.
The noble Lord seemed to lean towards a greater measure of compulsion, but while a measure of simple conscription is suitable enough for an Army where uniform training takes place, it is not so well fitted for industry where almost every variety of skill and experience must be called upon. This distinction does not rule out compulsion, but it does modify its application so that it remains in the background rather—to use the words of the Minister of Labour yesterday—as a sanction for selection instead of being the prime feature of recruitment. Before mobilising the industrial and labour resources of the country it is necessary to apportion the available human effort between the Services which will use the munitions output and the shipping which will supply them with materials.
The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, drew special attention to the importance of shipping and suggested that the Minister of Shipping should be reinforced by a Minister for Shipbuilding. This is obviously a matter of enormous importance, and the division of man-power between these competing needs is so dependent on the widest considerations of war strategy that it is directly under the War Cabinet and the Prime Minister. The mainspring of the organisation, where the movement starts, is in the allocation to the Defence Services on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. He estimates what manpower is necessary for the Fighting Services, and a point which the noble Lord mentioned, that people must not be taken for the Army until they can be equipped, is always borne in mind. The arrangement is that people will not be called up until the last moment when there is still time to train them in readiness for the equipment and the munitions which they need. Effective organisation, however, calls for very great elasticity and quick reaction to changing conditions, conditions which it is often not possible to foresee long in advance. For instance, since Hitler introduced as a war method the murder of civilians and the wanton 229 destruction of non-military buildings, the calls on man-power for A.K.P. work and building repairs have greatly increased, and similarly the surrender of France has transformed our stopping problem.
Both the noble Lords on the Benches opposite had some doubt about the Committee system. I think that they have perhaps overlooked the distinction between the two Executives to which they referred and the ordinary Committee, whose functions in the past have been rather discussion and consultation and agreement on forms of words than the putting of decisions into force. The manning of the Executives is based on having the people who will be responsible for carrying out the actual decisions; and that is the answer to the questions which were raised by the noble Lords, as to why various other Ministers were not on these Executives. The reason for that is that from their functions they are not responsible for carrying out these particular duties in the Supply Departments. The next stage is the linking up of the work of these Committees with the recommendations of the other Committees which are already in existence on economics and so forth, under the Cabinet. They arc linked up by the membership of their Chairmen
As to the necessity for greater use of compulsory powers, the pool of unemployed is rapidly approaching exhaustion. From the latest figures the total of unemployed males in round numbers is 340,000; but from that figure must be deducted 100,000 for those temporarily stopped and shortly to be again at work, and for casuals. Adding the women and boys and girls, the total is under 600,000, which is only a very small percentage—about 3 per cent.—of the total labour force, which, including the uninsured, is estimated to be about 18,000,000. The need will have to be met by a closer comb-out. When there is a suggestion of further compulsory powers, it is possible that there is not a realisation of how strong those powers already are. I think that this has been forgotten because the Minister of Labour, in my opinion wisely, bas preferred persuasion to using these powers where it has not been absolutely necessary to use them. His powers already enable him to compel anyone to work at any place on almost any kind of job. As far as I know, the only present 230 exception to that is that it will probably need legislation to enable full-time civil defence work to be ordered, though compulsion for part-time civil defence is provided for. The other limitation is that at present women cannot be compelled to enter the Armed Forces. Within these wide limits, however, the Minister can not only send anyone to any job but prevent people leaving or being dismissed from jobs when he requires them to stay. For closer control it will be necessary to have industrial organisation by age-groups; this will make possible the transfer of manpower from less essential industries to those which are of greater importance, and it will enable women by means of the registration to be drafted into industry to replace men as they are called up.
The noble Viscount, Lord Elibank, was concerned about food production if further men are called up from the agricultural industry. In view of the urgency of food production, that industry has from the start been given very special treatment. Postponement of service has been twofold. First of all, agriculture has been given a very favoured place in the Schedule of Reserved Occupations, and most agricultural employment is reserved over the age of twenty-one, so that only the twenty-year-olds are liable to be called up at present, and even if they are liable to be called up that may be postponed if they are really essential to the work on a particular farm—if, for instance, they are single handed on a small holding. I think that the uneasiness to which the noble Viscount referred about a cow man may be ill-founded, because people get papers calling them up for medical examination and then the reservation takes place, when they show that they fall under the schedules or are key-men entitled to special exemption on the advice of the war agricultural executive committee.
The need for special treatment was due to the fact that from the beginning of the war the agricultural labour force showed a disquieting decrease. Between June 4, 1938, and Tune 4, 1939, labour on farms dropped by 20,000 from the figure 477,000, and the drift was doubtless due to the attraction of better wages in other employments. The present Government therefore took immediate steps to check this by raising the minimum wage to 48s., and thus justifying the Restriction of 231 Engagements Order, which prevents employers in other industries from taking agricultural labourers unless they are submitted to them for engagement by employment exchanges. It is obvious that a large number of experienced men cannot possibly be spared from farms if we are to keep up our food production, but all industries are likely to be called on to sacrifice some of their labour force, and to select the men who are the least essential.
VISCOUNT ELIBANKMay I interrupt to say that it seems to me that here is a case where equal sacrifice ought not to be called for? If agriculture is the foundation of our war effort there should not be equality of treatment with other industries which are not the foundation of our war effort.
§ LORD MOYNEI quite agree that it would be fatal to take key-men, but if men can be replaced it is impossible, I think, to say that agriculture alone among the industries is to make no sacrifice which can be made consistently with the maintenance of output; and, after all, other industries, such as munitions, will be called upon to spare young men if they are not really essential to the war effort. But the actual application of future calls on these industries has not yet been decided. I can only assure the noble Viscount that the Ministry of Agriculture are in close touch with the Ministry of Labour as to the necessary condition that no people are to be taken who cannot be efficiently replaced. And there are prospects of replacement. First there are the men who have been employed on the land who, before the Order to which I referred, the Restriction of Engagements Order, had drifted to other occupations. As the contracts on which they have been employed are completed they will come back to agriculture; they will have no choice, and they will, in the first instance, be very useful recruits for the gangs who are being recruited by the local authorities. They are men who have got experience, and they will be extremely useful in the gangs. Those gangs will also include men of less experience, such as conscientious objectors and refugees and aliens, and they will be very useful on such work as land reclamation and land drainage.
§ LORD MOYNEThat is under close consideration. As the noble Lord will appreciate, until recently there has been no considerable number of prisoners of war to draw on, but the possibility of making use of large numbers who are now in our hands is being carefully examined. There is no doubt that all industries will need to make some sacrifice of man-power, but both industries and individuals will gladly make these sacrifices in view of the tremendous issues which we all realise to be at stake.
There have been very few details given to-day as to how industries have been prejudiced by a failure to apply methods of compulsion. I think the noble Lord really only adduced one thing, and that was the difficulty of filling up the ranks of trainees. Well, that is very important, and we quite appreciate that every effort is to be made by propaganda and otherwise to fill them up, but there again I hope it will be possible to do it without the excessive use of compulsion. There have, of course, been cases where manpower hitherto has not completely pulled its weight. There has been the case of dockside labour and fire watching; but the faults are being remedied, in the one case by decasualisation, taking Merseyside for a start, and in the case of fire watching by compulsory part-time service. These failures have been regrettable, but the way in which they are being remedied is an instance of how organisation is perfected by experience. The slack of the rope is now hauled in, and every ounce of effort is being organised for the critical struggle which lies ahead. We obviously can no longer afford the old traditional way of improvisation, and what was said to be the British habit of muddling through, in a struggle to save our national existence and to secure individual lives from slavery, outrage and wholesale murder.
LORD STRABOLGIMy Lords, may I say how grateful we are to the noble Lord for his very full and interesting reply? I found it particularly interesting to listen to his efforts to explain the working of the new Executive Committee machinery. I thought I detected some mystery in his mind as well as in my own as to how exactly that is going to function It is, apparently, a case of "pull devil, pull 233 baker" behind the steps of the Cabinet, and I am sure it will have to be altered. I found his statement satisfactory about agricultural workers, but I have not the knowledge of the difficulties that my noble friend Lord Addison has. Whether it will satisfy him I do not know. I did not quote cases of shortage of labour though I could have done so. I did not want to say anything in open debate which it may be desirable not to expose; but the real shortage, as I tried to explain, will arise during the summer. Your new factories are coming along, and you have not people to put in them unless you take more drastic steps now. The noble Lord did not say anything about Papers, but I imagine we shall be getting more information, and I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
234 Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.