Sitting of 28 November 1928

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  PORTUGUESE WEST AFRICA (BRITISH SEAMAN'S ARREST).
  Mr. DAYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's ambassador at Lisbon hat now received a reply from the Portuguese Government with reference to the telegraphic investigations that the Portuguese Government promised would be made in answer to the protest. lodged on behalf of the British Government with regard to the sentence passed upon Mr. A. J. Brewer at Loanda; and, if so, can he give the particulars?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Austen Chamberlain): The Portuguese Government have considered the representations made by His Majesty's Ambassador at Lisbon in the light of the telegraphic information received by them from Angola, and they have informed him that, desirous of meeting the views of His Majesty's Government, they examined the possibility of releasing or pardoning Mr. Brewer. They much regret, however, that they have been unable to take such action, as, in cases of this kind, Portuguese legal procedure requires that the judicial documents should be submitted to the Minister of Justice. In the present case these documents could not reach Lisbon before Mr. Brewer's term of imprisonment was ended. His Majesty's Ambassador has been instructed to inform the Portuguese Government that His Majesty's Government share the regret of the Portuguese Government at their inability to act on the lines contemplated and that, while they are fully satisfied of the unwarranted severity of
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  the sentence inflicted on Mr. Brewer, they propose to await the report expected from His Majesty's Consul-General at Loanda and to consider then what further action they should take.
  Mr. DAY: Can the right hon. Gentle-mar. say when that report is expected?
  Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I am afraid I do not know, though I could ascertain.
  Me. HORE-BELISHA: May I say how glad we are to see the right hon. Gentleman back, and that we hope he is restored to health, and may I ask whether he will lay on the table of the House all the correspondence in this case?
  Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his kind observations. I think the time for considering that matter will arrive when the correspondence is concluded. It ought, not to be laid in an incomplete state.
  Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: May I join with my hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Mr. HoreBelisha) in welcoming the right hon. Gentleman back to the House and ask him whether we may take it that this matter will not be considered closed with the release of Mr. Brewer, and that His Majesty's Government will follow the matter up with a view to getting compensation for Mr. Brewer?
  Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think that question can be said to arise out of the original answer.

  NAVAL ARMAMENTS.

    ANGLO-FRENCH COMPROMISE.
    Mr. NOEL BUXTONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the usual course of consulting His Majesty's Dominions and the Government of the Irish Free State was followed before the naval compromise with the French Government was reached; and, if not, whether he will give a reason for the departure from the usual procedure?
    In putting this question may I join in the congratulations which have been offered to the right hon. Gentleman?
    Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: In accordance with the procedure agreed at the Imperial Conference of 1926 for adoption in cases of this kind (see page 22 of Command 2768) His Majesty's Government in Great Britain informed. His Majesty's Governments in all the Dominions beforehand of the policy contemplated. No comments were received from any of the Dominion Governments.

    CRUISERS, GREAT BRITAIN AND UNITED STATES.
    Colonel HOWARD-BURYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty the total numbers of British and American cruisers in 1914 and 1928; and the number of British and American post-war 10,000-ton cruisers built, building, or proposed to be built?
    The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Bridgeman): In 1914 the total number of cruisers was British 112, United States 35, whilst to-day the position is British 51, United States 32. Included in the latter figures are seven postwar 10,000-ton cruisers of the British Empire. No 10,000-ton cruisers have been completed by the United States of America. In addition there are building six of this type for the British Empire and eight for the United States of America. Proposals for building further ships of the type are still under consideration in both countries. By the White Paper of July, 1925, the British Programme includes three further 10,000-ton cruisers, whilst in the United States a Bill is before the Senate for laying down five ships of this type in each of the years 1929, 1930, and 1931.
    Mr. W. THORNE: Are all these battleships being built in our own dockyards?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: No Sir, not all of them. I presume the hon. Member is referring to the Royal Dockyards. Some of these warships are being built there, and some in other yards in this country.

    COASTLINES.
    Commander BELLAIRSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, whether any estimate has been formed of the respective coastlines of the British Empire, the United States and her possessions, and the French, Italian, and Japanese Empires?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The respective coastlines, including Dependencies and Mandatory areas, are estimated to be, in statute miles, as follow:

    British Empire

    …

    84,077

    United States

    …

    54,910

    France

    …

    20,000

    Italy

    …

    9,060

    Japan

    …

    31,066

    Captain GARRO-JONES: May I ask what possible ratio there can be between the length of coast-line and the defensive needs of any of these countries; and does it not weaken our position if we take our stand upon such a useless formula?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I do not know to what the hon. and gallant Member is referring. I never said whether there was any use in it or not; I merely answered the question which my hon. and gallant Friend nut to me.
    Captain GARRO-JONES: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake not to go to the expense—[Interruption.]
    Mr. SPEAKER: We must get on with the questions on the Paper.

  BOUVET AND THOMPSON ISLANDS.
  Rear-Admiral BEAMISHasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what, if any, settlement has been reached in regard to Bouvet Island; and if he has any reliable information as to the existence and position of Thompson Island?
  Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: As regards the first part of the question, I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the statements which my right hon. Friend made in this House on the 19th and 26th of November. The earliest information regarding Thompson Island is that supplied by Captain Norris, who landed on Bouvet Island in December, 1825, and who reported having sighted in the same month a smaller island to the North-East of it, on which he did not land. It is believed only to have been sighted once since then, but in view of the definite statements as to its discovery there seems to be no ground for questioning its existence though its precise position remains uncertain.
  Rear-Admiral BEAMISH: May I suggest that in the event of this island being rediscovered the right hon. Gentleman should approach the Prime Minister with a. view to appointing a full government for it from His Majesty's Opposition, in order to enable them ab ovo to put into operation their theories of government?
  Lieut. Commander KENWORTHY: And could the hon. and gallant Member he appointed to navigate the vessel which would take them out there?

  CHINA.

    BRITISH MISSIONARIES.
    Sir ROBERT THOMASasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what British missionaries have recently been killed in China; and whether he will make a general statement regarding the present position of British missionaries in the disturbed areas of China?
    Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: During the past three years there have been the following cases of murders of British missionaries in China: Mrs. Sibley, who was murdered by a coolie, who appears to have been insane, in Chengtu on the 7th June, 1926; Mr. Slichter and child, regarding whom I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Central Southwark on the 2nd May, 1927: Miss Mann, who was shot by brigands near Taiyuanfu on the 12th instant. As regards the return of missionaries to the interior, on the 25th September, 1927, His Majesty's Consuls in China were authorised to deal with individual applications at their discretion, subject to the following conditions:

    (1) Permission for missionaries to return to the interior to be confined in general to men, and to he given only for those districts for which the Chinese authorities were prepared to issue the necessary passports.

    (2) Applicants to he informed specifically that His Majesty's Government did not encourage them to return, and that they did so at their own risk and on the understanding that they might be advised to evacuate again at short notice.

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    Consuls were instructed that, if they were in any doubt, they should act on the side of caution. On the 29th March last Consuls were further authorised to use their discretion in extending permission to return to women missionaries in the same conditions, and were again directed to act on the side of caution in cases of doubt.

    NATIONAL GOVERNMENT (NEGOTIATIONS).
    Mr. VIANTasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make any statement regarding the progress of the negotiations on the tariff question between His Majesty's Government and the National Government of China; whether any negotiations are in progress on the question of extra-territoriality; and whether His Majesty's Government, in order to facilitate relations and in view of the recognition of the National Government of China by the government of the United States of America last July, will take immediate steps leading up to the full recognition of that Government?
    Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Negotiations with the National Government for a treaty on tariff matters are still in progress, and in the circumstances I should prefer at this stage to make no detailed statement as to the present position. No negotiations are taking place on the question of extra-territoriality. As regards recognition, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Blackpool (Sir W. de Frece) on the 14th November.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us without inconvenience whether in this matter we are co-operating with and consulting America or whether we are co-operating with and consulting Japan?
    Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: A later question on the Paper raises that issue.

    WASHINGTON TREATY POWERS (COMMUNICATIONS).
    Mr. RENNIE SMITHasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can give the House any particulars with regard to the understanding which has been reached between the Governments of Great Britain and Japan concerning common action in relation to mutual interests in China?
    Sir NICHOLAS GRATTAN-DOYLEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is in a position to make a statement as to the conversations with the Japanese Government on the subject of diplomatic co-operation in China?
    Mr. L'ESTRANGE MALONEasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can make any statement concerning the progress of conversations between Great Britain and Japan in regard to joint policy in China?
    Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Relations between Great Britain and Japan with regard to China are based on the obligations of full and frank communication specified in Article 7 of the Washington-China Treaty of 1922, and on the fact that Japan and Great Britain have much larger interests in China than have the other Washington Powers. In these circumstances, the two Governments have agreed informally that the close contact which they desire to maintain can best be promoted and developed by constant communication and consultation between their respective Ministers at Peking. The two Ministers, being each fully informed of the views of his colleague's Government in regard to every new problem as it arises, will then be in a position to consider whether a common course of action is desirable or not, and if not, to understand and explain the reasons to their Governments. There are no conversations proceeding between the two Governments regarding China other than this informal exchange of information and views which takes place at Peking and which will, I hope, be continued. This arrangement is not a new departure but a natural consequence of the Washington obligations. Similar conversations and consultation take place between His Majesty's Minister and the Ministers of other Powers at Peking. The general lines of British policy in China were laid down in our declarations of December, 1926, and January, 1927, to which we adhere.
    Mr. SMITH: Can the Foreign Secretary say whether the United States have been consulted and what is their view with regard to these arrangements?
    Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir. There has been no consultation with any-
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    body, but our Minister in Peking communicates with the representative of the United States in that capital; and that I think is the best channel through which we can co-ordinate wherever co-ordination is possible and desirable our policy with that of the United States, Japan and other Powers.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: May we take it for certain that there is the same consultation and co-operation with America that we now understand there is with Japan? May we take it that there is no sort of differentiation or preferential treatment given to the Japanese Government and the Japanese policy in China?
    Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Certainly. From the first day I met the Ambassadors of the Powers concerned, it has been my earnest desire to work in harmony both with the United States and Japan with respect to our common interests in China.
    Mr. SAKLATVALA: The Foreign Secretary has explained that the same policy is carried out by conversations with—
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not asking a question.
    Mr. SAKLATVALA: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us if our Minister in Peking is not first instructed from Whitehall as to what policy he shall pursue when holding those conversations with the Japanese Ambassador?
    Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Certainly, His Majesty's representative in China receives instructions from our Government as all our representatives abroad do, and he would not speak otherwise than as he believes His Majesty's Government would desire.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure us that the answer he has given will not he news at Washington?
    Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, I am quite sure that it will not be news to the Washington Government. The Washington Government are aware and must be aware of it. One of my first steps on taking my present office was to express the hope that we should pursue a common policy, or at any rate consult freely with other nations in regard to all our actions in China.

  EASTER.
  Captain BOURNEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any negotiations have taken place with other Governments with respect to the fixing of Easter; and, if so, with what results?
  Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative, but the matter is under consideration.

  BRITISH TROOPS, RHINELAND (WITHDRAWAL).
  Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the question of the withdrawal of British troops from the Rhineland under Article 431 of the Treaty, and irrespective of the simultaneous withdrawal of the French troops, has yet been raised by the German Government?
  Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir.
  Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government have indicated either to the French or to the German Governments that they consider that the evacuation of the Rhineland by British troops is dependent upon Germany agreeing to a change in or a settlement of reparations?
  Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: His Majesty's Government have had no occasion to make any communication to either the French or German Governments regarding the withdrawal of the British troops in the Rhineland, as distinct from the evacuation of the Rhineland by all three occupying Powers.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: May we take it that we still have a free hand to conform to Article 431 if we wish to do so?
  Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: We have an absolutely free hand. We shall conform to the terms of the Treaty.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: And that Article?
  Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir. What exactly the terms of the Article are or imply is not a matter with which I can deal in an answer to a supplementary question.

  LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

    WIRELESS STATION.
    Mr. BUXTONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will give reasons showing why the British delegation, at the ninth assembly of the League of Nations, rejected the proposal to set up s. wireless station as part of the peace machinery of the League?
    Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The British delegate opposed acceptance of the schemes submitted to the assembly on the ground that it would be difficult to justify in present circumstances the annual expenditure of a considerable sum by the League with the object of assuring a means of communication of very doubtful efficiency to be used only in a hypothetical, and it was to be hoped, extremely remote case. On this the question was referred to a sub-committee and eventually general agreement was reached that it would be impossible to reach any definite conclusion during the session of the assembly. The assembly therefore decided to subject the schemes to further expect examination and the matter will come up for decision next September.
    Mr. BUXTON: Did not the Rumbold Commission in the case of the Graeco-Bulgarian dispute say that better machinery for communication ought to be in existence?
    Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir. The matter has exercised the minds of those responsible either as members of the Council or as servants of the League, but the Rumbold Commission were not experts in these matters, and my own doubts arise over the question of the efficiency of a station -which would have no business, or very little business, in ordinary times.

    INTERNATIONAL RELIEF UNION.
    Mr. GRIFFITHSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give any information regarding the position of the International Relief Union initiated by the League of Nations; and, seeing that 30 Governments had acceded to the Diplomatic Convention by the end of April and that 570 shares of the initial fund had thus been guaranteed; that according to Article 18 of the Convention it is stated that the Convention may come into force

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    when ratifications or accessions have been deposited in the name of 12 States of which the combined contributions amount to 600 shares; and that the accession of His Majesty's Government would secure the necessary number of shares, whether he will now accede to the Convention?
    Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Although the Convention establishing the International Relief Union has been signed by 30 States, it has so far only been ratified by five. It is therefore not accurate to say that 570 shares have been guaranteed, for such shares can only be taken into account if the States who have signed have also ratified. His Majesty's Government in Great Britain have decided to accede to the Convention and will shortly notify the Secretary-General of the League of Nations to that effect. I am, of course, unable to state whether after their accession a sufficient number of other States with the necessary number of shares will ratify the Convention so that it may thereby enter into force.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP "ENCHANTRESS."
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty how many times he has been to sea in the Admiralty yacht His Majesty's Ship "Enchantress" during the last 12 months; how many times she has been used at sea by the other Lords Commissioners; and on how many occasions have warships been used by himself and/or the other Lords Commissioners for sea voyages during the same period?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The "Enchantress" has not been used for any sea voyage during the last 12 months, as she is not at present in all respects in a state of readiness for sea. Individual members of the Board of Admiralty have been to sea in His Majesty's Ships during the same period on several occasions, but I have no exact record of the number.
    Lieut. Commander KENWORTHY: May I ask what is the justification for entailing the expense of keeping the "Enchantress" in reserve?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: It was thought that she might be useful at same future
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    time. She is not being used now solely for reasons of economy.
    Lieut. Commander KENWORTHY: Does the right hon. Gentleman not see that the answer he has just given that she may be useful at some future time might be used in favour of keeping up Pembroke Dockyard and other places?

    FUEL (PULVERISED COAL).
    Sir R. THOMASasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he can make any statement regarding the conclusions arrived at up to the present from the experiments with pulverised coal being conducted on board an obsolete cruiser of His Majesty's Navy; how long has actual experimental work been proceeding; and when is it intended to issue a report?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Lieut.-Colonel Headlam): No experiments are being conducted at present on board an obsolete cruiser of His Majesty's Navy. A commercial company has applied for the loan of an obsolete naval vessel in which to carry out experiments. The terms of the loan are not yet finally arranged.
    Sir R. THOMAS: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman give us any idea whether this boat is likely to be suitable for this purpose?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: I understand that the commercial experiments which have been made already have proved very satisfactory, and it remains to be seen whether the commercial company which wishes to experiment on this ship will really require it. We are doing all that we can in the matter.
    Mr. SHINWELL: Is it not of the highest importance to ascertain whether pulverised fuel is of value for this purpose, and is it not advisable to proceed at once with these experiments under Admiralty control?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: No, Sir; we are already proceeding under the advice of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in this matter and we are guided very largely by their views.
    Mr. PALING: Is the hon. and gallant Member aware that some months ago

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    the First Lord indicated in this House that the Admiralty were willing to co-operate with other people who were willing to make these experiments, and is it not time we were doing something in that direction?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: If the hon. Member had listened to my original reply, he would have been aware that I stated that we are doing everything we can in this matter to the best of our ability.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Are we to understand that the Admiralty are doing nothing except leaving this matter in the hands of a commercial company?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: We are doing whatever we are advised to do by the department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and we are also helping the commercial people to the best of our ability.
    Mr. PALING: Is it not a fact that if proper facilities had been given, experiments would have been conducted many months ago?

    VESSELS PRESENTED TO CANADIAN GOVERNMENT.
    Commander BELLAIRSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty what vessels of different classes have been presented to the Canadian Government since the War; how many are still maintained or have been replaced; and what sums were realised by the sale of these vessels when scrapped?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The following vessels were presented to Canada in 1919£1920:

    Cruiser£"Aurora."

    Destroyers£"Patriot," "Patrician."

    Submarines£"H.14," "H.15" (re-named "C.H.14" and "C.H.15").

    Of these, the cruiser and submarines have been scrapped. The two destroyers are on the Disposal List, and in anticipation of the building by Canada of two modern destroyers, they have been temporarily replaced by the "Vancouver" and "Champlain" (formerly His Majesty's destroyers "Torbay" and "Toreador"), which have been lent to Canada for the purpose. It would be
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    contrary to the usual practice to disclose the sums actually realised by the sale of the vessels which were scrapped.
    RENNIE SMITH: What has been done with the money that has been realised?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The money we receive comes into the Appropriation-in-Aid of the Navy.

    RETIRED COMMANDERS.
    Sir BERTRAM FALLEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether a gratuity is payable for loss of office to commanders who are retired at the age of 45 or 46 years, seeing that the age for compulsory retirement is 50?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The Regulations for the Naval service do not provide for continuous employment being available for officers, and officers are always liable to be placed on unemployed or half pay when appointments are not, available for them. At the present time, owing to the smaller number of suitable shore appointments available for senior commanders, chiefly due to the loss of the coastguard appointments, it is a matter of great difficulty to find employment for such officers; and in these circumstances it is the policy of the Board to arrange appointments as far as possible so that each officer has the opportunity of qualifying for the maximum rate of retired pay before retirement. This arrangement, which is to the general advantage of the officers themselves, necessitates employment being limited to a great extent to officers below the age of 46, at which age officers normally become eligible for the maximum rate of retired pay laid down for the rank. No question of gratuity arises, since the matter is, as I have indicated, covered by the ordinary conditions of naval service.
    Mr. THURTLE: What is the maximum returned pay in these cases?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I shall be very glad to give it if the hon. Member puts down a question.
    Sir B. FALLEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of commanders, Royal Navy, placed on the retired list during the period 1st October, 1927, to 30th September, 1928, before

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    reaching the age of 50 years, the age for compulsory retirement, and the reasons therefor?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The number of commanders placed on the retired list during this period, before reaching the age of 50, was 17, of whom 16 retired voluntarily and one was retired for non-service.
    Sir B. FALLE: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that is a somewhat extravagant way of obtaining short-service officers?
    Me. BRIDGEMAN: Opinions may vary on the point. The matter is under consideration.

    CAPTAINS AND COMMANDERS.
    Sir B. FALLEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of captains, Royal Navy, borne on the active list and how many are holding full-pay appointments; and the number of commanders, Royal Navy, borne on the active list and how many are holding full-pay appointments?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The numbers on 15th November, the latest date on which information is available, were as follow:

    —

    Borne.

    Holding full-pay appointments.

    Captains

    …

    246

    219

    Commauders

    …

    421

    387

    The figures for captains exclude Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and Duke of York. Officers on full-pay sick or ordinary leave and on passage, with regard to whom separate figures are not available, are included amongst those on full pay.

    ENGINE-ROOM ARTIFICERS.
    Mr. R. YOUNGasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what is the number of engine-room artificers who entered His Majesty's naval service since 1st April last and what percentage of the number were entered direct from outside engineering works?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: Twenty-nine engine-room artificers have been rated since 1st April last after training
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    in the Service as artificer apprentices; 10 have been entered from outside engineering works and two from His Majesty's dockyards. The percentage of entries from outside engineering works is, therefore, 24.

    CAPITAL SHIPS.
    Mr. ROBINSONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if the technical advisers of the Admiralty are still in favour of the construction of capital ships of the "Nelson" type; and whether, seeing the great divergence of opinion as to the usefulness of these ships either for offence or defence, he will cease making preparations for the construction of additional ships of war of this class?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Under Article 21 of the Washington Treaty, a conference must be convened in 1931 to consider any changes necessary to meet technical and scientific developments. In the meantime, the construction of capital ships is governed by the provisions of this Treaty. The views of His Majesty's Government as to the desirability of reducing the size and power of capital ships by international agreement were made public at the Geneva Three-Power Naval Conference in 1927, and at the Preparatory Commission in March, 1928.

    TUBERCULOSIS (ATTRIEUTABILITY).
    Mr. HORE-BELISHAasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will set out the new rules and principles governing the attributability of tuberculosis cases in the Navy?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: I am afraid that this is not practicable, as the value of working rules of this kind depends largely on the power to apply the spirit of them to the facts of individual cases as disclosed by the medical evidence. To state them as absolute rules would give them a hard-and-fast character which would impair their value.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Is it not also important that those making claims under these rules should be acquainted with the rules, so that they may be assured that they are not making claims that have no chance of being put into effect?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: I do not think that that point really arises. It is perfectly clear that all claims will be

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    made, and they will be considered, in the light of the new rules, which, as I have stated in previous answers, are much more favourable than the old ones.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Can we know what the rules are?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHAasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, seeing that the Board of Admiralty has decided to revise the rules and principles relating to the assessment of attributability of tuberculosis cases at and from 1st October last, the Board can see its way to make the revision retrospective, in order that those who are now left without pensions but who nevertheless, had they been subsequently invalided, would have come within the new rules, may benefit by them?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: The new rules are in effect a concession, and it has been necessary to fix a date for their introduction. The 1st October last has been taken for this purpose, after full consideration, and it is not proposed to depart from it.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the whole purpose of revising the rules was that the Admiralty realised that in some cases full justice was not done to the men; and that being so, would it not be within the spirit of the Admiralty's intention to admit people who have been excluded under the old rules?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: The hon. Member will appreciate the fact that we cannot go back beyond a certain date for various reasons, but we can always do so for medical reasons, and any case can always be considered when it comes up.
    Mr. CRAWFURD: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman assure us that under the new rules men who are discharged from the Royal Navy on account of tuberculosis will not be treated more harshly than men discharged from the other two Services?
    Sir B. FALLE: When the joint committee of the three Services has reported, will not the rules then be again revised?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: That remains to be seen.
    Dr. VERNON DAVIES: Would a certificate from a medical man, which pointed out that a discharged sailor was suffering from tuberculosis attributable to the conditions of service, and which had been rejected by the Admiralty, he considered now?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: Any new medical evidence that is brought forward will always justify reconsideration of a case.
    Rear-Admiral BEAMISH: Is there any prospect of these new rules and principles being published?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: My hon. and gallant Friend did not, perhaps, hear my previous answer, in which I indicated that that is not our intention.
    Mr. CRAWFURD: May I ask if, in the new rules, the condition for a pension that the disease was contracted owing to special hardship has been deleted, so as to put men of the Royal Navy on a par with those of the other two Services?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: The rules certainly do not place the Navy under worse conditions than the other two Services.

    CHILEAN BATTLESHIP (DOCKYARD OFFICIALS' INSPECTION).
    Mr. HORE-BELISHAasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he can make a statement regarding the reported visit of Devonport dockyard officials to Valparaiso with a view to the Admiralty tendering for the refit of the Chilean battleship "Almirante Latorre"?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: The Chilean Government have been consulting with the Admiralty as regards the refit of the "Almirante Latorre." Some dockyard officials have been sent out to Valparaiso to report on the vessel. The Admiralty have not yet heard the result of this inspection. The cost of sending dockyard officials to Valparaiso is being borne by the Chilean Government.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman undertake that this policy of trying to get work for the dockyards from foreign Governments wherever possible will be continued?
    Viscountess ASTOR: Will the Parliamentary Secretary ask the hon. Gentle-

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    man who has put this question to let it be known in his constituency that this is the Government's policy and that they have done so much?
    Mr. SAKLATVALA: Do we seriously understand that it is the Government's policy to keep in good order other nations' battleships?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: May I have an answer to my supplementary question?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: It, goes without saying that the Government are always anxious to obtain work for British workmen.

    SINGAPORE BASE.
    Mr. TAYLORasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether any materials, plant, or equipment for the Singapore naval base have been ordered from, purchased in, or made in Germany; and, if so, the nature of such purchases?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: The reply to the first part of the question is in the negative, and the second part, accordingly, does not arise.
    Mr. TAYLOR: Does that cover plant ordered by contractors?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: As far as I know, yes.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Are we to understand that the contractors themselves have not purchased any wagons in Germany?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: I can only give the answer that I have given.
    Mr. TAYLOR: Why not be certain?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: It is certain, as much as any question can be certain.
    Mr. RENNIE SMITH: Is it possible, under the terms of the 1919 Treaty, for the German Government or any German firms to make plant for use at naval bases?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: I must have notice of that question.
    Mr. TAYLORasked the First Lord of the Admiralty on what date the Admiralty first had knowledge that Sir John Jackson, Limited, intended to
    408
    place the contract for foul large mechanical excavators for use on the Singapore naval base with an American firm?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: The Admiralty were informed on the 2nd November, 1928, that the contract for this plant had been placed. The Department had no prior knowledge of the contractors' intention to purchase this plant abroad.
    Mr. TAYLOR: Had not the Admiralty's representatives on the spot at Singapore discussed with representatives of British firms, long before the 2nd November, the question of this work?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: I must have notice of that question.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMS: In view of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's reply a few moments ago, that the Government always do their best to find work for British workpeople, does he not think that the Admiralty ought to have known where the contracts ultimately went?
    Mr. TAYLOR: In view of the fact that an announcement was published in the Press on the 2nd or 3rd November, may I ask whether the hon. and gallant Gentleman's reply is to the effect that the Admiralty had no knowledge before that date?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: That is exactly what I said.
    Mr. TAYLOR: Thank you.
    Mr. TAYLORasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he is aware that certain plans or drawings for the Singapore naval base were delivered by the contractors to an American firm's sales office in London, and from there sent to the American company's works in America; and whether such action was taken with the knowledge and consent of the Admiralty?
    Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: No Admiralty plans or drawings for the Singapore naval base were delivered by the contractors to an American company. The contractors delivered certain drawings of their own to the company, in order to explain the work which the plant required by the contractors would have to perform. These have been seen

    409
    by our responsible technical officers, and the contractors' action neither betrays public confidence nor is in any way irregular.
    Mr. THURTLE: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the contractor in this case is an ex-Conservative Member for Devonport?
    HON. MEMBERS: What is wrong with that?
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Buy British goods!

    REGULATIONS (COMPLAINTS).
    Commander BELLAIRSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty in regard to his announcement on 17th April that the Board of Admiralty were making a careful review of the relevant regulations on the rights of complaints of officers and men against those of superior rank, whether any changes have been made or are about to be made as a result of this review and, if so, of what nature?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: As a result of the reiview that has taken place, certain changes which, it is thought, will impart greater clearness to the Regulations on the subject are now under consideration. When these have been finally decided upon, they will be issued as amendments to the King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions.
    Lieut. Commander KENWORTHY: Will these regulations be published?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: They will be issued as amendments to the King's Regulations.

  UNEMPLOYMENT.

    BOROUGH.
    Mr. DAYasked the Minister of Labour if he will state the number of applications for benefit that have been made to the Walworth Road (Borough) Employment Exchange during the period of three months ended 31st October, 1928; the number granted and the number refused, giving similar figures for the corresponding period a year ago?
    The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland): I am unable to give these figures to-day, but I will obtain them and send them to the hon. Member as soon as possible.
    Mr. DAY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the great dissatisfaction that is caused at this Employment Exchange by so many refusals of benefit? Is the reason why so many are refused because they are not genuinely seeking work?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am not aware of it.
    Mr. DAY: Will not the right hon. Gentleman have inquiries made at the Exchange? Two people who have been refused benefit have committed suicide.

    ADMINISTRATION (REGULATIONS AND INSTRUCTIONS).
    Mr. BROADasked the Minister of Labour whether in the interest of Parliamentary control of his Department, he is prepared to supply Members with copies of all regulations and instructions on procedure issued by his Department to officials, whether they be marked confidential or otherwise?
    Mr. SHORTasked the Minister of Labour of he will make available to Members copies of the circulars and instructions issued by his Department to Employment Exchange managers in connection with the transference of unemployecl workers from depressed areas?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: All regulations are published and copies are placed in the Library of the House. As regards instructions to the staff, it has been the invariable practice of my predecessors to treat them as confidential, and I do not think I ought to alter this practice. I am always ready to state the general effect of any instructions and, in the case of transference of unemployed workers, I did this in a reply given on 14th November, of which I am sending a copy to the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Short).
    Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the difficulty Members are placed in when confronted by a person who has had his unemployment benefit stopped and the Member is quite unable to explain the reason as a result of these circulars?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: No, but I do not think that arises out of the question. If hon. Members wish for informa-

    411
    tion about any particular case, and they will refer it to me, I will always do my best to give an answer.
    Mr. BROAD: Is not the real reason for secrecy that if these methods were known to the House they would not be approved?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: All I can say is that my methods are precisely the same as those of my predecessors.
    Mr. SHINWELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman state the special reason for withholding this information from Members?
    Sir. A. STEEL-MAITLAND: All my predecessors have had exactly the same practice, which is that instructions given to an official of the Department are matters of ordinary Departmental confidence, and it is the only principle on which administration can properly be conducted.
    Mr. BROADasked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of his undertaking that an applicant for unemployment benefit whose claim has been rejected has the grounds of such rejection fully stated on the form for appeal which he signs, confidential instructions have been issued to the local officers, on the 26th March, 1928, that they shall forward a further report on a blank sheet which they shall not communicate to anyone outside the Department and of which no copy is to he retained at the local office?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The answer to the hon. Member's question is that no report or information is put before the Court of Referees on an appeal from rejection of a claim to benefit which is not communicated to the appellant or his association before the appeal is heard. In order, however, that there may be no misunderstanding on the point, I should mention that, when a claim is being sent to the insurance officer for determination in the first instance, the local officer who interviews the claimant may in appropriate cases (which only form a, very small proportion of the total) make a special report for the information of the insurance officer which is not shown to the claimant or to the Court of Referees. The need for this arises from the fact that the
    412
    insurance officer in London cannot interview claimants himself. The Court of Referees does interview the claimant and therefore need not have such a report. As I have said, any report or other information which is laid before the Court is communicated to the claimant or his association.
    Mr. BROAD: Is not the information contained in this secret report used by the officer to influence the Court after the applicant has withdrawn?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: No, it is information which is merely given to the insurance officer. A doubtful case is referred, first of all, to the insurance officer before it can go to a Court of Referees on appeal. The reason this report is ever given is that the insurance officer cannot see the man for himself, and there are certain inferences which can only be formed on actually seeing the man. The local officer acts as the eyes and ears, so to speak, of the insurance officer for that purpose.
    Mr. BROAD: Why is the right hon. Gentleman so particular that a copy of the report is not kept in the local office?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: So far as I know, there is no Regulation or instruction either for or against any report being kept in the office.
    Mr. BROAD: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to read his own instructions?
    Mr. KELLY: Seeing that the Minister has a representative present at all hearings before the Umpire, is that representative furnished with a copy of this confidential report?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: So far as. I know, that is not the case before the Court of Referees, and I do not think it is the case before the Umpire either. It is a small point of procedure, but, if the hon. Member wishes, I will find out and give him a definite reply.
    Mr. SHINWELL: If this additional information may be of an adverse character, why should it not be made available to the man, so that he can have an opportunity of questioning the accuracy of the statement?
    Mr. SPEAKER: We really cannot spend any more time over this question.

    TRANSFER OF WORKERS (LONDON).
    Mr. SAKLATVALAasked the Minister of Labour the total number of registered unemployed at the Clapham Junction Employment Exchange; how many persons of that total are miners transferred from the mining areas under the Government scheme; have any of the men so transferred been found employment; if so, how many; at what Occupations; and have any of them been offered or accepted employment at less than trade union wages and conditions?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The total number of wholly unemployed persons registered at the Clapham Junction Employment Exchange on 26th November was 3,221 men, 428 women, '78 boys, 56 girls. These numbers do not include any miners transferred under the Government scheme. Forty-two men and 20 boys from the depressed areas have been transferred to this Exchange area to definite employment in a wide range of occupations. It is not the practice of the Employment Exchanges to transfer men at less than the recognised rates.
    Mr. SAKLATVALA: Will the right hon. Gentleman look at the opinion expressed by the magistrate last Monday?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That question cannot arise out of the answer which has been given.
    Mr. SAKLATVALA: I am submitting to the right hon. Gentleman that besides doing injury to the unemployed in the London area, he is increasing the task of the magistrates and the police.
    Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise either out of the answer which the right hon. Gentleman gave or out of the original question.
    Mr. W. THORNEasked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that the London County Council is not in favour of the transference of unemployed from other parts of the country, and that a special committee of the London County Council expressed the view that the total number of unemployed in London must be increased by the transfer of men to London from the depressed areas; and if he intends taking action in the matter?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I have made inquiries and have ascertained that it is not correct to say that the London County Council is not in favour of the transference scheme. The matter has not yet come before the Council. I should add that during the past five years the insured population of Greater London has increased by 10.2 per cent. mainly owing to the inflow of new workers, and the rate of unemployment has fallen from 9.8 per cent. in October, 1923, to 5.7 per cent. in October of this year.
    Mr. HARRIS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the County Council considered this subject yesterday and that a report was presented showing that there was a serious shortage of houses in the London area and that there was not a sufficiency of houses to receive extra people from outside?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Perhaps the hon. Member knows that there was a report from the General Purposes Committee, but the London County Council itself did not consider that point.
    Mr. THORNE: Is it not a fact that in hundreds of cases under the schemes of the Transference Board a number of employés have been dismissed and the transferred men are taken on and the dismissed men find themselves dependent upon the Employment Exchanges or the boards of guardians?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: No, Sir.
    Mr. THORNE: I will give the right hon. Gentleman a few instances.

    WEDNESBURY.
    Mr. SHORTasked the Minister of Labour if he will state the total number of unemployed persons registering at the Wednesbury Employment Exchange in receipt of extended benefit on the last available date prior to the operation of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1927; the number of such persons who established their claims to benefit under the new statutory conditions; and the total number disallowed and the reasons therefor?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I regret that statistics giving the information desired are not available. I will, how-

    415
    ever, circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a statement showing the total number of persons on the Registers of the Wednesbury Employment Exchange at or near

    NUMBERS of PERSONS on the LIVE REGISTERS of the Wednesbury 'Employment Exchange, and Numbers of such Persons whose Claims were admitted or under consideration.

    Date.

    Total Number on Register.

    Claims admitted or under consideration iacluded in Col. 2.

    Percentage Col. 3 of Col 2.

    1.

    2.

    3.

    4.

    20th February

    …

    …

    …

    1,945

    1,731

    89·0

    2Gth March

    …

    …

    …

    1,982

    1,791

    90·4

    23rd April

    …

    …

    …

    2,292

    2,084

    90·9

    21st May

    …

    …

    …

    1,857

    1,706

    91·9

    25th June

    …

    …

    …

    1,896

    1,7G8

    93·2

    23rd July

    …

    …

    …

    1,686

    1,489

    88·3

    20th August

    …

    …

    …

    2,122

    1,888

    89·0

    24th September

    …

    …

    …

    2,105

    1,872

    88·9

    22nd October

    …

    …

    …

    2,029

    1,806

    89·0

    BENEFIT CLAIMS, RHONDDA VALLEY.
    Mr. JOHNasked the Minister of Labour (1) whether he is aware that unemployed persons registering for benefit at the Employment Exchanges in the Rhondda Valley have to wait for five and six weeks pending a meeting of the Court of Referees on their cases; that unemployment benefit is discontinued during the waiting period; and whether he will arrange so that the cases can be brought before the Courts of Referees during the six weeks' additional benefit;
    (2) whether he is aware that recipients of unemployment benefit at the Employment Exchanges in the Rhondda Valley, whose cases are taken before the Courts of Referees at the end of the qualifying period, when the decision of the Courts of Referees have been given in favour of the claimant, have to wait five and six weeks before the decision becomes operative; and whether, in view of the hardship entailed, he will expedite matters so as to curtail the waiting period between the date of decision and date of payment?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The volume of work in some districts in connection with the review of claims under the 1927 Act was very great and unfortunately at one stage a certain amount of arrears was allowed to accumulate. As soon as this was brought to my notice I took steps to meet the difficulty. If the
    the end of each month from February to October, 1928, together with the numbers included in the figures whose claims were admitted or under consideration.
    Following is the statement:
    hon. Member will let me have particulars of any recent cases of delay, I shall be happy to inquire into them.
    Mr. JOHN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I sent in cases three weeks ago and that I have not had a reply yet with regard to them?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Of course, as far as an inquiry to myself is concerned, there is always the additional time which is taken up' in referring right down to the locality and back again. If the hon. Member desires that I should personally go into every case as I frequently do, then of course it may need more references to and fro. That was not the kind of delay to which I thought the hon. Member referred in his letter.
    Mr. JOHN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these people have to wait 12, 13 and 14 weeks without their unemployment benefit, and is there any reason why these men should have to wait seven or eight weeks for their money after the decision in their favour has been arrived at by the Court of Referees?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: As far as it does not relate to exceptional cases, which I am asked to look into personally, I think that steps have been taken to relieve the congestion down there. If the hon. Member has any reason to think that there is still delay in regard to the number of cases, of course I will look into the matter.

    AGED WORKERS (PENSIONS).
    Mr. SMEDLEY CROOKEasked the Prime Minister if he will consider the advisability of setting up a committee of both Houses of Parliament to inquire into the possibilities of increasing pensions at 65, conditional upon retirement from competitive industry, as a help towards the solution of the unemployment problem?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEOUER (Mr. Churchill): His Majesty's Government have from time to time considered suggestions having the same object in view as my hon. Friend, but they have not found it possible to entertain them.
    Mr. CROOKE: Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer give further consideration in view of the report that there is already £30,000,000 surplus in this Fund?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, I will give further consideration to that.
    Mr. J. H. THOMAS: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advantages of giving an increased pension to people at 65 so that employment can be given to those at 25 without very much additional burden on the Exchequer?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, Sir, it is a very large question indeed, and, needless to say, it has often been considered, but there is no proposal which we have been able to entertain up to the present time.
    Mr. BATEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman not consider that part of this question which asks for the setting up of a committee of inquiry, seeing that it is so important.
    Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir, I do not think that it will be advantageous to set up a committee. It is really a matter which the Government of the day and those who are responsible for the finances of the country must decide.
    Mr. SHINWELL: Has it recently been considered by the Government, and, if so, can they make a report upon the subject?
    Mr. JOHNSTON; Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that at the last Census there were 800,000 old men and old women of 65 and over still engaged in industry for weekly wages?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Well, Sir, these questions belong to the very largest class of questions, and I do not think that it will he advantageous for me to try to discuss them.
    Mr. SHINWELL: May I have an answer to my question I Has the matter been recently considered by the Government?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: All these various proposals are at all times in the minds of competent politicians.

    FORTH AND CLYDE CANAL SCHEME.
    Mr. JOHNSTONasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that in 1918 the Ministry of Reconstruction, with other Departments of State, examined various proposals and schemes for the construction of a ship canal between the Forth and the Clyde, and came to the conclusion that the estimates of the cost of constructing such a canal could not be tested until a detailed geological survey of the route had been carried out; and whether he proposes, in view of the importance of a thorough examination of these projects in the national interest, to take steps to secure such a geological survey?
    The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Colonel Ashley): I have been asked to reply. I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to him on the 26th November in connection with the same matter, in which I indicated that it is for the advocates of the canal to make any necessary survey of the nature referred to if they consider that any useful purpose would be served thereby. In view, however, of the circumstances explained in the answer given on the 12th November by the Prime Minister to a question on the subject asked by the hon. Member for Maryhill (Mr. Couper), I could not recommend that any assistance should be given out of public funds towards the cost of any such survey.
    Mr. JOHNSTON: Is it the considered opinion of the Government that it is in the national interest that individuals who favour this scheme should make the geological survey at their own charge? Is that the answer?
    Colonel ASHLEY: No, because I am not satisfied that the enormous sum,

    419
    which may be £40,000,000 or £50,000,000, and which has been estimated by several firms and by several individuals, would be justified by the very small return.
    Mr. JOHNSTON: May I ask whether the cost of the survey in order to find out the cost of the scheme ought not to be undertaken by the Government?
    Colonel ASHLEY: Even if the survey was made, you could not do the job under £40,000,000 or £50,000,000.
    Mr. COUPER: In view of the fact that there are 57,000 registered unemployed in Glasgow, does my right hon. and gallant Friend not think that it calls for more immediate and more sympathetic consideration?
    Colonel ASHLEY: I think that there are probably many better ways of giving relief to the unemployed than this.
    HON. MEMBERS: What are they?
    Mr. T. SHAW: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say that he cannot tell what the cost is without a geological survey, but that it is from £40,000,000 to £50,000,000, and that consequently the scheme cannot be undertaken? Does he say both things?
    Colonel ASHLEY: Anyhow, the cost as Tar as it can be estimated will be £40,000,000 or £50,000,000, but no doubt a geological survey would enable a more accurate estimate to be made.

    EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGE, STANLEY (APPOINTMENT).
    Mr. SAKLATVALAasked the Minister of Labour whether he will cause inquiries to be made as to the case of Mr. Ralph Jobling, of 7, Vincent Terrace, Annfield Plain, Durham, who was recently offered employment as a clerk at Stanley Employment Exchange, but was later turned down by the manager of the Employment Exchange on the ground that his period of Army service was not long enough?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Mr. Jobling was not offered employment but applied for it. His Army service amounted to 61 days only. In view of the number of men with longer service
    420
    registered at the Exchange, it was not possible to offer him employment.
    Mr. SAKLATVALA: Is it the established regulation that from the applicants, men are to be given preference for service according to the length of their military service?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: No, Sir, but it is generally the practice to require a minimum length of service and then to take into account the qualifications of those best suited for the work.
    Mr. SAKLATVALA: Has the Department ever published a regulation to the effect that a certain minimum Army service is a condition necessary for obtaining a job in an Employment Exchange?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Not that I am aware of, but I will get the information if the hon. Member wishes. On the average, we choose from among the applicants those who can show that they have had three months' military service, or over.

    COURTS OF REFEREES, BRISTOL.
    Mr. WALTER BAKERasked the Minister of Labour the number of chairmen of Courts of Referees in Bristol; the number of sessions during which each has acted since April; and whether he will see that these duties are fairly allocated between the chairmen?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: There are two chairmen£one for the Eastville and Kingswood districts of Bristol and the other for the rest of Bristol. I am unable at the moment to state the number of sessions at which each has acted since April, but I am having inquiries made and will let the hon. Member know.

    TRAINEES, PUDSEY AND LEEDS.
    Mr. VIANTasked the Minister of Labour whether his Departmental officials have made offers of trainees, who have completed their term of training, to employers in Pudsey and Leeds; and, if so, will he state the conditions on which these men are being offered for employment?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am having inquiries made and will communicate with the hon. Member.

    JUVENILES, MANCHESTER, OLDHAM AND ROCHDALE.
    Mr. KELLYasked the Minister of Labour the number of juveniles registered as unemployed in the Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale areas in October and November, 1928?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: As the reply includes a number of figures, I

    NUMBERS of juveniles on the Live Registers of Employment Exchanges and Juvenile Employment Bureaux in the Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale Areas.

    Date.

    Manchester.

    Oldham.

    Rochdale.

    1928.

    1st October

    …

    …

    …

    …

    1,920

    747

    150

    8th October

    …

    …

    …

    …

    1,693

    607

    152

    15th October

    …

    …

    …

    …

    1,518

    756

    118

    22nd October

    …

    …

    …

    …

    1,419

    544

    95

    29th October

    …

    …

    …

    …

    1,310

    626

    83

    5th November

    …

    …

    …

    …

    1,309

    444

    134

    12th November

    …

    …

    …

    …

    1,226

    588

    136

    19th November

    …

    …

    …

    …

    1,188

    459

    130

    COTTON AND WOOLLEN INDUSTRIES (INSURANCE FUND CONTRIBUTIONS).
    Mr. RILEYasked the Minister of Labour if he can state, approximately, the total amount contributed by the employers and insured persons in the cotton and woollen industries, respectively, to the Unemployment Insurance Fund for the year 1927–28?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: It has not been possible in the time available to prepare the estimates desired by the hon. Member, but I will circulate them in the OFFICIAL REPORT as soon as they are ready.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE (ACCIDENTS).
  Mr. DAYasked the Secretary of State for Air the number of fatal accidents that have occurred in Great Britain to officers or men belonging to the Royal Air Force from 1st January, 1928, to the last convenient date; and whether there are any regulations in the Air Force which prevent flying officers taking up their aeroplanes on minor duties during foggy or very misty weather?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Philip Sassoon): As regards
  will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  Mr. KELLYMay I ask if the number of unemployed—
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has only asked for figures, and now he asks a supplementary question.
  Following is the statement:
  the first part of the question, there have been 31 accidents this year to Royal Air Force personnel in this country involving 45 deaths. The reply to the second part is in the affirmative.

  CIVIL AVIATION (STATISTICS).
  Lieut.-Colonel GAULTasked the Secretary of State for Air the total number of passenger aeroplanes operated by British companies that are in regular use at the present time; the average number of passengers carried annually by these services; and the total number of aerodromes available for the use of civil aviation in the United Kingdom?
  Sir P. SASSOON: On the assumption that the information which my hon. and gallant; Friend requires under the first part of his question is the number of passenger aeroplanes which have current certificates of airworthiness, are owned by British companies, and are operated in or from Great Britain on air transport work, taxi work or pleasure flights, the answer is 52. As regards the second part 109,569 passengers were reported as carried by these companies in this country or between this country and the Continent in 1927; the average for three years

  423
  has been 95,316. As regards the last part of the question, there are in this country 85 licensed civil aerodromes and, in addition, 43 Royal Air Force aerodromes are available in emergency.
  Lieut.-Colonel GAULT: Does not the hon. Baronet think that greater help and encouragement would be given to civil aviation in the United Kingdom by pro viding the necessary means for aircraft by a more comprehensive system of aerodromes throughout the country?
  Sir P. SASSOON: We are doing our best. We ask the great towns to introduce aerodromes.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS (CHARLES BRADLAUGH MEMORIAL).
  Mr. THURTLEasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department as representing the First Commissioner of Works, if he will consider the possibility of giving a site within the precincts of the House for the erection of a tablet to the memory of the late Charles Bradlaugh, to whose efforts the freedom of Members to affirm when they become Members, instead of taking the oath, was largely due?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Lieut.-Colonel Sir Vivian Henderson): The First Commissioner of Works is unaware of any considerable demand among Members of this House, for the erection of a tablet such as is proposed, which would lead him to assent to the suggestion.
  Mr. THURTLE: Is the hon. and gallant Member not aware that many Members of this House who take an interest in Parliamentary history regard Charles Bradlaugh as a great Parliamentary figure?
  Sir V. HENDERSON: I am quite aware of that fact, and, if it were shown to the First Commissioner that there was any great demand for this proposal, I have no doubt that he would be willing further to consider it. What the hon. Member does not perhaps appreciate is that there is no precedent for erecting a memorial to a private Member in this House who has died within living memory. I would point out that Daniell
  424
  O'Connell and Baron Lionel de Rothschild and Alderman Salomons are as equally entitled to memorials for the attitude which they took up in regard to the oath as Charles Bradlaugh.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. RAMSAY MacDONALD: May I ask the Deputy Leader of the House—I am very glad to see him back again—what will be the business on Friday?
Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: We propose to take the Report Stage of the Supplementary Estimate for Railway Freight. Rebates; the remaining stages of the Public Works Loans Bill; the Second Reading of the Agricultural Credits (Scotland) Bill; and the Committee Stage of the Money Resolution, and, if there is time, other Orders on the Paper.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,—
Unemployment Insurance Bill, without Amendment.
Private Bills (Consolidation),—That they communicate that they have come to the following Resolution, namely, "That it is desirable that in the present Session all Private Bills for the exclusive purpose of consolidating the provisions of existing Private Acts of Parliament, Acts confirming Provisional Orders, and Special Orders be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament; that the Joint Committee shall not take into consideration any Petition against any such Bill if the Petitioners seek to alter the existing law."

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL.
  Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Question [26th November],
  "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 declines to assent to the Second Reading of a Bill which, whilst amending the Law relating to poor relief, perpetuates the evils of the Poor Law system and extends the vicious practice of unrepresentative persons being nominated to membership of elected bodies, makes no provision for the prevention of destitution, fails to make unemployment a. national responsibility, and will not appreciably relieve the financial position of necessitous areas; will arrest the normal and steady development of local health services by the establishment of fixed block grants from the Exchequer and the imposition of a charge for treatment in hospitals, especially maternity hospitals, a proposal calculated to increase the already high mortality amongst mothers; inaugurates a system of rating relief that will be unfair in its incidence; and, by failing adequately to reimburse local authorities for loss of revenue, will add to the burdens of shopkeepers, householders, and other ratepayers."—[Mr. A. Greenwood.]
  Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  Mr. SIDNEY WEBB: Before embarking upon a general discussion of the Bill, I should like to make a protest against the magnitude of the Measure, not because of the number of Clauses but because the Bill, I contend, is six or seven separate Bills bound together in one. I have looked carefully into these six or seven separate Bills, and each one of them might he brought in by itself in a complete form without impinging upon any of the others. It is quite possible to draft the title in such a way as to cover any number of Bills, by the careful use of words. I suggest that in this case it is going very near what I venture to call an unconstitutional breach of the procedure of this House. My complaint is not merely that the result is a very long Bill—it is said to be the longest Bill ever introduced—but, instead of having six
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  opportunities of discussing the principles of six different Bills, the House has only one opportunity. Instead of having the opportunity on Report of considering all the Clauses affecting the separate principles of six different Bills, we have only one opportunity; and on the Third Reading we have only one opportunity, instead of six. We do not need to imagine a future Ministry going much further if we suggest that it is possible to put the entire Government business of the Session into one Bill, at any rate apart from formal business, and the Budget. I suggest that it would be an outrage against the procedure of this House to put the entire Government business of the Session into one Bill. It would greatly limit the opportunity of discussion upon the separate principles concerned, even if it allowed unlimited time in Committee for the details. What is perhaps more important is that it would very much restrict the opportunity which this House has of offering suggestions as to how the Measure should be improved. 'On all these points, I say that this is an unfortunate departure in the constitutional procedure of this House.
  Having made that protest, I pass on to the Bill. It nevertheless remains, protest or not, a very big and complicated Measure, and, consequently, we are all compelled to select only two or three points on which to take up the time of the House. But even if we limit ourselves to two or three points of principle, I am afraid it involves, in my case at any rate, taking up more time of the House than, I have been accustomed to take. The first point I want to make is that the, main object of the Bill is what we may call, for short, de-rating. The Minister of Health, in his extremely lucid and masterly speech in introducing the Measure, suggested that the de-rating proposals were really there in order to enable the various reforms in local government to which he attaches importance to be carried out. Does he really suggest that? As a matter of history, the right hon. Gentleman will admit that he is not correct. De-rating is not put there in order to get the local government Clauses through. It is on record, and we know that at the last General Election the Primo Minister said that the primary obligation of the Government was—not to effect local government re-

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  form—the primary obligation of the Government was to grapple with unemployment and the serious position of industry.
  Let us admit that they have been grappling with it ever since and so unsatisfactory has been the manner in which they have been grappling with it—not unsatisfactory to my friends on this side—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, they like unemployment do they?"] That is hardly an interruption which can have proceeded from intelligent hon. Members opposite. So unsatisfactory has been the grappling of the Government with this primary obligation to a large part of the majority of Members on the Government side that there were clamours—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speak for yourself!"]. That is another interruption which leads me to think that the standard of intelligence of hon. Members opposite must have gone down. So unsatisfactory was it that there was what we may call, for short, a mutiny, and another idea was brought forward in a way which was extremely inconvenient. That idea was that the primary obligation of the Government was to proceed along the lines of the safeguarding of industries, not the Local Government Bill, and, therefore, in August last the Prime Minister wrote to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury saying emphatically that the main policy of the Government for the permanent relief of productive industry was the great scheme of de-rating. That was a nasty one for the leaders and followers of the mutiny, and one can imagine that there was internal trouble and that the representatives of the mutineers in the Cabinet had to be tackled, not by the Prime Minister himself, but by a more artful gentleman.
  They were successfully tackled, andnow, I suppose, these mutineers will have to toe the line and say that the main policy of the Government for the permanent relief of productive industry is not Protection—of course, they never mention it—is not even the Safeguarding of Industry; it is this great scheme of de-rating. I hope that will send the great army of the Conservative party to the General Election in good heart. I hope they will all sing in the same key, if not on the same note. Whatever value there is in Safeguarding, it is a subordinate thing; it does not matter
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  much; the main policy of the Government for the relief of productive industry is the great scheme of de-rating. That is perhaps not worth spending much time about. What does it matter how the great scheme of de-rating arose or what purpose it was intended to serve? The question we want to ask is: Does it offer any remedy for the serious condition of industry? Does it do anything for unemployment? Certainly it puts £24,000,000 a year into the pockets of the employing class. That is a very real thing; balm in Gilead, but I cannot believe that if that was all that was meant and 'all it did that the Prime Minister would have thought it a remedy for the serious condition of industry.
  I want to argue, and I claim the indulgence of the House for an argument which is necessarily difficult, that the de-rating scheme itself, apart from the rebate on railway rates, is not a remedy for the serious condition of industry or for unemployment. If I were to put it paradoxically and in an extreme way, I would say that there is no warrant for saying that this gift of £24,000,000 a year to the employing class will cause one single additional man to be found employment. I put it in that way in order to arrest attention and possibly to induce hon. Members opposite to listen with a little interest to what I have to say and to see whether there is anything in that argument. It is, in effect, a gift to the employers, a gift to their profit and loss account—notice that—in all productive industry. It is not so large a gift as they think. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in giving away £24,000,000 a year, must have winked one eye, because he realises that he will get back £5,000,000 or £6,000,000 a year in IncomeTax 'and Supertax. The right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) pointed out that in the case of a farmer a de-rated farm will quite certainly fetch in the market, when it is sold, the capitalised value of the amount of the de-rating. Nobody will deny that; certainly no landlord or his agent will deny it, and consequently there will be something more in Death Duties for the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  4.0 p.m.
  But that is not the main point. The curious point about this gift is that it

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  is so irregular. It is not in proportion to production or the number of persons employed. It is not in proportion to costs. It is an amount considerably less than 2 per cent. on the aggregate costs of production. The main point about it is that it is extraordinarily irregular. It is given to all employers in productive industries irrespective of the commodity they produce or whether their industry, like that of brewing or making artificial silk, is exceedingly prosperous, or whether, like the production of iron and steel, it is in nearly all cases unprofitable; and whether the premises are situated in a specially distressed or necessitous area, where the rates are high, or in another part of the country where the rates are low. The subsidy will be payable in equal sums for premises of the same rateable value within the same rating area whatever the amount of commodities produced, whatever their aggregate value, whatever the efficiency of the establishment, and whatever the number of persons now or hereafter employed. They w ill have the same sum given in these divers cases. On the other hand the amount of the subsidy will vary, for establishments of the same efficiency, in one and the same industry, employing equal numbers of workers, occupying premises assessed at equal sums, and producing the same value of product and identical profits, according as they happen to be situated in different rating areas in one of which the amount of rate in the £ is actually several times as great as in the other.
  The consequence is that there is no basis for any estimate of the effect of the gift on the volume of business in each commodity, or on the amount of its aggregate production or on the total number of people employed. I think hon. Members will see that what interests the manufacturer, assuming it is a competitive business, is how he compares with his competitors, and he is very much interested in anything which makes a difference between his competitors and himself. He is not so very much interested in any change which affects all his competitors equally with himself. That leaves his competitive capacity undiminished, but this gift is going to bring rain from the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Heaven to fall alike
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  on the just and the unjust, but to fall differently upon different just people and differently upon different unjust people, and even more on the unjust than on the just, and, more important still, to fall on them whatever their marginal costs of production may be. Of course, it is very nice for employers to receive this gift, but that will be entered in their profit and loss account, and not until they come to the profit and loss account. Consequently, it will make no difference at all to their business.
  Assume for a moment that it is a sheer gift. You have the fact that the Government's main remedy for unemployment, for the precarious position of business, is this gift, in the hope that by this gift something will happen—that the employers will be enabled and induced to employ more people. That is what it comes to. The Government hope that, by making a free gift to employers without conditions in this irregular way—and that is the point of my remarks—these manufacturers will employ more people. In view of the fact that the boom of 1919 and the slump in 1920 to 1928 have come about very largely through the uncoordinated eagerness of the whole crowd of employers, first to increase production frantically in that short period of boom in trade, and then restrict it as drastically as they could in the slump that followed, it is extraordinary that we are going to give to some uncoordinated and unorganised crowd of employers this huge gift, without conditions, in this irregular way. There is something ironical in entrusting to them £24,000,000 of public money to have for their private use, free from any conditions, in the hope that, in the chance-medley of competitive indusry, somehow there will come about a better adjustment of production to demand, or of purchasing power to output, which is the cause of unemployment.
  If that be at all a fair description, that the Government are or giving, free from conditions, this huge subsidy which the employers can, if they like, put in their own pockets without doing anything with it, and the Government are doing it in the hope, I grant them, that somehow or other, out of this chance-medley of uncoordinated employers fighting for their own ends, it will result in any single person being added to the ranks of the

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  employed, then I can only say, if that is a fair description, that the credulity of His Majesty's Government surpasses even their statesmanship. Will this gift diminish the cost of production? Consider a man in business about to tender for an important job in slack times, knowing he is tendering against his competitors. Of course he puts down the wages, the cost of the raw materials, and all incidental expenses, and something, I suppose, for contingencies, but in slack times, when he is seeking to get a contract in the face of keen competition that man does not put down the whole of the overhead charges which he has anyhow to pay, whether his factory is full or half empty. Of course he has got to get his overhead charges back eventually from somewhere, but he will he glad enough in slack times if he can keep his works open, and his business going, and get the new contract in face of keen competition, on terms which will just give him back his outlay. He does not, as a matter of fact under these circumstances, Put down anything like the overhead charges which are already being loaded on the business he has already secured. I am assuming, of course, he will put down everything that would be increased by the new job. He will get this gift from the Government, £700 or £7,000 a year, whatever it may be, whether he gets this job or not, and consequently it would not pay him, it would not be wise, his accountants would not advise him to put down as overhead charges the rates he had already paid out of the proceeds of the business he already has, and, consequently, he would not be able to tender for this new job at any cheaper rate because the premises have been de-rated. [Laughter].
  Before hon. Members laugh let them consider another case. Consider the man who is in almost the biggest industry in this country even to-day, and that is agriculture. Consider the farmer. The farmer to-day, in a great many cases, is considering how much land he is going to sow with wheat and how much land he is going to let down to grass, and the important thing in the consideration is that on this decision virtually depends the number of men he is going to employ. The fact is that in the next year there are going to be many agricultural labourers
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  turned off, because the proportion of wheat acreage is falling and fewer men will be required. The Government come forward and say, "We are going to de-rate you. You have already been let off three-quarters of your rates and we are going to let off the final quarter." That, I estimate will amount to, on the average about £15 or £20 per farmer. You give him £15 or £20 whether he sows wheat or puts his land down to grass. If the farmer considers that he is not making the wheat crop pay at present prices, he will put his land down to grass. Will he be affected by the consideration that the Government are putting £15 more in his pocket He is getting that anyhow. Farmer A puts down land to wheat, and gets £15. Farmer B thinks that grass will pay him better, and lets his land. down to grass. He, also, will get £15. Clearly it will make no difference to his decision.
  I can give other cases. You say you want industry to increase, and you do not mind so much increase of profits. You want the volume of industry increased, and, incidentally, more people will be employed. Perhaps! Will this gift lower wholesale prices to the distributors who sell to the consumers? Because, mind you, unless it does lower prices, I do not see how you can get any increase in business. The only way of increasing demand is by lowering prices. Is this going to lower prices? Take a humble business after the big business of agriculture, but an indispensable business—that of coffin making. Coffin makers are going to be de-rated just as other employers of labour. Will it lower the price of coffins? Even if it does, will it, increase the demand for coffins? I really cannot see how it is going to diminish unemployment among the coffin makers. The coffin maker is a type of man who is in a business for which the demand is extremely inelastic. But there are other cases of a like kind. The demand for bread is extremely inelastic in this country. If you lower the price of bread, you do not get an increase in the consumption of bread. You may get an increase in the consumption of meat but not of bread. You are going to de-rate the big bakeries and the flour mills. Will that lead to increased consumption of bread, and if not will it diminish unemployment among the bakers, or unemployment in the flour mills?

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  I suggest, therefore, that there is very great doubt whether this de-rating will increase the volume of business at all, and whether it will, therefore, diminish the volume of unemployment at all. That is putting it very high, and I am asking hon. Members to consider it. This remedy for unemployment is not a matter of electioneering. This remedy for unemployment will not come into operation until after the General Election. You will not be able to see the effects of it until long after the Election, and, whether I am right or wrong, it will not increase the value of it at the election; so that you need not be uneasy, but you might, for your own satisfaction, think it over. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Health says that the great object of de-rating is to carry the Local Government Bill. I make a present of this to my hon. Friends the mutineers who do not like the right hon. Gentleman's panacea, and are in favour of their own panacea. I ask them whether they are quite certain that this de-rating is going to do what it is said it will do? Will they ask him whether he is quite sure that de-rating is going to put a single extra person in employment?
  There are lots of other cases that could he mentioned, of course. I notice that the Government factories are to be de-rated, the Army Clothing Factory for instance. Will that lead to an increase in employment The Post Office factories, too, are to be de-rated. Meanwhile the Post Office, or the Government, is proposing to dispose of part of the Post Office business. I am afraid that the Army factories will not take on one single man more; they will take on only the men that are required for the business, and the de-rating will be a gift. Then take the brewery industry and the distilleries. I am not going to raise the objection that in their case this gift is going to rich and profitable enterprises. There is another objection. Will the gift induce them to lower the price of beer? We all know that it will not. Will it induce them to lower the price of whisky? We all know that it will not. Will it therefore increase the demand for whisky? Of course it will not. In that case it will not reduce unemployment by a single person.
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  I might ask about the great cotton-thread industry or the tobacco industry or the soap industry. They will get very large sums in de-rating—very large in the eyes of poor annuitants like myself. But those sums will be quite insufficient to enable them to reduce the price, even if they wish to reduce the price, of a reel of cotton or a packet of cigarettes or a cake of soap, even by an infinitesimal fraction, and they will not reduce the price. Does anyone suggest that they will? Of course not. Will it cause any increase in demand I do not think so. Will de-rating make people smoke more cigarettes for love of the Government? Inevitably it will not put one single person more into employment in those industries. I want to quote a very wise sentence which was written 20 years ago by the ablest student of unemployment we have had, to whom we owe a very great deal. Sir William Beveridge, writing on "Unemployment a Problem of Industry," in 1909. used these words:
  "The problem of unemployment—this is a point which cannot be too strongly emphasised—is insoluble by any mere expenditure of public money. It represents not a want to be satisfied but a disease to be eradicated. It needs not money so much as thought and organisation."
  That applies to all remedies of the nature of doles. It applies to doles to the unemployed. It applies equally to the much less justifiable doles to the employers. That is the condemnation of the great scheme of the Government for dealing with unemployment. Whatever happens in this House, whatever happens amongst the electors, I am sure it will not escape condemnation by serious students of the subject.
  I want to say a few words about the reduction of railway rates for exports. It is equivalent to an export bounty to a particular industry; it is a subsidy out of the taxes to a particular industry. Conceivably that might cause a reduction in the price to the foreigner to that extent, and it therefore might cause an increase of demand from the foreigner. But remember that we have been reducing the price of coal to the foreigner in that hope for a couple of years, and we still find that the demand for coal is very nearly as inelastic as the demand for coffins. There has not been, owing to a much larger reduction of price than the amount of this re-

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  bate, any increase in the export trade, at any rate nothing like the increase that was anticipated.
  You could achieve the end in view by making the bounty big enough, but is it worth while to pay money out of our pockets so as to enable the foreign manufacturer to buy our coal more cheaply than the English manufacturer can buy that coal? I do not know whether that is economic statesmanship. It certainly is not very commercial statesmanship, and I do not believe that any hon. Member opposite will get up and support a proposal to do something which will enable foreign manufacturers to get British coal at a cheaper rate than that at which the English manufacturer can get it. The Government are not giving any rebate on railway rates for coal supplied to British manufacturers, except in the case of iron and steel. The rebate is to go only to coal which is to supply the needs of the foreign manufacturer in the hope that the scheme will make coal cheaper to the foreign manufacturer than to the British manufacturer. What statesmanship is this?
  I pass from that to say a few words about the block grant. In the very able speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health, he told us that the percentage grant had great disadvantages and he spoke of the superiority of the block grant to the percentage grant. During his speech I felt very much inclined to ask him whether he was going to withdraw the Bill, which did not correspond with his speech, and to bring in another Bill. Of course, the Bill does not abolish the percentage grants. The percentage grants at present amount to something between £35,000,000 and £40,000,000 a year, but the percentage grants which the right hon. Gentleman wants to abolish amount to something under £4,000,000. Consequently he leaves nine-tenths of the percentage grants still existing. Look at the matter in another way. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman may say that the wicked people at the Education Office and the Home Office would not allow him to abolish the percentage grants on education and on police entirely, and that consequently he could not help himself. Nevertheless he made his speech largely on the advantage of substituting the one grant for the other.
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  As a matter of fact, he has not made that substitution. He adds £16,000,000 block grant to the de-rating and he abolishes only £4,000,000 of the percentage grants. Therefore he does not substitute £16,000,000 of block grants for the percentage grants. He changes the conditions of £12,000,000 of block grants into new block grants, and then incidentally and, I must say, wantonly, abolishes £4,000,000 of percentage grants. And these are just the grants which are of the highest utility. Let us look at the way in which the abolition of the £4,000,000 of percentage grants will be seriously adverse to the further development of the optional services. There are places which say they do not want the optional services, that they do not want to trouble about maternity and child welfare or tuberculosis, because their districts are healthy. I have heard that stated. They are not injured by the optional grant which is given to other places. The new block grant is said to be based on relative needs. The needs that are measured are only the obligatory services. Maternity and child welfare are not reckoned as a need. Under this scheme the same grant will go to the district that does practically nothing for maternity and child welfare as to the district that does its duty. The right hon. Gentleman said that he intended to keep these backward places up to the mark. He stated that when the Bill became law there would be a position in which there would be one single health authority in each area, whose duty and function it would be to survey the whole of the institutional needs of that area. That is the sort of sentiment which gains the adhesion of the hon. and gallant Member for St. Albans (Lieut.-Colonel Fremantle), who is so keen on public health.
  But the Bill does not say that. It says quite the contrary. Clause 51, on which the Minister relies, limits this survey to the area of infectious disease and leaves out maternity and child welfare altogether. I suppose that tuberculosis is included, though I shall have something to say about that when we come to the Clause.
  The words "public health" in Clause 4 do not include tuberculosis; the right hon. Gentleman has there put tuberculosis separately, He must not do that—put it in one place and not in another,

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  because he may be held by his omission in Clause 4 to have meant by "public health" something that is independent of maternity and child welfare. I am sure that his lawyers will tell him so. Under the Bill the needs are to be measured by the obligatory services and not by the optional. Yet it is just the optional services which the percentage grants were instituted to encourage. The Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, Sir George Newman, says in the Report which was issued a few weeks ago after the Bill was in draft:
  "There can be no doubt that the percentage Exchequer grants-in-aid of health have been of the highest possible value and incentive during the last 15 years in getting special medical services in operation and in guiding their direction."
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): Read the whole of the quotation.
  Mr. WEBB: I will, but it may take five minutes. I can well understand that the Chief Medical Officer, after he had read the Clause of the draft Bill, said to him- self "Hullo, I am being hit"
  Sir K. WOOD: Never mind about the quotation, if you cannot find it.
  Mr. WEBB: Oh, yes, I will find it, but I ask the House to observe that it is not who am taking up the time, but the Parliamentary Secretary who requested that it should be read in full.
  The MINISTER for HEALTH (Mr. Chamberlain): Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will continue his speech and my right hon. Friend will complete the quotation for him.
  Mr. WEBB: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will not suggest that what I have quoted is not Sir George Newman's opinion because Sir George Newman's opinion is known and has been expressed over and over again. I am sure he does not mean to suggest that I have misstated Sir George Newman's strong opinion which is perfectly well known to the hon. and gallant Member for St. Albans and to any other hon. Members who take an interest in health services. There is no adequate provision in the Bill to prevent positive backwardation in these optional services. I believe the
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  Minister to be as keen on the development of these health services as any of us but his Bill does not correspond with this desire and the only provision to prevent backwardation in these services is the provision enabling him or the county council to survey these services.
  As a matter of fact there is no provision for the Minister's interference in that way except in regard to public health and he does not mention maternity and child welfare or the other optional services in that connection. He has taken no express power to interfere in. regard to maternity and child welfare services. As I have pointed out and as the right hon. Gentleman's draftsman must have told him in one place public health is mentioned and then maternity and child welfare and tuberculosis are mentioned separately and in this other place he will be taken to mean public health only without maternity and child welfare and perhaps also tuberculosis. Moreover the phraseology is such that this does not apply to maternity and child welfare; moreover as a matter of fact the question in regard to these services is a question of their progressive increase and not actually of their going back. There is only express power to interfere as far as I can see in regard to infectious diseases hospitals and I do not see any protection in this default clause against backwardation. These new services are not yet common over the Kingdom. Let me give one instanee, that of the infant centres. I gather that there are only 1,695 infant centres in the whole of the Kingdom. That may sound a lot to a mere man but these centres are places where poor mothers bring their newly born infants for examination and weighing and so forth and where they have to attend regularly. What is to be the radius in that case? Does that mean a radius of a. mile? Can you ask a mother with an infant to travel more than a mile? How many of these infant centres would you need to cover the 88,000 square miles of England and Wales? It may be "Some counties do not want them." But babies die in those counties; and the infantile death-rate is a disgrace in many cases. The Minister knows it and his chief medical officer knows it. The right hon. Gentleman would be the last man to wish to see the progress of

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  maternity and child welfare services stopped in those counties. But it will be stopped because, just as the gift to the manufacturer in this Bill is coupled with no conditions that he is to spend it on employing more people, so the block grant to the local authorities is coupled with no condition that they are to spend some of it on maternity arid child welfare.
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Does the right hon. Gentleman contend that the maternity and child welfare service is not one of the functions of local authorities?
  Mr. WEBB: It is obvious that I cannot contend that. What the right hon. Gentleman is referring to is his power under the default Clause. I think it is Clause 86. This is a supremely important point. The Clause reads as follows:
  "The Minister may reduce the grant payable in respect of any year under this Part of this Act to any council by such amount as he thinks just if lie is satisfied that the council have failed to achieve or maintain a reasonable standard of efficiency in the discharge of their functions relating to public health"—
  Dr. VERNON DAVIES: Carry on.
  Mr. WEBB: I am quoting it in the interests of the Minister. This is a diminution of his power:
  "regard being had to the standards maintained in other areas whose financial resources and other relevant circumstances are substantially similar, and that the health of the inhabitants of the area of the council or some of them has been or is likely to be thereby endangered."
  The Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) is keen about maternity and child welfare. Imagine her coming forward under this Clause to plead that such and such a council ought to be declared in default because it had not attained a reasonable standard of efficiency in the discharge of its functions relating to public health. There is no mention of the other service at all.
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Are we to take it that it is not public health?
  Mr. WEBB: I am only a hedge lawyer but I am a lawyer and I have several times pointed out to the right hon.
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  Gentleman that if you express one term in a series and do not express others you may be taken to have deliberately omitted the others. In Clause 4 you have "public health" in one place and in the next line "maternity and child welfare." You can make it quite clear by including in Clause 86 the words "including maternity and child welfare," but even supposing you do so the complainant has to show not only that the service is not reasonably efficient but also that the health of the inhabitants of an area or some of them has been or is likely to be endangered. Of course it could be said that such and such an infant's health had been, endangered; but will it not be held to mean that such a complaint is referring only to infectious diseases? [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] The right hon. Gentleman can make it right if he will do two things, include his other optional services after these words "public health," and instead of the words "reasonable standard of efficiency," use the words "reasonable standard of adequacy and efficiency." [HON. MEMBERS: "Agreed!"] There is no doubt that in some of these largely backward counties there are some maternity and child welfare schemes which are reasonably efficient, but the trouble is that they are not adequate, and the Bill does not expressly enable the Minister to interfere if the service where it exists is reasonably efficient, but is very far from being adequate. The point is that these are growing services and the question of their inadequacy is important because they are growing. In five years' time, as has been pointed out, maternity and child welfare ought to have reached twice its present degree of adequacy, even though it may not have become any more efficient when it exists, but the right hon. Gentleman has not taken steps to secure that.
  I must come now to what is after all my biggest interest and that is the Poor Law. The right hon. Gentleman's Bill with regard to the Poor Law is like the historic curate's egg. It is very good in that he should at last do what his father recommended 40 years ago and abolish the separate ad hoc destitution authority. Neither the right hon. Gentleman nor any of us would wish to cast any reflection on the public spirited men and women who serve as guardians but the evil of the system is, first that they are

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  limited to the relief of destitution. They cannot step in before destitution has begun, in order to prevent it, and they cannot go on for a single minute after destitution has ceased, in order to prevent a relapse. They are limited to the moment of destitution. In the second place they are circumscribed in all sorts of ways in what they do, and the system is quite incongruous in relation to the treatment of the sick. The right hon. Gentleman does not sweep the Poor Law away. He has abolished the boards of guardians but not the Poor Law. He has transferred the work of the boards of guardians with their powers and liabilities to the county councils and the county borough councils. That is a step and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that step. It is said that the time-lag in England is 19 years, and the 19 years is up this year. But the Bill does not stop the overlap between the services of the county and borough councils and those of the boards of guardians. Clause 4 is merely optional. It enables the council to do certain things as a part of public health instead of the Poor Law. So far so good, but it only "enables" them to do it, which means that some of them will do it and some will not. The result of that will be not merely upsetting to the right hon. Gentleman's statistics but it will mean that the rights of citizens will differ in different localities. Let us take the three adjoining county councils of Northumberland, Durham and the North Riding. All three include great mining, shipbuilding and iron and steel areas. In Durham I venture to prophesy that the miner or mechanic will be dealt with outside the Poor Law as far as the Bill allows. At any rate as far as Clause 4 allows it I have not the least doubt that Durham County Council will take all these services out of the Poor Law. The adjacent counties will not do so. Unfortunately they will not be able to take the sick man out, or only in some cases, will they be able to take the sick man out of the. Poor Law.
  These men whose cases are taken out of the Poor Law in Durham will not be disqualified for sitting on the council. They will not be reduced to the pauper status. I wonder do hon. Members realise that there is such a thing as the pauper status? It is often suggested that
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  all this has been swept away but such is not the case. There is still the pauper status—in a much more injurious and serious form, much more real and much more inimical to the objects of the right hon. Gentleman's Bill than hon. Members imagine. Let me mention one instance. There is the disqualification for office which the right hon. Gentleman is actually extending. Then has the right hon. Gentleman realised that the pauper in a Poor Law institution has no remedy for even the grossest, wickedest, most malicious negligence by the Poor Law authority or its officials? If a man goes into a voluntary hospital and gets treatment for nothing as a matter of charity, nevertheless in a, case of grave neglect he has a right of action against the management of the hospital and against the negligent official. That is so with regard to the City hospitals under the Public Health Act. That has been held in case after case, but the pauper because he is a pauper is not allowed to sue either the Poor Law authority or the officials of that authority even for the grossest negligence.
  The right hon. Gentleman says he hopes to see all these institutions made available by classification for different classes of the sick. I am sure he means that he hopes to see institutions to which the present pauper sick will be able to go and to which other people who are sick will be able to go. That has been his great point. He wanted to provide adequate hospital accommodation for everybody in the county. Does he realise that the pauper patient in one of these institutions will have no remedy for the grossest negligence, whereas the patient in the next bed who is not a pauper will have a remedy? That situation is impracticable. I suggest that if the right hon. Gentleman is going to retain the Poor Law, he must in some way put those two patients on an equality. Just because they are poor and ill and defenoeless, all the more the law should not deny that ultimate remedy for gross negligence which it does not deny to the poorest patient in a voluntary hospital or in a public health institution. I will ask the right hon. Gentleman to be good enough to note that point.
  Now, with regard to the recovery of costs, the right hon. Gentleman says that

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  at present the Poor Law authority is able to recover the cost of its relief from the person relieved or from anybody responsible—
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I did not say they were able; I said it was their duty.
  Mr. WEBB: The right hon. Gentleman need not so quickly interrupt. It is not a duty imposed upon them by any action of this House. It is an Order by the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor which makes it a duty.
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The right hon. Gentleman was misquoting what I said, and that is why I interrupted him.
  Mr. WEBB: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon for misquoting him, if I did. At any rate it is not a duty which has been imposed by this House. For the first time the right hon. Gentleman is going to ask this House to impose it as a duty on the authorities to make a charge on everybody—for the first time—and he cannot justify that merely by saying that the boards of guardians have been told to do it by one of his predecessors. But notice the difference. The board of guardians is only able to recover the cost of the relief, and it cannot recover anything more than the Cost of the relief, which is the cost of the food, clothing, and so on. Such cost definitely excludes the cost of buildings and repairs thereto, furniture, salary and other remuneration of officers, superannuation allowances, etc. That is what the board of guardians is told to recover by the right hon. Gentleman, but that is not what the right hon. Gentleman is going to ask this House to tell the public health hospitals to recover. He says that they are to be told to recover the average per patient per day of the cost of the entire institution. The expenses as set out in Clause 13 are to be as follows:
  "The expenses incurred by the council or authority in providing for the maintenance of a person in an institution shall, in respect of each day of maintenance in the institution, be deemed to be a sum representing the average daily cost per patient of the maintenance of the institution and the staff thereof and the maintenance and treatment of the patients therein."
  Notice what that means. Supposing you run a hospital for a particular kind of case and supposing it is half full, as it
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  very generally will be, or even if there were only one patient throughout the year, the whole cost of that hospital, if one patient is there, can be charged on that one patient. That sounds ridiculous.
  Sir K. WOOD: "The average daily cost."
  Mr. WEBB: But that is the average. The right hon. Gentleman knows too well—he is quibbling, as a matter of fact—the point that I am making. Suppose you have a hospital which has provided for a considerable number of patients, with the necessary staff, and suppose that during the year there is, God be thanked, very little sickness and the hospital is nearly empty. The average cost per patient per day will be enormous-Why, the right hon. Gentleman himself has just authorised the Metropolitan Asylums Board to equip a most expensive ward for the reception of women suffering from a particular kind of cancer and to provide it with radium, at an enormous cost, for eight women only. The average cost for each of those eight women per day will come to a very large sum. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman will not be able to recover it, but the bill must be sent in. The right hon. Gentleman wants these hospitals to be resorted to by poor people willingly. He wants them to come in—cases of cancer—at the earliest possible moment, but he asks the House to insist that the woman shall be told that she will receive a bill for some immense sum, or what will sound to her, an immense sum. She may be told, "We will not be exacting," and to the very poor the charge may be reduced or even remitted, but will such a bill induce people to come into these hospitals early, as the right hon. Gentleman wishes? The right hon. Gentleman does not propose to alter the bill which will be sent in to the person under the Poor Law, but in these public health hospitals he does. There are very good hospitals which will be affected. There is one at Edmonton, which has just got power to spend £6,000 on radium for a very small ward. If you are going to charge that to a patient on the average cost per day—
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The right hon. Gentleman must not misrepresent the effect of the Clause. He is under a mis-

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  apprehension. The cost of treatment must be separated there from the cost of maintenance. He is talking about treatment, and not maintenance. The patient will not be charged with the cost of treatment.
  Mr. WEBB: What does the Clause say? It says:
  "The whole of the expenses incurred by the council or authority in the maintenance of that person."
  and the expenses are to include
  "The average daily cost per patient of the maintenance of the institution and the staff thereof and the maintenance and treatment of the patients therein."
  It says "and treatment." The right hon. Gentleman said in his speech that you must have one rule, for all institutions, but in the Poor Law institution he is only going to charge a woman with maintenance, excluding the cost of buildings and repairs, salaries and other remuneration of the staff; he is only going to charge the Poor Law patient 20s. per week, or something like that—nothing to do with the average cost of the institution, or the treatment, or the salaries of the doctors, but only the maintenance; and that is what the Poor Law authorities do charge now when they can do it. You must have one rule for all, says the right hon. Gentleman in his speech, but, as a matter of fact, Clause 13 proposes a different rule., a rule which proposes to make a charge, obligatory in every case, which shall include the average cost of the institution, of the staff, and of the treatment, including the radium. The average cost must be charged to the poor woman whom you want to induce to come in for treatment. That is not one rule for all. The Bill does not correspond with the right hon. Gentleman's speech, and I hope he will insert an Amendment that will secure one rule for all.
  It has been suggested that this perfectly extortionate charge may be made, but that it will not be pressed, but inquire of any medical officer how that will operate! What about the fear of the charge? The right hon. Gentleman wants the people to come into these institutions before they are destitute; he wants the poor man suffering from rheumatism to come in before tie is broken down and unable to go to work; he wants the cancer case
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  to come in at the very earliest moment, when there is no incapacity, and yet he is apparently going to require the institution to present to every patient a bill of this immense size. I can only imagine that he has been paying regard to the susceptibilities of the voluntary hospitals, and that they are afraid that these public health institutions will be so good that people will not want to go to the voluntary hospitals. I am quite sure that this House must not deter poor people from going into hospital by the threat of such a bill as that, which is not justified, and which is contrary to the right hon. Gentleman's speech when he said that there must be one rule for all. Poor Law guardians do not in practice send in any bill at all. Whether it is their duty to do so or not, I do not know, but they do not do it habitually; and the right hon. Gentleman knows it, and his auditors know it. They only recover when they have reason to believe that they can equitably recover, and they do not send in a bill in every case. The right hon. Gentleman wants this House, for the first time in its existence, to say that you shall send in a bill in every case to the destitute man or the poor mother, this immense bill, which I venture to think—well, I will not say what I think.
  Let me point out another thing. This immense charge—I call it immense, and it is immense, relative to the circumstances of the people in question—is to be made in every case except that of infectious disease. One of these infectious diseases which is treated in public health hospitals is what is known as venereal disease, and it has been expressly ordered that the treatment of this disease shall be granted, as of right, to everybody, whatever his affluence—to the richest man, if necessary—wherever he is, quite irrespective of settlement, absolutely free; and not only outdoor attendance, but whatever institutional treatment is prescribed, without any charge at all. Now in the maternity centres, where the women come in for their confinement, the Chief Medical Officer of the right hon. Gentleman says, in his Report:
  "Besides the treatment provided at the regular centres, special arrangements exist at 1a maternity and child welfare centres by which women and children discovered to be suffering from gonorrhoea or syphilis can be treated there, thus saving them the trouble of attending at a V.D. treatment centre. In this way many infected patients

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  receive the necessary treatment which they might otherwise neglect, and the transmission of syphilis, or the danger of ophthalmia neonatorum is prevented."
  5.0 p.m.
  Women come in, with the approval of the right hon. Gentleman's Department, afflicted with venereal disease, and you must not charge them anything. They have to be treated absolutely free. One would not have supposed that you would pick out just these women not to have the bill presented to them. The other women who come in are to have this very large bill sent to them. It is not very enterprising for a Department to make that suggestion. You are going o make a charge in every case of a woman going into a maternity centre and yet to see that the treatment of venereal disease shall be gratuitous. Are you going to send in this bill in the one case and not in the other? The right hon. Gentleman would do better to agree with his adversary while he may and accept the proposed Amendment of the hon. Member for Sutton. Let the maternity and child welfare grants go on; they will only go to the districts that want them and they will continue to afford a valuable incentive to other districts to make this provision.
  I have pointed out that the Poor Law is to be handed over intact, and that you will have a difference in right between one citizen in one county and another citizen in another county. Under the Poor Law, citizens all over England are supposed to have the same legal rights of relief. Now you are going to dodge about from county to county. County A will have taken over some of the Poor Law services, and County B will not have done so. The resident in County A will not be a pauper and the resident in County B will be a pauper. There is, however, a much more serious case, for Clause 4 enables the new authorities, if they like, to take over some part of the Poor Law service, some part only, and a small part, and it prevents them taking over all the rest of the Poor Law services. These are to continue to be Poor Law. I ask the right hon. Gentleman's particular attention to one Section of the Poor Law which is in as bad and chaotic a condition as it was in 1834. It is the relief of the able-bodied. There are as many able-bodied men being given outdoor relief from Poor Law authorities
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  to-day as there were in 1834—not proportionate to the population, but literally as many. The right hon. Gentleman referred in a happy way to the suggestion of his illustrious father that the Poor Law ought to be handed over to the counties and county boroughs, but he might have reminded the House that his illustrious father, in making that suggestion, said emphatically that the unemployed workmen ought not to be degraded by the Poor Law at all. He said:
  "The law exists for securing the assistance of the community at large in aid of their destitute members; and where the necessity has arisen from no fault of their own, the persons concerned, there ought to be no idea of degradation connected with such assistance. Those compelled to apply have probably paid rates and taxes in past time. The payment is, in fact, an insurance against misfortune."
  The illustrious father of the Minister of Health was not able to get his own way then but he came into the Government, and he managed to do something. He sent out a circular, in which he said:
  "It is not desirable that the working classes should be familiarised with Poor Law relief. The spirit of independence that leads so many of the working classes to make great personal sacrifices rather than incur the stigma of pauperism is one that deserves great sympathy and respect, and it is the duty and the interest of the community to maintain it by all means at its disposal."
  If the author of these words could be here now, how surprised he would be to find that his equally illustrious son is proposing that the only class among those whom the guardians at present relieve which is not to be taken out of the Poor Law is the unemployed; that is the 100,000 men and their families whom the guardians are now relieving out of the Poor Rate, are to remain, because the Poor Law is to be handed over to the counties, and they are not to be taken out of it. They are to remain under the Poor Law, and the county or county borough council will have to go on doing what the guardians have been doing. That is not what Mr. Joseph Chamberlain suggested. His influence went further, and the Unemployed Workmen Act was passed in 1905 to enable the borough and city councils to make some other provision than out-door relief for the unemployed. This Bill proposes to repeal the Unemployed Workmen Act. These men are not only to be kept under the Poor

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  Law but the door is locked, bolted, and barred against them by the repeal of this Act. The councils which are to take over the duties of the guardians are to be held within the limits of the powers that the guardians now have, and the powers which were given to them by the Unemployed Workmen Act are by this very Bill to be taken away from them. Mr. Balfour and the Conservative Government in 1905 thought that they were really doing something for the unemployed and for some yearn they did something for them under the provisions of that Act, but now, when unemployment is with us again, those powers are to be denied to the city and town councils which have to take over the job which the guardians have failed to perform, with no further powers than the guardians had.
  I said that the Bill did not correspond with the words of the right hon. Gentleman, and I do not think that it corresponds with his intentions, but as it has been drafted I suppose that a mechanical majority will force it through this House. We ought to look at these points with a humane mind, free from the trammels of the officials of the Ministry of Health, who very naturally and inevitably are steeped in 90 years of the traditions of the Poor Law. We want to make a fresh start. I am sure the local councils want to make a fresh start; they do not want to take over this job without greater powers to help them, still less, to have their powers reduced. I am not entitled to predict, but if the House will allow me I will give my opinion of this problem for what it is worth. I do not believe that the question of the unemployed can be properly and successfully dealt with either by the new authority or by the board of guardians. I want the new authority to try it, because that is always an advance, but I did not expect that they would be deprived of some of the machinery that they already possess. I do not believe that it can be done. They will not be able lawfully to do anything but relieve destitution and will be able to do it only at the moment of destitution. They will not be able to step in and help a man sinking into destitution, and they will not be able to do it after destitution has ceased. They will not be able to train a man or to migrate him to another
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  place; they will be forbidden to spend any money in helping the man to go to another district—and quite properly because other places would be up in arms if that were done.
  That means that you want a national authority. The Government have established a Ministry of Labour, and this Ministry is every day maintaining a million men. The Poor Law guardians are maintaining only 100,000 men, while the Ministry of Labour are handing out relief to a. million men and their wives and children under the unemployment insurance scheme, and yet we are boggling over letting the central Authority deal with 100,000 more men. The minds of those who have worked for 90 years under the Poor Law cannot see anything outside the ring of the Poor Law. They have only 100,000 men, but outside that ring there are 1,000,000 men at present being relieved by the Ministry of Labour, and it is only a technical difference whether they are paupers or not. Local authorities cannot deal with the problem because industry is not local, and has no regard to local boundaries; and the local council can no more cope with the unemployed of an industry without going over the boundary than the board of guardians can. It cannot get information from other districts, and, moreover, any training that is applied must be specialised, and you must recruit such specialised institutions from a wide area. It must be national, eventually will be, because of the unfair incidence of the burden. It is admitted by this Bill that it is not fair that the rates in one district should be raised appreciably above the rates in another because of the accidental patchiness of unemployment, but that patchiness will recur again and again. A much more important consideration is that the local authority cannot possibly apply preventive measures. We have erected a framework of prevention for preventing people becoming sick, and that is why our sickness rate is not overwhelming. But we have not yet erected a framework for the prevention of unemployment. We shall not know how to do it until we have a specialised Department which is thinking about it. It was not until we had a national Department thinking it out that we had a system of public education. So with public health; we did not get

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  public health on any large scale until we had a national Department which was thinking about the whole thing.
  This Bill fails to carry out the intentions of the right hon. Gentleman and the intentions of the Government, fails I am quite sure, to carry out the desires of the House in these matters; and I ask the right hon. Gentleman to see if there is not some substance in some of my points and to put in Amendments to carry out his own desires. But on the main point of whether able-bodied men are to remain under the Poor Law and without the aid of the Unemployed Workmen Act, whether the new authorities are to go to this new work crippled through having no more than the powers of the boards of guardians, it seems to me—we have had some Biblical quotations already—rather like the case of the potentate who hardened his heart and would not let the people go. It seems to me that the Poor Law authorities behind the right hon. Gentleman are not willing to let these able-bodied people go, and I ask him whether he had not better let them go like the sick, whom I am sure that he wishes to take completely out of the Poor Law, to be dealt with by the county and county borough councils in whatever way they find necessary, in preparation for the taking over by the Ministry of Labour of the whole of the able-bodied unemployed.
  Captain O'CONNOR: A feature of this Debate so far as it has gone has been that it seems to have aroused considerable enthusiasm on the part of the respective supporters of those hon. Members who have happened to take part in the Debate, and that is no less consoling to the person eliciting some response than it is to the person who is in the position of having his remarks pondered upon. I hope the House will pardon me if, in a Second Reading Debate, I do not attempt to pursue in any elaborate detail the minor points to which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham (Mr. Webb) directed his attention. [HON. MEMBERS: "Minor!"] I am not suggesting for one moment that in the course of his speech, which lasted about an hour and a half, he did not cover some of the major points, too [Interruptian]. One of the advantages which I must confess the Socialist party offers to its members
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  is that they can be practically certain that if they can subdue their own members they can secure a quiet hearing for any of their speakers.
  To go back to one or two of the more or less major considerations enunciated by the right hon. Gentleman, I think those who can cast their minds back so far as the earlier portion of his speech will recall some of the most astonishing and unsupported statements which have ever been heard from the Opposition Front Bench. I have never been able to see how it is possible in any reasonable assembly to suggest that no benefit is given to industry by a reduction of rates amounting to, approximately, £25,000,000. That seems to me a proposition so untenable and so ridiculous, more especially when it comes from the party which is consistently complaining of the burden imposed upon industry by the toll levied by capital, that I cannot see how it can be put forward as a reasonable argument. Why should it be a burden that capital should take a toll for its services, and not a burden that the local authorities should require a toll for their services? It seems to me that the problem of when a burden is not a burden is one to which hon. Members opposite have never directed their minds.
  The hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Scurr), speaking two nights ago, went even farther than the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham, because he said the burden of rates was a positive benefit. Like Tatcho for bald heads, possibly it may stimulate the further productivity of industry. But I will confine myself to the simple statement that I cannot appreciate how any authority can say that if you relieve industry of £25,000,000 you are not facilitating the task of production. I have instanced the case of the rentier, and I will instance another case which has been constantly under the notice of hon. Gentlemen opposite. That is the case of the German nation, which by inflation liberated itself from a large part of its debenture charges. Has it ever been suggested that the German nation, by relieving its industries of those overhead charges, has not put those industries in a much better position to compete than are the industries of other countries? The proposition which has been put forward from the benches opposite is really not argu-

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  able, and the right hon. Gentleman's view of how he conceives a business concern puts forward its tenders is one of the most remarkable I have ever heard. At any rate, it will go down to history as a very good example of the danger of trusting Socialist statesmen with the management of businesses. If an ex-member of the Socialist Government conceives that he is going to tender without taking into consideration any of his overhead charges, then I think the natural reluctance which has already been shown by business men in this country to confide their destinies to Socialist guidance will be increased and heightened. Comparable to this, I think, was the description of the way in which a board of guardians will total up the bill which it will render to some poor person who has received benefit in one of its institutions. He cannot seriously have considered that in arriving at that charge the fact that only one person was in the hospital would be used to attract all the overhead charges for all the beds in the hospital. He cannot seriously consider that it would attract, for instance, all the overhead expenses in respect of £7,000 worth of radium, and if he does not think so it is monstrously unfair to say so.
  Mr. WEBB: That is the Clause, Clause 13.
  Captain O'CONNOR: My qualifications as a lawyer are perhaps almost as sketchy as those of the right hon. Gentleman, but I would venture to say with positiveness that no such interpretation of that Clause would be endorsed by any Court in the country, and even if that were the present effect of the Clause, surely it is not a matter to be introduced in a Second Reading Debate. We have come to a, strange pass in Second Reading discussions if on a Bill of this magnitude we are going to dispute about the wording of individual lines and individual Clauses, and so occupy time which ought to be devoted to very much more general arguments. Therefore, I want at once to return to more general considerations, and I intend to do so whether I am applauded from one side or the other.
  To my mind this Bill, in its main features, is simple, is terse. It consists really of four main principles, and I have not heard any successful attacks upon any
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  one of them, either in this House or out of it. The first principle is that industry should be relieved of rates. I will come in a moment to say which portion of industry the Bill relieves of rates, but I do not think the proposition I have stated is seriously contested. The second is that local government areas should be widened; and I do not think that can be contested. These areas, which were fixed at a period and in relation to circumstances which have long since passed away, have now become obsolete. They were fixed in many cases on considerations relating to their proximity to a market town, and the distance which people could travel, and it is quite obvious that some of these considerations must have become illogical in the light of present-day circumstances. The other two features are the transfer of certain services to the widened areas and the measurement of the drafts which local authorities may make on the central Government. These comprise in essence the four features of the Bill; all the rest is detail.
  You may attack the detail, and no doubt much of it will have to be modified, and will be modified, as the Bill goes through Committee, but from our point of view on these benches we have seen no real and formidable attack upon the essential soundness of each of those four propositions. I do not think there has been any attack upon the question of the widening of the areas. As regards the transfer of the services, there can be nothing very wrong in that in principle, because the right hon. Gentleman himself, as, indeed, does his whole party, proposes to transfer the services to areas which are still wider, namely, to the State itself. Therefore, it is not open to the Opposition to use the argument that by transferring certain services to the administration of bodies in wider areas we are losing contact with local needs. That argument may be open to the Liberal party, whose position is different from that of the Socialists. It is open to the Liberal party to say, "You are losing the benefit of close contact with the people by transferring these functions to wider areas," but that is not open to the Socialist party, who are prepared to entrust the most intimate social functions to the tender mercies of the State. That is a proposition which is not palatable on

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  this side of the House, because we feel it would involve an immense increase in bureaucracy, and abolish largely the local interest which is so important a part of the administration of the Poor Law.
  Now I turn to the question which occupies the greater part of the Bill, the question of Government contributions. At the present moment nobody supports the present method. The right hon. Gentleman the late Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. W. Graham) pointed out over and over again last night that the system of assigned revenues cannot be defended. Therefore, that part of the system has no supporters at the present time. The almost incalculable indents which local authorities might make in the future indicates the need of some regulating machinery of the kind which is introduced by this Bill, and that must, I think, be borne in mind in view of any possible decentralisation of social work into the areas. I think the answer to the advocates of the percentage grant system is that with increasing social activities in the areas, the potential demands of the local authorities upon the central Exchequer, necessitating Budget variations, are becoming more incalculable year by year.
  There is everything to be said for some scientific method of allocating grants. Whatever may be said of it in practice, in theory the percentage system must be unsound. It cannot be a sound principle that an area should be able to attract to itself grants varying according to the amount which it can spend. It cannot be fair that an area which cannot supply the essential minimum for the purpose of attracting a grant at all should for that reason and for no other be deprived of the means of setting on foot essential social services. On principle and in theory, the system must break down, and if we can only find some more adequate formula upon which to allocate grants I do not see on what logical ground the new method is not to be preferred.
  It may be said that such a logical method has not been discovered in the formula. That may or may not be true, but at any rate it is the best formula put into the field up to date. I was intensely amused to hear the hon. Gentleman the Member for Nelson and Colne
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  (Mr. A. Greenwood) say on the first day, almost as a caricature of the reactionary Tory who does not exist in reality, that he did not believe in these patent formulas. That is the kind of argument which must have greeted Caxton when he introduced printing. That is the kind of argument with which, no doubt, Darwin and Newton were greeted, and it is somewhat curious to observe what Nietsche would call the transvaluation of values—the Conservative opposition sitting on the benches opposite. Undoubtedly, there will have to be some modifications made in the details of this scheme.
  There is one small matter which I want particularly to suggest to the Minister of Health in connection with the formula. I do not think our case is served by pretending that the formula is scientific, but the basis of the formula is undoubtedly more scientific than the present method of allocation of funds. Once you introduce a capricious multiple you make your formula not scientific but empirical, and it strengthens our case to admit that right away. If it is empirical, you cannot give scientific reasons why a multiple of 10 in any particular class of persons has the precise effect which it has. You might as well ask a cook who makes a Christmas pudding precisely how she knows what quantity of raisins or currants she puts into that indigestible article. When you once admit that it is empirical, you are placing a very great reliance on the Minister, and you are asking for very great confidence in the experts at your disposal. You are asking the people to say that they are right in the figures and multiples they have provided according to which the needs of the various areas have to be determined. There ought to be in the Bill itself some provision for a revision of the working of the formula, and for a reconsideration of the formula by the Minister at the end of the first quinquennial period. I do not believe in giving blank cheques to Ministries, however important and well managed they may be. I think in the course of the Committee stage it will be well worth considering whether the weighty arguments advanced for the maintenance and support of the child welfare centres and the maternity centres should not be given due consideration. The percentage grant system was devised originally to nurture those services until

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  they could be put on their own legs. When such services have become well established, they will not need that nurturing, and they can be dealt with under the block grant system. I want the Minister of Health to consider whether he has sufficient power under Clause 86 of this Measure to deal with the authorities which are not living up to their responsibility in the matter of carrying out those duties. It seems to me to be a somewhat anomalous method that if an authority is not supplying the service which it ought to be supplying, you are proposing to take away all the funds that it has, because then it will be less able to perform the services which it is its duty to perform. I think some additional power ought to be given to the Minister of Health like that which he possesses under the Boards of Guardians (Default) Act, under which he has power to take over the management of certain services in flagrant cases.
  I want to turn to some of the arguments which were presented against this Bill yesterday by the hon. Lady the Member for East Ham North (Miss Lawrence), in a speech so remarkable and so excellent that many of us on this side cannot recall a contribution to these Debates from the opposite side of the House which was its equal. While I feel some diffidence in attacking the hon. Lady in her absence, I must deal with several points upon which she allowed her natural reluctance to accept this Bill to mislead her. First of all, she expressed some doubt as to the amount of the Exchequer contribution in future years. What I would like to have asked her had she been present was whether that really matters. It is clear in the Bill that it cannot be below £40,000,000. Clause 69 makes it quite clear that the ratio of grants to rate and grant borne expenditure is constant and you do not get a complete or accurate conception of the burdens upon local authorities unless you bear in mind that that ratio is constant, and under the provisions of Clause 69 can never be reduced. The fact is that if the fraction to-day is one over four, the fraction 25 years hence will still be one over four. The comparison which the hon. Member for East Ham North made showing the losses which local authorities have suffered under the Agricultural
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  Rates Act is not a fair comparison, and the hon. Member ought to recollect that the reason they incurred those losses was because there was no such ratio employed in either of those cases. Therefore, to that extent her argument is indeed a boomerang on her own head.
  There was another matter with which she dealt with much less than her usual fairness. She spoke of the loss to the different areas within the county areas. Hon. Members will recollect that the hon. Member said that these areas came down with a bump at the end of 15 years. May I point out that it is not one bump but 15 bumps, and the hon. Member ought to have made it clear that only 50 per cent. of the money is taken from the authorities who gain to reduce the losses of others. The position of those other authorities is going to be that there will be 15 bumps upwards and therefore their position is constantly improving. I think the hon. Member for East Ham North might have made it clear that the corresponding authorities were improving their position at different periods during the 15 years. There is one other matter which the hon. Lady the Member for East Ham North did not make quite clear to the House. She gave contrasted instances of certain authorities which were losing (using Blackpool as an example with a reduction of 2d., Bournemouth with 2d., and Eastbourne 2d.), and as illustrations of places where there would be an increase in the rates she gave Blackburn with an increase of 5d., and Bootle with an increase of 7d. The hon. Member did not point out that those figures were not the figures of the Ministry of Health, but were figures which she must have accumulated from the memorandum prepared by the auditor to the Association of Municipal Corporations. She failed to point out that those figures were prepared before the recent memorandum in which the guarantee has been substantially altered, and they were prepared by the actuary whose formula was rejected by the very Association for which it was prepared. Therefore, it must not be taken that the figures which she gave are accepted by the Ministry of Health; in fact, they are at very great variance with the figures contained in the White Paper concerning which there has been no serious challenge.

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  I would like to refer to the type of argument which we have to meet in the country and for which hon. Gentlemen opposite and their party have been particularly responsible. There is an uncanny fascination on the part of the Liberal party for a brewery, and if a brewery can be brought into an argument, it concentrates all the accumulated Radical prejudice that can be poured out upon the miserable Tory candidate. It is a fact that a brewery has always had a most uncanny fascination for hon. Members opposite. The attack which has been launched by the Liberal party against this Bill circles round the position of the unfortunate brewery. It is argued that because a brewery will have certain advantages accruing to it on account of the operation of this Bill, therefore the whole scheme under which industry is divided into productive and unproductive sections must be scrapped, and you must have a system which does not permit the brewery to benefit. Hon. Members opposite have never put forward any alternative. The dividing line between productive and unproductive industry is a perfectly clear and definite delimitation, and it is difficult to think of any other delimitation according to which you derate.
  The gentlemen of the Liberal party do not really appreciate the motive of the de-rating proposals of this Bill. Taking their own account of their alternative, it is quite clear that they do not appreciate the proposals of this Bill. The real motives of this Measure are founded on two principles. One is that the present system of rating hampers the competitive power of British manufacturers abroad, and the second is that the system of rating is very unequal between industries in one area and another. Those two propositions cannot be contradicted, and there is no way by which you can get rid of that unfair burden over all the areas except by treating productive industry as a whole. There is no method by which you can distinguish between one factory in an impoverished area and another factory in a prosperous area. I cannot see upon what principle the Liberal party suggest that we should apply the rating relief to the failures in industry. Up to the present I have not
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  heard of any definite or well-considered alternative which has been suggested by hon. Members opposite. I have given the gist of the arguments which are put forward in my constituency by Liberal gentlemen who come there to try to unseat me, I trust with, up to date, no great prospect of success.
  I want to ask some pertinent questions of the Liberal party as to how they are to frame their scheme so that it will benefit distressed, and only distressed, industries. Are they, first of all, going to set up a clearing house of failures other than their own Whips' Office? For what period is an industry to make a loss before it gets its rate relief? Is it to be two, three or four years, or only one year? And, when it has been determined that it is sufficiently unprosperous to have rate relief, how soon will it become rateable again if it makes a profit; or is there going to be a kind of switchback, by which it gets its rates in one year, loses them in the next, and so on? If you are going to have a system of rating in one year and de-rating in the next, how on earth is any industry going to budget for its own needs? More important still, how is any local authority going to budget for its own needs? Each local authority will have to determine whether the industries in its area are going to be prosperous or not before it knows how much it is going to lose in rating in succeeding years. Again, on what period is the loss to be calculated? Is it to be calculated for a period of one, two, or three years, or are we just going to take a balance sheet at the end of the year and say that the industry has lost money during that year, and, therefore, ought to have relief from rates in the next year? An industry cannot know until the end of its financial year whether it has made a profit or a loss, and the real advantage to industry which accrues under the Government scheme, but would not accrue under a scheme which only gave relief to distressed industries, is that it will receive its benefit in the form of lower rates at the time when it needs it, and not at the end of the financial year when its needs are over. Then there is, of course, the anomaly that the same industry may be prosperous in one area and unprosperous in another. We have had, for instance, the example of the steel industry—

  ROYAL ASSENT.
  Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.
  The House went; and, having returned,
  Mr. SPEAKERreported the Royal Assent to:

  1. Unemployment Insurance Act, 1928.

  2. Coatbridge Drainage Order Confirmation Act, 1928.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL.
  Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  Captain O'CONNOR: One cannot but admit that an interval of the kind that we have just enjoyed has its advantages in enabling one to refresh one's recollection of certain points which are germane to the argument. I was dealing with one or two features of any alternative scheme which did not provide a clear-cut demarcation between productive and non-productive industries, and, from the murmurs that proceeded from the Liberal benches, I gathered that I was misrepresenting their proposals. The unfortunate feature of the Liberal party's programme is that it is impossible to gather what their alternative proposal is. If you are not going to divide industry into productive and nonproductive industry, I would like to know upon what footing it should be divided. At large in the country the argument is freely used, and used with some force, that this advantage is to be given to industries which do not need it. That is an argument which, at any rate, appeals to prejudice, and the case of the brewery is very often used. I pointed out various reasons why no other demarcation between the branches of industry is in my opinion possible, and I was going on to mention, as an example, the case of a steel works which is prosperous in one area, and a similar factory which is unprosperous in another area.
  6.0 p.m.
  Are you going only to subsidise the unprosperous one, and, if you are going to subsidise only the unprosperous one, I presume that hon. Gentlemen opposite, steeped in the Yellow Book, will at any rate pause to ascertain whether its lack of prosperity is or is not due to lack of
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  efficiency. If that is going to be done, it will be necessary to set up yet another Government Department to determine whether industries are being conducted efficiently or not, and it will have to pry into matters concerning their capital, their reserves, and so on, all the matters which determine whether an industry is being conducted on an efficient basis or not. That kind of thing is quite impossible. The case for some general form of rating relief is overwhelming. Anything else produces the most ridiculous anomalies and puts a premium on failure and inefficiency. We saw, a few years ago, the case, for instance, of Messrs. Dunlop, who lost in one year a sum of approximately £8,000,000. Who could have prognosticated that a few years after that disastrous failure they would be making the profits that they are making to-day? It is impossible to delimit industries according to their comparative success or failure. What is prosperous to-day may be unprosperous to-morrow, and I rather imagine that some gentlemen engaged in industry who are magniloquently and beneficently saying that they did not ask for the relief and do not want it will be the very first who will be only too glad to find that their overhead charges are reduced in four or five years' time. But, whether they do or not, the question of whether you want to relieve prosperous or unprosperous industries is accidental to the principle of the Bill. The principle is that you should relieve those overhead charges to the extent of 75 per cent., and it may be said to be no more than a fortunate accident that the 75 per cent. of rate reduction occurs to the industries that are most hardly hit by foreign competition. That is a fortunate accident, but it is not inherent in the principle which subdivides industry according to its productivity.
  Are hon. Members opposite justified in the view that they take about the disastrous effects of comparatively disrating an industry that is prosperous? I remember a short time ago what was, in my opinion, a very well-deserved rebuke administered to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) when he was told that the leaders of the political Labour party were constantly under-estimating the value of the

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  work done by the trade unions, and I agree with him. Is not this a similar case? Are they not under-estimating the bargaining power of the trade unions? Are they not under-estimating the power of the trade unions to secure that, if an increase of profit accrues to an industry on account of dis-rating, that profit shall be equitably divided between all those engaged in the industry? In my opinion, the bargaining power of the trade unions is amply sufficient to ensure that an industry which by reason of its prosperity increases its profits under this dis-rating scheme shall have to disgorge, for the combined benefit of those engaged in the industry, any increased profits which accrue to it, and, if that is so, are we not doing exactly what hon. Members opposite are always requiring us to do? Are we not increasing the consuming power of the people engaged in industry?
  In the case of a prosperous industry, the benefit can only go in one of two ways. It can go either as an increased benefit to the industry as a whole, in which the workers will share equally with capital, or it can go in a diminution of prices, and the competition that exists in industry to-day is so intense that unless the amount is distributed generally in the industry, competition will insure that prices fall as the result of any reduction in overhead charges such as this Bill will bring about. I was glad that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham pointed out, what has not been sufficiently emphasized in the past, that in any case the benefit that would go to a prosperous industry is reduced automatically by the operation of Income and Super-tax by from 25 to 50 per cent., so that the Exchequer gets back a very considerable contribution out of the amount gained by industry in a case where industry is already prosperous.
  Hon. Members opposite are always facetiously solicitous about our comfort on this side of the House. They see divisions where none exist. They see intrigues, which, while popular in their party, do not exist to anything like the same extent on this side of the House. They are looking for a mare's nest if they imagine that there is any real division on this side of the House on the
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  Bill. It has been described as a Bill which comprises the whole work of the Government for this Session, and we are not ashamed of it. At any rate, it takes 112 Clauses and 12 Schedules to comprise our programme for the future of the country to be carried out in this Session. I rather imagine, from the constructive proposals we have heard from the benches opposite, that half-a-sheet of notepaper would serve in the case of either of them. However that may be, it is admitted that, this is not a sensational, spectacular electoral asset. No Government which looks only to popular enthusiasm, to popular uninstructed opinion, would have dared to present in its last Session a Bill of the magnitude and complexity of this. It has requited a considerable amount of courage, for which we congratulate the Government. More is at issue than merely the principle of reforming local government and altering rating and the method by which the national contribution to local authorities is to be distributed. No less is involved in the passage of the Bill than the question of whether prejudice can triumph over the difficulties of expounding a subject, the expounding of which is in the interest of the people as a whole. It is a convenient target for prejudice. Prejudice is being poured out all round, and I cannot express sufficiently strongly my admiration of the confidence and courage of the Government in determining to carry through a Measure of widespread reform which I think will have effects on the history of local government for many years to come.
  Mr. MacLAREN: It is about three or four years since one heard rumours of what was going to take place in the form of some great novel scheme of de-rating. I remember how I, with others, looked forward to some great scheme which was going to rejuvenate the countryside. I gather from what has happened that for two or three years the Ministers of the Crown have assiduously and furtively gone on building storey upon storey of this wonderful structure, and all the time they have carried on behind high walls and closed doors so that the profane eyes of man might not be cast upon the process of construction. Suddenly, these barriers have been removed, and the great masterpiece stands naked before the eyes of men to

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  see. It is a perplexing production, not merely to those of us who wish honestly to criticise it; it is even perplexing those who support the Government. They remind me very much of the Scottish clergyman who, in offering up a prayer, said, "Oh, divine Providence, paradoxical as it may seem to you, it is quite clear to us." The whole thing seems to be paradoxical to the supporters of the Government, and yet they are telling us that, none the less, they are going into the country to advocate this Measure, and therefore they will have to make it quite evident that they themselves understand its intricacies. The Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) last night in an outburst crystallised the attitude of mind of many hon. Members opposite. She shouted to us not to be too inquisitive, not to make too many inquiries. "Step inside, have faith. That is all that is wanted. Step inside and come to the consideration of this great noble endeavour, known as the new rating policy." It was interesting to notice that after she had said she knew nothing about it but still pinned her faith to it, she herself was going to go through the country and support the policy of the Government. I suppose that will be the attitude of many more besides the Noble Lady.
  I want to come to grips with one feature of the Measure. I would not presume to follow the very able analysis of the hon. Member for East Ham North (Miss Lawrence), nor indeed would I attempt to follow the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham (Mr. Webb). I would attempt to converge in my own way on one special feature. It has been said that this is a rating reform Bill. In his opening speech, the Minister of Health reviewed the origin of the rating law. He spoke about it existing in the early days and said that as a ready and rough calculation it was efficient for the purpose in hand. Then, he said, there came the growth of factories. Then he used the novel word "hereditament," which is bandied about in the Bill and which has no legal definition. "New hereditaments appeared on the horizon in the form of factories. These factories come within the ambit of rating subjects." He seems to attribute the bad consequences of the rating
  482
  system to the incoming of factories. Instead of attacking the rating system itself, he seems to think the trouble arose when factories appeared. Further down in his speech he makes this remark:
  "To-day we are faced with this startling fact, that by the effect of this inequitable rating system, carried on under the circumstances of modern competition, we have actually involved in ruin some of our greatest industries."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th November, 1928; col. 87, Vol. 223.]
  That phrase in itself, and the remarks that led up to it, clearly point to the fact that the main trouble facing the Ministry to-day is not new hereditaments coming under the rating law in the past, or even at present. The main difficulty is the operation of the rating law itself.
  The Minister began his historical review with the Act of 1834. I should like to take him a little further back, to the Act of Elizabeth of 1601, and substantially the rating law of that Act stands unaltered in the Statute Book to-day. This Bill, which is put forward as a Rating Reform Bill, is nothing of the kind. I challenge the Minister to say it changes the rating law one iota. I hope he has listened. I will put it again, so that he will hear me. I say that this Bill does not change the rating law one iota. The right hon. Gentleman will agree? He will not? I should like the right hon. Gentleman to say "yes" or "no." If this Bill does not change the rating law, will he kindly tell me why he calls it a rating reform Bill.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope): I think the hon. Member might address me and not the Minister.
  Mr. MacLAREN: I quite agree, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but, through you, I am addressing the Minister. When I see that the Minister is purposely trying to ignore what I am asking him, surely I have to do something. It is very important. It is the major proposal of this massive, abortive and intricate Measure. Ostensibly, it is a rating reform. It is that position which I want to attack. It is not a rating reform Bill; it reforms at no point the rating law, which on the Minister's own confession, in his opening speech in this House, is the thing that has brought the country to the impasse in which we

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  find ourselves to-day. What is the rating law? I hope the Minister will listen to me when I make an appeal through you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The rating law empowers local authorities to levy rates upon a subject according to what that subject may procure from year to year by way of rental. That is the law. I see, I think, one of the Law Officers of the Crown shaking his head. I will give him the definition in distinct language if he wants it. I am paraphrasing it so that it will, perhaps, be clear to the House. The basis of rating is the net annual value, which is equivalent to the rental value, that a subject may procure in the open market from year to year. That law still stands, and it is the operation of that vicious law that has brought us to the position in which we find rates climbing up step by step with the growth and development of industries in this country. It is also interesting to hear Members on the other side of the House tell us on this side of the House how much destruction has been wrought by the operation of the present rating law. They have told us how it has decimated industry and how by a depression of trade in a district it comes hack like a boomerang on to the local authorities. The rating authority must consider what the "subjects" bring in during their present condition. The rates must be levied. The rates climb up side by side with depression in industry. We could have told them that long ago.
  I stood at these benches shortly after the national strike in this country and, I think, I was the only person who went back on to that very question as to how rates inflate the costs of production, how the manufacturers and the mine-owners merge their rates into prices, and how those prices go on to the foreign market to undercut foreign competition. It is interesting to hear that we are being criticised by advocates of this Measure on the other side of the House. Yesterday, many speeches were made from those benches trying to prove, or at least trying to disprove the point that we, or at least some hon. Members on this side, had made that this rating relief, even if it had the effect which the Minister and his supporters thought it would have—suppose we grant them
  484
  everything and said "Yes, this rating relief will lead to a revival in industry, this revival in industry will lead also, as it must if it does revive industry, to an enormous demand for raw material, to a fresh demand for new sites for factories, to a fresh demand for coal, iron and other raw materials to keep the factories going" if we concede all that—is it not self-evident that if these results come to pass the net result will be an enormous demand for land? We have stated that the net result of this de-rating scheme, even if we grant that it has all the virtues that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite say it has, will be an enormous increase in rent. Indeed, it is not a rating relief bill for industry; it is the provision of an enormous subsidy for the owners of raw material in this country. When we tried to make that point at the opening of this Debate hon. gentlemen got up persistently on that side of the House and stated that it was not true that by virtue of de-rating agricultural land the landowners would stand to benefit.
  An HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!
  Mr. MacLAREN: I want to put this point again, because I think I heard some sign of approval on the other side. We stated that the landowners would gain to the extent that we de-rated agricultural land in the countryside. Hon. Members opposite yesterday denied that that would be so. In order to enforce the truth of this, let me quote, not from Labour men, not from men who have not gone into the pros and cons of this very question, but from Lord Goschen, who was formerly a Member of this House. During the time when he was a Member of this House he made this statement:
  "It has been correctly held as an axiom that rates on land constitute a kind of rent charge upon those lands for the benefit of the people. As Mr. Mill says of local taxation on landed property: 'As much of these burdens as is of old standing ought to be regarded as a prescriptive deduction or reservation for public purposes of a portion of the rent.' You, however (referring to Sir Julian Goldsmid), ignore these hereditary burdens altogether. … Your plan includes the relief of the owners from burdens which they have borne for centuries, which they have entered into the selling value of those lands and have been taken into account in every transaction connected with them."

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  Let me take the late Lord Chaplin, who was a Conservative landowner of wide experience in agriculture. The late Lord Chaplin said:
  "The occupier paid a certain sum for the use of land, and in that sum was always considered the rates. But what was the effect upon the owner? If more rates were paid he received less rent. Ultimately the whole burden of the rates fell upon the land."
  I could give many more quotations from well-known landowners who have had experience in the land market. All of them are united in agreeing that rates are a deduction from the rent received by the agricultural landowners, and that where heavy relief is given in respect of these rates it will be to the advantage of the landowner when he comes to call for the rent. I cannot in this Debate give his name, but the other day I was speaking to one of the largest landowners in my own county, and I asked him what benefit he hoped to enjoy from the de-rating scheme proposed by the Government. This is what he said:
  "I do not hope to gain any immediate benefit, but benefits will come to me when I come to the drawing-up of new leases with my farmers."
  It is an unanswerable case that can be advanced by those who are antagonistic to the Conservative party, namely, that relief given in the form of rating relief is bound to appear in the rent. Not only is it true in regard to agricultural land, but it is equally true in regard to urban land. Before I leave the question of urban land, I would like to draw the attention of the representative of the Minister on the bench opposite, when he has ended his little confidential conversation with the Leader of the Liberal party at the moment—no doubt the right hon. Gentleman is giving him a tip as to what course to take after I have sat down—to this little item.
  We are told that by de-rating agricultural land they are going to give agriculture a new lease of life. Frankly, it would be a miracle which would give new life to agriculture. New brains are wanted. Let me give this illustration. I have just received the prospectus of a company which is going to be formed. It is the prospectus of the Buckingham Brick and Tile Company. They are calling for a share capital of £175,000. Of this sum, £60,000 is to be spent in buying
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  the farm of Roddimore, Winslow, Buckinghamshire. The vendor is a Mr. Bishop, and he is to receive £35,000 in cash and £25,000 of stock in the Company. There is a valuable clay deposit lying under the land, and it rises to within eight inches of the surface. This valuable land, worth £60,000, is now rated as agricultural land, and the annual amount of rates is £26. Here is a remarkable asset deemed to be agricultural land at the moment paying £26 to the local rates, and this good, beneficent Government come along and say to this gentleman, Mr. V. G. Bishop: "In order to induce you to be enthusiastic in your support for our Measure, we will absolve you from the payment of the £26 entirely, while at the same time you are holding an asset which has a value of £60,000 and gives you power to demand from the company which you are now promoting £25,000 worth of shares." I would like to know from the Minister how the Government are going to deal with an example of that kind. There are many potentialities in this country immediately under the soil which is deemed to be agricultural land which could be sold in the market for enormous fortunes if they were exploited and where, instead of the owners paying their tribute to the rates on the market) value of their assets, they would be absolved from paying rates. The owners of these assets would have the use of public services paid for out of the rates levied upon the houses of the working people of this country while they would be absolved entirely from paying rates.
  I do not know whether, in a House that has been dissipated with long speeches already and also with the representative of the Government apparently not entirely disposed to listen to arguments, it is worth while giving illustrations of this kind. However, I should like to give another. This time it is one which I should like the respresentative of the Government to face, because it is urban in character. The Government are proposing to give 75 per cent. relief to productive industries. In order to see how the 75 per cent. relief on productive industries would operate with the present rating law in force, I take an example from my own constituency. We have a pottery in the very heart of Stoke-on-Trent abutting on to one of the main

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  streets of the city. The Corporation of Stoke-on-Trent are desirous of carrying out a widening of the street upon which this "pot bank" as we call it—the pottery—stands. The street itself has become a veritable death trap owing to the congestion of traffic. The Corporation of Stoke-on-Trent opened negotiations with the owners of this pottery with a view to widening the street. The pottery in question is the property of Mr. Copeland of Copelands the famous potters. The owners of the pottery have intimated to the Corporation that they will sell the land to them at £10 per square yard. There are over 40,000 square yards of land there which they now hold and on which they have their factory erected. One might say, seeing that they have a great area of land which they value at £10 per square yard, that they have a capital value asset in that land of £400,000. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the square yard frontage?"] I hear a remark about the square yard frontage. I will deal with that point. In order to meet that interjection, suppose I say that it is only a charge for the frontage. We will cut the amount by one-half and say that they will hand over to the Stoke-on-Trent Corporation their area of land for something like £200,000. I made inquiries at the rating office as to the amount at which this pottery was rated and I find that it is rated at £1,471. I asked the valuer if these people had appealed for relief under the Government's forthcoming rating relief scheme, and he said, "Oh, yes. They have appealed." I asked what they would pay in rates then, and he replied that they would pay £390. A sum of £390 in rates for a capital asset which, putting it at a conservative figure, is of the value of £200,000. They will get the relief on the understanding that that is going to help industry.
  Difficulty arises because of the failure in the previous Rating Apportionment Bill. That Bill takes no account whatever of the public factors there. There is no segregation between the improvement value and the value of the site upon which the improvement stands. The Government have gone on the mad principle of accepting the improvement of 'the site as the composite subject. They have made their valuation thereon, and the company whose case I have quoted are
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  now going to the rating office at Stoke-on-Trent and demanding relief on a composite subject which has a capital value of £400,000, and under the rating scheme, and on the understanding that the Government are helping them, they will only have to pay £390 in rates instead of paying, as they would be paying under any sane scheme of rating to the Stoke-on-Trent Corporation, rates on £200,000 per annum. The rate would be levied upon £200,000 if we were sane people dealing with rating law scientifically, instead of allowing these people and others whom I could mention in the same area to stand there in great congested areas holding up the community for blackmail until they get these exorbitant prices from the local authority. I am merely hinting at what any government would have done if they were really determined to reform the rating law.
  It is argued that this is a rating reform, I deny that it is a rating reform, and I ask Ministers to prove that it is a reform of rating law. It means nothing more or less than this, that the rates have gathered like a huge snowball, and they gather, according to the administration of the rating law most heavily, upon the industries of the country, and now this Government, in order to avoid the dire consequences which will be bound to come to the industries of this country if this incubus of rates increases much more, especially the heavy rates upon the depressed industries, are reducing the rates by 75 per cent. and surcharging the taxpayers for the difference. Rating reform, indeed! There is no reform in it. It does not give even the faintest evidence that anyone who had anything to do with this Measure had the faintest idea of rating reform in any respect. It is a subterfuge. It is created in order to carry out the old game of the politicians. Rather than face those great reforms which social justice itself would demand, the Government are seizing upon approximate causes, and attempting an expedient of this kind. This expedient will not carry them very far.
  The right hon. Member for Seaham has analysed the benefits that will be received. Some hon. Members opposite think that his challenge was too sweeping in saying that the scheme will not revive industry, and that it will not do one-half that is claimed for it, but I suggest that

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  those hon. Members will find if they are in this House or even outside it at the end of 15 years, that much that the right hon. Gentleman prophesied to-day will come true. I know that the House resents being reminded of economics, and rightly so, but one may be forgiven if on occasions like this economics are brought in to show where we stand on a proposal of this kind. It is true that if you heavily rate and tax industry, sooner or later it will bring depression upon the industry. It is also true that if you untax and unrate industry, and the houses of the people—we are faced with a housing problem which the Government are trying to solve by subsidising houses, costing millions a year, and yet not solving the problem—it is true that that should give to the industries you unrate and untax an impetus and should give them a chance of meeting their competitors; but if you unrate and untax industries and improvements you must in proportion at the same time to do something to check the haemorrhage of rent which, otherwise, is bound to detract from anything you have attempted to gain by the unrating of industry. That is self-evident in this case.
  I am not going to make the sweeping charge that the giving of certain measures of relief will not seem for some time to give opportunities for industries to step forward, but I do assert that it will not be long until the line of rent rises and takes the advantage of the relief that has been given. It will assert itself immediately in agriculture, when leases are renewed, and it will assert itself when rent fixing takes place. It has been said, and perhaps with some truth, that in their blundering to do something with the rating law the Government have, unconsciously, done something which 'may redound to their credit as a political manoeuvre. They will be able to go into the agricultural districts and say to the agriculturist: "Your arterial roads, for which we pay something like £60,000,000 a year, will cost you nothing. You can have all the public services and they will cost you nothing in rates." That is a way of buying off the agricultural vote at the expense of the taxpayers of the country. It may be that that immoral and indecent practice will solidify the agricultural vote for the Tory party, but it will only he a question of time before the results of this monstrosity—I can find no other word for it—becomes self-evident.
  490
  I say to the Government that they have not cured poverty by this Bill. They speak glibly about abolishing the Poor Law. There is only one way to abolish the Poor Law, and that is to abolish poverty. They are accepting poverty as a providential imposition, and taking the relief of it from the boards of guardians and placing it under the control of the county and county borough councils. But poverty remains there, and the chill hand of public charity is still there. On that line, the Government are accomplishing nothing. The whole scheme has been devised to placate the growing unrest in the industrial areas against the increase of rates, and the Government and their supporters are going out to tell the people that this is a rating reform. I deny that it is a rating reform, and I challenge any right hon. or hon. Member opposite to prove that it is a rating reform. There is no rating reform in the Bill from one end to the other. It is a perpetuation of the old vicious rating system, devised as a subvention to the manufacturers of this country and as a subvention to the agricultural areas at the expense of the taxpayers. What is being taken out of the rates is being put on to the taxes. As the Irishman did on one occasion, the Government have cut a piece off the top of a blanket and have stitched it on at the bottom of the blanket in the hope that by so doing they have lengthened it to cover their nakedness.
  Sir ROBERT SANDERS: We have heard the hon. Member for Burslem (Mr. MacLaren) on similar subjects before, but we have never heard him more emphatic and, if I may say so, never more misleading. I should like to reply to one of the last statements he made, when he said that the supporters of this Bill will be able to tell the agriculturist that he can have the roads and the schools and other things without paying any rates. That is untrue. He will pay as much as the hon. Member himself. He will have to pay on the rateable value of his house. This scheme simply puts the agriculturist on the same footing as every other producer and every other inhabitant in the country. It is simply taking off a burden that was put upon him which was riot put upon any other class.
  I did not expect to find that this Bill would be opposed on Second Reading, because I have been in this House a con-

  491
  siderable time and ever since I first came here Members of all parties have been clamouring to get the burden of rates reduced. That was the one thing which impressed me more forcibly than anything else when I first came to this House. I found that Members of all parties asked that the burden of rates should be dealt with almost before anything else, and that they ought to be reduced. We actually had a promise from the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) just before the War broke out, that rate reduction was one of the first subjects with which he intended to deal. That promise was given at a time when the Labour party was supporting him and keeping the Liberal Government in power. Therefore, I am surprised that the Second Reading of this Bill is opposed. I must, however, except from that remark the hon. Member who has just sat down and the right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) who have always opposed anything that removed the burden of rates from land.
  In previous debates, I have pointed out to the hon. Member for Burslem that, however good in theory what he says about the incidence of rates may be, the history of what has happened in regard to agricultural land is that every time a portion of the rates has been taken off the pecuniary advantage has gone, not to the landlord but to the agricultural labourer in an increase of wages. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] Whatever hon. Members may say, that is historically true. In the case of land and factories we are removing a burden on production. We all agree that everything else depends on production, every other occupation is ancillary—I do not want to say parasitical—to our great productive industries. Every other country recognises this and does something to help production. Most of them do it by protection; occasionally it is done by subsidies. Rightly or wrongly we in this country refuse to do that, but there is no reason why we should do exactly the opposite, and by our local taxation we put more than his fair share on the producer. It is not far from the truth to say that the more a man produces the greater is the share he has
  492
  to pay towards local taxation; and he has to pay it whether he is making a profit or not.
  Mr. MacLAREN: Will this Bill alter that law?
  Sir R. SANDERS: Yes.
  Mr. MacLAREN: Where?
  Sir R. SANDERS: By making this reduction to agriculturists and producers. The one conspicuous exception is, of course, the railways. They have to bear a heavy share of local taxation, but they have to pass it on, and I do not suppose there is any heavier burden upon production than the cost of carriage. Ever since I have been in the House all parties have agreed that the present system is wrong and various alleviations have been made. Already part of the rates have been taken off agricultural land. That was passed by a Conservative Government. Then there is the Road Fund instituted by a Liberal Government, and we have had pensions and insurance. They have all put charges on the State which formerly were borne by local authorities. Beyond that we have had direct subsidies to the rates made with the approval of all parties, and in making these subsidies Parliament has acknowledged that the incidence of taxation is much fairer than the incidence of rates. This Bill does on a big scale what has hitherto been done on a small scale. For the first time Parliament is asked to deal with the matter on a large scale, and I look upon it as the most helpful Measure that has been brought in during my experience. However hon. Members opposite may vote, I make bold enough to say that no Government in the future is going to alter the main principles of the Bill.
  Next to de-rating, the biggest change which the Bill makes is to substitute the block grant for the percentage grant. The hon. Member for Consett (Mr. Dunnico) seemed to think that this would mean that some local authorities would lag behind in a progressive administration of local affairs. Surely that is a reflection on local authorities. It implies that local authorities will not go in for progressive administration unless the State bribes them to do so. That is not paying a very high compliment to elected bodies. I do not want to labour that point. I have been a member of a county

  493
  council for a great many years, I cannot speak as to the towns, and in the county I have always found that there has been opposition to expenditure from the agricultural interest. That has not been without its advantages. It has made for economy, and nowadays economy is not altogether to be condemned. This force for economy will not be quite so strong in the future as it has been in the past. The agricultural interest on county councils has hitherto always opposed expenditure because they thought they had to bear an unnecessary part of the burden. That is taken away now, and I do not think this opposition will be quite so strong in the future. The question of the maternity and child welfare services has been mentioned during the course of this Debate. I am the last person to wish to see anything done that would disturb the progress and the larger adoption of these services, and if by any amendment of the Bill it can be made easier for them to be adopted to a greater extent in the future I hope the Government will give it the most favourable consideration. Clause 48 does something to help in this direction.
  A word now as to boards of guardians. My experience of them has only been in the country, and I do not wish anything I say to be taken as applying to any but the country districts. So far as the country districts are concerned, I regret that their abolition is proposed. Of all local authorities in the country districts there is much less complaint about the administration of boards of guardians than there is of any other council. On the whole they are popular, and are not extravagant. One thing has been pressed home on me and that is that on boards of guardians great importance is attached to parish representation. Those who live in towns perhaps do not realise what a very big thing parish feeling is in country districts. A man is elected for a particular parish and he can speak about any individual in the parish. I live in a small country village and if I wanted to know the circumstances of any particular man in that village I could find out in a few hours. I could not do that in the case of the next parish, and that is a strong reason I think why the Minister of Health, within reasonable limits, should do all he can to get every parish represented upon these new guardians com-
  494
  mittees. That is largely matter of sentiment, but, after all, I hope sentiment will not be left out altogether in dealing with questions of this sort. Another matter of sentiment which has been brought to my notice is concerned with Part 4 of the Bill, where provisions are laid down as to the future of various districts in the county. Owing to these provisions some of the old boroughs are a little alarmed. They have considerable traditions and would not give up their identity for worlds. I hope the Minister will be able to give us an assurance that if there is any question of altering their boundaries their views will meet with great respect by the Department.
  Now as to finance and its distribution. There is no doubt that this is causing a great deal of disquietude in the country side. I do not want to quarrel with what the formula contains. I do not look upon it as being like the law of the Medes and Persians. But most of the reasons set out in the formula for the partition of the grant are reasons which will hold water. It is not with the contents of the formula I quarrel so much as with what the formula leaves out. I do not know whether the Minister of Health realises that a country with a light soil will gain more under the formula than a county with good soil. That is one of the ways in which the formula works out. I take two counties next to each other, my own county of Somerset and the county of Hampshire. The population distribution between urban and rural land, the weighted population as to young children and the present poundage in the rates, is almost exactly similar in both counties, yet the gain that is reckoned for Somersetshire is 15.7d., while the gain reckoned for Hampshire is 58.5d. As far as I can see Hampshire gets the larger gain because its land is worse, and consequently there is not nearly such a large sum to be met on account of the de-rating of agricultural land. The Minister of Health may say, "Friend, I do thee no wrong. Every county is guaranteed against loss." But these are questions which will be asked all over the country, and I must say that I do not see what logical explanation can be given.
  7.0 p.m.
  There is another question not between county and county but within the county itself, and that is the apportionment of

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  the grant especially with regard to non-county boroughs and urban district councils. It seems that it presses exceedingly hard upon urban district councils which are the one authority that has no guarantee that its rates are not going to be raised. They are finding it out. I do not speak as one who has a personal grievance in any way, I do not live in an urban area, and I have no sort of interest in an urban area. But I want to see fair play. Here again a White Paper has been issued. It is rightly said that the figures are only tentative and must not be absolutetly relied upon. They are issued because much less trustworthy figures would have been issued in all directions. But these figures, such as they are, will attract attention and will be quoted all over the country, and you find some very startling examples as to how badly certain urban districts come off. If you look down the list in Cornwall, you find one urban district council after another which will eventually have a rise in rates. Rugby, Warwickshire, is another conspicuous instance. There you get a large increase of 1s. 6d., whereas the rural district council gets a decrease of between 3s. and 4s. It is very difficult to explain all these things. I shall have them brought up against me in my own Division. The borough loses 9d. on eventual apportionment, but its rural district all round it gains 2s. 4d. I cannot explain why this is so; it is not because of the formula, as that does not apply in this case. It is because of Part IV, the Fourth Schedule, which is a different proposition altogether, and which seems to me an arbitrary proposition too. I want to know what explanation I can give if I am asked by the blacksmith in the town why his rates should go up 9d., while the blacksmith living in a village two miles off finds his rates going down 2s. 4d. I am afraid the difficulty will be rather increased by something the Minister is reported to have said the other day. As it was at a Committee meeting upstairs, I do not want to say what I heard, because those meetings are understood to be private. I will simply quote from the "Times newspaper, which says:
  "He asserted that, during the first five years, seven out of every 10 ratepayers
  496
  would gain, while the other three could lose nothing."
  Mr. ERNEST BROWN: He said that in his speech.
  Sir R. SANDERS: Not in his speech. In his speech, he said the first year, but, according to this report in the "Times," he said the first five years. I do not think it is correct, but it is being quoted, and speeches are being made upon it all over the country. That is bound to do harm when it is found out; it is bound to give rise to false impressions. I am sure it is quite possible to get some re-arrangement. I do not want to back the urban districts against the rural districts, but I am quite sure it is possible to get some re-arrangements within the counties. You cannot get equality—no one expects that—but I do not think inequalities ought to be too glaring. What is wanted is more elasticity within the counties. I cannot give a cut-and-dried remedy, because I do not know exactly what is the cause of these inequalities. I fancy it is largely clue to particular districts having an abnormal amount of third class or unclassified roads. No account of that is taken in the terms, not of the formula, but of the formula which applies to this particular case.
  The situation would be eased a great deal if we could have what has been asked for from more than one quarter, namely, a moratorium. I would like to see a moratorium for the next three years on the lines of the first year of the first quinquennium. That would give the boroughs and counties time to see how this thing was working out. If any re-arrangements were necessary, it would give them time and would also give the Government time to consider what rearrangements should be made, and how they should be made. It would also bring us over the next census which will take place before those three years are up. That is a big factor which will have to be taken into consideration in any new arrangements that may be made. I do not throw out this suggestion in any spirit of hostility. I am only putting the real difficulties under the Bill as they appear to me, speaking as a county Member. I believe it is a very big Bill and will do a great deal of good. I believe it will be a very popular Bill, and I

  497
  hope the Minister will not allow it to become unpopular on account of grievances such as I have mentioned.
  Mr. HARNEY: The hon. and gallant Member for Luton (Captain O'Connor) ended his speech by saying that he could see no electoral value in this Measure and commending the Government for having brought forward a very dry and complex Bill solely out of a sense of public duty. I am not so sure about that. The sense of public duty only manifested itself a few months ago. We heard nothing about it before the last election, and it has now taken the form of asking a dying Parliament within its last few months to pass a Measure which the Minister himself describes as perhaps the greatest since 1834, which contains 116 Clauses and 12 Schedules, and which cannot get through unless the Closure is so ruthlessly applied that there can only be the faintest possible discussion upon only a fraction of its provisions. The hon. Member for Luton says that it has no electoral value, but I will put forward a guess as to what happened. In the early part of this year, the Liberal Yellow Book was published and set forth very clearly, through well-known world experts, the grievances of the necessitous areas, and it is quite possible that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was very much impressed, and that what he wanted to do was to bring in a Measure that would remove the grievances in reference to these necessitous areas. But the Minister of Health has for long been obsessed with the idea of great local government reform. He circulated proposals very similar to those that are embodied in this Bill among the local authorities and the local authorities turned them down, mainly at the instigation of Conservatives. The Minister of Health thought that, if he could not get through his local government reform by itself, he would link it up with the electorally alluring de-rating proposals, and that it might thus get through. What has been the result? Though there are good points in the local government reform and in the de-rating proposals, yet in their union they neutralise each other. Perhaps I may apply to them a couplet I read in Tennyson a little while ago:
  "Thou art mated to a clown,
  And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down."
  One is damning the other.
  498
  The hon. and gallant Member for Luton says that he cannot understand why the Liberals are going to vote against the Bill, and he expended a great deal of time and ingenuity in trying to show it was impossible to draw a distinction between a prosperous and a non-prosperous concern. One of the real objections which we have had to these de-rating proposals since the beginning is that they are based upon a false distinction. There is no line which can be drawn between productive and distributive industries, for they are continuous processes. There is no line which can be drawn either on the basis of production between one needy concern and another. You have in one area producers and distributors both hard hit; you have in another area producers and distributors both doing well. What is the whole point about this de-rating agitation? It is this. You find areas in England containing three-fourths of our manual workers accounting for nine-tenths of our unemployment, and you find the rates soaring there. You have to recognise that the very soaring of the rates there had the effect of so raising the cost of production of articles which we exported that they lost their foreign market. The whole cry was: "Get us back our foreign markets by lightening the cost of production in these areas where we are catering for the foreign markets." The Liberal scheme says that the bad thing is not rates, hut high rates. It says that you can draw a line quite practicably all over the country. Below that line you will find the rates that are properly appropriated to local functions; the rates which go to pay for police, drainage, parks and everything else that is purely local. Above that line you will find in heaps and mounds throughout England immense pillars of those rates which are due entirely to national purposes. In these necessitous areas you have masses of the people rapidly coming together as they came under the joint influence of the industrial revolution and Free Trade in past years. They group together quickly. Houses are built. People have to be near their work. In these areas you naturally have congestion of population, high education charges, roads to be built and streets to be made, slums to be cleared and so on.

  499
  Even before the War these particular areas that sprang up in this way had a grievance. When the War came our foreign markets shrank through a variety of causes. Where was the shrinkage felt? In just those parts of England that supplied the foreign markets. What are those parts? Are they the places where there are breweries or where gramophones are made? No; the shrinkage was felt in the necessitous areas, and only there. As the markets shrank unemployment increased. The unemployment was thrown on the rates and up went the rates, and as the rates went up, up went the cost of production. So the vicious circle went round. The Chancellor of the Exchequer: in a glowing passage in his speech on the Budget, said: "These areas are a pestilence. Feeble industries die in them; vigorous industries fly from them; new industries shun them." Those were his own words.
  The Liberal scheme, plain, with no variety of Acts of Parliament, no complexities and no formula, is simple. It is to go through the country and to say, "Show me the rates that are properly appropriate to local work, those that go to meet the requirements of something that is locally ordered, and show me the rates that are piled upon the residents of a locality by reason of an order that comes from Parliament." This House orders that the unemployed must be looked after, that the population must be educated and that there must be roads kept. These areas have to obey such orders. Liberals say that the cost of paying them is a national and not a local cost.
  Captain FRASER: The police.
  Mr. HARNEY: That hardly comes into the case.
  Captain FRASER: Is it not the case that the central Government definitely directs that a minimum police force shall be kept?
  Mr. HARNEY: I dare say it does, and I should be very happy on another occasion to answer my hon. Friend, who is always very courteous, but really the interjection is not for the moment relevant. I am giving the things I have mentioned only as illustrations, and I am not tying myself to any hard-and-fast list of what is a truly local requirement and what is a truly national requirement.
  500
  What I say is that it is very easy to draw a line between them and to let the locality pay out of its finance for what is properly local and the nation to pay out of its finance for what is properly national. There is another big defect in regulating de-rating according to productive industry. You have to shut out of it, by so doing, all the shops and all the households. My own experience, I am sure, is the experience of many hon. Members. Take a distressed area. It is not only the producers that are hard hit. The shopkeepers live upon the wages that the men collect at the factories, and if the factories do not employ the men, or employ them half time, or employ them at small wages, the poor shopkeeper feels the pinch as much as anyone. I ask the Minister, who is going to benefit by this de-rating of productive industry? Let us look at it from every point of view that is possible. Certainly the wage earner will not benefit. The idea, of course, is to reduce costs by reducing one of the items that go into costs. It would be rather an absurd thing to say "We will reduce the item of rates in the cost, and increase the item of wages in the cost." It is not suggested that wages can be raised by the scheme.
  Mr. WALLHEAD: On the other side they have suggested that.
  Mr. HARNEY: I would like to hear it defended by argument. The next question, which was dealt with in the analytical and brilliant speech of the right hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Webb) is, Will this de-rating absorb some of the unemployed men who now disfigure our streets? Let us see. Take the home market. There is a great deal of truth in what the right hon. Member for Seaham said jokingly about the coffins. The coffin makers unquestionably will get a portion of this subsidy, but nobody is going to say that that will increase the demand for coffins. What is true of the dead is equally true of the staff of life. I do not think that all the thousands that will go to the big machine bakeries will cause a demand for an additional loaf of bread. The one person that alone can benefit by a de-rating scheme is the exporter, and it was the view that it would help the exporter that suggested this idea at all. I agree that if your rate reduction enables you to sell at a lower cost and the fellow

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  at the other side of the waters keeps his price as it is now, you have an advantage. But there are two things to be considered. The first is, is the amount of relief that will go to these exporting areas sufficient to bridge the gap that now exists between the foreign buyer and the home seller? I do not believe it is. It certainly is not in coal or in shipbuilding or in ship repairing. So I am told by persons on the spot. The effect, in this case, of the subsidy you give will be exactly the same as it will be in the case of the coffin maker—it will go straight into his pocket and do good to no one else.
  The question has been asked, Is it possible to give £25,000,000 and to get no benefit? It really is. I have recalled the attention of the House to the coal subsidy, and one cannot too strongly keep reminding the House of it. That was a subsidy originally intended to be limited to £10,000,000. It was given to owners in order that they could afford to pay their men a minimum wage and at the same time sell at a reduced price and keep the markets abroad. The people abroad said, "We are not going to be humbugged by a legislative trick of that kind. If our competitors, who are now seeking to filch from us the markets we have won, are enabled by virtue of a subsidy from Parliament to reduce their prices, we shall reduce ours." Down went their prices and down again went ours, until we had to cry a halt to the folly, after paying £24,000,000. In my district the price went down by 4s. 6d. a ton, fewer men were employed after the subsidy than before, and wages were pressed down. I say that the subsidy to be given under this Bill is futile. Of course it is a subsidy, and as such it will be challenged just as the coal subsidy was. There will be no more exporting done as a result of it. There is another question I wish to ask. The Chancellor of the Exchequer held forth, as one of the charms of the scheme, that it would stop the trek of industries from the necessitous areas. Take a necessitous area like mine, where the rates are 20s. in the £. Then take necessitous areas like Brentford, Slough, Hayes and Southall where the rates are less than 10s. in the £.
  Sir WILLIAM LANE MITCHELL: Are those necessitous areas?
  Mr. HARNEY: No, I am giving prosperous areas now.
  Sir W. LANE MITCHELL: You said "necessitous areas."
  Mr. HARNEY: I apologise; I am now referring to prosperous areas. An article appeared in one of the big papers the other day by a special correspondent who went round England and studied this question. He mentions these particular towns in the South and Midlands, and he comes to this conclusion:
  "I have noticed there hundreds of now factories springing up—not luxury factories either, but factories doing the very work that was the monopoly of Durham, Northumberland, Yorkshire and Lancashire before the War."
  Why is that the case? It is because to pay 10s. is better than to pay the 20s. which is imposed on them in the other areas. Then the Minister says that the Government are reducing that 20s. down to 4s. 6d. That is true but they are also reducing the 10s. to 2s. 3d.; and the person about to start a new industry who would shy at 20s. to go to 10s. equally will shy at 4s. 6d. to go to 2s. 3d. and thus relatively the position is untouched. Contrast that with the Liberal scheme. The Liberal scheme would reduce the 20s. to 10s. and would leave the 10s. untouched. The reason the rate is 20s. on the North East coast and in the woollen and cotton centres and such districts, is because these are exporting districts and they suffer from unemployment and it is unemployment that puts up the rates. So much for de-rating.
  Let me come to the local government part of the Measure. We must all recognise that the Minister is an expert on this subject and that he applies to it, not only an exceedingly brilliant intellect but also great sympathies. I have not the slightest doubt that if the right hon. Gentleman had his way many of the defects of the Measure would not be there, but the Bill as it stands is a compromise. The Minister had to give way in order to get it linked with its alluring—or thought to he alluring—sister. The Minister says the purpose is to break up the Poor Law. But you are not breaking up the Poor Law. You are leaving the internal administration of the Poor Law pretty well as it always has been, but you are changing the administrator and changing him for the worse. In my

  503
  own view destitution ought to be dealt with scientifically. Already, what somebody has described as that morass is drained to some extent by the various pension schemes. The pensions system takes a great deal away and if thoroughly developed would take away a great deal more. You have also health insurance which takes away a certain amount and which, when thoroughly developed, will do still more in that respect. The one thing you have never scientifically handled at all is the biggest problem of the lot, namely, the problem of able-bodied unemployment.
  I do not know whether it has been done by design or not but it is a very remarkable thing that the able-bodied unemployed, the very class that ought never to be branded with the stigma of pauperism at all, are the very men on whom you are leaving that stigma. These are not "down-and-outs"; they are fine fellows, thrown out of work because of a policy or policies over which they have no control, and they are the class left under the Poor Law. How is unemployment dealt with to-day? You have, so to speak, two doors. Behind one door there is insurance benefit; behind the other there is Poor Law relief. Whatever the Government may say now about relieving the ratepayers, the whole of their policy during this Parliament has been to drive these unfortunate men from the door of honour, the unemployment benefit door, to the door of humiliation—to the guardians. It may be said that they have reduced by £3,000,000 or £4,000,000 the Government contribution towards unemployment but did the men do without that money? Of course they did not, but they got shamefacedly from the guardians what they ought to have been able to get proudly from the unemployment insurance scheme. Does the cutting down of extended benefit cut down the amount which the men are entitled to receive and which they will receive. Of course it does not. But it alters the door to which they go.
  What is the result? Both the insurance scheme and Poor Law relief have been broken down by the process. You have guardians burdened with debts which they have no chance of paying, amounting to £6,000,000, and you have the insurance scheme only saved from solvency by a Government grant of £30,000,000. What is the remedy? I am sorry to have to men-
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  tion the Liberal party so often, because it may be thought that I am taking purely a party view, though I am not doing so. The remedy is the one put forward by the experts who have studied this question and published their conclusions in the Yellow Book. The remedy is to lift the whole of able-bodied unemployment off local finance altogether and put it straight away on the Exchequer. You have now the machinery in the Employment Exchanges whereby 1,000,000 men receive money throughout the year. What is the use of saying that you cannot administer Government money through the Employment Exchanges, when you have only to add a few hundreds of thousands to the million you are already paying through that channel. That is the simple way to do it.
  Then with your pensions scheme further developed, with health insurance further developed, with unemployment co-ordinated and brought into one simple scheme and financed from the Exchequer, what is left? There is the residue of the poor, the halt and the blind and, in regard to them, what is the use of talking about enlarging areas? The persons to deal with that poor residuum are men and women with intimate knowledge, who can bring to bear the human touch and you want no enlarging of units and no elaborate machinery for the appointment of committees to take the place of guardians. With all the heavy weight taken off, and only these poor dregs left, believe me the small localities would be the best areas from which to select people, popularly, by some form of vote, to look after the kind of work that would then be necessary. I agree that to a mind like the right hon. Gentleman's, orderly and mathematical, there is a great deal to be said for having the large area. But England has evolved itself into counties. It is not like Australia. It is not like a new country which is divided up at a desk according to size and population. The counties of England have evolved themselves through all sorts of accidents and you cannot lay down a general rule for the counties. Take the case of Durham for example. It is said that if we enlarge, we shall spread the distress of one locality over the whole; but in Durham you are spreading the distress among the distressed.
  Mr. WALLHEAD: And in Glamorgan.
  Mr. HARNEY: In Glamorgan it is the same. Instead of having one distressful area you get a whole distressful county. What is more, you withdraw from contributing towards the relief of that distress the very richest and strongest contributors, namely, the big producers. The result in a place like Durham is that your plan will add new and intolerable burdens to village shopkeepers, to householders and to farmers who have to pay on their buildings. As regards county boroughs like South Shields what is the use of talking about enlarging them when the borough is a unit in itself like South Shields? If the unit is bigger than the county borough then, instead of enlarging, you narrow the unit.
  Is the Minister really serious in saying that he is substituting block grants for percentage grants? Is that really what the Government are doing. You still have percentage grants in connection with education and the police. You have also block grants already. What you are doing is this. You are converting the health services from the present percentage grant system to the block grant system and the effect will be to compel the councils either to stint health services or raise the rates. Where there are hard-hit areas they will riot have the courage to raise the rates and, in the result, the health services will suffer. The President of the Board of Education tried this method in reference to education and the local authorities would not have it. Though education is important I would ask the Minister with all earnestness, is not preserving infant life and warding off the ravages of terrible diseases even more important?
  I wish to say a few words on the effect of the combined operation of these Measures. We must look at this scheme not as it is at the start-off, but, at its completed form, as it will be 15 years hence. I have a shrewd suspicion that the Government at first intended to introduce it in its completed form, but found that this would create too much uproar throughout the country. What will it be in its completed form? The Minister of Health, so to speak, withdraws certain grants amounting on estimate to £16,000,000 throughout the country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer deprives the local authorities of £24,000,000 on estimate. That is to say the local authorities are deprived of £40,000,000 between
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  the two. The local authorities are entitled to get that back and it was promised to them that they would get it back. The whole scheme adumbrated in the Budget was this: What we are depriving you local authorities of, you will get back, not out of the taxpayers' pocket, but out of the petrol users' pocket, but you will get it back. Now what happens? They add £5,000,000 to the £40,000,000, and £3,000,000 of that £5,000,000 comes out of the Road Fund, and if it did not the local authorities would have it. This £45,000,000 is distributed, not as taken, but as needed, and the need is found out by a formula that was analysed yesterday.
  Does not it necessarily follow that if you take £45,000,000 from all ratepayers throughout the country and redistribute it, not to the rating authorities from which you took it, but over the whole country, giving more to the needy than to the prosperous, the prosperous areas must get higher rates? There is no answer to that, and it is because there was no answer to it that the Minister found it impossible to bring in the scheme originally in its completed form. He knew at once. Why, nine out of 10 of the constituencies that vote Conservative are in prosperous areas, and Conservatives are not returned by necessitous areas; they are in prosperous areas.
  Sir WILFRID SUDDEN: Except in the Hartlepools.
  Mr. HARNEY: The first thing I want the House to appreciate is this. Is not that really a breach of what was promised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer? If you had told the people in the first instance, "We are going to take £45,000,000 that now would be collected by the local authorities, 16,000,000 coming from London and £24,000,000 from the areas, but we will not give it back to you; we will use what we have taken from you as a. fund with which to water the dry places throughout the country," I think you would have had a very strong feeling indeed expressed throughout the country. It seems to me to be very nearly a breach of faith not to give that money back to the people from whom you take it. The whole trumpet-call that heralded in this scheme was that the taxpayer was generously coming to the relief of hard-hit industries. Is he? Who is coming to their relief?

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  His brother ratepayer. Who make up £40,000,000 of the £45,000,000 that is to be redistributed to the needy ratepayers? The other ratepayers. It is they who make up 43,000,000 of it, because again I say that the £3,000,000 of the Road Fund is taken from the local authorities, because it would have reached them if it were not raided from the Fund; and so the whole provision of the British Government, after all this loud trumpeting of their generosity, is 2,000,000—no more.
  Since the Government had not the audacity to put it forth in its completed form at first, they administered it by instalments. The first instalment is made up in this way. You put the £40,000,000 into a pool, you give back 75 per cent. of it as taken, and that leaves £10,000,000 in the pool. You add to that £10,000,000, the Government £5,000,000, and that puts £15,000,000 in the pool. You ladle out the £15,000,000 under your formula. I could, if I had time—and I will on the Committee stage—have a good deal to say about the many absurdities of that formula, but I do not believe there was a man, not even the Minister himself, with all his clearness of head, who was able to tell how that second ladling would fill up the gap of 25 per cent. that was left after the first 75 per cent. was filled. They got someone in the Department, some of the senior wranglers, to work out in reference to each constituency how they would fare under the 75 per cent. plus the formula, and then they found startling results. They found Rochdale, with a cotton industry, full of workers hard-hit, useful, getting back £38,000 less than it parted with, and Brighton, a pleasure loving city, with no industry, inhabited by persons who are not making but spending money, getting a present of £38,000 1 Seaside towns, residential towns, cathedral towns, all the towns of those who wear silk hats and patent boots—these get the money; but go to your textile towns in Lancashire, and they are all hard-hit. By accident, my poor town of South Shields does fairly well at the start, because miners are fond of children, though in most cases where persons are hard up they cut down their families.
  When this astonishing result was found by experimentally working out
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  the formula, what did the Department do? I cannot fancy the present Minister of Health, because he is too straightforward, but I can fancy that somebody there might say to the Department, "Well, well, well, this is shocking. A big mound of wealth for Brighton, a huge hole for Rochdale, and so on all over the country." I can fancy him saying, "Look here, work out how much golden cement is necessary to fill up all the holes"; and I can imagine the Department saying, "I would not be surprised if a couple of millions would do that." Then I can imagine him saying, "It is coming near election time and we want a little bit of electoral isinglass on the top. Tell me how much more is wanted to give them a shilling a head all through the country." A shilling a head, mark you. Why was not it straightforwardly said, "A shilling a head translated in terms of reduction of rate is a farthing or a halfpenny" I But it looks so well saying "A shilling a head," and they said, "About £2,500,000 will do this job of filling up the holes." So you have another pool of £2,500,000 formed, which is used to right the faults of the formula—taxpayers' money brought over for no purpose that I can see, other than making a scheme that is proved to be defective apparently flawless when it is put before the electorate. That is your second pool. At each quinquennium all the effects that I have mentioned are accentuated.
  Is it right, at this eleventh hour, to foist upon a huge electorate, enlarged recently by 5,000,000, a scheme of this kind, with a few months to discuss it, to rush it headlong through, when only men like myself and others in this House whose duty it is to analyse and dissect and read the literature about it are capable of grasping it? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I have tried to understand it, and I think I do, and I give every other hon. Member credit for having done the same. The contrast I am drawing is between Members of the House and the unfortunate public outside, without these advantages, who are to be affected. I have no hesitation in saying that I shall vote against the Bill. I believe that the Liberal suggestion is plain, simple, and far more effective, and the alternative has already been worked out and can be read; but since the Bill, I suppose, will be carried on Second

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  Reading, we will do our beat to shape their material into some sort of decent clothes. It is not our Bill, it is theirs; it is not, what we would do, but we will do our best to make theirs presentable.
  Sir DOUGLAS NEWTON: As one of those who has had the privilege of hearing the whole of the Debate, I will not take up much of the time of the House by making a long speech, because I realise how many other hon. Members there are who wish to say a few words on the Bill. I think the Debate has made one point clear to the House. That is that in every quarter Members are dissatisfied with the present position of the Poor Law in this country. If we start with that assumption, it enables us to realise and appreciate the great efforts which are being made by the Minister of Health and the courage which he has shown in bringing forward such a comprehensive and far-reaching Measure. The fundamental essence of this Bill is to spread the burden of community services over, as wide an area as practicable, and to make fuller use of the institutions in the country which have been erected for the public benefit and out of public funds. I desire, however, to ask for the indulgence of the House to offer a caveat as to the necessity for making adequate provision in this Bill to safeguard the special interests of certain non-county boroughs.
  8.0 p.m.
  So far as the area which I have the honour to represent is concerned, the Bill places my borough in a most unsatisfactory position, and I respectfully desire to draw the attention of the Minister to it and to ask him for some assurance that he will take steps to meet the special difficulties which have arisen. I believe that this case is uncommon, although probably there may be some other areas which are affected in the same way, though to a somewhat lesser degree. In the administrative area of the Cambridgeshire County Council, there is only one town, namely, Cambridge. The population of the town and that of the county area are almost evenly balanced. The town of Cambridge, as has been done long ago in the case of Oxford, would in ordinary circumstances have been made a county borough, and have obtained the advantages which accrue from that status,
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  had A not been that its creation as a county borough would have entailed paralysing local county government. As a result, Cambridge has had to suffer, and, although it is a large and important urban area, it still remains under the control of the county council, a body which is almost entirely rural in character.
  Under the new assessment, the rateable value of the county will materially fall, and the rateable value of the borough will increase and become much in excess of that of the county. Under the old assessment the rateable value of the county was £319,000. In future, as far as one can gather from the figures of the new assessment at present available, it will be £227,300, a reduction of 29 per cent. On the other side of the picture, the old rateable value of the borough was £442,000, and under the new valuation the figure will rise to £568,000 or an increase of 2S per cent. While the change in assessment has nothing to do with the Bill, yet under the proposals of this Measure the borough will find in the future some 69 to 70 per cent. of any rate which is levied. I was accordingly much interested to hear the Minister say in his speech that it was essential that the body which provides the money should retain financial control. That is exactly what the borough of Cambridge does not get, for the county council is composed of 20 representatives from the borough and 28 from county areas, so the control of expenditure rests with the county and not with the borough representatives. It rests, in short, with those who are resident outside the borough boundary.
  I suggest that under the altered circumstances this will prove an unsatisfactory, and in fact an intolerable position in which to place the borough, and hope that a remedy will be found to meet the difficulty. If it he impossible for Cambridge to become a. county borough, surely it is possible to see that it is given control of the expenditure of the money which it raises This is an important matter, for it is only natural that urban and rural interests do not see eye to eye in regard to various services. In the question of the development of higher education, although a grant is given by the county council, of which the borough finds some 60 per cent., so keen is the borough to see the further development of higher educa-

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  tion, that it raises a special borough rate and adds another £400 per annum out of its own pocket to add to that grant. I instance this to show the different points of view which exist in an important question like education between urban and rural localities. I have carefully considered various steps which might be taken to ameliorate the unsatisfactory position which arises in such an acute form under this Bill. I regret that the borough is debarred from obtaining the only real solution that would prove wholly satisfactory to it, namely, to be made a county borough; but as it is prevented from having that remedy until it reaches the statutory limit of population of 75,000, other methods must be adopted if the difficulty is to be overcome.
  In the Act of 1888 provision is made, although I believe that the power has never been exercised, to readjust the representation of local government areas, and 1 would ask the Minister if he could see his way to give me some assurance that he will be willing to exercise these powers, so as to ensure justice and fair play under this Bill to Cambridge. In doing this, I particularly ask him to consider the possibility and advantage of giving some special representation to the University on the county council, in the same way and in the same proportionate degree as the University now has special representation upon the borough council. If I am mistaken and the Minister has not this special power under the Act of 1888, I hope that he will be able to give me some assurance that he will obtain special powers to enable him to deal with this hardship.
  Speaking from the general point of view, I hope that we shall not look at this great question of the reform of the Poor Law from the point of view of how it affects each parish and each hamlet, because, just as in 1888 the foundations were laid upon which the Poor Law and great public services were built, foundations which have stood the test of time in a most wonderful way and to a remarkable degree, so I hope that under this Bill we are now laying foundations for the continued advancement of the Poor Law and other public services,
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  which will remain long after we ourselves have gone.
  Mr. J. PALIN: I am not going to follow the previous speaker into the realm of finance, because that part of the question has been particularly well covered from this side. When the full effect of the Measure is realised, particularly in business circles, there will be a much bigger outcry against it than there is at the present time. When the relief to industry is worked out in the amount that it will mean on a yard of cloth, I fancy that the textile industry will be in revolt, because it will bring it down to what my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Longbottom) described as an infinitesimal atom. It is doubtful whether it will amount even to that, because when they take into consideration the extra rates which they will have to pay on their warehouses and distributing machinery, which are not de-rated, and the extra rates which they will have to pay on their private residences, it is questionable whether even that atom will be left.
  I would like to address myself to the changes that will be made in local government. Having had some experience in local administration, what has struck me is the hurried and altogether slipshod way in which the powers of the boards of guardians are to be transferred to another authority without any change being made in some of the worst laws that disgrace our Statute Book. One would have thought that such a Measure as the Act of Settlement would have been swept away. Thousands of pounds of public money have been wasted by local authorities fighting each other to determine who was responsible for the maintenance of some poor person. This Act, which was passed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory, is responsible for more vagrancy than any other factor in the country. While the Minister may complain that there is very little interest taken in the election of boards of guardians, I doubt whether there will be much change in that direction in the election of the county councils. As a matter of fact, the boards of guardians elections in many districts were so arranged as to make them of very little interest. Great reliance is being placed upon the fact that some of the guardians may be co-opted on the new bodies, but the very few people who take an active part in the work of the

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  boards of guardians will be still fewer when the work is transferred to the county councils. In fact, I am afraid that in the administration of the Poor Law it will be as though appointed guardians had been placed in command of the administration in a great many districts, for it will devolve very largely upon the relieving officers, who are responsible to no one except the Minister.
  I feel that there will be general support from all local authorities for the plea put forward by the hon. Member for the Sutton Divison of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor), that the percentage grant should be continued for the maternity and child welfare services. I am satisfied, as a. result of experience gained in the administration of these services, that the block grant will slow up, if not entirely stop, development even in the most progressive places, and in the backward places no start will be made. The percentage grant has done a great deal to foster these institutions. They should be continued, because we are beginning to feel the great benefit which these medical services are bringing, particularly with regard to the care of infants. In the city of Bradford, where I have the honour of a seat on the city council, we have just closed a school for the instruction of blind children. About six years ago we had some hundred or more children in that school. To-day we have had to close it, because there were only six requiring special instruction. As a result of the infant welfare work in eliminating ophthalmia neonatorum there is very little blindness now. We have reaped the benefit of this very beneficent work, and to carry it on will mean a very real economy in other directions. Money spent on preventing blindness is put to far better use than all the charitable contributions which the public pour out for the care of blind people. Clause 13, if it goes into the Bill, will also have a detrimental effect upon all the health services coming under the supervision of the Minister. I feel that the local authorities ought to have power to recover money, but that it should not be made obligatory upon them to try to recover it. In his explanatory statement the Minister says:
  "Under the Poor Law there is an obligation on boards of guardians where possible to recover the whole or part of the cost of relief from the recipients or from persons
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  liable to maintain them. Public authorities, while they have the power to secure recovery in this way, are under no obligation to recover the cost of assistance given by them under their tuberculosis, maternity and child welfare schemes, and the practice differs in different parts of the country."
  I do not see the need for the uniformity to which the Minister refers. As a matter of fact, powers similar to those given under Section 132 of the Public Health Act, 1875, and Section 58 of the Bradford Corporation Act, 1925, would give the local authorities all that is necessary to prevent imposition. The Public Health Act, 1875, says:
  "Any expense incurred by a local authority in maintaining in a hospital or in a temporary place for the reception of the sick, whether or not belonging to such authority, a patient who is not a pauper, shall he deemed to be a debt due from such person to the local authority, and may be recovered from him at any time within six months after his discharge from such hospital or place of reception, or from his estate in the event of his dying in such hospital or place."
  Section 58 of the Bradford Corporation Act, 1925, extends the period for the recovery of the money to 12 months. As a matter of fact, Clause 13 of this Bill is worse than the Poor Law Act of 1927, because under that the recovery of relief by way of loan is given as a power and not as a duty, and Section 47 of that Act gives the power to recover from a friendly society annuity or periodical payment, while Section 13 here gives no such power. It is a matter for consideration whether at a future stage such power ought not to be included in Clause 13, because I find by my experience that a great deal of money is recovered in that way.
  It is undesirable to have in one institution two classes of patients, the Poor Law sick and the public health sick. They are all citizens and they are all sick. The same argument would apply to blind persons and people requiring treatment for tuberculosis. Even if this Clause were deleted altogether, would it matter very much? There is nothing free. It is all nonsense to talk about people getting free treatment; they have to pay for it through their rates and taxes. It is a question whether it should not be equally distributed, each one paying his share. There are, of course, mean and greedy people who would take more out of the public funds than they are entitled to,

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  and I suppose we ought to have power to prevent such people imposing on the community, but I cannot agree with the Minister that uniformity is at all desirable. It has taken a great deal of time to work out a satisfactory scheme for the recovery of money for these services, and elasticity is desirable to allow each local authority to have the system which would secure what is necessary without a lot of hardship. While the amount recovered in individual cases is large, the total does not amount to a great deal in the aggregate. The municipal hospital of Bradford cost £100,000 last year. The total recovered from patients was £6,391 9s. 1d., and the cost of recovering it amounted to£450,000. It will be seen that not quite 6 per cent. was recovered from patients. It seems to me that under the present law the Ministry have more power for good, so far as these services are concerned, than they will have under this Bill. At the present time any local authority preparing a scheme which is to carry a grant from the Exchequer has to lay the whole scheme before the Ministry and secure their approval. On the Poor Law side the Ministry have in their employ some very curious people, some very reactionary people; but, so far as I can judge of their public health work, I am bound to pay my tribute to the excellent advice we have received from time to time from the medical men in the service of the Ministry. The Ministry can now do more to mould these schemes on the best and most economical lines than they will be able to do under this Bill. I do not think Clause 86 gives them power equivalent to that which they have now. At present the Minister has to be satisfied with the scale of charges before approving the scheme. I think the Bill ought to be severely amended if the work is to be undertaken enthusiastically by local authorities and if the country is to get the best out of the Measure.
  I am inclined to the opinion that the Minister of Health, instead of settling the whole question of local government and rating reform, is starting a whole series of Measures which will have to come before this House, and it will be a great many years before a final solution of this problem is arrived at. I believe for the moment the right hon. Gentleman is disturbing the whole system
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  of local government in such a way that it is going to be very difficult in the future to get a really efficient system which will have the enthusiastic support of those public-spirited people who are now doing very valuable work in carrying out the work of local authorities. For these reasons, I hope the Minister of Health will seriously consider what has been advanced from the point of view of local authorities although I fear, if he meets all the objections which has been raised by his own supporters, there will be very little left of this Bill.
  Mr. HURD: I wish to put before the House the point of view of the smaller local authorities who will be very seriously affected by this Bill. There is no doubt whatever that no fundamental change in the local government of this country, and certainly no fundamental change of this sort, can be successful without the goodwill and hearty cooperation of those who have given such devoted services on the smaller local authorities. It is vital that they should not be asked to enter upon any new scheme unless they have a desire to make it a success from the point of view of efficient local government. As the representative of a rural constituency, I am naturally deeply concerned, and I am very grateful that this Bill is going to lift the rates from agricultural land. From the agricultural point of view, it is also gratifying to know that there will be some relief in the industrial areas. We believe that this benefit to agriculture and to industry might be knit up with a really helpful reform of the whole system of local administration.
  May I speak first of one point that goes to the root of the finance of the Bill. We have had from the Minister of Health a distinct statement which has been published in the Press and broadcast throughout the country, to the effect that out of every 10 ratepayers seven will gain during the first five years, and as to the other three they will not lose. That security is very much desired and welcomed. I want to ask if that security will be put into the Bill. If the Parliamentary Secretary is not prepared to give me an answer now, I hope, when he replies to the Debate, he will say quite definitely that this assurance which was given so freely by the Minister of Health is to be made a part of

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  this Measure. This assurance has been broadcast throughout the country. I hold in my hand a statement which has been issued from the head office of the Conservative party, in which they say:
  "Mr. Neville Chamberlain has already declared that during the first five years of the scheme seven out of every 10 ratepayers will gain, while the other three out of the ten will lose nothing."
  I cannot find that in the Bill, and I am anxious to know that it will be there.
  I have been engaged all day in conferences with representatives of the smaller authorities from various parts of England and Wales dealing with the details of this Bill which they find extremely difficult to appreciate. One of the most difficult points is the question of the special rates. They are afraid that under the Bill as it stands the smaller authorities will be in an impossible position in regard to sewage schemes and other matters of that sort, where the burden will fall more and more upon the smaller authorities. I shall be glad if the Parliamentary Secretary, when he replies, will deal with that point, which is very much in the minds of the smaller authorities. They want an assurance on that point corresponding to that which the Minister has given in regard to the general rate position.
  With regard to the question of the roads, we have heard from the Minister of Health and the Minister of Transport that the roads provision in this Bill implement the recommendations of the Onslow Commission. That is not the fact. It is a misunderstanding to say that the road provisions in this Bill carry out the recommendations of the Royal Commission. There is a great difference between the recommendations of the Commission and the proposals of this Bill. In the report of the Executive of the Rural District Councils Association, they say:
  "The important difference between the recommendations of the Royal Commission and the proposals in the Bill is that, under the former, delegation would be compulsory and general, the only exception being where the county council could prove that it would be undesirable in the case of an individual council, whilst under the latter delegation would have to be fought for by every district council and might be denied, not on the grounds stated by the Royal Commission, but on a mere theory as to the possible economic effect in the county as a whole."
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  That is a point to which the executive gave their assent to-day. The rural district councils feel that if they are to be no longer highway authorities they should retain their powers of maintaining sold improving roads on the lines of the proposals which had the assent of the Royal Commission.
  This is a highly complicated Measure and is exciting the greatest interest in every part of England and Wales. Most unfortunately, for reasons which I do not understand, it has not been found possible to give local authorities and individuals throughout the country adequate time to consider the implications of a great Measure of this sort. The Bill was only placed in our hands a few days ago, but since that time various authorities have been sending hurried deputations up to London to confer and try to reach some conclusions. To-day the Rural District Councils Association Executive have been in conference all day. The county councils up and down the country have been discussing this Measure. The Non-County Boroughs Association will consider the Bill tomorrow. The point I want to put is whether it is fair to these people who devote their lives to the public service on local bodies that in regard to a scheme of this sort they should not be given ample time to consider it in its fullest implications. It is because of that that the executive council of the Rural District Councils Association of England and Wales drew up this letter which has been sent to the Minister of Health:
  "The executive council of my association have given such careful consideration to the above Bill as the short time at their disposal permits, and they have prepared a report which will he published in a few days. Without discussing here the strong objections which the executive council take to many of the provisions of the Bill the executive council are of opinion that in view of the magnitude of the changes proposed it will be extremely difficult between the passing of the Bill and the 1st April, 1930, to bring all its provisions into operation by that date, and suggest that the parts of the Bill, other than de-rating, should not come into operation till the 1st April, 1931. This will give authorities the benefit of considering the practical effects of de-rating, and thus enable a better view of the situation to be taken in considering the revision of areas of county districts. The amount of work involved will absorb the energies of local authorities to such an extent that they

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  and their officers will be severely hampered in carrying on the ordinary administration."
  That is a statement made by men who are most anxious that the municipal life of England should be efficient. They are most anxious that nothing should be done which afterwards may be regretted, and I commend to the Minister the suggestions contained in that letter.
  Mr. J. JONES: I have sat in this House now for some time, and have heard many Bills introduced. This Bill is not a Bill in the ordinary sense of the term; it is a revolution in the local administrative life of the country and in local finance. I once remember hearing the Minister's father speak on the subject of local government, and he said that, the greater the responsibility that was placed upon people in local areas, with full power to deal with their own problems, the better statesmanship and the better government there would be. What do we find now? After a couple of generations, the successor of that great man comes along and reverses the doctrine, and practically informs us, all and sundry, that we do not know our own business, and that clever people who never did any of this kind of business are going to tell us all about it.
  I come from a district that has often been pilloried in this House, on the theories held by people opposed to us. West Ham has always been a kind of scapegoat for the clever people who do not know anything whatever about the conditions under which people in places like West Ham have to live. What is our position going to be? We are specially singled out. Here is a Bill which is supposed to treat everybody alike, which is supposed to deal out evenhanded justice to all parties concerned, whether ratepayers or local representatives; and how are we being treated? West Ham is the seventh largest borough in Great Britain, and it is being insulted by this Bill. We are being told that we are not going to have the right to elect our own local representatives under the scheme laid down in the Bill. We are told that for a period we are going to be kept in penal servitude under the guidance of the right hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary—or rather, not under his guidance, because he is not the boss; he is only the mouthpiece, the loud speaker.
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  This is our position under the Bill. Although every other county borough in the country will have the right, after this Bill becomes an Act, to elect people to represent it from the standpoint of local administration when all these services are supposed to be co-ordinated, we are going to be kept in durance vile; we are told that we have not brains enough to run our own place, and that it is to be run for us. By whom? By retired civil servants with big pensions—people who know as much about the poor as a Connemara pig knows about astronomy. They are going to remain practially in perpetual office. The guardians of the poor! The robbers of the poor! They are treating the poor as though they were dirt, and I suppose that is the idea of giving them the right to continue in office until 1935, God willing—I hope the people will not.
  Again, there is the great scheme of de-rating. My constituency, generally speaking, from an administrative point of view, is a poor constituency. But if hon. Members opposite, who look upon West Ham as a sort of plague-spot, will refer to the Stock Exchange returns, they will find that West Ham, poor as it is, has a lower debt per head than the great metropolitan area of London. The London County Council's stock stands lower in the Stock Exchange list than that of poor old West Ham. That is because we have tried as far as possible to keep away from borrowing, and, in trying to deal with local administration, have spent money out of revenue, and have not been always going cap in hand to the bank. The result is that, relatively speaking, our rates are high, but our debt per head is low. What is this scheme going to do for us?
  I do not want to mention names—"No names, no pack drill!"—but the facts are well known. You can go from the Iron Bridge at Canning Town, right down to North Woolwich, all along the northern side of the river, and you will not find a factory along that riverside that is not paying a dividend now. We have gone through a bad period of trade, and some of them are not doing as well as they used to do, but they are doing fairly well now. To prove that they are doing well, one of them has appointed Lord Birkenhead a director. If they want ornaments, they will have to buy them. Right along

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  the riverside there, all the firms are doing fairly well. Some of them are doing exceptionally well. One paid a dividend this year of 35 per cent. That is nothing to grumble about, is it? Although, however, they are doing fairly well, all of them are going to have 75 per cent. of their rates knocked off. But what is going to happen to the small shopkeeper in the back street? We do not trouble our heads much about him except for political purposes, but I would remind the House that he is closely related to, and often is one of, the very people who work in the docks or in the factory. His wife looks after the shop while he goes stevedoring or docking. He will have to pay the full rates, and no relief will come his way; and so will the ordinary workman. If the assessments are increased, as they are being increased under the new Act, it means that rents will go up, and even one of our principal opponents in West Ham has admitted that the average increase in rents in West Ham, as a consequence of the new scheme of assessment, will range anywhere between ½d. and 1s. 6d. per week. What is the good of telling these people that the factories are going to have 75 per cent. of their rates knocked off, when a man who works in the docks or gets a precarious living by keeping a small shop in a back street has to pay up to 1s. 6d. extra in rent in order to make up the deficiency?
  Then I should like to refer to the case of West Ham in another respect. Under this scheme, as I understand it, the county borough will become the board of guardians, and will be responsible for Poor Law administration in the future. The situation of West Ham is peculiar. The union used to consist of eight parishes. In addition to West Ham, the largest parish and the largest industrial centre, we had East Ham, Leyton, Walthamstow, Leytonstone, Woodford and Wanstead. Now seven of the eight parishes are going to be cut away from West Ham. West Ham is a city of the poor. Up to the present time there has been a fairly good understanding between the various parishes, but now automatically they are going to be cut off, and in West Ham, again, the poor will have to keep the poor. Our rateable value will be cut down, because the great manufacturers will not have to pay in the future
  522
  what they have paid in the past. Who is going to make up the difference?
  Another question that I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary, who is going to reply—if he will condescend to reply to anything that I may say—is, what about the institutions? We have only one institution in our own area that was in existence before the introduction of this Bill. When this Bill becomes an Act, most of the institutions will be automatically placed outside our area. Where do we stand in connection with those institutions? Shall we have to build a new workhouse because the old workhouse is not within our own area, but goes into the area of another authority? Will they have to take charge of the institution, and how do we stand in regard to getting a new one? Our infirmary, also, is outside our own boundary; what is going to happen as regards the responsibility for its maintenance? It is one of the finest in the country. Poor as we are, we have done our best to see to it that, so far as our powers will allow, the best treatment is given to the sick poor, and our institutions will compare favourably with any hospital in the country. What will happen to us there? Shall we be called upon to build a new infirmary because the old one is outside our purview and not under our control? What will be our financial relationship to these authorities outside our own localities? These questions will not be answered in detail. We do not expect them to be, but we hope before the Bill is placed on the Statute Book that we shah get an understanding as to where local authorities stand in connection with these great responsibilities.
  Then there is the question of the unemployed. Automatically now, without regard to what may happen in the future, every day hundreds of men are being disqualified from benefit at the Employment Exchanges. I am getting sick and tired of sending in complaints, because I get almost always the same stereotyped reply. They come to my house, and they see my wife when I am not at home. She was a member of the old guardians. Automatically, people are being disqualified even from receiving Poor Law relief. They have been told, "You can have an order to the house," and the people who give that instruction know

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  very well that there is no room in the house. It is already full up. But, banking on the possibility of refusal, they say "We have no responsibility in the matter. The applicant has refused an order to the house." They have been disqualified from unemployment benefit, and they are refused outdoor relief. What is to happen to them? The poor have to help the poor. The able-bodied son or daughter has to go and plant himself on the father, who is earning very scanty money. It is all part of a system, a calculated system of brutality, and this Bill is introduced for the purpose of maintaining and developing it. If they think that they are going to carry it through without a fight, I hope it keeps fine for them. We are not going to stand for this sort of thing. It is not reform of the Poor Law, it is not reform of local admininstration; it is simply an attempt to throw dust in the eyes of the people before they begin to understand exactly its implications. It is not peculiar. It is part of a policy. If the Bill were really necessary, it should have been the first Measure that the Government introduced.
  I have been a member of a board of guardians for a period and an inmate of a workhouse before that, and. I have been in other institutions kept by His Majesty as well. I know them all, both from the standpoint of being an inmate and an administrator. The people who drew up this Bill have never had any experience of administration either from outside or inside. We shall amend the Bill if possible, though I think it is really beyond the possibility of Amendment. In places like the East End of London, we have faced the burden until now. Relief is not going where it is wanted. It is going where it is not needed, and it is no wonder that they are throwing bouquets at the right hon. Gentleman who is responsible for bringing it in. They can always get what they want. They can always put the screw on; we cannot. When we do anything to help our own people we are charged in West Ham by hon. Members opposite with giving relief indiscriminately to people who do not want it. What are you doing here? To give 1s. or 2s. a week to a man with a family was looked on as corruption, and our guardians were defaulters and
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  treated as criminals. What are you doing? You are giving away millions of public money to people who are not in need of it. We are told in places like West Ham that if we give a job to a non-unionist we are guilty of an act against the public interest. What are you doing? You give them pensions and jobs on top of it, and we are not supposed to ask any question about it. We are going to fight this Bill every inch of the way. We know before we start that we are beaten by the strength of the votes in the House.
  Mr. LANSBURY: You are not sure.
  Mr. JONES: I am not certain, but I have my ideas. I am confident that when the people of the country know all that the Bill means they will be on our side against those who have brought it in. I should like to refer to the speech of the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Harney). I agree with almost everything that he said, but I would remind him that, even before the days of the Liberal party taking such a great interest in these social problems, some of us—I have been at it for 37 years—were advocating the same thing that he has suggested to-night, that national responsibilities should be nationally borne. Such questions as Poor Law, education, and things that could be described as national should be borne as national responsibilities, and no longer placed on the shoulders of the local authorities. At that time, we were in the wilderness. All the big towns were against us, and, when we went to meetings of the Poor Law Association and the Municipal Corporations Association and other authorities with which we were connected, and moved those resolutions asking the Government to make national responsibilities really national, and leave to the local people only those things that could properly be described as local, we were sneered at by some people who to-day have come round to our side, because they find themselves in the cart now, as we were in the cart then. Eighty of the large cities and towns are in the same position as West Ham was in 30 years ago. We had to fight the battle on our own. Even the most reactionary politicians sometimes learn sense.
  We in West Ham have been pilloried long enough. We resent this perpetual attack on us. Here we are singled out

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  again in this Bill. Are you not satisfied with the punishment you have already meted out to some of our people? You have told them practically that they are unfit to administer the law, and now in this Bill you want to perpetuate the scandal. We challenge you, if you have any charge to make against our people, to take them into Court and prove where they have done wrong, where they have committed any offence against public decency and national order. They have not done anything. Their only crime is that they have been sympathetic to the poor. They helped the poor, because they understood their needs. These people come along now, and we get stereotyped replies, and we are referred to the officials. I am not going to trust these people. I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts. All the actions of the Government up to the present have been in the direction of reaction. We may not be able to alter the Bill, but we will show the people outside, who are the masters of the situation, that the Government are not dealing seriously with the problem. It is simply creating a barrier against those who may succeed them—salting the earth against their successors, whoever they may be. We do not know what may happen at the next election, but we have hopes. I am an optimist, but I do not spell it always with an "h."
  I ask the House to realise that this Bill, big as it is, is very small in reality. It is an attempt to restore pariah pump politics in opposition to the great mass of the workers of this country. It is an attempt to make reaction more powerful in the future than it has been in the past. But I think that it is being introduced at the wrong time. The people are just beginning to awaken to a sense of their power and responsibility, and, when the opportunity presents itself, I am absolutely confident that the overwhelming mass of the people of this country will reject the legislation for which this Bill is responsible, and also reject the legislators who are responsible for it.
  Captain GUNSTON: I am sure the House always listens with great pleasure to the speeches of the hon. Member for Silvertown (Mr. J. Jones), but I cannot help thinking that, although we all admire and like him very much, he was a little ungrateful to-night, because, if he will look in the White Paper, he will find that
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  West Ham stands to gain not only by having its industries de-rated, but stands to gain not less than 31 pennies per head of the population. I do not think that the hon. Member will refuse. I think that West Ham will be very pleased with what it can get. I would like to turn for a few moments to some of the very interesting remarks which were made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham (Mr. Webb). As far as I can understand, he criticised the financial part of the Bill, but appeared to be very disappointed that the coffin industry will not have enough. I am afraid he must have overlooked the words of the Amendment moved by the Labour party, because it says:
  "A proposal calculated to increase the already high mortality amongst mothers."
  I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham cannot agree with that part of their Amendment. I want for a few minutes to turn to health services. I think that one of the most interesting parts of our discussion on this Bill has been in regard to block grants as opposed to percentage grants. As far as I can make out, the argument appears to be that by percentage grants local authorities are encouraged to spend money, and rightly, because they will get so much of it back from the Treasury. As a matter of fact, though you may get 75 per cent. or 50 per cent. from the Treasury, the amount that the local authority in a distressed area may have to find may be a very onerous burden. If hon. Members will look at the figures for Gateshead, for instance, they will find that Gateshead, which has a population of 14,000 children, actually received for maternity and child welfare the sum of only. £1,600 under the present percentage grant, while Bournemouth with 5,000 children received £2,900. Can anybody possibly defend the present system in relation to these figures?
  9.0 p.m.
  If we turn to the White Paper, I think it will be recognised that Gateshead show a very good example. Under the new proposals Gateshead will get 117 pennies per head of the population, and this works out to something over £50,000 a year. Surely, Gateshead, which is getting an extra £50,000 a year, will be able to spend more on infant welfare. I think the mere fact that Members on all sides of the House have brought up this very question of

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  infant welfare shows that, when local authorities get more money to spend, public opinion will insist that part of it, at any rate, is spent on maternity and child welfare. I notice that many of our opponents evidently think that it is wrong that we should ask local authorities to recover some of the money spent on maternity welfare or on the various institutions which the county council or the county borough are going to take over. I personally believe that the recovery of money according to the ability of a patient to pay will largely be the factor which is going to break down the old idea of pauperism.
  I should like to give an instance of what happens in that part of the country where I live. I live in an old village in Gloucester, and very often persons will ask me if I can get their husbands or their wives, as the case may be, into hospital. What do we find when we are asked to do that? We invariably find that the hospitals are full and that there is a long waiting period—very often, it is a very urgent case—before a person can get into the hospital. At the same time, we find that in many Poor Law infirmaries in different parts of the country there are beds available. I am sure that Members in all parts of the House will agree that the right thing to do is to make these institutions available, and, if necessary, to turn them into specialised hospitals. In maternity cases, the ambulance can come along and take the patient to a specialised maternity hospital, and by this means perhaps save the lives of both mother and child. In place of using these institutions to-day under the Poor Law, we are going to get an amalgamation and an improvement. But one of the difficulties ahead of us is going to be to get the people to use these institutions, because it does not matter to which part of England one may go there is a horror of the idea of the workhouse. I respectfully suggest to hon. Members that we have to get away from the idea of pauperism, and we have to get the people to look upon these infirmaries and institutions as the proper hospitals of the poor of this country. I suggest that making a small charge, making a person pay according to his needs, will be one way of getting rid of the taint of pauperism.
  Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN: Would the hon. and gallant Gentleman expect the rich to go into these hospitals as well?
  Captain GUNSTON: The right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Seaham, seems to object that the rich should be made to pay.
  I want to turn for a minute to a noncontroversial part of this Bill, and that is Part II. Part II deals with the registration of births, deaths and marriages. I had the honour of introducing the Bill dealing with this subject in the House of Commons last Session, and everybody on all sides of the House was very kind in supporting the main principle of that Bill. It is true that many hon. Members thought that some of our details were not quite right. If I remember rightly, the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) said that I was trying to do the right thing in the wrong way. However, he and other hon. Members thought that it was very necessary to try to remedy the injustices of the present service, and we co-operated in getting the Bill through the House of Commons. I am sorry to say that our little ewe lamb suffered a painless and expeditious death in another place. I like to think that, perhaps, the executioners, in the hurry of their errand of mercy, did not make too good a use of the humane killer and that, consequently, a spark of life was left. We are all grateful that the Minister of Health, among his many other faculties, has discovered the faculty of restoring our little ewe lamb to life, and I, as the Parliamentary foster mother, desire to thank him.
  When we discussed this private Member's Bill last Session, we discovered that the officers of this registration service were paid on a sort of piecework basis, but piecework which was quite different from any in our experience. It. was piecework which had no resemblance to the work performed or the responsibilities undertaken. For instance, a registrar of births and deaths receives 1s. 3d. for every death he registers, and for that purpose he has to have a very complete knowledge of the law, because on his action depends the making up of the registration system of the coroner's courts. At the same time, if he should give a certificated copy of an entry in his

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  books, he gets 2s. 6d. for the certificate. We also found that among his other duties is that of attesting marriage notices, and for that he has to have a complete knowledge of the marriage law, but he is not paid for doing it. We found that the only guarantee he had of getting a living was a fee monopoly of his own earnings. We found that those fees have varied very much in the last few years and that when a man was appointed he never knew what fees he was going to get. There might be a great housing scheme coming up in one area which might bring a certain amount of good remuneration to the registrar, but on the other hand there might be a slum clearance scheme which would take most of his profits away.
  Everybody, on all sides of the House, agreed that the best thing to do was to put this service on a salaried basis. Our Bill would to a certain extent have remedied the grievance; but it would only have done so gradually. In Part 2 of the present Bill the Government are going much further in advance, and when a vacancy occurs, the county council will automatically make the office a salaried office. The guardians who used to appoint these officers had no discretion once they were appointed. True, they were responsible through the rates for paying certain statutory fees. In future if the county council is to be responsible for paying salaries, I do not think it can be resisted that the county council must have a good deal of say in the arrangement of the area. It is proposed by Part 2 of the Bill, as I understand it, to make the clerk of the county council the head officer of registration in that area, or the clerk of the county borough council or borough council as the case may be. If I remember rightly the speeches of the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley, I think that proposal will very largely meet his views. I think the hon. Member has kindly said that he will support this part of the Bill.
  The question was also raised during last Session that we ought to amalgamate this registration service with various other services, so that a man could, more fir less, get a full-time job. In Part 2 of this Bill it will be found that the clerk of the county council can amalgamate the registration service with various other services. I believe the most suitable amalgamation would be with the electoral
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  officers. To get a satisfactory service it will be necessary to have an alteration of the present boundaries and to abolish the watertight compartments; but it is not possible to do that at present because the officers of this service will carry out the Census. Therefore, the reorganisation of these services has been postponed until 1932. As was pointed out on the last occasion, these officers have for nearly 100 years been getting more or less the same scale of remuneration, and many of them are to-day getting less than they received before the War. It is proposed that the Ministry of Health shall have power to raise the fees by 50 per cent. The Registrar-General will collect the fees and the fees will be paid back to the counties in which they are earned. Although the county council get considerably more powers under Part 2 of the Bill, it is necessary that the service should remain under the Registrar-General for the purpose of administration. It is very necessary that he should be in control and see that the registrars carry out their duties exactly in the way that he prescribes, and for this reason, that an entry in the registration book is evidence in a Court of law for all time. Therefore, we have to see that the entries are entered just as the central authorities require.
  On behalf of the registrars, may I say how grateful we are to the various political parties in this House for having said that they will do their best to see that this part of the Bill becomes law. It is quite uncontroversial, and I believe that when this part of the Bill becomes law, the people of this country, through their representatives in the House of Commons, will at long last be able to do justice to a service which for many years has done good work in the country, whose officers have worked under great disadvantages but have never complained and have always carried out their duties in the way required.
  Mr. TOMLINSON: The speech with which the Minister of Health proposed the Second Reading of the Bill revealed an unrivalled knowledge of the subject with which he dealt, and also revealed a great desire to improve our system of local government. Whether the effects will be such as he anticipated, is another matter, and it is there that we join issue, because there are many of us who have had experience in local government work,

  531
  especially on the small authorities, who are very much afraid that the effect of this Bill will not work out as satisfactorily to those small authorities as the Minister seems to imagine. I wish I had time to put the case for the local authorities from the financial standpoint. Obviously, the time at my disposal makes it quite impossible, but I shall look forward with great pleasure to an opportunity during the Committee stage to deal with this aspect of the proposal.
  I listened with great interest to the Minister when he was dealing with the defects in our local government system. He divided them into five different sections, and he put first the continuance of Poor Law administration. He used words which in my judgment could not have been more unfortunately chosen. He said that a continuance of the present system would lead to confusion, waste and inefficiency. As one who has had an intimate knowledge of the work done by Poor Law guardians in the North-West district of Lancashire I say that the work done has not been characterised by "confusion, waste and inefficiency," but by orderliness of administration, rigid economy and efficiency of the services that have been rendered. I wish I had time to pay my humble tribute to the work that is being done by the men and women in that particular area with sympathy and discernment, and with great satisfaction to all those who are influenced by the work. I quite agree with the suggestion that has been made on more than one occasion during the Debate that the problem of dealing with the relief of the able-bodied poor ought to be taken out of the hands of the Poor Law guardians and made a national charge. A very strong case can be made out for such a proposal, and if the Government had only brought in a scheme making some such provision for the able-bodied poor the work that is now being done by boards of guardians, which it. is proposed to hand over to an already overburdened authority, might have been carried out much better by them than by the bodies to whom it is proposed to entrust it.
  I wish hon. Members had had the privilege as I have had during the last few
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  weeks of seeing boards of guardians in Lancaster and Garstang and the Fylde at work. As I sat in a relief committee and house committee and a finance committee I was greatly impressed with the skill and ability with which these questions were dealt with and the sympathy and evident desire to do what was in the best interests of those who, unfortunately, had to receive help from these authorities. I can conceive of nothing more sympathetic than the way in which the master of one of these unions reported cases that had come in during the week. In that particular union the house committee meets every Tuesday afternoon, and when a case was referred to one of the members, would say, "What has this person come in for," and the master replied, "She needs rest and a little comfort." I felt certain that that is just what she would get; and I maintain that these services have been carried out sympathetically and with great discernment, and with a personal knowledge which will be quite impossible if the work is in the hands of the county council. A suggestion has been made that the Public Assistance Committees should appoint a guardians committee, and the Minister of Health attaches the utmost importance to the name guardians committee. He said that we ought not to flout sentiment, but the right hon. Gentleman is flouting boards of guardians, and I am wondering whether it is not the misdoings of just a few boards of guardians which has brought under suspicion the actions of the many. I contrast the change: if 10 righteous men could have been found the city would have been saved, and this case, that because 10 unrighteous unions have been found the dictum of the Minister has gone forth that the 636 other unions shall perish.
  I want to appeal to the Minister to consider during the Committee stage whether it would not be in the best interests of those who will have to be helped in some way that they should be brought under the care of these guardians who have had such a long experience in their work and who have done their work so well rather than under the care of committees set up by the county authority. I ask him to consider whether under this new system he is likely to

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  attract the services of men and women of the same calibre as those who have been engaged in it if they know that the county council will take charge of institutions, direct policy, deal with all questions of finance and appoint all officials, and only leave to the guardians committees the work that is being done by relief committees. If such a proposal had been brought forward by the Front Opposition Bench, a proposal to abolish boards of guardians, what an outcry we should have heard from hon. Members opposite who represent the county authorities. I am filled with admiration at their loyalty to their party, but I am wondering whether they have not received, as I have, strong resolutions from boards of guardians urging that they should be continued. In my judgment the work they are doing is of sufficient importance to be carried out by an ad hoc authority directly responsible to the ratepayers who provide the money.
  It is impossible for me to deal with the other great question of highway administration. That was the point on which I intended to speak to-night, but I shall have to defer it until some other opportunity. I want to remind hon. Members, and I can do this as I have been called by you. Mr. Speaker. I want to remind hon. Members, and also those who have spoken in this Debate, that it is difficult for all hon. Members who want to speak, when those who are called take such a long time. I have an opportunity of showing that I recognise the claims of others, and although there are many other points I should like to have raised, I realise that it would be very unfair to other speakers for me to take a minute more than the time allotted to me. In conclusion, may I make an appeal to the Minister of Health to give this question his consideration. I have not said too much about boards of guardians because I have not come to bury them; I have come to try and save them. When these matters are considered I hope the Poor Law administration will continue to be in the hands of those who have dealt with these difficult questions so efficiently in the days gone by.
  Mr. LANSBURY: I should like publicly to congratulate the right hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Webb) on being able to be present on the occasion of a Debate of this kind and to take part in
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  it as he has done to-day. Anything that is of any worth in this Bill—and, as he says and we all say, there are parts of it with which we entirely agree—the House and the country owes to the genius of my right hon. Friend and his brilliant wife. I think the unselfish work that these two fine public-spirited people have done merits some word of congratulations from this House. As I am one who has received from both of them unbounded help and assistance in the work in which I have been trying to take part for nearly 40 years I feel particularly proud that I was present to hear his speech and to be able now to say these words of public thanks to him for all the work that he has done in this direction.
  This Debate has been notable for the fact that every speaker on the Government side has criticised the Bill—some of them more and some of them less—with the exception of the hon. and gallant Member for Thornbury. (Captain Gunston) and he apparently rose to tell us about that part of the Bill dealing with the registrars, about which there is no controversy. There is no controversy about it, because the Government have accepted what they violently denounced upstairs when I advocated it last Session. I was very glad to-night to hear the hon. and gallant Gentleman make the speech which he did on that part of the Bill. I wish further to call attention to the quotation about which there was some dispute when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham was speaking. He quoted, as the House will remember, from the report on the state of public health by the Chief Medical Officer, and the part that he wanted to quote and which at the moment he was unable to find because the book had disappeared was this:
  "There can, I think, be no doubt that the percentage Exchequer grants-in-aid of health services, tuberculosis, maternity and child welfare, welfare of the blind, venereal disease, mental deficiency, and the school medical services, have been of the highest possible value and incentive during the last 15 years in getting special medical services into operation and in guiding their direction."
  The part that my right hon. Friend could not for the moment find was as follows:
  "These two advantages would not necessarily be lost by a system of quinquennial

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  block grants, though some definite adjustment of administration would be necessary to secure them."
  The right hon. Gentleman will not contend that under this precious scheme there is going to be any definite allotment for maternity and child welfare services. Therefore, his interruption of my right hon. Friend was quite unwarranted. I repeat that there is no such proposal in this Bill, and the right hon. Gentleman, when he comes to reply, instead of riding off on some side issue, will very kindly tell us where it is laid down in the financial scheme that there shall be a special part of the money paid to the local authorities devoted to this particular work.
  The other thing I want to say is that the House and hon. Members who are interested in maternity and child welfare have no need to wait to know what the policy of the right hon. Gentleman is on this subject. He makes grand speeches outside this House about his interest in this question of child welfare and conditions of motherhood. What has he done this year? He has cut down the Exchequer assistance to the local authorities who administer this work. He knows perfectly well that in London and elsewhere the Government give grants of just 50 per cent. of what the local authorities are spending. He has been appealed to again and again by deputations from borough councils and mayors against any reduction and yet he has reduced the grant, this is what he has done: An authority wanted to spend £6,033; that would have meant that the Ministry would have given a grant of £3,000. He has cut down the grant so that he will only pay on a gross sum of £2,800, and children and mothers will get not £6,000 worth of milk but only £2,800. I say that for the right hon. Gentleman to stand at that Box and pose as someone interested in the welfare of little children and mothers is something of a scandal when he is responsible for a circular such as that. He has already cut down the assistance to Maternity and Child Welfare Centres, because, as he told a deputation, he had to economise somewhere, and so he economised on the life and welfare of very little children.
  I want to say one or two words upon the rates question. With regard to the
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  formula, I am in the same boat as other people; I do not know very much about it. The formula is one thing, but, when it comes to practice, that is another. You are going to take away from Poplar one-quarter of our rates. We contend that the only fair, logical and just thing to do is to give us back that money and just simply to say: "We are relieving these people, and we are relieving them from a national point of view and to the national advantage, but here is the money that we are taking away from you and which we are relieving them from paying." The right hon. Gentleman or his colleague cannot get away from this fact, that were it not for the centralisation of the Poor Law in London, Poplar, and other districts like Poplar, would lose very considerably on this transaction.
  There has been a great deal of argument as to why you should give money to the failures in business? Who is asking you to give money to failures in business? You are doing it anyway. Under your scheme, you are subsidising those whom you are calling failures. If you take our district, there is one big firm, apart from the dock authorities and the railway companies. They will get relief under this scheme, and, when you come to consider what the rate charge is on their business, it is so infinitesimal that there is no chance at all of seeing that it can be applied in any sort of way to the assistance of industry. The facts are that here is a firm, which is one of our biggest ratepayers, and it is paying at present £2,634 a year in rates. The firm's turnover is hundreds of thousands of pounds, and they employ thousands of people. Next year, in April, when the de-rating of machinery comes in, they will save £500 a year on that. That will bring them down to £2,113. When the de-rating scheme under this Bill comes into operation the firm will pay only £528. I want to join with my hon. Friend the Member for Silvertown (Mr. J. Jones) in asking the right hon. Gentleman, when he replies, to tell us what is the difference between giving Messrs. Bryant and May that relatively huge sum when they do not want it, and giving a poor out-of-work man with a large family 2s. or 3s. a week extra relief? There is absolutely no answer to that, and I challenge the right hon. Gentleman, if he thinks he has an

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  answer, to stand up and give it to the House when he replies.
  We have always heard in Poplar, and in the country, this cry of high rates. I am one of those who, in spite of everything that has been said, stand by the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden). The incidence of rates on occasion is very heavy and very bad in certain districts, but I stand here and say to any ordinary business man that in the average business the rates are not the terrible burden that some people contend that they are to-day. [Interruption.] I am speaking about Poplar. I have lived there for nearly 50 years. Hon. Members may have a theory, but I know the practice, and I say that in Poplar to-day, whatever there is of bad trade, whatever there is of empty property, is due not to high rates at all, but to conditions connected with trade and industry with which rates have nothing whatever to do. For instance, there is a big brewery, one of the biggest breweries in the East End of London, that has just closed down. It has closed down because of a big amalgamation with another firm, by which it can save considerable money. Then we have the Port of London Authority. We lost last year £60,000 of rateable value. What for? Not at all because the Port of London Authority was driven out of business by high rates, but because of a change in shipping, because bigger ships come up the Thames and the docks are not big enough to take them in. Proof of that lies in the fact that the dock is being extended and widened, and I understand that when it is finished every single berth in the new dock will be taken up.
  We have lost that rateable value; men are not at work in the docks; our rates have gone up. But those rates have not caused the docks to be in the condition in which they are to-day. We have not driven anyone away. Poplar used to be a very considerable shipbuilding centre, but the building of ships has changed. It used to be a ship repairing centre, but owing to the fact that bigger ships are used and that they could not get into our docks, the repairing docks have been slack and some of them completely idle. The docks were not adapted to modern conditions. Therefore, when you consider the problem in connection with places
  538
  like Poplar, you have to face the fact that it, is not the high rates that produce the evil, but that economic changes and cause, produce conditions that result in high rates. Therefore, unless we are going to deal with this side of the question it seems to me that we are only playing the fool, as it were, with the whole business.
  In the time at my disposal I want to deal mainly with the Poor Law side of this business. I am not one of those who, like an hon. Member who has just spoken, wants to perpetuate boards of guardians. I may be told that 1 have stood in this House and asked that the Poor Law administration as such should be centralised, so far as London is concerned. If that were my only choice to-night, I should still stand for it, because I believe that the County of London is a better unit for dealing with the Poor Law than the individual unions have proved to be. From my point of view it is not a question of corruption or inefficiency on the part of guardians. The ordinary guardian as a rule occupies other public offices as well as that of a guardian—on borough councils and county councils. When the Minister of Health talked of this part of the business as being the result of years of work since 1834, he seemed to have forgotten that the new Poor Law at its inception was based on the principle of deterrence. He seemed to have forgotten that all through the nearly 100 years that have passed since 1834 every principle laid down in the 1834 Report has been broken over and over again, because it was proved by experience that they did not work.
  The old Poor Law Commissioners of 1834, if they could rise from their graves, would be horrified to think that this Parliament to-day was discussing how to deal with maternity and child welfare, the blind and the sick. For they laid it down that the one thing that society should do was to leave the poor alone, and, if the poor did come, to treat them in such a manner that they were just kept alive. It was that policy that your great leader Disraeli, and Kingsley, and men like them, fought against and denounced over and over again throughout the country, with the result that that deterrent policy had to be modified again and again. It is an extraordinary

  539
  coincidence that it was after a great war, about 20 years after Waterloo, that the new Poor Law came in, having been brought about by the horrible conditions the war left behind. Here, again, within 10 years of the last great war, we are settling down to consider mainly what we can do for the unemployed and for the trade and industry of the country.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health, who poses as a progressive statesman, in his dealing with the unemployed falls back on all these deterrent measures of the old Poor Law. This right hon. Gentleman will be remembered—
  HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
  Mr. LANSBURY: The right hon. Gentleman will be remembered as the man—
  HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
  Mr. LANSBURY: Yes he will go down to history as the statesman—
  HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
  Mr. LANSBURY: Those who shout "Hear, hear!" are only robbing the right hon. Gentleman of time. I repeat that he will go down to history as the man who betrayed every pledge, every promise made to the ex-service men, to whom many of those behind him also made promises; who drove the ex-service disabled and able-bodied men on to the roads and lanes of this country; who filled the casual wards with the sons of ex-service men; who, to-night, has got nearly 150 ex-service men housed in a foul, mixed workhouse, at Hollesley Bay; who has forced ex-service men and women who get little bits of pensions to use their pensions for the maintenance of able-bodied sons who are not allowed to go to work. The right hon. Gentleman will be known as the man who, through his auditors and inspectors, compels boards of guardians to break the law in regard to the 7s. 6d. health insurance money which is granted apart altogether from Poor Law relief. The right hon. Gentleman will be known as the Minister who has compelled young people illegally to maintain fathers, mothers and younger children out of their miserable wages, at the peril of the starvation of those fathers, mothers and younger children.
  540
  At a period when there are masses of unemployed in the coalfields of this country, the right hon. Gentleman's inspectors can report that they have reduced the number of paupers—that they have reduced the numbers in receipt of relief. As the number of unemployed rises he can boast that by the use of the brutal power he has got under the Poor Law he has reduced the number of persons in receipt of Poor Law relief. [HON. MEMBERS: "Stick to the Bill."] This is what the right hon. Gentleman wants to perpetuate in this Bill. Hon. Members ask me to stick to the Bill. I am sticking to the Bill. It is by the Bill you are going to perpetuate that system. The perpetuation of the Poor Law is in this Bill. The provisions of the Audit Act which compel boards of guardians to obey the dictates of the right hon. Gentleman's inspectors, are contained in this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman knows, and the House ought to know that in all this business, he has been able for last four years to tell us that wherever he has interfered in South Wales, in Durham, and elsewhere, no man who is single can get outdoor relief. He has brought South Wales to such a position that even the Tory candidate for Merthyr has had to write an appeal for a public fund in order to save people from starvation.
  In the time of the cotton famine, when there was a Tory Ministry on those Benches, this kind of thing did not happen. The great trunk roads throughout Lancashire were made during the cotton famine and the work was organised by inspectors of the Local Government Board of that time. To-day, with a refinement of cruelty, the right hon. Gentleman boasts in public that he wants the public to subscribe charity for these people while he denies them their legal rights. He denies them that which the law says they should have, and he knows and his right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary knows, that this could not happen if it were not for the provisions of the Audit Act and the further fact that he uses the power given him in regard to money in order to prevent guardians doing the work which they were legally elected to do. I believe there has never been so much preventable privation and misery in this country as there is at the present time. Remembering the million of unemployed and remembering further how the

  541
  Minister of Labour deals with the unemployed, what do we find? What happens to the men? Crowds of them are pushed off. They are told, "You are not likely to get insurable employment."
  Men are being pushed off in tens of thousands in that way and, in addition, men are being told that they are not genuinely seeking work. Others are told that there is no work available for them and in the end they are pushed off. Then come forward the right hon. Gentleman's inspectors and auditors and they say, "You must not do anything for these people; they will not try to get work." But they have been told by the Employment Exchange that they never will get work. Still they are told, "Go and look for work." There never was a more contradictory and merciless policy pursued against the unemployed in this country. It is because this Bill contains provisions for enabling the right hon. Gentleman to carry on that policy that we have put in our Amendment the words that this Bill does nothing to deal effectively with destitution. The right hon. Gentleman gave us his picture of the history of the Poor Law from 1834. Let me run over it briefly. First, no able-bodied man was to be relieved outside the workhouse. That broke down. The system of stoneyards and oakum-picking and corn mills was introduced. That broke down. The right hon. Gentleman's father, as he was told to-day, has the honour and credit of being the first man to write from a public department and demand that these decent, honest men should be assisted apart altogether from the Poor Law. After that came a series of modern reforms in regard to the Poor Law, in the treatment of able-bodied men, culminating in the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) passing the Unemployment Insurance Act.
  Those of us who pleaded in this House in 1911–1912 for a national scheme to deal with unemployment in a national manner were told by the Liberals and by the Tories: "No, it is all right. This is the system; this will cure it." Well, we have had 20 odd years of it, and now again the right hon. Gentleman, with his fanciful rating scheme, is to give us another pill to cure an earthquake. He is going to try one more ridiculous scheme for deal-
  542
  ing with something that is fundamental to our society. Right back at the beginning, it was unemployment that caused the Poor Law to be brought into being, and all down through the period poverty, destitution, penury, want, can be traced back to unemployment and to intermittent, casual labour. The Minister of Labour once wrote one of the most damning indictments of casual labour, proving that the casuals in this country were not people guilty of original sin, but victims of a vicious system. We have pleaded here and elsewhere again and again that this business should be dealt with in a fundamental manner. We believe that industry in this country has broken in the hands of those who believe in private enterprise. The great basic industries of the land are in ruin.
  If Socialism had been in vogue for 100 years, and at the end all that you could prove was that thousands of people lived in slums, that other hundreds of thousands could not earn their daily bread, and that still others were living on the verge of starvation, you would say that Socialism had failed. I say that capitalism has failed. I say further that you may attempt to patch up this business, but you have got in some way to take industry in hand, not from the point of view of subsidies, not from the point of view of pouring in money—that is as bad and as vicious as giving individual men and women money—but you have got to take this point of view, that this country of ours was given us for the use and service of the whole of the community. At present, because you use it merely for moneymaking, because you sacrifice human life and human happiness merely for the purpose of a great profit-making institution, you have the poor, you have poverty, and you have all the misery that there is in the land. Therefore, we say to you: "Give us a national scheme, a scheme which will see to it that industry is organised on a rational basis, that men and women are put to work, not in order that a few people may enjoy tremendous luxury, not in order that there may be millionaires and paupers, but in order that what is produced may be used for the service of the people."
  10.0 p.m.
  Sir K. WOOD: We have just heard a characteristic speech from the hon. Member for. Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury), and I at once confess that I never

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  expected that the proud parent of Poplarism would welcome this Bill. I remember very well that when we last discussed the Poor Law at any length in this House, on the Motion of the right hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Webb), the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley offered this observation upon the Poor Law proposals which were then being circulated by my right hon. Friend. He said this: "We, in the East End of London, have captured the boards of guardians practically, and we are very suspicious of the zeal that is being shown to reform us and to give us some better system. We do not want to be reformed except on our own lines." I at once admit that, so far as the proposals in this Bill are concerned, they are certainly not on Poplar lines. We have had a very useful and interesting Debate, with notable contributions from all quarters of the House. I think the whole House will agree with me when I say that there would have been a great deal lacking from this Debate if, for instance, the right hon. Member for Seaham had not been able to take part in it. We all heard with satisfaction and great pleasure the considerable contribution which he made to our Debate this afternoon, and we shall certainly miss him on this subject. I understand that he contemplates retiring from this House. There is one gift, at any rate, which my right hon. Friend will be giving him, and that is that no doubt, when this Measure comes upon the Statute Book, the right hon. Member for Seaham will be able to spend many years in writing an additional volume to those which he has already penned. I hope it may occupy him very many years.
  We have also had in many respects a very brilliant and entertaining speech from the hon. Member for East Ham North (Miss Lawrence), though I say that without prejudice to any question of the accuracy of her statements. There is no doubt about it that it was certainly a very notable achievement. I should also like to say a word about the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. A. Greenwood), who had, under very difficult circumstances, to move the rejection of the Bill after the House had been so very long occupied. I often think the hon. Member for Nelson and Come deserves very well of the Labour party.
  544
  He has had to move the rejection of more first-class beneficent Measures than any other Member. I remember well that he has moved the rejection of the Widows' Pensions Act, the Housing Acts, and others, and it is quite fit that he should have fulfilled the role of Mover of the rejection of this Bill. I should like to say a word to the hon. Members below the Gangway opposite, who felt the absence, no doubt, of the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). The hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown) and the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Harney) will, I feel sure, be able to go back and report to their right hon. Friend that in their hands this Debate has suffered nothing in respect of accuracy or consistency.
  Having said that, I know the House will also allow me to say that I think this Debate has, to any unprejudiced observer, been notable for the very great contribution to it of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health, and the proceedings have been distinguished by the many contributions that have come from my colleagues on this side of the House, which, in my judgment, have destroyed and demolished the somewhat confused contributions from the Opposition. The Government are well satisfied with the result of this Debate. They always believed that if this Bill was brought to the Floor of the House, there was everything to be gained from a free and full discussion, honest scrutiny, and informed examination. A very severe critic of this Bill, a man who used to be a Member of this House and has given a good deal of time and attention to this Measure, has described the Bill as unquestionably the biggest enterprise yet undertaken by the Government. I will venture to add that it is certainly the most important contribution to local government reform which has been made in our time. I recognise at once that a Measure of this magnitude is particularly liable to be temporarily obscured and misrepresented by narrow vision, petty parochialism and local jealousies, and the ordinary party political game.
  The Government are undertaking this Bill—and a very big one it is—at the close of their term of office, because they believe that it represents a practical and powerful plan to restore trade and in-

  545
  dustry, to reduce unemployment, and to remove some of those inequalities and injustices from which the ratepayers of this country have suffered so long. Both the Labour and the Liberal parties in this House are asking us to reject this Bill. I suppose that they have found in this Measure what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs described as common territory upon which men of progressive thought could agree to cultivate together. It is true, as many speakers have emphasised in this Debate, that there is a certain element of surprise in that attitude being adopted. I read, when these proposals were first put to the House in broad outline by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, an article by a well-known member of the Labour party, Mr. Brailsford, who severely criticised the scheme, but expressed sympathy with the bigness, the rightness and the importance of the proposals. He said:
  "I think with all these limitations the Labour party should recognise a certain sagacity and sureness of direction of the Government plan…Our answer ought not to be to ignore what is big and right in the Government's scheme, and our cue,… it seems to me, should he rather to expand than to thwart the scheme."
  Instead of that, we have had an Opposition busily and fussily engaged in endeavouring to pick out the minor discrepancies of a great plan, neglecting the national interest, and not scrupling to foment local jealousies and petty parochialism. I thought of a motto when I heard some of the speeches from Members of the Opposition, when they criticised the position which would occur in certain towns, as they thought, under these proposals, and were actually urging upon the House the injustice by which the contributions were being made by comparatively well-to-do towns to help those which were not so well circumstanced. I thought that that was a petty selfish way of looking at it, and there is a motto which is applicable to that way of looking at the scheme—
  "Self first, me next, and if there is anything left I will take it."
  That characterises a good deal of the attitude that has been taken up with regard to these proposals. In other words, the Socialist Opposition, joined by the Liberals, have failed to rise to what, I suggest, was a great opportunity. They have preferred to ask the House to reject these proposals, to seek to deprive
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  agriculture, industry and the necessitous areas of the benefits of the scheme, rather than to help to improve and adjust them.
  I want to say only a word or two about the Liberal Amendment. It is rather a confused jumble, and certainly shows a good deal less courage than that of the Labour party. After reciting the various objections to this Bill, instead of, as in the Labour Amendment, suggesting that the proper way of dealing with this matter was to place the able-bodied unemployed upon the State, they simply content themselves with saying that all these matters "call for vigorous measures of direct and immediate application." I suppose the idea was to reconcile the various elements in the Liberal party, and to secure what has not hitherto been possible, as far as a common platform in the constituencies is concerned, and that is to get the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Swansea (Mr. Runciman) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs in the same Lobby together. At the beginning of last Session, when we had concluded the Debates on the Rating and Valuation (Apportionment) Bill, the National Liberal Federation, speaking of the Labour opposition to this Bill, described it as wholly impotent and the worst in recent Parliamentary history. I was not surprised to see that next day the "Daily Herald" stated that anyone who had followed the Debates in the House of Commons knew perfectly well how well the Labour party had fought, and that all the Liberal party had done was to puff and to pant behind the Labour party in this House. I suggest that the "Daily Herald" was right, and would be right again so far as these proceedings are concerned.
  A large number of points have been raised in connection with this Measure, some relating to finance and some to the Poor Law, and to-morrow in relation to finance and on many other days, we shall, no doubt, be discussing a good many of these points and objections; but I will deal with one or two of them tonight, so far as time permits. The first objection taken by many speakers on the opposite side of the House has been that part of the Bill which gives the final and requisite authority whereby rate relief can be given to agriculture and our other producing industries, and we have

  547
  had additions to the contribution which the right hon. Gentleman the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer gave us as to the question of the burden of rates so far as industry is concerned. The ex-Chancellor will long be remembered for his statement that he believed that rates as such were no burden; and in the course of this Debate the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne has gone still better and said that there is no burden where profits are being made; while a great deal of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham this afternoon was devoted to the view that no decrease in the cost of production would be of any assistance at all to industry. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."]
  So far as the Government are concerned, these proposals for the relief of agriculture and industry have a two-fold object. As I hope in a minute or two to deal with the suggestion that the de-rating side of this Bill should be separated from the other, I want to emphasize that at any rate in the opinion of the Government this is a far-reaching and important rating reform. In our judgment, it relieves agriculture and industry of burdens which cannot be justified if you are to have a fair rating administration scheme in this country; it assesses their contributions to local services more fairly and more in accordance with the benefits they receive. Our other object is this. Hon. Members may disagree with it, although I have met a very large number, including Labour Members, at the Treasury, who apparently hold a different view in the morning from what they do in the afternoon. Our second object is by this method to stimulate and encourage industry at a very critical time.
  Under these proposals, agriculture will be relieved of the whole of its rates. I am riot clear what is the attitude of the Liberal party towards these proposals. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs spoke on these proposals last, he denounced them as a dole to landlords, but such is the indiscipline of the Liberal party at the present time that not a single person was prepared to support his contention in the Division Lobby. Under these proposals, no longer will farmers be rated on the raw material of their industry;
  548
  no longer will they be liable to increased burdens when they improve the condition of their land. We invite the members of the Labour party and the Liberal party to pursue their objections to this part of the Bill in the agricultural constituencies of the country.
  We are also relieving productive industry from heavy rating burdens with the object more particularly of enabling them to compete on more equal terms with their foreign competitors Pi the markets of the world—a point which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham overlooked. When people get up and talk as they have done from the Labour Benches of the position of the shopkeepers for whom they have shown a sudden affection; when they talk about the position of shopkeepers and the working people of this country, I say to them that under these proposals we believe that we are assisting the trader, the shopkeeper, and the great mass of the industrial workers of this country in the best way, because, after all, their success and prosperity depends vitally and in the main upon the prosperity of the producers of the nation.
  It is suggested that we should divide altogether from the local government side of this Bill the rating relief part. I think anyone who makes that proposition has not given much consideration to what the Bill contains. The hon. Member for East Ham North asked yesterday why we did not follow the example of the Agricultural Rates Act of 1923 by simply paying to the local authorities three-quarters every year of the rates on the productive industries of the area, and the whole of the rates in respect of agricultural land. The hon. Member did not tell the House yesterday that the Agricultural Rates Act of 1923 was a temporary Measure, and that it was expressly stated at the time it was introduced that it was brought forward pending the adjustment of national and local finance. Let us assume that that was a permanent Measure. In the first place, the answer to that argument is that this plan to relieve the rates on productive industry is not a scheme of giving a dole, but a permanent scheme of rating reform, and it is being introduced because we believe that we are now putting agriculture and productive industry on a proper basis so far as rating is concerned.

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  I was surprised that any Member of the Socialist party, particularly, should advocate such proposals, because they are always expressing great concern about the necessitous areas of the country. What will happen to this £24,000,000 which it is suggested should be paid back every year direct to the local authorities of the country? As hon. Members know, that £24,000,000 will go into what we may call the pool, and that pool is ultimately to be distributed on the basis of the formula, which, when its ultimate effect is reached, is based upon needs and upon ability to pay. If that £24,000,000 were removed from the pool, it would not be nearly sufficient to assist necessitous areas in the manner that we are assisting them under these proposals, as I hope presently to show. Again, anyone who has any regard for local government in this country will certainly not press those proposals, because, if it is going to be admitted for a moment that the State is simply to pay to local authorities every year, whatever methods might be adopted in connection with their administration, three-fourths of their local rates, it would be the beginning of the end of local government in this country, because no Exchequer, I do not mind who administers it, could do that without altogether superseding ordinary local government powers. They could not simply give a cheque every year to the local authorities of the country for three-fourths of their rates, without any interference or check on behalf of the State. [Interruption.] I quite understand that some people may not agree with me, but perhaps I may be allowed to state my case. On these grounds I say that such a proposal would be an impossible one for any Government.
  Then certain criticisms were made, also in particular from hon. Members opposite, in relation to the Poor Law proposals. They say that this Bill does not deal with the reform of the Poor Law in a proper way. I at once confess, and I hope hon. Members will study the OFFICIAL REPORT and see whether they agree with me, that I do not at this moment understand where either the Labour party or the Liberal party stands in regard to the abolition of boards of guardians in this country. I thought that we were really meeting the general programme and policy of both of those parties. I certainly thought,
  550
  when this Measure was being prepared, that the proposal to abolish boards of guardians would have received the general approval of all parties in the House. The Government consider that the first essential step in the reform of the Poor Law is the transfer of the functions of the boards of guardians to the larger authorities.
  Let me at once say, in answer to what was said in such strong terms this evening in favour of the retention of boards of guardians, that this alteration is in no sense being made by the Government because they condemn the work—the very valuable work and assistance—of the boards of guardians of this country. It is being made because the Government believe, and it is the view of every Committee that has inquired into the matter, including the Maclean Committee, to whose Report I would advise hon. Members to turn their attention, that it is essential to the reform of the Poor Law, the transfer of charges, and the removal of inequalities among the ratepayers at the present time. We propose in our Bill what I think a good many people recognise, and what I know a good many guardians recognise, as a really useful and sincere attempt to keep that valuable personal touch which all of us desire to see retained in connection with local administration in this country. I must say I am surprised at the objections which have been made by hon. Gentlemen opposite. What was the resolution that was passed at the Socialist party's conference at Blackpool last year, and actually moved, I believe, by the hon. Lady the Member for East Ham North? This was the resolution:
  "That this Conference, believing that the full development of the social services and their economical administration necessitate a thorough going national and local reorganisation of existing arrangements, calls for the abolition of the boards of guardians as an essential preliminary to such reorganisation."
  I will read a part of the speech which shows the difficulties of the Government in this matter so far as hon. Members opposite are concerned. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne, notwithstanding what has been said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham today, is going about the country making this statement. This is from the "Daily Herald" of 25th October this year.

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  "Mr. Greenwood, in an interview, expressed the view emphatically that it could not be an accident that the powers hitherto vested in non-county boroughs and urban districts where Labour representation was rapidly growing should be transferred to county authorities, which were in most cases the homes of reaction, and on very few county councils was the Labour movement at all adequately represented."
  I must confess that I hoped for more valuable and warm assistance from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham, because in the Debate to which I alluded just now, when he proposed this Motion in relation to the Poor Law, he ended up with these words, which lie addressed to the Minister of Health:
  "There is one word of warning which I will address to the right hon. Gentleman. It is quite certain that he will have opposition to any proposal of this kind from practically the whole of the hoards of guardians. That opposition is extremely well organised and it may affect some Members of this House, but I do not think it will affect very many. I will do my best to give him all the help I can."
  We shall observe what help he gives us in the Division to-night. Why have we taken this course of not completely abolishing the Poor Law and breaking it up, as hon. Members desire? In the first place, anyone who has studied the Maclean Report must be aware of the very strong views held by the local authorities that, after the transfer has been made, the method by which the Poor Law is administered could very well be left to local authorities to decide for themselves.
  Mr. WEBB: But you did not leave it to them.
  Sir K. WOOD: I think there is a good deal to be said for that point of view. After all, we are making, as many hon. Members have said, a very great change in local administration in this country. There will be a very large number of new duties cast upon the local authorities, and I think that it is right to give them an opportunity to turn round and adapt themselves as they think best, at any rate in the first instance, to the new kind of administration which this Bill entails. As a matter fact, it will be impossible for any Government to make it mandatory upon the local authorities of the country to break up the Poor Law. I will give very briefly one illustration in support of that argument. It has been proposed, for in-
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  stance, that if you break up the Poor Law completely in this country those unfortunate people the mental deficients should go to the local authorities and be dealt with in exactly the same way as other people who are similarly circumstanced. Anyone who realises the position of the mental deficients in this country, and, I am sorry to say, the great lack of accommodation that exists at the present time, knows full well that one of the great difficulties which is confronting local authorities, which entails very great capital expenditure, and which, I hope, will be minimised as a result of this Measure, is that there is not sufficient accommodation for the mental deficients in the country. Therefore, if you did make this mandatory it would be impossible in that connection to carry it out.
  What I say to hon. Gentlemen opposite is, that we are taking the first step. We are transferring the functions to the larger authorities and, I think, following the progressive alterations of local government in this country, we are perhaps right in taking our steps not too hurriedly, and giving the local authorities an opportunity of turning round and permitting them to adapt themselves properly to their new administration. I have no doubt that in a few years' time we shall find the great majority of the authorities of this country adopting the proposals and suggestions, as far as they come under this scheme, and which right hon. and hon. Gentlemen in all parts of this House desire. We can then consider the position in connection with our local government in this country. I wish to say to hon. Gentlemen who are whole-hearted supporters of Poor Law reform in this country that, at any rate, this is not a good excuse for refusing to support the Government's proposals to-night.
  The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for South Shields, whose speech I am sorry to say I did not have an opportunity of hearing in full, was the only one, I think, who in this House has come forward with any enthusiasm for the suggestions contained in the Liberal scheme that the proper way would be to remove the able-bodied unemployed from the local authorities to the State. That is a singular proposal to come from hon. Gentlemen apparently trying to balance

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  themselves on the Poor Law question, because one inevitable consequence of that proposal would be that the whole of that administration would he taken away not only from the Poor Law guardians but from the local authorities of the country arid be administered as a State service by State officials. I venture to suggest to hon. Gentlemen that the best answer to be found for this proposal is naturally to be found in a speech by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs. There are few proposals before the country at the present time on which the right hon. Gentleman has not expressed himself on various occasions in opposite directions. I have here a speech which he made when he had the responsibility of office and when he also had at his disposal the advice of a good many officials and experts. The hon. Member for Plaistow (Mr. W. Thorne) will remember the occasion.
  Mr. W. THORNE: I do, very well, and also the statement of the Minister of Health.
  Sir K. WOOD: On the 20th June, 1922, the hon. Member for Plaistow led a very large deputation to Downing Street to see the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, when he was Prime Minister. The hon. Member for Plaistow was a great optimist, and he made a speech to the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, and said: "We want you to help to relieve the necessitous areas of this country, and we want you to put the able-bodied unemployed upon the national Exchequer." The hon. Member made a very fine speech, as we should expect from him. What did the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs say?
  Mr. THORNE: I know what he said.
  Sir K. WOOD: When the hon. Member for South Shields advocates such a proposal again, I hope he will state what his leader said on the occasion to which I have just referred. He said that the hon. Member for Plaistow and the deputation represented the ratepayers, whilst he, the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, represented the taxpayers. He stated, further, that the proposals of the deputation would have meant at that time an extra 9d. in the pound on the Income Tax. He said, also, and this is most significant—it is curious
  554
  how it fits in with the proposals which the Government are making at the present time—that the most important thing was to get trade going. [Interruption.] Hon. Members opposite must not lose this gem. The right hon. Gentleman said that the real relief for the able-bodied unemployed and for the necessitous areas would come from improved trade. We agree with that.
  Mr. THORNE: Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to quote the speech made by the Minister of Health on that matter?
  Sir K. WOOD: I think this is quite an effective speech to satisfy the hon. Member.
  Mr. THORNE: The Minister of Health said that it should be a national charge.
  Sir K. WOOD: It is recorded on the Minutes that the deputation went away very disappointed.
  Mr. THORNE: Hear, hear!
  Sir K. WOOD: I will deal now with the criticisms which have been advanced against the block grant system. I do not hesitate to say that the present percentage grant system is illogical, irrational and unjust. I was very interested to hear a speech by the right hon. Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. W. Graham), who was Financial Secretary in the Labour Government, in which he said that he was not prepared to rest upon the present percentage system without adding some extra machinery, but I confess that I did not follow him in his explanation. I have no doubt that he will table it as an Amendment, but the injustice of the present system, especially from the point of view of the health services, is almost impossible to exaggerate. Take the case of two owns having the same population, Merthyr Tydvil and Southport. Merthyr Tydvil has rates of 27s. 2d. in the £ with 105 children under five years per 1,000 of population. Merthyr Tydvil gets £4,500 a year for its grant aided health services, while Southport, with practically the same population and rates of 8s. 4d. in the £ with 62 children under five years of age per 1,000 of population, gets £8,000. I do not know how it is possible to defend a system of that kind; and there is this further fact which I want to put before the House.

  555
  The great vice of the present percentage system is not so much that its distribution is flagrantly bad, but that it is haphazard and unscientific. Take these facts. Wigan receives one and a third times the amount Blackpool gets for its health services, but Merthyr Tydvil receives not much more than nine-sixteenths the amount which goes to Southport. Surely it is a greater approach towards fairness that under the new formula the gain to Wigan will he six times that of Blackpool, and the gain to Merthyr Tydvil six times that of Southport. I am particularly concerned with the natural anxiety which has been expressed by many good friends of the maternity and child welfare movement. It is an extraordinary thing that under the present percentage system an authority must spend money before it can receive grants. Under the new system it will receive grants in order to be able to spend money. Take the case of two other towns, in order to illustrate the present position of maternity and child welfare services. Those who have given any study to the present arrangements will not desire them to continue. Take the maternity and child welfare services at. Gateshead, with rates of 23s. 9d. in the £ and 14,000 children, and South Shields with rates of 18s. 2d. in the £ and 13,500 children. They each receive an approximate grant under the maternity and child welfare services of £1,600, whilst Bournemouth, with rates of 8s. 2d. in the £ and only 5,300 children, and Eastbourne with rates of 9s. 4d. in the £ and only 2,976 children, receive nearly £2,900 and £2,200 respectively. That is the result of the present system, and hon. Members will allow that there is an improvement under the new arrangements which are perfectly open to the consideration of the House and upon which we are open to receive suggestions for their improvement.
  At the present moment, according, at any rate, to the figures which the Noble Lady the Member for Sutton (Viscountess Astor) gave to the House yesterday, she does not regard the present maternity and child welfare arrangements in this country as by any means satisfactory, and she gave a series of figures, which I have not been able to check, showing that was so. What is the position of the Minister of Health? Can he go into any
  556
  one of these areas up and down the country where, according to the Noble Lady, these services are not being properly administered, and say: "You are immediately to do it"? No, the whole system depends, as far as Government aid is concerned, upon some particular sum of money being spent, either by voluntary associations or by some local authority in the area. That is the present position. Really, why the maternity and child welfare services have progressed, as I think they have—and I may say, in answer to the speech of the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley, that we are spending on maternity and child welfare services—[Interruption.s].
  Mr. LANSBURY: Do you challenge what I said?
  Sir K. WOOD: We are spending £178,000—
  Mr. LANSBURY: That is not the point. [Interruption.] You have halved the amount.
  Sir K. WOOD: What I want the House to be assured of, at any rate as far as the administration of the maternity service under my right hon. Friend is concerned, is that we are helping the local centres to the extent of £188,000 a year more than was done when the Labour Government were in office.
  Mr. LANSBURY: You have cut it down by half.
  Sir K. WOOD: I want to say to the Noble Lady, under this new system how much better it will be from the point of view of the maternity and child welfare services. It is true that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham criticised, from his point of view quite rightly and effectively, the provision which gives my right hon. Friend power to intervene if a local authority is not carrying out these services properly. Under that Clause it is designed to give the Minister power to go to a local authority and say: "Now you have got to get on with your maternity and child welfare services." If they do not, he has got a very effective power indeed, because under this Clause it will be possible for the Minister then to say to that local authority: "Well, if you do not within a reasonable time make adequate provision for these services, then you will have to be penalised as far as

  557
  your grants are concerned." From a practical point of view, that is a very real and effectual remedy where you have got none at the present time as far as these services are concerned.
  Criticism has been made of a suggestion that payment should be made to local authorities in connection with the provisions in regard to which they will give assistance. In the Labour Amendment particular exception is taken to the fact that a charge is to be made in respect of maternity provision. We have had an opportunity of examining the merits of the proposal, and we find that at the present time there are 64 maternity homes maintained by The local authorities of this country, and in all those cases contributions were recovered from the inmates unless the local authority was satisfied that neither the woman nor her relatives were able to pay anything. It will be exactly the same under Clause 13. I have no time to explain the Clause, but if hon. Members will examine it they will see that there need be no apprehension that people under these circumstances would be confronted with heavy bills on that account. As a matter of fact, all that we are doing is to follow out the system of the voluntary hospitals of the country.
  Mr. WEBB: One rule for all.
  Sir K. WOOD: There are two or three practical issues which we have to decide by our votes in a minute or two. This
  Division, I think, will be noted with a certain amount of interest by the agriculturists, by the owners and workers in factories, and by those who live in necessitous areas. We shall have to decide by our votes whether we shall give agriculture and the other productive industries relief to the extent of some £24,000,000 of money. We shall have to decide whether or not we are to proceed to relieve the general ratepayers of the country—[Interruption]—and whether we are also to relieve the necessitous areas of the country by a remission of much of their liabilities, amounting to many millions of money. Individual Members of the House can, of course, choose how they care to vote.
  HON. MEMBERS: Take the Whips off!
  Sir K. WOOD: Just as the great charter of local government was first placed on the Statute Book some 40 years ago by a Conservative Administration, so in our time and generation this great Measure of reform and relief will stand as the work of another Conservative Government, and will in its turn be another great landmark in the industrial and social progress of the country.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 344; Noes, 165.

  Division No. 16.]

  AYES.

  [11.0 p.m.

  Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel

  Bevan, S. J.

  Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth.S.)

  Ainsworth, Lieut.-Col. Charles

  Birchall, Major J. Dearman

  Cazalet, Captain Victor A.

  Albery, Irving James

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

  Cecil. Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)

  Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)

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

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

  Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l)

  Boothby, R. J. G.

  Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton

  Allen, Sir J. Sandeman

  Bourne, Captain Robert Croft

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)

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

  Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart

  Chapman, Sir S.

  Applin, Colonel R. V. K.

  Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W

  Charteris, Brigadier-General J.

  Apsley, Lord

  Braithwaite Major A. N.

  Chilcott, Sir Warden

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

  Brassey, Sir Leonard

  Christie, J. A.

  Astbury, Lieut.-Commander F. W.

  Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive

  Churchill, Ht. Hon. Winston Spencer

  Astor, Mai. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)

  Briggs, J. Harold

  Churchman, Sir Arthur C.

  Astor, Viscountess

  Briscoe, Richard George

  Clarry, Reginald George

  Atholl, Duchess of

  Brittain, Sir Harry

  Clayton, G. C.

  Atkinson, C.

  Brocklebank, C. E. R.

  Cobb, Sir Cyril

  Balfour, George (Hampstead)

  Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.

  Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.

  Balniel, Lord

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

  Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George

  Barclay-Harvey, C. M.

  Buckingham, Sir H.

  Cohen, Major J. Brunei

  Barnett, Major Sir Richard

  Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James

  Colfox. Major Wm. Phillips

  Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

  Burgoyne, Lieut-Colonel Sir Alan

  Colman, N. C. D.

  Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)

  Burman, J. B.

  Conway, Sir W. Martin

  Bellairs, Commander Carlyon

  Butler, Sir Geoffrey

  Cooper, A. Duff

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

  Butt, Sir Alfred

  Couper, J. B.

  Bennett, A. J.

  Calne, Gordon Hall

  Courtauld, Major J. S.

  Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish-

  Carver, Major W. H.

  Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L.

  Berry, Sir George

  Cassels, J. D.

  Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islington, N)

  Bethel, A.

  Cautley, Sir Henry S.

  Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe)

  Betterton, Henry B.

  Gayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)

  Crooke, J. Smedley (Derltend)

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

  Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K.

  Pownall, Sir Assheton

  Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Llndsty. Gainsbro)

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

  Preston, William

  Cuiverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West)

  Hudson, R. S. (Cumberl'nd, Whlteh'n)

  Price, Major C. W. M.

  Cunliffe, Sir Herbert

  Hume, Sir G. H.

  Radford, E. A.

  Curzon, Captain Viscount

  Hums-Williams, Sir W. Ellis

  Raine, Sir Walter

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer

  Ramsden, E.

  Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford)

  Hurd, Percy A.

  Rawson, Sir Cooper

  Davidson, Major-General Sir John H.

  Hurst, Gerald B.

  Rees, Sir Beddoe

  Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)

  Iliffe, Sir Edward M.

  Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)

  Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)

  Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.

  Reid, D. D. (County Down)

  Davies, Dr. Vernon

  Iveagh, Countess of

  Remer, J. R.

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

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

  Rentoul, G. S.

  Dawson, Sir Philip

  James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert

  Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.

  Dlxey, A. C.

  Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)

  Rice, Sir Frederick

  Drewe, c.

  Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William

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

  Duckworth, John

  Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)

  Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)

  Eden, Captain Anthony

  Kindersley, Major Guy M

  Roberts, Sir Samuel (Hereford)

  Edmondson, Major A. J.

  King, Commodore Henry Douglas

  Robinson, sir T. (Lanes, Stretford)

  Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington)

  Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

  Ropner, Major L.

  Elliot, Major Walter E.

  Knox, Sir Alfred

  Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A.

  Ellis, R. G.

  Lamb, J. Q.

  Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)

  England, Colonel A.

  Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)

  Rye, F. G.

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

  Lister, Cunliffe, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip

  Salmon, Major I.

  Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith

  Little, Dr. E. Graham

  Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)

  Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)

  Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)

  Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)

  Everard, W. Lindsay

  Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey

  Sandeman, N. Stewart

  Fairfax, Captain J. G.

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

  Sanders, Sir Robert A.

  Falle, Sir Bertram G.

  Loder, J. de V.

  Sanderson, Sir Frank

  Falls, Sir Charles F.

  Long, Major Eric

  Sandon, Lord

  Fanshawe, Captain G. D.

  Looker, Herbert William

  Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.

  Fielden, E. B.

  Lougher, Lewis

  Savery, S. S.

  Finburgh, S.

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere

  Scott, Rt. Hon. Sir Leslie

  Ford, Sir P. J.

  Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman

  Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W.R.,<ob/>owerby)

  Forestler-Walker, Sir L.

  Lumley, L. R.

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

  Forrest, W.

  Lynn, Sir R. J.

  Sheffield, Sir Berkeley

  Foster, Sir Harry S.

  MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen

  Shepperson, E. W.

  Foxcroft, Captain C. T.

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

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

  Fraser, Captain Ian

  Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)

  Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belf'st.)

  Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.

  Maclntyre, Ian

  Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)

  Gadie, Lieut.-Col. Anthony

  McLean, Major A.

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

  Galbraith, J. F. W.

  Macmillan, Captain H.

  Smith-Carington, Neville W.

  Ganzoni, Sir John

  Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm

  Smithers, Waldron

  Gates, Percy

  Macquisten, F. A.

  Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

  Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton

  Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham)

  Southby, Commander A. R. J.

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

  Makins, Brigadier-General E.

  Spender-Clay, Colonel H.

  Glyn, Major R. G. C.

  Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn

  Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F.

  Gofl, Sir Park

  Margesson. Captain D.

  Stanley, Lord (Fyide)

  Gower, Sir Robert

  Marriott, Sir J. A. R.

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

  Grace, John

  Mason, Colonel Glyn K.

  Steel, Major Samuel Strang

  Grant, Sir J. A.

  Meller, R. J.

  Storry-Deans, R.

  Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.

  Merriman, Sir F. Boyd

  Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.

  Greaves-Lord. Sir Walter

  Meyer, Sir Frank

  Streatfelld, Captain S. R.

  Greene, W. P. Crawford

  Milne, J. S. Wardlaw-

  Stuart, Crichton-. Lord C.

  Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)

  Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)

  Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

  Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John

  Mitchell. Sir W. Lane (Streatham)

  Styles, Captain H. Walter

  Grotrlan, H. Brent

  Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)

  Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser

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

  Moore, Sir Newton J.

  Sugden, Sir Wilfrid

  Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.

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

  Tasker, R. Inigo

  Gunston, Captain D. W.

  Morden, Colonel Walter Grant

  Templeton, W. P.

  Hacking, Douglas H.

  Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)

  Thorn, Lt.-Col. J. G. (Dumbarton)

  Hall, Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne)

  Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive

  Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)

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

  Murchison, Sir Kenneth

  Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)

  Hamilton, Sir George

  Nail, Colonel Sir Joseph

  Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell-

  Hammersley, S. S.

  Nelson, Sir Frank

  Tltchfield, Major the Marquess of

  Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry

  Neville, Sir Reginald J.

  Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement

  Hartington, Marquess of

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

  Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.

  Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)

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

  Waddington, R.

  Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)

  Nicholson, O. (Westminster)

  Wallace, Captain D. E.

  Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.

  Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'ld.)

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

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

  Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert

  Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.

  Henderson, Lieut.-Col. Sir Vivian

  Nuttall, Eills

  Warrender, Sir Victor

  Heneage, Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.

  Oakley, T.

  Waterhouse, Captain Charles

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

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

  Watson, sir F. (Pudsey and Otiey)

  Hills, Major John Waller

  Oman, Sir Charles William C.

  Watson. Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)

  Hilton, Cecil

  Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William

  Wells, S. R.

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

  Pennefather, Sir John

  White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dalrymple-

  Hohler, Sir Gerald Fltzroy

  Penny, Frederick George

  Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)

  Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard

  Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)

  Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)

  Holt, Captain H. P.

  Perkins, Colonel E. K.

  Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)

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

  Perring, Sir William George

  Wilson, Sir Murrough (Yorks, Richm'd)

  Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)

  Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)

  Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)

  Hopkins, J. W. W.

  Pilcher, G.

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

  Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)

  Pilditch, Sir Philip

  Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

  Home, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.

  Power, Sir John Cecil

  Withers, John James

  560

  561

  Wolmer, viscount

  Wood, Sir S. Hill (High Peak)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES. —

  Womersley, W. J.

  Woodcock, Colonel H. C.

  Major Sir G. Hennessy and Major

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

  Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.

  Sir W. Cope.

  Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley

  Wright, Brig.-General W. D.

  NOES.

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

  Hayday, Arthur

  Salter, Dr. Alfred

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

  Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley)

  Scrymgeour, E.

  Ammon, Charles George

  Henderson, T. (Glasgow)

  Scurr, John

  Baker, Walter

  Hirst, G. H.

  Sexton, James

  Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)

  Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)

  Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)

  Barnes, A.

  Hore-Belisha, Leslie

  Shepherd, Arthur Lewis

  Barr, J.

  Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)

  Shiels, Dr. Drummond

  Batey, Joseph

  Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)

  Shinwell, E.

  Beckett, John (Gateshead)

  John, William (Rhondda, Went)

  Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)

  Bellamy, A.

  Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)

  Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)

  Benn, Wedgwood

  Jones, Henry Haydn (Merloneth)

  Sitch. Charles H.

  Bondfield, Margaret

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

  Siesser, Sir Henry H.

  Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Smith, Rennle (Penlstone)

  Briant, Frank

  Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)

  Snell, Harry

  Broad, F. A.

  Jones, W. N. (Carmarthen)

  Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip

  Bromfield, William

  Kelly, W. T.

  Stamford, T. W.

  Brown, Ernest (Leith)

  Kennedy. T.

  Stephen, Campbell

  Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)

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

  Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)

  Buchanan, G.

  Kirkwood, D.

  Strauss, E. A.

  Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel

  Lansbury, George

  Sullivan, J.

  Cape. Thomas

  Lawrence, Susan

  Sutton, J. E.

  Charleton, H. C.

  Lawson, John James

  Taylor, R. A.

  Cluse, W. S.

  Lindley, F. W.

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

  Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.

  Longbottom, A. W.

  Thomas, Sir Robert John (Anglesey)

  Compton, Joseph

  Lowth, T.

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

  Connolly, M.

  Lunn, William

  Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)

  Cove, W. G.

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

  Thurtle, Ernest

  Crawfurd, H. E.

  Mackinder, W.

  Tinker, John Joseph

  Dalton, Hugh

  MacLaren, Andrew

  Tomlinson, R. P.

  Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)

  Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)

  Townend, A. E.

  Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

  MacNeill-Weir, L.

  Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Day, Harry

  Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton)

  Viant, S. P.

  Dennlson, R.

  March, S.

  Wallhead, Richard C.

  Duncan, C.

  Maxton, James

  Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen

  Dunnico, H.

  Mitchell, E. Rosslyn (Paisley)

  Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)

  Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Unlver.)

  Montague, Frederick

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

  Fenby, T. D.

  Morris, R. H.

  Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney

  Gardner, J. P.

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

  Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Joslah

  Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.

  Mosley, Sir Oswald

  Wellock, Wilfred

  Gibbins, Joseph

  Murnin, H.

  Welsh, J. C.

  Gillett, George M.

  Naylor, T. E.

  Westwood, J

  Gosling, Harry

  Oliver, George Harold

  Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.

  Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)

  Owen, Major G.

  Whiteley, W.

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

  Palin, John Henry

  Wiggins, William Martin

  Greenall, T.

  Paling, W.

  Wilkinson, Ellen C.

  Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

  Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)

  Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)

  Ponsonby, Arthur

  Williams David (Swansea, E.)

  Griffith, F. Kingsley

  Potts, John S.

  Williams, Dr. J. H. (Lianelly)

  Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)

  Purcell, A. A.

  Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)

  Grundy, T. W.

  Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

  Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

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

  Riley, Ben

  Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)

  Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Ritson, J.

  Wright, W.

  Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)

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

  Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)

  Hardle, George D.

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

  Harney, E. A.

  Runciman, Hilda (Cornwall, St. Ives)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Harris, Percy A.

  Saklatvala, Shapurll

  Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr B.

  Smith.

  Bill read a Second time.

  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House for Monday next.—[Mr. Chamberlain.]
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

  ADJOURNMENT.
  Resolved, "That this House do adjourn."—[Sir G. Hennessy.]
  Adjourned accordingly at Fourteen Minutes after Eleven o'Clock.

ROYAL NAVY.
  BOILERMAKERS AND SHIPWRIGHTS (WAGES).
  BOILERMAKERS AND SHIPWRIGHTS (WAGES).
  SINGAPORE BASE (CONTRACT).
  SINGAPORE BASE (CONTRACT).
  OFFICERS' STEWARDS AND COOKS.
  OFFICERS' STEWARDS AND COOKS.
  OFFICERS' MESSMAN (CIVILIAN ASSISTANT).
  OFFICERS' MESSMAN (CIVILIAN ASSISTANT).
  MEAT SUPPLY.
  MEAT SUPPLY.
UNEMPLOYMENT.
  WIGAN DISTRICT.
  WIGAN DISTRICT.
  BENEFIT, WEDNESBURY.
  BENEFIT, WEDNESBURY.
TRANSPORT.
  TRACKLESS TROLLEYS.
  TRACKLESS TROLLEYS.
  ROAD WORKS (BRITISH MATERIAL).
  ROAD WORKS (BRITISH MATERIAL).
  STREET NOISES.
  STREET NOISES.
  THAMES BRIDOES.
  THAMES BRIDOES.
COAL INDUSTRY.
  CLOSED MINES, SOUTH WALES.
  CLOSED MINES, SOUTH WALES.
  WAGES COST, SOUTH WALES.
  WAGES COST, SOUTH WALES.
  SILICOSIS
  SILICOSIS
  INSURANCE AND PENSIONS (CONTRIBUTIONS).
  INSURANCE AND PENSIONS (CONTRIBUTIONS).
  BRITISH. WINES (EXCISE DUTY).
  BRITISH. WINES (EXCISE DUTY).
  TURKEY (CLAIMS).
  TURKEY (CLAIMS).
LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND RATING.
  INCOME TAX.
  INCOME TAX.
  RAILWAY FREIGHT RELIEF.
  RAILWAY FREIGHT RELIEF.
PUBLIC HEALTH.
  OVERCROWDING.
  OVERCROWDING.
  POOR LAW INFIRMARIES.
  POOR LAW INFIRMARIES.
  MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.
  MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.
HOUSING.
  SLATES (PRICE).
  SLATES (PRICE).
  RECONDITIONING, SHROPSHIRE.
  RECONDITIONING, SHROPSHIRE.
  EMPIRE SETTLEMENT.
  EMPIRE SETTLEMENT.
  MERCANTILE MARINE (LOAD LINE).
  MERCANTILE MARINE (LOAD LINE).
  AIR SERVICES (ENGLAND-INDIA).
  AIR SERVICES (ENGLAND-INDIA).
BRITISH ARMY.
  FRENCH MANOEUVRES.
  FRENCH MANOEUVRES.
  ARMY OF OCCUPATION (GERMAN Music).
  ARMY OF OCCUPATION (GERMAN Music).
  RAST AFRICA (COMMISSION'S REPORT).
  RAST AFRICA (COMMISSION'S REPORT).
  WAILING WALL, JERUSALEM.
  WAILING WALL, JERUSALEM.
  UNIVERSITIES (EXHIBITIONS).
  UNIVERSITIES (EXHIBITIONS).
  DANGEROUS DRUGS.
  DANGEROUS DRUGS.
  DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEES (YOUNG PERSONS).
  DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEES (YOUNG PERSONS).
Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

PERTH CORPORATION ORDER CON FIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order relating to Perth Corporation; and to move that it be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Duke of Sutherland.)
On Question, Bill read 1a; to be printed; and (pursuant to Section 7 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899) deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.

BRISTOL GAS ORDER, 1928.

  SHEFFIELD GAS ORDER, 1928.
  THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: My Lords, in reference to these Orders I beg to move the Motion which stands on the Paper in my name.
  Moved, That the Special Orders which were presented on the 6th instant be approved.—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

ASHFORD ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION) ORDER, 1928.
  BURNLEY ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION) ORDER, 1928.

    COLCHESTER ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION, ETC.) ORDER, 1928.
    CRANLEIGH ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION) ORDER. 1928.
    DAWLISH ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION) ORDER, 1928.
    FELIXSTOWE ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION, ETC.) ORDER, 1928.
    LOUTH ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1928.
    MAGHULL AND LYDIATE ELECTRICITY (AUGHTON EXTENSION) ORDER, 1928.
    MID-WARWICKSHIRE ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1928.
    MIDDLESBROUGH ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION, ETC.) ORDER, 1928.
    PRESTON CORPORATION ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION) ORDER, 1928.
    TAIN ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1928.
    WEST HANTS ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION) ORDER, 1928.
    THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY):My Lords, I beg to move the Motion of which Notice has been given.
    Moved, That the Special Orders which were presented on the 6th instant be approved.—(The Marquess of Londonderry.)
    On Question, Motion agreed to.

DAMAGE BY AIRCRAFT.
LORD LAMINGTON LORD LAMINGTON had given Notice to ask His Majesty's Government whether in view of the development of aviation in this country they have considered what steps should be taken, by which residents, who have suffered damage, may obtain compensation or redress, and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I do not think that the Motion which stands in my name on the Paper requires from me any very long speech. It is not that I find fault at all with our flying services, whether the most admirable public air services, civil aviation or His Majesty's military and naval Air Services. There is no complaint about them. My Motion rather concerns the future when, as we are told, flying will have become extremely common and will be an ordinary means of locomotion from place to place. As flying machines will then be in ordinary use accidents will naturally happen, and those accidents may cause a great deal of damage to houses and in other ways. It might be that a machine might descend upon a crowded omnibus, or a char-a-banc or even upon a passenger train. That sort of catastrophe is quite possible in connection with aviation. If damage is done by
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privately-owned aircraft how will compensation be forthcoming to the sufferer, the resident of a house, the passenger in an omnibus or whoever it might be?
According to the Common Law, which was quoted the other day by a Judge in New Zealand, I believe that the ownership of land carries with it the ownership of a column of air above the land right up to the skies. Whether that is true or not I am not able to say. It has already been affected by the Air Navigation Act of 1920. Section 9, subsection (1), of that Act distinctly states that no nuisance or grievance can be entertained by reason of a flying machine flying over anybody's land. It is clearly laid down by that Act that there is no trespass. The same subsection also states that for any material damage done by aircraft in flight, taking off, or landing or by any object falling out of the machine the owners of the machine shall be liable to pay compensation.
The second point I wish to deal with is that of low flying. Since my Motion appeared on the Paper the Secretary of State for Air gave a very satisfactory assurance in another place as to every precaution being taken to provide against people, householders and others, suffering damage by low flying. The question then arises whether you are always able to identify the flyer. In the answer to which I have just referred the Secretary of State said that suitable action was taken where there had been complaint of low flying, wherever the circumstances appeared to demand it and the machine could be identified. As I say, the question is how to identify the low-flying machine. There have been two recent cases, I think, in which accidents have resulted from low flying. There was a case last year at Bournemouth in which a herd of cattle was frightened by a low-flying aeroplane and ran in all directions. The farmer who owned the cattle took his gun and fired at the machine, but was acquitted, I believe, of any crime. There was, I know, another case at Edinburgh the other day in which a one-armed gardener was leading a pony. A low-flying machine came over and frightened the pony, which nearly pulled the one-armed man's remaining arm out of its socket. The machine, of course, went on and no redress was obtainable.
The first of the two chief points that I wish to impress upon your Lordships is that after flying has been very much developed there will be, no doubt, civil owners of aircraft as regardless of other people as are the motor cyclists who now tear about the country, and there may be people with no money at their backs using flying machines and doing personal injury to people and great damage to property. As far as we can see, there would be no means of recompensing the sufferers in such cases. The other point is that there should be means of identifying machines as far as possible—it is very difficult—in cases where there has been low flying. I understand that a law was recently passed in France to provide against these evils. It provides that every private owner of a flying machine shall belong to some recognised society, club or company; that there shall be well-defined means of marking the machines so that they can be identified and recognised, and also that the company or club shall be liable for any damage done by the owner of a machine. I can see no other way of remedying what I think may prove to be a very great source of evil.
I move in this matter because I think your Lordships will agree that when the motor was first established nobody realised what its full development would be. The result was that at the start roadside houses were rendered almost uninhabitable by dust. Then came fast-moving lorries and chars-a-bancs which shook the foundations of houses and so on, and the mortality amongst children playing on the roads was extensive and continues to be so to this day. Many of our roads are practically impossible for children or infirm and old people. We do not want to see the reproduction of such evils in connection with houses and so on to which very severe damage may be done by civil aviation when it becomes general. Therefore I beg to move.
THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND: My Lords, I am very glad indeed that this Question has been raised by my noble friend, as I welcome the opportunity of stating on behalf of His Majesty's Government that they are most desirous that the development of aviation in this country as required by the national
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interest shall be attended by a minimum of inconvenience to the general public. It is a matter of history that all similar developments of new means of transport have brought with them their own peculiar problems and have in general been attended, in the days of their early growth, by some measure of unavoidable inconvenience. It will be remembered that in the middle of the last century the best means of reconciling the urgent need for the development of railways with the rights of property owners and the convenience of those living in the immediate vicinity of the main arteries of traffic presented an acute problem, and gave rise at the time to sharp differences of opinion. More recently the rapidly increasing use of the motor car, alike for purposes of business and pleasure, has brought in its train other problems, some of which await solution at the present time. Yet if the railway and motor car have brought with them their difficulties and dangers, I do not think any one will to-day be found to deny that they have also conferred almost incalculable benefits on the community at large and have with the passage of time become absolutely indispensable.
It would, I think, be too much to expect that the development of aviation in this country will not be beset by somewhat similar problems and the matter is one to which the Air Ministry have for some years past given a great deal of thought and attention. As a result, in so far as civil aviation is concerned, the question was dealt with by legislation eight years ago. I refer to Section 9 of the Air Navigation Act of 1920. Under this Act aircraft may fly over land without trespassing if they do so at a reasonable height. At the same time those responsible for Air administration have throughout felt that some protection for property owners and others on the ground is essential. Accordingly, it is further provided in this section of the Act that where material damage, injury, or loss is caused to persons or property on the ground by an aircraft taking off, landing, or crashing, or by articles falling from it, damages shall be recoverable from the owner of the aircraft without consideration of negligence or intention or other cause of action, except where there is contributory negligence by the injured party. Under that section of the Air

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Navigation Act which I have quoted there is, therefore, given a statutory remedy against the owner or hirer of the aircraft as distinct from the pilot, without, of course, in any way abolishing or interfering with the rights already possessed by the injured party under the Common Law of the land. The section is, in short, a compromise between the requirements of civil aviation and the rights and interests of property owners and others on the ground. Its object is, in fact, to ensure that, whilst the legitimate development of flying shall not be cramped, it shall proceed under conditions such as to protect so far as possible the rights and reasonable amenities of the property owner and facilitate his obtaining redress.
I may add that with a view to minimising the likelihood of damage the regulations governing aviation, whether civil or service, are most stringent in their prohibition of all flying which may endanger persons or property on the ground. For example, they prohibit flying over cities or towns except at such an altitude as will enable the aircraft to land outside the city or town in case of engine failure. They place severe restrictions on the performance of trick flying and aerial acrobatics, and in general they prohibit any kind of flying which, by reason of low altitude or proximity to persons or dwellings, is likely to cause unnecessary danger to persons or property on land or water.
As to the identification of aeroplanes, in order to enable the individual machine to be distinguished, all service aircraft bear an identifying letter followed by not more than four figures, which are painted in colours chosen to give the greatest degree of legibility against their background. For instance, if the surface is aluminium they are painted in black, whilst if it is dark green they are painted in white. These identifying letters and figures are painted both on the underside of the lower planes so that they may be clearly visible to persons on the ground, and also on both sides of the hull or fuselage. It is prescribed that, to facilitate recognition, they shall be as large as the available surface permits. In the cases of the standard training machine in use in this country the height of the letters and figures painted on the lower planes is 2 ft. 6 ins., their width 1 ft. 6 ins. and
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their thickness 4 ins. The identification of any individual machine flying low should therefore present no difficulty. A civil pilot who infringes the regulations is liable to have his licence suspended, and also to prosecution, with penalties of fine or imprisonment on conviction. A service pilot in similar circumstances would be dealt with by disciplinary means and could be court-martialled. Under the King's Regulations especial care is to be taken to avoid flying low over stock during the breeding season.
In conclusion, I should like to say again that it is the Air Ministry's most earnest desire to take every precaution possible to ensure that the growth of flying shall cause the minimum possible interference with the convenience and amenities of the public. They will welcome any suggestions which may be of assistance to this end and are anxious to enlist the support and sympathy of all classes of the community (and not least of your Lordships' House), in this new and far-reaching development of flying, which I believe will be immensely valuable to mankind. The noble Lord mentioned a point in regard to the people who are not able to afford to pay for the damage which their machines have done. There is at present in this country no system, such as they have in France, by which clubs are liable for damage, but there is a system of third-party risk insurance. I do not think the Government would consider it necessary to make this compulsory at present, because one is averse from grandmotherly legislation. Still, the Government have an open mind on the subject and will be very glad to consider any further suggestions the noble Lord may make on this or other points.
LORD LAMINGTON: My Lords, I beg to thank the noble Duke for his reply. To a great extent we are in agreement, but the difficulty is how you are to get money out of a man who has committed damage if that man has no money. Anyone with £200 can buy a light flying machine and traverse the country, and possibly such a person might do great damage to private residences. How are we to get the money out of him if he has none with which to pay? He might, for instance, drop into a char-a-banc and seriously injure quite a lot of people, and yet those people might be unable to get any compensation from

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him because of his lack of means. I do not think it is compulsory that a flying owner should be a member of a club or association. As to identification, how can any one swear as to the colours or numbers of a machine flying low at a rate of 100 miles per hour? It is absurd. I admit that it is an extraordinarily difficult problem to deal with, but I think the Government ought to consider whether they should not adopt the French system by which an owner must belong to a recognised association. There might then be some means of tracing to which association the pilot of the machine belonged, and thereby of identifying him and enabling the people injured to secure reparation for the damage done. I think the Government ought also earnestly to consider whether they should not make third-party risk insurance compulsory. I would ask the noble Duke to request the Government to consider those two points—an obligation to be a member of a recognised club which would have funds with which to compensate sufferers and compulsory third-party risk insurance.
THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND: I will.
LORD LAMINGTON: I ask leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

ADEN PROTECTORATE.
LORD LAMINGTON LORD LAMINGTON rose to ask His Majesty's Government, whether the report that the Imam of the Yemen has withdrawn his forces from the Aden Protectorate is correct, and what are our present relations with him, and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am sorry to trouble your Lordships again. This is a matter which I have raised two or three times in your Lordships' House. We have been for many years at Aden in a very undignified position. There are a number of tribes who have been, if not subject to the rule, at all events more or less under the control of the Imam of the Yemen, and we have not been able to do anything to secure the departure of his forces from the Protectorate. I saw, however, in the newspapers lately a statement that by bombing some of his towns and forts he has been induced to withdraw his forces. I should like to know what is
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the exact position. I can only hope that what has been stated may be the case.
I should also like to know particularly what are our relations with the Imam. It is most important that we should be on excellent terms with him. He had a distinct grievance against us owing to our treatment of him and our conduct soon after the Armistice, and I think we should do something to mitigate the ill feeling or come to some terms. If necessary—though I do not suggest it is necessary—the boundaries of the Aden Protectorate might in some way be altered so as to meet his views and wishes. The position, I think, really is that he does not ask to have any rule over the country, but that he considers he has certain hereditary rights in Southern Arabia. If we could find some means of meeting his views and wishes on this point I understand that he would be only too pleased to come into friendly relations with us. I beg to move.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, as my noble friend has said he has raised this Question once or twice before in your Lordships' House. I think the last time he raised it was in February or March of this year. Since that time, when my noble friend Lord Lovat replied on behalf of the Government, considerable progress has been made towards a settlement with the Imam. Last spring the Zeidis, who are the inhabitants of the Yemen, had their headquarters at a place called Kataba, which is just over the line delimited in 1904 as the frontier between the Aden Protectorate and what was then Turkish territory. They kidnapped the Alawi sheikh and a relative of the Koteidi sheikh. Both these sheikhs are sheikhs of tribes which are situated in the Aden Protectorate. The result of this was that the Zeidis were bombed at Kataba and the two men who were kidnapped were released and returned home. After that a thirty days' truce was granted to the Imam who sent information that he wanted to negotiate with a representative of His Majesty's Government. The Resident heard also that the Imam was willing to withdraw his forces from the whole of the Protectorate, though in fact he had not got a letter from the Imam to that effect and the information was not substantiated.

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In April a representative of His Majesty's Government, Major T. C. Fowler, who was acting Political Representative at Aden, went to a place called Taiz and met a representative of the Imam. Taiz is in Yemen territory about twenty miles north-north-east of the delimited frontier. At that place conversations took place, but an agreement was not reached, and so, in order to allow the negotiations to go on, the truce was extended. Unfortunately, the Imam's representatives continued to procrastinate and no agreement looked like being reached. It appeared to be clear that the Imam was merely playing for time and was not seriously endeavouring to come to an agreement. Notwithstanding that, it was proposed that the truce should be further extended on the understanding that the town of Dhala should be evacuated by the Imam by June 20.
Dhala is the principal town in the protected area which was occupied by the Imam's forces; it is situated on the trade route and it is a weekly market. The Imam, however, did not comply with this request. He did not evacuate Dhala and so the truce was suspended and air action was taken against the Zeidis forces both in the Protectorate and in the Yemen itself. The result of the action was that the Imam withdrew all his forces from the Dhala area and now he has evacuated all the country within the Aden Protectorate, the frontier of which was definitely delimited in 1904. However, he still remained in part of Yafa and about half the Audauli country, which is situated within the Protectorate, though the actual frontier line has never been actually delimited by a Commission such as the Fitzmaurice Commission in 1904.
In September the Resident at Aden received a letter from the Imam indicating his willingness to re-open negotiations, and an invitation was sent to him to send a representative to Aden to confer with the Resident there as to the terms of a preliminary agreement. We proposed that His Majesty's Government should recognise the complete independence of the Yemen, and that in the preliminary agreement there should be a clause relating to the boundary and a definition of the actual situation of the boundary at the date of the Treaty. A full power has been prepared to
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enable the Resident to negotiate with the Imam and we have been in frequent communication with the Resident as to the terms to be discussed. I mentioned just now that the Imam has withdrawn his forces over the actual delimited frontier so that now the de jure frontier, the old Anglo-Turkish frontier, is in fact the frontier. If recognition of this frontier can be obtained and further frontier incidents can be avoided, it will be possible to take up the various points of detail which may be at issue between the Government and the Imam, and it is hoped that we may be able to come to an understanding with him.
I may say that harvesting operations are going on quietly, and that the weekly market at Dhala is in full swing and attracting people from over the border. The last time this Question was raised the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, was here, and he mentioned the question of the Makalla trade route. I have reason to believe that that is functioning all right. The noble Lord's Motion is to lay Papers. I cannot help thinking that after what I have been able to say he will agree that it would be inadvisable to lay any Papers at the present juncture. We are hoping to bring negotiations with the Imam to a successful conclusion within a reasonable time and I think it would be obviously undesirable to publish Papers while negotiations are going on in case they might prejudice the success of the negotiations.
LORD LAMINGTON: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for the very satisfactory answer which he has given me. It only now remains for our negotiations to be carried on with the Imam in a friendly fashion. We must recognise that he had a distinct grievance against us after the Armistice. We behaved foolishly and most unfairly to him, and I think that if his feelings can be soothed in that direction a great deal will have been done. As I indicated in my first remarks, I think also that if there is some recognition that he has hereditary rights over Southern Arabia that also will be gratifying to his self-respect. I need not detain your Lordships any longer. I am very pleased indeed with what has been done in this important matter. Other countries are trying to enter into close relationship with the Imam of the

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Yemen and therefore we do not desire to neglect our opportunities in this matter if we can possibly avoid it. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: My Lords, I beg to move to resolve, That it is desirable that all Consolidation Bills in the present Session, which are not Private Bills, be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament. Your Lordships have on many occasions been pleased to accept a Motion in the same terms as that which I have put upon the Paper for to-night, and I do not think it is necessary to trouble your Lordships with any arguments in its favour. I believe that there is no actual Consolidation Bill before either House at present, but it is just as well that the Committee should be set up at once in order to be ready to take any business that may be brought before it. As communications between the two Houses for the setting up of the Committee usually occupy some time, I suggest that we should get the Committee fully constituted as soon as we can.
I say that there are no Consolidation Bills on the Table at present, but there certainly is one Bill with regard to which this House and Parliament were last Session given to understand that it would be followed immediately by a consolidation, and that, in fact, the form that the Bill took, which laid it open to a great deal of criticism, was chiefly designed to facilitate consolidation. I venture to say that the much abused form of legislation by reference is very often convenient when a Bill is passed with a view to consolidation. It renders the actual process of consolidation very simple. I ventured to speak to the late Lord Chancellor about the form of the Companies Bill, and he was good enough to inform me that it was decidedly his intention that the Bill should never actually come into operation, that a clause had been introduced into it so as to enable a Consolidation Bill to be passed, and that the objectionable Bill would never actually take its place upon the Statute Book. So much for the Consolidation Bill that I accordingly hope we
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may see upon the Table of your Lordships' House. I hope that it may be referred in the usual way to the Consolidation Committee.
Another Bill that I have in mind is the Unemployment Insurance Bill. I do not think that I am in a position to say that there was ever an actual promise given that the Acts relating to this matter would be consolidated, but very severe remarks were made both in this House and in another place about the form of the Unemployment Insurance Bill this time last year. In fact there was almost a first-class debate on the subject in the other House regarding the effects of the Bill, and the hope that it would never actually appear on the Statute Book found voice, I think, in all parts of that House. I do not think that anything was said amounting to a promise of legislation, but certainly, in answer to a very powerful speech on the subject by Lord Carson, who I had hoped would be here this evening, things were said which I think almost amounted to an undertaking that the objectionable Bill would never appear on the Statute Book and that a Consolidation Bill was very desirable. Venturing to say that I know something about legislation, I should like to add my opinion to the opinions that were expressed last Session, that the form of that Bill was very objectionable except on the understanding that it was definitely drawn for the purpose of consolidation.
There is one other point connected with this matter with which I should like to trouble the House. The House may remember that last year the Statute Law Revision Bill was passed and is now an Act of Parliament. It was passed with a view to the issue of volumes of the Revised Statutes, bringing them down to more modern times. The present edition of the Revised Statutes does not go beyond the end of last century, and it would certainly be desirable—and the House on that occasion virtually sanctioned the project—to carry on the Revised Statutes to a later date. The Statute Law Committee, of which I happen to be Chairman and which look to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack as their supremum caput, have got the volumes almost ready to come out in the spring, and it certainly would be a, great misfortune if the various Acts that might be got rid of

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should nevertheless have to appear, instead of Consolidation Acts which would put the Revised Statutes in the most useful form. I refer particularly to the Act of 1920, which will come within the limits of the new volumes of Statutes. I think that everybody who was acquainted with that legislation will agree that it would be a very great pity to give, as it were, a new lease of life to the Act of 1920. Accordingly I should like to press upon the Government that it would be desirable to bring forward a consolidation of the Unemployment Insurance Acts, if it be possible to do so.
I anticipate one answer, based on the question of time. But the question of time does not affect this matter. Time does affect in a more than usual degree in the coming year the state of business in the other House, but I should like to point out that Consolidation Bills occupy no time on account of the system under which they proceed by means of the Joint Committee, and the ratio exsistendi of the Joint Committee is that those Bills which are not very happy on the floor of the House should be remitted to it. They practically take up no time in either House, and it has been the practice, and, I believe, on the whole a salutory one, for several years now for both Houses to accept the Report of the Joint Committee on any Bill, and not to attempt to amend it or even discuss it. Therefore I hope the Government will not feel that if they brought in a Bill upon that subject it would interfere with the course of more absolutely necessary legislation. I beg to move the Motion that I have placed on the Paper.
Moved to resolve, That it is desirable that all Consolidation Bills in the present Session, which are not Private Bills, be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament.—(Lord Muir Mackenzie.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD HAILSHAM): My Lords, I hope that the House will accept this Resolution. I think that those members of this House who have not actually served upon a Consolidation Committee, and who are not lawyers, perhaps hardly appreciate the value of the work which is done by the Consolidation Committee, both in clarifying the law and in rendering it more convenient of access to the profession as well as to laymen. I believe
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that consolidation, wisely carried out, is of real assistance to the community at large, and I think that both Houses of Parliament and the public have reason to be grateful to those Committees which have for so long very carefully gone through a very tedious task, which has no spectacular advantage and yet which is doing really valuable service.
With regard to the observations which fell from the noble and learned Lord as to the Bills which he hoped to see consolidated, your Lordships will remember that when the Companies Bill was passing through this House last Session I indicated that it was the intention of the Government to effect consolidation before the Statute became operative. That intention, naturally, still exists. I have every reason to believe that the Consolidation Bill is in an advanced stage of preparation, and I hope, therefore, it may be possible to introduce it at no very distant date. With regard to the question of the Unemployment Insurance Acts, I can only say that I am quite sure that the Ministry of Labour, which is the Department directly affected, will pay due consideration to the arguments that the noble and learned Lord has brought forward, but I am not in a position to give any undertaking as to whether or not consolidation will be proposed with regard to that legislation. I think it is somewhat altruistic of the noble and learned Lord to suggest it, when I remember the very arduous nature of the task which he will necessarily undertake when he embarks upon consideration of the Companies Acts, which will come first. I think his Committee will be quite sufficiently occupied with the consideration of that Bill for some little time. However that may be, I am quite sure that the Consolidation Committee is a very valuable one, and I hope your Lordships will unanimously agree to the Motion.
LORD DANESFORT: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Lord who introduced the Motion, to whom I think this House is very grateful for his very interesting speech, whether there is any practice as to when Consolidation Bills on particular subjects are introduced—for instance, as to the period of time which would elapse between the first Bill to be consolidated and the last Bill. One can see that there are

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certain subjects which require almost immediate consolidation—the Companies Acts, for instance—and to my mind there is an increasing number of cases where early consolidation is really absolutely necessary. That is due largely to the practice, which I think is inevitable now, of legislation by reference. It is a horrible thing to do, but it is a thing which has to be done, and, disagreeable as it is for the Legislature, I can assure the House that it is far more disagreeable for the people who have to interpret the law. You have to get down a whole library of books before you are in a position to ascertain the law applicable to a particular case. That being so, I would ask the noble and learned Lord whether it is possible in those innumerable cases of legislation by reference to have a Consolidation Act as soon as possible, so as to enable those practising at the law to interpret the law, and those who are sitting as Judges to administer it. I do not suppose that the cost is very great, because it is only the cost of printing, and the advantages, as the Lord Chancellor has pointed out, are very great indeed. Perhaps the noble Lord will from his experience tell me what is the practice which prevails in regard to bringing in Consolidation Bills.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: My Lords, I think the bringing in of Consolidation Bills depends almost entirely upon the amount of time that can be given to that work in the Parliamentary Counsel's Office. I think Consolidation Bills, desirable as they are, can only come behind the positive legislation that the Government finds necessary in a particular Session. I have already referred to the present Session, when it continues after Christmas, and to the general view that there will be an Election before very long. Time seems to press, and I can well understand that the Parliamentary Counsel must find themselves in very considerable difficulty as to the work coming directly before them. On the other hand, it is a matter in which I think it is quite
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possible for them to get assistance. It is not like dealing with some technical matter with regard to unemployment insurance or agriculture, or whatever it is, where it is desirable that the Government should have the work done entirely by the Parliamentary Counsel themselves. I think they can very well, for the purpose of the technical work of consolidation, get someone—perhaps I may be allowed to use an unparliamentary expression and say "get a devil"—for the purpose of that work. The time of Consolidation Bills coming in depends entirely upon the time of the draftsmen. As to the Committee, if your Lordships are good enough to approve of my Resolution, as you have done in previous years, the Consolidation Committee, at any rate, is always ready to take up any work of the kind which is brought forward.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Ordered, That a Message be sent to the Commons to communicate this Resolution, and to desire their concurrence.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION.
The Royal Assent was given to the following Bills:—

Unemployment Insurance,

Coatbridge Drainage Order Confirmation.

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.
House adjourned at five minutes before six o'clock.

BURNLEY GAS ORDER, 1928.
Special Order proposed to be made on the application of the Mayor, aldermen and burgesses of the County Borough of Burnley:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and referred to the Special Orders Committee.

PETERSFIELD AND SELSEY GAS ORDER, 1928.
Special Order proposed to be made on the application of the Petersfield and Selsey Gas Company:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and referred to the Special Orders Committee.

ALDERLEY EDGE AND WILMSLOW ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1928.
Special Order constituting a Joint Board consisting of representatives of the Urban District Councils of Alderley Edge and Wilmslow for the joint exercise of powers under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1926:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and referred to the Special Orders Committee.