Sitting of 25 March 1925

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Leicester Corporation Bill,
As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.
Hamilton Burgh Order Confirmation Bill,
Considered; to be read the Third time To-morrow.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  ROYAL NAVY.

    SINGAPORE BASE.
    Lord HENRY CAVENDISHBENTINCKasked the First Lord of the Admiralty what is the estimated amount of labour required for the construction of the Singapore base; from whence will this labour be obtained; and whether, in view of the shortage of houses in Singapore, he can say what steps will be taken to provide accommodation for the anticipated influx of workers?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Davidson): I am not yet in a position to make any definite statement upon this subject, but I can assure my Noble Friend that I shall give every consideration to the provision of necessary accommodation.
    Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that there is an intimate connection between the shortage of housing and the appalling amount of venereal disease prevalent in Singapore?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: Yes, certainly.

    ADMIRALTY STAFF.
    Colonel DAYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will give particulars
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    of the number of persons employed on the Admiralty staff to-day and the corresponding number in 1913, and the total personnel of the Navy on each of these dates?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: The Admiralty Staff (Headquarters and Outports) on 31st December, 1913, numbered 5,311. On the 1st March, 1925, the comparable figure was 7,971. The numbers borne on Vote A were 144,419 on the 15th December, 1913, and 100,104 on the 15th March, 1925. As the question appears to assume that the numbers of the personnel of the Fleet are the main factor governing the numbers of Admiralty staff, I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to a very full answer exposing this fallacy, which was given to the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. Trevelyan Thomson) on the 12th March, 1924, by my predecessor.

    COWLEY RECRUITING STATION (COLOURSERGEANT BARNETT).
    Captain BOURNEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether any decision has yet been reached in the case of Colour-sergeant Barnett, of the naval recruiting station, Cowley Road, Oxford?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: I anticipate that this matter will be decided at an early date.

    BATTLESHIP "MONARCH."
    Mr. FORRESTasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will state the reasons which induced the Ministry to refuse to allow the obsolete battleship "Monarch" to be broken up, thus providing work; and why, as the Washington Agreement leaves the method of destruction to the different Governments concerned, the Admiralty preferred to sink the vessel?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: It was considered necessary to use one of the capital ships due for scrapping under the Washington Treaty for certain important experiments, and the "Monarch" was selected for the purpose. I may add that a large amount of material, the value of which justified the cost of removal, was taken out of the ship before she was sunk.
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: Could this vessel not have been used to snake a harbour or a breakwater at some port where such a thing is required?
    Mr. DAVIDSON: No, I think not.

  PEACE TREATIES.

    INTER-ALLIED MILITARY MISSION OF CONTROL.
    Major CRAWFURDasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any decision was arrived at between himself and M. Herriot as to whether the Report of the Inter-Allied Military Mission of Control should be published or not?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Ronald McNeill): The answer is in the negative. M. Herriot and my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, agreed in principle that it would eventually be necessary to publish the exact grounds on which the Allies based their contention that Germany was in serious default over the, military clauses of the Treaty. No decision, however, was leached as to the exact form or date of such publication.
    Major CRAWFURD: Will the Government endeavour to see that it is published before any action is taken on the Report of this Commission?
    Mr. McNEILL: I cannot say. Of course, it must be done by agreement with the French Government.
    Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that we have a Treaty obligation to evacuate on a certain date and that we are not yet supplied with the grounds on which we have not done so?
    Mr. McNEILL: I do not think that modifies the answer I have given.

    BULGARIA (MILITARY FORCES).
    Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether permission has been given to the Bulgarian Government to increase their military forces beyond that to which it was limited in the Peace Treaty?
    Mr. McNEILL: No, Sir. The proposal is not to increase the armed forces
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    of Bulgaria beyond the limit allowed by the Treaty of Neuilly, but to permit the Bulgarian Government to enrol a small proportion of these forces for a provisional term as distinct from the 12 years' basis laid down in the Treaty.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Has permission been given to Bulgaria to increase this particular force?
    Mr. McNEILL: A temporary permission has been given, but it has to be confirmed by the Council of Ambassadors, and that is under their consideration.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Will the Government consider in this matter the present state of terror in Bulgaria and the relations between the present Bulgarian Government and their predecessors?
    Mr. McNEILL: I will convey that suggestion to my right hon. Friend. Of course, I could not answer the question myself.

  RUSSIA.

    BRITISH GOVERNMENT PROPERTY.
    Captain BRASSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in view of the de jure recognition of the Soviet Government and the entry into possession by their diplomatic representatives of the former Imperial Russian embassy as Chesham House, to what extent, if any, the Soviet Government have handed back the property of His Majesty's Government and the personal belongings of the former Ambassador and diplomatic staff of His Majesty's embassy at Leningrad?
    Mr. McNEILL: His Majesty's Government have officially requested the return of this property from the Soviet Government, but the latter have so far not acceded to the request.

    BRITISH RELATIONS.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in which parts of the world our general relations with the Russian Government are not amicable; and what steps are being taken to remove or reduce causes of friction by His Majesty's Government?
    Mr. McNEILL: This subject is too wide to be satisfactorily dealt with by means

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    of question and answer. It must be reserved for debate on some suitable occasion.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is there any definite area in which there can be friction?
    Mr. McNEILL: That is the question on the Paper which I have answered.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: There are only two or three places where we touch Russian territory, and surely that information can be given.
    Mr. McNEILL: I have already answered the question.
    Mr. MACKINDER: Surely if there is friction, the House is entitled to know without having to wait two or three days.
    Mr. MACGUISTEN: Is it not much more important to be friendly with the Russian people who are not at all friendly to the Russian Government, which is not a democratic Government?

  PASSPORTS.
  Sir ROBERT HAMILTONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the cost of a passport and tax payable by a British subject visiting France, and the cost of a passport payable by a French subject visiting Great Britain?
  Mr. McNEILL: The cost of a British passport is 7s. 6d. on issue. It is valid for five years, and is then renewable for a further period of five years at a cost of 5s., making the total fees 12s. 6d. for the whole period of ten years. The tax payable by British subjects who intend to remain in France more than 14 days, and are, in consequence, required to apply for identity cards, is at present fixed at 14 francs. I am informed that a French passport issued in France costs seven francs and is valid for one year only and not renewable. A French passport issued in this country costs 16s. 10d. and is also valid for one year only and not renewable.
  Sir R. HAMILTON: Is there any possibility of reducing the existing charges for passports?
  Mr. McNEILL: I could not answer that without notice.

  TANGIER.
  Lord COLUM CRICHTON-STUARTasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the doubt which has arisen whether under the terms of the Paris Convention regarding Tangier there is any authority to increase by way of allowances or otherwise salaries specified in the Convention, steps will be taken to clear up this point?
  Mr. McNEILL: The terms of the Tangier Convention leave no room for doubt on the point. Article36 definitely provides for the modification of the salaries specified in the Convention

  MEXICO.
  Mr. R. MORRISONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can make any statement as to the present position between the British Government and Mexico?
  Mr. McNEILL: No, Sir; not at present.

  EGYPT (WAFD PARTY).
  Captain WATERHOUSEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received any information to show that the Wafd party have recently identified themselves with the Republican cause in Egypt?
  Mr. McNEILL: The reply is in the negative.

  UNEMPLOYMENT.

    BENEFIT DISALLOWED.
    Mr. GROVESasked the Minister of Labour if he is aware of the reluctance on the part of many firms to give documentary evidence to the effect that persons have applied for work and of the consequent hardship upon applicants for unemployment benefit, who have to prove that they are genuinely seeking work when they appear before the local rota committee; and whether he will consider some further Regulation whereby evidence of desire to obtain work will be accepted by the Employment Exchanges, other than a signed statement from the representative of a firm to whom a person has made application?
    The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by me on the 12th March. As has already been pointed out, failure to produce a signed statement from employers is not necessarily regarded by local employment committees as proof that the applicant is not genuinely seeking work, and in the circumstances I do not think that any Regulation of the kind suggested is necessary.
    Mr. GROVES: If I can produce evidence affecting my own area, will the right hon. Gentleman look into the matter, if I can prove that this question is accepted by the rota committee as being against the applicant?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Certainly.
    Mr. HARDIE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in Springburn last week applicants were being asked to produce evidence of having been looking for work, and will he have that stopped at once? [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] You will get to know why before long.
    Mr. CECIL WILSONasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that, as a result of the new Regulations which he has issued, 189 cases, representing 547 persons, have been dealt with by the Sheffield Guardians and 42 cases by the Ecclesall Guardians; and whether, if he regards the total number of cases as small, he will ascertain the ages of the cases?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am aware that a number of applicants for benefit in the Sheffield area fail to satisfy the condition regarding payment of contributions, but I do not know how many of them may have applied to the local guardians for relief. Nor have I any information as to the ages of recent applicants for relief. That information would be in the possession of the guardians and not of my Department.
    Mr. WILSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that large numbers of these men are between 50 and 60, and some even over 60 years of age, and is it his intention that they should be sent to the guardians rather than be found work?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I do not think the hon. Member must draw any inference of that kind from what I have said.
    Mr. MACKINDER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in this particular district it is almost impossible for any man, of whatever age, to get any sort of a job?
    Mr. T. KENNEDYasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that at Southampton, on the 8th February last, a girl of 18 years of age was disqualified for unemployment benefit on the ground that she had refused employment at an isolated military canteen on Salisbury Plain; whether, before the girl was disqualified, careful inquiry was made into the conditions of the employment; and whether, in view of those conditions, he will have the decision in this and similar cases reviewed?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The hon. Member's question presumably refers to Miss Evelyn May Fulcher, of Southampton, who, on the 5th February, last, refused employment in the Navy, Army, and Air Force Institutes, Salisbury, and, further, declined to accept domestic training. Her benefit was disallowed by the insurance officer and her appeal to the Court of Referees was dismissed, the Court being of opinion that she was not genuinely seeking work. The Court gave her leave to appeal to the umpire should she desire to do so. I have no authority to intervene.
    Mr. KENNEDY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is not an isolated case, and that girls of 18 are asked, on seeking work at the canteen, to accept the condition that they are liable to be called upon to serve at any place, whether at home or abroad, to serve on board sea-going ships, or to live under canvas, and does he approve of the non-acceptance of those conditions as a reason for disqualification for benefit?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I know that these conditions have been looked into by the umpire on a previous occasion. If there is anything in them which the hon. Member thinks he would like to call to my notice, so as to make me suggest any alteration or look into the matter further, I will gladly go into it with him.
    Mr. MONTAGUE: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that the employ-

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    ment of young girls in isolated military canteens of this character is a desirable thing?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I cannot give a general answer in a general way. One has to go into the circumstances in a particular case. The only thing I can say is that on a previous occasion, when the umpire did go into it, he was satisfied in that case that there was really no objection. Each case has to be taken on its merits.
    Mr. MONTAGUE: Is it not possible to employ men, at men's wages?
    Mr. CECIL WILSON: Does it mean that the right hon. Gentleman is satisfied in sending girls of 18 to isolated military canteens?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The hon. Member must put down another question.

    YOUNG PERSONS.
    Colonel DAYasked the Minister of Labour the number of youths under 18 years of age in Great Britain who are at present drawing unemployment benefit, and the number under 18 years of age that have never had any employment of any kind through not having been taught any specific trade; and will he instruct the Employment Exchanges throughout the country to make a special effort to place these youths in some trade or employment??
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: On 9th March, the number of boys between the ages of 16 and 18 who had claims to benefit current at Employment Exchanges in Great Britain was 17,981. There are no statistics available to show the number who have never had employment of any kind through not having been taught a specific trade. Every possible effort is already made by the Exchanges to place such boys and other boys on their registers in suitable employment.
    Mr. BUCHANAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the jute industry 95 per cent. of the boys are discharged when they reach the age of 18 years; and what steps is he taking through the local Employment Exchanges to deal with that fact?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I will certainly look into that case if the hon Member will speak to me about it
    Mr. CHARLETONasked the Minister of Labour whether he can state the estimated number of males and females, respectively, between the ages of 18 and 25 years of age who are unemployed; and whether, if the information is not now available upon which to base an estimate, he will have such information collected?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: In the unemployment statistics which are regularly compiled the ages of claimants are not distinguished, but from a sample analysis based on about 11,000 claimants to unemployment benefit made at the end of November, 1924, it would appear that at that date there were about 181,600 male claimants and 88,800 female claimants, between the ages of 18 and 25 years.

    NORTHERN IRELAND DEPARTMENT.
    Mr. COMPTONasked the Minister of Labour if any arrangements have been made for the taking over by his Department of the Unemployment Insurance Department of the Government of Northern Ireland; and, if so, when the transfer is likely to take place?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The answer is in the negative.
    Mr. COMPTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that prominent members of the Government of Northern Ireland have made such a statement?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Yes, I am quite aware of that.

    TRAINING.
    Mr. MacKENZIE LIVINGSTONEasked the Minister of Labour whether he will consider the setting up of a scheme of training for the unemployed in their own trades to prevent their losing their skill while out of work?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am afraid it is not practicable to carry out this suggestion.

    AGED PERSONS.
    Mr. ALBERYasked the Minister of Labour if, taking 1922, 1923 and 1924, he will state the number of cases in which extended benefit has been refused to men between 60 and 70 on the ground that, in normal times, employment suited to their capabilities would not be likely to

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    be available for them; and whether, in any revised scheme of insurance, the Government will take into consideration the hard plight of these aged men thus forced to have recourse to the Poor Law?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: No statistics are available to show the number of men between the ages of 60 and 70 who have been refused extended benefit on the ground that employment suited to their capabilities was not likely to be available. As I explained recently, I do not think persons disqualified under this condition can properly be recipients of benefit under an Unemployment Insurance Act.
    Mr. ALBERYasked the Minister of Labour whether, considering that the employability of the aged is much less than that of the young, the Government will consider the desirability of legislation providing, instead of a standard rate of unemployment benefit, a sliding-scale system of payment, lower in the case of the young and higher with advancing age, with the object of mitigating the hardships resulting from frequent unemployment in the case of older workers?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The hon. Member is no doubt aware that there are already separate scales of benefit and of contribution for persons under 18 and persons of or above that age respectively. I do not think it would be practicable to have different scales for persons of various ages above the age of 18.
    Mr. ALBERY: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think it possible to issue some instructions in the case of men who are, say, over 60 years of age to the effect that they should be dealt with in a specially lenient manner? These men regard it as a great hardship that young men of 25 should be receiving extended benefit, which has in fact become a dole—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"]—while they are refused?

    MEN RETURNED FROM ABROAD.
    Mr. STEPHENasked the Minister of Labour, with reference to a circular sent to the exchanges regarding the payment of standard and extended benefit, respectively, in the case of unemployed men who have returned to this country from one of the Dominions or America, whither they had gone in the hope of
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    finding employment, if he will say if there is any difference in the conditions governing payment in the case of standard and extended benefit in such cases?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: An insured contributor is not disqualified for standard benefit on account of previous absence abroad if in addition to having a credit of contributions he can satisfy the usual statutory requirement of having paid at least 20 contributions since the beginning of the last preceding insurance year. The special rule applying to extended benefit is explained in a reply given to the hon. Member for Dundee on 4th March, of which I am sending the hon. Member a copy.
    Mr. STEPHEN: Has there been a special circular sent out to the Committees dealing with these cases?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Yes, Sir; there has been a circular with respect to extended benefit so far as I—but, perhaps I had better verify it—to the best of my recollection, a circular has been sent out, or suggestions made, in repard to extended benefit in relation to those who have returned from abroad. That class of case has never yet been settled, and some general rule seemed to be necessary for the guidance of the Committees.
    Mr. STEPHEN: Would the right hon. Gentleman see that a copy of the circular, or instructions, is placed in the Library?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I shall be very glad to do so, and to send the hon. Gentleman a copy.
    Mr. HARDIE: Could a copy be sent to each member of the local Committees?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: No, not to each member, because that would mean an incredibly large post; but the local Committees are made well aware of these documents, so that any member of a Committee may have a copy placed at his disposal.

    ALIENS.
    Captain T. J. O'CONNORasked the Minister of Labour whether he can state the number of aliens who are at present drawing unemployment insurance relief; and whether he proposes to discontinue the practice of paying such relief to aliens?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Statistics are not regularly compiled in respect of the number of aliens in receipt of unemployment benefit, but the results of a special analysis of claimants to benefit in November, 1924, indicate that of the 1,090,373 claimants at that date about 3,000 were aliens. I have no authority to refuse benefit to unemployed aliens who satisfy the conditions imposed by the Unemployment Insurance Acts.
    Captain O'CONNOR: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that in view of the congested state of the labour market it is time he refused to encourage the immigration of aliens into this country where they can come and live on the dole?

  ARCOS, LIMITED.
  Mr. GOODMAN ROBERTSasked the Minister of Labour whether the firm of Arcos, Limited, Soviet House, Moor gate Street, E.C., is on the King's Roll; and, if so, on what date it was placed on the Roll?
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: This firm is not on the King's Roll.
  Mr. ROBERTS: Will the right hon. Gentleman give us an assurance that until it is on the Kings Roll, no Government contracts will be made with it?
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am not sure how much business is actually being done with Arcos at present, but I will inquire.

  AIR SERVICES.
  Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGEasked the Secretary of State for Air if he will consider the establishing of further municipal or civil landing places for aircraft to encourage civil aviation?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Major Sir Philip Sassoon): It is not desirable, for financial and other reasons, to provide Government civil aerodromes in advance of the need for them, but the attention of local authorities has been drawn to the desirability of making provision for aerodromes, particularly
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  in connection with town planning schemes.
  Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGEasked the Secretary of State for Air if he will arrange for British Air Attaches to visit our aircraft manufacturers before they take up their posts?
  Sir P. SASSOON: Arrangements are always made to ensure that officers appointed as air attaches are conversant with the various types of both Service and civil aircraft. Visits to aircraft factories are arranged when considered necessary.
  Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGEasked the Secretary of State for Air what facilities are offered to foreign pilots to train with our Air Force with a view of encouraging the purchase of British aircraft manufactures?
  Sir P. SASSOON: The resources of the Air Force are available for the training of foreign officers as far as Service requirements permit, and it is the policy of the Air Ministry to encourage the attachment of such officers in suitable cases.
  Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that in countries where they encourage foreign pilots to come a great deal of trade results?
  Sir P. SASSOON: Yes, and that is one of the reasons why we encourage foreign pilots to come whenever they can.

  CROWN PROCEEDINGS COMMITTEE
  Mr. SANDEMAN ALLENasked the Attorney-General how often the Crown Proceedings Committee has met; when it held its last meeting; and when the Report, which the late Attorney-General stated on the 31st July last was expected at no distant date, will be issued?
  The ATTORNEY - GENERAL (Sir Douglas Hogg): The Committee, or its Sub-committee, have met 36 times. The last meeting of the Sub-committee was on Thursday, 26th February. There have, in addition, been numerous conferences and consultations of an informal nature between members of the Committee dealing with the particular branches of the subject. I cannot say

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  when the Report will be ready for presentation.
  Mr. ALLEN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this delay is causing a great deal of anxiety in commercial circles?
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: No, Sir, and I should be very surprised to find that it is so.

  KING'S ROLL.
  Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMSasked the Minister of Labour how many municipal bodies, companies, firms, and persons have applied to be put on the King's Roll since the rejection of the County of London Electric Supply Bill; and how many such applications have been accepted?
  Mr. NUTTALLasked the Minister of Labour the number of municipal corporations in England that have failed to sign the King's Roll, and the number that have signed the said Roll since 1st March, 1925?
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: King's Roll records are kept locally. I am having inquiries made, and will communicate the result to the hon. Members.
  Sir HARRY BRITTAINasked the Minister of Labour how many firms engaged on Government contracts are not yet on the King's Roll?
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I will endeavour to obtain this information from the Government Contracting Departments and will let the hon. Member know the result as soon as possible.

  NORMAL WORKING WEEK, UNITED STATES.
  Mr. T. KENNEDYasked the Minister of Labour whether he can state the length of the normal working week in the cotton, engineering, and iron and steel trades, respectively, in the United States?
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: According to information published by the United States Bureau of Labour statistics, the
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  average full time hours per week worked in the United States are 52·4 in the cotton industry, 51·6 in engineering and 54·8 in the iron and steel trade. I should add that the information as regards cotton and engineering relates to the years 1922 and 1923 respectively.
  Mr. J. BAKER: Could the right hon. Gentleman give the House the definite date of that information in regard to the iron and steel trades?
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I think it is 1924 for iron and steel; but I will make quite certain and send it to my hon. Friend.

  FOOD PRESERVATIVES.
  Mr. MacKENZIE LIVINGSTONEasked the Minister of Health if he is aware that in the draft Rules of 17th March, 1925, on preservatives in foods there is a list of prohibited coal-tar products which gives the impression that all other such products may be used; and will he take steps to lay down the quantities of lead and arsenic permitted in such compounds, and thus carry out the recommendations of the Committee?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): Yes, Sir. The effect of the Regulations, as drafted, is that all coal-tar colours which are not included in the Schedule may be used in food until they are shown to be injurious to health. Although lead and arsenic are occasionally present in coal-tar products, my right hon. Friend is advised that the percentage of those substances liable to be introduced into foodstuffs through this medium is so minute that it is unnecessary to extend the scope of the Regulations in the direction suggested.
  Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Has the Parliamentary Secretary received any protests against these Regulations?
  Sir K. WOOD: Yes, Sir. We have received protests and assents.
  Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: Shall we have any opportunity to debate this?
  Sir K. WOOD: I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman should give notice of that question.
  Mr. GERALD HURSTasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the alarm occasioned to the confectionery, bakery, and allied trades by the draft Regulations as to the use of preservatives and colouring matter in articles of food; whether he is aware of the strong scientific evidence published against prohibition of boracic acid and against the new Rules as to liquid eggs, butter, margarine, and cream; and if the Regulations can be held up until the House can consider their propriety?
  Sir K. WOOD: My right hon. Friend has received representations from these trades and I am arranging to meet a deputation. My right hon. Friend is satisfied that the scientific evidence regarding the effect of boric acid was thoroughly considered by the Departmental Committee on Preservatives in Food. My right hon. Friend is desirous of giving the fullest consideration to the views of all parties concerned, and thinks the hon. Member will agree that that end will be secured by the discussion of the draft with representatives of trade bodies and others before the regulations are made and laid before Parliament.
  Mr. HARDIE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that last week a member who got a tin of boric-treated eggs into the House afterwards put it on a cast-iron umbrella-stand downstairs, and that it is eating the cast-iron away?
  Sir K. WOOD: No, Sir; but I will inspect it.
  Major CRAWFURD: Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that the views of the representatives of medical opinion are taken?
  Sir K. WOOD: I will consider that.

  HOUSING.

    AGRICULTURAL WORKERS.
    Brigadier - General CLIFTON BROWNasked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the resolution of the Council of Agriculture for England urging immediate action by the Government to provide a large number of houses for agricultural workers in rural districts, as a national social question of first-class
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    urgency and importance, he will bring in early legislation on the subject, or whether he will give special facilities for a Second Reading of the Rural Cottages Bill now before the House?
    Sir K. WOOD: My right hon. Friend is fully alive to the importance of the rural housing problem, and he is giving the matter his close attention. He cannot, however, promise early legislation on the subject, and does not think that it will be practicable to give the facilities for which my hon. and gallant Friend asks.

  CASUAL WARDS.
  Captain BOURNEasked the Minister of Health whether, seeing that new Regulations for the casual wards have been promised for more than a year and that drafts have been submitted to some boards of guardians or other public bodies, he will now publish a draft of the proposed Regulations so that Members of Parliament and others may have an opportunity of seeing them?
  Sir K. WOOD: My right hon. Friend has authorised the issue of the new Regulations, which will come into force very shortly. I am sending my hon. and gallant Friend a copy of the Regulations and of the Circular which will accompany them.
  Captain BOURNEasked the Minister of Health whether he will urge the guardians of wards, where the use of planks as sleeping accommodation for women in casual wards is at present provided, to give up the use of plank beds and to provide more suitable accommodation?
  Sir K. WOOD: Yes, Sir.

  STATUTE LAW (CONSOLIDATION).
  Mr. H. WILLIAMSasked the Prime Minister if he is prepared to appoint a Committee to examine the general question of consolidating legislation, in view of the grave inconveniences which arise from the present involved position of the law in relation to many matters?
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): There is already a Committee, namely, the Statute Law Committee, which considers and makes recommenda

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  tions as to what consolidation legislation it is advisable to undertake. I may inform my hon. Frind that 13 Consolidation Bills have already been introduced this Session and are now under the consideration of Parliament.
  Mr. WILLIAMSalso asked the Prime Minister whether he will consider the desirability of all amending Bills in future taking the form of consolidating Bills in order to avoid the disadvantages of legislation by reference?
  The PRIME MINISTER: It is not possible. whenever a Bill is introduced amending a particular branch of the law, to reproduce the whole of the Statute Law on the subject.

  FACTORIES BILL.
  Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of the Government to pass the Factories Bill into law this Session?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir William Joynson-Hicks): I have been asked to reply. I have still further interviews and consultations before I can submit the proposed Bill to the Cabinet, but I hope to do so very shortly.
  Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: If the Minister is going to pass this Bill into law this Session, why does he make such heavy weather of it? Why does he not adopt the Bill of his Conservative predecessor in office, or is the present First Lord of the Admiralty considered to be too Socialistic for the present Home Secretary?
  HON. MEMBERS: Answer!

  SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND.
  Mr. COUPERasked the Prime Minister whether he has yet reached a decision with reference to raising the status of the Secretary for Scotland; and when will he be in a position to announce it?
  The PRIME MINISTER: As I have already announced, this question is being examined, and I hope to be in a position to make a statement during the Session.
  Mr. JOHNSTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that while there may be general agreement about raising the status of the Secretary for Scotland, there will not be the same general agreement about raising his salary?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I was not aware of that, but I am not at all surprised.

  BROADCASTING.

    PARLIAMENTARY PROCEEDINGS.
    Captain FRASERasked the Prime Minister if he will give the House an opportunity of deciding the desirability of giving permission to the British Broadcasting Company for the broadcasting of the forthcoming speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the introduction of the Budget; and if he will also consider the whole question of permitting certain proceedings of this House to be broadcast?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. But I think the time is come when the whole question should be considered, and for that purpose I am thinking of setting up a Select Committee of both Houses.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider making representations, with a view to reducing the price of the OFFICIAL REPORT, if we are not going to broadcast?

    INTERFERENCE.
    Captain FRASERasked the Postmaster-General if he is aware that a number of listeners to wireless programmes have much of their pleasure destroyed by interference; and if he will utilise a portion of the profit which he holds as a result of his Department's share of broadcast licence fees for the purpose of causing a full administrative and technical inquiry into all interference with broadcasting caused by service, commercial, and other transmissions, or electro-magnetic radiations of the frequencies used for broadcasting, and will cause such research as is necessary to be undertaken for the proper prosecution of such an inquiry?
    The POSTMASTER - GENERAL (Sir William Mitchell-Thomson): The question of interference with broadcast

    429
    programmes has received and is still receiving close consideration, and much improvement has been effected as regards service and commercial transmissions. With regard to interference caused by electro-magnetic radiations, I am always willing, when complaint is made, to give advice and to use such influence as I possess to secure an abatement of the nuisance. I do not think, however, that the time is ripe for such an inquiry as that suggested by my hon. and gallant Friend.
    Captain FRASER: Can my hon. Friend assure the House that he will not utilise any portion of these profits, which rightly belong to listeners, by way of reducing taxation?
    Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: That is obviously a question which should be addressed to another Minister.
    Sir H. BRITTAIN: Would not the newly-formed Wireless League be an excellent body to take up this subject?

  ELECTRIC POWER SUPPLY.
  Sir WILFRID SUGDENasked the Minister of Transport if he will consider the advisability of inviting representatives from the other groups of opinion upon the subject of electric power supply in Great Britain to consult with him, as well as those representatives who at the present time are advising him upon this subject from certain view points of the problem?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Lieut.-Colonel Moore-Brabazon): I have nothing to add to the reply which was given to the hon. Member for Newport on the 24th February, a copy of which I am sending to my hon. Friend.
  Sir W. SUGDEN: Does the hon. and gallant Member realise that there are five schools of thought in this country with regard to power production, and that if he is taking his guidance from one of these only he will be acting on only partial information?
  Lieut.-Colonel MOORE-BRABAZON: The Minister has received advice from all quarters. What advice he will take it is not for me to say.
  Sir W. SUGDEN: Is it not the fact that he is taking such advice from one school of thought only?
  Lieut.-Colonel MOORE-BRABAZON: I am not aware of it.

  TRANSPORT.

    ROADS (RUBBER PAVING).
    Sir W. SUGDENasked the Minister of Transport if he is prepared to call a conference of experts for the purpose of considering the practical utilisation of compound rubber-paving on certain roads and crossings in order to obviate the damage to valuable modern, as well as ancient, buildings caused by heavy swift-moving commercial vehicles passing along such roads and crossings now built with either concrete or granite facings?
    Lieut.-Colonel MOORE-BRABAZON: As the staff of the Ministry keep under constant observation the experiments that are being made in the utilisation of rubber as a paving material, it is not considered necessary to call the suggested conference.

    MOTOR SPEED LIMIT.
    Captain BRASSasked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the general dissatisfaction caused by the continuance in force of an obsolete speed limit of 20 miles per hour for all motor vehicles, he will consider the advisability of introducing legislation to alter or abolish this limit?
    Lieut.-Colonel MOORE-BRABAZON: This matter is under consideration it connection with the proposed legislation with regard to road vehicles.
    Captain BRASS: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that many people are now being prosecuted for exceeding this obsolete speed limit; and may I also ask when it is proposed to bring in this Bill?
    Lieut.-Colonel MOORE-BRABAZON: I am aware that a number of people are being prosecuted. I cannot guarantee Parliamentary time for the Bill, but it will be introduced as soon as possible.
    Mr. HARDIE: Has the Minister of Transport had his attention called to what

    431
    is taking place in Glasgow with respect to postal vans, and can he take steps to prevent his murdering of children in the streets by postal vans?

    MOTOR DRIVERS (TESTS).
    Captain BRASSasked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the fact that a large number of motor accidents occur through the inexperience and incompetence of the drivers, he will consider the advisability of introducing legislation to make it compulsory for all prospective drivers to pass a driving test and an oral examination on the rules of the road before a licence to drive is granted?
    Lieut.-Colonel MOORE-BRABAZON: I would refer my hon. and gallant Fiend to the answer which was given on the 18th February to the hon. Member for the Hallam Division (Sir F. H. Sykes), of which I am sending him a copy.

  FISH SUPPLIES.
  Sir W. SUGDENasked the Minister of Agriculture if he will call a conference of those concerned in the fishing industry on the north-east coast to regulate the movements of trawler fleets to prevent famine and glut of supplies which sometimes now obtain?
  The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Edward Wood): Fluctuations in the supply of fish are almost entirely caused by the combined weather conditions on the various trawling grounds extending from the Murman Coast of Russia and Iceland in the north to the Coast of Morocco in the south, and do not depend upon the number of trawlers at sea at a given time—which, in fact, varies very little. In the circumstances, I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by the conference proposed.
  Sir W. SUGDEN: But is it not the fact that the question of loading is a very important one in respect of this class of fishing, equally as important as the one of incoming trawlers?
  Mr. WOOD: I can assure my hon. Friend that I am entirely alive to the question, but I am in doubt whether a solution could be furthered by a conference.

  VAUXHALL COLLIERY, RUABON.
  Mr. EVERARDasked the Secretary for Mines whether the Vauxhall Colliery, near Ruabon, has been re-opened; whether he has any information as to the number of men employed; and whether the usual hours of employment and rates of wages are operating in that colliery?
  The SECRETARY for MINES (Colonel Lane-Fox): Yes, Sir; I understand that this colliery has been re-opened. It normally employs about 600 men. As regards the last part of the question I would refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave on the 17th March to the hon. Member for Moseley.

  PALESTINE (TROOP MOVEMENTS).
  Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAMasked the Secretary of State for War whether a cavalry regiment and certain armoured cars have been moved recently from Egypt to Palestine; and, if so, whether these movements form part of the normal military arrangements or are due to any other reason?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Captain Douglas King): A cavalry regiment which was sent to Egypt from Palestine in December last, when the situation in Egypt was disturbed, has now returned to its normal peace station in Palestine. There has been no transfer of armoured cars between Egypt and Palestine.

  GERMANY (COMMERCIAL TREATIES).
  Sir FREDRICWISEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department with what countries the German Republic has negotiated commercial treaties?
  Mr. A. M. SAMUEL (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): If my hon. Friend will permit me, I will have circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT a list of the countries to which he refers.
  Following is the list promised:
  So far as I am aware, the countries with which the German Republic has negotiated commercial treaties or other arrangements (some of which are, how

  433
  ever, not yet in force) are the following: Austria, Bulgaria, Bolivia, Czechslovakia, Esthonia, Finland, the United Kingdom, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Nicaragua, Netherlands, Portugal, S.H.S. State, Siam, Spain, Soviet Union, Switzerland and the United States.

  DISTILLERY IMPORTS, NORWAY.
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir EDWARD GRIGGasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that French distillers are allowed to import into Norway large quantities of their products, whereas British distillers are completely shut out from the Norwegian market; and what steps are His Majesty's Government taking to put an end to this violation of the most favoured-nation Clause of the Commercial Treaty in force between Norway and Great Britain?
  Mr. SAMUEL: Yes, Sir; the President of the Board of Trade is aware of the position, which is as stated in the first part of the hon. Member's question. As regards the second part, the hon. Member can rest assured that His Majesty's Government are giving the matter their close attention.

  SCOTLAND.

    PUBLIC RECORDS, EDINBURGH.
    Captain BENNasked the Secretary for Scotland whether his attention has been called to the resolution of the Edinburgh Town Council to the effect that the office of the deputy clerk register should now be filled, that the public records of Scotland should remain in the country, and that the deputy clerk register should have jurisdiction over local records where this is desirable, with the object of securing their preservation and accessibility to the public; and whether he is able to announce any official action in connection with it?
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Sir John Gilmour): I have received a copy of the resolution which the Corporation passed on these subjects on the 9th March. As I stated in my reply to the hon. and gallant Member on the 17th February, the idea of removing any documents from the Record Office in
    434
    Edinburgh has never been contemplated I am not in a position at present to make any statement in regard to the other points referred to in the question, except that I am in course of appointing a Committee to inquire and report on the question of the Sheriff Court Records.
    Sir HENRY CRAIK: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this office is one of great antiquity and dignity, and that a decision might by this time have been expected as to whether the office is to be continued or the reverse?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: I would like to emphasise that there has never been any intention of discontinuing the office.
    Sir H. CRAIK: What about the officials?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: That is entirely another question.
    Captain BENN: Can the Secretary for Scotland say whether the Committee appointed is going to decide if there is to be an appointment of a deputy clerk register, or whether that is outside the terms of reference?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: No, Sir; what the Committee has to inquire into is the case of the records in sheriff courts in various parts of the country.
    Captain BENN: When will the right hon. Gentleman appoint a deputy clerk register?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: As soon as a definite decision has been arrived at.
    Sir H. CRAIK: Will the Committee consider the very important question of the continuance of this ancient office?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: The Committee will be appointed to inquire into the circumstances of the records of the sheriff courts.
    Sir H. CRAIK: Who is going to decide with regard to the continuance of this office?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: The Government.
    Sir H. CRAIK: When?

  ELECTIONS (USE OF VEHICLES).
  Mr. THURTLEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if the

  435
  proposed conference on franchise reform will consider the question of prohibiting the use of vehicles for the purpose of conveying electors to the poll, except in so far as the sick and infirm are concerned.
  Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I regret that I cannot make any statement at present as to the scope of the conference.

  KIDNAPPING.
  Mr. THURTLEasked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the recent case of kidnapping of a Labour speaker, he can give the House an assurance that he is taking all possible steps to prevent similar outrages being perpetrated in the future?
  Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Yes, Sir.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is the Home Secretary aware that many of us have received threatening letters?
  Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am sure I am echoing the opinion of the whole House when I express the hope that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman will not be kidnapped.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: Might we have police protection?
  Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I shall be glad to consider providing police protection for the right hon. Gentleman, should he so desire.

  GOBELIN TAPESTRIES.
  Sir FREDRIC WISEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if the Gobelin tapestries are still held as security for any Austrian loan?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Guinness): No, Sir The loans to which the Gobelin tapestries were assigned as security were converted into guaranteed Austrian loan on the issue of that loan in June, 1923, and these tapestries are not now held as security for any Austrian loan.

  GOBELIN TAPESTRIES.

    GERMAN RAILWAYS (CREDIT).
    Sir F. WISEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he has any information to the effect that the German railways have been given a credit in New York?
    Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: I have been asked to answer this question. Full statements have appeared in the German Press to the effect that an agreement has been concluded between the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft and a consortium of British and American bankers for a revolving credit of 15,000,000 dollars at 7 per cent., the credit to be available up to the 31st January, 1926.
    Sir F. WISE: Can the hon. Gentleman state what is the position of the railway bondholders whose bonds were issued under the Dawes Report? Are they a first charge?
    Mr. SAMUEL: I do not think the two questions are cognate. So far as I understand it, the rolling-credit loan to be issued by the consortium of banks is for equipment and other similar things. I do not think the new loan touches any details of the Dawes plan, but I shall be glad to go into the matter for my hon. Friend.
    Sir F. WISE: I do not mind so long as there is a first charge.

  EMPIRE SETTLEMENT.
  Sir WALTER de FRECEasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can now give the terms of the proposed agreement for the extension of the Imperial settlement in Western Australia?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): No, Sir. The agreement is dependent on that under under consideration with the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia which is being negotiated.

  MOSUL.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what progress has been made in the settlement of the Mosul frontier between His Majesty's Government and the government of the Turkish Republic; and what is the present position of negotiations?
  Mr. McNEILL: The Commission appointed by the League of Nations to investigate the Iraq frontier question, having completed its inquiries on the

  437
  spot, is about to return to Europe. The President of the Commission has informed the Secretary-General of the League that he hopes to be able to present his report to the Council at the June session.

  KURDISTAN.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he now has any information about the rising in Kurdistan; what is the present position; and what effect this is having on the peace and tranquillity of the vilayet of Mosul?
  Mr. McNEILL: I am still unable to give the hon. and gallant Member any authoritative information about the present position in Kurdistan, as the news issued by the Turkish authorities is scanty. But I gather that, while the insurgents have made no progress, a considerable Turkish military force is being concentrated in the disaffected districts. His Majesty's Government have no information to show that the vilayet of Mosul is in any way affected by these events.

  IRISH POLITICAL PRISONERS.
  Mr. LEES SMITH (by Private Notice) asked the Home Secretary whether any changes have been made in the last few days in the arrangements with regard to the political prisoners from Northern Ireland imprisoned in this country?
  Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: No, Sir.
  Mr. SMITH: In view of the fact, of which I think the right hon. Gentleman is aware, that arrangements are being made for one of these prisoners to sue for a writ of habeas corpus in order to contest the legality of his detention, can we be assured that the other prisoners will be kept in their present position until this legal issue is determined?
  Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have no intention at all of altering the position of any of the prisoners The answer is quite categorical: no arrangements have been made for any alteration. I have no intention of making any alteration, and will not do so without communicating with the House.

NOTICES OF MOTION.
  SECONDARY EDUCATION.
  Mr. R. RICHARDSON: I beg to give notice that, on this day fortnight, I shall call attention to secondary education, and move a Resolution.
  GARDEN CITY SCHEME.
  Major KINDERSLEY: I beg to give notice that, on this day fortnight, I shall call attention to the garden city scheme and the housing problem, and move a Resolution.
  POOR PERSONS (LEGAL AID).
  Mr. BURMAN: I beg to give notice that, on this day fortnight, I shall call attention to the question of providing legal aid for the poor, and move a Resolution.

  UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT.
  Mr. ERSKINE: I beg to give notice that, on this day fortnight, I shall call attention to the dole as at present administered, and its relation to race degeneracy, and move a Resolution.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: On a point of Order. Is it not necessary to use Parliamentary expressions in Notices of Motion, and is the word "dole" a Parliamentary expression?
  Mr. SPEAKER: It will be my duty to edit the Notices of Motion when they come to the Table.

LICENSING ACT (1921) AMENDMENT.
Mr. REMER: I beg to move,
"That leave be given to bring in a Bill to give additional powers to licensing magistrates as to hours of opening licensed premises."
I hope the House will not think that this is a Bill by means of which I am trying to light the fires of controversy and promote disputes between "pussyfoots" and the brewing interest. I think it is the duty of hon. Members as far as possible to avoid controversy, and this Bill, which I am asking leave to introduce, is quite a mild and innocuous Bill. In fact, I think it might be described as a milk-and-water Bill; it has very little

439
relation to the question of the desirability or otherwise of beer or whisky. The Bill stands by the compromise which was made in 1921, but the Bill of 1921, as hon. Members who were in the House at the time will recollect, was passed in the early hours of the morning, when Members of the House have not, that clear vision which they have at other times, and the object of the present Bill is to clear away some of the anomalies that undoubtedly do exist.
To mention one or two of them, in Oxford Street, in London, there is an anomaly which must be obvious to every one of us, where the licensed houses on one side of the street have to close an hour before those on the other side. We know very well that Frascati's Restaurant, the Holborn Restaurant, and the Connaught Rooms have great difficulty in carrying on their business in competition with other restaurants because of the anomaly which exists in that part of London. Then I will ask the House to turn its consideration away from, the gay life of the West End of London, and look at an anomaly which exists in the case of a lonely hotel in my constituency, 1,500 feet above sea level. It is the "Cat and Fiddle" Hotel, near Buxton, and may be known to some hon. Members. It has the reputation of being the highest hotel in England. That hotel is in a licensing area which includes a large industrial district 12 miles away, and the licensing authority have to fix times suitable for the industrial area. The hotel is open from 12 till half-past two, and from six till 10.30 at night. I put it to the House that no one in their senses would go to the top of a mountain—for this hotel is at the top of a mountain—between six and 10.30 for any alcoholic refreshment. The effect of the hours fixed for that particular hotel is that the hotel is practically closed altogether. Under the present Act the licensing bench have only power to fix one set of hours for the whole area under their control. The Bill which I am asking leave to introduce would give them an additional power to deal with special cases such as I have outlined, and it is framed with a view to meeting the existing difficulties. The House will see that it is only a Bill to meet special cases, and does not ask for any breach of the compromise which was arrived at in 1921. It is simply a Bill to
440
deal with the anomalous position which exists in many parts of the country at the present time.
Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: I rise to oppose the Bill. I can quite understand the point made by the hon. Member concerning the anomalies under our present licensing system, and I can quite understand that there is agreement on this point among those who believe in the licensing of the business. What I am concerned about, and what I hold that every man and woman in this House ought to be concerned about, are the outstanding anomalies that arise as a result of licensing the business at all. It is not a question of regulation in a matter of this kind; it is a question of asking ourselves whether or not, under our national policy of licensing, this course should be pursued when we are confronted with such great evils the overcoming of which in itself presents specialised difficulties. When the mass of the people are struggling under severe difficulties, is it right that we should complicate those difficulties, especially for those who are otherwise groaning under oppression? Is is right that we should set these particular traps whereby they are demoralised?
The hon. Member has mentioned a hotel on a mountainous height. I suggest that it is not a question of going to the heights, but a question of going to the depths in a business of this kind. It puzzles me entirely to think that any man or woman associated with the conception of the elevation of the people—and all of us who have been brought here are understood to have that ideal in view—for a man or a woman to be engaged in the manufacture or the distribution of such a concoction is unquestionably one of the paramount factors that is demoralising the interests of the nation at large. That there should be such wealth accumulating in the hands of the few, and to the awful degradation of the many, is a, situation such that not a single Member of this House ought to be identified with the licensing system at all. It is in my view a matter of objection to the entire national policy of licensing. That policy can only be challenged when we deal with it and, in a comprehensive fashion, handle the question of manufacture as well as sale. Once we agree to manufacture, which, all the forces of religion and tem-

441
perance agree to, I quite understand the hon. Member's difficulty. He wants to try to find a fair allocation of hours between different districts. Other people who are identified with what is called reform set up the conception that a thing that is right on one side of the street is wrong on the other. That, to any man or woman looking at the thing fairly and squarely, is a position that we cannot accept. The real issue is the immorality, the actual degradation, the appalling results which are happening and which are, testified to by substantial records of the House and of every institution in the country. It is a most formidable power that we have to grapple with, and do not forget that during the War, when the call was made that this thing should have an end, that it should be entirely stopped, the power
which some members in the House specially represented was capable of holding up the entire nation and preventing that operation being carried out. That, of course, in my view was a mere expediency matter in the interests of materialism concerning the War at that time. The grounds which were put forward by business men as sheer grounds of materialism stand to-day alongside the great spiritual and moral issues which are involved in the call for the abolition of the entire liquor traffic.
Question put—
"That leave be given to bring in a Bill to give additional powers to licensing magistrates as to hours of opening licensed premises."
The House divided: Ayes, 174; Noes, 102.

Division No. 59.]

AYES.

[3.45 p.m.

Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel

Everard, W. Lindsay

McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus

Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.

Fairfax, Captain J. G.

MacRobert, Alexander M.

Albery, Irving James

Falle, Sir Bertram G.

Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-

Applin, Colonel R. V. K.

Fermoy, Lord

Makins, Brigadier-General E.

Balniel, Lord

Foster, Sir Harry S.

Malone, Major P. B.

Barclay-Harvey, C. M.

Fraser, Captain tan

Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn

Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)

Frece, Sir Walter de

Margesson, Captain D.

Barnston, Major Sir Harry

Ganzoni, Sir John

Marriott, Sir J. A. R.

Beamish, Captain T. P. H

Gates, Percy

Milne, J. S. Wardlaw

Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)

Gaunt, Admiral Sir Guy R.

Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)

Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.

Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham

Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)

Berry, Sir George

Glyn, Major R. G. C.

Montague, Frederick

Bethell, A.

Grace, John

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

Bourne, Captain Robert Croft

Grant, J. A.

Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)

Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.

Greene, W. P. Crawford

Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive

Brass, Captain W.

Gretton, Colonel John

Murchison, C. K.

Briscoe, Richard George

Grundy, T. W.

Nall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph

Brittain, Sir Harry

Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.

Naylor, T. E.

Brocklebank, C. E. R.

Gunston, Captain D. W.

Nelson, Sir Frank

Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. L.

Hacking, Captain Douglas H.

Nicholson. William G. (Petersfield)

Brown, Maj. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)

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

Nuttall, Ellis

Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y)

Hartington, Marquess of

Oman, Sir Charles William C.

Burman, J. B.

Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)

Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

Burton, Colonel H. W.

Haslam, Henry C.

Perkins, Colonel E. K.

Campbell, E. T.

Hawke, John Anthony

Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)

Cautley, Sir Henry S.

Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.

Pielou, D. P.

Cazalet, Captain Victor A.

Henderson, Capt. R. R.(Oxf'd, Henley)

Potts, John S.

Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)

Henn, Sir Sydney H.

Power, Sir John Cecil

Christie, J. A.

Hennessy, Major J. R. G.

Pownall, Lieut. Colonel Assheton

Clarry, Reginald George

Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)

Radford, E. A.

Cobb, Sir Cyril

Herbert, S.(York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by)

Raine, W.

Connolly, M.

Hilton, Cecil

Ramsden, E.

Cope, Major William

Hirst, G. H.

Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel

Craig, Ernest (Chester, Crewe)

Holland, Sir Arthur

Rawson, Alfred Cooper

Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

Holt, Capt. H. P.

Remnant, Sir James

Crook, C. W.

Homan, C. W. J.

Rentaul, G. S.

Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)

Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)

Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)

Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)

Hopkins, J. W. W.

Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

Curzon, Captain Viscount

Howard, Captain Hon. Donald

Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)

Dalton, Hugh

Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)

Roberts, Samuel (Herelord, Hereford)

Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)

Hume, Sir G. H.

Ropner, Major L.

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

Hurd, Percy A.

Rye, F. G.

Dawson, Sir Philip

Hurst, Gerald B.

Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)

Day, Colonel Harry

Jephcott, A. R.

Sandeman, A. Stewart

Drewe, C.

Kindersley, Major Guy M.

Sanders, Sir Robert A.

Duckworth, John

Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

Sandon, Lord

Eden, Captain Anthony

Knox, Sir Alfred

Shaw, Capt. W. W. (Wilts, Westb'y)

Edmondson, Major A. J.

Loder, J. de V.

Shepperson, E. W.

Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)

Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere

Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)

Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith

MacAndrew, Charles Glen

Smith-Carington, Neville W.

Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)

Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)

Smithers, Waldron

Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

Ward, Lt.-Col. A.L.(Kingston-on-Hull)

Wise, Sir Fredric

Sprot, Sir Alexander

Waterhouse, Captain Charles

Womersley, W. J.

Stanley, Lord (Fylde)

Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)

Wood, E.(Chest'r, Stalyb'dge & Hyde)

Stuart, Crichton., Lord C.

Wells, S. H

Wragg, Herbert

Styles, Captain H. Walter

White, Lieut.-Colonel G. Dairymple

Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.

Tinne, J. A.

Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)

Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.

Wilson, Sir C. H. (Leeds, Central)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

Waddington, R.

Windsor, Walter

Mr. Remer and Lieut.-Colonel James.

NOES.

Allen, Lieut.-Col. Sir William James

Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley)

Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)

Ammon, Charles George

Henderson, T. (Glasgow)

Shiels, Dr. Drummond

Attlee, Clement Richard

Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)

Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)

Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)

Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)

Smith, Rennie (Penistone)

Barnes, A.

Huntingfield, Lord

Snell, Harry

Barr, J.

Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.

Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)

Batey, Joseph

John, William (Rhondda, West)

Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles

Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)

Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)

Stamford, T. W.

Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish-

Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

Stephen, Campbell

Broad, F. A.

Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)

Bromley, J.

Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)

Sutton, J. E.

Brown, James (Ayr and Butt)

Kelly, W. T.

Taylor, R. A.

Buchanan, G.

Kennedy, T.

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

Charleton, H. C.

Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.

Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)

Clowes, S.

Kenyon, Barnet

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

Cluse, W. S.

Kirkwood, D.

Thurtle, E.

Colfox, Major Wm. Philip

Lee, F.

Tinker, John Joseph

Crawfurd, H. E.

Livingstone, A. M.

Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.

Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)

Lowth, T.

Viant, S. P.

Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

Lumley, L. R.

Warne, G. H.

Dennison, R.

MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R.(Aberavon)

Watson, W. M. (Dunfarmline)

England, Colonel A.

Mackinder, W.

Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney

Fenby, T. D.

Maxton, James

Welsh, J. C.

Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.

Morris, R. H.

Westwood, J.

Forrest, W.

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

Whiteley, W.

Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.

Murnin, H.

Wignall, James

Gibbins, Joseph

Oliver, George Harold

Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)

Gillett, George M.

Palin, John Henry

Williams, David (Swansea, E.)

Gosling, Harry

Ponsonby, Arthur

Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)

Greenall, T.

Ritson, J.

Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)

Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)

Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)

Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)

Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W.R., Elland)

Wright, W.

Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)

Rose, Frank H.

Hardie, George D.

Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

Harris, Percy A.

Saklatvala, Shapurji

Mr. Scrymgeour and Mr. Groves.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Remer, Mr. Dixey, Dr. Watts, Lieut.-Colonel James, and Captain Arthur Evans.

LICENSING ACT (1921) AMENDMENT (No. 2) BILL,
"to give additional powers to licensing magistrates as to hours of opening licensed premises," presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 128.]

ELECTIONS (CONVEYANCE OF VOTERS).
Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I beg to move,
"That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Law relating to the conveyance of persons to or from the poll, and for purposes connected therewith."
I am sure that there are many Members of all parties who feel that the present
444
position with regard to the conveyance of voters to the poll is not wholly satisfactory. In the first place, it places the voters, particularly in rural constituencies, in a rather invidious position. They must either, in effect, declare which way they are going to vote, and thereby make the Ballot Act of no effect, or they must be willing to travel in a motor car or some other vehicle carrying party colours, to which party they do not really adhere. That many independent voters do not like to do.
In the second place, the present position of affairs places the owner of a motor car in a very peculiar position as against other people. A man who owns a car may bring the car to the election from a long distance away. He may spend a considerable sum of money in transit. He may have to provide additional wages for the chauffeur, and he may, very likely he will, have to pay a heavy bill for repairs after the election is over. That is considered legitimate, where another man who is prepared to hire a car for the day

445
of the poll is forbidden to do so. Further than that, ten people, say, of no great means, may be prepared to club together and to pay £1 each, or a little less, for the purpose of providing a car, but they are not allowed to substitute themselves for the one man who owns a car. I am sure that every person in this House must realise that that is not an equitable method of dealing with this question.
Further I am certain that hon. Members who own cars, or whose friends own cars, must realise that the damage done to the ear in an election is out of all proportion to the advantage which the car confers upon the community as a whole.
Finally I think we are all beginning to realise that there is a very considerable danger to the public, and particularly to children, in many elections owing to the use of motor cars. Whenever I take part in an election, I am always very much afraid that some child will be run over and killed in the course of the helter-skelter of motor cars during the election. These are difficulties which hon. Members in all parts of the House will recognise.
What are the objects which we have in view? Our object is to enable every voter who honestly desires to go to the poll to have an opportunity of getting there. That implies, in the case of boroughs, that there must be some means of conveying the infirm and aged and those who are unable to walk a comparatively short distance. In counties it means a good deal more than that, because the distance to the poll from the homes of the people is often very considerable, and even active people would be unwilling, if not unable, to go the long distance which would be required in some cases to enable them to vote.
The object of the Bill, which has the support of Members of all parties in the House, is an attempt to remedy this evil. I do not think it is a very easy matter to deal with. It is a difficult and complicated question to tackle. The way in which my Bill proposes to deal with it is this: in the first place, I propose to pro-
hibit the use of private motor cars in taking voters to the poll, except in taking the man or woman who owns the car, and members of their own family living with them. The Bill makes it incumbent upon the returning officer to provide, according to certain Regulations, means of conveying to the poll in all constituencies persons who are infirm or unable to get to the poll. In addition to that, the Bill provides that in the county constituencies each candidate may nominate 2 per cent. of the electorate, and throw upon the returning officer the responsibility of conveying them to the poll.
The Bill does not attempt to do what would obviously be an advantage in regard to the saving of time, and that is, to increase the number of polling stations; but I hope that that would take place at the same time.
I admit that this is a very complicated question. Although I have done my best in this Bill to put forward proposals which I think are reasonable and could be carried into effect, I am bound to admit that they are not perfect. I do, however, ask very sincerely that hon. Members will allow the Bill to have a First Reading, so that it may be printed and they may be able to see it in print for themselves and, where necessary, the Bill can be modified at a later stage. If hon. Members agree to the First Reading of the Bill, they will have" an opportunity of having the definite proposal before them, and they can then consider it.
Colonel APPLIN: I rise to oppose the Bill.
Question put,
"That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Law relating to the conveyance of persons to or from the poll, and for purposes connected therewith."
Colonel APPLIN: I wish to oppose the Bill.
Mr. SPEAKER: I waited for the hon. and gallant Member to rise. I have now collected the voices.
The House divided: Ayes, 122; Noes, 212.

Division No. 60.]

AYES.

[4.0 p.m.

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

Batey, Joseph

Buchanan, G.

Ammon, Charles George

Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.

Butler, Sir Geoffrey

Attlee, Clement Richard

Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)

Charleton, H. C,

Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)

Birchall, Major J. Dearman

Clowes, S.

Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)

Broad, F. A.

Cluse, W. S.

Barnes, A.

Bromley, J.

Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.

Barr, J.

Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)

Compton, Joseph

Connolly, M.

John, William (Rhondda, West)

Smith, Rennie (Penistone)

Cove, W. G.

Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)

Snail, Harry

Crawfurd, H. E.

Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)

Dalton, Hugh

Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)

Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles

Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)

Kelly, W. T.

Stamford, T. W.

Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

Kennedy, T.

Stephen, Campbell

Day, Colonel Harry

Kirkwood, D.

Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)

Dennison, R.

Lawson, John James

Sutton, J. E.

Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)

Lee, F.

Taylor, R. A.

Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)

Lowth, T.

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

Fenby, T. D.

Lunn, William

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

Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.

MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)

Thurtle, E.

Gibbins, Joseph

Mackinder, W.

Tinker, John Joseph

Gillett, George M.

MacLaren, Andrew

Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.

Gosling, Harry

Maxton, James

Varley, Frank B.

Greenall, T.

Montague, Frederick

Viant, S. P.

Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)

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

Warne, G. H.

Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)

Murnin, H.

Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)

Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)

Naylor, T. E.

Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney

Groves, T.

Palin, John Henry

Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah

Grundy, T. W.

Paling, W.

Welsh, J. C.

Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)

Ponsonby, Arthur

Westwood, J.

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

Potts, John S.

Whiteley, w.

Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)

Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

Wignall, James

Hardie, George D.

Riley, Ben

Williams, David (Swansea, E.)

Harris, Percy A.

Ritson, J.

Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)

Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon

Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)

Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)

Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley)

Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W. R., Elland)

Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

Henderson, T. (Glasgow)

Rose, Frank H.

Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)

Hilton, Cecil

Saklatvala, Shapurji

Windsor, Walter

Hirst, G. H.

Scrymgeour, E.

Wright, W.

Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)

Scurr, John

Hore-Belisha, Leslie

Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)

Shiels, Dr. Drummond

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence and Mr.

Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)

Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)

Oliver.

NOES.

Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel

Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)

Herbert, S.(York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by)

Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.

Curzon, Captain Viscount

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

Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W.Derby)

Davidson, J. (Hertf'd Hemel Hempst'd)

Holland, Sir Arthur

Allen, Lieut.-Col. Sir William James

Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)

Holt, Capt. H. P.

Applin, Colonel R. V. K.

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

Homan, C. W. J.

Balniel, Lord

Dawson, Sir Philip

Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)

Barnston, Major Sir Harry

Drewe, C.

Hopkins, J. W. W.

Beamish, Captain T. P. H.

Duckworth, John

Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.

Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)

Eden, Captain Anthony

Howard, Captain Hon. Donald

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

Edmondson, Major A. J.

Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)

Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish-

England, Colonel A,

Hume, Sir G. H.

Berry, Sir George

Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)

Huntingfield, Lord

Bethell, A.

Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith

Hurd, Percy A.

Betterton, Henry B.

Everard, W. Lindsay

Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)

Blades, Sir George Rowland

Fairfax, Captain J. G.

Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.

Bourne, Captain Robert Croft

Falle, Sir Bertram G.

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

Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.

Fanshawe, Commander G. D.

James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert

Brass, Captain W.

Fermoy, Lord

Jephcott, A. R.

Brassey, Sir Leonard

Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.

Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

Briscoe, Richard George

Forrest, W.

Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William

Brittain, Sir Harry

Foster, Sir Harry S.

Kenyon, Barnet

Brocklebank, C. E. R.

Fraser, Captain Ian

Kindersley, Major Guy M.

Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.

Frece, Sir Walter de

Knox, Sir Alfred

Brown, Maj. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)

Ganzoni, Sir John

Lane-Fox, Lieut.-Col. George R.

Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y)

Gates, Percy

Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)

Burman, J. B.

Gault Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton

Loder, J. de V.

Burton, Colonel H. W.

Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham

Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere

Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward

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

Lumley, L. R.

Campbell, E. T.

Grace, John

MacAndrew, Charles Glen

Cautley, Sir Henry S

Grant, J. A.

Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)

Cazalet, Captain Victor A.

Greene, W. P. Crawford

McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus

Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)

Gretton, Colonel John

McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)

Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.

Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.

Charteris, Brigadier-General J.

Gunston, Captain D. W.

Macquisten, F. A.

Christie, J. A.

Hacking, Captain Douglas H.

MacRobert, Alexander M.

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer

Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)

Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-

Clarry, Reginald George

Harrison, G. J. C.

Makins, Brigadier-General E.

Cobb, Sir Cyril

Hartington, Marguess of

Malone, Major P. B.

Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.

Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)

Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn

Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips

Haslam, Henry C.

Margesson, Captain D.

Cope, Major William

Hawke, John Anthony

Marriott, Sir J. A. R.

Couper, J. B.

Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.

Milne, J. S. Wardlaw

Craig, Ernest (Chester, Crewe)

Henderson, Capt. R. R.(Oxf'd, Henley)

Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)

Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

Heneage, Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.

Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)

Crook, C. W.

Henn, Sir Sydney H-.

Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.

Crooke, J. Smedley (Derltend)

Hennessy, Major J. R. G.

Morris, R. H.

448

449

Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)

Remnant, Sir James

Templeton, W. P.

Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive

Rentoul, G. S.

Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)

Murchison, C. K.

Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)

Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)

Nall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph

Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)

Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell. (Croydon, S.)

Nelson, Sir Frank

Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)

Tinne, J. A.

Neville, R. J.

Ropner, Major L.

Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.

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

Rye, F. G.

Waddington, R.

Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)

Ward, Lt.-Col. A.L.(Kingston-on-Hull)

Nuttall, Ellis

Sandeman, A. Stewart

Waterhouse, Captain Charles

Oman, Sir Charles William C.

Sanders, Sir Robert A.

Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)

Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D

Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)

Pennefather, Sir John

Shaw, Capt. W. W, (Wilts, Westb'y)

Wells, S. R.

Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)

Shepperson, E. W.

White, Lieut.-Colonel G. Dairympie

Perkins, Colonel E. K.

Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)

Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)

Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)

Slaney, Major P. Kenyon

Wilson, Sir Charles H. (Leeds, Central)

Pielou, D.P.

Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)

Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

Pilcher, G.

Smith-Carington, Neville W.

Wise, Sir Fredric

Power, Sir John Cecil

Smithers, Waldron

Wood, Rt. Hon. E. (York, W.R., Ripon)

Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton

Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

Wood, E.(Chest'r Stalyb'dge & Hyde)

Radford, E. A.

Sprot, Sir Alexander

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

Rains, W.

Stanley, Lord (Fylde)

Wragg, Herbert

Ramsden, E.

Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.

Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.

Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel

Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

Rawson, Alfred Cooper

Styles, Captain H. Walter

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

Remer, J. R.

Sugden, Sir Wilfrid

Mr. Dennis Herbert and Mr.

Gerald Hurst.

SUMMER TIME BILL.
Reported, without Amendment, from Standing Committee C.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed.
Bill, not amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration To-morrow.

BILLS REPORTED.
Marriages Provisional Order Bill,
Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the Third time Tomorrow.
Bideford Harbour Bill,
Nottinghamshire County Council (Gunthorpe Bridge) Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Bolton Corporation Bill,
Reported, with Amendments [Title amended], from the Local Legislation Committee; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,—
Isle of Wight Highways Bill, without Amendment.
Amendments to—
Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (Blackpool Order) Bill [Lords], without Amendment.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to consolidate the enactments, relating to the housing of the working classes in England and Wales." [Housing Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to consolidate the enactments relating to the housing of the working classes in Scotland." [Housing (Scotland) Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to consolidate the enactments relating to town planning in England and Wales." [Town Planning Bill [Lords.]
And also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to consolidate the enactments relating to town planning in Scotland." [Town Planning (Scotland) Bill [Lords.]

HOUSING BILL [Lords].
Read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 124.]
HOUSING (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords].
Read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to, be printed. [Bill 125.]
TOWN PLANNING BILL [Lords].
Read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 126.]
TOWN PLANNING (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords].
Read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 127.]
SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

  STANDING COMMITTEE C.
  Mr. WILLIAM NICHOLSON reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee C (added in respect of the Fire Brigade Pensions Bill and the Statutory Gas Companies (Electricity Supply Powers) Bill): Sir Burton Chadwick; and had appointed in substitution: Captain Cazalet.
  Mr. WILLIAM NICHOLSON further reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee C: Secretary Sir William Joynson-Hicks.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS (KITCHEN AND REFRESHMENT ROOMS).
  Special Report from the Select Committee brought up, and read;
  Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 71.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  RENT AND MORTGAGE INTEREST (RESTRICTIONS CONTINUATION) BILL.
  Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Question [11 th March], "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  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 cannot assent to the Second Reading of a Bill which, whilst purporting to continue for a limited period the protection of tenants of dwelling houses, does not amend the Law under which in an increasing number of cases this protection is withdrawn, continues legal sanction for increases in rent no longer justifiable, contains no provisions for simplifying existing legislation in order to reduce litigation, takes no cognisance of the length of time necessary to overcome the housing shortage, and is wholly inadequate to deal with the present situation."—[Mr. Wheatley.]
  Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  Mr. JAMES STEWART: Two weeks ago last Friday we had a remarkable speech made by the Prime Minister, and it was responded to from this side of the House with a great deal of support. The sentiment in that speech touched upon a chord on this side of the House which expressed itself in hearty cheers. He asked the House that we should treat his speech as a gesture towards peace within the country. Outside the House we have had several statements made during the last week, not dealing with the speech, but making some kind of response. Several gentlemen, referring to the situation that now obtains in the country, have declared that the way to get over the difficulty is for the workers to work longer hours and to accept lower wages. Inside the House on the Wednesday following that remarkable speech of the Prime Minister we had the Minister of Health coming forward with his gesture towards peace in the country, and it was to stabilise for 2½ years the conditions that obtained with regard to the rent question and rent control in the country.
  466
  He made a statement that the condition generally does not warrant any change being made in the provisions of the 1920 Act. I think, at least I hope, after reflection he will reconsider the position that he has taken up and make the Bill so that when it comes to be dealt with in Committee Amendments can be moved.
  Take the City of Glasgow with which we are all now pretty familiar in this House. I want to use it as an illustration of what is going on in other parts of the country. We are told by the landlords, by the factors, and by the house-owners that their condition is actually worse than is was prior to 1913–14. The facts are that in 1911 we had 22,000 empty houses in Glasgow, by 1913–14 that number had been reduced to 14,000, and by about the, time of the outbreak of the War it had decreased to 7,000. To-day, in Glasgow, there is, practically speaking, not an empty house, except the few that are kept empty by the will and by the action of the landlords who desire to sell rather than to let. Those 22,000 houses let at an average rent of £10 per annum, so that the landlords then were not receiving in rent £220,000 that they would have received if the houses had been let. But so far as Glasgow is concerned, and I believe the whole of Scotland, where houses or premises are unoccupied the landlord has to pay the owners' rates, and that meant at that time a loss of at least 2s. each house over and above, the rent. If you allow for the decrease that took place in the succeeding years prior to the outbreak of war, he was losing a considerable amount of money in the shape of no rent for unlets. Since 1915 he has not been suffering that loss. Consequently, he is now relatively much better off that he was then.
  Then came the Act of 1920 which we are now discussing and in which power was given to the landlords to increase the rent by 40 per cent., 25 per cent. of which was allowed for repairs. That 25 per cent. meant a, great addition to the landlords of these particular houses. In 1919 the total rental for the houses in Glasgow was £3,316,000; in 1924 it had gone up to £4,880,000, an increase to the landlords of over £1,500,000. The factors, in the case that they made before the recent Rent Commission appointed by the Secretary for Scotland to deal with the situation that obtains in Clydebank, through their representative, Mr. Faulds, justified this

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  25 per cent. increase by saying that their expenditure for last year was £500,000. In the year 1913 they spent £300,000, but the 25 per cent. increase on a rental of £4,880,000 meant that they should have been spending, if they were in the same position as in 1913, considerably over £1,000,000. But according to Mr. Faulds' statement all they spent was £500,000. Therefore, if these factors' figures are correct, it is demonstrated that the property owners have improved their condition very much.
  What has been the position of the tenants during that time? Just after 1920, when the Act was passed, there came the debacle when wages fell. Today in this country it is reckoned, on the most conservative estimate, that so far as the working classes are concerned they are losing annually, as compared with the year 1920, £600,000,000 per annum in wages. [HON. MEMBERS: "More than that!"] I am taking the most conservative estimate, and not those of £800,000,000 or £1,000,000,000. I want to be certain that the figures with regard to this matter will not be contradicted. So they are now in a worse position than they were before in that respect. On the top of the increase of rent there have been concessions made to the landlords and property owners in this country. In a circular, which they have issued to property owners and factors throughout Scotland, they claim that they got the rent limit increased through their efforts in 1919 to £90. They make a further claim that in the year 1922, in the Budget of that year, they got the amount of rent that was deducted in allowance for maintenance charges changed from one-fourth to one-sixth. All that has been added on since 1913, and now they make the claim that they are not in a position to bear any reduction, and the Minister of Health has adopted that argument, and, in spite of the plain facts that the condition of the people generally has become worse, he still stands by that position.
  Now what are repairs? Prior to the War it was a generally recognised custom throughout Scotland, and I daresay England as well, that the papering and painting of the Houses were considered part of the repairs. To-day there is hardly a single owner or factor who will pay for
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  or contribute in any degree towards keeping the house in a condition that he willingly did in the year 1913 or 1911. Between 1911 and 1913, and prior to that time, there was a class of people in all the cities who moved from their house each year, and the factors in those days, to get a new tenant, would paper and paint the house even though it had only been done a year earlier for the tenant who had left. The landlord is saving all that money now. Further than that it is the law that, where the stairs or anything of that kind are dangerous, the factor is responsible, but that is not so in practice. That was the law, and is supposed to be the law, but it is equally true that some of the sheriffs in Glasgow have held that if a tenant knowingly lived where the stairs were dangerous, and if an accident occurred there, the factor or the property owner was not responsible because the tenant had willingly incurred the risk. We have had deaths in Glasgow owing to properties of that kind, and there was no claim against the property owner on account of his property being in such a dangerous condition. These are all things on the side of the factor.
  The Glasgow Corporation in 1921 passed a resolution in favour of the increase of rent, that is the total increase, being only 25 per cent. not 25 per cent. for repairs merely, but 25 per cent. as an equitable increase that would restore the proprietors of property to the position in which they were prior to the outbreak of war. When I come to the question of repairs necessary to put houses into a sanitary condition, I have a few figures. The number of complaints since 1921, with regard to the habitable condition of houses, has been 15,787. The number of houses affected was 8,000 and the sanitary authorities of our city have had, because the proprietors themselves would not bear the expense of repairing the houses, to repair 645. It is evident to me, and I believe to most hon. Members of this House who have considered this matter impartially, that there ought to be a proper investigation into this matter of repairs, and that the Minister, when we come to deal with the Bill, should allow us to amend it in such a way as to enable us in Committee to deal with this situation. Between now and the Committee stage the facts could be inquired into, and if the statements I have made are incorrect, and can be shown by

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  them to be erroneous in any degree, then it is in the Committee that we shall deal with it. If on the other hand the statements are correct, then I have proved beyond doubt that there is room for a reconsideration of this 25 per cent. which is allowed for repairs. When we take into consideration the great amount of money which the property owners are now receiving, which they were losing in 1911, when we consider that they have not got now to pay landlords' rates on empty houses, and that they have cut off these amounts for repairs, maintenance and decorations altogether, then it is established to my mind, and I hope to the mind of the House, that this position is not right.
  The Minister of Health has made a statement with regard to decontrol, and I can believe that he honestly believes it. He said the decontrol had not worked out injuriously. He had investigated the question in 10 large industrial cities, and from four of these he got serious complaints, but on the whole the thing was working well. Again, dealing with Glasgow, may I point out that for the year 1924 there were 1,109 houses in which the rent was increased beyond the legal standard. These are the figures of the City Assessor who, giving evidence before the Commission, said that 1,109 houses had had their rents increased beyond the legal standard. The rents were increased from £1 to £14, the average increase being 10 per cent., and in one case as much as 68 per cent. If you add together the increases of all these rents the total amount comes to a very considerable sum. Then I have here a statement to show that the City Assessor was not revealing anything like the whole of the facts connected with this matter. This morning I got a letter from Glasgow about one house. I admit that you cannot argue that because a thing has happened in one case it is the general rule, but I do honestly believe that this one case can be taken as typical of other oases that have not been revealed. In the aggregate perhaps the number is not very great, but the fact is one which should be taken into consideration in dealing with the question of decontrol.
  In a house in Langside, in a two room and kitchen house, the tenant has just had to pay £45 for key money, and, further than that, the rent has been
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  increased from £32 to £45. Another house on the same property, with the same number of rooms, has had the rent increased £10. All round, so far as Glasgow is concerned, decontrol is taking place. Mr. Steel, the factors' representative on the Committee, stated, when this evidence was being given by Mr. Walker, in the course of a question that he put to him, that he knew of one factor who had houses decontrolled to the number of 3,000. He said that in these cases the rents had not been increased, but I think we may assume that, if one factor is doing that, that that is not the practice generally throughout Glasgow with regard to this particular position. Further than that, the decontrol situation is causing a tremendous amount of unrest. There are cases, as the City Assessor has said, at the moment in which some speculators have come in and bought up property, and are keeping these houses unlet, determined to keep them unlet, to sell them at a price which people will have to pay because of their inability to get a house otherwise.
  It is not correct to say in Glasgow, as the Secretary of Scotland well knows, that building is overtaking the situation so far as housing is concerning. We are getting worse month by month and year by year. Altogether we have built fewer than 6,000 houses in Glasgow between 1919 and December, 1924. Our requirements are 5,000 houses a year. Since 1919 we have built only that number of houses against our annual requirements of at least 5,000. In 1919 we were 57,000 houses short. To-day we are nearly 80,000 houses short, basing our estimate on the figures of 1919. Consequently the power to deal with the situation is getting worse and worse, so far as rents are concerned. In Glasgow the poorer tenants have a rent book. On this the factor marks the rent and the arrears, and the books are made up in many cases in such a way that it is impossible for the tenant to know where he stands with regard to his rent. One of our city magistrates, Bailie Mrs. Barbour, when giving evidence before the Commission, handed up a typical rent-book from Govan. She handed it to Mr. Steel, the factor's representative. He studied that book with a little care and handed it back to Mrs. Barbour with the remark, "If I studied that book from now to next July, I could not read its riddle." They had to get Mr. Walker to

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  undertake the work, and Mr. Walker reported that the position, so far as getting the rent book solved was concerned, was almost impossible.
  The trouble goes right away back to the beginning, and the rent books are in such a condition as to preclude the people from understanding their position. The Sheriff Courts at Glasgow just now are crowded with applications from factors for decrees of eviction. The tenants go into Court with their rent books. They have no lawyer to help them. They are in terror, and they do not understand the books. The consequence is that when they present these books there is no one present who either cares or understands, and I believe that in many cases decrees are being given when if there were a better method of dealing with the situation such things would not occur. The Commission appointed Mr. Gunnison, Lecturer on Social Economics in Glasgow University, to investigate the condition of the tenants. I do not want to weary the House with all that he said, or anything approaching it, but I would state this much. He investigated the condition of 400 tenants. He found that of 258 tenants 14 per cent. had a family income of less than £2 per week, 46 per cent. had less than £3 per week, and some of the families had an income as low as 18s. per week, of which they had to pay 47 per cent. as rent.
  We are pleading with you, for you have the power. We ask that in this new Bill you should put provisions that will enable us to deal with the situation. These people cannot possibly pay the rents. Is it fair that the people who have suffered privations, both in reduction of wages and in reduction or loss of employment, should be called upon to suffer, while property owners are allowed to continue in their safe position. All that we ask is that when this Bill goes to Committee we may be able to consider these questions. The poverty of the people is intense. If the majority of Members of this House would consider the appeal that was made in his recent speech by the Prime Minister, they might come to understand how it is that conditions are brought about that are disastrous in the long run.
  You may crush and you may continue crushing, but some day there comes a
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  terrible convulsion at least, so history teaches us. You cannot expect these people to submit to being evicted, as they are being evicted, to continue starving, as many of them are starving, to undergo the privation that they are undergoing, while the power of this House and all that it contains within itself is thrown into the scale on the side of a favoured class. Why not consider the problem? When the Bill comes to the Committee stage, why not give us a chance of putting our case? If it is wrong, you will turn it down. I hope that the Minister will consider this point, and that in his reply he will indicate that he has widened the Bill in such a way as will enable us to deal with the situation, not only in my own city, but in the industrial parts of Scotland, in the whole of the Clyde Valley. What I have said of Glasgow and the district around, I believe is equally true throughout the whole length of industrial Britain. Therefore I hope that the Minister will concede the demands that we are making.
  Mr. GATES: I do not approach this subject from the point of view of a Glasgow Member, but I wish to say a word or two from the point of view of a Landon Member, and especially from the point of view of one in whose constituency the housing position is somewhat acute. I do not desire for a moment to criticise the decision of the Minister to extend control until Christmas, 1927. Although I look upon State control in all matters of business as an evil, I am bound to confess that in this case it is an inevitable evil until the supply of houses in some degree equals the demand. I wish to emphasise what has been already said, that while the Bill proposes to continue the restriction of rents in favour of tenants, at the same time it has the effect of holding up a great many building schemes for the provision of working-class dwellings. I know of several such cases, the Guinness Trust in particular, where people are unable to continue their beneficent operations because they are unable to get possession of property which is at present covered with worn-out houses.
  There are many cases in my own constituency where streets of houses are practically worn out. It would be very desirable to replace these worn-out houses

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  by modern and up-to-date dwellings. In the present circumstances it, is impossible for the promoters of such schemes to proceed with the work, because they are met with claims under the Rent Restrictions Act. They cannot give the people alternative possession, and so the schemes are hung up. That means that the only places where the Guinness Trust and such trusts can proceed are places where there is vacant land. There is very little of that in my constituency or in most of the constituencies in London. Might I suggest to the Minister of Health, from the municipal point of view, that if he could give the municipal authorities power to house people whom they might be inclined to dispossess for a housing scheme, it would have a very beneficial effect on the re-housing of the people of London. At present borough councils are held up. A street may be bad and the houses rotten. It may be desirable that the houses should be pulled down, but the authorities are utterly unable to proceed because they cannot offer the people housing anywhere else. If they were allowed to put up temporary buildings, or if they had power to hire land for such a, purpose, it would facilitate many municipal schemes.
  May I here thank the Minister for giving us London Members an opportunity of seeing the Weir houses in Grosvenor Gardens? It was a very great advantage for us I have seen those houses, and to know how quickly they could be run up. It seems to me nothing short of a scandal that there should be over a million unemployed, and yet housing schemes are hung up for want of men. The London County Council have had their schemes delayed for a considerable time, simply because they could not get men to proceed with them; money has been voted, but the men could not be obtained. I hope that the Minister will press forward some, further dilution in the building trade, and also proceed with schemes of new construction. I would like to express some measure of sympathy for the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for West, Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson), as I feel that the taking away of the men—
  Mr. SPEAKER: We cannot discuss another Measure on this Bill.
  Mr. GATES: I was only about to refer to an instance in my own borough, where
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  a super-cinema authority had bought out private property, with an agreement as to compensation. The promoters are now proceeding with the work of building this super-cinema, and are employing a great number of men. Yet local authorities cannot get men for building. That is why I wished to express my sympathy with the Bill of the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough. I would also like to support very strongly the view expressed by the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. D. Herbert) with reference to the removal of the restriction on mortgages. I cannot see that the restrictions on rents and mortgages are in pari materia. If the falling in of mortgages is restricted, if the continuation of restriction is affected by this Bill, it necessarily means that many estates on which part of the property is mortgaged are held up and left in the lawyers' hands for a considerable time. That benefits few people except the lawyers. Certainly it does not benefit the tenants. In these clays when, with the advent of a Conservative party to power, there is greater confidence amongst the investing public, I cannot see that there would be any difficulty in arranging for a transfer of such mortgages, as long as money was lent for a good scheme on reasonable terms. I hope the Minister will seriously consider the removal of the restriction on mortgages, regard being paid to Section 14 of the Act of 1923 which, I think, gives ample protection both to the mortgagor and the landlord of the property. Under that Section application can be made to the County Court and, in cases of exceptional hardship, an order may or may not be made as circumstances dictate.
  We have heard a great deal as to the iniquity of the 40 per cent. increase in respect of repairs and such like. I have the misfortune to be the mortgagee in possession of a small working-class estate and I confess I find the cost of repairs to be more than 40 per cent. above the pre-War level. I do not hold myself up as a particularly good landlord, but I think I am not a bad one, and I do not mind telling the House that the interest which I get on my property is 2 per cent., and I expect many other owners of working-class property, who endeavour to do their duty and keep the houses in repair would confirm my statement. I understood the Minister to say he was not

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  prepared to admit any Amendments to this Bill and that the Bill was intended only to continue the restrictions. There are other points which I should like to raise because I have had many letters on this subject. I have had letters, for instance, from people who bought their houses for occupation and who cannot get possession and there are many other cases which I should like to discuss in Committee if it were posible to do so, but if the Minister is going to limit this Bill and make it simply an extension of time Bill I presume an opportunity will come at some other time.
  Mr. STEPHEN: I am sorry the Minister has thought fit to deal with this question in such a limited fashion. With such a big majority behind him and with the opportunity which is afforded to him the Minister should endeavour to introduce a comprehensive Measure which would deal so adequately with this matter, that there would no longer be the continual complaints which we hear in reference to it. The Minister will agree that it is unlikely that we shall have decontrol at the date mentioned in the Bill. It is very unlikely that we are going to have so many houses added to those we have at present, and that this matter will be taken out of its present position, in which the owners are enjoying a monopoly. I hope, even at this late hour, the Minister will agree to make this Measure more comprehensive, and when it goes to Committee that he will allow us to deal with various outstanding points which require to be dealt with now. Speaking as a representative of the West of Scotland I think it possible that we have to face more difficult circumstances in this connection than other Members of the House, and yet, when I was addressing a meeting under the shadow of Windsor Castle recently, and was describing the pitiable conditions of so many of our decent people in Glasgow owing to the fearful housing situation there, I was surprised by an interruption from a member of my audience who said that the same "bughouses" existed under the Shadow of Windsor Castle.
  I put in a plea, first of all, that when the Bill goes to Committee we should have an opportunity to introduce proposals for a reduction of the 40 per cent. increase. In Scotland we have to face a
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  larger increase than 40 per cent. The City Assessor in Glasgow has estimated it at 47 per cent., and while this increase was put on in 1920, when working-class folk were enjoying a rate of wages which made it possible for them to pay it, today they are in very poor circumstances as compared with their circumstances at the time the 1920 Act was passed. There are almost 200,000 houses in Glasgow under the Rent Restrictions Acts, and most of those houses are occupied by members of the working class whose position I have just indicated. I have received some figures from the tenants' representative on the Rents Commission, Bailie Dollan, who informs me that it is estimated that about 200,000 workers have suffered a reduction in wages of about 30s. per week each, which means to say that the people who came within the scope of that Act and who will come within the scope of this Bill have suffered a reduction in wages amounting to over £10,000,000 per annum. I think it is only reasonable when those people have been put into that position that this House should seek to lessen the burdens imposed on them by the permitted increase of rents under the 1920 Act. It is said the increase is necessary to meet the cost of repairs. According to the City Assessor of Glasgow the rent increase is bringing in a sum of almost £1,000,000 per year extra on the houses concerned. If you ask any citizen of Glasgow, has he heard of any houses being repaired since the 1920 Act was passed, he will laugh and tell you that he never heard of such a thing. Figures have been given to suggest that almost £500,000 has been spent in that way, but I question those figures. In no district can one come across anything to show that the property owners or their agents have been dealing with this matter. Members from Glasgow have, from time to time, sought to convey to this House some idea of the need which exists for repairs in connection with houses in Glasgow. I suggest the Minister should allow a Clause to be inserted in this Bill which would give us an opportunity for dealing with the case of the property owners who are seriously making an attempt to keep their houses in condition and also of dealing with those who are merely taking advantage of the permitted increase and are doing nothing in return. On the housing question we have got into a very unfortunate

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  position. In Glasgow there are 191,000 houses which come under this Act, and I make bold to say at least half of them are more than 50 years old, and to-day the rent obtained for those houses is at least 50 per cent. higher than the rent which was obtained when the houses were new.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: It is 60 per cent.
  Mr. STEPHEN: The hon. Member suggests that it is nearer 60 per cent., but I am taking a very moderate estimate. As I say, these houses are more than 50 years old, and because of the way in which the housing question has been mishandled in the past, the owners are able to extort from their tenants this tremendous increase in rent. That is fundamentally unjust, and the present Government is in a good position to remove the injustice. Such an action would redound to their credit, but there is no proposal of that kind in the Bill. The Minister seems to have asked him self: What is the least the country will take without pressure being brought to bear upon me in this matter? I can assure him there will be much more pressure in the future unless we get a better treatment of this question than it has received up to the present. The right hon. Gentleman has suggested that houses have been going out of control and that there has not been such an increase in the rents of those decontrolled houses as would create any public agitation. In the West of Scotland:. it is estimated that the increase on the rents of the decontrolled houses is about 10 per cent. In one case which is mentioned it has gone as high as 68 per cent., and while there has not been an agitation hitherto, that is because so many people who listened to the eloquence of hon. Gentlemen opposite at the General Election were assured that this magnificent and stable Government, whose members were possessed of such great abilities, was really going to deal with this subject in a satisfactory way. When those people know that all they are going to get is a continuation of the present state of affairs, there will be a very much greater agitation on this question than we ever had.
  Therefore, I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider the position and to give the Committee, which will deal with this Bill, an opportunity of intro-
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  ducing improvements. Since I have been in this House I have noticed that a Minister is scarcely ever reasonable or rational enough to take advantage of suggestions proposed, even though they come from his own party, for the improvement of a Measure which he has brought forward himself. We have heard the Minister of Health described as an enterprising man with a big imagination who is going to do a lot to solve the housing problem. I suggest he should make an innovation in this respect and leave some scope to the Committee. He knows that in Committee he has sufficient numbers to ensure that nothing will be included in the Bill of which he is not in favour. The statement certainly cannot be made that in Scotland there has been no agitation in regard to the housing question. The Secretary of Scotland had to appoint a Rents Commission, and he had to get the property owners and factors or agents, on the one hand, and the tenants, on the other, to agree to a truce while the Commission was sitting. The only people to break that truce were the right hon. Gentleman himself and his Lord Advocate.
  The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Sir John Gilmour) indicated dissent.
  5.0 P.M.
  Mr. STEPHEN: The right hon. Gentlemen shakes his head, but I wish to put to the House a situation which has arisen in reference to Clydebank, the centre of so much disturbance. The tenant of a house, an ex-service man, was in the infirmary, and while he was in the infirmary, his wife and children were being evicted from their home, one of the children being an imbecile girl. The ex-soldier heard of this, and although warned by the doctors that it was dangerous in his case to do so, he left the infirmary and put his family back in their house. The town council was so concerned about it that they went to the sheriff and said to him, "Hold this case over, and we will try to get accommodation." They had to go back and say that they could not get accommodation, and then the sheriff said, "We will have to go on with the case." And this defender of his country was sent to prison for 14 days, because he was trying to get a shelter for his wife and family, while the Rent Commission was sitting, and the Secretary for

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  Scotland was assuring us there was going to be a truce. This House has had stirring scenes in the past. There have been ever so many times when the indignation of Members has made a pretty difficult situation. Unless we are going to get something material for the people whom we represent with regard to the burden of rent that they have been called upon to face, there will be no peace in industry so far Is Scotland is concerned. The Prime Minister has become very expert in the pious platitudes in which he has indulged with regard to the possibilities in this country. It is not good enough for him to say, "Give peace in our time, O Lord," if he and his fellow Ministers in regard to those things which so closely affect the lives and welfare of our people in Scotland, are not going to make some concessions to us.
  I hoped that in this Measure we might have had some safeguarding of the rights of the people with regard to the position in which they are put in the matter of the rent books. A representative on the Commission handed up a rent-book, and said he would never be able to find out what arrears they were. When the tenant goes to the factor, the factor says, "You are in arrears. That is enough for you. Get out of this," and, if the tenant presses for a statement, he finds himself in the Sheriff Court, with an action for arrears, and threatened with eviction. The position with regard to these rent-books is intolerable. I have no doubt the right hon. Gentleman himself, if he has not got a big body at his meetings to protect him, will have similar experience to that which we on this side have had, of people shoving the rent-book into his hand, and asking him to tell them how much they are in arrears. I want to point out, further, that, on the authority of the City Assessor of Glasgow. the factors had been breaking the law by not having included in the rent-books a separate statement of the amount of rent and of the amount of rates. Under the Rating Act of 1920, that was necessary, but they do not do it, and, because these people are poor, there seems to be no protection for them whatsoever.
  These is another matter. I think it is time the House should have the opportunity of seeing that this business of premiums is dealt with. A man came to
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  me the other week when I was in my constituency and said, "There are some houses here that are empty, and we could get those houses if we would pay a certain sum, say £10, the amount of arrears left by the previous tenant." I do not think that is fair. Why should an incoming tenant be made responsible for the debts left by a previous tenant, and houses stand empty, because the factors will not let them unless they can get that money? It is very difficult to get exact details in connection with those things, but this is what is going on. I have a cutting here from a paper last week, but in any issue of the Glasgow "Citizen" the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland can get cases that are worthy of investigation. We get this sort of thing—
  "To let. Room and kitchen. Bathroom, hot and cold. Must buy furniture. Factor's consent."
  They must buy the furniture if they get the factor's consent, because, doubtless, he is going to get a commission on the price that is paid for the furniture. The furniture is not real furniture at all, but just so many sticks, and a big price is charged for them, so that a premium is being extorted. Again you have—
  "To Let. Two rooms. Kitchen. Perfect condition. Must buy furniture; all best quality. Factor's consent."
  Here is another—
  "Room, kitchen, £60. Two rooms, kitchen, £75. Furniture."
  And so the business goes on. I put it to the House, you cannot expect anything but discontent; you cannot get anything like peace in our district unless there is an attempt made to meet the people. I submit there is no attempt being made in this Measure to meet the people who are in the most difficult circumstances. This House goes on allowing the factors to get this increase of rent, because they are supposed to do repairs. They do not do them. They will not even do the papering and painting that they used to do. There are thousands of insanitary houses in Glasgow. I had a case last week where a man got a sanitary officer's certificate, but when he went to the Sheriff Court, because he was inexperienced, he was bustled aside, and called upon to pay so much per week, although he had this certificate which entitled him to stop paying. I would suggest that in this Measure you might,

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  at least, protect the people who are in those insanitary houses, condemned as unfit for human habitation. I went in the house about which I was speaking. There were big holes in the floor, and the rats kept running out. On the wall, there was not nice wallpaper with beautiful flowers, but the marks of the beetles that had been killed in their scores by the tenant of that house, and there he was paying about 25s. a month for this rathole, in which he was compelled to stay. Last Sunday, one of my constituents came to me and said, "I am subject to tuberculosis; I got it through my service in the Army. But I cannot get a house; it is so difficult."
  We are face to face with that sort of thing every day. The Minister should be bold in this matter, and reduce the rents. I suggest going back to the 1914 rents for all houses more than 10 years old. Everything else that gets old, except, perhaps, wine and spirit, becomes of less value. I do not know much about wine and spirit, because I have been a total abstainer all my life, but I know that clothes get old, and if you want to dispose of them, or hire them out to somebody, they fetch a much lower price. As regards house property, the Minister might allow a Clause for the rent of houses, and set up a Rent Court. At any rate, let us get some improvement on the present state of matters. Do not let us go on with this petty Measure that is simply going to bring relief to a few people. Let us have some attempt to meet the ease of those people who are living under the hardest circumstances.
  This House goes on with this legislation year after year, always providing so much for the more comfortably circumstanced members of the community. To-day I make a plea for the people who are down and out, for those who gave their service—and there are hundreds and thousands—when the Great War was on, but who to-day are face to face with the threat of eviction from the rotten holes in which they are compelled to live because they cannot even pay for them. Let us have something. I do appeal to the Minister of Health to show some consideration in this respect. Let him bring some measure of hope to the hearts of those people, who, under the most dreadful housing conditions, under a burden of unemployment such as this country has
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  possibly never experienced in its whole history—let him bring some measure of hope, at least, by relieving those people of some of the difficulties they have got to face.
  Mr. RADFORD: I am sure that no Member of the House could have listened to the speeches of the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. Stewart) and the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) without feeling in entire sympathy with them and their constituents who are living in insanitary dwellings. I am sure that in no part of the House is there any sympathy with a bad landlord, and I cannot imagine a worse type of landlord than one who will take advantage of the 40 per cent. increase in rent, to which he is entitled under the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Act, and who takes the extra 40 per cent., and does not do the repairs even on the pre-War scale. I do ask the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health to give serious and favourable consideration in Committee to some provision being inserted to enable—although I will not go so far as the hon. Member for Camlachie—but, at any rate, to enable tenants, who are not having their houses kept in a reasonable and proper state of repair, to go before the County Court Judge, make a statement of their case, and be absolved from the payment of the 40 per cent. increase.
  The other point I wish to make is with regard to the restriction on the calling in of mortgages. The House will remember, when the principal Act was passed in 1920, the financial position of the country was absolutely abnormal. There was a big trade boom, and, possibly, at that time there was a justification for making the provision which was then made, that only 1 per cent. above the standard rate of interest could be received by the mortgagee, and he was absolutely debarred from calling in his mortgage or enforcing his security in any way, provided the interest was paid in 21 days, provided covenants were observed and the property kept in reasonable repair. I submit there is no necessity for the continuance of that proviso. What was a necessity then, possibly, is now an unjustifiable interference with the contractual rights between the two parties. We must not think that the owner who has mortgaged his property is of necessity

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  a comparatively poor person. In my own experience, I have known numbers of very wealthy men who go in for property as a standard form of investment, and always make a practice—at least they did in pre-War days—of investing, say, £1,000 of their own money, and borrowing £2,000 on mortgage, so as to get the proceeds of an investment of £3,000. By that means, they got, possibly, 6 per cent. on their own money, and possibly 2 per cent. on each £1,000 borrowed. I have known within the last two or three years numbers of cases where men owe money in that way and, because the money is cheap to them—they are only paying 1 per cent. over pre-War rates, and in many cases 4½ per cent.—they deliberately invest their money in other directions, so as to retain the cheap money they have from the mortgagees. Lending money on mortgage was always a favourite form of investment for small investors, and there is no doubt eat in many cases at the present time there are numbers of very rich people, property-owners, who owe money on mortgage at less than the real marker rates to people of very much less means than themselves. The only excuse for the continuance of this restriction is that restrictions are being imposed on the property owners of this class of property and that, therefore, they should have some protection in their turn. If the right hon. Gentleman would adapt Section 14 of the Act of 1923, which was to take effect after decontrol had come about, into this Bill. I think it would give ample protection to any person owning this controlled property who was not in a position to pay off the mortgage if it was called in. The provision says
  "The County Court may, on the application of the landlord, make an Order restraining the mortgagee from calling in his mortgage or taking steps for enforcing his security or for recovering the principal money thereby secured, if it is satisfied that such calling in, enforcement or recovery would cause exceptional hardship to the landlord."
  In conclusion, I would say that we all recognise an absolute necessity for this Bill, but the less we interfere with natural laws the better, and I hold that we have rip justification for continuing this one-sided position which has existed during these last five years in which, if the
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  mortgagor, the owner of the property, who owes the money wants to pay off his mortgage, he has a right to do so, but the man to whom the money is owing has no right to call it in. That is an anomalous position, which, I hold, is no longer justified.
  Sir HENRY SLESSER: A part of the Amendment which has been moved expresses regret that no provisions exist for the simplifying of existing legislation in order to reduce litigation, and certain remarks were made on that part of the Amendment by the Minister of Health when the Second Reading of the Bill was under discussion on a previous day. I am very glad to see, however, that the right hon. Gentleman asked:
  "Does it mean a Consolidation Bill? If that is all that. it means, I do not say it would not be possible to consolidate the existing Rent Acts if it were thought to be desirable to take up such time of the House as would be necessary in order to consolidate Bills which are themselves only of a temporary character. But perhaps the right hon. Gentleman means that he could express in better language the provisions of the existing Rent Acts."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th March, 1925: cols. 1368–9, Vol. 181.]
  I am optimistic enough to believe that, if once we were to get to work to consolidate this legislation, in the process of consolidation we might also simplify. I do not think the two things are mutually contradictory, and undoubtedly there has been an enormous amount of litigation arising under this legislation, which, I think, has been caused to a large extent by the extraordinarily confused nature of the various Acts which have been passed by Parliament. I do not mean in any way to blame the draftsmen. I do not know where the blame lies—it may lie with all of us—but the net result has been that we have to-day an extraordinary tangle. and when we consider that this legislation is dealing primarily with poor people, who do not understand law and who, possibly, are not able to consult lawyers, or, if they do, possibly do not consult very competent lawyers—[An HON. MEMBER, "Are not all lawyers competent?"]—I am prepared to assume that they are all competent. At any rate, there has been a needless amount of confusion and doubt.
  There are thousands of people who do not know what their rights are under the Rent Acts, and I cannot agree with the right hon. Gentleman when he says that there is always a lot of talk by lazy people

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  about the difficulties of understanding acts of Parliament. The most industrious people sometimes find a difficulty in understanding Acts of Parliament, and certainly, when you are dealing with the class of people whom this legislation seeks to protect, it is important that the law should be expressed in the clearest possible language. That was the intention when the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1906 was passed in this House, to try to express it in the clearest possible language, and although I agree that that Act, in its turn, led to a great deal of litigation, yet there was, for a long time at least, only one Act on which doubt could be expressed, and that litigation was very largely concerned with questions a medical fact rather than with questions of law. It has been suggested that the confusion in these Acts has been about worked out, but that, I think, is a profound fallacy. I find, in looking at the returns for England and Wales alone—I say nothing about Scotland—
  Mr. BUCHANAN: We do not go to the lawyers in Scotland.
  Sir H. SLESSER: I rather fancy you do, but I have not got the figures. Looking at the figures for England and Wales, for 1923, I find that no fewer than 37,000 summonses were taken out in the- County Courts under the Rent Restrictions Act, and that 23,000 orders for possession were made. Those are all cases really under this Act, and not summonses for possession for non-payment of rent, which are separately stated. So far from the numbers decreasing, I find that they were considerably larger in 1923 than they were in 1922, for they had gone. up from 26,000 odd to 37,000 odd—37,000 cases of summonses taken out in the County Courts of England and Wales under this one Act alone! In regard to appeals, in 1924 no fewer than 31 cases on pure points of law were taken into the Divisional Court on appeal from the County Courts, and 10 into the Court of Appeal, under an Act dealing with cases of poor property—poor, that is, from a financial point of view, where you would not wish to have expensive, cumbersome litigation—and I believe that if it were investigated, it would be found that most of these cases in the Court of Appeal probably cost as much as the value of the house causing the litigation. There has been an increase in the appeals too, and I see that since
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  1920 there have been 135 cases in the Divisional Court and 35 in the Court of Appeal, while three have even gone to the House of Lords, in England am. Wales alone, for this small class of property.
  Therefore, I think there is a case for asking for the simplification of this law. I do not believe there is a single Section of the original Act which has not been modified by references in other Acts. which do not themselves express what the existing law is, or that there is scarcely a. Section of the last Act or the Act before that which you could understand without reference to the principal Act. A man has to go about with three or four Acts of Parliament in his pocket before he knows whether or not he will be allowed to stay in his house. You are dealing here with a. particular class of property owned by poor people. It may be very interesting and very fascinating for owners of large estates to argue nice points about conveyances of real property, but, here we are dealing with a class of property where it is essential that the tenant and the landlord should know their rights in clear and unambiguous language. I do not like this idea that there is so much money, year after year going into the pockets of my particular profession because of this confusion. I do not think it is the intention of Parliament, and it is, certainly, not the desire of the landlords, who very often have to pay costs in any event.
  All that I say in regard to this legislation, which will continue, whether we like it or not, indefinitely—nobody believes that it will end in two years' time—is that the time has now come when we should consider the whole of this legislation and have it consolidated, as far as possible, into one simple Act without references to other Acts. In consolidation we can simplify, we can make clear, we can take account of the decisions already given, and I believe we could avoid a great deal of this enormous amount of litigation which is going on to-day, and give both landlord and tenant, so far as it is possible in any Act of Parliament, a clear idea of what their rights actually are.
  Sir CHARLES OMAN: The previous speakers to-day have been saying a good deal about the wrongs of the tenants and have voiced the dismay which the particular form of this Bill causes to many

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  tenants. I am going to say a few words—and I pledge myself not to speak very long—about the similar dismay that the prolonging of this temporary state of affairs for two years or more causes to tens of thousands of decent, considerate landlords. Nobody will say a word in defence of those slum landlords whose abominable doings have been quoted on the opposite side of the House, but everybody knows that the slum landlord is a very small minority of the landlord class.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: No!
  Sir C. OMAN: You know nothing about your country as a whole though you may know about Clydeside. But taking the majority of landlords over the whole country, I say that the landlords of England who are not concerned with slum areas are—as one of the smallest and humblest of them I wish to speak for them—terribly hit by this enormous prolongation of an unnatural state of affairs. When Dr. Addison first produced his Bill, I pointed out to him the hard cases which this form of legislation would cause among small landlords. He was good enough to inform me that "minorities must suffer," a reply that enraged me at the time and enrages me still. I wish to point out the way in which this prolongation of a temporary state of affairs works. There are, all over England now, a number of decontrolled houses and a number of houses which are still under the Act. Those which are still under the Act are, in many cases, now rented at rates very far below their value, and I will give a few examples which cannot be contradicted. Here is a case of which I know two examples: The invention of the motor has completely changed the value of houses in the countryside. Before the invention of the motor, houses rather remote from the railway station were very valueless. Houses which were let for long leases, e.g. 21 year leases, some 10, 15, or 20 years before the War, because they were remote from railway stations, are now rated at, and cannot get beyond, the valuation of the 1st August, 1914. Meanwhile, owing to the invention of the motor, these 871 to £100 houses, which were then let at rents which brought them under the Act, are worth now to the holder two or three times that rent, because they have ceased to be remote. I
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  am talking of houses with a number of acres attached to them, and outbuildings. I know of two cases where such houses were leased in 1893 and 1895, before the motor came into use, at extraordinarily low rents, simply because they were in those days remote. They are no longer remote, they are large eligible houses, and occupied at the present time by people who pay half what they ought to pay, simply because of this Act. The owners of these houses at the present time appreciate the fact that the invention of the motor has completely changed the value of houses in rural districts. These houses, as I say, are not in the towns, but some little distance from the towns and the Act has therefore, operated extremely hardly on everybody owning houses let on a long lease in the countryside.
  The second point I want to make out is that the landlord has still no redress against the tenant who insists upon stopping in the same house, and lets it in detail to a number of sub-tenants whom the landlord considers to be too numerous for the house. The landlord cannot really compel the tenant to get rid of them. I know plenty of cases where the tenant is making money out of his sub-tenants far more than the rent he himself is paying. It is clear that when the restrictions are taken off, and we get back to the natural operations of political economy, all such abuses will be stopped. Meanwhile, not only does the tenant profit by overcrowding the house, but the landlord is accused of owning overcrowded property! I know cases where landlords have been in negotiation with tenants for fixing a permanent rent, and where the latter have broken off the negotiations, frankly stating that, "As we see that our present rents are now going to be continued for a few years longer, we desire to break off negotiations that have been opened: we are going to enjoy the advantage of the Rent Restrictions Act for another two years." By starting negotiations with the landlord the tenants admitted that they knew perfectly well that the houses were worth more than the rent the landlords were getting. There is here, undoubtedly, a real grievance of the landlord, and if the Government goes on continuing this system and putting cm two years, and two years, and two years, that grievance is apparently to become

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  permanent. Everyone concerned and affected by War legislation, the railway companies, the bakers, and others are now free from it—all except the unfortunate small landlord. I beg the Government to try to remember that he, too, is not an undeserving being.
  Mr. FENBY: In taking part in this Debate I desire to suggest that in my opinion the primary duty of the Minister of Health is to provide increased shelter, and that the provision of increased shelter will make less necessary the continuation for other two or live years of a Bill like that which we now have before us. In face, however, of the hard facts with which we are acquainted, there is no hope that very speedily, at any rate, that increased shelter, which we all agree it is the primary duty to the Minister to -supply, will be provided as quickly as we should desire. That being the case, it seems to me that the second primary duty of the Minister is to give increased security. There is a good dead of nervousness. I should like to emphasise that as being the representative of a City constituency. I am continually having appeals as to what is going to happen in regard to the Rent Restrictions Act. Another thing that is pointed out to roe—if I may say so with all respect—for it is a point of view with which I entirely agree—is that the question of the pro—vision of new shelter by way of new houses or greater security by the extension of the Rent Restrictions Act clearly are tot party political questions, and are not subjects merely for debating points. The people in my constituency, I take it, are typical of other City constituencies, and what they want is the provision of houses. They are not concerned as to what party may have the credit of providing them. They are only concerned that they may have the increased shelter.
  We have had the Conservative Government, and we have had the Socialist Government dealing with this matter. I take it that the country, and I sincerely hope every Member of this House, is concerned, first of all with the fact that this question is a great human question dealing with the welfare of the men, women and children of the country. I should like to go back to an earlier point, and to appeal to the House and to the Minister in particular, to continue the provisions of the Rent Restrictions Acts
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  of 1920 and 1923 for a longer period than that mentioned in the Bill now before us. After all, these questions and other similar questions are a legacy of the War, end we have to deal with them on the highest possible grounds that we can do. I am sorry that the Minister of Health is not present, for in reading the opening sentences of his speech on the beginning of this Debate on the Second Reading on 11th March I was sorry to see, and I repeat it, that he went out of his way to be unduly provocative to hon. Members sitting above the Gangway on this side of the House. That is something we ought to avoid if we possibly can. If I may say so, the party with which I am associated has set a good example in that respect in trying to be civil to the other parties in the House. As I say, I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman went out of his way, and I would repeat the appeal to keep this matter clear of party, because, after all, whatever aim we have in this matter and towards solving of this very difficult problem, certainly it is the bounden duty of every Member of this House to assist all he can. I was sorry to see the Minister made another remark on 11th March, and that was to the effect that, provided the period mentioned in the Bill before the House was not long enough, that the Act could be brought under the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. I say in the presence of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health that that is going to increase the insecurity that people feel to-day with regard to shelter. I should hope that the Minister will strike out of his programme altogether any idea that after 1927, or whatever the date may be, that the Act is to come under the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. I would suggest rather that we should have a definitely period of a lengthy character. What would please me most would be that the period should be sufficiently long that it would remove it far beyond the next election. Then there would be no opportunity for any hon. Member to make election points, or from the point of view of the candidate who says: "If you give my party the opportunity we will see that the thing is done." We have the opportunity now. We are not seeking any electoral advantage at the present time. It is our duty to put this matter far beyond any pos-

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  sibility of dispute even at the next election.
  There is another feeling, that of insecurity, to which I wish to refer. The right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir H. Slesser), speaking a while ago from the Front Opposition Bench, said something about the lack of understanding of and the lack of information about the actual provisions in the legislation we have passed in regard to rent restriction. I could give one or two instances on this point, and illustrating what I mean by insecurity. The one is the case of a boarding-house keeper at the seaside, and there are scores of instances like it up and down the country. Before the Act was passed his rent was £60 a year, and he felt reasonably secure. After the 40 per cent increase was allowed by the Act it took him outside, so he thought, and he has since feared that he might be turned out at any moment. I am informed that that is not so. Yet some of these implications of the Act are not well known. There seems to be no authoritative information officially on the subject, and there is a feeling of insecurity. I want to appeal to the Government that the only remedy in these matters is to increase the number of houses, so as to do away with the feeling of insecurity as to shelter. I should like the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health to take a long view, and to extend the terms of the Act to a much longer period than at present proposed.
  Sir FREDRIC WISE: I do not propose to follow the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. Fenby) who has just sat down, for I feel that to reply to what he has said is quite safe in the hands of the Government. I propose to take up a different point of view, and that is the point of view made in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley) when he spoke on this matter on 11th March. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman is not here, but no doubt hon. Members on the Front Bench opposite will be able to advise him of the points I raise in regard to his statement in reference to the bank rate and the financiers. The right hon. Member for Shettleston replying to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health said:
  "He knows that within the past fortnight one of the greatest difficulties towards
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  solving this problem has been put in his way by the bankers of the City of London. He knows, as probably no one else in the House knows, that the raising of the bank rate by one per cent. means an addition of something in the neighbourhood of £3 per annum to the annual rents of the small dwelling houses which it is his business to provide, and that in fact by that stroke of the pen the financiers of the country have put a burden on new houses."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th March, 1925; col, 1374, Vol. 181.]
  I will endeavour to explain to the right hon. Member for Shettleston that it is not the bankers of the City of London and it is not the financiers who really raise the Bank Rate. The Bank Rate was raised on the 5th March, after it had been at 4 per cent. since August, 1923. To understand the real meaning of the raising of the Bank Rate it is necessary to realise what the international money market is, because the raising of the Bank Rate is dependent to a very large extent on the international money market of the world. There are really only two international money markets, one in Great Britain and one in the United States of America, or perhaps I should say in London and in New York. New York, as hon. Members may remember, had a financial crisis in 1907, and after it she re-organised her financial banks and created what were called Federal Reserve Banks. The real organisation had not been completed when war broke out, but to-day it is completed. In each of the big cities of the United States of America there is one of these Federal Reserve Banks, which control and regulate the money in those cities subject to supply and demand. Previous to the raising of the Bank Rate the rate in the New York Federal Bank was 3 per cent., in Boston 4 per cent., in Chicago 5 per cent. The New York Federal Bank raised its rate to 3½, per cent. on 26th February, and that raised our rate here. Why? The New York rate was raised simply on account of supply and demand, and if the senior Member for the City of London (Mr. E. C. Grenfell) were here, I think he would agree with me that the New York rate should never have been at 3 per cent. Money in New York was always 3½ per cent., and if it had remained at 3½ per cent. we in this country might have got through with the Bank Rate at 4 per cent., at which it stood prior to being raised to 5 per cent. on 5th March. It is a question of supply and

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  demand, whether in the United States or in this country.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Shettleston may say "Why should we raise our rate here?" The world is really a financial unit, and we are dependent on outsiders. We have here the Bank of England rate and the money market rate. We are not dependent on the financiers of the City of London to regulate that rate, it is a question of supply and demand. The bank rate was raised to 5 per cert., but the money market rate is below that; at the present time it is about 3¾ per cent. to 4¼ per cent. Let us remember that the New York bank rate is a minimum rate, whereas ours is a maximum rate. It is the money market where the chief business in money is done, through the joint stock banks, the discount houses, the bill brokers, the Stock Exchange, and the merchant bankers; they regulate the money market, and anybody who deals in money must understand that they get it literally at the supply and demand rate, which is not subject to the financiers of the City of London. I have no brief for the financiers of the City of London, and I only say this because, when. I heard the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Shettleston, I was flabbergasted to think—
  Mr. DEPUTY - SPEAKER (Captain FitzRoy): I think the hon. Member is getting rather remote from the Bill.
  Sir F. WISE: I was only endeavouring to reply to the right hon. Gentleman, and it is very hard to reply unless one realises that the financial position in regard to money is a world unit What will be the effect if the rate has not been raised? In an article in the financial columns of the "Times" it is stated that it is estimated that there is from £30,000,000 to 235,000,000, and up to £40,000,000, of American money in this country. If the bank rate had not been raised, that money would have left this country, and what would have been the position of housing then, what would have been the position of the right hon. Member for Shettleston's Housing Act.
  If the bank rate had not been raised, I contend that housing would have been even more costly than it is at the present time. There would have been a crisis. We have had crises before in this country. In 1847 we had what was called the
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  "potato crisis," because of a famine in Ireland. Why was this? Because we had to send bullion abroad to pay for our commodities. These crises appear most suddenly, and when they are least expected. We have lad other crises since then, and if the bank rate had not been raised I contend that we should have had a crisis in the money market through the flow of money from this country to America, and in that way our reserve would have gone down and our liabilities would have gone up. The exchange would have gone against this country, and everything would have been more chaotic and more expensive than it is at the present time. We know that a large amount of material for houses is bought abroad. What would have been the position? It would have cost more to buy bricks in Belgium, because of the Tall in the rate of exchange. If the right hon. Gentleman had realised the position as the financiers of this country realised that they have not got the control which he thinks they have, I feel confident he would never have made that statement.
  There is another hon. Member who is very anxious about the bank rate, and that is the hon. Member for Plaistow (Mr. W. Thorne). He referred to it in a question recently, and in supplementary question stated that, he had read an article by a man who knew all about the money market and the bank rate, and mentioned the name of Major Barnes. I have nothing against Major Barnes, I know him, but he is not a financial man—he is an architect. There are certain people who are not in finance who seem to think that if they have a shilling in one pocket and a rouble in the other they understand international finance. I wish the hon. Member for Plaistow when he is in a difficulty with regard to the, bank rate would consult the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) or the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. W. Graham), from whom he would get good advice. I think it is absolutely wrong for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Shettleston to say that it is the bankers or financiers of the City of London who control the bank rate; it is simply a matter of supply and demand.
  Mr. ARTHUR GREENWOOD: I should like first of all to apologise to the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney-General for the absence of my right hon. Friend the

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  Member for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley), who is unavoidably absent from this Debate. I have listened to this Debate to-day, and on the previous occasion when this Bill was under discussion, and I have not heard from hon. Members opposite any real defence of the Bill. The Minister of Health's speech was a plaintive plea for accepting the line of least resistance. He did not even pretend to believe that the Rent Restriction Acts were satisfactory, indeed, he believed *hey might with advantage be amended, but he said "Let us leave things as they are, let us do as little as we can." This is virtually a proposal for continuing things as they are now, whilst the stealthy process of decontrol is allowed to go on side by side with it. The right hon. Gentleman says, "If at the end of the period when the Bill expires there is still need for a further measure of control, the Bill is so drafted that it can be continued under the Expiring Laws Continuance Act." He did not say it would be continued; he said it was so drafted that it could be, and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, in his speech, regarded that as an obviously desirable and reasonable way of dealing with the matter. It may be true that to put it in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill at the end of two-and-a-half years is better than nothing, but it is a most unsatisfactory and not at all a desirable way of dealing with it. We know very well that if it is in that Bill there can be no amendment of it, and the chances are that there will be no real opportunity for discussion, and as one of the hon. Members for Glasgow pointed out, we shall perpetuate the, uncertainty which now prevails in the minds of both landlords and tenants.
  The Parliamentary Secretary attempted to make a debating point by referring to the Housing Bill of last year, and he was subjected to a little interruption from this side. His point was, that because the rents to be calculated under tin-Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1924, were to bear a relation to existing rents, therefore, the Government last year regarded that level of rents as being perfectly satisfactory. That, of course, is not the case. It is perfectly obvious that if we have to calculate rents for houses built under that Act, they must be calculated with regard to some
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  standard of existing rents, whether we approve of that standard or whether we do not, and it would obviously have been impracticable to say that the appropriate normal rents shall not be the rents now prevailing but the rents that might prevail at some future time. It was perfectly clear to the House last year that my right hon. Friend, who was then Minister of Health, never by any words of his admitted his belief that 40 per cent. was a reasonable increase, for he has always held it was unreasonable.
  6.0 P.M.
  I think I have heard all the speeches made by Members of the Conservative party in this Debate, and taking them all together I think they indicate a deplorable state of mind in the Conservative party. There has not been one whole hearted speech in support of the Bill from hon. Members opposite with the exception of the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary. Obviously they do not want the Bill, and they would like decontrol to come instantly. Hon. Members opposite believe not only that the 40 per cent. is not too high but too low, and they would like to get rid of every shred of control, and they are looking forward to the day when that will happen.
  We have heard something about the Minister of Health and his large majority, but surely he is dragging into the Lobby hon. Members who are really unwilling to go with him so far as this Bill goes. The Government is compromising one of its most vital principles. The logical course for the Government to pursue would be to abolish control of rents altogether and let the free play of competition and the law of supply and demand operate for a period of years in order to fill the pockets of the landlords and those who build houses. The facts, however, have been far too strong, and this theory of abolishing control which is so strongly held by the Members of the party opposite has to be pushed into the background because of the absolute necessity under existing circumstances of doing something to regulate rents, evictions and so forth.
  The Government and the previous Conservative Government, and indeed all Governments who have had to deal with this question on general lines, have lacked the courage to take the full logical steps for dealing with control,

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  and the result is that we have now the unsatisfactory proposal which is in front of us, and which is neither real control nor a cessation of control. We have had from the Minister of Health no explanation as to why he has chosen a period of two-and-a-half years for England and three years for Scotland, which seems to me to be an injustice to England. Why two-and-a-half years? The Minister has never explained this point. Last year in this House the Minister of Health said that
  "this period of control, if it be extended, should be extended long enough to make it unnecessary to extend it again."
  Those were the words he used last year. Is the right hon. Gentleman now fulfilling that good advice which ho offered to others in the Bill that is now before the House? I feel confident in saying that there is no Member of the House who believes that at the expiration of the period fixed by this Bill there will be decontrol of houses. Our view is that there should be control so long as the tenant is virtually tied to his present house, and so long as there is no alternative accommodation for him of a reasonable kind; that is to say, the tenant should not be driven, as he is to-day, to choose between the house he has now and one that is probably worse or as bad. He should have a reasonable choice, and then there will be some real freedom for the tenant.
  As things are at present, the so-called alternative accommodation, whenever it arises is for the most part accommodation of the kind which is as bad as, or perhaps worse than, the accommodation he has at the present time. There is no reason to believe that at the end of two-and-a-half year's time there will be any prospect of tenants being able to leave the houses they are in to-day if they so wish. All this is borne out by the particulars from nearly all our large towns of the number of applicants for houses. Since the passing of the Act of 1920, where applications have been received the figures go to show that from that time to this there has not been such a decrease in the number of applicants for houses as to warrant us in believing that in the next two-and-a-half years they are going to vanish, and result in a normal situation. Many figures could be quoted to this House. We believe that the period
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  ought to be longer than two-and-a-half years.
  As regards the question of rents, that subject has already been raised by several hon. Members on the Labour Benches. No attempt whatever has been made by the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary to justify the continuance of the 40 per cent. increase. Many reasons have been adduced why that 40 per cent. should be reduced, and no case has been made out for the policy of no change. It is admitted that in 1920 the costs were higher and wages were relatively higher. The situation to-day is far different, because the costs are down and wages are down very substantially.
  The argument is that the cost of repairs is still substantial, and yet it is generally admitted that the landlords are not carrying out the repairs they were required to carry out by the law of the land. During the election a leaflet was circulated by the Conservative party, and one of the items in it was moderate rents. The rents which now obtain, even if they were moderate in 1920, are at present excessive, having regard to the fall in prices, and to the serious impoverishment that has taken place amongst working people. The Act of 1923 inaugurated a system of decontrol by the back door. It was unfair because of the plight of the tenants. The learned Attorney-General, speaking on the Bill of 1923, said, in reply to a speech from this side:
  "The hon. Member for Seaham was, however, quite right when he said that one result of this Bill would be that houses would be decontrolled more quickly than if the 1920 Act had continued unamended. They will be decontrolled very quickly and that is one of the strongest arguments in our view in favour of the Bill."
  What has been the effect of that Bill? So far as I know, the Minister has not got the necessary information. The right hon. Gentleman quoted a letter from a surveyor during his speech in moving the Second Reading of the Bill which at least throws some light on this question, because the surveyor whose letter he read pointed out that one effect of the Act of 1923 was that it had been instrumental in bringing "a large number of houses into the market to be let." How many have been decontrolled? Apparently the Minister does not know what are the

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  rents of the decontrolled houses. The Minister does not appear to know except in a few isolated cases.
  The rents of houses that have been decontrolled as a result of the Bill of 1923 throw a little light upon the reason why decontrol is so urgently desired by hon. Members opposite. In Bradford I am informed where houses have been decontrolled "the rents have practically been doubled." In Bristol "the rents have been inflated enormously." In one case, writes a correspondent from Bristol, it came to my notice that a house has been let at 17s. per week, which was 4s. 6d. pre-War. In Manchester many similar increases have taken place. Mr. Ernest Simon, who was a Member of this House in the last Parliament, writing in one of the monthly journals last year, referred to a return which had been made by the overseers in Manchester from which he gave "specimen cases of decontrolled rents." Mr. Simon quoted the cases of "seven houses which on a change of tenancy have come out of control, and in these cases the net rents paid for these houses vary from 84 per cent. to 195 per cent. of an increase above pre-War rents as against the permitted increase of 40 per cent. for controlled houses. The average increase for the whole of those seven houses was 136 per cent. or more than three times the increase allowed under the Rent Restrictions Act."
  I have had numerous reports from other centres of population as to the effect of automatic decontrol on the rents of the houses. Since I came into this House to-day I have heard of a house in the constituency of the learned Attorney-General which was let at 22s. a week, which has now been taken on a seven years' lease for £1,700, plus £100 premium. In the constituency represented by the Minister of Health there are cases of houses where the rent has gone up to an amount which suggests the grossest form of profiteering. I am informed that there is a house in Anglesey Street, in the Birmingham district, where the controlled rent was 8s. 6d. and the rent of that house now is El per week, and the tenant has to do his own repairs. In the same district I am told there is a house in Carpenter's Road where the controlled rent was 7s. 6d. and the decontrolled rent is 15s. per week, the tenant having to do the repairs
  Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: Can the hon. Gentleman inform the House whether there are any sub-tenants in those houses?
  Mr. GREENWOOD: I will give the hon. and gallant Member some particulars about sub-tenants in a moment or two.
  Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: The examples which the hon. Gentleman has given to the House are perfectly useless unless he can say that there are no subtenants in those houses.
  Mr. GREENWOOD: The tables from which I am quoting, I understand, apply to working-class houses of the smaller type. I have some eases where there is sub-letting, and I will give those figures to the House in a moment. I have a case at Bartley Green where the rent of a controlled house was 6s. 6d. and the decontrolled rent is 16s. per week. Hon. Members opposite have always shown a tenderness towards sub-tenants which they have never shown to other Tenants. If there be any grievances with regard to sub-tenants, why does the right hon. Gentleman not do something for them in his Bill? We should be very glad if he would do something in this direction. There is no doubt whatever that there is profiteering on the part of tenants who sub-let. Let that be admitted, and we would not defend it. I have particulars from Birmingham of a number of houses, but I will only give one or two cases. In one case the rent paid to the owner of the house is £90 15s. per year, and he receives, on the pretext largely that they are furnished rooms, £319 16s. per year. This is a 12-roomed house, with 12 families living in it, where the main tenant is paying about £7 10s. per room as rent, and where he is extorting from the sub-tenants a rent of about £26 15s. per room. In another house, where the main tenant is paying a rent of £33 5s., he is receiving, from those who live in the house, £185 18s. per year. If that be injustice, I think the right hon. Gentleman ought to have done a little more than bring in merely a continuation Bill, and I hope hon. Members opposite, whose hearts are so full of the troubles of sub-tenants, will support us in the Lobby in their interests.
  The truth is that hon. Members opposite are a little over-anxious to get rid of control. They were too previous.

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  before, and they are again. The Parliamentary Secretary—I am reading this from a report—in a paper which he read at the Law Society's meeting at Leeds on the 26th September, 1922, said:
  "Parliament should as speedily as possible repeal the Statute dealing with rent restrictions entirely, but should continue to afford certain protection till, say, 1924, while making various curtailments and modifications with the object of terminating the whole Measure in that year."
  That was the view of the Parliamentary Secretary two years ago. He was wrong, and he has had to come forward this year, with the Minister of Health, with a Measure for a further 2½ years. He will be wrong again. The Minister of Health, speaking in support of his Measure of 1923, said:
  "Unless control comes to an end, private enterprise will not function freely."
  That, it seems to me, is what really lies behind the minds of members of the Government in bringing in this short-period Bill. They are allowing their doctrinaire individualism to trample on the interests of masses of working people.
  Mr. HOPKINSON: What about doctrinaire Socialism?
  Mr. GREENWOOD: There are no worse doctrinaires than doctrinaire individualists. There are no doctrinaire Socialists; the doctrinaires are to be found among those people who rigidly adhere to principles which are becoming no longer applicable to modern conditions. They are anxious to bring back again perfect free play of competition in house building and in house letting, and to reestablish private enterprise; and they are prepared to do it hastily, even though, apparently, it may mean some injury to working people. I would ask the Minister of Health whether it is not possible to broaden the basis of his Bill. The Prime Minister—I quote from a Conservative leaflet, No. 2507, which is a large number—said:
  "When the Unionist party is returned to power, one of fie first duties of the Minister of Health will be to review the whole rent situation in the light of existing circumstances."
  I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman has come to the House with a Bill with-cut having considered the whole rent situation, with a desire to take the least possible trouble over what is, undoubtedly,
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  a very difficult situation. Nobody would be more pleased than I if I never heard the words "rent restriction" again. I dislike the subject. It is a difficult subject; it has been a worry, I feel quite sure, to the right hon. Gentleman and to everyone who has ever had anything to do with it. But, at the same time, it is so absolutely indispensable for the comfort and the amenity of working people, that I think we have a right to ask that, so long as present circumstances continue, so long as there is a possibility of their continuing, so long should we legislate, and legislate in a generous and whole-hearted fashion; and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether it is not possible to be a little bolder and a little more courageous, and not to confine himself to the narrow, small point of mere continuance of his Measure.
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Douglas Hogg): My right hon. Friend the Minister of Health, when he introduced this Measure a fortnight since, expressed an expectation that the opportunity would be taken by Members opposite of explaining to the tenants, from whom they hope one day to obtain votes, how much more they are their Friends now than they were a year ago when they were in office. My right hon. Friend has not been disappointed. I have listened to the Debate, both on the last occasion and this afternoon, and I think that one of its remarkable features has been that, so far as I have noted, there has been no one who has been able to speak against the contents of the Bill. A number of hon. Members have spoken in favour of some other Bill, but there has been no one, certainly on the Opposition benches, who has ventured to say that the proposal which we make is not a right one in itself, although there may be others which they would desire in addition.
  We heard on the last occasion, from the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson), praise of his suggestions for the compulsory hiring of empty houses—a foster-child for which he has more than the affection of a natural parent. We heard from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley) an attack upon those whom he described as the public robbers, by which I understood him to mean the Bank of England, because they had raised

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  the Bank rate; and the right hon. Gentleman was good enough to assert, without any calculations to prove it, that 1 per cent. on the Bank rate was the samething, as regards increasing rents of houses, as a 50 per cent. increase of wages. No expert can even understand what possible figures the right hon. Gentleman can have in his mind. So far as any competent person is able to judge, the rise in the Bank rate has not affected by one farthing the cost of building houses, especially houses of this character, which are financed largely by loans under Local Loans Acts, and which are financed at exactly the same rate to-day as they were three weeks ago. But per- haps the right hon. Gentleman did not think it necessary to give figures for experts; his appeal was to a wider public—to a, public which does not quite understand what the Bank rate is, and which is easily persuaded that it is being unfairly treated, if the assertion is made with a sufficient show of authority. It was, no doubt, the right hon. Gentleman's contribution to that good will of which we heard from the Opposition benches this afternoon.
  We have heard this afternoon from certain Members from Glasgow. We often hear from Members from Glasgow on this subject. We had a sympathetic and careful speech from the hon. Member for the St. Rollox Division (Mr. J. Stewart), and a characteristic speech from the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen)—I am sorry he is not here to hear me answer him. We learned from the first of these two speeches that Glasgow was so mismanaged by its City Council that the Council had wholly failed in its duty of trying to provide more houses. That speech ought to have been made on the proposal to extend the boundaries of Glasgow a fortnight ago. We heard that the property owners in Glasgow were so much better off than they were before the War because their rents had been increased by 40 per cent. and because there were very few empty houses. I did not notice any reference to the number of people who will not pay any rent at all in Glasgow, which may, perhaps, make rather a different result in their balance sheet.
  Mr. WESTWOOD: Clydebank is not Glasgow.
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Fortunately, Glasgow is not Clydebank yet. But I am anxious, as far as possible, not to discuss the particular local conditions in Glasgow, for the reason that, as the House knows, there has been, and is still, I think, sitting, although the evidence is concluded, a Commission of Inquiry to ascertain the facts and make recommendations with regard to the condition of affairs in that area.; and I think it would be a pity to make their task more difficult by venturing to discuss those peculiar local problems until we have their findings and their recommendations.
  From the hon. Member for Camlachie there came what he described as an appeal to my right hon. Friend. In fact, he called it an appeal several times; but it was rather the appeal of the gentleman with a, pistol than the minister of the Gospel. We were told that, if we did not respond to the appeal, there would be, he would see to it, such an agitation as had never been known, and the people would be roused to a sense of their wrongs and to taking violent measures to redress them. So powerful was the. hon. Member, so convincing in his description of the injustices which were being committed. so dramatic was his picture of the unfortunate tenant for whom no repairs were done, but from whom the full increase of rent was exacted, that he misled my hon. Friend the Member for South Salford (Mr. Radford), who followed immediately with an appeal to the Minister of Health that power should be given by this Bill to the County Court Judge, if the tenant found that the repairs were not being done, to suspend the increase of rent. May I reassure my hon. Friend? If he looks at the Act of 1920, he will find that precisely that power is given in Section 2, and if he looks at the Act of 1923, he will find that it is extended so that, instead of the tenant having to make an, application, under the existing law, if any action is brought by the landlord to try and enforce the increase of rent, the tenant can raise by way of defence the fact that the repairs for which the landlord is liable have not been done. So that the position which the hon. Member for Camlachie induced my hon. Friend to think requires rectification has been completely covered during the last five years. [Interruption.] I am trying to deal with argument and not with interruption.

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  Then came a speech from the late Solicitor - General. He confined his speech to an appeal for the simplification of these Rent Restriction Acts. I think he was almost the only speaker who developed that Clause in the Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Shettleston moved. I rather gathered from his speech that the right hon. Gentleman had not himself been very sure what the Clause meant, and that my hon. and learned Friend had to listen to the speech of the Minister of Health in order to find out what it really did mean. The illustrations which the hon. and learned Gentleman gave did not, to my mind, carry that conviction which he anticipated. He told us that there had been 37,000 eases in the last year, in which at least 23,000 orders for possession were made, if I followed his figures correctly, and he said there had at the same time been 31 appeals to the Divisional Courts. I wonder in what class of litigation it can be said the appeals average something like one-tenth of 1 per cent. of the cases. It would seem to indicate, if those figures are right, that so far from simplification being needed in these Acts, they have reached a stage of certainty which very little of the law can entertain and, in fact, he knows, I am sure, as I do, that the only effect of altering a thing which has been the subject of repeated judicial consideration will be to induce the Courts to say, Parliament must have meant to make a change in the meaning since it has used a change in the language, and it would provide a very useful income to a large number of members of the junior Bar in assisting the Judges to understand what that change meant.
  Sir H. SLESSER: That would not apply in the case of consolidation.
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: If there was mere codification and consolidation without change of language that would not apply, but then there would be no advantage, because you would not be changing the words. But if, on the other hand, you are going to simplify the language, which is, as I understand, the proposal, that presumably means to alter it, and the moment you alter the language you will produce a flood of litigation in order to ascertain what the words mean. We have a striking instance of that in the Workmen's
  506
  Compensation Act, 1906, which altered the 1897 position and which, as the hon. and learned Gentleman knows so well, was invaluable to the Bar but was not quite so gratefully received either by employers or by workmen.
  There came also a criticism, from, think, mainly the benches on this side of the House, against the proposal to allow the provisions as to mortgages to continue unaltered. I should like to say for myself that I regarded that appeal with a considerable amount of sympathy, because I know there are cases where it has been impossible to wind up estates as quickly as they should have been by reason of the fact that the mortgages could not be called in, but there are two considerations which, in my judgment, and I think in the judgment of my right hon. Friend, render it inadvisable to make the alteration that is suggested. The first is that, although it true enough that mortgages can be raised at a fairly reasonable rate, I think it is at least doubtful whether it would be easy to replace mortgages on weekly property, certainly on restricted weekly property, and, secondly, my hon. Friend will realise that if once we commence making alterations in these Acts in either direction it would be quite impossible to resist applications to make alterations in other directions. The result is that, if you once opened the floodgates, you would produce an immense volume of discussion and an uncertain amount of change, and you would do a very great deal of harm to the interests of those who have house property to deal with, and of those who have to live in house property of this description. So that reluctantly I say it has been deliberately the view of the Government that any change would be inadvisable, and the only practical way of dealing with the situation is merely to continue the existing law for a limited period, but to do it in such a way that if it should unfortunately be necessary we can make a further continuation later on.
  Then there was a speech by the hon. Member for East Bradford (Mr. Fenby) who protested against the provocative language of the Minister of Health. I think it is almost the first time I have heard my right hon. Friend described as provocative. I wonder whether the hon. Member heard the speech from the right

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  hon. Gentleman the Member for Shettle-stone or the speech of the hon. Member for Camlachie when he regarded the language used by the Minister of Health as provocative. He was anxious that the question of Rent Restriction should be removed from the sphere of party politics—a most pious wish. I wonder if he could persuade the other Opposition to share it. He expressed the desire that the extension should be for more than the two and a half years which is proposed so that, as he said, the question should be taken beyond the date of the next election. I can understand that hon. Members sitting on the Liberal benches have always rather an unhappy recollection of what may happen to people who have to make election promises about controversial topics, and it may well be that Liberal Members would be anxious that there should be as few memories as possible aroused at election time. But it is not from the point of view of elections that we are trying to deal with this problem. We are trying to deal with what we regard as a real and immediate need, and we are trying to deal with it in a way which will do the least harm and the most good to those whose interests we are trying to preserve. We have been faced in this House with attacks for things we have not done. We have been faced outside the House with all sorts of misrepresentations as to what we are proposing to do. Far instance, although no hon. Member on the Socialist Benches has suggested that there is anything wrong in this Bill except that it does not do enough, we find in the Socialist Press this sort of headline:
  "Tory Measure to extort cash from Workers."
  That is the "Daily Herald." I understand I rightly describe it as a Socialist organ. It goes on to give what is described as an interview with Mr. Mardy Jones, M.P. The hon. Member made a speech on the last occasion, but he never made any of the statements contained in this interview. I hope this is only an instance of how little one can rely on the accuracy of the Socialist Press:
  "Interview with the 'Daily Herald' by Mardy Jones, M.P. This Bill will put millions of pounds of extortion money into the pockets of the host of unscrupulous landlords."
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  I give that as an instance of the sort of misrepresentation which is designedly made by newspapers, at any rate outside the House of Commons, in order to mislead the tenants whose votes the Socialist party one day hope to cater for, because whatever else is clear, this Bill cannot put one farthing or cash into the pockets of any landlord, scrupulous or unscrupulous. If this Bill does not become law, as we hope it very soon will, the only result will be that after 30th June next rent control, as we know it to-day, will cease and landlords will be able to raise their rents. The object of this Bill is to continue the existing control for at least two and a-half years, and s, to prevent such a raising of rents; and, therefore, it is a wicked misstatement to say that the Bill will put millions of pounds of extortion money into the pockets of the landlords or that this is a Tory Measure to extort cash from the workers.
  The late Under-Secretary for Health challenged the party to which I am proud to belong on what he called their inconsistency. Said he: "They do not like control, they believe control is a bad thing, and therefore they ought not to vote in favour of this Second Reading." In a measure the hon. Member is right. I do not like control. I think it would be far better if our housing conditions were such that control was not necessary. But I recognise, my right hon. Friend recognises, and my party recognise, that in existing conditions some measure of control is necessary until the housing problem has been more successfully overcome and there is nothing illogical in our saying at the same time that we regard control as a mischievous thing that ought to be stopped as soon as it properly can, but that until the existing housing shortage has been dealt with it is impossible to get rid of that mischievous control. That is the attitude of the Government. Assuming that one is right in saying that control ought to be ended as soon as it properly can, but that it cannot be ended until the housing problem has been dealt with, how ought one to approach the question of decontrol? Hon. Members opposite have, with one accord, made an attack upon the Government because of the provisions in the 1923 Act., which they did not alter when they were in office, under which gradually such houses as came back into the possession of the landlord ceased to be controlled.

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  That is a matter that has been considered by Committees. There are probably between five and six million houses in England and Wales which are within the control limit. Supposing there is not gradual decontrol. Supposing at a given moment—I care not whether it is a soon moment or a distant moment—the whole of this five or six million houses are suddenly to be decontrolled. Could anybody imagine anything more calculated to cause disaster or mischief to the interests of the tenants and to cause a tremendous amount of disturbance and unrest, than the fact of all these houses suddenly coming into the possession of their landlords, and the tenants, or a very large proportion of them, receiving notice to quit? Is not the right way to approach the problem of decontrol to try to bring it about gradually, so that there shall be as little displacement as possible? Is it not the right way, if you are to bring it about gradually, by seeing that it only takes place in the ease of houses where there is no tenant, because the house has fallen back into the possession of the landlord, without any eviction? Obviously, in these cases there can be no eviction of the tenant, because there is no tenant to evict, no displacement and no disturbance. It is true that a great deal of decontrol is slowly going on. So far from being ashamed of it, I am proud to think that so practical a means was discovered by my right hon. Friend in 1923.
  Mr. A. GREENWOOD: Does the right bon. and learned Gentleman regard the rents that are being charged for these decontrolled houses as reasonable? Does he approve of them? Is he proud of them?
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: As far as I have been able to ascertain, and we can only ascertain from inquiries—I think my right hon. Friend explained the matter to the House last week—in a, very great majority of cases there has been very little alteration in rent when the house has come out of control. May I give the hon. Member particulars from Bradford, in regard to which we happen to have a report. The, report we have had from Bradford is this—we are asked not to give the names of those who report to us, but they are most reliable people—
  "As far as social workers are concerned, those with whom the reporter has come into contact have no cases of abuse on the part of the landlords to report."
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  In a further letter the reporter says:—
  "I have inquired, unofficially, from the overseers here, who tell me that cases of asking exorbitant rents for de-controlled property are few and far between: The practice of putting such property up to tender is on the increase. Social workers in close touch with the people have no knowledge of hardship resulting from this practice,"
  The hon. Member also referred to Manchester. He quoted what he described as specimen cases put forward by Mr. Simon. Again, we happen to have a report from Manchester, and the report is that the specimen cases are anything but specimens, if by specimen is meant fair samples, but that they are exceptional cases, picked out, and do not in the least represent what is going on in Manchester. The hon. Member was good enough also to refer to one house in my own constituency. If I took down the figures correctly, he said that it was a house let at a week formerly, and that it had now been taken for seven years at £1,700, plus £100 premium. I am very glad to say that, the working classes of Marylebone are an industrious and thrifty lot, but, unfortunately, they are not able to take houses at £1,700 and to pay £100 premium for rent. I cannot help thinking that the house to which the hon. Member referred cannot be regarded as a typical working-class dwelling. Possibly it may be one of those houses which my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is very anxious to look at, which open between 12.30 a.m and 6 a.m.
  It has been said in several quarters that the existing law is not being properly enforced, that there are complaints as to landlords not doing repairs, as to factors not complying with their statutory obligations, and as to houses being let at exorbitant rents. I would like to point out that if it be true, that is not a matter for legislation. It is a matter for executive and criminal action. I do not believe that the cases are quite as frequent as may be imagined, although I have no doubt they exist. I hope they are not quite as frequent as is sometimes suggested. I would like to assure the House that at the beginning of this year, after consultation with the Minister of Health, I made arrangements with the Director of Public Prosecutions to try to find cases in which the penal provisions of these Acts were being infringed, with

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  the intention, if such a ease was brought to our notice, of taking up the matter as a prosecution by the Director himself, so that publicity might be given both to the existence of the penalties and to our determination to enforce them.
  Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: Will the right hon. Gentleman do something to deal with the question of repairs? Will he actually define what is meant by repairs, so that it will be made clear that they include painting and papering of houses, which work was always recognised before the War as requisite repairs?
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I do not think that is the point wtih which I was, dealing. What I was endeavouring to tell the House was, that I am very anxious, and that my right hon. Friend is very anxious, and we are determined as far as we can to see to it that the provisions of these Acts shall be observed. We have not only taken counsel together, but I have discussed the matter with the Director of Public Prosecutions, and I have caused communications to be sent to a number of County Court Judges, in districts where these cases are most likely to arise, in order that if there come under their notice in the course of eviction proceedings or the like any cases of apparent breach of these Acts, they may be reported to Richmond Terrace, and proper proceedings may be instituted. I hope the House will realise that although this is not a matter for legislation, the enforcement of the law is a matter with which we are dealing, and which we intend to deal with to the utmost of our power.
  It is not true to say that it is always the unscrupulous landlord who breaks the law. There are, I think, at least as many cases of unscrupulous tenants who sub-let at exorbitant rents, but whatever class it may be, be he the ground landlord or be he the sub-lessor, if a case is brought to our notice which we can establish, I should like to assure the House that there will be no lack of readiness in the Government and on the part of the Director of Public Prosecutions to put the provisions of the law in force. It may be that to hon. Members of this House particulars of cases may come. If any such particulars are received as far as England and Wales are concerned, I should be very grateful
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  if any hon. Member will give me the necessary particulars, and I will undertake to have the matter looked into and, if a case arises, to have the criminal law put into effect.
  Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: Will the right hon. Gentleman take cognisance of the case I suggested, and define the word "repairs," so that repairs shall be deemed to include papering and painting? At the present time, the proprietors do not fulfil the requirements of the law if painting and papering were regarded as within the definition of the word "repairs." As they are not so defined, they are not being recognised.
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Definition is always rather a dangerous thing. It is sometimes apt to act in the direction of exclusion rather than inclusion. There is already, as the hon. Member knows, a provision—not so much under these Acts but under the Housing and Working Classes Acts and so on—which makes it necessary for the landlord to put houses of this character into a condition of habitable repair, but that is a matter which the Courts have to construe. Certainly, it does not arise under this Act
  Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: That is not the point.
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: It is not a case which we can discuss to-day. So far as to-day's proceedings are concerned, we are confronted with a situation in which the hoped-for increase of houses has not taken place. Hon. Members opposite say confidently that it is no good extending this Act for two and a half years in this country or for three years in Scotland. One hon. Member criticised the difference in the terms, but he will find, if he asks some of his Scottish friends, that the terms are different as regards Scotland, because May is the appropriate month. Hon. Members say that it is no good extending the Act for two and a half or three years because the housing shortage will not he overcome then. If all that we are looking for is a continuance of the existing rate of increase of houses, I agree with that argument, but I hope that is not all that we can look for. The hon. Member for Camlachie said that many eloquent speeches had been made at the last Election by members of the Conservative party about the housing shortage, and he

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  said, dramatically, "We shall have to go back and tell the people that this is all that the Government are going to do." This is not all that the Government are doing or are going to do. This Bill is not intended to cure the housing question. This Bill is continuing an admittedly unsatisfactory course of legislation until the housing question is by other means overcome.
  We have to stimulate by every means in our power the existing means of house building. We have, I hope, to discover and develop other means of house building which will supplement the existing means. We have to see to it that the whole resources of the country are brought into dealing with the housing problem and getting the houses at the earliest possible moment. We have to do it not necessarily by force but, rather, by that goodwill which has been referred to
  more than once in the Debate this afternoon. I hope and believe that the efforts of the Government in the direction of house building are going, increasingly, to overtake the housing shortage, and I think it would be an unwise thing for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health now, when everything is uncertain, to fix a date for the continuance of this BM, a date which might perhaps prove to be far too distant, and not to be sanguine that by the goodwill of both sides and united effort in all parties the housing difficulty may be overcome far more quickly than at present seems likely to be the case.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 281; Noes, 131.

  Division No. 61.]

  AYES.

  [7.0 p.m.

  Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel

  Christie, J. A.

  Glyn, Major R. G. C.

  Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T

  Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer

  Grace, John

  Albery, Irving James

  Churchman, Sir Arthur C.

  Greene, W. P. Crawford

  Allen, Lieut.-Col. Sir William James

  Clarry, Reginald George

  Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)

  Applin, Colonel R. V. K.

  Cobb, Sir Cyril

  Grotrian, H. Brent

  Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.

  Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.

  Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E. (Bristol, N.)

  Ashmead-Bartlett, E.

  Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips

  Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.

  Astor, Viscountess

  Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)

  Gunston, Captain D. W.

  Atholl, Duchess of

  Cope, Major William

  Hacking, Captain Douglas H.

  Baird, Rt. Hon. Sir John Lawrence

  Couper, J. B.

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

  Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

  Courtauld, Major J. S.

  Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)

  Balfour, George (Hampstead)

  Craig, Capt. Rt. Hon. C. C. (Antrim)

  Hanbury, C.

  Balniel, Lord

  Craig, Ernest (Chester, Crewe)

  Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry

  Barclay-Harvey, C. M.

  Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Harland, A.

  Beamish, Captain T. P. H.

  Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.

  Harrison, G. J. C.

  Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)

  Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)

  Hartington, Marquess of

  Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.

  Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)

  Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)

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

  Curtis-Bennett, Sir Henry

  Haslam, Henry C.

  Bennett, A. J.

  Curzon, Captain Viscount

  Hawke, John Anthony

  Bentlock, Lord Henry Cavendish-

  Dalziel, Sir Davison

  Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.

  Bethell, A.

  Davidson, J.(Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd)

  Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley)

  Birchall, Major J. Dearman

  Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.

  Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)

  Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton)

  Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)

  Heneage, Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.

  Blades, Sir George Rowland

  Dawson, Sir Philip

  Henn, Sir Sydney H.

  Blundell, F. N.

  Doyle, Sir N. Grattan

  Hennessy, Major J. R. G.

  Bourne, Captain Robert Croft

  Drewe, C.

  Henniker-Hughan, Vice-Adm. Sir A.

  Bowater, Sir T. Vansittart

  Duckworth, John

  Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)

  Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.

  Eden, Captain Anthony

  Herbert, S.(York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by)

  Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.

  Edmondson, Major A. J.

  Hilton, Cecil

  Brass, Captain W.

  Ellis, R. G.

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

  Brassey, Sir Leonard

  Elveden, Viscount

  Holt, Capt. H. P.

  Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive

  England, Colonel A.

  Homan, C. W. J.

  Briscoe, Richard George

  Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)

  Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)

  Brocklebank, C. E. R.

  Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)

  Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)

  Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. .

  Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)

  Hopkins, J. W. W.

  Brown, Maj. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)

  Everard, W. Lindsay

  Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.

  Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Mewb'y)

  Falle, Sir Bertram G.

  Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.

  Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James

  Fenby, T. D.

  Howard, Captain Hon. Donald

  Burman, J. B.

  Fermoy, Lord

  Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)

  Butler, Sir Geoffrey

  Fielden, E. B.

  Hume, Sir G. H.

  Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward

  Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.

  Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer

  Caine, Gordon Hall

  Fleming, D. P.

  Huntingfield, Lord

  Campbell, E. T.

  Forrest, W.

  Hurd, Percy A.

  Cautley, Sir Henry S.

  Frece, Sir Walter de

  Hurst, Gerald B.

  Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)

  Fremantle, Lt.-Col- Francis E.

  Hutchison, G. A. C.(Midl'n & Peebles)

  Cazalet, Captain Victor A.

  Galbraith, J. F. W.

  Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)

  Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)

  Ganzoni, Sir John

  Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.

  Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton

  Gates, Percy

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

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)

  George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd

  Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)

  Charteris, Brigadier-General J.

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

  Jacob, A. E.

  James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert

  Nicholson, O. (Westminster)

  Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)

  Jephcott, A. R

  Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

  Smith-Carington, Neville W.

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

  Nuttall, Ellis

  Smithers, Waldron

  Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

  Oakley, T.

  Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

  Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)

  O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)

  Sprot, Sir Alexander

  Kindersley, Major Guy M.

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

  Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.)

  King, Captain Henry Douglas

  Owen, Major G.

  Stanley, Lord (Fylde)

  Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

  Pennefather, Sir John

  Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)

  Knox, Sir Alfred

  Penny, Frederick George

  Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.

  Lamb, J. Q.

  Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)

  Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.

  Lane-Fox, Lieut.-Col. George B.

  Perkins, Colonel E. K.

  Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

  Little, Dr. E. Graham

  Perring, William George

  Styles, Captain H. Walter

  Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)

  Philipson, Mabel

  Sugden, Sir Wilfrid

  Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)

  Pilcher, G.

  Tasker, Major R. Inigo

  Loder, J. de V.

  Pilditch, Sir Philip

  Templeton, W. P.

  Looker, Herbert William

  Power, Sir John Cecil

  Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)

  Lord, Walter Greaves-

  Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton

  Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)

  Lougher, L.

  Price, Major C. W. M.

  Tinne, J. A.

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere

  Radford, E. A.

  Titchfield, Major the Marquess of

  MacAndrew, Charles Glen

  Raine, W.

  Turton, Edmund Russborough

  Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)

  Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel

  Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.

  Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)

  Remer, J. R.

  Waddington, R.

  McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus

  Remnant, Sir James

  Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.

  McLean, Major A.

  Rentoul, G. S.

  Warrender, Sir Victor

  Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm

  Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.

  Waterhouse, Captain Charles

  Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.

  Rice, Sir Frederick

  Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)

  Macquisten, F. A.

  Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)

  Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)

  MacRobert, Alexander M.

  Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)

  Wells, S. R.

  Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel.

  Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)

  Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)

  Makins, Brigadier-General E.

  Ropner, Major L.

  Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)

  Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn

  Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.

  Wilson, Sir C. H. (Leeds, Central)

  Margesson, Captain D.

  Salmon, Major I-

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

  Marriott, Sir J. A. R.

  Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)

  Wise, Sir Fredric

  Meller, R. J.

  Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)

  Wolmer, Viscount

  Merriman, F. B.

  Sandeman, A. Stewart

  Womersley, W. J.

  Milne, J. S. Wardlaw.

  Sanders, Sir Robert A.

  Wood, Rt. Hon. E. (York, W.R., Ripon)

  Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)

  Sanderson, Sir Frank

  Wood, E.(Chest'r, Stalyb'dge & Hyde)

  Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.

  Sandon, Lord

  Wood, Sir Kingsley (Woolwich, W.).

  Morris, R. H.

  Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.

  Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.

  Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive

  Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W.R., Sowerby)

  Wragg, Herbert

  Nall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph

  Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl (Renfrew, W.)

  Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.

  Nelson, Sir Frank

  Shaw, Capt. W. W. (Wilts, Westb'y)

  Neville, R. J.

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES-

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

  Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfst)

  Colonel Gibbs and Major Sir

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

  Skelton, A. N.

  Harry Barnston.

  NOES.

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

  Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)

  March, S.

  Ammon, Charles George

  Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)

  Maxton, James

  Attlee, Clement Richard

  Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)

  Montague, Frederick

  Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)

  Groves, T.

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

  Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)

  Grundy, T. W.

  Murnin, H.

  Barr, J.

  Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)

  Naylor, T. E.

  Batey, Joseph

  Guest, Dr. L. Haden (Southwark, N.)

  Palin, John Henry

  Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)

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

  Paling, W.

  Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.

  Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

  Broad, F. A.

  Hardie, George D.

  Ponsonby, Arthur

  Bromfield, William

  Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon

  Potts, John S.

  Bromley, .

  Hastings, Sir Patrick

  Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

  Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)

  Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley)

  Ritson, J.

  Buchanan, G.

  Henderson, T. (Glasgow)

  Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)

  Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel

  Hirst, G. H.

  Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W. R., Elland)

  Cape, Thomas

  Hore-Belisha, Leslie

  Rose, Frank H.

  Charleton, H. C.

  Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)

  Salter, Dr. Alfred

  Clowes, S.

  Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)

  Scrymgeour, E.

  Cluse, W. S.

  John, William (Rhondda, West)

  Scurr, John

  Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.

  Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)

  Sexton, James

  Compton, Joseph

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

  Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)

  Connolly, M.

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Shiels, Dr. Drummond

  Dalton, Hugh

  Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)

  Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)

  Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)

  Kelly, W. T.

  Slesser, Sir Henry H.

  Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

  Kennedy, T.

  Smillie, Robert

  Day, Colonel Harry

  Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.

  Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)

  Dennison, R.

  Kenyon, Barnet

  Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)

  Duncan, C.

  Kirkwood, D.

  Smith, Rennie (Penistone)

  Dunnico, H.

  Lansbury, George

  Snell, Harry

  Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)

  Lawson, John James

  Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip

  Gibbins, Joseph

  Lee, F.

  Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)

  Gillett, George M.

  Livingstone, A. M.

  Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles

  Gosling, Harry

  Lowth, T.

  Stamford, T. W.

  Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)

  Lunn, William

  Stephen, Campbell

  Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.)

  Mackinder, W.

  Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)

  Greenall, T.

  Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)

  Sutton, J. E.

  516

  517

  Taylor, R. A.

  Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney

  Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

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

  Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah

  Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)

  Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plalstow)

  Welsh, J. C.

  Windsor, Waiter

  Thurtie, E.

  Westwood, J.

  Wright, W.

  Tinker, John Joseph

  Whiteley, W.

  Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.

  Wignall, James

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Varley, Frank B.

  Williams, David (Swansea, E.)

  Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr.

  Viant, S. P.

  Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)

  Warne.

  Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)

  Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)

  Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

  The following Instruction, stood en the Order Paper in the name of Mr. CLYNES:
  "That it he an instruction to the Committee on the Bill that they have power to insert provisions continuing the application of the Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Act, 1920, to all dwelling-houses to which that Act now applies, and to amend the provisions in that Act relating to permitted increases in rent."
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): I desire to ask your ruling, Mr. Speaker, about the Instruction, having regard to the course now taken on the Second Reading of the Bill. The Title of this Bill shows the intention simply to prolong the present Increase of Rent and Mortgage (Restrictions) Act, 1920, for a further period of two years. You will observe that the House has just disposed of an Amendment which complained that the Bill did not amend the law in various directions, and I venture to suggest that, by the rejection of the Amendment, the House adopted the principle contained in the Bill, namely, that the provision of the 1920 Act should simply be extended for a period of two years. If you look at the Instruction on the Paper, you will observe that it is in a way a repetition of the Amendment of which the House has just disposed, and asks in other words, that the Committee on the Bill should have power to insert two provisions which are referred to in that Amendment. I venture to submit that an Instruction which would be contrary to the decision of the House taken on the introduction and the Second Reading of the Bill is not within the due province of an Instruction. In other words, the Instruction on the Paper is in direct contradiction to the decision the House has just taken. I also venture to submit that the Amendments which the Instruction proposes to sanction must be such as would confirm the general
  518
  purposes and intention of the House with regard to the appointment of the Committee. In other words, the House has just expressed by its majority that they assent to the principle of the Bill simply to extend the duration of the Act for two years. In the third place, I venture to suggest that an Instruction is bad which seeks to substitute another scheme for the mode of operation described in the Bill. I think it has been made abundantly clear both on the former occasion and to-day that the scheme of the Government is to extend the provisions of the Act for two years without any alteration whatever. This Instruction proposes to put forward another scheme altogether, under which certain alterations would be made or at least could be made by the Committee. I, therefore, ask whether you will give your ruling on the three points that I have raised. I venture to submit on those three grounds that the Instruction is not in order.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I am afraid I cannot uphold any of the three contentions of the hon. Member. What the House has just decided is that the words "now read a Second time" should stand part of the Question. Thereupon the Bill was read a Second time. The rather lengthy wording of the Amendment does not supply me with any reason for refusing this Instruction. With regard to the second point raised, it is the very purpose of an Instruction to do something which would not be otherwise within the powers of the Committee. Had it not been so, I should have ruled the Instruction out of order as being unnecessary. The third point is that if the matters in the Instruction be cognate to the Bill, and also that the Instruction itself he necessary, then those two facts make the Instruction a regular one.
  Mr. CLYNES: I beg to move,
  "That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Bill that they have power to insert provisions continuing the application of the Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Act, 1920, to all dwelling-houses to which that Act now applies, and

  519
  to amend the provisions in that Act relating to permitted increases in rent."
  I shall offer no comment, Sir, on your ruling, but I am sure that if the point raised by the hon. Member (Sir K. Wood) had prevailed it would at least have prevented the House from even expressing an opinion in the form, first, of discussion, and, second, in the Lobby of the House of Commons, on the scope within which the Committee should deal with this Bill, when the Bill reaches that stage.
  I shall make but few observations in submitting this Instruction, for I understand that a number of hon. Members desire to address the House before a Division is taken in the course of an hour's time. The object of the Instruction is to give the Committee power to consider Amendments on two very material points. These points are most germane to the Bill, and they might be ruled out of order in Committee for aught we know, without the Instruction which I am now moving. The first point relates to the provision in Section 2 of the Act of 1923, under which, if a house to which the Act applies becomes vacant, and the landlord thus regains possession, that house becomes decontrolled. This provision does not apply if the previous tenant has been ejected for non-payment of rent, or if there has been an exchange of tenancy with the consent of the landlord. But it is certain that very many working-class houses have become decontrolled under the operation of this Section, and the landlord is thus in a position to charge whatever rent he pleases or to secure whatever rent he is able to get. Therefore, personally, I think that the time has arrived for a revision of these permitted increases in the amount of the rent, and that this is a question which should go to the Committee in conditions in which the Committee shall have full freedom to deal with these matters.
  I would suggest to my right hon. Friend who, probably, in Committee will have charge of the Bill, that narrow as the Bill is, it offers to him some opportunities to effect a real and helpful bit of social reform, about which we heard so much from the platform during the last Election. The Act of 1920 allows, roughly, increases of rent up to 40 per
  520
  cent., 25 per cent. being for repairs and 15 per cent. on account of post-War prices. It is common knowledge that, even if the repairs were carried out to-day, they would not cost 25 per cent. of the rent. But, as a fact, they are not carried out, and every speaker who has addressed himself to this subject with experience of the situation in his constituency has been able to speak with a great degree of authority, and to declare that landlords who are receiving the permitted increase are not spending it in the manner which the law intended.
  It is true that if the tenant can get a certificate from the local authority that the house is in a state of disrepair he can withhold the 25 per cent., but as is well known, again by experience, tenants are in such a condition of fear of doing that, and are so apprehensive of the enormous amount of trouble to which they may be put and of the risk of being ejected for non-payment of rent, that most tenants would rather pay, and submit to the inconvenience of having a house in bad condition than undergo these risks. I received this afternoon from Birmingham a communication on this subject, a portion of which I will read, especially because it comes from the quarter with which the right hon. Gentleman is so honourably associated. This communication is from the Birmingham and District Tenants' Federation, and I will read that part of it which seems to have a definite application to the point which I am arguing. It is a communication which asks that Section 2 of the Act of 1923 should be rescinded, and it goes on to say:
  "We beg to point out that the uncertainty of that Clause has led to much abuse and, in the majority of instances, increases of 100 per cent. are being charged, and many instances of 250 per cent. can be cited by various societies in this city, and in addition the great abuse of the privilege of charging key-money makes it impossible for those who are unable to pay it to obtain any house."
  That is from Birmingham, from a specially created organised body, speaking with perhaps less freedom than an individual with some grievance. Therefore, I suggest that it should be looked upon as having a certain weight, coming from the quarter from which it does come. The Attorney-General more than once in his speech to-day, as on other occasions, referred to Members on these benches as speaking loosely on this question in the

  521
  hope of catching votes by what they say. But hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite should be the last to say that sort of thing. I therefore draw attention again to the definite official declaration of the Leader of the Conservative party, the present Prime Minister, prior to the last election, in which he said that if they were returned to power they would review the whole rent situation in the light of existing circumstances. Language could not be plainer. This is a special opportunity for that review, and, in view of the urgency of the claims, and the difficulties of the tenants, I allege that the Government are neglecting their chance and failing to honour their own statements which were made at the last election.
  Mr. WESTWOOD: I desire to support the Motion. I do so for two reasons. First, we ought—the industrial system being as it is—to place no obstacle in the way of the mobility of labour. I am satisfied that you will not be in the position of enabling labour to be transferred from one place to another, and helping to deal with the unemployed problem in this way, if you are going to allow houses which are controlled to-day to become decontrolled because of the transfer of those men who are unemployed in one district to another district to get employment there. The very fact that we have unemployment so great to-day justifies this instruction. Merely because of unemployment we may be decontrolling two houses at the one time, and placing obstacles in the way of two men actually, shall I say, endeavouring to remove from one district to another because of the danger of having a materially increased charge made for rent.
  Most of the arguments for and against this Bill have been repeated several times, and I will not repeat them now. But my second reason is one which has not yet been dealt with. The Act of 1920 permits the landlords to increase rents for three reasons. First, because of increased charges they were to be Allowed to get a 15 per cent. increase. Then for the purpose of meeting charges in connection with repairs they were to get a 25 per cent. increase, and lastly, for the purpose of meeting an increased charge in connection with rates they were to be entitled to charge the difference in rates between 1914 and 1920. I was a member
  522
  of a Committee that considered a. Private Member's Bill upstairs, and among ail parties it was agreed that the Act of 1920 did not propose to make permanent the increased charge for rates in connection with the increase in rents in 1920. In my own town there has been a reduction in the rates of approximately 1s. in the £, but under the 1920 Act the increase was 1s. 6d. as compared with the figure for 1914. When that increase is taken into account, the total increase in rent is not 40 per cent., which has been the whole defence on the other side, but 47 per cent., which was due to the fact that there was an increase of 1s. 6d. in the rates as compared with 1914. There has been a reduction now of approximately 1s., and this Instruction will give the Committee the opportunity of discussing this point.
  The view was expressed by all parties that the Act of 1920 did not propose to make permanent that is. 6d. increase in rates so far as the particular district to which I am referring is concerned. I believe that it would be the almost unanimous wish of all parties to allow an Amendment to go through in accordance with this Instruction which would make the increase in rates chargeable to the tenant, so that you should not continue the increased charge based on the figures for 1920 instead of on the figures for 1925. I trust sincerely that the Government will meet us on this point, so that we may be able to deal with this question of increased rates, and that only the increase which exists in 1925 or 1926, as compared with 1914, shall be chargeable, instead of the increased rates existing in 1920.
  Mr. JOHN JONES: I was very much interested in the speech of the learned Attorney-General this afternoon, when he talked so glibly about the legal position. He never semed to understand the working-class position. It is very nice to tell workers that they have certain rights under the law, but it is a very different thing to show them how they are going to achieve those rights within the law. The question was put to him by the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Scrymgeour) as to what was meant by repairs, and we discovered the most extraordinary fact that there is no definition of repairs. The house has got to fall down before it can be repaired. The things that really matter, so far as the working-class tenant

  523
  is concerned, are the painting and cleaning of the house and the paper-hanging. Yet it is almost impossible to get those repairs done.
  What is the good of telling the working-class occupants in a district such as I represent that they have certain rights under the law. How are they going to enforce the law? Even the town council find themselves in difficulty, and so do the public health committee, when they take action, until we find we are led up from one set of lawyers to another. Probably the Bill has been drafted with the idea of finding work for the unemployed of the legal profession. [HON. MEMBERS: "There are not any!"] There never are. They look after themselves so well, and I do not blame them for that, and I only wish the working-classes looked after themselves equally well. The existing Act is not operating at present. I could show you in my own constituency case after case of people who are paying 100 per cent. more than they paid before the War. Whether they are sub-tenants or original landlords, they are profiteers whoever they may be. What protection has the ordinary workmen in a working-class district None whatever. All your laws and Regulations cannot do anything when we come up against the real problem.
  I hope, therefore, that this instruction will be carried, so that we may be able to give the tenant some protection. There are those who assume that 21 years from now the problem will be solved. The problem never has been solved. In 1881 I read a book by the late General Booth, "Darkest England and the Way Out," which showed that at that time one-third of the population were living in overcrowded conditions. It is the same now. The problem will not be solved as long as hon. Members who are now in this House live. The first interest in this matter, as far as I can understand the Debates that I have heard on these two occasions, is that the landlord comes first and the tenant comes last. Private property is the god and public interests are secondary. We, therefore, want some protection for the people. If you say that later on, in 2½years' time, you are going to extend the Bill, what is the good of it? You may extend it.
  524
  Of course, you can build naval bases, and you do not ask where the money is to come from then. There is no question about the landlord when naval bases are under consideration. We can spend money like water when expenditure is necessary to defend the interests of those in authority. It would pay us better to house our people than to build naval bases in preparation for still greater wars in the future. No, you have to make the worker pay, and an increase in rent can always be demanded. The argument of supply and demand is brought forward. What is it? Who controls supply? We have to ask, and you have the power to give. The demand is the workers' demand, and it is a demand for decent conditions of living. You have the power to supply that demand. How do you supply it? With brick boxes with slate lids. Now you are going to provide us with tin boxes, and sardine openers to open them. We want houses. If tin boxes are good enough for the working classes, they ought to be good enough for other people. Let Lord Weir live in a tin box. The working classes want decent houses.
  Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: I do not know whether the Minister of Health is going to oppose this instruction, but if so I would like to know on what ground. He will not maintain that the Act of 1923 is satisfactory. He will not maintain that there are not very many hardships occasioned by it, and I am sure he will not maintain that experience has not shown that it requires amendment. I could give him many instances, but were I to do so we should have a general Debate on housing. I will mention a particular case. It is the case of a woman who was in possession of one of those certificates from the sanitary authority stating that her house was not habitable. This was supposed to prevent an increase in rent. The woman was not accustomed to dealing with the law, and she was receiving stately forms from the factor demanding increases in rent. She was told that she would be put into Court unless she paid them, although she had been for some time in possession of the certificate I have mentioned. Of course. I told her that, so far as I knew, she could not be taken into Court for the increase in rent. But at the same time she was entitled to have the house put into a decent state of repair. Then the landlord said: "I cannot put

  525
  the house into a state of decent repair unless you go away, and I am not prepared to find you any other place to which to go." The state of the house must have been bad if the woman had to go before it could be put right.
  I mention that case merely as an example, and not in any hitter or controversial spirit, to prove to the right lion. Gentleman the difficulties, grievances and hardships which exist under his old Act. Then what is the reason for preventing this Committee of the House examining it? Is the right hon. Gentleman afraid that it will not stand examination? Does he want to prevent reform taking place, if reasonable reform can be shown to be necessary'? I cannot. understand why he should stand in the way of this general inquiry. Now there is a danger, if we do not get this instruction, of the present state of affairs being perpetuated. The Bill, it is true, goes on for only two-and-a-half years, but it is drawn in such a form, as the right hon. Gentleman himself pointed out when defending the Bill, that it could be put into the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, and carried on from year to year. That means, assuming that its continuance is necessary, that at the end of that time it will appear as an item in a schedule, and we shall have no opportunity of discussing it, and no further occasion but this will present itself for dealing fully with a matter which requires the attention of this House and of all who are interested in the housing of the people. For these reasons I and many of my Friends intend to go into the Lobby in support of the instruction.
  Colonel DAY: In considering the Rent Restrictions Act, it is well to keep in mind that there are and must be two points of view, one the owners point of view, and the other the tenant's. Meantime it is worth while noting that house property is the. only form of wealth at present controlled by the Government. All other forms of wealth or production that came under control owing to war-time conditions have been released. I do not propose to take up the time of the House by going into the details as to why it is necessary to continue the control of house property, for if there is any Member who is at present unaware of, or who does not appreciate, the housing conditions in this country, I am afraid that he will never
  526
  appreciate them, and it would be a waste of time discussing the matter with him. Let us consider, first, the property owner's point of view and his complaint of control. We must, of course, admit that he cannot do just as he would like to do with his own property. But let us consider what are the hardships, if any, from which he is suffering. So far as I can see, the only supposed hardship is that he is unable, owing to the Act, to take advantage of the people and to demand the utmost rent. Personally, I think that the present rents are not only excessive, but also the utmost that can be obtained, owing to the high cost of living and the comparatively low earning power of tenants, who are mainly working-class tenants. We hear many tales of owners' hardships owing to the high cost of repairs and low rents, but my opinion is—and I have good reason to form it—that the cases are carefully selected and do not reflect in a true way the general position of the property owner.
  For example, let us consider the price of property in 1913–14, and the owner's prospect of getting a reasonable return for his money. At that time it was possible for a tenant, if he did not agree to the landlord's demand, to remove, there being other houses to let. Consequently, there was competition, which had the effect of keeping down income from property and also the value of same. The working-man's house in a city like Manchester, with accommodation consisting of a parlour, kitchen, scullery, and three bedrooms, could be purchased for, apporximately, £150 to £200. The price asked to-day for a, house with similar accommodation is from £500 to £600, and the house is in a far worse condition. Therefore, the first thing worth noticing is that the capital value of the property has increased by about three times the original value, and it is enriching the property owner without any effort on his part. It is common knowledge that money invested at 5 per cent. compound interest—
  Mr. SPEAKER: I am afraid that that is hardly relevant to the discussion which we, have now reached. The discussion must be confined to what is within the scope of the Instruction.
  Colonel DAY: I was trying to give comparisons of the positions of owner

  527
  and tenant at the present time, owing to the enormously increased burden that is put on the tenant by the 40 per cent.
  Mr. SPEAKER: The Instruction covers only the difference between 1920 and the present time. That is the point.
  Colonel DAY: Does it not cover the 40 per cent. increase that is to be put on the tenant under this Act?
  Mr. SPEAKER: Yes; it raises the question as to whether the 40 per cent. that was originally established is relevant to the present time, but it will not be in order to go back to 1913–14.
  Colonel DAY: The most noticeable point of the Act is the 40 per cent. increase allowed to the owner. I ask hon. Members opposite if any one of them can get up and truthfully say that property owners as a general rule are keeping houses, especially the smaller houses, in a proper state of repair. We know that they are not. We know that they are taking advantage of the conditions and forcing the tenants to pay for decorations and repairs. We know that they are draining every penny that they can get out of the property, and absolutely refusing to carry out the common understanding that they should do the repairs, because they realise that the tenant has no choice. Even in Southwark I know of many instances where the landlord has charged incoming tenants of very small and deplorable cottages £5 and £6 as key money for houses that were in a disgusting condition. During the last Election I visited in the main street many houses that had not had a coat of paint on them, inside or out, or a piece of paper, or any distemper, since long before 1914. These houses were in a deplorable condition. Some of them were overrun with vermin. I know that other constituencies are bad, but some of the houses in Central Southwark are as bad as anything that can be seen in England. I see some hon. Members smiling. It must be because they have not had any personal experience. If they had had the experience of some of the Members on these benches of living in these houses, they would realise the conditions. What the public want is that Members supporting the Government should face realities.
  528
  The position is that the Act gives the landlords power to extract 40 per cent. increase on the rent for repairs which they never do. Whilst I do not suggest that good landlords should be unjustly treated, I do suggest that the bad landlord should be penalised. This can be done by introducing a Clause into the Act, making it compulsory for the landlord to obtain an annual certificate from the local sanitary authority stating that the property is in a fit state of repair before he is allowed to charge the increase which has been specially permitted for that purpose. Further, I wish to state emphatically that the amount allowed to the landlord for repairs, if he executes the repairs and decorations necessary for ordinary small property, is an excessive one. I have found this from my own experience. I happen to be the owner of a considerable amount of small property, and I know that these repairs and decorations should not come to more than 17 per cent. over and above the pre-War rental, after making all allowances. Originally, I made an increase of 30 per cent. instead of the permitted 40 per cent., but, when my agents submitted the accounts to me, and I discovered the true position, I gave them instructions to reduce all my rents to a figure 222 per cent. above the gross pre-War rental, thus giving to my tenants the benefit of 17½ per cent.—which, accordingly, was an excessive charge and one which I did not feel justified in taking, although the Act allowed me to do so. That figure includes all necessary painting and repairs and the outside painting of small cottages during that period.
  At present the tenant has to obtain certificate that the repairs are not being done, but we all know that the average tenant of the working class has neither the time nor the ability necessary to get such a certificate, and it is only just and proper that the person who is receiving payment should be the person to get the certificate. It would be just as reasonable if a man were to sue me for a debt which I did not owe, for the court to ask me to prove that I did not owe it instead of asking the plaintiff to prove that the debt was owing, as to have the present arrangement in regard to these certificates. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to make provision in the Bill that the 40 per cent. increase should not be enforced unless the landlord has obtained a certificate justifying the collection of the same.

  529
  Such an alteration would give a great, deal of satisfaction to millions of tenants and make them more content than they are to-day. They would then know that they were paying their money for something which they had got instead of paying as at present for something which they have not got. In reference to the interest charges—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"] If the hon. Members who keep on shouting "Order!" would keep order themselves and allow me to proceed we should get on much more quickly. [HON. MEMBERS: "You are reading your speech!'] I know as much about property and about this question as some of the hon. Gentlemen opposite who interrupt me.
  With reference to the interest charges, if the owner has a mortgage on his property then he has an additional profit froth this source over and above his own investment, and if he has a mortgage on his rental profit he has not cause to do anything but to congratulate himself on that point. The average property-owner, if he so desires, can sell his property and receive back his original pre-War capital with a profit which is equal to 10 per cent. compound interest, in addition to the annual profit. On the other hand, the tenant has been squeezed for extra payment for a worse article on account of having to pay the increased rent, and he is also obliged to do the repairs and decorations himself, knowing at the same time that these should have been done for him by the landlord. It is not just nor proper that the Government of the country should allow this state of affairs to exist, knowing as they do that the worker is helpless in the matter while the owner has behind him the organised Property Owners' Association. It is not an exaggeration to say that the extortionate rents demanded to-day represent one of the greatest cancers of civilisation, and one which is being neglected, though there is yet time for operation, and it is a disgrace to see how it has been allowed to fasten its tentacles upon the body of the nation.
  Mr. VIANT: In rising to support this instruction, I venture to express the hope that the Minister of Health will not oppose it. The Committee which is to consider this Bill should be prepared to do so from the point of view of the anxiety caused by the question of
  530
  decontrol at the present time. A hope has been expressed for peace in industry. Experience has convinced me that if there be one thing which contributes to anxiety and makes it difficult to obtain peace at the present time, it is the possibility in the minds of the public generally of the houses which they occupy becoming decontrolled and of exorbitant rents being demanded. Those who have been engaged in trade union negotiations know that when such negotiations are taking place, the possibility of increased rents cannot be ruled out, and the possibility of decontrol means that the price of house property is going up by leaps and bounds. I have here an extract from a paper which circulates in the constituency which I have the honour to represent and in the area where I reside. It refers to house property, recently decontrolled, which, 20 years ago, when the houses were erected sold for £400 and £450 per house. It is now being offered for sale and the price asked for those houses, now that they are decontrolled, is £1,125 each. Houses of another class which were sold 20 years ago as new property at £375 and £400 per house are now offered at £925 per house. I hope the Committee when dealing with this Bill will take into consideration the effect of these inflated prices upon prospective tenants. Houses that have been decontrolled are bought at prices such as I have mentioned, and are let off in portions. I have cuttings from the same paper announcing three-roomed flats to let and the rent demanded in some cases is 19s., and where they have a bathroom and scullery a rent of 25s. per week is being asked. The result is that artisans, and working-class people in general, are becoming exceedingly anxious in regard to the rents which may be demanded from them as the houses are decontrolled and the rate at which houses are being decontrolled surpasses the expectations of the Minister of Health. The process is not proceeding slowly, but in some districts is proceeding very rapidly.
  Another point which requires due consideration is that of the 40 per cent. increase allowed by the 1920 Act. The repairs are not being carried out. I know of one specific instance in my constituency where the rooms have not been done up for nine years. I know another case in which the ceiling of the bathroom fell 18 months ago and it has not yet

  531
  been replaced. Yet the increased rents are still being taken by the landlords, and I suggest that the Committee might take into consideration the fact that when the increase was permitted in 1920 the cost of repairs had increased by approximately 150 per cent., while the increase in the charge for repairs at the present time from 1914, would be approximately 60 per cent. Some consideration could be given to that matter in view of the fact that the majority of the occupants of these houses to-day have had their salaries or wages reduced. Decontrol is working in such a way that prices are becoming inflated all round; values are not increasing but prices are. The inevitable result is that occupying tenants are continually being called upon to meet increased rents which are inevitable if we permit Measures to go through this House enabling decontrol to take place and thus automatically increasing the price of property. On these grounds, I submit we are justified in asking the right hon. Gentleman to allow this Instruction to go forward to the Committee in order that they may consider the Bill from these various angles and endeavour to meet the case of the tenants in a spirit of equity and justice, so that anxiety may be allayed and the Prime Minister's desire for peace may be fulfilled.
  8.0 P. M.
  The MINISTER of HEALTH (Mr. Neville Chamberlain): The Debate upon this Instruction is really only a resurrection of that which has been carried on all this afternoon. The speeches which were delivered this afternoon by hon. Members opposite on the Second Reading of the Bill harped over and over again upon the very same points which are now in the proposed Instruction to the Committee, and I should hardly have thought it was worth while to add anything further to what has been said by my right hon. Friend the learned Attorney-General if it had not been that, perhaps, it might have been misconstrued as a discourtesy to my right hon. Friend opposite. I congratulate him on having found a way of getting round a problem which has baffled, I believe, generations of Members in this House, namely, how to get Amendments, which are outside the scope of the title of a Bill, considered in Committee. His
  532
  Instruction is, perhaps, not likely to be carried to-night, but certainly it does open up a prospect for future Oppositions of getting the better of Governments, who have hitherto protected themselves by measures of this kind, which is extremely interesting to us.
  The real fact about this Bill, and about the Instruction, is that you have got to consider whether you will take the long view or the short view of the effect of alterations in the existing legislation. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that we were not carrying out the pledges that were given during the Election by the Prime Minister, that the whole rent situation would have to be reviewed by whoever held the office that I now occupy. That suggestion is entirely without foundation. It is precisely what I have done. I have reviewed the whole situation, and, after reviewing it, after taking what I call the long view, and considering what was going to be the ultimate effect of making further alterations in the existing Acts, I came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was simply to prolong the Acts of 1920 and 1923 for a comparatively short period, in order that we might have a further opportunity of seeing what progress was made in housing. I recognise, as everybody recognises, that the ultimate factor to decide when rent control can be brought to an end is the overcoming of the shortage of housing accommodation, which is the only thing that has made this rent restriction necessary in the first instance. It would be, in my view, the greatest folly if, in order to remove any defects, any injustices, any inequalities created by this temporary legislation, we were to do something which would so hamper the operations of those who are trying to overcome the housing shortage, that we should postpone indefinitely the date at which we might get rid of control altogether.
  Mr. CLYNES: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what he thinks would have been the view of the electors had they been told, that by the review of the whole question, what the Government meant was merely this Bill?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I certainly will tell the right hon. Gentleman. The electors were told that the whole situation would be reviewed. They were not told what the result of that review would be.

  533
  [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] What is the use of a review if you have made up your mind beforehand what course you are going to take? The right hon. Gentleman has some experience of pledges to the electors. He has before now given definite, precise pledges to the electors, and it is because they found out how little reliance was to be placed on the carrying out of these pledges that, no doubt, to a large extent, the result of the last election was due. It is obvious that if you were going to enter upon a revision of the existing Acts, you could not stop short at this; you could not stop short at taking out two single items which might be open to criticism. You would have to try to do justice all round, and to deal with the points mentioned by other Members in the Debate. There is, for instance, the question of mortgages, which is an extremely important question, and one which, I think, if anything was to be considered, would have to be considered first. There is also the question of profiteering by tenants at the expense of sub-tenants, which is always so tenderly treated by hon. Members opposite. I have decided that the best plan is not to touch any of these things, because I see that if you begin by amending these Acts, you are going to have a series of new provisions introduced, a series of changes in the language of the old Acts, and that is going to lead to a great crop of new litigation, and create complete uncertainty in the minds of the landlord and tenant for a considerable period as to where they stand. To my mind that is the worst thing you could possibly have for the encouragement of the building of fresh houses.
  Let me turn, however, to the two points on which the right hon. Gentleman and his friends have touched. With regard to the question of decontrol, it is very easy to find individual cases where this provision has been abused. I said myself, on the Second Reading of this Bill, that cases of that kind have come to my notice. But the point we have to consider is, whether those cases are sufficiently numerous to justify us in making a special provision in regard to them which would cut across the line of our general policy? The right hon. Gentleman quoted the Tenants' Association as an impartial body in Birmingham, and in the communication which they addressed
  534
  to him I observe that they laid special stress upon the exaction of key-money. I know of more than one case where key-money has been asked in Birmingham by landlords whose houses have become decontrolled, but it is quite untrue to say that happens in the majority of cases. I happen to have here the rent book of one of the largest—perhaps the largest—property-owning companies in Birmingham, and I find they have put right across the rent book:
  "No premium of any kind is required, or allowed to be paid, in connection with letting, decoration or repair."
  That is put upon the rent books issued by them, and I have seen similar notifications in rent books issued by other property-owning organisations. With regard to excessive rents, I think the hon. Member for Nelson (Mr. A. Greenwood) said that we had put up no case for allowing the present conditions to remain as they were. Surely, if he wants to alter them, it is for him to put up a case to show why they should be altered, and not for us to put up a case for a change. I submit that no case has been put up in this matter. On the contrary, it is certainly well known that it does not pay now to build or to manage working-class property, and a fortiori you would be still less likely to get people to invest in house property if the rents were reduced. And so it is that again and again hon. Members have fallen back upon the statement that the landlords are not doing the repairs for which excessive rent is allowed. I am not disposed to question that—I will not say as being universally true, but as being frequently true. I have too many cases in my own experience of landlords who have not considered what, I think, was their duty in the way of repairs, but I think the worst way to deal with that is to cut down rents, because if you cut down rents, you are not only hitting good landlords, but you are making it more difficult for the bad landlords to reform.
  What you want to do, as I suggest, is what we have put in the Act of 1923, namely, that where a landlord does not do repairs that he ought to do, he should not be entitled to receive the increase of rent, and the hon. and learned Member for South-East Leeds (Sir H. Slesser) gave the case of a tenant who had come to him. He had got the certificate which he is allowed to get from the local authority

  535
  under the Act of 1923, upon which he had taken no action, and the hon. and learned Member complains that we ought to give this Instruction to the Committee in order to meet the inability, or rather the unwillingness of that particular tenant to use the right which has been given by law. But if she does not use the rights she has got, what is the good of giving her more rights? Our difficulty with those people who have not had much experience of the law is to get over their fears and suspicions, and to induce them to utilise the powers we have tried to put in their hands.
  Mr. MONTAGUE: May I put my own experience which is perfectly true—
  Mr. SPEAKER: There is now no time for that.
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have no doubt all of us could give experience, but that will not help us to find a remedy. What I particularly desire to emphasise, is that the remedy is not to be found by cutting
  down rents, but in strengthening, if we can, the penalties you put upon the bad landlord who does not do his duty. We have already carried the Second Reading of this Bill. There is no real demand for the tearing up of the old Rent Restrictions Acts and their replacement by a new Act, or we should not see the House in the state of emptiness in which it has been this afternoon. I therefore ask the House to reject this Motion, which is directed at the whole plan of the Bill I have introduced, and which the House itself has carried this afternoon by so large a majority.
  Question put,
  "That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Bill that they have power to insert provisions continuing the application of the Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Act, 1920, to all dwelling-homer; to which that Act now applies, and to amend the provisions in that Act relating to permitted increases in rent."
  The House divided: Ayes, 138; Noes, 254.

  Division No. 62.]

  AYES.

  [8.15 p.m.

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

  Guest, Dr. L. Haden (Southwark, N.)

  Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring.)

  Ammon, Charles George

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

  Riley, Ben

  Attlee, Clement Richard

  Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Ritson, J.

  Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)

  Harris, Percy A.

  Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O.(W. Bromwich)

  Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)

  Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon

  Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)

  Barr, J.

  Hayday, Arthur

  Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W. R., Elland)

  Batey, Joseph

  Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley)

  Rose, Frank H.

  Beckett, John (Gateshead)

  Henderson. T. (Glasgow)

  Salter, Dr. Alfred

  Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)

  Hirst, G. H.

  Scrymgeour, E.

  Broad, F. A.

  Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)

  Scurr, John

  Bromfield, William

  Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)

  Sexton, James

  Bromley, J.

  Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)

  Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)

  Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)

  John, William (Rhondda, West)

  Shiels, Dr. Drummond

  Buchanan, G.

  Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)

  Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)

  Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel

  Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Cape, Thomas

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

  Slesser, Sir Henry H.

  Charleton, H. C.

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Smillie, Robert

  Clowes, S.

  Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)

  Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)

  Cluse, W. S.

  Kelly, W. T.

  Smith, Rennie (Penistone)

  Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.

  Kennedy, T.

  Snell, Harry

  Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)

  Kenyon, Barnet

  Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip

  Compton, Joseph

  Kirkwood, D.

  Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles

  Connolly, M.

  Lansbury, George

  Stamford, T. W.

  Dalton, Hugh

  Lawson, John James

  Stephen, Campbell

  Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)

  Lee, F.

  Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)

  Day, Colonel Harry

  Livingstone, A. M.

  Sutton, J. E.

  Dennison, R.

  Lowth T.

  Taylor, R. A.

  Dunnico, H.

  Lunn, William

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

  Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)

  Mackinder, W.

  Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plalstow)

  Fenby, T. D,

  MacLaren, Andrew

  Thurtie, E.

  Forrest, W.

  Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)

  Tinker, John Joseph

  George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd

  March, S.

  Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.

  Gibbins, Joseph

  Maxton, James

  Varley, Frank B.

  Gillett, George M.

  Montague, Frederick

  Viant, S. P.

  Gosling, Harry

  Morris, R. H.

  Warne, G. H.

  Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)

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

  Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)

  Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.)

  Murnin, H.

  Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney

  Greenall, T.

  Naylor, T. E.

  Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah

  Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)

  Owen, Major G.

  Welsh, J. C.

  Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)

  Palin, John Henry

  Westwood, J.

  Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)

  Paling, W.

  Whiteley, W.

  Groves, T.

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

  Wignall, James

  Grundy, T. W.

  Ponsonby, Arthur

  Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)

  Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)

  Potts, John S.

  Williams, David (Swansea, E.)

  Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)

  Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)

  Windsor, Walter

  Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr.

  Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

  Wright, W.

  Allen Parkinson.

  NOES.

  Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel

  Edmondson, Major A. J.

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere

  Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.

  Ellis, R. G.

  Lumley, L. R.

  Albery, Irving James

  Elvedon, Viscount

  MacAndrew, Charles Glen

  Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)

  Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)

  McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus

  Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby)

  Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)

  McLean, Major A.

  Allen, Lieut.-Col. Sir William James

  Everard, W. Lindsay

  Macmillan, Captain H.

  Applin, Colonel R. V. K.

  Falle, Sir Bertram G.

  Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm

  Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.

  Fermoy, Lord

  McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John

  Ashmead-Bartlett, E.

  Fleming, D. P.

  Macquisten, F. A.

  Atholl, Duchess of

  Foster, Sir Harry S.

  MacRobert, Alexander M.

  Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

  Frece, Sir Walter de

  Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel.

  Balfour, George (Hampstead)

  Fremantle, Lt.-Col. Francis E.

  Makins, Brigadier-General E.

  Balniel, Lord

  Galbraith, J. F. W.

  Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn

  Barclay-Harvey, C. M.

  Ganzoni, Sir John

  Margesson, Captain D.

  Beamish, Captain T. P. H.

  Gates, Percy

  Marriott, Sir J. A. R.

  Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)

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

  Meller, R. J.

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

  Glyn, Major R. G. C.

  Merriman, F. B.

  Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish.

  Grace, John

  Milne, J. S. Wardlaw

  Bethell, A.

  Greene, W. P. Crawford

  Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)

  Betterton, Henry B.

  Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)

  Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.

  Birchall, Major J. Dearman

  Gretton, Colonel John

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

  Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton)

  Grotrian, H. Brent

  Nall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph

  Blades, Sir George Rowland

  Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.

  Nelson, Sir Frank

  Blundell, F. N.

  Gunston, Captain D. W.

  Neville, R. J.

  Bourne, Captain Robert Croft

  Hacking, Captain Douglas H.

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

  Bowater, Sir T. Vansittart

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

  Nicholson, O. (Westminster)

  Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.

  Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)

  Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

  Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.

  Hanbury, C.

  Nuttall, Ellis

  Brass, Captain W.

  Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry

  Oakley, T.

  Brassey, Sir Leonard

  Harland, A.

  O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)

  Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive

  Harrison, G. J. C.

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

  Briscoe, Richard George

  Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)

  Pennefather, Sir John

  Brocklebank, C. E. R.

  Hawke, John Anthony

  Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)

  Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.

  Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.

  Perkins, Colonel E. K.

  Brown, Maj. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)

  Henderson, Capt. R.R. (Oxf'd, Henley)

  Perring, William George

  Brown, Brig.-Gen.H.C. (Berks, Newb'y)

  Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)

  Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)

  Buckingham, Sir H.

  Heneage, Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.

  Pilcher, G.

  Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James

  Henn, Sir Sydney H.

  Power, Sir John Cecil

  Burman, J. B.

  Hennessy, Major J. R. G.

  Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton

  Butler, Sir Geoffrey

  Henniker-Hughan, Vice-Adm. Sir A.

  Price, Major C. W. M.

  Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward

  Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Walford)

  Radford, E. A.

  Caine, Gordon Hall

  Herbert, S. (York, N.R., Scar. & Wh'by)

  Raine, W.

  Campbell, E. T.

  Hilton, Cecil

  Remnant, Sir James

  Cautley, Sir Henry S.

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

  Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.

  Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)

  Holt, Captain H. P.

  Rice, Sir Frederick

  Cazalet, Captain Victor A.

  Homan, C. W. J.

  Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)

  Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)

  Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)

  Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)

  Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton

  Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)

  Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)

  Hopkins, J. W. W.

  Ropner, Major L.

  Charteris, Brigadier-General J.

  Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)

  Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.

  Christie, J. A.

  Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.

  Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)

  Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer

  Howard, Captain Hon. Donald

  Sandeman, A. Stewart

  Churchman, Sir Arthur C.

  Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)

  Sanders, Sir Robert A.

  Clarry, Reginald George

  Hume, Sir G. H.

  Sanderson, Sir Frank

  Cobb, Sir Cyril

  Hurd, Percy A.

  Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W.R., Sowerby)

  Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.

  Hurst, Gerald B.

  Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mc.(Renfrew, W.)

  Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips

  Hutchison, G. A. Clark (Midl'n & P'bl's)

  Shaw, Capt. W. W. (Wilts, Westb'y)

  Cope, Major William

  Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.

  Skelton, A. N.

  Couper, J. B.

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

  Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)

  Courtauld, Major J. S.

  Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)

  Smith-Carington, Neville W.

  Courthope, Lieut.-Col. George L.

  Jacob, A. E.

  Smithers, Waldron

  Craig, Capt. Rt. Hon. C. C. (Antrim)

  Jephcott, A. R.

  Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

  Craig, Ernest (Chester, Crewe)

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

  Sprot, Sir Alexander

  Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)

  Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.)

  Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.

  Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)

  Stanley, Lord (Fylde)

  Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)

  Kindersley, Major Guy M.

  Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)

  Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)

  King, Captain Henry Douglas

  Steel, Major Samuel Strang

  Curtis-Bennett, Sir Henry

  Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

  Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.

  Curzon, Captain Viscount

  Knox, Sir Alfred

  Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.

  Dalziel, Sir Davison

  Lamb, J. Q.

  Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

  Davidson, J. (Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd)

  Lane-Fox, Lieut.-Col. George R.

  Styles, Captain H. Walter

  Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.

  Little, Dr. E. Graham

  Sugden, Sir Wilfrid

  Davies, A. V. (Lancaster, Royton)

  Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)

  Templeton, W. P.

  Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)

  Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)

  Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)

  Dawson, Sir Philip

  Lader, J. de V.

  Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)

  Doyle Sir N. Grattan

  Looker, Herbert William

  Titchfield, Major the Marquess of

  Drewe, C.

  Lord, Walter Greaves-

  Turton, Edmund Russborough

  Eden, Captain Anthony

  Lougher, L.

  Waddington, R.

  538

  539

  Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.

  Wilson, Sir C. H. (Leeds, Central)

  Woodcock, Colonel H. C.

  Warrender, Sir Victor

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

  Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.

  Waterhouse, Captain Charles

  Wise, Sir Fredric

  Wragg, Herbert

  Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)

  Wolmer, Viscount

  Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.

  Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)

  Womersley, W. J.

  Wells, S. R.

  Wood, Rt. Hon. E. (York, W.R., Ripon)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)

  Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'dge & Hyde)

  Colonel Gibbs and Major Sir

  Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)

  Wood, Sir Kingsley (Woolwich, W.).

  Harry Barnston.

  COAL PRICES.
  Captain GARRO-JONES: I beg to move,
  "That this House calls upon the Government to prosecute measures to prevent excessive charges for coal supplied to household consumers."
  I could have wished that this Motion had fallen to be moved by someone who could command more influence over the House and, in particular, more influence on the Government. Of all the vexations which have afflicted the people since the War, that caused by the high prices charged for coal is, perhaps, one of the worst. Hon. Members who have paid visits to people who live on the poverty line in their homes know how an addition of threepence to the hundredweight or how, in the case of the middle classes, an addition of a shilling to the ton, causes great irritation and even suffering. Those also who have evidence, as I have, of some of the poorer districts of London, and of the care with which the small supply of coal, a hundredweight, is husbanded in the corner of the kitchen, know that any increase of price is to a large number of people a very serious matter. I believe that my Motion comprehends a trade and industrial use of coal, and indeed the development of the coalfields as well, but I do not intend to deal with that for more than about two minutes, and if I return from it quickly, it is not because I am under any delusion as to the operations and development of the coal industry and the industrial use of coal, but merely because on an evening like this, and myself moving a Motion of this sort, I should not hope for a full Debate.
  While he is here, I want to ask the Secretary for Mines on this particular topic, whether he is fully alive to the intensely depressed state of the coal industry as a whole? I have been reading the trade supplement of the "Times," and listening to people who come from the coalfields, both owners and colliers, and indeed consumers. It seems to me that the state of the coal industry is appalling. We are passing from the use of coal as a fuel, and, as it seems to me,
  540
  while other nations are adjusting their conditions to meet that new phase we are doing absolutely nothing to meet it. What, for instance, is the Government doing to assist or to encourage the new methods of the low and high temperature carbonisation of coal? Until something of the kind is done we are losing headway in the world, and proceeding slowly, not only to a disgraceful condition for the mine-workers, but to unsatisfactory profits for the coalowners, and a general depression of the very life-blood of the industries of this country. I was reading lately a certain journal supposed to be one of the most respectable of Sunday newspapers, and the attitude of the Government was compared to that of the cow watching a passing train and doing nothing. I do not propose to pass that. on. I merely want to say to the Secretary for Mines that if he has any ambition in life at all, here is an opportunity for him to go down to history.
  I now come to the principal topic of this evening. I am fully conscious of the responsibility that rests upon a Member of this House when he gets up to make criticisms on any class of the community. Nothing could be more opposed to the traditions of the House of Commons than for one of its Members, without adequate study or preparation, to level indiscriminate charges of profiteering or anything else against any section of the community. I hope I shall be absolved from that charge. At the same time this is a great evil, and it must be faced. Before I came here to-night an hon. Member came to me and said: "I see you are moving your coal prices Motion in the House; I am sorry for you. The Coal Merchants' Federation has had detailed information prepared as to costs, showing how much coal is at the pit-head, how much it costs for distribution, what profit they make, and they have put all this information into the hands of skilful Members on the other side. When you have finished they are going to get up and wipe the floor with you." This is not an occasion for rhetoric; and I hope to gets good deal of support from Members on

  541
  the opposite side, and indeed from all sides. I desire to dint with hard facts, and I do so both in the interest of the Motion that I am moving and also to save myself from being used as a floor-wiper by hon. Members opposite. I have not mentioned that, when the Coal Merchants' Federation or the Coal Industries Information Department circulated their description of their costs to hon. Members who are supposed to speak for them, they also sent a copy of it to me. I took that as a compliment; and also that they had inadvertently done so without knowing I was going to move this Motion to-night.
  It may be for the convenience of the House if I take that document, that Publicity Handbook which has been issued by the Coal Merchants' Federation, together with the leaflet which accompanies it, and base my arguments on the facts given there, or the particulars set out there. The first point on which there is always a great deal of discussion, so far as the coal trade is concerned, is as to whether or not there is a coal combine or a trust which operates against the public interest. I am not at the same time attempting to level an indictment against the trusts as a whole. But this has been a subject of controversy, and before we approach the question in detail we might examine it to see whether or not there is a trust in this industry. It is a charge, by the way, that the coal merchants most vehemently repel. Last year Mr. Shinwell—who is no longer here—sent for the representatives of the coal merchants and subjected them to what, I will admit, was a vary close and searching cross-examination. I pay a ready tribute to the valuable information which Mr. Shinwell got from them. My only regret is that he did not follow it up by action. So far as that question as to whether or not there are trusts is concerned, I may be allowed to quote what one of the most representative of the powerful coal merchants said to Mr. Shinwell last year in reply to questions. It is to be found in Command Paper 2117, page 8—hon. Members have the paper—
  "If any of us round the table here, or any other merchant attending the market, feels that in his selling price the market is against him, or in his favour, whether it is up or down, he may come along and suggest that the public price requires alteration, either up or down. Probably he would mention it to Mr. Charrington, or to me, or
  542
  we might initiate it ourselves. If the merchants in general agree with that view, the price is put down or up according to the state of the trade."
  Take again the Board of Trade Parliamentary Inquiry of 1915. I notice that when they quote, without attempting to prove, that there is no trust or combine, they always quote the first sentence of the findings of that inquiry and leave the rest alone. I may be allowed to quote the whole of it as there are only two sentences, and I do not think it will be detaining the House unduly. The findings of that Inquiry were:
  "We have come to the conclusion, on the evidence before us, that the high prices of household coal are not attributable to the existence of definitely constituted rings or close corporations among either the coal merchants or the colliery owners. But, as in some other trades, there are continual opportunities of conference amongst those chiefly concerned, at which, in fact, there is commonly concerted action in regard to prices."
  A little later the same Inquiry's findings say:
  "A few of the leading firms decide upon the price which, without more ado, become the public prices for the next day, and are advertised next day in the newspapers."
  That may be a Trust or not, but I think it is good enough—or rather bad enough—for the vast majority of the public who have to consider the question. Another argument which is brought up by the Coal Merchants' Federation, and given in their very clever publicity handbook, is a statement of their position in comparison with the position of co-operative societies. They print in black letters an admission by the Secretary for Mines in regard to the profits made by the co-operative societies. They say:
  "The Secretary for Mines was obliged to admit that so far as the figures go they seem to indicate that the co-operative societies, selling at the same figure as the merchants, make a larger profit than the merchants disclose in their analysis."
  This is an attempt to show that the cooperative societies are making unduly large profits. On that point we have to bear in mind that in many cases the co-operative societies pay larger wages than the coal merchants—in many cases, I pay that tribute readily.
  Mr. HANNON: You have to prove that.
  Captain GARRO-JONES: The hon. Member is one of those who believe that

  543
  nothing can be stated in this House but what has previously been proved, perhaps, in a Court of Law. But all the facts I am quoting are easily open to him, or to anyone who will take the trouble to spent 10 minutes in the Library of this House. In addition to that, the co-operative societies, after they have made their profits, return about half of them to those who subscribe to their funds; and even when they have done these two things, returned some of their profits to their subscribers, that is, their customers, and paid equal or higher wages, they still have larger profits than the coal merchants who are supposed not to be making undue charges for coal. We also sometimes hear it stated that the Coal Advisory Committee in 1922 disposed of the allegation that there was any profiteering. The Coal Advisory Committee was very kind to the Coal Merchants' Federation in many particulars, but when it came to specific findings the Committee was obliged to make very plain statements, and this is one of them:
  "We are bound to remark that those responsible for the distributing trade should take immediate steps to render considerable reductions possible in most of the items. Railway and dock charges stand in need of immediate reductions."
  That was the most concrete and substantial finding by the Coal Advisory Committee.
  Before I go on to deal with the exact figures given by the Coal Merchants' Federation, I would like to remind the House of the more general figures. Coal charges are up by 100 per cent., cost-ofliving and wages charges are up by 78 per cent., railway freights, one of their principal charges, are up by considerably less than 50 per cent., and the price of illuminating gas to the consumer throughout the whole country is up, on an average, by only 50 per cent. All the constituent charges of these coal merchants, with the exception of the pithead price of coal are not up by more than 80 per cent., whereas the coal which they sell is up by over 100 per cent. I do not adduce that as in any sense a detailed argument, but it will serve as a preface to the more detailed points I am putting later.
  I think I have approached the core of the problem. The core of the problem
  544
  is to be found in this pamphlet which purports to show how the charge for a ton of Derby Brights, delivered in Central London, is made up. There are only five items. Pit-head price, after allowing for smalls and deficiencies, 27s. 9d.; railway freights, including wagon hire, 11s. 11d.; wages of loaders and carmen, 4s.; cartage expenses, including sacks, 2s. 7d.; other distributing costs—it gives a list of items—3s. 8d.; present margin for profit and contingencies, 1s. 1d. The first item is the pit-head price, 27s. 9d. I regret to say that when a ton of any specific kind of coal is ordered, the person who orders it is by no means certain of getting the kind of coal ordered.
  Mr. LUKE THOMPSON: I think the hon. and gallant Member has made a very serious charge there. Does he definitely say that the merchants deliberately send out a different kind of coal from what has been ordered?
  Captain GARRO - JONES: That will be answered in the course of the information I am coming to. With reference to the inquiry just addressed to me by the hon. Member opposite, perhaps I may be allowed to read from an answer made to Mr. Shinwell during the inquiry last year, when one of the largest and most important coal merchants said, in reply to a question—this can be found in the White Paper—
  "There is a coal, bright house coal, which in normal times we supply as Derby coal, which the public like. At times like this we cannot get enough of that. I myself bought second-grade Northumberland coal. We had to sell it as bright house coal."
  Mr. THOMPSON: At what price?
  Captain GARRO-JONES: The answer continues:
  "We have to get the next best we can to the normal."
  In a subsequent answer you will find he stated that, of course, he sold it at the same price as he would have sold the other. I could have quoted innumerable cases of consumers who have made these complaints, but I preferred to give it to the House out of the mouth of one of the largest coal merchants.
  In the constituency I have the honour to represent here 50 per cent. of the coal is delivered by wagon from house to

  545
  house. We never hear about Derby Brights in that trade. In this house-tohouse delivery there are only two grades of coal, best coal 2s. 8d. per cwt. and nuts 2s. 7d. per cwt. I think I have said enough to show that when you buy the best you get the best, or the next best; the only thing that is always best is the price. It reminds me of some hon. Members with whom I have had the pleasure of playing golf, who possess high handicaps and rather light scruples. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I have not named the quarter of the House from which these Members come. When they take a card out they never put down a higher score than 9, satisfying their consciences with the mental reservation that 9 means "9 or over." It is the same with some of these coal merchants, I regret to say—"Best means best or next best."
  The second important matter is that this 27s. 9d., which is stated to be the pithead price, is not always the price paid by the coal merchants for it, because they are able to contract forward. I do not complain about that, because it is perfectly legitimate, provided they do not charge too much for that service. They are able to contract forward, and they very often buy the very best Derby Brights at 25s. and 26s. per ton and even when it was cheaper they sold it at 27s. 9d. I think I have said enough to show that the price given in this statement is not a favourable guide as to the amount paid at the pithead compared with the price at, which the coal is sold at the doors of the consumers.
  The next item I wish to refer to is "other distributing costs." That amounts to 3s. 8d. I do not hold any brief for the co-operative societies. I am as fully aware of their drawbacks and disadvantages as I am of their merits, but I want to point out that the items which cost the coal merchants 3s. 8d. only cost cooperative societies about 1s. 8d., and that shows a decrease of 2s. As I have already shown, the total cost of a ton of Derby Brights delivered in Central London is 51s., but that same coal is being sold on the outskirts of London at 52s. 6d., although the costs are no more than in the case of Central London. There is an ordinary household coal which is being sold at the present time at 47s. 6d. per ton which could be sold even on the estimate made by the Coal Distributors' Information Department at 41s. 3d. per ton,
  546
  and show a reasonable profit. It is in regard to this grading of coal that the coal merchants are marking a profit of from 70 to 100 per cent. per annum. On a turnover of just over £2 they made a profit of 1s. 1d. per ton, and that is about 25 to 30 per cent. per annum.
  Mr. L. THOMPSON: At 51s.?
  Mr. LANSBURY: Get a bit of chalk.
  Captain GARRO-JONES: For the years 1923 and 1924 chartered accountants have certified the average net profits of six representative coal merchants supplying 50 per cent. of the London coal to be 1s. 7d. per ton. These chartered accountants do not say in their statements whether that includes industrial coal, because 1s. 7d. per ton profit on industrial coal is a very high rate, and there are many other people who are satisfied with a profit of 9d. per ton upon industrial coal. In working out all these costs no trader has ever been able to agree about the overhead charges, and chartered accountants do not see what goes on in the coal yard. They take the vouchers given to them, and if any particular coal merchant likes to allow himself £2,000 a year as a salary in addition to profits and a high rent for his sidings and his premises, the statement of the chartered accountants under those circumstances is not a very useful one.
  So far as the railway charges are concerned, there are one or two serious grievances, but as I hope to be able to say something about railway charges on a subsequent occasion I will satisfy myself by making an appeal to the Secretary for Mines to do what he can in this matter. I have been encouraged to hope, after a study of the OFFICIAL REPORTS of last year, that I shall get a great deal of support for my Motion from a large number of hon. Gentlemen opposite. I know that the Secretary for Mines in the late Government was subjected to a constant fusillade of questions from this side of the House on this question, and the present Secretary for Mines, who is not of a very excitable temperament, became quite angry on several occasions with the Government for not dealing with this question. The present Secretary for Mines, addressing the previous Secretary for Mines, said:
  "Does the hon. Gentleman find it impossible to take immediate action to put

  547
  an end to what he has described as discreditable profiteering?"
  I see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health present. He has had his reward for the great work he has done, and not the least of his activities was his constant criticism of the Secretary for Mines for not dealing with this question. In fact, he got tired of attacking the Secretary for Mines, and one afternoon he turned his attention to the late Prime Minister, and said:
  "Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the Secretary for Mines has been very busy asking questions and is nothing at all going to happen as the result."
  For these reasons I hope we shall find the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health giving us his support on this occasion. This question cannot be dealt with without treading on somebody's corns, whatever method is adopted. A suggestion has been made that these should be a system of registration of coal merchants. The inauguration of a proper system of grading and a co-operative system have also been suggested. I am not going to recommend any of those suggestions, but I will make one myself. I am not going to ask the Secretary for Mines to be precipitate in this matte!, but I ask him to do something before the winter ends. There is one thing, however, which I implore him not to do, and that is to set up a Royal Commission. Although we shall offend the susceptibilities of somebody whatever course we take, we shall offend public susceptibilities still more by taking no action at all.
  My suggestion is that we might legalise municipal trading in certain circumstances in regard to coal. After all, many public authorities have a considerable experience of trading of various kinds. In the Division of South Hackney, which I represent, we have a monumental example of successful municipal trading. The Borough of Hackney electricity scheme supplies electricity at one of the cheapest rates throughout the country, and it pays considerable sums in relief of the rates. They have had a good deal of experience in buying coal and running business affairs. The coal merchants say that one of their greatest difficulties is the question of storage, but I would like to point out that local
  548
  authorities frequently have ample facilities for storage which the coal merchants may not be able to provide. This has been tried before by local authorities. I am indebted to the hon. Member for Attercliffe (Mr. C. Wilson) for drawing my attention to the case of the Sheffield local fuel and lighting committee. They expended £22,124 in the purchase of coal at a time of shortage, and they sold it for £24,456. They considerably exceeded their costs, even after making allowance for charges, and I am assured, by those who made a close study of that experiment, that, if they did this without having any appliances, such as shoots for dealing with the coal, they could have made a very considerable profit if they had had it properly organised, as it could be if a Measure were introduced by the hon. and gallant Gentleman.
  I hope the House will not think I have kept them an unwarrantably long time. I want to be fair to the coal merchants and to the Coal Merchants' Federation. I know that they are human, and I do not believe in making unduly severe attacks upon anyone, least of all from this place of privilege. I do, however, feel that the public interest is challenged by these excessive prices, and I think something ought to be done immediately. The Secretary for Mines has all the facts necessary for action. We, who have only available the contracted scale of private information, cannot know nearly s, much about the matter as the hon. and gallant Gentleman, who has vouchers and complaints from consumers all properly filed. I think this question is ripe for action, and I hope hon. Members in every part of the House will unite to ask the Government to take immediate action to grasp this crying evil and to destroy it.
  Mr. ERNEST EVANS: I beg to second the Motion which has been moved by my hon. and gallant Friend in a speech marked by great ability and obvious sincerity. I regret, for many reasons, that the Motion is more or less confined to the particular question of excessive prices of coal to household consumers. There are other equally important and, from some points of view, more important, aspects of the question with which we should have liked to deal. There is the injury done by the high prim which is

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  charged for coal to industrialists. I have, as every hon. Member has, heard in this House very eloquent speeches from Members who have large commercial interests in this country, complaining of the burden which high taxation entails upon the trade and industry of the country at the present time. I should like to hear them speak with equal eloquence of the burden which is entailed upon industry by the high price of coal, as well as of other commodities. This is as much a form of taxation as any other form, and it is the worst form of taxation, because the product of it goes, not to the Exchequer, but somewhere or other into private pockets. I hope that those gentlemen who are so eloquent about burdens on industry will join us in pressing upon the Government our views on this question. Then there is the element which the coal industry represents in the foreign trade of the country, and this is also a matter on which we, should like to have some support, It is not because we were unaware of these other aspects of the question that we are not dealing with them now, but because we think that this limited question affords ample material for discussion in the limited time that is available.
  9.0 P.M.
  It is not necessary to enlarge upon the existence of the problem. It is only necessary to mention three sets of figures in order to carry conviction to any impartial person as to the existence of a very serious problem. Coal has been likened to a black diamond, and nowadays it is almost as expensive in this country. Some of these figures have already been referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend. Ire has referred to the figures which have been distributed by the Coal Merchants' Federation and the Coal Distributors' Association, in which they give the pit-head price as 27s. 9d., and the price to the consumer as 51s. I want to give some other figures, affecting; not London, but South Wales, because I think they are equally eloquent of the situation. There are some districts in South Wales where the total cost of production of the coal does not exceed 18s. per ton. There are places in South Wales where the average excess of the price which the household consumer has to pay is over 20s. as compared with the pit-head
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  price. I observe that in the statement which my hon. and gallant Friend has quoted it is suggested that the difference in the price is very largely due to high railway freights, but, in the towns to which I am now referring in South Wales, where that excess of over 20s. per ton exists, railway freights do not exceed 3s. 6d. or 4s. 6d. a ton.
  Mr. WRAGG: Is that the average pithead price?
  Mr. EVANS: I am talking about the average pit-head price of the coal and the average price to the household consumer. We deal with different kinds of collieries there and different kinds of coal, but that is the average price. I know a little about South Wales and about the collieries there, and there is this difference of over 20s. per ton, of which only 3s. 6d. or 4s. 6d. is accounted for by railway freights. There is a third set of figures to which I desire to refer, namely, the average wages in the collieries—the average wage of the men who actually produce the coal. I want to refer to these figures because I think they have relevance in the consideration of this question. I know it is very difficult to dogmatise on these figures, because I do not suppose there has ever been an industry in the history of the world in which it is more difficult to arrive at an accurate figure in regard to this matter. There seem to be so many grades and classes in the coal industry, each with its own particular rate of wages, that is very difficult to form a real estimate; and, despite all the negotiations which have taken place over a long series of years, this large number of grades apparently continues. Agreements have not withered and customs have not staled their infinite variety. I think it is fair to say, however, taking the miners as a whole all over the country, that their wage is about 10s. 5d. a shift; and I think it is also fair to say that the average production per shift is certainly less than a ton. Therefore, in the price of coal to the household consumer, the miner, who is so often blamed for the price of coal as well as for many other things, is only responsible, as regards his wage, for less than 10s.
  Let hon. Members note the relevance of these three sets of figures, and let it be remembered that they are figures of facts,

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  and not figures of speech. Another matter to which I want to refer is this: As is apparent from the interviews which the late Secretary for Mines bad last year, as far as London was concerned, it is in the hands of a small body of men—some six, or eight, or ten—to decide whether there shall be an increase in the price of coal to household consumers; and I believe I am right in saying that daring last summer they found it necessary to increase the price of coal no fewer than five times. Actually, as my hon. and gallant Friend has said, the price of coal has gone up 100 per cent., which involves a charge to the industrial users of coal of about 70,000,000, and of about £17,500,000 to the household consumers. As I say, these are figures of facts. They are figures which do not so much speak for themselves as call out for people to speak for them and to speak in their defence and in their justification.
  Mr. WRAGG: On a point of Order. Is it a fact that the wages in South Wales are 10s.? [HON. MEMBERS: "Order, order!"]
  Mr. EVANS: I am talking perfectly distinctly, and I was taking the average wage of the miners all over the country. It comes to 10s. 5d. If that is not right, it can be challenged, and if it is challenged there are several Members above the Gangway who can speak with greater knowledge and practical experience than I can. I should be very much surprised indeed if it can be justified that I am overstating the case. These are just a few figures and a few facts which indicate the existence of the problem, and the consumer wants to know why it is that there is this great difference between the pithead price and the price he has to pay. He wants to know; he does not know; he is entitled to know, and what we are asking the Government to-night is to assist us in ensuring that the customer shall find out. There are the documents published by the Coal Distributors' Association. I will say nothing about that except this. In the statements which have been issued they have condescended to a greater amount of detail than they were prepared to furnish the Secretary of Mines with last year, when they were asked to answer a number of specific questions. The only other comment I
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  make is that it is extraordinary in life how often it becomes necessary to form organisations for the defence of the irreproachable. I am reminded of a statement of Benjamin Franklin to this effect:
  "When I see a merchant over-polite to his customers, begging them to take a little brandy and throwing his goods on the counter, thinks I, That man has got an axe to grind.'"
  I cannot help feeling that in the history of coal distribution somebody has got an axe to grind, that that axe is being ground pretty well, and that having been ground it is made to descend pretty heavily on the neck of the consumer. These facts indicate the problem. What the consumer wants to know is what is the cause of this difference. It cannot very well be set against the wage of the miner. I do not suppose that, and should be very surprised if, a single Member of this House would venture to say that, in view of the work they have to perform and the conditions in which they work, the miners are being overpaid. In any case their wages represent but a small part of the price of the coal to the consumer. Then is the owner making too many profits? I have been reading speeches by the coal owners in recent times and I gather that they are making practically no profit at all. Incidentally there is a suspicion in certain parts of the country that certain people are not only coal owners but also people, possibly under different names, who are coal distributors, and what they lose on the swings of ownership they make up for on the roundabouts of distribution, and there must be a good many roundabouts between the coal leaving the pithead and arriving at the house of the consumer. Is it railway freights? In the statement which has been issued it is stated that freights do consume a considerable portion of this difference, but I have already given figures as far as South Wales is concerned, where it is clear that the railway freights are not responsible for more than a small part of this difference. Is it that there are too many middlemen engaged in distribution or is it that there is too much waste in the industry? Or is it a lack of organisation and a lack of initiative on the part of those who are responsible for the conduct of the industry?
  These are questions which obviously should be cleared up, because this

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  problem is of vital interest to every home throughout the country and particularly, and perhaps more than we who are comfortably situated in life can appreciate, to the poorer homes of the country—to homes in the slums of the large cities, where the sun of heaven scarcely ever penetrates and the people have to rely upon coal for the only means of warmth available for them and their children. This is a matter which affects every child and every man and woman throughout the country, and has an intimate connection with the life and well-being and health of the population. These are questions to which, in view of the nature of the problem, we are entitled to ask the Government to devote their attention. Unless the Secretary for Mines can get up and assure the House that he and his Department are satisfied that everything is as it should be in connection with the coal industry and that he is satisfied that there is no waste, that there is complete. organisation and plenty of initiative and that there is no profiteering, and profiteering of the meanest form, consisting as it does of trading at the expense of one of the prime necessities of life—[An HON. MEMBER: "Socialism!"] I do not care what you call it. This is a question which does not involve party considerations. It is a question which, as I regard it, is a human question, affecting the well-being of the people at large and it does not matter what we call ourselves, whether it be Liberals, or Socialists, or Conservatives or Tory Democrats. Let us give the best we can in order to try to do something to remove what is a real grievance and something which involves a serious burden, not only upon the industries of this country, but upon the life of the individual man, woman and child throughout the country. Unless the Secretary for Mines can get up and assure the House that he is satisfied—and he will never do it—in regard to each of the questions which I have mentioned, it is obviously his duty to make certain that he ascertains the true facts of the situation, and having ascertained them, deals with them resolutely and effectively.
  Mr. LUKE THOMPSON: In rising to oppose this Resolution, I would like at the very outset to remind the hon. and gallant Member for South Hackney (Captain Garro-Jones) of the nature of
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  his Resolution. The assumption underlying that Resolution is that there are excessive coal prices, and that therefore the Government should be called upon to deal with those excessive coal prices by introducing some Measure. I was hoping that in his somewhat lengthy speech he would convince the House that there had been excessive coal prices charged. I have yet to find out from any utterance he has made that he has given any proof of any kind that there are excessive charges being made in the coal-distributing section of this trade.
  Mr. SEXTON: You go and buy a hundredweight and you will find out.
  Mr. THOMPSON: I have bought many a hundredweight. I know this House is always fair in its treatment of these questions, and I give the hon. and gallant Member the credit for wishing to approach this question in a fair manner. If he did not, I think his conduct would be reprehensible. Any hon. Member who approaches this subject in other than a serious manner would lay himself open to the charge of reprehensible conduct. I hope, in the short time at my disposal, to contribute to this Debate in a real manner, and to remove some misconceptions. Let me start, first, with the misconceptions of the Seconder of the Resolution. He said that the pit-head price was 18s. a ton for coal in Wales. One of my hon. Friends asked, "Is that the average price?" and he replied, "Yes, the average price." Not later than yesterday, we had one hon. Member, I think it was the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. Beckett) talking in the same easy, slipshod tones. He quoted prices of 18s. and 20s. for Durham coal, and 50s., 55s. and 60s. for the coal in London, and he said, "I want to know how it is that these coals, sea-borne, show a difference of price between 18s. and 20s., and from 50s. up to 60s. in London." I want to remind the hon. Member that there is scarcely any house coal shipped to London at the present time from Durham. I do not think there is½ per rent. so shipped. 99½ per cent. of the coal that comes into London is rail-borne. Notwithstanding, we have these loose statements made.
  I have heard statements made again and again in this House, that 19s. 9d. was the price of house coal at the pit

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  head, and that the same coal was 55s. to 60s. a ton in London. The question asked is, "Why the difference?" I have heard responsible miners' representatives say the same thing. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I challenge you.
  Mr. R. RICHARDSON: You profit by it.
  Mr. THOMPSON: It is time that the House and the country knew the actual facts of this matter. I want to deal with the different items. There is a big difference between 19s. 9d. and 27s. 9d. as the pit-head price, quoted by the Mover of the Resolution. I want to show where the difference comes in. As hon. Members opposite know, there is a difference between hard coal and soft coal, and the percentages that you can get in small and round coal. Let me take an assumed case of, say, 35 per cent. of slack at 8s. [Laughter.]
  Mr. BATEY: Go on.
  Mr. THOMPSON: Take 8 per cent. of small, 8 per cent. of nuts and 49 per cent. of round. You will not get 49 per cent. of round at most of the collieries in Durham.
  Mr. BATEY: I know some duff that is sold as best.
  Mr. THOMPSON: I am speaking of house coal, and it would require the pit to charge 30s. 2d. for round coal—[HON. MEMBERS: "What pit?"] I am not giving the name of the pit. [Interruption.]
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope): The Mover and Seconder were listened to very quietly, and I must appeal to hon. Members not to interrupt.
  Mr. THOMPSON: For any hon. Members to make a statement that the average selling price is 19s. 9d. at the pit head, when they definitely know that there is no such price for house coal, is unfair. House coal is not sold at the pit head at that price, and anyone who makes such a statement, deliberately, should not only be contradicted, but it should be made perfectly plain to this House that the statement is inaccurate. At the present time you can buy Derby Brights at the pit head at 27s., but in my own county you pay from 28s. 6d. to 32s. for house coal at the pit head. If
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  you take into consideration these facts, it makes all the difference between the assumption made to-night by the Seconder of the Resolution, that there is from 18s. to 20s. distributive charge, on the basis of an average pit-head price of 18s. for house coal.
  Let me take the second point. There are three charges on the pamphlet sent out by the Federation. May I say that the Federation sent their pamphlet to the hon. and gallant Member opposite, to show that they were supplying him as well as anybody else with a fair statement of the case. Let me take the three charges. There is, first, the pit-head price of 27s. which you cannot alter. If the hon. and gallant Member disputes that, I would suggest that he should leave the lucrative profession in which he is now engaged and start as a coal merchant, and see whether he can buy any cheaper than 27s. We have 27s. 9d., with the wastage, as the pit-head price. There is a second charge of 11s. 11d., which makes 39s. 8d. of the 51s. at which the coal is sold to the consumer, representing 78 per cent. of the total charge of 51s. The other items represent 22 per cent., over which the coal merchants have some control. Therefore, the whole controversy ranges round that third item. The coal merchants cannot control the pit-head price, and they cannot control the railway charges, but they have some control over the distributive charges. Therefore the whole controversy ranges round that.
  Let me be entirely fair. There is an item of 10s. 3d., plus is. 1d., which means that 11s. 4d. is allowed for the total charge of distribution and profit. That varies, and it varies considerably in the circumstances of distribution. I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to a report of the interview between the Cooperative Societies and the late Secretary for Mines. In the first column, the Co-operative Societies for London return their distributive charge as 11s., compared with 11s. 4d. But I go a good deal further. I hold in my hand a charge for one of the North Eastern districts of 7s. 3d. or, with a railway charge of 2s. 3d., a distributive charge of 9s. 6d. I will tell the hon. Members where the difference comes in. It is not due to the fault of the coal merchant, and not due to the distribution, but due to the conditions under which they have the coal to distribute. It is well known

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  that in most of the North Eastern districts the coal is delivered in ton loads, and you may have distribution going on in the tens of tons a clay. You come into the metropolis and every bit of coal has to be bagged; every bit of coal has to be handled out of the trucks; has to be rehandled into the lorries, and rehandled again into the coal cellars. The result is that in the matter of the charges on that distribution the coal merchants have no control but have to fall in with the conditions. This question was again raised under the late Secretary for Mines and one of the representatives of the Co-operative Societies said:
  "One of the main troubles in large areas is that the tenement houses in London and Glasgow,"—
  our friends from Glasgow can tell you more than I can and I hope they will—
  "even the new council houses being put up, barely contain enough space to put in half a ton of coal. If I had my way every house which goes up would have at least space for a couple of tons of coal."
  It is the same in London. You have no accommodation. If you have accommodation in cellars, it has to be delivered in bag lots. I am going to take what I think is a very exceptional course for any Member in this House to take, and I. think an attitude which has not bees taken in the House of Commons. Again, may I say to hon. Members opposite, I hope that the hon. and gallant Member for South Hackney will be as scrupulous even in his own profession and in the other trades with which he is interested, and that he will, under an audited and certified account, disclose all the charges and disclose his profits. I might say to hon. Members above the Gangway that this is one of the difficulties that has arisen over the Political Levy. It is because the Members will not, and dare not, disclose a declared and audited account of exactly the distribution of that money.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I think the hon. Member had better keep to the subject under discussion.
  Mr. THOMPSON: I beg your pardon, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I think I was led away. These distributive charges are charges that are audited and ascertained. As has been shown, you have under the first grouping of 39·8, 78 per cent, of the total cost over which the merchants have
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  no control. Secondly, you have in the second set of charges an item of 4s. for wages, on which, in reply to a question raised by an hon. Member opposite, I want to say this. There was a disposition to say that the coal merchants, where possible, pay less wages than the cooperative people. The wages paid by the coal merchants are the wages fixed by the Industrial Court of 1924, and on the fair and reasonable basis of wages. They represent 40 per cent. wages alone in the distributing charges for domestic coal in London. Furthermore, so far as the problem goes, 1s. 1d. corresponds in some direction with the evidence given before the late Secretary for Mines in which the societies there stated that they made practically on an average 3½ per cent. on their turnover. The results certified by the auditors of the coal merchants show 2 per cent., and it is fair to say that the whole of the distributive charges form 2½, per cent. only of the actual cost to the consumer. I think that point wants emphasising. In other words, pit-head and railway rates 78 per cent., distributing charges 20 per cent., and the profit to the distributors 2 per cent. May I just briefly—
  Mr. BATEY: Before the hon. Member passes on. He promised he was going to reveal something which has never been revealed before. Will he do it before he passes on?
  Mr. THOMPSON: I will reveal this. I have analysed the whole of the charges in the distributing trade. I challenge any other trade or industry in the country to come forward with an ascertained and audited account similar to that. I think it is a fair challenge. There has been, if not a direct charge, an implication by the hon. and gallant Member of certain rings in the coal trade. I would give that the most emphatic denial, and I believe that for reasons that will appeal to all Members, whether they belong to the party above or below the Gangway. In the first place, it is well known that in many Northern districts prices are not set by the coal merchant at all, but my distributing collieries that may be in the district. Therefore, it is impossible in that case for any merchant to fix prices by rings. The merchants in themselves are in severe competition. There is another implication that there was a discredit—I think it was the hon. Member

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  who seconded the Motion—because coal merchants were in an association. Is there any discredit in being in an association?
  Mr. E. EVANS: I never suggested there was.
  Mr. THOMPSON: But the implication is there. There is no discredit in coal merchants forming a federation or association, so long as it is right for you. I am free to say there is open competition among members of the association. The co-operative societies are sufficient and are a law unto themselves. I might weary the House if I referred again to the interview the co-operative societies had with the late Secretary for Mines, but it is a fact that the co-operative societies are a law unto themselves and are not in attachment with anyone. I see the hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. A. V. Alexander). How can you suggest if you are such a representative body that there is a ring among the coal merchants?
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The Speaker has more than once pointed out that hon. Members must see Mr. Speaker or his representative and not one another.
  Mr. THOMPSON: Again I apologise. I was led away by excitement. I think I have said sufficient to show there is no such thing as rings. If there is suggestion that there were rings in the country districts, the fact is that in the country districts coal is distributed largely from railway sidings and managed by the railway companies themselves. They sell the coal at these railway sidings on a percentage basis. For these reasons it is impossible that rings should exist.
  I think the evidence I have submitted will convince the House that the charges which have been made by the hon. and gallant Member for South Hackney, in fact, contain no substance, and that the coal merchants as a whole in the distributive community are effectively meeting their obligations, and that, compared with any other agencies in being at present, they are more than efficiently meeting their obligations. I was very much interested in analysing the returns with regard to co-operative societies. I find
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  that the distribution of coal to the cooperative societies extends in all to one-eighth or one-seventh of their members. That is a curious fact, but it is a fact, again, on the evidence submitted to the inquiry by the Secretary for Mines last year, and the reason is not far to seek. It is because, as I believe, the merchants and the distributors give better service than the co-operative societies, and that they deliver the coal in better condition and sell at lower prices.
  Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: Perhaps my hon. Friend does not know that it is only comparatively recently that the coal trade has become part of the co-operative movement, and that it is increasing very rapidly.
  Mr. THOMPSON: I can speak from experience in the north, and there are districts, which I know, in which distribution has been going on for the last 35 years, and in these places they have decreased their supplies. I have as much information on that point as my hon. Friend opposite. I hope, therefore, that the House will not be led away by the pretext of hon. Members opposite. It has been said from these benches that what we want is municipalisation. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I am glad to hear that "Hear, hear" from hon. Members opposite. We on this side will give our greatest resistance to any attempt to municipalise the coal industry, and, for the arguments which I have advanced and many others that might be advanced, if this Motion goes to a Division I shall vote against.
  Mr. MARCH: I am sure that the House has been very much interested to hear the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. L. Thompson) explain what a philanthropic lot of people the coal merchants of London are. The fact is, that in their business they have been living fairly well on their losses. I happen to be a London Member and know something about the coal trade. My belief about the whole matter that it was the time of coal control which really spoiled the London merchants, so far as profits are concerned. The prices fixed when they were arranging the amount of profit to be made by a very small man out of his business, to enable him to get a living, enabled the other people in their quite large businesses to get more than they

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  had been in the habit of getting, and, of course, they are net desirous of going back. The ordinary distribution of coal in London is done by a, man at piecework. That is rather unfortunate. I have been a representative of the men before the Coal Merchants' Association in London on many occasions. I have tried to get the men to agitate for a weekly wage and not to do the work by piecework. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame!"] Probably it is, but the men, and the employers as well, do not desire the men to have a regular weekly wage.
  They have got reasons for it. Most of their reasons are based on the fact that the trade is not a staple trade. It fluctuates very considerably, and the employers like to have their men just when they want them. If there is no coal to go out the carman gets 1s. 6d. per day. It is termed "driving money," but it is not that at all. It is really stable duty money. The men have to do stable work, clean the horse and get ready, and then, if they do a day's work, it is generally considered to be three two-ton loads, or six tons for a day's work. The employers themselves have always recognised that the wages which they pay the men are based on a 34-ton week, five days at six tons, and on the Saturday four tons, and they do not consider that the men can live decently on doing less than that. There are many who do much less than that, and they can send those men four miles without any extra charge.
  This table which has been outlined may be true, but I should want to scrutinise the books very seriously to find out where the extras come in. With regard to the extra journey money I should also want to be convinced as to whether a sack going out six or a dozen times in the day is going to cost 4d. each time. I should also want to find out something about the charges made on the wharf. We get the wharf manager who has generally been one of the workmen, a leading man. We get the chief clerk, and then the weighbridge clerk, in many instances. It is very nice to bring out these administrative charges, but they want a great -deal of scrutinising. Then my hon. Friend tried to compare the work of the men working for coal merchants as compared with those working for co-operative societies. I may inform him that there is no cooperative worker who runs away from
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  his job to get a coal merchant's job in London. They get a full weekly wage, they get a half-day's holiday, with pay, as well as finishing early on Saturday, and they do not have to go round on Sunday to collect the money for the coal, which they have left with the people at their own charge, as they have to do in London.
  The whole system of London delivery of coal is a disgrace. The men who take the coal out take it out on their own responsibility. They find their own customers, not the employer or his agent, and deliver the coal at standard price to the people, and go round on Saturday nights and Sundays collecting the money, and the merchants know it and they keep the men at it. No wonder they do not want weekly servants. They like the men to be on piece-work. There are very few coal merchants in London who pay their men sick pay during illness. Unfortunately coal carmen, in going about the streets in all kinds of weather, are subject to illness occasionally. But the co-operative society does pay sick pay. If all that goes into the expense of the coal-distribution charges there must be a difference between the co-operators and the coal merchants. It has been stated that coal when it reaches some of the consumers costs as much as 56s. or 60s. a ton. It happens in this way. In a district like- that which I represent, where the people have not got the convenience for storing much coal—they have worse inconvenience in finding the money to pay for the coal—they buy coal in 7-lb. lots. You cannot go to a coal dealer and get a 7-lb. lot at an average of 27s. or 51s. a ton. They have to pay exorbitant prices for small quantities. Even if they get 14 lbs or 28 lbs. at a time they still have to pay a price in excess of that paid by those who order a ton at a time. Consequently, these people frequently pay 56s. to 60s. on the average per ton for coal.
  We are trying to alter that in Poplar. We are trying to dispense with stoves by putting in electricity. I heard the hon. Member for South Hackney (Captain Garro-Jones) say that Hackney had a very good supply of electricity. Hackney cannot come up to Poplar. Bad as we are, we have the finest electricity undertaking in London, and we are supplying electricity cheaper than anyone else in London. What is more, we are paying the best wages to the workmen, and giv

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  ing them the best conditions of any district in London. And we are proud of it. Parliament threw out the Bill which would have given the people who are in poor circumstances an opportunity of getting reasonably cheap coal. During the War and during control you allowed the municipalities to store large quantities of coal, but you did not allow them to distribute it to the consumers. You allowed them to get in 400 tons or 500 tons of coal and to store it in case there was a shortage, so that the retailers of the district could come along and take that coal and distribute it, which they did and which we did in Poplar. But is was not to the benefit of the consumer; it, was more to the benefit of the retailer. What we desire is to see that if there is any advantage to be obtained it should go to the consumers, the people who pay all the time and every time, to relieve them of a lot of payment that they make for keeping other people on their backs. We have advised them on many occasions that what they have to do is to set abort relieving themselves of the chains that have been wound around them.
  Probably the Debate to-night will help the Minister to go into the question of these retail prices and to see whether something cannot be done to enable the poor consumers to get coal more cheaply than they are getting it now. I will not say that there are exorbitant profits being made by anybody. I have not said so. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about the Motion?"] The Motion says "excessive prices," and I do not think it mentions excessive profits. We are complaining about excessive prices, and all the remarks that I have made have been about excessive prices. The unfortunate part of it is that the poorer a person is, the more he pays for all his commodities, not only coal, but bread, and everything that he requires. If he wants tea he cannot get it at the same price as you or I would pay. He has to buy one ounce or two ounces, and he is charged more in proportion. Things of that kind we want to see altered. They can be altered only when you give the municipalities power to get the commodities and to retail them to the people at a reasonable charge for administration, instead of allowing so many people to make a profit out of the consumers.
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  I am glad that the hon. Member for South Hackney brought this question forward. I hope that the Debate will be of good effect upon the Minister, and that it will enable him to look into the question and see whether something cannot be done to reduce prices.
  Mr. WRAGG: The proposer of the Motion expressed the opinion that 27s. 9d. was not a fair price for the merchant to pay for coal at the pithead. I rather think that the merchant is understating the case, because within my own knowledge there are collieries, supplying certain classes of house coal for London, which are charging 35s. to 36s. a ton at the pithead. To-day there is one particular colliery doing that, I know, and I believe there are several of them doing so. The fact that the colliery owner gets 35s. is all to the good of the miners, because the higher the price of the coal at the pithead the greater the proceeds, and the miner gets a high percentage of the proceeds.
  Mr. CAPE: Are we to take it that the hon. Member is making that statement on behalf of the coal-owners?
  Mr. WRAGG: I hold no brief for the coal merchants or for the coal-owners. I am simply stating what is a fact at a particular colliery and, I believe, at several other collieries in that district. I am pointing this out, because it is a fallacy to try to get mathematical accuracy in the price put down as chargeable at the pithead. As everyone knows, coal varies and is of different qualities. Sometimes you think you are getting Derby brights and sometimes another particular kind of coal, but I think that, taking it all round, 27s. 9d. is an understatement of the pithead price that the merchant has to pay. The question is asked, if 27s. 9d. is the pithead price, how does it come about that the average is only 18s. or 19s.? It comes about in this way. A colliery that is selling at 35s. a ton for a particular market is selling slack or dust for electricity purposes at 5s. 6d. a ton at the pithead When you average the 5s. 6d. and the 35s., and the prices of other manufacturing coals, including occasionally export coal, you get a certain average which is reflected in the returns given by the Government. I have those returns here.

  565
  The Proposer also said that the cost of distribution was very excessive. He said that the merchants put down for this cost 3s. 8d., but that the co-operative societies could do it for 1s. 8d. If they can do for 1s. 8d. what the merchants do for 3s. 8d., why on earth do they not sell coal in London at a price considerably cheaper than the coal merchants? According to that view the co-operative societies, if they wished, could regulate a fair and proper price for household coal in London. The Seconder of the Motion made what to my mind was a somewhat appalling statement, but one which is easy of contradiction. He said the miner got only a small proportion of the proceeds of the sale of Coal. I have before me the Government Returns for the quarter ending in September, 1924. I believe the return for the quarter ending December, 1924, is not yet published—at any rate I have not been able to get it—but I find that in the previous quarter the miner received in wages 13s. 8·19d. per ton and not under 10s. as the Seconder said.
  Mr. E. EVANS: I think the hon. Member is doing me an injustice. He is talking about the wage per ton, but I distinctly said I was referring to the wage per shift.
  Mr. WRAGG: I understood that afterwards the hon. Member turned his figure into the figure per ton, but if that is not so I withdraw my remark. The fact remains that the wage cost per ton for this particular quarter throughout the whole of England was 13s. 8·19d., and of course in South Wales it was considerably higher. The selling price at the pit-mouth of that coal was 19s. 1·87d.—that was the average price. The total cost of that coal was 19s. 1·58d., and the owners get 0·29 of a penny per ton during that quarter, and the miners got 13s. 8·19d. per ton during that quarter. [Interruption.]
  Mr. SPEAKER: Hon. Members must listen to the other side of the case.
  Mr. WRAGG: We have hon. Members saying in this House that the miners receive a very small proportion of the proceeds of the sale of coal, and yet we have the actual Government figures that the proceeds of the sale of the coal during that quarter were allocated as I have
  566
  described, and the figures for other quarters are nearly about the same. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] There may be 1d. or 2d. difference in the selling price at the pit-head, but there is not much in it. Out of the 19s. 1d. the miner got 13s. 8d., and the owner, during those three months at any rate, got practically nothing. I am not saying that during some other months the owners do not get something, but if they did not get something they could not carry on.
  10.0 P.M.
  What is the remedy suggested for this supposed high price of coal in London I do not admit at all that the prices are high. As I say, I hold no brief for the coal merchants, but taking the average price of household coal at 27s. 9d. and taking the coal merchants' cost or the co-operative societies' cost, I think the fact that the co-operative societies do not sell at a lower price shows that the price is quite reasonable. No case has been made out to show that coal merchants in London are profiteering. No case has been made out to show that the prices charged are excessive, because if they were excessive they could be remedied by the co-operative society. The remedy put forward is municipalisation. Anyone who has had experience of municipalisation knows that it does not reduce costs. Poplar may, as an hon. Member has just said, have a cheaper price for electricity than other parts of London, but the hon. Member ignores all the other relative factors in that matter.
  Mr. ATTLEE: Is it not the fact that the price of municipal electricity over the whole London area, taking the boroughs all together, is one-third cheaper than the price of the companies, taking them all together.
  Mr. WRAGG: I do not necessarily accept those figures. I am not prepared to challenge the figures given as to the price of electricity in Poplar, but it is not fair to take prices of electricity without taking all the relative factors into consideration. After our experience of nationalised services such as the telephone service one is forced to the conclusion that it will be a poor day for this country when we have nationalisation and municipalisation on an extensive scale, because there is no system in it. There is no service in this country which is run so

  567
  badly as the telephone system, and there is no one to whom we can make complaints or from whom we can get any remedy in regard to it. That applies to all nationalised services, but if you do not get satisfaction from one coal merchant you can always go to another. I think I have shown that the prices charged by the coal merchants are not excessive, and that if we change our system for a system such as is desired by hon. Members opposite, we may come to that position described in the words of the Bible—
  "My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions."
  Mr. RILEY: I wish on behalf of my hon. Friends on this side of the House to congratulate the hon. Member for South Hackney on his enterprise in bringing forward this question. The hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Thompson), who is, I understand, interested in coal, made a speech in which he tried to convince the House that there was no profit in the distributive eon', industry.
  Mr. THOMPSON: I do not think I said that. I said there was a fair profit.
  Mr. RILEY: I think the expression used was an "infinitesimal profit." I wish to assure the hon. Member and other hon. Members opposite that we have no desire to make any special attack upon business men engaged in the coal trade as distinct from any other trade. I am not aware that it has been suggested that they are making exorbitant profits but I suggest that it is somewhat difficult to imagine that there are not substantial profits still being made in the coal trade. We have the statement put forward by the trade itself in a leaflet which I have here, intimating that among the six great firms of distributors in London, responsible for the distribution of half the coal in London, there was an average profit of Is. 7d. per ten. The 1s. 7d. a ton may seem somewhat small. I went to the trouble yesterday to try to ascertain what is the amount of coal distributed in London, and I find that, as ascertained by the Mines Department last year, for domestic purposes there is round about 5½ million tons of coal consumed in London each year. [An HON. MEMBER: "The London County Council area?"] Yes. In addition, the
  568
  28 municipal authorities in London consume over 2,000,000 tons per annum. In those two directions there are no less than 7,000,000 tons a year consumed. The leaflet issued by the trade in the coal industry in London admits that six firms supply half the coal in London at an average profit of 1s. 7d. per ton. That is to say, on those 7,000,000 tons, there is, as a matter of fact, a net profit of £500,000 a year, and these six firms share £250,000 amongst them. That is not the whole story, because the 7,000,000 tons only include coal for domestic purposes and public authorities. The figure takes no account of all the supplies delivered for industrial purposes. Anyhow, that is sufficient to indicate that, after all is said and done, the coal trade in London is not yet quite on the verge of bankruptcy.
  There is an attempt being made to try to demonstrate that there really is no margin to enable coal to be supplied to consumers at a less price, but I notice that even the leaflet put forward by the merchants admits that, on a ton of coal, that is, Derby Brights, which they state are being sold by the ton at 51s., there is a margin of 11s., after payment has been made for the pit-head price and the railway charges and sidings. There is a margin of 11s. on every ton delivered into the consumer's cellar, and I venture to say that Ms., with a margin of lls., is a minimum amount. Of course, as has been pointed out, a great portion of the coal in London is sold at a higher price than 51s. even reaching to 60s., so that it is quite clear there is the substantial margin of from 11s. to 14s. per ton going to the distributors, simply for transferring the coal from the London sidings into the consumers' cellars. We on these benches say that that is an exorbitant margin.
  I can go to other parts of the country besides London. I have a copy of an actual invoice of deliveries of good house coal from South Wales collieries to Cardiff and Swansea, free to the railway sidings in Cardiff and Swansea. The price in Cardiff on the sidings vary from 33s. 7d. per ton to 37s. 7d., or an average prices of 34s. 6d. per ton. The same coal is sold in Cardiff and Swansea at 50s. per ton, so that in Cardiff and Swansea—not in London, with the difficulties which have been referred to—there is a margin of 14s. to 15s. per ton for carrying the coal from a railway siding into the con

  569
  sumer's cellar. I will give my own case. I live within seven miles of a coalfield, and I have never paid, since the year 1919, I think, less than £3 per ton for coal. I had a bill last week for £3 0s. 6d.; two years ago I was paying £3 3s. per ton for Wallsend house coal. I am informed by a friend who comes from that district that at the pithead at Wallsend best coal is being collected to-day at 23s. and 24s. per ton. I am paying £3 a ton for the same coal delivered at my house. It is said that one of the high charges on coal in London is the railway charge from the Midlands, or from wherever the coal comes, of 12s. In the West Riding of Yorkshire we get railway charges of 6s. or 8s. per ton, and, so far as I can make out, the coal I consume cannot cost the merchant who supplies it, when he receives it at the siding, more than 35s. a ton. I am paying £3, or 25s. more. These are facts which cannot be disputed, and there is a margin, which, with good management and organisation, would give a less price to the consumer.
  I want to deal with the question of remedies. There have been suggestions as the result of the Inquiry undertaken by Mr. Shinwell last year. May I say we appreciate, I am sure, the reference which the hon. Member for South Hackney made to the work of Mr. Shinwell last year at the Mines Department; but I think the hon. Member overlooked the fact that Mr. Shinwell, as a matter of fact, before he left office, had prepared a Bill on this particular matter. At least, when I spoke to him to-day, I understood that a Bill was either in an advanced stage of preparation, or had been actually prepared. I understand the suggestions fall into three divisions. There was, it is said, a suggestion that a remedy might be found in some form of control of prices. Another method was that of registering dealers, who would be responsible for obeying certain regulations. The third suggestion was the development of municipal distribution. I will not waste time by considering the two first remedies which were mentioned. I agree that neither of them was practicable, but I do want to say a word on the question of a municipal remedy for the grievance of high prices in coal.
  Reference has been made to-night—as a matter of fact, by the hon. Member for South Hackney—to what has been done in
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  the City of Sheffield. I have here a copy of the report which was presented by the city surveyor of Sheffield to the Corporation, on 6th July, 1920, and this report deals with the experience of the Sheffield Corporation, acting under War emergency powers, under the Fuel and Lighting Order, during the period of the War. The city surveyor reports that during the period the department of the Corporation concerned handled no less than 12,500 tons of coal. As has already been stated, the cost of it was £22,124, and they received for the 12,500 tons, £24,457, or a net profit of £2,333. The surveyor points out that the prices at which the coal was sold were those officially fixed, which included a certain amount for handling, and he says:
  "My experience of the matter was that, although we had no handling appliances, shoots, etc., like the merchants, we were able to handle the coal for less than the fixed charge. With proper appliances, we should have been able to have handled it for less and so increased our profit."
  The result of that trading of the Sheffield Corporation was that on the 12,500 tons of coal there was a net profit of 3s. 9d. per ton, or over 10 per cent. return for the Corporation. I mention this because the municipal solution has been derided, and I want to suggest—
  The SECRETARY for MINES (Colonel Lane-Fox): What date was that?
  Mr. RILEY: The 6th July, 1920. I want to go one step further. The hon. Member for Belper (Mr. Wragg) also criticised the slackness and the inefficiency of municipal methods of dealing with this matter. May I suggest to the hon. Member that he really is not acquainted with what the municipalities are doing. I have given the experience of Sheffield, working under difficulties, and, in spite of those difficulties, carrying on the undertaking with great success. Let me take the town in which I happen to live. For 20 years the town of Huddersfield has been carrying on a partial municipal distribution of coal, organised by the Corporation and carried out by its officials. I regret that it is only very partial; but the facts are that some 20 years ago the Huddersfield Corporation, acting under powers which they had, arranged to supply to certain textile manufacturers the whole of the coal required for their factories. That has gone on now for 20 years, and the result

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  is that the coal is being supplied, admittedly, under municipal organisation, on the municipal tramways, carried in municipal trucks to the factory yards, at one-half the price at which any private contractor is prepared to do it.
  I will give an actual case. I live in the town of Huddersfield, within a stone's throw of a factory which has its coal delivered by the municipal authority on the municipal tramway lines. The price in the street where I happen to live for the delivery of a ton of coal is no less than 8s. 6d. per ton, for delivery 2¼ miles from a railway siding. Our municipal tramway system delivers to the factory across the road at 2s. 10d. per ton, as against the 8s. 6d. We suggest that on these lines something can be done, for it must be remembered that our municipalities already are large buyers of coal. They have great advantages. A city like Glasgow can go into the market and get far better prices than any private trader, for that city purchases a million tons of coal per year. What, might I ask, is the City of London doing, or the Birmingham City Council, or the Manchester City Council? There are the tramways, which means that much capital has been laid down in the tramway organisation. There are the rails on the streets, which are at the disposal of the authorities as an agency not for competition but for the purposes of distribution. I hope that the Minister will look to the municipalities as one of the means to the solution of this problem.
  May I in conclusion remind the Minister of what was said by Mr. Justice Sankey's Commission? I would remind our hon. Friends on the other side who have such a small opinion of that Commission, that it consisted, not only of the workmen's representatives, but of representatives of the employers too. That Commission unanimously recommended that the local authorities should be given statutory powers to deal in household coal subject to the provision that any loss sustained in such dealings should not be chargeable on the rates. There is, however, no fear that a municipality will engage in a public service which is likely to be charged on the rates. Tramways, electricity works, gasworks, waterworks, have given proof throughout the country that they are managed better by public enterprise than by private companies.
  Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS: If the London County Council follows the advice of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down the Minister of Transport is going to have to face even a bigger problem of congestion in the London streets than at present. I see very material difficulty in the distribution of coal along the tramway system of London. On another occasion, when we have more time to discuss it, I think the House will enjoy very much a lecture by the hon. Gentleman on a system of coal distribution by the trams. I think everyone who is desirous that coal should be cheaper must welcome the fact that the hon. and gallant Gentleman who opened this Debate did, in fact, give notice of the Motion which stands in his name. I hold the view that the State can do very little in the way of positive action to influence the course of prices. As a rule, when the State does intervene the permanent effect is to send up prices and not to diminish them. What the State can do is to give publicity to the matter. I believe publicity is an effective remedy in matters of the sort. The hon. and gallant Member, by his Motion, is giving publicity to this subject and is rendering valuable service. I think we ought to thank him for it.
  Mr. BARKER: Then vote for the Motion.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: I do not agree with the Motion. I do not agree with the form of it. It might have been a different matter if I had been allowed to draft it. I hope, however, that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will not find him, self in any particular trouble with Members of his own party, because for some peculiar reason Members of the Liberal party are very successful as tea distributors and as coal distributors. Many of them have achieved fame and fortune through the sale of tea and coal. I am afraid their million-pounds fund will suffer a little from his exertions to night. He is a Free Trader, and I happen to be a Protectionist. He believes in the free and unrestrained interplay of economic forces, the thing that hon. Members opposite would call anarchy. I do not quite understand why one who believes in the free interplay of economic forces should desire to municipalise, to hand over, not to competent people, but to people who are

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  doing it in their spare time, the job of running a great business. From time to time, where for any reason private enterprise has not provided a service, there may be justification for the State or the municipality to come in, but normally it is one's experience that the administration of a trading service by a municipality is less efficient than by ()O'er people. It is perfectly easy to give examples of electricity being sold at this price or that price. Those who have had any experience of electrical engineering know that there is nothing more difficult in the world than to effect an exact comparison between electrical prices.
  But to come to the immediate issue. Last year Mr. Shinwell, a, gentleman whom I have not had the privilege of meeting, but whose economic views are certainly not mine, had an inquiry. I read that inquiry at the time, two volumes of it, and I refreshed my knowledge to-day. He did not seem to get much further. He expressed himself as a little dissatisfied with what the merchants had told him, but he took no action. It must be that he took no action because he felt he had no justification for taking action. He would have had no lack of backing from public opinion, irrespective of political views, if he had felt he had got a case. He did not take action because there was no effective case.
  In the case of coal we are face to face with a grave problem, to which I see no solution at the moment. Leaving out of account the allegations, which may be regarded as partisan, that coal owners are not as efficient as they might be, or that coal miners have declined in efficiency since the War, we have to face the fact that in this country, owing, I presume, to the fact that the average depth of mines is constanty increasing, that the problems of coal-getting are becoming more difficult. The real cost of coal production in this country has been rising for a generation. I do not mean the cost measured in our fluctuating money, but measured in whatever is the basis of measurement—I am not going to say labour—time; but whatever you do take as your effective basis, it is true that the fundamental cost of coal production in this country is rising.
  In addition to that, you have the awkward difficulty that coal distribution is of necessity carried out in an inefficient manner. When I say inefficient, I am
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  not blaming anybody, I am blaming circumstances. In London you put your coal into a bag—an inefficient process; you load the bag, generally by hand, on to a wagon—again an inefficient process; you draw that wagon through the streets; you lift the sacks off; you tip the coal through a hole in the pavement. These are a great number of inefficient processes in which there has been no improvement ever since they started doing it that way, as far as I know, and in which I can see no means of improvement.
  In other industries, at the same time, great improvements have been taking place. The real cost of electric light—I am talking of light, and not of electricity—is to-day one-quarter of what it was 15 years ago, owing to improvements. There have been improvements in nearly every industry, and as those improvements take place you get a tendency for a rising standard of living in those industries, and the people in the industry hose efficiency is not improving claim the same increase in the standard of living as those do whose industries are improving. An industry which for any reason is unable to improve its position demands for those who work in it, whether employers, managers, or work-people, the same increased standard of living that you get in the industries whose efficiency is improving, and therefore you force up, so far as the consumer will stand it, the price of the commodity concerned. That, I believe, is the real fundamental trouble. You get prices out. of balance compared with other commodities, and this has been going on for the last 30 years.
  That is the problem we have to face, and we shall not solve it by abusing one another in this House or outside, but by applying our minds and the minds of those engaged in the industry to finding out the best solution of the problem. I listened to the speech of the hon. Member for South Poplar (Mr. March) with considerable interest when he spoke of the difficulties of the poor people in his constituency buying coal in small quantities. I am afraid that he was to some extent exaggerating when he told us that they cannot buy more than 7 lbs. of coal at a time. I do not think that even the hard-hearted Poplar guardians would dole out money in such small

  575
  quantities as 2½d. a time, and therefore I think his illustration of 7 lbs. of coal at a time need not be taken seriously into account.
  The hon. Member who seconded this Motion made a statement which surprised me very much, and I challenged it at the time with regard to the wage cost. He stated that the miners' wage per shift was something in the neighbourhood of 10s. for an output of something over one ton, and consequently the wage per ton was something under 10s. I challenged his statement at the time, and he retorted that he knew more about South Wales than I did.
  Mr. E. EVANS: If I said the cost was 10s. a ton, it was a slip, because it is over 10s. Since the wage per shift is 10s. 5d. and the production per shift is less than a ton I ought to have said that the wage cost per ton is a little over 10s.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: The actual figure is only three farthings under 15s.
  Mr. TINKER: Does the hon. Member say that the cost per ton is 15s.?
  Mr. WILLIAMS: Yes.
  Mr. TINKER: That is not so, and it is quite wrong.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: I have been giving the figures for Wales and Monmouth. At the time I challenged the hon. Member who comes from South Wales and I am trying to demonstrate to him the fact that I know more than he does on this subject. If it is true that there is anyone making a very good thing out of selling coal, there is nothing to prevent anyone else from starting in the same business.
  Colonel LANE-FOX: I think the House will agree that we have had a very interesting Debate, and I have no fault whatever to find with the tone or temper of the speeches which have been delivered. I congratulate the Mover of this Motion upon his excellent speech, but I would like to remind him that if he moves a Vote of Censure on the Government, he cannot expect us to accept it. As far as the desire to carry out the objects he has advocated are concerned with regard to the retail price of coal, that is a matter with which the whole House has sympathy, although we may not be able to
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  adopt the actual methods which have been suggested in this Debate. The question we are discussing to-night is, of course, a very difficult one, and it is also a very old one and by no means confined to this country. The question of the difficulty of the actual distribution of coal, especially in small quantities to a large number of people in a congested area, has been acute in a great many places, and is a particularly burning one in the United States of America. I should like to point out to the House that a good many factors come into the question. There is, for instance, the great question of transport and the cost of transport, which has been referred to by several speakers, where, since it is a sheltered industry, the wages are high—in fact, higher than those of the miners. There is also the question of the shortage of storage room, which is one of the great difficulties in getting coal distributed to small consumers. In small houses, as everyone knows, the accommodation for the storage of coal is extremely small, while in flats it is difficult even to find any place for it at all. Moreover, the merchants have certain difficulty in regard to storage.
  All these points have to be considered. I feel sure that the merchants do their very best. During last summer they tried to persuade all their fellow-countrymen to do their best to buy their coal early, when prices were lower in the summer, in order to avoid a great rush later on and the consequent rise in prices. The ordinary individual, however, and particularly the working man, is certainly not prepared to buy for consumption, some months later on, a considerable stock of coal, even if he has a place in which to put it; and, again, the, merchants themselves have to buy large stocks and make forward contracts, and it must be remembered that, if the winter is a mild one, like that through which we have just passed, there is the possibility that, as I know has actually been the case, these people may have very large stocks of coal left on their hands and may very probably find themselves involved in considerable loss.
  So many figures have been thrown about from one side of the House to another, that I am certain the House will not expect me to deal with individual figures and cases, but I will promise that every figure that has been given shall he

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  examined and inquired into, and particularly those which were given in the very interesting speech of the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Riley). With regard to the case of Sheffield, I would rather not go into that in detail now, but I think it must have been an exceptional case. I know that the experience which has been referred to in that case was gained during the control period, and, moreover, there had been a considerable accumulation of coal in various places close by. I will, however, go further into that matter. I can only say now that, as far as I understand, it seems to have been an exceptional experience, which could not be justified on any large number of cases.
  Mr. CECIL WILSON: It is not at all exceptional.
  Colonel LANE-FOX: Reference has been made by several speakers to the household coal which is delivered and sold as household coal in London, and, indeed, the price of household coal in London is the main question that we have been discussing. That particular kind of coal, however, is different from other kinds or coal, and its price is different from the average pit-head price of coal for general purposes. It must be remembered that it is quite impossible for my Department to give the actual prices of each particular class of coal. We can only get these prices -from the trade papers, and, even there, there is a good deal of difficulty in tracing exactly what the price of each sort, of coal is. Questions have been asked on this matter in the House over and over again, not only of myself, but of my predecessors. Hon. Members often take the average pit-head price and quote it as against the retail price for small quantities delivered a very long way away from the colliery, but, obviously, that is not a fair comparison. It must be remembered that the average pit-head price, which is the only figure we can obtain, includes, not, only the price of small coal, slack and so on, but it also includes, especially in the North and in South Wales, a large quantity of coal which is being sold for export. Everybody knows at the present moment that the coal industry is in a very parlous condition. The export trade is becoming more and more difficult. It is common knowledge that coal is being raised and
  578
  the collieries have to do as best they can, and that in many cases they are accepting prices lower than the actual cost of production in order to be able to get someone to buy at all. Every day, as the competition gets more severe, I regret to say the position is getting worse in that respect and every day that tendency is more marked. Therefore that renders the average pit-head prices very elusive and incorrect prices to quote in comparison with other prices.
  Another difficulty has been alluded to, that is, the seasonal nature of the household coal trade. The merchant buys in summer when the demand is less, and the collieries, which have to get rid of the coal which is raised, are prepared to take a lower price. As I said before, if the general public bought more largely in summer, they would certainly get their coal cheaper, but it is only fair to say—and we all want to be fair in this matter—that when the merchant has got his stock in in summer and has to consider the cost of storage and the interest on the outlay, it is inevitable that there should be a certain increase in price when it goes eventually to the consumer in cold weather. I am not wishing to make any special case for either side, but I want to treat both fairly and to give them a fair chance. As I said, this Motion is put down in the form of a censure Motion on the Government. I would like to point out what happened in regard to the action of my predecessor. I may be responsible for a great many things, but I will not be responsible for my predecessor. The action which I took—and this is where the present Government come in—as soon as I came back, knowing there had been a long controversy between Mr. Shinwell and the coalowners, was to invite the representatives of these gentlemen to come and sec me. I knew they had had a long controversy with him and I knew that the most acute part of that controversy had taken place in the early spring, in February and March. There had therefore been the whole of the summer wasted and nothing had been done, therefore I wanted to know what the position was and see if there was anything I could do to improve on my predecessor. That is where the present Government come in. I found on reading the account of the

  579
  controversy he had been able to prove distinctly that in no sense was there a ring and that he had got to exactly the same position as in previous inquiries—that although there was no actual ring there was a certain amount of concerted action. He could have found that out by reading any of the reports of previous committees. After all, I do not know any trade in which something of that sort does not happen. If there is such an immense amount of profiteering going on, and if there is such an enormous margin between the pithead price and the price at which the consumer gets the coal, how is it, seeing that there is such a vast number of people in this country, that there are not a great many people rushing in to explore this gold mine? I suggest that it is a splendid opportunity for the bright young people of the Liberal party. Why are they missing the opportunity? Here is an opportunity that ought not to be missed. We are told that there is a ring, but even so, is the ring so tight that there cannot be competition from anyone who wishes to come forward? If the position is as bad as it has been represented, how is it that there was not—
  Captain GARRO-JONES: If the hon. Member will inquire in his Department., he will find that if anyone attempted to sell at a much lower rate than the rate at which coal is being sold at the present time by the coal merchants, the Coal Merchants' Federation would boycott the collieries which supplied them.
  Colonel LANE-FOX: I advise the hon. and gallant Member to try. If he thinks that he and his friends are not smart enough to defeat the coal merchants, if they are really making such exorbitant profits, he rates the ability and capacity of the coal merchants higher than most people. I do not believe that if properly tackled it would be found very difficult for anyone to come in and, by honest trading, to take their stand.
  What I found when I came into office was that since the 1st September there had been no rise in the retail price of household coal delivered in London. That was the position when the present Government came into office at the end of the year. I also found that during
  580
  this winter there have been practically no complaints in the Department, whereas during the previous winter there had been over 100 complaints, both as to price and quality. Therefore, I think I was justified in saying what I have said on several occasions that, for the moment, I was not very anxious to pursue the matter further, more particularly because at this moment the merchants have very large stocks on their hands and, therefore, obviously, profiteering is very difficult. When stocks are short there is an opportunity for profiteering, human nature being what it is, but when everybody has a large stock on hand the coal merchant will find it extremely difficult to profiteer. The coal merchants gave me certain figures and I was able to have them analysed and checked. The point they made was that a previous Committee—the Duncan Committee—had said that the cost of distribution should be reduced. They were certainly able to prove that during recent years they had diminished the cost of distribution, though certain costs had gone up. It is fair to them to say that the wages had been increased by an award of the Industrial Court. They showed that the salaries of their staff had been kept up to the, level of the cost of living. But they had reduced other things. They reduced their siding rents and general establishment charges. The total did not make a very large reduction, considering that one part of the costs was increased by facts over which they had no control.
  The time is getting on and the House must reasonably ask what are the Government prepared to do? That is the question I am very anxious to answer. The Government are as anxious to keep down retail prices of coal as anybody else in this House. We may not be considered to have many virtues, but I do think coal can be very useful in vote-catching. The situation does not seem to call for much anxiety, for the reasons I have given. There has been a mild winter and a big stock. When I invited the coal merchants to meet me, I did it with the expressed intention of making quite clear to them that this Government was not going to be any more inclined to be lenient to anything in the way of profiteeering than

  581
  any previous Government, and that any time when there seemed to be any suggestion or the Government had reason to believe that they were exceeding the limit of reasonable profit, the Government would not shrink from taking strong action. The mistake of my predecessor was that he did not get clown to bed rock. If he had done so he might have found out a great deal more than he did. There is a method by which a great deal more information could be obtained. The Government certainly will not hesitate to take powers to call for the books of merchants if necessary, and if necessary, in specially bad cases, to publish the result. That would be o, very strong power and one which might be abused, and therefore it wants to be carefully considered. But before any definite Action is taken it is only right to look for information, and full inquiry must be made before any action of that sort is taken. The Government are as anxious as anyone else—
  Mr. MACKINDER: Is there, Die necessary staff in the Department?
  Colonel LANE-FOX: I said that the Government would naturally make inquiries. After that they will take any action which is necessary to deal drastically with any situation as regards profiteering that may be found to exist.
  Captain BENN: When does the right hon. Gentleman propose to ask for these powers? Does he intend to do so this Session?
  Colonel LANE-FOX: The hon. and gallant Gentleman most allow me to be the best judge of that. For the moment we have to investigate the matter so that
  we may be able to deal with it when necessary. While I have every sympathy with the idea of reducing, as far as we can, the price of coal to the consumer, yet the Motion which has been put down has been put in the form of a Vote of Censure, and as such the Government must oppose it. It must be obvious to everyone that anybody who puts down a Motion in this form must expect that it cannot be allowed to pass without being opposed by the Government. Meantime, all that I need say is that we will watch the situation very carefully and do everything that can be done, and if we acquire further information, pointing to the necessity of further powers, we will take the necessary action.
  Captain BENN: In the whole of the genial speech of the right hon. Gentleman there was not a solitary word of comfort to the person who has to pay the exorbitant price. The Government are in the position to take the powers now. They need not use them until they are required. They are doing nothing. Instead we have had a series of jokes, and, at the end, the statement that if the Government find it necessary they will take action. My hon. Friends are entitled, censure or no censure, to vote for this Motion.
  Mr. CECIL WILSON: May I ask why more has not been done on the lines of the Report of the Advisory Committee presented to us two years ago?
  Question put:
  "That this House calls upon the Government to prosecute measures to prevent excessive charges for coal supplied to household consumers."
  The House divided: Ayes, 118; Noes, 211.

  Division No. 63.]

  AYES.

  [11.0 p.m.

  Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)

  Bromfield, William

  Day, Colonel Harry

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

  Bromley, J.

  Duncan, C.

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

  Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)

  Dunnico, H.

  Ammon, Charles George

  Buchanan, G.

  Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)

  Attlee, Clement Richard

  Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel

  Fenby, T. D.

  Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)

  Cape, Thomas

  Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.

  Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)

  Charleton, H. C.

  Gillett, George M.

  Barnes, A.

  Clowes, S.

  Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)

  Barr, J.

  Cluse, W. S.

  Greenall, T.

  Batey, Joseph

  Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)

  Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)

  Beckett, John (Gateshead)

  Connolly, M,

  Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)

  Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)

  Dalton, Hugh

  Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)

  Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.

  Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)

  Groves, T.

  Broad, F. A.

  Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

  Grundy, T. W.

  Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)

  Lowth, T.

  Smillie, Robert

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

  Mackinder, W.

  Smith, Rennie (Penistone)

  Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  MacLaren, Andrew

  Snell, Harry

  Hardie, George D.

  Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)

  Stamford, T. W.

  Harris, Percy A.

  March, S.

  Sutton, J. E.

  Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon

  Montague, Frederick

  Taylor, R. A.

  Hayday, Arthur

  Morris, R. H.

  Thurtle, E.

  Hayes, John Henry

  Murnin, H.

  Tinker, John Joseph

  Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley)

  Naylor, T. E.

  Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.

  Henderson, T. (Glasgow)

  Palin, John Henry

  Varley, Frank B.

  Hirst, G. H.

  Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

  Viant, S. P.

  Hirst, W. (Bradford. South)

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

  Warne, G. H.

  Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)

  Ponsonby, Arthur

  Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)

  Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)

  Potts, John S.

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

  Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)

  Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

  Welsh, J. C.

  John, William (Rhondda, West)

  Riley, Ben

  Westwood, J.

  Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)

  Ritson, J.

  Whiteley, W.

  Jonas, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

  Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O.(W.Bromwich)

  Williams, David (Swansea, E.)

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)

  Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)

  Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)

  Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W. R., Elland)

  Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

  Kelly, W. T.

  Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter

  Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)

  Kennedy, T.

  Salter, Dr. Alfred

  Windsor, Waiter

  Kirkwood, D.

  Scrymgeour, E.

  Lansbury, George

  Scurr, John

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Lawson, John James

  Sexton, James

  Captain Garro-Jones and Mr.

  Lee, F.

  Shiels, Dr. Drummond

  Ernest Evans.

  Livingstone, A. M.

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John

  NOES.

  Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel

  Dawson, Sir Philip

  Hutchison, G. A. Clark (Midl'n & P'bl's)

  Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.

  Drewe, C.

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

  Albery, Irving James

  Eden, Captain Anthony

  Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)

  Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)

  Edmondson, Major A. J.

  Jacob, A. E.

  Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby)

  Ellis, R. G.

  Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)

  Allen, Lieut.-Col. Sir William James

  Elveden, Viscount

  Kindersley, Major Guy M.

  Applin, Colonel R. V. K.

  Everard, W. Lindsay

  Knox, Sir Alfred

  Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.

  Fielden, E. B.

  Lamb, J. Q.

  Ashmead-Bartlett, E.

  Fleming, D. P.

  Lane-Fox, Lieut.-Col. George R.

  Baird, Rt. Hon. Sir John Lawrence

  Ford, P. J.

  Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip

  Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

  Forrest, W.

  Little, Dr. E. Graham

  Barclay-Harvey, C. M.

  Foster, Sir Harry S.

  Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)

  Barnston, Major Sir Harry

  Frece, Sir Walter de

  Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (Handsw'th)

  Beamish, Captain T. P. H.

  Fremantle, Lt.-Col. Francis E.

  Looker, Herbert William

  Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.

  Ganzoni, Sir John

  Lougher, L.

  Bethell, A.

  Gates, Percy

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere

  Betterton, Henry B.

  Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton

  Lumley, L. R.

  Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton)

  Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham

  MacAndrew, Charles Glen

  Blundell, F. N.

  Glyn, Major R. G. C.

  McLean, Major A.

  Bourne, Captain Robert Croft *

  Goff, Sir Park

  Macmillan, Captain H.

  Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.

  Gower, Sir Robert

  Macquisten, F. A.

  Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.

  dace, John

  MacRobert, Alexander M.

  Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive

  Grant, J. A.

  Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-

  Briscoe, Richard George

  Greene, W. P. Crawford

  Makins, Brigadier-General E.

  Brocklebank, C. E. R.

  Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)

  Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn

  Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.

  Gretton, Colonel John

  Margesson, Captain D.

  Brown, Maj. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)

  Grotrian, H. Brent

  Merriman, F. B.

  Buckingham, Sir H.

  Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.

  Milne, J. S. Wardlaw-

  Burgoyne, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Alan

  Gunston, Captain D. W.

  Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)

  Burman, J. B.

  Hacking, Captain Douglas H

  Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M

  Burton, Colonel H. W.

  Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)

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

  Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward

  Hammersley, S. S.

  Nail, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph

  Caine, Gordon Hall

  Horland, A.

  Nelson, Sir Frank

  Campbell, E. T.

  Harrison, G. J. C.

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

  Cazalet, Captain Victor A.

  Harlington, Marquess of

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

  Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)

  Haslam, Henry C.

  Nicholson, O. (Westminster)

  Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton

  Hawke, John Anthony

  Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)

  Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.

  Nuttall, Ellis

  Charteris, Brigadier-General J.

  Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley)

  Oakley, T.

  Christie, J. A.

  Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)

  O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)

  Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer

  Heneage, Lieut.-Col. Arthur p.

  Oman, Sir Charles William C.

  Churchman, Sir Arthur C.

  Hennessy, Major J. R. G.

  Pennefather, Sir John

  Clayton, G. C.

  Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)

  Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)

  Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.

  Herbert, S. (York, N.R. Scar. & Wh'by)

  Perkins, Colonel E. K.

  Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips

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

  Perring, William George

  Cope, Major William

  Holland, Sir Arthur

  Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)

  Courtauld, Major J. S.

  Holt, Capt. H. P.

  Pilcher, G.

  Craig, Ernest (Chester, Crewe)

  Homan, C. W. J.

  Price, Major C. W. M.

  Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)

  Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)

  Radford, E. A.

  Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)

  Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.

  Raine, W.

  Curtis-Bennett, Sir Henry

  Howard, Captain Hon. Donald

  Ramsden, E.

  Curzon, Captain Viscount

  Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)

  Rhys, Hon. C. A. O.

  Davies, A. V. (Lancaster, Royton)

  Hume, Sir G. H.

  Rice, Sir Frederick

  Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)

  Huntingfield, Lord

  Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)

  584

  585

  Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)

  Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)

  Wheler, Major Granville C. H.

  Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)

  Steel, Major Samuel Strang

  Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)

  Ropner, Major L.

  Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.

  Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)

  Salmon, Major I.

  Stuart, Crichton, Lord C.

  Wilson, Sir C. H. (Leeds, Central)

  Sandeman, A. Stewart

  Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

  Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)

  Sanders, Sir Robert A.

  Styles, Captain H. Walter

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

  Sanderson, Sir Frank

  Sugden, Sir Wilfrid

  Wise, Sir Fredric

  Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.

  Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)

  Wolmer, Viscount

  Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W.R., Sowerby)

  Tinne, J. A.

  Womersley, W. J.

  Shaw, Capt. W. W. (Wills. Westb'y)

  Titchfield, Major the Marquess of

  Wood, Rt. Hon. E. (York, W.R., Ripon)

  Skelton, A. N.

  Turton, Edmund Russborough

  Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'dge & Hyde)

  Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)

  Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.

  Wragg, Herbert

  Smith-Carington, Neville W.

  Waddington, R.

  Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.

  Smithers, Waldron

  Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.

  Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

  Warrender, Sir Victor

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Sprot, Sir Alexander

  Waterhouse, Captain Charles

  Mr. Luke Thompson and Mr.

  Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.)

  Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)

  Hannon.

  Stanley, Lord (Fylde)

  Wells, S. R.

  CHARITABLE TRUSTS BILL.
  Read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

  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 application of the urban district council of Teignmouth, which was presented on the 16th February 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 Biggleswade and District Gas Company, Limited, which was presented on the 3rd March 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, 1990, on the application of the Welwyn, Knebworth, and District Gas Company, Limited, which was presented on the 12th March and published, be approved, with the following modifications:
  Clause 20, page 9, after the words 'transfer shall,' insert the words 'except so far as such Acts and Orders are repealed or mended and.'
  Clause 20, page 9, omit the words 'continue to apply to the undertaking after that date,' and in place thereof insert the words 'apply to the whole undertaking of the Welwyn Company.'
  Clause 44, page 23, after the words 'Section 12 (Power to purchase additional gas leads),' insert the words 'Section 15 (Amending obligations as to supply of gas).'"—[Sir Burton Chadwick.]
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

  WELSH UNIVERSITY (GRANTS).
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Commander Eyres Monsell.]
  Mr. MORGAN JONES: A fortnight ago I addressed a question to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in regard to the matter of the Welsh University grants. On account of the answer, I felt it my duty to give notice that I would raise this matter at the earliest moment on the Adjournment. It was not possible to raise it before to-night, and, therefore, with the indulgence of the House, I would like to refer to it of this moment. The question I addressed to the Financial Secretary was one with a two-fold reference. First, it referred to the prospective grant which the Treasury has recently announced to the Universities throughout the country; and, secondly, it had reference to certain negotiations which have taken place between the Treasury, or, rather, the University Grants Committee and the Welsh University authorities in the past.
  I want, in the very short time at my disposal, to limit myself to one portion of the subject, namely, the reference to the past, and not to the future grant. On 14th August, 1918, a deputation was received by the then Prime Minister of the Coalition Government, assisted, I think, by my right hon. Friend the Member for the English Universities (Mr. Fisher), who was then the President of the Board of Education, in regard to the difficult financial situation in which the Welsh University then found itself. It was a deputation thoroughly representative of Welsh life generally, and they came up, of course, as most deputations do, to Downing Street, in pursuit of the eternal quest, financial aid. After the deputation had presented its case, the

  587
  then Prime Minister intimated that he would only entertain the application on two very specific conditions. One was that the University authorities would accept, in the main, the proposals of what is called the Haldane Report, and, secondly, that no grant would be given unless the local authorities in Wales would pool their resources as a condition of the grant.
  Subject to those two conditions, the Prime Minister of that day announced that a pound per pound grant would be made by the Treasury in respect of all moneys raised by the local authorities in Wales. In regard to that, I am not raising any controversy to-night. The other point that was promised was that a similar pound per pound grant would be made in respect of new income that would be accruing to the university from that date, August, 1918. I think that my right hon. Friend opposite will not repudiate or deny that such a promise was made. If it were denied, I could quote textually from the promise then made, which indicates that the promise was absolutely clear and precise as made to the deputation at that time. Indeed, the promise was almost confirmed by the answer given by my right hon. Friend a fortnight ago. There is only one observation I should like to make in regard to that reply. He said that the right hon. Gentleman the then Prime Minister had no right to commit the Government in perpetuity. I would be the last to expect the Prime Minister, or any future Prime Minister, to commit any Government in perpetuity, but I indicated in my supplementary question that there was no suggestion that any promise was made for all time, but that rather it covered the next five years. May I say that the five years suggestion came, not from the deputation itself, but was the suggestion of the then Prime Minister himself, as I could show by quotation, if time allowed.
  What is the case that we have to present to-night? It is specifically in regard to that five years' period, and my point is, and, indeed, the point of the University authorities is, that this promise—what we call, I think rightly, pledge—has not been honoured fully and completely in the sense which the then Prime Minister indicated. I want to limit that statement in some degree. It was honoured as from August, 1918, to
  588
  the end of December, 1920, and I believe I am right in saying that a sum of money has been paid by the University Grants Committee to the Welsh University authorities covering the period from August, 1918, to the 31st December, 1920; but since the 31st December, 1920, that pledge has been wholly and completely ignored, in so far as it refers to private benefactions. That promise made in August, 1918, was again confirmed in March, 1919, and a claim was presented at an interview in 1922 by a deputation which waited upon the University Grants Committee. The answer given on that occasion was this—I will quote only a very short relevant passage:
  "The Committee could give no guarantee that these amounts would rank for equivalent grant, but it would be an advantage if the University sent in a full statement of all gifts and benefactions received since 31st December, 1920."
  As a matter of fact, the University authorities have presented, in pursuance of that suggestion, their statement of claim each year, for 1921, 1922, 1923, again in 1924, and again in 1925 in respect of 1924. My point, therefore, is this, that the pledge, as made by the then Prime Minister, covering the prospective five years, has not been honoured in respect of the period from the end of 1920. I do not want to be unfair to or unreasonable with my right hon. Friend. I admit quite frankly that there has been a period of financial stringency since this promise was made; I admit that, on that account, not only the Welsh University authorities, but authorities all over the country, have similarly had to curtail, their demands upon the Treasury; I admit, further, that the total sum which the Welsh University authorities estimate as being mow due to them, which will amount at the end of June to about £30,000, in respect of this pledge, is a big sum to ask the Treasury to give right off, but just as it is a big sum for the Treasury to find, so it is a big sum, I submit, for the Welsh University authorities to do without. It cuts both ways, and, therefore, I want to put to the representative of the Treasury to-night this very important consideration. When this pledge was made, supreme efforts were made naturally, by the University authorities to get various donors who were charitably disposed to present sums of money to the Welsh University authorities.

  589
  Let me give a case in point. There what is known as the Radcliffe benefaction which amounted, I think, to some £50,0000. Such sums as that were given on the understanding that they would rank for this grant, which was a pledge, as we understood it, given by the then Prime Minister in 1918. What has been the result? It has not ranked for grant. A grant has not been given, and the consequence has been—I say it regretfully—that the reservoir of charity, which would have been available to the Welsh authorities, has been in a large measure limited by the knowledge that gifts such as these will not, in future, rank for these special grants from the Treasury This means loss of confidence and trust. Add to that, that the Welsh authorities have in the past received substantial grants from our merchant princes in South Wales and elsewhere. There is great trade depression in South Wales, and, naturally, the resources from which private gifts and otherwise have been made have been very largely dried up. Therefore, we have suffered in two ways. We have not been able to get all the university grants, nor can we now anticipate, with some measure of confidence, future grants from charitably-disposed donors. I do not, as I said, want to be unreasonable, but might I make a suggestion to the right hon. Gentleman opposite, on my own authority and without reference to any other authority?£30,000 in one year is a good deal to expect. Would it not be possible for the right hon. Gentleman to suggest that the payment of this sum shall be given to the Welsh authorities, and distributed over a number of years to make it easier for the Treasury? That would safeguard the Welsh authorities from this very serious loss. I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for his courtesy in coming here to listen to what I have to say.
  Mr. E. EVANS: May I reinforce what my hon. Friend has just said. I realise that nothing is likely to have been said by the Prime Minister, or the right hon. Gentleman, either in 1918 or in 1920 which would justify us in expecting this grant to the Welsh University to be given in perpetuity. I do not think that the University is unreasonable in saying that when the Government- started to give this pound-for-pound grant in 1918, it was
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  inflicting a hardship upon the University suddenly to withdraw it in 1920, two years later, and that, at least, the University may not expect some different treatment.
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Guinness): The arrangement made with the Welsh Universities in 1918 was terminated after due notice. The hon. Gentleman who has raised this point seems to be under a misunderstanding as to what was exactly the promise of the then Prime Minister. The hon. Gentleman spoke as if there were a guarantee from the Treasury that for five years a pound-to-pound grant would be given. There was no five years' condition as to public funds. The five years' condition clearly applied to private benefactions.
  Mr. MORGAN JONES: Exactly; that is what I mean.
  Mr. GUINNESS: The Prime Minister was asked, what is the time limit of any such benefactions, and the Prime Minister said: "I suggest five years." There was no promise of any kind from the Government that they would go on giving pound for pound grants. They said that they would not give a pound for pound grant for any benefactions which were not guaranteed for five years. The hon. Member mentioned the Radcliffe gift. That gift was made in 1923 and it could not have ranked for grant for £50,000 because it was distinctly laid down that these capital benefactions were only to rank on their interest. The Radcliffe gift was nearly two years after notice had been given that this arrangement had to come to an end. Under the 1918 undertaking of the Prime Minister the grants to the Welsh Universities went up very rapidly. They went up from £36,500 that year to;£52,000 the following year, and in 1920–21 they went up to £95,000. Then came the Geddes Committee and the University grants were cut down by £300,000 a year. The Committee sent a letter to the Universities and explained that their resources had been decreased, and that it followed that the Committee would not be in a position to recommend any additions to the present annual grants-in-aid until the state of the public finances permitted His Majesty's Government to reconsider the position. So there can be no misunderstanding on the part of the benefactors that their grants were going to earn the pound for pound equivalent.
  Mr. MORGAN JONES: But the University authorities have carried out their bargain absolutely and fully.
  Mr. GUINNESS: So did the State. The State said they would give pound for pound, with no definite term, for any benefactions guaranteed for five years. They gave notice that they would have to bring that to an end, and therefore I am afraid it is impossible to re-open it, because when that pledge was given the whole system was different, there was only less than half-a-million given to all the Universities together. Since then the public assistance has greatly increased, and the then Prime Minister said in 1918 that whatever was done for Wales would have to be done for the rest of the country. I hope that. Wales will share in the advantage of the increased grant, but the revival in its full application of the pound-forpound grant beyond what the University Grants Committee have still observed, the pound-for-pound equivalent of rates found by local authorities, would be
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  absolutely inconsistent with the new system which was set up since 1918, under which Parliament votes a lump sum, and entrusts the allocation to the University Grants Committee. It is clearly impossible, as that Committee has only a definite sum to deal with, that they should be faced with demands which they could not measure, and if they were called upon to find pound for pound throughout the country it would clearly be impossible for them to work to a fixed figure. But really Wales is very well off. Their University is getting £95,000 a year—more than Oxford, more than Cambridge, half as much again as Liverpool, and half as much again as London. They are getting 45·8 per cent. of their total resources out of Imperial funds, whereas the average percentage in England is only 34·7, and in Scotland 34·1.
  It being Half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

  SAFEGUARDING OF INDUSTRIES.
  SAFEGUARDING OF INDUSTRIES.
  INDUSTRIAL WAGES.
  INDUSTRIAL WAGES.
  OLD AGE PENSIONS.
  OLD AGE PENSIONS.
  GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS (WAGES).
  GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS (WAGES).
ROYAL NAVY.
  VICE-CONSUL, CALLAO.
  VICE-CONSUL, CALLAO.
  FORTON BARRACKS AND INFIRMARY.
  FORTON BARRACKS AND INFIRMARY.
  INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS.
  INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS.
NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
  TREATMENT ALLOWANCES.
  TREATMENT ALLOWANCES.
  PENSIONERS' DEATHS (WIDOWS' PENSIONS).
  PENSIONERS' DEATHS (WIDOWS' PENSIONS).
GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.
  EQUAL PAY.
  EQUAL PAY.
  REGISTRY OF FRIENDLY SOCIETIES (TRADE UNION RETURNS).
  REGISTRY OF FRIENDLY SOCIETIES (TRADE UNION RETURNS).
  COAL INDUSTRY.
  COAL INDUSTRY.
  GROCERY AND PROVISIONS TRADE.
  GROCERY AND PROVISIONS TRADE.
  LABOUR STATISTICS (TRADE DISPUTES).
  LABOUR STATISTICS (TRADE DISPUTES).
  INTERNATIONAL LABOUR CONFERENCE (ANTHRAX).
  INTERNATIONAL LABOUR CONFERENCE (ANTHRAX).
  UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BENEFIT.
  UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BENEFIT.
HOUSING.
  DARLASTON.
  DARLASTON.
  SCOTLAND.
  SCOTLAND.
  IMPROVEMENTS AND ADDITIONS.
  IMPROVEMENTS AND ADDITIONS.
  TIPTON URBAN DISTRICT.
  TIPTON URBAN DISTRICT.
  SOMERSET.
  SOMERSET.
  INTERNATIONAL DISARMAMENT.
  INTERNATIONAL DISARMAMENT.
  EDUCATION (SIZE OF CLASSES).
  EDUCATION (SIZE OF CLASSES).
Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
LORD DOVERDALE.
Oswald Partington Lord Doverdale—Was (in the usual manner) introduced by virtue of a Patent dated the sixth day of January, 1917, his father, the first Baron, who was created by such Patent, never having taken his seat.
ISLE OF WIGHT HIGHWAYS BILL.
Read 3a, and passed.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 1) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.

HOUSE OF LORDS REFORM
THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they are prepared to introduce legislation for the reform of the House of Lords in the near future, in view of the importance of passing such legislation during the lifetime of the present Government; and to move for Papers. The noble Duke said: My Lords, we meet together to-day to discuss a problem that bristles with difficulties and has proved itself to be one of the most complicated and difficult questions of modern times. Many of your Lordships who have considered it have given it up in despair, and when I look around me and see the wealth of ripe experience, sober logic and grey-haired knowledge that for many years have debated and discussed and considered this problem in all its aspects and in all its phases, I am sometimes tempted to think that a mere novice like myself is initiating perhaps a hopeless task. If
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any scheme is to succeed, in my opinion, we must all make sacrifices for the common good.
The ideals of every noble Lord in this direction cannot be realised. Each particular scheme of each noble Lord cannot be considered on its merits. There is nothing gained by discussing private schemes at this juncture. Debates in the past have been unproductive, chiefly because everybody discussed his own particular scheme and canvassed his own particular scheme, and each scheme was different from the others. Every Peer differed in his views and there was no agreement on the question. Whatever scheme is adopted I do think that the only way is to have an agreed one. It must be agreed, not only by the majority of members of this House but, if possible, by the three great political Parties in the State. The Labour Party, in my opinion, should realise that it is to their interest to assist in a reform which would make the Second Chamber work more harmoniously in the future with a reasonable and non-revolutionary Labour Government. I believe that with a Labour Government really in power, they would be very glad to have the right to nominate a number of life Peers to do their work in this House, quite irrespective of the hereditary principle. If the Labour Parry will not assist in this reform, I believe that the Government must see what can be done to produce a scheme agreed between the Conservative and Liberal Parties alone.
I look to the noble Earl, Lord Oxford and Asquith, who is going to take part in the debate, and who originally placed us in this awkward predicament, to help us carry out these reforms, which he undertook, in 1911, to do at some future date. I have always learned to connect Lord Oxford's name with three little words, namely, "Wait and see," which he once used on a famous occasion. Well, we are waiting to see what he will do to-day, and when one remembers the cry of "Mend them, or end them," used in respect of the House of Lords at the time of the Parliament Act, one cannot help thinking how much more satisfactory it would be for Lord Oxford to be handed down to posterity with some better epitaph than "Wait and see," such as "It is never too late to mend" or "Better late than never." If he wishes

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to substitute one of these adages for "Wait and see," I humbly submit that he will throw his great experience, vast legal knowledge, and brilliant intellect into the task of mending this House, after fourteen years' delay. If the House is not mended now, it will surely be ended in a few years' time. It is not for me, to-day, to put forward any special or particular scheme, nor, as I said before, do I consider it a suitable time for any noble Lord to bring forward his own scheme. It is to His Majesty's Government that we look as the central authority to find out the best way of bringing forward an agreed scheme in which all three Parties could have their say.
There are certain broad lines on which I think the majority of your Lordships are agreed. We know that the powers and constitution of the House of Lords must be kept completely separate, and be considered separately in relation to each other, although at the same time they are intimately connected. Nearly all of us feel that the number of Peers should not exceed from 350 to 400. Very few of us believe that the Speaker should be sole judge of what is and what is not a Money Bill. Only yesterday we had a case in point when the British Sugar (Subsidy) Bill came before this House. It came before your Lordships for one reason and one reason only, because it needed amendment, and yet obviously it was a pure Money Bill. At other times we have had Bills that were doubtful Money Bills certified as such. We had the War Charges (Validity) Bill which was certified as a Money Bill the other day, but two years ago that Bill was introduced into your Lordships' House not as a Money Bill; yet, comparing the two Bills, only two or three words had been altered in the Bill which was before the House the other day. Therefore I think that the majority of us believe that either a Joint Committee of both Houses should decide the knotty point of what is and what is not a Money Bill—a Committee presided over possibly by the Speaker—or else a small Commission, consisting of the Lord Chief Justice, the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker, should decide this very difficult problem.
I also think that many of your Lordships agree with me that Peers who no longer remain members of this House after it is reformed should be eligible to
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stand for another place. Most of you agree, too, I think, that Ministers of the Crown should be allowed to speak in both Houses; I do not know whether you also agree that they should be allowed to vote in both Houses. Further, the Parliament Act must not be used to alter the constitution or weaken the powers of this House as they at present exist. Further, it seems to me obvious that a certain number of Peers must be elected, and some nominated, and if so, in what proportion, how many, and by whom, is a matter to my mind that must be discussed between all the Parties under the auspices of the Government, in order to get an agreed measure.
We know His Majesty's Government are anxious to see the reform of the House of Lords carried out. They have said so quite recently in no uncertain terms and given us definite pledges on the subject. For instance, in Looking Ahead, that publication that was so carefully prepared and edited by the Conservative Shadow Cabinet a short time ago, every line and every word being carefully considered by the Shadow Cabinet, we read in regard to the House of Lords reform:—
"The Unionist Party holds unswervingly to the conviction that the existence of an effective Second Chamber is essential for the purpose of securing the revision of hastily prepared measures, and of safeguarding the considered judgment of the people. It recognises the establishment of an effective Second Chamber means a reconsideration of the composition and powers of the House of Lords in the light of modern conditions."
But we have a definite pledge from an even more authoritative source than that, from the most authoritative source possible, that of the Prime Minister.
Mr. Baldwin, speaking at Perth on October 25, 1924, said:—
"Mr. Asquith said many years ago at the time of the passing of the Parliament Act, that the position of the House of Lords as left under that Act could not remain as a permanency, and he regarded the Act itself as an emergency Act until time could be found to deal with the whole question of the Second Chamber.
"His desires to complete the work on which he embarked have never been fulfilled. The position of the Second Chamber has never been properly regularised, and it is a matter of grave doubt whether safeguards in the Parliament Act as they stand against hasty legislation are sufficient to prevent it being carried behind the backs of the electors, particularly in regard to all Bills which have financial provisions in them.

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"The present regulation with regard to financial Bills seems to open the door to far-reaching legislative changes being carried when they are not really financial changes but only camouflaged as" such. So I think it is our duty to consider, within the framework of the Government Act, whether it is practicable to make provision for the machinery of the Second Chamber for preserving the ultimate authority in legislation to the considered judgment of the people, and, if it is practicable, the adaptation or amendment of the constitution of the House of Lords would be a necessary condition for carrying this into effect. It is a question of very considerable difficulty, but it is one of great importance, and if a Unionist Government would have time and power, it would receive our attention."
This is a very important statement, and it really contains a statement from Lord Oxford as well, that makes it clear that both Mr. Baldwin and Lord Oxford think this matter must be dealt with. I hope, therefore, to sec them both working together in conjunction with Lord Haldane, if that were possible, for the common end.
Not only that, but I find on referring to the OFFICIAL REPORT that practically every prominent member on both sides of this house, whether in or out of the Government, during the debates on the Resolutions produced by the Cabinet Committee in 1922, recorded their desire that this House should be reformed in some way or other. Lord Salisbury, our present Leader, made a most enthusiastic speech on the subject, to which I am sure he still adheres, in which he told us that he fully agreed with every word Lord Selborne had said on the subject. The noble Earl, Lord Selborne, had made an even more enthusiastic speech, and at the same time he made our flesh creep with the evils and horrors that would befall us if we did not reform this Chamber. I believe Lord Selborne was quite right. The noble Earl, Lord Birkenhead, also made two most interesting speeches in favour of this reform, the first on the Government Resolutions when he was Lord Chancellor at the time of the Coalition Government—a great speech—and the second, an equally brilliant speech, from the other side of the House in December, 1922, after the first Conservative Government was formed. Both these speeches were enthusiastic to the last degree towards the reform of this House. Some prominent Liberal Peers also expressed the same views. I shall
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not quote all these speeches; they were nearly all in the same vein and noble Lords have no doubt read them.
It seems to me that we have now reached a complete concordat about the reform of this House. We have now, therefore, a number of prominent and responsible people agreeing on the necessity for the reform of this House. The Prime Minister has told you in no doubtful terms that he considers it necessary; Lord Oxford, some years ago, thought it absolutely necessary; Lord Salisbury and Lord Birkenhead have told us the same thing in no uncertain terms; Lord Peel told us so when he introduced the Government Resolutions of 1922. I do not believe there is one member of the Government on the Front Bench at this moment who has not at some time or another spoken strongly in favour of the reform of your Lordships' House. In fact, I think we have reached practical unanimity in favour of some measure of reform.
How this reform is to be carried out must be a matter for the Government to arrange. It is impossible for us to decide it amongst ourselves, nor can we get an agreed measure without some central authority like the Government to co-ordinate our discussions in this direction In any case, I believe that whatever scheme is brought forward must be as simple as possible. I think that the Rosebery and Bryce Committee schemes were much too complicated, but I believe that the interesting and complete details given in the Reports of those Committees may be of some considerable assistance to us now. To my mind the scheme must be one that the man in the street can understand and sympathise with, and one that the House of Commons will readily support. It is no good bringing forward an emaciated and bloodless corpse, or even a skeleton as the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, called the Government Resolutions of 1922. Whatever powers the reformed House is given your Lordships will agree with me, I think, that it must never be a serious rival, and must never expect to be a serious rival, to the other House. It must be strong enough to act as a buffer between the State and revolutionary legislation of a spasmodic and fugitive character that is not really desired by I the country.
It may be that the Labour Party will refuse to assist us on the ground that they might be strengthening something that might at some future date revise their own legislation. That would be a narrow and ill-advised view. The House of Lords of the future should not, in my opinion, be overwhelmingly of one political doctrine; and the rejection of any Government measure in the reformed Second Chamber should not involve the resignation of a Government, as it naturally would in the Commons. Nor, again, should the Second Chamber be subject to dissolution when Parliament is dissolved. No one knows better than I do how great are the traditions of the House of Lords. It existed, as we know, long before the House of Commons and is directly descended from the great Council of Saxon times. This House is an essential part of the history of England and its influence throughout the long ages has affected the lives of our forefathers more than anything else. Let us take care, therefore, in framing our scheme of reform that we do not destroy something that can never be replaced.
Unlike America, which, as your Lordships know, has one of the strongest Second Chambers in the world, which has power to reject or amend Money Bills and at times can even overrule the President's dictum, we have no written Constitution. For that reason it is far easier for the greatest political changes to be made in this country than for them to be made in a country which has a written Constitution. The French Senate also has great powers over Money Bills and the Budget, and I honestly think there is hardly any other country in the world, except Ireland, which has such a weak Second Chamber as we have. The time is now fully ripe for His Majesty's Government to attempt a great constructive effort in co-operation with all Parties.
The alternative to this reform must, in my opinion, eventually be single Chamber government. I believe that an un-reformed hereditary House on present lines would not be endured for six months by a real Labour Government with a clear majority and full powers; it would be abolished altogether by means of the Parliament Act. Then Queensland, Costa Rica, and Great Britain would be the only countries in the world governed by a single Chamber. This question has
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already been put off too long by successive Governments, and I very much doubt whether any Government after this one will be in a position to carry out this reform even if they wish to do so. I know that legislation on this subject cannot be passed immediately at this stage in the life of the Government, but in a matter so intricate and involved much time for preparation is necessary to get that legislation into proper and reasonable shape. I believe this is our last chance. Let it no longer be said in the future as in the past by the assailants of your Lordships' House: "It is unpurged, it is unrepresentative, it is absentee." I beg to move.
Moved, That there be laid before the House Papers with regard to legislation for the reform of the House of Lords.—(The Duke of Sutherland.)
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I admit that the noble Duke's speech has filled me with a little disappointment. I am not referring to its substance; to that I will come in a moment. I am speaking, for the moment, of the place from which he has risen and the Bench which he occupies. It was only a few days ago that he made another Motion critical of the slowgoingness of the Government and then he crossed the floor and delivered his speech from this Table. When a noble Lord does that one is filled with a certain amount of expectation and even hope that he means to cross the floor in a more permanent fashion.
THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND: My Lords, may I explain that point to the noble and learned Viscount? I had, on the occasion referred to, a very large number of figures and notes on the numbers of aeroplanes and the amounts of money spent in connection with the French Air Force, and I therefore asked the Conservative Chief Whip whether he had any objection to my using that desk purely for the purpose of dealing with my notes, which were very voluminous. It does not mean that I am not a Conservative.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: Unfortunately, it has happened to others of us who have had to speak from the back Benches with voluminous notes and figures. When a noble Lord comes across and speaks from this Table it at least suggests a desire to put himself in a position for more effective criticism. I was very anxious

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to welcome the noble Duke to a seat on the Bench beside me, but I saw, as I see to-night, that he was divided between the sections of the Opposition. To-day he is flirting with my noble friend Lord Oxford, and I fear that the welcome will have to come from my noble friend Lord Beauchamp. I have no doubt that my noble friend Lord Beauchamp will welcome the noble Duke to a seat upon that Bench.
However, that is only by the way. I come to the substance of the noble Duke's speech, and from the substance it may be rather more apparent why the noble Duke could not cross the floor. We have heard of this subject before—it has come up from time to time—and the noble Duke's criticism amounted to this: The Government is going too slow. It has not produced a scheme; let the Government produce a scheme and produce it quickly. A scheme is that for which we have been looking for a long time and it is not only the possession of what the noble Duke called "grey-haired" wisdom that is required in this matter. It is a very difficult matter indeed, and I was in hopes that the noble Duke would suggest to us some scheme by which this House might be reformed in a fashion that would be consonant with public opinion. But the noble Duke carefully avoided that. He has given us no detailed plan; possibly, because he is too well acquainted with the history of the past.
This question has been raised from time to time. It was raised in 1888 by Lord Rosebery and in 1889 by Lord Dunraven, who shared Lord Rosebery's views and brought in a Bill to give effect to them. The proposition then was that local authorities—county councils, town councils, and so on—should elect a large part of the House, but that was a proposition which was speedily turned down by your Lordships yourselves and it was also turned down by public opinion. The reason public opinion turned it down was that it was felt that these local authorities were not bodies which were mixed up in politics and that it was very undesirable that they should assume a political complexion. Their business was to administer local affairs and not to choose a Party in Parliament. That made an end of the propositions of 1888.
Time elapsed. I never liked to speak of "the Conservative Government" when
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I am referring to the Coalition Government, but a Government with a large Conservative element in it—not the noble Marquess (Lord Salisbury) who carefully abstained from mixing himself up at that time with these things—had an experience which very much encouraged it. They appointed a Conference upon the question of the suffrage, and it was almost successful Conference, because it landed the Government into such an agreement that they were able not only to pass the great Franchise Act of 1918 but also to include women—a most controversial point, which they successfully solved. The success of that Conference gave rise to a desire on the part of the Government to try their hands again at the question of this House. They were entitled to say that there was a question. I was a member of the Government of my noble friend Lord Oxford which put in a Preamble to the Parliament Act in which we said that the question brooked no delay. No more it did, but it remained a question, although it was one which there were considerable reasons for trying to solve.
A good deal of water has flowed under the bridges since then. It has altered somewhat the position, as I will tell your Lordships in a moment. But at that time undoubtedly there was a great desire to deal with the question of the Second Chamber, and Lord Bryce's Conference was called together for that purpose. There was no more admirable person than Lord Bryce to deal with this question. He had a profound knowledge of the Constitutions of the world, and he set to work, armed not only with that knowledge, but with a great power of expressing himself. He had to preside over 29 colleagues, some of whom were Peers and some of whom were not, and poor Lord Bryce had a very difficult time indeed. One thing the Conference agreed on at the beginning was that at least a good many—I think it was to be a majority—of the Second Chamber should be appointed in some other way than by hereditary title. Having got so far, they got no further.
The, question then remained how the others were to be appointed. One view was that they should be appointed by the House of Commons, but that was stoutly objected to. There was a section of the Conference which said that they must be appointed by the Peers, or by a body in which the Peers would exercise a

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very great and preponderant influence. The result was sharp dissent from the very proposition which Lord Bryce laid on the Table for consideration. That dissent was headed, I think, by the noble Marquess opposite, Lord Lansdowne, by Lord Loreburn and by the late Lord Balfour of Burleigh, among others. Their influence was so potent that it proved quite impossible for Lord Bryce's Conference to make any Report to the Prime Minister, and it ended by Lord Bryce writing to the Prime Minister a letter—a very remarkable and peculiar procedure which could only be justified by sheer necessity. Lord Bryce, as Chairman of the Conference, wrote to the Prime Minister a, most admirable letter. It appears in a Blue-book. It gives an account of how they had found it impossible to agree to what he put forward. He suggested as the most reasonable view, and the one which on the whole was supported by the majority, that the majority of the House should be appointed from outside.
Then came the question how they were to be appointed. There were four views put forward One was that the members of your Lordships' House should be selected by direct election by large constituencies. I myself sat on the Cabinet Committee which was appointed by the Liberal Government long ago to go into this matter, and at first it struck me, as it strikes a great many people, as reasonable and rational that great constituencies should select the members of the Second Chamber. But we soon found that the constituencies would be so vast, and the labour and expense so great, that it was impossible for the representatives of "grey-haired" wisdom to submit themselves for election in this fashion—at any rate, in any very large numbers. The result was that by general consent the motion for direct election by large constituencies was turned down.
The next question which Lord Bryce had before him was the question whether the Peers should be selected by nomination by the Crown. That, again, shattered on the rocks, because it was at once pointed out that the Crown meant the Prime Minister of the day, and that the Chamber would therefore be of a partisan character according to whoever was in power. Then they came at last to the proposition which on the whole,
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I think, had most favour, that the election of those who were to sit in the Second Chamber should be made in the House of Commons, acting on the principle of proportional representation, and possibly with a division of constituencies. But that left to be disposed of the question of how the section to be selected by the Peers was to be got together, and it was over that that the violent struggle came in which the noble Marquess opposite took so prominent a part. It became quite clear when the letter of Lord Bryce came to be discussed in this House that your Lordships would not look at it. There was another suggestion on which, I think, there was something like agreement—namely, that Peers elected were to hold their office for twelve years. It was then pointed out that the complexion of Parliament might vary in that time, and also that public opinion might become appreciably different. There were all sorts of other people to be in the House. Law Lords were to be there ex-officio, and a variety of important people who would have added to the difficulty of getting a Chamber which was in accordance with the public opinion of the time.
There were other difficulties on which I do not propose to add more than a few words. There was the question about Money Bills. The Speaker's power to certify was alluded to by the noble Duke Lord Bryce's Conference inclined to a different view—that the authority should be a sort of Joint Committee of the two Houses. But it was obvious to outside critics that such a body would not have the judicial temper of the Speaker, appointed not by the House of Commons to discharge this function, but appointed by Statute and placed in a judicial position. I do not think your Lordships have had to complain of the decisions of the Speaker in this matter. He has acted thoroughly impartially and several times overruled propositions made to certify Bills as Money Bills Speaking for myself, and echoing what I think is the view of the critics, a Speaker holding his office under statutory authority and in a judicial position is a much safer person than any Committee could be appointed by partisan opinion in the two Houses, and giving rise to a great deal of criticism on its proceedings.
Finally, there was Lord Bryce's solution for a conflict between the two Houses. There was to be a free confer-

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ence. I do not know why it was called a "free" conference. That term must have come in at the early stages of the deliberation, but it became a conference of quite a different kind. There were to be sixty members, thirty from one House and thirty from the other, and they were to have the power, if the two Houses disagreed, to take a Bill into consideration and propose Amendments. The Amendments were to be sent to the House of Commons, and if that House did not accept them the Bill was lost. If the House of Commons accepted them then the Bill could go forward. That was obviously giving an enormous power to a body which was selected by a sort of secondary election and putting the power of Parliament in subjection to a body of this kind. The result of all this was that the proposals of the Bryce Conference were not well received either in this House or outside. I remember well the debate which took place upon them and the hot feeling there was among many of your Lordships with regard to the proposals. You said, in effect: "After all, why should so many of us, the vast majority of us, be turned out of this House in order to make room for a body which probably is not any better than ourselves?"; and in the end the opinion of this House was manifest—it did not want to have anything to do with the proposals.
But the matter did not stop there. There came the Government of 1922, which took these things into consideration. They were considered by the Cabinet and a series of Resolutions were proposed in this House. I think Viscount Peel was in charge of them. These Resolutions were very different from the proposals of the Bryce Committee. It was proposed that there should be 350 members of this House. Some were to be selected from outside. But one of the drawbacks of these Resolutions was that they used words like "some" and "any," which can be used by mathematicians by way of symbols, but which are wholly inapplicable to the proceedings of Parliament. We wanted to have numbers. The Government Resolutions took care not to tell us how many were proposed, and the result was that there was much ambiguity and great uneasiness as to how many were to be selected from outside and how many were to be taken from within the House.
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Then it was said, in another Resolution, that the hereditary element in your Lordships' House, was to be selected by their own order. That, of course, gave rise to another set of questions, and people asked whether this was an adequate and sufficient reform of the Second Chamber. Finally, there were to be members nominated by the Crown, and I think that proposal gave rise to the greatest bitterness of all. Whom were the Crown to nominate—ex-Ambassadors, Field-Marshals and Admirals? Were these the people who would be likely to add to the capacity of this Chamber for dealing with the difficult and delicate questions which come before it? There were other difficulties. The Parliament Act was to be broken into because no Bill for the reform of this Chamber was to be capable of passing into law unless both Houses agreed to it. There were other difficulties, but I should be taking up more of your Lordships' time than is justifiable if I entered into them at this moment.
What does all this amount to? It amounts to this: that your Lordships have tried your hands three times and have wholly broken down in the effort, notwithstanding the "grey—haired" wisdom to which the noble Duke referred, to find a solution of this problem. The House of Lords did not come here as the result of any Statute or as the result of any plan fashioned in modern times. You must go to the historical method and you find that it has grown up and has become what it is by slow degrees. A body like that can only be dealt with in one of two ways. You may sweep it away; you may put a Second Chamber in its place which is in the nature of a Senate. It is very difficult to construct a Senate, but it can be constructed in one way. You can make it a Senate which accords with the opinion of the times as manifested by the election of the House of Commons, and which will change as the House of Commons changes. That is a perfectly feasible plan, but I do not think we have reached that stage yet. Nevertheless, it can be done. I myself have put a plan in a Bill on which I have expended a good deal of time and trouble and which I think would be quite workable, but I do not propose to bring that Bill to your Lordship's attention now. Possibly I never may.

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But there is another fashion in which things work. Ours is an unwritten Constitution, and because it is an unwritten Constitution it is a Constitution which develops and varies as decade succeeds decade. The position of the House of Lords to-day is not the same as the position of the House of Lords fifty years ago. It is no longer a body that is irresponsive to public opinion. Your Lordships have shown in recent years great readiness to acknowledge the force of public opinion and to respect it. During the days of the late Government you were very good to us, you recognised that we stood for a good deal in the country and that it was not expedient there should be conflict between you and us. You met us handsomely on every occasion. That is a spirit which in itself goes a long way to get over difficulties. You do not reduce anything to writing, you do not lay down any rigid propositions or attempt to define, nor do you deal with abstractions. You deal with the concrete situation that arises, and your Lordships take up the position that whenever you see clearly that public opinion is supporting the lines taken by the other House you will not stand in the way.
As I have said, that state of things is different from the state of things fifty years ago. In those days the House of Lords did throw out and mangle Bills. It even parted with its right to deal with Money Bills very reluctantly. Now, unless there is some passing eccentricity, this House does not attempt to interfere with Money Bills, nor have we any experience to show that it is necessary it should. It is not my business to give advice to His Majesty's Government nor would they thank me for it. But if I did, I think it would assume the form of a single sentence: Let well alone. Things are not worse than they were; they are better than they were, and I doubt whether anybody elected from outside, anybody nominated by the Crown, or nominated by a selection from among your Lordships' members, which might not always be a selection of great wisdom, would do better than your Lordships' House as constituted at present has done. As I have said, we are not dealing with a written Constitution. It is not necessary to go to the Senates in the Dominions, nominated as they are in Canada and New Zealand by the Crown, or as they are in Australia through
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direct election, or as they are in France through a very different system of local government to which we have no analogy in this country. It is not by going to these analogies that you get light.
We are the only country in the world which has a thoroughly unwritten Constitution, a developing Constitution. That quality is the quality which has enabled us to surmount many difficulties and which, as generation succeeds generation, more and more closely shows itself as expressive of the opinion of the day, whatever that opinion may be. I am not pretending that the constitution of this House, as it is to-day, can be defended upon abstract principles. If you must go to abstract principles, then I have indicated to your Lordships that I know another way which it is possible to consider. But if I interpret the sentiment of this House aright, it is not a sentiment which requires or calls for any violent changes. Let us, rather than attempt any rash thing, remain as we are, carefully watching and accommodating ourselves to the opinion of the time. It will not avert changes which some of your Lordships would not like to see, but then you cannot avert them whatever machinery you set up, because when these changes come, as they have come and will come, they come as the outcome of a tremendous democratic opinion in this country which you could not resist even if you would—a public opinion which is more potent than Kings and more potent even than Parliaments.
It is well that we in this Chamber should remain people who observe and watch that opinion, who mould ourselves to it so far as it is right, and reserve ourselves for the purpose of delay and of ensuring full consideration of the questions that come up. If that is well done, then I think it is a method preferable to the method which the noble Duke has at least suggested—the method by which the Government should add yet a fourth to the set of schemes which have been already put before your Lordships and over which your Lordships' House has invariably been disappointed.
THE EARL OF FORD AND ASQUITH: My Lords, it is with some reluctance that I interpose even for a very few moments between the Question which the noble Duke has put and the answer which we may, I suppose, expect to receive from

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His Majesty's Government, but there are one or two things which your Lordships will perhaps allow me to say. I listened with very great interest to the concluding part of the noble Duke's speech. If he will allow me to say so, he showed what I wish I could share, the ardour of youth and the buoyancy of a man experienced in aerial navigation. I wish I had the ample pinion and the soaring imagination which are necessary for a sanguine view of a practical solution of this most difficult question. I have neither a strength of wing to ascend to those flights nor a strength of head to keep me from dizziness if I approached them. I therefore remain, it may be through the chilling influences of advancing years, upon the flat level to which pedestrian exercise is most appropriate. And I say that because I am not, as your Lordships are aware, wholly without experience in this matter.
The Parliament Act had two objects—one immediate and the other, I will not say secondary, but ulterior. The immediate object was, first, to give statutory force to the constitutional usage under which the House of Commons is the supreme and ultimate authority in matters of finance; and, further, to provide that the force of an Act of Parliament should be given to any Bill which, though rejected by your Lordships' House, had passed the ordeal, in three successive. Sessions and for two years, of the assent of the House of Commons. That is the law of the land. It may, or may not, have been wise; it is not material for the purpose of this discussion to retraverse the ground of that old controversy. But, as I have said, the Parliament Act had an ulterior purpose, expressed in its Preamble. The intention was there defined that sooner or later—and I am one of those who have been quoted rightly as having said that it was a matter that did not brook delay—the Second Chamber in this country should be reconstituted upon a popular and not an hereditary basis That was the intention of the framers of the Act, and, when it became law, it was the expressed intention of Parliament.
It is quite true, as the noble Duke has said, that, through circumstances which are matters of history, during the two years which immediately succeeded the passing of the Act the Government of
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that day felt itself disabled by more immediately urgent domestic problems from submitting proposals to Parliament to carry out their intentions. The war then broke out and interposed, of course, an unforeseen but an unavoidable obstacle to the carrying out of that purpose. The noble Duke has quoted a phrase used by the present Prime Minister in which he appears to have said that he would undertake this task when he had time and power to do so. I do not, therefore, think that any Party in the State is blameworthy for the delay which has taken place, but I wish to reaffirm, in the clearest possible terms, everything which I then said, and which, so far as intention is concerned, was embodied in the Preamble of the Parliament Act, as to the importance and indeed urgency of this matter.
I spent an hour or two a few days ago in the always thankless, and often depressing, task of re-reading some of my old speeches, made during the constitutional controversy of 1910 and 1911, and I was going to say that I am relieved—I do not know that I am gratified—to find that there is nothing I then said that I would not reiterate to-day, or which I now recede from or recant. It is, I think, impossible to defend, either upon logical or upon practical grounds, the constitution of this House; in its present form as a Second Chamber, nor do I believe there is any difference of opinion on any Bench in any quarter of the House upon that subject. I said then, and I repeat now, that it ought to be reconstituted, subject to two all-important conditions—because I hold now as strongly as I did then, that a Second Chamber is a useful and indeed an indispensable part of a really democratic constitution, subject to the two conditions that the Second Chamber is properly composed and properly empowered.
I am not going—it would be an abuse, indeed, especially until we have heard the views of His Majesty's Government—to make on this occasion any concrete suggestion as to the form in which the change should take place, but I should like, if I may, to lay stress upon what seem to me to be the essential conditions of a real reform. A real reform would not consist in what in those days used to be called by some rash and adventurous politicians an attempt to protect the

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people against their own representatives. That is not the attitude from which any reform of the Second Chamber ought to proceed, nor is it the object to which it ought to be directed. I think the Second Chamber in this country—from which I entirely agree authority in finance ought to be removed, as it has been—ought to have legislative initiative in all matters which are not covered by that exception. I think, further, it ought to have—and to this I attach very great importance—the power which your Lordships' House as now constituted has most beneficially exercised in the past, and never more beneficially than during the years which followed the war—namely, the power of free, untrammelled, independent criticism of the policy and the action of the Executive of the day. I think further that any Second Chamber worthy of the name, and capable of rendering real service to the government and administration of the country, ought to have, as it was our intention in the Parliament Act that it should have, the freest and fullest powers of revision, of consultation, and, within reasonable limits, of delay.
I believe that a body entrusted with powers of that kind would not only be beneficial but is really indispensable to the working of our institutions; but when we come to the question of what changes ought to be made in the composition of the body, there I agree with my noble and learned friend Lord Haldane that you are launched upon a sea of conjecture, of conflicting, diverse, unequally-balanced opinion, for the formation of a decision upon which, notwithstanding the elaborate researches of the Bryce Committee, we are really not much more advanced than we were fifteen years ago. If there is, as I believe there is, substantial agreement in regard to the end to be attained, the end being not the composition of the body—that is a means to the end—but the successful achievement and discharge of the functions which I have ventured to enumerate as appropriate to a Second Chamber—if there is a concordat as to the end it ought to be possible to find some method of providing an instrument adequate and appropriate to the purpose. The responsibility of suggesting the form and character of that instrument must rest with the Government of the day and not with irresponsible persons, however intelligent and however inventive—and
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there is no field of unlicensed conjecture in which the freedom of suggestion and of hypothesis finds a freer road. However tempting that irresponsible method may be, any real suggested reform must come from those who are responsible.
My noble and learned friend Lord Haldane said just now: "Let us remain as we are." Well, that is a very Conservative doctrine—an ultra-Conservative doctrine—and I suppose we are to take it, for the moment at any rate, as the last word of the Labour Party. I am a little more advanced. I do not believe that we ought to remain as we are. I see Lord Banbury of Southam in his place. He is almost the last survivor of the unadulterated—I was going to use another expression—Toryism with which I was familiar in my early days in the House of Commons, where I am sorry to say he has left no representative, so far as I know, of the cult which he still pursues in solitary but magnificent isolation. But making that possible exception, I do not believe that anywhere, except on the Labour Benches here, there is any one in this House who is in favour of leaving things exactly as they are. I certainly am not.
I have already indicated to your Lordships that I hold quite as strongly as I did in 1910 and 1911 that there is a necessity for a Second Chamber for the purposes that I have endeavoured to define, and that your Lordships' House, as at present constituted, full as it is of legislative resource, of administrative experience, and of most valuable assistance derived from experience both in the work of legislation and in the criticism of administration, does not satisfy the requirements which the country demands. I wish to make it perfectly clear that, so far as I and my political friends are concerned, we hold to those two fundamental propositions, and we hope to receive from the Government, to-day, some guidance and enlightenment as to the manner in which they can be given practical effect to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT CAVE): My Lords, I think it will be for the general convenience of the House if at this point I endeavour to put your Lordships in possession of the views of His Majesty's Government on the question introduced by the noble Duke with

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so much force and ability, and as to the action which we propose to take. His Majesty's Government regard this subject not only as one of real importance, but as one which calls for consideration and, in due course, for action. They are not disposed to pass it by, either as a subject not deserving serious attention, or as one too thorny for them to embark upon. I am well aware that there is in this House a body of opinion, not quite so exiguous, I think, as the noble Earl appears to suppose, which is against taking any action at all. I know some members of this House and persons outside it who point to the great traditions and the great achievements of this House, as it is now constituted; to the fact that it contains a great number of men experienced in political matters and having behind them great public services; to the fact that this House has on many occasions contributed by its debates to the enlightenment of our people upon matters of great importance, and more than once has shown by its decisions that it stood nearer to the general opinion of the country than the other House. And those noble Lords, using a phrase of Lord Melbourne's, are disposed to say: "Why don't you let it alone?" It may be somewhat of a surprise to some of your Lordships, though, I admit, not to me, that the noble and learned Viscount on the Front Opposition Bench is disposed to take up the same attitude.
To those who hold that view I want to say just this word. Is there not a real danger in leaving matters exactly as they are? Let us see how we do stand. First, there is the question of Money Bills, as to which the House has, in substance, no power whatever except to debate them. When they come to us from another place they must be passed, and passed in the same Session, whether we wish it or not. And the power to say what are Money Bills is vested by Statute in the President of the other House. I doubt whether anybody in any quarter of the House really thinks that a right arrangement. I have the greatest confidence in our Speakers, and I am sure that any man likely to be elected Speaker of the House of Commons would do his best to come to a right decision. But, after all, even Speakers are only men, and it seems to me that it is not right that a decision on a matter of this importance should be vested wholly in one
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who spends all his time in the atmosphere of another place, and who, perhaps, cannot, fully appreciate the views which we hold. I am encouraged in that view by the fact that the Bryce Conference, to which reference has been made, took the same view, and proposed that the decision as to whether a Bill is or is not a Money Bill should be entrusted to a body representing both Houses. As to what that body should be I say no more to-day. But I think that the principle of some change of that kind does require careful consideration.
Then there is the more difficult, and perhaps more important, question as to Bills other than Money Bills. The position today, as your Lordships know well, is this, that any Bill, even one making fundamental changes in the Constitution of the country, a Bill attacking contracts or property or any one of our great institutions—any Bill whatever, if passed and insisted upon by the other House, must in time become law. It is there, I think, that the real danger lies. That Act has not yet been critically tested. So far, we all know that only two Acts of Parliament have become law under the Parliament Act. One of them was immediately afterwards amended, and the other was immediately afterwards repealed. The real test has not yet arrived. It is only if you get in another place a majority determined on some revolutionary change—a majority which uses its power to pass a Statute of the nature which I have described and which insists upon passing it into law—that the real danger in which this country stands will become manifest.
The noble Earl said, and of course I agree with him, that he is not in favour of one-Chamber government. Then we want real two-Chamber government. If his words are to have effect, he must help us to find a way in which it is impossible for one Chamber, by using such means as exist, to force its will upon the other House without consulting the nation. I hope that noble Lords who hesitate in regard to this matter will ponder that point and I am sure they will come to the conclusion that it is, at all events, a matter for further consideration. Those are two or three of the reasons why we think it right to investigate this matter and to see whether some way which commends itself to all

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reasonable people cannot be found. But we recognise, and this debate, so far as it has gone, shows that it is one thing to say that a remedy is required and quite another thing to find a right remedy.
Opinions as to the course which Parliament should take are very many and differ very widely one from the other. So the second point which I want to make is that, granted that something ought to be done, some time is required by, and some time should be given to, the Government of the day for investigating all the proposals which have been or may be made with a view, if possible, to putting their views before Parliament. I think that this debate even so far as it has gone has Keen full of suggestions which ought to be considered, and we look forward to the further phases of the debate to furnish those who have to consider this matter with more views to which also attention should be given. I do not doubt that the debate must occupy some time, and I hope that full opportunity will be given for a general expression of the views of the House.
I do not propose, to-day, to endeavour to find an answer to the many questions which arise, but I should like to raise for your Lordships' consideration one or two topics which seem to me to demand an answer. One question is how, except under the one-sided machinery of the Parliament Act, are the differences, the obstinate differences, between the two Houses to be adjusted when they occur? Many proposals have been made. One was the proposal to call a Conference of the two Houses which was put forward in the Bryce Report. I call it a Report because your Lordships will find, if you look at the letter, that Lord Bryce said he was authorised to report in those terms to the Government of the day. The difficulty about that suggestion was that in the end the Bryce Report recommended that unless the Conference of the two Houses agreed upon a solution the view of the House of Commons should, as now, prevail.
Then there is the suggestion as to joint sittings, the difficulties about which I know you all understand. There is also the further suggestion that if no solution has been found after all other means, conferences and so on, have been tried, the matter in difference shall be referred to a vote of the nation, to what is some-
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times called a Referendum or poll of the people. That is, I think, a solution which certainly deserves consideration; for no one can say that a measure of that kind would enable this House to thwart the wishes of the country as a whole. It is much too soon, of course, to pronounce an opinion upon it.
The second question that I have in my mind is this. Is it, and should it be, a condition of those amendments of the Parliament Act to which I have been referring, that the composition of this House should be changed? Would any Parliament consent to enlarge the powers of this House as limited by the Parliament Act without, at the same time, requiring the constitution of this House to be considered and, if need be, amended? Then, thirdly, assuming that some change in our constitution must be made, is Parliament, including the House of Commons, prepared to recognise the ancient and constitutional rights of members of this House and to include in the Second Chamber of the future a fair representation of the Peerage? I suppose that few would deny that some reduction in our numbers is desirable. Assuming that to be so, it appears to me that the rights of members of this House exist and are established, and unless they are fairly recognised any reform will meet with difficulties which may prove almost insuperable.
The effect of the Bryce Report, if adopted, would have been to reduce the number of Peers in the Second Chamber within a very short time to eighty and in a few more years to a minimum of thirty. I never thought that a fair recognition of the rights of this House, and, I think that, whatever happens, there must be in the new Second Chamber, if a new Second Chamber there is to be, a fair and adequate representation of those who to-day are entitled to sit in it.
There is one other question which I will only mention like the others, for your Lordships' consideration in time to come. Is this Parliament, including the House of Lords, prepared to include in the Second Chamber an element representing a wider sphere? That is, should there be here members either elected directly or indirectly or nominated by the Crown on the advice of the Government of the day? Should there be in this House members from outside? I think the proposal for

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making this House elective has rarely, if ever, found favour. It is condemned in unsparing terms by the Report of the Bryce Conference, which contained members of all Parties. Nevertheless, I think people have a feeling that the introduction to this Chamber of what is called a breath of fresh air—of some element from outside—would give us strength and would rather help than hinder our debates. I would like to add this. Unless some such proposal finds favour, I do not see how the Labour Party can ever be adequately represented in this House. By "adequately represented," I mean so far as numbers are concerned. That is a point which your Lordships will have to consider and provide for, and I hope in some such way as I have outlined a solution may be found.
These are serious questions. The Government have given the problem very careful consideration. I will not say that I have not got an answer to every one of the questions. I suppose there is no one here so poor as not to have his own scheme for reforming this House, but as a Government we certainly have had no time to formulate our proposals. To appoint another Commission or another Conference would, I think, be useless. I agree with what has been said both by the noble Duke and by the noble Earl, that no solution not put forward or supported by the Government of the day is likely to meet with general acceptance. I agree that we must ourselves consider the matter and the Prime Minister proposes to appoint a Committee of the Cabinet which shall fully examine the problem in all its aspects in the hope that in the near future, possibly next year, we may be in a position to put before Parliament proposals for dealing with this difficult and most vital question.
THE EARL OF MIDLETON: My Lords, I think the noble Duke who asked this Question is to be congratulated on the fact that it has produced at least the declaration which we have just heard from the Woolsack. We have also had the advantage of speeches from two successive occupants of the Woolsack. The present system as between another place and this House in regard to Money Bills is indefensible, and that surely is an argument which must convince the Government that has a majority in both Houses,
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that they should deal without delay with a subject which has really become a reproach to us as a Legislature. I do not wish to say anything that reflects in any way on any one who may occupy the Chair in the House of Commons, but even during this Session we have seen that a measure, having been rejected by your Lordships last year, was withdrawn from us in the present year through being certified as a Money Bill.
That inequality of treatment in itself enforces the argument, which I will not further press, since it has brought out a statement from the Lord Chancellor that it is absolutely necessary for the protection of this House and the country that some form of Committee or Tribunal should be established other than that of the House of Commons, acting through its Speaker, for passing judgment on its own cause. If such a thing was necessary on the occasion of the passing of the Bill to which my noble friend Lord Oxford referred, it has become much more necessary now. In the interval we have added to this House something like thirty or forty men who hold the highest positions in the world of commerce, and are sent here to reinforce the judgment of this House on commercial matters, yet who find themselves debarred from dealing with matters which are commercial and by no means only financial, owing to the position in which this House is placed. The result is that their criticisms cannot be anything more than academic. That is surely a very bad adjustment of the intellectual forces of the country.
There is another thing which has made the position of this House much worse since the Parliament Act was passed. I am not going to cross swords with the noble and learned Earl on the question of the rights which may properly be given to a Second Chamber, but I should like to submit that, whether he was right or not to take away from this House anything more than the power of delay, the work to be done in this House has immeasurably increased in the last few years, even with our limited powers. I do not think it should be open to any one of your Lordships to say that it is not worth his while to come here under our present powers in order to do very material good in assisting the legislation of the country. The haste of the age, the

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enormous rapidity with which measures of first-class magnitude have to be pressed forward, makes the review of a Second Chamber, on which Lord Oxford insisted, more important than it was at the time when the Parliament Act was passed.
I should like, as one who has sat for a considerable time in Parliament, first in one House and then in the other, to register my protest against the system under which we are asked to do business. It is absolutely of no use for your Lordships to attend here if the majority of your criticisms cannot be addressed to a responsible Minister. I referred just now to finance, and in the remarks I make I am not attaching the slightest reflection on the ability or public service of those who sit on the Bench below me, but anybody who has been concerned in public offices in this country knows perfectly well that if a man is simply given a brief to speak for the Department without himself having any power in that Department, it is almost impossible for him either to meet the points which arise in debate or to make concessions, or even to give to those who have the power to make them really sufficient and strong arguments in favour of the course proposed.
What is our position? There is not a man on the Government Bench who has any connection with the finance of the country in any shape or form. There is no representative of the Foreign Office, no representative of the Colonial Office. That is not all. When I was first a member of this House, and that is not so long ago, there was an attempt to make some sort of a division as between the two Houses in regard to political places under the Government. There are now, I think, fifty-one or fifty-two offices under the Government, without counting the Law Officers. Of these, forty-three are held by members of the other House and nine by members in this House. What is the effect of this on your Lordships' House? We are not allowed to debate a large proportion of subjects, or vote upon them. It goes further than that. What is the inducement to a man who desires to serve his country if you say to him, when an Election is taking place, that he may go and speak for the candidate, he may subscribe, he may organise, and he may take the chair at any number of meetings,
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but the day the Election is over his part is ended; he may go back to the House of Lords where, on a large number of subjects, we are muzzled, and where we have to consider a number of measures on the last days of a Session and have to choose between getting rid of a measure which has a good deal of public opinion behind it, or postponing it, or debating it under conditions with which your Lordships are very familiar?
The consequences which I foresee, and which I feel bound to put before your Lordships, are these; that this starving of your Lordships' House has induced a number of Peers to absent themselves from our deliberations. I attended debates in this House long before I was of age. I stood on the steps of the Throne, and I tell your Lordships—I can quote figures to make my statement good—that the average attendance on minor occasions, also when there is a Bill of moderate importance and even when there is a Bill of great importance, is less in the year 1925 than it was in the year 1875, when there were between 350 and 400 fewer members of your Lordships' House. If you are to starve this House by continuing the operations of the past; if you say to 715 men who are only desirous of an opportunity of serving their country, that they may come here four days out of five but they will have nothing to do but wait and then in a week discharge the work of months, the result is this—it is happening at this moment—that those who are to succeed regard the possibility of the deaths of their fathers and being called to this House as a sentence of political death. That is the position. I could give your Lordships the names of many men who have been approached to stand for constituencies They say it is useless to do so, for when they go to the House of Lords they must give up politics, because it is no longer an occupation or pursuit in which they can give the service they desire to give to the country.
Therefore, in the interests of the personnel of your Lordships' House, we should reject the unwise counsel of the noble and learned Viscount opposite. It is not wise to leave the matter alone. It is a case, as described by the noble Earl some years ago, that does not brook delay. It brooks delay much less in the year 1925 than it did in the year 1911.

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The Lord Chancellor has said that there is no real danger. I think there is real danger. So long as you leave it in the power of the House of Commons to abolish this House—under the Parliament Act it is in their power to do so at this moment—you leave a real danger in case a Socialist majority should ever obtain power in this country. There is a real danger on the other side, too. So long as this House is recruited very largely from members who cannot possibly be in sympathy with the Labour Party you cannot expect that this House, able, eloquent and distinguished as it is, will command the confidence of that Party which has already once controlled the Government of the country.
I make two appeals to His Majesty's Government. The first is that they will assign without delay a Session next year in which they will employ the whole force of the Government in dealing with this urgent matter. I make this appeal from the point of view of helping public business. I ask them first to deal with the composition of this House before they consider powers. I hazard this opinion, that your Lordships' House will never give up its present powers and rights unless some arrangement is made for a proper representation of the House of Lords in the new Senate or House to be created. I cannot believe that we shall be asked to do so. I cannot endure the idea of the aristocracy of this country being reduced to a position like the aristocracy in some foreign countries, where they are a mere embellishment without service. That is the first appeal.
The second appeal is this. I do not believe there will be any satisfaction in another place with the composition of this House unless there is some direct representation of the people with the hereditary Peers in this House. Whenever reform is made it must be on comparatively simple lines. Nothing abstract, nothing in the nature of fancy franchises, is lively to commend itself to either House of Parliament. If the noble Marquess below me, who has taken so great an interest in this question, would endeavour in the present year to bring all Parties in this House into an informal conclave—a further Committee with evidence coming on the top of three or four Committees that have already sat is not likely finally to settle the matter—if he could, under the ægis of the Govern-
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ment, bring members from all sides of this House into conclave and obtain what is likely to be the best scheme and one which leaders of other Parties will allow us a reasonable chance of carrying in this House, I hope he will agree to frame for next Session a comprehensive scheme for the reform of this House. In that case we shall owe the noble Duke a very considerable measure of gratitude for having introduced this Question to-night.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, in rising to address your Lordships' House for the first time I shall not, I hope, detain your Lordships for more than a few moments, but I would beg that that indulgence should be given which I know this House always so generously accords to those who, like myself, are engaged in this somewhat alarming duty. I feel that this indulgence is required in my case more than in some because, unlike most of your Lordships, though by no means all, who speak and take a principal part in the business of this House, I have not had the advantage of that apprenticeship in another place which is so useful to those who, like myself, are sooner or later called to service in the Second Chamber. I do not intend to go into any detail as to the composition or the powers that I think this House ought to have. I merely wish to put forward, very briefly, my views—the views of one who has not up to now, in the nature of the case, been able to take an active part in politics, but has always, when outside this House, taken a very great interest in political matters.
May I say, as one of the latest recruits, and as one who, I fear, could not possibly hope to obtain a place in any reformed Second Chamber, how very much I welcome the Motion which the noble Duke has thought fit to make to-day? I think it was the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, whom we are all sorry not to see here to-day, in one of his inimitable speeches in another place during the debates on the Parliament Act, who said that he thought; that the only two countries in the world which had single-Chamber government were Greece and Costa Rica, The noble Duke has to-day added a third, of which I was not aware—namely, Queensland. Since the days when Lord Balfour made that observation we have had the war, and innumerable other nations and countries have come into existence. I do not pretend to

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know the Constitutions of all of them, but I do say that no country, in my opinion, is so defenceless against sudden or revolutionary change as this country has become under the working of the Parliament Act. I am not, I hope, an undue pessimist or alarmist. I have generally found up to now that the things that we are most afraid of are not quite so bad when they come, and, conversely, that the things that we most look forward to are, when we get them, frequently very disappointing. As an illustration the late Labour Government was not so bad as some of us feared, and it is possible that, as time goes on, the Government which I and noble Lords who sit on these Benches support will disappoint some of its more ardent supporters. But I must qualify this by saying that the Labour Government was harmless because they were in a very great minority, and I shudder to think what might be done by a Labour Government with a full and uncontrolled majority in the House of Commons.
I listened with great respect and interest to the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Oxford and Asquith, but I could not help thinking, as the noble Earl made his speech, that it sounded as if we were back in what I might call the good old days when the Liberal Party succeeded the Conservative Party and vice versa, and no great harm was done. I think that the right note was struck in this case by the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack when he drew attention to the presence of a revolutionary party in this country, and I think it is against a Labour Government, possibly controlled by revolutionaries, that we need to have a strong Second Chamber. There were signs of the hand of extremists in the last Government. Your Lordships know very well that during the last weeks or months of that Government many strange things happened, and in the explanations that we had we knew very well that, although the voice was that of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald or of the noble and learned Viscount opposite, the language was directed from Poplar or the Clyde.
We had a good example of what the more extreme members of that Party would like to do in the debate on the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill a year ago, when I think it was the hon. Member for Shoreditch who moved to reduce the strength of the Regular Army by 150,000
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men. That may be an extreme case, and, of course, the proposal was defeated very easily, but the fact remains that this sort of thing could be done under the Parliament Act, and I think that we in this House and in the country are rather apt to lull ourselves into a false security because, as the noble and learned Viscount remarked, during the past fourteen years the Parliament Act has been invoked only twice—namely, in regard to the Home Rule Bill, 1912, and the Bill for the Disestablishment of the Welsh Church in the same year. Since then, for various reasons which are well known to your Lordships, the Parliament Act has not been invoked. We have now a Conservative Government in power, and I personally hope that they will run their full course and will come back again for a further term after the next Election. But they may not. One of these days the pendulum will swing, and we shall, no doubt, have a Government in office composed of the supporters either of the noble Viscount opposite or of the noble Earl, Lord Oxford and Asquith—it is not for me to conjecture which is the more likely eventuality.
If we allow, as I think we must, that further powers are necessary to this House, we come to the question of the constitution of this House, in regard to which we are faced with grave difficulties. Many of us would like to retain this House as it is, with all its glorious traditions attaching to it, but, as has been said, I think, by all the noble Lords who have spoken with the exception of the noble and learned Viscount opposite, we cannot do this. I do not think that the country would tolerate a House which had, not necessarily the powers which existed before the Parliament Act, but those powers which, in my opinion, a Second Chamber ought to have, if it existed only by the hereditary right. Whatever system we adopt, I do hope that in the House that will emerge—I am expressing my own personal view—we may have members directly representing India and our great Dominions overseas. The British Empire is a most glorious institution, and I sometimes think that this country is a little slow in recognising that fact. In my opinion it would be a magnificent idea to have our oversea kinsmen represented directly in the great Senate of the Empire.

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It may be said that there is no general demand that any action should be taken. I admit that this is true in a way. In a large democracy with an enormous electorate such as we have enfranchised, and in a time of unexampled unemployment and dearness of living, naturally the matters which excite the electorate most are those which have to do with the creation of employment, cheapness of food and such like, and those of us who have taken part in Elections, and attended meetings, know fully what points most go down with the electorate. In spite of that, I believe there is a very large thinking section of the electorate which is very interested in this question, and is looking anxiously to see whether this House and the Government are in earnest on the question. I hear a lot of talk in these days of democracy and democratic rights, but the people who talk the loudest about those things are usually those who would deny all powers, if not existence, to this House. There is nothing undemocratic in a Second Chamber. The French have a very strong Senate as a Second Chamber, and the greatest democracy in the world has a Senate so strong that it has been enabled in the last few days to veto an appointment by its own President.
Opinions may differ as to the causes of the great Conservative victory of a few months ago. I do not suppose for a moment that my opinion will coincide with that of the noble Viscount opposite, or of Lord Oxford. I see that the other day Mr. Arthur Henderson, the late Home Secretary, said that it was because all the old women of both sexes voted for the Conservative Party. Even if that be so, I do not sec that it is anything to be very much ashamed of. One of the things which may be said for growing older is that one more easily detects fraud, and that was perhaps unfortunate for the late Government. However that may be, in my opinion vast numbers of old and young men and women voted for the Conservative Party as a mandate to put our house in order, and I consider that an amendment of our constitution is not the least important part in setting our house in order.
Before I sit down I should like to refer to a saying of Lord Selborne, whose absence we all deplore and whose keenness in this cause we all recognise. He said in this House, in a debate in 1922,
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that after the passing of the Parliament Act the attendance in this House became deplorable, and that members stayed away because they thought it was no good coming. The same thing was said by Lord Midleton, who has just sat down, although he adduced fuller reasons for it. But is the attendance any better to-day How many of the 700 Peers who are entitled to sit in this House are in regular attendance? Is their absence due to their considering that their attendance here is sham and a farce? Personally, I do not look upon attendance here in that light, and as long as this House, as it stands, is a part of the Constitution, I shall continue to attend and do my best to help in my small way in the carrying on of our business. But proud as I am to be allowed to sit here, and much as I should grieve if the day should come on which I was excluded from this House, I value the safety and institutions of this country far more, and I therefore welcome heartily the Question of my noble friend, and was exceedingly glad to hear from the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack that the Government are not unmindful of early, and I hope very early, action on this most important and, I think, vital question.
VISCOUNT YOUNGER OF LECKIE: My Lords, I will only intervene for a very few minutes after the interesting speeches that we have heard. Not the least interesting was from the noble Lord behind me, who promises to be a very useful debating member of your Lordships' House. I intervene because I wish to thank the noble Duke for having brought forward this Question to-day, and afterwards to thank the Lord Chancellor, as the mouthpiece of the Government, for the promise to deal with the matter. I do this because I have been an active supporter of the movement ever since the passing of the Parliament Act, and in my official position as head of the Conservative Party organisation I did my best to promote it. Year after year at their meetings the Conservative Party passed strong resolutions demanding this reform both in the constitution and the powers of this House, and I had the greatest hope that the Coalition Government of 1918 would carry out the promises made in their Election manifesto, and deal effectively and efficiently with this ques-

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tion. It would have been, I thought, very desirable that the two Parties together should be responsible for the change, rather than that one Party of its own motion should make the proposal.
That is the position which we are in now, and I am sorry that the Unionist members of the Coalition played with the matter in 1918—I repeat the word "played"—and ended futilely by bringing in a Resolution which never went any further. I think the country itself would have been very much more likely to have accepted a decision if both Parties had had a hand in the solution of the question. I was interested in listening to the speech of Lord Oxford. I notice that the other day—I think in addressing the Liberal Party—he said he had stopped the House of Lords from being able to stop any measure permanently. That is perfectly true, but he might have gone on and said that he had provided constitutional means for carrying the most revolutionary proposals.
There is another point to which I will call attention. The Franchise Bill of 1918 stipulated that all Elections were to take place on one day, and therefore, if at any moment some question of vital importance is interesting the country, you have a simultaneous expression of opinion without the possibility of any correction or modification of it. In former days polling was spread over a period of a fortnight, and when the boroughs went very much one way the counties nearly always corrected that, and sent a reasonable minority to Parliament. In 1906, when my Party was in very bad odour, the boroughs having gone against us we nevertheless came back with a working Party of about 152 or 153. Contrast that with the position of the Liberal Party. It came back from the last Election with only forty Members, and I say in his presence what I have said to him privately, that I am perfectly certain that if we had had the old system of the counties voting after the boroughs the noble and learned Earl, Lord Oxford and Asquith, would have remained Member for the County of Fife, and they would have sent him back as an excellent watchdog to the other House.
Some provision ought to be made so that some Government with revolutionary ideas would not be able to exercise the full power which the Parliament Act
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gives them. It is not to be supposed for a moment that they would bring in a series of Bills to deal with the questions in which they were interested. They would simply bring in one Bill, and sweep away those safeguarding provisions which the noble and learned Earl embodied in the Parliament Act. I have only to say that I thank the noble Duke very much for having brought forward this Question. I thank the Lord Chancellor for what he has said, and I hope that it will come to fruition before very long. I am sure that the Party to which he and I have the honour to belong, and those who manage and organise it, will be very grateful for what has passed in this House to-day.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, the noble and learned Earl, Lord Oxford, has paid me what I consider to be the greatest compliment which any man could pay me, inasmuch as I understood him to say that I was a rare and genuine Tory. Holding that opinion, the noble Earl will see how very distasteful it is to me that there should be any question of an alteration in this historic House, and I should not have supported, as I do most whole-heartedly, an alteration, if I did not believe that, partly owing to the efforts of my noble friend Lord Oxford himself, and partly owing to the advent of the Labour Party, it is absolutely necessary that some steps should be taken to give increased power to this House, if we desire to preserve that great Empire of which we are all so proud. The Parliament Act, as your Lordships know, enacts that any measure passed in the House of Commons, if it is passed in three successive Sessions—which is only two years—becomes an Act at once. Let us suppose that the Labour Party are in power, and not merely in office, as they were last year, and let us suppose that the tail will wag the dog, which is probably what will occur. What would be easier than for them to pass a Bill abolishing this House and establishing single-Chamber government? All they would have to do would be to remain in office for two years. Then we should be face to face with a single Chamber. That is, to my mind, a very horrible outlook, and I am prepared to sacrifice all the old historical associations connected with this Chamber in order to prevent something of that sort happening.

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But there was in the Parliament Act another provision, which dealt with Money Bills. The noble Earl, Lord Midleton, has alluded to the very extraordinary episode which occurred a few days ago, when a Bill which was not certified as a Money Bill last year became a Money Bill this year, though there was practically no alteration, except drafting changes, in the later Bill. But that is not all. There are before this House at the present moment two Bills. The Trade Facilities Bill is a Bill to enable the Government to guarantee loans to certain people. I took the opportunity to-day of looking up the Parliament Act in order that I might refresh my memory, and I find that the Parliament Act says that a Bill for the raising or guaranteeing of any loan is a Money Bill. But the Trade Facilities Bill has not been certified as a Money Bill, so far as I know. Why not? There is another Bill called the British Sugar (Subsidy) Bill. I am sorry to see that the noble Lord, Lord Bledisloe, is not here. What does that Bill do? It says that certain moneys provided by Parliament are to be given to factories manufacturing beet sugar. What does the Parliament Act say? It defines as a Money Bill a Bill which imposes charges "on money provided by Parliament." That is exactly what the British Sugar (Subsidy) Bill does, but that is not certified as a Money Bill, either.
Therefore we are face to face with three different Bills within a period of four or five weeks, which are sometimes Money Bills and sometimes not Money Bills. Having had some experience of the other House, and having been asked by Mr. Speaker Lowther to be one of the members to advise him on whether or not Bills should be certified as Money Bills, I venture to say that I never contemplated such a situation as this. I may say that I did not accept Mr. Speaker Lowther's invitation, because it was necessary to be one of the Chairmen of Grand Committees, and I did not wish to be that, because it would have deprived me of any opportunity I might have had of preventing any bad Bills, like those of the noble Lord, Lord Newton, from obtaining a Beading in the other House.
I am very glad indeed to hear from the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack that the Government are going
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to set up a Committee. I have had some experience of Governments and of Committees, and I find that as a rule the appointment of a Committee means that nothing is done. I hope that will not be the case now. I sincerely hope the Government will take this matter in hand at once. I do not for a moment say that it can be done this Session, but it ought to be done next Session, and for this reason. If it is done next Session I have not any doubt that the new Chamber, or the altered Chamber, will work satisfactorily, and that when the Election comes three years later—I hope it will not come before—it will not be open to the Labour Party to say: "Oh, well, what has the Conservative Government done? They have re-established the House of Lords, with all its powers and all its wickedness." But if you leave it till shortly before the Election, as certain as I am standing here the Labour Party will take up that attitude, and the whole case will be misrepresented, and it will react disastrously on the Conservative Party. I noticed that the noble and learned Viscount, alluding to what took place in 1889, said that the county councils wore objected to because it was not desirable that they should be political bodies. To a great extent they are political bodies now, and the noble and learned Viscount will remember that in 1889 the position of this House was very different from what it is now, and it was not necessary then to reform this House, because it had sufficient powers and it was doing its work extremely well.
I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Templemore, said just now as to the great debt of gratitude we owe to the noble Duke for having brought forward this subject, and I earnestly hope that the Conservative Government—because I am quite certain that they can do it if they only put their mind to it—will as soon as possible set up some Committee or, as I would much rather, make their own plan and submit it to the House, so that this year or next we might have before us a measure which would ensure that the country should not be governed in future by a single Chamber.
LORD LAMINGTON: My Lords, like all those who have spoken this afternoon I am fully alive to the great danger which might beset us at any moment when a

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Labour Government came into office, but I rather differ, perhaps, as to the best means of combating that danger. Most of those who have spoken would like to see your Lordships' House reformed in a very large degree and made a partially nominated, partially elected and partially hereditary Chamber. The noble Lord opposite has pointed out how very difficult it would be to bring about such a policy, and I am convinced that if we are to safeguard our Constitution and our country it would be absolutely necessary to go in for a purely elective House. If anything approaching a Senate was set up it would have the advantage of being able to deal with money matters in the same way as the Senate in France or in the United States is able to do. Without such powers I confess that I would rather see your Lordships' House remain as it is. After all, most questions are dependent upon finance.
The noble Viscount, Lord Younger, referred to the changes that had taken place in the procedure of Parliament, in the size of the constituencies, and from the fact that Members of Parliament are paid. Those facts, in my opinion, very much increase the danger which is to be apprehended from the other risks which have been indicated already. Therefore, if a scheme could be devised which would preserve our ancient rights to some extent and under which a permanent House could be set up—permanent in the sense that it would not be liable to be subverted by a succeeding Government but would really form part of the Constitution of the country—well and good. But I think we must be prepared to face the fact that if we wish for a Second Chamber to preserve the country, the nation and the Empire from those risks which have been adumbrated, we must have an elective Senate. The noble Duke himself said that this is the last chance of reform and that it depends on the action of the Government. Surely a matter of this importance ought not to be dependent upon the action of the Government, but of the nation at large, and even of the Empire.
The noble Lord, Lord Templemore, in an admirable speech advocated the inclusion of representatives from India and the Dominions in any Second Chamber that might be created. That is a possibility; but it is not a question of what
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the Government wishes, but what the nation and the Empire generally require. I do not take the somewhat pessimistic view that something ought to be done in a hurry to avert the dangers which have been enlarged upon by noble Lords who have spoken. It seems to me that we must bear in mind the possibilities of the future and, though I would very much like to see your Lordships regain your old rights and privileges, it seems to me that we must be prepared to accept the creation of a Senate in place of your Lordships' House if there is to be any great alteration in its constitution.
LORD DANESFORT: My Lords, I rise to support as strongly as I can the Motion made by the noble Duke. To my mind the reform which he advocates is essential, not indeed in the interests of this House or of any Party in this country, but of the nation as a whole. I con gratulate him on having already secured a valuable ally in the person of the noble Earl, Lord Oxford. It may be that Lord Oxford's methods will not be the same as those of the noble Duke, but he is as convinced as the noble Duke or as any one in this House of the necessity for reform and for that reform to come quickly. In that respect we have seen a remarkable conflict between the attitude of the noble Earl, Lord Oxford, and the noble and learned Viscount who leads the Labour Party.
The noble and learned Viscount proposes in this case to leave well alone. The explanation of that attitude given by Lord Oxford appeared to be most inadequate. He suggested that the attitude of the Labour Party is due to their inherent toryism. As a Tory I rather resent that suggestion. I think it is an exceedingly libellous reflection on the Tory Party. The truth is that this view of the noble and learned Viscount, voicing, as I suppose he does, the whole Labour Party, is due to the complete incapacity of the Labour Party to look ahead, to see the dangers of the future and to provide against them. That is a topic which I need not elaborate now, but it inspires the whole of their policy. Want of vision, inability to look ahead, incapacity to provide against future proposals and schemes fraught with danger, the result of which they cannot foresee, characterise the whole of their policy.

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Therefore I am not at all surprised that the noble and learned Viscount should think all is well and refuse to take any remedial steps.
The experience of every civilised nation in the world has been that in order to secure stability of government and progress there must be an adequate Second Chamber. I was very glad to note Lord Oxford's strong tribute to a Second Chamber. He said that a Second Chamber was an indispensable part of a democratic constitution. That is the foundation of the argument of the noble Duke. At the present moment we are living under what is virtually a single-chamber system of government. As the noble Lord pointed out just now, if the Government in power has a sufficient majority in the House of Commons and sufficient recklessness, there is no measure, however disastrous and ruinous, however unauthorised by the people who send representatives to the House of Commons, that that Government could not pass into law in the course of two years—not only financial measures, but measures of any sort, even to the abolition of this Second Chamber, the existence of which Lord Oxford agrees is so essential, or the abolition of the Monarchy itself.
That is a position of intense danger. It is an intolerable position, and it is necessary for us, seeing the danger, to provide for it now that the time is ripe and we can do it. I am one of those, who was in favour of a reform of the Second Chamber long before 1911, which would have made it more suitable to exercise its then undoubted powers. If this change was desirable in 1911 I venture to think it is absolutely essential now, and for at least three reasons. One is the fact that we have a greatly enlarged electorate, which, like all electorates, is subject to gusts of passion, and in which you may have great swings of the pendulum that do not represent the abiding and lasting views of the people at large. The second reason which makes it desirable, and indeed essential, is the Parliament Act, with the results I have already indicated. And the third reason, one I think not without weight, is that we live under an unwritten Constitution.
The noble and learned Viscount seems to think that rather an advantage. He
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said: Oh! we shall develop; we can enlarge our minds under an unwritten Constitution. The real danger of an unwritten Constitution is that you are powerless, with a large majority in the House of Commons operating under the Parliament Act, against the most dangerous changes. Against such changes a written Constitution would be a bulwark. In the United States of America, with their written Constitution, it has over and over again happened that changes of the Constitution which had passed through Congress have been vetoed by the Supreme Court as being contrary to the Constitution. We have no such safeguard. The House of Commons, under the Parliament Act, can do anything. Therefore the fact that our Constitution is unwritten makes it, to my mind, all the more vitally necessary that there should be a Second Chamber armed with adequate powers which would give the people time to think.
There is only one other point that I want to make. The noble Earl, Lord Oxford, indicated the sort of powers which he would be willing to give to a reformed Second Chamber. But when those powers are examined they really come to this—they give a right to talk rather longer than we can now. There was not a suggestion in the speech of the noble Earl which would give this House any real power of preserving the foundations of our Constitution and resisting dangerous changes. It appeared to me that he attached more value than perhaps one of his great experience ought to attach to conversations—talk ending in nothing, backed up by no power behind it. He did not touch upon the real point. When there is a fundamental difference between the two Houses of Parliament, how are you going to settle that? You cannot settle it by talk, without power in this House. I was delighted to hear in the speech of the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack a real suggestion for settling what should be done when there is a fundamental question between the two Houses. The suggestion he threw out was based on what prevails in some of our Dominions and in other countries of the world, that there should be a joint sitting of the two Houses, and if that did not result in agreement, that then there should be a referendum and an appeal to the people.

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What I feel most strongly is that the governing principle of our action in any reform of the House of Lords should be to have regard to the opinion of the people. That is the only ground on which we as a democratic country can act and work, and that is the object, I venture to think, at which we should aim. If, owing to some fleeting changes of opinion of the electorate, some great and potent and unheard-of changes in the Constitution or in the social or economic life of the country as a whole are proposed, surely it is essential that this House should not merely be able to delay measures for two years, but should have some real power to see that the opinion of the people shall, in the long run, prevail.
THE EARL OF CLARENDON: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Birkenhead I beg to move the adjournment of the debate.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(The Earl of Clarendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.

ELECTRICITY SPECIAL ORDERS.
THE EARL OF CLARENDON: My Lords, I beg to move the Motions which appear on the Paper in the name of my noble friend Viscount Peel relating to Special Orders made under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922.
Moved, That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the Boroughs of Bideford and Great Torrington, the urban district of Northam, and parts of the rural districts of Bideford, Barnstaple and Torrington, all in the County of Devon, which was presented on the 10th day of February, 1925, be approved.—(The Earl of Clarendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the urban district of Bredbury and Romiley, in the County
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of Chester, which was presented on the 10th day of February, 1925, be approved.—(The Earl of Clarendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the Borough of Calne and the parish of Calne Without, in the rural district of Calne, in the County of Wilts, which was presented on the 10th day of February, 1925, be approved.—(The Earl of Clarendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the urban district of Thurstonland, in the West Biding of the County of York, which was presented on the 10th day of February, 1925, be approved.—(The Earl of Clarendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the parishes of East Horsley, West Horsley and East Clandon, in the rural district of Guildford, and part of the parish of Chessington, in the rural district of Epsom, in the County of Surrey, which was presented on the 10th day of February, 1925, be approved. (The Earl of Clarendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the urban district of Biggleswade, and the parishes of Lang-ford Astwick, Arlesey, Henlow, Upper Stondon, Meppershall, Clifton, Camp-ton, Shefford and Shefford Hardwick, in the rural district of Biggleswade, all in the County of Bedford, which was presented on the 10th day of February, 1925, be approved.—(The Earl of Clarendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to
Moved, That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the urban district of Ulverston and the parish of Osmotherley, in the rural district of Ulverston, in the County Palatine of Lancaster, which was presented on the 10th day of February, 1925, be approved.—(The Earl of Clarendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the parish of Chaldon in the rural district of Reigate, and the parishes of Woldingham, Chelsham and Farleigh, and parts of the parishes of Godstone, Bletchingley and Tandridge, in the rural district of God-stone, all in the County of Surrey, which was presented on the 16th day of December, 1924, be approved.—(The Earl of Clarendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the urban districts of Buckhurst Hill, Loughton, Wanstead and Woodford, and the parish of Chigwell, in the rural district of Epping, in the County of Essex, which was presented on the 10th day of February, 1925, be approved.—(The Earl of Clarendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LAW OF PROPERTY (CONSOLIDATION) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills made.

SETTLED LAND (CONSOLIDATION) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill:
730
Amendments proposed by the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills made.

TRUSTEE (CONSOLIDATION) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills made.
ADMINISTRATION OF ESTATES (CONSOLIDATION) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills made.
LAND REGISTRATION (CONSOLIDATION) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills made.
LAND CHARGES (CONSOLIDATION) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills made.
UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGE ESTATES BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills made.
ADVERTISEMENTS REGULATION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
TRADE FACILITIES BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.

BRITISH SUGAR (SUBSIDY) BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY or AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD BLEDISLOE): My Lords, in moving that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill I think I had better inform your Lordships that Notice will be given to-morrow to suspend the Standing Orders of the House in order to take the further stages of the Bill. I hope to get it through to-morrow so that it can be taken after 11 o'clock in another place the same evening and be ready to receive the Royal Assent on the following day. I do not know that I need offer any apology for mentioning this matter. Your Lordships will realise that the Bill took much longer in Committee in another place than was at one time anticipated, and it is most important that it should receive the Royal Assent before the end of the financial year in order that the financial advantages provided by the Bill shall be available as from October I last to the producers of home-grown sugar.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Bledisloe.)
LORD OLIVIER: My Lords, there is one aspect of the Bill to which attention ought to be called. I sympathise with the noble Lord in charge of the Bill in respect of the great haste with which we have to deal with it. The point I wish to draw attention to was briefly alluded to by the noble Earl, Lord Beauchamp, last night when speaking of the former system of Continental sugar bounties under which our own Colonial producers suffered so grievously for so many years. This Bill abandons our attitude of not giving any bounties and it abandons it in a much more extensive degree than any Continental nation has ever adopted. I am entirely in sympathy with the principle of the Bill, but I had nothing to do with the formation of the Schedule. If such a Schedule had been framed by a Labour Government I should have given ft a pretty rigid examination. The fact is that the bounty proposed exceeds the value of the sugar; sugar being worth 18 s. 6d. per cwt. while the value of the bounty is 21 s. That is an enormous bounty. Having abandoned the principle of not giving bounties, if Con-
732
tinental nations such as Germany, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia and Russia, were to revert to their former policy of stimulating export and dumping sugar in this country, we shall have no word to say against their doing so. We can hardly be in the position we occupied when Mr. Chamberlain protected the West Indies against Continental sugar bounties.
The West Indies and other sugar-producing Colonies will feel themselves much aggrieved if the result of such a Bill as this is to encourage the giving of Continental bounties again, which would compete with them in our own home market. That bounty never exceeded £4 10 s. 0d. per ton. This is a bounty of £19 per ton, and there is a large margin there for Continental nations to give such an amount of bounty as would completely exclude them from our markets and destroy our Colonial sugar industry I want to call the attention of the Government to this point—to warn them that they are committing themselves to a position which, if it led to a recrudescence of the Continental bounty system, would expose them to a strong moral claim to give relief by way of subsidy to our sugar-producing Colonies. I think it right to put this on record. The West Indies and our other sugar-producing Colonies have favoured this Bill and the policy of home-grown sugar because they were not jealous and did not believe it would injuriously compete with them, and more perhaps because, like practical men, they saw that the establishment of a strong sugar interest in this country could not fail to strengthen their own position in regard to their own industries. I thought it right to call the attention of your Lordships' House to this point, because I am sure it is one which will arise in the future if there is any recrudescence on the Continent of giving bounties to sugar.
LORD BLEDISLOE: My Lords, it is only natural that the noble Lord, who at one time occupied the honourable position of Governor of one of our West Indian Colonies, should draw the attention of the House to this matter, but I think he need not be in the least apprehensive about it. After all, this is a special bounty given to this industry and is not likely to be continued for any long period. It is not for us to anticipate what may be the domestic policy of foreign countries,

733
but if, as a matter of fact, bounties are reimposed on sugar exported from the countries of Central Europe we shall deal with the case as it arises. If any injustice is likely to be inflicted on our West Indian Colonies, which supply us with our raw sugar, we shall have to meet the case on its merits. I do not anticipate any such trouble, but I can assure the House that if there is any such trouble we shall take care that our Colonies do not suffer.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL of DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.].
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2:
Accounts of companies in receipt of subsidy to he laid before Parliament.
2.—(1) Any company to which a subsidy if paid under this Act shall send annually to the Minister a statement in the form of a balance-sheet, audited by the company's auditors, containing a summary of the company's share capital, its liabilities, and its assets, giving such particulars as will disclose the general nature of those liabilities and assets and how the values of the fixed assets have been arrived at, and also a statement of profit and loss, audited in the like manner. Every such statement shall be made up to such date as may be specified therein and shall be sent to the Minister within ninety days of that date.
LORD BLEDISLOE LORD BLEDISLOE moved, after "Any company" at the beginning of the clause, to leave out "to which a subsidy is paid under this Act shall send annually," and to insert "which manufactures in Great Britain sugar or molasses from homegrown beet shall in every year in which a subsidy is payable under this Act send." The noble Lord said: This Amendment is intended to cover the case where sugar is manufactured partly in one factory and partly in another. As your Lordships are aware, there is at least one factory already established where it is contemplated that the raw sugar shall be produced from home-grown beet while the actual refining of the sugar, the production of white sugar, will take place in another factory belonging to the same company. Since public money is involved it is desired, of course, that the accounts relating to the whole concern shall be available to the Government, as contem-
734
plated by the Bill, and it is with that object that I beg to move this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 25, leave out from ("company") to ("to") in line 26 and insert the said words.—(Lord Bledisloe.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3:
Fair wages to Be paid by employers in receipt of subsidy.
3. The wages paid by any employer to persons employed by him in connection with the manufacture of sugar or molasses in respect of which a subsidy is payable under this Act shall, except where paid at a rate agreed upon by a joint industrial council representing the employer and the persons employed, not be less than would be payable if the manufacture were carried on under a contract made between the Minister and the employer containing a fair wage clause which complied with the requirements of any resolution of the House of Commons for the time being in force applicable to contracts of Government departments, and if any dispute arises as to what wages ought to be paid in accordance with this section it shall be referred by the Minister to the Industrial Court for settlement.
LORD BLEDISLOE LORD BLEDISLOE moved to add the following new subsection to the clause:—
"(2) Where any award has been made by the Industrial Court upon a dispute referred to that Court under this section, then as from the date of the award or from such later date as the Court may direct, it shall be an implied term of the contract between every employer and worker to whom the award applies that the rate of wages to be paid under the contract shall, until varied in accordance with the provisions of this section, be in accordance with the award."
The noble Lord said: This Amendment, was promised in general terms when this matter was under discussion in another place, and it is an attempt at a compromise between the two strongly expressed views which found utterance in the course of the Committee stage of the Bill in the House of Commons.
The object of the Amendment is to secure; that, where an award has been made by the Industrial Court in relation to a wages dispute, the wages so decided upon by the Court shall be legally enforceable by the workman. As your Lordships are aware, when the Industrial Court makes an award it is a voluntary award as the law stands to-day, and in no case can it be made enforceable in a

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court of law. The object of this Amendment is, so far as this particular Bill is concerned, to carry the matter somewhat further, a Government subsidy being involved, and to enable the workman to enforce this award in Court. The words used are:
"…. it shall be an implied term of the contract between every employer and worker to whom the award applies that the rate of wages to be paid under the contract shall … be in accordance with the award."
The use of the words "an implied term of the contract" means that the award will be legally enforceable.
I think I ought perhaps to add that in this connection the noble Lord opposite, Lord Arnold, took some exception to certain words which found a place in the original draft of this Amendment and which certainly might have rendered it possible for a workman and his employer to contract out of this clause. After some consultation with the noble Lord, it has been decided that his contention in this respect is a quite reasonable one, and we have left out the offending words.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 18, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Bledisloe.)
LORD ARNOLD: This Amendment deals with a somewhat complicated matter which, however, has been, I think, quite clearly and sufficiently explained by the noble Lord. Shortly, the Amendment is designed to make Clause 3 more effective. It is true that in another place the Amendment was originally moved in quite a different form. This was rejected by the Government, but the Minister of Agriculture undertook to reconsider the matter. He has done so in conjunction with the noble Lord opposite, and the Government agreed to put this Amendment upon the Paper. The Amendment in its present form, particularly after the change has been made to which the noble Lord refers and which was, as a matter of fact, the deletion of three words, undoubtedly goes a long way to meet the representations which have been made, and I desire to thank the noble Lord and the Minister of Agriculture for the trouble that they have taken in the matter.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
First Schedule agreed to.
Second Schedule (Minimum Prices of Beet):
LORD OLIVIER: I should like to call attention to a point which I ought to have raised on Clause 1, but your Lordships had passed that clause before I realised that it contained the operative part for this Schedule. I can deal with it on the Schedule, however, because the 44 s. a ton proposed to be given for beet is not a financial provision and does not affect the Imperial Exchequer. I wish to call your Lordships' attention to the proposal fixing a minimum rate of 44 s. per ton to farmers. I have calculated the value of the sugar contained in a ton of beets on the basis of a 15½ per cent. content, and I make out that it is really about 17 s. or 18 s., so that the sum that it is proposed that the factories shall pay to the farmers is really nearly two and a half times the actual market value of the product. This is even a more enormous subsidy than the subsidy which we propose to give to the manufacturer, as it is to be more than twice the value of that which he is producing.
I do not want to go into the minutiœ of this calculation because it is obviously unnecessary. We are at the outset giving a considerable price to the farmer, but I should have preferred that the price to the farmer should have been left to be settled between him and the manufacturr. We give the manufacturer such an enormous bounty that he can now pay to the farmer not only two and a half times the real market value of his product but, as the noble Lord told us last night, he can pay 56 s. to-day with an ample margin. But if we reduce the subsidy he will not have an ample margin four years hence, still less seven years hence, and by the time sugar comes down to the point of being sold out of these factories at the ordinary market price he will not be able to give the farmer more than the real value of the sucrose in his beets which, as I have said, is about 18 s.
We have to face this position, and I think it is very unfortunate that we begin by passing this legislation and giving a guarantee to the farmer, who forms part of a well-organised class and a class which, having once opened its mouth, is very unlikely to shut it again without a consideration, once we have set up this excessive guarantee to him of a price for his beets which cannot be economically

737
maintained and, under the provisions of this Bill, is not likely to be maintained. Is it not perfectly certain that, having fixed this price of 44 s. a ton, the Government will be faced, four years hence, with an organised protest on the part of the Farmers' Union, who will claim that the Government have set up the price of 44 s. as a proper one, and will protest that they cannot continue to produce beet sugar unless they get this price?
They will continue to demand it four years hence, and again seven years hence, and this Government, or some other Government, will have to go to Parliament and say that they find that this experiment cannot be carried on unless they give the manufacturers a rather higher price than was laid down in the Schedule, so that they can give the farmers the price which they have been accustomed to receive. It is quite impossible, I think, that you could have induced the farmers to enter this business if you had told them they were not going to get more than the real world value of their sugar beet. It is reasonable, they should get from the manufacturers, who have the subsidy, a very high price at the outset, but I do not think they should be led to expect a level price for four years and that it should be suggested they should then be left to their fate, because I am quite sure you will not be allowed to do that.
LORD BLEDISLOE: The noble Lord has told us that the farmer is apt to open his mouth somewhat wide. With some knowledge of farmers. I should like to
738
tell him that not very much has been passing into that month in recent years, and I do not think that the noble Lord need have any very great apprehension on this score. It has been found extremely difficult to arrive at suitable figures which are going to provide sufficient inducement, to the manufacturer on the one hand and to the farmer on the other, to establish this new industry in this country, and farmers, I am confident, are not going to be instrumental in killing the goose which lays the golden eggs. Nor, indeed, are the manufacturers likely to deny to the farmer a suitable price for the beet upon which they will depend to keep their factories going. Of course, the whole truth of the matter is that farmers know, to-day, exceedingly little about the economic and scientific production of beet as that applies on the Continent, and particularly in Holland, and during the first years it is important to give them sufficient inducement to produce what is really an entirely new crop. We have reason to believe that after the four years farmers, particularly in the eastern counties, will be very much better informed as to how economically to produce the crop, so that they may rest satisfied with a smaller price than is now being offered to them for the first four years.
On Question, Second Schedule agreed to.
Third Schedule agreed to.
House adjourned at five minutes past seven o'clock.

DUKEDOM OF SOMERSET.
Committee for Privileges met: Counsel heard on behalf of the Petitioner Richard Harold St. Maur: Claims considered: Resolution agreed to by the Committee: Report thereof to be made to the House.
Report from the Committee for Privileges:—
That the Dukedom of Somerset was created by Letters Patent of King Edward VI, dated 16th February, 1546–7, granted to Edward Earl of Hertford, Viscount Beauchamp of Hache and Baron Seymour with the limitations therein specified; that Edward Duke of Somerset was executed 22nd January, 1551–2, was attainted and all his honours forfeited; that the said Dukedom of Somerset and the said Barony of Seymour with the limitations specified in the Letters Patent of creation were restored to William Seymour, great-grandson of the said Edward, 1st Duke of Somerset, and that the said William was summoned to the House of Lords in the said Dukedom of Somerset; that the said Dukedom descended according to the limitations specified in the Letters Patent of creation to Algernon, 15th Duke, who died without issue the the 22nd October, 1923.
That the claimant Sir Edward Hamilton Seymour has proved to the satisfaction of this Committee the extinction of the lines senior to his own, and, claiming through Lord Francis Seymour, who died 16th February, 1790, fourth son of Edward, 8th Duke, is (in the event of the validity of the marriage of Francis Compton Seymour, son and heir of the said Lord Francis Seymour and Leonora Hudson being established) the heir-male of the said Lord Francis Seymour, and of the said Edward 1st Duke of Somerset;
That, in the opinion of this Committee, the evidence of the validity of the marriage had between Francis Compton Seymour and Leonora Hudson produced by the said claimant Sir
740
Edward Hamilton Seymour is not rebutted by the allegations and the evidence in support thereof produced by the Petitioner Henry Sydney Seymour and the claimant George Francis Alexander Marquess of Hertford, and that therefore the said marriage stands, and that the said claimant Sir Edward Hamilton Seymour ought, on the evidence produced, to be regarded as the heir-male of Edward, 1st Duke of Somerset, and by virtue of the limitations contained in the patent of creation of the said Dukedom is entitled to his writ of summons in the said Dukedom of Somerset.
Read, and agreed to.

STANDING JOINT COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS.
Message from the Commons that they concur in the Resolution of this House communicated to them on the 19th instant, That it is desirable that a Standing Joint Committee on Indian Affairs of both Houses of Parliament be appointed to examine and report on any Bill or matter referred to them specifically by either House of Parliament, and to consider with a view to reporting if necessary thereon any matter relating to Indian Affairs brought to the notice of the Committee by the Secretary of State for India.
LLOYD'S BILL. [H.L.]
Committee to meet on Thursday, April 2.
ST. MILDRED'S CHURCHYARD BILL. [H.L.]
  BLACKPOOL IMPROVEMENT BILL. [H.L.]

    WEST HAM CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
    Report from the Committee of Selection, That the following Lords be proposed to the House to form the Select

    741
    Committee for the consideration of the said Bills; namely:—

    V. Chaplin,

    L. Plunket,

    L. Kintore (E. Kintore) (Chairman);

    L. Raglan,

    L. Clwyd,

    agreed to; and the said Lords appointed accordingly: The Committee to meet on Wednesday, May 6, at eleven o'clock; and all Petitions referred to the Committee, with leave to the Petitioners praying to be heard by Counsel against the Bills to be heard as desired, as also Counsel for the Bills.

LEEK URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL WATER BILL. [H.L.]
SOUTHERN RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
GREAT YARMOUTH HAVEN BRIDGE BILL. [H.L.]
BEDFORDSHIRE. CAMBRIDGESHIRE. AND HUNTINGDONSHIRE ELECTRICITY BILL. [H.L.]
PORT OF LONDON BILL
BOOTHFERRY BRIDGE BILL. [H.L.]
OLDHAM CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Report from the Committee of Selection, That the following Lords be proposed to the House to form the Select Committee for the consideration of the said Bills: namely:—

E. Strafford (Chairman);

L. Fairfax,

L. Lawrence,

L. Wyfold,

L. Cable,

agreed to; and the said Lords appointed accordingly: The Committee to meet on Wednesday, May 6, at half-past eleven o'clock; and all Petitions referred to the Committee, with leave to the Petitioners praying to be heard by Counsel against the Bills to be heard as desired, as also Counsel for the, Bills.

LICENSING (SCOTLAND) AMENDMENT BILL. [H.L.]
To be read 2a on Tuesday, April 28 next.—(Viscount Novar.)
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (CIVIL SERVICES) BILL. [H.L.]
To be read 2a on Wednesday, April 1 next.—(The Earl of Birkenhead.)