Sitting of 16 July 1923

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Maidstone Corporation Bill,
Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley and Dukinfield Tramways and Electricity Board Bill,
Tees Valley Water Bill,
Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
Dover Harbour Bill,
As amended, considered:
Ordered, That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the Third time.—(The Chairman of Ways and Means.)
King's Consent signified; Bill read the Third time, and passed.
South Staffordshire Mond Gas Bill [Lords],
West Gloucestershire Water Bill [Lords],
As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.
Bournemouth-Swanage Motor Road and Ferry Bill [Lords],
West Hartlepool Corporation Bill [Lords],
Read a Second time, and committed.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  INDIA.

    MOPLAH PRISONERS, ANDAMAN ISLANDS.
    Mr. J. HOPE SIMPSONasked the Under-Secretary of State for India how many Moplah prisoners are now detained in the Andaman Islands; whether they are accommodated in the convict barracks in the penal settlement or on another
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    island; whether there is any proposal that these prisoners should settle permanently in the Andaman Islands; and whether any, and, if so, how many, Moplah women and children have been transported there for settlement?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Earl Winterton): In accordance with my promise to the hon. Member, the Government of India were asked at the end of April by cable to send papers, showing in full the arrangements made. Those papers have not yet been received, and a further request has been telegraphed. In it specific mention has been made of the points raised in the present question. The Government of India have informed the Secretary of State that no special arrangements are made to segregate Moplahs from association with other convicts. They are treated similarly to others, except that the initial period of cellular confinement is frequently shortened.
    Mr. SIMPSON: Is there any intention of making a settlement for these prisoners on the Andaman Islands?
    Earl WINTERTON: I am asking for fuller information. I understand the intention of the Government of India is at as early a date as possible to close down the whole settlement, but it is not possible to do so at the moment owing to lack of accommodation elsewhere.
    Colonel Sir CHARLES YATE: Will the Government not reconsider the question of closing the Andaman Islands settlement, as it might at times be useful?

    COAL MINES.
    Mr. T. SMITHasked the Under-Secretary of State for India what is the total number of men, women, and children under the age of 14 that are employed in underground work in the coal mines of Bengal, Central India, and Southern India; and what are the average wages for men, women, and children so employed?
    Earl WINTERTON: The number of men, women, and children employed in underground work in the coal mines of British India in 1921 was 65,786,42,000, and 1,171 respectively. The returns relate to children under 12 (not under 14). About

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    90 per cent. of the above workers were employed in Northern India (Bengal and Bihar and Orissa). Statistics of the average wages paid are not available.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Are we to understand that we tolerate the employment of children under 12 years of age in a country under British rule?
    Earl WINTERTON: From 1st July, or some date in the summer of next year, the employment of children under 13 will be prohibited throughout British India.
    Mr. SMITHalso asked what was the total number of accidents, in the 10 years 1913 to March, 1923, in the coal mines in India; how many cases were fatal; how many cases of serious injuries; and how many were reported as slight injuries and what was the total amount of compensation or pension paid in each of these three groups of victims?
    Earl WINTERTON: The official returns for the 10 years to 31st December, 1921, the latest available, do not give the total number of accidents in coal mines or the number of slight injuries. During that period there were 1,465 fatal accidents, involving 1,871 deaths, and 2,212 serious non-fatal accidents, involving serious injury to 2,306 persons. There is no information as to the amounts of compensation or pension paid in these cases. As the Workmen's Compensation Act was not yet in force during the period, the payment of compensation was enforceable only by civil suit.
    Mr. SMITHfurther asked what was the total number of men, women and children employed in the coal mines of India during the official year ending in March, 1923; what was the total number of days of employment in the year; the average number of hours of each shift; what was the total output of coal brought to the surface; and what quantity was exported out of India?
    Earl WINTERTON: The latest statistics available relate to the calendar year 1921. The total number of men, women and children employed in the coal mines of British India in that year was 190,647. There are no returns showing the number of days of employ-
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    ment in the year or the number of hours of each shift. The total output of coal in 1921 was 18,358,934 tons, and the quantity exported out of India was 273,648 tons.
    Mr. SMITH: Are we to understand that there is no information as regards the number of hours worked per day? If that is so, does not the Noble Lord think it time that some information should be obtained in this matter?
    Earl WINTERTON: I shall see if it is possible in a simple form, without involving the Government in great expenditure, to obtain the information asked for.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Are we to understand that there is no legislation restricting the hours of labour in coal mines in India?
    Earl WINTERTON: I shall require notice on that specific point, but there will be a great improvement in the conditions of labour when the Acts to which I have referred in answer to a previous question come into operation. With regard to restrictions of the hours of labour, I am not sure, but I believe that there is a Bill contemplated at the present time.

    TRADE UNIONS.
    Mr. SAKLATVALAasked the Under-Secretary of State for India when the Act for legalising and protecting trade unions in India was first drafted; how long has it been under consideration of the various provincial Governments and public bodies in India; when is the final draft likely to be ready; and will any opportunity be given to this House of seeing the final draft before it passes into law in India, and before it obtains the final sanction of the Secretary of State for India in Council?
    Earl WINTERTON: The Government of India first addressed provincial Governments on the subject of legislation for the registration and protection of trade unions in a letter of 12th September, 1921. The matter is still under consideration and I am unable to say when the final draft of the Bill will be ready. Copies will be available for the Library as soon as it is introduced.

    POLICE.
    Lieut.- Colonel HOWARD-BURYasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that the police force in the Punjab has been recently reduced by 4,000; and whether this reduction was carried out with the advice and recommendation of the Inspector-General?
    Earl WINTERTON: I am not aware of such a reduction. There is no mention of it in the Debates on the last Budget in the Provincial Legislative Council. If my hon. Friend will provide me with materials, I will look into the matter further.
    Sir PERCY NEWSONasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that, at the recent ex-service competition for the Indian Police, out of the very large number of officers demobilised or retired since the Armistice only 10 were prepared to accept appointment to the police, and that one of these was palpably illiterate; and will he inquire into the reasons for such a shortage of suitable candidates?
    Earl WINTERTON: The recent special ex-service competition for the Indian Police was open only to ex-commissioned officers of His Majesty's Forces or ex-permanent district inspectors of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Of the 595 candidates included in the final selection, all except one had actually held commissions during the War, and a certain number had held Regular commissions. All had distinguished records of service, and the 11 officers selected for appointment held between them, excluding mentions in despatches and foreign decorations, one D.S.O., seven M.Cs., one O.B.E., and one D.C.M. There is no foundation for the statement that any candidate has been appointed who was palpably illiterate. As I have already explained in answer to a question, the general educational standard required was not inferior to that normally required from competitors for the ordinary examinations.

  SUCCESSION DUTIES ACT (QUEBEC).
  Mr. A. M. SAMUELasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will raise at the coming
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  Imperial Conference the question of the Quebec Succession Duties Act of 1914, so far as it affects the estates of deceased British subjects not domiciled in the Province of Quebec?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): I am advised that His Majesty's Government do not propose to take the action suggested by my hon. Friend.
  Mr. SAMUEL: Is it competent for persons in this country, other than members of the Conference, to take action?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: One of the difficulties is that the Imperial Conference and the Imperial Economic Conference are represented by the Dominion authorities, and that this applies to an Act of one Province, Quebec, and that the Government of that Province will not bb represented at the Imperial Economic Conference or the Imperial Conference next year. This is primarily a matter for the Treasury.
  Mr. SAMUEL: Are other Dominions damnified by the action of the Provincial Legislature?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: That is so.
  Sir JOHN BUTCHER: In view of the great importance of this matter to British subjects who are not domiciled in Quebec, will my hon. Friend either have it brought before the Imperial Conference or brought directly before the Provincial Government of Quebec?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: To the best of my knowledge, the Provincial Government of Quebec are fully aware of all the various representations that have been made in the past.
  Mr. SAMUEL: Is not my hon. Friend aware that British subjects in England are very gravely affected, and it is not the duty of the Treasury to take the matter up?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: It is primarily a Treasury matter. I agree that British subjects are affected by this legislation, which is within the full competence of the powers of the Government of the Province of Quebec.

  RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION (CROWN COLONIES).
  Sir WALTER de FRECEasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether in maintaining a railway staff in any of the African Crown Colonies, it is the custom only to employ men who have specified duties to discharge for which they are specifically engaged, or whether there are also employed men whose duties depend on the creation of a regular amount of railway extension and development; and whether, in the latter case, he will consider the desirability of utilising private enterprise, under which all liability for the staff ceases when the work is complete?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The railway staffs in the African dependencies are the minimum necessary for efficient running and maintenance of the open lines, but for railway extension and development it is often desirable to lend some experienced officers from the open lines staff who have a knowledge of local conditions. When that is done the open lines establishment is kept up to the necessary strength by temporary promotions and temporary engagements of additional subordinate officers. In the circumstances, the last part of the question does not arise.
  Sir W. de FRECE: Did not Colonel Hammond in his Report urge the complete re-modelling of the staff?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Yes; I have read Colonel Hammond's Report. He is making another Report on another Colonial railway now, and is then proceeding to make a further Report on the Nigerian railways, and then we shall be in a position to consider railway policy together with the Report of the Committee now being set up. Until that is done I cannot undertake to make any immediate change.
  Mr. LAMBERT: Is it the policy of the Colonial Office to construct railways by Departmental enterprise?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: As I said the other day, in some cases that has been done and is done. The work is done sometimes by contract. We have no doctrinaire views in favour of the one or the other. It is entirely a question
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  which is the cheapest and the most efficient in the circumstances.

  WEST INDIES (WIRELESS STATIONS).
  Mr. HURDasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will state how many Government-owned wireless stations there are in the British West Indies and where; whether it is proposed to discontinue the use of any of these; and whether, in view of the inadequate communications between the islands, use could be made of wireless broadcasting?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The Governments of British Honduras, the Bahamas, Barbados and Trinidad possess their own wireless stations; the Governments of British Guiana and St. Lucia have taken over wireless stations from the Admiralty. There is no present intention of discontinuing the use of any of these stations; there is also an Admiralty station at Christiana in Jamaica, which is not now working. With regard to the last part of the question, arrangements are now in progress which will, I hope, result in putting communications with the West Indies on a more satisfactory footing: in the meanwhile it is not practicable to make use of broadcasting for this purpose, but the suggestion will be borne in mind.
  Mr. HURD: Is this matter coming before the Imperial Conference, in reference to the West Indies especially, in view of the new developments of wireless, which seem to dispel many of the difficulties which have hitherto stood in the way of communication with this country?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Yes; the question of Imperial wireless communication generally is coming before the Imperial Conference.
  Mr. HURD: With special reference to the West Indies?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I shall be there representing the West Indies, among others. If the West Indies in any way come into the general question, apropos of Canada or any of the other Dominions, certainly their interests and their part in any possible scheme will be taken into account.

  VOI-TAFETA RAILWAY.
  Mr. DENNIS HERBERTasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will consider the advisability of offering to pay a sum approximating to the cost of taking up the Voi-Tafeta Railway to some person or corporation, if such can be found, in consideration of such person agreeing to take over and maintain the railway for a period of years?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The materials of this line have now been purchased, with the sanction of the Treasury, by the Tanganyika Government, and will be utilised for railway development elsewhere in the territory. But, in any case, it may be confidently stated that no person or corporation acquainted with the present condition and the prospects of the Voi-Tafeta line from a commercial point of view would be disposed to enter into such an agreement as is suggested. The cost of taking up and re-laying the line elsewhere is estimated at £12,000, and the annual loss on working the line for some years to come at £8,000. Very large expenditure would also be required for the necessary re-alignment and reconditioning of the present military line, which has gradients up to one in twenty-five, and is quite impossible as a permanent line.
  Mr. HERBERT: Will the hon. Gentleman give me this information, in view of some information that was supplied to me a little time ago? Is this arrangement with the Tanganyika Government now so absolutely binding that the matter cannot be reconsidered and reopened in any way?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: It would be extremely difficult now to reopen the question. The representations of the Government of Tanganyika and of the merchants interested in Tanganyika have been heard on the one side, and those of Kenya and the merchants on the other hand. My Noble Friend the Secretary of State had to choose between the two.
  Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: Is it not a fact that this railway is being removed to Tanga, where the harbour is practically valueless?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I do not agree; I have been in the port of Tanga before the War in a fairly big ship. I agree that is is not as good a port as Mombasa.

  JAFFA (ELECTRIC STANDARDS).
  Mr. BECKERasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if his attention has been called to the fact that the Rutenburg Company in Palestine is erecting electric standards in Jaffa against the wishes of the municipality; is this being done with the Government's consent; and will he take steps to inquire into this owing to the unrest that is being caused by this action?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I am not aware that the Jaffa municipality has opposed the erection of electric standards in Jaffa. Nor am I aware that their erection, which has the full consent of the Palestine Government, has been the cause of unrest.

  IMPERIAL INSTITUTE (STAFF SALARIES).
  Sir WILLIAM DAVISONasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware of the inadequate salaries which are being paid to the staff at the Imperial Institute who, though on a par with civil servants employed in Government offices, are paid on a lower scale, which is not subject to regular increments; whether he is aware that the majority of the staff are in receipt of salaries of less than £200 per annum; whether the two-thirds of the Civil Service war bonus, which was paid since 1921, has now been reduced to one-half bonus for all ranks alike, whereby actual privation is being occasioned to many, especially among the lower paid officials, no graduation being allowed; and what action he proposes to take to remedy the grievances complained of, which are urgent and pressing?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I am aware that the funds at the disposal of the Institute, which have been reduced by the withdrawal of overseas contributions, do not permit of the payment of salaries on the scale which the Executive Council would desire; and further, that the council have judged it necessary, in accordance with the terms of the agreement with the staff to reduce the rate of bonus payment of which, by that agreement, depends on the income of the Institute being sufficient for the purpose. I am well aware of the difficulty in which this places the staff, but I fear that it will

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  not be easy to make any satisfactory arrangements so long as the future of the Institute is in its present state of uncertainty, and I shall therefore use my best endeavours to obtain from the contributory Governments a definite decision as to its future as soon as may be. I should add that it is unlikely that any definite decision will be obtained until the Imperial Economic Conference has taken place.
  Sir W. DAVISON: Does not my hon. Friend think it desirable, in view of the admittedly inadequate salaries being paid, that the Colonial Office should temporarily pay these gentlemen, who are in the position of civil servants, an adequate rate of pay? Does he not see the disadvantages of reducing the bonus by a 50 per cent. cut, seeing that the more highly paid are reduced by only some 7 per cent. and the more lowly paid by 22 per cent?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The Colonial Office has not any money to dispose of. It is a direct Vote of the Overseas Dominions and the Treasury, which is limited in amount in the Estimates before Parliament. Therefore, I cannot pay money to these people, though I thoroughly agree that the present pay of the staff of the Imperial Institute, owing to the withdrawal of contributions, is unsatisfactory.
  Mr. J. JONES: Will the hon. Gentleman be prepared to give the same consideration to, and use the same influence on behalf of the workmen, who have been cut down to what is not a proper living wage? I mean the working-men staff.
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: When I referred to the staff I included the wage-earning staff as well as the salaried staff.

  ADEN.
  Sir THOMAS BENNETTasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if any decision has yet been arrived at on the question of the transfer of Aden from the Government of India to the control of the Colonial Office?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The answer is in the negative.

  IRISH FREE STATE.

    RECORDS.
    Sir J. BUTCHERasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will state the nature of the Irish records which were saved from destruction in the Four Courts; whether some of these records are of the nature of public and State documents and are the property of the British Government; and whether, in view of the importance of preserving these public and State documents from possible destruction and of rendering them available for historical and political students, he will have them brought over to the Record Office in London and lodged there for safe custody?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: It would be impossible within the limits of a Parliamentary reply to answer the first part of the question, and I doubt whether in fact the remaining records have yet been completely examined or catalogued. As regards the remainder of the question, I can add nothing to the answer which I gave to questions on this subject on the 5th and 9th instant.
    Sir J. BUTCHER: Will my hon. Friend take steps to see that the remaining records are catalogued, and also, as regards such documents as are of a public and State character, that they are handed over to the British Government, whose property they are?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I am afraid that, according to my advice, I have to dispute the statement in the last part of the supplementary question. As I said last week, under the Order-in-Council of April, 1922, the whole Public Record Office and its contents were handed over and they are no longer the property of the British Government. I understand that the cataloguing is now in progress.
    Sir J. BUTCHER: Is it possible to hand over the property of the British Government to another State?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: It was done by an Order-in-Council of April, 1922.
    Sir HENRY CRAIK: Is such an Order-in-Council not prevented?

    RETIRED CIVIL SERVANTS (COMPENSATION).
    Sir J. BUTCHERasked the tinder-Seeretary of State for the

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    Colonies whether he is aware that the officials of the Irish Post Office and other civil servants in Southern Ireland, who retired in consequence of the change of Government, are entitled under Article 10 of the Treaty to compensation on terms not less favourable than those accorded to them under the Act of 1920, and that such Act defines salary as including remuneration allowances and emoluments; whether, prior to the minute of the British Treasury of the 20th March, 1922, placing supplementary pensions on a sliding scale subject to quarterly revision, British civil servants retired with a fixed supplementary pension not subject to revision; and whether, in view of the fact that this British Treasury minute was made after the Treaty, he will make representation to the Free State Government to grant compensation in accordance with Article 10?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: His Majesty's Government cannot regard it as unreasonable that in these cases bonus should be taken into account in the same manner as if the officers were retiring from the British Civil Service, and I do not think that the fact that the date of the Treasury Minute which gave effect to the wishes of the House of Commons in this matter was subsequent to that of the Treaty affords any ground for representations by the British Government.
    Sir J. BUTCHER: In view of the fact that the British Government have repeatedly pledged themselves to see that proper compensation and bonus are paid to these civil servants, will my hon. Friend take the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown as to whether these men are being properly paid or not?
    Mr. J. JONES: Will the British Government also use its influence with the Northern Government to see that the people who were persecuted and burned out are also compensated?
    Sir J. BUTCHER: May I have an answer to my question?
    Mr. JONES: May I have an answer to mine?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: It is not for me to approach the Law Officers. I will convey the suggestion of my hon. and
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    learned Friend the Member for York (Sir J. Butcher) to my Noble Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
    Mr. JONES: And mine also!

    IRISH GRANTS COMMITTEE.
    Mr. SHAKESPEAREasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Irish Grants Committee can and have made any advances to persons still resident in Ireland against claims or awards for compensation for damage to property or personal injury; and, if so, how many persons have applied for such advances and how many have been assisted?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I am glad to have this opportunity of correcting a misapprehension created by my answer last Monday to a supplementary question put by the right hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty. The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, as will be seen from the letter from my Noble Friend the Chairman of the Committee in this morning's Press. As regards the second part, no distinction is made in the Committee records between advances to persons resident in Ireland or resident elsewhere. The ex gratia grants or loans without security made since 1st April amount to £9,000 in respect of 927 persons, and in the last financial year £23,834 in respect of 3,200 persons. Advances on security of claims or awards for compensation now amount to £86,000 in respect of 326 persons since 1st April, and £42,774 in respect of 150 people in the last financial year.
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House whether, in assessing damage to lands, the Land Valuation Department is consulted?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: This is in Ireland.

    MALICIOUS INJURIES COMPENSATION (DEFENDED DECREES).
    Sir W. DAVISONasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can now give particulars as to the total amount of defended decrees for malicious damage in Southern Ireland between January, 1919, and July, 1921, which have been paid; and what amount remains outstanding?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I regret that I am not yet in a position to give the particulars asked for in my hon. Friend's question. I hope, however, to have them by Thursday next, and perhaps my hon. Friend would be so good as to put down his question again for that day.
    Sir W. DAVISON: Is my hon. Friend not aware that it has been stated in this House and to the claimants themselves, again and again, that in the case of defended decrees, these were to be paid months and months ago? Surely the British Government ought to take some action to secure that these unfortunate people are paid, when there is no difference of opinion on the matter?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I have not received particulars as to how many of these defended decrees have not yet been paid, but I believe the vast majority have been paid. I have asked for those particulars by word of mouth of Mr. Cosgrave himself.
    Mr. J. JONES: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in Northern Ireland men have lost years of wages, have had their houses destroyed, and have not received a penny of compensation?
    Sir MALCOLM MACNAGHTEN: Quite untrue!
    Mr. JONES: It is true!

  RUSSIAN VESSELS (SALE).
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the French Government recently proposed for sale at Marseilles a number of Russian war vessels, ice breakers, freight and passenger-carrying ships, tugs, and other vessels carried off by Wrangel in his flight from the Crimea; whether a note has been received from the Russian Government addressed to His Majesty's Government protesting against this sale of Russian property, and asserting the claim of the Russian Government to these vessels; whether British subjects have been warned against treating for the purchase of any of these vessels; and whether, in fact, any British subjects have purchased any of them?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Ronald McNeill): His Majesty's Government have received a Note from the Soviet Government protesting against the sale of these vessels. The answer to the third part of the question is in the negative. I am unable to say whether British subjects have purchased any of the vessels.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will the Government consider warning British subjects who may be ignorant of this Note against purchasing these vessels, otherwise they may be liable to seizure and it may lead to complications?
  Mr. McNEILL: I think one may presume that the purchasers of ouch property satisfy themselves as to the title of the vendor. It is not part of the duty of the Government to advise them.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Does the hon. Gentleman remember that when he received a Note protesting against our vessels fishing in northern waters, he did not let the fishermen know and it led to all sorts of trouble; and will he let possible purchasers know about this Note, so as to save them possible trouble?
  Mr. McNEILL: I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman will probably let them know.

  CEYLON (CONSTITUTION).
  Mr. LINFIELDasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if the Ceylon National Congress and other political associations in Ceylon passed resolutions criticising the proposed scheme for the revision of the constitution; if any such resolutions or memorials from these political bodies have been received by the Secretary of State; and, if so, why they have not been included in the Command Paper (1906) recently issued?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Several communications have been received from the Ceylon National Congress and other bodies interested in political developments in the island, including a Memorial, dated 23rd May last, from the Ceylon National Congress, which was received by mail too late for inclusion in Command

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  Paper 1906. It was not felt necessary to delay publication of the Paper, as the Memorial definitely states that the views of the Congress are contained in the memorandum printed as the first item in the Paper. I shall be happy to show the Memorial to the hon. Member should he wish, and to include it in a later Paper if there be any general desire for this course. It is impossible to print all the communications received, but it is believed that the documents printed give an adequate representation of the views held on the subject.

  RUMANIA (BRITISH CREDITORS).
  Mr. A. M. SAMUELasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the Agreement signed with the Rumanian Commission for the settlement of private debts due to British commercial creditors has been varied by the Rumanian law of 2nd June, 1923; whether he will point out to the Rumanian Minister of Finance, who has this week arrived here, that Article 12 of the new law is regarded by British creditors as being contrary to the existing agreement to which His Excellency M. N. Titutesco was a party; and will he request the Rumanian Government to give effect to the judicial decisions in favour of British subjects pronounced by the Rumanian courts of law against Rumanian commercial debtors?
  Lieut.-Colonel BUCKLEY (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): I have been asked to reply. The matter has been discussed with M. Bratiano, and I understand that, as the result of further discussions which have taken place between representatives of British creditors and M. Bratiano, the latter has undertaken that the law in question shall be so amended as to bring it into conformity with the agreements, and remove the hardships it inflicts in its present form on British creditors.
  Mr. SAMUEL: Will my hon. Friend see that a representative of his Department of the Foreign Office is present when agreements are arrived at between the Rumanian authorities and British subjects, so that it may be possible to see that these people do honour their agreements and bargains with British subjects?
  Lieut.-Colonel BUCKLEY: I must ask for notice of that question.
  Brigadier-General SPEARSasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether, in view of the fact that the Rumanian government has not even yet resumed sinking fund operations and payment of interest in gold lei on Rumanian government 4 per cent. bonds although they are under contract with the pre-War British holders of those bonds, he will consider making strong recommendations to the Rumanian Finance Minister on the subject?
  Mr. McNEILL: During the Rumanian Finance Minister's visit to London representations were made to him, as I informed the hon. Member on the 11th July, on all the various subjects affecting the economic and financial relations of Great Britain and Rumania. The specific point referred to by the hon. and gallant Member has, moreover, been brought to the notice of the Rumanian Minister in London, I regret to say, so far without any result whatever.
  Mr. SAMUEL: What is the good of making representations to people who pay no attention to those representations?
  Mr. McNEILL: I agree there is not much good.

  WIRELESS (FOREIGN OFFICE NEWS).
  Mr. FRANK GRAYasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many foreign stations pick up the wireless bulletin of news prepared in his Department and transmitted through the Leafield Station; and whether, in addition to the credit of 3½d. per word allowed to the Post Office in respect of the original transmission, there is a further credit for each station which receives the messages?
  Mr. McNEILL: The messages are addressed to all stations, so that it is open to anyone to pick them up. It is impossible to state definitely by how many foreign stations they are received, but an examination of the Continental Press shows that they are taken down and distributed in at least 18 European countries. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative.

  CANTON-KOWLOON RAILWAY.
  Mr. GERSHOM STEWARTasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give any information as to the recent attack upon the Canton-Kowloon Railway; whether the owners of the railway, including the British shareholders, are receiving the assistance of the present authorities at Canton; and whether Canton is at the moment under the Chinese republican authorities or under the followers of Sun Yat Sen?
  Mr. McNEILL: I have no information other than that which has appeared in the Press regarding the recent attack on the Canton-Kowloon Railway, in which no Europeans were involved. The second part of the question seems to rest on a misapprehension. There are no British shareholders, the owners of that part of the railway which runs on Chinese territory being the Chinese Government, and the obligations to British bondholders who subscribed the loan for the construction of the line have up to the present always been met. In regard to the third part of the question, the party of Sun Yat-sen are, according to the latest information received, still in power at Canton.
  Mr. STEWART: Has the service on the line been restored, and are trains now running?
  Mr. McNEILL: I cannot say without notice.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that trade is becoming increasingly difficult owing to the state of the railways in China, and will anything be done in the matter?
  Mr. SPEAKER: That question does not arise.

  PERU (BRITISH IMMIGRANTS).
  Mr. SAKLATVALAasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what was the number of British citizens who were in 1920–21 induced to go out to Peru for employment as advertised in England by the responsible agents of the Peruvian Government; when were these people repatriated to this country; what was the method adopted for computing the compensation
  1860
  due to them; what was the total figure of the awards agreed to; what amount has been actually obtained and distributed; and what measures are being taken by the Foreign Office to obtain the balance and to give full justice to these families who were left in a distressed condition for a long time?
  Mr. McNEILL: In spite of official warnings, nearly 300 British subjects proceeded to Peru in 1920–21 under the auspices of the Peruvian Government. Parties of 60, 32 and 30 persons were repatriated to this country in April, July and December, 1921, and about 60 others returned independently. The claims for compensation made by the returned emigrants were investigated by the Oversea Settlement Committee, account being taken of the actual hardship suffered, the family and other responsibilities of the claimants, and the reasonable probability of their having obtained permanent employment had they remained in this country. The sums actually received from the Peruvian Government and distributed amounted to £2,500. A claim has been presented to the Peruvian Government for a further sum of £1,114 in final settlement.

  TANGIER.
  Lieut. - Colonel HOWARD-BURYasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in order to arrive at a definite settlement, His Majesty's Government will be prepared to submit the Tangier question to the League of Nations for their decision.
  Mr. McNEILL: His Majesty's Government must await the result of the conversations now in progress between British, French and Spanish experts, before deciding upon a further course of action.

  PEACE TREATIES.

    STRAITS CONVENTION.
    Mr. NOEL BUXTONasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in view of the anticipated signature of the Treaty with Turkey, whether the Russian Government will be invited to sign the Straits Convention?
    Mr. McNEILL: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave him on 14th May last.

    TURKEY.
    Major Sir FREDERICK KELLEYasked the Prime Minister how much the military occupation of Constantinople and the Dardanelles has cost this country since the Armistice of 1918; and whether any part of this sum is recoverable from Turkey?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): The total cost of the occupation of Constantinople and the adjacent area is estimated roughly at £29,115,000, made up as follows:

    £

    Army

    22,500,000

    Navy

    6,000,000

    Air Forces

    615,000

    This figure does not, of course, represent the extra cost to the taxpayer, since the greater part of the occupying forces would otherwise have been employed elsewhere.
    The extra cost is estimated in the case of the Army at about £13,500,000, and of the Air Force at about £160,000.
    In the case of the Navy, about £2,500,000 can be clearly identified as additional expenditure, but the balance of £3,500,000 represents the cost of maintaining vessels regarded as part of the forces of occupation, and it is impossible to state how far these vessels would have been taken out of commission during the five years in question if they had not been employed in Turkish waters.
    The Allied Governments decided in January last to forego any claim against Turkey for the cost of occupation of Turkish territory since the Armistice of 30th October, 1918, and, accordingly, under the terms of the draft Peace Treaty, which is being concluded at Lausanne, such expenses are not recoverable from Turkey.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Treaty of Sèvres provided for the payment of the costs of occupation, and whether the figures he has quoted include the cost of the special preparations of last autumn?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I could not answer the second part of the hon. Member's question without notice, and I
    1862
    am afraid I cannot answer the first part. But whether it was in the Treaty or not, I should not look on the figures as being easily recoverable.
    Major PAGET: May I ask the Prime Minister whether, considering the advantages that these troops of occupation give to Constantinople, this may account for the delay in the Turks signing the Treaty?
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Prime Minister whether the Lausanne Treaty of Peace with Turkey has been approved by the Angora Government; when the evacuation of Allied troops from Constantinople and the Dardanelles will commence; and when the Treaty will be brought before this House?
    The PRIME MINISTER: No Treaty of Peace having yet been signed at Lausanne, His Majesty's Government are not in a position to say whether the draft terms have been approved by the Angora Government. For the same reason, I cannot at present make any statement in reply to the last part of the question. As regards the second part of the question, I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply which was given him on the 11th instant.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is now an arrangement to withdraw these troops at a reasonable time after the signature of the Treaty?
    Mr. BALDWIN: You can hardly say "an arrangement" until the signature has been accomplished. I quite hope and expect, when the signature is accomplished, the evacuation will take place very quickly.

    REPARATIONS (GERMAN NOTE).
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Prime Minister whether the recent German Note on reparations was addressed to the Government of the United States of America as well as to His Majesty's Government and the other Allied Governments; and whether any conversations have taken place between representatives of His Majesty's Government and representatives of the Government of the United States of America, on the subject of reparations and the present European situation?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. In reply to the second part, no recent conversations have taken place.
    Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLEasked the Prime Minister whether he will publish the main outlines of the British reply to the German Note before the actual text its sent, with the object of eliciting public opinion for the guidance of the Government on a matter of such vital importance?
    The PRIME MINISTER: If my hon. Friend is anxious, as I am sure he is, that the contemplated reply should meet, after full consideration, with the approval of our Allies, I am sure he will realise, upon reflection, that the last way in which to secure that object would be to publish even the main outlines in advance. Nor is it clear that any compensatory advantage would be derived from the guidance of public opinion, which does not always speak with a single voice.
    Mr. J. RAMSAY MacDONALD(by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister whether he is now in a position to state whether the reply to Germany will be communicated to the United States of America?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The answer is in the affirmative.

    BRITISH FORCES (CONSTANTINOPLE).
    Mr. SOMERVILLEalso asked the Prime Minister the exact effect of the pending withdrawal of the British troops from Constantinople on the finances of the country; what provision for the occupation was made in the Estimates and whether, by the withdrawal, any economies, and, if so, what, will be effected?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The additional recurrent cost of maintaining the existing British forces in Constantinople and the adjacent area instead of at their normal stations is estimated at £142,000 per month. This expenditure will be terminated on the withdrawal of the forces. On the other hand, the terminal charges for transport, etc., which will be entailed by the withdrawal of these forces, are estimated to be, approximately, £485,000. At the time when the Estimates for the current year were
    1864
    drawn up it was not anticipated that it would be necessary to retain for any considerable part of the present financial year the reinforcements dispatched last autumn, with the result that up to date there has been a considerable excess over the Estimate provision, and no savings on the Estimates as a whole can be anticipated as the result of the withdrawal.

  S. S. "LEVIATHAN"
  Sir W. DAVISONasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the British authorities have been unable to arrest the 200 deserters from British ships who form part of the crew of the "Leviathan," a United States ship, which has just berthed at Southampton, as the United States authorities claim that under international law the ship is United States territory and not subject to English municipal law; that at the same time the "Leviathan" has, in breach of American municipal law, contracted in Great Britain to take on board large stores of spirituous liquors for consumption on the return journey to the United States, so that she will not be handicapped in competing for passengers with British ships; and whether he will draw the attention of the United States Government to the above inconsistencies in making representations in connection with their refusal to allow British ships to retain liquor under seal while in American waters, such liquor being provided for consumption on the high seas and not within American jurisdiction?
  Mr. McNEILL: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. I understand that summonses have been issued in the case of a number of men believed to be deserters from British ships, and that some of them attended in Court, while others have not yet been traced. I have no information as regards the second part of the question, but will make inquiries. It would not, however, be a breach of American municipal law, so far as I am aware, for a United States ship to carry spirituous liquors obtained in England for consumption on the high seas.
  Sir W. DAVISON: Is my hon. Friend aware that, according to the Canadian Press that has just come over, a further

  1865
  grave inconvenience has been caused in this way, that a British ship sailing from Canada to Australia, which stopped at Honolulu, has been obliged to go on "dry" from that part, and—[HON. MEMBERS: "Shame!"]
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member should give notice of that question.

  ELLIS ISLAND.
  Mr. BECKERasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if any official representation has been made to the United States Government regarding the conditions prevailing on Ellis Island?
  Mr. McNEILL: Yes, Sir; repeatedly.
  Mr. BECKER: Has the hon. Member's attention been called to the fact that emigrants can go to Boston, and are not detained in any such place as Ellis Island, and could he recommend emigrants who go to America to travel via Boston?
  Mr. McNEILL: I must consider that. I was not aware of those facts.

  EMPIRE SETTLEMENT.
  Mr. ROBERT MORRISONasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether he is aware that over 100 British emigrants landed in Freemantle, Western Australia, on 3rd May last; whether he has any information as to how many have obtained employment; and what is happening to those who have not?
  Lieut.-Colonel BUCKLEY: Full information has been received by telegram from the Premier of Western Australia, but as it is very long, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  Following is the reply:
  Information has been received by telegram from the Premier of Western Australia to the following effect, namely, 132 settlers arrived on the steamship "Euripides" on the 2nd May. Of these, 36 were placed forthwith, 37 within three days, and the remainder within ten days, except four men for the group settlement
  1866
  scheme, who were placed in 14 days. 97 settlers arrived by the "Ormuz" on the 3rd May. Of these, 24 were placed within three days and the balance within 10 days, except five men for the group settlement scheme, who were placed within 14 days. A number of families and men who arrived recently are now in the State Migrants' Home. The delay in placing them is due to the temporary interruption of country work by exceptional rain. Otherwise, there is no difficulty in placing settlers within a few days of their arrival. Settlers are maintained at Government expense for three days and also after 10 days if still not placed.
  Sir CHARLES CAYZERasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department what steps are being taken to test and prepare would-be emigrants for oversea settlements; whether any concerted effort is being made to give unemployed men in the towns elementary training in work on the land so that they may be fitted for that work overseas; and whether this branch of his Imperial migration publicity campaign is being expedited before the winter sets in, when such work will be less possible and less useful?
  Lieut.-Colonel BUCKLEY: As I have previously stated in the House, the question of the provision of training, with a view to settlement overseas, is still under consideration. Co-operation with the Dominion Authorities is essential in this as in all other matters affecting settlement, and the question will be fully considered at the forthcoming Imperial Economic Conference. No special publicity campaign is in contemplation at present.

  AGRICULTURE.

    BULLS.
    Mr. SIMPSONasked the Minister of Agriculture how many bulls are kept for service in England and Wales and, of these, how many are non-pedigree animals?
    The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Sir Robert Sanders): The number of bulls being used for service, as returned on 4th June, 1922, was 82,547. The tabulation of this year's returns is not yet completed. The annual agricultural

    1867
    returns do not distinguish between pedigree and non-pedigree animals, but special schedules were issued to members of breed societies in 1921, and about 90 per cent. were filled up and returned. These showed that on the 4th June of that year there were in England and Wales 8,164 bulls of one year old or above, entered or eligible for registration in a herd book. I may point out that this figure does not include pedigree animals kept by stockowners who are not members of a breed society.
    Mr. SIMPSON: Is it possible for future returns to classify bulls as pedigree or non-pedigree, so that we might have an annual return giving that information?
    Sir R. SANDERS: I am not sure. I will look into that question.

    INJURIOUS WEEDS.
    Mr. EDEasked the Minister of Agriculture the number of prosecutions undertaken last year of persons alleged to be responsible for growing injurious weeds; the total amount inflicted in fines, with the maximum in any one case; and the total number of cases in which no conviction was secured?
    Sir R. SANDERS: Five prosecutions were authorised. In two instances the occupier destroyed the weeds, thus rendering further action unnecessary. In two others there were technical difficulties that rendered proceedings inadvisable. In the remaining case a conviction was obtained and a fine of 40s. inflicted.
    Mr. EDE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the lax administration of this part of the law is a grave hindrance to the industry of agriculture, and will he undertake to have the law more vigorously administered in the country?
    Sir R. SANDERS: It is entirely a matter for the county councils, of one of which, I believe, the hon. Member is a member.
    Mr. EDE: We had the prosecution!

    DAIRY PRODUCE.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. CHURCHMANasked the Minister of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to the recommendation of the Departmental Committee on the Distribution and Prices
    1868
    of Agricultural Produce that the Government should aid in providing technical and expert advice on the preparation, packing, grading, and marketing of British dairy produce; and whether he proposes to put this recommendation into effect?
    Sir R. SANDERS: Yes, Sir, I have had this matter under consideration. Instruction and advice in these directions already form part of the work of existing dairy training centres and travelling schools, but I am consulting with representatives of the producers and the trade, and also with the education authorities concerned with a view to an extension of such activities.

    CO-OPERATIVE DAIRY SCHOOLS.
    Sir A. CHURCHMANasked the Minister of Agriculture how many co-operative dairy schools are now being held or are in contemplation; and what steps he is taking to further this method of stimulating co-operation among farmers?
    Sir R. SANDERS: Five co-operative dairy schools are being held in England and Wales. The season is now too far advanced to make it practicable to arrange any more this year. The responsibility for establishing these schools rests with county authorities for agricultural education, who have been repeatedly urged, in correspondence and personally by the Ministry's officers, to undertake this work. Every effort will be made to increase the number of schools next year.

  EX-SERVICE MEN (LAND SETTLEMENT SCHEME)
  Mr. EDEasked the Minister of Agriculture the total rent roll of the post-War small holdings estates of county councils in England and Wales as fixed when the first tenants entered, the total sum allowed as abatement from such rent, and the maximum percentage of abatement so far sanctioned?
  Sir R. SANDERS: The total of the rents originally fixed for the lands acquired and let for small holdings by county councils in England and Wales since the inauguration of the Land Settlement Scheme in 1918 is £663,491. Temporary abatements have been granted

  1869
  amounting to £141,060, of which £105,722 was for the 12 months ending Lady Day, 1923. With regard to the last part of the hon. Member's question, I am unable to say what is the maximum percentage of abatement granted by any county council, as remissions of rent have frequently been made to tenants, not only on account of the bad seasons and fall of prices, but also because of buildings being incomplete or land being foul on entry.
  Mr. EDE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether these abatements are in fact made by the county councils or by the Ministry through the county councils, up to 31st March, 1926, until which date his Department is financially responsible?
  Sir R. SANDERS: I should like notice as to the definite legal point.
  Mr. EDEasked the Minister of Agriculture the total number of ex-service men settled on the land under the schemes of the various county councils of England and Wales; the total number of men who have surrendered or have given notice of their intention to surrender their holdings of their own accord; and the total number who have been given notice to quit by the county councils?
  Sir R. SANDERS: The total number of ex-service men who have been settled on the land by county councils and the councils of county boroughs since the inauguration of the Land Settlement Scheme is 16,801. In addition, 472 ex-service men have been settled by the Ministry on its Farm Settlements. Up to Lady Day, 1923, the number of tenants who left their holdings for financial or similar reasons was 1,226, representing 6·5 per cent. of the men settled since the Armistice. I have no information as to how many of these men surrendered their holdings voluntarily or the number who were given notice to quit by councils, nor can I say how many men have given notice of their intention to surrender their holdings.
  Mr. EDE: Has the right hon. Gentleman the figures for those who did not surrender their holdings for financial or similar reasons? Those are the only reasons he gives in his answer, and I asked for the total number.
  Sir R. SANDERS: I think the number who left for other reasons is very small indeed.

  SINGAPORE NAVAL BASE.
  Mr. LAMBERTasked the Prime Minister whether, as the British Government in June, 1921, decided to construct a naval base at Singapore, such decision was communicated to the conference at Washington, which resulted in a treaty for the limitation of armaments and naval bases, which was signed by the representatives of the United States, France, Japan, and the British Empire on the 6th February, 1922?
  Captain WEDGWOOD BENNasked the Prime Minister at what date the proposal for a naval base at Singapore was first approved by the Cabinet; and whether the intentions of the British Government in this matter were made known to the other nations represented at the Washington Conference?
  The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Amery): I have been asked to reply to these questions. It was clearly understood by all the delegations at Washington that we were retaining full freedom of action as regards Singapore. There was no discussion of the particular arrangements we, or any of the other Powers concerned, had in contemplation at naval bases or stations outside the zone explicitly defined in the Agreement. As the right hon. Member for South Molton (Mr. Lambert) was informed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department on the 12th June, the proposal for the Singapore naval base was first approved by the Cabinet in June, 1921.
  Mr. LAMBERT: As the Government in June, 1921, decided to construct this base, was this decision conveyed to our Allies and friends with whom we were making a Treaty at Washington in 1922?
  Mr. AMERY: My answer covers the point. Singapore has always been a naval and military station. The details of extra facilities we were going to establish there were not communicated, and there was no reason why they should have been.
  Captain BENN: Would it be correct to say that while we were putting our hand

  1871
  to a document which purported to maintain the status quo, we were keeping a card up our sleeve?
  Sir A. SHIRLEY BENN: Is it not a fact that the Americans and the other people at that Conference were just as fully posted regarding our intentions in connection with Singapore as any Englishman?
  Mr. AMERY: With regard to the question of the hon. and gallant Member for Leith (Captain Benn), I most emphatically repudiate the gross libel contained in it.
  Mr. LAMBERT: Was this decision of ours communicated to the Allies at Washington?
  Major Sir BERTRAM FALLE: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers that question, may I ask what is the object of making trouble between ourselves and the United States?
  Mr. AMERY: The position is perfectly clear. The Agreement at Washington was for the limitation of the number of capital ships, and the maintenance of the status quo as regards bases within a very carefully defined area. There was no kind of limitation of any of the Powers concerned as to the building of other types of ships or dockyards in the Pacific or other waters, and no communication was made with each other in respect of those matters.
  Mr. LAMBERT: This was not communicated at the Washington Conference?
  Mr. AMERY: I have said so three times.

  DOCK WORKERS' DISPUTE.
  Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLEasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the waste of food caused by the dockers' strike and the fact that this movement is now disowned by the union leaders as well as by the unofficial leaders, he will take whatever steps be necessary to facilitate the landing of perishable food in the interests more especially of the poorer classes, who are prejudiced both by shortage of supply and by rising prices?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Colonel Ashley): I have been asked
  1872
  to reply. I have no information confirming the suggestion in the last part of the question, but the situation is being carefully watched.

  IMPERIAL CONFERENCE.
  Captain BENNasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his Department is preparing any evidence for the Imperial Conference in reference to the extension of Imperial Preference on imported foodstuffs?
  Lieut.-Colonel BUCKLEY: It is the duty of the Board of Trade and of other Departments concerned to furnish Ministers with information with regard to matters which will come before the Imperial Economic Conference. These matters, as has already been stated by the Prime Minister in reply to a question in this House, will include Preference.
  Captain BENN: Could the hon. Gentleman give us any indication of the Government's policy on this question?
  Lieut.-Colonel BUCKLEY: No, Sir, I am afraid I cannot.

  UNEMPLOYMENT.

    RELIEF SCHEMES.
    Mr. LANSBURYasked the Minister of Labour the total number of men employed on Government-assisted and other schemes by local and other authorities between 1st January and 30th June, 1923, showing the days worked by each man and wages paid; and whether he is now able to say when the improvements to the London and other docks are to be carried out?
    The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Montague Barlow): The total number of men employed on Government-assisted and other schemes, including schemes guaranteed under the Trade Facilities Act, was 121,000 on 6th January, so far as reported to the Department; on the 30th June the corresponding figure was 138,000, the highest figure in the period being 151,000 on 28th April. This is without taking into account the additional employment indirectly involved in transport, supply of material, and in other ways. Much of the work was done in rotation, but I

    1873
    cannot say how many men in all were employed, nor can I give the period of employment or earnings of each man employed. With regard to the last part of the question, I regret I cannot add to the answer given on 21st June by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the scheme for improving these London docks was passed by this House before 1914? Is it not nearly time that this work was put in hand?
    Sir M. BARLOW: I am entirely with the hon. Gentleman; I think it is.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Then cannot the right hon. Gentleman get a move on?

    LONDON BOROUGHS.
    Mr. LANSBURYasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that a very considerable number of able-bodied men and their dependants are in receipt of relief in the parishes and unions of Poplar, Bermondsey, West Ham, and other poor boroughs in London; that in addition, a considerable number of young men and women are also in receipt of relief; that this condition of affairs is leading to much demoralisation of the population; and is his Department preparing any schemes or plans for dealing with all those out of work and on short time?
    Sir M. BARLOW: I note with regret that the number of persons unemployed in the London boroughs continues to be high, particularly in boroughs in the East of London. With regard to the last part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to the right hon. Member for the North West Division of Camberwell (Dr. Macnamara) on the 11th July, regarding the arrangements for the grant of financial assistance towards works undertaken for the relief of unemployment. I am sure that the grantmaking Departments concerned will give sympathetic consideration to any proposals submitted in response to the circulars referred to.

    NECESSITOUS AREAS.
    Mr. W. THORNEasked the Minister of Health whether the South-
    1874
    wark Board of Guardians will receive from the Metropolitan Poor Law fund the sum of £104,764 for the half-year ending June, equal to a reduction in the rate of 1s. 8d. in the £; and when he will be in a position to give a definite answer about what are the intentions of the Government with regard to relieving the Poor Law necessitous areas?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Lord Eustace Percy): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, subject to the correction that the half-year ends in Sepember and not in June. With regard to the latter part of the question, I can only refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Middlesbrough West on the 11th instant.

  COST OF LIVING (INDEX FIGURE).
  Mr. W. THORNEasked the Minister of Labour, in view of the fact that, as the result of an investigation recently held, it has been found that the cost of living is nearer 100 per cent. than 69 per cent., which is the index figure of the Labour Department for June, whether he can hasten the investigation into the facts so as to remove the suspicion that the official figures are not reliable?
  Sir M. BARLOW: I presume that the hon. Member is referring to a recent article in a Manchester newspaper.
  Mr. THORNE: Certainly.
  Sir M. BARLOW: The prices quoted for food are, in the main, in close agreement with the prices as ascertained by the Ministry of Labour. No particulars are given in the article as to the method of computation by which the average increase in these prices generally is made to appear as 100 per cent., but I do not think they would yield an average increase of anything like 100 per cent., if due allowance were made for the relative importance of the different articles in the average working-class dietary. As regards clothing, the stated increase in prices are almost identical with those arrived at by the Ministry of Labour. I do not think the results of this inquiry provide any reason for altering the decision which I have already given.
  Mr. J. JONES: Is not one of the items in the figures of the Ministry of Labour butter beans? Is not the price regulated by the fact that during the War the price went up 150 per cent., and are they not now down again to normal?
  Major ATTLEE: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that rent is insufficiently weighted in arriving at the index figure? Are not rents, especially in the London area, grossly underweighted?
  Sir M. BARLOW: Of course, the whole question of weighting is a very difficult question, and I am glad my hon. and gallant Friend realises that. It is because people do not proceed on the right methods of weighting that they arrive at results so different from our results?
  Major ATTLEE: Then the result is about exactly the same as ours?
  Mr. JONES: If the hon. Gentleman came and lived for a week in a workman's house, he would see the point!

  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Mr. A. SHAWasked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health whether the views of school management committees in secondary-school areas in Scotland have been ascertained with reference to the provisions of the Education (Scotland) Bill curtailing the scope of these committees; and whether any steps have been taken to ascertain the views of teachers on the subject?
  The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for SCOTLAND (Mr. F. C. Thomson): I have been asked to reply to this question. The provision referred to, though accepted conditionally by the Government, did not originate with them, and I am unable to say how far those responsible had consulted school management committees and teachers.
  Sir H. CRAIK: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that certain Clauses of the Bill in question are the subject of very diverse opinions in Scotland, and could not be allowed to become law without full discussion?
  The SOLICITOR - GENERAL for SCOTLAND: My Noble Friend stated in
  1876
  another place that if serious opposition manifested itself in this House, the question of the Clause would have to be reconsidered.

  INFANTILE MORTALITY.
  Mr. W. THORNEasked the Minister of Health the number of children who died before the age of 12 months in the London County Council area, Glasgow, West Ham, and Stoke-on-Trent during the year ending March, 1922?
  Lord E. PERCY: The figures asked for in the question as regards London are 8,334, Glasgow 3,644, West Ham 705, and Stoke-on-Trent 978. The corresponding infant death rates per 1,000 births for London, West Ham and Stoke-on-Trent were 82, 83 and 138 respectively.

  COUNCIL HOUSE, TILBURY (RENTS).
  Mr. W. THORNEasked the Minister of Health why he is pressing upon the Tilbury Urban District Council to increase the rent of the various houses under their control by several shillings per week; if he is aware that 90 per cent. of the adult population are casual workers and the average wage is less than £2 per week; and if he will take action in the matter?
  Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURY: On a point of Order. Has the hon. Gentleman not had his quota of questions?
  Mr. SPEAKER: I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman is right. Mr. Potts.

  PENSIONS REGIONAL HEADQUARTERS, YORKSHIRE.
  Mr. POTTSasked the Minister of Pensions whether the Yorkshire regional headquarters of the Ministry of Pensions is to be transferred to Newcastle; if he will state the population in the present Yorkshire area and the population in the northern area which is at present administered from Newcastle; whether the population in the Yorkshire area is approximately nearly double that of the northern; and, if it is eventually intended to administer the entire North of England from one centre, will he consider whether Leeds would offer a balance of advantages?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Captain Craig): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative; to the second and third parts, that the population of the Yorkshire and northern regions, according to the Census of 1921, is 3,917,713 and 2,754,487 respectively; and to the last part that it is not in contemplation to administer the entire North of England from one centre.
  Mr. POTTS: Does not the building used belong to the State or His Majesty, and has it not been looked upon as a white elephant in Newcastle-on-Tyne?
  Captain CRAIG: I am afraid I cannot tell to whom the building belongs, but I understand that for pensions purposes it is a very much better building than the one at Leeds.

  CZECHSLOVAKIA.

    COMMERCIAL TREATY.
    Mr. HANNON(by Private Notice) asked the President of the Board of Trade if he has any statement to make about the present position of the proposed Commercial Treaty with Czechslovakia?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Philip Lloyd-Greame): A treaty to facilitate trade between the two countries, the terms of which are highly satisfactory to both parties, was signed on Saturday. It will come into force temporarily on 1st September pending ratification, and the full text will appear in the "Board of Trade Journal" on Thursday this week.
    The conclusion of the Treaty was greatly facilitated by the presence of Dr. Benes, and the House will, I am sure, be glad that his visit should have been marked by an arrangement so satisfactory to both countries.
    Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Does the right hon. Gentleman—as I presume he does—intend to lay the Treaty as a White Paper?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I will consider that. I do not think it is generally done in the case of commercial treaties, but whatever be the ordinary practice will be followed.
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I think the House knows that the custom is when-
    1878
    ever these papers have been referred to in the "Board of Trade Journal" they should be laid?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: Certainly, they are published in the "Board of Trade Journal." But the usual method will be followed.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS REFRESHMENT DEPARTMENT.
  Mr. HARDIEasked the hon. Member for Cheltenham, as Chairman of the Kitchen and Refreshment Rooms Committee, whether he is aware that the prices of food in his various Departments are much higher than outside: and can he say what are the reasons for keeping the prices so high in the Harcourt Room?
  Sir JAMES AGG - GARDNER: I am not aware that our prices are in excess of those that are demanded by clubs and restaurants, in a position similar to our Refreshment Department. As regards the final paragraph, there is no difference between the prices charged in the Harcourt Room and the other dining rooms.
  Mr. HARDIE: Does the hon. Gentleman say that he is not aware of the prices being higher here than outside? If so, then he has no knowledge—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order, order!"]
  Mr. T. JOHNSTON: Will the hon. Gentleman explain to us what is the justification for the present price of a glass of milk?
  Sir J. AGG-GARDNER: I should like notice of that question.
  Major ATTLEE: Could not the hon. Gentleman the Chairman of the Kitchen Committee reduce the size of the portion and correspondingly reduce the price of food a la carte?
  Sir J. AGG-GARDNER: I will bring that suggestion to the notice of the Committee.
  Mr. HARDIEasked the hon. Member for Cheltenham, as Chairman of the Kitchen and Refreshment Rooms Committee, whether he can charge such prices for food as would give a decent wage to all servants and abolish tipping?
  Sir J. AGG-GARDNER: We have no reason to doubt that the wage we give

  1879
  our servants is a decent wage, and one with which they are satisfied. The practice of tipping is one over which experience has taught us the Kitchen Committee cannot exercise any control.
  Mr. J. JONES: Is it true that the hon. Gentleman has just said that the Kitchen Committee has no control over the kitchen? [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] Well, he has just made that statement?
  Sir J. AGG-GARDNER: No; I said no control over the practice of tipping.
  Mr. HARDIE: Will the hon. Gentleman give us a return of the wages paid to each individual employed in the cooking and refreshment departments?
  Sir J. AGG-GARDNER: That has already been done, and a table was incorporated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

  CARRIAGE OF GOODS BY SEA BILL [Lords].
  Report from the Joint Committee, in respect of the Carriage of Goods by Sea Bill [Lords] (pending in the Lords), brought up, and read;
  Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 106.]

  ESTIMATES.
  Second Report from the Select Committee, with Minutes of Evidence and Appendices, brought up, and read;
  Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 107.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,
Bastardy Bill, with an Amendment.
Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (No. 8) Bill, with Amendments.
Amendments to,
Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Bill [Lords], without Amendment.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 8) BILL.
Lords Amendments to be considered To-morrow.
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  CAPITALIST SYSTEM.
  Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Question [20th March],
  "That, in view of the failure of the capitalist system to adequately utilise and organise natural resources and productive power, or to provide the necessary standard of life for vast numbers of the population, and believing that the cause of this failure lies in the private ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, this House declares that legislative effort should be directed to the gradual super-session of the capitalist system by an industrial and social order based on the public ownership and democratic control of the instruments of production and distribution."—[Mr. Snowden.]
  Which Amendment was to leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words
  "this House, believing that the abolition of private interest in the means of production and distribution would impoverish the people and aggravate existing evils, is unalterably opposed to any scheme of legislation which would deprive the State of the benefits of individual initiative, and believing that far-reaching measures of social redress may be accomplished without overturning the present basis of society, is resolved to prosecute proposals which, by removing the evil effects of monopoly and waste, will conduce to the well-being of the people."—[Sir Alfred Mond.]
  Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  Sir JOHN SIMON: The Debate which we are resuming to-day was opened nearly four months ago by two memorable and remarkable speeches, one by my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) and the other by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Swansea (Sir A. Mond), and I cannot help feeling that it is difficult, especially in the sort of weather we have been experiencing during the last few days, that even the most appetising dish in the Parliamentary bill of fare should remain entirely fresh when it has to be kept for four months. The interval, at any rate, has given time for all of us to read the report of the speech of the Mover of this Resolution, and I desire to make one or two comments upon it. The House, I think, will generally agree that it was the speech of a man
  1898
  whose courage and sincerity are admired by many more people than agree with his arguments and conclusions, and, as I have a great admiration for my hon. Friend's power of reasoning, I must be allowed to add that that speech, regarded as a piece of connected reasoning, appears to be singularly weak in its logical construction. After all, what does the hon. Gentleman set out to prove? I take the words in the Resolution, which state:
  "This House declares that legislative efforts should be directed to the gradual supersession of the capitalist system by an industrial and social order based on the public ownership and democratic control of the instruments of production and distribution."
  I submit to the House that anybody who sets out to prove that Resolution has got, among other things, to address himself to three propositions. He has got to try to show, in the first place, that the so-called capitalist system which, in the vocabulary of my hon. Friend, appears to be the system under which we have existed since the industrial revolution—I should have thought it began before that—has produced on balance on the whole an accumulation of evils so serious and so grave as to outweigh all the progress for which it is responsible. In the second place, as it seems to me, the hon. Member ought to try to show that the evils which may and do accompany that system, and of which everybody in every part of the House is quite conscious, are incapable of alleviation by anything less drastic than the complete destruction of the system itself. In the third place, he ought to endeavour to show that when you have destroyed that system, you will thereby have got rid of those evils, and you will be able to introduce a new system and establish new conditions which will not be even more injurious to human happiness and progress. I believe that I carry the House with me in saying that those three elements are essentially involved in an attempt to prove the proposition which the hon. Member for Colne Valley has put before the House. Some people may think they can be proved, and others may think they are doubtful. Some may feel that they cannot be proved, but nobody who has read the hon. Gentleman's speech can doubt the fact that he never made the slightest attempt to prove any one of the three.

  1899
  Before I examine his speech more in detail, allow me to call attention to two curious features in the language of the Resolution. I am struck by the omission of a word and the insertion of another word. The word that is omitted is "all." We are invited to address ourselves to secure the setting up of a new social order based on the public ownership and democratic control of the instruments of production and distribution. The sacrosanct phrase has always been, "all the instruments of production and distribution," and you have generally thrown in "exchange" as well. We do not want a false issue. If some private capital is to be taken while other private capital is to be left, then the question ceases to be one of principle and becomes a question of discretion and practical judgment in each individual case. I should think every hon. Member will agree—certainly every Liberal will agree—that there are some classes of enterprise which, as a practical matter, are better run on a system of public ownership; and it may well be that, under existing conditions, the list has to be revised.
  But the whole point of this Motion is that we should deliberately and consciously set ourselves to secure that, in the end, it will be illegal for any man or for any body of men to start and run any business, small or great, for themselves owned by themselves. The essence of the proposal, therefore, is the universality of its application. If Socialism meant nothing more than legislating in some particular case to prevent somebody from carrying on his business just as he likes, then the Factory Acts, the Shop Hours Acts and the great body of social legislation are properly called socialistic, and every House of Commons enacts socialistic legislation in that sense. But that is not really the sense in which this Motion is proposed, and it would be a misfortune if people outside are misled about this matter. The issue that is raised is whether we should aim at a conclusion which would make it illegal to own anything except articles for personal use. It would substitute public ownership and democratic control for private ownership—however much Parliament might think fit to control them—not merely of land and mines but of railways, banks and
  1900
  ships, and of every factory and every workshop, small and great, of every retail shop, of every public house, and, I suppose, of every newspaper.
  I heard the hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. A. V. Alexander) protest when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Swansea said that he thought a co-operative society was an admirable example of capitalistic enterprise. I do not see how it can be otherwise regarded, because a co-operative society is an association of small capitalists, each of whom contributes from his savings to carry on the business. He may sell his share in the business, and the ordinary co-operative society trades with the public as well as with its members. It will be interesting to know by what process of reasoning co-operative societies are to be saved from the sentence of death which is to be pronounced on every small shopkeeper by this Resolution.
  4.0 P.M.
  An attempt is made to mitigate the alarm which this universal prospect might cause by introducing into the Resolution the word "gradual." That comforting variation has since been the subject of a polysyllabic explanation by the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Sidney Webb). He has explained, following upon the speech of the hon. Member for Colne Valley, with all the elaboration of a European professor, the "inevitableness of gradualness." I submit that to lay stress upon this aspect only obscures the real point. I perfectly recognize—and I make the fullest allowance for the fact—that this proposal is put forward with a view to it ultimately attaining its end by a series of gradual doses, but, if your object be to pull down the whole house, it is useless to urge that you are going to pull it down gradually, one stone at a time. The real point—it is much better that we should all face it—is that the discussion has got nothing to do, as I submit, either with the question whether public ownership should be the method adopted in some specific case or with the question whether your ultimate object can be obtained only by successive steps. The point is whether the system of production and distribution, such as we know it, based on and sustained by accumulated savings and private thrift, working under the natural human desire to improve one's position, to pro-

  1901
  vide for one's self and one's family, and producing the rewards of initiative, of enterprise, and of energy—should be got rid of and its place should be taken across the whole field of industrial and commercial activity, by a new system universally and compulsorily applied, in which none of these incentives will operate. That is the proposition as I understand it, and that is the proposition which some of us are determined to resist, and here I would ask leave to be allowed to say that we resist it all the more vigorously, because we are just as much alive as the Labour party to the evils which if unchecked accompany the present system. The difference between us is not that. The difference is that we are convinced that those evils are to be avoided, not by destroying the existing system root and branch, but by controlling its operation with a constant view to the public good.
  I have said that the hon. Member who moved made no attempt whatever to establish any of the essential propositions which lie at the root of the Motion. Instead of doing so, after defining according to his own meaning the capitalist system, he called attention to post-War figures—very disturbing and deeply impressive figures—as to the present state of unemployment, of wages, of housing, and of health. Then he made an enormous assumption: First of all, that all these things are directly due to capitalism and nothing else, and, secondly, that if you swept capitalism away they would all disappear. I want to ask the House, is that, after all, a fair account—I will not say it is a complete account — but is it a balanced statement of the consequences of the industrial system as we have known it during the last 100 or 150 years? If, indeed, everything that has happened during the last 100 years is to be attributed to capitalism, is the balance entirely on the wrong side? Everybody knows—and I cannot help thinking that it is the first branch of the argument that has to be examined—that there has been an immense advance in the standard of life and comfort, and a constantly accumulating and increasing code of social legislation; and, side by side with this system which my hon. Friend thinks that we should get rid of, it has, in fact, been found possible to make remarkable progress. I do not for a moment say that
  1902
  it would not have been far better for the progress to have been made sooner and to have been made faster, but the point is that if you are going to present an argument, not merely to the House of Commons but to the people of this country, the workmen and workwomen of this country, in which you begin by describing the results of capitalism and you limit yourself to the things upon which the hon. Gentleman descanted, I do not think that you are giving a fair version of the facts. I have here a quotation which is all the more relevant, because it comes from one of the writings of the hon. Gentleman himself. In an interesting book which he wrote on the "Living Wage," he points out this:
  "Factory and mines legislation, laws enforcing sanitary conditions in workshops, workmen's compensation for accidents, free education, public health administration, national health insurance, old age pensions and the like are just as much, and indeed in their results much more so, additions to the living standard as an increase in the actual money wage of the workers."
  I know that we shall all agree, but where was there any reference to that in the hon. Gentleman's speech? He went on in another extract to say:
  "In the period from 1850 to 1900, during which, on the whole, wages advanced by not less than 60 per cent., there was also a very considerable decline in the prices of commodities."
  Everybody knows that is true. It may be said that that was before the War. Well, the hon. Gentleman has written another book since the War. It is a book called "Wages and Prices," and it was published in 1920. In that volume, after pointing out how the rigours of unrestricted individualism are modified by public opinion, by collective bargaining, by custom, by the growth of human sentiment, and the effect of education, he says:
  "The average minimum standard of living, fixed by public opinion, is, on the whole, continually rising, though there are frequent oscillations… On the whole, the tendency is for real wages on the average to rise."
  I am not asking hon. Gentlemen to agree that they have risen sufficiently by or fast enough, or that there is not a great deal left to be done, but you do not give a fair account of the system under which we live unless you allow fairly and squarely for some of these things. Let us just consider two or three essential

  1903
  facts. In 1811 the population of Great Britain was 11,000,000. In 1911, 100 years afterwards, it was 41,000,000. How was that increase possible without the operation of a system which has so immensely increased the power of the country to produce wealth? When I find that in the last 30 years the annual receipts of the Post Office Savings Bank have increased fourfold; when I find that in a little more than a generation, ten years have been added to the average span of human life, both male and female; when I find that the mortality of infants (though it is still shockingly high) has in fact been more than halved and when I find that in 1850 each member of the population of these islands, took on an average only three rides a year in any form of locomotive, I cannot think that the hon. Gentleman's account of the system which he wishes to overthrow was fair or adequate. I cannot make my own position too plain. I do not for a moment say that there is the slightest reason to be complacent or self-satisfied about these things, but when one is asked to draw up a balance-sheet and to see whether the existing system can "deliver the goods," it is really not fair to look solely at one side of the account. If I trouble the House for one moment with one more quotation, I do so because it comes from one of the prophets and apostles of this movement, my hon. Friend the Member for Seaham. I notice that what he wrote was reprinted in the Co-operative Wholesale Societies' Annual, so my hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough will also be interested. This is what he wrote:
  "Bad as we are sometimes tempted to think the present condition of the people, it is clear that on the whole there has been a substantial advance since 1837. In the great mass of trades and in nearly all places, the money wages of the men are much higher, and the workman obtains a far larger supply of commodities in return for his labour than he did 60 years ago. In many cases the hours of labour are shorter, the conditions of work are better, and the general standard of life has been considerably raised. The housing accommodation, both in town and country, is much improved. The sanitary conditions have often been revolutionised; education is not only far more general, but it is also far more extensive, while such opportunities for culture as libraries, museums, art galleries, music and healthy recreation are much more accessible to the workman than they ever were before."
  1904
  And he ends up observing:
  "It is the evil effect of obsolescent hand industry, with its small masters and isolated home labour, that is standing in the way of improvement. Not until we can thoroughly eradicate the remnants of this system from our midst can we hope to level up its unfortunate victims to the high standard of life which has been given to their more fortunate brethren by machine industry and world commerce."
  Mr. SIDNEY WEBB: What is the date of that?
  Sir J. SIMON: The date of it is 1897.
  Mr. WEBB: Thirty years ago.
  Sir J. SIMON: Are we to understand that the industrial revolution, which began I think about 1780, did not have these deleterious effects until the year of Jubilee, 1897?
  Mr. W. THORNE: It has been more rapid recently.
  Sir J. SIMON: More than that, is it really fair to treat the bad results, and they are deplorable—
  Captain O'GRADY: You admit that?
  Sir J. SIMON: I would not qualify my own condemnation, but is it really fair to treat the bad conditions to which the hon. Gentleman refers as though they were the inevitable consequences of capitalism, only to be got rid of by its destruction? Let me take one or two instances. Take the crowding of dwellings close round a factory and the overcrowding in the centre of an industrial town. I make bold to say that it is not the inevitable concomitant of capital at all. It is due historically to the impotence of local authorities to control town planning.
  Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN: No.
  Sir J. SIMON: Yes, and it is due still more to the insufficient development of the social conscience. There is no reason on earth why, consistently with preserving the essentials of that system, we should not by Parliamentary action secure better results. More important, perhaps, than either of these in-important, perhaps, than either of these influences would be the placing of the rating and taxation of land values upon a proper basis. It is really quite impossible, when you look at places like Port Sunlight or Bournville, to maintain

  1905
  seriously the proposition that you have to get rid of the capitalist system in order to secure effective reform.
  What ground is there for saying that the supersession of the capitalist system would guarantee employment for everyone? In the light of such partial experiments as have been tried, that is not the conclusion that would be drawn from the old experiment of State workshops in France. It is not the inference one would draw from recent experiments in Russia.
  Let me take an example which will please hon. Members more, because it is one to which the Labour party for years were most anxious to call public attention, namely, the action of the Labour Government in Queensland. The State of Queensland has had the benefit of having the Labour party in power since May, 1915, and the party introduced a comprehensive programme of nationalisation. It took over the railways, the banks, the sawmills, the ironworks, the sugar refineries and the butchers' shops, as well as other things, and for a year or two the success of nationalisation of Queensland seemed so obvious that the British Labour party published a pamphlet on the success in Queensland of the principles they were advocating here. I do not think that pamphlet is any longer in circulation. One must learn from experience. In five years the State railways, instead of showing a surplus of something like £50,000, presented the country with a deficit of about £1,500,000. In 1921 Queensland had more unemployment, not only than any other State in the Commonwealth of Australia, but than any country in the world which tabulates unemployment statistics. The truth, I venture to think, is this, that Socialism cannot compel the consumer to buy more commodities or to pay for more services. Treating the capitalist system as dating from the industrial revolution (1780–1830), its history in this island, among other things, is that it has supported a far larger population than could be possibly supported without it.
  How are public ownership and democratic control going to increase the effective and economic demand for commodities and services? It is no doubt perfectly possible to abolish private enterprise and establish public ownership
  1906
  in a given branch of industry. There are cases in my humble judgment where it is perfectly right to do so. It is even possible to secure continuous employment in that industry by refusing under any circumstances to limit production when circumstances are adverse and by sustaining the industry by subventions from public funds. For instance, if you have a tramway which happens not to be running at a profit it is possible to give a subvention from the rates. But this resource is only possible if the losses on public ownership can be made up out of profits in other directions. If you destroy private enterprise, you cannot whatever else you do, raise revenue by taxing its profits. I think it clearly follows that the system cannot be applied successfully to industry as a whole unless it can be confidently asserted that the incentive to production under public ownership and democratic control are greater than under private enterprise and competitive energy. If that were fairly sure it might be a good reason for making a departure of this kind, but experience does not in the least justify so rash an assumption.
  Consider the case of our export trades. There are hon. Members of this House who hold positions of great responsibility and authority and on whose guidance and advice great masses of toiling men depend. Let me ask Trade Union leaders who are guiding the destinies of the working men who are employed in some of our great export trades to see exactly what their responsibilities are. Here you have some great export trade in this island which is carried on under-circumstances of the keenest competition with America and France and other countries throughout the world. It can only be carried on by a constant exercise of the very finest judgment on questions relating to values, insurance, transport, exchange, supply and demand, and so forth. What is the responsibility which is being incurred by those who are urging that an industry such as this should be subject to public ownership? Can you guarantee that America is going in for public ownership at the same time, or that France is going to do so? If it turns out that the new system does not in fact carry on these tremendous and complicated enterprises with the same success as the system you are displacing, are you not running a great danger of destroy-

  1907
  ing the means of livelihood of the many hundreds of thousands of British working men who are looking to you for guidance and advice? Some hon. Members behind me may laugh at that. I do not mind that. But let me say with great respect that this is a very serious point, and although I know hon. Members take a serious view of their responsibilities, I ask them to listen seriously to the arguments I am putting forward. Most serious of all, has the British workman who is attracted by this Marxian philosophy appreciated that the price of adopting it is the sacrifice of reasonable personal liberty?
  What will be the effect on reasonable individual choice and liberty of the new system? Is there going to be any right to strike under the Socialistic State? A democratically - controlled and publicly-managed industrial army must surely exact the obedience of its members, and refusal to work on the task assigned under such circumstances becomes mutiny. Everybody who has carried this theory to its logical conclusion is bound to admit that the exercise of a man's liberty in saying whether he will work for his employer or not is quite inconsistent with the sole employer being the community. Do working men realise that in point of fact they will have to surrender their right to refuse to work if they desire to do so? Is there going to be any choice of occupation? I am quite unable to see how in a Socialistic State you can avoid conscription of labour and how you can avoid penal labour institutions for those who refuse to accept the occupation assigned to them.
  Mr. W. THORNE: What choice have they now?
  Mr. SPEAKER: Hon. Members on my left have put forward a proposition to the House, and they must listen to any examination of that proposition.
  Sir J. SIMON: I want, if I may, to put two other illustrations. I am putting them because I think it is desirable they should be dealt with before this Debate closes. The system under which they are invited to work is a system under which production and consumption will be controlled and rationed. How are you going to control and ration production and consumption unless you are also going to ration the number of mouths to be fed in
  1908
  a family? Lastly, what is going to be the opportunity of free public opinion under this new system? How can you have an independent Press? You cannot carry on a newspaper unless those who run it have capital. If private capital is to be prohibited, if the only form of enterprise to be permitted is enterprise under public ownership, I believe the logical consequence will make it impossible to have an independent Press under the system which hon. Members advocate.
  I have said so much because those who come forward with a proposal like this must really not complain if some of us desire to examine it before we accept it. That is no reason for saying that the opponents of this Resolution desire to leave things as they are. Not the least. On the contrary, the fact that it has been possible to make great improvements and great progress during times past is one reason more for saying that we need not abolish the system root and branch, but should try and make further progress still. My hon. Friend says, and rightly so, that he recognises that sympathy is not the special possession of any quarter of the House, and all of us are deeply concerned to see what is the best way to remedy the evils to which he calls attention. The real question is, is it not possible, while preserving the incentives to energy and enterprise, while preserving the natural rewards of success, the encouragement of thrift, the stimulus of competition—is it not possible to go further in promoting social justice and prevent the evils of unrestricted capitalism arising by wise policy and bold legislation?
  And here may I point out to the House the extraordinary method of argument adopted by my hon. Friend? He admitted in his speech that the evils of unrestricted capitalism have in many cases been met in the past, during the continuance of the capitalist system, by Parliamentary interference, by setting up minimum standards, by enforcing a common rule, by carrying social legislation; but, says my hon. Friend, with a naïveté which is really charming, whenever that succeeds, that is Socialism! There is all the difference, however, between regulating a machine and pulling it to pieces, and the fact that it is possible under the existing system to regulate the machine, and that there

  1909
  may be many directions in which it can be regulated further, is no reason at all for saying that the machine has to be scrapped and an entirely new machine, not hitherto ever seen in actual operation, set up in its place. I would go as far as this, though there may be hon. Gentlemen in the House who will not be prepared to go with me. If, indeed, we had reached the end of what a progressive community can do to reconcile competitive industrial action with the rights of all who take part in it, that might be a reason for attempting, however rashly, some new and untried system; but the real lesson of the past is the hope of the future. We have, as I think, to open up new natural resources; we have to liberate enterprise under a system of taxation which does not penalise improvement, but offers better opportunities to everybody; we have, as I think, to control and to modify the distribution of wealth so as to remove economic injustice. I think that in the future we shall hear much more than we have yet heard of the limitation of profits and of the limitation of inheritance.
  Captain O'GRADY: Cheers from the other side!
  Sir J. SIMON: I say we shall hear much more of the limitation of profits and the limitation of inheritance, but those things can be secured without destroying the springs of energy. Indeed, it is only those who obstinately resist such changes who provide the effective propaganda for Socialism. If the menace of unemployment is going to be more effectively dealt with, if industry is really going to carry its casualties, then industry must be carried on under conditions which stimulate production, and it is by stimulating production, it is by forethought and organisation, it is by removing the barriers which interfere with trade, it is by scheduling jobs which can be undertaken in times of depression, it is by extending Unemployment Insurance, it is by promoting a better spirit between the different people who are engaged in industry, that you may as a practical matter hope to minimise the risk of unemployment. But, most of all, I will venture to put this to the House. It is the last thing I want to say, and I apologise for being so long. The most important thing of all is that we must humanise industry. You cannot human-
  1910
  ise industry by the vain and dreary repetition of an arid formula. The way to humanise industry it not to put it into the straight jacket of universal Socialism; it is to use the force of public opinion, the power of Parliament, to correct the rigours of unrestricted selfishness by putting public needs and human rights before private interests, and by doing it, as I believe it can be done, without sapping the energies or undermining the liberties of the British people.
  Mr. CLYNES: The right hon. Gentleman who has just addressed the House is always listened to, if for no other reason, because of his great attainments, and, if I may be allowed, in opening what I have to say, to comment on his speech this afternoon, I would take leave to say this, that throughout that speech he clearly has had his head in it all the time, but his heart in the job, never! I listened to the close of his speech with the reflection that, if that be the whole case against the Socialistic doctrines of the Resolution which is now before the House, those doctrines are likely to prevail long before many of us thought would be the case. My right hon. Friend admits that conditions as they are are deplorably bad, but he asks that we should not attach blame for these evil results to the system from which they have been inseparable. We allege that they are the products of the system, that they are its inevitable result. My right hon. Friend points to the progress which, as compared with some generations ago, the people of to-day are enjoying. So far as any progress at all has been attained, it has been reached, not as the result of the system, but in spite of it. The spokesmen of the system have on every occasion resisted every attempt to lighten the load of labour, to raise wages or the standard of living, to reduce hours, or to give a higher level of security in employment in the workshops of Britain. Progress! The truth is that we have never had a larger number of unemployed and helpless persons in this country than we have now. Taxation was never heavier, and the miner's pay, as was proven in a long discussion in this House only a few days ago, is really below the level of pre-War days. The right hon. Gentleman alleges that there can be no such thing as a gradual change in our social structure, that, if the doctrines of this Resolution

  1911
  be applied, they must be applied, so to speak, in the lump. He finds no consolation in pulling down the house brick by brick. If it could be said that the capitalist system were one structure, there would be something in the simile; but capitalism is an aggregation of a thousand separate and different things, and it is idle to say that the course we are proposing corresponds to that of destroying a structure brick by brick or stone by stone.
  What is the test by which any system should be judged? The test should be the results, and, if we have nothing else on our side in this controversy, we have the facts on our side. It is, indeed, out of those facts that a Resolution like that which is now on the Order Paper has grown. We have a measure of undeserved poverty unparalleled in the history of this country. We have that poverty side by side with unexampled unearned riches enjoyed by a favoured minority of the community. We have a state of hopelessness and insecurity on the part of millions of wage-earners which at times expresses itself in manifestations of anger and revolt; and the most industrious of the community often find themselves to be the worst treated portion of it. I have not before me the figures given in the last Report of the Ministry of Health, outlining in detail, so far as statistics can express it, the appalling list of paupers being publicly maintained and merely kept alive within this so-called prosperous Britain, but let any hon. Member go now and consult the pages of that book, and come back and find something to say in support of the system which produces those results.
  I repeat that reform has been resisted, and that betterment has only been obtained as the result of pressure and agitation by those who groan under the system and have insisted that it should be modified. Indeed, the measure of our progress has been the measure of the triumph over the system itself, and we have, in fact, in these days, a Conservative Government driven, concession by concession, to try and save some fragments of the system by applying to it, in a more or less misplaced form improvised doses of Socialism. Agriculture has to be propped up with provisions of national aid; houses can only be built by means of public subsidies; private trade
  1912
  must rely very largely upon public guarantee to provide the money, or the interest upon it. It is, therefore, through the medium of misplaced instalments of Socialism that many of the outstanding features of this capitalist system are now sustained. There is a ceaseless scramble for the share of the product of labour—I mean the product of all forms of useful and sustained service, the labour of hand and brain. That scramble finds its expression in industrial conflict and quarrel, inflicting on the community at large, inevitably, a great degree of loss; but, so far as there have been serious disputes since the year 1919 in this country—such, for instance, as the dispute, unhappily not yet settled in connection with dock labour—they have been due to very natural resistance on the part of the workers in order to maintain their life standard and to prevent reduction of their wages. Wasteful as these conflicts are, they are certain, so long as the system lasts as we now have it.
  Why are they certain? Because manual work is more degraded than dignified. It never, indeed, did stand where it ought to have stood in point of respect or pay. Indispensable service has been made unattractive and a state of industrial slavery has been imposed upon many who have had to perform manual toil. We have had to try and rescue millions of the sweated workers of Britain by setting up Trade Boards by means of Acts of Parliament, and raising them to a higher level. The tipster's clerk is better paid than the skilled engineer, the fully employed miner or the locomotive engine driver. So long as you have conditions which place your more indispensable manual workers in a condition of slavery your system cannot stand. It must give way to the more enlightened aspirations referred to in the concluding portions of my right hon. Friend's speech. The right hon. Baronet the Member for West Swansea (Sir A. Mond) began his speech in our previous Debate by alleging that my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) in his attack on the system had not attacked capitalism. He had attacked civilisation. I am glad to have the admission that Capitalism and Civilisation are things apart. We always said they were. The right hon. Gentleman alleged that those who possessed wealth had it as the reward of industry,

  1913
  thrift and ability. The truth is that the ablest, the most thrifty and the most industrious men in this country have not died rich at all and are in the main men of comparatively moderate means. Money is to be made, not by thrift, not by personal industry, and not even by the application of personal ability. It is in the main to be made by seeing that you get yourself in the position of being able to make others use all those attributes in your interest.
  It is alleged in the Amendment on the Order Paper that the principles of the Motion would abolish private interest and would deprive the State of the benefits of individual initiative. The truth is that individual initiative is part of that quality of genius which does not depend upon personal greed for its expression. If what is said in the Amendment were true we should have to ask one or two questions of the right hon. Baronet as to what he did while serving the State at the Ministry of Health. Did he lack all initiative because he was a State servant? Was it that he was thinking of private interests solely in the course of his public service. Can it be said that men like, say, Lord Leverhulme and Mr. Ford, to mention two different but still typical representatives of the great captains of industry, if placed in the position of being a State servant could exhibit less genius and individual initiative and organising capacity than they have shown already in the conduct of trade and business? Would anyone allege that the Postmaster-General is incapable of showing qualities of high administration and initiative for the reason that he is the largest public employer in the country? Experience then is against the conclusions which are set forth in the Amendment. A large number of captains of industry were brought to the aid of the Government in the national interest during the years of the War. Would any one of these men admit that he would serve the country less well if required, in times of peace, to put the national interest before his own? Would he carry the plea of selfishness so far as that? If so, how could such a man reprove, say, a selfish workman for doing as little as he could and getting as much as he was able? Although great business men, organisers,
  1914
  and managers have found a stimulus in the competition which their enterprises have provided, they would find a driving force in co-operating for the national advantage if that advantage were raised to its proper level within a remodelled social system. Who is a good patriot? Surely he who wants property not for himself but for his country. Is the country to possess nothing but the National Debt? The truth is, that it now owns little else. The right hon. Baronet the Member for West Swansea made this extraordinary statement:
  "The idea that you can make money out of labour is one of the greatest fallacies in the minds of a certain number of economists."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20 March, 1923, Col. 2499, Vol. 161.]
  If that be true, of economists, it is not a fallacy in the minds of employers. Money cannot be made out of anything else than labour, in one form or another, but you can make little money out of your own labour. The resourceful pioneers who began the great works in Northwich, to which the right hon. Baronet made reference, could not have carried their theories or their genius a yard had it not been for the ordinary manual labour which they had to employ, labour which has grown from a very small group into many thousands. While I want to give to the brain worker, the inventor, the captain of industry and the director the best of rewards in point both of pay and thankfulness for his services, I ask him, to be a little more considerate to the bottom dog, and to think more of every large mass of citizens who, though working, still possess every attribute of human nature as do the employing classes themselves. I cannot imagine what joy, if joy at all be, got out of it, can be got out of the sight of this huge mass of misery that we see before us in every large town and city. In a series of rhetorical questions the right hon. Baronet asked, "Would Socialism terminate every one of the evils which abound in our country?" I conclude that a similar questioning frame of mind possessed the right hon. Gentleman who last spoke. We answer and say that all the evils which are inherent in the system would certainly disappear with the disappearance of the system itself. It is not proposed to reform nature only in so far as nature itself

  1915
  would be assisted towards reform by reformed conditions, by placing human beings in better surroundings, by giving them things upon which they can co-operate, by making life less of a struggle, less of an internal conflict and more of an effort for the common elevation and advance of all who are concerned.
  Little has been said in the course of either of these Debates as to one of the greatest evils inseparable from this system so long as in any degree it lasts. That is the evil of unemployment. Even now, if the unemployed were put in processional form, they are so numerous that they would stretch almost from Westminster to Northwich. It is no answer to say it is all because of the War, for, though not in like degree, we had in kind, manifestations of unemployment which were heartrending long before the War began. It is admitted, indeed, that only on rare occasions, occasions of booming trade, can the system as it is find appropriate places for its masses of workers, and no system can stand which shuts out vast numbers of men and women from the opportunity to serve. I ask hon. Members what can be said for a system which gives to Britain the costliest workhouses in the world, which leaves our hospitals dependent on charity, and which subjects millions of wage-earners to a level of subsistence lower than that of prisoners and paupers. What can be said again of a system in which hardened Judges and magistrates in Divorce Courts and in County Courts have openly condemned the shameful parade of luxury and waste? What is to be said for a system which crowds into unlovely dwellings millions of the most indispensable sections of the population? Capitalism cannot even supply the necessary number of the humblest homes for the best of our manual workers. It cannot feed nor clothe them. Our prisons and our public lavatories are better built than the dwellings of the millions of the poor.
  True indeed, as has been admitted, there have had to be many modifications of the system, else it could not have withstood the many attacks long before even there was an organised Labour party. The system has been modified, not merely by Act of Parliament—by that form of compulsion which
  1916
  the law exerts upon those who have used the brutalities of the system for their own selfish ends. The co-operative movement and the management of the interests of large portions of the community have gone far to modify the evil effects of this system. There have been and there are still millions of money invested in municipal and State property for the common benefit. These have exerted a beneficial and steadying influence upon even the capitalist system itself. So I allege that the working of many State Departments, as for instance in the case of our dockyards, the postal and telegraphic service, the working of a great system of transport through publicly owned conveyances and tramways, public services expressing in terms of capital wealth many millions of pounds, have made a contribution to modifying the severities of the capitalist system. The truth is that unchecked capitalism would be absolutely unbearable, and human standards have been procured in spite of it and not through its aid.
  5.0 P.M.
  Take one or two instances of our wasteful system in those smaller matters which are more readily understood, and come closer to us in our daily experience. There has been issued in the past few days a Government Return explaining how, for instance, fruit, vegetables and so on finally reach the tables of the consumers. That Report gives instances where the difference between the amount received by the producer of the commodity and the amount at which the article is retailed in the shop is a difference of between 300 and 400 per cent. in many instances, and I was interested to read this in a leading article in the "Times" of 23rd June:
  "After the railways we have the middleman, or rather the middlemen—for occasionally there are as many as six of these intermediaries interposed between the grower and the consumer. Then comes the market—in the case of London, Covent Garden market. In no other market in the country is the accommodation so deficient and the congestion so acute. The market is owned by a private company which has not set itself to make the necessary alterations."
  Where goes the difference between the pithead price of coal and the amount paid by the consumer? At the pithead you pay 18s. per ton; it is retailed at 45s., or more. It was not a Socialist who

  1917
  suggested the nationalisation of the mines. It was Mr. Justice Sankey who condemned the waste of human energy in the coal industry and recommended nationalisation. It was not a Socialist, but Sir Eric Geddes, who denounced the absurd and uneconomical system of working our railways. Something has been done, in face even of the anger of a Coalition Parliament, and the discontent of a British public, to improve our railway system, and it has been saved by a semblance of Socialism, and by conditions of compulsory co-operation, which now oblige them to work more or less in common. It was Mr. Winston Churchill who, at the end of 1918, announced to the country the Government's intention to nationalise the railways, but, of course, it was Mr. Winston Churchill and his colleagues who speedily surrendered to the pressure very soon exerted upon them when the vested interests got busy after that public announcement. As to shipping, there are, I believe, hon. Members in this House who know from some personal experience how notorious are the examples of exploitation in the case of the shipping services of our country. In short, if we take only these three great national necessities to which I have just referred, we find that under this system it is certain that there will be regularly produced millionaires, misers and paupers. They are inseparable from the system itself. Here is a piece of paper torn recently out of a capitalist newspaper, the "Daily Express," containing a contrast to which I invite the attention of the House:
  "HOW THE POOR LIVE.
  'I am starving, and cannot pay my rent,' said a woman at Whitechapel County Court yesterday.
  THE JUDGE: 'It may be that you are, but you cannot live rent free, so you go in seven days.'
  Another woman in tears: 'What am I to do with my poor babies if we are turned into the street?'
  THE JUDGE: 'I have nothing to do with where you go, except that you must go in seven days?'
  The woman left the Court crying bitterly."
  In the next column we have figures, dates and particulars of one family in Britain in which seven millionaires have died in succession. It will, no doubt, be alleged that that singular number of seven was accounted for by thrift, industry and
  1918
  ability. Nature, I think, cannot be said to be so bountiful as that in any one family, and the possession of such enormous sums is traceable to the favoured position in which property owners and landowners find themselves in industrial England. We, therefore, say that we are not on the defensive in support of this Resolution which we have deliberately placed upon the Order Paper. It is those who oppose this Resolution who must justify capitalism in face of the results which we are able to show. I agree that if any date as to when capitalism began can be fixed, it began a long time ago. Indeed, I believe it started so far back that it can be said truly that it did not come out of design; it was not a plan, an ordered, deliberate arrangement of an educated community. It has simply happened throughout the ages. It has grown up, and we are only now beginning to realise it for what it is. Men thought it had to be, because it always had been. We no longer accept that doctrine in respect to anything.
  Take, for instance, the very important matter of architecture. Architecture was only thought of in the main in relation to three things in this country in former years—cathedrals, in which, of course, I include churches and all ecclesiastical structures; mansions, and almshouses. We are only now beginning to think of planning and designing towns and cities, of arranging a general body of law that shall ensure standards of health, protect children, defend the weak and shield the helpless against the merciless conditions of the system which was tolerated without resistance in a former generation. We are faced, however, with one difficulty, if no other, and that is that we have not only to show what Socialism is, but what it is not. I give only one illustration, from a quite reputable and influential paper, of the same kind of travesty of Socialism that can be found in thousands of other quarters, but I purposely quote a statement from the Sunday "Observer," because of the rank of that journal. This was the comment offered in a centre page article of that journal on the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden):
  "If Labour got a sufficient majority, it would try to introduce nationalisation of the mines, the railways and the land. The question of the mines for the miners, not

  1919
  for the nation, the railways for the railwaymen, the land for the tillers and the graziers, would at once arise."
  If those who conduct a paper like the "Observer" are under such a delusion as that, what hope is there of making simple facts plain to the ordinary man? I could carry this absurdity further and say, that the streets are to be owned by the men who sweep them or make them; our sewage system, by the men who construct the sewers; the gasworks by the men employed there; and even the proprietorship of the "Observer" itself would change under conditions where the compositors would become the personal possessors of the Press of Britain. There are cases such as those cited by my right hon. Friend this afternoon of the alleged failure of Socialism—the workshops after the Paris Revolution, the crude and fore-doomed attempts at State ownership or control in Russia. Seriously, are hon. Members, so learned in most things, to be so deceived in this? I hope that they do know better. There are three conditions inseparable from a state of Socialism. One is the assent, if not the eager acceptance, of the people concerned in the possession of State property. Secondly, there must be an understanding on the part of the community of what our community needs, and an intelligent appreciation of the fact that what the community wants for its use the community only can control. Then there must be co-operation to ensure success. Why, if a group of persons set out, whether it be in Europe or in a village, whether the group be large or small, to try to play at, or even seriously to practise, a state of Socialism they would be surrounded with every influence, every design, every purpose of a deliberate intention to produce a state of chaos. That is why, on occasion, there have been what are called Socialist or Communist communities, which have been tried and, naturally, have been a failure. Socialism, indeed, must rest upon consent, and cannot succeed on the basis of experiment, with people surrounding those experiments endeavouring, and determined, to ensure their failure. A Labour Government in Queensland had to inherit all the limitations and defects of a capitalist systems. It has been in power, and it has been guilty of the
  1920
  follies cited by my right hon. Friend. The answer to my right hon. Friend, surely, is, that whatever wrong there has been on the part of that Labour Government has been condoned by the electors, for the Government has gone back with a large majority.
  It is alleged that any such service as we suggest should be set up, would entail, to begin with, an army of bureaucrats, and that it could not be done without enormous waste. Part of the answer, if not the whole of it, will be found in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley, who gave proportions and figures showing how enormous is the number of people in this country who, naturally, have sought to escape from useful, productive service, and have got themselves employed in some kind of job more remunerative or more secure. But take a definite instance of what we have now, and, naturally, at this time the Ministry of Labour is the proper one to cite. Bureaucrats! Why, to-day the Minister of Labour employs 20,000 of them at an annual cost of nearly £4,000,000. What are they doing? Looking after the unemployed, scheduling them, seeing that they are properly listed and inquired into and then paying them to remain idle. That is one of the common acceptances of the system and those who defend it. It would be surely better to have a lesser number of bureaucrats employed in superintending productive work, in seeing that the unemployed earn, if not the whole, certainly some part of their living.
  Your State Departments have grown enormously in the last 15 or 20 years, and yet there has been no Labour Government in power. Liberal, Tory and Coalition in turn have had authority. What is their answer to a charge, that a task of this kind, undertaken by the State, cannot be undertaken without a great army of bureaucrats having to be provided for the service? We allege that the greatest folly has been and is now being shown in resisting claims for a reasonable change, and in giving, as has often been the case to property, a power that often has been wrongly used. It is that which produces these clases of embittered class interests, and we claim that the man who has the first right to a full share of what is going is the man who is willing to work for that share, and

  1921
  that the dirtier, the harder and the more dangerous the work the stronger the claim of that man. The view, commonly taken by those who hold to the existing order, is that private enterprise is assailed by this Resolution. I think that there is still in this House a number of Gentlemen who called for a public inquiry in 1919 which was presided over by my right hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. McCurdy). Their Report is available for hon. Members in the Library. It shows that they discovered that 80 per cent. of the principal businesses in this Kingdom were under the control of syndicates, combines and great aggregations of capitalists. That is the latest stage of capitalist advance which has crushed out the private trader, the brains and enterprise of the little man who wanted to keep a shop and earn a living, and who has by this system been put completely at the mercy of this big power in the trade and commerce of our country. That Report says:
  "We are, satisfied that trade associations and combines are rapidly increasing in this country and may within no distant period exercise a paramount control over all important branches of British trade."
  What chance is there for private enterprise under such a system? What chance is there for the man who begins without property, whose only capital is the labour of his hand and brain? What chance has he when confronted with the pressing competition of such great syndicates and capitalist associations? I need not quote further from that Report, though there is much more of a like kind to be found within it. In drawing my observations to a close I would like to touch upon the effect of this power of the syndicates in respect to the housing problem which has taken up a good deal of the time of the House. I have here a letter sent to Members of Parliament from the town clerk of the City of Manchester. Remember that the council of the City of Manchester is not a Labour or Socialist body. It consists, in the main, by a very large majority, of ex-Conservatives, and its Lord Mayor is of that party. His letter goes on to say that though the costs of labour are about 100 per cent. above the pre-War level the costs of material remain at 150 per cent. above pre-War level, and an appeal is made to Members of Parlia-
  1922
  ment to find a remedy. They conclude by saying:
  "Houses are urgently needed by the nation and we ask that the Government be urged to take immediate steps to combat the effect of trade rings at present existing in the building trade which will not enable the housing conditions in Manchester or elsewhere to be materially improved."
  When one talks of progress in recent generations may I recall to the House the picture painted by Mr. Gladstone in this House of the conditions 80 years ago.
  "It is one of the most melancholy features in the social state of our country that we see beyond the possibility of denial that while there is at this moment a decrease in the consuming powers of the people, and an increase in the pressure of impoverishment and distress, there is at the same time a constant accumulation of wealth in the upper classes, and an increase in the luxuriousness of their habits and in their means of enjoyment."
  That is language which applies at this moment to an even deeper degree. The conditions in regard to this wicked waste and wanton extravagance are worse I suppose now than at any moment in our history. They are a very pointed contribution, to the destruction of the capitalist system itself. At the last election we did not conceal our detestation of that system. We expressly appealed to the electors in our programme, which I have here, to choose between the plan which I suggest, in order to determine the social life of the people, and the plan upon which that system has rested so far, and though we have not yet received support to a degree enabling us to test that plan we take leave to remind right hon. Gentlemen opposite that for every five votes which they were able to secure we secured four. It is natural therefore that they should become more or less desperate at the signs which they see. We are not concerned with party successes, though parties in the main must be the instruments of betterment in changes in this country, but we are concerned about the rights of the mass of the people and especially about the rights of that great producing mass which so far has been wronged and robbed throughout the centuries.
  It is for that reason that we are now asking Parliament and through Parliament the country at large to listen to these new views about a new order, to accept in respect to land, mines, rail-

  1923
  ways, industries, the great producing agencies, the great agencies and channels of distribution, the principle that the people can be better served by the people owning and controlling these agencies than they can be served by the private possession which too long we have suffered. If it be that this change is condemned as a failure we answer that it has never been tried. We answer that so far as it has been tried under proper State authority for any definite State purpose, through the assent and goodwill of the people in the State, State ownership has succeeded whether nationally or municipally, and that we are satisfied that, given the intellectual and willing acceptance of these doctrines, they cannot possibly fail.
  Mr. E. C. GRENFELL: I speak with some diffidence on this subject because consider that my colleague in the representation of the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), who is not here, and myself are the villains of the piece on this occasion. The City of London stands to-day still supreme in the capitalist world, and, as its representatives, I feel that possibly we ought to appear in a white sheet. We are not prepared to do so and for this reason. I believe that the electorate of the City of London, not because they elected myself and my colleague, are as to 50 per cent. probably superior in ability, at any rate above the average in ability, or in the good things of this world which they possess. Those good things which they possess were not inherited. They have been made by their own exertion. The lawyers of the Temple constitute a large element of the electorate of the City of London.
  Mr. WALLHEAD: What do the lawyers make? HON. MEMBERS: "Trouble!"]
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope): I would ask hon Members not to interrupt. This is the maiden speech of the hon. Member, and I would remind hon. Members that the right hon. Gentleman who spoke last was listened to in perfect silence.
  Mr. GRENFELL: Those lawyers are emphatically capitalists in the sense that their industry, combined with their intelligence, have raised them to their present posi-
  1924
  tion in which they control large interests, and are themselves in the forefront among the capitalists whom hon. Gentlemen opposite would wish to reduce to a common level. There is one immutable law, the iron law of inequality, which I defy the Socialists to destroy without destroying the country in which they live. I will leave the lawyers to deal with this matter, but I would venture to speak on more practical matters of business, because for the fourth generation in this House, I believe since 1802, before Ricardo entered the House, my family consecutively have played a part in the cause of progress, especially with regard to the working man, but with due consideration for the progress of this country from the capitalist point of view, and we have been in business during that period. I was so impressed with the feeling and eloquence and general sincerity of the hon. Member who proposed this Motion, that for a time I was almost mesmerised and took thought as to whether everything which I and every capitalist had worked for and striven for was wrong and perhaps altogether evil. I recovered from that effect in a very short time. I still am recovering. It seems to me that all the points that the hon. Member put forward very ably were wrong. The first was that the country was suffering from some disease, increasing up to 1914; secondly, that that disease was due to capitalism; and, thirdly, that the cure was State control and Socialism.
  As regards the first, I see no evidence that up to 1914 the position of the working man was getting steadily worse. Of course the world and this country were not healthy; the world never has been altogether healthy; and it is worse now, not owing to capitalism but owing to the late War. That War was not due to capitalism or to international finance, as is said in some places. You will not cure this evil by stifling all initiative. You ought rather to encourage it, because it was responsible for the better conditions of the working classes, from the industrial revival up to the time of the War. There are certain things which, I think, the House on both sides will admit did contribute, during the latter part of the last century, to the improvement of the conditions of the working classes. I would like to instance such simple things as oil, cheap oil, which was due, not only

  1925
  to capitalist production out to the skill of the capitalist in distribution, which enabled the oil to reach people in this country who had been in a state of absolute darkness after sundown all their lives. I can well remember that in my youth every cottage after sundown was completely in the dark, and that if it had a fire the people had to read by that, if at all. Then there was the introduction and improvement of the bicycle, which brought it within the means of almost the humblest person. That meant that the radius of the working man was raised from about a mile from his work, to four, five or six miles. That was due entirely to capitalist development and power of distribution.
  It might be said that if these things are good, the State might as well take them over. I admit that if they are good and incapable of improvement the State might well do so. But that would mean that the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) did not mean what he said when he stated that the world was bad and unhealthy. It would mean that he considers that the world is now good, that these various things have been so developed that no further improvement is possible, and that in that case the State ought to take them over because there is no improvement to be expected, and the State might well get the benefit of them. The people have taken this action in one or two cases. They have done it in connection with gas and water and trams. In the case of trams they probably hit on a loser. They believed that this means of transport had been so improved that it was perfect. They were right in one respect, for there is probably no improvement to be made in trams. But it is more than probable that a new invention has come which will supersede trams and that no trams will evermore be built. If so, the State, in exercising its right to buy, has made a very bad bargain. Let us leave 1914 and get on to the conditions after the War. Now we are faced with very much unemployment. That, I believe, is due largely to the War, to the closing of all the foreign European markets, and to the dislocation of exchanges. To-day we have 1,500,000 unemployed. We see in France and in Germany and in America, countries differently situated, no unemployment. I cannot believe that the
  1926
  capitalist system which exists in all those countries has done the harm here which produces nearly 2,000,000 unemployed, and yet has done good in those countries where no unemployment exists.
  I stand here not only to defend capitalism; I would like to throw the ball across, and say that, in my opinion, there is more harm being done and more unemployment being caused by the Proposer of this Motion and by his friends and by their bad counsel, than ever was done by anything else. The hon. Member and many of his advanced friends have preached inefficiency, and unitedly they have preached co-inefficiency. They have, either intentionally or from a want of knowledge, preached that ca-canny principle, which no one has referred to yet, perhaps because it was so often referred to in the first Debate—that ca-canny principle which has caused more distress here and made the British workman's name stand worse throughout the world than any other principle. Hon. Members opposite talk of co-operation, and of team work. All that they have done in co-operation has been to encourage team idleness and slovenliness among working men. They propose to eliminate the middleman and capital, and to give all the profit to the consumer. But why do this all at once? Why not have your co-operation and co-operative societies, your wholesale co-operative society, which is a capitalist undertaking? Why not have them and the individual working in competition at the same time? If by eliminating all the middlemen you can reduce prices, by all means do so. The individualist, the small man who has grown big and becomes a millionaire, you will ruin, presumably, at once. You think it will be done. Not for one moment. I think history has shown in the last 50 years that the individualist is well able to stand up against the co-operative society or the co-operative wholesale society.
  May I get down to practical history and quote one or two facts in the history of the merchant banking house of which I have the honour to be a member? During the last 80 years we have had a considerable number of successes and have made large profits, of which the State has taken its due proportion. But what are the failures? There have been such. I would particularly call to mind

  1927
  two unfortunate instances in the firm's history with reference to the production and development of mines in this country and in another part of Europe. I will speak first of the history of the development of parts of this country. Having taken the best advice, as we thought, we introduced to the public the debentures of a mining institution. After we had done so, we found that the institution was not producing profits, that it would probably not pay interest on the debentures, and that it would be a very unfortunate thing for the investor. After making a thorough examination, my firm and one or two directors put up, first £100,000, then £200,000, and then £300,000 before this concern ran. When that did not pull it round and still more money was required, we almost felt like giving it up. We had a deputation from the country to say that if we did so—it was in the winter—some 20,000 men and their families would be out of work. Another £150,000 was therefore put up, and fresh management again tried. In 1908, after six years, that concern became a flourishing institution, its debentures were paid off, and since then its history has been a satisfactory one to all concerned.
  I am not putting that forward in any spirit of praise of the capitalist, because he did that partly to vindicate himself with the public, partly from obstinacy, and partly not to let the investor lose his money, and incidentally not to put his men out of work. And he had his reward. If that had been a Government institution, if the Government had made a similar mistake—as they would have done, because the advisers who dealt with us were the Government advisers—would the Government have felt justified in throwing £500,000 or so after the other money? If they had done so, would they have done so openly, or would they have tried to conceal it in their accounts with various other things so that critics like my colleague in the representation of the City, and perhaps the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Pringle) could not have found it out? The country takes grave risks in dealing with such intricate problems as mines
  I will quote a second bad mistake which did not end as happily as the first. It related to a mine in Eastern Europe or Western Asia. Capitalists put up
  1928
  £50,000 to work a disused copper mine—disused because since 1500 it had not been touched. That £50,000 eventually became £1,000,000, and then £1,500,000, owing to the difficulty of working the ore, the unsatisfactory labour conditions and other difficulties. But by 1910 that company was earning large money. The money was all put back into the property and nothing was taken out. When the War came the mine was taken and retaken by the enemy, and we had considerable difficulty in getting our men away. In 1917 the mine was recovered and we began to work it again. That lasted for about eight months, and then once more our men had to run away. Since then it has all been waste. What is the bearing of this on Socialism, on capitalism? It is this: That the Socialists themselves made an expedition to this country, I believe on a joy-ride. Some members of the Socialist party, including the Leader of the Opposition, and, I believe, the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw) went on a visit to this country of Georgia. A lady writer, well known to most of the Labour party, described the visit. She described a dinner given to the Second International by the municipality, at which the people of this mission were present. "She says that the wines and the rich food could not have been surpassed for completeness by the most expensive mountain hotel in America."
  Mr. T. SHAW: She is not a judge.
  Mr. GRENFELL: Later on she writes as follows—she refers to "this gallant little Socalist Republic" and adds:
  "It has a good soil, very fertile, with useful deposits of valuable minerals. Its industries might be made very productive if modernised and supplied with the necessary capital. Foreign capital is shy, however: it fears confiscation by even the moderate Socialist Government of Georgia."
  They have already got £1,500,000 and I do not think the capitalists will put more there. Georgia is certain of trouble, if
  "it comes to be Bolshevist, either by Lenin from the outside or revolutionaries from within. Georgia needs peace and security for her happiness. There is no immediate prospect of either."
  Did the capitalists do harm or good in that country? They turned a spot which had not been worked in 50 years into a flourishing township. To-day no one will work there; the Second International go

  1929
  there and they complain that capital will not look at it. It will be the same thing with regard to the railways should they become nationalised. I met the Minister of a foreign country the other day who wished us to help in the building and running of a railway. I asked him whether when it was done, he wished that the State should own it entirely. He said, "For goodness sake, no. You run it. We will give you part of the capital; you can have part of the profits if there are any, because if we run it ourselves there will be none. We—the Government—own all the rest of the railways, or at least we bought them, but the men working on the railways now own them, and we dare not call our souls our own. They have the vote and they have the railways. "That is precisely what we should come to. The last speaker referred to an article in the "Observer" which went rather far. If the right hon. Member for Derby (Mr. J. H. Thomas) and his organisation owned the railways and the operatives owned the mills, without paying for them, then I think the rest of us would have to pay the losses which would certainly occur in running those concerns.
  After 1800, the supremacy of this country was great in iron, steel and coal, and it was also great because of the superiority of the British working men over the working men of any other country. This country also had the advantage of a capitalist organisation, of bankers who stood higher in credit than those of any other country. To-day we have lost supremacy in coal, steel and iron. We have still got capitalists who stand, I believe, as high in credit as ever, but I regret to say the value of the British working men to-day as compared with the working men of other countries is not so great. I do not think anyone who has to deal with labour internationally—in the building of railways and other works—will say that the British working man to-day is the one they would choose in preference to all others, or the one to whom they would pay more, as was the case in the days when the French railways were being built. What will be the result of the policy which hon. Members opposite are advocating? Let us recall the fact that Britain is four-fifths urban, and in such a country that policy is running straight to starvation. Why not try this on a country that
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  can support itself? Why not get Denmark or Germany to try it. [An HON. MEMBER: "Or Russia."] You tried it in one case without success, but why not try it on another country like Denmark or Germany? Why try to force it straight on to this country, with its four-fifths urban population, where your Socialism will lead you straight to starvation? Although I heard a voice from the other side say that the lady whose opinion I quoted about the Georgian Republic was not to be accepted as an authority, yet I conclude with a quotation from another Labour leader, who, I have no doubt, some hon. Members will also disown—a Labour leader who has been in control of more labour than any hon. Member on the other side. [HON. MEMBERS: "Name!"] I refer to Mr. Gompers. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] No doubt his name will not meet altogether with favour among hon. Members on the other side, but, nevertheless, I should like to read how he describes Socialism—
  "I want to tell you Socialists that I have studied your philosophy, read your works on economics, studied your standard works in English and German. I have kept a close watch upon your doctrine for thirty years, I have been closely associated with many of you and know how you think and what you propose. I know too what you have up your sleeves. I want to say I am entirely at variance with your philosophy. I declare it to you. I am not only at variance with your doctrines but with your philosophy. Economically you are unsound; socially you are wrong; industrially you are an impossibility."
  Mr. IRVING: Since this Resolution has been before the House, one has heard and read many curious things about Socialism, but we have not heard anything new about Socialism. All the things said against it in this House are things which are within my memory as having been uttered against Socialism for over 40 years. I saw in one of the London dailies the other day something which appeared to be new. I thought people knew us better than they appear to do. It was said in this journal that it might well be thought that the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowdon) could have wished that the Government had been unable to find a day for the further discussion of his Motion. I thought anyone who knew anything about Socialism or Socialists knew, as a matter of fact and not of theory, that the more Socialism is discussed the wider

  1931
  its area of influence grows and the longer the period which passes, the more adherents it gains. The hundreds became thousands, and the thousands are to-day millions. I am quite aware that it will be said that not all the individual members of the Labour party are Socialists, and I know that is so. I admit that of the millions who voted for the Labour party there must necessarily be a large proportion who are not conscious Socialists, but they are on the road. They are rebellious against the existing order of things with which they had been content so long. It was that apathy and indifference which we sought to kill, knowing full well that if we aroused a keen interest in the condition of affairs in the State, Socialism is as inevitable as that to-morrow will follow to-day. Over 40 years ago I joined the ranks of the Socialist movement in a large city of 400,000 to 500,000 inhabitants, and we had the magnificent total of about a score. We knew the task we had set ourselves to do. We knew very well that practically all the ideas held by the ordinary people had to be got rid of. We had not merely to implant Socialist ideas in the minds of people, but we had to get rid of other ideas, and that was very largely what is described in the Scriptural phrase as being born again.
  At that time there was not a Socialist, not even a Labour Member, in this House, and, probably, there were not 100 men or women of Socialist views on the whole of the local authorities throughout the Kingdom. We did not hire halls then; we had to take the traditional orange box to the street corner. We are still taking it there, because it has yet part of its usefulness to fulfil, but despite the antagonism which Socialism has to meet, despite the antagonism in church and in chapel and on political platforms, and by the capitalists as a class, despite the fact that practically the whole Press of the nation was, and is still, in the hands of our enemies and used unscrupulously in misrepresenting the idea of Socialism—despite all that opposition we are growing, and I, for one, at practically the end of a long period of life, am satisfied with the progress we have made, and I am as certain of ultimate realization as that I am addressing the House at the
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  present moment. Those who attack the principle of Socialism do not seem in the first place to understand it, and they talk in terms which are in no sense commensurate with the idea. The right hon. Member for West Swansea (Sir A. Mond) in his speech on the last occasion said that at last we had a clear cut issue between individualism and Socialism. Unfortunately, that is not true. Individualism has already been so far defeated that there is no clear cut issue between the two. The issue, though perhaps not so well understood, was economically very much more clear 50 or 60 years ago than it is to-day. You have been compelled all along the line to modify your individualist system by organisation, by combines, and by trusts, and so to take possession of the idea for which Socialism stands while using it only for the purposes of private profit. Nevertheless it proves that the theory of the organisation of society for which Socialism stands, is correct even from the capitalist point of view, and the day is coming when the State will take that theory of organisation and work it for its own advantage.
  6.0 P.M.
  With reference to the capitalist system as it exists to-day, I have heard a good deal this afternoon as to the improvement in the condition of the working man compared with 50 years ago. I admit the working man's condition is better. By those modifications, I have mentioned, under which our idea lies, conditions have been better. They have not been made better by the capitalist, system of society, but rather by the negation of that system to a certain extent. Take the question of national education. National education is not by any means what it ought to be, but it is certainly an advance upon what it was in my boyhood. That is not due to the capitalist conception at all, because the capitalist conception is merely profit making. I hear hon. Members sometimes say what losses the capitalists have made in this or that direction. It is quite true they make losses individually, but it is not true that in the aggregate they make losses. Individual capitalists or groups of capitalists may lose, but the whole capitalist system gains, and it would cease to-morrow unless that gain were more or less assured to it. Does anyone imagine that capitalism exists for any purpose except profit? Let us take

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  bread. It munitions of war give a higher profit than bread making, capital flows from the making of bread into munitions of war, and so in regard to every industry that you can imagine. The people need food and clothing and house accommodation, but capitalism meets those needs only in so far as it can make a profit out of exploiting them, and if there is no profit in the exploitation, then you can starve for the lack of bread, go cold for the lack of clothing, and wander the streets for the lack of housing.
  I have heard it said during this discussion that a good many of the things about which we are troubling have arisen out of the late War, and I have heard that said with regard to unemployment. One of my first public acts, as quite a young man, was to take part in an unemployed demonstration, not as an unemployed man, but as an organiser, and that was well over 40 years ago. There is not a thing said about unemployment to-day, as to its evil effects and as to the desirability of finding some remedy, that was not said then, and from that day to this I have been listening to politicians, who all of them at election times have pledged themselves to do something to do away with unemployment. One or other of the parties has been from that time returned to this House, and we are here to-day with the worst unemployment we have ever had in our history, at any rate, so far as I know. What has been done? To-day there is very little more organisation for meeting unemployment by finding employment than there was 40 years ago. The method of taking people and taxing those in employment of their small earnings in order that they may keep other people out of employment to walk about and do nothing is worthy, I was going to say, of a lunatic asylum, but I do not think a lunatic asylum would be guilty of it, yet we contemplate it as being about the only thing we can possibly do.
  What are the unemployed? A few years ago we were told in every unemployment crisis that there was a vast number who were unemployable, but to-day we scarcely ever hear that term at all. As a matter of fact, those million and a half, or, if you take the people on short time, you can well say those two millions of people who are short of employment and thus short of the things which make life
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  possible, in any decent sense of the term, are filled with physical and mental power, skilled in hand and brain, and, if their labour were organised, could produce things for use which would very largely, if not entirely, keep them without any subsidy at all. If you took a man like the right hon. Member for West Swansea and said to him: "Take this body of unemployed people, utilise the power that is in their bodies, give rein to the desire expressed in their soul that they should work for their livelihood, and apply that power and skill to the raw material which the State can find," I am certain that you would not have to find money to keep the unemployed at all. They would go on and keep themselves, and the only reason why that is not done is because the capitalist who controls society sees very well that a national organisation commenced on those lines would inevitably spread, and drive a wedge further and further into the capitalist system, until by and by it would be helping the evolution into the new state of society.
  The right hon. Member for West Swansea said that capitalism had existed as long as the world had existed. I am bound to say that, in so far as I have read the speeches on this Motion, his was about the cleverest—and I still think it is the cleverest—that has been delivered against our position, but what speech is it? It is the speech of a political advocate pleading for his side. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about yours?"] I have never done so in my life. I am pleading for the thing that I believe to be good for the country, for you, the capitalist class, as well as for ourselves. I plead for the condition which will take the workman out of the position of wage slavery, in which he exists to-day, and place him upon a pedestal where no man shall dare to say him nay from the point of view of earning his livelihood, and where he shall be able, as a result of earning his livelihood, to stand before God and man as the equal of his fellows. I say that the right hon. Member for West Swansea knew better. There is not an economist in the world who will tell you that capitalism has existed since the world began. He himself knows better. The early part of man's history, so far as I have read it, was individualism—the cave man and the man who dwelt in the tree-tops.
  Mr. KIRKWOOD: There is not mucn difference in them yet.
  Mr. IRVING: Then came what he himself spoke of as the tribal system. Was there any capitalism about the tribal system? He also said that Socialism had existed since the beginning of the world. Somehow or other, he seems to have got mixed a bit. It is quite true that in the early stages of man primitive Communism abounded throughout the earth, and if you will examine that to-day you will find that, with all its shortcomings, it was a far more humane idea, that thought more of its people than we do to-day, because we, to-day, very largely think nothing at all about them. Your industry to-day is run purely for the purposes of profit, and you have your accidents growing. Deaths and maimings of workpeople employed in industry are well known by those who work in industry to be considerably heavier than they have any need to be. You run your system until there are diseases applicable to certain industries, industrial diseases peculiar to a particular industry, and that surely is a condition of things that one cannot possibly face with equanimity. I, myself, as an old railway man, know something about railways, and I know very well that to-day, although things are better on the railway than they were, there are men killed and maimed whose lives and limbs could be saved, if not profit but the welfare of the men who work for the community were the first consideration.
  Let us for a moment consider the railways a little further. We have been urging the nationalisation of the railways, and, in my humble judgment, the late Government had some intention of nationalising those railways, but they thought better of it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Because of the opposition of the vested interests behind them, not because their judgment was wrong. And so you have the spectacle of the number of railway companies being diminished to five, I think it is. Can anyone tell me that they could not be better run down to one, and then run with greater skill and efficiency, and at less cost, than by five? Just as five can do it better than one hundred, so one could do it better than five. A good deal has been said about the way in which Socialism is coming. The hon. Member
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  for Colne valley (Mr. Snowden) has been taken to task for speaking of gradual evolution. How else can it come? I have heard people talk about Socialism in Russia. The people who talk of Socialism in Russia are either exhibiting their crass ignorance, or they are knaves and know better, though they will not say so.
  Mr. KIRKWOOD: They are both.
  Mr. IRVING: I am afraid they are a mixture, but if you want to judge of the position with regard to Russia, and if you want to identify it with Socialism, how do you explain the simple fact that the Socialists of Russia have opposed the Soviet form of Government from the very beginning, and not only so, but, according to their numbers, have suffered more than others in the way of persecution, in death, in imprisonment, and in exile? And they are to-day more or less, for their very opposition to them—
  Major Sir A. SINCLAIR: Why did you not support the Resolution in Hamburg?
  Mr. IRVING: I am not going to blame the Russians. The Russian revolution was not made by Lenin and Trotsky. It was made by the bloody deeds of the Tsars of generation after generation, and no man can make a revolution. It was the outcome of the deeds of tyranny that Russia had suffered for long ages that brought about the revolution, and if we had been there, we might have thought very differently about it from what we do. At any rate, no Socialist ever expected anything else would happen. You cannot have Socialism until you have a fairly sound democracy, and not only a sound form of democracy, but a fairly intelligent, educated people. That was not the case in Russia. Inevitably, the catastrophe which fell upon her came from an endeavour to put into practice that which could not possibly succeed. We in this country do not desire to do that. It would be disastrous in this country, even with its well-developed democracy, to try to shut up shop on the capitalist system to-day, and to re-establish another form of society to-morrow. Sometimes men are appalled at the magnitude of the change for which Socialism stands. I can well understand that, if they do not think round the question. If you take the earlier history of our own

  1937
  people, if you take the tribal system and the system of to-day, you will find that there is far more difference between the existing facts of to-day and what was true then, than there would be between a Socialist state following upon a capitalist state to-day. It has always beeen so in every change of human society. In the capitalist state of to-day, the very modifications that are continually put before us as necessary, in a thousand and one directions they indicate the line of advance on which society is going to-morrow.
  We are told that Socialism is impossible from the standpoint of human nature. One hon. Member said that no one would work unless he was assured of that for which he worked. The hon. Member must have misunderstood the facts of life. Millions upon millions of people work, but do not get what they earn. If they did, there would not be any profit. If a man got really what he earns, what would there be left for anybody else? Only in so far as your capitalist system organises its industry on the main lines of a huge factory, where you can get thousands of work-people, and you take out of them full value and only pay them a small part of what they produce, do you get your profit. I am not one of those who disbelieves in human nature. I have a profound faith in human nature, and that faith is very largely based upon what I know of it in myself. That may sound egotistical. You can think so if you like; but I can honestly say that ever since I took up this work it has been my endeavour not to work in my own interests, because it was not in my own interests, but I have striven, as far as one man can strive, to convert people to this doctrine. My desire and our interest is to bring about Socialism which will do away with competition for daily bread. That is all that your competitive system means, a struggle for bread, and that always eventuates in evil results. We want to bring the principle of co-operation into being, where men will strive for the good of the community, themselves included.
  I have spent a good many years of my life at sea, and from my knowledge of men at sea in those days I know that from the time that they left the shipping office till they came back and drew their
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  wages, they thought very little about their wages. Any man on board ship in those days, I do not know about to-day, who did not pull his weight, merely because he was not getting a sufficient wage, would be speedily in bad odour with his shipmates, because there was a sense of common life, of common humanity, and a realisation that each man's life, more or less, depended upon the faithfulness of the work that his fellows did. I feel that in myself. I have had many things in my mind illustrating how the human being is sacrificed to the benefit of others. Therefore, I can realise the possibility of mankind in the mass being affected by his surroundings and rising into a very much higher altitude of humanity and of love for his fellows than at the present time.
  Hon. Members must know that in the ordinary capitalist industry the aim of the employer is to get as much as possible out of the man. When workmen have had to struggle for modifications of their bad conditions, and finding resistance to increased pay, to decreased hours, to the fencing of machinery, and to the making of industries safe, because it costs money, and having had to do this for generations, do you suppose that it has not had an effect upon them, and how can you expect that when greater freedom does come to them, they in their turn may express their feelings in some kind of selfishness? We are told that we cannot produce equality, equality of brain, and so on. That surely is an old story. What we can produce, and what we are seeking to produce, is equality of opportunity. We shall leave the initiative, the energy and the vigour of the individual to find its own level, but we seek that individual opportunity under which the individual will be able to earn his livelihood, and no one will possess the power to take it from him.
  We sometimes hear in this House expressions of a desire for universal peace. Supposing by the wave of the magician's wand universal peace could be secured to-morrow, people would say that it was a beautiful thing, but would it be true? What would happen to the unemployed workmen when strong, able-bodied men came home, disbanded from the Army, and found employment, and by doing so they displaced those in employment, who were turned into the ranks of the unemployed? Sometimes I have heard men talk about the moral concept

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  of not living in idleness, and every man earning his livelihood. Supposing we converted the upper classes of this country to that moral concept and they said, "We will no longer live in idleness. We will go down into the world's market and do something for our living." They would meet with the sternest opposition from the working-classes everywhere, who would say to them, "Go back to the place whence you came. There is no need for you to come and work. You are only taking the bread out of our mouths."
  I once said to a lady friend of mine—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—Yes, and a titled lady at that. I was pleading for a palatial school for the children in the town in which I lived. She said, "That is all very well; but, whilst I am with you, so far as putting up a proper school goes, I do not see why I should be called upon to pay for those things which are not essential." I said, "My lady, think what the education of your children cost. "She replied, "Yes, but we paid for our children's education, and now you are asking us to pay for others as well." I said: "Is that true? Supposing I beg, borrow or steal £100,000, and I invest it in a railway company. Being a young married man, with four or five children, I should have sufficient means to have my children looked after, so my wife and myself will travel the world. We travel for 20 or 30 years. During that time, how much of human service shall we have consumed? Coming home, I think of the £100,000, and I say to myself, 'It will be getting smaller by this time. I will make inquiry from the railway company, and see how much is left, so that we shall not have to go to the workhouse.' Lo, and behold, when I go to the railway company I find that the £100,000 is now £110,000, after I have been spending for all these years. Apply that to wages and see where the wages will go. What is your answer to that proposition, my lady?" I asked. She laughed. I said, "May I supply the answer?" She said, "Yes, if you like." I said, "Would not my children, my wife and myself have been maintained all these years out of the unpaid services of the men who run the railway?" She was much more honest than most capitalists, and she said, "Yes, I am afraid that is true." You cannot imagine any other proposition.
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  Talk about your moral society, where men for generations have done no work, and do not intend to do any, and who under your system can go on, with their people, for hundreds of years, predestined to live, not merely upon you, but upon you and your children's children, generation after generation. If you reduce that down to small proportions, which you can see it in your home, what would be the result where there is half a dozen of you? Let one of the half dozen say, "No, I am not going to work. I am going to be a landlord." Let another say, "I am not going to work, I am a capitalist." The other four would say, "If you do not do your share of the work you get outside." Surely any man with sense must know that as far as material things are concerned, the man who does not produce has nothing wherewith to pay in honour and decency for that which he consumes. I want to see a condition of society which I am quite sure Socialism would at least bring nearer. I have been listening this afternoon to the various speeches, and a good deal of what has been voiced I have heard in this House a hundred times. Hon. Members have asked the question, "Where are you going to sell the stuff that you make?" It never seems to strike hon. Members opposite that you can eat the food you grow, that you can wear the clothing you yourselves make, and that you yourself can dwell in the houses that you put up. Surely that is the proposition for which Socialism stands. It does not stand for making houses, and clothing, and growing food, and selling these things in order to make a profit out of them, and then going and getting your livelihood by spending that profit. It simply means that the more people under Socialism you can have to work you will not have a worse but a better community, for many hands make light work.
  Hon. Members opposite do not mean to tell me they do not at the bottom of their hearts know that the million and a half people who are out of work to-day, properly organised and given the opportunity, could produce enough to keep not merely the million and a half, but two millions and a half on the basis of to-day's requirements? "Let us get back to the days before the War" it is urged by some. You will never get back to the days before the War, any more than you will get back to yesterday. Conditions are

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  such to-day, whatever may have been the case in the past, as to the possibility of providing sufficient for all, that matters are looked at in a different light. Even men like Lord Leverhulme in England and Ford in America would say the same, and they are, at least, men who know, and they know very well that our powers of production have outstripped in any possible imagination our powers of consumption. What I want to do is to bring the two together, and not bring this artificial system where money intervenes, and where food, raiment, and shelter are produced by those who are unable to enjoy them.
  Under the capitalist system, if you look at the mass population, you find hundreds of thousands of men employed in coal mining. I am not referring now to those who are labouring for wages that are less than the standard, but take the best-paid miners and the men who make the highest wages in any industry; the railway, the mines, the workshop, or the factory. When you have taken the highest wage that you are paying you are paying starvation wages from the point of view of providing that man and his wife and family with the decencies of an ordinary civilised life that should obtain to-day.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Before I come to the speech of the hon. Member who has just sat down, I should like to utter a word or two of congratulation to the hon. Member for the City (Mr. Grenfell) upon the successful maiden speech he has made this afternoon. I should be very sorry to think that that maiden speech was his swan song. The value of his contribution to this Debate would justify the City in keeping him here in spite of any inconvenience it may impose elsewhere. In regard to the speech of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Irving), there is no man in this House who is better entitled to speak Socialismthan he. For 40 years he has put up a very consistent, gallant and courageous fight for the principles he has expounded now. In doing so he has won the respect of those who profoundly disagree from him in every particular. The fact of his sincerity was manifested in the way in which he expounded clearly and simply the doctrine of Socialism. We have heard it for the first time in the course of this Debate. He even expounded it simply to crudeness, and I think he put it on the right
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  ground when he made his defence of the tribal system. Then he went on to make it quite clear in his argument about the railways that there was no compensation. That is surely the first time that has been clearly stated in the course of this Debate, because his arguments mean, if there is to be no return in respect of capital invested in the railways, then no payment is to be made to those who hold any part of that capital. That is the first time that argument has been very clearly put.
  Mr. IRVING: The right hon. Gentleman has misunderstood what I said. What I did say was that would stop their profit making. They could take their capital and do whatever they liked with it.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Then there is nowhere else where they can invest it. [AN HON. MEMBER: "Save it, and spend it."] It is exactly the same thing as expropriating it. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] However, it is quite appropriate that that statement should come from him. [Interruption.] We listened to the hon. Member very patiently and with very great interest, if I may say so. This is a proposition to uproot the system, which, with all its defects, has raised this country to a position of high preeminence in wealth and power, and to substitute for it something in the precarious, delicate, and complicated machinery of commerce, which has not been tried anywhere. I am not going to quote the case of Russia. I may quite agree that there are many reasons why it is not fair to quote it. It is the only experiment which up to the present has been made on a national scale, and it is not encouraging. This is the worst country in the world to make an experiment of that kind. You might make it in a country with great inherent resources, agricultural and mineral, and if it failed you could restore the position after a good many years of suffering. You could do it in a great agricultural community like Russia. There will be confusion, chaos, and a good deal of distress, but Russia will survive. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] She will survive. She has gigantic resources. That is not the case with a country which has built up a great business on generations of goodwill, whose resources have been piled up gradually throughout the whole of those centuries. Once you despite that goodwill, once you

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  spend those resources, disaster is irretrievable, totally irretrievable. That is why this is the worst country in the world to make an experiment of the kind. The mistake will be irrecoverable. No country whose wealth has been built up under the same conditions as ours, once that trade, business, and commerce is lost, can ever recover.
  I am only putting down the risks. The risks are greater here. Therefore, before that change is made, there must be an overwhelming case to justify this country in undertaking risks which would be so disastrous if a mistake were made. Hon. Members to make their case must prove two things at least. They have got to prove that the present system is a complete failure in providing such essentials of happiness and well-being as are within the resources of the country. They have got to prove, in the second place, that the plan they propose as a substitute will do that very much better. They have not attempted to prove that up to the present. There are defects in the present system, failures in the present system. Let me at once say that I was one of those who listened with great admiration to the speech of the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden). I never heard the case for Socialism presented with greater power and lucidity; but let me put this to him: Does he imagine, in assuming his system is a good one, that there will be no defects, no failures that would not have to be remedied, altered, and redressed from year to year, and from generation to generation You are dealing with systems which have to be run by men. The defects of human nature will not come to an end when a system advocated so eloquently by the hon. Gentleman comes into operation. You will have greed, selfishness, mistakes and defects.
  I should like to put this to hon. Members: The system which now exists we have had for a little over a century, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) said in his speech to-day. Over a century ago this country was an agricultural country, dependent upon agriculture and upon the trades associated with agriculture. That system may undoubtedly have had great evils, which rose under
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  and out of it, but all you have to do is to give a catalogue of those evils in order to remind Members how much has been done to remedy them. What were those evils? Very long hours, very low wages, overcrowding of dwellings, appalling insanitary and unhealthy factories and workshops; all the anxieties, all the distress, that arose out of precariousness of labour conditions—ill-health, unemployment, old age, accidents, child labour, employment of women in occupations for which they were not suited—go through the whole category, and it recalls to one's mind the gigantic efforts put forward in the course of last century to redress those evils.
  Let me take two of the very worst. Take unemployment. I have heard during the 30 years I have been in this House many speeches from hon. Members belonging to the Labour party stating, and stating quite truly, that there was nothing that caused more anguish and distress than the fear of unemployment and the consequences of unemployment. Take what has happened during the last three years. The Prime Minister, in that great statement which he made on Thursday, called attention to the fact that during the last two or three years the State has spent £400,000,000 on dealing with the destitution and poverty that comes from unemployment. There is a very remarkable survey which has just been completed by the Toynbee Hall Institution. This is what they say, and it is a survey of the results of unemployment in East London:
  "As regards the effect of unemployment in increasing physical privation and distress the evidence is clear, and there is no difficulty in drawing a conclusion, which is that the unexampled increase in unemployment has resulted in a comparatively negligible increase in distress, as compared with the pre-war standard."
  Then they go on to give the reasons:
  "It cannot be doubted that the absence of distress is due almost entirely to the benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Act, which is heavily subsidised by loans from Government funds, and to the high scale of relief given by the guardians, which is provided by the rates."
  This survey points out that there was no distress as the result of unemployment in consequence of the great efforts which were put forward. That is quite a new experience, and it is the first time an endeavour has been made on a great scale adequate to the need to avoid the

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  distress. Take housing, for example. Up to within the last three or four years the endeavours of this House to solve the problem of housing consisted of two enabling Acts, and the State, as a whole, practically took no hand. In 1919 that policy was changed, and since then the State has undertaken a liability of £180,000,000 for the purpose of providing houses of a high quality and a high standard, and 220,000 houses have been built. I agree that it is the first time, and I agree it is insufficient. I only want to point out that great, gigantic efforts have been made for dealing with these evils.
  I now come to the Amendment, and the whole question is, Has enough been done? Up to the present the Debate, in so far as hon. Members who opposed the Motion are concerned, has been confined to demolishing the case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden). It is not enough, however, simply to answer the case for Socialism. We have got to point out what more can be done in order to complete the remedy of the evils, the inevitable evils which are associated with any system. Therefore, I am going to call attention to the latter part of the Amendment as it was put from the Chair, which declares that this House
  "is resolved to prosecute proposals which, by removing the evil effects of monopoly and waste, will conduce to the well-being of the people."
  I want to put this point. Those who are most anxious to preserve the present system ought to be the most anxious to remedy the evils which arise from it. Unless they do so, I am certain that the bulk of the workers of this country will come to the conclusion that they are evils which are inherent in the system. Therefore, in order to keep it alive and preserve it, in order to prevent the working people of this country from rushing into extremes which, in my heart, I should regard as disastrous, it is essential that the House of Commons should take in hand the redressing of obvious evils in that system. May I just point out two or three of the most obvious. It is idle to say that all is well in the present system. Reference was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) to infantile mortality, and he said there
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  had been a great improvement. Undoubtedly that is so, but there is no doubt that the statistics are perfectly appalling at the present moment. I quote that, because it is a test of social conditions.
  It is not merely the children, the babies and infants who suffer, but it means that the parents suffer. Parents would not sacrifice their children unless they were forced to do so by the conditions under which they live, and all the House has to do is to take a fairly healthy neighbourhood with a well-to-do population—I do not mean an affluent population, but a fairly well-off population—and take the percentage of deaths there, and compare it with districts where you have a large working-class population in some of our industrial areas, and it will be found that the deaths are double, treble and quadruple. That is a proof that there is still existing amongst us a condition of things which is a reflection on our civilisation. I quoted a moment ago from a document which is a survey of the conditions in East London from Toynbee Hall. That document stated that there was no destitution as a result of unemployment, and it goes on to say—
  "It must not be imagined from this conclusion that East London is not suffering from distress. The standard of living in East London is normally low, and conditions are normally miserable. The fact that the conditions have not become worse means only that the unemployed have not, as a rule, fallen from poverty to destitution."
  That is in the metropolis of a great Empire. These are the quarters of the metropolis in which the working people live, where the normal conditions are those of distress and poverty, where you have 3,000,000 people living under slum conditions, and many more under conditions which are not compatible with the amenities of civilised life. I have been reading recently reports from organisations of the Church of England, not Socialist organisations, not organisations engaged in propaganda work for either Communists or the Labour party, or anyone else, but organisations engaged in the task of ameliorating the social conditions in some of our industrial areas, and they provide very painful reading, and they are ominous reading. This is the kind of thing one clergyman says to another in these reports:
  "The elder people are resigned. They are broken-spirited. The young people are

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  sullen, disaffected, rebellious and revolting against existing conditions, and are resolved that they will not tamely submit to them."
  Those are the reports that have come in from charitable institutions under the Established Church. That is the real danger and not hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway. The real danger comes from the fact that we have conditions of that kind still amongst us, and we have got to face it. I should like to go beyond that and point out to the House of Commons circumstances which fill me with a great deal of apprehension from the after-effects of the War. Those facts are greater than we apprehended, and I think they are more potent. If anyone doubts that the War has made a permanent impression upon the people of this country he has only to look at one fact, that hon. Members who challenge the existing order of things, at the last Election, for the first time, polled 4,250,000 votes. The House will make a very great mistake if it goes away merely with the idea that everything is all right, because it has demolished an impossible proposition made by the hon. Member for Colne Valley. The facts will remain, and it is not his arguments, powerful as they are, but the facts that we have to consider.
  7.0 P.M.
  Let us look at those facts. The War has created a new problem. What is it? During the War the standard of comfort and plenty throughout the land was raised to a level such as we have never seen before. There has never been so much abundance and fullness among the vast majority of the people of this country as there was during the War. There is nothing which is so remarkable as the contrast between the grim tragedy of the battlefield and the condition of things at home. What has happened since? Most of the progress made in the direction of improving conditions has already been lost. There are many trades in this country where the workmen are worse off than they were before the War, having been very much better off during the War, and in other trades the advantage is gradually slipping away. There are trades where men were working and receiving considerable wages in which now the times are very hard. In the last two years, 1921 and 1922, the aggregate wages of the working classes have gone down by £540,000,000 per annum, but there is
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  always the memory of what happened during the War which stirs up discontent. In the old days when there was discontent you could blame your parties for it, but now you have to blame systems, and that is the danger. I will just give to the House my real apprehensions with regard to the immediate future. I have read many hopeful reports from trade experts during the last few years. They always said, "We have touched bottom; henceforth there will be steady progress; in a very short time we shall return to the old line of prosperity, and then we shall pass it." I am not blaming the trade experts; they made their reports upon returns that came to them from the various industries of the country. Those who were engaged in those industries were basing their estimates upon what they remembered about the depressions of the past. The whole situation is changed, the causes are different; and I should like the House to consider, very frankly and very fearlessly, what is the position with which we are confronted. Before the War, the national income, including everybody, was between £2,200,000,000 and £2,300,000,000. I am taking the figures from the well-known work of Sir Josiah Stamp, who is the greatest living authority upon the subject. He has made an estimate for last year. His estimate for last year is a national income of from £3,000,000,000 to £3,200,000,000. You say, "That is an improvement." Quite the reverse; it is less. The increase in the cost of living last year was 80 per cent. over the pre-War period. In order to have an income which is equal to the 1914 income, the income of last year ought to be over £4,000,000,000. The income of this country last year was £1,000,000,000 less than its income in 1914.
  Take its trade. We are a country that is more dependent upon foreign trade than any country in the world; in fact, than any country the world has ever seen. At the present moment our exports are 70 per cent. of what they were before the War. I am talking of quantities, which is the only real test. I ask the Government, and I ask the House of Commons to consider what that means. Our national indebtedness has gone up from between £600,000,000 and £700,000,000, to £7,000,000,000. Our external Debt is £300,000,000 more than the

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  total of our National Debt before the War. Our rates and taxes are trebled and quadrupled, our population has increased, our foreign trade has gone down by 30 per cent. What would be the position of a firm whose trade had gone down 30 per cent., whose overhead charges had quadrupled, and whose staff on its books had increased? I ask whether that would not fill any board of directors with some apprehension with regard to the future? I know the Prime Minister suggested in his statement on Thursday that the present condition of things was very largely due to the Ruhr Valley, and there are multitudes of people in this country who believe that the moment that question is settled all will be well, exchanges will be restored, trade will improve, and you will recover your lost prosperity. Is that so? [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]
  I am just as opposed to the occupation of the Ruhr Valley as the Prime Minister is. I protested against it when I was Prime Minister, and I protested against it afterwards; but let there be no miscalculation with regard to the result, even of a settlement there. Supposing you settled Reparations to-morrow, and you had real peace in Europe—the Germans satisfied, France satisfied, Belgium satisfied, ourselves satisfied—you would say, "Then comes prosperity." What are the facts? Let us look at them, and let us look at them frankly. The purchasing power of the world has diminished. You cannot spend £50,000,000,000, and at the same time have it there to spend. It took 20 years to recover from the Napoleonic Wars. How was recovery effected then? By an enormous increase in labour-saving appliances. That increased wealth rapidly, but, although it shortened the period of distress, it intensified it as long as it lasted. Industrial countries are doing exactly the same thing now. They are engaged in improving their machinery, in order to save labour and increase production, but even that will increase the number of unemployed.
  Take our position with regard to foreign competition. I know my right hon. Friend opposite thinks that if you put up a tariff all will be well. At the present time we are not suffering from foreign competition. We are selling 70 per cent. of our pre-War trade. Germany was only selling 40 per cent. of her pre-War trade last year,
  1950
  and is selling hardly half that to-day. The moment peace is restored in Europe, and the exchanges are stabilised—it does not matter at what figure you stabilise; you can stabilise your mark at a million, you can stabilise your franc at 100, and your kronen at 300,000, it makes no difference, it is the fact that they are stabilised that will make the difference—such advantages as we have from the difficulties that our competitors have experienced in making business because of the fluctuations of the exchange will have vanished. You will then be face to face with the real rivalry and the competition. And what sort of competition? France has not been rebuilding her devastated areas; she has reconstructed them with factories built on the newest models. I ask any hon. Member of this House who has not done so to read the very remarkable Report which has just been issued by the Over seas Trade Department in regard to what has happened in France. It begins by saying, "The economic position of France is sound," and it points to new factories built on the latest models, machinery of the latest invention, new docks constructed, old ones re-equipped, old canals widened and deepened, new ones constructed, new railways built, old ones electrified, new power created, the mercantile marine of France increased by over one million tons, its exports over 100 per cent. of the War period, and new resources. Really, I could not read without a sense of amusement one paragraph in M. Poincaré's speech this morning, when he denounced the immorality of Germany in spending money upon constructing new canals while she owed money to other people. A new France has sprung up—not out of the ruins of the old—but out of the devastation of a single province. She has increased enormously her capacity for production, of the very things we are selling in foreign countries. In Germany the same thing is happening. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear"] Certainly. Her foreign trade is diminished, her credit has gone, her population is suffering; but she has not been idle. She also has been building railways, she also has been building new factories, and extending old ones; she also has been re-equipping her factories. They are all ready for the great development which may take place when the settlement comes I am sorry to dwell upon facts

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  which appear to be so hopeless and pessimistic, but it is the business of the House of Commons to face these facts, however distressing they may be. What I am going to suggest to the Government is this. I fear that the period of depression is going to be prolonged. I am honestly apprehensive about it—I ventured in this place, in November, to predict that we should hardly find our unemployed below 1,000,000 at the end of this year. I remember I was attacked then for being unduly alarmist. Is there anyone here now who will say that I was unduly pessimistic? I do not say there will not be fluctuations, spurts, as there were in the Napoleonic days, but I do say that we are in for a long period of depression such as we have not seen in our lifetime. This aggravates existing evils, and I am going to make an appeal to the Prime Minister.
  I do not believe any of the proposals that are put forward will be the slightest use. Take the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden). Does anyone imagine that we are going to get out of the difficulties with which we are confronted by nationalising mines, and railways, and factories? Is that going to get over the post-War difficulties with which we are confronted? Anybody who believes that is a very simple-minded man. I would suggest to the Prime Minister that the time has come for having a real survey of the position of affairs, an inquiry by Parliament into the causes of discontent; an inquiry into the post-War conditions, with a view to arriving, first of all, at the real facts, and the best method of meeting them. There is no time lost. Hon. Members have proposals of their own. The other day the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Sydney Webb), in a very optimistic speech, predicted that they would not have the opportunity of putting them into operation until 1926, that is three years hence. Does he really imagine that until they are able to secure a majority in this House they are going to induce this House of Commons to attempt anything in the nature of the proposals put forward by the hon. Member? Is it not, therefore, better that there should be a searching inquiry into the whole of the facts?
  Mr. J. JONES: Another Sankey, or rather a swankey Commission?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: An inquiry with a view to ascertaining the real facts and with a view to arriving at real recommendations. The responsibility is the responsibility of this House. I warn the House of Commons—
  Mr. JONES: We have had enough of your warnings.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I warn the House of Commons that the situation is a grave one, and that the post-War conditions are alarming, and I venture to suggest that the Government ought to take in hand, at the earliest possible moment, this investigation.
  Mr. HAROLD BRIGGS: The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Irving) has already told us that his party are not unanimous in supporting the Resolution of the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden). Whatever the party opposite may think and say, at any rate they are not in agreement with regard to the methods by which the industry of this country is going to be conducted in the future. They are not in agreement in regard to who is to take the place of the private capitalist. Some Members opposite advocate complete State Socialism. The State, according to them, is to own all capital, control production and dispense all reward. Others, and by no means the least intelligent, as they include the hon. Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. W. Graham), a system whereby the industry is possessed by and directed by the workers—a form of ownership which is the most selfish that can be conceived; a form which is bound to lead to endless dissention among the various industries of the country. It is interesting to notice that under the several Socialistic theories we have suggested to us, not very much attention is paid to that ordinary person the general consumer. Hon. Members do not seem to care what will happen to him. But whatever may be the demerits of the capitalist system, it has this advantage, that the consumer is the deciding factor and absolutely dictates what shall be produced, and in the most extreme cases, if the consumer is prepared to exercise a little self-control, he can dictate the prices he will pay for the goods.

  1953
  The hon. Member for Colne Valley said he would proceed "step by step," and that no confiscation is involved. No one, of course, doubts the honesty of the intentions of the hon. Member, but I suggest he himself is beginning to have some doubt as to the feasibility of putting his theories into practice, hence the eclectic form of Socialism he proposes. I suggest, or rather I emphatically state, that a great number of the advocates of Socialism, I will not say in this House, but outside this House, will use the hon. Member's words "step by step" with their tongues in their cheeks and with the simple intention of lulling the mind of a very large number of their followers who are now hesitating as to what they shall do. Hon. Members opposite, in dealing with this matter, seem to imagine they are building with a box of bricks rather than with the incalculable forces and passions of human nature, and if they should get their Resolution and their ideas into operation, very unforeseen results may follow. May I point out that up to the present no State (with but one exception) has adopted full-blooded Socialism. Many States have experimented with it, and without wearying the House I will endeavour to give some examples of the results of those experiments in order to prove the fallacious reasoning of those who advocate that this form of control should be adopted in this country. This country, with its vast trade operations, based upon such complicated conditions and intricate finance should be the last to make an experiment of this kind, the consequences of which even hon. Members opposite will acknowledge are quite unforseeable. I propose to give just a few examples to show the results of these experiments. I was rather interested in what fell from the right hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes), when he said that in every case where State control had been adopted it had been successful. I was extremely surprised at that piece of information.
  Let me commence with that country which was the original home of Socialistic thought—Germany. Since the War a more or less Socialist Government has been in control in Germany, and one would have imagined it would have put some Socialistic theories into practice, but they have, as a matter of fact, been
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  reverting to more definite forms of individualism. Take the railways. In 1920 the Minister of Railways in Germany stated that the railways were in a deplorable condition: that since the War the staffs have increased by 270 per cent., but that the work had very much deteriorated, and 47 per cent. of the locomotives were unworkable. Take again the coal mines in Germany. An authority has written that the State-owned coal mines in the Saar have for many years consistently charged higher prices and paid lower wages than the privately-owned mines of the Ruhr. Then let us pass over into Belgium; here again the railways are under State control, and what has been the position in regard to them? In 1914 the leading business firms in Belgium made a strong protest to the Minister of Railways with regard to the gross delays in transit, of the indifference to complaints, and the shameless interference by politicians with the advancements of staff. With regard to that political interference, in June, 1912, the Minister of Railways, the day before the General Election, ordered an increase in the wages of railway staffs and directed that it should date back to the previous January. After the election the Minister was accused in the Belgian Parliament of giving this order by telegraph. He replied that the accusation was untrue. Probably, Ministerially speaking, he was correct, as the message was sent by telephone, but I am quite certain we should not like our Front Bench to have added to their burthens temptations of that kind. In France the position is intensified, because in June last it was stated that the only way of making the French Budget balance was to do away entirely with State enterprise. It was stated that the nationalised section of the French Railways was costing the State 400,000,000 francs per annum, and it was also stated that the match industry of France only paid its way by the sale of imported goods. I suggest that those are not examples of successful State control.
  With regard to Russia, I will give an illustration of which I do not think hon. Members opposite will make any complaint, namely, a quotation from that admirable, reliable paper, the "Daily

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  Herald." On the 7th November, 1921, the "Daily Herald' wrote:
  "Lenin has said, The Socialistic system has failed. We must face facts, and return from State capitalism to commerce and a monetary basis.'"
  I suggest that the fact that the Soviet Government still rules is no proof that Russia is content. Crossing the seas to America, we have not had many examples there, because no section of the community, except the very extreme Labour, has advocated State control. In the case of the shipping control, however, the chairman of the Shipping Control Board stated, in 1917, that, up to that date, it had cost the State £800,000,000, and in 1921 it cost a further £95,000,000. In Canada, on the section of the railways which is nationalised, there was a loss to the State in 1922, of 65,000,000 dollars. Canada also has a very large industry which is State-controlled, namely, the great elevator industry, and in regard to that I will give hon. Members opposite another authority which they will not dispute. In his work, "The State in Industry," the Socialist writer, Mr. Emil Davies, waxed enthusiastic about the Canadian elevators, but he had to acknowledge that they are all leased out to private companies and societies to work. I suggest that that is not Socialism.
  Coming nearer home, the one example that we can give in this country is that of the Post Office, and I am going to use this example for another purpose than to show that it is not profitable. That can be shown, but I am going to use it to expose the fallacy of the reasoning of hon. Members opposite when they suggest that, under Socialism, all men and all workers are going to be happy and contented, and are going to work in friendliness with their superiors—or rather, with those in authority, for there will be no superiors. The President of the Postmen's Federation, at the Conference of that body in 1919, said:
  "The machine-like method of the Postal Department strangles initiative, kills contentment, and adds to the burden of unrest in the country. The Service lacks that one touch of human nature which enhances human relationship."
  I thought that that was what we were going to get from State control, but here is the President of the Postmen's Federa-
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  tion saying tnat it is the one thing that is unlikely. Again, the President of the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, at the Conference in 1920, said:
  "I am sure the general public do not know that the nationalised system is managed in such an atrocious, blood-money fashion."
  Nothing worse than that could possibly be said of the capitalist system by any hon. Member on the other side. I would like to ask what it is that advocates of Socialism really do hope to attain? What is Socialism? Does Socialism mean the betterment of the workers of this country?
  Mr. T. SHAW: Certainly.
  Mr. BRIGGS: Then we will take it at that. What is it that we are to look for for the betterment of the workers? I have perused many books in order to try and discover that, and I must acknowledge that I was most indebted to a work by Sir Lynden Macassey, "Labour Policy, False and True." As far as I could judge from those different books, one could put the desires of the workers under three short headings. The first is a desire for the removal of unemployment. All I want to say about that is, that, as hon. Members will realise, employment depends upon trade, and I suggest that trade depends upon factors which are entirely outside our control, namely, the conditions and circumstances of our customers overseas. Do those who advocate Socialism suggest that they will be in a position, in a Socialistic State, to dictate to our customers overseas as to when and how they shall buy? The second desire is the recognition of the workers' human status. Will Socialism give that? I think a sufficient reply is contained in the quotation I have given regarding the Post Office. The third point is that the workers should have a greater share in the results, and I suggest that the worker is not likely to get a greater share when all are equal. It is far more likely that the better man will be reduced to the level of the inferior man. I would ask hon. Members whether the worker is better off in Socialist Russia or in capitalist America? I would ask the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw) whether he honestly believes that the operatives in the great industry which he and I have the honour to represent would

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  welcome a bureaucratic control of that immense business, with all its ramifications throughout the world?
  Mr. T. SHAW: The operatives who have been working short time and unemployed for four years would welcome anything.
  Mr. BRIGGS: I grant that they would welcome anything, because they are hoping that the suggestion of hon. Members opposite may be a panacea; but they have their doubts. Socialists blame the capitalistic system for the unemployment that prevails to-day, but I would point out that this system, at any rate, has maintained in this country a population far in excess of its size and natural resources. I suggest that our population has grown as our trade has extended. The War put a sudden stop to the growth and extension of our trade, but, from the very nature of things, the War could not put a sudden stop to the growth of our population, which is purely anticipatory of our trade. We hear and read a great deal of chatter about international Socialism. We had international Socialism before the War, but, somehow, it seemed to disappear when the War broke out. Its great advocates were the Germans, but their patriotism overcame their Socialism, and I do not blame them. Let us remember, however, what then happened, and do not let us anticipate that anything different will happen next time. As to that, I would refer hon. Members opposite to the writings of their late great leader, Mr. Hyndman Socialists also claim that happiness is going to be possible for everyone under Socialism. One of the first principles of happiness is freedom. Let us see what the "Daily Herald" says with regard to the freedom of the Socialistic system. It says:
  "Discipline, iron, rigid discipline of the workers by the workers, is needed in Russia. It will be needed here when the workers come into power."
  I recommend that to the notice of those workers who will not be in authority. I confess that I had, in my humble way, rather feared the possibility of these Socialist theories being put into practice, but, now that I have considered them as far as I have been able, my only fear is lest the people of this country should not be made aware of their exact aims and objects. At the present moment, the people of this country, many of whom, as we know, are suffering, like many of
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  us, as they never had to suffer before, think that this is a panacea for their woes and anxieties. I suggest that the best way of exposing the oratory which they hear, and which has filled them with ideas that are so untrue and unlike the real thing, is to publish broadcast the writings of the original, genuine authorities on Socialism itself. Let the people once realise the full meaning of the claims and aims of Socialism, and they will be the very first to repudiate a system and method so unnatural for the development of human progress.
  While, for my own part, I repudiate entirely a system so unpractical, at the same time I do believe that the powers of capital, despite the limitations placed upon it during the last 50 years, are still too great. I believe it to be possible, without destroying the just rights of capital, so to arrange matters that Capital and Labour shall be harnessed pair, and not tandem, and it is to this that I suggest we should apply our thoughts and efforts. Given clear evidence that such is our intention, I am confident that we need have no fear of this bogey, Socialism—a thing foreign-bred and distasteful to the intelligence of the British people. In conclusion, may I say, if I may presume to do so, that it seems to me that Socialism is of two characters? The one born of envy could but lead to revolution, and the other born of idealism must lead to disappointment.
  Mr. ARTHUR HENDERSON: The hon. Member for Blackley (Mr. Briggs), towards the end of his speech, seemed in one sentence to give us a considerable portion of the case we have endeavoured to establish, for he frankly admitted what we have been saying for years, namely, that capital is still too powerful. He has, however, like most other speakers who have touched upon that aspect of the case, in our judgment at any rate refused to acknowledge the logic of the statements which they make for, this Parliament has repeatedly endeavoured by legislation to curtail that very power to which he himself alluded, and if he would analyse the position I think he would be compelled to come to the conclusion that, whilst you may be able to modify the existing system, as we have been endeavouring to do for decades past, it will be well nigh impossible to remove the inequalities and injustices which are the

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  inevitable fruits of the system without making the necessary fundamental changes which the Motion indicates. It seems to me that most of the speeches we have listened to indicate an indisposition to face the full facts of the present situation. It is true that my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs
  (Mr. Lloyd George), with his usual fire and pathos and eloquence, did in one part of his speech face up to the situation. We who have worked with him and known him in the House as I have done for 20 years should have been Surprised if he had not regaled us with the passionate Welsh fire that characterises his speeches, more particularly when dealing with a subject such as is before the House to-day. For instance, it might have been well if he had given us one of his perorations that he gave at Manchester a couple of years or more ago. On that occasion he used these words:
  "The old world is crumbling before our eyes. No effort can shore it up much longer. Those who try to do so will be overwhelmed in the ruins."
  I think that would have gone down well. At any rate I think it would have chilled to the bone some hon. Members opposite who cheered when he began his speech, but gradually got down to zero as he pictured the existing social and economic situation.
  But I was very much interested to notice that at the close of his speech he was audacious enough—that is a word he himself has used on more than one occasion—to suggest another inquiry. May I say, without any desire to give offence, that no Prime Minister in my lifetime has appointed so many inquiries as has the right hon. Gentleman? May I remind the House of two? I remember, just after his party came into power in 1906 with an unprecedented majority, there was a considerable feeling in the country with regard to the use which was being made of the canals and waterways. A Royal Commission was appointed by himself. It took no less than five years to make its inquiry. It made an excellent Report, but it has lain dormant until this moment, in spite of the fact that he occupied the supreme position in the political life of the country for a long period and he has been associated with Government probably longer than any former statesman that we have in the
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  country to-day. But that is not the only inquiry he set on foot. He appointed a Royal Commission to deal with the great mining industry. It was a searching inquiry. There was the most startling evidence. It was presided over by one of our most capable Judges and the mining industry, at any rate the working section of it, were led to believe that the right hon. Gentleman would at once proceed to put its recommendations into operation. The disaster—no milder term can be used—which has overcome the mining industry is very largely due to the right hon. Gentleman's failure to put the recommendations of the Sankey Commission into operation. Yet he once more suggests that the way out of this trouble is to have an inquiry into the unrest. We know, too well, the causes of the inequalities and injustices—if you like a milder term, the very serious anomalies—that exist in our social and economic life to-day, and while there have been changes—and there may have been to some extent improvement—we have no hesitation in saying that if you are to remove those inequalities and injustices you will have to go much deeper down than has been attempted by any Government up to now. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) has made a speech which seemed to gladden the heart of every capitalist in this House. He seemed, to me to be very difficult to please, for in one part of his speech he expressed his dissatisfaction with what could be described as the all or nothing policy of Russia, and he seemed equally displeased at the policy our Motion proposes, of gradual change. When politicians, for mere debating purposes are so difficult to please as that, we can only come to the conclusion that he was filling up the time, as the leading spokesman of his party, in this way, instead of telling the House what they were prepared to do in order to bring relief from the very serious position in which multitudes of our people find themselves to-day.
  8.0 P.M.
  It has been hinted that the Motion is in the nature of a surprise. It has been asserted that the policy under discussion represents an entirely new position so far as we are concerned, and even so far as the organised Labour movement is concerned. It has also been suggested that the rank and file whom we represent, so

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  far as we do represent the Labour movement, do not stand for the policy expressed in the Motion, or, if they do, that great pains have been taken to keep the fact from the knowledge of the public especially at election times. I want to meet that position right away. It is a totally erroneous impression of where Labour stands. The industrial and the political sections of our movement have for many years publicly protested against the wide disparities in social life, due to the unjust and unequal distribution of wealth. We have not contented ourselves with that We have gone on and advocated radical changes in the organisation of the industrial system. I remember being at my first Trade Congress 29 years ago, and that Congress, which, I think, hon. Members opposite would admit has always been regarded as a cautious and restrained body, declared that in certain fundamental respects the organisation of society and industry was gravely defective, and that drastic changes were necessary, and year after year that body, the mother of Labour Parliaments, has continued to express itself in condemnation of the existing system. But that is not all. The political wing of the Labour movement has also expressed itself in favour of great changes. In fact I dare say many hon. Members opposite, when they were first becoming candidates, invested a few coppers in obtaining what we call "Labour and the New Social Order." We declared in favour of a new social order because we recognise that the present individualistic system confers unmerited privileges on the few at the expense of acute and undeserved hardships on the many. In order to show that there is no surprise, may I trouble the House with a quotation from the constitution of the Labour party? This is a printed document open to the public. Any Member of the House can purchase a copy for a few coppers. That document has declared officially and authoritatively as follows:
  "To secure for the producers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof which may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production and the best obtainable system of public administration and control of each industry or service."
  We may be wrong, but we must not have the charge made against us that we are
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  hiding anything. The next paragraph in the same printed constitution says:
  "Generally to promote the political, social and economic emancipation of the people, and more particularly of those who depend directly upon their exertions by hand or by brain for the means of life."
  These have been the printed objects of the Labour party since the middle of 1917, and I hope we shall hear no more in this Debate about having sprung a surprise. I want to go further and to say that it was upon this constitution that we contested the General Election in 1918, when we secured a vote of 2,300,000. We also fought on this constitution in 1922, when, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs correctly said, we polled 4,250,000 votes. So much then for the suggestion that, in moving this Motion, we are disclosing what have been secret projects hitherto, and that we are advocating a policy that has not been approved by both the industrial and the political wings of Labour.
  Some surprise has been expressed that we of the Labour party should so definitely and frankly differentiate ourselves from the older political parties so far as these problems of organised society are concerned. The answer to that criticism is simple. The older political parties admit, as many have done during this Debate, the hardships and the grievances. In some instances they are even prepared to denounce the notorious inequalities of the existing conditions. We frankly admit that many of these Members are moved by a genuine sympathy with the innocent victims of the system which they themselves are working. Where we differ from them is that they prefer to risk the perpetuation of the social wrongs. They are prepared to continue the economic injustices rather than carry through the necessary fundamental changes in the organisation and government of society and industry.
  Once more, I would refer to the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, for in a passage he very eloquently described the position. He declared that if he were convinced that the evils of the kind he specified, hunger, privation, suffering and want, were inseparable from the existing order of things he would take to the crowbar himself. The right

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  hon. Gentleman is of opinion, and I am afraid that the opinion is shared by most hon. Members on the other side, and those who sit on this side below the Gangway, that the deplorable results of the present system are not inherent in that system, but are due to defects and faults that can be remedied without making any fundamental change. The Labour party, on the other hand, is convinced that however much the capitalist system may be improved there are still formidable evils that cannot be eradicated, even if it were possible to reduce or mitigate their effects. This represents the fundamental difference between those of us who tonight will support this Motion in the Lobby, and those who, for one pretext and another will go into the Lobby against it.
  Labour indicts the capitalist system because, in its opinion, the system condemns large numbers of honest, decent, self-respecting and law-abiding citizens to long periods of undeserved and unrelieved misery, and to conditions of life which any person with a spark of human feeling would not attempt to defend as tolerable, let alone as just. Labour challenges the existing order on the ground of its direct responsibility for unemployment. Anyone who has worked under the capitalist system, or who knows anything of the industrial and economic history of this country, must be prepared to admit that production for profit requires a reserve army of producers, and has them, without making proper provision for the human needs of that reserve. Does not all experience go to show that this reserve army can be drawn upon when trade is good and labour is needed, and that when trade depression begins to assert itself and these workers are no longer required, irrespective of length of service and irrespective of domestic obligations they are rendered compulsorily idle. When they are in that state it is no exaggeration to say that they are often used to depress the working conditions of the remaining producers whose services have not yet been dispensed with.
  It must be remembered that this is done without any adequate provision for maintaining this reserve of industry in proper physical and mental condition. Such provision as is made is to a considerable extent made by the workers
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  themselves through their trade unions. I challenge contradiction on that point. It is quite true—we want to state the case absolutely fairly—that this provision has been supplemented in recent years by contributions from employers and the State to the National Unemployment Insurance Fund. The fact is that the producers themselves bear not only unemployment to the major degree, but also the main burden of the cost of the whole of the unemployed in this country. Therefore, it may safely be said that under the existing system the fear of unemployment and the absence of security are a constant and real menace to the wellbeing, comfort and happiness of multitudes of the working classes.
  Is it not correct to say that without warning, and through no fault of their own, the workers can be reduced to penury, and in entire districts can be rendered destitute by economic causes entirely beyond their control? This position has to be frankly admitted, and in view of this it is positively surprising that in spite of their enthusiastic championship of the capitalist system the older political parties have never, in my opinion, made, nor have they compelled organised industry to make, proper provision for the maintenance of the unemployed and the under-employed victims of the existing capitalist system. In our opinion such undeserved misery, such industrial uncertainty, such social degradation, which inevitably follows, and such economic risk and loss which is imposed upon industrious and self-respecting citizens, can be substantially reduced, if not actually avoided, under an efficient and scientifically organised industrial system. In our judgment, an economic system which fails to provide all the members of society with a fair and reasonable opportunity to secure the material means to live a useful, healthy, social life stands self-condemned. On the other hand, we believe that the resources of the nation, under a proper organised society, and with the elimination of many forms of waste, could give a proper and reasonable standard of life for every citizen.
  There is another objection which many workers feel towards the capitalist system. They regard industry as now organised as a form of class rule, a privileged autocracy, inconsistent with the social and economic responsibility of the

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  producers, and opposed to the spirit of real democracy. These workers feel that because of their economic dependence on the functioning of industry, they are expected to accept as producers a state of subservience and a state of subordination in relation to the owners of the capitalist system which is utterly out of harmony with the modern conception of personal freedom and democratic right. We do not ignore or under-estimate the difficulties arising from vested interests, or from the conservative character of the British people, both of which must be overcome before our policy can be put into successful operation. We realise that every great change in national and local government has only been made after many years of persistent advocacy, and after all prejudices against the change, and the hostility of its opponents, have been constitutionally overcome. We also appreciate the fact—
  Mr. PENNEFATHER: Is it in order, Mr. Speaker, for Members of this House to read their speeches?
  Mr. SPEAKER: I did not observe that the right hon. Gentleman was using more than rather full notes.
  Mr. HENDERSON: I am not sure whether the hon. Member who interrupted me objects to the matter or the method of my speech. We also appreciate the obstacles which must be overcome because of the misrepresentation constantly associated with municipal and collective effort. We have heard some of this misrepresentation during the present Debate. Though we are not prepared to admit the force of some of the objections held against our position, we have a full appreciation of the difficulties which must be overcome before our policy can be put into operation. For instance, we recognise that any fundamental change must not only minister to the social and economic freedom and the welfare of our people at home, but it must contribute to a higher standard of industrial and general efficiency, and it must assist us to maintain and improve, if possible, our position in the economic and general activity of the world.
  We frankly admit that a great deal depends upon the character, the education, the disposition, and the confidence of the British people. We are prepared to face this situation. We do not over-
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  look the fact that when we do obtain improved education, when our people have a clear vision of the existing social and economic extremes of life, this tends to deepen the desire for those very drastic changes upon which the Motion moved by my hon. colleague is based. Character, education and a clearer recognition of the sacredness of personality demand a fair status for the worker and a freer distribution of the fruits of victory. We of the Labour party firmly believe that a more efficient and just organisation of the nation's enterprise would mean greater national production, would secure greater liberty for the people, and would provide a fuller opportunity for the individual to enjoy a higher standard of both security and conduct.
  In spite of the criticism against different forms of collective effort we remember that this country—and I would like to bring this point home to hon. Gentlemen opposite—would not risk the chance of coming safely through the greatest crisis in its history by depending solely upon private enterprise. It may safely be said that it was collective effort and not individualist enterprise which enabled the nation to emerge successfully from the ordeal of destructive conflict. Then again we are encouraged, in spite of the sneers to which we have listened this afternoon, by what has been done by some of our Dominions, by our municipalities, and by the great co-operative movement. The general success that has attended these efforts cannot be denied, despite the citation of this or that specific failure from a purely financial point of view. I have already quoted a passage from the right hon. Member for Carnarvon. I am going to give you another declaration. He has already said that if he could be convinced that all the things that I am now bringing before you were inherent in the system he would be ready to use the crowbar. I want to make clear that it will be a grievous mistake for this House to assume that labour in this country at any time proposes to Use, the crowbar system in order to realise its aims.
  We desire not to destroy but to transform, not to disorganise but to reorganise. We appreciate the fact that the progress, from private to public ownership, from individual enterprise to collective enterprise, must be gradual and through the recognised constitutional

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  agencies of this country. Our programme of constructive Socialism can only be realised if our efforts are founded upon the intelligent conviction and the faith of an enlightened public opinion. Except by the general support of the community such a reorganisation as that which we contemplate cannot be imposed upon a nation. It can only be secured with the approval and by the help of the mass of the people. But before I conclude I would ask briefly what is the alternative to the policy which my hon. Friend in moving his Motion outlines to the House? Are we to maintain, with prudent modifications and alterations only, the present industrial system in perpetuity? To admit that, in my judgment, would be paying the present system too great a compliment. I for one do not believe that this system is so sacrosanct that it was handed down to us with the tables of stone, or so perfect that it must continue until the millenium.
  After it has extended through a century, during which the material wealth of the nation has been increased to an amazing extent, the capitalist system, I assert, has failed to make life tolerable for multitudes of decent citizens. It has failed to produce a well-fed, properly-housed, physically-fit and contented people, it has failed to organise international life on a stable basis of peace, it has failed to solve the hundred and one problems which are a constant menace to human life, and from its inception—I am not going far back to the inception of what we call the capitalist system as one speaker did earlier in this Debate—when the application of science changed the process of manufactures and ushered in an era of large scale production, the system of producing for profit has been modified and made subject to increasing legislation and administrative control. Modifications came in the early days of its history, through the Factory Act, and through increasing the powers of local authorities and legislation in dealing with monopolies such as railways.
  These protective measures have been largely restrictions of the worst evils of the present capitalist system. They have been provided in order that they might protect the workers from the very evils which the opponents of this Motion main-
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  tain are not inherent in the system, but are merely incidental to that system. But despite that measure of protection that has been afforded these evils to a tremendous extent continue to remain. Let me repeat here my opinion that they will continue to remain so long as the present system persists. They are as much part of that system as is the motive of private gain itself. Is a continuance and extension of these restrictions all that we have to look for? We do not deny that much has been done with a view to relieving the social and economic hardships of the masses of the people. Many efforts are on record to the credit of Parliament. Many efforts are on record that go to show that many employers have been well disposed towards their workpeople, but I wish to say sincerely that at best most of these efforts have been palliatives rather than remedial. What a striking commentary they afford on the existing industrial system, that legislative and administrative effort have been so necessary from the very beginning until now in order to safeguard the workers interest, and to make the working conditions something like tolerable.
  Whatever changes have been made, whatever improvements have been attempted, whatever safeguards have been secured, in my judgment, they have not kept pace with the growing demands of highly organised capital or with the development of the social and economic consciousness among the workers themselves. Therefore a considerable number of wage-earners feel that social life and economic and industrial conditions are out of keeping to-day with their responsibilities, and I ask seriously, what has Parliament to say to these people, what have those Members who are going to oppose this Motion in the Lobby, to put in place of our policy? As one who has been closely associated with the organisation of the working classes movement for over 40 years, I would warn the House against presuming that the workers of this country will remain indefinitely the docile victims of the operation of what is called the law of supply and demand—a system which in many of their cases means a precarious uncertainty when in employment, and prolonged unemployment, with only a dole which spells starvation for all concerned, during trade depression.

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  That is because of the operation of a system which places private gain before human well-being. To my mond this will be not only utterly insufficient, it will be both disgraceful and unjust. We must have such a reorganisation of our industrial system as will secure an adequate minimum standard of comfort for all, give to the workers a fair share in the direction of the industry by which they live, and an effective voice determining the conditions of employment; and a system which will give, if not continuity of employment, at least security of livelihood for all. After all is said and done, what is the true test of any industrial system? The true test is not merely the amount of wealth produced, important as that may be; it is the recognition of, and the provision for, the human factor—the human factor that was spoken about by the hon. Member for Blackley (Mr. Briggs)—the provision of a fair and equitable distribution of the results of production over such as will make a healthy, wholesome, and contented life possible for every citizen. Those who desire to fall short of this are ignoring the changed outlook upon life which the War produced.
  I would like to make this point to hon. Members opposite. I think that most of them will agree that the War did effect a very great change in the minds of multitudes of workers of this country. Not only did the War experience thrust into the foreground many of the problems of society and industry. It did that and more; it brought into operation new ideas of social possibility, of economic reconstruction, of unity of responsibility, and of human rights. All these things took possession of men's minds during those tragic years after 1914. Men began not only to hope for, but to look for, a more humane form of economic organisation, a form of organisation influenced by new conceptions, new motives, a new spirit and a higher regard for the sacredness of personalities. Men and women in those days began to feel the impact of a great challenge to reconstruct society, because they came under the influence of a larger view of life and a more intimate knowledge of the facts of life. Are Parliaments and Governments to admit that much of the high idealism, the clearer vision, the passionate desire for a fairer, nobler and fuller life for
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  all, which were so noticeable during the War, have gone, that they can only be temporarily produced by the destruction of war, but cannot be permanently sustained by the arts of peace? The Members of this House should recognise that a considerable number of the wage earners have experienced a speedy disillusionment already, because of the nonfulfilment of the promises and prospects of the War period. They did hope that the comradeship and fellowship of the trenches would be followed by something better than insecurity, better than a wage reduction amounting to £14,000,000 a week, better than prolonged unemployment, with exposure to semi-starvation; and all this, mark you, so soon after they had assisted their country through the greatest crisis in its history.
  In our judgment the task of Parliaments and Governments is to secure in a greater measure the confidence, the goodwill, and the cordial co-operation of the workers in the enterprises by which the nation lives, and this we are convinced cannot be secured so long as the workers feel that they are in a position of economic inferiority and subordination, the under-employed and the over-worked but under-paid victims of private enterprise, which in its operations, with certain honourable exceptions, means private greed. If we would extend national production, if we would raise the standard of security and comfort, we must reorganise industry in such a way that we may convince the workers that their energies are being used as a contribution to the enrichment of the entire country. That is the object of the Motion now before the House. We are not going to be removed from our position by the alternative ridicule and abuse to which the Labour party and its policy are subjected by many of those who differ from us. In these days it is becoming quite fashionable to refer to the Labour party as the Socialist party. I might pertinently inquire why the party opposed to us do not call themselves the Capitalist party. We have as much right to expect that from them as they have to label us with a name that our own people have not conferred on us.
  Mr. PENNEFATHER: You labelled yourselves.
  Mr. HENDERSON: I do not mind, but hon. Members opposite might as well call

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  themselves the Capitalist party. If that name is not to be fixed on them according to their idea, why should our name have to be fixed? We do not seek to escape in any way from the responsible position which we have taken up by attaching our names to the Motion before the House. Socialism is simply an economic system, as capitalism is. It is a scheme for the organisation of society and public service on a collectivist basis, instead of, as now, on an individualist basis. Its motive is human well-being instead of the present motive of personal profit, and its method is co-operation instead of competitive exploitation. That is the position for which we made ourselves responsible at the last Election. I hope it will be the position for which we will make ourselves responsible at the next Election. We will be prepared to abide by the decision of the electorate. If they are not ready at the next time of asking, the progress we have made since 1918 is a clear indication that it will not be long before they will be prepared, when our policy will be put into operation in legislation and in connection with the institutions of the land.
  Mr. GOULD: I listened with great interest to the last speech, and I would like to Congratulate the right hon. Gentleman upon his exposition of the facts, but I am quite certain it will require a great degree of thought to convince the electorate, upon the arguments put forward, of the remedial quality of the measures which this Motion proposes to substitute for the existing system. The Debate, so far, has failed to evolve anything in the nature of a satisfactory solution or recommendation arising out of the Motion, but it has given us an interesting illustration of how far Leaders of two of the Opposition parties will go in their desire to attract votes, while at the same time avoiding a Socialist policy. I listened with pleasure to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon), whose speech was an excellent exposition of the case, but he wobbled just as he was about to come into port, and like the man in the old song, he did not know where he was. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), I was prone to think, had mixed up his notes of his speech on this subject with notes of another speech. In any event, there was
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  no direct attempt on the part of either of the right hon. Gentlemen to elucidate the position, any more than there has been any such attempt on the part of the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down to explain exactly what he proposes to do when he abolishes the present system. One of the convictions of hon. Members opposite is that labour is the source of all wealth. If that be the case, what are they condemning the capitalist system for, if there is a shortage I ask the question frankly. The present system is being condemned by hon. Members who declare it is not satisfactory, and who, in the same breath, say that labour is the source of all wealth. You cannot have it both ways. If there is any fault to be found it must be found with labour.
  Let us look at the case as it appears to-day. We have had a wastage of some fifty thousand million of capital—not money—during the last nine years. Capital is very difficult to create, and there is nothing in this world so easy to destroy. When things are left uncared for and neglected, it leads to a loss of capital. Take the old Roman roads, for example, built at a great expenditure of capital, but by disuse, carelessness and neglect that capital is all lost. The same applies to everything and it applies to the money which was expended during the War. The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) says that Capitalism and not Socialism is on its trial. What are you going to substitute for the present system? I do not for a single second say that the present system, in which I believe and of which I am an advocate, is perfect, but I say that it is something which has been tried for many centuries and is the natural outcome of the efforts of man. In most countries where there is no form of capitalism you find civilisation reduced to the state it had reached in savage ages. It is all very well to blame the capitalist system for the present condition of affairs, but that condition of affairs is due to the wastage which has taken place and which is still taking place day by day and week by week, helped very largely by continual strikes, depriving us of so much extra wealth which might, otherwise, take its place in creating better conditions. Various hon. Members have spoken at great length of unemployment as one of the evils of the present system. I have

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  read with interest a number of books on this subject by economists and it has always appeared to me that those who study the problem of political economy in relation to Socialism and who advocate the substitution for the present system, of something else, are out of touch with the practical realities of life. They are men full of words and full of good thoughts and I give them credit for being men who have set themselves out to chase an ideal. They forget all the time, however, that there is a human factor which man cannot control and which can be only controlled by something which is infinite and far greater than mere mortal man.
  As I say, unemployment has been referred to as one of the factors which is inseparable from the profit-sharing system. Under conditions such as exist to-day in this country and in the world, what is it proposed to substitute for the present system? We have at present, let us say, 1,500,000 unemployed. Under the new system, what are you going to do with them? Are you going to take them back into industry and provide work for them? Is it not the fact that we are not a people who can afford to fix prices to suit ourselves? We live by close competition in the markets of the world, and anything which adds to the material cost of any product we sell is a factor which may possibly take our market away from us. Therefore, if you are going to take these people back into employment, when there is no work for them and when there is no demand for the products of their hands or brains, you are going to add another charge to industry, increase the cost of production and lose your market, or you must have a subvention from the State and subsidise that particular industry. Let us assume for the sake of argument that you take the first course. You increase the cost of production and you lose your market. You have more unemployment as a result of the loss of the market, and as you go on increasing the cost of production, losing your markets, increasing the number of the unemployed and absorbing them back again into industry, you ultimately reach a state where everybody is working in the production of things which are not saleable and the cost of the production of the articles is out of all proportion to the ability to sell. I cannot see how such a fatuous proposi-
  1974
  tion can be put forward by intelligent individuals. All the proposals with regard to the Socialistic state take not the slightest consideration of the fact that this country is absolutely dependent upon export trade for its subsistence. That is totally forgotten, and it seems to me if you going to set up a system to take the place of the existing system, it will take something far more than an experiment or a theory to convince most people that they are going to receive the benefits which they are promised.
  What is the main basis of the arguments in favour of this substitution? The experience of the War. I suppose nobody has argued this with greater authority and greater emphasis than a late Member of this House, Sir Leo Chiozza Money. He is a great authority; he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Shipping and, I believe, prior to that had some experience of the Ministry of Munitions. He talks about the wonderful capacity displayed by civil servants and other people, in managing the Ministries of Shipping and Munitions during the War. I had a great deal of experience of both Departments, and I know something of the incompetence displayed by those in charge and the millions lost through the operations of those Departments. The hon. Member for West Newcastle-on-Tyne (Mr. Adams), I notice, expresses dissent.
  Mr. ADAMS: Not the Ministry of Shipping.
  Mr. GOULD: Yes, the Ministry of Shipping itself. I know, because it came within the ambit of my own notice and knowledge. Sir Leo says that these are two shining examples, and his book, "The Triumph of Nationalisation," is full of illustrations. Who could not take control of any business and monopolise it during a period of booming prices, when there is no competition internally or externally, and under those circumstances make money out of it, at a time when there is no responsibility to the State, when there is no necessity to count the cost, or to consider economy, when there is simply the blind necessity of getting done as best you can, in the most haphazard fashion, that which you have to do? Hon. Members opposite think it rather humorous because I happen to be a shipowner myself, and they point with pride to the fact that money was made

  1975
  by the Australian Commonwealth during the War. They made £4,000,000 during the War with a vast number of ships, but if I had been managing those same ships under the same conditions I would have doubled it quite easily. They forgot to tell the House that of the £12,000,000 of capital which they spent in acquiring that fleet, only a few months ago they decided that it would be policy to write off £8,000,000 of the cost, and on top of that they lost another £1,000,000 in trading last year.
  I am not going into detail in talking about the losses which were made in Australia under State management and nationalisation, and I am not going to discuss the question of the profits and losses on railways where they have been nationalised, but I will point out that where railways have been nationalised in Europe, as they have been during the last 30 or 40 years, it has not at any time been for trading purposes. It has been for strategic purposes, and that has been the consideration which has actuated almost every Government in nationalising the railways.
  Mr. WALLHEAD: In Belgium?
  Mr. GOULD: Certainly; it was for no other reason. But there is not one particular case, without a subvention or a subsidy, in fair competitive rates with any other State, where any railway system in Europe ever made money. The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down talked about trading and working for profit. I was reading a book the other day called "State Revolution," written by a gentleman who has had far more opportunity of trying out the socialisation of industries in the State than anybody else—M. Lenin—and it amused me very much in that book, which was written before the time when he had the opportunity of exercising his abilities, to see how he dismissed the administrative side of industry. He says in that book:
  "Bookkeeping and control—these are the chief things necessary for the smooth and correct functioning of the first phase of the Communist society. All the citizens are here transformed into hired employés of the State, which is then the armed workers. All the citizens become the employés and workers of one national State 'syndicate.' The bookkeeping and control necessary for
  1976
  this have been simplified by capitalism to the utmost, till they have become the extraordinarily simple operations of watching, recording and issuing receipts."
  There is nothing else to the business than that. How do you ever think for one moment that all the experience and capacity, all the judgment and knowledge, of those who have built up enormous businesses, who, under their control, management and direction, have assembled together a great staff, perhaps, of men equally expert in their own particular departments—how do you think those men have risen to the positions which they occupy? How do you think they have managed to keep their companies alive, profit-making, prosperous, contributing, out of their earnings and profits, their just dues to the State, if these men are nothing but the ordinary, incompetent people who have no capacity for anything but to issue receipts? I see the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Newbold) smiling with great interest, but I would like to know what the hon. Member's capacity would display if he were placed in charge of some big business, and what kind of people, workpeople or capitalists, would care to entrust their savings to him for manipulation and management.
  Mr. NEWBOLD: Very clever!
  Mr. GOULD: Men who manage successful businesses have to take into consideration, in the conduct of those businesses, especially if they are doing overseas business, all the risks which come from bad debts and failures, all the risks due to fluctuations of exchange, all the risks which may come from a depression in trade, and they have to take into consideration all the risks which have to be taken by those who would seek to establish further and new markets for the purpose of generating new business and creating further employment. Everything is a speculation, and how are they going to be able to pay themselves if there is no return except a small and modified percentage? There is no incentive to take the risk whatever, and the right hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that there is nothing so injurious to the condition of an industry as to have available for it only debenture capital. It is the speculative interest in all industrial development which makes for a continuation of the prosperity of the State. The right

  1977
  hon. Member for flatting (Mr. Clynes) talked about the willingness of responsible officials to engage their services under State control and management. I doubt it very much. There is something inherent in the nature of all mankind that makes man strive to work for himself when he will not work, unless he is a drone, for a fixed position and a small Salary. It is the ambition of almost every man, if he comes from the lower ranks, if he comes from the bottom, as I have come myself, to see to it that his children start in life where he finishes, and not in circumstances in which you level all men and women down can you have such a spirit in the people. Of that there can be no question. As there are other hon. Members who wish to speak, I will conclude by referring to one observation in the speech of the hon. Member for the Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden), who said:
  "Some day there will be established an economic and social system where individual ambition and private enterprise will find their satisfaction, not in the amount of tribute they levy on their fellows, but in the greatness of the service they render to them."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th March, 1923; col. 2485, Vol. 161.]
  I agree with him absolutely and implicitly, but there is one authority and one economist which the hon. Member has never cited and which hon. Members opposite, who prate so much of Socialism, have never cited, and it is found within the two covers of the Book of Holy Writ. Let me say this. I am no man to prate of my Christianity, but I say that that system is not possible under a human dispensation, under the control of individuals. It will take something far greater to inculcate into the minds of all men and women the wish to live in accord and amity, as the hon. Member suggests. It is a theocratic condition, and not a democratic condition, and as long as we are on this earth it is impossible to hope or expect that by passing laws in this House of Commons, or by trying to get agreements between parties of men, that we shall ever be able to get that accord and amity in the hearts of human individuals which will make so perfect a conception; it is only to be found, as I have already said, within the covers of Holy Writ.
  Mr. NEWBOLD: In rising to speak on this Motion, I want, first, to make certain
  1978
  observations upon the remarks which have fallen from the Mover, who has endeavoured, quite naturally enough, having regard to the official attitude of his party, to dissociate the policy of Socialism from the policy of Communism, and to state that they are in antipathy one with another. He went on, still further, to drive home what he thought was a good debating point, that Communism was, in fact, die-hard Toryism. Despite the anxiety of the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden), and the equal anxiety, at the Aldwych Club, when addressing a meeting, presided over by a great South Wales coalowner, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. J. R. MacDonald) stated that there was in his party a thousand-millionth part of sympathy with Communism or Bolshevism, I would suggest that it is impossible for the two hon. Gentlemen to dissociate themselves from support of the Soviets. I can remember very well sitting in the body of the hall at the Leeds Convention, in 1917, when Soviets were considerably more popular in semi-respectable circles than they are to-day, and hearing the enthusiasm with which they greeted the establishment of a movement entitled the Movement of Workers' and Soldiers' Committees.
  It is not the actual intent of hon. Members supporting this Resolution from the standpoint of the Labour party that primarily concerns us. It is not the logic of the hon. Member for Colne Valley or the right hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes), or the right hon. Member for East Newcastle (Mr. A. Henderson), but it is the logic of history which will determine the consequences of the steps that they take. Such being the case, that is the real reason why I to-night am speaking whole-heartedly in support of the Motion, though, of course, while giving it the blessing of the Communist party and promising that we shall give their speeches the widest possible publicity through the country, nevertheless, with certain reservations. We must remember that the interest that has been displayed in this Motion, not merely in the House, but throughout the country, is not due so much to the Motion itself as to those forces of history which are driving that movement forward. It is events that have transpired in the first Workers' Republic, and events that are

  1979
  transpiring all over the world, which give the support and interest to this particular Resolution.
  9.0 P. M.
  It might be said that, in effect, the argument that is put forward vehemently in all these discussions from the standpoint of the Labour party is to accept the inevitability of gradualness rather than wait for the wrath that is to come. The Labour party is using the enthusiasm generated throughout the working-class ranks of the world to push forward its little barque from this side of the Table to the other side of the Table. The alternative to revolution is undoubtedly an attempt on the part of the Labour party to establish a Socialism by constitutional means, and if it be possible for the Labour party to establish Socialism by constitutional means, there will be no one better pleased than the hon. Member for Motherwell, I can assure the House. But there is very little reason to believe that it will be possible to establish it in such a way, for when it comes to be a case, not merely of restraining aspects of capitalism, not merely of making extensions of public control, but a case of overthrowing capitalism entirely, there is no likelihood that the governing classes will be any more friendly disposed to the rule of a Labour Government than they are to the rule of a Labour majority in the Borough of Poplar, or than they were in Italy to the capture of the municipal communes by Socialists and Communists. Wherever an attempt at Socialism has been made during the course of the last few years, there has immediately sprung up within the State, or within society, a movement known as the Fascisti. We have the equivalent of that movement in this country. We had one of these reactionary movements, presided over by an hon. Member opposite, stating last week that it was intended to remain constitutional as long as possible, making it quite clear that as soon as constitutionalism failed, they were quite prepared to go outside the constitutional limits. There is not the slightest likelihood that it will be possible to carry the expropriation of the capitalist class by peaceful means. If it can be done, well and good; but the whole lesson of history in this country and other countries is that no governing class ever abdicates power unless compelled to do so by a force
  1980
  exerted in a much more strenuous manner than passing through and having your names ticked off in the Division Lobby.
  I notice that the supporters of this Motion are very kindly pointing out that they do not believe in Socialism without compensation, and I notice that there is tacked on to this Motion, though it has been very little discussed in this Debate, a Bill for the nationalisation of land, providing for the payment of £150 for £100–5 per cent. for a period of 30 years. I am not coming to that aspect of it immediately, but I would like to point out that the hon. Member for Colne Valley, when he first appeared in this House, was pledged definitely to the elimination of the capitalist by means of taxation. I read as a youth with tremendous enthusiasm, and re-read it until I knew it almost line by line, an interesting little book entitled "The Socialist Budget." Therein it was the intention of the hon. Member for Blackburn, as he was then, to tax the capitalist out of existence. Now, in his mellow middle age, he comes forward with a proposal, not for confiscating the property of the capitalist in crude ways, as hon. Members opposite might be inclined to think that he would, but by means of the capital levy, and the capital levy, I take it, will be appreciated by the governing class of this country as a confiscation, whether it so seems to hon. Members on this side or not, and in the event of the governing class refusing to allow their capital to be taken away from them by one means of taxation or another, what is then to ensue?
  Apparently, nothing is to ensue, because we have been informed that the Labour party is not in favour of the use of force. Consequently they have told the governing class that they will not have their property taken away. Nothing further will happen except a series of resolutions, and the governing class will say: "We will keep our capital in our pocket, for nothing is going to occur." I have heard the argument put forward time after time on the Labour side of the House that once they capture the House of Commons, which seems to them to be the same thing as capturing the State—though it is a very far cry for capturing one-third of Parliament to capturing the whole State—they will have the police force in their hands, the Army under their control, the Navy at their command,

  1981
  and they will be prepared to use these institutions for the furtherance of their aims. It may be that it appeals more to the hon. Member for Colne Valley or the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. J. R. MacDonald) to say that once force is directed by the competent authority it ceases to be force. That sort of argument may sound perfectly good at a Labour party conference when you are endeavouring to prevent the Communist party from affiliating, but it is not the kind of thing that is calculated to carry conviction to the majority of people who have no particular axe to grind for the moment.
  The Labour party, I do not think will succeed in convincing the governing classes that they are so lamblike that they can be quite safely allowed to take over the land, the mines, and the other capital, hand over the script for it, and then tax the script-holders to extinction—that they can be allowed to do it merely because of the casuistical argument that once force is held by the State it ceases to be force, that it is only force when it is exercised against the constitution; not when it is exercised as it was exercised in the barrack yard in May, 1916, when on the authority of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Newcastle a bullet was sent through James Connolly's heart. It is force, whether used by the State or otherwise, and consequently the argument that the Labour party is not in favour of using force falls to the ground, and the whole of the case for carrying through Socialism peacefully falls to the ground.
  We come to the question of compensation. I notice that the right hon. Member the Member for Swansea (Sir A. Mond) saw no particular objection to dealing with the matter in that way. He seemed somewhat mystified at the kind of Socialism that was going to give him the whole value of his property, plus 50 per cent. He was prepared for such a measure, and did not regard it as terrible. No. If Socialism of that sort is going to be carried through it will be received with enthusiasm, if not by this side of the House, at any rate by the other side. Municipalisation up-to-date and nationalisation up-to-date is that under the control of a capitalist or Labour Government. We have seen it in Germany and elsewhere under the leadership of men like Branting and Schiedemann and Noske and Vandervelde. Municipalisation and
  1982
  nationaiisation along these lines redounds well enough to the interest of certain sections of the capitalist class. They do not redound, it is true, to the interest of certain other sections. If you are going to have a scheme for taking over, shall we say, merely the land of this country, if you are going to put it forward that you are not going to pay for it by a process of taxation, but by borrowing money, say at the rate of interest that is prevailing, that interest on the borrowed money is going to rise higher and higher, and I can imagine no one who will worry very much about the Labour party so long as its Socialism is the Socialism of the Privy Council rather than the Socialism of the back benches and of the Communist party.
  No one will treat that Socialism with greater enthusiasm than those insurance and investment companies and banks that have at the present time, and are likely to have if the pessimistic speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs is true, a volume of capital awaiting investment, and cannot get a decent return for it in the ordinary course of business; nothing will please the capitalist class having this money better than this abstract proposal for the nationalisation of the land and the railways on the same lines as in the past municipalities have taken over the tramways, the gas company and other kinds of public utility companies. As a result of the operation of this kind of municipal Socialism of the last 25 years, particular investment companies, to my knowledge, scores of them, have specialised particularly to provide for this system of hire purchase Socialism of the hon. Member for Colne Valley. So long as Socialism continues on these lines it will be welcomed, at any rate, by one section of the governing classes.
  Immediately, however, Socialism goes beyond that to the taking over by the State of the mines, the railways, the industrial concerns, and the general process of exploitation absolutely, then it will be a very different proposition from the one that presents itself at the present time. I should like to say, concerning one at any rate of the speeches made against this Motion of the hon. Member for Colne Valley, I refer to the speech of the right hon. Member for Swansea, that it struck me as particularly

  1983
  right when he pointed out the fact that competition has not been eliminated, certainly not inside capital. Capitalism to-day displays competition in a more acute, vicious, and malignant form than previously, and its manifestations are so malignant that it is becoming necessary in the interests of civilisation, if civilisation has got to continue, that that competition shall be withdrawn by one means or another. You see that intense form of competition manifesting itself not between two steel companies, say, within the county of Lanark, or anywhere in Great Britain, but in the competition of two or three great steel groups operating in this country, in France, in America, struggling amongst themselves, and in the process driving the workers down to the lowest level; the one fighting against the other. You see one example of that in the Ruhr. You see another in the miserable attempts made at Lausanne to arrive at a peace which you may get by the Greek Kalends. You see manifested there, in one form or another, the competition between two or three groups of railway concessionnaires or two or three groups of oil concessionaires. You see it at Singapore, where you seem, after talking of peace, to be preparing for a great struggle in the Far East. These things display capitalism. Whilst competition has been eliminated to a considerable extent, whilst to-day private enterprise, as it was understood 50 or 60 years ago, has practically passed. All kinds of capital to-day are fused inside the great companies of this country. That mere fact does not mean that competition has diminished, but it has only gone on to a further stage, and it may be that in the course of a few years it may come to an international trust. If it does, the only thing that will happen will be the progressive degradation of the workers of the world. If capitalism continues, you will go on building aeroplane after aeroplane. France goes on building and you do the same; you say you are building against Germany, but that is a lie, because you are building against France and France is building against you. You are building submarines and the French are building submarines, and the Americans, an American Admiral, is justifying the use of submarines against merchant ships. You are drifting to war in this
  1984
  way, not that you will fight it. The Capitalist will be missing during the war; the Royal Family will be missing; and the Communists will be missing. I am simply generalising on this point.
  In the last War certain families were missing, Communists were missing and so was the Royal Family. There was one family in the last war had no casualities, that is the family that lives west of the Admiralty Arch. When the Royal Family goes to War perhaps the Communists will go. On the one side you will have war and on the other side starvation. Deterioration of the life of the people is the only alternative. All the lessons of the past go to prove that you cannot get your Socialism put in force unless you are prepared to struggle for it, and if you cannot get it by peaceful means you will have to get it by other means. After that you will have to accept what is handed to you by the working classes of this country. At first it will probably come through the Labour party which we hope to see enthroned on the Government Benches during the next three years. Year by year the Communist party will increase in strength within the Labour party, and every attempt you make to hold back Socialism by the only means that appeals to you will strengthen the extremists inside the Labour party.
  If the Labour party is not prepared to carry Socialism by peaceful means, if it is not prepared to carry it by extra-constitutional means if need be, I have no hesitation in saying from my experience of the workers in the North that the workers will say that the will of the working classes is going to prevail inside the constitution if possible, but outside if that is not possible. You will then be faced with the alternative, that is, expropriation. You will have the land and capital taken away from you and vested in the working classes organised maybe in the general council of trade unions, maybe in the workshop committees, but certainly controlled, held, and operated by some body thrown up in the excitement of the conflict. [Laughter.] It may make you laugh to-day, but it will not make you laugh then. It will then put into practice a principle to which you have only given lip service for many years, namely, "If a man will not work, neither shall he eat." That is the principle of Communism.

  1985
  The basis of our present day franchise still remains the occupation of the land, but the basis of the Communist policy will be that only those who produce wealth and who render social service shall have the franchise. With this goes a second corollary that only those who produce wealth and render useful social service shall be permitted to bear arms, and it will be compulsory on those who produce that they shall bear arms. The Communist party is not a pacifist organisation, but an organisation throwing down the challenge to militarism in the service of capitalists or landowners. The Communist party is prepared, once having gained control of the wealth of this country, to defend it on behalf of the working classes against enemies inside the country and outside, and that is the position upon which we stand.
  A certain line of argument has been used about Soviet Russia, but despite your uttermost attempts for over six years to overthrow that Government, it is now standing erect, and it is likely to export 1,000,000 tons of grain this year to undercut those exports, in which hon. Members opposite have their money invested, from Canadian grain lands. Since Russia got on its feet again there has been much less disposition to talk about Russian policy than was talked during the famine in Russia and when you supported Denikin, Koltchak and Wrangel. We have heard in this Debate a very interesting statement which I should not be surprised if it has not already been broadcasted from Moscow, and that was the interesting confession made by the junior Member for the City of London (Mr. E. C. Grenfell) who is at the head of the London firm representing our creditors connected with Pierpont Morgan and Company. The junior Member for the City of London has made the statement that his firm has £1,500,000 invested in Georgia, and we now understand many things that happen down in Georgia. We understand now more than ever why it was necessary to wipe out the democracy and put in a dictatorship of the working classes. The reason was that there are minerals and oil in Georgia.
  Mr. J. JONES: Palm oil!
  Mr. NEWBOLD: No, not palm oil. We have now got at the story why the democratic State of Georgia was set up and handed over to the representatives
  1986
  of the most powerful capitalist system the world. The hon. Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw), interjects that that Government was 80 per cent. Socialist, Yes 80 per cent. Socialists like Schiedemann and Noske, like Vandervelde and the Socialist responsible for the death of James Connolly. The same argument that would hold good in the case quoted by the junior Member for the City of London would apply in the case of the Soviet Republic. He says that his firm put hundreds of thousands into a mine, and when it did not pay more hundreds of thousands, and that after 6 years it began to succeed. Well, after 6 years Soviet Russia is beginning to succeed. After all, the great concern with winch the hon. Gentleman has been connected has, for over 80 years, had an unparalleled experience in managing capitalist industry. These people who have come into power in Russia are handling industry, commerce, and government for the first time. They are not like hon. Members opposite, whose families have been carrying on government for generation after generation. They are new to the business, but they are getting upon their feet.
  The statement was made by the President of the Board of Trade that he thought if there was one country in the world where Communism ought to have succeeded it should have been Russia, because the Russians took it over without any capital liability; they did not have to pay for it. No, they took over a country which, prior to the War, had never been highly industrialised, and whose agriculture is still at the present time, as it was before the War, as backward as you will find agriculture to-day only in the extreme outer Hebrides or the Faroe Islands. The three-field system, which has disappeared from this country since 1760, or practically so, is still in existence there. There are only one-tenth of the railways in Russia that we have in this country over the same area of land. Hon. Members know how the roads in Russia were described in "Baedeker" before the War; and if they have flown over Russia, as I have, they will understand what those roads are like. There has been no real development in machine industry. They have not the means of building bridges and of building locomotives, and the industry of Russia was greatly checked by the Treaty

  1987
  of Versailles, the work of that architect of disaster irretrievable. The engineering industries are now mainly in the Baltic States and in Poland, and the Russians are unable even to-day to provide themselves with the necessary machine parts that will enable them to build up their industries properly. Yet we are told that Russia was the one country—the country that has not, in the past, been worked under industrial capitalism at all—that should have made a success of Socialism. It was an absolute impossibility to do so, and no attempt will be made by the Communists in Russia to establish Communism in agriculture until such time as they have the technical bases in agricultural machinery, in chemicals, and in artificial fertilisers, and in everything of that sort.
  Not until then will they make an attempt to carry this forward, through the stages of transition, to a complete Communism. Soviet Russia will get completely on its feet only when it is able to exchange the manufactured articles of the West for the raw materials of the East. Soviet Russia cannot go to Communism until such time as the more highly industrialised countries in the West also are going on the way to Communism. I remember asking Litvinoff, when he was stationed in this country, in September, 1918: "If no assistance comes to you from Western Europe, how long can you hold out?" He replied. "We cannot hold out more than two years." That was in September, 1918. It is to-day, July, 1923, and the Soviet Power is still holding out. It has not been able to make the transition to Communism, any more than it expected it would be able to do, if no assistance came from the West. Slowly and thoroughly, however, under the administration of the Workers' Government, staffed by men who are Marxists to a man, they will direct the public policy, utilising their understanding of the capitalist system to carry that system forward, step by step, until they reach complete Communism, and that will only come when it comes in the West. If hon. Members opposite continue to make such an excellent job as they have done of the capitalist system; it they continue marooning the cleverest statesmen that they have to the benches below the Gangway; if they continue to place in power men in their stead whose
  1988
  only qualification for Cabinet office is that their relatives did something two generations ago; if they continue to make the magnificent success they are making in dealing with unemployment, of getting Reparations settled, and of solving the housing and all the other problems, then Communism will be upon them very rapidly indeed.
  The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Amery): The hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Newbold) will pardon me if I do not go into the questions he raised in his speech, but direct myself at once to the clear issue raised in the Motion of the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden), and raised again in almost identical terms by the right hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) and the right hon. Member for East Newcastle (Mr. A. Henderson). That Motion is, in substance, that the existing system of private ownership and control of the means of production and distribution has brought the people of this country to a state of degradation and misery greater than any known in their history, and that there can be no improvement except by a complete change of the basis of our industrial organisation. The hon. Member for Colne Valley recently stated his conviction that the present system is inherently wrong, and that no amount of tinkering with it can make it permanently tolerable to the majority of the people. That is a clear issue, and to that I can direct myself. The right hon. and learned Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon), and more than one other hon. Member who has spoken, has already dealt with the astonishing statement that the state of the people of this country is worse than it was before the industrial development. I do not think I need dwell at length on that issue, but I should like to make one or two observations. I noticed, with some interest, that the hon. Member for Colne Valley, in making his case that the state of the world had shown no improvement in spite of all the development of science, and that therefore some wholly drastic, new proposal was necessary, asked the House more particularly to follow him in a passage from Mr. Henry George, making that same case—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] That is quite true. Mr. George, in the preface to his book, drew exactly the same picture of the world going from worse to worse, and needing a drastic change. But it was not the same

  1989
  change. He was not against capitalism. He thought a new heaven and a new earth could be created by the simple device of land taxation.
  Let me come, for one moment, to some simple test of the actual fact. The hon. Member for Colne Valley has written books, which is perhaps as well for some of us. In one of those books, "Socialism and Syndicalism," he pointed out that between 1850 and 1900 nominal wages rose by 78 per cent., and prices fell by 11 per cent., the combined effect of the two being a rise in real wages of over 90 per cent. He might have added that during that same period the population doubled in this country, not to speak of the great overspill of population from this country which settled under better conditions in other countries overseas, or the creation of wealth in other nations by that same industrial system which had its home here. Nor did he take into account all the great increase, apart from the question of wages and prices, in the amenities of life which the development of civilisation has brought about—better education, better sanitation, parks, the provision of countless things which make life to-day for every section of the people far better than the life of a generation or two generations ago. I am bound to deal with that point, not because I wish to under-estimate for one moment the evils of the present situation, evils which we all fully recognise do exist in our midst to-day, nor because we are complacent and less concerned with their reform than hon. Members opposite. It is because of the fact that improvement has taken place, that surely there is justification for believing that, with good will, greater improvement will still take place, and that no violent overthrow of the present system is needed to secure that improvement.
  It is no doubt true, as pointed out by the right hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) that War has dealt severe blows to our economic structure, and that we are consequently in a more difficult position than before. But if we improved steadily for over 60 years before the War, and if now we are temporarily in a worse position, that is really due to the War and its aftermath, and not to the system which existed before the War, a system which led to steady improvement
  1990
  and which will lead to steady improvement again. If I may follow one point made by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs it is this, that, although the actual difficulties of the times are great, the real distress, as compared with the distress that followed on periods of grave unemployment before the War, in its effect on the life of the people, on the health of the children, and upon mortality generally, has been less severe than it was because the measures taken by the State to cope with those evils have been more effective. And if we feel more strongly about these things to-day than we used to before the War it is because the conscience of the whole nation, and not of one party or of one section, has been quickened, and we all feel more acutely the disgrace and shame inevitably attendant on many of these things, and mean, as far as possible, to apply a remedy.
  What is this drastic remedy that is proposed? It is no question of the extension of State and municipal ownership, it is no question of social reform, guiding, restraining or limiting the free exercise of the powers that individuals now exercise. It is a question of transferring the whole administration and control of industry into the hands of this House, with Ministers made responsible. I want to state, I hope fairly, the argument on which that proposal is based. The assumption on which it is based is that in that way, by substituting the control of the public, animated only by the public interest, you can secure a better and fairer distribution of work and production, and can avoid those irregularities—those periods of over production and under production which cause so much distress and unemployment. It is also argued that by eliminating private profit you are able through the State to make the profit of industry go back to the whole people. That is a simple argument and certainly not without its attractiveness. I confess that in the first reaction of youth from the rigid individualism of the old orthodox economies it was not without its attractions for myself. I am sure the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Sydney Webb), and the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald) will agree that if I have long since come to take a different view from them as to the best method of promoting the welfare of the people of

  1991
  this country, it is not because my motives but only my conclusions have altered.
  I should like now, from a practical point of view, to examine their particular remedy. The first point I am bound to draw attention to is the assumption which underlies their proposal that the efficiency remains constant. If it remained substantially constant, their case would be half won for hon. Members. But the essential fact in production is that between success and failure a very narrow margin of efficiency makes all the difference. It makes the difference not in profit alone; it makes it in the question whether any profit or any wages can be earned at all. That is true in the most self-contained country; it is doubly true in a country like this which lives not merely by production in its own area but has to fight and trade for its living throughout the world and to support in this narrow island a population twice as great as its area justifies. Now whatever effect the existing system may have it has from the point of view of promoting efficiency at any rate one great advantage, that in every industry from top to bottom there is a continual testing of efficiency by the results in that industry. To each man engaged in the business there is the hope of success on one side and fear of failure on the other. That is applied day in and day out. Who applies it? It is a test applied by the community, it is the test of Success or failure based on whether the industry is producing something which is useful or desired by some substantial section of the community. Whatever failings the present system may have, it has the merit of continually bringing things to the test, and thereby calling upon qualities in the business man which respond to that test—enterprise, love of adventure, readiness to risk everything, and being prepared to meet failure. All these qualities are continually tested under the present system.
  Now let me take the system which it is proposed should take its place. Under that system, the whole mechanism of industry is subject to this House, and the only test to which this House, and the Government in this House, is submitted is the test, at long intervals, of an election, in which it is impossible to distinguish between effective administration in one industry or another. All industries to-
  1992
  gether, and all issues of policy together, form the battle-ground of the election, and it is on question of policy and promises as well as performance that the election is fought. After all that, when the country had decided what kind of Government it would have, it would only have affected the fate of a very small section of those who have to take part in industry. The whole of the rest of the mechanism of industry would consist of civil servants and Government employés, of men who, once they were in the Service, would be subjected to practically no test—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"]—who, as long as they maintained a certain reasonable standard of conduct, were safe for the rest of their lives.
  I do not wish it to be thought that I am criticising either the Civil Service or the ordinary method of administration for the particular purpose for which it has been devised, and for which it works admirably. We have a system of administration which serves admirably its particular purpose, which serves more particularly those great branches of administration in which the test of individual demand does not apply, and, therefore, in which ordinary commercial methods do not apply—I mean defence, education, sanitation—a great field of public endeavour which has to be settled, not by market prices, not by what people are willing to give for it, but by the broad needs of the community.
  When you come to production, and to production for use, the administration of the State is not one that is calculated to give the highest immediate efficiency. It is an administration one of whose main purposes is justification in this House. The whole framework of a Government office is based, not on yielding results in terms of business, but on justifying itself to this House. It has to face criticism on the Estimates, it has to be prepared to answer questions. The registry is the central feature of any Government Department. It has to keep a vast apparatus of record which would be quite incompatible with the efficient conduct of any private business. It has to submit, for the same reasons, to a method of Treasury control, to a scrutiny by the Public Accounts Committee, which would be perfectly incompatible with the efficient conduct of any private business. I venture to say that no private

  1993
  business could be carried on efficiently subject to the restraints and checks to which the administration of government is subject in this country. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Platting said that business men of great eminence had carried on Departments and given themselves wholeheartedly to them during the War without hope of reward. That is perfectly true, and millions of our fellow-citizens gave themselves unsparingly, night and day, not only to labour, but to wounds and death, for the mere pittance of a soldier's pay, in a state of grave national emergency. Is it proposed that they should be asked to do the same to-day?
  I want the House to consider, not only how incompatible this proposal is with the structure of our administrative system, but how incompatible it is with the effective working of this House of Commons. After all, it is no use speaking about Society or the Public adminstering industry; it is this House of Commons that would have to do it. This House is suffering, in the opinion of all who have to work in it, by the overwhelming mass of work with which it has to deal, and the moment you begin to increase its work you will have to increase the responsible organs of government to deal with it. During the War, the Government had to exercise, not an administration of industry, but a very general control of it, and at once you had to create a number of new Ministries to carry it on. It would be a far greater thing to have actually to administer the means of distribution and production.
  At the present moment, the Government carries on a great piece of distributive machinery, namely, the Post Office. Nobody would dispute that it is essential for the proper control over postal administration by this House that there should be a separate Minister in charge of that Department. But, when you look at it, postal administration is but a small thing compared with a score of other great distributing agencies in this country. There are far fewer post offices than there are grocers' shops, butchers' shops, or bakers' shops, and each of these departments of business employs much larger staffs and touches the people of this country far more nearly and inti-
  1994
  mately than does even the work of the Post Office. You would want a Minister for each of them. You would not only want a Postmaster - General, but a Butcher-General, a Baker-General, and, as my right hon. Friend the Attorney-General reminds me, even a Fishmonger-General—with an Under-Secretary for Poultry and Rabbits. You would want a Clothier-General with an Under-Secretary for Underwear. That is only when you are dealing with distribution, but when you come to the great productive industries, each one of which involves an administrative task far greater than any Government Department undertakes to-day, it will be seen that this proposal would necessarily involve an enormous increase in the Ministries and in the Cabinet—at least, a three-fold or five-fold increase. It would involve a corresponding increase in the number of days allotted to Committee of Supply, and would involve a corresponding increase in the time given to questions.
  These may seem absurd speculations, but the absurdity lies, not in the speculations, but in the proposal of which they are an inevitable corollary. Let me point out another difficulty. One hon. Member who spoke earlier in the Debate pointed out that the Queensland experiment ought not to be judged by its failure, because it had to take over the existing plant of an individualist system. So will any Socialist Government in this country, and one of the features of the existing organisation to-day is that the great industries of this country are decentralised. The headquarters of one great industry is in Lancashire, another in Yorkshire, and so on right through the country. But you could not carry out the control of industry through Parliament except in London. You would have to have the headquarters of all the great industries centred here if they were to be responsible to Parliament. Is that going to lead to efficient management? Is it going to lead to sympathetic management? Is it likely to be acceptable to, say, workers on the Clyde, that they should have to deal, not with employers on the spot, but with a Government Department here in Whitehall?
  It may be said—I do not know if that was the substance of the interjection of

  1995
  the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden)—that you need not centralise all the industries here in Parliament. You could decentralise them by county or municipal areas. Let me examine that proposition. It is perfectly true that many industries in this country have their local home, the population working in them, living in a certain locality, perhaps within the jurisdiction of a single county council or municipal authority. But the industry is not self-contained; its ramifications extend through the whole country, and, it may be, even through the whole world. Let me take as an instance a town like Paisley, which manufactures shawls and sewing thread. It cannot live upon these things. It cannot clothe itself with shawls and feed itself on sewing thread. It has to go into the world outside and buy and sell, competing with other industries. In that case, whether it is municipally controlled or not, it is, in respect of all the other industries of the country and of the other municipalities of the country and the world outside, a private capitalist venture. It has to face all the difficulties and run all the risks and incur all the disadvantages charged to capitalism by hon. Members opposite. It has to engage in competition with the rest of the world. In the course of that competition it may easily make the mistake of over production and involve the workers in unemployment. In the course of that competition, to avoid going under, it may be equally compelled to sweat the wages of its workers. The ordinary shareholder to-day has his eggs in many baskets In this case the whole community will be dependent on its success as a capitalist enterprise competing in the world outside.
  That objection, which I put just now against municipal control, is really equally applicable to national control by this Parliament. One of the facts that is never faced by the advocates of Socialism is, that the political area, the unit of political control and the unit of economic control do not coincide. This country is not by itself an economic unit any more than the town of Paisley. It lives by a vast foreign trade. We import every year some £500,000,000 of foodstuffs, and not far from £300,000,000 worth of raw material. Those have to be secured by skill in trading outside. Can hon.
  1996
  Members guarantee that any system of administration conducted under the authority of Parliament here will be any more successful than the experienced business men of to-day in securing trade, in securing the necessary raw material, in avoiding the mistake of buying too readily on a rising market, and of avoiding the mistake of producing goods you find you cannot sell afterwards?
  10.0 P.M.
  I will put another question. Just as a municipality trading with the rest of the country and the outside world is viz-a-viz the world, a capitalist enterprise, so this country, trading with the world outside, however Socialist it may be at home, becomes in effect a capitalist enterprise and enters into competition with the world outside. I do not think from the point of view of ordinary business it is likely to be an efficient enterprise. But it has powers which, if it chooses to exercise them, could be very formidable, and formidable for great evil as well as possibly for good. The hon. Member for Colne Valley, in one of those interesting articles I have recently been reading, says the Labour party is essentially a party of Free Trade, because it believes Protection breeds rivalry among the nations and is often a cause of war. How is he going to combine Free Trade with the system he advocates? If he suppresses all private capitalist distribution by the inhabitants of the country, is he going to allow foreign capitalist agencies to distribute their goods freely in this country? If not, is not likely that the Department that distributes, say, butter is going to get in direct conflict with the Department responsible for its production? I am not a Free Trader. I do not think it is essential for the welfare of the country that, regardless of conditions outside, regardless of the cost of production, regardless of social conditions here, we should still welcome in, untaxed and assisted in every way, the goods of every region of the world. But certainly I should not wish to put any wall round the country. I believe a due measure of competition with trade outside is essential to stimulating the industry of the country. But as far as I can see, the system that is proposed by hon. Members opposite is to put an absolute end to the ordinary trade intercourse between the nations. More than that, how it is going to be compatible either with the proper conduct of

  1997
  our Imperial affairs or with the proper conduct of Foreign affairs? We in this Parliament have, apart from the material interests of the country or of any particular trade, a certain standard of political conduct in dealing with the world outside. We have a standard, not always perfectly observed, but one which we endeavour to live up to, of trusteeship with regard to the dependent regions of the Empire. In dealing with other nations, as long as our subjects are not treated unjustly as compared with the subjects of other countries we do not regard it as our duty to interfere by force to push our trade in their market. But when once you link up everything in this Parliament, when this Government exists as a trading Government pure and simple, will not the temptation to use its powers over subject races be too strong to resist, and is not the danger of war more likely to increase than to be diminished by such a policy?
  Let me take one further aspect. A centralised system like this may be able to provide with reasonable economy the goods which are desired by the great majority. But it will be unable to do what the present system does, to supply the needs of any reasonably small constituency of consumers. That means no variety and no choice, and, more than that, it means no progress. Progress in this world never goes on a single broad front. It is not the majority, it is the minority who always lead. What would have been the attitude of a Government conducted on the line that is favoured by hon. Members opposite towards many of the inventions of the past? Would a Government that was directly responsible for all the post chaises, and all the horses, and all the hay in this country have encouraged George Stephenson? It would have meant the scrapping of horses and vehicles and the putting out of work of many thousands of Government supporters. It is not only with regard to inventions but with regard to all the ordinary improvements in living that progress begins with the few, and those few who have sufficient surplus and leisure to be able to experiment. I was listening some time ago to Debates in this House in which in impassioned language hon. Members opposite spoke of certain articles, like tea and sugar, as being absolute necessities of
  1998
  the people. Do not let us forget that originally they were the costly luxuries of the few. These luxuries were introduced and then were extended till they have become necessities by private enterprise. What Socialist state centuries ago would have catered for the tea drinker, or for the tobacco smoker, or for the coffee drinker? Cotton was a rare luxury. There is hardly a single thing that contributes to the ordinary necessities of life that was not in its time a luxury of the well-to-do, and which, under private enterprise, and private enterprise alone, has gradually become a necessity.
  Let me ask, what is the kind of life to which a system of State Socialism would reduce the people of this country? I cannot see that in any respect anyone who has spoken to-night from the other side, or on previous occasions, has given any evidence to suggest that it would result in higher efficiency, and without higher efficiency we cannot have higher wages or more certain employment. The hon. Member for Colne Valley spoke of strikes as being a result of the present system. Will there be no strikes under State bureaucratic administration? I notice that in advocating Guild Socialism, Mr. Cole remarks that the workers under such management are no more free so far as the conditions of their working life are concerned than are the workers under the capitalist system. He suggests that this system would bring not peace but a sword. Hon. Members have quoted State control in other countries. Have there been no strikes in the State coal mines of Australia and New Zealand? Have there been no strikes in the shipbuilding yards of Melbourne and Sydney? Was there not a strike the other day in the Commonwealth shipping line? I cannot conceive any reason in the world why a working man at one end of the country should be less willing to strike against some distant State official who may represent a party to which he is most bitterly opposed in politics.
  I now come to the question asked by the right hon. Member for East Newcastle: What is our alternative? Are we prepared to say that all is for the best in the best of possible worlds, and that nothing is required but to give capitalism free play. We on this side of the House, at any rate, have never stood for the doctrine that capital is an end in itself,

  1999
  and above the law. We have always held since the days of the Factory Act a very different view. The Trade Union Act, the Compensation for Accidents to Workmen Act, and many other Measures, including Measures supported by every party, show that there has always been dominant in this country, for the last 60 or 70 years, at any rate, the perfectly definite view that, while the free play of capital is a vital and essential thing, it is no less the function of this House and of the State to limit, restrain, and, if necessary, guide the exercise of its activities. In these respects, three main charges are made against the existing system in regard to all of which I say that, under the existing system, and by modification of it, the desired results could be obtained.
  One objection has reference to the actual social conditions under which the people live. The other has reference to the serious problem, so terribly serious at this moment, of unemployment, and the last has reference to what we may call the human side of the question, the status of the workman, and his feeling that he ought to have a responsible share in industry and not be merely a tool. On the first of these three subjects I believe that by State guidance and control—which is as different from direct State administration as walking freely under the law is different from being man-handled by a policeman—it is possible in the first instance to carry on and to extend, wherever experience may show that it is necessary, all that great accumulation of social reforms which have been, in some ways, the most characteristic features of the last half century. There is certainly one field in which we may not have done all that we might, and that is in taking care by State action that the people of this country should not be so subject to violent fluctuations of trade and employment as they have been. The junior Member for the City of London (Mr. E. C. Grenfell), in a very interesting speech, pointed out that while we under capitalism have a terrible volume of unemployment at this moment. France, equally under capitalism, has had practically no unemployment since the War.
  Mr. J. JONES: On our money.
  Mr. AMERY: I can suggest a different reason. France is, to the extent of half
  2000
  her population, an agricultural country. She has never allowed her agriculture to go down. Whatever happens to the world outside she manages to keep trade and commerce reasonably constant in her own country. There is a great field for the development and strengthening of agriculture in this country. We in our haste and in our love for the absolute free-play of economic forces, made a great mistake in allowing our agriculture to decline as it has done during the last two generations. I do not suggest that in these islands alone we can bring about such an even balance of production as will avoid the risks and dangers of unemployment such as we see to-day; but I do suggest that within the wider territories of the British Empire, if we develop those territories and if we develop the manhood and resources of those territories, there is an opportunity of securing such a harmony of productive power as will reduce unemployment to the very lowest possible level. There can be no such thing as general over-production. It is partial overproduction, excessive abundance and overproduction of one thing not balanced by the proper production of something else, that causes unemployment. If we aim, through the guidance and protection of the State, at securing a better balance of production within the Empire we shall have gone a long way towards meeting the evils that have been complained of.
  Lastly, I should like to say a word on the question of status, the status of industry face to face with capital. It is very different from what it was a generation or two ago. The relation of the workman to his employer is very different from what it was years ago. Capital itself has changed. It is in the hands of millions of people, millions of small people in every walk of life. The great co-operative societies, friendly societies, and trade unions are all forms of capital, and through them the workman has achieved a far higher status and greater confidence in himself than he possessed a generation or two ago. Is there any reason why that process of evolution should not continue? Why should there not be a far greater extension, in one form or another, of copartnership in industry, not necessarily between a man and the one firm with which he works, but why not a co-partner-

  2001
  ship between the larger trade unions and the industry in which they are interested? Why should not they put some of their capital into these industries and get control of them, so that the return which they would get from their capital if wisely put into these industries, would give them far greater power than they possess at present? Through the councils which are always associated with your name the workmen can acquire the right to be told more, and to have a fuller say in the conduct of the industry. In all those questions I do believe that we can make far greater progress than we have ever made. If there are other means let us hasten to apply them. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs suggested the appointment of a special Committee of inquiry. No suggestion coming from one of his great authority and experience can be lightly rejected. If such a proposal on consideration shows any hope of yielding practical results, there is no reason why such a proposal should not be considered.
  Mr. MUIR: Is the right hon. Gentleman speaking for the Government?
  Mr. AMERY: Certainly, on behalf of the Government, I say that that proposal, and any other with this object, will receive careful consideration. I wish to say, in conclusion, that the real wealth and strength of this great country lie in the living forces which reside within its people, in their courage and enterprise, their love of adventure and their love, it may be, of the approbation of their fellow men. Some of these emotions, unregulated and uneducated, may be productive of evil. But guided, controlled and educated by public opinion and the opinion of this House, those forces are, in our belief, amply sufficient to bring about a far better state of things than we in this country or the people in any other country have ever known before. But I would ask the House to repudiate the illusory dream that, by scrapping all this life and freedom and energy and putting in their place a crude mechanical scheme, you will do anything else than paralyse industry, narrow and impoverish the life of the nation, and inevitably destroy the political system under which we live.
  Mr. J. RAMSAY MacDONALD: We have listened to a series of speeches which
  2002
  have been very illuminating, and not the least illuminating is the last speech of my right hon. Friend. His speech made me melancholy. I remember the right hon. Gentleman something like a quarter of a century ago, I am sorry to say. In those days he would not have made the speech which he has made to-night—not from the point of view of conclusion but from the point of view of understanding his subject. The right hon. Gentleman in those days, when he was nibbling at Socialism, would never for five minutes have risen and suggested, even to the Oxford Union—to say nothing of this House—that the only conception of Socialism held by us is a great State bureaucracy, and that the only method of controlling national industry is by this House increasing the number of its Supply days. My right hon. Friend has gained in imagination what he has lost in accuracy of knowledge of the Socialist movement and Socialist aims. I thought that at the last Election hon. Members and the candidates who stood with them were hitting below the belt when they produced bill after bill and statement after statement about us. I am more charitably inclined after having listened to the Debate to-day. So far as I am concerned, they do not know where my belt is, and if they hit below, I cannot exactly blame them.
  There is one curious thing about this Debate: There has not been a single speaker who has defended capitalism. The one who came nearest was my right hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon), but he was so anxious to get cheers from the Government side that he forgot to get cheers from his own colleagues. I shall deal with him in a minute. But I repeat that here in this House the great capitalist party is ranged in front of us, and not a single speaker has got up to give an unqualified defence of capitalism. Even the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) did not do so, in the extraordinary picture he gave us of the world fit for heroes to live in—that new and very much revised version of what was to happen after the War. Even he, in words—with which I have been so often familiar—of solemn warning of the terrible things that were to come, wagged his finger at the Government Benches and said: "I have warned you.

  2003
  You must appoint a commission to inquire."
  Sir F. BANBURY rose—
  Mr. MacDONALD: The right hon. Baronet is quite right. He is very jealous lest I should have overlooked his colleague in the representation of the City of London. That is my first point.
  Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: What is the point?
  Mr. MacDONALD: I am always exceedingly pleased to make myself clear to the hon. Member. The point is that not a single speaker up to now has got up to defend capitalism.
  Mr. E. C. GRENFELL: I made the best effort I could.
  Mr. MacDONALD: I did not say that no hon. Member did what he could to defend it. I listened to the hon. Member's speech, and he said that there was so much evil that great changes would have to be made in order to make capitalism acceptable to the people of this country.
  Mr. GRENFELL: No, never!
  Mr. MacDONALD: What did my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Spen Valley discover, when he possessed himself of a penny pamphlet on Socialism? One of the first things he discover, after a serious and acute examination of our position, is that the Socialist regards capitalism as a historical reversion. Where did he get that? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell me, where is the Socialist position stated as he has stated it—that capitalism is a reversion in history?
  Sir F. BANBURY: What is the Socialist position?
  Mr. MacDONALD: The Socialist position is that Capitalism was an improvement on what went before it, and that Socialism is going to be an improvement on Capitalism. My right hon. and learned Friend produced another argument which went on the assumption that the Socialist had no belief in capital and, in the course of that argument, he mixed up the use of capital, as one of the machines of production, with the capitalist system.
  Sir J. SIMON: It is not for me to have a controversy with my neighbour, but may I be allowed to say I do not recognise the description, either of the first argument or the second.
  Mr. MacDONALD: Nothing would delight me more than to have a controversy with my neighbour, but the unfortunate thing is that there is an instrument facing you, Mr. Speaker, and when that long finger approaches 11 o'clock I must sit down. May I say in passing—and the House will excuse me, I know—I put it in this way, that my right hon. and learned Friend cannot make good his argument regarding co-operation, unless he mixes up capital with capitalism? He made a most elaborate reply which went upon the assumption that the Socialist is bound to hold the doctrine that no progress is being made under capitalism. Where does he find that?
  Sir J. SIMON: I am sorry to interrupt, but if the hon. Gentleman challenges me in that way it is his own fault if I interrupt him. My observation, which I can put in a sentence, was to this effect—that it did not appear to me that the argument used by the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) was a fair argument, when he invited us to examine the results of capitalism and called attention to no results except a certain number of disquieting incidents.
  Mr. MacDONALD: I admit it is my fault which has brought my right hon. and learned Friend to his feet just now, and I will drop the matter for the very good reason that there is not time to discuss it, but I put this to my right hon. and learned Friend: why is it necessary, not only for him but for others, to build up a reply to Socialism on the assumption that the Socialist is going to abolish the present state of society? Why is it necessary to use the expression "violent overthrow" as used by the right hon. Gentleman opposite? Read the Motion. Supposing we were to transform instead of to abolish. As a matter of fact, the word "transform," used instead of the words "abolish" or "violently overthrow" changes the whole aspect, the whole method, of the change from capitalism to Socialism, and knocks nine-tenths of the arguments used to-day against us completely on the head. My right hon. Friend gave the example of

  2005
  Queensland. Why? If all those crimes which he described were committed, why has it come about that at the election the other day this criminal Queensland Labour party has been returned with an increased majority? The right hon. Gentleman opposite, elaborating that point of his about the bureaucracy, had an idea that under Socialism some great central body was going to sit in London and control all the production of the country. Is not that very largely true now? What about all your trusts, all your federations of industry, what about all your organisations of employers? [An HON. MEMBER: "Free!"] Nominally, it may be, but there is the control. The right hon. Gentleman did not talk about freedom; it was simply the question of the organisation. I do not like it. I am opposed to it. As a matter of fact, there is going to be very little bureaucracy under Socialism. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I regret very much if I am disappointing hon. Members, but they had better keep their minds very much closed if they are not going to be disappointed when they understand, what they have been talking about so much without apparently understanding, that Socialism does not mean a State bureaucracy.
  What is the alternative? Is the right hon. Gentleman's alternative the Budget he has just prepared? Is his alternative a subsidy for agriculture and landlordism, on the one hand, with the abolition of agricultural wages boards on the other? I do not know that he will admit that, but, as a matter of fact, that is his alternative, and that alternative is inherent in the system, and every time you have a capitalist Government on that side of the House, that is the legislation you produce, whilst you can make any speeches you like about your intentions. The question has been put several times as to whether the evils to which we have drawn attention are inherent, are essential features of capitalism. The right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs told us, in picturing that dark picture of his, that you could patch it here, and patch it there. He was following again in the footsteps of his great prototype, Prince Bismarck, whose great discovery about 50 years ago was to stave off Socialism by giving little doses of Socialism to the German people. Our
  2006
  contention is that these evils are inherent in the system, and you cannot get them out of it so long as it lasts. Can anyone tell me how you are going to avoid trusts under Capitalism? Can anyone tell me how you are going to avoid monopoly under Capitalism?
  Hon. Members imagine that competition is a feature of Capitalism—nothing of the kind. What happens is that you open with competition, you go on with federated businesses, you go on accumulating more capital, uniting more and more independent concerns, until at last, on the other side, by agreements like those holding in the building trades, or by actual federations and united masses of capital, you bring about, under a system of Capitalism, the death of competition and a widespread system of trusts and monopoly that make the community an absolute victim. The course of that has been shown since the War in particular. The producing and consuming community has to bear the burden of excessive overcapitalisation. If a 5 per cent. dividend be increased to 10 per cent., the extra 5 per cent. is immediately capitalised, and is fixed, not as a reward for ability, nor as a reward for labour, but permanently as a reward for capital. Capital by itself, by its own valuation, creates an economic machine which inevitably dominates the life of the community in the interests of its own profit. That is not all. The hon. Member for the City of London, who gave us a very interesting speech, laid special emphasis on ca' canny. Is there only ca' canny on one side? I have never written or spoken a word in favour of ca' canny, and I never will. Yes, but what is going on? Is it only the day labourer, is it only the workman who is ca' cannying now? There is not a single product of any importance or of any general consumption but is being cornered, limited in its production by the capitalist in order to reduce supplies. Take cotton. Take timber. Take copper. Take rubber. Take tea. Take coffee. Take sugar. Why was not the tax taken off sugar by the Budget?
  Take the question of building material. The Government appointed Committee after Committee to consider the effect of cornering upon important articles of consumption. What did a Committee say about building materials?
  "By a pooling arrangement the National Light Castings Association penalises any

  2007
  member who increases his output, and rewards any member who reduces his output relative to the rest."
  Why do not hon. Members opposite cheer that? Why do they not ask for proof? I will give them some more. The Committee refers to this arrangement to "ca' canny" on the part of monopolists—
  "as tending to restrict total output, to stereotype the lay-out of the industry, and to retard the improvement of efficiency. They consider it to be contrary to the public interest."
  That is good enough for me. So far as argument goes, I am perfectly satisfied that the capitalist system has to be supplanted by Socialism, because the latter is the better form of public utility. Another point. "Ca' canny" is essentially capitalistic. It is the study of capitalist methods. It is the example given them by employers that has spread the idea amongst workmen that it is economical for them to withhold their labour, that if you give a man 20s. and he wants 25s., and considers 25s. is the right figure that he should have—that is in the way of bargaining under the immoral system upon which capitalism is based—then the workmen say: "If we believe 25s. is right, and you only give us 20s., we will only give you 20s. worth of work in return; we will see that you do not get the best of the bargain, or that you only get from us what you pay wages for." I say I do not like it. It is not my idea of production. But nobody who defends capitalism, nobody who defends profiteering, nobody who says that there is a price placed upon everything determined by the law of supply and demand—nobody who holds that view—can withhold the application of exactly the same principle to the men who adopt the principle of "ca'-canny" because they believe their wages are too small, and that by withholding labour they will give work to their fellow workmen. That is not all. Capitalism must always secure insecurity—insecurity of labour, insecurity of supply. I do not want to give mere abstract argument, for what I say I want to give authority, authority that hon. Members opposite will not deny. I came across in the "Iron and Coal Trades Review" in its issue of 8th June, in a leading article on "Industrial Fuel supplies," the following:
  "It is exceedingly difficult to take advantage of a seller's market without causing
  2008
  inconvenience somewhere; indeed a continued assurance of supplies all round would reduce trading to a monotonous routine from which healthy speculation and general business acumen would be largely excluded."
  There is no question there—save in the words used or in the turn of the sentence—but that it is essential that capitalism should have what they suggest. If you supply a steady flow of raw material, take away the risks, then, says this journal, you are damaging capitalism because you are taking away the incentive to efficient work!
  We have had another question put to us and it is, "What are you going to do when you take over industry with all those wonderful men who apply their brains to our foreign markets?" Does the right hon. Gentleman who asked that question think that we shall kill them? We shall keep them at their jobs. What happens to-day? Does the right hon. Gentleman believe the statement that their wonderful agents are their own employers? Of course they are not, because they are as much the paid servants of the company that employs them as the staff he employs at the Admiralty are the paid servants of the State. Would the right hon. Gentleman like to run the Admiralty as a private venture, and if not, why not? The fact of the matter is that the business brain of the community is hired by the capitalist and it is not the capitalists themselves. I was very sorry that I did not hear the speech of the right hon. Member for West Swansea (Sir A. Mond), but I had the pleasure of knowing something about the relative of his to whom he referred and to whom the country owes so much, but he knows as well as I know, that in the development of the Royal Institution the father of the right hon. Gentleman got very little for all those experiments which he financed on the liquefaction of air and the use of low temperature gases. What did he get for that? Nothing. He did it because he was interested in science, because his heart was in that work, and the reason why we owe him so much to-day in regard to the application of physical science to industry is not because he was wealthy, but because like every other man who has advanced knowledge and advanced human righteousness his heart was right, and it was not merely because his pocket was full. I object to the human spirit being limited and confined in its freedom by embattled econo-

  2009
  mic power such as capitalism affords to-day. Talk about liberty to-day. Why, we have not got a whiff of liberty yet. The great mass of our people are not free to choose a destiny for their own children, and to live lives that would be good lives. [Interruption.]The great mass of our people are not free to say what they like and to think what they like—[Interruption.]
  Mr. SPEAKER: I must ask the hon Member for Hampstead (Mr. G. Balfour) not to interrupt with these continuous suggestions. If he does so, it is quite impossible for anyone to make a speech.
  Mr. BALFOUR rose—
  HON. MEMBERS: Sit down!
  Mr. SPEAKER: For what does the hon. Member wish to rise?
  Mr. BALFOUR: As you mentioned my name, Mr. Speaker, I thought the hon. Member who was speaking was constantly challenging this side of the House, and I submit that my observations were quite in order.
  Mr. SPEAKER: If an hon. Member is not entitled in any speech to use rhetorical questions, without waiting for an answer from an hon. Member who is seated, it would make Debate quite impossible.
  Mr. MacDONALD: I hope it is not a bad habit on my part, or I should apologise. I object most strongly to this domination of materialism, which is capitalism, over life, absolutely. Moreover, what is the great problem we have all got to face? I say it is the problem of production, to begin with. What is the appeal of capitalism for more production? Absolutely nothing at all. It cannot be the appeal of property. My right hon. Friend told us, earlier in the day, that he wanted a society based upon thrift, upon income, and that sort of thing. He did not describe capitalism when he used those words, he described a purely fanciful state of society. Capitalism cannot appeal to people to produce on a basis of property, because 99 per cent. of our people have no property worth talking about. We cannot appeal to them, we want some stimulus much different from that. The hon. Member for the City of London referred to Georgia. I wish I could tell fully of a very touching, very illuminating experience I had when I
  2010
  was there. I went to the mines, up in the Caucasus, which had just been nationalised. Before that they were the scene of turbulence. Production was going down, and lawlessness and disorder were rife. They had settled down and were quiet. I asked the leader of all the troubles what was the difference between the old state and the new. He said: "In the old state we used to work from here"—touching his shoulder—"to there"—pointing to the end of his pick—"because then we worked for capitalists. In the new state, when we think of the children who are enjoying our coal in Tiflis, we not only work from the shoulder to the pick, but we work with our hearts as well."
  That is my experience. [Laughter.] I am one of those people who do not laugh at that. I am one of those people who say to hon. Members opposite and to my hon. Friends that until you can enlist the soul of your worker you are neither going to have duty coming from his heart nor amplitude coming from his efforts. Capitalists cannot lift the man up to that; they may give him big positions and managing posts, but this is gross materialism which moth and dust doth corrupt and which thieves break through and steal, and until society has discovered that fine, impalpable, spiritual effort it will never solve this great problem of production. So far as one can see, nothing can do that except Socialism. Capitalism will never do it. I wanted to say a few words on the position of parties, but it is impossible in the time left me. There are only two parties in politics to-day. There is the Capitalist party and the Labour and Socialist party. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Spen Valley has tried to get into a sort of half-way house. His half-way house is on wheels. It always moves forward when he likes, and nobody will be in the Socialist camp sooner than my right hon. Friend when that camp becomes popular. The very things he talked about, the legislation passed by the Liberal party, what does it come to? There is not one single thing, with the exception, perhaps, of education, that spontaneously came from that party. I will conclude with one quotation from a Liberal leader who is still with us, but having no pride of place in the party to which he belongs. Lord Morley, in resigning the editorship of the

  2011
  "Fortnightly Review," wrote a valedictory which contained this sentence:
  "We shall need to see great schools before we can make sure of powerful parties. Meanwhile, whatever gives freedom and variety to thought and earnestness to men's interests in the world, must contribute to a good end."
  That is my creed. That is my faith. That is why I am in favour of Socialism.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 121; Noes, 368.

  Division No. 291.]

  AYES.

  [11.0 p.m.

  Adams, D.

  Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (N'castle, E.)

  Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

  Adamson, Rt. Hon. William

  Henderson, T. (Glasgow)

  Riley, Ben

  Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)

  Herriotts, J.

  Ritson, J.

  Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')

  Hill, A.

  Roberts, Frederick O. (W. Bromwich)

  Attlee, C. R.

  Hodge, Rt. Hon. John

  Robinson, W. C. (York, Elland)

  Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)

  Irving, Dan

  Saklatvala, S.

  Barnes, A.

  Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)

  Salter, Dr. A.

  Batey, Joseph

  John, William (Rhondda, West)

  Scrymgeour, E.

  Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.

  Johnston, Thomas (Stirling)

  Sexton, James

  Broad, F. A.

  Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)

  Shaw, Thomas (Preston)

  Brotherton, J.

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Shinwell, Emanuel

  Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)

  Jones, R. T. (Carnarvon)

  Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)

  Buckie, J.

  Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)

  Smith, T. (Pontefract)

  Burgess, S.

  Jowett, F. W. (Bradford, East)

  Snell, Harry

  Buxton, Charles (Accrington)

  Kirkwood, D.

  Snowden, Philip

  Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)

  Lansbury, George

  Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)

  Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.

  Lawson, John James

  Sullivan, J.

  Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)

  Leach, W.

  Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)

  Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

  Lee, F.

  Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)

  Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)

  Lees-Smith, H. B. (Keighley)

  Tout, W. J.

  Duffy, T. Gavan

  Lowth, T.

  Trevelyan, C. P.

  Duncan, C.

  Lunn, William

  Turner, Ben

  Dunnico, H.

  MacDonald, J. R. (Aberavon)

  Wallhead, Richard C.

  Ede, James Chuter

  M'Entee, V. L.

  Walsh, Stephen (Lancaster, Ince)

  Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)

  McLaren, Andrew

  Warne, G. H.

  Gosling, Harry

  Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)

  Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)

  Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)

  March, S.

  Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)

  Greenall, T.

  Middleton, G.

  Webb, Sidney

  Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)

  Morel, E. D.

  Wedgwood, Colonel Josiah C.

  Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)

  Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)

  Weir, L. M.

  Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)

  Muir, John W.

  Westwood, J.

  Groves, T.

  Murnin, H.

  Whiteley, W.

  Grundy, T. W.

  Murray, R. (Renfrew, Western)

  Williams, David (Swansea, E.)

  Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)

  Newbold, J. T. W.

  Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)

  Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  O'Grady, Captain James

  Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)

  Hardie, George D.

  Oliver, George Harold

  Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

  Hartshorn, Vernon

  Paling, W.

  Wright, W.

  Hastings, Patrick

  Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

  Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)

  Hay, Captain J. P. (Cathcart)

  Ponsonby, Arthur

  Hayday, Arthur

  Potts, John S.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Hayes, John Henry (Edge Hill)

  Richards, R.

  Mr. Spoor and Mr. Ammon.

  Hemmerde, E. G.

  NOES.

  Acland, Rt. Hon. Francis Dyke

  Betterton, Henry B.

  Butt, Sir Alfred

  Adkins, Sir William Ryland Dent

  Birchall, Major J. Dearman

  Button, H. S.

  Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte

  Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.)

  Cadogan, Major Edward

  Ainsworth, Captain Charles

  Bird, Sir William B. M. (Chichester)

  Campion, Lieut.-Colonel W. R.

  Alexander, E. E. (Leyton, East)

  Blundell, F. N.

  Cassels, J. D.

  Alexander, Col. M. (Southwark)

  Bonwick, A.

  Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)

  Allen, Lieut.-Col. Sir William James

  Bowdler, W. A.

  Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)

  Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.

  Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.

  Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Ox. Univ.)

  Apsley, Lord

  Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.

  Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord R. (Hitchin)

  Ashley, Lt.-Col. Wilfrid W.

  Brass, Captain W.

  Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton

  Astbury, Lieut.-Com. Frederick W.

  Brassey, Sir Leonard

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm., W.)

  Astor, J. J. (Kent, Dover)

  Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)

  Astor, Viscountess

  Briggs, Harold

  Chapman, Sir S.

  Baird, Rt. Hon. Sir John Lawrence

  Brittain, Sir Harry

  Chapple, W. A.

  Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

  Brown, Major D. C. (Hexham)

  Clarke, Sir E. C.

  Balfour, George (Hampstead)

  Brown, Brig.-Gen. Clifton (Newbury)

  Churchman, Sir Arthur

  Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.

  Brown, J. W. (Middlesbrough, E.)

  Clarry, Reginald George

  Banks, Mitchell

  Bruford, R.

  Clayton, G. C.

  Barlow, Rt. Hon. Sir Montague

  Bruton, Sir James

  Cobb, Sir Cyril

  Barnston, Major Harry

  Buckingham, Sir H.

  Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.

  Becker, Harry

  Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.

  Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips

  Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)

  Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James

  Collison, Levi

  Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.

  Burn, Colonel Sir Charles Rosdew

  Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale

  Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)

  Burney, Com. (Middx., Uxbridge)

  Conway, Sir W. Martin

  Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)

  Burnie, Major J. (Bootle)

  Cope, Major William

  Bennett, A. J. (Mansfield)

  Butcher, Sir John George

  Cotts, Sir William Dingwall Mitchell

  Bennett, Sir T. J. (Sevenoaks)

  Butler, H. M. (Leeds, North)

  Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)

  Berkeley, Captain Reginald

  Butler, J. R. M. (Cambridge Univ.)

  Craig, Captain C. C. (Antrim, South)

  Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Hohier, Gerald Fitzroy

  O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Hugh

  Croft, Lieut.-Colonel Henry Page

  Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

  Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)

  Hood, Sir Joseph

  Paget, T. G.

  Curzon, Captain Viscount

  Hopkins, John W. W.

  Parker, Owen (Kettering)

  Dalziel, Sir D. (Lambeth, Brixton)

  Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)

  Pattinson, R. (Grantham)

  Darbishire, C. W.

  Horne, Sir R. S. (Glasgow, Hillhead)

  Pease, William Edwin

  Davidson, J. C. C. (Hemel Hempstead)

  Houfton, John Plowright

  Pennefather, De Fonblanque

  Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.

  Howard, Capt. D. (Cumberland, N.)

  Penny, Frederick George

  Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)

  Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Col. C. K.

  Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)

  Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)

  Hudson, Capt. A.

  Perkins, Colonel E. K.

  Dawson, Sir Philip

  Hughes, Collingwood

  Perring, William George

  Dixon, C. H. (Rutland)

  Hume, G. H.

  Peto, Basil E.

  Doyle, N. Grattan

  Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis

  Philipson, Mabel

  Dudgeon, Major C. R.

  Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer

  Phillipps, Vivian

  Du Pre, Colonel William Baring

  Hurd, Percy A.

  Pollock, Rt. Hon. Sir Ernest Murray

  Edmonds, G.

  Hurst, Gerald B.

  Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton

  Edmondson, Major A. J.

  Hutchison, G. A. C. (Midlothian, N.)

  Price, E. G.

  Ednam, Viscount

  Hutchison, Sir R. (Kirkcaldy)

  Pringle, W. M. R.

  Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)

  Hutchison, W. (Kelvingrove)

  Rae, Sir Henry N.

  Ellis, R. G.

  Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.

  Raeburn, Sir William H.

  Emlyn-Jones, J. E. (Dorset, N.)

  Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S.

  Raine, W.

  England, Lieut.-Colonel A.

  James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert

  Rankin, Captain James Stuart

  Entwistle, Major C. F.

  Jenkins, W. A. (Brecon and Radnor)

  Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel

  Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith

  Jodrell, Sir Neville Paul

  Rawson, Lieut.-Com. A. C.

  Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)

  Johnson, Sir L. (Walthamstow, E.)

  Rees, Sir Beddoe

  Erskine-Bolst, Captain C.

  Johnstone, Harcourt (Willesden, East)

  Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington)

  Evans, Ernest (Cardigan)

  Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)

  Reid, D. D. (County Down)

  Evans, Capt. H. Arthur (Leicester, E.)

  Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

  Remer, J. R.

  Eyres-Monsell, Com. Rt. Hon. Bolton M.

  Joynson-Hicks, Sir William

  Remnant, Sir James

  Falcon, Captain Michael

  Kelley, Major Sir Frederick A.

  Rentoul, G. S.

  Falconer, J.

  Kennedy, Captain M. S. Nigel

  Reynolds, W. G. W.

  Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray

  Kenyon, Barnet

  Rhodes, Lieut.-Col. J. P.

  Fawkes, Major F. H.

  King, Capt. Henry Douglas

  Richardson, Sir Alex. (Gravesend)

  Fildes, Henry

  Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

  Roberts, C. H. (Derby)

  Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.

  Lamb, J. Q.

  Roberts, Rt. Hon. G. H. (Norwich)

  Flanagan, W. H.

  Lambert, Rt. Hon. George

  Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)

  Ford, Patrick Johnston

  Lane-Fox, Lieut.-Colonel G. R.

  Robertson-Despencer, Major (Islgtn, W.)

  Forestier-Walker, L.

  Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)

  Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)

  Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot

  Linfield, F. C.

  Rogerson, Capt. J. E.

  Frece, Sir Walter de

  Lloyd-Greame, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip

  Rothschild, Lionel de

  Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.

  Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)

  Roundell, Colonel R. F.

  Furness, G. J.

  Lorden, John William

  Ruggles-Brise, Major E.

  Galbraith, J. F. W.

  Lougher, L.

  Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)

  Ganzoni, Sir John

  Lowe, Sir Francis William

  Russell, William (Bolton)

  Garland, C. S.

  Loyd, Arthur Thomas (Abingdon)

  Russell-Wells, Sir Sydney

  Gaunt, Rear-Admiral Sir Guy R.

  Lumley, L. R.

  Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)

  Gilbert, James Daniel

  Lyle-Samuel, Alexander

  Sanders, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert A.

  Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)

  Sanderson, Sir Frank B.

  Goff, Sir R. Park

  Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm

  Sandon, Lord

  Gould, James C.

  Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

  Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.

  Gray, Frank (Oxford)

  McNeill, Ronald (Kent, Canterbury)

  Scott, Sir Leslie (Liverp'l, Exchange)

  Greaves-Lord, Walter

  Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.

  Shakespeare, G. H.

  Greene, Lt.-Col. Sir W. (Hackn'y, N.)

  Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-

  Shaw, Hon. Alex. (Kilmarnock)

  Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)

  Makins, Brigadier-General E.

  Sheffield, Sir Berkeley

  Gretton, Colonel John

  Malone, Major P. B. (Tottenham, S.)

  Shepperson, E. W.

  Guest, Hon. C. H. (Bristol, N.)

  Manville, Edward

  Shipwright, Captain D.

  Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Hon. W. E.

  Margesson, H. D. R.

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Guthrie, Thomas Maule

  Marks, Sir George Croydon

  Simpson-Hinchliffe, W. A.

  Gwynne, Rupert S.

  Marshall, Sir Arthur H.

  Sinclair, Sir A.

  Hacking, Captain Douglas H.

  Martin, F. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, E.)

  Singleton, J. E.

  Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)

  Mason, Lieut.-Col. C. K.

  Skelton, A. N.

  Hall, Rr-Adml Sir W. (Liv'p'l, W. D'by)

  Mercer, Colonel H.

  Smith, Sir Allan M. (Croydon, South)

  Halstead, Major D.

  Millar, J. D.

  Smith, Sir Harold (Wavertree)

  Hamilton, Sir George C. (Altrincham)

  Milne, J. S. Wardlaw

  Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

  Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)

  Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)

  Somerville, Daniel (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Hancock, John George

  Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)

  Spears, Brig.-Gen. E. L.

  Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry

  Molloy, Major L. G. S.

  Spender-Clay, Lieut.-Colonel H. H.

  Harbord, Arthur

  Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred Moritz

  Stanley, Lord

  Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)

  Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.

  Steel, Major S. Strang

  Harrison, F. C.

  Morris, Harold

  Stephenson, Lieut.-Colonel H. K.

  Hawke, John Anthony

  Morrison, Hugh (Wilts, Salisbury)

  Stewart, Gershom (Wirral)

  Hay, Major T. W. (Norfolk, South)

  Morrison-Bell, Major Sir A. C. (Honiton)

  Stockton, Sir Edwin Forsyth

  Henn, Sir Sydney H.

  Murchison, C. K.

  Stott, Lt.-Col. W. H.

  Hennessy, Major J. R. G.

  Murray, Hon. A. C. (Aberdeen)

  Strauss, Edward Anthony

  Herbert, Col. Hon. A. (Yeovil)

  Murray, John (Leeds, West)

  Stuart, Lord C. Crichton-

  Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)

  Nall, Major Joseph

  Sturrock, J. Leng

  Herbert, S. (Scarborough)

  Newman, Colonel J. R. P. (Finchley)

  Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser

  Hewett, Sir J. P.

  Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)

  Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.

  Hilder, Lieut.-Colonel Frank

  Newson, Sir Percy Wilson

  Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)

  Hiley, Sir Ernest

  Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)

  Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)

  Hillary, A. E.

  Nicholson, Brig..-Gen. J. (Westminster)

  Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)

  Hinds, John

  Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)

  Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.

  Nield, Sir Herbert

  Thornton, M.

  Hodge, Lieut.-Col. J. P. (Preston)

  Norman, Major Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Thorpe, Captain John Henry

  Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)

  Norton-Griffiths, Lieut.-Col. Sir John

  Titchfield, Marquess of

  Hogge, James Myles

  Oman, Sir Charles William C.

  Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement

  2014

  2015

  Tubbs, S. W.

  White, Lt.-Col. G. D. (Southport)

  Wood, Maj. Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)

  Turton, Edmund Russborough

  Wilson, Col. M. J. (Richmond)

  Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.

  Wallace, Captain E.

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

  Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward

  Ward, Col. L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)

  Winterton, Earl

  Yerburgh, R. D. T.

  Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.

  Wintringham, Margaret

  Young, Rt. Hon. E. H. (Norwich)

  Watson, Capt. J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Wise, Frederick

  Watts, Dr. T. (Man., Withington)

  Wolmer, Viscount

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Wells, S. R.

  Wood, Rt. Hon. Edward F. L. (Ripon)

  Colonel Leslie Wilson and Colonel

  Weston, Colonel John Wakefield

  Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, West)

  the Rt. Hon. G. A. Gibbs.

  White, Charles F. (Derby, Western)

  Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)

  Question put, and agreed to.

  Question proposed,
  "That the words 'this House, believing that the abolition of private interest in the means of production and distribution would impoverish the people and aggravate existing evils, is unalterably opposed to any scheme of legislation which would deprive the State of the benefits of individual initiative, and believing that far-reaching measures of social redress may be accomplished without overturning the present basis of society, is resolved to prosecute proposals which, by removing the evil effects of monopoly and waste, will conduce to the well-being of the people,' be there added."
  Mr. PRINGLE rose—
  It being after Eleven of the Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

  GREENWICH HOSPITAL AND TRAVERS' FOUNDATION,
  Resolved,
  "That the statement of the estimated income and expenditure of Greenwich Hospital and of Travers' Foundation for the year 1923–24 be approved."—[Commander Eyres-Monsell.]

  GAS REGULATION ACT, 1920,
  Resolved,
  "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the applications of the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Borough of Burton-upon-Trent, which was presented on the 5th July and published, be approved."
  Resolved,
  "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Milton Regis Urban District Council, which was presented on the 21st June and published, be approved."
  Resolved,
  "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Sevenoaks Gas Company, which was presented on the 25th June and published, be approved."
  Resolved,
  "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade
  2016
  under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the South Suburban Gas Company, which was presented on the 4th July and published, be approved."
  Resolved,
  "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Torquay Gas Company and the Paignton Gas Company, which was presented on the 22nd June and published, be approved."
  Resolved,
  "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade, under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act. 1920, on the application of the Ware Gas Light and Coal and Coke Company, Limited, which was presented on the 25th June and published, be approved.—[Viscount Wolmer.]

  DENTISTS BILL (changed from "DENTISTS ACT (1921) AMENDMENT BILL").
  Order read for Consideration, as amended (in the Standing Committee).
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now considered."—[Lieut.-Colonel Dalrymple White.]
  Objection taken.
  Lieut.-Colonel DALRYMPLE WHITE: I would appeal to hon. Members to withdraw their objection. This Bill has passed its First and Second Reading and through the Committee stage without opposition. It refers only to ex-service men, and it would be very regrettable if it were delayed now.
  Bill considered accordingly; read the Third time, and passed.
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

  DENTISTS BILL (changed from "DENTISTS ACT (1921) AMENDMENT BILL").

    ADJOURNMENT.
    Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Colonel Leslie Wilson.]
    Adjourned accordingly at Nineteen Minutes after Eleven o'Clock.

UNEMPLOYMENT.
  BOILERMAKERS DISPUTE (BENEFIT).
  BOILERMAKERS DISPUTE (BENEFIT).
  SHIPS' CLERKS, LEYTON.
  SHIPS' CLERKS, LEYTON.
  TRADE FACILITIES ACT.
  TRADE FACILITIES ACT.
  TANGIER.
  TANGIER.
  TURKISH WARSHIPS.
  TURKISH WARSHIPS.
  AIRCRAFT (RUDDER CONTROL).
  AIRCRAFT (RUDDER CONTROL).
  AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE (DISTRIBUTION AND PRICES).
  AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE (DISTRIBUTION AND PRICES).
  OFFICE OF WORKS (APPOINTMENTS).
  OFFICE OF WORKS (APPOINTMENTS).
  THUNDERSTORMS (AERIAL WIRES).
  THUNDERSTORMS (AERIAL WIRES).
  HANGING BRIDGE, ASHBOURNE.
  HANGING BRIDGE, ASHBOURNE.
  COUNTRY INNS (HOURS OF SALE).
  COUNTRY INNS (HOURS OF SALE).
  EX-INSPECTOR SYME.
  EX-INSPECTOR SYME.
  CHILD ADOPTION.
  CHILD ADOPTION.
  BREAD SALES (PROSECUTION).
  BREAD SALES (PROSECUTION).
  WEST AFRICA (HARBOUR WORKS).
  WEST AFRICA (HARBOUR WORKS).
  PALESTINE ADMINISTRATION (OFFICIALS).
  PALESTINE ADMINISTRATION (OFFICIALS).
  COLONIAL RAILWAYS (CONSTRUCTION).
  COLONIAL RAILWAYS (CONSTRUCTION).
  GERMANY (BRITISH CLAIMS).
  GERMANY (BRITISH CLAIMS).
  ENEMY ACTION CLAIMS.
  ENEMY ACTION CLAIMS.
  IMPORT DUTIES, ITALY (SALTED PILCHARDS).
  IMPORT DUTIES, ITALY (SALTED PILCHARDS).
  SEWAGE PURIFICATION.
  SEWAGE PURIFICATION.
  SMALL-POX AND VACCINATION.
  SMALL-POX AND VACCINATION.
  POOR LAW RELIEF (INSULIN TREATMENT).
  POOR LAW RELIEF (INSULIN TREATMENT).
HOUSING.
  TENDER PRICES.
  TENDER PRICES.
  RENTS.
  RENTS.
  INSANITARY HOUSES.
  INSANITARY HOUSES.
  GOVERNMENT HOUSES.
  GOVERNMENT HOUSES.
  COUNCIL HOUSES, TILBURY (RENT).
  COUNCIL HOUSES, TILBURY (RENT).
  HOUSE OF COMMONS REFRESHMENT DEPARTMENT.
  HOUSE OF COMMONS REFRESHMENT DEPARTMENT.
Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE on the Woolsack.

BRITISH EMPIRE EXHIBITION (1924) INCORPORATED (MEMORANDUM AMENDMENT) BILL. [H.L.]
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOE THE COLONIES (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to amend the Memorandum of Association of the British Empire Exhibition; and to move that it be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a—(The Duke of Devonshire.)
On Question, Bill read 1a; and to be printed; and referred to the Examiners.

CHESTERFIELD CORPORATION BILL.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, I beg to move the Resolution which appears on the Paper in regard to this Bill. The Bill has had a very long passage through the House of Commons, owing to the importance of the provisions which it contains. It is now, I understand, unopposed, and I think it is reasonable that your Lordships should dispense with the Sessional Order.
Moved, That the Order made on the 26th day of April last, "That no Private Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after Thursday the 14th day of June next," be dispensed with, and that the Bill be now read 2".—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and Bill read 2a accordingly.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 8) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

FINANCE BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD HYLTON: My Lords, I rise to move the Second Reading of the Finance Bill which, as your Lordships are all aware, is an annual measure that at this time of the Session comes to us from another place, embodying and legalising the taxation and the financial arrangements proposed by the Government and sanctioned by the House of Commons. This Bill, of course, has to pass through all the usual stages in this House, and I think I may claim that for a good many years you have been in the habit of according the various stages of the Bill without any discussion. I believe, how-ever, that this afternoon the noble Earl, Lord Beauchamp, proposes to make some observations on certain parts of the Bill. Perhaps, therefore, the most convenient course would be that I should now formally move the Second Reading of the Bill and that, after the noble Earl has made those observations which he thinks proper, I should endeavour to reply to them. I am entirely in your Lordships' hands in the matter, but I think that would be the most convenient course, and I formally move the Second Reading of the Bill.
Moved, That, the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Hylton.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord opposite for the course which he has taken in the matter. It is, as he knows, usual that something should be said on the subject of the Finance Bill in this House and, indeed, it has become, I think, specially necessary that this should be done since the passing of the Parliament Act. One of the clauses of that Act, the whole results of which are insufficiently appreciated by noble Lords opposite, was a provision which it made in regard to Finance Bills coming into this House. We made special arrangements that although this House should not have the power of rejecting Bills, they should have the power of discussing Bills. We felt at that time, and I have no doubt we should say so still, that generally speaking the governing body in this country is public opinion. We have always felt that debates in this House on the subject of

1031
finance would do a great deal of good in influencing public opinion, and that if at any time there were provisions in the Bill which were unfair, this House would have its share, by discussion of the subject, in influencing public opinion and bringing about an amendment of the law either in that year or on a subsequent occasion. Therefore it is that I venture to make some observations to your Lordships this evening.
Your Lordships will readily understand that the Finance Bill of the year contains a large number of clauses dealing with a great many very interesting topics. I shall enumerate some of them only to pass them by because I do not wish to discuss them. There is, to begin with, the most important and vital question of economy, and I note with regret the fact that we are still spending no less than, £127,000,000 a year upon armaments. Then there is the great burden upon the people of this country of the Taxes which we have to pay and which, added to the local rates, come to no less than £876.000,000 a year. Then there are connected with our general financial position our indebtedness to others and the indebtedness of others to us. I hope the Government will allow me to say how glad I am that they have concluded so satisfactory an arrangement with the United States of America. I have nothing more to add on that except that I wish that the united States would apply the same pressure to other countries that they applied to us.
I pass from that subject in order to mention one or two smaller items, and, chiefly, I wish to express my regret at the disappearance of the Land Valuation Department. I was one of those concerned in trying to establish that Department and to give it more power; therefore, it is with particular regret that I notice its disappearance. The Finance Bill also contains the various smaller provisions made by the Government for the remission of taxation—certain concessions in the postal charges, in the taxes on cider and mineral waters and on entertainments, but on none of these matters do I wish to say anything. There is another satisfactory provision and that is the one which deals with the Sinking Fund. Again, I hope the Government will allow me to offer my congratulations upon the fact that they have established the Sinking
1032
Fund this year. Some might have wished to see a larger sum devoted to the purpose, but it is satisfactory to realise that the Government recognise the importance of the matter. Many taxpayers will be grateful for the reduction in the Income Tax. One is almost tempted to say something upon high taxation and the capital levy, and it is well worth noting that if we were able to borrow the money at a lower level than we do so much more money would accrue to the Government that they would be able to reduce the Income Tax by no less than one shilling. There is also the reduction in the duty on beer, upon which I do not wish to offer any congratulations to the Government. Indeed, to put it quite frankly, I would very much rather that they should have devoted every reduction which they felt they were able to make to the reduction of the tax on sugar.
The tax on sugar brings me to the points to which I am especially anxious to draw attention. They are connected with the preference given to goods grown in or coming from within the Empire, with special regard to the Economic Conference that is going to be held in the autumn under the auspices of the noble Duke, the Secretary of State for the Colonies. I venture to do this particularly to-day because, as it seems to me. there is a considerable attempt being made on the part of a good many people to represent this country as having entirely departed from its old Free Trade system, and although it is quite true that in this particular respect of Preferential Duties, and in other directions, too, there are departures from that system, yet, as a whole it is correct to describe our system as being a Free Trade rather than a Protective one. I believe that the larger number of people in this country still are Free Traders, and wish to maintain that system to-day. After all, what we have to remember is that if we wish to assist in the institution of Preferential Duties which are really going to be of use, we can only do it by instituting a Preferential Tariff, and the very words Preferential Tariff mean that before you can give any preference you must first of all have a high general tariff. The English farmer complains already of his condition, and I do not suppose that he would say that he is helped at present by the preference given to Empire products.

1033
He would also say, I think, that, generally speaking, the Colonial farmer is better off than he is himself.
Supposing we were to sweep away all this talk of Preference and were able to regard nothing but the naked facts of the case, we should then be able to look at the question from the purely statistical point of view. From that point of view we should be able to calculate the exact sum of money which a system of Preferential Duties meant in the expenditure of the working classes and we should be able to consider without the atmosphere of sentimentality whether it was likely that the people of this country would agree to sacrifice so many pennies every week in order that they might contribute to the prosperity of the Colonial farmer. I believe we should find that they would say that the cost of food was already too high. I should like to see the cost of food reduced, and I shall venture to suggest to your Lordships one or two ways in which that result might be attained.
At the present moment the preference which is given is really hardly worth while. Some interesting figures were given on April 30, when it was stated in another place that the amounts of duty collected on goods admitted to preference consigned from the Dominions named during the financial year 1922–3 were as follow: Australia, £270,000: Canada, £749,000; New Zealand, £2,000: South Africa, £969.000. These figures do not represent a very large sum for us to give. But the amount of Import Duties remitted upon imports of food staffs produced in the Empire abroad is about £4,500,000 annually, of which £500,000 is in respect of tobacco, while on motor cars the amount is about £150,000 a year. I do not think that it is possible to claim that in any one of those respects the Preferential Duty has reduced the cost of any of those articles to the consumer—not even in regard to tea. There has not been, I think, any reduction in the price of Indian or Ceylon teas as a result of preference, although the remitted duty—the duty, that is to say, which is lost by the taxpayers of this country—is no less than £2,000,000. Those £'2,000,000 go rather to the growers and the tea companies than to the labourers in the Indian and Ceylon tea gardens. And in regard to all the
1034
other goods I think the claim is hardly made that prices have been reduced.
It was in old days common ground that Food Taxes did increase the price of food, and the extent of the preference given at the, present time, certainly has not shown that it does mean a reduction to the consumer in this country. It is quite clear that a reduction in the taxa tion of imports of Empire produce whilst similar imports from foreign countries are subject to a higher tax effects no reduction in the price of the lower taxed goods, and if it did it is quite obvious that it, would be no advantage at all to the person who produced the goods somewhere on the other side of the world What really happens at the present time is this. The. Empire producers of food stuffs that we import get about £4,000,000 more for their produce than if there was no preference at all; the consumer gets his food no cheaper; the Treasury loses the £4,000,000 and the unhappy taxpayer has to find the difference and to make up the £4.000,000 instead.
That that is so is, I think, proved by the case of sugar at the present time. Empire sugar is not a penny cheaper because of the preference of 4s. 3d. a hundredweight given to it, and English sugar is no cheaper either because it pays no Excise Duty at all. Something more ought to be said on the case of sugar. The West Indian grower is not satisfied with the present Preferential Duty which he gets. He has been promised a preference of one-sixth, but is asking, I think, for a preference of one-third, and that that should last at least ten years. One reason why sugar found no place among the reductions in taxation this year is to be found in the difficulty that there must naturally be in granting any reduction of duty on an article upon which there is already a preference. In that way the mere existence of a preference prevents a reduction in the cost of living, or any attempt to reduce the duty which is levied upon it. It is curious to remember that nearly all these food-stuffs come, not from the self-governing Dominions, but from other parts of the Empire, and India, which probably gets a larger proportion than any other, is unfortunately the particular part of the Dominions which, at this moment, seems less and less likely

1035
to give us advantages in its markets, while it seems more likely to raise tariffs against us.
I am anxious to quote to your Lordships a passage from a speech made by Sir Robert Home, in Glasgow on November 6 last. He said:
"Under present conditions no wise man would ever think of starting a system of tariffs in this country. Instead of helping trade it would inevitably tend to dislocate it. So far as I am concerned there will be no question of tariffs being voted in the next Parliament. I give that assurance in accordance with the same statement made by Mr. Bonar Law last night. If such a question arises in the next Parliament I would feel myself bound to give no vote in favour of any tariff system until my constituents have been consulted. In the present condition of the world's markets I can see no period in the near future at which it would be advantageous to this country to adopt any form of tariff."
I regret to notice that the President of the Board of Trade has issued a memorandum dealing with such preferences as already exist.
It sets out the percentage rates of those preferences, but it does not show that, even allowing for those preference rates, the amount of duty which is raised in the self-governing Dominions upon British goods going into those countries is so high as to be almost prohibitive. It only deals with preferences granted by Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, omitting South Africa, where the preference only amounts to a rebate of three per cent. It" whole tendency is to exaggerate the value of the preferences which we now receive, and to hold out the danger of losing them if we do not take steps to increase those which we now grant. Surely experience is beginning to show that even a preference of 33⅓ per cent. is not enough to satisfy those who are so anxious to get this preference. There was a time when ten per cent. was suggested as being an outside rate. Thirty-three and a third per cent. is not enough, and we are sometimes being asked for more.
The difference between the Free Trade country and the Protectionist country is surely this, that in a Protectionist country they make a profit on their home market, and they are able to dump abroad. A Free Trade country makes a profit on its home market and also in foreign markets, and it gets the advantage of the dumping which it enjoys from foreign countries who, owing to the high prices at
1036
which they sell at home, are able to sell abroad at a lower cost. There is yet another point and it is this: Preference would prevent both ourselves and the Dominions from having agreements with other countries. It would make it a great deal more difficult obviously, and it would reduce the value of the preference which would be given. Consider for one moment how much more difficult it would be for Canada to enter into those preferential agreements with the United States of America which are now being suggested if she had already with us a very large and extensive system of Preferential Duties.
At this moment, as your Lordships know, the chief demand for Preferential Duties comes to us from Australia. They are particularly anxious, I think, that we should give them an advantage upon the dried fruits which they are now producing. There are obvious difficulties in the way. Raisins are included in a convention between ourselves and Spain which can only be denounced after three years' notice. We also have a convention with Greece which would have to be denounced. But there are two still greater difficulties in the way. One is that Canada is trying to push the sale of the same kind of goods; she is developing the same kind of trade, and we should have to give her as well as South Africa the same advantages—at least I hope we should—as we gave to Australia; and the mere fact that we gave those advantages would go some way, I am afraid, to reduce their value. The fact, which I do not think will be contested, is that if we are to do anything to help Australia in this matter we must give them a preference upon the goods which they produce. With the rise of the Country Party in their Parliament one sees the beginning out there of something very much like the old contest between the country and the town that there used to be here. We shall, no doubt, have it-voiced when the distinguished Australian who is now their Prime Minister comes to this country in the autumn. I venture to hope that he will not think it necessary to follow the example of his predecessor and interfere in matters of domestic concern here.
Now I have already pointed out to your Lordships the difficulties there are; the impossibility, indeed, of having any scheme of preference to help Australia or any other country if we do not institute a

1037
general scheme first. A speech was made the other day by Mr. Bruce—to whom I have just referred—who is now the Australian Prime Minister. He has been making a series of speeches in Australia before leaving for London. Speaking at Hobart he said this:
"There are a number of manufacturers who are a little alarmed because I have stated that we should have a reciprocal trade basis inside the Empire. They think I am in favour of granting further and further concessions to British traders, which would have the effect of killing the industries which are already established here. That, however, is neither my intention nor that of the Government. It is now time that Great Britain should, of her own free will, give something to Australia. If we cannot have an Empire policy, Australia will have to take advantage of the offers that are "being made to her by countries outside the Empire."
On that extract I shall offer three remarks.
The first one is that it is quite evident that Mr. Bruce has no idea of giving any further preference to the people of this country. He says quite clearly and emphatically that if is not his intention to give further and further concessions to British traders. Indeed, I am sure that it would be impossible for him to do it, in view of the state of public opinion in that country. We know how Prefer-once was established in that country. They had a general system of duties which was established in July. 1913, and the new scheme had been sent round to all the different ports when suddenly the idea of Preference occurred to them, and they sent a series of telegraphic instructions to the various ports telling them that from the day on "which the new system of collection was to begin preference was to be given to goods coming from this country by raising the amount of duty to be collected on goods which came in from outside the British Empire.
Not for a moment would I wish to deny the fact that some advantage has accrued both to them and to us from the existence of Preference, though not so much advantage as we should like, and for this reason. Here is a letter sent by an exporting correspondent to an Australian importing firm:
"We impose no tariff on Australian goods, and we fail to see the value of preferential treatment to British manufacturers, if the duty imposed is sufficient to keep such goods
1038
as ours out of Australia … we still see nothing to encourage us to take the slightest interest in Australian trade."
The second passage to which I should venture to direct attention is that in which Mr. Bruce says that it is time that we should, of our own free will, give something to Australia.
For some time we in this country have given very large sums of capital on very cheap terms. In the course of last year the Australian Commonwealth raised, I think, £10,000,000. South Australia raised a loan in January; Victoria raised a loan in February; West Australia raised a loan in April, and New South Wales raised a loan of £5,000,000 in May. The result of those loans—an admirable thing—is that Australia has bought from us a large quantity of goods. It is a very useful thing, both for them and for us that they should apply to us for this cheap capital. We have always given Australia a free market for her goods which others have kept out by tariffs. We are most grateful to her for all that she has done for us, and I hope that on the whole we may be said to have been not unmindful of our responsibility in the matter of her defence.
Then the last matter is the question of Reciprocal Tariffs and agreements on which I shall not say very much except that attempts have been made time after time for more than thirty years to come to some form of reciprocal trade agreements between certain of our self-governing Dominions. There have been constant and continual difficulties in the way, and it would be easy to point out how long protracted those negotiations have been and how small has been the result. I shall not, however, detain your Lordships by doing that on this occasion, but it is only right, I think, to point out that Mr. Philip Snowden, in a letter which he wrote to the Morning Post on June 28, said that a Labour Government would be expected at once to reduce materially the Food Taxes and as quickly as possible to abolish them altogether. What that really means is that if these Food Taxes go so also must the Preferential Duties go, and the high hopes which are built upon the possibility of those preferences are, certain, therefore, to disappear entirely when, or if, a Labour Government come into office.

1039
The condition in our other self-governing Colonies is very much the same as it is in Australia. Mr. Fielding, who was Canadian Minister of Finance in 1902, is, I think, Minister of Finance again. His views are very much the same, and in a debate which took place recently in the House of Commons in Canada he made it quite clear that he was not willing that there should be any large concessions made to British goods imported into Canada. In regard to New Zealand our relations are most happily of the very-best. We take all the goods which they can send to us, and they in return take from us practically all the goods which they require. There is a small duty upon goods going into that country, but that is the way in which they collect money for their various necessities. And in South Africa, quite lately, General Smuts has said that they would follow the example of Canada who, granting us what she could and accepting what we offered, would abstain from putting any pressure upon us.
Where we are likely to make a mistake is in believing that there is really any tendency on the part of Australia to take our manufactured goods. That is rot, I think, the tendency in that country. They are anxious to keep out goods from whatever country they come, in order that they may build up their own manufacturing interests, and it is, I am afraid, only too likely that there will be a very real disappointment when people find out how-unwilling Australia is to accept these goods. And indeed the position between Australia and Papua is one which somewhat goes to show that that is so. There was a cable from the Australian special correspondent in the Morning Post, on July 3, in which he pointed out that
"Papua is declared by the Navigation Act to be Australian territory, yet the Customs administration imposes the extreme foreign tariff against its products."
The correspondent then gives an extract from the Sydney Morning Herald which asks how the Australian Government can reasonably expect the British Government to assist Australian produce in the home market when it is guilty of such ruthless treatment of its own dependency.
Further, I find this in the report from the Lieutenant-Governor of Papua, speaking of the application of the Navigation Act:
"By the operation of the Navigation Act we shall be prevented from trading with
1040
any country but Australia, and shall be, in practice, confined to a single Australian port. The result will be that the rice we purchase will continue to go south past our door to Sydney, and then must be transshipped and sent north again to Port Morseby. And so with everything else we buy that is not grown or manufactured in Australia. It will be the same with our exports. Even if their destination is London, they must begin with a long and expensive journey to Sydney, nearly 2,000 miles in the opposite direction to that in which they are intended to go, and then after trans-shipment in Sydney they start at last on their journey north to London."
He goes on to complain of the treatment which they have received in other respects. I regret to think that there is not likely to be a very large market for our manufactured goods in Australia for some years to come.
I now turn to the question of sugar--sugar on which there exists an Empire Preference at the present time, and in regard to which I think that there is an extra claim upon His Majesty's Government for consideration if it be possible to reduce some of that taxation. In 1008 the tax was Is. Id. per cwt. In 1918 it was raised to 25 s. 8d. per cwt. It is interesting to know that a fall of a penny per lb. in the cost of sugar would mean a fall of two points in the cost of living. It is obvious to your Lordships that any reduction in the cost of sugar must mean three good things—first of all, a stimulus to consumption; secondly, a stimulus to manufacture; and, thirdly, a stimulus to employment. Therefore it was that I ventured to say at an earlier stage that I wished His Majesty's Government had seen their way to reduce the cost of sugar rather than to give any advantage to beer. There is this further point. Supposing the Empire duty on tea was abolished, we in this country would lose £260,000 a year in revenue, but at the same time we should be able to reduce the cost of tea to the consumers of this country by the amount of the Preferential Duty, which is 1s. 3d. At this time, when the cost of living is so high, it would be a real advantage to the very poorest households in this country if there could be some such reduction as that.
It is true, of course, that our trade with different parts of the Empire is different according to the places to which it goes, and that it does not in any way depend upon the existence of preferences.

1041
There are places where it is good, and places where it is bad, independent of the fact that there is a preference. Last year I am glad to think that Australia had a very large amount for export. She sent it to us. She had here a free market which she was denied by the existence of tariffs in other countries. We paid for these foodstuffs, which came so happily into this country, by the export of a certain amount of our manufactures. it was partly that, and partly, no doubt, the cheap capital to which I have already referred, which was responsible for the improvement in our trade last year.
I come to my last point, I am glad to say, which touches the West African Colonies. The noble Duke, no doubt, knows that the question to which he has succeeded is an old one—namely, that of imposing on native raw material Export Duties. There has been a very interesting report from Sir Gordon Guggisberg, who is the Governor of the Colony, upon the advisability of reducing the Export Duty by a farthing. He says this:
"At this conference we went thoroughly into the probable effects of reducing various classes of duties; in particular we worked out the probable result of a reduction of half the cocoa duty. On paper this amounted to a loss to Government of £326,000 in the current year. Both my banking and trade advisors were, however, of the opinion that the impetus given to trade by a reduction of the cocoa tax would be such as practically to make up the loss. On the statistics produced at the conference it was the opinion of the members that we might not have to face a greater loss than £23,000."
The result of the reduction, however, was surprising even to the Governor and his financial experts, for at the end of a year he said:
"I am glad to say that the results have justified the anticipations of the merchants. Trade has improved to such an extent that our revenue for the current year is £190,000 greater instead of being £23,000 less as we anticipated when we took off the tax."
I think that this is yet another point in favour of our contention that the freer trade is the more likely it is to prosper.
The Protectionist demands which are now- being made in this country, and also in the Dominions beyond the seas, do not find much justification for their success in the figures which I have given to your Lordships. Protection has not been successful in the past, and it is not possible,
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I think, to grant any of these Preferential Duties in the future without, at the same time inflicting such burdens upon the poorest consumers of this country as I hope no Government is likely to wish to inflict.
THE EARL OF DENBIGH: My Lords, I ask your Lordships' permission to intrude in this debate in order to say a few words upon the question of sugar. For many years I have been very much interested in the question of promoting the cultivation of sugar beet in this country. I think it is about seventeen years since I made a speech on this subject of something like an hour's duration, and taxed your Lordships' patience very considerably, I am afraid. Perhaps that was the first time that sugar beet growing in this country had ever been mentioned in your Lordships' House, and I called attention to it at the time on account of the extraordinary ignorance which prevailed everywhere with regard to the possibilities of establishing that industry in this country.
We have heard from the noble Earl opposite some criticisms of the policy of His Majesty's Government in regard to the preference on sugar. He has complained of the absence of any reduction in the Sugar Duty. He touched upon the question in various aspects but he never uttered a single word with regard to the home industry which we are trying to establish, and which is rapidly becoming established through the sympathetic action of His Majesty's Government. The Government supported by the noble Earl, in spite of repeated requests, refused to have anything to do with it. The noble Earl spoke, apparently with approval, of the advantages to be gained in a Free Trade country by dumping. He said that they had the advantage of goods dumped cheaply from another country which makes its profits by selling them at a high price to its own consumers. I do not know whether it has ever occurred to him that the Free Trade policy of this country in regard to sugar was the direct cause of the sugar famine which was experienced during the war. In Germany and Austria the sugar industry reached its height, and the sugar producers in those countries were able to make large profits in their own country through their various organisations, sell

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at a very cheap rate here, and thus inflict an enormous amount of harm on our West Indian producers. When any complaint was made, the only answer we got from the Free Traders was that if Germany and other Continental countries choose to tax themselves in order to provide us with cheap sugar, let them do so.
When I began my campaign on behalf of sugar beet growing in this country I was struck by the extraordinary ignorance of the general public as to the source of our sugar supplies. Not one person in a thousand had the smallest idea that the greater proportion of our sugar was beet sugar which came from Austria and Germany. I called attention to it from time to time, and pointed out that if there was a European war the first certain result would be a sugar famine. It is rather poor consolation now to know that these words of warning were so neglected and that what I predicted came true. When our Government found themselves faced with the situation they began to consider the question, and, fortunately, by the aid of Government assistance, another factory was built and started in Nottinghamshire. The one at Cantley in Norfolk was built two years before the war by Dutch capital because no English capitalists would face the risk.
What I want to point out is that although the preference accorded to sugar may seem very high, you have to remember that the initial difficulties in starting an industry of this description are very great. It was no easy matter to start this new industry of such many-sided complexities. There were the agricultural side, the mechanical side, the commercial side, and what I may call the social side—the social amenities in the rural districts, and the necessity for providing housing accommodation for the people employed in the industry—to be considered. The industry, of course, is essentially a rural one. All these difficulties can be overcome, and are being overcome with experience. But to overcome them has been an expensive matter, and the consequence is that in the first year's working of the Kelham factory a loss was made. The financial purists who will have nothing to do with anything that savours of Protection have seized upon that loss and have used it as an argument against the industry as a whole.
I contend that these difficulties are initial and that with experience they can
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be overcome. But they cannot be overcome without fiscal assistance over a period of time in order to train the workers, the managers, the farmers and the labourers, so as to get the whole thing going as it is upon the Continent. As an example of what can be done if we only have time, may I point out that in Holland, where the climate is much the same as ours, the industry, after many years' experience during which it received ample fiscal assistance, is now going quite successfully without any preference whatever I I am confident that if we could get a fair chance here to establish the sugar beet industry in the interests of agriculturists and consumers of sugars, and also make ourselves less dependent than we are on foreign supplies—if that could be made a national policy the country would derive great benefit from it. Farmers now are undoubtedly keen. The whole situation has completely changed during the last two years; that is, since they have had practical experience of the proposal. The proof of that is shown that when offers of contracts were made last spring for some 16.000 acres to be grown for the two factories they were taken up within a few days, and instead of having to ask farmers to grow sugar beet the two companies have had to refuse many applications which came in a little too late.
What we want are capital and experience. Obviously capital will not be forthcoming unless it can be invested at a profit, and it will not be forthcoming unless there is some settled policy which will give confidence to those who are willing to invest their money in the' industry. The difficulties with which we are faced at the present are only another instance of what happens in this country, where only about one-fifth of the population is engaged and dependent on agriculture, when anything is put forward for the purpose of helping agriculture. About four-fifths of the population is urban or industrial, and. unfortunately, they seem to be concerned only with the question of how they can get their food cheaply, quite irrespective of where it comes from. They seem to resent it as rather a grievance that the farmer should be anxious to make a profit on his industry, although they would not continue very long unless they made a profit on theirs.

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We are anxious at the present moment to do everything possible to prevent more land going out of cultivation. As your Lordships are well aware, a very serious crisis prevails at the present moment, and land is everywhere going down to grass. Anything that can be done to promote rural industry is to the good. There is no rural industry that will have a greater effect upon agriculture as a whole than the sugar beet industry. It perforce compels a very large cultivation. To keep one of these factories going you need from 8,000 to 10,000 acres under beet each year within an economical distance of the factory. On the four years' rotation, that means that you must have some 40,000 or 50,000 acres of land suitable for that purpose within an economical distance. When you remember that, from experience gained, farmers say that they employ about one extra man for every ten acres of sugar beet which they cultivate, and when you realise that the factories, operating in the winter, each employ from 300 to 500 men according to their size during the three or four months of the winter, and that they distribute weekly between £1,000 and. £1,200 in wages, your Lordships will realise how important this activity must be to a rural district.
The point which I fail to comprehend is the position of the Labour Party, who seem to have taken an attitude of hostility to the whole business. The other day, when the Prime Minister was speaking in another place concerning the amount of land that was going out of cultivation, I noticed that he was greeted with cries of "Shame !" from the Labour benches. Yet you find this very Party, which cries "Shame" on an occasion like that, doing all it can to stop an industry which will do more to bring land into cultivation than anything else. What we need at the present moment is an increase, in the number of factories. There are two in operation, and the experience gained, though it may have been costly, has been very valuable. Applications are coming in upon all sides for the building of factories, and the capital will undoubtedly be forthcoming if only some confidence can be felt and some indication can be given of a national desire to further the industry.
With your Lordships' permission, I should like to utter a word of warning. In consequence of these applications
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people are going about endeavouring to make profits by promoting sugar com-panies. There could be no greater mistake than to suppose that this is an industry which can be made profitable to the promoter. I happen to be President of an organisation known as the British Sugar Beet Growers' Society, which has a large membership, including, I dare say, some of your Lordships. That organisation is well supported. It does not exist for the purpose of endeavouring to make any profits out of the industry, but for the purpose of trying to promote the industry itself and to establish factories for the benefit of the agricultural industry generally. We are doing everything we can to keep matters straight and to preserve the industry from the hands of the ordinary company promoter. But we, do hope that we may have some settled policy and that people will really understand what is required and will realise the necessity of helping on the effort that is being made to promote the cultivation of land for the good of agriculture. I apologise for taking up the time of the House, but I desire, on behalf of all those who are concerned in this important industry to thank His Majesty's Government for, and congratulate them on. the firm stand which they have taken upon this matter and the way in which they have resisted all attempts to destroy the preference which is given to this home industry.
LOUD HYLTON: My Lords, the speeches to which the House has listened from the noble Earl opposite, Lord Beauchamp, and from the noble Earl behind me have covered perhaps a somewhat wider range of topics than many noble Lords might have anticipated. I think your Lordships will agree that such speeches would possibly be more properly dealt with by the representative of the Board of Trade or the Ministry of Agriculture, or by the noble Duke behind me, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, than by a representative of the Treasury who is moving the Second Beading of a Finance Bill, though I do not wish to complain for one moment of the variety of topics which the noble Earl opposite introduced into his speech.
He deplored the increase in the cost of armaments; he regretted the great rise in taxes and rates; he expressed his

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sorrow at seeing the abolition of the Land Valuation Department. He also dealt with various other details with which, as I think he himself admitted, he did not expect, nor, I think, will the House expect, that I should deal at any length. Further, the noble Earl also quoted to your Lordships certain speeches made by Australian statesmen and by General Smuts, but really, if the noble Earl will forgive me for saying so, it would be quite out of the question for me to attempt to refer to them in any detail in my reply this afternoon. I think the noble Earl will agree that these matters may profitably be dealt with by the Conference that is to be held on October 1 to discuss several of the points which he mentioned. The noble Earl also told us of several developments which were to be expected when a Labour Government came into office. There again, with your Lordships' permission, I must respectfully decline to be drawn into a discussion.
There is one point, however, which I should like to emphasise this afternoon in reference to the main topic of Imperial Preference to which the noble Earl opposite devoted the greater part of his remarks. That Preference was introduced as a matter of principle, and no great immediate effect on trade or revenue was anticipated. I think that the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Austen Chamberlain, speaking in another place, really summed up the matter when he said:
"It is true preference has been given in the case of the duties now in force, but it is a very small one. Measured in money it is very small, although measured in potentialities within those limits it may be considerable. It may, however, and I think it will, just give the stimulus to development which may mean the difference between early and late development, and between poverty and prosperity, in many of our Dominions. I do not justify it on the grounds of the development it will lead to, nor on the ground that if you approve it in respect of these duties you will some day propose other duties and extend it to them also. I justify it as a spiritual recognition of a spiritual unity. It is something for which all the Empire has asked. For that reason, and not because of the profits they get out of it, it is justified."
Those are Mr. Chamberlain's words, uttered in the House of Commons on July 9, 1919.
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The noble Earl opposite gave your Lordships a number of figures with regard to the result of the Preferential Duties which I could not, I am afraid, follow entirely, but he must not think, therefore, that I admit the accuracy of all of them. The principal articles to which preference has been applied are (a) tea, (b) cocoa, (c) coffee, (d) sugar, (e) spirits, (f) wine, and (g) tobacco. The broad results to date may be stated as follows:—In tea the grant of preference reduced the duty on about 90 per cent. of the tea consumed in this country from 1s. to 10 d. per lb. The reduction of the duty in 1922 made the rate on foreign tea 8d, and on Empire tea 6⅔d. per lb. the preference thus becoming 1⅓d. instead of 2d. Retail prices of Empire tea in this country have throughout been lower by the amount of the rebate, the benefit of preference being thus obtained by the public, but the proportion of Empire tea consumed has not risen, being now about the same as before the war. The foreign tea is mainly Java and Sumatra used for blending purposes.
Next, take cocoa. The proportion of Empire raw cocoa has risen, since the grant of preference, from under 50 per cent. to over 90 per cent. of the total consumed in this country, British West African cocoa having replaced the cheaper kinds of foreign cocoa. The development of the West African industry, however, was proceeding rapidly before 1919, and does not seem to have been affected by preference, as the United Kingdom only takes a small part of the output, and competition is severe, supplies of cocoa in the world generally being in excess of demand. But the benefit of preference has been felt by the consumer in lower prices.
As regards coffee, the proportion of Empire coffee consumed in this country before the war was about 20 per cent. In 1921–22 it was about 45 per cent.; in 1922–23, owing to the partial failure of crops both in British East Africa and in India, only 35 per cent. But, as with cocoa, the increase in the Empire proportion is due to the great development of production, mainly in Kenya, which cannot be ascribed to preference. The amount of the preference, formerly 7s, and now 4.s. 8d. per cwt., is too small to have any marked effect on the trade.

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As regards sugar, on which Lord Denbigh made some interesting remarks to your Lordships, the proportion of Empire sugar consumed in this country has risen from about 7 per cent. before the war to 27 per cent. in 1921–22 and 22 per cent. in 1922–23. This cannot be attributed entirely to preference, but preference has greatly benefited the producers, in the West Indies and elsewhere, as they have been able to obtain higher prices practically to the full amount of the preference (over £4 per ton on fully refined sugar) for all sugar sold to this country.
In the case of spirits, rum, from the West Indies and British Guiana, is the only Empire spirit which is largely consumed in this country. The proportion has risen from 81 per cent. before the war to over 38 per cent. in 1922–23, largely as a result of the higher duty on Cuban rum under preference. As to wine, Empire wine is mainly Australian, and prices have been lowered by the amount of the preference. It is doubtful whether the producers have yet gained any pecuniary benefit, but the preference appears to be regarded in Australia as of considerable value. South African wines are now being imported, but their future in this country is uncertain.
As to tobacco, the proportion of leaf tobacco from the Empire (mainly Nyasa-land, Indian, Bornean, and Rhodesian) used in this country has risen from less than 1½ per cent. to more than 6 per cent. of the total, and it is agreed that preference has been of assistance. Moreover, some brands of British manufactured tobacco made mainly from Empire leaf are being sold ½d. per oz. cheaper than those made from foreign leaf. Empire cigars (from India and the West Indies) have also been sold cheaper as a result of the preference.
The preference on dried fruits has not affected figs, none of which are received from the Empire, and has only applied to a very small quantity of plums, prunes, &c, about 2 per cent. of the total supply, but the imports of raisins from the Empire (mainly Australia) have increased considerably, being nearly 17 per cent. of the total supplies in 1922–23. Australia attaches much importance to the preference on dried fruits, and the growers are anxious that it should be extended.
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Under the head of the new Import Duties, the imports of clocks and watches, musical instruments, and cinematograph films from the Empire are insignificant, but those of motor cars, parts and accessories, mainly from Canada, have increased rapidly, and the. value of the imports in 1922–23 formed nearly one-third of the total value of imports under this head retained for use in the United Kingdom.
It has been objected—I think the noble Earl rather adopted the argument—that Preference had caused a large loss of revenue. The only statement that can be supplied on this point is one showing the difference between the full and the preferential rates of duty on the net quantities of dutiable goods which have obtained a preferential rebate. But while this difference may be regarded as a loss to the Exchequer, except in so far as the rebate has led to a rise in consumption, there is no loss to the country when the rebate is passed on to the consumer in lower prices. In the case of the Tea Duty, which is the chief item in a table to which I shall refer, what the Exchequer has lost the consumer has gained.
I have a table showing the approximate amount of preferential rebate in the years 1919–20, 1920–1, 1921–2, 1922–3, on the various articles which I have enumerated. I can give them to the noble Earl now if he likes, or hand them to him afterwards, but I may say that against these amounts is to be set the, gain to the Exchequer from the extra 2s. 6d. per gallon imposed on non-Empire spirits. This amounted to about £230,000 in 1919–20, £270,000 in 1920–1, £170,000 in 1921–2 and £130,000 last year, thus making the net loss about £3,650,000 in 1919–20, £4,510,000 in 1920–1, £5,530,000 in 1921–2 and £4,550,000 in 1922–3. Corresponding figures were given for the calendar year 1922 in regard to certain articles entitled to preference, in reply to a question by Mr. Charles Roberts on the 9th May, 1923.
To turn to what perhaps is really the most important of the noble Earl's remarks, at the time of the last General Election, in November, 1922, Mr. Bonar Law gave a public pledge not to make any fundamental change in the British fiscal system during the present Parliament. By that pledge the present Government is still

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bound. Since Mr. Austen Chamberlain's Budget of 1919 it has been part of our established fiscal system to give a preferential abatement from Customs Duties on imports from the British Empire. The subject of Preference, as the noble Earl knows—and he referred to it in his speech—will come up for discussion at the forthcoming Imperial Economic Conference, which opens, I believe, on October 1 next. It will then be for His Majesty's Government to consider any proposals or requests made from the other parts of the Empire, and they will be prepared to recommend to Parliament any changes in the existing preference that may seem desirable as the result of the discussions at the Conference. But in any case any such changes must conform to Mr. Bonar Law's pledge, to which I have already alluded, and must not involve any fundamental change in our present fiscal system; and they cannot become operative, of course, without the consent of Parliament. As to the kind of changes that, if proposed, could be adopted, it would, in the opinion of the Government, be obviously premature to say anything this afternoon.
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.

TRADES UNIONS POLITICAL FUNDS.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD rose to ask His Majesty's Government when it is contemplated to initiate the proposed discussions with the leaders of the Labour Party with a view to modifying the system which at present governs the application of trades unions funds for political purposes. The noble and learned Earl said: My Lords, before I ask the Question standing in my name I should, perhaps, inform your Lordships that I have a letter, which I do not quite understand, from the noble Marquess, Lord Lincolnshire. He writes:—
"It is only right that I should let you know that it is probable that attention will be called this afternoon to the fact that a Question reflecting on the trade union levy is raised by a Conservative ex-Lord Chancellor from the Liberal Front Opposition Bench.
Yours truly,
LINCOLNSHIRE.
"I need hardly add that this is done entirely unofficially."
I should rather hope so. I am, of course, a Privy Councillor, and in any event
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entitled to sit upon the Front Opposition Bench, but, as a matter of courtesy, I should never dream of doing so if my presence there were in any way unacceptable to noble Lords who are the heads of the formal Opposition. In those circumstances I entered into a discussion, both with Lord Grey and with Lord Beauchamp, who leads the Opposition in his absence, and I was assured by both of them, in very particular terms, that my presence there was not unwelcome to them. I confess that it did not occur to me in the past to consult the noble Marquess, Lord Lincolnshire, on the point, and it is extremely unlikely that it will occur to me in the future to do so.
Turning now to the Question on the Paper, it is well known that in the days of the late Government a Bill was introduced in the House of Commons which would have profoundly modified the existing system. I think my recollection serves me aright in saying that it was opposed officially by the whole of the Labour Party. The Bill was sent upstairs to a Committee, and was most bitterly contested by the Labour Party again in Committee. It was an issue which, as against the late Government, was raised more than once at the official meetings of the Unionist organisation, and I think that the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, whom I see in his place, was—as he naturally, in virtue of his official position, would be—forward in pressing this matter upon the attention of the late Government. I observe that only a few weeks ago, shortly before the retirement of Mr. Bonar Law, the noble Viscount, speaking somewhere in the country, said he earnestly hoped that Mr. Bonar Law would introduce legislation in the sense suggested, and not, by refusing, to do so, chill the ardour of hundreds of thousands of his loyal followers.
For the reasons which I indicated when I referred to this subject a few weeks ago I do not propose to-day to argue about its merits at any length. The existing system, as the House well knows, is that the onus of excluding himself from a levy is thrown upon the working man, be he Conservative or Liberal. The substance of the matter is that such a levy, in the existing conditions of trades unions, is almost compulsory, and no one who knows the methods that are adopted is in the least likely seriously to challenge that

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statement. The consequence is that the trades unions will not allow any working man, if they can help it, to obtain employment unless he joins a trade union, and the scenes of intimidation have become familiar in every great industrial city in this country—intimidation of those formerly known as "free labourers," who are attempting to obtain a livelihood without joining the great trades unions. In other words, the policy of the trades unions is to compel them to join, irrespective of their political opinions or of whether they wish to join them or not.
Now, what happens when the men have been so compelled to join? They may either be Conservatives or Liberals, and I may inform the noble Marquess who is so concerned about the place in which I sit that this grievance is one which is not less acutely felt in many parts of the country, and notably in Yorkshire, by Liberal working men than it is by Conservative working men, and I have had many communications from Liberals in Yorkshire since the last occasion when I addressed this House. Having been com polled by the methods I have indicated to join the trades unions, what happens next? The same people who set in activity these methods of coercion are ready with exactly the same weapons, and the moment a man comes forward and says, "I was a Conservative, and am a Conservative," or "I was a Liberal, and am a Liberal, and I am not a Socialist," he is bound to come out in the open and is a marked man. He is subject to precisely the same methods of intimidation which brought him, very much against his wishes, into the union at all.
It may be replied to this, and it was replied by the noble Viscount on the last occasion when I raised this matter, that it is of the first importance that working men should be represented in the House of Commons. I needed no such reminder. I pointed that out in circumstances of the greatest possible publicity in another place at a very much earlier stage of this controversy than we are dealing with to-day, and I, of all people in public life, cannot be accused of closing my eyes to the necessity of direct working-class representation There is now a salary paid to Members of the House of Commons, which solves at any rate one part of the problem, and, as for the other
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part, that of organisation and of elections, surely this observation is both a moderate and a justifiable one—if it be the fact, as the Labour leaders claim, that the overwhelming majority of trades unionists share their views on political subjects, is it too much to ask that they should make up the balance which is required for organisation and electioneering expenses by a volunteer levy? If they are not prepared to raise the comparatively moderate sums which are required when once you accept the fact that every Member of Parliament is actually paid, if they are not prepared to make up the moderate sums which are required for these collateral purposes, it seems to me to throw rather a light upon the numbers and enthusiasm of those who claim to exercise an influence entirely unprecedented in our industrial history.
As I have already pointed out in an earlier speech, the late Coalition Government did not reach a decision. I cannot even tell your Lordships with any claim to authority what decision they would have reached, because the arguments are closely balanced and the matter, both directly and in its implications, is a grave one and might easily assume a prominence and exercise an effect in the constituencies as to which I, for one, should be very slow to express a dogmatic opinion. But I think we are entitled to know, I hope to-day and if not to-day at some early period, what is the policy of the Government in relation to a matter which was grave enough to induce a certain section of the Unionist Party, almost with menaces, to assail the late Government many months ago.
We were, indeed, told by the noble Viscount that the policy of the Government was to consult the leaders of the Labour Party to see whether an arrangement could not be made. I was aware that such a. statement was made at the General Election. I confess that I did not attempt to deal with it in my speech a few weeks ago because I could not seriously have contemplated that such an answer would have been thought adequate to the reality of the present situation or to have been an answer that could be reasonably made either in the House of Commons or in the House of Lords. In the first place, the attitude of the leaders of the Labour Party is perfectly notorious. In the

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second place, it was stated, with every circumstance of publicity and emphasis, when the Bill to which I have already referred was introduced in the closing days of the late Government. In the third place, I feel that I do not exaggerate when I say that there is hardly one well-known leader of the Labour Party who is not publicly and clearly committed to the existing system, who has not protested that he will never willingly, and never without exhausting the methods of resistance both in Parliament and the constituencies, consent to the modification of a system which is evidently so favourable to them.
It appears to me, therefore, that to propose a conference between those who would introduce a modification of the existing practice and-the leaders of the Labour Party is much like proposing a conference between Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. The probabilities of its reaching any harmonious or useful outcome are simply negligible, and I would point out to the noble Marquess [Lord Salisbury] that it was not by proposals like these that we were addressed by his friends in the last few months of the late Parliament. We were never asked—those who interrogated us had far too much sense of humour to make such a proposal—by them:—"Will you see the leaders of the Labour Party and discuss with them whether, by agreement, you cannot alter this system? "I therefore put it to the noble Marquess that either now, or on some early occasion, it is not really unfair or unreasonable that we should ask this Government whether, if their discussions with the Labour Party are not crowned with the success which only optimists will count upon, the Government have, up to the present, made up their mind as to whether or not they propose to introduce legislation upon the lines of the Bill which received so much support from the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, in the late Parliament.
I am most deeply concerned to make it plain both to the House and to the noble Marquess, that I am not myself urging this course either upon the Government or upon the noble Marquess: because I see, as I imagine both they and he see, the difficulties which confront any attempt to introduce legislation with this purpose. But I hope that neither
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he nor they will think it to be unreasonable that we should be informed at some reasonable and proximate date what is their policy upon the merits of this question, and if the negotiations produce the results which I think all your Lordships who have given thought to this matter will anticipate.
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: My Lords, I should not have troubled your Lordships this afternoon but for the somewhat unusual course that has been taken by the noble and learned Earl, Lord Birkenhead. Some of the Back Benchers and supporters of the Liberal Party view with some apprehension what we rightly or wrongly consider to be somewhat a breach of the unwritten rules of your Lordships' House. There are the Standing Orders of the House, but I do not suppose they are very often read, and somehow or another all the business of the House is done with an amount of decorum and courtesy of which we are very, very proud, and any departure from which we entirely disapprove.
I do not propose to detain the House with any contribution to a debate on what might or might not be in the contemplation of His Majesty's Government as to their future action on any legislation which, rightly or wrongly, was passed in days gone by. I do not presume to do that. But I very respectfully ask the permission of the House to call attention for a moment or two to that which some of us instinctively feel to be a breach of old established custom in your Lordships' House. We are somewhat surprised at a reflection on the policy or rather the act of a Liberal Government (because it was passed by the Campbell-Bannerman Government of which I happened to be a member) which gave back to the trades unions the power they had formerly possessed of levying money, by a majority, from their members for political purposes, with permission for any man to contract himself out. We are somewhat astonished that this criticism should have been made by a Conservative ex-Lord Chancellor, who now sits—he is not in his usual place—or who generally sits in the midst of the very men whose policy he questions, and who claims as his own the seat which, until quite lately, was always reserved for the official Leader of the Opposition—
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: The noble Marquess is quite wrong. I do not. I invariably sit where I am. I have never claimed any such seat, nor have I sat there.
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: —the seat which used always to be occupied by the Marquess of Crewe, who led the Opposition with so much success and dignity for so many years. If I am wrong I acknowledge it at once. I take the whole responsibility of speaking for some of my friend". If I am wrong I apologise, and take the entire blame on myself, but I maintain that the noble and learned Earl has created a precedent hitherto unknown when, as now. the House of Lords is working under our old ordinary traditions. I might say that if any member of this House is going to call in question any action of anybody, it is the invariable rule that he should give him private notice. I gave private notice to the noble and learned Earl, and somewhat to my astonishment he began his speech by reading out this private letter.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: It was not a private letter.
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: I said, and the noble and learned Earl seemed very pleased at the fact, that I had made no official communication with any person in the House. That is perfectly true, but I did consult a friend of mine, a man of high character and of great brain, whose friendship and whoso opinion I value very much. I asked him whether it would be any use to bring this before the House of Lords. He said: "I do not know that it would."
Several NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: If the House is against me I will sit down at once. He said: "I do not think it would, because the answer will be that the noble and learned Earl sits on the Liberal Front Opposition Bench either at the invitation or by the consent of the Leader of the Opposition." The noble and learned Earl has said that that was the case. How could it be otherwise? I should like to ask the noble and learned Earl: When was the request made? As we know very well, the Coalition Government came to an end last autumn. We re-united the
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Liberal forces, and we are now in one fold with one shepherd, and are led by Viscount Grey of Fallodon. But that was not till the spring. Therefore, during the whole of last Session and certain portions of this Session there really was nobody to ask whether the noble and learned Earl ought to sit, or ought not to sit, on the Front Opposition Bench. I was told that it would be very difficult to refuse anybody, especially one holding the great position which the noble and learned Earl has held in your Lordships" House. He has an extraordinary position. He came on to the Woolsack in this House. He came, he sat, and he conquered.
He had the House entirely with him. He practically led the House during all the four years of the Coalition. He would brook no opposition. He would stand very little criticism. By his genius, his ability, his eloquence and his knowledge of the law he swept away all criticism; in fact, I may say that he satisfactorily succeeded in the policy of the new broom—by that, of course, I mean the "new Lord Brougham." The name of that great statesman brings me to the fact that the only possible precedent, so far as I have been able to discover, before the action of the noble and learned Earl was afforded by Lord Brougham who found himself in the same peculiar position as that in which the noble and learned Earl now finds himself. Perhaps the word "peculiar" is wrong, because it is not a peculiar position; it is a position which comes in every class of life—that of being supplemented by someone else.
But perhaps I may be permitted—I shall not detain the House for five minutes—to recall to your Lordships' memory what occurred when there happened to the great Lord Brougham what has happened to the noble and learned Earl. Lord Brougham was succeeded by the new Lord Chancellor, Lord Campbell—Jack Campbell, I believe, he was called by his forensic brethen—and when he came into the House for the first time in the Lord Chancellor's state, to his consternation and horror he found Lord Brougham already seated on the Woolsack. I do not mean to say he was sitting where the noble Earl [The Earl of Donoughmore] now is in the place of the Lord Chancellor whose absence we so very much

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regret, but he was sitting on the edge of the Woolsack, with his sinister leg dangling over the side of that great ottoman. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Campbell, came into the House, and, there being nothing else to be done, he sat on the Woolsack. There the two sat cheek by jowl, and when it came to the turn of Lord Brougham to speak he did not come to the Table, as most ex-Cabinet Ministers do, but he executed what I think Mr. Disraeli called a slight glissade to his left, and found himself on the sacred eighteen inches which are supposed to be sacrosanct to the Lord Chancellor, and from that point of vantage he enfiladed his friends and his foes alike with the language which we know Lord Brougham was a past master in using.
He had the House at that time at his mercy, because the House was not like it is now. The Front Bench of your Lordships' House at that time was extremely weak. The Duke of Wellington was very old and almost stone-deaf. Lord Lyndhurst was very old, and almost stone-blind, and Jack Campbell, Lord Campbell, was no match for his learned predecessor. As for the Prime Minister himself, Lord Liverpool, he was so overcome with the cares of state, like Cardinal Wolsey, Mr. Lloyd George and the other great leaders of political life in this country, that he was unable, except at very rare moments, to take his seat by the side of his colleagues on the Front Bench. Therefore Lord Brougham had the House at his mercy, and it was necessary to strengthen the Government by sending from the House of Commons Lord Stanley, who was raised to the Peerage by one of his many titles so that he might—I have often heard him, though he was a great admirer of Lord Brougham, say it—" Keep old Besom in order."
The student of history who has any sense of humour may think this a very comic aspect; I think it has a sad and tragic aspect as well. Lord Brougham was a very great man. He was not only a man of eloquence and genius, but a man who did some very big things. He was a man who saved the honour of an English Queen; he was the man who put the seal on the abolition of slavery which was the curse and shame of the British race. Lord Brougham was a man who
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sat next to Earl Grey of the Reform Bill of 1832, by which he probably saved a revolution in England. Yet by his own action he wrecked the whole of his political career. He is an example of the truth of the saying that the great difficulty in life is not so much what to do and say as what not to say and what not to do. By his action he not only exasperated all his political opponents, but he alienated his friends as well.
A man cannot do without his friends; it is perfectly impossible. A man cannot stand or run alone; he must have his friends with him. He must stick to his friends because he never knows when he may want them. What was the result? And this is my last word. What I have tried to describe happened in 1843 or 1844. Lord Brougham lived for another twenty-five years and during the whole of that time he was never asked by his old friends to join them in any other Government. He went into the political wilderness for the rest of his life and died abroad, I will not say a brokenhearted man but at any rate a saddened, disillusioned and disappointed man. I must apologise to your Lordships for what I have said, but I had not intended to speak at all this afternoon.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: My Lords, I do not ask leave to address your Lordships again but the words "lack of decorum" used by the noble Marquess are somewhat unusual and I should like to reply to them briefly. I received a letter from the noble Marquess saying that he had intended to call attention to the fact that I addressed your Lordships' House from the Front Opposition Bench. The letter was not even marked private, and it had no meaning at all unless he intended to call attention to it on the floor of the House. After giving him every opportunity to rise and take some exception to the fact and finding that he did not do so, I thought it necessary to make some reference to it. As to "lack of decorum," I have only to make this observation, that before Lord Crewe became Leader of the Liberal Party, which the noble Marquess says is happily to be reunited—reunited only in this House—I approached him, as I also approached Lord Beauchamp, as I have already told your Lordships, and was informed that my exercise of my undoubted

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right as Privy Councillor was not only not disagreeable but agreeable to him, and in those circumstances I have continued to sit on the Front Opposition Bench.
I will not follow the noble Marquess in his somewhat long and lugubrious history of the great Lord Brougham. Its historical value may be judged from the fact that "Jack Campbell," whom he said succeeded Lord Brougham on the Woolsack—I think he suggested he was elbowed from the Woolsack by Lord Brougham—as a matter of fact never went near the Woolsack until twenty years after Lord Brougham left it.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I do not rise to enter into the domestic discussion between my two noble friends, for if I did so I should be in fear lest I received what is called in the north of England the "redding straik" as the result. The noble Marquess has, with his usual geniality, embarked on a very large and somewhat controversial subject—the title to sit on this Bench. He makes an assumption which I think is rather dubious, namely, that the right to sit on this Bench depends on an invitation from the Liberal Leader of the time. People in a courteous way might apply to the Leader de facto, whoever he is, my noble friend Lord Grey of Fallodon for example; but that is only occasionally. I had the privilege of sitting between Lord Halsbury and Lord Chaplin for some years on this Bench. I was much devoted to both of them, and I was not aware that they sat where they did by invitation from Lord Crewe or from any other-Liberal Leader. I observe a good many other noble Lords who sit here, certainly without any invitation that I have heard of, by virtue of their title, to which the noble and learned Earl referred when he spoke, of Privy Councillor. This Bench is a kind of no-man's land so far as politics are concerned. The Leader of the Opposition always sits there: but there group themselves around him various odd sorts of people, ex-Lord Chancellors and such like, simply because-it is a convenient place to sit and from which to take part in discussions. That being so I will pass away from the domestic subject to the topic which is raised in the Question.
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The noble and learned Earl has asked the noble Marquess to give him information as to what steps the Government are taking to enter into negotiation with the leaders of the Labour Party as to the difficulties occasioned by the existing Trade Union Act—I think he means the Act of 1913. The question has been vigorously raised with regard to preventing the trades unions from exercising any coercive power over their members so far as political objects are concerned; particularly the subscription fund. No doubt it is very tiresome when any organisation—I am not talking particularly of trades unions—puts pressure on its members to contribute to funds and appears to restrict their political liberties. But there is an Act at present on the Statute Book under which anybody who is a member of a trade union can claim to be free. It is said that that is a very unreal liberty. Whether that is true or not, I believe that a very large number of members of trades unions at the present time take advantage of it.
I agree that it would be much better if there were no Acts of Parliament for regulating individual liberty, and if by consultation the law relating to trades unions could be put upon such a footing that these questions did not- arise. But why do they arise to-day? They do not arise with regard to employers of labour, because employers of labour are left free by the law to enter into any combinations they like. Unluckily, that was not the course which the law took in regard to labour combinations. When the trades unions were established, they were supposed to be set upon a firm basis as a result of the Report of the Royal Commission. They were allowed, for convenience, to register, but it was not-imagined for a moment by anybody that they had thereby restricted their freedom or their legal existence. Then, unfortunately, came the Taff Vale case, which showed that they could be sued in a way which was quite unsupported by any analogy of the Common Law. At Common Law a miscellaneous body which was not incorporated could not be sued, but by the Taff Vale decision, by an analogous construction of equity doctrines, it was decided in this House that a trade union could be sued.
The consequences were disastrous. Even if it is supposed that justice was done in the case in question—and very likely that

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was so—injustice was done in another way to the benefit funds and the sick funds of unions which might have trustees at places a hundred miles away and more from the scene where there had been some disorder, by which these funds were imperilled and trenched upon for the purpose of satisfying the judgment which resulted from the totally unexpected decision of the House of Lords in the Taff Vale case. The result was what I can only describe as a stupendous "row" in the country which led to the compulsory passing—because Parliament was really coerced into it—of the Trades Disputes Act, 1906, which was just as much forced upon your Lordships by public opinion as upon the other House. It was passed without difficulty because of the tremendous force that had arisen in the country.
That Act was supposed to have settled matters, though in a very unscientific fashion. But not at all. There came another decision, the decision in the Osborne case. And what was the result of that decision? The result was that the unfortunate trades unions were found, by virtue of having registered themselves, to be subject to another doctrine, called the doctrine of ultra vires, which prevented their using their funds at all except for certain specified purposes which were set out in the Registration Act. Lord James of Hereford, in his dissenting judgment, loudly denounced the decision in which he was in a minority. The fruits of it appeared very soon. Another agitation arose because the trades unions were cramped and hampered by this very artificial decision. The result was the passage of the Act of 1913, which went only half way and which has left unredressed a great many matters which are a source of grievance to the trades unions.
I am assuming that my noble friend Lord Birkenhead is justified in desiring some amendment of the law under which it is still too easy, as he thinks, for the trades unions to put political pressure upon their members to provide funds for political purposes. But if he does that he will at once come across the other points to which I have alluded and which are four or five times more numerous. There are points connected with sick and benefit funds and a multitude of other things which have not been put upon a proper footing by the Act of 1913. In
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all these cases there is a demand for redress, and before the noble Marquess gives his answer I should like to ask him whether, when he enters into consultation with the leaders of the trades union movement, he will also consult with them about these other grievances of the trades unions, as well as about the wrongs which they are declared to commit. Unless he takes that course he will inevitably find a tremendous split of opinions on this subject and great feeling will be raised in the country.
It may be possible to pass a measure which will put workmen and their trades unions on the same footing as the employers. That will mean perfect liberty and freedom from Acts of Parliament, from doctrines of ultra vires and things of that kind, but that is a very large demand to make and would mean the sweeping away of many decisions and of several sections of Acts of Parliament. Before the noble Marquess enters upon the course of consultation with trades unions it would be very interesting to know what is the general view of the Government, whether it would not perhaps be better to sweep away all restrictions, or whether, if he feels it necessary to deal with the particular case to which allusion is made in this Question, he will also deal with these other cases which, as I have pointed out to your Lordships are of hardly less urgency.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, I hope your Lordships will not think it disrespectful of me if I do not once more go very fully into this subject. Your Lordships were moved to consider this subject at great length by the noble and learned Earl about a month ago and there is nothing, if he will allow me respectfully to say so, in the speech of the noble and learned Earl, or, indeed, in that of the noble and learned Viscount who sits beside him, which they did not say on the last occasion. I will not enter into the other speech which has been delivered to-day, except to thank my noble friend the noble Marquess for having introduced some variety into this debate, without which it would certainly have been merely a monotonous and rather pale reflection of the debate which took place a month ago.
I am sure the noble and learned Earl will not expect me to go into it all again.

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We had the Taff Vale judgment, all the sorrows and mistakes of the Liberal Government, all the want of action by the Coalition Government—it all came out again—but the curious point is that it is always the Liberal representatives who remind us of the failure of the Liberal Government, and it is always the Coalition representatives who remind us of the failure of the Coalition Government. All these things came out, as they always do on each recurring occasion when the subject is raised.
We have, of course, only the same answer to make—the answer, namely, that we adhere to the pledge which Mr. Bonar Law gave on behalf of the Government at the General Election. The noble and learned Earl thought it very surprising that we should rely upon that pledge as an answer. I really do not know what he thinks that we could have done with the pledge. Does he think that we could ignore it? Should it be treated as a "scrap of paper"?
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: I think you might have carried it out.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: We are going to carry it out.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: After six months.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The noble and learned Earl stated when he raised the Question on the last occasion that he was astonished that my noble friend relied upon this pledge. Of course, we rely upon the pledge. We said that we should consult the representatives of the trades unions before anything further was done, and that is. of course, the intention of the Government. I do not know that there is any need for headlong haste. The matter is a difficult one, and requires very careful consideration, as the noble and learned Earl himself said both this afternoon and on the last occasion. He said then, and has repeated to-day, that it requires the greatest care, and I need not tell your Lordships that the preoccupations of the Government have not been very light of late. If any further reason is required, there is much that requires examination as regards the facts of the case and the exact bearing of all the circumstances. Let me add at once that if the noble and learned Earl can
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contribute anything to our enlightenment, if he will place all his information at the disposal of His Majesty's Government we shall be very grateful to him.
We must, of course, examine the matter as carefully as we can, but when that is done the necessary consultation must take place, as my right hon. friend Mr. Bonar Law promised that it should. I will remind the noble and learned Earl that my noble friend the Secretary of State for India said upon the last occasion that he hoped that these consultations would take place later in the year. I have nothing to add to that. My right hon. friend the Prime Minister hopes between now and the next sittings of the House—that is, in the approaching recess—to carry out these consultations. I am sure it would be very unwise if any attempt were made to go into the subject during the sitting of Parliament, with all the immense pressure that there is upon the Departments and upon the members of the Government, and not least upon the Prime Minister himself. The course I have indicated we shall pursue, and I hope that the result of these consultations will be such that we are able to guide your Lordships and the country to a proper conclusion.

AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS ACTS (AMENDMENT) BILL.
Amendments reported (according to Order).
RAILWAY FIRES ACT (1906) AMENDMENT BILL.
Amendment reported (according to Order).
BASTARDY BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), with the Amendment, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

GAS REGULATION ACT, 1920 (SPECIAL ORDERS).
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Earl of Clarendon I beg to move the Motions standing in his name with reference to special orders under the Gas Regulation Act, 1920.
Moved, That the Draft Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Mayor, aldermen, and burgesses of the borough of Burton-upon-Trent, which was presented on the 5th July, and published, be approved.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, That the Draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Milton Regis Urban District Council, which was presented on the 26th June, and published, be approved.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, That the Draft Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Sevenoaks Gas Company, which was presented on the 26th June, and published, be approved.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, That the Draft Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the South Suburban Gas Company, which was presented on the 4th July, and published, be approved.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, That the Draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Torquay Gas Company and the Paignton Gas Company, which was presented on the 26th June, and published, be approved.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, That the Draft Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Ware Gas Light and Coal and Coke Company, Limited, which was presented on the 26th June, and published, be approved.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
On Question. Motion agreed to.

RENT AND MORTGAGE INTEREST RESTRICTIONS BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and to be printed.

INTOXICATING LIQUOR (SALE TO PERSONS UNDER EIGHTEEN) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and to be printed.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past six o'clock.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 9) BILL (SHEFFIELD (WATER) ORDER).
Report from the Committee of Selection that the Lord Raglan be proposed to the House as a Member of the Select Committee on the said Bill in the place of the Lord Southwark; read, and agreed to.
CARRIAGE OF GOODS BY SEA BILL. [H.L.]
Report from the Joint Committee (with the Proceedings of the Committee) made, and to be printed. Bill reported with Amendments, and re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House. Minutes of Evidence (with appendices) laid upon the Table and to be delivered out: Bill to be printed as amended.

DOVER HARBOUR BILL.
Brought from the Commons: read 1a: and referred to the Examiners.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (BRIDLINGTON EXTENSION) CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (BRIDPORT EXTENSION) CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (BRIGHTON EXTENSION) CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 7) BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments, agreed to.
TEES VALLEY WATER BILL.
STALYBRIDGE, HYDE, MOSSLEY AND DUKINFIELD TRAMWAYS AND ELECTRICITY BOARD BILL.
MAIDSTONE CORPORATION BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments, agreed to.

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY (ADDITIONAL POWERS) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amedments: The said Amendments considered, and agreed to.