Sitting of 19 March 1912

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Dublin and South-Eastern Railway (New Works) Bill,
London United Tramways Bill, Read a second time, and committed.
Liverpool Corporation Bill (by Order), Consideration, as amended, deferred till To-morrow.
Fylde Water Board Bill,
Copy ordered, "of Report of the Board of Trade."—[Mr. Sydney Buxton.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confer further powers upon the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens of the city of Belfast with reference to their gas undertaking; and for other purposes." [Belfast Corporation Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Central Argentine Railway, Limited, to redeem its seven per centum preference shares and to convert its consolidated seven per centum preference stock; and for other purposes." [Central Argentine Railway Bill [Lords.]
And, also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to extend the period limited for the construction and completion of Railway No. 1 authorised by The Wirral Railway Act, 1898; and to extend the time for the sale of surplus lands." [Wirral Railway (Ex tension of Time) Bill [Lords.]
Belfast Corporation Bill [Lords],
Central Argentine Railway Bill [Lords],
Wirral Railway (Extension of Time) Bill [Lords],
Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

COLONIAL REPORTS (ANNUAL).
Copy presented of Report No. 711 (Lee ward Islands, Report for 1910–11) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
LAND IN CROWN COLONIES AND PROTECTORATES.
Return presented relative thereto [Address, 5th May, 1911; Mr. Wedgwood]; to lie upon the Table.
NATIONAL PHYSICAL LABORATORY.
Return presented relative thereto [ordered 18th March; Mr. Masterman]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
DISEASES OF ANIMALS ACTS, 1894 TO 1911.
Copy presented of Order No. 8299, dated 12th March, 1912, to be read with the Foreign Animals Order of 1910 as part of that Order [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
DISEASES OF ANIMALS ACTS, 1894 TO 1911.
Copy presented of Order No. 8300, dated 14th March, 1912, revoking Order No. 8283 of 2nd February, 1912 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS AND PESTS ACTS, 1877 AND 1907.
Copy presented of Order dated 12th March, 1912 and entitled the Wart Disease of Potatoes Order of 1912 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Lights in Red Sea.
  Mr. HOLTasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the collection of light dues in respect of the Turkish lights in the Red Sea takes place in Egypt; and, if so, whether he will consider the possibility of inducing the Egyptian Government to refrain from collecting these dues until the lights are relit?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. Light dues are collected in Egypt for Egyptian lights only.
  Mr. HOLT: Can my right hon. Friend say where these dues are paid?
  Sir E. GREY: I have been looking into the question, and if the hon. Member puts a question down I think I can make a fuller statement on that point.

  Peruvian Affairs.
  Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he would approach the Peruvian Government with a request to be furnished with a full and explicit statement of what action has been taken in connection with the evils in the Putumayo district, as revealed by Sir Roger Casement's report?
  Sir E. GREY: I have been for a long time past in communication with the Peruvian Government in the matter. I am not prepared to make any further statement just at present.

  Christians in European Turkey.
  Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received recent Consular Reports concerning the Christian population of the Turkish Empire in Europe, for the well-being and just treatment of whom this country is partly responsible; and whether he can state what steps are being taken to relieve the distress and remedy the grievances suffered at present in Albania?
  Sir E. GREY: I have received reports on the subject in question which are not entirely satisfactory, and I may mention that the Turkish Government contemplate the immediate dispatch of a commission to Macedonia and Albania to examine into the grievances complained of, to find remedies, and to apply such as are possible. The mission will consist of the Minister of the Interior in person, who will act as president, and of delegates of the Ministries of War, Justice, Public Instruction and Public Works, and of the Gendarmerie. It will also be accompanied by Mr. Graves, formerly of the Mixed Financial Commission in Macedonia, and now an adviser to the Ministry of Finance, and the representative of the Gendarmerie above mentioned will be selected from among the French officers serving with that body. From dispatches which I have received from His Majesty's representatives, it would appear that the Turkish authorities are taking steps to carry out their promises to the Malissors in Albania, though some of the reforms called for
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  cannot from their nature be carried out immediately.

  Morocco.
  Dr. CHAPPLEasked whether Britain will be a party to any negotiations between France and Morocco for the establishment of a protectorate over the latter country or, if not, whether the good offices of this-country will be at the disposal of the parties concerned in the event of negotiations being difficult or protracted?
  Sir E. GREY: His Majesty's Government will not be a party to the negotiations between France and Morocco. The general rule is that good offices are not offered unless they are desired by both parties to a dispute, and are not refused when they are so desired. I have no-reason to anticipate that in this case there will be any dispute.
  Dr. CHAPPLE: Have we surrendered our interests in Morocco?
  Sir E. GREY: Our position with regard to Morocco is contained in agreements which have been laid before the House, and in the announcements which we made to the House last year as to our attitude, and at some length.

  Crete.
  Mr. LLOYDasked whether the protecting Powers of Crete have invited Germany and Austria to renew co-operation with them in regard to Cretan affairs; and, if so, whether Austria or Germany have re fused, and on what grounds?
  Sir E. GREY: The answer to the first part of the question, and, therefore, to the second also, is in the negative. The protecting Powers have consulted together as to what steps it may be necessary for them to take to preserve the status quo in Crete, and have not invited any other Powers to share with them the not very agreeable responsibility for that in Crete. But should the difficulties in Crete give rise to complications outside Crete, the scope and extent of which could not be foreseen, it is certainly my hope and desire, which, as far as I am aware is shared also by others, that the Powers, including Germany and Austria, would consult together.

  Baghdad Railway.
  Mr. LLOYDasked whether, in the contemplated internationalisation of the last section of the Baghdad Railway, the

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  Government will secure that the rights acquired in paragraph 1 of Article 23 of the Baghdad Railway Convention by the concessionaire shall be transferred to those participating in the construction of the last section?
  Sir E. GREY: The Baghdad Railway Company, in renouncing its right to build the line beyond Baghdad, did not forego its right to construct a port at Baghdad, but merely at Bussorah and at the terminal point of the line on the Persian Gulf. His Majesty's Government have not, in their proposals to the Turkish Government, lost sight of the point indicated in the question.
  Mr. LLOYDasked whether any negotiations are now proceeding between the Government and Germany or Turkey in regard to the Baghdad Railway; and whether any information can be given to the House on the subject?
  Sir E. GREY: Negotiations have been in progress between His Majesty's Government and the Ottoman Government for some time regarding the proposed railway between, Baghdad and the Persian Gulf and cognate matters. His Majesty's Government are now expecting the communication of important proposals from the Ottoman Government, but the negotiations are necessarily confidential at this stage.

  China.
  Mr. C. BATHURSTasked whether, in view of the fact that hostilities in China have now ceased and that German, Japanese, and other foreign traders are doing a large business in the sale of arms and ammunition to the new Chinese Government, he proposes now to remove the restrictions which were imposed last November by the British Government upon the importation by British subjects of munitions of war, and so put British commerce in this respect on an equality with that of other nations?
  Sir E. GREY: I am not aware that any restrictions have been imposed such as the hon. Member mentions. His Majesty's Government have gone no further than to offer advice to British subjects not to take part in the trade in arms and ammunition during the revolutionary struggle in China, as such participation was likely to create difficulty with one or other of the parties engaged in that struggle and to be detrimental to British interests. I have no knowledge of any
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  case in which this advice has been given since the issue of the edict announcing the abdication of the Emperor.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: Will the right hon. Gentleman make clear to the British representative that no such restriction at present exists on British traders?
  Sir E. GREY: I will consider that point.

  Russo-Persian Railway (Proposed).
  EARL of RONALDSHAYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has any information which he can give to the House with regard to the formation of a syndicate of British, French, and Russian financial houses for the purpose of carrying out surveys for a line of railway between the Russo-Persian frontier and Karachi; has the project the approval of the Foreign Office and the Government of India; has the consent of the Foreign Office and the Government of India been asked for or given in respect of that part of the syndicate's operations which involves the making of surveys in British Baluchistan and in the British sphere of influence in Persia; and can he state what is the composition of the British section of the syndicate?
  Sir E. GREY: His Majesty's Government have been approached by such a syndicate, which terms itself a "Sociétéd'Etude," and is concerned with making" investigations into how far such a project is commercially feasible. His Majesty's Government have intimated that they have no objection to these preliminary studies being made, on the distinct understanding that they reserve complete freedom of action, in the event of construction being actually proposed, in regard to the management of the railway and constitution of the board, the representation of British interests in construction and control, the alignment adopted, the scale of freight and passenger rates, and other cognate matters. His Majesty's Government have not yet been asked for their assent to surveys in the regions mentioned in the question. I cannot state who are the British representatives on the syndicate, since a final list has not yet been submitted to me, or, so far as I am aware, agreed upon.

  Delhi.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the-Under-Secretary of State for India what salaries or allowances, if any, are to be

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  paid to the members of the Committee appointed to advise the Government of India in the laying out of the new capital city at Delhi?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY Of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Montagu): The members of the Committee will receive their travelling and living expenses, and the following fees for a five months' engagement: Captain Swinton, 500 guineas; Mr. Brodie, 1,750 guineas; Mr. Lutyens, 1,500 guineas. The Secretary of State has also undertaken to refund to the Corporation of Liverpool the amount of Mr. Brodie's salary for the period of his absence.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Will any Indian architect be co-opted on to this Committee?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The Governor-General will probably associate with the Committee officers whom he will select when they get to India.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: I do not think the hon. Gentleman understood my question, which is whether an Indian architect will be appointed, not an Anglo-Indian?
  Mr. MONTAGU: No Indian architect has been selected by the Secretary of State. Such Indian architect, if any, would be selected by the Governor-General.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked whether the selection of Captain Swinton as a member of the Committee to lay out the new capital city at Delhi was made at the request of the Government of India or whether it was suggested by the Secretary of State; and what special qualifications as a town-planning expert are possessed by this gentleman?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The offer of service on the Committee was made to Captain Swinton at the request of the Government of India, but the Secretary of State takes full responsibility for the appointment. It was thought desirable to associate with the professional members of the Committee a layman with experience of the administrative problems of a great city. Captain Swinton has served for eleven years on the London County Council.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: May I ask whether this Captain Swinton is the same Captain Swinton who is the chairman of
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  the London County Council, and whether the Government have received any complaint as to political corruption from the other side in regard to that appointment?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The answer to the first question is in the affirmative, and the answer to the second question is not yet.

  Gold Reserve (India).
  Colonel YATEasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the sum of money, namely, £17,953,995, exclusive of the gold standard reserve, that he now held at the Government of India's credit in London, he would consider the advisability of ceasing the sale of his drafts on India, as their sale might reduce the normal flow of gold to India in settlement of the balance of trade?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The Secretary of State has every reason to believe that the cessation of the sale of his drafts on India would inflict a most damaging blow on Indian trade and would be received with consternation by those, engaged therein. Gold has in the present year flowed to India to an exceptionally large amount: the sum held in gold in Government treasuries is unprecedented, and the Government holding is made freely available to the public in exchange for rupees.

  Yeomanry Drill Book.
  Mr. LANE-FOXasked the Under secretary of State for War when the long promised Yeomanry drill-book will be issued?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Colonel Seely): I am not yet in a position to make a statement. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put down a question in a week's time.
  Viscount HELMSLEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many regiments will be out for training in May, and that it will be very inconvenient if the book is not issued?
  Colonel SEELY: In a week's time I will give an answer.
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain the delay?
  Colonel SEELY: Not now.

  Coronation Medals.
  Mr. WATTasked how many medals were given to the Territorial Force in commemoration of the Coronation?
  Colonel SEELY: I cannot say without further reference to the Commands what was the total number of medals issued to the Territorial Force. Inquiry shall be made.
  An HON. MEMBER: Were any medals given to the adjutants of the Territorial Force?
  Colonel SEELY: That does not arise out of this question. Perhaps the hon. Member will put it on the Paper.

  Army Hospital Stoppages.
  Mr. WILLIAM PEELasked the Under secretary of State for War whether he had now reconsidered the question of deductions from the pay and allowances of the soldier while in hospital; and whether he was prepared to abolish hospital stop pages altogether or make a substantial reduction in their amount?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Tennant): The question has been considered. There is no intention of abolishing hospital stoppages.
  Mr. PEEL: Will the hon. Gentleman answer the latter part of the question: Whether he is prepared either to abolish hospital stoppages or to make a substantial reduction in their amount?
  Mr. TENNANT: There is no such intention.
  Mr. PEEL: Is the hon. Member aware that the Under-Secretary of State promised, when the Insurance Act was passing through the House, to inquire into the whole question, and to deal with it in view of the new situation which had arisen in consequence of the introduction of that measure?
  Mr. TENNANT: My recollection is that my right hon. Friend promised that there would be an opportunity for discussing it on the Estimates; but the question has not been raised.

  Royal Garrison Artillery.
  Mr. GOLDSMITHasked whether the Royal Garrison Artillery was to be further reduced by one battery?
  Colonel SEELY: No, Sir.
  Mr. GOLDSMITHasked what steps were being taken to improve the chances of promotion of subalterns in the Royal Garrison Artillery?
  Colonel SEELY: The question of pro motion in this branch is still under consideration.

  Military Manœuvres (Local Supplies).
  Mr. GOLDSMITHasked whether, in the forthcoming military manœuvres in the Eastern Counties, the supplies required for the troops would, as far as possible, be obtained from local fanners and traders; and, if so, whether forms of tender would be obtained by those desiring to tender?
  Colonel SEELY: Instructions will be issued as last year that supplies required for the troops engaged in this year's manœuvres shall, as far as practicable, or when prices admit, be obtained from the locality in which the troops are employed. The requirements will be advertised in suitable local and other papers, and forms of tender will be obtainable on application to the General Officer Commanding either of the commands concerned.

  Instruction Courses (Yeomanry).
  Mr. GOLDSMITHasked the Under secretary of State for War, whether he was aware that many Yeomanry officers were unable to attend the courses of instruction owing to the inconvenient time of the year at which these courses were held; that the alternative system of detachment for a fixed period to Cavalry regiments was for many reasons unsatisfactory; and whether he would consider the possibility of arranging for more frequent courses of instruction to be held either in connection with the annual training or at more convenient times of the year?
  Colonel SEELY: The points brought to notice in the question have been under the consideration of the Army Council for some time past, and it is hoped that the arrangements promulgated by the War Office on 2nd March will meet the points raised. The courses in commands will be arranged by the General Officers Commanding-in-Chief, according to the requirements of the Yeomanry officers in their respective commands. As an alternative to these courses in commands, courses at the Cavalry School and Mounted Infantry School have been arranged.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what arrangements have been made for Yeomanry officers?
  Colonel SEELY: Certain arrangements have been made, some of which have been communicated and others of which I will communicate to the House if the Noble Lord will put down a question.

  Finance Act, 1910 (Valuations).
  Mr. CASSELasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether Government Departments would be furnished with particulars of valuations recorded under Section 30 of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, or whether such particulars would only be furnished to persons interested in the land or persons authorised by the?
  The CHANCELLOR Of the EX CHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): Particulars of the Government valuations under Part I. of the Finance (1909–10) Act will only be furnished to persons interested in the land or persons authorised by them, but the Government Valuation Department will give assistance to other Departments of the Government requiring at any time to know the then value of any particular lands.
  Mr. CASSEL: Is it to be taken that particulars will or will not be furnished?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I thought I made it quite clear. The Government Valuation Department will give assistance to other Departments of the Government requiring at any time to know the then value of any particular lands.
  Mr. CASSEL: Is there any provision in the Act authorising the supplying of this information to other Government Departments?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The question was raised by the right hon. Member for Dublin University, and I then stated that it was the intention of the Government that there should be freedom on the part of the Government Departments in the matter.
  Mr. CASSEL: Will the right hon. Gentleman take the opinion of the Law Officers as to whether there is any power to furnish this information to other Government Departments?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: When the question arises; it has not arises; yet.

  Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs Act ("Bastol").
  Mr. C. BATHURSTasked the President of the Board of Agriculture upon what
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  ground the Board had refused its con sent to prosecutions of the vendors of the compound of sawdust known as "bastol" under Section 6 (c) of the Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs Act, 1906; and on what ground in such a case it was deemed unnecessary to supply in the invoice percentages of oil and albuminoids, if, in accordance with Section 1 (2) of the above Act, the so-called feeding stuff contained even the smallest quantity of these constituents?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Runciman): The Board have not hitherto seen their way to sanction a prosecution of the vendors of this article, either for misdescription or for the addition of a worthless ingredient, inasmuch as no evidence has been adduced to show that the base of this article—namely, sawdust—which by a manufacturing process has undergone extensive chemical changes and been partially converted into sugar, is, as a matter of fact, worthless for feeding purposes. The oil and albuminoids, if any, in the article are of minute proportions, and no useful purpose would be served by insisting on invoices setting out such fact in this and similar cases.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: Ts the right hon. Gentleman aware that, Dr. Voelcker and other leading agricultural chemists in this country are of opinion that this sawdust compound is wholly worthless for feeding purposes?

  Swine Fever.
  Sir CHARLES NICHOLSONasked the President of the Board of Agriculture on what information he had stated that thirteen pigs died on Mr. Dodson's farm at Sprotborough, Doncaster, between 16th February and 15th May; and whether the existence of the disease of swine fever was confirmed by any veterinary officer of the Board, and, if so, how?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: In reply to the first part of the question I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave on the 5th March to the hon. Member for Barkston Ash, in which I stated that the information was derived from the police reports. The reports referred to are monthly returns furnished by the police with regard to the swine on the infected place. In these returns, under the heading "Number of pigs which have died or have been destroyed and buried," I found for the first monthly period (February to March)

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  nine, for the second three, and for the third one. In view of Mr. Dodson's public denial of the facts stated by me, I made further inquiries of the police, and I am now informed that four of these thirteen pigs were slaughtered by veterinary surgeons and the remaining nine by the owner, and that all the carcases were destroyed under the supervision of the local authority. These are not to be confused with the pigs slaughtered for food during the same period, which numbered twenty-seven. My hon. Friend will, I think, agree with me that it is not very material whether the thirteen pigs died a natural death or were slaughtered and buried because they were ailing. The reply to the second part of the question is in the affirmative. The viscera of a pig which had died on the premises on or about the 14th February, 1911, were examined at the Board's Laboratory, and numerous swine fever ulcers were found in them.
  Sir C. NICHOLSON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether throughout the whole of this period Mr. Dodson has not acted in consultation with the police and kept them fully informed of what he was doing; and whether any examination was made of the pigs between 13th February and 16th May, and, if so, whether any of them was found to be suffering from swine fever?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I do not know what communications passed between Mr. Dodson and the police in regard to the examination of the pigs that were slaughtered on February 12th and later dates. I have no information.
  Mr. LANE-FOX: If there was no evidence of swine fever in the later cases, how does that justify eight months' quarantine?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I can act only on the evidence before me. I believe the decision arrived at by my predecessors was a right one.
  Mr. LANE-FOX: Does not the right hon. Gentleman see that there is some case for inquiry: that this gentleman has suffered considerable injustice?

  Army Horse Rugs.
  Mr. LANE-FOXasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether, as he had not been able to give the information in Debate, he could now say whether the
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  opinion of commanding officers of mounted units was taken before the Order for the withdrawal of horse rugs from Army horses was decided upon; whether that opinion was favourable to such with drawal; and whether the recent Order had been actually carried out throughout the Army?
  Colonel SEELY: Horse rugs to the extent of 10 per cent, are still allowed for riding and draught horses. This all-round Grant was made in substitution of the varying percentages hitherto granted. As the general issue of horse rugs for Army horses has never been recognised, it was not considered necessary to consult commanding officers in the matter. So far as is known the Regulations are being carried out.
  Major ARCHER-SHEE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these rugs are being provided at the expense of the officers of the regimental funds of nearly every corps in the Service; and, further, that the commanding officers of nearly every Cavalry regiment in the Service are against this Order?
  Colonel SEELY: I am not aware of that. If the hon. Member will put down a question and give me his facts, I will inquire into them.
  Mr. LANE-FOX: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire whether the members of the Army Council or any other sane per sons let their horses stand without rugs through an English winter?
  Colonel SEELY: I do not think that that has any bearing on the problem before us.

  Sheep Diseases.
  Mr. C. BATHURSTasked the President of the Board of Agriculture if he will state what amount, if any, he is allocating out of the Development Fund Grant to research into the disease attributed to the worm known as strongylus contortus and other prevalent intestinal diseases of sheep; and by what institution such research will be conducted?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: Investigations of the genus strongylus are being conducted at the South-Eastern Agricultural College at Wye and by Dr. Leiper, of the London School of Tropical Medicine. For the former Grants are being paid at the rate of £175 per annum, and for the latter at the rate of £200 per annum.

  Small Holdings.
  Mr. GOLDSMITHasked the President of the Board of Agriculture if he will state how many small holdings have been actually established under the Small Holdings Act, 1908?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: The total number of small holdings established up to the 31st December last is 7,885.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    MEDITERRANEAN FLEET.
    Mr. BURGOYNEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether it is the intention of the Admiralty to withdraw the battle fleet at present maintained in the Mediterranean from those waters?
    The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Churchill): The report in question is apparently an inference from the fact that the Mediterranean battle squadron is now exercising in the Atlantic, and is shortly to be based on Gibraltar.

    H.M.S. "HIBERNIA."
    Mr. BURGOYNEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the battleship "Hibernia" was recently forced to put into Brest Harbour as the result of a breakdown, and what was the exact amount of damage?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: No breakdown, has been reported. The vessel put into Brest to repair damage to the net shelf, but the details have not yet been received.

    PROGRAMME, 1911–12.
    Mr. BURGOYNEasked the. First Lord of the Admiralty whether the order for the battle-cruiser of the 1911–12 programme has yet been placed, if so, with whom, and when is it anticipated she will be handed over to the Navy for commissioning?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The order for the battle-cruiser has been provisionally placed with Messrs. John Brown and Company, Limited, of Clydebank. The reply to the second part of the question is March, 1914.
    Mr. LEE: What does "provisionally placed" mean; does it mean that the ship has been definitely ordered?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, it does; it is a technical phrase which does not interfere with the commencement of the vessel.
    Mr. BURGOYNE: When is it anticipated that the cruiser will be laid down, and will the money voted for her last year be spent on her?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir; the cruiser has been delayed for seven or eight weeks more than she ought to have been by a re consideration of her design, which has resulted in considerable improvement. All the money voted for her will not be spent; in fact, only a very small portion of it.
    Mr. BURGOYNE: Is that reconsideration in design the result of failure in the "Lion"?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: No, it has nothing to do with it. It is a reconsideration de signed to strengthen the vessel.

    ADMIRALTY WIRELESS STATIONS.
    Mr. PETOasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in the case of the wreck of the steamer "Delhi," owing to the wireless apparatus being calculated to send messages with wave length of 300 or 600, and the Admiralty stations being tuned to wave lengths varying from 600 to 1,600, the "Delhi" was unable to communicate with Gibraltar, and communication was only made through the new wire less station at Cadiz, opened only a fort night before the wreck: and what steps he proposes to take to make Admiralty wire less stations of use in similar cases?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The wireless messages from the "Delhi" were taken in by His Majesty's ships at Gibraltar, and it is not the fact that the news of the wreck was first received by the naval authorities through the wireless station at Cadiz. The International Wireless Convention provides for the differentiation between commercial and naval wave lengths mentioned by the hon. Member. Whenever a sufficient number of men-of-war are in company, a look-out is kept by one of them on a commercial wave length. Naval shore stations, however, have to look out on naval wave lengths, and consequently commercial ship or shore stations will not ordinarily be able to communicate with them. This differentiation is necessary, and I do not propose to alter it.
    Mr. PETO: Would it not be possible to have an additional receiver or some additional plant at these Admiralty stations, so that they may be able to take messages from commercial vessels?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, Sir; it is only a question of money.

    BRITISH WARSHIPS (TELEGRAPHIC AID TO MERCHANTMEN).
    Mr. PETOasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention has been called to the case of the steamer "Brodmore," at Hankow, in November last, whoso master applied to Mr. Goffe, the Consul-General, requesting a wireless message to be sent from one of the British warships to Shanghai to ask for a pilot to enable him to get away, merchant steamers being under notice to leave the port in view of the expected bombardment of Wuchang, and was refused, on the ground that none but service and red-cross messages could be sent; whether application having been made through the agents of the German warship "Leipsig," iris request was at once complied with by the officer commanding the "Leipsig" and a pilot obtained; whether at the time there were three British warships at Hankow; and whether, in accordance with Service Regulations, British warships are unable to afford necessary help and protection to merchant ships of their own country?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I am aware that there has been some dissatisfaction on this subject among the British community at Hankow, but the exact circumstances of the case of the steamship "Brodmore" are not known to me. It appears that the British men-of-war at Hankow were, on the occasion complained of, continuously occupied in transmitting service messages. There is no intention of insisting in times of emergency on the letter of the Regulations, and the Commander-in-Chief may at his discretion permit the transmission by wireless of urgent messages for British merchants or private persons in China if the ordinary telegraph lines are not avail able—provided always that naval requirements are not interfered with.
    Mr. PETO: Will the right hon. Gentle-man. take steps to have that communicated to British Consuls-General, because, in the case in question, the request was not put before the officers commanding the British ships on account of the objection of this Consul-General?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The publicity given to questions and answers in this House will probably suffice for the purpose.

    PETTY OFFICERS AND GUNNERY.
    Mr. BURGOYNEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether petty officers who have qualified in gunnery for gunner
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    (G) or gunner's mate are now considered to have qualified in gunnery for the rank of boatswain?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): The answer is in the affirmative.

    NAVAL ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT.
    Mr. BURGOYNEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether foremen of the Naval Ordnance Department have recently had their pay increased; and how many men there are in this rating?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The scale of salary of foremen of factory and foremen of laboratory in the Naval Ordnance depots has been increased from a scale of £180, rising by increments of £10 a year to £250, to a scale of £200, rising by increments of £10 to £300. Seven foremen are affected by the alteration.

    NAVAL VOLUNTEER RESERVE.
    Mr. WATTasked the number of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, the number of them who attended the Coronation ceremony, and the method adopted of settling who of them were to get the six medals given in celebration of the event?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The number of officers and men of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve last June was 4,024. Ten officers and 231 men took part in the ceremony on 23rd June. Medals were awarded to the officers in command of the two guards of honour, to the officer in command of the representative unit in the Royal procession, and also to the senior chief petty officer or first-class petty officer in each of the three detachments.

  Osborne Naval College.
  Mr. BURGOYNEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether it is the intention of his Board to abandon Osborne as a training college, owing to the constant ill-health amongst the naval cadets there?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: There is no foundation for the allegation contained in the hon. Member's question. Excluding epidemic diseases, the average number on the sick list daily during 1911 was seven, or under 2 per cent. The epidemic diseases are not attributable to the buildings, and the numbers suffering from these diseases were not greater than was to be expected in boys of that age.

  House Letting and Bating (Scotland) Act.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSEasked the Secretary for Scotland whether his attention has been called to a decision of the Association of Landlords and Factors in Cambuslang, in connection with the adoption in that town of the House Letting Act, to increase the gross rentals of all houses affected by the Bill by 25 per cent.; and whether he proposes to hold an inquiry into this increase, which is in excess of the amount which will be payable under the Act by the landlords?
  Mr. FREDERICK WHYTEalso asked the Secretary for Scotland whether he has any information to show the increase in rents in each of the burghs in Scotland affected by the House Letting and Eating (Scot land) Act, as proposed by various associations of house factors and landlords; and whether, in view of the dissatisfaction aroused in many such burghs by the in creases proposed, he proposes to hold an inquiry into the matter?
  The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): My attention has been called to the case of Cambuslang, and I am informed that there are also some other places in which the landlord and house factors are seeking to increase rents. Where that increase only covers rates which will be paid by the landlord instead of by the tenant, it appears to be justifiable, but if it exceeds that amount, I do not see any justification for it, and I understand that such claims are being met in some places by forming a Tenants Protection Association. It is one thing to ask higher rents and another thing to induce tenants to pay them.
  Sir GEORGE YOUNGER: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that this result was predicted from his own benches over and over again, when the compounding Clause was introduced into the Bill. Will he consider the propriety of repealing that Clause?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I know the result was predicted, but I am not at all sure that the prediction has been fulfilled.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: It has been.

  Marlborough Post Office.
  Mr. PETOasked the Postmaster-General on what grounds he has decided to close the post office at Marlborough at 8 p.m. instead of 9 p.m., as hitherto, although the out-mail still leaves at 9
  1708
  o'clock; and whether he is aware that this change will cause inconvenience to the business community and private residents?
  The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): The Marlborough post office was formerly open till 8.30 p.m., not 9, and the alteration referred to was made because the amount of business transacted after 8 p.m. was inconsiderable. The change was of advantage from an administrative point of view, and brought the offices into line with other offices of similar character and importance. Experience has shown that alterations of this description give rise to little inconvenience.
  Mr. PETO: Will the right hon. Gentleman take into consideration the question of keeping some part of the office open for the receipt of parcels only, if he cannot do anything more?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I will consider that.

  Benbecula Hail Service.
  Mr. HUNTasked the Postmaster-General whether he has received a petition from the inhabitants of Benbecula for an improved mail service; and whether he can see his way to have the mails delivered and taken up in Petersport Harbour three days a week by a rowing-boat, so that the mail steamers need not anchor?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I have received the petition, but practical difficulties, which have already been explained to the hon. Member, prevent me from acceding to the requests made in the petition.

  Discharged Wood Machinists (Mount Pleasant).
  Mr. CLYNESasked the Postmaster-General if he is aware that the wood machinists discharged from the Mount Pleasant factory have been offered work at 2d. and 2½d. per hour less than that which they have been receiving; and, if so, whether he will explain the cause of this departure from his assurances to these men?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I take the hon. Member's question to refer to certain wood machinists whom it was necessary to discharge in June last on account of shortness of work, and for whom I obtained offers of employment with one of the firms performing work for me under

  1709
  contract. I understand that the firm in question, were not able to find work war ranting a rate as high as the men had been receiving at the Post Office factory. I do not know to what assurances on my part the hon. Member refers.
  Mr. CLYNES: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to recall his former statement that he had arranged with outside employers that good situations should be offered to these men?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Yes; they are good situations, with one of the very best firms in London.
  Mr. CLYNES: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that an hourly wage of 2d. or 2½d. less than they commonly earn good wages?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: It depends upon the amount of work to be done.

  Threading Shuttles (Committee's Report).
  Mr. ALBERT SMITHasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Committee which investigated the system of threading shuttles, commonly known as shuttle kissing, have finished their labours; and when the Report will be issued?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): The Report is, I understand, almost ready. I hope to be able to issue it very shortly.

  Truck Act.
  Mr. ALBERT SMITHasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the findings of the Committee which investigated the working of the Truck Act, he intends to introduce legislation for the abolition of the system of fines imposed on employés by employers in factories and workshops?
  Mr. McKENNA: I am afraid there is no prospect of legislation on this subject being introduced by the Government during the present Session; but I must point out to the hon. Member that the findings of the Committee were against the proposal for the entire abolition of fines.

  House of Commons (Payment of Members).
  Mr. FELLasked the Prime Minister if it is proposed to continue the payment of Members beyond the end of the present financial year; and, if so, if a Bill will be
  1710
  brought in to regularise such payment and provide for the due allocation of the salaries?
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, and provision for such payment is made in the Estimate for the House of Commons (Clause 2, Vote 2) for 1912–3. The answer to the second part of the question is that payment will be regularised by proceedings in Supply, and finally by the Appropriation Bill to be introduced this Session, just as was done by proceedings in Supply and the Appropriation Act of 1911.
  Sir WILLIAM BYLES: Will there be any opportunity for discussing the matter?
  Mr. ARTHUR LEE: Will the Vote be taken before any payment is made beyond the end of the present year?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I should have notice of that question.
  Mr. FELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that difficulties have arisen in regard to payment, and that there is no one in the House who can answer any questions?
  The PRIME MINISTER: Yes, Sir. Any question put will be answered.
  Mr. O. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is going to be any increase in salaries?
  The PRIME MINISTER: Any suggestions made will be very carefully considered.
  Mr. KING: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the propriety of apportioning the salaries in inverse ratio to the length of speeches?

  Financial Relations (Great Britain and Ireland).
  Mr. HUNTasked what was the cost of the Commission appointed to inquire into the Financial Relations between Great Britain and Ireland, and in what Estimates will the cost appear; and was the report of the Commission unanimous?
  The PRIME MINISTER: With regard to the first part of the question, I must refer the hon. Member to the answer given by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to the hon. Member for Salisbury on 6th instant, and, with regard to the latter part, to the reply given by the Secretary

  1711
  of State for the Home Department on my behalf to the hon. Member for South Tyrone on 29th ultimo.
  Captain CRAIG: Would it be possible to discuss the question of this Commission when the Votes are reached?
  The PRIME MINISTER: The Vote is down with the Votes for temporary Com missioners, stationery and publishing for Great Britain.
  Captain CRAIG: Will the right hon. Gentleman give us an opportunity for discussing this particular Vote?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I will consider the relative importance of this and other matters.
  Captain CRAIG: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these considerations of his generally end in nothing?

  Junior Lord of the Treasury.
  Viscount WOLMERasked why Sir Arthur Haworth has not been able to fulfil the duties of Junior Lord of the Treasury, and whether he will take steps to insure that his successor is able to fulfil them; and, if so, what steps he proposes to take?
  The PRIME MINISTER: Sir Arthur Haworth has resigned the office referred to. I have nothing to add to my reply to the Noble Lord on the 11th instant.
  Mr. RUPERT GWYNNE: Is it a fact that the Government are afraid to test the feelings of the electors?
  Earl WINTERTON: Will any announcement be made before the Home Rule Bill is introduced?

  Furniture—Hire-Purchase System.
  Mr. FRANCEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will consider the advisability of appointing a committee to inquire into the whole question of the hire-purchase system?
  Mr. McKENNA: The subject proposed to be inquired into does not fall within the scope of my Department, and I could not appoint a Departmental Committee. I think the proper method of inquiry would be by a Select Committee, if the House should decide to appoint one.

  Patent Medicines.
  Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the names of the Select Committee on Patent Medicines and the terms of the reference to such Committee?
  Mr. McKENNA: I propose to move, in a few days, for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into this matter.

  Trade Disputes (Sick Pay and Compensa tion to Police).
  Mr. FRED HALLasked the amount of extra expenditure incurred by local authorities in the year 1911 for sick pay, compensation, and pensions in respect of the police under their control owing to injuries received in preserving order in trade disputes; whether such injuries in a number of cases were the result of the practice known as peaceful picketing by trade unionists; and whether he would take the necessary steps to ensure that the whole or some part of the extra cost to which the local authorities have been put in this matter should be a charge upon the Imperial Exchequer?
  Mr. McKENNA: I could not ask the police authorities to undertake the laborious task of examining all cases of sick pay, compensation, and pensions, and preparing the return suggested in the first part of the question; and I do not think the return if obtained would serve any useful purpose. In no case could the in juries in question result from the picketing if the picketing were peaceful. The Government already makes a large contribution to the pension funds, and any increase of that contribution could only be made (if at all) as part of a general re adjustment of the relations between local and Imperial taxation.

  Trade Boards (Ireland).
  Mr. JOYCEasked whether, although Trades Boards have been set up pretty generally in England, Scotland, and Wales, complaint is being made that such is not the case in Ireland; if so, will he state what is the cause of the delay; and whether steps will be taken at once to set up the Trades Boards in Ireland?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Buxton): Trade Boards covering the whole country have been established for chainmaking and machine-made lace-finishing, but these trades are not carried on to any extent in Ireland. In the paper box trade a separate board

  1713
  has been established for Ireland, and is now engaged in fixing minimum rates of wages. In the tailoring trade a Board will be formed for Ireland as soon as practicable, but I may observe that no minimum rates have yet been fixed in this trade in Great Britain. The reason for the delay in forming a Board for the tailoring trade in Ireland is that the Tailoring Board in Great Britain has proposed to the Board of Trade to enlarge its scope as provided for in the Schedule to the Act. Pending a decision on this point (which I hope will not be long delayed) it has not been possible to determine what classes of employers and workmen in Ireland will re quire to be represented on the Irish Trade Board when formed.
  Captain CRAIG: If the right hon. Gentleman does set Trades Boards up in Ireland will he see that hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway ensure that their constituents do some work?

  Pilotage (Bristol Channel).
  Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has knowledge of the proposals made by the Bristol port authority for the introduction of choice pilotage at Bristol; and whether he will, either by local inquiry or otherwise, obtain the opinion of the Bristol pilots on this change before sanctioning the pro posals?
  Mr. BUXTON: I have received from the Bristol Corporation copies of by-laws which they have made with the object of introducing a system of choice pilotage at that port. Before the by-laws come into operation they will require confirmation by an Order in Council, and I am giving directions to the corporation to give notice by public advertisement of their intention to apply for such confirmation. Any objections elicited will be considered carefully by the Board of Trade, who will, if necessary, hold a local public inquiry before deciding whether to submit the by-laws to His Majesty for confirmation.

  Derelict Ship (Firth of Forth).
  Mr. PETOasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the fact that a derelict timber-laden ship is floating keel upwards near the mouth of the Firth of Forth; and whether he proposes to take any steps to destroy or remove this menace to naval and merchant shipping, and to fit out a
  1714
  derelict destroyer to operate regularly round our shores and in the North Atlantic-trade route?
  Mr. BUXTON: The Board of Trade received information on the 11th March that a derelict had been seen near May Island, and at once communicated with the Com missioners of Northern Lighthouses, who have power to deal with derelicts near the coast where there is no conservancy authority having jurisdiction. The Com missioners have informed me that they have made an exhaustive search, but that no trace of a derelict has been discovered, nor any further report received on the subject. I do not think there is any necessity for adding to the existing machinery for dealing with such obstructions to navigation round the coast.
  Mr. PETO: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that on the 13th inst. notice was given to mariners of two other derelicts in the Channel and five in the North Atlantic?
  Mr. BUXTON: I should have notice of that question.

  Southport Education Authority.
  Mr. CLYNESasked the President of the Board of Education whether the South-port education authority has recently been urged to establish a public secondary school for boys; and whether he can report that any progress has been made to meet the necessities of working-class families?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. J. A. Pease): The Board have no power to compel a local education authority to make provision for any education other than elementary. The Board have, since July, 1910, urged upon the local education authority the need for provision of a public secondary school for boys in the borough, on the ground that such a school is necessary for the children of working-class parents and other parents, of moderate means. On the 12th December, 1911, a motion to postpone the matter was defeated in the town council. On the 22nd February, 1912, the Board were in formed that a sub-committee had been appointed to report on sites and submit plans and estimates.

  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Mr. JOHN PHILLIPSasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether Colonel

  1715
  M'Cutchan, of 5, Middleton Road, Camden Road, London, representative of Philip M'Cutchan, Torboy, county Longford, offering his grazing lands of Munis, Callaghan, and Clonmucker, Moydon, county Longford, to the Estates Commissioners for sale; and, if so, will the Commissioners acquire these lands, as there are fifty-two small uneconomic holdings immediately surrounding this estate and only made use of for grazing purposes?
  The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): Colonel M'Cutchan bas not offered the lands referred to for sale to the Estates Commissioners.

  Duncannon Harbour.
  Mr. FFRENCHasked the Chief Secretary if he received a petition from the Duncannon fishermen relative to the silting up and state of their harbour, and praying for the removal of obstacles which prevent them earning a livelihood; and if he will say what action he has taken?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I have not received the petition referred to.

  Shop Hours Regulations (Ireland).
  Mr. BRADYasked who is responsible for the publication of the Regulations prescribed under the provisions of the Shops Act, 1911, in Ireland; and whether, for the convenience of shopkeepers generally, he will give instructions for their publication at as early a date as possible?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The power of making Regulations under the Act referred to is vested in the Lord Lieutenant, and the question of making such Regulations is at present receiving attention. When made they will be issued without delay. The Act, however, does not come into operation until 1st May next.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

  COAL STRIKE CONFERENCES.
  Mr. WHELER: May I ask the Prime Minister a question, of which I have given him private notice, whether, before the House proceeds to consider the Second Reading of the Bill relating to the minimum wage in coal mines, the Government will publish the shorthand notes taken at the conferences between the coal owners and the miners?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I am afraid I cannot undertake in the circumstances to accede to the suggestion of the hon. Member.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: If both parties have no objection, will it not be in the interests of the House that we should have an opportunity of seeing the notes?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I am most anxious that they should have that opportunity, but I must consult the representatives of both parties.
  Mr. HARRY LAWSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that they have been seen by persons other than those who took part in the conference?
  The PRIME MINISTER: Not through any connivance of mine.

  COAL MINES (MINIMUM WAGE) BILL
  Mr. BONAR LAW: May I ask the Prime Minister whether he finds it possible to give a day's interval between the introduction and the Second Reading of the Bill?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I am afraid I must appeal to the right hon. Gentleman not to press his point. The Bill, I hope and believe, will be in the Vote Office ready for circulation at eight o'clock this evening; therefore there will be that opportunity between now and to-morrow to consider its provisions. We are dealing with a very urgent public question, and the matter is complicated further by the fact that Friday has been allocated, as hon. Gentlemen on both Hides know, to a particular Bill—[HON. MEMBERS: "Post pone it"; and "Give another day."]— which I believe there is a desire on both sides of the House to take on that day. [HON.MEMBERS: "NO, no."] So I am told both by the promoters and opponents.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: It is, of course, impossible for me to do more, than to express strongly what we consider reasonable in the matter, and I am bound to say that the explanation which the right hon. Gentleman has given about Friday seems to me utterly inadequate. The House of Commons has nothing to do with either promoters or opponents. We have to consider the urgency of the case as it affects the country, and I am bound to say that in my opinion it would not damage the case which the Prime Minister wishes to make, and it would be much more reason able to allow us to have the interval.
  The PRIME MINISTER: If the right hon. Gentleman, speaking with his responsibility as Leader of the Opposition, makes that appeal to me, I find it a very difficult one to resist. Of course, if that is so, Friday must be given to this Bill, and we must do all we can to get it through on Friday. I will, of course, make such provision as I can to give an early date for the other Bill, which is at present down for Friday. I hope it will be understood that if I showed any kind of reluctance to accede to the right hon. Gentleman's request it was because I was in rather a special position in regard to the Conciliation Bill, of which I am well known to be an opponent, but for which I have very solemnly promised facilities on behalf of the Government. I hope the promoters and opponents of that Bill alike will understand that I only sacrifice Friday in deference to the appeal of the Leader of the Opposition.
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: Shall we then understand that the House of Lords will meet on Saturday in order that this Bill may be got through this week?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I regard it as of the utmost importance in the interests of the country that this Bill should receive the Royal Assent this week.

  BUDGET (DATE OF INTRODUCTION).
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Can the right hon. Gentleman now say definitely when he proposes to take the Budget?
  The PRIME MINISTER: As already Indicated, my right hon. Friend hopes to introduce the Budget on Tuesday, 2nd April. As that evening is one available for Private Members' Resolutions, for which I understand the ballot is being taken to-day, I hope that by giving this timely notice the House will not refuse the Motion that we shall make on a later date to take that evening for the Business of the Ways and Means Resolutions.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman compensate private Members for the time which has been withdrawn from them by giving another day at a later date?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I will endeavour to give them an evening from 8.15 to eleven o'clock.
  Mr. KING: Will the private Members who are displaced to-day and to-morrow be compensated?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I am afraid I cannot give that undertaking.

  PARLIAMENTARY FRANCHISE (WOMEN) BILL.
  Mr. ARNOLD WARD: As to-morrow is vacant in consequence of the new arrangement, will the right hon. Gentleman take the Conciliation Bill to-morrow instead of on Friday?
  The PRIME MINISTER: If there is a general disposition on the part of the House to take it to-morrow I shall be delighted. Of course, that must be subject to the Report of the Navy Votes being disposed of as well. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Education has just informed me that we cannot possibly bring the Conciliation Bill on to morrow. It is ordered for Friday, and, therefore, we cannot take it to-morrow.

NOTICES OF MOTION.
  GENERAL ELECTION POLLS ON ONE DAY.
  On this day fortnight, to call attention to the desirability of holding all polls at a General Election on one day, and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. King.]
  COLONIAL PREMIERS' PROPOSALS.
  On this day fortnight, to call attention to the failure of His Majesty's Government to carry into effect the principal proposals of the Colonial Premiers at the two last Colonial Conferences, and to move a Resolution.— [Mr. Peto.]
  NATIONALISATION OF MINES.
  On this day fortnight, to call attention to the condition of the coal trade, and move a Resolution in favour of the nationalisation of mines.—[Mr. Keir Hardie.]
BILLS PRESENTED.
  GROUND GAME ACT (1880) AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To enlarge the rights of tenant farmers as to taking and killing Ground Game." Presented by Mr. HAY MORGAN; supported by Sir George Croydon Marks, Mr. Haydn Jones, and Mr. Richard Lambert; to be read a second time upon Monday, 15th April, and to be printed. [Bill 93.]
  CHARITABLE TRUSTS (PROVISIONAL ORDERS) BILL.
  "To amend The Charitable Trusts Act, 1853." Presented by Mr. CHARLES ALLEN; to be read a second time upon Tuesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 94.]

GOVERNMENT BUSINESS.
The PRIME MINISTER: In moving the Motion which stands in my name with regard to the Business of the House, I must make some modification of it in consequence of the promise I have just given to the Leader of the Opposition. I shall move my Motion in the following form:—
"That Government Business shall have precedence of all other Orders of the Day and of Notices of Motion this day and on Friday; that this day, and on Thurs day and Friday, the proceedings upon the Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Bill and upon the Business of Supply be not interrupted under the Standing Order (Sittings of the House), and may be entered upon and proceeded with at any hour, though opposed; and that on Thursday and Friday the proceedings on the Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Bill have precedence of other business."
I think that will carry out the arrangement to which I have come.
Lord HUGH CECIL: I cannot help thinking, though the Motion is in the circumstances irresistible, it reflects very little credit on the foresight and statesmanship of the Government that such a Motion should be necessary. The coal strike has long been foreseen, and the contingency which has arisen must also have been long foreseen. The Government have had plenty of time to frame their plan and plenty of time to foresee every detail of the situation as it is. There is no reason whatever why they should not have introduced this Bill, whatever it is, when the Prime Minister made his statement on the failure of the first negotiations, and after the outbreak of the strike. The Bill need not have been proceeded with if they were reluctant to carry it into law. It could have been laid on the Table, subject to public criticism, and to the criticism of this House; and it might even have been slowly advanced to the Second Reading and Committee stages. In that way the House could have proceeded with efficiency and dignity. Members
1720
could have made up their minds on all the details of the circumstances; and they would have had an opportunity of consulting those in the country more expert in the matter than they could be. In every way the proceedings of Parliament could have been better conducted. The Government, however, have left the matter until the last possible moment, until the crisis is so acute and the situation so terrible that all considerations of ordinary Parliamentary procedure must be of secondary importance. But that does not make it unnecessary to protest against the action of the Government in leaving their steps to the last minute. Why could not the Government have said, "If the occasion arises, then this is what we will propose." We might then have legislated deliberately and with dignity and efficiency. Now we shall have to do what we have to do in a hurry with very inefficient consideration, and with very great discredit to Parliamentary procedure. I make that protest.
Sir F. BANBURY: I would wish to point out to the Prime Minister and to the House that this Motion covers two separate and distinct fields. It first of all deals with the question of Supply. I do not propose to oppose the taking by the Government of the time of the House for the consideration of the Mines Bill, but I wish to ask the Prime Minister whether under cover of taking the time of the House for the consideration of the Mines Bill he is also going to suspend the Eleven o'clock Rule, as he does under this Motion, and, after this House has perhaps sat for ten, twelve, or fourteen hours, considering what I think everyone will admit to be one of the most important measures that have ever been submitted to this House during the last twenty years—a measure changing the whole economic conditions of labour and employment in this country—he is going to call upon us at five, six, or some early hour in the morning to enter upon the business of Supply? My hon. Friend says the Government have been dilatory in their conduct of business with regard to the mines dispute. I will not enter into that, but I want to get an assurance from the Government that they will not take advantage of the coal mines dispute and the general wish and desire to provide time for the consideration of that measure to press forward other business which has nothing whatever to do with the mines dispute? I would further ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he would not give an

1721
undertaking, in the event of there being a large number of Members who desire to speak on the coal mines dispute, that the House will not be kept sitting till the early hours of the morning. We know what a sitting is like at three o'clock in the morning. It is perfectly impossible that the minds of Members can decide on a question like this if they are to be kept up till three or four in the morning. I quite agree that the Eleven o'clock Rule should be suspended, but it should be used with judgment and should be confined only to the Coal Mines Bill and that Bill should not be carried on after, say, one o'clock. I trust the Prime Minister will give us some assurance on that point.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The Prime Minister will remember that when this matter of the distribution of time was dealt with yesterday there was a little discussion as to the Supply which it is necessary to take in order to comply with the law, and the right hon. Gentleman said that all he desired was to take such Votes and Supply before the end of the financial year as were needed to comply with the law. We suggested to the Prime Minister across the Table in a necessarily very in formal way that all he requires on the Navy for that purpose is Vote A and one Money Vote. We shall be glad before we are asked to vote on this Resolution or before this Resolution is put from the Chair to know that the Prime Minister will not use it to take more than is required to keep the law, that is to say, the Vote for the men and one Money Vote; and we should be obliged if he would say for which Money Vote he proposes to ask.
The PRIME MINISTER: The situation is changed because I have acceded to the request of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. We are going to take the Navy Estimates to-morrow so that we shall have the whole of the morning sitting to-morrow up to a quarter past eight.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to take other Navy Votes than the two which are required in order to comply with the law after eleven o'clock?
The PRIME MINISTER: To-night?
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Any night under the suspension of the Eleven
1722
o'clock Rule. If he gets half-a-dozen Votes by 8.15 to-morrow, I have nothing to say. That is the ordinary procedure. What I want to be assured is that he is not going to use the suspension of the Eleven o'clock Rule for any further purpose than to secure compliance with the law.
The PRIME MINISTER: That is so. To-morrow, tinder the new arrangement, we shall have the whole morning sitting up to 8.15 to take our Naval Votes. My Resolution does not cover to-morrow night. We want Votes A, 1, 2, 13, 14, and 15, and we shall have ample time to morrow.
Mr. LEE: We are to have only two days' discussion.
The PRIME MINISTER: I have promised another day.
Sir F. BANBURY: Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to keep the House sit ting very late?
The PRIME MINISTER: We want to get the Bill through.
Sir JOHN BARRAN: I do not wish to take up the time of the House, but may I be allowed to say one word in regard to my Motion [relating to the Tweed Fisheries], which was to have come on to night, and which is the first victim of the altered circumstances, the necessity for which I do not dispute. I wish to say, firstly, that that Motion, although it had a limited application only, was a matter on which those concerned feel very deeply and very strongly, and have done so for many years, and there will be great disappointment that it is not to be discussed. Secondly, the matter is of such a nature that it is impossible to raise it later in the Session on the Consolidated Fund Bill. Of course, it calls for legislation, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will take these facts into consideration, and will see whether he cannot give the Motion, and those interested in it, the same consideration which, I understand, he has promised to others affected by the same set of circumstances, for which no one is to blame.
The PRIME MINISTER: I sympathise very much with my hon. Friend. I can only say I will give sympathetic consideration to his suggestion.
Question put, and agreed to.

GOAL MINES (MINIMUM WAGE) BILL.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That leave be given to introduce a Bill to provide a Minimum Wage in the case of workmen employed underground in Coal Mines, and for purposes incidental thereto."
The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): It is with great reluctance—great and unaffected reluctance—that I rise to submit to the House the Motion which stands in my name for the introduction of a Bill, the terms of which it sets out. I believe the introduction of such a Bill by the Government, and its passing by Parliament, promptly and within a very short period of time, is absolutely imperative in the best interests of the country. But I wish at the outset to make it clear, for myself and my colleagues, that we resorted to legislation only when all hope of a settlement by agreement had disappeared, and the necessity, in the general interest, of putting an end, a speedy end, to the stoppage of the coal industry had become a matter of paramount urgency. Although the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord Hugh Cecil), who made a few observations some minutes ago may not think so, the Government has for a long time past—long before these matters reached an acute stage—felt it their duty to consider, and to consider with care and circumspection, the forms, the various forms and alternative forms, which, if agreement turned out to be impossible, legislation must take. I will frankly avow to the House the more we surveyed that ground, the more clearly we realised the difficulties and hazards to which even the best conceived plans of legislation must be exposed. We therefore, and I think we were right, persevered as long as it was possible to hope for a way of escape along another, a better and more expedient path.
4.0 P.M.
A fortnight ago I gave a narrative to the House—full and I believe accurate in every particular—of the origin of the intervention of the Government in this matter, and the negotiations which followed the submission of our proposals to the coal owners on the one side and to the representatives of the miners on the other, and of the deadlock through which, after many days of parley and conference, those negotiations had broken down for the moment. That was a fortnight ago.
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We endeavoured to re-open the matter, and we were so far successful that masters and men were brought together, jointly or separately, with us under the same roof, and even in the same room, and their respective contentions were freely discussed across the table. There were, as it proved, insurmountable difficulties in the way of a settlement by agreement. A section of the owners—a minority, but still an important section of owners connected with South Wales and with Scotland—could not see their way by agreement—I emphasise those words— to discuss the principle, and still less the figure, of a minimum wage. The representatives of the miners, on the other hand, could not see their way by agreement—and again I emphasise those words—to the submission to revision of their minimum wage. I say, with perfect confidence, every effort was made to bridge or circumvent, by persuasion and by argument, the chasm which divided them. As time went on it became clear at last that, by such means, that chasm was impassable. Looking back on those negotiations, which from first to last occupied the best part, of three weeks, I cannot charge myself or my colleagues with any want of assiduity or of determination. We pursued what we believed to be not only the primary, but the essential object of our efforts. For myself, I may say that, in the course of the various spheres of activity in a more or less laborious and strenuous life, I cannot remember ever to have exerted the same pains and persistence in the pursuit of a single object. In that effort and in. that task I had the invaluable assistance of my three right hon. Friends beside me. I would add, be cause that was a circumstance favourable to our efforts, that we had the most warm and sincere acknowledgments and patriotic forbearance, here in the House of Commons from the responsible leaders of the Opposition, and, indeed, from the leaders of opinion in every quarter of the House. I will add, farther, that we had, as the most important element with a view-to the possibility of success, the patience and the self-restraint that was shown by the country at large.
Criticisms have been made, and I dare say will be made, as to the time and manner of these negotiations. It is said, I see, in some quarters, that they ought to have been begun sooner. I am perfectly certain that there is no one respon-

1725
sible for the conduct of these affairs on the side of the mine owners or of the miners who takes that view. On the contrary, up to the very moment when we felt it our duty to intervene, there was very good hope of a settlement being arrived at between the owners and the men in the largest of all the coal areas of this country, that which goes by the name of the federated area. I am perfectly certain that, if the Government had precipitately and prematurely interfered in the matter, we should have been told that we were meddling with matters with which up to that time we had no direct concern, and that we were frustrating the chance of what seemed likely to be a settlement. Another criticism which I believe has had some currency and favour upon our proceedings is that we conducted them too much behind closed doors and in secrecy —and that the free light and full stream of public opinion ought to have been allowed to play upon them at every stage of the transactions. I think these criticisms have proceeded mainly from the gentlemen connected with the Press. I have the highest possible respect, as we all must have, for the Press of this country, but if anyone thinks that in a delicate and complex matter of this kind, when in finitely diverse and complex interests were meeting day by day for the informal and confidential interchange of opinion, any good object could have been served by the publication morning after morning of a full verbatim report of every observation which was made across the table, with a full blaze of comment on the proceedings that took place—if anyone thinks that, I will make him a present of his opinion. I do not honestly believe, looking back on what took place, given the circumstances and conditions, a better or more hopeful method could have been adopted in endeavouring to arrive at a settlement.
However, as I have said, that came to an end. In these circumstances, I wish to ask the House what was our duty, and what is our duty, as a Government? The stoppage of production in this, the greatest industry of the country—the one upon whose continued operations a hundred other, I will not say subsidiary, but more or less dependent industries are con ditioned—that stoppage continued for a fortnight, and had produced, and was producing, a daily, ever-growing weight of in convenience and suffering to the State at large. Happily, there has been so far, and I trust and believe it will continue, an
1726
almost complete absence of anything in the nature of lawlessness or disturbance. The injury not only to the actual combatants, but to the country at large, is increasing every day, both in the width of its area and the gravity of its character. In these circumstances His Majesty's Government came without hesitation to the conclusion, that Parliament must be asked to intervene, and that if the parties could not agree to a settlement the State must pro vide a settlement for them. In other words, we were driven at last to face that which we had always desired to avoid, namely, some form of legislation, and we held, and hold, that the legislation, and the only kind of legislation which we are so justified in proposing to Parliament at such a moment, is legislation directed to the particular purpose, and, so far as it can be avoided, not going beyond that purpose.
I go back for a moment to the four propositions which at a very early stage in these transactions we submitted to the representatives of both the parties concerned. Perhaps I may once more read them to the House. These are the propositions made on 28th February, The first is this:—
"That His Majesty's Government are satisfied, after careful consideration, that there are cases in which underground employés in coal mines cannot earn a reasonable minimum wage from causes over which they have no control."
The second proposition was this:—
"That His Majesty's Government are thoroughly satisfied that power to earn such a wage should be secured by arrangements suitable to the special circumstances of each district, adequate safeguards to be provided to protect the employers against abuse."
These are the two propositions of fact forced upon us after a careful consideration of the evidence which was brought before us, both upon one side and upon the other. Our third proposition—and now we advance from statements of fact to proposals of remedy—was this:—
"His Majesty's Government are prepared to confer with the parties as to the best methods of giving practical effect to these conclusions by means of district conferences between the parties, representatives appointed by the Government being present."
Finally, our fourth proposition—in order to secure something in the nature of finality—was:—
"That in the event of any of the conferences failing to arrive at a complete settlement within a reasonable time, the representatives appointed by the Government should decide jointly any outstanding points for the purpose of giving effect in that district to the above principles."
These propositions were accepted—both the first two, which dealt with matters of fact, and the third and fourth, which dealt

1727
with machinery for remedying the grievances established by the two first—by no less than 65 per cent, of the coal owners of the country. The first two, I need not say, were accepted by the miners them selves because they were a recognition of the case which the miners had put forward.
May I say a word here on these two first propositions as to the grounds upon which the Government came to the conclusion that they had been, in point of fact, made out. The House will observe that they apply only to persons employed under ground. We were satisfied—and I believe the evidence is overwhelming—that there are cases of frequent occurrence where miners working underground are pre vented, from causes for which the individual miner is in no sense responsible, from earning what he is able and willing to earn. The common case, perhaps the commonest of such cases, is when a miner, a hewer, find himself face to face with a seam of coal which is technically called in this industry an "abnormal place"; that is to say a place where, for the time being, the physical conditions are such that he cannot, with the best will in the world, by the utmost exertion of his industry and effort, secure from his labour of the day anything like an average output. I do not believe there is any coal owner in the country who will deny—I do not believe the coal owners in South Wales themselves deny — that some special provision ought to be made for that class of case. But that does not by any means exhaust the area of the grievance. There were, as we are satisfied, and as I think the evidence abundantly shows, and are, numbers of cases of constant and often daily occurrence where, although the place in which the miner is set to work is not physically and structurally an "abnormal place," but is normal in the seam, yet he is prevented from turning out and sending up to the surface the amount of coal which he is ready and able to hew, by such causes as deficiency of tubs, the imperfect condition of the roadway—I only mention these as two illustrations, I might say, out of almost a hundred—and, generally speaking, through imperfections, or slackness, or want of organisation in the underground management of the mine. You must add to that, because I want the House clearly to realise what a peculiar case this is, that the work of the underground miner is
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carried on, to a large extent, relatively at any rate, in darkness. The kind of super vision which is exercised when people are working in the open light of day on the surface is manifestly and necessarily absent when you are working under ground. I do not say that produces any injurious consequences upon the miner himself, but it adds an element of difficulty and uncertainty to this problem, when you are trying to adjust the relations between the mine owners and the miners. This, therefore, is an industry which is carried on under peculiar conditions; and the conclusion to which we came, and which 65 per cent, of the owners of this country agreed to be a reasonable conclusion, was that to deal with this exceptional and indeed unique condition you ought to have a minimum, reasonable wage on the one hand, and adequate safeguards upon the other, to protect the owners against slackness and deficiency of out put. If you have those two things—if you have guaranteed, upon the one hand, a reasonable minimum wage, and, upon the other hand, proper conditions for efficiency and regularity of work, you have a twofold incentive to the productiveness of the industry. Why do I say that? On the one hand, in the minimum wage you have an incentive to the management to give to the individual miner, and, indeed, to all the persons employed underground, the fullest facilities to make the most of their time and of their energy, and, on the other hand, adequate safeguards to the employer and an incentive to the men not to take advantage of their slackness or default. That is the case, and I must say to myself and my colleagues, who carefully investigated the whole matter, it is an over whelming case for the combination of these two principles.
But if you are to have what I call this twofold incentive dictated by the peculiar conditions of the industry, it is quite obvious that you must have, in order to secure it, a machinery to settle both—a machinery impartial, competent, intelligent, and trustworthy, on the one hand, to settle what is the amount of the minimum wage, and, on the other hand, to settle what is the character, the scope, and the extent of the safeguards and conditions of efficiency and regularity of work. Further, it is quite impossible, as anyone who has acquainted himself even with the elements of the case must know, to deal with this matter as though it were one which could be settled by a single code of

1729
rules throughout the country as a whole. The conditions of our mining industry vary infinitely in different districts and areas in which it is carried on, and therefore if, to secure the proper ascertainment of these two elementary conditions, you come to the conclusion which is expressed in the third of these propositions, it can only be done district by district, and having regard to the special circumstances and conditions which locally prevail. Finally, on this part of the case, it must be clear to everybody that some procedure must be provided in the event of local conferences in districts, having regard to the special circumstances of a particular area, failing to come to an agreement. We were not, as we told both the owners and the men, in any way wedded to the particular proposal contained in our fourth resolution; but we did say, and we do say, that you cannot attain to a satisfactory solution of this question unless what I have repeatedly called in these conferences the "ragged edges" are provided for. I believe in the vast majority of cases a settlement could be obtained locally by agreement, but there must, and inevitably will be, cases in which that agreement is found to be impossible; and in such cases you must have some machinery or some person who can come to a final and satisfactory adjudication. I apologise to the House for going in such detail into this matter, but it is quite necessary in order to expound my case for the Bill which I am about to introduce and to explain what really is the position. The Bill which I am going to ask leave to introduce is a Bill simply to give effect, in the shortest possible form, to the proposition which the Government laid before both parties to this dispute nearly three weeks ago, with modifications which seem likely to be accept able to both parties in the form of machinery.
With that preface, I come to say a word or two about the Bill itself. In the first place, it is a temporary measure. According to its final Clause, it is to continue in force for three years, unless Parliament chooses to prolong it. It starts with this, that primâ facie it is to be a statutory term of every contract for the employment of workmen underground in a coal mine, that the employer shall pay to that working man wages of not less than the minimum rate settled under the Act and applicable to that workman. Any contract to the contrary will be void. Therefore, after the Act has come into operation, and by
1730
the machinery which it sets up the minimum wage has been fixed for any particular district, the workman will have a right to recover by civil proceedings from the owner who employs him wages not less than that of the minimum rate, and any contract set up to displace or to qualify or to modify that right on the part of the workman must be held by the Court of Law before whom the question comes to be void. That is the first proposition of the Bill. The next—I am not now dealing with them in the order of the Clauses, but in what I may call the logical order—is that the minimum wage so ascertained is to be paid retrospectively, and by retrospectively I mean from the date of the passing of the Act, which means, of course, in practice, from the date, what ever it may have been, after the passing of the Act when the individual miner resumes work. You cannot have a wage if you are not working. We have not got as far as that. The proposition is this. If and when—I hope it may be immediately —the men resume work after the passing of this Act the ultimate ascertainment—it must take a certain amount of time—of the particular rate for the particular district will operate retrospectively from the date of the resumption of work. These are the two affirmative propositions in the Bill.
Next I come to what is not less important—the provision for exceptions and other conditions to the receipt of the minimum wage. These conditions and exceptions, like the wage itself, will be fixed under the Bill by a District Board. In regard to exceptions, first of all we necessarily except—the District Boards will make special arrangements for these—the aged and infirm. None of the representatives of the miners have ever contended that the aged and infirm workers ought to receive the minimum wage. There will be no difficulty whatever about that. Next we come to the conditions which have been described during these negotiations as the safeguards to protect the owners against possible abuse. These are conditions in respect to the regularity and efficiency of the work done, and non-compliance with the conditions will, unless it is shown to be due to some cause over which the workman has no control, deprive him of the right to the minimum wage. So the House will see that so far we are carrying out the two principles, the two original propositions, of the Government'—on the one hand, a reason-

1731
able minimum wage to be secured to every underground workman in regard to his being prevented from earning what he could earn by causes over which he has no control, and, on the other hand, the exception of the aged and the infirm and adequate safeguards and conditions for regularity and efficiency of work for the employer. That is what I may call the legislative declaration which the Bill makes as to the Tights and obligations of these parties.
I come next to the only other thing—to the machinery by which these principles are to be given effect. We propose that both the rate of the minimum wage, and what I call the district rules—that is to say the rules for securing efficiency and regularity of work—should be settled by Joint District Boards, recognised, as to each district, by the Board of Trade. The districts are set out in a Schedule to the Bill. I will not trouble the House by reading them. I think they amount to something like twenty-one in number. They have been carefully selected in view of the special conditions in different parts of the country. I will read a summary, not the details, of the method: first, as to the constitution of the Board, and, next, the method by which it is to arrive at its determination. The Board is called a body of persons recognised by the Board of Trade—the Joint District Board of the district. These Joint District Boards will be the existing Boards of Conciliation, or such other Boards as may be constituted and are considered by the Board of Trade to fairly and adequately represent the employers and workmen in the various districts. There will be practically equal and even representation of both parties. Each Board will have an independent chairman, who will be appointed by agreement between the two sides of the Board, or, in default of agreement, by the Board of Trade. The chairman shall have a casting vote in any case of difference of opinion between the two sides of the Board, and, if it is thought desirable, three persons may be appointed to act as chairman instead of one. So much for their composition.
Next, as to their powers. The Joint Boards will settle the general minimum rate for the district and the general district rules—that is to say, the conditions as to efficiency and regularity of work. If it is shown to the Board of any district —this is to provide elasticity—that owing
1732
to special circumstances the general district minimum or the general district rules are not applicable in the case of any coal mine, or class of coal mines, or to any class of workman within the district, then the Board is to settle a special minimum rate, either higher or lower than the general minimum rate, and the special district rules, either more or less stringent than the general district rules. Then follows a very important provision from the practical point of view. The Joint Board of any district may sub-divide their district for the purpose of the fixing of rates, or, on the other hand, the Joint Boards may agree that districts will be combined and treated as one district for the purpose of the rules. So much for what I may call the original fixing of the rates and the determination of the rules.
Then comes the possibility of change in circumstances, and that is provided for in the following way: Minimum rates and district rules will remain in force until varied in accordance with the provisions of the Bill. The Joint Boards will have power to vary any minimum rates or any district rules, firstly, at any time on application made to them by agreement between the workmen and employers concerned, and next, after a year has elapsed since the rates or rules were last settled or revised on application made to them on three months' notice by the workmen generally or the employers. I think I have already told the House that we propose that this Bill will remain in force for only three years, unless Parliament should otherwise determine. In other words, it is presented to Parliament as a provisional and, to some extent, as an experimental measure to meet a special emergency in regard to a particular class of workers working under peculiar conditions in one great industry. It does not purport to lay down any general principles. It is quite possible for anybody to support this Bill who holds, as I hold, that it is very undesirable for Parliament to fix wages. It is quite possible also for anyone to support this Bill who holds, as I believe many I see sitting there hold (indicating the Labour Benches), that anything in the nature of compulsory arbitration is unnecessary. Neither the one nor the other is prejudiced in the least degree by supporting this Bill. Further, the House will observe, from the account I have given, that it has no penal provisions either upon the one side or upon the other. What the

1733
Bill says is this: A coal mine is opened for work by the employer, and if a man descends the pit to work underground, it is to work, as far as the minimum wage is concerned, upon these statutory terms— the employer is liable to pay the under ground worker a wage of not less than the wage fixed in the manner provided by the Bill. The Bill does not compel, and it does not purport to compel, the owner of a coal mine to open his mine. The Bill does not compel, or purport to compel, the workman to descend into the pit. There is no compulsion and there is no penalty either upon the one side or the other.
Would it then be said—perhaps it will be said—that the Bill is likely to be nugatory? Our hope and belief is that it will not. Owing to the special conditions of a particular trade, and the special emergency affecting the whole community in almost all its interests, the State by this Bill steps in, and with the State, after this Bill has become an Act of Parliament, both interests will have to reckon. We are asking Parliament here to make a legislative declaration of the principle of a statutory minimum wage. We are asking Parliament by this Bill to set up as a necessary accompaniment and corollary of that legislative declaration a perfectly fair, independent, and impartial machinery for the ascertainment of that wage and the conditions under which it should be enjoyed in all the special areas of the country. After Parliament has taken such action the position is no longer what it was before. There is no longer any doubt about the principle of a minimum wage. There is no longer any difficulty, or there ought not to be any difficulty, as to the sense and good faith in settling these various rates. That is all we can do and all we ask Parliament to do for the moment. As I have said, we hope and believe it will be an effective Bill. That 3s, at any rate, all we ask Parliament to do for the moment, and Parliament, will be fortified by taking that action if, which Heaven forbid, we should hereafter be compelled to take other and different measures to defend against paralysis and starvation the industries and the people of this country.
Mr. BONAR LAW: It, is quite evident that the Prime Minister has addressed himself to his task with more than a usual sense of responsibility, and I can assure the House that in rising now I have a very strong sense of the responsibility that rests upon me. Long before the strike broke
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out, at the time, indeed, when in the South Wales area the extreme men won their victory over the old leaders of the miners, I felt that the country had before it an outlook as serious as it has ever had to face. When, therefore, the Government began to intervene in this dispute, with the full approval of all the colleagues I was able to consult, I avoided doing anything which could by any possibility embarrass the Government in their task. I claim no merit for that, although I was pleased to hear hon. Gentlemen opposite cheer the remark when it was made by the Prime Minister. We claim no merit for it, not only because to take any other course would have been discreditable, but, as a matter of fact, to be quite frank, though I am quite sure we could have annoyed the Government, I am not at all sure that we could have done anything by which we could have improved our own position. I am quite frank in regard to that, and the House, I am sure, will recognise that there is no question of tactics in this course. That has been our attitude, and it is our attitude now. The last thing I should desire to do would be to try in any way to gain a party advantage out of so grave a crisis. I happened to say yesterday that, while the position in the coal trade was grave, the legislation proposed by the Government seemed serious also; and after listening to the explanation of the proposals which has been given by the Prime Minister, with all the lucidity which he invariably displays, I am bound to say that it seems to me possible that the remedy which he proposes for this disease may prove to be far more serious than the disease itself. What is the position.? I have had no opportunity—not through any fault, I am sure, of the Prime Minister —of seeing the Bill. I know nothing about it except what he has explained to the House, and I am sure no one in any quarter of the House will consider it un reasonable when I say that, until I have had time, not only to read and study the Bill, but to consult my colleagues in regard to the measure, I am not going to commit myself to approval or disapproval of it.
Under these circumstances I shall not occupy much of the time of the House, but I do feel bound to put before the House as clearly as I can what, so far as I can judge from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, is the position in which we find ourselves to-day, and I am bound to say that I cannot do that without saying

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in the clearest way how strong is my misgiving and distrust of the whole thing. I ask the House to realise, in the first place, how quickly we are moving. Only a few weeks ago an Amendment to the Address was moved from those benches in favour of the minimum wage. It was not treated seriously by the House of Commons. The hon. Gentleman who spoke for the Government hardly dealt with it at all, and, so far as I can recollect—for I heard him speak—what he did say was to point out that such a principle could only be applicable to sweated industries. Now, a few weeks later, we are discussing a Minimum Wage Bill, and a Bill not to be applied to sweated industries, but to one of the trades where the men on the whole receive far higher wages than the average of those engaged in other industries. I admit that the Prime Minister dwelt very largely on the differentiation between this trade and all other trades. If this Bill is to become law, I should like nothing better than to believe that there is a differentiation, which would justify us in saying that we have logical ground for maintaining that what we have done in this case cannot apply to any other industry. I should like nothing better than to be in that position. But I confess that I think we are not in that position, and cannot be.
The Prime Minister, as was to be expected, spoke a good deal about abnormal places, and I am bound to say that when I first read these four propositions which he has put before the House, and which I do not think it necessary for me to read again, I considered that Nos. 1 and 2 applied only to abnormal places, and to other circum stances of a like kind over which the miners had no control. So far as I can judge—though I say this with a great deal of hesitation after the long experience which the Prime Minister has had during the past few weeks—the principle of the minimum wage in this Bill has no connection, or a very slight connection if any—I doubt if it has any—with the question of abnormal places at all. I put this forward with hesitation, but there are hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway who are engaged in the trade, who know all about it, and if I am wrong I am sure that they will correct me. My understanding is that at this moment the way in which abnormal places are dealt with is this: that the rate paid to the workmen approximates in many places to the average of pay of the four previous weeks which they would have
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gained in normal places —[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—in some districts—[HON. MEMBERS: No."]—and that all over the country the rate which a good workman will gain in abnormal places is higher than the minimum wage can be under any circumstances. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] That is my information from men who certainly are as well able to judge as anybody can be. If that is true it is perfectly obvious that a good workman will not, on account of this minimum wage Bill, accept a lower rate than he was getting before, and the Miners' Federation will back him in refusing to accept a low wage. So that so far as these abnormal places are concerned this consideration, which is the one that weighs most largely with the public, has no bearing whatever, and is no justification for the introduction of the Bill.
But if that is contested—and I gather that it is accepted as pretty nearly accurate—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—let me put this case before the Prime Minister. In all mines there is a large number of men below ground who are paid regular day wages. What the number is exactly I cannot say, but I am informed that I am within the mark in saying that it is between a quarter and one-third of all the men underground. These men are to be subject to the minimum wage also. There are no special conditions with regard to them. They receive their day's wage irrespective of output in precisely the same way as every other workman in every other trade, and I defy anyone to say when this Bill is made to apply to them that any other men in any other trade have not an equal right to similar treatment. I am bound to say—and it. is a serious thing to say, but surely, with all this that has been going on before oar eyes confronting us, we are bound to look at facts as they are— that in my belief the only real differentiation is that the Miners' Union is so powerful that it has been able to put pressure upon the Government, and upon Parliament, to obtain this Bill, and that that is the differentiation and the reason for its introduction. If that is true—and I am sure it is—how can the right hon. Gentle man say to us that by agreeing to this Bill we are not in any way committing our selves to the principle of the minimum wage? If that is true, is it not evident to every man in the House that what we are doing by this Bill is inviting every other trade, which has a powerful organisation, to use it in the same way, to obtain the same result, and, more than

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that, inviting all men in trades where there is not this organisation to form an organisation, so that they can come to Parliament and put pressure, on to obtain the minimum wage? I do not think that there is anyone in this House who does not realise that what we are doing is a very serious thing, and that it is a great responsibility for the Government which proposes it.
The next point I wish to put has a bearing upon the actual position in which we are placed. I am not going to deal with the principle of the minimum wage. There is a great deal that I would like to say on it, if I had time, and perhaps, if I have to speak again, I may do so. But I am going to look at it now in its bearings upon the other side of this question, the guarantees which are to be given to the masters in connection with this Bill. As the Prime Minister clearly pointed out, there were two distinct bargains, so to speak, in his proposals made on the 28th February. One was that there should be a minimum wage, and the other was that adequate safeguards should be given so that there should be no serious diminution in the output. The Prime Minister put it, in describing it to the House, in this way. He undertook to provide against such a diminution in the output as would in the long run be disastrous to the industry itself. His actual pledge to the masters was: "If we give the minimum wage we will guarantee you against any serious diminution of the output." That is the serious crux of this proposal, put from the practical point of view. I listened carefully to the provisions which the Bill is to contain to fulfil that condition. I am satisfied that the Bill does not contain provisions which can satisfy it.
In the first place, it would be left to these District Boards. Let me say that, so far as I could follow the speech of the Prime Minister, these Boards in their powers are put in the fairest possible way between the masters and the men. There is every intention, as is shown by the fact that they are to be at liberty to deal with a particular mine, on the part of the Prime Minister, to deal with them fairly. But as a matter of fact there is only one way in which such a guarantee can be carried out. That is that the minimum wage should be so much below the average rate that there will be every incentive, as there is now, to workmen, to work as hard as they can, to get the full output. In saying that I am sure that the House will
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understand that I am not suggesting that miners are more likely to shirk their work than other people. Perhaps they are less likely, but after all they are not likely to be a great deal better than we who are in this House, and it is quite evident to everyone that there are no people—at least if there are any they are very few: I am not one of them—who, if they could obtain the same reward, whether wages, kudos, or whatever it is, by half the work, would not do half the work, and get the reward in that way.
5.0 P.M.
Is not it perfectly evident to the House that if the average wage which a man can earn by hard work is something like, say, 6s. 6d.—any figure will do just as well— and the minimum wage is 6s., there will be an irresistible tendency to reduce the output and to produce less for very nearly the same amount of money, and the effect of that on the coal trade and in consequence upon all other trades in the country, would be utterly disastrous? This is so important that I wish to put it before the House in a concrete form. I have here an analysis of the weekly pay-sheet of a colliery for a week ending at the end of February. I am not going to give the name of the colliery, but I am willing to give it to any Member of the Government, and also the name of the coal owner who gave the particulars to me. The colliery is in Wales. The owner of this colliery told me that the men with the different average rates of pay which I am going to describe were working under practically the same conditions. This is the result. One hundred and sixty-eight men got an average of about 5s.; 194 gob an average of about 6s.; 251 got an average of about 7s.; 203 got an average of about 8s.; 165 got an average of about 9s.; seventy-nine got an average of 10s.; and so on, up to a small number who got 15s. and 16s. The minimum scale suggested by the miners for this district is 7s. l½d., I understand. Look at what the meaning of that is. There, 509 men out of the total of about 1,200 who got less than 7s. The Prime Minister said in his speech that there was no difficulty whatever about aged and infirm. I quite admit that the miners' representatives were perfectly reasonable about that. They said that there ought to be a distinction. But when the right hon. Gentleman said that there is no difficulty, surely that is a great mistake. Who is to judge when a man becomes aged and infirm unless you are to take into account the output of his labour? You cannot say that 509 out of

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1,200 men in this mine are shirkers. That, I say, is impossible. They are average workmen. What is the result? Half of them nearly are not earning what is asked for as a minimum wage. It is perfectly certain that if the minimum wage were fixed at that figure, human nature being what it is, there would be a lowering of exertion all through the mine, and the output would be far less than it is under existing circumstances. I. think the guarantee is rather impossible. The next point I wish to put before the House is as to the position in which we actually stand. The Government are adopting this plan, as the Prime Minister made perfectly evident, because they are anxious to get rid of the present difficulty at all costs. That is natural. We are all inclined to live from hand to mouth, and Governments as much as other people. It is natural that they should wish to get rid of this difficulty. But look at the position in which we stand. They adopt the principle of the minimum wage, with all the consequences which I believe follow from it. There is no guarantee whatever even that this strike will come to an end if we carry the legislation. But look a little further—and this is the last point on this part of the subject which I wish to put before the House—there is another consideration which I think is most serious: society is being held up. That is what it means. I do not say whether the fault is the fault of the men or the fault of the masters. That is the effect. Society has been held up. It is one of the greatest evils which can possibly happen to any society. It has been faced in many countries by many Governments, some of them even Socialistic Governments; but there never has been any Government which faced it in the way in which this Government does. What is the meaning of it? Here we are, with all this misery which the country has been going through, and we have not got nearly to the end of it, for even if the strike ends to-morrow, the worst is still to come, I am afraid. We have been faced with all this misery from a cause which is understood by everybody, and the Government take steps not to end, but to try and end this strike, but take no steps whatever to prevent precisely the same thing from the same cause occuring next month or the month after.
Mr. JOHN WARD: What would you do?
Mr. BONAR LAW: I say this is a very serious responsibility for any Government to undertake. I was asked what I would do. Let me say at once that I am thankful the responsibility rests with right hon. Gentlemen opposite. Like everyone in this House, and most, people out of it, for the last few weeks I have been thinking of very little else except this coal trouble, and, at any time when I have talked of it with any of my colleagues, I have said that, taking the time before the strike as well as the time after the strike, there seemed to me only three possible courses open to any Government. The first possible course, before the strike broke out, was to take some action like that in Canada, where it is made illegal to have a strike or a lock-out until there has been arbitration, and, after the arbitration, a strike may or a lock-out may take place. The Canadian Government trust, in that way, to the force of public opinion, and believe that, after the award has been given, public opinion will be so strong that the party which is found to be in the wrong will not force a conflict. I do not say at all that this course would have succeeded here, but I say it was a possible one. After the strike broke out there were only, in my opinion, two alternatives open to the Government, and they were both alternatives which any Government would be slow to take if it could help it. The first was to allow the strike to take its course. Even to suggest this may seem a very hard-hearted proceeding, but after all, the Government has to consider not only immediate evils but other evils greater which may follow. To adopt that course would have meant—it is quite evident—that the Government would have had to make it perfectly plain that they would use the whole force of society as represented by them, not to compel or persuade men to work, but to make sure that men in any part; of the country who were willing to work were allowed to work. That was one possible course, and it might have involved something more.
It might have involved the Government of the day—as was done by the Government, I think, at the time of the cotton famine—recognising that people were suffering from no fault of their own, should receive sectional relief from the Government of the day. That was a possible course, and, while I do not say the Government ought to have adopted it, I do say it is a course which certainly ought to have been considered by the Govern-

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ment of the day. The only other alternative, in my opinion, was for the Government to say, "This strike is unlike other strikes; we cannot allow it to take its ordinary course, and merely hold the ring. It dislocates society. We must step in and end it." Until the Government had announced their intentions, I certainly should have thought that if the Government were to take such action as that it meant, not merely expressing a pious opinion, it meant not merely saying the way in which that strike ought to end, but, if the Government meant anything, I should have thought it meant that the Government should say to both parties, "That is the way the strike must end"; and to secure that result they would have been bound to put all possible pressure on the masters to open the pits, and all possible pressure on the men to induce them to go back to the pits.
An HON. MEMBER: What pressure?
Mr. BONAR LAW: An hon. Gentleman asks what pressure. Anyone who has been considering the subject knows perfectly well the kind of pressure that has been used in other countries, and which is the only possible kind of pressure, if such a course were taken. I say, further, that to adopt that course—and it seemed to me the only course except leaving things to go on as they were—meant something more. It surely means, if the Government steps in to regulate wages—and that is what in effect this is: it follows inevitably, I should have thought—that the Government has considered the situation to be so serious that it has taken this exceptional means of dealing with it, and it follows that it should not be possible, either for masters or for men, to engage in a strike in the same circumstances in the future. Another course might have been adopted and changed my view, that these were the only possible methods of dealing with the strike; but I say that, so far as I can judge, nothing can be worse than for society, as I have said, to be held up, for us to go through all these miseries under exceptional circumstances, and for the Government to take no steps whatever to see that the same thing may not again occur under similar circumstances in other trades, or in the same trade, under the same conditions. I am sorry that what I have said was distasteful to hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] I can assure the House that I should greatly have preferred to say that I was not going to make up my mind until
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I had considered the Bill further, but I do think it is the duty of anyone who has distinct views, at a time like this, to give expression to those views. Let me say also that in what I have said I am very far from desiring to attack the Government. That is not my desire, whatever the effect may be. I recognise as fully as anyone in this House what the Prime Minister has said about the assiduity and determination of himself and his Friends. I recognise that it is easy to criticise any course that any Government has taken. While I say this, I say also—and I am bound to say—that, so far as I can judge, the method of dealing with this difficulty which has been chosen by the Government is not a method for which, under any circumstances, we could have been responsible.
Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the speech which he has just delivered, so far from being distasteful to us, has been welcomed by us. It is welcome for several reasons—one, because the right hon. Gentleman does not know his own mind. He started by informing the House that he had not made up his mind regarding the fate of the Bill, so far as he can affect it. He finished by giving us to understand he was opposed to the Bill. We have seen rather curious evolutions on the part of the Leaders of the Opposition, but rarely have we found one changing his mind in the course of one speech. The speech itself was divided into two parts. The first was critical. He examined what he supposed was in the Bill. That part of the speech was very reminiscent of a speech we heard towards the end of last Session, when the right hon. Gentleman rose to bann the Insurance Bill with bell, book, and candle, and to inform the House at the same time he did not mean to vote against it. The second part of his speech, if I may use the expression, was even a little more disappointing than the first. What did the right hon. Gentleman mean? It is perfectly true that he is not responsible. It is perfectly true that he is not the head of the Government; but surely in a crisis like this he ought to put the result of his two weeks' cogitations—he told us he had been thinking about it for two weeks—into the common fund. Does he seriously propose to introduce the Canadian Arbitration Act into this country? I think we ought to hear "yes" or "no" in reply to that question. Or does he mean to introduce the New Zealand

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method of legislation, the New South Wales or the West Australian method, or, to take a big jump, does he mean to introduce the Russian method? Let us come to more details. Does he mean to follow those who are suggesting that the Trade Disputes Act should be wiped off the slate? Does he mean to penalise trade unions when they take trade union action? Does he mean to force men to labour irrespective of the pay which they get? Does he mean to destroy collective bargaining, with all its consequences, or does he mean to establish paternal Government which will be Socialism in its very worst form? And that is the sort of thing that a good many of his followers imagine is going to get the industrial constituencies of the country to give him and his Friends majorities at the next Election. I think we will leave the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends there until we get some further 'light on these somewhat important topics. [HON. MEMBERS: "Somewhat."] I would probably have said "very important" had it not been for the speech to which we have just listened.
The preliminary part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech was promising and interesting: it was a discussion of the minimum wage. I am not going to follow him in that part of his speech. I think he is right in some of the things he said. He was right, for instance, when he referred to our Amendment, and that the House did not take it seriously. May I appeal to the House to be warned by that mistake on its part? As a matter of fact those who have been considering this matter for a little more than, a fortnight have seen that the minimum wage, whether we like it or not, is beginning to be a subject that must occupy our attention more and more. The demand for a certain minimum to be fixed in certain trades, sweated and non sweated, is becoming more and more pressing. I venture to say if this House would only apply its mind and experience to the problem perhaps there would be more light upon it than unfortunately has been shed on it up to the present moment, But, however, we must discuss this on its own merits. I regret the Bill. I suppose we all regret the Bill. Personally, under present circumstances, I should have preferred that owners and men had come to an agreement, an agreement satisfactory to both, an agreement which both would have carried out for some reasonable
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period of time. The right hon. Gentleman said that he made up his mind that that was impossible, and that trouble was brewing when certain sections got the upper hand in South Wales. But surely, after all, that was the last incident of the chapter. The opening of the chapter was when the South Wales owners began to pursue a certain policy. Syndicalism and those sort of things are not matters which emanate only from two or three gentlemen who have gone to Ruskin College, Oxford. They are created be cause owners, more particularly in South Wales, have taken up in these negotiations, and in what preceded these negotiations, an attitude which no body of self-respecting workmen would tolerate for a single instant. After all, men have got to be treated as human, beings and not as beasts of burden or as mere profit-making machines, such as the workmen in South Wales. It is owing to these unfortunate circumstances, each side playing into the hands of the other, an evil on the part of the owner producing an evil on the part of the workman, which again creates fresh evil, and which brings both sides into deeper and deeper conditions of misfortune, ill-will, and enmity. You all admit that, but to put it down and imagine that all those unfortunate circumstances began when certain things, which were not nearly so bad as the right hon. Gentleman made out, and I do not associate myself with them, happened in South Wales, is really to take such a short view of the situation that one is amazed that a Leader of the Opposition should commit himself to that view.
Legislation has become necessary. I regret it, but there it is. As to this legislation, I want to make our position perfectly clear regarding it. The moment this House begins to legislate upon industrial disputes in the way that it now proposes, it must be exceedingly careful, because if it is going to do it in a permanent way then it is not one Bill that is required but a score of different Bills. This House must be prepared to set down a complete system of industrial arbitration, with all the good and bad consequences that follow from it; but this House is not in that position now. That may be right or it may be wrong, it may be necessary or unnecessary, but my plea, and I want to ground myself on this, is that this House is not in the frame of mind, and is not in the position, and has not the time now to enter upon that kind of legislation. Therefore the legislation which is

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necessary for the settlement of the present dispute must be temporary, must be ad hoc, and must refer only specifically to the question that is before us. The Bill declares for a minimum. That is a matter upon which I think there is general agreement. All the problems that have been suggested, the real problems, and they are not all fanciful, suggested by the Leader of the Opposition have got to be dealt with by the district conference. Can any one imagine what sort of mix up this House would be in if it dealt even with the propositions suggested by the right hon. Gentleman. We would be sitting here, not merely this year but well into next year, dealing with those questions alone, and all this time, according to our assumption, this strike would be going on, and the dispute would be unsettled. Why, as a matter of fact, if those questions are to be dealt with at all they must be dealt with after peace has been declared and not while war is on. I am not very clear as to the three years' limit in the Bill. I am not quite sure what is the meaning of that. I suppose it is that the machinery created by the Bill is going to last for three years, and that then all that it means is that this Court of Arbitration or Conciliation is going to last for the three years. I want to raise this point a little later on owing to a phrase the Prime Minister used, and I want to ask whether the Court of Conciliation or Arbitration is going to last for three years. However, when we see the Bill, we will be more able than now to fully realise its significance.
With reference to the minimum itself, however, we would have preferred, and I think most people would have preferred, that some indication should be put in the Bill as to what the minimum meant in terms of pounds, shillings, and pence. The workmen desire their schedule to go in be cause, after all, the minimum is a mere verbal expression. A minimum wage might be 6d. per hour or 1s. per hour, or it might be 2½d. per hour; and, as a matter of fact, the Wages Board has fixed 2½d. as a minimum wage. Therefore the mere de termination on the part of this House that there should be a minimum wage paid does not carry the problem very far to wards solution. Naturally we would like the schedule put in, and I daresay when we see the Bill and make up our minds what Amendment we shall ask the House to consider, that an Amendment to that effect may be put down on the Paper. The Bill proceeds on a different principle.
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The Bill says that there shall be a minimum paid, but what the minimum is going to be is not going to be disclosed until it has been a subject of consideration and decision by some Court of Arbitration or Board of Conciliation. I think on that point there is one thing that we cannot possibly omit. This Court must not have the power to give a decision which will, as a matter of fact, reduce existing rates. I think when we come to consider the details of the Bill we will find that that is a point that must be provided against, that if the men are going to go into a Court of Arbitration that in the fixing of a minimum there must be great care taken that the existing rates paid to individual men which are above the minimum shall not in any way be diminished by the decision of that Court. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] Because the whole purpose is surely that we are going to deal with just the points that have been raised by the dispute, and the employers apparently want no reduction, and the dispute is simply the question of the establishment of a minimum wage. Therefore we must safeguard, if the question of a minimum is going to be left an open question to the Court, that the Court will not have the power to settle another question which does not arise in the course of this dispute, and which is not an open matter at all. We are not establishing Boards to settle the whole of the questions regarding conditions and wages which may arise in the coal trade in the next three or four years. We are settling this strike and this strike only, and the points that have been raised in the course of this strike. We must be very careful in this Bill to see that it is clearly laid down that no other point to the detriment of either men or masters can be settled or dealt with by the Court that is to be created by the Bill.
The point I want to ask the Prime Minister about is this: When he dealt with the question of chairmen of the Boards he used the expression, "with a casting vote." If hon. Members will just think for a minute they will see how important that is. Is the chairman only to have a casting vote, or is he going to have the power of an arbitrator to say to both sides, "I think the cases you have brought before me are both imperfect, and I will vote neither for the employers' proposition nor the workmen's proposition, and I myself give my decision as something that lies between the two." Obviously if the chairman is going to have that power

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he is going to have more power than that of a casting vote. The power of a casting vote is the power which the chairman has hitherto exercised in the Conciliation Boards of the Miners' Federation of the coal trade of this country. I think it is most important that the Prime Minister should let us know whether he is going to carry on the old traditions of the chairmen of Coal Conciliation Boards or whether he is going to extend their powers and put them in the position of real arbitrators. With reference to districts, I think that is a point as to which we had better wait until we see the Bill, and have time to study it. But I think we ought to be very careful about this question of districts, because in splitting up the districts it is just possible that we might introduce a new method of penalising a good employer—the man in the district with good geological formation, and with good wages conditions. Unless one is very careful, one might hit unfairly by putting a harder district against a good district, unless there is an attempt to average the minimum wage over the districts. Unless the courts are exceedingly careful not to do too much sub-division we may find that the last stage both of the men and of the employers is worse than at the present time. As to the special rates, we would like to wait and see what provisions are made regarding old men and infirm men, and also as to the special rates regarding pits and groups of pits, the working of which are more or less dangerous. Those are points which will have to be very carefully safeguarded lest they may be abused, because the Bill is not definite enough on the powers it gives to settle those matters to the court it sets up.
Then we come to the question of compulsion. In regard to that question, so far as this Bill is concerned, the only compulsion to be imposed is that if an employer employs labour he is to pay a minimum wage. I think that is quite fair. He may pay more than the minimum wage, but he must pay at least the mini mum wage. Apparently there is no compulsion to be imposed upon employers to work their pits. There can be a lock-out under the Bill. On the other hand there is no compulsion to be imposed upon miners to go in. They can continue on strike. I think that is very wise. [Several HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Hon. Members seem to think that I delight in that. I do not. I
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wish hon. Members would be good enough to tell me how they are going to compel employers to open their pits, or how they are going to compel a group of men to go down the pits when they are open. I shall be very delighted indeed if they will tell us how it is to be done. At any rate, whether they have a proposal or not, that is not in the nature of an emergency proposal. It is in the nature of serious legislation which must affect not only the miners but every other trade union and every other trade in the country, and it must certainly be dealt with in a different way. I should like to say that those who imagine that that is going to be the effect seem to have forgotten the experience of other countries which have tried that method. As a matter of fact these things have given no security to Canada, to New Zealand, or to Australia. Although in those places, where industry is comparatively simple in its texture, you can get the maximum amount of good from compulsory arbitration, even there you have had strikes which have almost threatened to develop into revolutionary proposals.
Mr. HARRY LAWSON: It has been very successful in Canada.
Earl WINTERTON: Can the hon. Gentleman mention one serious strike or lockout in Canada during the last four years?
Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: Surely the Noble Lord forgets the very serious dispute on the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Earl WINTERTON: It was ended in six weeks. I was in Canada at the time; it was only a very partial strike.
Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: The fact of the matter is the Canadian Pacific Railway, during the strike, was very hard put to it indeed, and the system was practically paralysed, more particularly during the earlier time until the usual operations began to take place and the men's places were filled in. However, a six weeks' strike—
Earl WINTERTON: Partial.
Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: A six weeks' partial strike—according to the Noble Lord's own admission—on English railways would be such a very serious matter that if you could not stop it you could not boast very much of the legislation that failed. Those who read the "Times" will see an interesting article, a column in length, on the fifth page this

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morning, regarding the failure of compulsory arbitration in New Zealand. Before coming into the House this afternoon, I had sent me a copy of the current number of the "Electrical Review," where the matter is further discussed, and where cases are given showing the absolute failure of this kind of legislation. It has been the subject of a good many interesting articles and investigations, the very latest being the Board of Trade yellow book on the subject. No one can read this book on "Strikes and Lock-outs, and the methods taken to stop them," and at the end find their faith in compulsory arbitration not shattered. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] There may be one exception, but really I cannot understand how he does it. I went to Australia and New Zealand once very largely for the purpose of studying the subject on the spot. I saw both employers, and workmen, representatives of the masters' federations and representatives of the men's union, both in Australia and in New Zealand, and I came away firmly convinced that as soon as the time came when it was impossible for the courts of arbitration to keep steadily increasing the wages—which was possible under a certain very exceptional economic and industrial condition—at that moment the whole of that system of legislation would fall down like a load of bricks. My impression has boon fulfilled. If we are to have a full discussion upon how to settle these matters as permanent features of our legislation, we shall require to raise a good many points. We have no faith in them. We have faith in setting aside the Osborne Judgment, for instance. If we are going to have a general discussion we shall have to discuss that, because legal injustice, as we regard it, is one of the most revolutionary sources that any country has ever experienced. If we are going to discuss the inconvenience of strikes, as some hon. Members desire, we shall also want to discuss the powers of certain persons and classes to raise prices upon the community, thereby enormously aggravating the evils of the strike, and enormously increasing the horror of poverty which the poorer classes have to undergo in any large industrial dispute. We would also want to discuss the question of royalties. If hon. Members insist on discussing the relative position of owners and men in these disputes, we shall also have to discuss the relative merits of the nationalisation of mines. But if these matters were to be raised, we would all agree, irrespective of
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the quarters of the House in which we sit, that that would be nothing but fiddling while Rome was burning. We want to settle this dispute now. We want to see the men back without delay. We want to settle it in some sort of way that will be practical, that can be worked by the owners and accepted by the men. If this legislation is going to do it we are quite willing to give it any support we can. We may have to ask for one or two amendments, one or two safeguards, and so on, but still, in the main, on principle, we will do everything we can to get this Bill through this week, because we understand that until the Bill has actually become an Act of Parliament, or at any rate has left both Houses, it will be impossible for the strike to be declared off. By reasonable discussion and, may I hope, by friendly discussion, however much we may disagree on some points, I think it will be possible to get this Bill through in a way, at any rate, that will be tolerably satisfactory, so that industry may pursue its normal course and conduct in the country.
Mr. LAURENCE HARDY: In the speech just delivered I think the most interesting portion, was the last few words, because if this legislation is to take place, it is all important that we should know whether or not the chief parties interested are going to support the Bill when it is passed into law. If the House will pardon me, I feel bound, on behalf of the coal owners, to give a certain amount of history in connection with this particular dispute, in order that we may put before Parliament what our case is. The abnormal place has been mentioned. I think it is just as well to remind the House that last autumn this abnormal place question could have been settled. The whole of the owners of the country were willing to settle it if only the miners had been willing. The miners de sired to settle it by a national settlement; we desired to settle it by district settle ments—the very principle engrafted in this Bill. The South Wales owners, who have been so often referred to, themselves offered to discuss the question in the districts and, if possible, to take it up in connection with the agreement which binds them in connection with other matters. Therefore it is unfair to say, as has often been said, that in this matter the owners were at fault in the initial stages of the dispute. But suddenly, at the very moment when we had offered to discuss the abnormal place question in the

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country, the miners, at their annual conference, decided to introduce the question of the minimum wage. That, of course, was a very different matter, raising entirely novel principles, and one which this House will have to fight out within the next three days. That is realty the reason why this question has arisen. We were willing to discuss that which was the urgent matter, namely, the abnormal place question; but the miners determined to force the question of the minimum wage, which we maintain is utterly inapplicable to the colliery industry. I was interested to hear the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) refer to the impossibility of compulsory arbitration. I should have liked him to have gone on and explained where it has been found possible to carry out the minimum wage in connection, with colliery working. Wherever it has been tried, whether in the collieries or in individual cases, in this country, it has been a failure, because of the inherent difficulty of applying it to this particular industry.
Let us clear our minds, at all events, of one thing: this has nothing to do with what is often called a living wage. There has been an attempt to engraft that upon an industry to which it does not apply. The miners, in the schedule which they say they are now anxious to engraft into the Bill, have themselves shown how impossible it is to bring up the question of the living wage in connection with this matter. When their schedule varies from 4s. 11d. to 7s. 6d. in different districts, and 1s. in districts that are contiguous, it is impossible to say that their desire has been entirely dictated by the determination to obtain a living wage. Behind their schedule there must be some other principle which has certainly never been, explained to the owners, and of which we have had so far no explanation in this House.
What is the actual position at this present moment? It is too often said that 65 per cent, of the coal owners have agreed to the principle of a living wage. It is the fact that 65 per cent, did eventually agree to the Resolutions that were put forward by the Government, but that is a very different matter from an individual mini mum wage. So far as the federated area is concerned, which I know most about, they accepted in principle the minimum wage only because they felt it was their duty to do something to avoid
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the terrible calamity of a national strike. They did not do it because they approved of the principle; they simply yielded to the necessity of the case, in order, if possible, to save the public from all the horrors of a national strike. So far as the mini mum wage is concerned, we must say, and say in this House, that the coal owners as a whole do not approve of the principle. They believe it is an error to introduce it into the industry, and they only accepted it under the promise of sufficient safe guards, because they thought that they ought to subordinate their own interests to those of the country in such a crisis as this. I am perfectly willing to re-echo in this House the statement made in another place as to the patience with which the Prime Minister conducted these negotiations. His patience was extraordinary, his tact was wonderful, and his skill in conducting the negotiation was certainly a study for anyone to follow. Therefore I should say not only that he did it in an admirable way, but that he would not have been justified in giving up hope at an earlier stage. I should like to say that quite frankly. What we do desire to say is that we have relied all through upon the Government's own proposals. We accepted those proposals, not because we liked them, but because of the necessity of the situation. We do maintain that we have a right when these proposals are incorporated in the Bill before this House that they should be carried out to the fullest extent, and in the spirit in which they were accepted. That is what I would endeavour to deal with daring the few minutes I ask the House to give to me.
I admit that to a great extent the Bill does carry out the resolutions which the Prime Minister read to the House, but there are considerable gaps. I am afraid I must take one exception to what the right hon. Gentleman said, which was that the representatives of the miners had accepted the first two of those resolutions. I do not think they ever did accept them; certainly not the second. The main part of the discussions which took place in the Conferences, it is well known, turned upon the determination of the miners that these rates should be not only undiscussable, but that they should not be discussed in the districts. That was one of the great questions upon which the owners felt strongly, and upon which the Government themselves in the indications which they have given in connection with this Bill, showed that they had accepted to the

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fullest extent. If it had been possible that the representatives of the miners had accepted freely in the first instance a discussion of these rates in the places where they could be discussed properly, then I think one of the great difficulties would have been removed from the negotiations. It was their failure to do so that, really to a great extent brought the crisis upon us.
We must also remember that after all the machinery is even more important than what is laid down in the first two resolutions, and the men have strongly declined in any sense to assent to that which is essential in this matter, a free and in dependent court to settle these matters, and one of whose opinion shall be final. When they brought their resolution back to the Conferences which were held last week they again and again said that on the great question of the minimum wage for hewers, daymen, and boys they would go to no court at all. They required their executive to settle the matter, and only in the case of the executive being convinced should any variation be made. So it is that whereas the owners did accept these resolutions in the belief that they were to receive the advantages of four great points, on nearly every one of these points the representatives of the miners did not come into line. What do the owners desire? They desire, first of all, that if any rates are to be devised that there should be free discussion upon them. Surely that is fair! The miners all through declined to have that free discussion. They said, "You must accept or not our rates." The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken said again, "We want to put that Schedule into the Bill." They still maintain their attitude that there should not be full discussion— that they shall really dictate the rate which is to be placed in this new Bill.
The mine owners laid the strongest stress upon a local settlement, and the Government have accepted that principle; but the miners, before the Conferences of last week, and on the last occasion we had the opportunity of meeting, declined altogether to consider a local settlement. The owners declared that you must have effective and conclusive arbitration. The Government them selves, the Prime Minister all through, has said that finality is the great thing to aim at in this question. But you cannot get finality without arbitration, and without the sanction behind arbitration to carry out the effect of the awards
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which are made. I myself, outside the Conference, at the time when the Prime Minister was conferring with the owners, asked him whether, in the Bill, he was going to produce there would be a penalty attached as a safeguard to enforce the decisions which were made. The Prime Minister said, "Yes. There would be something more than action for breach of contract." Where is that something more than action for breach of contract in the Bill, as the right hon. Gentleman has described it? That is what we desire to know, because it is useless to say that there is nothing penal in this Bill. The first words in this Bill are penal. It compels the mine owner to pay the rate of wages fixed. There is no word that the right hon. Gentleman has given us in his explanation which leads us to believe that there is anything on the other side which in any way gives a sanctity to the award which is going to be made by these Boards.
We in this case have desired to go as far as we can to obtain a settlement and to obtain finality. That finality is in nothing, so far as I can see, in what has fallen from the Prime Minister's lips this afternoon. How are we to tell that we shall not as owners be involved in exactly the same difficulty a month or two hence as now? How is it that you can go to the South Wales district and say, "Here, you have had a written agreement, an agreement in force"—one which was approved of by your own Department, the Board of Trade, and which has to run for another three years—"and we are now producing a Bill"—which must interfere largely with that agreement, and which has also to last for three years—" and although you have an approved agreement under which you and your men came to a certain decision in reference to wages"—a decision upon which we have founded all our contracts, yet now you are proposing to introduce another scheme which, unless new conditions are made, penalises our contracts to a very large extent. It is, too, to extend for just the same period as the agreement extended, and has in it nothing which is to save us from those very disputes which we endeavoured to avoid by agreement. What is the position you can hold in reference to those particular owners who have been most strongly criticised in this House and elsewhere in connection with their contracts? It is with very great regret therefore that whereas the Government have to some

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extent, I admit, carried out much of what they promised, yet they have failed altogether, according to the account which we have received this afternoon, to pursue their conditions to a logical conclusion, and to put behind those conditions that sanction which alone can give force, and which alone can save the country and the industry from the position in which we stand at the present time. We do ask most earnestly that the Government should, before this Bill passes into law, see that both the industry and the country should have that finality which the Prime Minister assured us on more than one occasion he desires to secure, and which can only be the proper result of the interference by Parliament in such a matter as this.
I should like to ask the Prime Minister a few questions arising out of words that he used in connection with this Bill. I notice that he said that the Bill was to be applicable to all workers, but that there were to be exceptions. There were, he said, to be exceptions of the aged and the infirm, of miners who do not work with regularity or efficiency. I should like to ask him whether there is in the Bill any provision for carrying out the extremely difficult task of ascertaining who are the aged and infirm, who the workman irregular and inefficient? It certainly cannot be carried out by the Board the Government are going to set up. It is impossible for one Board for a great district like South Yorks, or Scotland, or Lancashire, to consider every case, either about the aged or infirm or the man who has failed to work in a regular or efficient manner. What is to be, and where, the authority for settling these cases? Is its action to be prompt? Who has to decide, the master or the man, as to whether a man has earned the minimum wage or not? What is to be the procedure of the Board? Still more, is there any procedure in the Bill which will save us from that which has been a constant difficulty throughout the coal industry: when a master has declined to employ further a man on account, say, that his work was inefficient, is the master to be saved from the evil effects of a strike of the other men in order to support that which is now a statutory declaration of a Bill of this House? If the House says that the man is not to receive his minimum wage under these conditions there ought to be at least a statement on this question, and there ought to be means to save the master from any consequences
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which may follow if he is in future not to employ that man who has failed to work up to the minimum wage. I noticed that there was no reference to the side of the employer in connection with this matter. After all, if there are matters over which the miner has no control, there are also questions over which the owner has no control either. There ought to be some statement as to the owner paying the minimum wage for the whole day when circum stances occur over which it is impossible for him to have control. In connection with that he on his side ought to have some protection when you are going to introduce this novel principle into law.
We have never heard, as I think the hon. Gentleman the Member for Leicester said, what is this minimum wage. Is the Government going to give us any indication at all as to what they mean by it? It can only be a fair wage if it leaves the incentive to the workman to get something more. He must be free to do that. The federated areas did endeavour to pursue this point to a logical conclusion. The necessary guarantees were placed before the men in the federated areas and in the Midland area, where there was no great objection on the part of the men to the proposals of the owners. In that case the minimum wage was fixed at 1s. below the abnormal rate. We want to know whether there is anything in this Bill which says that this minimum rate shall be fixed somewhat lower than any abnormal rate, or average rate, in order that there may still be an incentive to the man to reach the average—a point so essential to the profitable working of the industry. I rather gather, in listening to the Prime Minister, that we are going to be again involved in those arbitrary powers which are constantly being given to Government Departments at the present time. I notice that the Board of Trade came up a good deal in connection with these new District Boards which are to be set up. The Boards have to be approved by the Board of Trade, a neutral chairman is to be chosen by the Board of Trade if the parties fail to agree—
The PRIME MINISTER: Only if they fail to agree.
6.0 P.M.
Mr. HARDY: I would suggest that it would be very desirable to remove this matter entirely from any political bias. And if there is to be disagreement a neutral chairman should be appointed, as has

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been in the case of the Conciliation Boards in most areas, by some independent per son. You, Mr. Speaker, have been chosen on more than one occasion as the authority. The Lord Chief Justice has been chosen on other occasions, and the Lord President of Sessions in Scotland, or somebody of that sort, who, at all events, would be entirely independent and would remove the appointment of chairman from any possible taint of political influence at all. I must earnestly ask the Government to consider that before we get to the Committee stage. Then there is the very important point involved and alluded to by the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald), and that is the question of the position of the neutral chair man. I trust the Government are not going to adhere, without consideration, to what I understood was their proposal, that the chairman should only have a casting vote. I think in this case it is really necessary that the chairman of these Boards should be put in the position of something more than that of an arbitrator who is merely chairman of one of the small Boards. The duties that would fall upon him are very great, not only in reference to the rates of wages, but also as to safe guards; and on this point, I think, if you are going to call him in, it is desirable that he should depend entirely in cases of disagreement upon his own judgment, and that he should not merely have to give a casting vote as between one side and the other. I think these are points that ought to be considered, and I hope the Government may consider them before the Bill passes through Committee.
I am sorry to have detained the Committee so long, but it is for us a matter of the most vital importance. If I may take my own case and the collieries in which I am interested, I should like to point out that it has been often said by the men—it was said again and again in these conferences—that only 25 per cent. of the men would be affected by these Schedules, but if the Schedules which they suggested were applied to the collieries with which I am connected 82 per cent, of the men would come below the level of the minimum wage which they desire to establish, and many of them to such an extent that it would be practically impossible for us to work those collieries. It is of vast importance to many of us, and it is of double importance in my own case, be cause the coal raised is not, as a rule, for sale: it is a special coal used for smelting
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work has to face the difficulty that in making the special armaments we require in this country, ten tons of coal is necessary to produce one ton of armament. If anything like the schedule rates of the men were accepted, in our case it would mean not only the closing of the mines, but the closing of the ironworks, which has existed for over 120 years with such success, as well. I speak, therefore, with some feeling, but nevertheless, in order to avoid trouble, we and many others affected gave way against our own opinion and supported the Government's proposal for the sake of public security at large, although they are calculated to do us considerable injury. We feel that the Bill outlined as it is this afternoon has not behind it the necessary penalties to carry out the awards and give them finality, and it seems to us to be an essential part of any Bill that passes this House that it should have such powers, and because we believe you cannot secure these conditions and give the country the peace it is seeking by the Bill as it stands, that I hope the Government will make the Bill much stronger before it becomes an Act.
Mr. STEPHEN WALSH: Listening to the right hon. Gentleman, I have been wondering where all the immense wages are gone that we are told the miners have been earning in the past. I remember for many years hon. Gentlemen opposite get ting up, and one after the other when the Eight Hours Act was under discussion, and when the Coal Mines Regulation Act was under discussion, and other Acts affecting the miner in his working life, and telling us the tremendous wages the miners were earning. Yet we heard one of the most respected Members of this House, the right hon. Member opposite (Mr. Laurence Hardy), for whom everyone has the highest regard, say just now that in the collieries with which he is connected, 82 per cent, of the men would fall below the schedules presented by the mines as fair. We know statements have been made that in a great many collieries 38 per cent., and up to 62 per cent., would fall below the figures presented for Lancashire, and if that be the case, as it is the case, it is really extraordinary where the enormous wages of the miners have come from, because after all the reason for this Bill is stated in the first paragraph of the Government proposals of a few weeks ago after they had made inquiry, and when

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they had gone carefully into the whole position, and they found that—
"large numbers of underground workers were not earning from causes over which they had no control, a reasonable living wage,"
and the Government went on to say, in the next paragraph, that—
"they were convinced that such conditions ought to be altered, and that there ought to be in this industry, which is unique, an adequate living wage given to everyone."
We all agree that a man for a fair day's work shall have a fair day's pay. That has passed into a proverb in the life of a nation, but that is all the miner has asked for. That is all he is asking now, and when we take into consideration the actual winding time of the pit, which can easily be obtained from the Blue Books in the possession of Members, if a man never failed in health, and never remained away a day, and year in and year out went to the pit upon every possible occasion, never having broken down in health, never have taken a play day, but simply attended every possible day the pits were open for winding, no man could do more than nine days' work a fortnight. Take the case of Lancashire. I will not inflict many figures upon the House. The Lancashire collier is getting 7s. a day. It is well below the average rate paid for abnormal places to-day in the collieries. If you multiply 7s. by 4½days it gives you 31s. 6d. which is the amount the man is paid per week for his work in the pit, and upon this he has to support a wife and family. If the nation is in earnest in asking for these underground workers, fair living condition, I say the schedules presented by the miners can be justified up to the hilt. If we do not mean a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, if we mean simply to pay lip-service to that proverb, let us say so. But if we are anxious that that body of people, 800,000 of them, who work below ground, under conditions of which the ordinary person has no conception, going into dangers, seen and un seen, sacrificing their lives by the thousand, mutiliated and maimed by the hundreds of thousands—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—yes, one in every seven of the underground workers, from 150,000 to 160,000 ever year, maimed more or less seriously—if we are really in earnest in desiring for these people a better living wage, whereby they can maintain them selves, their wives and their families, up to a standard of decency, appropriate to modern conditions, surely then we are
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entitled to put forward the claims that they have prosecuted for some time past.
The right hon. Gentleman opposite throughout the whole of his speech said little with which we could find complaint, but there was one thing in which he was not quite fair, and that was in trying to throw the initial blame upon the workers for the breakdown in the negotiations. He suggested that we had put-forward certain figures which we stated were the irreducible minimum. We never put forward these figures as being irreducible, provided one condition precedent was agreed. What was that condition precedent? We desire, first of all, that the employers should admit the principle of the minimum wage, which, of course, means a reasonable living wage, and we said that repeatedly at conference after conference. Here is a Resolution, passed week after week and month after month, to the effect that, given the acceptance of the minimum wage principle, we were willing to go into a full and free negotiation without prejudice upon the matter of figures. May I read some? At a conference held on 14th November last year, a very considerable time ago now, we said that—
"This conference, having heard the reports from the district on the minimum wage question, are glad to learn that these district and county associations, with the English Conciliation Bill, obtained from a committee of the employers' side the principle of the minimum wage for all men and boys working under ground. We therefore are of opinion that this conference should stand adjourned to a further date, so that some further efforts may be made to bring about a satisfactory settlement."
Why, the very fact that the owners in the federated area, of which the hon. Gentleman has complete knowledge, agreed to the principle favouring a ballot of the whole nation over six or seven weeks ago.
Mr. HARDY: The hon. Gentleman appeals to me. I must remind him that only last week a conference of the miners distinctly declined to discuss in any way the three main points of the Schedule—rates for hewers, the rate for day wages, and the rate for boys—and that is the most recent pronouncement we have from them.
Mr. WALSH: Yes, but the hon. Gentle man forgets the condition precedent. A certain condition was absolutely necessary, namely, that the employers, as a whole, should admit the minimum wage principle.
Mr. HARDY: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member. That was not what was in the resolution that came before us.

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It regretted that the owners did not give way, and it went on to say, numbers one, two, and five are irreducible, and again and again the miners and their representatives showed what they meant by that.
Mr. WALSH: I do not think it is necessary to repeat what I have already said. I can only say that the condition precedent to enabling negotiations to become possible did not obtain, and that was the reason the miners' executive maintained their old position. The employers maintained their position, and the workmen maintained their position; but conference after conference reaffirmed the resolution to which I have referred. I will not read any further resolutions, but if at any time the owners, as a whole, had agreed to the acceptance of the principle which every body in theory accepts—there is no person, however hide-bound, who does not accept in theory the right of a man to have a fair day's pay for a fair day's work—if that principle had been accepted, it would have enabled negotiations to have gone on fully and freely. I do not intend to follow the line of argument which my Leader has adopted; but certain questions were submitted by the Prime Minister in which he asked were there any cases where the minimum wage was paid, where the principle was agreed to, and where the conditions asked for were in existence? Why the industry bristles with that kind of case. Derbyshire has, I should say, thou sands and tens of thousands of men who have been receiving a definite minimum wage. There are many cases where men, even if through causes over which they have no control, are unable to earn a particular figure, they are paid 7s. 1½d. or 7s. 6d., and the employers in these, cases are not complaining of their close approach to the Bankruptcy Court. In Nottinghamshire it is the same, and in my own county, Lancashire, which I know best, there are hundreds of thousands who, when they were working, were paid a definite mini mum wage, and how is that done? The supervision is made a little more effective. It is largely a question of supervision and keeping the roads in a decent state of repair, having a proper supply of boxes, removing the falls of roof and other matters necessary to secure efficiency of management, which enabled the minimum wage to be paid. Thousands upon thousands of men in my own county were being paid the minimum wage before the strike, some of them working in the very worst
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mines in the county, which not very long ago seemed quite hopeless; but because of the application of science to industry those mines have been made valuable and profitable where hitherto they seemed doomed to failure. Better super vision and economy, as well as watchful ness on the part of everybody concerned, has made those figures payable in mines where before it seemed quite impossible.
It has been said that the very variations in our Schedules are a proof of the difficulty we experience. I should have thought it was a proof of the fairness of our trade, showing that we ourselves have gone into the Schedules with a genuine and honest desire not to place a greater embargo upon any districts than they could contend against. The conditions of living have caused the variations in the Schedules. Would any person say that for the Forest of Dean or the Bristol district or Somerset, where the workman is half miner and half agriculturist, where the cost of living is very much less than in Lancashire and in Yorkshire, we ought to put forward the same claim for the miner in those districts that we should do for those working in Lancashire and York shire? It is unthinkable. We had to take into consideration fair living conditions, the standard of living, working conditions, and the general economic conditions, and we have framed our Schedules accordingly. The argument which was used by the Prime Minister to show the difficulty of this case is really an argument showing the justice of the figures we have submitted. The Prime Minister said that the Federation owners had accepted the principle of the minimum wage. Yes, they did. I was present during the whole of the negotiations which took place. It is perfectly true they accepted the principle of the minimum wage. As a matter of fact, we were always willing to accept the conditions laid down, and we are willing now, but we say that if the owners are willing to accept the principle of a minimum wage which shall embody the decency and happiness of the workman and his family, that we ourselves will help them all we can to provide the necessary safeguards. I do not know the exact character of the safeguards in the Bill which has been put forward by the Government, but we do say that if the owners pay a reasonable minimum wage to the men we will do all we can to see that a reasonable output is given for the money they pay. We ourselves suggested certain

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safeguards; it was not the employers who suggested them.
We suggested a safeguard about the attendance of the men. A good deal was said about the possibility of the owners being victimised. We said that the best test of the willing worker is his attendance at the pit, and we agreed that if a man did not put in 80 per cent, of his possible attendances, that man should not come under the operation of the minimum wage. There were many other things we agreed to, but we broke down because we could not agree upon the figures. With regard to the statement that the federation owners had accepted the principle, may I point out that they only accepted it on the very last day. It is not true to say that the owners of the country were prepared to agree upon the question of abnormal places except at the back end of last year. We met the owners two years ago upon this point; we met them in Lancashire, but we were never able to settle the question, and although we came within reasonable reach of a settlement in July last year, we have never been able to actually settle the point. We may say with perfect sincerity that if the employers twelve months ago had been as willing to settle on the matter of abnormal places as they now profess to be this difficulty would never have arisen. The workmen throughout the whole country were willing to settle the matter of abnormal places, and if it had been settled—I do not say that the question of the minimum wage never would have arisen, because nobody can forecast the future, and the man is a fool who attempts to do so—but it would have prevented it arising now, and a settlement some time ago would have prevented the nation being driven into the horrible condition in which it stands at present. Therefore we cannot accept the responsibility for the non-settlement of the abnormal places difficulty, for that responsibility rests upon the owners and not upon the men. There is proof of this to be found on the record of our federation. We have tried, time after time, to settle this question, and because it has not been settled a much greater difficulty has arisen.
We still think that the information at the disposal of the Government, and their knowledge as to what is a reasonable minimum wage and standard of living necessary if people are to live something like decent social lives, ought to convince them of the necessity of putting into the Schedules—
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not perhaps every figure we are putting forward—such figures as they consider proper in the Bill. I tremble to think what may be the case if we have to go back to our districts after another month of haggling and falling out, and at the end of that time come to a decision which perhaps our men may not accept. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Yes, I admit that is a very serious difficulty, and I am putting it forward as such. There is no man has a greater difficulty to contend with than a miners' agent. We have to meet tens of thousands of men, and we have to try and develop in them that spirit of moderation and fairness and decent compromise which is characteristic of English life. When you are speaking to thousands of people it is not so easy as speaking to hon. Gentlemen in this House. We have to speak to a body of people many of whom are working hard, laborious lives, and we find it a very difficult matter. I would almost have implored the Government to have taken their courage in both hands and inserted in their Bill, not perhaps our figure, but such figures as they in their wisdom and statesmanship think, with proper safeguards, would have secured for the miners that reasonable wage, which is admitted to be necessary. Then we could have taken some definite concrete proposals to our men, and we could have said to them, "Men, although we have not obtained for you every figure you have put forward, although we are not able to go the whole of the way you desire, here are definite substantial figures which are a very effective step forward." I still think that would have been the best course, and I tremble to think of the whole thing being thrown once again into the arena of discussion, and in the meantime the terrible distress of the nation growing perhaps more acute day after day. If this is not done we may have to go back at the end of the week with something attempted but very little done. I hope that even now with the consent of both sides, the Government may see fit to receive such Amendments as may mean the embodiment of certain figures in the Schedule, and that from this House a complete instrument shall go forward this week placing definite proposals before the miners, and in that way peace will be attained.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: The speech of the hon. Member was a speech such as we are accustomed to expect from him. It was full of moderation, and if the hon. Member will allow me to say so, I could

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not help feeling whilst listening to what the hon. Member said, that if the miners of the country had still confidence in the class of labour leaders to which we have just listened, this difficulty would never have arisen. I do not propose to follow the hon. Gentleman in what he said as to the difficulties and the detailed discussion which has arisen between the owners and the miners in times past, nor do I propose to deal at any length with what he said about the demand for the minimum wage. The hon. Member has at any rate attempted a definition of a minimum wage. I do not know whether that is what the Government intended or whether there is any definition of a minimum wage in the Bill, but from what the Prime Minister said I should imagine there was no definition. The hon. Member's definition of a minimum wage was a reasonable living wage which would secure for the receiver a reasonable subsistence. I do not know whether there is anything of that kind in the Bill, and it seems to me that one of the chief difficulties is that there is nothing in the Bill to indicate to those who are to settle this matter what is really meant by a minimum wage, but that is relatively a small matter. I certainly hope in one respect the Government will not accept the hon. Member's suggestions. I cannot imagine anything worse than that the Government should try and insert a schedule of wages in a Bill introduced without their Schedule. It would certainly toe quite impossible to pass such a Bill during this week. Evidently the owners would have to be heard, and they would certainly de sire amendments; the miners would desire to be heard and they would certainly de sire amendments, and the principle of the thing would really be intolerable. You would have a statutory wage, fixed by Parliament, which could only be altered by an amending Act of Parliament. Such a proposal is not one which I think the hon. Member would really have put forward if he had thought it over carefully, and I trust the Government will not take it from him.
I could not help feeling, listening to all the speeches except, I think, that of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, that there was a certain unreality in the atmosphere which prevailed here in this discussion. The Prime Minister's speech, for instance—it would be impertinent of me to praise—dealt with this matter throughout as if it were an ordinary strike depending upon an abnormal controversy as to the payment of wages in
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abnormal places. That was the real thing. It was a labour dispute of the ordinary type, very much bigger, no doubt, but in other respects quite an ordinary affair. I agree entirely in that respect, and it is the only respect in which I do agree, with the speech of the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald). This is a matter of very much more importance than that. This is not an ordinary strike at all. This is not a matter of collective bargaining at all. This is not an attempt, a legitimate attempt, of working men to get rather better terms and of owners saying they cannot afford those terms. It is not that at all. It is nothing of the kind. This is unquestionably a matter which cannot be treated by itself; it must be treated in reference to the whole history of the Labour movement during the last three years, and I say, so treated, this is by far the most serious crisis which anyone living has had to face in this country, and it must be treated in that way. The hon. Member for Leicester, in a passage, which it is certainly difficult to reconcile with his ordinary character for sincerity, suggested that this dispute arose entirely from the unreasonable conduct of the Welsh owners, or something of that kind. It is nothing of the kind.
Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I did not say that.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: The hon. Member may not have meant it, but that is what I understand him to say. I say this is part of a great conspiracy. This is part of an attempt to obtain dictatorial power over the industries of this country by a small band of revolutionaries in this country. I wish to call attention to a few facts in sup port of that allegation. I find that in September, 1910, a publication called "The Industrial Syndicalist" was published, and in that publication it was urged that it was entirely wrong for the men to-enter into agreements with masters, and if they had done so it was very right and proper for them to break them. That was the spirit in which the matter was launched at the very outset. In November there followed a conference of the Industrial Union, representing a certain number of men. [An HON. MEMBER: "HOW many are there?"] They claim to be 60,000. I think it has grown very much larger since. Observe what is the Syndicalist teaching. The Syndicalist teaching, of course we alt know, is to seize the property of the owner for the benefit of the workers in the particular industry, and the methods by which

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that is to be done is, first, the multiplied strike; secondly, the sympathetic strike; and, thirdly, the general strike. That hon. Members will find in every Syndicalist text book on the subject. After the conference in 1910 there was a second conference at Southampton, at which Continental Syndicalists were present in the summer of last year. Immediately succeeding that you had an outbreak of strikes all over the country. There were strikes involving 110,000 transport workers, 8,000 miners in different parts of the country, 1,000 builders and iron workers, engineers, workers in the potteries, millers, and workers at chemical works. Altogether, in June and July there were no less than 102 different strikes. We all know that immediately succeeding those in August there were the terrible strikes: the dock strikes in Liverpool, and immediately afterwards the railway strike. The railway strike was emphatically a Syndicalist's strike; it was a sympathetic and a general strike. It was not a strike be cause individual men or workers had any grievance. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Well, take the North-Eastern men—everybody knows they had not any grievance. [HON. MEMBERS "Oh."] Not when they came out. Hon. Members have no right to assume that Members of Parliament know nothing about these questions. They came out avowedly, and they published it to all the world that they came out, in sympathy with the other men.
Mr. WILKIE: That does not say they had no grievance.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: They came out in sympathy with the other men, and it was avowedly a sympathetic strike. These strikes all took place, and in September, 1911, the Labour party, in the "Socialist Review," wrote this:—
"The rioting in connection with those strikes is not to be altogether condemned."
I say, taking all those facts into consideration, and the attempted general strike of the railways, followed by this general strike here, that it is absurd to treat this as a mere, ordinary labour dispute. It is really ridiculous to treat it in that way. It is unquestionably an attempt to obtain control of the industries of this country by a band of men with revolutionary and anarchical theories which they recommend. Everybody knows that is so. Then let us face the facts in the discussion we are carrying on to-day. The hon. Member
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for Leicester himself has said—he said so this afternoon—this is the first battle in a great campaign for a minimum wage everywhere. That is what they are after. That is what is intended. That is what is meant, and that is the situation we have to deal with at the present moment. In reference to that situation, not merely a local difficulty, but a great industrial crisis, what is the Government proposing? I say the interference by the Government under such circumstances is only justified upon the ground that the evil and the misery caused by this strike is so great that no Government can sit by and let it continue.
The CHANCELLOR of the EX CHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): Hear, hear.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: That is agreed, and I wish to say this very distinctly, that the injury caused by the strike is not an injury to the rich.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Hear, hear.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: It is an inconvenience to hon. Members of this House that their trains are a little later or less frequent, and that they have to pay a little more for their coal, but it is a disaster for the poorer classes. The increase in the cost of coal alone is a disaster to every poor householder in the country. Of course, the accounts of the number of people thrown out of work of which we read in the paper every day must fill everybody with the profoundest pity and sympathy for those who suffer through no fault of their own in a quarrel which is not theirs. I quite agree it is not so much the national injury, although that is a serious matter, as the injury to the poor and helpless caused by this Syndicalist policy of the general strike, which is what they rely upon in order to put pressure upon their enemies, that gives, and alone gives, the Government any right to interfere. What do they propose to do? There was not a syllable in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman to indicate that he is going to deal with that situation at all. All he is going to do is to have a legislative, declaration of the principle of the minimum wage with reference to coal mines. I venture to say anything more ludicrously insufficient for dealing with the situation has never been heard of in Parliament. I do not feel at all certain it will stop this actual strike. The hon. Member for Ince (Mr. Walsh),

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in the very interesting speech he has made, is clearly very doubtful himself. He thinks, when he goes back to his constituency, if I may so put it, and says all he has got is an arbitration which is not to determine anything for another month, it is very doubtful indeed whether that will satisfy them and whether they will go back to work.
If it is exceedingly doubtful whether those ruled by the extremely moderate counsels of the hon. Member will be satisfied with this Bill, what will the others say? They will say, "We have got a great deal; why not go on and get the rest?" What is there in the Bill to stop them? Absolutely nothing. If they go on, there is nothing in the Bill which will enable the Government to interfere a bit more effectually in a month's time than they can interfere now. And if it is not certain it is going to stop this strife, what is it going to do with the other industries of the country? What will be the result of the passage of this Bill on the Syndicalist agitation that is going on, not only in the coal mines, but in all industries, more or less? Why, it is a distinct admission that Parliament will yield to pressure. Can we doubt that, we shall have a crop of fresh strikes in all parts of the country? What have they got to lose by it, if the terms of this Bill are applied to them? They will get their minimum wage, and they are to give nothing for it, absolutely nothing. There is no limitation of their rights. The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Labour party made a great parade of that. There is no compulsion and no limitation of their rights in any way. The Labour party were good enough to make criticisms of my right hon. Friend for the line he took in reference to this matter. After all, is it not common sense to say "either do not interfere at all, or interfere effectually." What else did my right hon. Friend say? For my part—I only speak for myself—I say emphatically it would have been far better for the Government to have done nothing than to interfere ineffectually, than to interfere in such a way as will stir up and produce further strikes. I think, from the description given by the Prime Minister, the Bill, unless it is very much modified, will certainly do that, and yet there will be no power whatever to enforce the awards or adjudications under it. Such a policy as that seems to be most calculated to inflame the bitter controversies that unhappily exist. The
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Executive Government of the day are the only people with information enabling them to say whether it is right or wrong to interfere in this dispute. It is a matter of administration on which at present no one except the Government had the necessary information. But if they do interfere they must interfere effectively. [An HON. MEMBER: "How would you interfere?"] I am asked how I would interfere. I have to see this Bill first, and then I will say whether I can support it, even if modified or amended. If they are reasonable decisions in themselves, then it must be made an offence not to comply with the decisions of the Courts of Arbitration. I am not afraid of enforcing the law of the State on working men. If it is necessary that a particular settlement of a dispute should be carried out working men must obey that necessity as much as any other subject of the realm. The hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) says these attempts at compulsory arbitration or the compulsory enforcing of awards have been tried in the Colonies, and have always failed. But has not voluntary conciliation equally failed? Will not the hon. Member admit it to be true that on every occasion before they came to compulsory arbitration they tried voluntary arrangements, and always arrived at the conclusion that a Voluntary Conciliation Bill was absolutely useless in stopping these difficulties. The hon. Member says compulsory arbitration is no good, and he knows that voluntary arbitration is no good also.
Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I have been much interested in the Noble Lord's speech. But the point is this: We want to settle these strikes. The Opposition propose compulsory arbitration, but compulsory arbitration has failed, therefore it does not matter whether voluntary conciliation has failed before, it has equally failed with compulsory arbitration.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: That is not at all an accurate representation of the position of the Opposition. I am not entitled to speak for the Opposition, but I give my own view of the actual facts of the case. I say it is untrue to suggest that compulsory arbitration has been altogether a failure. In my opinion it has been an improvement on the previously existing state of affairs in many cases where it has been tried. But that is not the point. The point here is whether the proposal of the Government is better or worse than compulsory arbitration. It may have been

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right to leave things alone. That is a matter for the Government to judge. What is clearly wrong is to produce an absolutely ineffectual remedy, which will really make things worse than before. I confess I listened to the speech of the Prime Minister with the greatest possible disappointment. Not only do I think that the Government arrive at a wrong conclusion as to the way in which this problem should be approached, if it is to be approached by way of establishing a minimum wage— not only do I think they have approached it wrongly, but I complain that the Prime Minister has given no kind of indication that his Government has any plan for dealing fundamentally with the situation. For my part I should have approached the Government proposals with every desire to agree to them, if I could have heard the Prime Minister say, "What we pro pose we know is bad, but it is the best we can do at the moment. You have to put the fire out somehow. We do not think it is a very good plan to throw blankets or tapestries on a fire which has caught alight, but you must put it out for the moment. Then you can take precautions to prevent fires breaking out in the future." But there was no indication in the Prime Minister's speech that he proposed to modify his programme or to do anything in order to remedy this tremendous evil which has been brought about.
I suppose he is going on with his Home Rule and with his Disestablishment of the Welsh Church, and he and his Government care nothing for these far more serious matters which they have to deal with. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh."] Then why are they not dealing with them? As long as he can pay for the votes which he has obtained, that is all that is really at the bottom of his mind. For my part, I can only offer the suggestion that comes across my mind. The root cause of the whole difficulty is that there is growing up, and has grown up in the past, a measure of class hostility which is a profound danger to civilisation. I do not deny that there are secondary causes. There is the rise in the cost of living. There are the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, speeches which could not have been better designed if their purpose had been to stir up hatred between class and class, to encourage the rich in the oppression of the poor, and to inflame the poor into resentment against the rich. Though
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these causes have undoubtedly increased the difficulty, I do feel that the fundamental difficulty is not due to the hostility between classes. It is not due to these causes solely. The chief offender, in my judgment, is the wage system. I knew that hon. Members opposite would cheer that statement, but I submit that the system by which you buy the labour of a fellow creature, without any other element in it than the mere transaction of bargain and sale of another man's labour, is a thoroughly bad system. Perhaps the highest, or rather the lowest, point of this system is reached in the fairs which take place in the Northern part of this Kingdom, where farmers hire labourers for the year on a most barbarous system. It is mitigated to a very great degree by what hon. Members opposite describe as the feudalism of the South. The personal relationship between employers and employed which prevails in the agricultural industry in the South is an immense mitigation of what this wage system has brought about. I agree again with the hon. Member for Leicester in this. If you are going to put an end to the growing hostility which at present exists you must devise some new system of industry which shall recognise that the working man is something more than a mere labour machine, and that doles and gifts are perfectly useless and do not touch even the fringe of the question. What you want to do is to give every man a genuine living interest in the industry in which he is engaged.
I do not conceal from the House the fact that, in my judgment, the only possible solution is some system of co-partnership prevailing generally in industry. I have heard no suggestion made which seems at all plausible except that. I dismiss State Socialism, which has succumbed to the Syndicalist parasite which has grown upon it. It is absolutely intolerable to have the tyranny of any class—I care not whether it is the working class or the land owning class or any other class. If the result of the transactions which have led up to this Bill, and if this Bill brings us appreciably nearer to the tyranny of the organised working classes, the trade unions, organised and directed by men who are moved by the wildest economic and political theories, I am certain that that is absolutely intolerable. If you are to pass legislation in obedience or in deference to mere agitation, you must take care that it is of such a character that it will

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not hand over this country entirely to the domination of these Syndicalist people. I would rather see anything than that. I would rather even that the strike should go on to its bitter end than that we should teach these Syndicalists the lesson that they have merely to hold up the whole industry of the country, that they need merely put a spoke into the wheels of civilisation, for this Parliament to do almost everything they demand. I do not know whether any Member of the Government is going to speak later on, but, if so, I beg to appeal to him to give some assurance to the House that that is not their policy, and that they do not intend a mere surrender to the Syndicalists, but that they will put such provisions into their Bill, or, if they cannot do that, they will announce a definite policy which will secure us in the future from these general strikes, which are really absolutely destructive of our civilisation.
7.0 P.M.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The Noble Lord concluded his speech with an appeal to the Government to which we find no difficulty in responding. His appeal was that we should not surrender altogether to the Syndicalist conspiracy. I have no difficulty in giving him that assurance, and I think I shall be able to point out that this Bill is in no sense of the term a surrender to any conspiracy of that kind. The Noble Lord's speech was very interesting for two reasons: first of all, for his analysis of the causes which led up to the present trouble, and in the second place, for the extent to which he was a little more precise than his Leader in suggesting remedies. I would not like to say that his remedies are very helpful. With regard to the causes, he suggested that I had had something to do with them. It rather comforted me to hear, however, that the chief offender after all was, in his opinion, the wage system. I did not set that up, and, if I am responsible at all, I am only an accessory after the fact. If I may remind the Noble Lord of the fact, there were strikes, and very bad strikes, before Limehouse. I remember there were strikes during the time when the late Unionist administration were in power. [HON. MEMBERS: "Not general strikes."] There is no general strike now. Some of the very worst strikes we had in our part of the country occurred during the time when the Unionist Government were in power. One of them lasted about three years. What does the Noble Lord suggest? He admits that the situation is
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a very serious one—in fact, he accepts our premises. He says it is a very grave situation, and that the position is such that grave damage is inflicted upon the community at large, and that those who have suffered most are the poor in this country. There the ground is common between us. He said that the Government ought to do something, but the only practical suggestion he made was that we should set up a system of co-partnership. Is it really suggested that it is a practical method in the middle of a strike, which it is most important should be settled immediately, that we should, without consultation with the masters, without evolving a system, and without very great care and consideration, revolutionise the whole of the system of working the mines, and set up a system of co-partnership. It is a perfectly impossible suggestion. That is the suggestion he made. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] Undoubtedly one suggestion he put forward was that co-partnership was the method.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: I said it was the ultimate solution.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The Noble Lord's theme was this, that this is purely an episode, that it is part of a general conspiracy, a general unrest, which has been created very largely by agitators, and that is very largely owing to the defects of the wage system. I understood him to say that it is no use trying partial remedies, but that you have to deal with the problem and deal with it thoroughly. His suggestion was that the only method which, in his judgment would be satisfactory, would be a method of co-partnership.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: I cannot say that the right hon. Gentleman has accurately understood me. What I said was that I was ready to admit that some temporary measure was necessary—the right hon. Gentleman will recollect that I suggested that you might throw a blanket on the fire—but that there must be some indication by the Government that they were prepared to deal with the matter from a more fundamental point of view, and it was in that connection that I advocated co-partnership.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I accept the explanation of the Noble Lord. His theory is this: that you have got to deal by some sort of temporary expedient with the position. Very well, that is what we are suggesting here. It must be pretty clear that when you are dealing with an evil the roots

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of which are very deep—I am not so sure that the Noble Lord had quite discovered what the roots of the evil are; it is very difficult to generalise in that sort of way— it requires careful, patient, and impartial investigation to discover it, it is a matter which will take time, and it is a matter which will have to be discussed by the commercial and industrial communities first of all. I do not think the community is ripe for any such solution at the present moment, but it has to be very carefully thought out. Therefore we cannot wait for that. If you wait a few more weeks it would involve national disaster. There fore the remedy must be an immediate one. It must be temporary; it must be in the nature of a provisional expedient to get over a temporary difficulty, and, in the meantime, the community has to think out the problem very carefully with a view to such remedies as the Noble Lord has suggested. I, for my own part, am inclined to think that the suggestion he made as to co-partnership is one of the things which might be most carefully examined when we come to deal with the problem as a whole. I am much obliged to the Noble Lord for saying that, in his judgment, there ought to be in the meantime some method of dealing with a temporary difficulty—something which would come into action immediately.
It is perfectly obvious that, if you are going to have a temporary remedy, it must be something which will not interfere with a more careful and deliberate solution which comes after it. Therefore the less drastic it is the better. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] I will give the reason. The less drastic it is the better, so long as it attains its purpose, for the simple reason that it must be in its character provisional. If you resort to very extreme, drastic methods, and if they turn out to be failures, you may create a totally new situation, and a very perilous situation. I do not take the Noble Lord's view with regard to Syndicalism. I do not think it is so serious as he imagines. I have followed the matter very carefully, because I was for two or three years at the Board of Trade, and it was part of my business, almost weekly, to deal with strikes, and even since I have been at the Exchequer I have been in close touch with most of the big strikes. I do not believe Syndicalism is a real peril. I will tell the House why I have come to that conclusion. I cannot see men of very great weight in
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the Labour movement who have committed themselves to it. No men of real influence and power have committed themselves to Syndicalism. Syndicalism and Socialism are, of course, two totally different things. They are mutually destructive. As a matter of fact, the Socialist would prefer to deal with the capitalist rather than the Syndicalist, for the simple reason that it is much more easy to deal with the capitalist than with the Syndicalist, because when once you hand over the whole profits of an industry merely to that particular industry, without any regard to the interests of the community, you raise a very formidable obstacle in the way of Socialism which is not in existence now, so that I can understand the Syndicalist as the bitterest enemy of the Socialist. He is bound to be. Let the Noble Lord take this comfort, that the best policeman for the Syndicalist is the Socialist.
Lord HUGH CECIL: The best police man for the thief is a lunatic.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I do not think the Noble Lord will consider that very fair, for the greatest intellects in Europe have been the greatest believers in Socialism. It may not be acceptable to the Noble Lord, but there are exceedingly able men who have accepted it.
Mr. T. M. HEALY: And some very stupid people too.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: My hon. and learned Friend has a great experience in politics, and he must know that he will find that in every party, in any section, however small that may be. However small the accommodation there is always room for a fool. I am sorry I have been, diverted to this. What I was putting to the House is this: There is this guarantee for society, that one microbe can be trusted to kill another, and the microbe of Socialism, which may be a very beneficent one, does at any rate keep guard upon the other, which is a very dangerous and perilous one. I have, therefore, no real fear of the Syndicalist. I have not met, in my dealings with Labour leaders, with men committed to the Syndicalist theory. I have seen the striker; I have seen the leaders of the strike, but their position has not been the Syndicalist position. After all, the demand for the minimum wage is not a Syndicalist demand. It is a demand which every Minister in charge of the Treasury has to meet constantly

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from Civil servants. [HON. MEMBERS: "And doctors."] I am glad my hon. Friends have reminded me of that. I have been, I will not say fighting, but negotiating a demand of that kind which has been put forward by a body of men who I think are, as a rule, ornaments of the Conservative party. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO, no."] If the Noble Lord regards that as a reflection upon them, I will certainly withdraw it. Take the sort of demand we have from Excise officers, Custom House officers, and second division clerks. They always put it on the ground they are not earning a minimum wage, and they are constantly demanding that there should be a rise in the basis of the lowest wage of the Service. That is a perfectly legitimate demand, and it is the business of the Exchequer to examine it thoroughly, and not to concede it unless there is a very clear case made out. But for the Noble Lord to treat this as if it were a portent, as if it were something that had appeared for the first time in the history of this country, is a mistake. Ever since I have been in this House I have heard demands of this kind put forward to the State as an employer of labour, and the only reason the Noble Lord has not heard of it is that it has not been put for ward with such force, with such prominence, and with such an organisation be hind it. For the first time the miners of this country have succeeded in organising their districts into one great federation in support of one demand.
I have listened to this Debate with considerable interest, and I have been rather disappointed that, while there has been so much criticism, there have been so few suggestions. The Noble Lord has treated this question with a gravity which is certainly due to the consideration of it When he comes to the temporary expedient—he rules the other thing out as a matter of legislation—he declines, with all his well-known courage, to respond to the invitation given to him to point out what he would do. The Leader of the Opposition was pressed. What did he say? He said there were two courses to be taken after the strike. With regard to the courses to be taken before the strike I think the Prime Minister dealt with that quite adequately. There is no greater mistake, the right hon. Gentleman ought to know as he has been at the Board of Trade, than to interfere prematurely in a strike. It does a good deal of mischief. I will confine myself to the two methods which he suggested for
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dealing with the matter after the strike. The first was to allow the strike to take its course. He said it is very cruel because of the enormous amount of misery, but in the long run it might be worth while. I could not make out whether he was in favour of that course or not. He argued for it and then left it. I think that would be an abdication of the functions of the Government. The Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil) pointed out that those who really suffer from strikes of this kind are not the powerful and the rich, but the poorer classes of the community. It is the bounden duty of the Government to prevent all that wretchedness if it can, and if it can do it at the price of a Bill, which in the main is accepted by the majority of the coal owners in principle, and therefore cannot be a very wild and revolutionary proposal, I think it is well worth trying the experiment. But I come to the second course. It is to bring pressure to bear upon the owners and the workers. He said, let the Government say there must be no strike. Well, the Lord Mayor said that three weeks ago, and all the Lord Mayors agreed with him, and still there is a strike. Really I think the right hon. Gentleman must descend to particulars. The Government, I think, are entitled, when there is a criticism of the very grave proposals they are making to meet a very great emergency, at any rate to invite the Leader of the Opposition to acknowledge his sense of responsibility—
Mr. BONAR LAW: I have not that sense of responsibility.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: And to indicate at any rate what his alternative is. He said bring pressure to bear. What sort of pressure?
Mr. BONAR LAW: The right hon. Gentleman is really in this position, that he first nearly kills his patient and then sends for another doctor and asks him what he would do. It is time enough when I am called in.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Then the right hon. Gentleman wants the strike to last for four years. And then he says he will cure what is left of the patient, but really that is rather a pitiable position, and I do not think it is quite worthy of the attitude which the right hon. Gentleman has taken up to the present. Here is a very great national emergency. Let us assume that he is purely an ordinary

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Member of Parliament, which he is not. He is the Leader of the Opposition. At any rate, we are entitled to get the best brains of every Member of the House in trying to solve a question which may involve national disaster. There are no facts known to the Government which are not equally well known to the right hon. Gentleman.
Earl WINTERTON: Will you publish a report of the conference?
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: My right hon. Friend has said that if the owners and the workmen have no objection—we cannot publish confidential documents except with the consent of the parties—we have no objection. The general facts are really well known. The facts of the dispute are known. The question of where the negotiations broke down is also known. Fortunately, the dispute is a very simple one, and the point at which it broke down is one which is easily intelligible without very much explanation. Up to the present the Leader of the Opposition has shrunk after undertaking up to a certain point to make suggestions. If he had said, "I will make no suggestion; I am not in a position; I am not a doctor to be called in; and unless I am paid I will not give any advice to the nation—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!" and "Withdraw!"]—that is not my expression.
Mr. BONAR LAW: Nor mine.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: It is the position of the right hon. Gentleman, that unless he is called in he will not advise; but if the right hon. Gentleman had taken that line right through, I could understand it, although I should not appreciate it; but he has not. He has gone up to a certain point. He says there are three alternative courses—my argument for this course is this, and my argument for the second course is this. He has gone much further than that, and yet, although he says he has thought it out for a fortnight, and has considered two alternatives, he will not tell us what his opinion is on the subject. I still think we are entitled to ask him what he really meant by saying he would bring pressure to bear upon the parties. Did he mean that he would imprison the miners' leaders? Did he mean that he would imprison the masters if they refused to open their mines? Did he mean that he would take possession of these mines in the interest of the State,
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if the masters refused to work them on these terms? Did he mean that he would sequestrate the unions' funds? Did he mean that he would prosecute men because they refused to work? The Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil) made a very extraordinary statement about that. He said something about compelling the men. He did not quite explain how far he would go, and I should like to ask him—I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman— "can you compel a man to work?" If you do, are you going to extend the area? At what point are you going to stop? Are you going to say to a miner, "You must not merely work although you say you can afford not to, but you must work at this particular job?" Why should you stop at the miners? Are there no other people in the country who do not work because they can afford not to? Why should you compel one section to work and draw the line at another section? It is obvious that you cannot do it.
Lord HUGH CECIL: The Prime Minister said if this Bill failed, he would have to resort to further measures. What are those further measures?
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The Noble Lord has asked me not merely to explain the Bill which is before the House dealing with one emergency, but he has> asked me to explain a Bill to deal with an emergency which has not arisen, and which in my judgment will never arise if this Bill is through. That is a demand which has never been made to any Minister. Let mo put this to the Noble Lord. It is not we who have said this Bill is inadequate. It is the Leader of the Opposition. We say it is adequate. The right hon. Gentleman says "I go further." It is therefore for those who say they would go further to explain to the House. I agree that if this Bill fails a very serious emergency will have arisen, but you must' consider in what form that emergency has arisen. You must consider whether it is attributable to the fault of the masters or to the men. It may be only partially the fault of one and partially the fault of the other. But to ask the Government to say now what they would do under circumstances that no one can for see is a demand which is utterly preposterous, and it is only a Gentleman with the remarkable ingenuity and imagination of the Noble Lord who would ever have proposed it. I therefore come to deal with the particular emergency. I do not say it is absolutely impossible that conditions may arise under which you may

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have to go further, but even then this Bill will have been justified. Seeing that we are departing from precedent in this matter, seeing that we cannot claim any thing except a great national emergency to justify us in doing so, I think it is imperative upon us to proceed by steps. If the present step is successful it will have been justified. If it is proved to be inadequate it will also be justified. Then we could demonstrate to public opinion, we can demonstrate to the masters and we can demonstrate to the men, that we have done everything we possibly could by moderate, tentative, limited measures to deal with the situation. If these fail there are more drastic courses which are well within the resources of civilisation.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: What are they?
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I have already answered the Noble Lord upon that point.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: You asked us to disclose our minds.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I do not think the right hon. Gentleman could have heard what I said. I said in my judgment these are adequate. The right hon. Gentleman said they are inadequate. You ought to go further. I am therefore entitled to ask him how much further he would go. I say these are adequate. If they fail, we would deal with the situation which then arises in the form in which it arises. How do I know whether it is the masters or the men who have failed? How do I know in what shape the emergency will arise? How could any Government do so? At any rate, once this Bill has been tried as an experiment, I believe the country will feel that we have done everything in our power to deal with the situation up to the present. The attempts which have been made to go farther in other countries have not been very successful. I see that in New South Wales they are reconsidering the very Act of Parliament which they passed on the lines that have been suggested by some of the supporters of the fight hon. Gentleman, and they are getting rid of those very powers because they are failing. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] That is what I am informed. The right hon. Gentleman, or somebody else, says the method we propose has never been tried anywhere else. I am not so sure of that. I think, at any rate, it is a method adequate to the conditions of the case, and I do hope the House of Commons will approve of it.
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I am glad to observe the moderation of the statements made by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) and the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. Walsh). I have every hope that this measure will attain the purpose it has in view—the securing of a fair minimum wage for those who are labouring in the mines of this country. I am not going into the question of the responsibility for the strike. I could have told the Noble Lord something of the conditions in South Wales, but I would rather not, inasmuch as the conditions will have to be examined judicially in the course of the next few weeks. I will not go into that matter. There is a great deal he could not possibly have heard, and if he had heard these things he would be the first to dissent from them. That has nothing to do with the conferences, I can assure you. These are conditions which the Government felt ought to be inquired into judicially and not by themselves. Let me answer the hon. Member for Ince. He made an eloquent appeal to us to incorporate the schedule in the Bill. It is impossible that the Government can do so. Here you have twenty districts with varying rates. The miners themselves admit that the conditions are different in each of these districts. It is quite impossible for the Government to examine them. It would take at least a month for us to do so separately, and to put a schedule in an Act of Parliament and force it without examination upon the mine owners would, I think, be an outrage.
Mr. WALSH: I did not suggest that every figure should be put in. I simply suggested that certain figures, which to you seem proper, would give us definite and concrete proposals to lay before the men.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: As my hon. Friend knows very well, all these figures are contested. They must be the subject of very close examination, and I feel confident when the examination proceeds that the men who have already been dealing with labour disputes by machinery of this kind in the past—machinery which has proved successful and which has settled many intricate disputes—will also be successful in this case.
Mr. CAVE: I wish for a few minutes to press home on the right hon. Gentleman the two main points put forward by my Noble Friend the Member for

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the Hitchin Division (Lord Robert Cecil), with every word of whose speech I agree. The Chancellor of the Exchequor brushed aside rather lightly the suggestion that this particular strike is on the lines recommended by Syndicalists. What I wish to point out is this. We can know nothing, of course, of the direct origin of the strike. We know nothing yet, but there is one fact apparent to every one who has studied the strike, namely, that in its character and methods it has every indication of following the lines laid down by those who call them selves Syndicalists. What is the method of Syndicalism? I am obliged to use the French word, although I hate it. The method is this. "Get into your hands, if you can, the whole of an industry; let it be, if possible, an industry upon which the very life of the nation depends; gather together in one industrial union, or federation of unions, all the branches taking part in that particular industry; get them together under one control, and then when the moment comes, strike and let the whole industry come to an end." I take the case of coal, and I am almost quoting from pamphlets published a year or even two years ago. "In this manner you can get your hands on the throat of the nation, and you can not only destroy the coal industry, but you can stop and hamper a number of other industries. You can deprive the masses of the people of warmth, of the means of livelihood, and even of food. If you follow Syndicalist methods and do as we bid you, the result will be that you will have such a hold on the whole country that you will not only get the extra few shillings a week which you are asking for, but you will have a political power which will enable you to go very much further." That is the method followed by the miners in this strike. I do not care whether it is admitted to be an example of Syndicalism or not. I say it is a strike following those Syndicalist methods, and so it is a source of the greatest danger to this country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says that a minimum wage is not a Syndicalist proposal. He is quite mistaken. It is not the end of the Syndicalist conspiracy I agree, but it is one of the means recommended by the leaders of that conspiracy in order to gain their ends. I do not confine myself to one pamphlet. I have had the duty of reading quite a number of them. Let me quote one:—
"The policy of Syndicalism is continual agitation carried on in favour of increasing the minimum wage
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and shortening the hours of labour until we have extracted the whole of the employers' profits."
Therefore the minimum wage is part of the Syndicalist policy. The right hon. Gentleman said quite truly that the old and well-known Labour leaders had not identified themselves with this policy. I entirely agree, and I think that is one of its dangers. No one has denounced it more strongly than the hon. Member for Ince. He called it a foul and dishonourable policy, if his words were correctly re ported. There may be other leaders who have used words as strong as these. The worst of that is that while they say these things, the men do not follow them. The men in this matter are not led by the old Labour leaders. Some of them are Members of this House, and, if I am correctly informed, the old Labour leaders deeply regret what is now going on, but they have been told, "You must either get on and lead, or get out and follow." While many of the old leaders have preferred to get out and not to follow. I am afraid there are some who have taken the advice to follow. I see, and I am sorry to have seen it, that some Members of this House, including the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald), have really followed the lead of men more extreme than them selves, and have given their blessing or their partial support to a movement of this character, which involves for the country the greatest dangers which can be conceived.
Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I am sure that as the hon. and learned Member has charged me with having done that, he will be good enough to inform the House what his authority is for making the statement.
Mr. CAVE: I was commenting on the speech which the hon. Member made in the House to-day, and I do not need to go further than that. What I wish to point out about the policy embodied in this strike is this. It is folly, from the men's, point of view, because they are killing, their own industry as well as the industries of others. But, from the public point of view, which we must bear in view mainly in this House, it is nothing less than organised robbery. It is a design conceived for the purpose of appropriating the property of others at no matter what cost to the nation.
If I am right, and if my Noble Friend is right, in seeing in this strike a movement of the character which I have de scribed, then the question is how ought it

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to be met? I want to say, of course only for myself, but as plainly as I can, that if this be the character of the strike, it is better to have no Bill at all, but to meet this conspiracy by the ordinary methods of the law. If it be really a movement of this kind, then this Bill is nothing but a sop to Syndicalists, and the only effect will be that they will follow the course they have clearly marked out for themselves, and, having gone one step, they will go another. Having got the minimum wage, they will strike for a higher minimum and for shorter hours, and they will go on and on until at last the breaking-point must come when the country must resist with all the resources at its command, and that after untold distress and misery has been brought to thousands and millions of our population. If that is the correct view of it, it is better to have it fought out now, for otherwise we must have it fought out later on. I would use all the resources of the State. I would clear the decks for war—for it is a State war—and I would protect with all the resources at our disposal those men who desire to work. I would provide fuel and food for those who are starving by the operation of this strike, and I would do what has been done—it is no imaginary thing—in foreign countries—I would meet the strike from the beginning, and I do not think it would survive long against the resources of this country.
Let me put the second point. Suppose I am wrong there. Suppose for a moment that this is nothing but a strike for more wages. You say that you are going to deal with it by a temporary measure. The objection to that is this: You are not dealing with the strike at all. In the Bill as outlined to-day, there is nothing to give any reasonable assurance that it will put an end to the strike. You are going to say that no man shall go down a mine without becoming entitled to the minimum wage. I am not: going to deal to-day with the economic objections to that; but suppose, when you say it, the men employed do not go down, how much further forward are you? And what assurance have we from any responsible quarter at all that if this Bill be passed the men will go down the mines to work? If that is so, you are not providing a remedy for the disease. You are making some kind of experiment which you hope will operate well; but you are acting on no reliable data at all, and you cannot be sure that this Bill will have any effect upon the disease. If the Government were to say,
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with assurance, "Pass this Bill and the strike will cease," that is a matter which nobody would refrain from considering with the greatest care. But there is no such thing. Indeed, from the speeches made from the benches below the gangway opposite to-day, I should rather draw the opposite inference. I do not think that either the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) or the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. Walsh) led any quarter of the House to believe that if the Bill passed as proposed by the Government, the strike would end.
More than that Even if the optimistic view that the strike would come to an end on the passage of the Bill were realised, next month or the month after or six months hence we might have the same trouble again, because you have done nothing by this Bill to prevent it happening. The owners and the public were told that if a minimum wage were conceded adequate safeguards would be given to the owners, safeguards against the diminution of the output, and safeguards, as far as possible, against a breach of the new conditions. There are not in this Bill any such safeguards at all. I know that there are conditions that a man is not to have the minimum wage in cases of irregularity and inefficiency. That is to be decided by some local body. But there are to be no safeguards such as were indicated, or at all events such as the owners ought to have. If they are going to concede to this strike a minimum wage, they ought to have some legal safeguard further than that which they have now. I would rather see the Bill before endeavouring to formulate anything of the kind. But we must all have some conception of what should be done. I know what is done in Australia, where among other things in one of the States it is provided that if, after the mimimum wage is fixed, any body, whether of owners or of men, combine together for the purpose of inducing a strike against that wage, then that shall be an offence against the law, punishable by the law and actionable. The Trades Disputes Act of 1906 has deprived owners of any remedy against the union.
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir John Simon): Does the hon. and learned Gentle man suggest that without the Trades Disputes Act the coalowners could sue the unions?
Mr. CAVE: I did not say so. My suggestion is that if this new experiment is tried of having the minimum wage, at least it

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should be part of the Bill that if, when a wage has been fixed in the manner provided by the Act, there is a fresh combination against it, the combination shall be liable to be in some way dealt with by law. That is not to say that you may force the owner to open his mines or force the miner to go down the mine. That is quite a different thing. It is a proposal to prevent a combination—it used in the old days to be called a conspiracy, but can no longer be called so since the action taken some years ago—against the statutory minimum wage. I do think that such a proposal is at all events worth considering as possibly one of the safeguards which might be pro vided under this Bill.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: What about the owners?
Mr. CAVE: I am including owners in my suggestion. I quite think that they ought to be dealt with on the same footing. It will not be right for me to go further now into this matter, but I think it right to bring it forward to-day, because I am sure that it and other matters will require careful consideration upon the Second Reading. The object of my rising was, first, to say that if there is ground for the suggestion, made with great force in this House, that this is only the beginning of real social revolution, that is a strike on Syndicalist lines, then no Bill of this kind can possibly protect us, and we must fall back on the strength of the State. If, on the other hand, those are right who think that this is an ordinary strike, though a great strike, still a strike on ordinary lines, then, if you meet it by this new and special expedient of the minimum wage, you must also provide for the owners adequate safe guards.
Sir CLIFFORD CORY: My right hon. Friend (Mr. Lloyd George) said that this is to be a temporary measure, but the Prime Minister told us that it was to be for three years. I hardly think that you can call that a temporary measure. Then the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that no greater mistake could be made than to interfere before a strike took place. I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman's statement of the action of the Government. Surely he must admit that they did interfere before the strike did take place.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: What I said was that it was a great mistake to interfere
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prematurely in disputes, because when I did use the word strike my right hon. Friend corrected me, and I used the word, disputes.
Sir C. CORY: I think it amounts to very much the same thing, because the Government did interfere prematurely in this dispute. There was no dispute so far as the owners were concerned. The whole dispute is on the part of the men. The owners were not seeking to evade their bargains or their agreements. The whole cause of the dispute was the men were, endeavouring to do so. The Prime Minister said that he much regretted that he was unable to bring about a settlement by voluntary agreement rather than by legislation; but I hardly think that his mode of procedure was likely to bring about a voluntary settlement. It will be within the memory of every Member of this House that the Prime Minister, when he addressed the men's representatives at the Foreign Office, commenced by telling them that he considered that their claim for a minimum wage was in every way justified. He encouraged them and incited them to put forward their claims, and therefore, having encouraged them to the extent of conceding the principle of the minimum wage, surely he could not expect negotiators like the hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, or the representatives of labour, to accept the terms put before them. They would naturally hold out for their full demand. Having been so successful at the beginning in getting the Government to concede the principle of the minimum wage, they would be induced to hold out a little longer to enforce the whole of their programme. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and also the Prime Minister—
The PRIME MINISTER: The hon. Baronet is attributing statements to me which I do not recollect. Will he repeat them?
Sir C. CORY: The right hon. Gentleman told the miners representatives, on the night he addressed them, that they were perfectly justified in putting forward their claim for a minimum wage, and he was not at all surprised. I have not got the exact words of his speech. That was their tenour. He thought they had every right to expect it.
The PRIME MINISTER: I said the Government; I did not say that everybody was of that opinion.
Sir C. CORY: You were the spokesman of the Government.
The PRIME MINISTER: That that was the opinion of the Government.
8.0 P.M.
Sir C CORY: I regret that I have not the exact words here, but they were very much on the lines that I have said. The Prime Minister said that 65 per cent, of the owners agreed to the Government's proposals. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, I think, made practically the same sort of statement, and that the Bill was accepted by the majority of the owners. That is hardly accurate. The Prime Minister forgets that the federated areas represent something like 40 per cent, of the owners, but nothing like the whole of the federated owners, only about half of them. I think that the voting in the first place was 67,000,000 tons against the Government's proposals and 64,000,000 tons in favour of them. Therefore at first there was a majority of the federated owners opposed to the Government's proposals, and it was only after wards by a small majority that the federated owners agreed to the Government's proposals. But then one cannot leave out of the calculation that this small majority included some who were entirely opposed to the whole principle of minimum wage, which they considered disastrous to the collieries, but that they agreed to it rather than face the disaster of a national strike. To say the majority of the coal owners, or 65 per cent, of them, were in favour of it, is inaccurate. You may reckon the association as a whole, but you must take minorities into account. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said he is not so sure that this method had never been tried anywhere else. I think he must be right. It has been tried else where. I have an article here showing that in a strike in New Zealand, a company, raising a million tons, awarded a minimum wage of 10s. a ton, and if the men did not earn that amount the wages were to be made up to 10s. a ton. What was the result? In the first year, in consequence of the operation of this award, a difference of £200 had to be made up, the difference between what the men earned and the minimum wage. Next year the difference amounted to £800, and in the third year the difference had increased to £l,300, thus showing that year by year the men decreased their work, while the difference between the amount of that work and the amount of the minimum wage increased. The consequence was that the minimum
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wage was shown to be so complete a failure that they did away with it altogether in New Zealand. The Prime Minister said there would have to be safe guards in order to ensure efficiency and regularity of work. But I submit that is not all that is required. You may have efficiency of work; you may have one ton or one and a-half ton efficiently worked, but the amount of the work would not be sufficient, or anything like it. It is not merely efficiency and regularity that are needed: you want to ensure that there will be an adequate quantity.
Then the Government say that the work men will have the right to recover the minimum wage by civil proceedings. I have no doubt that is so. I suppose they would be able to recover in the Courts the minimum wage if the owner refused to grant it, and that would lead to a condition of things which one can hardly contemplate, if the provision becomes law. Then the Prime Minister said that the minimum wage would be retrospective—that is to say, from the date of the passing of the Act. But it may be three months before the District Boards are set up, and before the minimum wages in the districts and also the rules which are to be laid down to ensure safeguards are agreed to. If this is to be retrospective, how do you expect managers during the three months to remember week by week all the circumstances in regard to which they would have to argue as against the men who would claim the minimum wage. It will be impossible for the managers to remember, after three months or longer, the circumstances which would enable them to rebut the claim for the minimum wage. As regards safeguards, the Prime Minister said the minimum would have to be paid in circumstances over which the men have no control, in regard to their earnings. There are many cases outside abnormal places where men may have no control in regard to their earnings. Suppose that a man goes underground, and, an hour after his doing so, there is a fall of the roof. Is that man to receive the minimum wage for the whole day, although he has only been down the mine an hour? That is a case under which he would have no control; but, on the other hand, if the colliery owner has to pay him for the whole day though the man has only worked an hour, that, too, is in circumstances over which the proprietor had no control, and it would be a very great hardship making it impossible for the collieries to-pay.

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Again, wagons may be detained at the port of shipment, owing to vessels being kept back by rough weather. In that case is the minimum wage to be paid for the whole day, owing to wagons having been detained at the port of shipment through circumstances over which the colliery proprietor has no control? All these points should receive careful consideration when the District Boards are set up. The Prime Minister said that the Joint District Boards—which I take to mean Boards recognised by the Board of Trade would be set up. Am I to understand that to mean that the present Conciliation Board would form the Joint District Board, and, if not, would others be set up? I understood him to say that in the event of the District Board not being set up, the independent chairman would take its place. If that be so, it seems to me very undesirable that the whole question of the minimum rates and rules should be left to the chairman, and I would suggest that it should be the duty of the Board of Trade to get names from the different interests, and set up a joint board themselves, nominating that joint board if the district failed to agree. The Prime Minister said the chairman would have the casting vote, but I certainly think it would be very much more desirable if the chairman had the full power of an arbitrator, not merely to give a casting vote on one resolution or another on the part of the men or their employers, but having power to say something as between the two, or different altogether. Perhaps my right hon. Friend will agree to that. It has also been said that there might be three chairmen instead of one, if thought desirable. For my part, I trust there will be three chairmen rather than one, as I think you are very much more likely to get a better decision from three chairmen than from one; they will feel stronger in giving their decision than if it were given by one person alone.
The Prime Minister did not say what led the Government to think that the men were entitled to a minimum wage, and it would be very interesting to hear what are their reasons, because it is held in Northumberland, Durham, and also in South Wales, that there is no necessity, outside the possibility of abnormal places, for any minimum wage. The wages in those districts are certainly much above what may be called a living wage, and there is no necessity for legislation for a
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minimum wage. So far as South Wales is concerned, it has been said over and over again that they have always been willing to discuss the question of abnormal places. [An HON. MEMBER: "Who said so?"] It has been said over and over again by the owners' representatives. As a matter of fact the question has been dealt with, from time immemorial, to the satisfaction of the men until quite recently. It has been a question of bargain between the manager and men in respect to abnormal places. I must say there is always such a scarcity of men in South Wales that the manager will not be such a fool as to drive a hard bargain with a good man, because if he does so the man will quickly give a month's notice and be received with open arms at the next colliery. Managers never send away good workmen. My right hon. Friend has made no reference to the agreement that exists in Scotland. We know that the agreement made there was practically confirmed by the Board of Trade. The agreement was signed by the President of the Board of Trade and by Sir George Askwith, and accepted by the men and endorsed by the Miners' Federation. This agreement has been torn up without any regard to it at all.
The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Buxton): Does the hon. Gentleman say the agreement was endorsed by the Board of Trade?
Sir C. CORY: Yes.
Mr. BUXTON: The South Wales agreement?
Sir C. CORY: No; I was speaking of Scotland. I said the agreement in that case was entirely confirmed and endorsed by the Board of Trade—the Government itself. Now they disregard that agreement entirely. But coming to South Wales, what is the position with regard to the agreement there? After months of discussion and negotiation an agreement was come to, concessions were made on both sides, and, so far as the owners were concerned, the minimum was raised by from thirty to thirty-five per cent. The agreement was recommended by the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, but the miners' leaders, before signing it, insisted upon a ballot of the whole of the men. The men in the whole of South Wales balloted upon the question and agreed to it by a majority, and thus the whole of the miners accepted

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it. We are told that some of the miners in South Wales now say that they are perfectly justified in breaking the agreement because it was forced upon them. How on earth can they say that when there were months of negotiation, concessions made on both sides, and the agreement was also recommended by the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, I fail to understand. This agreement has three years to run, and yet we find that the Government are inciting really the men to tear up that agreement with disregard of the sanctity of contract altogether. I should like to know what guarantee we have for the carrying on of business in the future if agreements are to be torn up in this way? Practically the whole of South Wales coal is bought by foreign customers, and if agreements are to be torn up in this way, foreign buyers will say: "What is the good of going to South Wales to buy our coal? We know there is no guarantee for a continued settlement there, and that they make agreements which the men tear up with out any regard to their sanctity. We must buy our coal elsewhere." [An HON. MEMBER: "Where?"] South Wales coal is being displaced all over the world by other coal. [An HON. MEMBER: "What coal?"] By Indian coal, by American coal, by Durham coal, by Natal coal. There are depots all over the world where they are bound to secure coal other than the high-priced Welsh coal. Notwithstanding that high price, a large number of South Wales collieries lost money—so much has the cost gone up—last year. We are losing our markets to a very large extent, and we shall lose them at a very much quicker rate owing to the uncertainty of the trade in South Wales. Contracts have been made in South Wales, and three-fourths of the output is sold from January to December.
And, it being Quarter-past Eight, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means, under Standing Order No. 8, further proceeding was postponed.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  STAFFORDSHIRE POTTERIES WATER BILL (By Order).
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next, 25th March.

COAL MINES (MINIMUM WAGE) BILL.
Postponed proceeding resumed on Question, "That leave be given to intro duce a Bill to provide a Minimum Wage in the case of workmen employed underground in Coal Mines, and for purposes incidental thereto."—[The Prime Minister.]
Question again proposed. Debate resumed.
Sir C. CORY: I was pointing out that the contracts for three-fourths of the out put of South Wales were running from January to 31st December. Those con tracts have been entered into at the beginning of the year, and if this Bill is to be brought into operation at once I would like to know how the owners are going to survive if they have to sell their coal at contract prices and if this minimum adds enormously increased charges to the cost. It seems to me that that is manifestly unjust to those owners who have to be held by their contracts. The Government may be able to release those contracts in the federated area where they hit home consumers, but in the case of foreign consumers you cannot get out of the contracts in the same way. To hold to them under the circumstances would be very unfair and unjust, and would cause an enormous amount of ruin in the district.
To show what a difference there is in the work two men may do under similar circumstances, I will give an instance. Collier A, working in a place on the line of the lace, earned on the average 5s. 8.83d. per day. Being dissatisfied with the wages, he approached the management for an extra allowance. The management considered the allowance given was adequate for the abnormality of the place, and they offered to remove him to another place, which was accepted. In the place in which A had been working another collier, B, was put. That man, B, earned on the average 9s. 9.17d. per day in A's place. There you had two men working in exactly the same place and one earned nearly double the wage of the other. That will be the effect of the minimum. When you establish the minimum you will find that the tendency is for the men who are slackers to slack down and to be content with the minimum. Men who would probably work more, generally speaking, will say, "Why should we strive and sweat ourselves for so much more when we can get the minimum wage." The tendency will be to decrease the output, and I can give the

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Government figures bearing on this point. I cannot help thinking that if the Government had confined their attentions to trying to make a settlement with regard to abnormal places, they would have clone good work. About half the men now working underground, in South Wales, at any rate, are day wage men. It seems to me that the District Boards will have their work cut out for them to establish this wage. Of the 200,000 men working in South Wales half are piecework men, and if only 1 per cent, of them made claims that would mean a thousand men that the District Board would have to deal with. The men you will have on the District Boards will have to sit twenty-four hours night and day, every day in the week, to settle that enormous amount of claims, and I do not see how any Board is going to do such a thing. You will have to set up District Boards at every colliery in order to deal with this question. I can only say I think the Government has entered on a most hazardous experiment in introducing a Bill of this kind. I can not help feeling it must end in disaster not only for the men themselves, and I believe it will end in that way for the men, but for the industry also.
The PRIME MINISTER: May I appeal to hon. Members to let us now bring in the Bill. They will have a much longer time for reading it before Second Reading. They will see what its provisions are, and many of the points that have been raised by the hon. Member (Sir C. Cory) will be solved by the reading of the Bill. It is quite essential, as I said yesterday, that we should get our Navy Votes later this evening. In consequence of my concession of an extra day, that is postponing the Second Reading of the Bill, we are en titled to get our Navy Votes to-night and the Report to-morrow, and I hope hon. Members will allow us to introduce and get possession of the Bill now.
Mr. AMERY: This measure is being de fended, as far as I understand, on the ground that it is a purely provisional mea sure, and that it is not possible in the short time allowed us to enter upon any really difficult and complicated measure or any measure creating a difficult precedent for the future. Could there be any mea sure more controversial or more likely to lead to complications than one which embodies a minimum wage? It is one thing to suggest a minimum wage as a reason able matter to two parties still discussing
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without the intervention of the law, but it is an entirely different matter to hurry through in a few days so controversial a question as that of the minimum wage; and to introduce it in an industry where it is more difficult and likely to lead to more complication than, I venture to say, in any other industry. After all, if you put the minimum wage, as the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. S. Walsh) remarked, as a social question, as a matter of decent living, can you say that the colliers are the first class in the country to demand relief? If you look not only at the social question, in which almost every other industry has a better claim, but look at the actual question of feasibility, is it possible, in the present condition of industry, to give anything like the minimum wage which the colliers now demand? We have the figures of the Board of Trade Census of Production, from which it appears that the total net production of this country among 7,000,000 workers is something over £700,000,000. Out of that you have to take interest, depreciation, the replacement of machinery, cost of management, and insurances of every kind, which together must amount to at least 15 per cent, of the gross production. If you deduct these items you will find the net production available for wages of all kinds is little over £400,000,000, making an average of something like 25s. per worker in the country. How can you start with a minimum of 30s. or more, when the average wage of the country is not 25s.? It is an immensely difficult thing I he Government are undertaking, and, I submit, for the purpose of a temporary settlement, an entirely unnecessary thing. They could have created their Conciliation Boards and left the question of the minimum wage to District Committees and arbitration. Further, is this Bill going to settle the dispute? This is a great national crisis, as the right hon. Gentleman said, and all he can say is that he hopes and believes the Bill will bring about a settlement, but, if it does not, other measures may have to be considered. Surely the question is already much too serious for the introduction of purely speculative measures. It is not safe, in the present condition of things, to gamble with the very industrial life of the nation. I think the country has a right to demand, now that things have gone so far, whether a measure, provisional and temporary, is introduced or not, that the strike should come to an end while further legislation is thought out.

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At any rate, the Government ought to bring the matter to an end now.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by the Prim Minister, Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Sydney Buxton, and Sir Rufus Isaacs; presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Thursday next, 21st March, and to be printed. [Bill No. 92.]

SUPPLY.

  NAVY ESTIMATES, 1912–13.— [PROGRESS.]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]
  (IN THE COMMITTEE.)
  Motion made, and Question again pro posed, "That 136,000 officers, seamen, and boys be employed for the Sea and Coast guard Services for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1913, including 17,200 Royal Marines."
  Mr. ALAN BURGOYNE: I do not think any Member will envy me the task of re opening a Navy Debate after an afternoon such as we have just concluded. Never the less the opportunity presents itself, and those who have made a study of the subject must take such opportunities as occur and make the best of them. A change in the First Lord of the Admiralty is at all times a matter of very great importance to the country, and of considerable interest to the people. The present holder of the office would not be the last to admit that we should have to search far back in history to find a parallel for the comment that was caused by his appointment. This House has always done its best to keep the Navy, in broad principles, as far as possible out of party politics, and I think it has been comparatively successful. It would ill-befit a service of the nature of the Navy, or, for that matter, of the Army, to drag it into the arena of our domestic politics. The new First Lord, who I regret is not in his place, has been one of our most strenuous opponents in regard to the ordinary domestic problems of the day, and naturally, when we found him transferred to a position of very high dignity and great trust, such as that of First Lord of the Admiralty, the first Estimates he was to present were looked forward to with considerable anxiety and not a little curiosity. Of public professions of faith
  1798
  we have had several from him already, and we had some right to anticipate that his professions would be carried into effect when we saw the comments upon his Glasgow speech. The curtain is drawn up, and we are now able to see whether the display is equal to the anticipations created by the advance agents. I have been told that statesmanship may largely be judged by the manner in which it is prepared to court criticism. If that is so, the right hon. Gentleman, and those associated with him, will go down to history as being amongst the greatest statesmen of their day in that they have not been frightened at the possibility of criticism being raised by the Estimates they have presented. I wish the right hon. Gentleman were here, but I daresay the Civil Lord will convey to him the humble congratulations of one who has endeavoured to be a student of naval defence, that he should have had sufficient courage to accept, at least in principle, the standard which Navy Leaguers throughout the Empire have advocated for many years past, namely, two keels to one. I noticed, nevertheless, in the right hon. Gentleman's speech—as in that of the Financial Secretary—that he seemed at times to hesitate a little, but we have to remember that he has had bad associates for the last six or seven years, and one still hopes that we shall find him a brand plucked from the burning.
  The most striking feature of the First Lord's speech was undoubtedly his references to Germany. Beading as one naturally did, the comments upon the address on the following morning, it was surprising to find with what unanimity it was accepted that this was the best way of facing an obvious international difficulty. We recognise where the danger comes from, and the real and possible opponent with whom we shall always be glad to be on the most friendly terms. I cannot but think that a nation such as Germany must at all times be glad to have this straight speaking rather than listen to a type of lip-service to the cause of peace which many would mistake merely for cowardice. Interest in the Estimates is always centred in two features: first, the programme of new construction, and, secondly, the items of policy which are not directly or definitely dealt with in the Estimates. Indeed, they are the things that the First Lord has left out. It has become the fashion to take particular months in particular years, and to parallel the battleship strength of various Powers at those periods. I myself

  1799
  have fallen a victim to this fetish. I note that the right hon. Gentleman also has taken up the principle of comparing the number of battleships that we shall have with those of Germany at various dates. As the result of his calculation he has managed to convince himself that his provision of four ships is adequate for our needs in the immediate future. The question is one that has been discussed many times, and, I am afraid, will be discussed every time the Estimates come up. We can never reach finality, because delays and advances in construction are always taking place during the twelve months. Nevertheless, it is essential, in order that we may get a proper under standing of the situation, to distinguish between the present and the future strength. I recognise very clearly that we have made many mistakes in calculation in the past—that is to say, the Estimates upon which we have based our calculations for the future, but made three or four years previously, have been falsified by a large number of reasons, one or two of which I propose to put before the Committee.
  To-day undoubtedly we are in a very favourable position. Some think that that is not so, but a careful study of the facts will probably show that, as last year, we are quite as favourably placed in regard to our armoured strength as compared with any possible combination as we have ever been. The first thing is that up to the present we have been building faster than the next strongest Power. We have complete at sea, of the "Dreadnought" type, sixteen ships, including the "Monarch," which is practically ready for the pennant. These ships have taken twenty-five and three-quarter months, as against thirty-five months for the nine ships possessed by Germany, of the same type at present complete. German ships are authorised about the present time— March or April; they are ordered about July, but laid down six months later. Our ships are authorised when Vote 8 is discussed, usually in June or July; they are ordered about November or December, and laid down a couple of months later than that; in the result that though the German ships are authorised six months before, their keels are laid about the same time. We obtained, too, a certain lead by reason of the fact that we started building this type of vessel considerably earlier than any other Power.
  1800
  We laid down the first "Dreadnought" in 1905. In 1907 we found ourselves in the position of having ten completed or under construction to five for Germany, but this ratio of superiority which we have held is decreasing every year. I would point out that whereas in 1910 in ships of the "Dreadnought" type we had a ratio of eight to two, we have not now more than sixteen to nine. Obviously that ratio of superiority must go down unless the strongest efforts are made to maintain it. I am not going to pretend that the provision of the present year is so inadequate that we cannot, with the delays that are taking place at the present in Germany, carry on very well for another programme or two. Nevertheless the matter has to be very carefully considered, since in 1915 we shall find ourselves with no more than thirty-five vessels of the "Dreadnought" type in Home waters to twenty-three for the German Empire. I do not propose to take the various vessels of the Triple Alliance as did the hon. Gentleman the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lee). I am not so sure to what extent the "Dreadnoughts" at present under construction by Italy and Austria are being built against one another. Nevertheless whether they are being built against one another or not, this curious paradox arises that both these two Powers are included in the Triple Alliance, and we have to take it into consideration as a possible combination against us.
  We are often told this—it is an annual repetition every time these Estimates are discussed—that we have to consider the pre-"Dreadnoughts." Of course we have to consider them. We cannot count only in "Dreadnoughts" any more than we can ignore cruisers and destroyers. Yet we have to remember that though in the event of "Dreadnoughts" being crippled, the pre-"Dreadnoughts" will be the arbiters of the battle, that year by year these vessels are growing obsolescent. What we want to know is how many of these pre-"Dreadnoughts" are going to count when we reach that period at which the "Dreadnoughts" now being ordered are reaching completion. In 1915, the period for which we are preparing under the present Estimates, I do not sup pose that the hon. Gentleman representing the Admiralty will be prepared to admit that we shall have more than ten pre-"Dreadnoughts" that count—these including the "Lord Nelson," the "Agamemnon," and eight "King Edwards." It

  1801
  will be quite possible that none of the German pre-"Dreadnoughts" will count in those days. In the meantime we will have lost our naval superiority; our preponderating strength will have gone to the scrapheap in bunches. And what about the outlook for 1916 and 1917? I know that the reply we shall probably get is the statement that the margin that is now pro vided for us is sufficient. We have the assurance of the right hon. Gentleman—and I, as an opponent of him politically, am glad to believe that he is really honest in his desire to maintain our naval strength —we have his assurance that the time must come when his present assertion of a superiority of 60 per cent, must very probably be increased. A still better assurance is given that if any increases are made in foreign programmes, particularly if any additions are made under the Navy Law of Germany, that we will build against these extra ships in the proportion of two keels to one—the only sensible and wise formula that we can possibly undertake.
  There are three things that may happen between now and 1916–17. We may be called upon to strengthen the Mediterranean command. Under the new ideal the battle fleet of the Mediterranean is to be withdrawn from those seas and based on Gibraltar. Its strength is to be brought up from six to eight. The time will come very shortly when these eight ships will be vessels of the "Dreadnought" type, but these eight cannot be expected to be of sufficient strength to face the possible squadrons now being built by Austria and Italy. Consequently it is quite on the cards that if we have a disaster like the loss of the "Victoria" or the "Montagu" off Lundy Island, the margin that has been laid down by the First Lord in his present proposals would largely go, and we should find our selves placed in considerable difficulty were that disaster to take place at a time of battle. I put forward in all humility a suggestion that the Financial Secretary may convey to his chief. In the French Navy Law they have an arrangement whereby if a vessel is lost by accident or otherwise it is immediately replaced in the programme of the forth coming year. It would not affect the Estimates in the slightest if that arrangement were introduced here. The next feature to which attention should be called is the possibility of our requiring to strengthen our Fleet in far Eastern waters. I approach this question with very great
  1802
  diffidence, because at the present time we have the advantage of an alliance, until 1920 at least, with a great Power in the East. Nevertheless one can conceive a situation arising in which it will be necessary to strengthen that which at the present time is only nominally an armoured squadron by several battleships of the first class.
  There is one point in extenuation of the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman which I think does help him somewhat in his argument, and it is that by 1914 we shall have sixteen ships carrying what has been described as the 13.5-in. gun, whereas Germany, our possible and probable opponent, will not have a single vessel in which the gun is bigger than 12.0-in. afloat and in commission at that particular period. After all we should not forget that we do not want more strength than is really necessary. Obviously one must take into consideration the effective strength of each unit, and the effective strength of our units to-day is as great as ever it was. Numbers, however, have to be considered, and I should have liked to see these ships put immediately on the stocks, instead of, as is obviously going to be the case, delayed until the end of the financial year. Referring to delays, let me say that in 1909, largely as the result of an agitation introduced by our party, we got eight ships. In addition we were provided by Colonial Governments with two, one by New Zealand, and one by Australia. Of these ten ships only one, the "Hercules," has been built up to her contract time. The "Colossus" was a month late. The "Orion" was a month late in being commissioned, and now has to be two months having new bilge keels fitted. The "Lion," which ought to have been completed in November last—a matter of very great importance—in the first place did not have her turbines delivered up to time, which delayed her a matter of three months. Now it is necessary to alter the situation of her fire control with the result that she will be delayed another six months. Similar criticisms can be brought forward in relation to the delay of the other four vessels of the programme. But in the case of the Australian and New Zealand vessels there is something like a scandal attaching to their delay. Armour of a specific type was tendered for by a very well known firm. They were unable, however, to secure the patent for this particular armour, and

  1803
  attempted the manufacture of it for themselves with the result that the Admiralty were forced to condemn the whole of it, and the ships are now laid up on the Clyde practically complete, with the exception of their armour. The Financial Secretary to the Admiralty might well reply to that. I put it as a charge of incompetence and as a lack of care in seeing that the tenders that were accepted could not be carried into effect by those who put them forward.
  Turning to the Estimates, every year we usually see the names of the ships to be built in the course of the financial year. On May 3rd last I asked the predecessor of the present First Lord when the "Audacious" and the "Ajax" would be completed. He told me 16th January, 1913. Yet I find on turning to the page in reference to shipbuilding repairs and maintenance, no mention is made of the "Audacious" at all, and I ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether I am right in saying she will not be concluded by the end of the financial year. Why is there this de lay in these ships, as also the ships just laid down to which I am now going to refer? Coming to the 1911 programme, the programme of the present year, I find that in that year four battleships were provided, and of these ships two only have been laid down. The "Iron Duke" was laid down on 15th January at Portsmouth and the "Marlborough" was laid down at Devonport, on 25th January. The money for these two ships will not be expended by a very considerable sum, and what is much more important the other two ships ordered could have been laid down, but they also are to be delayed, with the result that when we shall be specially wanting these vessels we shall not have them, and the present Administration, which if it did not wish to accept the responsibility could throw it on its predecessor, is now itself carrying on these delays which are a disgrace to the nation. I come to the present programme. It is a matter of comment that for the first time in living memory, in sending out these Estimates, the programme of shipbuilding, repairs, and maintenance was not circulated with the ordinary Votes.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): It is not the first time.
  Mr. BURGOYNE: Even if there is a precedent, it is an extraordinary bad one to follow. We were told when the com-
  1804
  plaint was made that the chances were that we should not get them until, I believe, to-day, the net result of which would have been that this important Debate upon the Naval Estimates would have taken place without our having an opportunity of referring to the fact that one of the ships to be laid down is to have no more expended upon it than just to over £2,800. I do not want to be hypercritical upon this point, but it is our business to find the flies in the ointment, and although it is a possibility that the Department of the right hon. Gentleman has before created such a precedent, it is, if I may say so, a rotten precedent in regard to the issuing of these Votes. But I venture to say that he cannot point to a time when his Department created a precedent to expend only £2,800 in one year on an armoured ship of the current programme. Passing from that, I come to the question of cruisers. Every year we have a considerable amount of talk upon the subject of commerce protection. I am a complete heretic on this point and entirely opposed to my Noble Friend the Member for Portsmouth. I do not believe the Fleet exists for the protection of commerce. I believe it exists for two main reasons.
  It exists, in the first place, for the purpose of searching out and destroying the enemy's fleet, and it exists, secondly, to keep open the lines of communication; and whatever fleet is sufficiently strong effectively to carry out those two purposes, then of its own accord commerce must be protected. I want to know whether the probable circumstance of commerce attack warrants the construction of cruisers of £400,000 per unit, or where sums so large will be found? There is surely some other solution of this problem. There are, as far as study can bring it home to me, three reasons for which cruisers exist. It is no use going back to the pages of history and shoving from it what cruisers should do to-day. Modern invention has altered the whole position of the cruiser question. Cruisers carry out three important works. The first is, showing the Flag, and for that purpose I say we have enough cruisers, and that it would be ridiculous to spend money on high speed vessels for police duties. Their second duty, and this is much more important, is as Fleet handmaids, leaders of destroyers and submarine divisions and look-out duties for the main battle Fleet. For these purposes there was

  1805
  developed some time ago what was known as the Town class of cruisers. They developed extraordinary speed for their size, and we have fifteen of them built or building. Is it enough? If not, we always have our preponderance in armoured cruisers to fall back on. We have thirty-four to Germany's nine, but many of these are falling into obsolescence, and so what has the Admiralty done? They have pro vided, and this is a feature of the Estimates deserving all possible praise, and I do not see why a critical opponent should not, when the opportunity occurs, give praise where it is due—they have provided eight cruisers of a very high speed for no other purpose than to accompany the Fleet and do the Fleet work. Two are to be built at Pembroke and Chatham, and they are to be laid down early in the year. From such knowledge as one gathered from the statement made by the First Lord, one can only judge that this type of ship is one the Navy is very much in need of; and again I say I think the Admiralty are greatly to be congratulated on having taken a novel step in naval construction in providing us with a squadron of no less than eight of these vessels. But none of these are intended for commerce protection, which is an entirely different matter.
  But I ask, what is going to atack our commerce? Are big armoured cruisers of the "Von der Tann" type? If these ships are to get out from the North Sea and come into the Atlantic, then I say so much the better, for they will thereby weaken the battleship strength of the nation to which they belong. Certainly no one suggests one of these huge vessels is to be dispatched for any other purpose than of picking up colliers. Are they going to send out protected cruisers? Possibly if they had got the ships, but I do not know a single country to-day which has got cruisers fit to go into the Atlantic or one that is building them. The biggest Germany has building is 5,000 tons and no more. Such ships have not the coal capacity to go into the Atlantic and chase British vessels. The only others built or building are small scouts of 3,000 to 4,000 tons. It is something else that is going to attack our commerce. It is possibly for this the vast merchant liners of hostile Powers are intended. I suggest in this case we do not want to send a ship costing £400,000 or more to chase merchant-ships which could be sunk by a single shell. Why cannot we fight like with like. We have a superiority in fast merchant ships, which is infinitely greater
  1806
  than that possessed by any other country. The best way for us to get out of the difficulty if certain foreign countries, as sup posed, have guns stored in the holds of their merchant vessels is for us to revert to the subsidy system. If one liner armed with a six-inch gun meets another liner armed with a similar gun, they are not going to fight, but they will sheer off.
  I want to leave that question altogether and turn to one which in our naval Debates has seldom been touched upon in this House. We often talk about the construction of ships, but I want to talk about their destruction when they have got to the end of their lives. I have an indictment against the Admiralty of such importance that I have dared to bring it before the Committee. We all know perfectly well that when a vessel has reached the end of its days, it is necessary to sell it for breaking up. Naturally these sales are made under certain conditions. I want to draw the attention of the Committee to the state of affairs existing now. I do not know whether the Financial Secretary has any of this matter at all in mind, but I have here a list of all the ships which have been sold since 1908. I am only concerning my self with two of them, one of which was sold under the old and the other under the new conditions. Under the old conditions it was necessary that the ships when sold should be broken up in this country within a specified time, and they were not allowed to go outside this country. I want to point out to the Committee that these ships are sold at from £20,000 to £30,000 each, and the cost of breaking up a vessel of say 12,000 tons, in wages amounts to £l per ton. That is to say for a 12,000 ton ship, £12,000 goes absolutely into the pockets of the working men in wages when the vessel is broken up in this country. Until this present administration, and for some considerable number of years during it, the conditions of sale were issued under Form A and Rule 9, as follows:—
  "The ship will be sold subject to the express condition that she shall not be removed out of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and that she shall be broken up in some place in such kingdom, within a period of two years from the date of the delivery of possession to the purchaser."
  9.0 P.M.
  I daresay some hon. Members are wondering whether this matter is sufficiently important to bring forward, but it is all-important for two reasons. Firstly, that the conditions were altered in such a manner that now these ships can be bought

  1807
  by foreigners, and can be broken up outside this country, with the result that the wages spent on the breaking up of these vessels goes into the pockets of the foreigner. In the second place, under the open competition which now exists in this matter, foreigners can come over to this country and roam about our dockyards at will merely by stating that they are the agents of a foreign firm. The vessels are now being sold subject to being broken up within one year, but not necessarily in the United Kingdom. Up to the time I have mentioned but one of our battleships had been purchased by foregners. This old vessel was bought by a Rotterdam firm, and they did not even employ Britons to break her up, because had they done so they would have had to pay trade union wages at the rate of from 6½d. to 7d. per hour. This foreign firm found it cheaper to charter a steam ship and bring the foreign workmen over here, keeping and feeding them on board, with the result that not a penny was spent in wages in this country. Consequently these Dutchmen can afford to pay more for these ships, because by bringing foreign workmen over in this way they are able to break them up at half the cost in wages per hour. It is also unwise to allow these foreigners to roam at will over our dockyards.
  The reason put forward by the Admiralty for altering this system is that a ring was formed in this country, and that as a result they were not able to get the prices they could otherwise get without foreign competition, but that is entirely untrue. In the first place, the Admiralty always put a reserve on these ships, and that prevented the formation of a ring. In the second place, there are no less than eleven shipbreaking yards in this country, and therefore open competition among them is sufficiently great to prevent any ring being formed. These firms do not desire to have competition prevented, and all they demand is that it should be clearly laid down that the ships should be broken up in this country by British working men. The Admiralty wrote to one of these firms and told them that they could retort by tendering for old German battleships. One of these firms did write to the German Admiralty and tender, and they received a reply to the effect that no Englishmen were allowed in the German dockyards, and no tender from English firms would be
  1808
  considered. I would like the First Lord of the Admiralty to keep that point before him. The firms I have alluded to do not want protection, all they want is fair play. I want to turn for a moment to the personnel of the Navy. I think every Member of this Committee will agree that the ultimate hope of our safety at sea is vested in our long service men. The House is always ready to interest itself in the construction of ships, and it is always ready to listen to speeches upon the pay of postmen, policemen, or to discuss a minimum wage for miners, but we always find it hard to get a decent Committee to listen to a discussion upon increasing the pay in the naval service. Hon. Members receive from time to time circulars from various people and from various ratings in the Navy. I do not want any Member of the Committee to imagine that in bringing this matter up I would foster for one second anything that might be considered subversive of discipline, but I do, not think there is any reason why we should not discuss the state of the men in the Navy in order to see if we can bring about a betterment. The bluejacket, especially the married bluejacket, feels at the pre sent time very much the pinch in the rise of prices. The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that during the last hundred years we have only added a matter of a penny per day to the pay of the bluejackets.
  The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Churchill): That is a very misleading way of putting it.
  Mr. BURGOYNE: Well, in any event, I can put this to the Committee. At the present time the ordinary seaman gets 1s. 3d. a day; the able seaman, 1s. 8d.; the leading seaman, under three years, 2s. 10d., and over three years. 2s.; the petty officer, under three years, 2s. 8d., over three years, 2s. 10d.; and over six years, 3s; and the chief petty officer, according to the period of his service, 3s. 4d., 3s. 8d., and 4s. In addition to that, they have various things that can be added, according to the particular line they take up. The need for an increase is not badly felt until a man reaches the rating of a leading seaman. He has then reached an age in his life when naturally he has a right to marry if he so desires, and this is the time he is really getting about the minimum wage that that age represents, and

  1809
  the pleasure he might achieve toy having a home on shore. Ordinarily, it is a wage of 14s. a week and allowances, which amount possibly to 7s., and rations, which I think are about 8s. a week. It is, at all events, well under 30s., and for a man who has attained that specific position to have no more than 30s., 8s. of which he cannot touch, but has to use in the ordinary ser vice of his work, to live upon is wholly in sufficient for the maintenance of his home. Very little betterment has taken place during the last thirty years. The only amelioration has come through administrative acts of the Admiralty itself, and these have been due to the late First Sea Lord (Lord Fisher), and they are in the messing arrangements, in the canteens, and in granting leave on full pay.
  I want to deal with the system of discipline in the Navy, and I want to do so gingerly, because a Committee has been appointed to look into it, and hon. Members will agree that from the composition of that Committee it deserves the fullest confidence of everyone in this country. The punishments and the routine in the Navy to-day are those founded upon the days when the Navy was a sailing Navy, and when the sails were the preponderating part in the life of the ship. And, as for punishment and discipline, they have come down largely from the days when the Navy was recruited from the Press Gang. With the exception of flogging and keel-hauling many of those punishments exist at the present time. I understand these questions are going to be dealt with by the First Lord of the Admiralty, and I do not think it would be expedient or wise to refer to them at length and mention exactly what those punishments are at the present time. No allowances are made at the present time for wives and families, and no allowances are given to widows of men who die on service. The immediate result of that is that a very serious state of affairs has arisen in the fact that the petty officer ratings have formed their own societies, which are little more than trades unions, and a suggestion is on foot that the inferior ratings should do the same. Since 1900 the number of punishments given in the Navy has been considerably more than the men borne on the Fleet in active service. Take the Marines, the punishments are more frequent at sea than on shore, so that it will be seen punishment is much more frequent than it need be. I have detained
  1810
  the House long enough. It is a very difficult thing, in discussing the Naval Estimates, to cover the whole field, but, nevertheless, it is a satisfaction to have had an opportunity of raising the points I desired to put before the First Lord of the Admiralty, and I only wish the right hon. Gentleman had been able to be here a little earlier to listen to them. I would only ask the Committee to realise that in matters of this sort it is wise not to bring up vexatious criticism, but rather to endeavour to aid the progress of the Fleet by putting be fore the Committee such criticisms as occur to the mind. I would hope the Committee recognises that there is no question in this-House which receives more unanimous support and that there is a universal desire to see the Fleet maintained at a high pitch of efficiency, and, however long the right hon. Gentleman may be in office, so long as speeches such as that we had from him yesterday represent his policy, he will have the support of all sides of the House
  Mr. BARNES: I shall not endeavour to follow the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down in his interesting and well-informed speech in regard to the ships or the placing of those ships, nor shall I have anything to say of the rival theory of the Noble Lord (Lord C. Beresford), as to whether the Navy exists for the purpose of searching out and fighting the enemy or for protecting our commerce. I want to say a few words with regard to the breaking up of old ships. I, like the hon. Gentleman, have seen no record of that matter having been discussed in previous Debates, and yet I think it is a matter entitled to a little consideration. After all, a good deal of money is spent. Not only so, but there are opportunities for those who are entrusted with that work of getting to know things which, I suppose, we had best keep to ourselves. Therefore I think the matter is well worthy of attention, and I, for my part, am glad the hon. Gentleman has raised it. He suggested that the work should be done by firms at home, and I understood him to say there were eleven firms who competed for this work.
  Mr. BURGOYNE: There are eleven yards divided between seven firms.
  Mr. BARNES: That would meet my point better. It is not a very difficult thing for an arrangement to be arrived at between eleven firms, but it is a still easier thing for an arrangement to be arrived at

  1811
  between seven firms. Therefore, unless there were some other safeguards introduced, if the Admiralty were simply to determine that a ship should be broken up at home, nothing would be easier for these firms to arrange between themselves what should be paid. Although I think there is something in the evil, the hon. Gentleman's remedy is not altogether a conclusive one. For my part, I should like to Bee the Admiralty adopt the system of breaking up these ships by their own workmen. It seems to me that would be the simplest and best thing to do. They should put a price on the ship, and, in the event of outside firms not agreeing to that price the Admiralty should, instead of bringing in foreign competitors with the home breakers, introduce a system of employing their own workmen and destroying these ships themselves. I think the object aimed at by the hon. Gentleman would be as well secured in that way, And we should reserve for ourselves an amount of wages which now goes out of the country for the breaking up of these ships abroad.
  I rise rather for the purpose of dealing with the question of the personnel of the Navy. I agree it is regret table that the House should be concerned almost exclusively, as it has been during the last two or three years, in discussing the numbers of ships and the policy surrounding those numbers, and should have given very little attention, speaking generally, to the personnel of the Navy. It is true we have speeches from hon. Gentlemen opposite who represent dockyard constituencies in regard to the conditions of labour in those dock yards. There are plenty to speak for the men in the dockyards, there are too few who speak—and here I may except the Noble Lord the Member for Portsmouth (Lord Charles Beresford)—with regard to the condition of the men afloat, the simple explanation being that the men in dock yards have votes, while those afloat, even if they had votes, have little opportunity of using them. I want to direct the attention of the First Lord and his colleagues to a matter which I have often raised before, but which I have not yet had the pleasure of putting before the present First Lord. Yesterday the right hon. Gentleman made use of a phrase to the effect that the Navy ought to be brought more under the control of the country— that it should be more democratised.
  Mr. CHURCHILL: No.
  Mr. BARNES: I am putting my own construction on the right hon. Gentleman's words. I think he suggested it should be more open to the people of the country. I think he has not gone far enough in that direction. The policy of the Admiralty has been to go on the lines of reserving the control of the Navy to a very small section of the people of the country. There is a plan under which large fees have to be paid in respect of boys going to Osborne and Dartmouth. These fees have always been payable in respect of executive rank, but, in recent years, in consequence of the scheme of training brought into operation, engineering is now lumped in with the executive rank, and fees have to be paid in respect of those who are to become engineering officers, as well as those who are to go on to the bridge. That means you are getting in a larger number—because you have added to the executive rank—from a very small section of the community. I will not enter into the question what that section is. The Parliamentary Secretary has the matter well in hand, and I hope to get some declaration that these fees will be reduced and that, in accordance with the declarations made by the First Lord yesterday, we shall draw people for the executive rank and for engineering officers from a very much larger section of the community than we do at present, and put it within the reach of persons of comparatively humble means to send their boys to Osborne and Dartmouth. At present there is a payment of something like £120 or £130 per year involved. I want to get that payment reduced.
  As I have said, the engineering officer is now practically lumped in with the executive officer, and by that, means you have taken out of the Navy altogether the old practical engineer, who has had an exclusively practical training in a work shop outside, or in the Admiralty work shops at Keyham, used for that purpose. It has, therefore, become increasingly important, having taken the democratic step of lumping the engineer officers along with the executive officers, for the efficiency of the men that you should have better men doing the practical work of the Service. I am going to submit to the House that, instead of having more competent men, you are going to have less competent men, because you have set up a system of training altogether contrary to the experience

  1813
  in the mercantile marine, a system which, I believe, cannot possibly give as good men as you get in the mercantile marine. At present the mercantile marine carries engineers who have been trained in the ordinary workshops of the country—men who have served an apprenticeship and have been at least four years in an engineering shop. The Board of Trade, for the purposes of safety of those going to sea, as well as for the efficient working of the ship, has laid it down that no man shall have charge of engines unless he has worked four years in an engineering workshop in the formative period of his life, and has been at sea at least two years after that. Certain tests are imposed, and he has to pass certain examinations which are set by the Board of Trade. Yet you are carrying out now in the Navy an entirely opposite sys tem. You have done away entirely with the system of apprenticeship. You are going to take men from the stoker ratings on the one hand and boys from the elementary secondary schools on the other. You are going to take the stoker from the stoker ratings about twenty-eight or twenty-nine years of age, and try to make an. engineer of him. Having had some knowledge of engineering, and having spent twenty years of my life in an engineer's shop, I have no hesitation in saying that you cannot possibly make engineers in that way. It requires a training of the eye as well as of the hand in the formative period of a man's life to make an engineer, and, therefore, that system must break down. One plea put forward in support of this scheme is that the artificer is a man who ought to be able to use his tools. He should be able to use his tools as well as keep watch on the engines, and he ought to be relieved from the duty of watching the engines and put on simple repairs.
  The underlying idea in the mind of the Admiralty authorities as to the artificer is that he is a man who simply exists for knocking things about—pulling them to pieces and putting them together again. That is a dangerous delusion, and it is contrary to the expert advice given to the Admiralty by a Committee set up Borne years ago to look into this matter. That Committee—I refer to the Douglas Committee—were advised by the engineering officer witnesses who were examined that one of the most important duties of the artificer at sea was watch-keeping, because, while the man was on watch, he
  1814
  could detect by certain sounds what was going on with the engines, or the auxiliary engines, and that when the ship was brought into port, or the engines were standing still, he would know what was required; and that when it was necessary for repair work to be done the artificer and his colleagues could go about that work without any unnecessary delay or costly supervision, and could do it expeditiously and much more cheaply through having the experience of watch-keeping than under any other system. Therefore we object to it because it is not a system which can possibly give you efficient men for the Navy engine rooms. I object to it for another reason, and that is because the Admiralty are breaking faith with the artificer class who have been taken into the Navy on the expectation of certain promotion, and that promotion cannot possibly come so quickly under the present system as they have been led to believe. As a matter of fact—I stand to be corrected if I am making too sweeping a statement—I think I am right in saying that, for the most part, promotion comes, not from the men who are working with their tools in doing repairs, but from the men who are doing watch-keeping duties, inasmuch as these new men are being trained to take the watch-keeping, the artificers being reserved for actual repairing work. Therefore the avenue for promotion which these men have been led to expect is now, at all events, partially closed to them. I submit that is altogether unfair.
  There are many other phases of this subject which might be dealt with, but I only want to refer to one other, and that is the rate of pay of these men. That pay was settled in 1882, when the system of the artificers in the Navy and all appertaining to it was regularised, and a certain system of watch-keeping duties set up. That included a scale of pay which, I think, was 5s. 6d. per day. There is a very slow rise from that of not more than 1s. for the first three years of service, and then there is a very slow rise until the man has been at sea and in service, and bears a very good character indeed, when he can rise to 8s. a day. During the thirty years which have intervened since 1882 the rate of pay outside has been considerably increased. If you go to the engineering centres of this country, take for instance Newcastle, which is one of the marine centres, in 1882 the rate of pay at New castle was 29s. per week. To-day it is 37s.

  1815
  In Glasgow the pay was about 29s. or 30s. in 1382, and there again the rate of pay to-day is 37s. In many parts of the country the rate of pay has increased more than that. As everbody knows, the cost of living has very considerably increased during the last fifteen years, so that it is unfair to leave these men with the same rate of pay that was fixed thirty years ago and not to give them a rise corresponding to those rises which have taken place outside.
  I know that probably the answer will be that there have been opportunities opened up for those at the top of the class to rise to superior positions than were open to them in 1882, but the same might be said of anybody of men outside. Owing to the extension of the engineering industry during the last thirty years their positions are much superior now than they were thirty years ago. So that all that may be said on that point may be countered by experience outside. Although promotions are said to be more numerous in the Navy now than they were thirty years ago, that is altogether, or largely, illusory, for the reason I have given, that you are now taking men for these promotions from a new class of men which has been set up, instead of from those men who were induced to join the Navy on certain promises made to them. To my certain knowledge there is in the Navy a great deal of what I think is unnecessary discontent in regard to this matter, and I believe a very great deal of dangerous discontent. I do not yield to anyone on the other side or anywhere else in the desire to see the men of the Navy well paid and contented with their position. I followed the First Lord's speech in Glasgow a week or two ago, in which he said there were now opportunities in the Navy for careers to be made in many branches, and that there was no difficulty in getting men. I know that is not a fact. I know that even when that speech was made advertisements were appearing in the engineering centres throughout the length and breadth of the country for engineers to join the Navy, and so great was the difficulty of getting recruits for the engineering rank that actually an Order was issued—I believe it was last November—offering a reward of 10s. to anyone now in the engineering ranks of the Navy who would bring in a competent fitter or a joiner to join the engineering rank. These things do not
  1816
  square with the statements made at Glasgow by the First Lord.
  You are not likely to get a competent man in the artificer class of the Navy until you have considerably increased his position in regard to pay, and until you have made some provision whereby promotion shall not be illusory, as it is now. I noticed that the First Lord said that there was a large number of warrant rank officers promoted to commission rank. I should like in any reply that may be made to-night to have a statement as to the number of these promotions that have come from the artificer rank. I should like to know how many, it any, of them are to be in this particular rank. In conclusion, I would also hope that instead of the merely pious expressions of sympathy with the oft-repeated demand that the higher ranks should be open to a larger number of the people of the country, something will be said of a definite character as to the reduction of the fees for the boys who go to Osborne and Dartmouth. As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, the officers who are to be known as engineering officers are drawn from the class of people who can pay from £120 to £130 a year in respect of their boys. That number is not more than 4 per cent, or 5 per cent, of the community. It is absolutely wrong and undemocratic that you should draw those who are going to control the Navy from such a small class of the community. It is undemocratic, and you are not likely to get so efficient an officer as you could get if you were to bring these fees down to the reach of the ordinary workman, who ought to be in a position to aspire to getting his son in the Navy, not as a mere fetcher and carrier, but, if he has brains and ability, to a position either on the bridge or in the new engineering officer class.
  Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY: I think the whole question of naval preparation and naval sufficiency might engage the attention of the Committee. I wish to associate myself in the fullest manner with what has already been said on both sides of the House as to the declaration of policy of the First Lord of the Admiralty. It is very satisfactory, I am sure, to the nation at large to find the right hon. Gentleman making such declarations as he has made, both inside and outside the House. He has done much within the last few days to raise naval questions above the sphere of mere party politics. We have on both sides of

  1817
  the House been making pious declarations that preparation for naval defence was above and beyond all questions of party, and it is by such declarations as the right hon. Gentleman made at Glasgow that practical effect is given to these pious aspirations. But the right hon. Gentle man might perhaps have used a little more tact in the declaration which he has made. It was, for instance, not entirely necessary to say in the hearing of Germany that a Navy to her was a luxury, whilst to us was a necessity. It may have been perfectly true, and it may be equally true to preface the Navy Estimates and the First Lord's Memorandum by a statement that the present Estimates are based upon the assumption that other Powers would not increase their programmes, but I hold an entirely different view from this policy of the Government of setting forth contingent possibilities. It is two years since the late First Lord of the Admiralty made the declaration that it was the intention of the Government to build four "Dreadnoughts" and four to follow in certain contingencies. They were called contingent "Dreadnoughts." Now we have that method repeated by the present First Lord stating that the present Estimates are upon the assumption that the other Powers will not increase theirs. The wise and the right policy for this country is not to wait upon the preparations of any other Power but to make our own preparations so complete as to prevent the possibility of competition by other Powers. That would be cheaper in the end.

  When New Zealand and Australia sent telegrams, I think four years ago, that they would give to the Motherland each a "Dreadnought" at their own cost, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Balfour), at the Guildhall, recommended the Government to build, as the Colonies had set the example, and, if that advice had been followed, Germany and any other Power would have realised that we were not waiting upon their preparations, but that we made our own preparations so complete that they could not hope to compete with us, and so, at the least cost of preparation, we should have, ensured our superiority rather than by the policy of waiting upon them and increasing our preparation if they increased theirs. Giving the fullest weight to the very clear and conclusive explanation of the right hon. Gentleman yesterday—an explanation which I listened to with profound admiration—
  1818
  upon the question of the advance of science and the progress of design, the difficulty of building ships which might become obsolete in the process of building, because of the rapid advance of science, the policy of the Naval Defence Act twenty years ago, which was to set forth our programme and to say it was irreducible, was better for the nation, better for economy of naval preparation in the end, better for the objects of all naval preparation, to ensure peace by our undoubted preponderance, than the policy of the present Government of waiting upon the advance of foreign countries and increasing our advance to correspond with theirs and to be superior to theirs.
  It is very important to remember that the great naval power of Germany is altering in relation to the other naval Powers of the world. Until very recently Germany was one of the minor naval Powers. I can remember thirty years ago when the small ironclads, the "Deutschland" and the "Kaiser," were built upon the Thames, and they were the first that Germany possessed. I myself had something to do with their construction. Gradually Germany has improved her position. At this moment she is behind the United States in her naval position, but when the vessels which Germany is building are completed, Germany will be the second naval Power in the world, Great Britain being, of course, still the first. If you make a comparison upon the effective armoured tonnage, you find that the Fleet of Great Britain is not only equal to the United States and Germany combined, not only amounts to the two-Power standard, but there is a margin over the two-Power standard to-day of 25 per cent. That is a very large, and, from some points of view, satisfactory margin, but when the tonnage which is at present authorised is finished that margin will have de creased to 10 or 12 per cent., and the policy which this country has to determine is whether our present Estimates are sufficient to restore us to the position of 25 per cent, which exists at the present moment, but which will disappear when the present programme of construction in the three countries has been completed. I do not think that in these Debates, or the Press, or the country sufficient importance has been attached to the very startling fact that nearly £2,000,000 voted by this House for naval preparation last year has not been spent. The £1,250,000 which it is

  1819
  proposed to add in regard to that is not sufficient to compensate, and I hope that the Under-Secretary or the Secretary to the Admiralty, or whoever may reply, will give us an indication of how many ships have been delayed in completion, and to what extent in point of time they have been delayed by the labour difficulties, which have prevented the expenditure of the £1,600,000 or £l,700,000, which, I suppose, will now be given to the Sinking Fund. I do not know exactly what is intended in these Estimates. Although I am, like other hon. Members on this side of the House, an ardent supporter of the Sinking Fund and do not want anything taken from it, yet I think hon. Members on all sides of the House would desire that, from whatever expenditure economy is to be drawn, the money voted for the Navy should be the very last which should suffer by that particular form of helping the national funds. Therefore I would ask for some more definite explanation in the hope that the Government are still reconsidering the question of having some special legislation which will save the £1,750,000, or so, to the Navy, and withdraw it from the Sinking Fund.
  I wish to refer to the question of oil fuel. I have myself had some experience of oil fuel, and I am delighted to notice that the Admiralty are realising its very great importance. I think all who love the Navy desire to see adequate naval preparation, and I was particularly pleased to find that the First Lord of the Admiralty should show so much earnestness in his work as to attend at the West India Docks a few days ago for the purpose of seeing the "Selandia." I would say to the Secretary to the Admiralty with great respect that if on the occasion of the trial trips of a sister vessel on the Clyde in the near future he would arrange to be there, he would find an illustration very well worth while to witness as to the future of oil as a means of propulsion. Oil, as compared with coal, will enormously increase the range of operations of our ships. If you burn oil under boilers for the purpose of raising steam, you increase the efficiency of the range of vessels by some 50 per cent., but if you use oil in internal combustion engines —I understand that is to be done in the Navy, for there is one of these vessels under construction—you increase the range of operations not by 50 per cent., but by
  1820
  400 per cent, as compared with coal—that is to say, for every ton of fuel you carry you increase the range by four times with oil as compared with coal. The right hon. Gentleman, in his statement, made very definite reference to the dangers connected with the storage of oil. I venture to put to him that these dangers can be overcome, and having regard to the enormous advantage to a warship of being able to increase her range of operations, not to mention other advantages, the greatest efforts of the Admiralty should be made to bring about this change, and to make it as generally applicable to the vessels of the Fleet as is at all practicable. This is only one of the definite improvements which the Admiralty are, I am glad to find, giving their attention to. Knowing something from practical experience myself of oil fuel, I have thought that possibly it might be useful to emphasise the subject, and to put it forward as fully as its importance de serves. After all, the great question which is before the country is that of naval preparation, and I am sorry that it should be obscured for the time being. It is coming along for discussion in this House, for it is an all-absorbing question. I feel certain there is no matter more important which the House could bring up for discussion, or put before the country, than the matter of ample naval preparation.
  One word about the First Lord's fore cast for the future. He spoke of certain preparations which might come in the sixth, ninth, or twelfth month of a war. Sir, there will be no sixth, ninth, or twelfth month of any naval war. I doubt if there will be a third or a second month. Naval war will be sudden and decisive in all probability, just as it was when war broke out between China and Japan. When the right hon. Gentleman in his statement talked about Germany, confining herself to two "Dreadnoughts" a year for six years, and England building four and three "Dreadnoughts" alternately I felt that he was entirely on the wrong track, and that if he wished to prevent Germany from increasing her programme of I hose two "Dreadnoughts" he would build his seven "Dreadnoughts" right away the first year, and so show that the policy of two keels to one was not to be a contingent policy, but an absolute and definite policy. The Admiralty, I am glad to say seem to have taken a leaf out of the German book with regard to ordering vessels in advance. Tenders for the twenty destroyers have been obtained in advance

  1821
  of the sanction of this House. That was the right policy. We know from the speech of the First Lord, two years ago, that the policy of Germany was to design and order the construction of the ships first, and then to go to the Reichstag and ask for sanction for them. Our policy has been to get sanction from this House and then, after an interval of many months, to get tenders and order the ships to be constructed. I am glad to acknowledge that time has been taken by the forelock by the Admiralty, who have, before making any public announcement about those twenty destroyers, obtained tenders, and are now ready to proceed with their construction. If they would deal in the same way with the eight small cruisers, I believe that the Noble Lord the Member for Portsmouth (Lord C. Beresford), as well as many others on both sides of the House, would be very glad to support them. Eight cruisers! I say there ought to be twenty-eight cruisers to deal properly with our sea-routes and protect our food supplies. I hope that better counsels in that regard will prevail, and that later on it may be that the voices below the Gangway on that side of the House, which at. present embarrass the declared intentions of the right hon. Gentleman, may have less influence with the Government, than at present seems to be the case, and that the naval preparation, good as it is, may be increased for the protection of the country and the securing of our national safety.
  Mr. DAVID MASON: I am very glad that we are all agreed that there is now ample provision for the strength of the British Navy. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."]
  Sir F. FLANNERY: For the moment.
  Mr. D. MASON: Then we agree that for the moment there is ample provision.
  Sir F. FLANNERY: Except in regard to cruisers.
  10.0 P.M.
  Mr. D. MASON: Well, with one exception, as has been just stated, on general lines I think we are all agreed that ample provision has been made in the statement by the First Lord. In his very clear and lucid statement, on which I would like to congratulate him, the First. Lord said very little with regard to the policy which must govern our expenditure. I think it was Lord Beaconsfield who stated on one occasion that policy must govern expenditure. While we are all in agreement with the
  1822
  First Lord in his statement, we would have been very glad if he could have given us some information with regard to the negotiations which I understand have been, carried on with Germany, and which must naturally have some effect upon the future expenditure on the Navy. I hope that the First Lord may see his way to give the House some information on this matter, as from it we should get some idea as to what ought, or ought not, to be the expenditure on naval armaments. A mere academic formula seems to me to be not a business-like proposition. I am sure that the Noble Lord the Member for Portsmouth will agree that there might be occasions when expenditure in excess of the margin of 60 per cent, might be necessary, and there might also be other occasions when the margin might go very much be low that; and that to issue a formula or state an arithmetical proposition to this House as the governing factor in deciding the amount to be expended is hardly in accordance with either sound sense or high statesmanship. My hon. Friend the Member for Montrose Burghs (Mr. R. Harcourt) referred to the resignation of the Secretary of State for the Imperial Treasury in Germany as a result of his inability to finance the expenditure which is required for the navy in Germany. We are all in agreement with the First Lord that finance is a very important element in preparations for war. It may be within the recollection of the House that I drew attention a year ago in this same Debate to the fact that the German Finance Minister had then admitted that he was unable to place any more loans on behalf of Germany, and I would ask the House what would be the position in this country Lf our Chancellor of the Exchequer were to come down here and tell us that he was unable to sell any more Consols. I do not for a moment suggest that our finances-are in the same position as those of Germany, but I do submit to this House the advisability of, along with your armaments getting a financial reserve, and' instead of having a definite formula that you are going to lay down so many ships because Germany lays down so many ships I submit that we should also have regard to our position financially. If we were involved, for example, in war, and the Admiralty had suddenly to ask for £100 000,000 Consols, surely the Noble-Lord the Member for Portsmouth will agree with me that it would be a great advantage to this country if we could readily raise that money, and that it would

  1823
  be a source of strength should we unhappily be drawn into war with any other Power. I think there is no division between this and the other side of the House as to the necessity of a strong Navy. I think we are all agreed on that point. But surely, while having regard to our commitments all over the world and to the necessity of protecting our trade routes, we should avoid these unfortunate comparisons as to the proportion of vessels laid down by this, that, or the other Power. Reference has been made to the unrest in the industrial world, and the right hon. Gentleman opposite, I think, used an argument in reference to an ever increasing expenditure on our part. I wonder if the right hon. Gentleman ever thought that this very unrest to which he referred may be largely traced to the excessive expenditure which exists throughout. Europe.
  This House is well aware that there is a variety of causes for this unrest and for the increased cost of living; but there can be no doubt that excessive expenditure on armaments in Europe is very largely responsible for both the increased cost of living and the unrest. I should like to remind the House that during recent times Europe has spent altogether on armaments something like a thousand millions sterling. A thousand millions sterling withdrawn from productive purposes is a fact which is bound to have an effect on the cost of living. If the House will follow me, they will readily see that if a quarter of that thousand millions had been available for productive purposes, for the development of new countries, for opening up new territories, for increasing wheat areas and therefore the supply of wheat, the result would have been to reduce the price of bread, very materially reduce the cost of living, and consequently to avoid unrest. I wish the House would really follow that point. There is no question that the effect of this enormous and excessive expenditure of a thousand millions sterling upon armaments, upon that which is unproductive and wasteful, and which, as Members well know, disappears in a few years altogether, has been the cause of it he increased cost of living and the unrest to which reference has been made. Loss in the mercantile world and excessive in crease in the cost of living are un questionably very important factors in bringing about unrest and these great strikes. It may well be asked what policy have you to offer as a means of
  1824
  checking this expenditure? I will be perfectly frank and readily admit that it is a very difficult problem we are faced with. I do not think that this is a party question. I think we are all agreed as to the necessity, in the present conditions of the world, of maintaining a strong Navy, but I do hope that I am expressing the feelings of both sides of the House when I urge that there should be some means whereby we can reduce existing hardens and still maintain our safety—sonif international arrangement, something that will relieve this country and Europe generally of the enormous burdens which are pressing upon the peoples. Such a policy, I believe, would command the support not only of my friends around me, but of hon. Members on the other side of the House as well.
  I believe that is a premiss which will find universal acceptance among hon. Members. I should like very much indeed if the First Lord of the Admiralty would give us his view as to the possibility of this suggestion finding acceptance with His Majesty's Government. I think I am right in stating that America, in recent negotiations with this country, received very favourable answers from France and Germany, who were equally prepared with us to enter into an international treaty of arbitration. The House is well aware that owing to an unfortunate mischance, some thing like two votes, the treaty between America and ourselves did not go through, but if France, and I hope Germany, were prepared to enter into such a treaty with the United States, is it not possible for them to enter into a treaty with ourselves? If France desired, and I believe there is also a desire in Germany, to do something to relieve these burdens upon the people something might be effected. When we find the Finance Minister of Germany resigning his office, when we know that by an enormous increase of the Socialist vote there has been a great increase of Socialist Members returned in the recent Reichstag election, when we know that the High and Agrarian Conservative party in Germany are actually joining forces with the Socialist party—a most extraordinary combination—for no other reason than to bring about a reduction of taxes, when we are feeling the increase of taxes here, when we resent the fact that in time of peace we have an Income Tax of 1s. 2d. in the £, and that, further, there is the depreciation of Consols through a variety of causes—then I think there is hope of some arrangement such as I

  1825
  suggest. If the Noble Lord opposite, who cheers, is anxious to improve our national credit, then let him join forces with those who advocate coming to some understanding with Germany and other Powers, and let him submit some proposal to the House by which His Majesty's Government could endeavour to come to a tangible understanding in the shape of some practical solution such as would be afforded by an international treaty with Germany and France.
  If we could agree upon that I believe it would be a great step forward. If we create a state of affairs between this country and Germany and the other Powers of Europe that will make these enormous armaments less necessary, then I think we shall accomplish a great work. I am sure that all Members are perfectly agreed that if we could create an atmosphere, or some machinery, that will make this flow of expenditure less urgent than it is at the present time, then. I am sure all Members will agree to that course—and, for God's sake, let us try to do it! I do appeal to hon. Members not to be consumed with this idea of a purely arithmetical formula of trying to go one better than our neighbour, but that they will try to create a condition of affairs which will bring us closer to those people—create a tribunal where subjects of dispute may be considered, whilst maintaining the necessary Navy for the protection of our trade and Colonies, and stopping this continual talk of the comparative merits of the British, German, or French Navy. I trust the right hon. Gentleman will give us some intimation to-night, or at the end of this Debate as to what are the possibilities of coming to an understanding with this particular Power. Therefore I make an appeal to the right hon. Gentle man to give us the information if he is in a position to do so, because I believe with a better understanding here and on the other side and in the country we could still maintain what is necessary as Far as an adequate Navy is concerned. I trust the right hon. Gentleman will hold out some hope that we may be able to put an end to this awful folly.
  Mr. CHARLES CRAIG: With a great deal of what has fallen from the lips of the hon. Member who has just spoken we agree on this side or, at least, I do. If we could come to any arrangement with foreign Powers by which we could do away with our Navy altogether I have no hesitation in saying that there would be nobody
  1826
  more pleased than hon. Members who sit on this side. The hon. Member told us there was no difference of opinion as to the necessity for a strong Navy. That is only a half-truth. The theory is, that he and his friends are in favour of a strong Navy, but when we come to discuss and settle what is meant by a strong Navy, I notice there is the very greatest difference of opinion between us. We have discussed this matter since 1906, and on every occasion since that date there has been the most clear and acute divergence of opinion between a large section, at any rate, of hon. Members opposite and hon. Members on this side as to what an adequate Navy means. We, on this side, insist, and I insist even with regard to this years's Estimates, that the provision that has been made during the last six years has been altogether in adequate for the necessities of the situation. The hon. Member, whose speech I listened to with great interest, seems to forget the fundamental fact which was mentioned more than once by the First Lord of the Admiralty, namely, that we are in an absolutely unique position, that we depend first and last on our Navy for our national safety. We are in a totally different position from any other nation in that respect. I submit that our first consideration, absolutely our first thought, before we attempt any other legislation should be to see that under all circumstances our Navy is of such strength that there can be no question whatever of any other nation ever being able to attack us with even a remote chance of success. I do not know whether to be sorry or glad that in the few remarks I propose to address to the Committee I have to strike a somewhat new note because I noticed both this evening and during the Debate yesterday that almost, with the exception of my Noble Friend the Member for Ports mouth (Lord C. Beresford), each successive speaker began his speech by lauding to the skies the oration of the First Lord of the Admiralty. I regret, though I do not know that I regret, that I can not follow in that line. I cannot under stand, I must say, why there was the excessive chorus of praise even from Members on my own side of the House. In deed I notice sitting quite close to me the hon. Member for Gravesend (Sir G. Parker), who I think was the greatest offender in that respect. He ended up his speech, referring to the opening speech of

  1827
  the First Lord of the Admiralty, by saying:—
  "But I do say, if what the Government believe is true, and if the logic of facts is as they represent it, then this clear exposition of policy, vigorous as it has been, sweeping and illuminating as it was in every paragraph, was necessary for the people of this country to understand the necessities of this nation."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th March, l912, cols. 1603–4.]
  Sir GILBERT PARKER: Hear, hear.
  Mr. JOHN WARD: Was not the hon. Member for Gravesend referring to Belfast?
  Mr. C. CRAIG: I may be mistaken, but I thought he was referring to the statement of the First Lord of the Admiralty. Of course, the hon. Member with the white hat probably knows the mind of the First Lord of the Admiralty better than I can hope to do. As the hon. Member has mentioned Belfast I should mention to the House that my opinion of the speech made by the right hon. Gentleman in Belfast had no influence or bearing whatever on anything I may say about him to-night. Why did the speech of the right hon. Gentleman receive such a chorus of praise, not only from his own friends but from hon. Members on this side? I have been cudgel ling my brains to understand it, and I can only come to the conclusion that it was on the same principle that the person in the Bible killed the fatted calf on the return of the prodigal son. That is to say, the Radical party, having shamefully neglected the needs of the Navy during the last five or six years, when they showed some slight disposition to do their simple and plain duty by the Navy, received a great deal more credit from this side than I think they are entitled to. The right hon. Gentleman's speech, when carefully examined, is simply a réchauffé of what has been said on this side every year for the last six years. The right hon. Gentleman said:—
  "The second reason why we should have an ample margin is that the consequences of defeat at sea are so much greater to us than they would be to Germany or France. There is no similarity between our naval needs and those of the two countries I have mentioned. There is no parity of risk. Our position is highly artificial. We are fed from the sea; we are an armed people; we possess a very small Army; we are the only Power in Europe which does not possess a large army. We cannot menace the independence or the vital interest of any great continental State; we cannot invade any continental State. We do not wish to do so, but even if we had the wish we have not got the power … When we consider our naval strength we are not thinking of our commerce, but of our freedom. We are not thinking of our trade, but our lives." [OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th March, 1912. col. 1553.]
  If the right hon. Gentleman examines the speeches of hon. Members on this side he
  1828
  will find almost those identical statements, made more than once in every Debate on naval affairs during the last five or six years. How is it that hon. Members opposite have suddenly awakened to this state of patriotic anxiety and to the position which the Navy ought to occupy in the economy of the nation? It is really grotesque for the right hon. Gentleman to make such a speech and to pretend by the way he read it that the Government are not only doing their duty by the Navy this year, but have done all that was necessary to guard the interests of the country during the years they have been in office. The party in power have shamefully neglected the interests or the Navy from the moment they came into office until when? Until the last few months, when they were brought to their senses by the very serious crisis through which the country passed last summer. It is no secret, and we all know that last summer we were within a very short distance of being at war with a foreign Power. Nobody denies that. It is an open secret, so open that I state it and risk the contradiction of hon. Gentlemen opposite, that we, so far as the Navy are concerned, found ourselves in a very unprepared condition. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] I await contradiction from the Front Bench—
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I do not want to interrupt the hon. Member, but I give the statement the flattest and most unequivocal contradiction in my power.
  Mr. C. CRAIG: I am glad I have got that contradiction. Now I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman if that is so why, first of all, did a change in the position of the First Lord of the Admiralty come almost immediately after. Why, secondly, was a War Staff suddenly brought into existence? This is a change that my Noble Friend and many of us on this side have been working at for years. Why was the speech which the right hon. Gentleman made yesterday made at all if it was not made for the purpose of trying to reassure the country that whatever may have been the bad condition of affairs last summer, that now, at any rate, the Government, having recognised that through their own negligence and want of patriot ism they had failed to keep the Navy up to the pitch at which it ought to have been kept, were now doing their best to make up for lost time and to put the Navy into a proper state of efficiency? I should like to have a fuller reply later to the

  1829
  statement I have made. Whether true or not, it is commonly believed by nine-tenths of the people.
  What are these Estimates that many hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side seem to think are so satisfactory? They pro vide for the very smallest number of big ships that we can do with. I say we ought to put down thee or four more vessels in this programme. We are promised, it is true, some new cruisers whose duties we do not quite understand. There is a new 'batch of twenty destroyers. Does anyone who looks upon the duties that the Navy has to perform all over the world, and not merely from the point of view of one Power, really think that adequate provision for the year has been made? Year after year it has been stated that the cruisers are in a perilous condition. We have not half enough of them. We ought to have three times as many. Our foreign stations have been denuded both of battle ships and cruisers: our trade routes are practically unprotected. The right hon. Gentleman says that the whole object of his policy is concentration at home. Well, some of us discuss these matters with men qualified to judge, and they tell me— and I believe them—that our trade routes require protection just as much as they did ten years ago. Yet the policy of the Government has been for the last six or seven years to take the war vessels from these trade routes; and if war suddently broke out we should find that the necessity for the protection of our trade routes by cruisers was as great now as ten, fifteen, or one hundred years' ago. In that Department I submit the Admiralty have not made proper provision, and in fact I believe they are obsessed with this idea of our defences at home. Primarily, I admit, of course, we ought to provide for defence at home. We must have adequate ships to meet the country that is running us closest in the matter of naval construction at the present time. But we have also to guard our trade routes, and incidentally and for the purpose of feeding those ships that guard our trade routes, we have to keep our foreign stations in a proper state of efficiency. We all know the majority of our foreign stations have been allowed to go temporarily to waste. Gibraltar, Malta, Hong Kong. Vancouver, have been allowed to go to waste. Money has been spent there, but it has been wasted. Another matter not mentioned in the course of these Debates is this. One
  1830
  would have thought any Board of Admiralty would long before this have taken into consideration the subject of a strategic base in the Mexican Gulf, looking for ward to the time when the Panama Canal is to be opened. We had a naval base at Port Royal. I do not know in what condition it is now, because it has been neglected for a long time, but I am led to believe that with the expenditure of very little money it could be turned into a very-good naval base.
  Anyone who takes any interest in strategy must know it is an absolute necessity for a country which has by far the greatest shipping trade in the world, to have some naval base in close proximity to the Panama Canal. It has been discussed in the newspapers and in the magazines, and one would imagine it is a subject the Admiralty would long ago have made a statement about, or made some beginning in bringing Port Royal into use again. The whole policy of the Government in neglecting naval bases and trade routes may have the most serious consequences. It is all due to a mistaken sense of economy, which is a mistaken policy in every way. It would be far better to spend twice the amount actually necessary for the defence of the country, rather than allow the Navy for one single year to get below the proper standard. There are other matters, particularly those dealing with the Shipbuilding Vote, which can be discussed later on, and, therefore, I will not deal with them at the present time. I conclude by saying I totally disagree with hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who appear to be so satisfied with the provisions made this year for the Navy. I do not see that the provisions made this year are one whit better than the provisions made last year or the year before. I am quite certain that these yearly panics and these yearly controversies as to the way Germany is getting the better of us in the matter of shipbuilding, and whether we are keeping up to the proper standard so as to defend ourselves against her, or anyone else, will continue, so long as we allow the margin of naval strength in the two countries to be so close as it in at the present time. It has been shown, and it has not been disputed, that by January, 1915, for a few months there is a strong possibility of our being only two ships ahead of Germany and Austria.
  Mr. DAVID MASON: What sort of ship?
  Mr. C. CRAIG: "Dreadnoughts." My point is that in that year there is a possibility if international complications arose or the feeling between this country and Germany should be strained again—I have no hesitation in speaking about our relations with Ger many because I know that my voice will never reach as far as Germany—of our being only two ships ahead of our most formidable opponent, and that is a state of affairs which this Committee ought to consider with the gravest anxiety. It is the duty of those Members of the Government to whom the affairs of the Admiralty are entrusted, to see to it that the possibility of our having such a small margin of superiority should never arise. This Committee ought to rise up and insist that that condition of affairs should not be allowed to continue for one moment longer than is necessary.
  Sir EDWARD BEAUCHAMP: I am one of those hon. Members on this side of the Committee who is satisfied, generally speaking, with the programme of ship building which was adumbrated yesterday by the First Lord of the Admiralty. I think every hon. Member who listened to that speech must admire its lucidity, and I feel satisfied with the programme which was placed before us. I was particularly interested in the part dealing with the personnel of the Navy. There has been a good deal of misgiving in the country as to whether we were making sufficient provision for the men who would be required in the event of war. After listening to the First Lord's statement yester day, I formed the opinion that there was no ground for any such misgivings, especially with regard to the Royal Naval Reserve, and I was very glad to hear that it was the intention of the Admiralty to improve that branch of the Service. I agree with the measures taken to meet the possibility of a shortage of well-trained men in the event of this country being engaged in war. I was also glad to see on looking through the Estimates that the old Royal Naval Reserve had also been somewhat increased. I notice the numbers chiefly are those required for the Trawler Division, but I can not help thinking we ought to make the most we possibly can of the old Royal Naval Reserves, drawn, as they are and have been chiefly, from the sea-going population of this country. These people are brought up to the sea and trained on it; they are inured to hardship; their
  1832
  daily occupation keeps them in touch with sea-life, and they would be, I am sure, most valuable persons if we were suddenly called upon to engage in war. The Noble Lord the Member for Portsmouth (Lord C. Beresford) yesterday gave a lecture to the Government with regard to continually comparing this country's naval programme with that of Germany. He used the expression that the Government had made a bugbear of Germany:—
  "They made them in the faith that the people would believe that Germany was the bugbear. I object altogether to that … We are perfectly well able to make out what is necessary for our Empire, and we need not trouble and mess about these other countries." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th March. 1912, col. 1587.]
  I do not think the Noble Lord himself is absolutely free from blame. I do not know what he may have said or have abstained from saying in this House with regard to Germany, but when he was speaking yesterday I could not help calling to mind something which occurred not very long ago when the Noble Lord came down and made a speech on the eve of an election in North Suffolk. I think I may say the German scare formed some portion, at any rate, of the interesting speech which I had not the opportunity of hearing, but which I know had a very considerable effect upon the result of that election. I looked at the file of the "Times" yesterday after he had spoken, and I found he used these words, speaking at Lowestoft. The people of Lowestoft are rather susceptible on this matter, because Lowestoft is the most eastern point of this country, and is nearest to the German empire:—
  "Germany's annually increasing navy estimates had gradually risen from £5,300,000 in 1906 until last year her estimate was £10,700,000, while England's estimate for the same year was £500,000 less."
  I assume that was the new shipbuilding programme of that year.
  "We ought to keep up our two-Power Standard How could the Government say we were secure? Germany would never believe we were in earnest until we had made out a bigger and a better programme than they had."
  I rose particularly to draw the attention of the Committee to what I consider to be the mistaken policy which the Board of Admiralty has pursued in recent years, and that is with regard to the building of battleships and battle-cruisers in which excessive speed is gained by the sacrifice of defensive armaments and defensive armour. I am not going into the general question of the speed of battleships. I believe there are on both sides of the House advocates of high speed, as well as those who believe no great advantage is to be gained from it. I fancy, however, the

  1833
  balance of opinion is that certain strategical and tactical advantages lie with the vessel which is superior in speed. I want to call attention to what I call the excessive speed in the battle-cruisers, and I propose to compare an ordinary battleship of twenty one knots with one of these battle-cruisers. There is the "Monarch" battle ship and the "Princess Royal" battle-cruiser One was laid down in April and the other in May, 1910. I will com pare the horse-power, speed, armaments, and cost of the two vessels. The "Monarch" is of 27,000 horse-power, she has a speed of 21 knots, she has ten 13.5 guns, and the estimated cost was £1,886,912. The "Princess Royal" battle-cruiser is of 70,000 horse-power, her speed is 28 knots, she has eight 13.5 guns, and cost £2,013,886. The reduction in offensive power of the cruiser is 20 per cent., and in defensive power it is very considerable. It is difficult to ascertain exactly what the armour of these vessels is, but the armour belt of the "Princess Royal" is 9 inches, and the thickness above the belt 6 inches, while in the case of the "Monarch" the belt is 12 inches and above belt 9 inches, and in the gun position it is 9 inches and 10 inches respectively. The cost of the cruiser is £126,974 more than that of the battleship. I want to know what advantage is obtained for the sacrifice made in gun and defensive power. There is a gain in speed of 7 knots, but is that commensurate with the sacrifice. Commander Duveliny, a French naval officer, writing on the subject of speed, says:—
  "Supernatural qualities should not be attributed to speed; it is not power but the means of employing power, and no one has the right to sacrifice a single gun to it."
  Similar expressions have been used by naval officers, who declare that speed is not a weapon, but only the means of employing the weapon. Therefore I think it is desirable to know under what conditions we are going to make use of this increased speed, which has been purchased at a high cost. As units these ships are so powerful that it may be they are intended to be used in the line of battle. In the line of battle that extra speed will be of no use to them, for they will have to conform to the general speed of the other battleships. The defensive armour is considerably less, while the gun power is about 20 per cent, less. I believe that the question of armour is not nearly so important as the question of gun-fire. The main object to be arrived at is superior gun-fire, rather than defensive armour. What you have to do is to
  1834
  beat down the fire of the enemy, or, in the words of an able writer:—
  The best defence is the offensive blow which strikes down the enemy."
  These ships, with their very great speed, could not have been designed simply for the purpose of fighting in the line of battle. There must be some other reason. What is that reason? What are you going to use them for1? It has been suggested that they could be sent off at a moment's notice at high speed. Are you going to use them in squadrons in that way? Then I would ask, what great advantage are you going to gain, even under these conditions, out of these battle cruisers? Say that you are going to send a squadron of these ships to Gibraltar. Gibraltar is 1,100 miles from this country, and under these circumstances these ships will probably be able to steam that distance at twenty-two knots; therefore they would do it in fifty hours. Then you have another squadron of battleships that will be able to go at perhaps seventeen knots, which will arrive at Gibraltar in sixty-five hours. The difference in time occupied would be fifteen hours. When you get them there you have lost fifteen hours, but that loss would be fully compensated for by the fact that the battleships would carry 25 per cent, more guns than the cruisers, and would be more effectively protected by armour. I should like to ask the First Lord if it is right to reduce the defensive armour in these battle cruisers which you will have in the fighting line—
  The CHAIRMAN: I am afraid the hon. Member is going into a little too much detail in the matter of armour, which comes up on Vote 8, the Vote for Construction. Of course he is entitled to raise the broad question and debate the policy, but I trust he will not go into detail on a point which comes more appropriately on a Vote which is always discussed.
  Sir E. BEAUCHAMP: It is not a question of detail but rather a question of policy, whether we should go on building these battle cruisers, which cost more than a battleship and do not carry so many guns. I should like the First Lord of the Admiralty to give attention to the subject. He has just established a War Staff which I trust may fulfil his hopes, and I hope they themselves will not be content to accept the last word of what is to be done in the matter of battle cruisers, but that the whole policy of their introduction and construction will be reviewed.
  11.0 P.M.
  Mr. MARK SYKES: I do not wish in any way to criticise the armaments, the disposition, or even the money of the Navy this year, because the Glasgow speech and the first paragraph of the Memorandum, and the right hon. Gentleman's speech yesterday must satisfy the aspirations and desires of at least 80 per cent, of the male inhabitants of these islands. There are some who think these Estimates are excessive. I know that is the official view of one section in the House, but I should imagine that 80 per cent, of those who are responsible for the presence of those Members will be perfectly well satisfied in their heart of hearts. I do not wish to suggest that there is anything wrong in the disposition of the Fleet, but the great majority of the public think more of the dominion of the North Sea than they think of the command of the sea as a whole. I am not saying that the First Lord does that, but in the public mind, reading the newspapers and watching the developments of the last few years, the general public do not consider so closely the command of the sea as a whole as the necessity of the dominion of the North Sea. In saying that I am not criticising the strategy which has led to the concentration of the great mass of the Fleet here in the North Sea, but it is a question of importance to consider whether we are now building with a sufficient margin to guarantee the Mediterranean in the future. At present our position in the North Sea is all right, and for the next two or three years, but whether our present building is on a sufficient scale to guarantee our position in the Mediterranean actually in the near future I am not so sure. I can- not think of any point in the world which is more intensely important to this Empire than the position of the Mediterranean. In the first place it is the high road to India. In the second place, it is practically our only communication with Egypt and the Soudan. I think even hon. Members below the Gangway will admit that Egypt has benefited by our presence, and, if we left, would be exploited by financiers, and the Soudan will sink back into the barbarism from which it has just emerged. I think, on the score of humanity alone, it is essential that our naval dispositions should be such that our position in Egypt should be absolutely secure. Another point is that we have certain garrisons in the Mediterranean. These garrisons are very small and relatively weak. It is far from my intention to criticise the small-
  1836
  ness of the garrisons, but so long as they are there they are there on the hypothesis that we have a Fleet adequate for the defence of the garrisons if necessary.
  There are certain possibilities always to be borne in mind in regard to the command of the Mediterranean. In the first place, India may be threatened by internal troubles. A country like India, which is just entering on industrialism and which is just beginning to get education, must certainly be in danger eventually of internal troubles. Similarly, India having land frontiers, is in danger of external aggression. Another point in regard to India is that the Baghdad Railway is being built, and other communications are going across Persia. It is enormously more important therefore that we should be able to guarantee our sea defences when we consider that there might be land lines leading towards India. We have also to consider that there are certain strategic points in the Mediterranean which it is essentially important for us should not change hands. I refer to such points as the Dardanelles. It is most important for us that such important geographical points as that should not change hands without our sanction and approval. Only can these things be secured, only can the prosperity of Egypt be secured, only can the loyalty and integrity of India be made certain if our command—I do not say our dominion—is maintained on a proper defensive policy in the Mediterranean. That is necessary if we are to hold our place in the world. If I may I would suggest one point which should be kept in view. Troubles in India and Egypt and a change of hands of the geographical points to which I have referred may all coincide, and they may coincide when we are engaged very seriously in the North Sea. We cannot rely upon fortifications. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman realises that fortifications are only good for time. They only delay. Moreover the fortifications at Gibraltar and Malta are not to be measured by the troops that hold them but by the number of people who will have to be fed during a siege of the people. Therefore time is to a certain extent limited. Another point is that the international morality in the Mediterranean even since the time of Pompey has never been of a high level. Lands have changed hands in a very drastic and sudden way. Bosnia and Herzegovina changed hands a little time ago, and that has been followed by the invasion of

  1837
  Tripoli. Even if the guns had ceased firing in that region they might continue to be fired elsewhere. There is a thunder cloud in the Balkans which may burst at any moment, and until the Powers come to an understanding the situation there must be strained. With the neglect of power, prestige sometimes slips away from those who hold it. Supposing there was any thought that the power of England is weakening in the Mediterranean, I am sure that would be detrimental to the peace of Europe, because those who advocate policies of adventure, such as taking pieces of land here and there, will no doubt be encouraged, and more trouble may be expected in that particular quarter if they consider that England, who stands for peace, commerce, a mercantile marine, and a non-adventurous policy, is weakening. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is fully alive to this, but I would ask him to say a word in his reply which will give the world to know, what I feel certain is the case, that our position in the Mediterranean is as strong is it was before the concentration policy began.
  Mr. LEE: When it was decided to suspend the Eleven o'clock Rule to-night the conditions were somewhat different, and it was considered necessary to comply with the law that certain Votes should be got to-night. I do not suppose that in the altered circumstances the right hon. Gentleman desires to sit very late to-night. He desires to get money for certain Votes within the next few days, in order to comply with the law. In view of the very special circumstances of the time, we do not wish to obstruct that desire on the part of the Government, but if the right hon. Gentleman took advantage of the suspension of the Eleven o'clock Rule to-night in order to try to finish the Committee stage of necessary Votes, so as to take the Report stage to-morrow, it would be impossible to continue a general discussion on the Navy Votes to-morrow on the Report stage. A great number of hon. Members on this side of the House are very anxious to take part in the discussion, not on details, but on broad questions of naval policy. Therefore I think that it would be to the advantage of the Committee as a whole if we could come to some agreement to continue to keep the discussion open tomorrow. If that was agreed to we should not raise any objection to the Government getting both the Committee and Report stages some time to-morrow. I understand
  1838
  that that is possible. My only object is to keep the general discussion open. There fore I would like first of all to know from the right hon. Gentleman what it is exactly he proposes to do as to sitting to-night, and what Votes are to be taken? The Financial Secretary to the Treasury suggested a number of Votes. I think he will see that we could not agree to the taking of Votes like 8, Shipbuilding; 9, Armaments; and 10, Works, all of which raise very important discussions which we hope to have later on. Therefore I hope that the First Lord will state what Votes are absolutely necessary, and agree to the proposition that we should have a general discussion to-morrow.
  Mr. CHURCHILL: My right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary has actually closed his mouth to the extent of £4,000,000, in giving up Vote 9. We have abandoned our request for that in deference to the views which have been expressed from the Opposition Benches. The Votes which are now set down, A, 1, 2, 13, 14, and 15, are a convenient and necessary grouping of Votes to enable us to carry on the Navy Supply in the ordinary manner of conducting a Session. In ordinary circumstances we should have liked to obtain Votes A, 1, and 2 to-night, but it is no doubt true that if we were to get into Report the discussion would be narrowed, and it would not be possible perhaps for Members to make their speeches on general Questions of naval policy with the freedom that they are enjoying in the present circumstances, if at all. We have had a Debate which, though discursive, has been full of valuable and instructive speeches, and I feel that it would be, not only for the convenience of the House generally, but for the benefit of the discussion of the Navy Votes, if the Debate were to be resumed to-morrow in the freest and most untrammelled manner. Therefore we will, on behalf of the Government, forego any particular advantage we might have by pressing for a determination of the Committee stage to-night. We shall do so in the full expectation that the House will find it agreeable to let us have the Committee and Report stages either to-morrow night, when the Eleven o'clock Rule is suspended, without our sitting, I hope, to a very unreasonable hour (the Debate can be resumed when Private Business is over), or, if by any chance, the Report stage was not finished, then it would be practically formal on the Thursday. On that under-

  1839
  standing we should not press the House to sit any later to-night, and I should be quite prepared to move to report Progress.
  The CHAIRMAN: I think I should explain that the Committee stage and the Report stage cannot be taken in one day. If the Committee stage was prolonged over to-morrow the Report stage could be taken pro forma on Thursday, and that would enable the Consolidated Fund Bill to be introduced.
  Mr. LEE: I was not aware of the technical difficulty with regard to to-morrow. The Report stage will be purely formal on Thursday. This does not interfere in any way with the extra day promised by the Prime Minister for the Navy discussion. The day was promised in respect of time that was taken from us for other purposes.
  Lord C. BERESFORD: I would like to remind the right hon. Gentleman that, if we agree to the suggestion, Votes A, 1 and 2 have not been spoken on at all, and they have always been open to a general discussion. These two Votes are very important.
  Mr. CHURCHILL: The greater includes the less. The Committee will hear with great pleasure the Noble Lord discuss Votes A, 1 and 2, and anything he has to say on either of these Votes, or anything else he chooses to say in addition. With regard to the extra day, the hon. Member must deal with the Prime Minister, whose statements were perfectly clear, and who always carries out any undertaking he gives to the House in the spirit in which it was given.
  Mr. J. WARD: Would the right hon. Gentleman give any indication when Votes 8 and 10 will be taken, especially Vote 10.
  Mr. CHURCHILL: It is always customary, I believe, to keep Vote 8 until a later period in the Session, when the situation with regard to shipbuilding and armoured ships is more fully disclosed than it is at this time of the year. It rests entirely with the House to choose, and the House nearly always does choose Vote 8 probably in June or July. I understand that the Prime Minister spoke of some time being given in addition.
  Committee report Progress, to sit again to-morrow (Wednesday).

HOUSE OF COMMONS (KITCHEN AND REFRESHMENT ROOMS).
Ordered "That a Select Committee be appointed to control the arrangements for the Kitchen and Refreshment Rooms in the Department of the Serjeant-at-Arms attending this House:"
Ordered "That the Committee do consist of Seventeen Members:"
Ordered "That Mr. Agg-Gardner, Mr. Bentham, Mr. Fenwick, Mr. Rupert Gwynne, Viscount Helmsley, Major Henderson, Sir Ivor Herbert, Mr. Howard, Sir John Lonsdale, Colonel Lockwood, Sir Henry Norman, Mr. Patrick O'Brien, Mr. P. J. Power, Mr. William Redmond, Sir Harry Samuel, Mr. Watt, and Mr. John Williams be Members of the Committee:"
Ordered "That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records:"
Ordered "That Three be the quorum."— [Master of Elibank]

SYNDICALIST PROSECUTION.

  RECORDER OF LONDON'S CHARGE.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Mr. Gulland.]
  Mr. LANSBURY: I am sorry to detain the House, but the matter to which I wish to call attention is of very serious importance to the persons concerned. It will be within the recollection of the House that some prosecutions are taking place against certain men charged with having published words inciting troops not to do their duty. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Into the merits or demerits of the question it is not my province to go. I am sure those who are cheering the prosecution will agree that the biggest criminal in the land is entitled to a fair trial. The matter to which I wish to call attention is the charge of the Recorder at the Old Bailey in connection with this case. Yesterday my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood) asked the Attorney-General what was the charge against these men, and if it had anything to do with Syndicalist opinion, or otherwise. The Attorney-General, in his reply, made it perfectly clear that it was not a question of prosecuting them for their views, but simply for having published that advice to

  1841
  the troops. The Recorder, whose name I do not know, in charging the grand jury, said:—
  "Many of you, who might not have known a month ago what Syndicalism meant, probably know by now what it is, as it has occupied a prominent position. It is a diabolical system invented by somebody or other for the purpose of promoting a general strike and apparently establishing a Socialist Republic."
  A more ignorant statement was never made than that, because it is perfectly well known by anybody who has studied the subject that between the advocates of Socialism and Syndicalism there is very great opposition.
  "It means striking in one trade and inducing the workmen in other trades to strike. You cannot go on disseminating dangerous overtures broadcast without doing infinite mischief, and it is not until the matter has reached a serious condition as it is alleged to have done in this case that the law is set in force.
  "This I am glad to say is a very unusual crime; therefore the prosecution is under the provisions of an old Statute."
  Then he goes on to say:—
  "The article in question is entitled 'An Open Letter to British Soldiers.' It begins in the usual bombastic way. 'Men, Comrades, Brothers. You are in the Army; so are we. You are in the Army of destruction; we are in the army of construction.' The article (said the Recorder) contended that syndicalism benefited the workers. Judging by the experience which the country was having of tens of thousands of people out of employment, and their wives and children without means, it did not appear to be benefiting them."
  Hon. Gentlemen opposite cheer ironically those statements, but I venture to point out to the House and to the Attorney-General that not one of them had any relevance to the charge against these men. I should hope, too, that all sense of justice and fair play has not been lost on the opposite side of the House, and that no one on the other side will say that these men are on their trial for opinions that the judge happens to hold as to their particular connection with this matter. I can not think that any right-minded man will uphold the right of a judge to make statements of that kind. I have risen for the purpose of appealing to the Attorney-General to make it clear that these men are not being tried for advocating Syndicalism.
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Rufus Isaacs): The question raised by my hon. Friend is in connection with the charge of the Recorder to the grand jury. I may repeat what I said yesterday, that the opinions which these men may hold or have published in the newspaper called the "Syndicalist" has nothing whatever to do with the charge for which they are on trial. They are on trial solely and simply for having published an incitement to the
  1842
  soldiers to disobey their officers. The question which my hon. Friend has raised refers to the charge to the grand jury and not to the charge or summing-up to the jury who try the case. I agree with what he said that many of the observations are irrelevant. The only point that will be before the jury at the trial of these men will be as to whether or not they have publicly incited soldiers to disobey their officers.
  Mr. F. E. SMITH: I confess I regret that the Attorney-General, speaking with the high authority he naturally brings to considerations of this kind, has not expressed his disapproval of the great and obvious inconvenience—and, I make bold to say, the public danger—of anyone while a case is pending inviting this House to establish itself as a critical assembly to denounce the statements of a judge. No more dangerous precedent could be set in this House or anywhere else. What is to prevent any section in this House who are dissatisfied with the summing up of a Recorder in a case actually pending, raising the matter on the question of the Adjournment of the House? The hon. Member introduced his speech to the attention of the House by asking whether the love of justice still exists on this side of the House. We are old-fashioned enough to believe that the fundamental objects of justice are not served by calling in question the observations of a judge. Other and more orthodox tribunals exist.
  Sir RUFUS ISAACS: How does the right hon. Gentleman suggest we could review a charge of this kind?
  Mr. F. E. SMITH: I entertain no doubt at all, having had some experience of the Court of Criminal Appeal, that if they were not satisfied, and it was brought to the notice of the Court of Criminal Appeal that prejudice was created by an improper statement made by the learned Recorder, the circumstances would be duly considered. I, for my part, enter a protest against this method being adopted in the House of Commons, which, of all tribunals in the world, is the most unsuited, while a question of this kind is pending decision, to interfere or control that decision.
  And it being Half-past Eleven of the' clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at Half after Eleven o'clock.

  Labourers Acts (Ireland).
  Labourers Acts (Ireland).
  National Schools, Parteen.
  National Schools, Parteen.
  Reinstatement of Evicted Tenants (Ireland).
  Reinstatement of Evicted Tenants (Ireland).
  Old Age Pensions.
  Old Age Pensions.
  Turbary, County Longford.
  Turbary, County Longford.
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Deaths from Uncertified Causes.
  Deaths from Uncertified Causes.
  British Exports.
  British Exports.
  Certificated Teachers (Pensions).
  Certificated Teachers (Pensions).
  Secondary and Elementary School Accom- modation (Bury).
  Secondary and Elementary School Accom- modation (Bury).
  German and British Nary Complements.
  German and British Nary Complements.
  Glasgow Parish Council (Children Boarded Out).
  Glasgow Parish Council (Children Boarded Out).
  Tweed Fishery Laws (Convictions).
  Tweed Fishery Laws (Convictions).
  Army Food Supply (Refrigerated Rabbits).
  Army Food Supply (Refrigerated Rabbits).
  Small-pox and Vaccination.
  Small-pox and Vaccination.
  Superannuation Acts (Post Office Servants).
  Superannuation Acts (Post Office Servants).
  Post Office Mail Service.
  Post Office Mail Service.
  Telephone Service.
  Telephone Service.
  Farmers' Telephones.
  Farmers' Telephones.
  Carmarthenshire County Council (Development Grant).
  Carmarthenshire County Council (Development Grant).

Preamble
The Lord GIFFORD—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his brother.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:

Herne Bay Gas. [H.L.]

Manchester Ship Canal. [H.L.]

The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

PENWORTHAM BRIDGE BILL. [H.L.]
  LEATHERHEAD GAS BILL. [H.L.]
  Reported, with Amendments.
CHRISTCHURCH GAS BILL. [H.L.]
  HERNE BAY GAS BILL. [H.L.]
  Read 2a (according to Order), and committed: The Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
CREDIT FONCIER OF MAURITIUS BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I beg to ask the noble Marquess who leads the House whether he is able to give us any information as to the course of business during the next few days.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (THE MARQUESS OF CREWE): My Lords, I think it will be for the convenience of the House if I say a word, in response to the Question of the noble Marquess, on at any rate the possible course of business during the coming week. As the House is aware, the Prime Minister has to-day in another place introduced for First Reading a Bill in connection with coal mining. The introduction of that Bill
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is brought about by the fact, which is familiar to all your Lordship, that after a series of negotiation conducted with great patience, in which His Majesty's Government have done their best to assist in bringing about an agreement, it has not been found possible to arrive at an agreement between the two parties except by some form of legislation, and it is hoped that when a measure has been passed through Parliament the passing of that measure will lead to immediate resumption of work in the coal mines. That being so, it is clearly important that the measure should be passed into law as soon as possible, because every, day's delay in the resumption of work brings about not merely a continued stoppage of the particular industry involved, but also the possibility of much distress to other industries not concerned in the particular dispute.
The suggestion which the Prime Minister made yesterday in another place was that he should ask leave to-day for the introduction of the Bill, that the Second Reading should be taken to-morrow, and that the House of Commons should agree that the Bill should be passed through all its remaining stages on Thursday. That procedure, if taken, would enable the measure to he read a first time late on Thursday here, and we should then ask your Lordships to proceed with the Second Reading on Friday. But it was pointed out by members of the Opposition in another place that this procedure, particularly the absence of any delay between the First and Second Readings, would give the House of Commons but a short time to consider the features of the Bill, of which until to-day they are naturally ignorant; and it appeared to be suggested accordingly that, instead of taking the Second Reading to-morrow the Second Reading should be taken on Thursday, and that all the remaining stages of the measure should be passed in the House of Commons on Friday. That would prevent the Bill from reaching us here until Saturday; and in view of the urgency of the matter we should in that case I fear be compelled to ask the House to sit on Saturday for its consideration. I am quite certain that when important business is on foot your Lordships would not object to the unusual course of sitting on Saturday; but, on the other hand, you might reason-

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ably take exception to being asked to pass a Bill through all its stages on Saturday, in the course of a single day, and might complain that the time would be unduly short, and certainly I should not say that such a complaint was unreasonable. Neither should I say that in itself, in the abstract, the desire of the House of Commons to have a clear day between the First and Second Readings was an unreasonable one; but we might venture to point out that with only five days altogether available for the discussion of this measure it seems, on the face of it, a little hard that four of them should be allotted to another place and only one to us here.
I say, my Lords, that the urgency of passing the Bill if possible this week is considerable, not merely on the general grounds that every day of delay which postpones the resumption of work in the mines is a misfortune in itself, but we are told that if the measure, assuming it to be approved by Parliament, does not become law this week, or at any rate does not pass through both Houses this week, leaving out the question for the moment of the Royal Assent, there is some risk that a whole week of delay in the resumption of work may thereby be caused. It may not seem altogether reasonable that it should be so, but we are given to understand that if the measure became law this week there would be a good prospect of resumption of work beginning on Monday, whereas if it was not passed until an early day next week the resumption of work might be postponed until the beginning of the week after, and that would be from every point of view, as I am sure the House will agree, a national misfortune. I have thought it well to explain to the House at some length what the precise position is, because in any case we have. I am well aware to call upon the House not merely for a sitting on an unaccustomed day but for a hurried procedure. It is, of course, quite clear that your Lordships cannot give any kind of promise or engagement to pass the measure until you know exactly what it contains, nor until you see it can you say in what form you will pass it; but I think it is important for the House to understand that the matter is one of great urgency and of the most serious moment. I am convinced, therefore, that
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the House will be disposed to do all in their power to help His Majesty's Government, assuming that they approve of the measure, to make it into law as soon as possible.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, the noble Marquess has explained with great clearness the position as it presents itself to His Majesty's Government, but I think those of us who have been listening to him must feel that so far as this House is concerned the position is a very unusual and a very trying one. I understand that the Bill will reach this House late on Friday night, and that it is suggested that we might pass it through the whole of its stages on Saturday. Now this I will take upon myself to say without hesitation, that no consideration of private convenience in a case of this kind would prevent us from doing anything that we legitimately could to meet a great public necessity. But, my Lords, it is a very grave proposal that this House should deal with a measure of such momentous importance in a single day and under circumstances which obviously render it quite impossible that we should even, except as a mere matter of form, suggest any amendment in the Bill.
The noble Marquess has made it clear that he justifies his request because he and his colleagues have reason to believe that if the Bill becomes law this week there is at any rate a good prospect that work will be resumed on Monday next, while if the discussion of the Bill were to go over into next week in the view of the noble Marquess a whole week might be lost, and the resumption of work would take place, not on Monday, but probably a week later. That is, of course, a very material consideration. I should, however, be glad if the noble Marquess would tell us whether he is satisfied that both parties to this dispute—the coal owners and the miners—would be ready to facilitate such an immediate resumption as he hopes for in the event of the Bill becoming law. That is a question which he may be able to answer. Whether your Lordships will be prepared to meet the proposal of His Majesty's Government I cannot, of course, take upon myself to say until I have had an opportunity of conferring with those who usually act with us. The matter is a very serious

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one for this House and I am quite sure that the noble Marquess would not expect me on the spur of the moment to give him any expression, even of my own personal opinion, as to the possibility of adopting the unusual course which he has suggested.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: In reply to the noble Marquess I ought to explain that I did not altogether abandon the hope that the proceedings in another place in connection with the Bill might be concluded on Thursday night, in which case we should be able to take the Bill here on Friday, with the prospect, if it were desired, of continuing the discussion on Saturday. I may venture to remind the House that that was our original proposition, and the alternative proposition which would put it a day later here would only be entertained in deference to the strong views expressed in another place by the Leader of the Opposition there. Our original proposition would have got the Bill here on Friday.
As regards the question of the resumption of work beginning next week, it is, of course, difficult, as I am sure the noble Marquess will appreciate, to speak of that in tones of any certainty. What I am prepared to say is that the hanging up of the Bill for another week would, in my opinion, endanger the resumption of work, because it would or might create the impression in the minds of the men, or of some of them, that there was an intention here to make some alterations in the terms or the scope of the Bill—alterations which they would naturally assume would not be in favour of their point of view—and a certain atmosphere of suspicion would thereby be created which we should all agree would be a misfortune. In any case, I am afraid we cannot regard it as a probability that all over England, Scotland and Wales men will return to work with a rush, either on Monday or on any other day. The resumption of work is bound to be a somewhat gradual process, varying, no doubt, with the exigencies and possibilities of different districts; but I am certainly prepared to say that in the view of His Majesty's Government the suspension of the Bill over Sunday would defer, and might endanger for some time, that resumption of work which we are all so anxious to see.

MUSIC AND DANCING LICENCES BILL. [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order).
EARL STANHOPE: I have two small Amendments to move. They are consequential on an Amendment made at a previous stage of the Bill on the motion of the noble Lord who represents the Home Office. The object of that Amendment was to bring within the scope of the Bill the whole of the district included within the twenty-mile radius from the City of Westminster. I understand that the county borough of West Ham and the county borough of Croydon are entirely within those twenty miles, and therefore they should both be included. I beg to move—
Amendments moved—
Clause 1, page 1, line 6, after ("Loudon") insert ("and to the county borough of West Ham and the county borough of Croydon")
lines 8 and 9, leave out ("and of the county borough of West Ham and the county borough of Croydon").—(Earl Stanhope.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Bill to be printed as amended. (No. 16.)

FACTORY AND WORKSHOP BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a(according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

STAGE PLAYS (CENSORSHIP).
LORD NEWTON*LORD NEWTON rose to call attention to the Report from the Joint Select Committee of the House of Lords and House of Commons on the Stage Plays (Censorship). The noble Lord said: My Lords, in drawing attention to this Report I should like to make it perfectly plain that I do so, not because I consider the Report of any particular importance, but because I think the time has arrived for the Censor—in other words the noble Lord opposite, Lord Sandhurst—to say something in his own defence. For some considerable time now his opponents have been allowed to go about representing him and his predecessor as a particularly stupid kind of despot, whose great object it has been to wreck and destroy the works of genius. And in giving my noble friend this opportunity of defending himself I

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should like to point out that I am exercising one of the few remaining privileges of this House—it so happens that the noble Lord cannot be attacked in the House of Commons because his salary does not come upon the Votes—and I have no doubt that we shall be deprived of even this meagre satisfaction before very long.
Until about three years ago it is quite safe to assert that not one person in a thousand, or one in ten thousand, as far as that goes, knew that there was such an official as the Censor in existence, and there were still fewer who cared; and the ignorance upon that point is still so great that the public apparently believe that the person who exercises the functions of the Censorship is the Examiner of Plays, whereas, as a matter of fact, it is the noble Lord opposite, and I understand that he is quite ready to accept all responsibility on the point. About three years ago a number of persons banded themselves together and entered upon a campaign against the Censor. These persons consisted of dramatic authors, journalists and members of the House of Commons, and they carried on their agitation so successfully that the Government, which is always ready to make concessions to agitation against law and order, gave way and granted a Joint Committee of the two Houses, of which Committee I was myself a member. This Joint Committee sat for a considerable time and examined a large number of witnesses, who ranged over a large field. They ranged from a right rev. Prelate to the managers of minor music halls in the country quite a numerous class of persons were represented. There were managers, actors, solicitors, agents, critics and dramatic authors, and the members of the two latter classes enjoyed themselves enormously, as was not improbable in view of the fact that everything had been arranged for their especial benefit, and they came with books and bags crammed with jests and epigrams and impromptus and paradoxes, which no doubt to some extent bewildered the intellect of dull and conscientious persons like myself and other noble Lords who were there to adjudicate and report upon the question. But I was not altogether thrown off my intellectual balance, because at the end of the inquiry, in spite of these difficulties, I found myself in precisely the same position that I was in before it began, and having
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refreshed my memory by going through the evidence, I remain emphatically of the same opinion—namely, that the importance of the whole question is enormously exaggerated, and I was unable to see then, and I am unable to see now, that there is any cause which justifies a change in the present procedure.
I am bound to say that that was not the opinion of the rest of the Committee. The Committee, with one solitary exception—namely, myself—decided that in future the office of Censor should be optional. I dissented from this recommendation because it seemed to me somewhat illogical. If you are going to make the Censor optional you may just as well do away with him altogether, and I do not see very much sense in having a Censor for people who want him and no Censor for people who do not want him. With reference to the numerous witnesses who appeared before this Committee, anybody who takes the trouble to read their evidence will realise that every one of them, no matter how anarchical might be his disposition, was in favour of control of some kind or other. He or she, as the case might be, had to admit that some form of control was absolutely necessary. The only question was whether that control should be before or after production, and it will be observed that opinion upon this particular question was very clearly divided. Managers, actors, agents, and all those persons who are interested in the commercial side of the drama, asked for a continuance of the present system, and the present system, to put it shortly, is this—that every theatre and every play has to obtain a licence from the Lord Chamberlain. Although technically a licence of this character does not secure absolute immunity from prosecution, in practice it does secure that immunity, and it is rare that any attempt is ever made to interfere with a play that has once been licensed. As a matter of fact, the Lord Chamberlain's licence acts as a sort of passport which enables the play to travel throughout the country as a rule immune from interference. The contention of these people, to put it shortly, is that the present system affords certainty instead of a state of uncertainty, and that the value of it consists chiefly in the fact that when a theatrical company go upon tour they are protected from the arbitrary and capricious interference of local autho-

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rities. That is a thing which does not often take place in this country—I believe it is more frequent in America—but there have occasionally been instances in which Local authorities have interfered. I remember one being quoted by au important witness who appeared before us, and who said that when he went to perform in a certain town he found—to use his own words—two enormous policemen upon his stage, and when he asked them what they were doing there they replied, in the words and in the spirit of Mirabeau, "We are here by the will of the people to see that no improprieties are committed." As managers and all business people connected with the stage are satisfied with the present arrangement, it is not necessary to say much about them.
And I do not think it is necessary to say much about another class—namely, the critics—because it is perfectly obvious that whether you have a Censor or no Censor, the critic will always have plenty of occupation, and even as it is he can spend almost as much of his time and ingenuity in criticising censored plays as in criticising plays which have successfully passed the test. The only class who really need be considered in connection with this matter ate the dramatic writers themselves. I gather from the evidence which came before the Committee that dramatists consist, roughly speaking, of two classes. There is the class which writes frankly to amuse and to make money, and there is a second class consisting of persons who honestly believe that they have a special mission to improve and to elevate the playgoer; and I do not think it is realised with what portentous solemnity these gentlemen occasionally take themselves. These authors take themselves much more seriously than a Governor, or a right rev. Prelate, or a Minister, and more seriously than any noble Lord upon either of the two Front Benches in this House. But as far as these persons are concerned I personally am quite impartial upon the subject. If it is, any satisfaction to the pioneer authors to know it, I am quite prepared to admit that if I have got to go to the theatre at all, I would sooner go and see one of their plays than I would go and see an adaptation of, say, a Palais Royal farce. The production of the pioneer author would exercise a less depressing effect upon me. But, as a matter of fact, my own opinion is not of any value at all.
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I should, however, like to say this, that whilst I admire the talent of these gentlemen—talent which is not always as much appreciated as they think ought to be the case—I do not recognise that they have any special mission to improve or to elevate me or anybody else. I am not at all sure that they are capable of doing it, and I am not at all convinced in my own mind that they have anything to teach me. I am disposed to think that if T am really in want of moral elevation I should be more likely to obtain it if, instead of going to a pioneer play, I sat at the feet of one of the right rev. Prelates on the Episcopal Bench opposite.
Now I come to the grievances of these authors. Their grievances are so numerous that it is impossible for me to enumerate them all, but a pamphlet which I received a day or two ago, and which I imagine has been circulated amongst the members of this House, states among other things that—
"the continued subjection of authors to the indignity of censorship is not merely an injustice to the general community, hut a personal outrage."
They say, in so many words, "We are in what is little better than an absolute state of servitude—a state of servitude at the hands of an arbitrary and soulless clod in the person of the Censor." Everybody else they exclaim is free. I cannot help being reminded, when I see these expressions, of the lamentations of Mr. Harold Skimpole, who, when he was about to be arrested for debt, exclaimed, " I only ask to be free; the butterflies are free; surely mankind will not deny to me what it concedes to butterflies. "The butterflies who are free, in the opinion of these authors, are the persons who represent music, painting, the Press, literature and public speakers. "All these, "they say," are free and untrammelled. They are not subjected to the indignity from which we suffer." I am not in the least prepared to admit that this is a correct statement. All a re subject to censorship of some kind.
It is true that it would be difficult to say that music was subjected to a censorship, although I believe that in Ireland censorship is passed occasionally upon patriotic tunes. But painting can hardly be said to be altogether exempt from censorship. If a man paints a picture and wishes to send it to an exhibition,

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that picture has to run the gauntlet of a jury of some kind, and the indignity of having a picture rejected seems to me to be as great as the indignity of having a play refused. I do not think it is correct to say that the Press is absolutely free. The journalist, if I mistake not, has to submit his "copy" to an editor; he has no appeal from the editor, and it would not be the slightest use his making any protest at all. Literature, again, can hardly be said to be absolutely free from censorship. It so happens that I am engaged upon a modest literary work myself. Before that work is produced I believe I shall have to submit it to the censorship of the Foreign Office, but that does not weigh upon me like a sort of sword of Damocles. I do not feel any more mournful or depressed in consequence, though I might think that my opinion on the subject was quite as good as that of the Foreign Office censor. And you can hardly maintain that speech is absolutely free. In the House of Commons a Member cannot put a Question on the Paper without its being submitted to the censorship of the Speaker and the Clerks at the Table. The same thing applies here—one of the last remaining homes of free speech—and, as far as that goes, anybody making a speech here is liable to the censorship of the youngest and most inexperienced member of this House.
"But," say these people, "not only are we humiliated personally, but art is confined and hampered; the world is deprived of masterpieces because we are so sensitive that we refuse to submit them to the uncongenial personality of the Censor. "In other words, they maintain that there is a vast amount of original matter of the highest value which is never produced at all. I do not see that there is very much foundation for this particular complaint. It came out in the course of the Committee's proceedings that out of 7,000 plays during ten years only thirty had been rejected. Since the Committee reported I understand that something like 1,800 plays have been passed, 14 have been licensed subject to slight alteration, and 12 have been rejected altogether. "But," say these dissatisfied dramatists, "you must not look at it from the point of view of quantity at all. What you must consider is the quality of the work which has been lost to the public. Our work represents a kind of intellectual
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radium; not the smallest atom of it should be lost, otherwise the whole universe will suffer—"Then they say, "Think of the number of geniuses who have been dissuaded from writing by this particular fear." When pressed on the matter and asked to mention people who had been dissuaded from writing plays they, as a rule, are quite unable to mention anybody. In the course of our proceedings I can remember the name being given of only one eminent man who had been dissuaded for this reason from writing a play. Yet as a matter of fact a play by this gentleman is being acted at the present moment. On the whole, I do not think it is very uncharitable to conclude that people who do not write plays do not write them because they are unable to write them. That seems to me the most simple and obvious explanation.
I think it is only fair, in justice to the Censor, to point out that some of the most distinguished playwrights admitted that they had no grievance whatsoever, that they had never had any trouble with him at all. Mr. Barrie had to admit that he had never had any trouble with the Censor; Sir Arthur Pinero also admitted that he had never had any trouble with the Censor; the late Sir William Gilbert, whose works will, in all probability, live quite as long as any of the works of the pioneer author, said that he had only once had a difficulty with the Censor, and that was the occasion on which the Lord Chamberlain of the day was apparently of the opinion that the music of 'o The Mikado "and the Japanese National Anthem were one and the same thing. In the pamphlet to which I have alluded other grievances are pointed out. Why, it is asked, cannot the dramatist be treated in the same way as the novelist; and the writer of the pamphlet appears to consider it a crying injustice that whereas the novelist, in the story of " Robinson Crusoe," had been allowed to describe a naked savage, yet if that naked savage were introduced on the stage the man who was responsible for his introduction would be arrested by the police and severely punished. Personally, I do not see that he would have very much to complain of if such a thing did occur. But you do not want to be very clever, you do not want to have any knowledge of what I believe is called the psychology of crowds, to recognise the distinction between litera-

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ture and the drama. We all of us can read about very unpleasant incidents, very sordid details—at all events I am sure that I can—without suffering what Mr. Kruger would have called "moral and intellectual damage"; but if we were to see these kind of things represented on the stage, all right-feeling persons would be filled, not only with disgust, but with indignation. Another contention which was dwelt upon a good deal was that art should be dissociated from commercialism. To do pioneer authors justice, I must admit that none of them, so far as I can remember, complained of losing money. It appeared from the evidence—it was a fact of which I was not aware myself—that theatrical audiences consist mainly of intensely respectable people who appreciate virtue very much and flock in large numbers to theatres which deal in virtue; and, as a gentleman who appeared as an opponent of the Censor admitted, a theatre which deals in virtue takes more money in a week than a theatre which deals in curious subjects will take in a year. To put it quite shortly, there appears to be no money in pioneer plays.
This by no means exhausts the list of complaints. One complaint which was very frequently uttered was that the Censor ought to be a man of the world, and not a retired bank manager, and it was also suggested that there ought to be sonic form of appeal. It was constantly pointed out that control should he subsequent to production, and not prior to production; that theatres should be placed upon the same footing as music-halls; and, finally, that the Censor himself acted in a capricious and inconsistent manner. As regards control after production and assimilating the practice to that which prevails in the case of music-halls, I will leave my noble friend opposite to deal with that particular point. But I think it must be fairly obvious to anybody that a prior censorship of music-hall performances would be practically an impossibility, because it would require the staff of a complete Government Department to undertake the work. As regards their last charge, that the Censor acts in a capricious and inconsistent manner, I must freely admit that this is the one complaint which appears to me to have some force in it. I am afraid that it must be admitted that, upon the face of it, the Censor is both capricious and inconsistent. I have seen
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pieces comparatively recently which I have been somewhat surprised to find had evaded, so to speak, his net. But I do not think that my noble friend will have any trouble in showing that he has done his best to meet the complaints which were lodged against him.
As regards the question of having a man of the world as Censor, I do not know whether my noble friend would be gratified by hearing himself described as a man of the world or not; but upon the whole I should say that a man who had been considered good enough to govern a good many millions of our fellow-subjects, and who had also been considered good enough to form part of a Liberal Ministry, was, upon the whole, good enough to decide whether a play was or was not fit for presentation; and as for his lieutenant, Sir Douglas Dawson, he appears to me to be about as suitable a person for the place as you could well find. Sir Douglas Dawson is not only an admirable linguist, but he has filled an important military post at two of the most fashionable cities in Europe, and upon the whole I am inclined to think he would be the precise type of person who would be selected on the stage to depict the absolutely perfect man of the world. So far from these two personages acting in a brutal and despotic manner towards dramatic authors, they always strike me as a pair of singularly meek official lambs, if I may say so without offence, who are perpetually shrinking from attacks on the part of wolves in the shape of authors.
The process, as I understand it, by which a play is passed is that it is first of all read by one of two examiners. It then passes to Sir Douglas Dawson. Sir Douglas Dawson consults with the Censor—in other words, with the Lord Chamberlain—and if they think that there is anything which is objectionable or likely to be thought objectionable about the play, it is submitted to an Advisory Committee, which forms that appeal which the authors demand, and the constitution of this particular Committee is one which I should have thought would have satisfied most people. It includes two very distinguished lawyers, it includes one of the most distinguished literary men in the country, and it includes also, if I am not mistaken, two retired actors of considerable

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eminence. If I might venture a suggestion to the noble Lord, if he desired to improve his Committee, in his place I should invite the Society of Authors to delegate somebody to sit upon it, and I should also invite a woman to form one of its members because I cannot help thinking that her presence might occasionally be found extremely useful. It scarcely ever happens that a play is refused outright. What does happen is that occasionally there are passages to which objection might be taken, and the author or his representative is sent for and asked in the friendliest possible way to make certain alterations. Probably the Censor says to him, "Here is a passage in your play which might offend Exeter Hall, or the Anti-Gambling League, or the President of the Chinese Republic. Don't you think that you might tone it down and make it a little less strong? "The reply of the author apparently is almost invariably, "What you are proposing to me is little short of an insult. You do not seem to recognise that my special quality is sensitiveness. I am full of sensitiveness as regards myself, but I have no sensitiveness whatever with regard to other people and to other people's feelings. I do not care the least what the feelings of the Anti-Gambling League or anybody else may be. What I do protest against is that you should call upon me to make any alteration in my masterpiece, however small it may be, and I will see you somewhere before I will do it. More than that, I will turn my trade union on to you. I will turn the Press on to you. I will get a Question asked about the matter in the House of Commons, and altogether I will end by making your life a burden to you. "In these circumstances, and if the author absolutely refuses to water down an adjective—and sometimes it does not amount to more than that—what is an official, however lamblike, to do? He is there for a particular purpose, and if the man will not advance a single inch to meet him he has no alternative but to say, "I regret it very much, but I am unable to license your play unless you will make the trivial alteration which I am asking you to make." That is the kind of thing which has frequently happened lately.
I confess that it is an extraordinary thing to me that these very clever people, who, of course, are very much cleverer than I am or than is any noble Lord sitting
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here to-day, do not recognise what an extraordinary benefit the Censor is to them. Sometimes I think that they really must realise the benefit although they deny it, and that nothing would distress them more than if the Censor were abolished, just as I believe nothing would distress certain people more than if Home Rule were to come into operation. Look at the advantages which they enjoy with the Censor there. Supposing their play passes, they are in precisely the same position as anybody else and enjoy equal advantages; but if he refuses to pass it, then at once they obtain notoriety. Their trade union takes up their case; eminent people write to The Times and say they have never known an instance of such stupid bureaucracy in the course of their existence; petitions are got up; publishers and booksellers sell an enormous number of copies of the censored play with the word "censored" printed in large letters at the particular points; and in many cases the play is performed. The censored author can get his play performed in Ireland whenever he likes. But the chances are that he gets his play produced in London by private enterprise, and, while it lasts, numbers of people crowd to see it. For instance, my noble friend Lord Ribblesdale, I observed, went the other day to see a censored play, and having seen it he wrote darkly warning us that terrible consequences might ensue if the present practice was allowed to continue. And, of course, he and other people also wrote and said that having seen the play, they could not see any harm in it. My experience of censored plays is small, but what I am given to understand is that in many cases they are so tedious, that even if there was anything objectionable in them it would be difficult for the person seeing them to keep his attention so concentrated on the piece as to notice where objectionable passages occur.
But supposing these people are right from their point of view, their opinion would not weigh with me in the least. The people who go to these performances under the auspices of the authors' trade union would be the very first to admit, or rather to claim, that they are very superior people indeed. They are all very superior and very clever people, and they can attach meanings to things to which the ordinary person attaches a totally different meaning, and I am quite

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sure that if these people were to go and see a piece in which everybody appeared on the stage with no clothes at all, they are so clever and so ingenious that they would be able to prove that a spectacle of this kind was infinitely more stimulating and intellectual than if the actors appeared in the garb of ordinary life. As a matter of fact, these people are perfectly well able to protect themselves and do not require any Censor at all—Lord Ribblesdale is, I am sure, quite independent of any assistance of the kind—but they do not represent in the least the general public. There are, as a matter of fact, two publics—one enlightened and interested in advanced ideas, represented, shall we say, by the noble Lord opposite, Lord Ribblesdale, and the other the general public. It is for the protection of the general public that the Censor exists, and although the Censor may be capricious and although he may make mistakes, not being infallible, yet upon the whole he affords a sort of rough protection; although he does not make you absolutely immune, yet he fulfils very much the same purpose as the certificate which you get from sonic sanitary authority as to the condition of a house before you take possession of it. He, in fact, is a sort of rough safeguard, which is in accordance with the wishes of the majority; and upon the whole it may be confidently asserted that it is better to have him than nothing at all, and that has been the opinion formed at all previous inquiries. There was an inquiry in 1853, another in 1866, and another in 1892, and in each case it was found that there was no justification whatever for interfering with this important official.
The whole question is really whether there should be control before or after performance. If you are going to substitute control after performance for the present system, it means common informers, public prosecutors, attorney-generals, the interference of local authorities, disturbances in theatres, agitations in the Press, and discussions in Parliament. On the other hand, if you retain the present system, all that happens is that a certain number of persons are undoubtedly aggrieved. Well, I am sorry that this should be the case, but upon the whole this is most emphatically one of those cases in which, to use the words of Mr. Birrell, minorities must suffer; and
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although I repeat that I am sorry that they or anybody else should suffer, it seems to me that as their sufferings are greatly exaggerated, and to an even greater extent self-inflicted, it is quite unnecessary to waste too much sympathy upon them, more especially if that sympathy should lead us to do away with a safeguard which, as far as we can tell, is in accordance with the wishes of the greater portion of the community.
LORD RIBBLESDALE: My Lords. I think it was Charles II who was fond of coming down to the House of Lords for the reason that it amused him as much as going to a play. I feel certain that if Charles II had been here this evening he would have said that in spite of the vicissitudes which have attended this Assembly in the lapse of centuries, he had still every reason to be entertained if he heard such a speech as that to which we have just listened from the noble Lord opposite. Like Lord Newton, I had the honour, and indeed the intellectual pleasure, which he does not seem to have shared, of serving upon the Dramatic Censorship Committee. But, unlike Lord Newton, I did change my mind to sonic extent during the proceedings of that Committee and on the strength of the evidence I heard. I went into the Committee taking the view, which Lord Newton quoted just now as that of Mr. Skimpole, that everything should be free, and holding strongly from my own point of view that nothing in the form of censorship should interfere with the free play of ideas or even of opinions. I agree with the noble Lord that the whole question of the Censorship as presented to us in that Committee teemed with difficulties, and I came round to a rather different view and was willing to sign cheerfully the rather compromising Report which the Committee ultimately decided upon.
The reasons I came rather round to this change of ideas proceeded on two main grounds. One is that you have this difference between London and Paris. In Paris you have a playgoing public perfectly well able to take care of itself, and in London you have a public which goes to the play, and you have that enormous suburban residential district all round London from which people bring up their sons and daughters at considerable expense to see the play; and I believe that that large playgoing public, however frail a

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fence the Censorship may be—and it would be but frail if the Report of the Committee were adopted—rather likes the idea of a fence of some kind. That was one reason. The other reason was that the advantage of the Censorship at present is that it makes a play a commercial commodity, and so I think to some extent it encourages managers and indirectly writers to produce good plays. I am afraid that if we had no Censorship we should have to prepare ourselves for an era of dull drama, for the actor-manager, who is the man who has to stand the shot of the money, would never dare to produce a play, because, as Lord Newton said, he would be afraid of local authorities, watch committees, and so on. I should be very sorry to see a dull period of drama which would prevent altogether our getting the good plays, many of which pass the Censor now, which I think Lord Newton called the plays of the advanced writers.
I am not going back in any detail to the Report of the Committee or to its controversies. My apprehensive eyes are much more fixed upon what is to happen in the future. As Lord Newton told the House, I went the other night to see the play "The Secret Woman." I will not follow him into that. I do not think I said that I could not discover the passages which could possibly be objected to. What I. said was that if a play like that was censored under the new arrangement of this Advisory Committee which had been added to the Lord Chamberlain's staff, I felt a little nervous of what the future of the drama was going to be, and it is to that that I mean to direct the few observations which I shall make this evening. Your Lordships know that this Advisory Committee which has been appointed was not considered a very good thing by the Joint Committee. In our Report we say that although such a committee might perform some useful functions, it would be quite inadequate to the solution of the question. To lead your minds a little in the direction which I believe to be necessary and requisite to any fair consideration of the question of the Censorship with a power of veto before production, I will read two or three sentences from the Committee's Report. Lord Newton did rather scant justice to the able school of writers who devote themselves to the treatment of a particular kind of idea or
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problem which he finds tedious, and of which, in short, he does not approve. That, of course, is a matter of opinion, and his opinion is as good as anybody else's, though I do not think that I am altogether prepared to congratulate him on that sort of stock-in-trade opinions. This is what the Committee say in their Report—
"More and more the theatre is attracting writers of intellect who desire to present through its agency sincere and serious dramas, critical of existing conventions. It is this fact, rather than any greater stringency than hitherto on the part of the Censor, which is the cause of the complaints that have found powerful expression before us."
Then the Report goes on to say that practically very few plays had been censored. Lord Newton was quite right in saying that the number was about 30 out of some 7,000. Then we go on to say—
"This is not the measure of the activities of the Censorship or of its effects. We were informed by the Examiner that almost every week plays are modified in greater or less degree to meet the objections of the Censorship; and we have been assured by playwrights that the fear of its intervention seriously hampers their work. To what extent these considerations operate is obviously incapable of measurement. A censorship of the Press might not touch one newspaper article in a thousand submitted to it, but its effect might be immense."
Then we go on to say that many people regard the drama as—
"a most useful vehicle by which great ideas, of profound importance to human well-being, whether touching on the relationships between the sexes or on other problems of human society, may be communicated by the thinkers to the citizens at large. Into this controversy we need not enter. It is clearly not the duty of the State to enforce by law the opinions of those who hold the former view, even if it be correct, upon those who hold the latter."
That I conceive to be important if we are to form any real impression of the difficulties of the Censorship.
What I am going to refer to particularly this evening is the Advisory Committee which has been added to the Lord Chamberlain's Department, and which I suppose is a powerful auxiliary of the Lord Chamberlain's. Lord Newton has told us who these gentlemen are, and I recognise at once that they are a panel of highly superior people in every way. You cannot have better men as representing law or as representing letters, or as representing the early Victorian notions of the drama in which I was myself nurtured. But by their fruits we must know them. We have

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not seen many yet; but the first thing they appear to have done was to censor the particular play which was referred to just now, and I admit that that makes me rather uncomfortable. In the Daily Telegraph of January 31 there was one of those inspired interviews which we occasionally read in the newspapers. A representative of the Daily Telegraph went down to the Lord Chamberlain's Department, and I need hardly say he was received with great courtesy, which is duly dwelt upon in the article. In this interview which is of considerable length, these words occur—
"Another subject touched upon was the work of the Advisory Board, the importance of which it was hinted had not, perhaps, been sufficiently appreciated in certain quarters."
I do not know what those quarters are, but I am inclined to think that the work of this Advisory Committee is likely to be very important, and it is on that point that I want to ask the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, three or four questions.
Being a fair-minded man, I took the precaution of submitting to my noble friend in a pretty defined way all the questions I intended to ask. The first question I should like to ask is, How does this Advisory Committee exercise its functions? Let me first of all remind your Lordships of the names of the members of the Committee. They are Sir Edward Carson, Mr. Buck-master, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Squire Bancroft and Sir Douglas Dawson. The Controller, in describing it to the Joint Committee, told us that the opinion of the Advisory Committee, if it was constituted, would only be called for when negotiations between the Department and managers had come to a deadlock. I should like to ask my noble friend whether this is so. In practice I believe I am right in saying that the decision of the Advisory Committee on the question of "The Secret Woman" was taken by the Department upon the first application for a licence. Then I should like to ask whether the members of the Committee themselves read the plays on which their opinion is asked. No doubt it could be got over by a number of typewritten copies, but it is hardly conceivable that people who are so occupied as Sir Edward Carson, Mr. Buck-master and Sir Walter Raleigh, who I believe is a lecturer at Oxford and a very eminent man of letters, would have time to read all the plays submitted to the Lord Chamberlain's Department. If they do not read all the plays, how is it done? Are the
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plays read to them? That is hardly conceivable. If the whole play is not read, I assume that isolated passages are read to them—that is, the passages to which the Examiner of Plays has taken exception. Well, are these passages read by the person who has taken exception to them? Because it is perfectly clear that the man who has interpreted the point in some particular way is hardly the person to put that point to the body whose opinion lie is asking. Then I should like to ask whether a manager or a writer is able to appear in his own defence before the Advisory Committee, or whether, as it were, only the case for the prosecution is heard.
The other two questions are, I think, very minor ones. I should like to know how many members of the Advisory Committee form a quorum, and whether on the minutes or in any other way a record is kept of the opinions of the various members of the Advisory Committee. The Lord Chamberlain knows, and we all know, that one of the reasons for the great exception taken by those who do not agree with the Censorship is the secrecy of the Censorship proceedings. If under existing circumstances records are kept of the views taken by the Advisory Committee it might be a very good thing, and it would possibly remove that notion of secrecy and covering up if some sort of idea was given to the writers of the view taken by the members of the Advisory Committee. I have nothing more to say. Speaking for myself, I very much prefer the old Censorship, the whole responsibility resting on the Lord Chamberlain, to the new arrangement by which this Advisory Committee has been created. On the other hand, the noble Lord below me (Lord Sandhurst) may be able to give me satisfactory answers to the four or five questions I have put to him, and, if that is so, my apprehensions as to the future will be to some extent removed.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: My Lords, may I add one question to those which have been put to the Lord Chamberlain. I was one of those who signed the Report of the Joint Committee, and the question that I should like to put is whether the noble Lord can inform me what the views of His Majesty's Government are with regard to this Report, and whether there is any prospect of their acting upon it. That was not at all, I know, the intention of my noble friend behind me, Lord Newton. I do not think he desires that His Majesty's Government should act upon the Committee's

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Report. The noble Lord, I venture to think, made rather light of the authors in this matter. It came really to this, that the main difference of opinion was between the authors and the managers of theatres, and it was the hope and intention of the Joint Committee that they had arrived at some solution which, I do not say would satisfy either of these two parties, but which would not be unsatisfactory—that is, by giving certain relief to the authors and at the same time giving that security to the managers to which they thought they were entitled; and so this solution was arrived at of retaining the Censorship, but of allowing authors, if they could Lind managers to act with them, to produce plays if they pleased which had not been brought before the Censor. I do not desire now to go any further into the details of the Committee's Report, but I would like to ask whether there is any prospect of His Majesty's Government taking any action upon that Report.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: My Lords, this debate was introduced by my noble friend Lord Newton in a speech full of his characteristic humour and spirit of chaff, but I am afraid I cannot share my noble friend's opinion that the whole question is a matter of no importance and of very little interest to other than a limited number of persons. I am not a dramatic author, but I am afraid I must plead guilty to regarding this question with that "portentous seriousness" of which my noble friend complains. Lord Newton said that until three years ago nobody, or rather I think he said only one person in a thousand, had ever heard that there was a Censor or knew what the operation of the Dramatic Censorship was. I think it right, therefore, to remind my noble friend that the history of the opposition to the Censorship is a little older than that. In fact I have myself, if I may say so, an hereditary interest in the question, because it is now just eighty years ago that the question was raised in Parliament by my grandfather, who emphatically condemned the operation of the Censorship, and urged that—
"the public taste, backed by the vigilant admonition of the public Press, may be more safely trusted for the preservation of theatrical decorum than any ignorant and bungling Censor, who (however well the office may be now fulfilled) might be appointed hereafter, who, while lie might strain at gnats and cavil at straws, would be without any other real power than that of preventing men of genius from submitting to the caprice of his opinions."
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I have been interested in reading the debates of that time and in noticing some of the arguments by which the Censorship was then supported.
One of the strongest opponents of my grandfather's Motion, one of the strongest supporters of the Dramatic Censorship in those clays, said that it would be impossible to mention a single case in which the Lord Chamberlain had refused to license a drama which could with any propriety have been played. I think even my noble friend Lord Newton would not be bold enough to make any such challenge to-day. He has himself reminded us that plays which had at one time been censored have afterwards been produced with the Lord Chamberlain's licence, and that many others that have failed to pass the Censor have been privately acted. Both he and Lord Ribblesdale referred to a play recently censored by the Lord Chamberlain which was privately produced within the last few weeks. Possibly some of your Lordships may have seen that play. If so, I do not think that any one of you would be prepared to say that it was unfit for production on the public stage. I am one of those who oppose very strongly the institution of the Dramatic Censor, but I hope that in anything I say on the subject it will be understood that I am not making anything in the nature of a personal attack upon the present holder of the office. It is the institution, and not the Lord Chamberlain, to which I object, and I hold that the operation of the Censor would be equally obnoxious, no matter in whose hands it was placed.
The Notice which my noble friend Lord Newton placed upon the Paper was to call attention to the Report from the Joint Select Committee of the House of Lords and House of Commons on the Stage Plays (Censorship), but I noticed that in his speech he was careful to refrain from calling attention at all to that Report. So far as I am aware, he never mentioned it beyond saying that he was in total disagreement with the recommendations to which his name was attached. I must therefore ask your Lordships to consider for a moment this Report, which is really the subject of our debate this evening. It is, to my mind, remarkable for two things. First of all, for the full admission which it makes of the justice of the case brought

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by the dramatic authors against the Censorship and of the theatrical managers in support of it. Secondly, it seems to me remarkable for the childlike simplicity with which the members of the Committee propose to take away the censorship from dramatic authors who object to it and to give it back, on the other hand, to managers who are in favour of it.
What was the case laid before the Committee? It was two-fold. First of all, there was the case of dramatic authors, who were quite unanimous in saying that the Censorship was a great hindrance to the development of serious drama. Now this contention was fully admitted by the members of the Joint Committee. They say on Pages VIII and IX of their Report—
"A Censorship with a power of veto before production is open to grave objection. Secret in its operation, subject to no effective control by public opinion, its effect can hardly fail to be to coerce into conformity with the conventional standards of the day dramatists who may he sucking to amend them. Those standards are not absolute. It is an axiom underlying all our legislation that only through the toleration of that which one age thinks to be error can the next ago progress further in the pursuit of truth."
And they sum up their opinion on this subject by saying—
"In view of the danger that official control over plays before their production may hinder the growth of a great and serious national drama, and of the grave injury that such hindrance would do to the development of thought and of art, we conclude that the licensing authority, which we desire to see maintained, should not have power to impose a veto on the production of plays."
The second case which was laid before the Committee was that of the theatrical managers, who with almost equal unanimity claimed that the licensing of a play before production was essential as affording them some security for the conduct of their business; and the Committee just as fully admit the justice of their contention, and just as emphatically recommend that the producers of plays should have access prior to their production to a public authority, which should have power to license the play as suitable for performance. If I may mention another instance of the contradictory nature of this Report, I would refer to what the Committee say on Page XIII, where they recommend the creation of an Advisory Committee, having already heard in evidence that this course was in contemplation by the Lord Chamberlain. They say that he would be well advised
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to pursue his intention of appointing his Committee; but at the same time, recollecting, perhaps, some of the criticisms made by other witnesses against such a Committee, they add that they do not regard its formation as at all adequate for the solution of the question, and they point out that in course of years precisely the same objections would attach to an Advisory Committee as already attach to an individual Censor. In effect, therefore, it comes to this, that in the opinion of the Joint Committee of the two Houses of Parliament who inquired into this matter, the Censorship of the Lord Chamberlain is in many respects admirable and ought to be continued, but in future nobody should be required to pay any attention to it. Secondly, that the obligatory licensing of a play is for many other reasons highly objectionable, and therefore ought to be abolished, but at the same time the owners of theatres may refuse to allow other than licensed plays to be produced at the theatres belonging to them, thereby making once more the Lord Chamberlain's licence obligatory for every play.
Then, again, the secret and irresponsible character of the Lord Chamberlain's veto is, in the opinion of these gentlemen, a hindrance to the production of serious drama, to protect which they suggest that a Committee of the Privy Council, equally secret in its proceedings and equally irresponsible is to be given powers even more sweeping than those of the Lord Chamberlain; and lastly, they recommend an Advisory Committee to assist the Lord Chamberlain, although they admit that that body will possess all the disadvantages which attach to the Lord Chamberlain's Office itself. The fact is, that a most heroic attempt has been made by these gentlemen to please everybody, and the result is they have met the fate common to such ambitious persons—they have pleased no one, not even themselves. My noble friend Lord Newton repudiated the whole Report; Lord Gorell has pointed out the strong legal objections to setting up a law which is no law, a Censorship which is no Censorship; Lord Ribblesdale told us that, having seen in the last few days a play which had received the censorship of the Lord Chamberlain, he was now inclined to consider the question of abolishing the Censorship. The authors are not satisfied; they realise that the concessions made to them by the Committee

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were entirely illusory. Lastly, I feel quite sure that the Lord Chamberlain himself is well aware of the impossible position in which be would be placed under the recommendations of the Committee, and therefore he ignores their recommendations, and up to the present nothing whatever has been done. Of course, when I say that he ignores their recommendations and that nothing has been clone, I do not forget the one exception of the Advisory Committee. And, my Lords, I am not at all surprised that that should have been the one recommendation of the Committee which he has adopted. In the first place, it was his own suggestion, made without consulting the Committee at all; and, secondly, it seems to me to be a practice of our modern life which is rapidly becoming almost universal, that wherever the smallest relic of individual responsibility can be detected—and evidence of real responsibility is becoming as rare as a white blackbird—you should immediately smother it up by appointing some sort of Committee. Already the responsibility of the Lord Chamberlain is diluted and shared with two Examiners of Plays and their staff, but still the act of censorship exercised by the Lord Chamberlain is one of the few remaining acts of government the responsibility for which can more or less be traced to a single individual. I am not surprised, therefore, that the Lord Chamberlain, who happens to be the responsible person in this case, should have hastened to screen himself behind the inevitable Committee.
Now, if the recommendations of the Joint Committee are so contradictory and unsatisfactory in their nature, it is only fair to ask, What then is the remedy for dealing with the question of the production of plays? I have no hesitation in saying that the only remedy to my mind is the frank abolition of the power to censor a play in manuscript previous to its production—a power which is simply an obsolete survival of a bygone age, which is hopelessly out of date at the present time and entirely mischievous in its operation. Other speakers have referred to the fact that most of the witnesses before the Joint Committee dwelt upon the necessity of exercising some sort of control of dramatic performances. I quite admit that, but control of performances is a very different thing from censorship of manuscripts. If after production it
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can be proved that the performance of any play is attended with consequences seriously detrimental to the public interest, then let it be dealt with by the machinery of the ordinary law. But the law which gives protection to the public in these matters must also give protection to those who are concerned in the production of plays. To place the producers of a play, the authors and the managers, at the mercy of any chance individual, would simply be to set up a censorship much more rigorous and much more arbitrary than that of which we complain to-day. At the present moment the manager of a theatre, on the payment of two guineas, can secure a licence for a play from the Lord Chamberlain which practically gives him indemnity against any objection which may subsequently be raised to the production of that play. I object to this patronage of the Lord Chamberlain just as strongly as I object to his veto, and I hold that it is only right that those who make a profit out of producing plays should bear the responsibility for any consequences which may result therefrom. It is, therefore, in my opinion the theatre which ought to be licensed and not the play, and just as in the case of the licence of a public house, the licence of a theatre ought not to be forfeitable for anything except a judicial reason. I hold that there is nothing to justify in the case of dramatic performances any exceptional machinery in the shape of individuals, or committees, sitting in camera. If there is to be any control, make your law as definite and adequate as you please, but let it be law and not private opinion which shall determine these matters.
There are some people who claim that a play differs so markedly and entirely from any other method of expressing or influencing opinion that it must receive exceptional treatment. I want to examine this contention for a moment. What is the justification for imposing upon plays a censorship which would never be tolerated for a moment in any other department of intellectual thought? My noble friend Lord Newton says that we have in fact a censorship to-day of books and newspapers and pictures and even of public speeches, but when he endeavoured to explain to your Lordships what that censorship was it simply amounted to this, that the censorship of a book was that of a publisher in the first instance and

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afterwards of the public; that the censorship of a picture was that of the Gallery to which the artist sent it; and that the censorship of a public speech was that of the audience to whom the speech was addressed. Quite apart from the Lord Chamberlain, such censorship does and always will exist in the case of a play. The theatrical manager corresponds to the publisher or the editor or the hanging committee of an Art Gallery, and the censorship of the public is the same in all cases. No one objects to these things or wants to get rid of them. My only contention is that the opinion of the Lord Chamberlain is no more required before the production of a play than before that of a book, a picture, a newspaper, or a speech. Freedom of expression, whether in writing or in speech—although I am afraid my noble friend will call this "portentous seriousness"—is one of the first indispensable liberties of a free people. We believe that we have that liberty in this country. Lord Newton very much doubts it, but we believe that we possess that liberty, and we are just as proud of it as we are of our Constitution—if we are still proud of that—of our Fleet, of our Courts of Law, of our roast beef, or of any of the other institutions which we regard as especially English, and, unless we are wholly hypocritical and insincere in the eulogies we shower on this precious liberty and the condemnation which we pass upon every infringement of it in other countries, the censorship of plays ought to be just as objectionable and odious as any other kind of censorship, and, if it is tolerable at all, only tolerable because of some special justification which distinguishes a play from any other form of expressed opinion.
The only justification that I have ever heard, and the only justification which my noble friend Lord Newton gave to the House to-day is that a play differs from a book in this one respect—that the words of a play are accompanied by action, and that they are not read in silence by scattered individuals, but spoken by an interpreter to a collection of human beings. Of course, all that is perfectly obvious; no one disputes it for a moment; and to a certain extent it is an argument, not in favour, but against the censorship of the manuscript of a play before its production; because if there is anything in the argument at all it comes to this, that it is the spoken
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and acted word, and not the written word of the author, which ought to be submitted for judgment. I quite agree that that difference between a play and a book or a speech is a sufficient ground for imposing certain legal restrictions upon the places where plays are performed. But, my Lords, it is no sort of justification at all for superseding in the case of a play the ordinary law, and setting up one man or a committee of individuals to be arbiters over other men's opinions. The drink shop differs in precisely the same way from a book shop. There are ninny people who think that the evils of selling drink are so great that drink shops, ought to be put down altogether. Many people deplore the effects of the sale of liquor, but no one would suggest that the Master of the King's Household, and he alone, should determine what liquor should be sold in every public house in the country. Whatever may be the difference between the influence exercised by a play and by a book or a speech or any other method of expressing opinion, the arguments put forward by way of justification for requiring the author to submit his writings to a Court official before they are reproduced on the stage are precisely the same. They do not differ in the least from, or are not at all more convincing than, the arguments which could be used in favour of establishing a censorship of newspapers or books or speeches.
But I may be told that if we establish complete freedom of the stage it may be abused; that it may lead to the presentation of sentiments or opinions and scenes which would shock the susceptibility of certain individuals. Of course it will be abused, just as absolute freedom in newspapers or in books or in speeches or any other matters is abused. I have no doubt my noble friend Lord Newton feels that if no opinions other than those licensed by himself, or the Lord Chamberlain, or by some other "man of the world," were to be uttered in a book or a speech, the influence of our literature, of the Press, and of our public platforms in this country would be very much more wholesome and beneficial than is the case to-day. All that may be very true. But let my noble friend introduce a Bill in which he attempts to enforce a censorship of that kind, and I am sure it would not be long before he found out the reception it would receive

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even in this House. But, my Lords, I do not want to argue this question simply and solely on the grounds of abstract theory. I am just as much concerned in protecting the interests of the drama as I am in defending popular liberties. The fact is that the Royal licence obtained for a play at the present day is already just as much abused as the fullest possible measure of liberty could be. The Lord Chamberlain's licence does not ensure a high moral standard of dramatic art. Its only effect is to protect the particular moral conventions of the day. Problems of sex, marriage, politics and religion are all discussed, on the stage, and so long as they are treated in a light-hearted manner—like my noble friend Lord Newton's speeches—so long as there is plenty of make-believe in them, and so long as they are put forth in a conventional setting, they are stamped with the approval of the Crown and receive Royal licence and patronage.
But it is precisely the conventional standards of their day that the protestants of every age—"the pioneer authors," as Lord Newton calls them—are concerned to challenge. When they believe that conventional standards are misleading, it is only by a direct assault on those standards that they can hope to arrest the attention of the people whom they are trying to influence. Therefore the very first object of these men is to shock people out of their complacency. Their purpose is to shock. That is their object—to make people thoroughly uncomfortable, by forcing them to look unpalateable truths in the face. It is precisely against these people that any kind of censorship, no matter by whom exercised—whether by the Lord Chamberlain or by an Advisory Committee—must inevitably erect an insuperable barrier. It is just that which is the business of a Censor. It is his business to prevent people from being shocked. They may be amused by witty representations of profligacy; they may lie harrowed by realistic representations of crime, or bored by moral lessons which deal with only obvious matters; they may even be corrupted by a subtle process which familiarises them with, and leads them to be entirely indifferent to, the social evils by which they are surrounded. All that may pass any Censor; but people must never be offended by any representation of the ugly realities of human conduct and
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human motive. That is why a number of writers, who as my noble friend thinks have such an exaggerated idea of their own importance, those who are protestants against what they consider to be false and misleading conventional standards, feel that they are debarred from writing for the stage, and that is why the drama has failed to fulfil its proper share in contributing to the progress and enlightenment of human thought. [LORD NEWTON: How many?] My noble friend asks how many dramatic authors are debarred from writing for the stage. How can I tell him how many? A child once said that a pin had saved a multitude of lives by people not swallowing it. I cannot say how many lives a pin has saved, nor how many dramatists the Lord Chamberlain has discouraged. But if my noble friend will study the evidence brought before his own Committee he will see that one witness read letters from many of the best known authors of the present day in which they declared that among the reasons which had deterred them from writing for the stage was the feeling that they could not express themselves with freedom because of the operation of the' Censorship. Supporters of the Censorship draw a terrible picture of the evils which would result from establishing complete dramatic freedom. I am left entirely unmoved by these suggestions that if you were to do away with the censorship of the Lord Chamberlain disastrous consequences would overtake the country. I reply to these prophets of evil that we have already examples in America, in our Colonies, in Ireland, and even in the music-halls of this country. In all those places there is no Censorship to-day, and yet the disastrous consequence, the reign of profligacy and debauchery with which we are menaced without Censorship, is not to be found there. If it is true that an unfettered stage is capable of a considerable amount of harm, it is also true that it is capable of a considerable amount of good, and I am quite prepared to see the dramatic authors of this country fight out this battle of good and evil among themselves before the play-going public. I am quite confident that without the assistance of the Lord Chamberlain at all in any age and in any country serious writers, co-operating with serious actors and actresses, can be relied upon to ensure that the influence of the drama shall be a wholesome one in our national life.

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I feel sure that it is quite unnecessary for me to disclaim any desire to provide immunity for those persons, if there be any, who want to make the influence of the stage more licentious or the drama a vehicle for obscene or scurrilous or seditious ideas. I feel sure that no one would accuse me of such a motive. Among all those persons—and they are more numerous than my noble friend thinks—who are opposed to the censorship of the Lord Chamberlain there is not one who does not oppose that institution from the highest possible motives and in the best interests of the drama itself. We who oppose the Censorship do so because we believe that the arbitrary interference of a State official with the work of dramatic authors is hostile to the best interests of the drama by discouraging able writers from devoting their efforts to that particular sphere of literature, by placing the seal of official approval upon many plays which are entirely frivolous and some which are even pernicious, while at the same time prohibiting others which have a high moral purpose; and we believe that if the stage is left free from all restrictions except those which are imposed by the ordinary law of the land, its influence will be better and not worse as the result.
LORD SANDHURST: My Lords, the occasions on which the Lord Chamberlain addresses your Lordships are so infrequent that during the long time I have been a member of your Lordships' House I do not think I have ever heard a Lord Chamberlain called upon to say anything on behalf of his Department. That being so, I feel inclined to begin the few remarks I want to make with a sentence which. I tremblingly uttered in this House over thirty years ago, in which I asked for your patience and indulgence on account of my then youth and inexperience. I am quite certain that I need all your Lordships' indulgence to-day, though I cannot claim it on the former grounds.
My Lords, I am not sorry that this debate has taken place. I will even say that I am obliged to my noble friend Lord Newton for having brought it forward, because for some time—long before I had the honour of becoming Lord Chamberlain—there has been a certain amount of indiscriminate criticism as regards the Office of what is called the Censor of Plays, and I think it is an advantage that I should
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put clearly before your Lordships where the actual and practical responsibility does rest, and also the procedure by which these matters are conducted. Lord Newton was very complimentary to the Advisory Committee. I think he called me and the Controller of my Department a couple of innocent lambs. I sincerely trust that we shall not be offered up for immediate slaughter. I also Lope that your Lordships will find that I shall not shrink from the responsibility which is undoubtedly my own. Lord Plymouth asked whether there was any intention of the Government acting on the Report of the Joint Committee. In reply to that question I have to say that the Report has not yet been considered by the Government with a view to legislation.
My noble friend Lord Ribblesdale asked me five very clear questions to which I think I shall be able to give him an answer which he will think equally clear; hut if he will allow me, I will do it when I come to the portion of my remarks under procedure, and if by any mistake my answer is not categorical enough I shill be very glad, with the leave of the House, to make the matter clearer. In the interesting speech to which we listened just now from the noble Earl Lord Lytton, he very truly said that he had a hereditary interest in this question, for Lord Lytton represents the third generation of a family whose distinction in art and literature has been recognised for a very long period of years. But if we did anything of the description that my noble friend wishes, I think it could only be done under legislation specifically brought in for that purpose.
Two noble Lords have quoted extracts from the Report, and perhaps your Lordships will allow me to sketch very briefly the process or the processes in regard to the Office of the Lord Chamberlain. I do not know whether your Lordships have studied the Report on these matters or not, but it states that the theatres were connected with the Court at any rate since the time of Henry and were under a Master of the Revels. In 1628, according to the records in the Lord Chamberlain's Office, the Lord Chamberlain personally, or through the Master of the Revels, licensed theatres or closed them and had a general control over the work of dramatists. In 1737 was passed Walpole's Act, which made the functions of the Lord Chamberlain statutory. I think it was then that the office of Examiner of

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Plays was created, and it has existed from that day to this. The first Parliamentary Committee dealing with the matter was held under the presidency of the grandfather of the noble Earl opposite in 1832. That Committee reported in favour of some changes as to the licensing authorities, but the Report says that the Lord Chamberlain should have control. In 1843 was passed the Act which replaced Walpole's Act of 1737, and which is now the statutory authority under which the Lord Chamberlain acts. In 1853 a House of Commons Committee reported that the Censorship had worked well and should be maintained. In 1866 another Committee, having heard much evidence from people who were opposed to the Censorship, reported that the censorship of plays had worked satisfactorily, and that it was not, desirable that it should be discontinued. In 1892 there was a fourth Committee, which endorsed the judgments of its predecessors; and in 1909 the Report which we are discussing this evening recommended that the licensing of plays should remain under the control of the Lord Chamberlain and that the office of Examiner of Plays should be continued.
Then in regard to the Advisory Committee, it has been said that the statement in the Report is half-hearted, but still this phrase does occur—
"We consider that the Lord Chamberlain would be well advised to proceed with the formation of a Consultative Committee such as he was about to constitute when our inquiry was begun,"
and the Report goes on to express the hope that no undue delay should occur. And as to the access of authors to the licenser, the Committee declare against the proposal unless the authors as a body desire it. Now my Lords, I have ventured to show that since 1832 successive Committees have held the view that the Office should be in the hands of the Lord Chamberlain, that the Examiner of Plays should continue, and that the Lord Chamberlain should have control; and that position was endorsed and made statutory, as I have pointed out, by the Act of 1843.
I desire, as I said just now, to make the position perfectly clear as to where the responsibility rests, and also to make clear the procedure with regard to the office of Lord Chamberlain. Much has been said of the power of the Censor. The whole responsibility rests, not with the reader or the examiner, but with the man who for the
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time being is Lord Chamberlain. When the Committee reported, they recommended that there should be an Advisory Committee; and as has already been shown by Lord Newton, that Committee was already in process of formation before this Joint Committee was appointed in the days of my predecessor. It naturally took some time to arrange, because the selection of names was by no means easy. There was naturally anxiety to get the very best, possible Advisory Committee together, and when the names had been selected the Lord Chamberlain of the day thought it wise to hang it up for a short time in view of the Parliamentary Committee that had been appointed.
Reference has been made to the names of the members of the Advisory Committee—Sir Edward Carson, Mr. Buckmaster, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Squire Bancroft and Sir Douglas Dawson. Of course, those of us who take an interest in politics know all about Sir Edward Carson and Mr. Buckmaster. They are at or near the head of the learned profession which they adorn. Sir Squire Bancroft has over fifty years' experience of acting and actors, and for a long time was a very successful actor-manager. Sir Walter Raleigh is an Oxford Professor of Literature, and it also happens, as I think my noble friend Lord Newton pointed out, that Sir Douglas Dawson, who as Controller is ex officio a member of this Committee, is in the position of having been in foreign capitals for a large number of years. He also is a profound French and German scholar, and I know that the rest of the Committee have found his knowledge of languages of very great assistance in these matters. Sir John Hare was a member of the Committee until he was reluctantly obliged to resign owing to returning to the stage. Now I venture to say, my Lords, that this Advisory Committee is a body which certainly is entitled to command confidence. My noble friend Lord Ribblesdale asked what constituted a quolum. There is no quorum for this simple reason, that, it would be almost impossible to get these gentlemen to come together at any particular time. I will explain how that is in a moment.
I now come to the actual procedure. The play is received by the Lord Chamberlain It is referred to a reader, and comes back to the Lord Chamberlain with a synopsis attached, and I beg to point this out to your

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Lordships that it is the play and not the synopsis which is the predominant partner of those two things. A play may appear objectionable as a whole, or certain phrases or passages in it may appear objectionable to the reader. Then the play comes to me, and after I have seen it and been through these objections—that is, the play, not the synopsis—the play is then circulated to the various members of the Advisory Committee, who furnish me with their views upon the objections. Each member of the Advisory Committee reads the play and attaches his opinion of it in writing, and with the play those opinions are recorded. The play may possibly be so objectionable as a whole that on the advice of the Advisory Committee I should hardly feel justified in giving the licence to it; or the objections to certain phrases or passages may be upheld by the Advisory Committee. Then the usual course would be that I should be advised by them that the play may be licensed subject to the deletion or the alteration of these phrases, and it frequently happens, after correspondence or an interview with the author or with the manager of the theatre, that these objectionable phrases are deleted or changed, and the licence is granted. But supposing that we cannot come to terms, further communications and further interviews take place so as to see if matters can be arranged. If, however, the objectionable phrases are adhered to, the licence can be given subject to the deletion of those phrases, and the licence is so endorsed. But again, my Lords, this may happen, and does happen. The Advisory Committee may advise me that they do not see any objection in the phrases to which the reader may have taken objection, and in that case it is for me to decide whether or not the licence should be granted. I apologise for using the personal pronoun so much, but of course I am referring to the office of the Lord Chamberlain. While we have heard a lot from time to time of the power of the Censor to discard this work and to throw out that work, what I have just said points to this, that the reader's view is not always taken.
LORD RIBBLESDALE: Might I interrupt the noble Lord for one moment? I am afraid he has passed away from my questions. There is one question which he took no notice of—not wilfully, of course. The question I asked was whether a manager or an author was allowed to submit any defence to the Advisory Committee.
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If the Advisory Committee never meets because they can never get a quorum, apparently that would be impossible. Therefore I ask what access has he to the Advisory Committee? Is it only by correspondence?
LORD SANDHURST: I do not know that he has any access to the Advisory Committee, but he has plenty of opportunity of coming to the Lord Chamberlain, who is the person really responsible for the granting of the licence. It would be almost impossible to get the Advisory Committee to meet, certainly frequently, because the members of it are men of great eminence, and naturally rues of many Occupations which would preclude them from coming together, at any rate often; but, as I said just now, matters frequently are arranged between authors and managers at the Lord Chamberlain's office, and I need hardly say that it is our wish to work this business as sympathetically as we possibly can. I am sorry if my noble friend thought that I overlooked his question, but I thought that it was partially answered by the foregoing sentences.
I venture to submit to your Lordships that there can be no indignity in the process I have described. I think indignity was the word used by my noble friend Lord Lytton; but with all the care that I have endeavoured and shall endeavour to exercise in this matter, and seeing, while I do not give away an atom of the responsibility that rests on me, that I have a good and capable Advisory Committee to assist me, I do not think the procedure can be called either arbitrary or autocratic. It will be seen that it is not the exercise of a single opinion as to the propriety or fitness of a play vested in one individual with power to set aside the work of the author. It is not merely the opinion of one man against another. As I have shown, the reader is not the Censor; the reader's opinions have to run the gauntlet of the Advisory Committee, and I can assure my noble friends who have spoken strongly on behalf of authors that the greatest care and thought are bestowed and every effort is made before a decision is come to.
Speaking for myself, I certainly am of opinion that there must he a control in these matters by the Lord Chamberlain or by some body. I am quite convinced of that. Various Committees have advised it, and the Act of 1843 endorsed it. The Report suggests certain changes by legisla-

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tion. Well, the Report, as I told Lord Plymouth, has not been considered by the Government with a view to legislation, and I think noble Lords would not expect me to commit myself, without further experience at any rate, one way or the other. But perhaps I may be allowed to say two things. One is that, speaking for myself, I do consider that the present plan is prompt and inexpensive. It has the approval and support of the mass of the managers, and I really do believe that on the whole, which is as much as we can say of anything, it has worked well. It is not impossible, on the other hand, that with changes on certain lines suggested there might be greater expense to all parties concerned. There might be found difficulties of working. There might be found insecurity to managers and the vast number of people whom they employ, and there might be considerable delay in settling differences. Beyond those hints I do not say anything, except perhaps that I might be allowed to add that, supposing some alterations in these directions were made, it is not by any means impossible that the alterations might act to the prejudice of the authors themselves. I can well believe that many managers would be chary of accepting plays on certain subjects, and in that way the author's position might be more difficult than before.
It has been said that there is a feeling amongst some authors and some men of very distinguished literary ability that their work should not in any way be interfered with. I am afraid I cannot share that view. It cannot be denied, I think, that some protection to the public is necessary as regards stage plays, and also I venture to say in regard to the drama itself. In some quarters there is an assertion that the doors of the Lord Chamberlain's office are closed to authors. I can assure your Lordships that there is no ground whatever for this assertion. I have endeavoured to show, by what I have said about correspondence and interview, that this is contrary to the fact. I can also emphatically say that every play, ether constructed on conventional lines or dealing with interesting problems of human nature by new methods, does receive and will receive equal and unbiassed consideration. I am grateful to your Lordships for your kindness to me on the first occasion that I appear in this capacity. In conclusion, I roust say that it seems to me to be the fact that in dealing with these matters in regard to stage plays
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and the Censorship the position is very much as in dealing with other delicate matters where the personal question comes in and where control has to be exercised. I certainly can truly say that I most sincerely recognise that these matters have to be dealt with with much patience, with the greatest consideration, and with the most tactful endeavours to satisfy those with whom we come in contact, and with the aid of the advisers who are at my disposal I shall endeavour to work on these lines.

THE CONGO.
THE LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER,THE LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, who had given notice "to call attention to the affairs of the Congo," said: My Lords, I think at this stage of the sitting I shall consult the convenience of the House, and perhaps the importance of the subject, if I ask leave not to proceed with the matter to-night, but put the Notice down for Thursday, which day I have ascertained is convenient to the noble Viscount who represents the Foreign Office.

IRISH CREAMERIES AND DAIRY PRODUCE BILL. [H.L.]
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD ASHBY ST. LEDGERS): My Lords, I ask leave to submit for First Reading a Bill dealing with the important butter industry in Ireland. Your Lordships will no doubt be aware that the creameries in Ireland produce a very large percentage—roughly one-half—of the total output of butter, and Irish creamery butter has enjoyed a high reputation. Perhaps on that account it has been subjected to various frauds in both England and Ireland, and owing to the absence of any statutory definition of what creamery butter is, it has been found impossible to secure convictions in the Courts for those frauds under the Merchandise Marks Act. The first thing to do is to clearly establish a definition, and that is done in the Bill. The definition follows the recommendation of a Departmental Committee which sat during the years 1908 and 1909. The definition secures that creamery butter must be manufactured from cream which has been separated from milk on premises registered as a creamery or cream separating station by means of centrifugal force applied by mechanical power, or which has been supplied from a registered cream-separating station. That defines what Irish creamery butter is.

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Clause 2 provides for the registration of creameries, and such a register will be kept by the Department of Agriculture in Ireland. Then there are certain conditions under which creameries can be registered. I may say that all existing creameries will be entitled to be registered, so that no hardship should arise in regard to any existing creamery. There is another thing which has militated very much against the butter industry in Ireland. It arises from the fact that during some months of the year there is very little milk to be obtained in Ireland owing to the absence of winter dairies, and many of the creameries have been forced to close; but some creameries have resorted to the practice of importing foreign and colonial butter, or even of purchasing butter from the farmers in the market, and issuing that butter without a proper description indicating that it is not butter made in the creamery and not really creamery butter at all. The Bill will provide that it will be an offence to issue butter of this kind without a proper description, and especially requiring that there shall be a distinct and sufficient indication that such butter is not Trish creamery butter.
There is another provision with regard to unclean milk. Complaint is very generally made that impure milk is supplied to these creameries. Of course, the introduction of any impure milk into a creamery can ruin the entire output of the creamery for that day. I may say the difficulty is that if one creamery manager refuses to take such
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milk, competition is so keen that the milk can be easily disposed of to another creamery. The managers of the creameries are themselves the servants of the suppliers, and therefore it is extremely difficult for them to know what means they can adopt to deal with this evil. The Bill proposes to make the supplying of unclean milk and butter an offence. Those are the main provisions. The rest of the Bill deals with penalties and interpretations and general machinery. The Bill has been submitted to all the associations connected with the butter industry in Ireland and its principles have been approved. The Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, the Irish Butter Trade Association, and the Irish Creamery Managers' Association have all signified their approval of tie principles of the Bill, reserving to themselves, however, the right to get Amendments moved by those who represent them, if they see tit, on the Committee stage. I think this will be generally admitted to be a useful measure, and I hope your Lordships will give it a First Reading to-night and allow me to put it down for Second Reading on a day soon after Easter.
Moved. That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Ashby St. Ledgers.)
On Question, Bill read 1a; and to be printed. (No. 17.)
House adjourned at five minutes before Seven o'clock, till To-morrow, a quarter past Four o'clock.