Sitting of 6 February 1930

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
London County Council (Charing Cross Bridge) Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Wednesday, 19th February, at half-past Seven of the clock.
London and North Eastern Railway (No. 2) Bill,
Order for Committal [5th February] read, and discharged; Bill referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
Sheffield Corporation Bill (Certified Bill).
Order [4th February] That the Bill be read a Second time To-morrow read, and discharged: Bill withdrawn.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  LABOUR STANDARDS.
  Mr. ALBERYasked the Minister of Labour whether there is at present any international agreement as to what constitutes sweated labour; and if any negotiations have taken place with a view to-finding a definition?
  The MINISTER of LABOUR (Miss Bondfield): No, Sir. There is, however, a convention concerning the creation of minimum wage fixing machinery adopted by the International Labour Organisation in 1928. Under this Convention, each country which ratifies it undertakes to create or maintain machinery whereby minimum rates of wages can be fixed for workers employed in trades or parts of trades (and in particular in home-working trades) in which no arrangements exist for the effective regulation
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  of wages by collective agreement or otherwise and where wages are exceptionally low, but each State is free to determine the trades or parts of trades in which minimum wage fixing machinery shall be applied.
  Mr. ALBERY: Can the right hon. Lady add anything to that statement which will show the workers of this country that any real progress has been made in this matter since the Labour Government was in Office in 1924?

  UNEMPLOYMENT.

    LOCAL EMPLOYMENT COMMITTEES.
    Mr. FREEMANasked the Minister of Labour what functions are still undertaken by local employment committees; if it is her intention to continue them; and whether she intends to vary their responsibilities?
    Miss BONDFIELD: The Local Employment Committees are advisory bodes, the constitution and functions of which are set out in the leaflet L.E.C. 5/9, a copy of which I am sending to my hon. Friend, I regard them as an essential link between the Department and the local areas served by the Exchanges and it will be my policy to enlist through them, to the utmost extent which is practicable, the local co-operation of employers and workpeople in the work of the Department.
    Mr. FREEMAN: Is the right hon. Lady aware that these committees are not well attended, in view of the fact that they are lacking in executive powers and functions?
    Miss BONDFIELD: I cannot accept that suggestion.

    BENEFIT CLAIMS, DURHAM.
    Mr. LAWTHERasked the Minister of Labour if she will give the number of cases in which claims for unemployment benefit were considered, allowed, and disallowed by boards of assessors in the administrative County of Durham since their formation, and a comparable period for similar decisions given by the courts of referees prior to the establishment of the boards of assessors?
    Miss BONDFIELD: As this reply is long and contains a tabular statement, I will, if I may, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the reply:
    The boards of assessors make recommendations to the insurance officer for the purpose of the initial decision by him on the question whether the claimant is genuinely seeking work or satisfies the transitional conditions that he is normally employed in an insured trade and has had a reasonable period of employment in the past two years. The number of cases dealt with by boards of assessors in the County of Durham in the period of 17 weeks from 9th September, 1929, to 6th January, 1930, was as follows:

    County of Durham.

    —

    September, 1928 to 14th January, 1929 (18 weeks).

    10th September, 1929 to 13th January, 1930 (18 weeks).

    Disallowances by Insurance Officer on grounds of not g nuinely seeking work and transitional conditions.

    8,121

    3,707*

    † Cases dealt with by Courts of Referees on all grounds of disallowance:—

    Total number of cases considered

    5,344

    3,991

    Numbers recommended for Allowance

    3,048

    1,596

    Disallowance

    2,296

    2,395

    * These include certain types of cases which, under the procedure, are not dealt with in the first place by Boards of Assessors.

    † The district served by these Courts include North Shields, Shiremoor, and Whitley Bay (Northumberland), Northallerton, Richmond and Thirsk (Yorkshire).

    AGRICULTURAL WORKERS.
    Captain Sir GEORGE BOWYERasked the Minister of Labour what action she proposes to take to extend unemployment insurance to agricultural workers?
    Miss BONDFIELD: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the statement which I made in the course of the Debate on this matter on 29th January.
    Sir G. BOWYER: May I ask whether it is true that this matter has been postponed until next Session?
    Miss BONDFIELD: The statement I made is that we shall proceed on the lines of evolving a scheme which will not come straight into the House, but which will be first discussed by the farmers and farm workers concerned, and which we hope to be able to present to the House as an agreed scheme.

    Number of cases considered

    …

    6,561

    Number recommended for:

    Allowance

    …

    4,776

    Disallowance

    …

    1,785

    The courts of referees, save in "review" cases, deal only with appeals from the initial decisions of the insurance officer, and the figures with regard to the cases so dealt with are not comparable with those for the boards of assessors. The figures which illustrate on a comparable basis the working of the boards of assessors procedure are those for the initial disallowances of benefit by insurance officers. These are given below, together with figures for courts of referees:
    Mr. W. B. TAYLORasked the Minister of Labour if the payments by employer and worker for insurance of farm-workers have been actuarially assessed; and, if so, what are the respective payments proposed to be made by the State, employer and employé on the farms?
    Miss BONDFIELD: As I explained in the Debate on 29th January, the Departments concerned are in consultation on this matter, with a view to the preparation of a scheme as a basis for discussion, but it is not yet possible to indicate the rates of contribution which would be necessary, as these must obviously depend very largely on the nature of the scheme to be proposed.
    Mr. TAYLOR: Can we have any information as to when they will take place?
    Miss BONDFIELD: I hope within a fortnight.
    Major GEORGE DAVIES: Is the right hon Lady taking steps to get the opinion of those interested who are not, up to the present moment, members of one of these organised bodies?
    Miss BONDFIELD: That will be a point in the consultations which are to take place.

    DEVONPORT DOCKYARD
    Mr. HORE-BELISHAasked the Minister of Labour how much actual employment is lost to Devonport and Plymouth through the cancellation of the building of the cruiser "Northumberland" in Devonport dockyard?
    Miss BONDFIELD: I would refer the hon. Member to the second part of the answer given to him on 29th January-last by my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: May I ask the right hon. Lady whether, when economies in naval construction are undertaken, amounting to £6,000,000, the effect on employment is taken into account, and whether her Department is consulted, so that those who are thrown out may be found other work?
    Miss BONDFIELD: I can add nothing to the reply which has been given.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Can the right hon. Lady not answer a perfectly simple question? Is her Department consulted in order that those men who are thrown out of work may find other employment?
    Miss BONDFIELD: Certainly.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: What do the Department do about it?

    HOME TRAINING CENTRES.
    Mr. LOUIS SMITHasked the Minister of Labour if she has investigated the working of the special training centre for servants in Sheffield; if this has operated satisfactorily; and, if so, whether she will consider recommending to other local authorities in towns similarly situated the desirability of establishing similar centres?
    Miss BONDFIELD: I am familiar with the work of this centre, which is conducted on behalf of the Ministry by the Central Committee on Women's Training and Employment. Home Training Centres have been in operation in 39 areas during the past year, and the Department and the Committee are always prepared to give careful consideration to the possibility of establishing additional centres in areas where unemployment is severe, and there is evidence of a substantial demand for training.
    Mr. SMITH: Is the right hon. Lady satisfied that sufficient attention is being given to this matter, having regard to the frequent difficulties experienced in obtaining domestic help, even charladies being frequently unobtainable?
    Miss BONDFIELD: The matter is constantly under my attention, and I recognise the importance of it.

    AGED WORKERS.
    Mr. WELLOCKasked the Minister of Labour if she can state approximately the number of persons between the ages of 65 and 70 who are in employments?
    Miss BONDFIELD: Figures are not available in respect of persons between the ages of 65 and 70, but it is estimated that there are approximately 250,000 men and 30,000 women aged 65 and over in employment in Great Britain. The great majority of these persons would be under 70 years of age.

    BENEFIT DISALLOWED, BRISTOL.
    Mr. ALPASSasked the Minister of Labour whether she has received representations respecting the withholding of unemployment benefit since 24th December last from about 200 men registered at the Grove Employment Exchange, Bristol; and what steps she proposes to take to make good the losses to the men thus affected?
    Miss BONDFIELD: I have received representations in regard to the cases of a number of men whose claims to benefit were disallowed for one week from the 24th December, on the ground that they were not unable to obtain suitable employment. I understand some of the claimants have appealed against the decision, and the normal action is being taken.

  WASHINGTON HOURS CONVENTION.
  Mr. ALBERYasked the Minister of Labour whether she has now had further discussions with the National Union of Railwaymen concerning the ratification of the Washington Hours Convention; and whether these discussions have reached a conclusion or are still being continued?
  Miss BONDFIELD: I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to a similar question on the 30th January, of which I am sending him a copy.
  Mr. ALBERY: Does the right hon. Lady remember informing me on the last occasion when I put a similar question that negotiations were still pending? Will she say whether those negotiations are still being continued, or whether they have terminated?
  Miss BONDFIELD: They are still proceeding.
  Sir G. BOWYERasked the Minister of Labour whether any steps will be taken this Session to ratify the Washington Hours Convention or whether this matter will have to be postponed?
  Miss BONDFIELD: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the Prime Minister's reply to a similar question on Monday last.
  Mr. MANDER: Will the right hon. Lady bear in mind that it is not only a question of a promise to this House but of a pledge given to every other member of the League of Nations at Geneva last June?

  TRADE BOARDS ACT (CATERING TRADE).
  Mr. KELLYasked the Minister of Labour the number of men and women engaged in the catering trade; what are the hours of the working week; and if any figures are known as to the wages paid?
  Miss BONDFIELD: According to the Census of 1921, the numbers of males and of females engaged in the catering trades were approximately 220,000 and 370,000 respectively. The numbers of employés were approximately 140,000 males and 260,000 females. An inquiry was recently made into the hours worked and the
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  wages paid, but the results are not yet complete. In this connection I would refer my hon. Friend to a reply to a question by the hon. Member for Nottingham West (Mr. Hayday) on 5th February, of which I am sending him a copy.
  Mr. KELLY: May I ask if those investigations are likely to be completed in the near future and the information conveyed to us?
  Miss BONDFIELD: I hope so.

  INDUSTRIES (CONCILIATION BODIES).
  Mr. MANDERasked the Minister of Labour to what extent regular reports are supplied to her Department by the joint industrial councils and similar bodies now functioning in industry; and whether any of the meetings are attended by her officials?
  Miss BONDFIELD: Excluding trade joint councils associated with the Government Service, on all of which my Department is represented, the meetings of 33 joint councils and similar bodies are regularly attended by a liaison officer appointed by the Department. The Department receives reports of proceedings of the councils referred to above, and also of a number of councils that have no liaison officer.
  Mr. MANDER: Will the right hon. Lady endeavour to get reports from all those councils, so as to keep closely in touch with what they are doing?
  Miss BONDFIELD: We do endeavour to do that.

  POLICE.

    COMPLAINTS.
    Mr. BECKETTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many members of the public who complained during last year against rudeness or offensiveness by members of the Metropolitan Police Force were written to informing them that no steps would be taken, as a summons was to be issued against them?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Clynes): The answer is "none," but in cases where legal proceedings are pending, complainants

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    are informed that any disciplinary proceedings must await the result of the legal proceedings, but the complaint will be further considered after the legal proceedings, are over, if he so desires.
    Mr. BECKETT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that those letters are very common, and that though a person has committed an offence and is to be summoned for it, that has nothing to do with the perfectly legitimate complaint to Scotland Yard about offensiveness or the part of the police. The two things are not connected.
    Major The Marquess of TITCHFIELD: Are not the police force very good mannered?
    Mr. BECKETT: Is it not a fact that, if the Noble Lord shed the distinctiveness lent by his garb, he might find some of them behave very differently?
    Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: Is it not a fact that most of these complaints are completely unfounded?
    Mr. BECKETTasked the Home Secretary how many of the 324 complaints received from members of the public against offensive action and language by members of the Metropolitan police force were followed by the issue of a summons against the complainant?
    Mr. CLYNES: The answer is 38.

    UNSUPPORTED EVIDENCE.
    Mr. BECKETTasked the Home Secretary whether, when the unsupported evidence of a member of the Metropolitan police force against a member of the public is set aside by the magistrate, any further investigation is made?
    Mr. CLYNES: When a magistrate has expressed himself as dissatisfied with the evidence given by a member of the Force, there is always some further investigation.

    HIGHER APPOINTMENTS.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHAasked the Home Secretary whether, seeing that Police Regulation No. 9 lays down that no person without previous police experience would be appointed to the post of chief of the police unless he possesses some exceptional qualification or experience which specially fits him for the post or there is no candidate from the police
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    service who is considered sufficiently web qualified, he will say whether a police officer whose appointment to a chief constableship has been approved by him is regarded as sufficiently well qualified to fill any similar appointment in the police service which may become vacant?
    Mr. CLYNES: This is a question which could best be answered in relation to the circumstances of a particular case, but generally, I he answer would be in the affirmative.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Will the Home Secretary go into this matter with the same attention as he has gone into other cases, and see what effect it has on the moral of the police court if the top ranks are closed?
    Mr. CLYNES: I can assure my hon. Friend that the matter has been constantly before me, and I am giving it the closest attention.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. LAMBERT WARD: Has not the appointment of what may be called an outsider at Scotland Yard had a very beneficial effect?
    Major McKENZIE WOODasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that the frequent practice of appointing men without previous police experience to the higher posts in the police force acts as a deterrent to men of higher educational attainments who otherwise would be ready to join the force as constables; whether he will have regard to this consideration in making or approving future appointments; and whether he will take steps to bring the possibilities of the police force as a career to the notice of university graduates and others of similar standing?
    Mr. CLYNES: I can only say that I am giving this question my careful attention and I will endeavour to take into account all relevant considerations.

    Ex-CONSTABLE WILKIN.
    Mr. HALL-CAINEasked the Home Secretary whether any consideration was held out to Police Constable Wilkin, in the matter of his evidence in the Goddard case, in view of his admission that he had been guilty of receiving bribes and other deviations from his duty; and on what certificate of conduct was his pension granted?
    Mr. CLYNES: Ex-Police Constable Wilkin rendered considerable assistance to the authorities. This was taken into account when the question of his pension came up for consideration and he was informed that this would be done. Apart from this, no consideration of any kind was held out to him. His service was reckoned as approved service on the recommendation of the Commissioner of Police.
    Mr. HALL-CAINE: What certificate of conduct was issued to this man? Was it any good, bad, or indifferent?
    Mr. CLYNES: As to details, I should require further notice. I think I have given a full answer to the question on the Paper.
    Mr. HALL-CAINE: In my original question I asked "on what certificate of conduct was his suspension granted?" May I have an answer to that part of my question?
    Mr. CLYNES: I think the hon. Member will find that that part of his question is answered in my reply.
    Mr. BECKETT: Has the right hon. Gentleman satisfied himself that this constable was not following the usual practice of many members of the force?
    HON. MEMBERS: Shame!

  FLOGGING.
  Mr. FREEMANasked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the fact that flogging, whipping and birching have been abolished in the Navy without discipline having suffered, he will consider abolishing these forms of punishment for the civil population in certain circumstances?
  Mr. CLYNES: While I must recognise that there is a widespread belief in the efficacy of corporal punishment for certain classes of crime, I think that the position might very well be reviewed in regard, at any rate, to some of the offences for which such punishment is now authorised by the criminal law, and I should be glad to take the matter up if a suitable opportunity presented itself.
  Captain W. G. HALL: Do I understand from that answer that birching has been abolished in the Navy?
  Mr. CLYNES: I am not quite certain on that point.
  Dr. HASTINGSasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware, that on 31st January last a man sentenced to 15 strokes of the cat jumped to death at Wandsworth Gaol rather than receive this punishment; how many children and adults were sentenced to the cat in 1929; and whether in future he intends to forbid this form of punishment?
  Mr. CLYNES: No, Sir. The published reports of the inquest make in clear that the man in question killed himself because he feared 10 years' penal servitude and not because he feared the cat. He committed suicide a week before the expiration of the time allowed for appeal and therefore a week before the earliest date on which the flogging could have been carried out. The last complete year for which figures concerning sentences of the cat for criminal offences are available is 1928. In that year 13 persons over 21 and three persons aged between 16 and 21 were ordered the cat in England and Wales for criminal offences. No persons under 16 were ordered the cat. I have no power to forbid a form of punishment prescribed by Act of Parliament; but on the question whether legislation is desirable to restrict the classes of offence for which the cat car be ordered, I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer I have just given to my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Freeman).
  Dr. HASTINGS: Has not the Home Secretary the right to remit any sentence which he thinks should be remitted in the public interest?
  Mr. CLYNES: Yes, and I consider in cases which come before me whether that right should be exercised or not. I can assure my hon. Friend that the whole matter is before the Commissioners of Prisons.
  Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why his hon. Friends object so much to flogging, and yet condone appalling offences and cruelties which are going on in Russia?
  Mr. BENSON: Are the Government prepared to set up a Select Committee to go into the whole question of flogging and its effect?
  Mr. CLYNES: I will consider that point.
  Mr. MARJORIBANKS: Is it not good policy to punish certain brutal offences?

  JUVENILE OFFENDERS.
  Mr. LONGBOTTOMasked the Home Secretary if he has any information that the recommendation of his Department, contained in Papers 448 and 261/25, dated 30th September, 1927, requesting justices of the peace sitting in juvenile courts to seek the assistance of officers of local education authorities when juvenile offenders are dealt with is being generally adopted; and, if not, will he agree to reissue the recommendation?
  Mr. CLYNES: I have no information later than 1925 when all juvenile courts were asked for information on this and other matters. It was evident that at that time many of the juvenile courts were not seeking as much assistance as they should from the education authorities, but I hope the position has improved. I will bear in mind my hon. Friend's suggestion when an opportunity offers.

  MR. GIALDINI.
  Sir KINGSLEY WOODasked the Home Secretary whether it has now been decided to take steps to have the case of Mr. Gialdini brought before the proper legal authorities in Italy?
  Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLEasked the Home Secretary if he can make any further statement as to any additional steps which have been taken or as to the progress of the steps which have been taken for the institution of legal proceedings against Gialdini either in this country or in Italy?
  Mr. CLYNES: In reply to these questions, I would refer to the answer which I gave to the hon. Member for Kingston-on-Thames (Sir G. Penny) last Thursday. It is undesirable at this stage to state publicly the exact position.

  CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS (FIRES).
  Mr. LAWTHERasked the Home Secretary if he will consider the introduction of legislation to make it compulsory that where films are exhibited at children's performances they shall be of a non-inflammable type, and also to arrange where such performances are held that a sufficient and suitable staff shall be in attendance to deal with such audiences in order to obviate any panic with consequent loss of life such as has taken place recently?
  Mr. CLYNES: I would refer my hon. Friend to the full reply on this subject which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Western Renfrew on 23rd January.

  INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGY.
  Mr. MANDERasked the Home Secretary whether he has any information as to developments in industrial psychology in such matters as vocational choice, motion study, and its effect on health, comfort, and efficiency of the workers?
  Mr. CLYNES: I would refer the hon. Member to the publications of the Industrial Health Research Board, of which I am sending him a list, and to the Journal of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology.

  PETROL STATIONS.
  Mr. HURDasked the Home Secretary what counties have received permission to include the whole of their respective areas for the purpose of applying bylaw-s regulating the appearance of filling stations under the Petroleum (Consolidation) Act, 1928?
  Mr. CLYNES: No counties have as yet actually made such bylaws. Hereford and Derby have submitted draft bylaws and these have been provisionally approved. The Hereford bylaws apply to the whole county except boroughs and urban districts; the Derby bylaws exclude—in addition to boroughs—the Derbyshire coalfield and the industrial area of the county generally.

  PRIVATE EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES.
  Sir NICHOLAS GRATTAN-DOYLEasked the Home Secretary

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  whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce legislation for the regulation of private employment agencies?
  Mr. CLYNES: The Government is unable at present to introduce legislation on this matter, but it would view sympathetically any Bill for the purpose which may be introduced by a private Member.

  BRITISH MUSEUM (BOMB).
  Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLEasked the Home Secretary whether he can make any statement as to the outcome of investigations into the placing of an alleged bomb in the Indian section of the British Museum?
  Mr. CLYNES: A man has now been charged, and I cannot say anything while proceedings are pending.
  Mr. THURTLE: Will the Home Secretary make it clear even now that no Indian Nationals or other Indian persons were connected with that crime?
  Mr. CLYNES: In the circumstances, I cannot add to what I have said in my answer.

  INDUSTRIAL DISEASES (SILICOSIS).
  Mr. HOFFMANasked the Home Secretary if he is now in a position to say if he proposes to extend the scope of the metal-grinding (silicosis) scheme; if so, what classes of workers such extension will cover; and when it is proposed it shall become operative?
  Mr. CLYNES: I now propose to extend the scheme to include workers employed on segmental wheels (Slacks machines) fitted with sandstone, and I have sent a Draft Amending Order to employers' and workers' organisations to give them an opportunity of submitting any observations upon it before it is finally made. The Draft provides that the Amending Order shall take effect on the 1st April and shall apply to all workmen employed in the processes on or after the date on which the Order is made. I am sending the hon. Member a copy.
  Sir GEORGE HAMILTON: Will the Tight hon. Gentleman let me have an answer to my letter which was sent to
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  him three weeks ago? I have not even received an acknowledgment.
  Mr. CLYNES: I am surprised that there should have been any such delay, and I will attend to the matter.
  Sir G. HAMILTON: Thank you.

  EDUCATION.

    MAINTENANCE ALLOWANCES.
    Dr. VERNON DAVIESasked the President of the Board of Education (1) if he has fixed the scale for the varying maintenance grants for school children between 14 years and 15 years, according to the means of the parents and what will be the highest income limit for which a maintenance grant will he payable;
    (2) if maintenance grants for school children at 14 years of age will be at the same rate for boys and girls, or will a sex distinction be made?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Sir Charles Trevelyan): I will answer these two questions together by referring the hon. Member again to the answer which I gave him on 23rd January.
    Dr. DAVIES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the answer he gave me was no answer at all, and, if he is not in a position to give an answer, will he explain to the House how he arrives at an estimate of £5,500,000?
    Mr. BEAUMONT: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us any information as to when he will let us know in regard to this most important matter?
    Sir C. TREVELYAN: I shall be glad to let hon. Members know when the Committee which is considering the matter has reported.
    Mr. BEAUMONT: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when that is likely to be?
    Sir C. TREVELYAN: No, Sir.

    STAFFING.
    Dr. DAVIESasked the President of the Board of Education if he proposes to fix a maximum age limit for teachers who, having retired, may be invited to return to the work of their profession on

    2065
    account of the shortage of teachers expected when the school age is raised to 15 years in 1931?
    Sir C. TREVELYAN: I do not propose to alter the present age limit of 65.
    Mr. MACLEANasked the President of the Board of Education whether he has invited the active co-operation of the teaching profession in the effort to secure the additional number of men teachers required owing to the raising of the school-leaving age; and, if not, will he consider the advisability of securing such co-operation?
    Sir C. TREVELYAN: I have been in communication with representatives of the teaching profession on this and other matters connected with the raising of the school-leaving age, and I have every hope of securing their active co-operation.
    Mr. MACLEAN: Would the right hon. Gentleman say with what bodies he has been in communication?
    Sir C. TREVELYAN: Naturally, I have been in communication with the National Union of Teachers.
    Mr. MACLEAN: Is that the only body?
    Sir C. TREVELYAN: At present.
    Mr. MACLEAN: Is there no other body in connection with the profession that the light hon. Gentleman intends to take into consideration?
    Sir C. TREVELYAN: There is no other body at present.

    STATE SCHOLARSHIPS.
    Mr. EDEasked the President of the Board of Education how many women are holders of State scholarships; and how many women are holding these scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge, respectively?
    Sir C. TREVELYAN: 296 women now hold State scholarships; 80 of these are at Oxford, and 61 at Cambridge.
    Mr. EDEasked the President of the Board of Education how many men are holders of State scholarships; and how many are holding these scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge, respectively?
    Sir C. TREVELYAN: 346 men now hold State scholarships; 96 of these are at Oxford, and 171 at Cambridge.

    DEFECTIVE SCHOOLS, DERBYSHIRE.
    Major GRAHAM POLEasked the President of the Board of Education whether any of the schools in Derbyshire are, in the opinion of the Board of Education, defective or unsuitable; and their location?
    Sir C. TREVELYAN: There are 32 schools in the area of the Derbyshire Local Education Authority, which are listed as in some degree defective. I am sending my hon. and gallant Friend a copy of the list.

    TRAINING COLLEGES.
    Mr. HARRISasked the President of the Board of Education what was the number of students in training colleges in January, 1930, and how many at the same time last year; whether there is any increase in the accommodation available for students; and what increase, if "any, in the output of trained teachers is expected in April, 1931, as compared with April of this year?
    Sir C. TREVELYAN: The number of students in training colleges in January, 1930, was 18,479, as compared with 17,506 in January, 1929. The output of trained teachers in 1931 is expected to exceed the output for 1930 by about 1,400. Additional arrangements are also being made for the expansion of training college accommodation, which will lead to a further increase in the output of trained teachers.
    Mr. HARRIS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the London County Council is refusing to make provision for training the necessary teachers in order to put in operation the raising of the school age next year, and will he, if necessary, take action in the matter on his own account, so that teachers may be available?
    Sir C. TREVELYAN: I will consider the matter.
    Mr. THOMAS LEWIS: Is the qualification test being lowered.
    Sir C. TREVELYAN: No, Sir.

    RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION.
    Mr. MANDERasked the President of the Board of Education whether any negotiations are taking place at the present time for a possible settlement by agreement of the religious question in

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    the schools; the names of the persons taking part and the interests they represent; and can he say what progress has been made?
    Mr. GILLasked the President of the Board of Education if he is prepared to receive representatives of those responsible for Roman Catholic non-provided schools, in order that the difficulties with which they are faced may be fully explained and, if possible, an understanding reached regarding the changed position foreshadowed in the contemplated new Bill to raise the school-leaving age?
    Sir C. TREVELYAN: Private conversations have been taking place on this subject, but it would not be helpful for me to make any public statement at present.
    Mr. THURTLE: Is the right hon. Gentleman standing by his undertaking to consult all the interests in this matter, including the teachers and the local authorities?
    Sir C. TREVELYAN: Yes. Sir.

  ECONOMIC ADVISORY COUNCIL.
  Colonel HOWARD-BURYasked the Prime Minister whether, owing to the creation of the new Economic General Staff, it is proposed to effect any reductions in existing economic advisers to the Government?
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): No, Sir. The Economic Advisory Council has been established with the object of securing a wider and more intensive treatment of economic problems affecting the prosperity of the country than has yet been undertaken, and its creation does not involve any curtailment of existing Departmental functions in this sphere.
  Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is already an Economic Adviser to the Government, namely, Sir Sydney Chapman, at a salary of £3,000 a year, with a staff costing £21,000 a year; can he say what is the nature of the duties of the body referred to; and does he not consider it advisable, in view of the multiplicity of advisers, to cut down some of these economic advisers?
  The PRIME MINISTER: My hon. and gallant Friend has certainly been searching in a very fruitful field, but I have been there before him, and I am convinced, having regard to Sir Sydney Chapman's duties, especially in connection with the League of Nations, that, at the present moment at any rate, until we have had some experience, it will be very inopportune to do what the hon. and gallant Member suggests.
  Sir WILLIAM MITCHELL-THOMSON: Are we to understand that the salaries of these gentlemen are to be a new service, appearing on a new Vote before Parliament?
  The PRIME MINISTER: No; they will be included in the general Vote for the Prime Minister's Department. It is a question of co-ordination that must certainly arise. I have looked into it very carefully, and we are not in a position to come to a sound and final judgment on it at the present moment.
  Sir ARTHUR STEEL-MAITLAND: Will there be any opportunity, before the constitution and functions of the economic general staff are finally settled, for this House to debate or discuss the matter?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I really do not think that that is necessary. The right hon. Gentleman will, I am sure, remember that, when the Committee of Imperial Defence was set up, there were a good many open problems left, and it was found that, when attempts were made to solve those open problems theoretically, mistakes were made, and that the best way to solve them was just to wait and see the working of the machine and adapt it to circumstances.
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the essential difference between the position of the economic general staff and that of the Committee of Imperial Defence, and how far the Committee of Imperial Defence must, ex hypothesi, work in secret, whereas no such necessity attaches to an economic general staff?
  The PRIME MINISTER: It was all very carefully considered.

  LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT.
  Major OWENasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the inequalities of the existing leasehold system and the injustices arising there-under to householders, he will introduce legislation to enfranchise leaseholds?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the answer which I gave on the 11th November in reply to a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and Haddington (Mr. Sinkinson).
  Major OWEN: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware of the gross inequalities which now exist in the case of householders and professional men with regard to the renewal of their leases, and is he not prepared to bring in a Measure which will give justice to this very large section of the community?
  The PRIME MINISTER: There are some 100 Measures that I should be prepared to bring in to-morrow if there were any chance of getting them through.
  Major OWEN: Is there any hope of a Measure being brought in within the lifetime of this Parliament?

  NATIONAL AND TATE GALLERIES (LOANS).
  Captain CAZALETasked the Prime Minister whether he has sent any communication to the trustees of the National Gallery with regard to ascertaining their views as to the advisability of introducing legislation which would permit the loaning of pictures now in the National and Tate Galleries?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence): The Trustees have been asked by the Treasury to submit their views on all the recommendations of the Royal Commission that involve legislation, including the question of loans abroad.
  Captain CAZALET: Would it not be advisable to get a decision on this matter before the Italian Exhibition closes?
  Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I cannot add anything at the moment to the answer I have given.
  Captain CAZALETasked the Prime Minister whether any condition was laid down that the loan restriction regulation in force with regard to pictures at the National and Tate Galleries should not apply to those pictures which have been, or will in future be, purchased by the aid of contributions from the National Exchequer?
  Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: The restriction with regard to loans abroad at present applies to all pictures belonging to or under the control of the Trustees, whether purchased by the aid of Exchequer, contributions or acquired otherwise. But the rule that pictures lent to galleries in this country cannot be lent until a certain period after the date of acquisition, only applies to pictures acquired under a gift or bequest.
  Captain CAZALET: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that, during the Debate in this House a few months ago on the question of granting money from the Exchequer to buy these pictures, he himself said that this question of pictures which were given to the National Gallery by contributions from the Exchequer was altogether different?
  Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: The picture acquired then is now at the Italian Exhibition.
  Captain CAZALET: Is it proposed to extend the rule to all pictures in future which are bought under similar conditions?
  Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Would not the hon. Gentleman include the Lane Collection, which has been taken by the Government?

  PUBLIC HEALTH.

    CANCER.
    Mr. R. S. YOUNGasked the Minister of Health if he has any knowledge of any apparently successful treatment of cancer in this country outside the limits of the recognised medical profession?
    The MINISTER of HEALTH (Mr. Arthur Greenwood): Numerous methods of treating cancer, advocated or practised by persons who are not members of the recognised medical profession, are

    2071
    brought to the notice of my Department from time to time and carefully considered, but I am advised that none of them has proved, when judged by scientific standards, sufficiently successful to call for action in its support by the Ministry.
    Mr. YOUNG: In view of the grave anxiety that exists concerning this disease, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, if any such treatment were submitted to his Department, the question of its suitability would be decided purely and exclusively on its merits, irrespective of its source?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: Certainly.
    Mr. HANNON: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen anything of the methods proposed by a certain Mr. Ellis Barker, who, no doubt, has been in communication with him on the subject of remedies for cancer?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: No, Sir; I am not sure that Mr. Ellis Barker is a practitioner.
    Mr. YOUNGasked the Minister of Health if he can give the total deaths from cancer in this country for 1929 or for any period of 1929; the deaths in the London area; and what proportion these figures represent of the respective totals of cases reported and treated?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: There were registered in England and Wales during the period 1st January, 1929, to 30th September, 1929, 42,687 deaths (19,627 males and 23,060 females) which were classified to cancer. (Figures for December Quarter, 1929, are not yet available.) Of these, 5,155 (2,402 males and 2,753 females) were of persons whose usual place of residence was in London. These figures should be regarded as provisional. No information is available as to the number of cases treated.
    Major GLYN: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider making this disease notifiable?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: That is a question of which I should like notice, because it is not an ordinary infectious disease.

    RADIUM TREATMENT.
    Mr. LOUIS SMITHasked the Minister of Health whether the National
    2072
    Radium Commission is providing funds for the establishment in the provinces of radium buildings for the treatment of patients suffering from cancer and other diseases; and, if so, what towns have been selected as suitable?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: Under the Royal Charter by which the Radium Commission are constituted, funds cannot be placed at their disposal for the purpose indicated in the question. The answer to the first part of the question is, therefore, in the negative, and the second part does not arise.

    ORTHOPAEDIC TREATMENT.
    Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTEasked the Minister of Health whether he proposes to introduce legislation to allow local authorities to pay for the orthopaedic treatment of children?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I am advised that local sanitary authorities already have power to provide all necessary hospital treatment for orthopaedic patients, and that under Section 14 of the Local Government Act, 1929, county councils will have this power as from 1st April next.
    Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: Can local authorites supply treatment for children between 14 and 16?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I understand that they can do it to people of all ages.

    MENTAL CASES (TREATMENT).
    Mr. FREEMANasked the Minister of Health whether he has considered the present method of the maintenance of lunatics in large institutions and in private asylums, and whether he has considered their maintenance in cottage homes as an alternative; and, if so, does he propose to take any action in the matter?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I am advised that the majority of patients cannot be suitably provided for except in institutions, but the question of boarding out in rural districts patients of the quieter type is under consideration. My hon. Friend will, however, appreciate the difficulty of the matter in present circumstances.
    Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the very weak results of placing patients in such large institutions in contrast with private establishments?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I am prepared to discuss that with my hon. Friend but I am afraid his facts are wrong.
    Captain GUNSTON: When are we to have the Mental Treatment Bill?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: As soon as possible, I hope.
    Mr. FREEMAN: Why is it that they can only ho kept in large institutions as at present?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: It is very difficult to reply briefly but, clearly, these are cases which require the expert assistance of people who understand mental diseases.

    DISEASED MEAT (SEIZURES).
    Mr. McSHANEasked the Minister of Health if he will state the total amount of diseased meat seized by inspectors in England and Wales during the last year for which figures are available?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I regret that figures are not available as to the total amount of meat seized by inspectors in this country.

    MILK SUPPLIES (PROSECUTIONS).
    Mr. McSHANEasked the Minister of Health if he will state the total number of prosecutions for the sale of impure milk for England and Wales during 1928?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: The information asked for by my hon. Friend is not available, but I may say that the total number of samples of milk reported as adulterated or net up to standard in 1928 was 5,542, being 8.2 per cent. of the samples examined.
    Dr. DAVIES: Is that an increase on previous years?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: Not that I am aware of.
    Mr. GUINNESS: Were these samples taken at random or were they samples taken with a view to evidence being obtained for prosecutions?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: No, broadly speaking they were samples taken at random.

    BATHS AND WASHHOUSES (FINSBURY).
    Sir K. WOODasked the Minister of Health what reply he has given to the
    2074
    application of the Finsbury Borough Council for sanction to borrow £53,200 to erect baths and washhouses by direct labour?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: In the special circumstances of this case, I could not see my way to sanction the proposal.
    Sir K. WOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman altering his views on this question of direct labour as he is on so many other matters?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: No, Sir. I take into consideration the special circumstances.

    WATER SUPPLY, MIDDLETON-IN-TEESDALE.
    Mr. LAWTHERasked the Minister of Health the result of the inquiries held recently at Stanhope, Frosterley, and Middleton-in-Teesdale into the question of rural water supplies; and will he seek to expedite matters in order to help these respective areas with their claims in order to give employment and an up-to-date water supply?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: The only application made to me is for Middleton-in-Teesdale. I am not yet in a position to give a decision, but I will decide the matter as expeditiously as possible.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS).
  Major WOODasked the Minister of Health whether he proposes to introduce legislation to relieve medical practitioners of disabilities arising out of contracts with local authorities of which they are members; and, if so, whether he will consider the position of other members of county councils who may have received contracts placed by bodies of which they are not themselves members but whose duties are about to be taken over by committees of the new county councils?
  Mr. GREENWOOD: The recommendations of the Royal Commission in regard to medical practitioners are under my consideration, but I am not contemplating legislation to remove disabilities of persons who are now members of local authorities and may become disqualified by operation of law on 1st April. The latter part of the question does not therefore arise.
  Mr. McSHANE: Would that not apply to a very much wider circle of people?
  Mr. GREENWOOD: That is perfectly true.
  Major WOOD: Is not the principle the same in both cases?
  Mr. GREENWOOD: Yes, perfectly, but I am not responsible for the law.

  POOR LAW.

    PUBLIC ASSISTANCE COMMITTEES (PRESS).
    Mr. EDEasked the Minister of Health whether, seeing that in both public assistance and education, the county and county borough councils are the successors of ad hoc authorities, and that the relations between the public assistance and education committees and the councils are statutorily the same, he will seek to amend the Local Authorities (Admission of the Press to Meetings) Act, 1908, by bringing public assistance committers within its scope, thus completing the administrative analogies between the committees?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I have given further careful consideration to this question, but I do not think it desirable to modify the view as to local discretion which I expressed in the answer I gave to my hon. Friend on 80th January.

    TEST WORK.
    Mr. SHAKESPEAREasked the Minister of Health if any Regulations exist enabling boards of guardians to impose fines on test workers to enforce discipline, with the result that the allowance granted per week is less than the amount considered the bare minimum for health and efficiency?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I am not aware of any Regulations specifically empowering guardians to impose fines on men in receipt of outdoor relief, and I should strongly deprecate any action by boards of guardians which would result in inadequate relief being afforded.
    Mr. McSHANE: Does not the general insistence on applicants signing the repayment forms act as a real deterrent to the poor from applying for relief which they might be called upon to pay out of a totally inadequate subsistence wage?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: No, the two questions are entirely different. The question on the Paper refers to applications for immediate relief. As the law stands now, it is possible for boards of guardians to require subsequent repayment after the period of destitution is over.
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the imposition of fines is a common form of discipline, and will he issue instructions chat it shall be discontinued, and never resorted to unless every other method has failed?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I do not accept the hon. Member's statement. If he will prove it to me, I will certainly examine it.
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: It is common in mine and other constituencies.
    Mr. SHAKESPEAREasked the Minister of Health whether he has received the reports of his inspectors on the condition of test-workers; whether he will publish the reports; and what action he proposes to take to end this system?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: The inspectors' reports have been received und the considerable mass of information is being digested. As regards the second part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to what I said in answer to questions on 30th January on this subject. As regards the third part of the question, I cannot anticipate the result of my consideration of the information received.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: What stands in the way of putting the whole of the test work system on a more humane basis by removing some of the more glaring anomalies, which are quite out of accord with the sentiment of the century?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: Nothing, except that I have not the hon. Member's universal knowledge.
    Captain GUNSTON: Wan stone-breaking introduced as test work under the Labour Government?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: No, it was instituted before the Labour Government.
    Sir K. WOOD: Did not the right hon. Gentleman arrive at a definite conclusion

    2077
    on the matter a very long while ago? Why is he now taking up a different position?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: The answer is that test work does not all fall into the same category.
    Mr. ERNEST BROWN: Will the right hon. Gentleman consult the right hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) and add to his knowledge.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Arising out of the right hon. Gentleman's courteous answer, may I ask if he has not the universal knowledge of which his administration of the Department would put him in possession, why he had that universal knowledge when he was in Opposition.

    RELIEF RECIPIENTS (EMPLOYMENT).
    Mr. MANSFIELDasked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been called to the success of the system introduced in the Borough of Redcar in October, 1921, and continued without interruption ever since, by which able-bodied recipients of out-relief are given full-time employment on schemes of public utility organised by the town council; whether he is aware that as a result of this system there are now no able-bodied men a charge on the poor rate of the Borough; whether he has any official reports upon the working of the system; and whether on the change of Poor Law administration from boards of guardians to the county councils, he will continue his approval of the policy of local authorities being encouraged to provide useful work rather than pay relief to the able-bodied without any ser vice in return?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: There are a number of instances in which I have sanctioned arrangements under which able-bodied applicants for relief are given employment on works specially put in hand by a local authority. The arrangements usually involve some contributions from the Guardians, and, in the case of Guisborough, the charge on the poor rates is the equivalent of the amount of relief which would otherwise have been paid to the men. These arrangements have been reviewed during the course of the inquiries which I have recently undertaken, and so long as the work involved is not work which would have been undertaken in the ordinary course
    2078
    and therefore does not involve the displacement of ordinary paid labour, I am prepared to continue the practice of sanctioning such schemes.

    RELIEF (REPAYMENT).
    Mr. McSHANEasked the Minister of Health under what regulation a county council under the new Local Government Act has power to request that all applicants for out relief shall sign a form agreeing to repay such relief within 12 months?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: Until the Act comes into operation on 1st April, County Councils have no power in this matter, but Article 13 of the Relief Regulation Order, 1911, which is still in force provides that any relief which may be given to or on account of any person above the age of 21 or to his wife or any member of his family under the age of 16 in accordance with those Regulations may, if the guardians think fit, be given by way of loan.
    Mr. McSHANE: This has become a serious matter. Is an alteration of these regulations within the competence of the right hon. Gentleman?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. McSHANE: If a general order like this insisting upon poor people repaying under threat and giving them 12 months in which to do so acts as a deterrent upon poor people coming for relief, will ray right hon. Friend have the regulation altered?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: It is not a matter of regulation. It is a matter of law, and it would require legislation to alter it.

    APPOINTED GUARDIANS.
    Sir K. WOODasked the Minister of Health the total amounts for remuneration and expenses that have been paid, or are due to date, respectively, to the appointed guardians at West Ham, Chester-le-Street and Bedwellty?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I understand that the amounts, to the 30th January, 1930, are £1,154 in the first case and £546 in the case of the other two.
    Sir K. WOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman going to make any alteration in these very large payments in the future?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: No, Sir. They are substantially smaller than the payments made by the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. THORNE: Can my right hon. Friend say how the payments compare with the payments which were made to Sir Alfred Woodgate?

    ADMINISTRATION (OUT-RELIEF).
    Mr. SIMONasked the Minister of Health whether he has any evidence to show whether the practice of allowing Poor Law guardians to administer out-relief in the wards which they represent is compatible with judicial administration?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I have no direct evidence in the direction suggested, but there are a number of instances in which the guardians themselves have thought the practice referred to was an undesirable one.
    Mr. SIMONasked the Minister of Health how many local administrative schemes he has approved under the Local Government Act, 1929; and how many of these permit members of the Public Assistance Committee to administer out-relief in the wards which they represent?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: Schemes have been approved for the whole of the 62 counties and 83 county boroughs in England and Wales. The actual administration of out-relief will normally be in the hands of the Public Assistance Committees established by the schemes, but the consideration of applications for relief, which I apprehend to be in the mind of the hon. Member, is in county areas placed by the Act of 1929 in the hands of the Guardians Committees, the constitution of which is prescribed by the Act. There are five cases in which the administrative schemes approved for county boroughs contain a definite prohibition of the arrangement referred to in the latter part of the question.
    Mr. SIMON: In view of the undesirability of this practice, is the right hon. Gentleman in a position to take any action to prevent the practice continuing in so many areas?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I am not clear that I have power to do so. I should
    2080
    like to leave the maximum freedom to the local authorities in arranging their scales.

  HOUSING.

    DIRECT LABOUR.
    Mr. WELLOCKasked the Minister of Health if he will ask for a Return from all local authorities which have built houses by direct labour showing the cost of maintenance of such houses in comparison with houses built by contract?
    Mr. RAYNESasked the Minister of Health if he will state the average cost per house for structural repairs during the last three years, giving the figures separately for those built by contract and those built by direct labour?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: The information which my hon. Friends desire is not available in my Department, and I am very doubtful whether a proper comparison could be obtained. In any case its ascertainment would ordinarily involve a troublesome dissection on the part of the local authority of their maintenance and repairs accounts which I should not be justified in asking them to undertake in view of the great pressure which is upon them at the present time.
    Sir K. WOOD: Would it not be better from the point of view of these who believe in this business of direct labour to leave the matter alone altogether?

    BUILDING COSTS.
    Mr. RAYNESasked the Minister of Health the average costs of houses built by local authorities during the last three years, giving separately by contract, by direct labour, and type of house?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: As the answer involves a tabular statement, I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. HARDIE: Will the figures have relation to steel houses?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: The question relates to all houses built by local authorities by contract and by direct labour, and there will be no distinction between the two.
    Following is the answer:

    Statement showing the average cost of non-parlour and parlour houses in contracts let by and in approved direct labour schemes of local authorities in England and Wales during each of the three years ended 31st December, 1929.

    Year ended 31st December.

    Non Parlour Houses.

    Parlour Houses.

    By Contract.

    By Direct Labour.

    By Contract.

    By Direct Labour.

    £

    £

    £

    £

    1927

    …

    …

    …

    …

    412

    443

    482

    482

    1928

    …

    …

    …

    …

    359

    388

    427

    456

    1929

    …

    …

    …

    …

    344

    356

    405

    435

    Mr. McKINLAYasked the Minister of Health the approximate average cost per cubic foot for building houses under local authorities' housing schemes during the years 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927, and 1928?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: As the answer involves a tabular statement I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Sir K. WOOD: Is there any objection to adding the year 1929 in regard to this matter so that we may have complete information?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: If the right hon. Gentleman asks a question, it will be answered.
    Following is the statement:
    Particulars of the average cost per cubic foot are not available, but the following table shows the average cost per superficial foot of non-parlour and parlour houses included in contracts let by or in direct labour schemes of local authorities in England and Wales during each of the years in question.

    Year.

    Non-parlour Houses.

    Parlour Houses.

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    1923

    …

    …

    9

    3

    8

    9¼

    1924

    …

    …

    10

    4¼

    10

    4

    1925

    …

    …

    10

    11½

    10

    9

    1926

    …

    …

    10

    11¼

    10

    10½

    1927

    …

    …

    10

    8

    10

    6

    1928

    …

    …

    9

    5¾

    9

    5½

    TENEMENT HOUSE, FINSBURY (FIRE).
    Mr. OLDFIELDasked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been called to the inquest held on the 29th
    2082
    November by Dr. Waldo, His Majesty's senior coroner for London, on the fatal fire at a tenement house in Little Sutton Street, Finsbury; the number of living rooms in the tenement and their approximate size, and the number of persons living in the tenement at the time of the accident?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part, I am informed by the Metropolitan Borough Council of Finsbury that there are six living rooms in the tenement of which the sizes range from 820 to 1,430 cubic feet. At the time of the fire they were occupied by 22 persons.
    Mr. HALL-CAINE: Does not my right hon. Friend consider that some form of fire escape ought to be made compulsory in these tenement buildings?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: That is a matter for another Department.
    Mr. OLDFIELD: Is my right hon. Friend aware of any steps which the Finsbury authorities have taken in view of the shocking state of overcrowding?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I propose to deal with it myself shortly.

    RATING ASSESSMENTS, ESSEX.
    Mr. OLDFIELDasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the increase in rates upon house property, especially, of the bungalow type, in parts of southern Essex, consequent upon the passing of the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925; and whether, in view of the fact that such houses are frequently without those local services for which the rates are levied and that their annual value is artificially inflated by a temporary increase of demand over supply, he will

    2083
    consider introducing legislation for the purpose of relieving the burden imposed upon these householders?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: Some communications have been addressed to my Department as to the effect of the general revaluation under the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, in the area referred to. If any ratepayer considers his assessment excessive, it is open to him to make a proposal for the amendment of the valuation list, and, if dissatisfied with the decision of the Assessment Committee thereon, he has a right of appeal to Quarter Sessions. I do not think it would be, desirable to attempt to limit by legislation the discretion of the local authorities in regard to the valuation of particular rateable hereditaments.
    Mr. OLDFIELD: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in many cases the value of appeal to Quarter Sessions is very much limited by the financial means at the disposal of the people who wish to appeal? Furthermore, will my right hon. Friend consider some means of bringing within the reach of persons who live in such houses the amenities of the local services for which they pay?

    ABNORMAL DAMAGE.
    Mr. BOWERMANasked the Minister of Health whether, in the event of abnormal damage being caused by gales or otherwise to housing estates under assisted schemes, he will bear the cost of reinstating the damage or will take such other measures as may be deemed expedient to prevent such additional expense falling on the local rates, regard being had to the fact that the Government, by accepting responsibility for insuring such properties, has precluded local authorities from covering this risk by means of insurance?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: All expenditure necessarily and properly incurred in respect of houses in an assisted scheme under the Housing Act of 1919 is borne by the Exchequer, subject to the charge of 1d. on the local rates.

    LOW-PRICED HOUSES.
    Mr. SIMONasked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the variety, both in size and cost, of the non-parlour houses that are being built in different parts of the country, and of the importance
    2084
    for purposes of slum clearance of helping local authorities to build the cheapest adequate house, he will publish a report giving examples, with full plans and particulars, of the cheapest types of satisfactory house?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I would refer the hon. Member to the information given in the Housing Manual, published in 1927, of which I am sending him a copy. I will consider whether this Manual could usefully be supplemented in -he manner he suggests.

    RURAL AREAS.
    Mr. BUTLERasked the Minister of Health upon what approximate date he proposes to announce his policy for rural housing?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I am unable, at the present time, to add anything to the reply given to the hon. Member on the 23rd January on this subject.
    Sir K. WOOD: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when his proposals will be formally introduced, so that the text of the Bill will be available to Members of this House?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I cannot give a specific date, but I can promise hon. Members that they will have the proposals well in advance of the Debate that will take place.
    Sir K. WOOD: Shall we have it in a week or a fortnight?
    Mr. SMITHERS: If I send particulars of the Nash system, will the right hon. Gentleman consider them?
    Mr. GREENWOOD: Certainly.

  SEAMEN'S PENSION FUND (FISHERMEN)
  Major WOODasked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that in the public advertisement regarding the pensions to be granted from the Seamen's Pension Fund applications are invited from masters and seamen only, no mention being made of fishermen; and whether he will have the advertisement amended so that fishermen may be fully informed of their eligibility for pensions under the scheme?
  Mr. GREENWOOD: I am asking the Governing Body of the Seamen's Pension Fund so to word their advertisement as to make it clear that the term "seamen" includes certain "fishermen."
  Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR: Is it not a fact that the words "certain fishermen" include a certain class of fishermen, and is it not intended to include all classes of fishermen?
  Mr. GREENWOOD: I am not sure that that is quite true. I undertake to see that all those who are eligible shall be adequately informed.

  NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE.
  Mr. TINKERasked the Minister of Health if his attention has been drawn to the position of persons who meet with injury and the incapacity lasts less than four weeks, compensation being paid less three days' waiting period, who, during the succeeding 12 months, come on the National Health Insurance funds and are not allowed to bring forward the three days' waiting period already put in through the previous incapacity; and will he state if this procedure is in accordance with the ruling of his Department?
  Mr. GREENWOOD: It is assumed that, in the case put by my hon. Friend, no sickness benefit is payable during the first period of incapacity for which compensation is received. In that case sickness benefit for the subsequent incapacity would be subject to the normal three days' waiting period prescribed by the National Health Insurance Act.
  Mr. TINKER: In the event of the accident taking place after the period of illness would the three days be made up within the 12 months?
  Mr. GREENWOOD: No. If it was subsequent, my information is that they would not.

  INTERNATIONAL BANK.
  Mr. MORLEYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if the proposed new International Bank, in consultation with affiliated national banks, will have power to ration the world's gold supply between different nations?
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Philip Snowden): The operations which may be undertaken by the Bank for International Settlements are shown in Article 22 of its Statutes, which will be presented to Parliament very shortly as an Annex to the Agreement with Switzerland signed at The Hague last month. It may be hoped that the establishment of the bank will enhance the opportunities for co-operation between the central banks and thus conduce to greater economy in the use of gold.
  Mr. MORLEY: Will the Treasury have any control over the action of the Bank of England in relation to the International Bank and the rationing of gold?
  Mr. SNOWDEN: The Statutes are very long and somewhat intricate and complicated, and I would suggest that the hon. Member should await the publication of the Agreement.
  Mr. WISE: Will there be any opportunity of discussing these steps?

  GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS (BRITISH MATERIAL).
  Mr. SMITHERSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will apply the principles of the use of British material, as laid down in Circular 1,060 of the Ministry of Health, to all Government contracts?
  Mr. P. SNOWDEN: I understand that the practice of Government Departments in placing contracts is in fact in accordance with the principles laid down in the Circular referred to.
  Mr. SMITHERS: Does that apply to all Government contracts?
  Mr. SNOWDEN: This concerns other Departments a great deal more than it does my Department, but so far as I know it does apply to all contracts.
  Mr. SMITHERS: Is it the policy of the Government that it should apply generally over all contracts?
  Mr. SNOWDEN.
  Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: Are these conditions made applicable to all municipal contracts?
  Mr. SNOWDEN: That is a matter for the municipalities themselves.

  BEER DUTY.
  Mr. BUTLERasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider the desirability of introducing a differentiation in Excise Duty between beers brewed from British malt and hops and beers brewed from foreign imported malt and hops in favour of the former?
  Mr. P. SNOWDEN: I would refer to the answer given on 19th December last to a similar question by the hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mr. W. B. Taylor).
  Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: Will the results in this case be any different to the consumer?
  Mr. BUTLER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that such a proposal would make a very great difference to the barley growing districts, which are in a very depressed condition?
  Mr. SNOWDEN: It seems to be assumed that the Government themselves are the brewers of beer. They are not. This is in the hands of the brewers themselves.

  NATIONAL SAVINGS CERTIFICATES.
  Mr. KELLYasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the number of War Savings and Savings Certificates which have been held for 10 or more years and for which notice of withdrawal has not been given?
  Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave to a similar question by him on the 1st August last.
  Mr. KELLY: As there was no information in that answer, has the Treasury any information now?
  Mr. PETHICK - LAWRENCE: The answer was that the information could only be obtained by elaborate investigation which would not be justified.

  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (EX-SERVICE MEN).
  Mr. MORLEYasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what proportion of home-service men have received recognition in the P class under the Guinness agreement?
  Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: No information is available regarding the number, if any, of home-service men appointed to the P class under the agreement in question. As my hon. Friend may be aware, a preference is given to disabled men and to men who have served overseas.
  Mr. MORLEY: Is the hon. Member aware that dissatisfaction exists regarding the barriers to promotion among men who were kept on home service, not through their own volition, and will he consider taking steps to modify the award to meet this situation?
  Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: So far as I could hear my hon. Friend's question, I may say that this matter has been very carefully considered on many occasions, and I do not think that we can reopen it.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. STANLEY BALDWIN: May I ask the Leader of the House what business will be taken next week?
The PRIME MINISTER: The business for Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of next week will be the further discussion of the Coal Mines Bill, in Committee. On any of those days, if time permits, other Orders will be taken.
Ordered,
"That other Government Business have precedence this day of the Business of Supply."—[The Prime Minister.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,—
Consolidated Fund (No. 2) Bill, without Amendment.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

  STANDING COMMITTEE A.
  Mr. Frederick Hall reported from the Committee of Selection; That, they had added the following Ten Members to Standing Committee A (in respect of the Children (Employment Abroad) Bill [Lords]): Major George Davies, Mr. Dudgeon, Mr. Oldfield, Major Ross, Mr. Rowson, Mr. Shepherd, Mr. Short, Mr. Annesley Somerville, Mr. Watkins, and Sir Kingsley Wood.
  Mr. Frederick Hall further reported from the Committee; That they had added the following Fifteen Members to Standing Committee A (in respect of the Collecting Charities (Regulation) Bill): Mr. Benson, Mr. Ernest Brown, Dr. Vernon Davies, Mr. Devlin, Sir Nicholas Grattan-Doyle, Mr. Hannon, Mr. Oldfield, Lord Eustace Percy, Mr. Rowson, Mr. Shepherd, Mr. Short, Sir Kenyon Vaughan-Morgan, Mr. Watkins, Sir John Withers, and Sir Kingsley Wood.

  SCOTTISH STANDING COMMITTEE.
  Mr. Frederick Hall further reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Member from the Standing Committee on Scottish Bills (added in respect of the Education (Scotland) Bill): Lord Colum Crichton-Stuart; and had appointed in substitution: Dr. Graham Little.
  Reports to lie upon the Table.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  COAL MINES BILL.
  Considered in Committee. [Progress, 4th February.]
  [Mr. DUNNICO in the Chair.]

  COAL MINES BILL.

    CLAUSE 9.—(Temporary amendment of 8 Edw. 7. c. 57. s. 3.)
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I think, for the convenience of the Committee, that I should at this stage make a statement with regard to the Amendments to Clause 9. This part of the Bill, that is Part II, is restricted in its scope. It deals with a temporary amendment of Section 3 of the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1908. The only Amendments, therefore, to this part of the Bill which can be in order are those which propose to make temporary amendments to that Section, and any Amendments proposing to amend any other statutory provision, or even to amend that Section otherwise than temporarily, must be ruled out of order. Under that Ruling, none of the Amendments to Clause 9 now on the Order Paper are in order until we come to the Amendment standing in the name of the light hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade in page 13, line 34, which is to leave out the words
    "on the sixth day of April, nineteen hundred and thirty,"
    and to insert instead thereof the words
    "at the expiration of the period of four months from the passing of this Act."
    Sir ROBERT HORNE: I confess that I am in a little difficulty in regard to your Ruling. Instead of the 7½-hour day which the President of the Board of Trade proposes in the first Subsection of Clause 9, I propose to add a Subsection which, qualifying only the period during which the 7½-hour day is to run, would enable the 90 hours to be distributed over a fortnight instead of a rigid 7½ hours per day. [Interruption.] I am not discussing the merits of the question. I propose to distribute the same number of hours in the fortnight over 11 days instead of over 12 days. It can only be for lack of a phrase that the Amendments in my name are said to be out of order, and I could supply that phrase at once,
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    which would immediately tack them on to the 7½-hour proposal of the President of the Board of Trade instead of moving it as a separate Sub-section to this Bill—
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I can only deal with the Bill as it stands. I cannot anticipate any subsequent Amendments. From the point of view of the Chair, I have to deal with the Bill as it now stands and not as it may be.
    Sir R. HORNE: Certainly, but I shall ask leave now to alter my Amendments in order to bring them under your Ruling. Instead of moving my proposal as a separate Sub-section, I shall ask lea veto begin with the words: "Provided that." My Amendment would then read:
    "Provided that where by agreement between representatives of employers and workmen the statutory maximum daily hours below ground for the time being in force are not worked on one weekday of the week or of alternate weeks the said statutory maximum daily hours may be exceeded on the other weekdays by not more than one-half hour per day so long as, subject to the exceptional cases specified in Sub-section (2) of Section one of the Coal Mines Regulation Act 1908, the total hours below ground for the 12 weekdays in the fortnight do not exceed 12 times the daily hours permissible under this Act."
    That would operate for exactly the same period as the proposal of the President of the Board of Trade, and would have no reference to any other tine than the time referred to in the original Clause. I ask the leave of the Committee to make that alteration.
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. William Graham): I should like to say a word or two on the point of Order. The difficulty turns undoubtedly on Section 3 of the 1908 Act. The right hon. and learned Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne) knows that that Section of the 1908 Act is on a strictly day basis. Our position in this matter is quite plain. It would be for he convenience of the Committee this afternoon if we had a general discussion covering all the points, but my difficulty on the question of order is that, as the Amendment stands, it will not be possible to have such a general discussion until we reach the question of the Clause standing part. The objection to that is that on each specific proposal which may be in order there will be a discussion on

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    the main question, as it were in portions, and one discussion on the wider question would, I think, be a far better arrangement. On the point of Order which you, Mr. Deputy-Chairman, have raised, the proposal of the right hon. and learned Member does raise a difficulty. He refers to certain days and also to the 12 days period. That, of course, is entirely for you, Mr. Deputy-Chairman, to decide, but if it is a departure from the strict and narrow terms of that Section of the Act of 1908, then I am afraid it is not possible as this is a temporary Measure, to deal with the Amendment as an alteration of Section 3 of the 1908 Act. May I make this suggestion to the Committee, and with great respect to the Chair, in order to facilitate our Debate. I understood that the Amendment in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Altrincham (Mr. Atkinson), in page 13, line 33, at the end, to insert the words:
    "and during the continuance of Part I of this Act Section three of the Coal Mines Regulation Act. 1908, shall have effect as if the words 'on not more than 60 days in any calendar year' were deleted "
    was in order. If that be not the case, then I am afraid I am still in a difficulty. If it be in order, it may be for you, Mr. Deputy-Chairman, to consider whether you could allow a general discussion on that Amendment, which would cover all the points that are in the minds of hon. Members, on the strict understanding that there should be no general discussion on the question of the Clause standing part. I am most anxious to meet the Committee in this matter, and, frankly, that is the best proposal that I can offer.
    Sir R. HORNE: I must ask the Committee to observe that the point to which the President of the Board of Trade has referred is not the point of Order which has been put against me by the Deputy-Chairman. The point of Order of the Chair is that the Amendment on the Paper is a permanent alteration, whereas I am only allowed to make a temporary alteration in the Statute of 1908. The point put by the President of the Board of Trade is quite different, but I am prepared to meet the point of Order raised by the Deputy-Chairman if it is insisted on against me. What I propose to do by my Amendment is exactly what the
    2126
    1908 Act itself does, give an allowance on any one day of an additional single half hour. No average is involved. If you lose three hours on one day, you are not allowed to work three more hours on the next day. It is not a question of average. I am concerned with what has been said by the Deputy-Chairman, and, while I am greatly indebted to the President of the Board of Trade for his suggestion with regard to a general discussion, I want to reach more than a general discussion. I wish to reach an effective proposal upon which the Committee can take judgment. Accordingly, I ask to be allowed now to alter my proposed Amendment by beginning with the words "Provided that." It would then be quite clear that my Amendment refers strictly to the period during which the right hon. Gentleman's proposals in Sub-section (1) have effect. That, shortly, I think meets the point.
    4.0 p.m.
    Mr. ATKINSON: I submit that the Amendment is proposing a temporary amendment of the Section in the Act specified in the marginal note. It will he observed that it says that during the continuance of Part I, Section 3 of the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1908, which is 8 Edward 7, chapter 57, Section 3, shall be amended in a particular way. That comes precisely within your Ruling. It is proposing a temporary amendment of the Section.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I have read the Amendment very carefully, and I rule it out of order, because it would amend Section 3 of the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1908. As the Bill now stands, there is nothing to limit the duration of Part I of the Bill. I am obliged, therefore, to rule the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member out of order. With regard to the second Amendment, that is out of order on the ground that it seeks to amend, not Section 3 of the Act of 1908, but Section 1 of that Act. Therefore, on these grounds I must rule that out of order also.
    Sir PHILIP CUNLIFFE-LISTER: With great respect, the first Amendment, not in the form in which it stands on the Paper, but in the form which my right hon. Friend has just proposed as a proviso, is simply and solely in its terms a proviso to a Clause in the

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    Government Bill. It is confined to the duration of the Government Clause, and to the terms of the Government Clause. With great respect, I submit that, provided the Amendment is so drafted as to mean simply and solely a proviso to the Government Clause, it must be in order, because it can have effect only in so far as the Government Clause operates, and it is in respect of that period of time during which the Government Clause operates. If that were not: right, then the whole of the Government Clause would be out of order under this Bill, and the only possibility which would be open to the House would be to re-commit the Bill for the purpose of introducing a new Clause which would give effect to what the Government are proposing, and to which the necessary Amendments could be moved. There fore, I submit that, providing this Amendment is now strictly limited, as my right hon. Friend proposes by his manuscript Amendment, within the precise terms of the Government Clause, if the Government Clause is in order, that Amendment must be in order.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I am afraid that I must adhere to my decision.
    Sir R. HORNE: I hope I may be forgiven for pursuing this matter, because, obviously, it is very important. The proposal in my Amendment has led to a great deal of discussion in the Press, and I am sure every Member of this House is aware that at Geneva, quite recently, this very proposal was adopted by the International Conference. Accordingly, it is no frivolous proposal that I make. I am sure it is one that, the Committee is anxious to discuss, and upon which it is anxious to come to a conclusion. I think it would be a very great pity if discussion of this matter is precluded through some technical point, which, at the moment, I say with all respect, does not seem to me to arise. It is suggested against me that I am seeking to amend Section 1 of the Act of 1908. That, if I may say so with respect, is quite erroneous. The only reason that Section 1 is mentioned is to preserve its provisions. There is no attempt by this Amendment to do anything to alter the effect of Section 1; indeed, its intention is to preserve it, and not alter it. What is
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    sought by this Amendment is to do precisely what was done by Section 3 of the Act of 1908, only for certain definite purposes. I cannot really imagine why it is out of order.
    Sir DONALD MACLEAN: Might I, with great submission, refer to the point of Order which you, Mr. Dunnico, have so very courteously allowed to be raised twice? I am extremely graceful to you for that courtesy. The point I want to put is this: The Act of 1926 is a temporary Act—agreed. This proposed Amendment is an Amendment to a temporary Act, and I do not see how it can have a permanent effect as an Amendment of a temporary Act.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I shall be at all times willing to give careful attention to any submission made by both the right hon. Gentlemen, but I have taken every available advice I can. I want to do all I can to facilitate discussion, but after taking advice, I am still confirmed in my opinion that this Amendment is entirely out of order.
    Sir HERBERT SAMUEL: Might I ask a question arising out of the Ruling which you have given? Are we to understand that also by way of a new Clause this point could not be (Subsequently raised at all as being outside the scope of the Bill? It seems that the Committee will be placed in a most difficult position if, on the discussion of this Bill, it is entirely unable to say, if it so desires, that it is willing to shorten the present hours of labour in the mines, provided that some compensation may be found in the averaging of hours during the week or fortnight, though I do not express for the moment any view as to whether that is desirable or not. That, of course, does not arise now, but is the Committee to be precluded from even expressing an opinion upon that matter? Supposing that by some technicality it was said that the Title of the Bill excluded the consideration of that matter, would it not be possible, nevertheless, to insert such a provision as consequential upon the present Clause 9 in the Bill, if the Committee should think it was consequential, and, subsequently, when we came to the Title of the Bill, make the necessary Amendment?
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That must be judged by what is in the Clause when submitted to the Chair.
    Sir R. HORNE: May I substitute an Amendment, namely, in page 13, line 33, at the end, to insert the words:
    "Provided that the foregoing Sub-section shall not apply as respects any mine at which by agreement between representatives of employers and workmen the extension of time made under the said Section 3 does not any one day exceed half an hour and the hours worked per fortnight do not exceed twelve times the daily hours permissible under this Act, and "
    The subsequent Amendment would run:
    "At any mine where an extension of time is in any wool; made under the said Section 3, the workmen, by agreement between representative of employers and workmen, may, notwithstanding anything in the Coal Mines Act, 1908, as amended by any subsequent enactment, begin their period of work on the Saturday of that week before 24 hours have elapsed since the beginning of their last period of work, so long as at least eight hours have elapsed since the termination thereof."
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I am quite prepared to accept that Amendment.
    Mr. BATEY: On a point of Order. You say that you are prepared to accept that Amendment. I want to ask, do you know what the Amendment is?
    Mr. HARDIE: On a point of Order. The Part which we are going to discuss deals with the question of hours. The hours are related to the day, and not to the year. If you allow this Amendment, which cuts across the whole meaning of what we are going to discuss, in what way are you going to deal with another Amendment which I may move, that, instead of relating to the output of the day, it should be related to the week? Further, do you understand the meaning of this Amendment?
    HON. MEMBERS: Order!
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I cannot give a Ruling on something which is not in front of me. Any Amendment the hon. Member puts in will have the same consideration as any other Amendment.
    Mr. HARDIE: May I put the Amendment now? If you give permission to the right hon. Member to alter his Amendment, surely it is none the less the privilege— [Interruption.]
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I have already called upon the right hon. Member to move his Amendment.
    Mr. McKINLAY: Is it in order to discuss an Amendment the terms of which the Committee knows absolutely nothing about?
    The DEPUTY - CHAIRMAN: Every hon. Member should know that it is in order to hand in a manuscript Amendment.
    Mr. HARDIE: Are we discussing hours per working day or per working year under the Amendment you have allowed? Are we discussing the miners' working hours or the miners' working year? That is what the Committee wants to know.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: We are discussing an Amendment to be moved by the right hon. Gentleman which I have accepted as being in order.
    Mr. HARDIE: Is that part of the Bill relating to the working day to be altered by the Government to suit the working year?
    The DEPUTY - CHAIRMAN: This Amendment to Clause 9 I have ruled to be quite in order.
    Mr. HARDIE: May I put a question to the President of the Board of Trade? If there has been consultation going on with regard to the other side, why should the same courtesy be denied to this side, and those who have real practical experience— [Interruption.]
    Mr. W. GRAHAM: I intervene only by-permission of the Chair and of the Committee. There has been no discourtesy to any section of the Committee. The whole desire of the Government is to facilitate a general Debate on the whole question at this state for the convenience of Members, and in order that, if possible, we may conclude the discussion on this Clause. That is our desire. With great respect I would ask you a question, Mr. Deputy-Chairman. Would you be prepared, on the Amendment proposed by the right hon. Member for Hillhead (Sir It. Home), to allow a comprehensive discussion in which Members might debate other points relating to the hours Clause? I make that suggestion for his reason: It would greatly facilitate debate and it would avoid this result—that if we do not take that step the wider question will be discussed in small pieces on individual Amendments, which is very undesirable in a matter of this kind.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: In matters like this the Chair is always in the hands of the Committee. If the Committee desires a general discussion the Chair will permit it.
    Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The course suggested is obviously very convenient, and I am much obliged to the President of the Board of Trade for having suggested it. It is obvious that we cannot discuss any part of this Clause without overlapping on to other points that must arise in connection with it.
    Sir R. HORNE: I beg to move, in page 13, line 33, at the end, to insert the words:
    "Provided that—

    (a) the foregoing sub-section shall not apply as respects any mine at which, by agreement between representatives of employers and workmen, the extension of time made under the said Section three does not any one day exceed half an hour, and the hours worked per fortnight do not exceed twelve times the daily hours permissible under this Act; and

    (b) at any mine where an extension of time is in any week made under the said Section three, the workmen, by agreement between representatives of employers and workmen, may, notwithstanding anything in the Coal Mines Act, 1908, as amended by any subsequent enactment, begin their period of work on the Saturday of that week before twenty-four hours have elapsed since the beginning of their last period of work, so long as at least eight hours have elapsed since the termination thereof."

    I do not think it lies in the mouth of any hon. Member on the other side of the Committee to reproach us for failure to give notice of the Amendments that we propose. We were left in a very difficult position when the Committee stage was started on Tuesday, and, so far as I can recall, no one on the other side had any bowels of compassion for us when we were suddenly brought before a part of the Bill which we had not anticipated would come up then. So far as my Amendments are concerned, let me assure right hon. and hon. Members opposite that I am proposing nothing which is not to be found in the Amendments on the Paper. They must all be aware of the idea which I venture to present to the Committee, and while the form of words is slightly changed, in fact the proposal is precisely identical with what appears on the Paper. What are the two things that are suggested in my Amendment? One is a thing which I am sure
    2132
    everyone m this committee is familiar with—the 90 hours' fortnight. I cannot imagine that there is any person who takes an intelligent interest in the recent history of this country who does not understand what a 90 hours' fortnight is. The other part of the Amendment is a provision to allow a longer afternoon on the Saturday. I take this second matter first as it is much simpler.
    Mr. SUTTON: You are taking us back 50 years.
    Sir R. HORNE: If that is so, all I can say is that so does a resolution which was carried by a South Wales mining community the other day. That resolution asked that this new arrangement should be made in order that the miners should have time to get home and to get away to such pleasures as they might enjoy on a Saturday afternoon.
    Mr. SUTTON: Does that not mean that we would have to do as we used to do, that is, stay up practically all the Friday night and go to work at three or four o'clock on the Saturday morning?
    Sir R. HORNE: So far as I am personally concerned, I thought that I was putting forward something that was agreeable to the mining community. Let me say at once that if the mining community do not want it—[HON. MEMBERS: "They do not!"]—I shall abandon it. There are some Members of the Committee who, perhaps, do not understand clearly how the thing will work out. The situation is this: In order to work a full shift on a Saturday unless the miners begin work earlier than usual they are taken along to a time which makes it impossible for them to get home and to be able to attend, for example, a football match in the early afternoon. If they started at an earlier hour than usual on the Saturday morning, they would immediately impinge upon the 24 hours immediately preceding, and accordingly, they would be adding an hour to what was technically Friday's work, and they would thereby violate the Act of Parliament. It was purely from the point of view of helping to bring about an arrangement which would facilitate what I thought was the desire of the mining community that I put down the Amendment. We shall hear in the course of the Debate whether the miners are obdurately against having these

    2133
    means of recreation. If that be so, as far as I am concerned the matter will come to an end, as it was purely for their pleasure that the Amendment was framed. There is no one who will benefit under the Amendment except the miners themselves.
    Mr. ANEURIN BEVAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman point out anything in the Clause which prevents a shorter working day on the Saturday?
    Sir R. HORNE: There is nothing to prevent a shorter working day on the Saturday, but if the miner works a full shift, as many miners desire to do in order to earn the full pay—
    Mr. BEVAN: Is there anything in the Clause as it stands which will prevent the mine-owners and the miners making arrangement for a seven-hours' day on the Saturday?
    Sir R. HORNE: The whole point of the Amendment is this: A miner may want to work a full shift on the Saturday. The ordinary hour of beginning a shift may be seven o'clock on the Friday. If he begins at seven o'clock on the Saturday his afternoon is restricted so that he cannot indulge in the recreation that he desires. If he starts his work at six on the Saturday obviously he is infringing the Statute. If you wish to give the miner permission to begin at six o'clock in order that he may get away sooner to his recreation you are bound to pass this Amendment. If representatives of the miners here are going to tell the Committee that their mining friends do not wish for this particular remission in the rigidity of the Statute, then I abandon the Amendment. I moved the Amendment only because I believed that the miners would welcome it.
    I pass from that and come to the more important Amendment. Developments in recent times, in the way of international discussion of matters connected with the coal mines, are the most hopeful sign possible. For years we have suffered, in the coal trade of this country, from the competition of other nations of Europe which work under different conditions from ours. I confess that personally I have never had very great hopes of what might be done by international discussion, but the Miners' Federation has taken a different view. Leaders of the Federation
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    have pinned their faith on many occasions to resolutions and to what could be done by discussing their affairs with their neighbours on the Continent. I am bound to say that they have made considerable progress in the matter, and I venture to congratulate them on what they have been able to achieve. They have been supported by His Majesty's present Government, and I felicitate my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade on the measure of success which he has had in summoning conferences for the purpose of providing rules that will guide the whole coal trade of Europe.
    We have seen one recent example of the success of that movement. In January of this year there assembled at Geneva a Conference which represented the mining industries of all the great countries of Europe, including Great Britain. Those present were engaged as a preliminary technical conference for the purpose of formulating a draft convention to be put before the International Labour Organisation at Geneva in the month of Tune of this year. I must confess that after having read the discussions which took place at that Conference I began to have a hope which I had never been able to entertain before. The Members who represented this country, particularly the Under-Secretary to the Board of Trade, accomplished a great work towards the international settlement of this question. The question of hours was before that particular Conference, and the Conference arrived at a definite conclusion upon what has been called the spreading of the hours of work over a period. It was not a new-subject of discussion, because everyone who has tried to think out arrangements which would affect both this country and the Continent has always been baulked by the fact that the working conditions were very different in the different countries.
    For example, in this country you have some places where they work 11 days a fortnight. At the present time in my native country, in Ayr and. Fife, they work 11 days a fortnight, and I believe it is the same in Northumberland and certain other parts of England. In many places in Scotland before the War the miners worked only 10 days a fortnight. Conditions differ in that way all over

    2135
    the country, and in such circumstances you are against a very formidable impediment as soon as you begin to regulate working hours. Those who work 11 days a fortnight say, "We are not working under the same conditions as you are, and we cannot adopt your idea of working so many hours a day. That would make us work 12 days a fortnight instead of the 11 days to which we are accustomed."
    One of the things to which miners used to look forward in many parts of the country—certainly in that part of which I was cognisant for many years—was what they called their idle Saturday, and there is at least one hon. Member for Lanarkshire opposite who knows that, in earlier times, they used to have every Saturday idle, and only worked 10 days a fortnight. These different conditions have to be met and, as far as human ingenuity has been able to discover, there is no way of doing it other than spreading the hours over a limited period, always provided that within that period the number of hours worked does not exceed what would have been worked, supposing the people had been working every day according to the rule. That is the foundation of the proposal which I put forward in this Amendment and the resolution passed at Geneva by the Conference to which I have referred, is in terms almost identical with the Amendment. This Resolution which was carried at Geneva by 18 votes to 7 provides:
    "If by mutual agreement between the representatives of employers and employed, a full day is not worked on one day of the week or of alternate weeks, then the hours specified in Article 2 may be exceeded on the other days by not more than an hour per day, so long as the total hours for the fortnight do not exceed 12 times the daily hours at present specified in this Article."
    The only real difference between my Amendment and that Resolution is that I have substituted half-an-hour for an hour as the excess period. Even that does not involve much difference because at Geneva they were considering a condition of affairs in which working hours were to be counted from bank to bank, Whereas, in fact, we have only one winding time in this country which is outside the period of work. Therefore the Amendment which I put before the Committee is practically identical
    2136
    with the Resolution of the mining delegates at Geneva. I have pointed out the general advantages of that system, if we hope to get international agreement. As I say I never had very great hopes of the policy which the Miners' Federation have followed but I see now that, as it is being worked out by these Conferences, that policy is going to be productive of great good and to make for a better understanding than we have ever had. I hope the same policy will not be rejected by the Committee when dealing with this very important matter on the Bill now before us. In addition to its advantages as regards international agreement I think there will be assent that it helps in the work of the mines. I have said that the miner himself looks forward to his idle Saturday and it is a very good thing that he should have it, but it is also of advantage to everybody who is working machinery in mines—and the more machine work we are able to get in our mines, the more the coal trade is going to progress in this; country. If we can have a day upon which, a certain amount of clearing up can be done, as regards conveyers and so on, it will be of great advantage in the general working of the mines.
    I ask the Committee now to look at it from another point of view, which seems to me to be vital. We heard from the President of the Board of Trade in that masterly speech in which he moved the Second Reading of this Bill, that the effect of a reduction from the present hours to 7½ hours would be to add 1s. 6d. per ton to the cost of producing coal. Everybody realises that that is a very serious matter in connection with the production of coal in this country. We know what has been the condition of the coal trade in recent years We know according to the figures which have been produced, after the examination by the accountants, on the assessment which it is their duty to make of the coal trade in this country, that during the period covered by those figures it has lost something like £20,000,000 sterling. The industry cannot go on suffering losses of that kind. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Hartshorn) has pointed out from time to time the great difficulties under which the coal trade is labouring. It is true that the solutions which he offers are not those which I would entirely accept, hut there

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    is a great measure of agreement between what he says and what I think about the coal trade. We have worked together at a time when I was responsible for the public administration of these affairs and we do not differ much as to the real condition of the trade and the nature of the troubles which have brought about its present difficulties. It must be obvious to everybody that the trade cannot go on under conditions in which it is losing so much, and if 1s. 6d. per ton is to be added to the cost of producing coal then we are going to experience even greater trouble than that which we confronted previously.
    The trade is just emerging—to use a common expression it is just "breaking even"—from its difficulties. It is now beginning to earn a profit and during the last two or three years it has brought down the cost by 4s. 8d. per ton on the average. It has also brought about an immensely greater output with the result that our export trade, which had been steadily dwindling, has began to increase and whereas, in August, 1925. our exports per month had gone down to 3,500,000 tons, in recent months they have gone up as high as 5,000,000 tons and last year we exported 10,000,000 tons more than in the previous year. We are beginning to be able to look towards the prospect of reaching our 1913 figures again. I emphasise all these facts because the whole fate of this country depends on the success of the coal trade. I say that with the fullest possible conviction, and I say it as a person who has no personal, material interest in the coal trade. I never had such an interest in it in my life but I recognise in looking at the trade and industry of this country that nothing can be sustained and no prosperity can ever be retrieved in this country, unless the coal trade is prosperous.
    For that reason I urge upon the Committee that we ought to consider very seriously anything which will add to the hurdens upon it. I have said that the reduction of hours to 7½ means an addition to the cost of 1s. 6d. per ton. What can we do to mitigate that result? No one of us is here resisting the proposal to reduce hours from 8 to 7½ We accept that; we recognise that a pledge has been given by the Government to that effect, and we are going forward on the assumption that the pledge must be redeemed. Accepting that situation,
    2138
    the question is what can we do to mitigate the difficulty? Part I was put into the Bill with the suggestion that it would help. It is very doubtful whether we are going to get part I. There are many conditions about it which, one thinks, will make it almost impossible to carry it, at any rate in its present shape, and many people have grave doubts as to whether any benefit which you may succeed in offering to the coal trade by Part I, will not be more than balanced by the great injury to the public interest in other directions, caused by raising the price of coal to the consumers in this country. I am not arguing that question now. All I say is that you cannot calculate on doing much by Part I to mitigate the burden which you are going to put on the coal trade by Part II.
    I have no doubt we shall hear from the Liberal Benches that much is to be achieved by amalgamation, but it will be a long time before we have a sufficient number of amalgamations, even if that is the proper method of mitigating an immediate imposition of 1s. 6d. per ton on the cost of producing coal. For my part, while I have great belief in cooperation and amalgamation, I know of no industry in which they will have less effect than the coal industry, for reasons which are perfectly obvious. In the ordinary industry, you can shift about from one place of manufacture to another. It does not matter whether you desert one place for another, but, in the coal trade, you have to take the coal from where God has put it. You cannot shift the site of your operations and that, in self, not only creates difficulties, but lessens much of the benefit which might be achieved by amalgamation. That is only one element, and I mention it merely as an indication of the fact that the coal trade is not on the same footing as others when we come to consider the benefits to be derived from co-operation. At any rate, I suggest that there is not much to be hoped for in that respect, to mitigate the extra cost. The right hon. Gentleman in his speech on the Second Reading pointed to the fact that the coal trade was going to get benefits from derating. It has already been getting those benefits since October. We have the results before us, and no doubt those benefits are great, but the derating proposals

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    were not designed for the purpose of giving some extra sop to the coal trade. They were to save it from ruin. If we are going to use that as compensation for the extra 1s. 6d. per ton cost, then, in effect, we are only taking away one of the props which the industry has at present and putting nothing in its place.
    I submit that the proposal which I put in this Amendment—and which, as I have said, is really the same as the proposal of the mining communities of Europe at Geneva—undoubtedly will be of benefit and will be a mitigating force in this connection. May I give an illustration. As I have said, the advance in the use of machinery in the coal trade is one of the factors which has enabled the industry here to meet many of its difficulties. It ought to be said on behalf of the coal trade of this country that it is working coal-cutting machinery under conditions far more adverse than those which obtain in any other country in the world, and doing it better. I speak in the presence of many who know the trade better than I do, but there are some Members of the House who are probably not familiar with the working of the mines. The greatest economy is effected in machine working when the face on which the machine is operating is long enough to occupy the whole time of one shift, because time is lost in turning the machine, and the more turnings that have to be made the more is taken off the time available for the process of cutting. Accordingly, by making only the initial turn at the beginning and the other turn at the end of the day, and during that period having the longest possible face to work at—that is the most economical way of operating. To use an agricultural illustration, it is like a man ploughing. If he has to make frequent turns, if he is ploughing very short furrows, he is losing far more time in turning than if he is ploughing long furrows.
    Mr. LAWTHER: How would that help in efficiency when, obviously, as the Saturday was to be a shorter working day, the machine would cut less?
    Sir R. HORNE: I am afraid the hon. Member has not understood my argument, because what the Amendment provides is to allow a man to work his
    2140
    full shift on the Saturday, h is not a short shift, but it begins earlier—I must have explained myself very badly—and it would not be necessary to begin earlier if he was only working a short shift. Returning now to what I was saying about the saving of time on the working of a coal cutter, the more often you have to turn your machine, the more time you lose. Accordingly, you lose less time if you are working the same amount in an 11-day fortnight than if you are doing it in a 12-day fortnight. That, I think, must be obvious to all. At any rate, the information which is before me goes to show that by working 11 days a fortnight, a 90-hour fortnight, you will mitigate the increased cost to at least half its extent, and probably more. That is, as far as I am concerned, one of the main reasons why I put this Amendment forward.
    If I could see that it would put any extra burden on the miner, that it would by any chance operate unfairly, that would be a different matter, but I see no way in which the miner would incur any disadvantage, and, on the other hand, I recognise that he would acquire great benefit by reason of the fact that this method of accomplishing the task does not hit so severe a blow at the trade as he would have to suffer if brought down to a rigid seven-and-a-half-hour day, which might have a much more severe effect on his wages and on his chances of getting continuous work. With these observations, I commend the Amendment to the Committee It seems to me to be an eminently practicable and reasonable one. It has been supported by mining experts, people engaged in the mining trade, all over Europe, and I think it would be very beneficial if we adopted it here.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMS: I should like to commend the right hon. Member for Hill-head (Sir R. Home) on his conversion to the possibility of utilising one machine for the purpose of regulating probably the output of coal, the hours of work, and other matters affecting: the mining industry. I am sorry, however, that I am unable to commend the tight hon. Gentleman on his practical knowledge of the mining industry, if his later observations are the best we can expect from him in regard to economy in the production of coal. It seems to me that, the idea

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    enunciated by the right hon. Gentleman is not a new one, namely, that mine workers be permitted, by some sort of agreement with mine owners, to work a longer working day for five days per week, so that then they could be privileged to have the Saturday afternoon's football match or to enjoy some other sort of recreation.
    The plain fact, as seen by the miners of this country—and I want to emphasise this with all the force at my command-is that the idea is that miners should put in six days' work in five days for five days' wages. What does the right hon. Gentleman mean, for instance, when he suggests that some of the mine workers in his country are only working 10 days per fortnight and in other cases 11 days per fortnight, and they complain that if you reduce the hours to 7½ per day, it may mean that they would have to work 12 days per fortnight to earn the maximum wages during that period?
    Sir R. HORNE: I did not say that miners in Scotland were complaining about the 7½ hour day. What I did say was that some miners in Scotland used to work 10 days a fortnight. I did not say that any of them had complained, but I said that at the Convention at Geneva it was found that owing to their differing conditions, some distribution of hours had to be made, to enable them all to come into the same line.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: I am within the recollection of the Committee, and I have no desire to misrepresent the right hon. Gentleman, but I took down his words, and he said that some miners, now working 10 or 11 days per fortnight, may, unless this elasticity is inserted, be compelled to work 12 days per fortnight for the purpose of securing the maximum amount of wages. The only interpretation that I can apply to that is that the right hon. Gentleman desires, by agreement, which would be no agreement at all so far as the miners are concerned, that the miners be permitted to continue, where the employers demand it, five days per week on eight hours, while on Saturday, where the men are working five hours, the colliery would never work at all. That is exactly what the position is now. May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that at almost every colliery in Yorkshire at this moment there are
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    agreements in existence by which the mine workers, after jumping out of bed at two or three o'clock in the morning, work a shorter working day on Saturday, for the purpose named by the right hon. Gentleman, and it is only in what I would call a backward area where no Saturday arrangement has already been made.
    Therefore, it seems to me, from the point of view of the desirability of releasing men for Saturday afternoon, arrangements are already in existence, and from the point of view of working a longer working day, we have seen the results of the Act of 1926. What does the right hon. Gentleman's argument mean? It means, of course, that men working on piece rates may, if they exert their last ounce of energy during the whole of the eight hours for the five days, arrive at somewhere near the wage that would be obtained assuming that they worked seven hours for six days in the week, but what about the 60 per cent. of men who are on day wages? What would the right hon. Gentleman do for them? Is it his intention—I hope it is not—to condemn the day wage workers, who are the least paid of any, both on the surface and underground, to a minimum number of days' work and wages at the maximum hours? That is exactly what would happen if the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion was put into operation.
    Sir R. HORNE: I am suggesting an 11-day fortnight. I am not condemning the day wage worker to anything that is not applicable at the present time in those various parts of the country where an 11-day fortnight is worked. I have no doubt they make their own arrangements.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: The right hon. Gentleman must know that whatever his intention and desire may be, the effect of the Amendment, if accepted, would be that the day wage men would be committed to the minimum number of days' wages for the maximum number of hours' work. Therefore, it seems to me that I can say, not only on behalf of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, but on behalf of every miner in every part of this country, even including Wales, who has got the capacity to think and any knowledge of past experience,

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    that they desire Clause 9 in this Bill to pass through this Committee as it was when it arrived here, without any sort of jiggery-pokery at all.
    5.0 p.m.
    The permissive idea enunciated by the right hon. Gentleman should be referred to particularly. I well remember sitting on the opposite benches, listening to Members of the Conservative party telling us that the Eight Hours Act of 1926 was purely a temporary and permissive Measure, and that only where the workers agreed to accept the extended working day would the hours of labour in our mines be extended. I went to another place, to listen to a discussion on the Eight Hours Act there, and one of the Noble Lords who intervened in the Debate told their Lordships that they were merely abusing the English language when they referred to it as a permissive Act. [An HON. MEMBER: "How long are they working in Yorkshire?"] For 7½ hours a day, and if the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment were accepted by this Committee it would actually mean extending the hours of labour for the Yorkshire mine workers. I have already said that agreements exist where they work 7½ hours each day for the first five days, and invariably they have a recognised short day on Saturday for recreation purposes. Surely the right hon. Gentleman must know that if his Amendment were approved, he would grant the power to the reactionary coalowner, who has no sense of co-operation and decency—and there is more than one in various parts of the country—to take advantage of these facilities. With regard to the poor unfortunate coalowner, and the mining industry as a whole, what has the right hon. Gentleman to say when he recalls speeches from hon. Members below the Gangway in 1926, when he among the rest declared that the one solution of the problem of the mining industry was an eight hours Act? I have been reading some of these speeches during the past day or two, and in them it is declared that the one and only solution is to extend the working hours. What has been the result? The right hon. Gentleman has reminded the Committee that during 1929 our exports increased by 10,000,000 tons. Surely the right hon.
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    Gentleman knows that it is more by an act of God than for any other single reason that we were able I increase our exports to the extent we did. Would the right hon. Gentleman suggest that there was a possibility of maintaining these increased exports next year, if the price of coal as sold at pitheads were such as to provide the mine workers with a reasonable wage, and a reasonable existence?
    The right hon. Gentleman must know that the real reason for the difficulties of the mining industry is to be found in the price at which the coal has been sold for a number of years. Let him recall the figures, which are a clear indication of the position of the mining industry. In 1920 the price of coal at the pit-head was 33s. 8d. In the following years it was 25s. 6d., 17s. 6d., 18s. 2½d., 18s. 2d., 15s. 8d., 14s. 6d., 13s. 11¾d., and in 1928 12s. 21d. The bad selling of the coal is responsible, not only for whittling away the extra effort put in by the mine workers when working eight hours as compared with seven, but for reducing the wages received by the miners, whose output per man and per pit is increasing to an abnormal extent. I have been looking at the Yorkshire ascertainments for December of last year, and find that the output per person, including every man or boy working in or about the coalmines, has increased by approximately 4 cwts. per person since 1926, and at the same time their wages have decreased by several shillings a day. That is the sequel to the methods of selling employed by the mine-owners in this country. Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that half an hour taken off the working day of the miner will make the difference between bankruptcy and prosperity 'Does he suggest that if you create opportunities and facilities for the mineworkers to attend a football match on Saturday afternoon, it will make the difference between prosperity and bankruptcy?
    The problem is more fundamental in character than that. The right hon. Gentleman knows that the real trouble is the world capacity as compared with world demand, and the competitive scrambling for markets plus the known geological differences that apply not only county by county, but pit by pit. The 3ompetitive selling that has gone on is

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    really responsible for the position in which we are at this moment. Therefore, Clause 9 of this Bill, which merely reduces the hours of work from eight to seven and a-half ought not to be tampered with in the way suggested by the right hon. Gentleman so as to make it possible to continue the eight hours in some parts of the country, while seven and a-half hours are being worked in another part of the country. Surely the right hon. Gentleman knows that, just as we have competition between country and country, we have it between county and county; we have competition also between pit and pit, and when the right hon. Gentleman refers to the question of agreements between employers' and workers' representatives, I presume that he means trade union representatives. He must know that in the nonunion collieries, such as we have in Nottingham, there would be no agreement between the owners and the men at all. The mineowners would impose their own conditions upon the men, and they would exact the maximum ounce out of any concessions that the right hon. Gentleman gave to them as the result of this Amendment.
    Therefore, while discussions may have taken place in Geneva and suggestions may have emerged from all corners of the Continent through representatives of various countries, our practical experience as ex-mine workers is sufficient for us to know that we have to have no element of uncertainty at all. It must be placed on the Statute Book, because the bargaining power of the workers always determines whether they can maintain what they have or whether they can make any progress at all. The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that as a result of an Act placed on the Statute Book by a Government of which he was an influential member, the power of the worker has been reduced as compared with the powers of the employers, until at this moment there would be no possible chance of real agreement, and it would be a question of enforced terms in every case if this very unfortunate Amendment were to be accepted. Therefore, I suggest, if the right hon. Gentleman desires the country as a whole to be on level terms so far as bargaining powers are concerned, to remember that the temporary Act of
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    1926 ought to expire, as I hope that it will expire, in 1931, that this seven and a-half hours preparatory Measure ought to go through, and that it ought to apply to the country as a whole without any spread-over possibilities at all.
    I hope that the very poisonous suggestion that emerges from the Amendment that miners are to be compelled, even by apparent, but very unreal agreement, to go down our coal pits, some of which are no less than 1,000 yards deep, for 8¾ hours, will not be supported by hon. Members who sit on the opposite benches. There has been some question about the ratification of the Geneva Convention. Does the right hon. Gentleman want to place hon. Members on these benches in such a position that the representatives who frequent Geneva will be able to turn round and say that a British Labour Government are responsible for a piece of legislation which enables men to go down into the bowels of the earth for 8¾ hours, while at the same time we are professing our anxiety to ratify the Convention making eight hours a maximum number for any man to work on the surface?
    Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: Was not the proposal that was made by all those countries at Geneva—which is in my right hon. Friend's Amendment—made by countries which have ratified the Washington Convention?
    Mr. WILLIAMS: Yes, and if the right hon. Gentleman were to go on for a few moments, he would tell me that some countries have said that 10 hours ought to be empowered. So long as you have employers' representatives attending these conferences, they are entitled to make suggestions, and nobody would deny their right to make suggestions—
    Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: And Governments too!
    Mr. WILLIAMS: And if you have Governments, which are made up of coal-owners and steel owners, quite naturally they will make suggestions of that description. I am here expressly to represent the mine-workers of South Yorkshire, and I hope, in a wider sense at the moment, the miners of the federated area. I do not disagree that suggestions were made for a spread-over, but I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that the British delegates were not supporters

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    of it, and what they did at Geneva was to support the policy of Members who sit on these benches. I hope that the poisonous possibilities emerging from this Amendment will not be supported.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: As one of the Members who put his name to the original Amendment, I would like for a short time to be allowed to intervene. It is one of the most hopeful signs of the Committee stage of this Bill that we have been able to get on to the most controversial part of it in a spirit of admirable good temper, and, if the hon. Gentleman the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) will allow me, I would like to commend the spirit in which he has dealt with this Amendment. Although there are on the other side of the Committee many Members who are conversant with every detail of coal-mining, and many who from their earliest years have been below ground, and have lived all their lives in mining communities, it is quite clear that on these highly technical subjects opinions from outside are not altogether unacceptable, especially if they are given in a spirit of helpfulness. In putting my name to this Amendment, I did it in no sense of antagonism to the views of the Miners' Federation or the representatives of the miners, but I recognise that there are many ways in which you can arrange hours of labour, some of which may be unprofitable, some profitable, some humane, and some inhumane.
    I have not gathered from the speech of the hon. Member for Don Valley that the spread-over is condemned on the grounds of humanity. We therefore dismiss that. It is, as I understand him, subject to so much abuse under some circumstances as likely to be detrimental to the interests of the miners. If it be subjected to abuse, I think that it is otherwise accepted. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] It is not acceptable, I know, to some hon. Gentlemen opposite, but the only thing to do, if it is subject to abuse, is to stop all the holes. That is what factory and mining legislation has been trying to do for generations. What we want to get at is the ground on which it is urged that this would leave the miners in a worse position than they are in now. It is in considering that that I venture
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    to take a large view of the mining industry. I have had the pleasure of living in a community well known to my hon. Friend opposite, and I think that we come from the same birth-place. I am glad to say that I have never owned any coal, and it has not been my fate to work below ground, but I have had a great deal to do with the handling of coal, and during the whole of the time which I have spent actively in business I was as largely dependent for my livelihood on the success of the export coal trade as either miner or owner. Those who have to do with the carrying and the selling of coal abroad are able to take an equally wide view of the whole interests of the coal industry.
    What is the thing that strikes those of us who are now watching with grave anxiety the conditions which are likely to be the new conditions in the British coalfields? The first thing that alarms us is that we have by no means the monopoly we had in the past in the coal markets of the world. It is not only that we are fighting competition from white power, which is reducing the demand for coal from Scandinavia and Italy, or that some countries, are doing more mining for themselves, for instance, in East India, to which we used to carry Cardiff coal, there have been opened up some new coalfields which are supplying the great coaling stations abroad, and are selling coal to railways where formerly coal from the north country or Scotland or Wales was required in order to keep up sufficient supplies. I have seen Natal coal come into the East Indian markets and the East African markets to such an extent as to exclude Welsh coal altogether, and that is lost to us for good. In regard to the coaling stations, it has been our general experience that there has been a tendency to depend on other coal than that mined in this country to a greater and greater degree every year. That is particularly true of the present time. It may be news to some hon. Members, though I have no doubt it is well known on the benches opposite, that the Russian exporters of coal are one of the most severe competitors we now have in Mediterranean markets. Only a few days ago my own firm was offered a very large contract for the carriage of coal from Mariapol to markets in the Mediterranean, and,

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    still more remarkable, for the carriage of anthracite coal right across the Atlantic for sales already made in Baltimore and elsewhere. In these circumstances, I think we are bound to regard our hold on the coal markets of the world as more precarious than in the past.
    The hon. Member for Don Valley made reference to the large increase in our export trade last year being dependent upon an act of God. It is quite true. Very large numbers of people in every quarter of the coal trade thanked God last year for the severe frost on the Continent. It was the freezing up of Danzig that really gave a shove off to the prosperity—the modified prosperity—which has come over the coal trade. [Interruption.] In Scandinavia they did, because they got British coal, which is better than Polish. I only mention that as one of the sporadic aids we had; but we cannot count on that again. Here we are now in a comparatively mild spell, and it is doubtful whether the demand of Northern Europe is going to rise to what it was last year. If the export trade goes down you may depend upon it that the whole coal trade will be depressed. The depression is not restricted to any one district; gradually the indirect effects spread right through Great Britain. With that prospect before us—the chances of our losing some of our markets, and new competitors coming into the field—we have to win our way into those coaling stations and elsewhere purely on our merits. Our merits are two, first, that we supply good coal vended by merchants who honestly tell the truth, and sell 20 cwts. to the ton. It is because that is the general reputation of our exporters that we are able to hold our own. In the second place, we must sell at a low enough price. One thing in the speech of the hon. Member for Don Valley with which I disagree is that the low average price of 12s. odd last year had to do with bad selling. Believe me, those who sell coal get every penny they can for it. It may be bad selling, but it is not generous selling. It is the opportunity which the consumer has of going elsewhere that keeps those who vend coal in check.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Surely the right hon. Gentleman must know that the internal competition has reduced prices to
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    the public, and that those very low prices are responsible for the loss of earnings by the miners and a loss of profits by the coalowners.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I will not attempt to contradict what has been said by the hon. Member with regard to coal sold inland, but in regard to coal sold abroad our merchants get as much as they possibly can for it; if their prices had been higher they would not have got the markets back. It was because their prices were so abnormally low last year that they were able to regain those markets, and they were naturally assisted in making those low quotations by the fact that their working costs are low. The lowering of working costs has had a bad effect upon the miners, it was bound to have, and in the mass they have had reduced remuneration; but the fact remains that the low price of coal has been one of the means by which we have held some markets and regained others. I do not wish to see the process of last year repeated over and over again. I do not want to see the regaining of our foreign coal trade directly dependent upon the low remuneration of labour.
    There are other ways of dealing with that problem. There are some people who believe that by an arrangement of quotas and selling prices such as are defined in Part I of the Bill they will be able to secure for the coal trade the full advantages of higher prices and the elimination of that cut-throat competition to which reference has been made. I must honestly say that I do not like either the quota or selling arrangements; I think that if anything is open to abuse they are open to abuse; but it may be they are the only means by which you can secure to the coal trade the full value of its coal, the only means by which the coal trade will be able to afford to offer 7½ hours instead of 8—I express no opinion upon that at this moment; but I say they are both undesirable. A third alternative has been suggested, namely, that of compulsory amalgamations. What I have seen of compulsory amalgamations does not make me enthusiastic about it. It may be that some amalgamations will tend to a reduction of overhead costs.
    Mr. LEE: On a point of Order. The right hon. Gentleman is always very interesting in his speeches, but I am

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    wondering whether subsequent speakers will be allowed to have the same latitude. The Amendment before us deals with hours.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: It was understood that this Debate should take a rather broad line, and I understand that indirectly every argument of the right hon. Gentleman has a bearing on the question of hours and their bearing upon the industry.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I was mentioning the ways, I hope at not too great length, by which the coal trade, which at the present time is in a very precarious plight, might regain its prosperity. The means that have been suggested up to the present do not seem to be adequate, and if that be so what other thing can be done? Are we to abandon the idea of reducing the hours from 8 to 7½? For my part, I am not prepared to abandon it.
    Mr. BATEY: You support the Amendment.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: No. I say, "Cannot we secure the same advantages to the mining community by the spread as you can gain by the rigid 7½ hours?" I put that as a question to the Committee. The Committee are in a very good mood. We are discussing these things on a business basis. We are not divided on this matter on party lines at all, and I do suggest that we should not dismiss it as being merely a machination of the coalowners' associations, but as one which is well worthy of a discussion on which we can arrive at a decision on its merits. I do not think we ought to abandon altogether the idea of international agreement. The right hon. Gentleman has done great service abroad and has been commended, and well commended, for what he has done, and if we are to arrive at international agreement that may be one of the ways of meeting international competition. I would far rather see international agreement with regard to working hours than cartels in the coal trade. But if we are to reach international agreement let us give the right hon. Gentleman a certain amount of elasticity. By that means he may quite possibly, and I hope he will, succeed before his time is over in reaching an international agreement which will
    2152
    be of advantage not only to his own country but to every country engaged in coal mining. If that can be done, I believe we can turn the corner of this very dangerous crisis and give to the mining community what they need and what they deserve, and we can also provide for those in the coal industry who are engaged in organising, capitalising and selling coal conditions under which they will be able to regain the markets we have lost and to hold those we have won.
    Captain PEAKE: It is with considerable trepidation that I rise to support this Amendment, because I am fully aware that there are many Members on the benches opposite who have a far closer knowledge of the interior of the mines and of the working conditions in the mines than probably any of us on this side of the House. It is perfectly clear what the effect of the principal Amendment proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Home) would be. It would give, the alternative of opening the mines for a working day of 7½ hours on 12 days in the fortnight, that is to say, a permissive statutory working time of 90 hours in the fortnight, or, in districts where the owners and the men agreed to it, working 11 shifts of 8 hours apiece in the fortnight, making the actual statutory hours for the fortnight 88. This Amendment therefore does not inflict upon the mining community longer hours over the fortnight than are provided in the Bill. In fact, it suggests shorter hours for the fortnight.
    In addition to the two hours shorter which would be worked under the system of 11 shifts in the fortnight instead of 12 there is to be taken into consideration the winding time saved by the fact that the miner would descend the pits on 11 occasions only instead of 12. Those who have been down pits know that not the least irksome part of the miner's day is that spent in travelling underground from the pit bottom to the face. It is all right in some of the collieries which my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) represents, modern collieries with a 7-foot seam and steel arched roads, but in some of the older pits—some in Yorkshire and some in other districts—it is a very irksome proceeding. Seeing that the average

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    travelling time throughout the country has been calculated at as much as If hours per day—I know the Miners' Federation do not agree with that figure, but that is the figure which was produced by this country's representatives to the International Labour Office—it seems to me that if you can arrive at fewer shifts in the fortnight, and you can save that amount of travelling time underground, it might be in the interests of the coal mining industry. The hon. Member for Don Valley referred to the agreement for short Saturdays. The short Saturday is not universal in Great Britain, and I do not believe there is any short Saturday in Scotland. In Yorkshire, there is a short Saturday, but it is not the same in West Yorkshire as it is in South Yorkshire. In South Wales, they have a short Saturday at the present time. It is true that in South Wales at one time they had a short Saturday, and it was taken away after one of the many stoppages.
    This Bill can give no guarantee at all that those short Saturdays will be retained if this Measure passes into law as it stands. This Bill cannot give any such guarantee, but the proposal of a 90-hour fortnight guarantees in the districts where eight hours is worked either one Saturday completely free in every fortnight, or a short Saturday in every week of the year. I should have thought that the short Saturday was a thing which the miner would very much appreciate because he is very fond of watching a game of football. I am sure the hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Potts) will agree that a short Saturday or even a complete Saturday off, in the Barnsley district would be of great assistance in enabling the Barnsley miners to see the home football matches. This Bill gives no guarantee that that practice is going to continue.
    My view has always been that the real grievance, the big grievance, of the mining community is that there is no assured regularity of work. If you could give the miner a regular week you would go a very long way towards satisfying him. After a regular week I think the next thing the miner would like most would be an increase in wages. After the miner had got a regular week and an increase in wages, the third thing he would like would be a reduction in his
    2154
    working day. Hon. Members opposite cannot promise the miner a more regular working week or an increase in wages, and they have consequently taking the third alternative of proposing a shorter working day.
    I am not at one with all my hon. Friends who sit on these benches in thinking that Part I of this Bill is wholly bad. I believe that a scientifically operated quota system, a transferable quota system, is the only way, and it is better than compulsory amalgamation, concentrating production of coal at places where the production is most economic. I believe that Part 1 of the Bill may do something to effect economy in the cost of getting coal. Therefore, there is a hope, a real hope, that, if we do not have a big increase in the cost of raising coal by the alterations which this Bill proposes in hours, of a rise in wages for the men, because, just as you effect economy and concentrate production at the better pits, you will get an increase in net profits, and on the wages ascertainment system you will see a rise in wages. You will also get a more regular working week under the transferable quota.
    I want to say a word or two about the effect of this proposal on the cost of production. We were assured by the President of the Board of Trade in his speech on the Second Reading of this Bill that a 7½-hour day would have the effect of increasing the cost of raising coal. The right hon. Gentleman is always very fair in the use of his figures, but I think he made that figure a little on the high side. You can say that in Scotland, where a large proportion of the coal is machine-got, it will add to the cost of producing coal; but I do not believe that in South Wales the figure will be quite so high as the President of the Board of Trade put it. It will not add more than 1s. a ton to the cost of raising coal in South Wales. If we look at the statistical summary for September, we see certain figures showing what are called debits and credits in the various coal mining districts. The unfortunate part about the proposal in the Bill is that the districts where the increased cost of production is going to be heavy are the districts which at the present time are doing the worst in the coal trade. Take Scotland for the quarter ending September, 1920, and you

    2155
    find that there is a debit of 2½d. per ton. South Wales shows a debit of just over 2½d. per ton, and practically all the other districts show a fraction of a penny credit per ton. During the Second Reading Debate on this Measure, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) took up some time dealing with the accuracy of those figures, and he said that the big losses shown for the last three years were suspected by him to have been manipulated. I suppose there is no better judge of that than the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, but I do not think, in making that statement, he did justice to the two firms of eminent accountants whose business it was to get out the figures.
    Mr. TOM SMITH: Can the hon. and gallant Member give us the figures for the present time?
    Captain PEAKE: I have given the most recent figures.
    Mr. SMITH: hose figures are the most recently published by the Government, but they are not the most recently supplied by the coal districts.
    Captain PEAKE: I have been quoting from an official document published by a Government Department dealing with the coal trade. My point in reference to this statistical summary is that not only does it show debits and credits, and the figures of profits and loss over the coal trade as a whole, but it certainly shows that those figures are not in favour of the coalowners, because the summary contains no figures of any sort or kind of amortisation or for writing off the capital invested in the mines which are wasting assets. If anything, these figures under-estimate rather than over-estimate the losses which the coal trade has incurred during the last four years. This increase in the cost of production can only be met as far as I can see in two or three different ways. It may go on the price of coal. Nobody wants to see an increase in the price of coal, and I do not believe that any great increase in the price of coal is practical politics. I believe that if you put up the price of exported coal by one shilling per ton a very great deal of the trade will be lost altogether. The second way of meeting an increase in the cost of production would be by a reduction of wages,
    2156
    and, in my view, that is unthinkable, and should be avoided at all costs. I cannot see any way of meeting the increase in the cost of production which will fail to throw men out of work in the coal industry. If you increase the cost of production of coal in Scotland by 1s. 6d. per ton, in South Wales by 1s. per ton, and in other districts proportionately, you will either throw more men out of employment or there will be a greater irregularity of work.
    Mr. POTTS: How does the hon. and gallant Gentleman make out that in Scot land there will be an increase of 1s. 6d. per ton; is that the actual figure?
    Captain PEAKE: I am not giving figures relating to an increase in price. I am giving the figures which were mentioned by the President of the Board of Trade in relation to what he considered would be the effect of this Bill on the cost of production. We all know that no industry goes on working at a loss of Is., 2s. or 3s. per ton on output. Mines close down even if 1s. 6d. per ton loss is not made up, you get a contraction of trade, and more men are thrown out of work. The hon. Member for Don Valley asked what merit this proposal of the 90-hour fortnight has over the day wage. I think it has some merit. If under the hours part of the Bill you do not add to the cost of production—and this proposal of 90-hours a fortnight would not add to the cost of production at all—if you do not add to the cost of production under Part II, if you can get concentration of output under Part I, and a reduction of costs under Part I, and if you then get rather better prices for coal, which I believe in certain cases can be obtained, there is a good prospect of a rise in the net proceeds of the industry—the divisible proceeds. That is the only way in which the day-wage men can ever obtain any increase in wages—by there being a divisible surplus on the ascertainments between the owners and the men.
    I now want to say a word or two about absenteeism, because I think it has a bearing on the subject that we are discussing. The figures for absenteeism are more misunderstood by the public than any other figures in connection with the coal industry. The public do not realise on how many occasions men stay away from work because they have suffered a

    2157
    minor accident which they do not report. The public do not realise that a man has to be exceedingly fit physically to go into the mine every day and do a miner's work. The figures produced to the Royal Commission on the Coal Industry showed one thing very clearly about absenteeism—I am now speaking of voluntary absenteeism, as apart from any involuntary absenteeism due to sickness or other causes. So far as voluntary absenteeism is concerned, the figures showed that, on the day following the day when the wages are made up, there was a big rise in absenteeism. There is a distinct tendency, as soon as a man knows what he has made in the week, to take a day off.
    It seems to me that, with a 90-hour fortnight, it might be possible to succeed in concentrating voluntary absenteeism, with which everyone sympathises. Personally, I think it is one of the marks of British character which distinguish us from the American nation in particular, that we do not work in this country to make as much money as we possibly can. We do not have to have laws in this country, as they have in Detroit, to catch men out working two shifts of eight hours in the 24. We sympathise with that voluntary absenteeism, but it, does cause great inconvenience in the organisation and working of coal mines. The absence of a number of workers of a particular class may upset the working of the mine. If, by having an idle day once a fortnight, voluntary absenteeism can be concentrated on the one day, the regularity of work in the pits and the organisation of the work will be very much facilitated. If production can be concentrated under Part I of this Bill, and if absenteeism can be concentrated under Part II, a great step forward will have been taken towards making the miner's life a happier one than it was before.
    I want to say one further word, and that is that, to some extent, at any rate, this proposal has the blessing of Mr. Cook. [HON. MEMBERS: "No! "J Mr. Cook may not have been very fairly reported—I do not take in the Government organ—but, in the "Times," Mr. Cook was reported as having said that he felt strongly upon the subject of coming to an agreement with the owners on the question of a 45-hour week or a 90-
    2158
    hour fortnight. If he did not say that, we should be very pleased to hear, from some hon. Member who is going to speak, what Mr. Cook did say and what his views are.
    Mr. SHIELD: You can take it from, me that he did not say that.
    Captain PEAKE: Then I should have liked to see some public denial, or something written to the "Times" to say that he had been misrepresented or misreported.
    Mr. POTTS: The "Times" would not put it in.
    Captain PEAKE: In conclusion, I want to urge that this question should not be considered in a partisan spirit. The atmosphere of the Debate has been very reasonable. I feel that, if one could ask a great many of the miners personally what they felt on this question, they would be perfectly prepared to come to an agreement upon it, and I am very pleased that I have had this opportunity of putting forward what I know to be the view, at any rate, of some miners in this country.
    Mr. HARTSHORN: I think it may be as well if, as a first word, I make it clear, with regard to the closing remarks of the last speaker, in which he referred to Mr. Cook as being sympathetic towards, or supporting, the proposal that has been made by the Opposition, that the miners' Members in this House, and the whole of the officials of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, are unflinching and uncompromising in their opposition to this proposal. In making that statement, I have not the remotest doubt that I am voicing the sentiments—
    Whereupon, the GENTLEMAN USHER OF THE BLACK ROD leing come with a Message, the CHAIRMAN left the Chair.
    MR. SPEAKER resumed the Chair.

  ROYAL ASSENT.
  Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.
  The Rouse went; and, having returned,
  Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to—

  1. Consolidated Fund (No. 2) Act, 1930.

  2159

  2. Arbitration (Foreign Awards) Act, 1930.

  3. Unemployment Insurance Act, 1930.

  4. Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (Sheppey Water) Act, 1930.

  5. Ministry of Health Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 13) Act, 1930.

  COAL MINES BILL.
  Again considered in Committee.
  [Mr. DUNNICO in the Chair.]
  Question again proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  6.0 p.m.
  Mr. HARTSHORN: The miners in this House and the officials of the Miners' Federation are absolutely united—there is no sort of division between us—in saying that the proposal of the Opposition is one to which we cannot under any circumstances give our assent, and we shall feel compelled to offer our stoutest opposition. There does not seem to me to be anything very mysterious about the position in which both the Government and the Opposition find themselves. The Government's position is simply this: In 1926 the Government of that day passed an Act making possible the working of miners underground for eight hours a day on every day of the year. Prior to that, they could only be legally employed for seven hours a day except on 60 days in the year. The 1926 Act said that 60 days should be extended all the year round and it should be an eight-hour day in future, as it was before the 1919 Act was passed, which made seven hours the legal maximum. At the last Election the Labour party made it absolutely clear, as we made it clear in 1926, that if we were returned in sufficient power to repeal that position we should do so, and should revert to the seven-hour day. The Government pledged themselves to pursue that policy. Having gone into the matter since the Election, they have come to the conclusion that it is desirable to approach the ultimate goal of seven hours in two stages, to get back to seven and a-half now and allow the Bill to run its course and in June, 1931, the seven-hour day will automatically be reverted to.
  2160
  The position taken up by the Opposition is equally clear. They say, "We realise that this seven-and-a-half hour-day is going to pass and, as far as the limitation is concerned in the way the Government have proposed it, there is a chance of getting it through the House but, if we must accept something of that kind, the best thing for us to do is to try to get round it. We have failed in our frontal attack. Now we must see what we can do by a flanking movement, and the real meaning of the Amendment is that it shall be made possible for at least 11 days in the fortnight to work an eight-hour shift. If this provision was in operation, and next Monday morning the miners at any particular colliery were told there was no work to do, for the next 11 days the Amendment would say," Now you must work eight hours a shift." That is exactly the difference between the position of the Government and that taken up by the Opposition. I was very surprised to see the names of two right hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway attached to this Amendment, because on the Second Reading they indicated, that as far as the frontal attack was concerned, they were not prepared to take part in it, and I hope they have associated themselves with this Amendment without realising to the full what it involves, because if they do realise what it really means, they are trying to undo what was done by the defeat of the Opposition on the Second Reading. We can do nothing but oppose this to the last stage, and I sincerely hope we shall get the support of every humane Member of the Committee in giving the miners a fair and square deal for once. It is not sufficient merely to deal with the statistics of this situation or with the question of costs. This hours' question to us is a human question pure and simple. I am afraid neither the House nor the country fully realises the conditions under which the miners work and the case we can make out in support of this shorter working day.
  I should like, to say two or three words in reply to what has been said about the cost of production and its effect upon the industry. We had this in 1926. We were told then, "If you will only increase the hours, reduce the costs, and thereby reduce prices, the effect will be to give a fillip to the steel industry, to expand enormously our export business, to help

  2161
  with general manufactures and lead us along the road of prosperity." The same sort of argument has been used to-day. We repudiated that in 1926, and every fact and figure connected with the industry proved that what we said then was correct. Let us look at the effect it will have on the steel industry. During the last three years, the miners have produced more coal and have received £90,000,000 less in wages than they would have received on the 1925 prices. That is the sacrifice the miners have made under the legislation of 1926—more than 3s. a ton reduction in wages cost. By working longer hours, by putting forth greater exertions and by accepting actual reductions in wages, there has been a decline in the labour costs of over 3s. a ton, and in the three years the miners have suffered a loss of £90,000,000. That is a pretty big contribution to make towards an attempt to bring about prosperity.
  I am prepared to admit that if a policy of that kind, pursued over a given period, would lead us in the direction of prosperity, if it could be shown that that was a way in which we could solve our industrial problem, if it could be shown that we could by this process revive industry and absorb the unemployed, no body of men in the country would be more ready to make that sacrifice, and to continue to make it as long as necessary if that prospect were in sight. But we are perfectly satisfied that the problems with which we are confronted are of such a character, and so many of the factors in the solution of those problems are international in character and are outside the control of the House and cannot be solved merely by reducing coal prices, that this attempt to operate this one factor alone is merely imposing an unnecessary and futile sacrifice upon the mining community which cannot possibly accomplish the end which so many Members seem to think will result from it.
  There are two tests that can be applied to see how all this sacrifice, this reduction in cost, has affected the steel industry. One test is to see how much coal is consumed in that industry. If there was any revival of trade in the iron and steel industry, it would immediately show itself in the increased consumption of coal, because the iron and
  2162
  steel industry is one of the big coal-consuming industries of this country. If there had been any material improvement in steel we should have seen it in an increased consumption of coal. What is the position? In 1925, when the seven-hour day was in operation, the iron and steel industry consumed, according to the official figures, 21,000,000 tons of coal. [An HON. MEMBER: "Including coke"] Yes. In 1927, after the longer hours had come in and after the reduced price of coal had operated, the iron and steel industry consumed 21,000,000 tons, precisely the same as in 1925. In 1928 the iron and steel industry consumed 21,000,000 tons, again precisely the same figure. I am giving the round figures, as there is nothing in it.
  Take another test. If we were getting a revival in the steel trade as a result of this reduction in the price of coal and the enormous sacrifices made by the miners, it would' be shown in our export business. I have been looking at the Board of Trade figures, and I find that our exports of steel and iron and manufactures thereof in 1925 were of the value of £68,000,000. That was when the seven-hour day was in operation. In 1927, after the longer working day and the lower price came in, the value of our exports of those products was £69,000,000. In 1928 it was £67,000,000, and last year it was £68,000,000, practically no change at all. All this sacrifice which has been made by the miners of this country has left our steel and iron trade absolutely-untouched. As far as anything which was aimed at by the operation of this policy of the lengthening of hours and the reducing of costs was concerned, it has left us absolutely untouched, and the whole thing has been futile.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Home) this afternoon called attention to our expanding exports. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Runciman) explained how, in a very large measure, that was due to temporary causes which may be very materially affected by other local or temporary causes. I would like to look at the export business in the light of what the longer working hours have done. In 1925 we exported rather more than 50,000,000 tons of coal and we received £50,000,000 for it. In 1927 we exported rather more than 50,000,000 tons

  2163
  of coal and we received £45,000,000 for it. As soon as the miners' wages went down, the money was given to the foreigner. In 1928 we exported about 50,000,000 tons, and we received £39,000,000 for it. In those two years we exported each year the same amount as we exported in 1925, and we gave the foreigner £16,000,000 from the wages of the miners.
  A great deal of fuss has been made about the exports of last year. From 50,000,000 tons in 1925, 1927 and 1928, the exports of coal last year went up to 60,000,000 tons. But let us not forget that in 1925 we exported 50,000,000 tons of coal and received £50,000,000 for it. Last year we exported 60,000,000 tons and we received less money for it than we received for the 50,000,000 tons when the seven-hour day was in operation. It is true that with 160,000 fewer miners at work, the miners of this country produced 10,000,000 tons more coal. After all that effort and sacrifice, they produced it for £34,000,000 less in wages. They made that sacrifice. They produced 10,000,000 tons more coal. They received £34,000,000 less in wages. When they had put forth all that effort and made all that sacrifice to produce 10,000,000 tons more coal, we gave it to the foreigner for nothing, and we also gave him a bonus of £2,000,000 for taking it from us. Honestly, I confess, when I consider that the extension of the working day was put on for the purpose of enabling us to get more trade, to revive our heavy metal industries and to expand our exports, and when I look at the results, I marvel that anyone can continue in the light and face of those facts to argue here to-day that we ought not to revert to the position which we occupied prior to the passing of the longer working day.
  What has become of this £90,000,000, which the miners have sacrificed in wages? It is not difficult to trace. All the material is available to enable us to find out what has become of it. £30,000,000 of it has gone to the foreigners, £6,000,000 to the railway magnates, £7,500,000 to the shipowners, £10,000,000 to the iron and steel magnates, and I have no doubt that the people of this country will be surprised to learn that £18,000,000 of it has gone to the householders. [An HON. MEMBER: "Or
  2164
  the merchants!"] As far as the miners are concerned, they have sacrificed that £18,000,000 in wages in order that the householders in this country may get their coal so much cheaper. Have the miners ever had any credit or appreciation from the householders of this country? If you talk to the householders, they will say that they have not had it. They will say, "Not only have we not had a reduction in price, but we have been paying more." The simple fact, as far as the miners are concerned, is that £18,000,000 has been taken out of their wages during the last three years to enable the householders in this country to have cheaper coal, and if the householders have not had it, then somebody else has. The miners have lost it. Who is the better in this country for having taken £30,000,000 out of the pockets of the miners and given it to the foreigners? Who is the better for having taken £10,000,000 out of the pockets of the miners and handed it to the steel and iron magnates? I have been asking the representative of the iron and steel workers what increase in wages they have received on account of this, and I am told that they are very much where they were before. That money has been taken either to wipe out losses or to increase the profits of the iron and steel magnates of this country.
  Sir R. HORNE: There is not much profit in the steel trade.
  Mr. HARTSHORN: I said that it has been used either to reduce losses or to increase profits. I say that, having regard to the totally inadequate wage of the miners, neither the steel magnates, the railway kings nor any other people are entitled to call upon the miners of this country to pay part of their wages bill. What has happened in the last few years is that they have footed that bill to the tune of £90,000,000. I have no hesitation in demanding this Measure as a measure of justice for the miner. We do not in the least hide from the House and the country the fact that we shall go on until we get the seven-hour day as a mere measure of justice. I wonder how-many hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite have given very much time and thought to the conditions under which the miner works. I know his job; I have done it. I know his life; I have lived it. There are 50 men on these benches who have had similar experience, and we know what we are talking about.

  2165
  There are miners in this country who from the moment they go down the pit until they come back, except on rare occasions when they come back into the roadway, have not only insufficient room to enable them to stand but they have not even sufficient room to enable them to kneel. In some of the seams the men have to do their work and produce coal with one shoulder against the floor and the other shoulder against the roof, and in that position they have to earn their livelihood. One has only to look at the documents supplied at the Commission of which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) was Chairman, to find the thicknesses of the seams in every colliery in this country, and to see that the majority of the men employed in the mining industry in this country, all day long, are in a crouching position. They have not sufficient room to enable them to stand upright and they are in the dark from morning till night working under those arduous and hazardous conditions.
  Do not forget that every week that passes 20 of these men are killed in producing that coal. Every week that passes 80 of them are maimed or mangled for life, arms torn out, legs torn off, eyes lost, permanently partly disabled. Every week 3,000 of them are more or less seriously injured. There is not a miner in this House who has not seen the blinds drawn in every house in the village in which he has lived. I saw it in the village in which I was born three times before I was 10 years of age. There were three explosions before I was 10 years of age. These are experiences which have burnt themselves into the very souls of the miners. We say that men who are working under those conditions, facing those dangers and making the sacrifices they are making, are entitled to have a fair and square deal between themselves and other members of the community, and to have a shorter working day on account of it. There is not a man on these benches who has worked in the mine who has not had this kind of experience. I have had it more than once—walking to work at four or half-past five o'clock in the morning with a pal and walking back from the pit at half-past eight bringing him home a corpse. These miners are entitled to a bit of extra consideration on account of the conditions
  2166
  under which they work and the great dangers which they are running.
  When we talk about a 7½ hour day as the ordinary working day in the mines, it is well to keep in mind what is meant by it. For more than a quarter of a century I have been the miners' agent for a district in South Wales, and from my window I can see the miners going to work. They are supposed to be working an eight-hour day. It is illegal for them to be down the mine longer. But an eight-hour day has been interpreted under the Act to mean that men working in the pits in my own district, where the shift is supposed to be from seven o'clock until three, may go down at six o'clock and come up at four o'clock. Even now they can be underground for 10 hours, because an hour is allowed for each winding. If a miner likes he can go down at six o'clock and remain there until four o'clock. Under the Act 10 hours is possible to-day, and if this Clause is passed they will still be able to be underground 9½ hours, and on an average they will be underground for that time, because an hour is allowed for each winding. I cannot believe that this Committee is indifferent to the claims of the miners for a modification of their working day, and I sincerely hope that when the division is taken this evening, if a division is challenged—I hope that will not be the case—we shall have an overwhelming majority in favour of the Government's proposal.
  The right hon. Member for Hillhead suggested an earlier starting on Saturday morning, not a shorter working day, but an earlier start so that the men might finish earlier. To get to work on a Saturday morning our miners have to get up at half-past four or five o'clock. In other parts of the country they start at three and four o'clock, but, in any case, it is a common thing all over the country for the miners, not once in a while, not on a morning now and then, but every day through their life, to get out of bed at four o'clock and 4.30 and walk in the darkness to their work. They do not see the sun until they come up; and the suggestion in the Amendment is that these men shall be told to get up earlier and start their day's work earlier. Friends; if hon. Members in the Committee will allow their sense of fair play to operate, they will say, "We

  2167
  should not like to do it ourselves, and if we were compelled to do it we should not think we were getting fair play from the rest of the community." That is our demand; and I hope, when the question has been fully discussed, that this Committee will show its sympathy with the miners' aspirations for a shorter working day and will support the Government.
  Major COLVILLE: I hope we shall continue to carry on this Debate in the spirit which operates at the moment. We are discussing what, to my mind, is the most important part of the Measure, and if we continue to consider the question in this fair manner we shall arrive at the right solution. A few months ago, in October, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking at Leicester, used these words:
  "An immediate return to the seven-hour day would inflict grievous disaster on the industry; pits would be closed down and miners would be thrown out of work."
  I urge the Committee to ponder earnestly on the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and to consider whether a return to the 7½-hour day may not, to some extent, bring disaster to the industry, cause pits to be closed down and miners to be thrown out of work. The hon. Member for the Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) referred to some districts as the more backward districts. I think he was referring to Scotland. As to Scotland, I must say that I fear the consequences of this Measure because of the effect it will have not only on trade generally but on the miners themselves in Scotland. I do not see, and I say it with great sincerity, how this proposal can be carried through in Scotland without raising, at any rate, a wage crisis; and there is not a Member of the Committee who desires a wage crisis in the mining industry at the present time. In those areas which are described as backward areas, that is where they are working the full eight hours now, and particularly in those areas in Scotland where mechanical means are largely used, the proposals in this Bill will mean a big increase in costs. That increase will have to be met somehow, and it holds over the whole industry in that particular district the possibility of a grave wage crisis.
  Look at the other side of the picture. During the last few years the men have
  2168
  been working hard to restore the industry. Output has increased per man, and they are approaching a time when, if they were left alone, they would have been entitled to share under the ascertainment in the profits of the industry. Those who bring forward these proposals are not doing a good turn to the miners in those districts, because they are postponing for an indefinite period the opportunity of better wages for the men. These men would be entitled to share in the improvement in the industry which they have worked hard to bring about, but by a reduction in hours, and a consequent increase in costs, that time is being indefinitely postponed. That is a point which the Committee should consider. The Amendment is intended to neutralise the harm which will be caused by the proposal in the Bill. As far as those districts are concerned which would be affected worse by any increase in costs under the 7½-hour proposal, the Amendment of the right hon. and learned Gentleman would obviate that increase. Instead of a charge of 1s. 6d. being added, a negligible amount, a few pence, may be added by the Amendment. What does that mean? It means that as far as the miners are concerned, the risk of a wage crisis is removed, and it brings them nearer to the time when they will be entitled to share in the improvement in the industry by an increase in wages. For that reason, I ask the Committee to consider the point of view of miners in those areas where the costs will be increased by this Bill.
  Hon. Members opposite claim to speak directly for the miners. Have the miners had the point put to them directly that in these districts they will not see better wages for an indefinite period? I claim that it should be put to them, because that is the true effect of the Bill as drafted. The whole reason for Part I of the Bill is to obviate that, and to raise the money to obviate it. Some of us are sceptical as to how Part I will work. Some of us are frankly sceptical as to how amalgamation will work out. Last night, when speaking on the question of the steel and iron industries, I said that unless you could increase markets generally, rationalisation would become rationing, and that is what I fear will take place under the present Bill. That will not raise the money to compensate the

  2169
  miners for the increased costs, which will mean a reduction in their wages. I ask the Committee to give careful consideration to the Amendment. It is put forward in order to assist the Government to get out of their difficulty. They have given a pledge to reduce hours. On the Second Reading of the Bill we expressed our views on that matter. The Bill passed Second Reading, and the Government intend to carry out their pledge to reduce hours. Their proposals will inflict grievous hardship on the industry, but the Amendment which has been put forward in regard to a reduction of hours will obviate that difficulty, and I appeal to hon. Members in all parts of the Committee to support it.
  Mr. SHIELD: It seems to me that no Debate in this Committee will cast so much reflection upon the commonsen6e of hon. Members as the Debate on the present Amendment. An hon. Member on the other side, by an interjection, said that we were going back 100 years. As far as Northumberland is concerned, in the matter of hours the miners of Northumberland were in a considerably better position 100 years ago than they are to-day. It is not easy to get statistics for that period, but I see from an inquiry which was held by the Government about the middle of the last century that in Northumberland in almost every case the hours were found to be between six and seven per day, and in some cases less. That was in the middle of the last century. Yet here we are in 1930 discussing whether we shall go backwards instead of forwards. I have been very much interested in a statement made from the Front Bench opposite, which was repeated to-day by the right hon. Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Home). Those right hon. Gentlemen seem to be sure that the miners, if consulted, would rather agree to 90 hours per fortnight than to seven and a-half hours per day. In that connection, it is very interesting to have received the following telegram from Mr. Straker, the respected secretary of the Northumberland miners. Hon. and right hon. Members will admit that Mr. Straker knows the pulse of the situation:
  "Northumberland miners bitterly opposed to 90 hours per fortnight. Hours in Northumberland mines have always governed shift or day, and no departure must be made from
  2170
  the seven and a-half hours, plus one winding time."
  That seems to be fairly conclusive as far as Northumberland is concerned. The right hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Runciman) said that nothing had been shown of an inhuman character that was calculated to help him to give support to the Bill as it stood. That is our whole case. As one who was working in the mines in 1926, when the Eight Hours Act was placed upon the Statute Book, I say that no greater disservice has ever been done to the mining community than was done at that time. It is all very well talking about there being an increase of 1s. 6d. per ton in the cost of coal, but in considering economics we cannot afford to leave out the human factor, and as one who was at the mines in 1926 and for three years afterwards, I know that for the whole of that time and up to the present time the miners of this country have been labouring under a sense of injustice, which is not calculated to help them to put forward their best efforts.
  You cannot judge coal output by a simple sum of arithmetic or by rule of three. It is all very well to say that eight hours per day work produces so many tons of coal and that 7½ hours per day will produce so many tons. That seems a- logical conclusion, but eight hours' work for men who are labouring under a sense of injustice is a very different thing from 7½ hours when the men are labouring under a sense of good will. Therefore, the calculation made by hon. Members as to the increased cost of production will be found ultimately to be inaccurate. I am glad that the right hon. Member for Hillhead said that the coal had not been placed in the ground by us, but that it was where God Almighty had put it. I was very glad to hear that statement. It is the first time that I have heard from the other side of the House that God did put the coal there, for the position would seem to be, judging from the amount of money paid to them, that the royalty owners had placed it there. I have had 40 years' experience in the coal mines, and there is scarcely a colliery in Northumberland where I have not settled the prices. I have settled prices for the getting of coal in Northumberland actually at a less price per ton than the royalty owner received per ton on every ton of coal that came from the mine. Any attitude that we have taken

  2171
  up and any desire on our part to lessen the cost of production from that point of view has always been set aside. It would seem that neither life nor death, neither angels, principalities nor powers must separate the royalty owners from their royalties; they must be paid.
  If hon. and right hon. Members opposite wish to reduce the cost of production, there are other ways of doing it than by trying to upset the arrangements in this Bill. During the operation of the Eight Hours' Act, from 1910 to 1918 inclusive, there were considerably more accidents than during the period of the Seven Hours' Act. From 1910 to 1918 inclusive there were 12,669 fatal accidents to men and boys, an average of 1,407 per year. During the operation of the Seven Hours' Act, from 1920 to 1925 inclusive, allowing for the three months' stoppage in 1921, the total number of fatal accidents was 6,597, an average of 1,147 per year. There were 260 more fatal accidents per year during the operation of the Eight Hours' Act than during the operation of the Seven Hours' Act. Our whole case is based upon the inhuman attitude of those who would keep the men longer in the pits than seven and a-half hours. We are suffering from the brutal and inhuman conditions which were imposed upon the miners in 1926. Because of their inability to stand up against the situation, owing to poverty and starvation, they were forced to accept conditions that no man should be asked to accept. What has been the result?
  In Northumberland, certain arrangements were made whereby coal-drawing should only take place for part of the 24 hours, but what has happened? Today in Northumberland they can draw coal from early morning till the next morning, and they can send boys down the mine at any period of night or day. At the present time there are boys in Northumberland, of 14 years of age, going from Newcastle and travelling to the northern coalfields, leaving home at 10 o'clock at night, descending the mine at 12.30 midnight, and getting home, because of the distance they have to travel, about nine o'clock next morning, after working all the hours of the night. Fancy, boys of 14 years of age condemned to that! While your children
  2172
  are asleep, our children are condemned to descend into the bowels of the earth. Call it sob-stuff if you will, but I would ask hon. Members to visualise the feelings of a mother who closes the door on her child at 10 or 11 o'clock at night, knowing that for 12 hours that child will be absent, working in the bowels of the earth. We are mortgaging the future as far as our children are concerned, and we cannot afford to do it, by sending our children to work eight and a-half hours in the pits, as at the present time.
  The human factor counts for something. I know well the feelings of the men in some of the coalfields of this country. They have not forgotten what took place in 1926, and they are labouring under a sense of injustice. Let them see by the attitude of the House on this question that, for once, legislators are interested on their behalf. Let us refuse to pass the Amendment which has been put forward, and let us go forward and say that as far as we are concerned this proposal is not a concession but is simply giving back to the miners 50 per cent. of what has been owing to them since 1926. That would be the right spirit in which to try to build up the future prosperity of the coalfields. It is in the interest of all of us that the coal trade should prosper. We are not arguing simply for the sake or arguing. We are not putting forward our case from a one-sided point of view. We believe that the good will of those engaged in the industry is essential if the industry is to be prosperous. We believe that by the passing of this Bill we shall help to bring about that good will which is so necessary in the industry. The prosperity of this country has been built up upon the coal trade, and the future prosperity of the country depends upon the coal trade. Continually fighting and seeking to set one class against another or one party in the trade against another will not bring about prosperity. We shall bring about the best results when we let the men who are engaged in the industry see that we are prepared to give them a square deal.
  Sir H. SAMUEL: We are considering this afternoon a point of great interest and great importance, and one which touches most closely the miners themselves. It is their daily working life which is in question, and I think the

  2173
  Committee will be guided mainly by the expressions of opinions that it receives from those who are entitled to speak on behalf of the working miners. The Royal Commission on the Coal Industry took that view. In their recommendation they said:
  "We cannot advise the State to go back upon the action taken in 1919, and endeavour to force upon the miners the acceptance of longer hours of work."
  7.0 p.m.
  At the same time, we threw out a suggestion that the miners might perhaps be willing to agree to a spread of the hours over the week. It was suggested that there would be an economic advantage in having one day off in a fortnight or even in a week, with a corresponding lengthening of daily hours, but it was a question fur the miners to decide whether or not they would desire that arrangement. It appears perfectly clear from what has been said to-day that, at present, at all events, the miners do not desire that; and the House must take those expressions into account. When we visit coalmines we are able to judge, watching the work, how arduous it is and under what uncongenial conditions it must of necessity be conducted—the most arduous and the most uncongenial conditions of any occupation in the country. We go there, we watch the miners at their work under conditions such as have been described by hon. Members opposite, and we come away, but they are there every working flay, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, from the age of 14 to the age of 60 or more, and it is for them to say, as far as the conditions can possibly allow it, in what circumstances they wish that work to be regulated. I came by chance a few days ago across a quotation from the lawyer poet of the 18th century, Sir William Tones, who, speaking for his own profession, wrote:
  "Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,
  Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven."
  If seven is enough for a lawyer—
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: But he had no practice.
  Sir H. SAMUEL: perhaps because he was a poet, but also he was a judge at a fixed salary. Perhaps it was in those
  2174
  circumstances that he wrote that verse. The present hours of work for miners are very much greater than those. We are accustomed here to speak of a seven-hours day and an eight-hours day, but those terms are complete misnomers, and in fairness to the miners we ought to refer to them as the so-called seven-hours day and the so called eight-hours day or as the seven-and-a-half-hours day and the eight-and-a-half-hours day, because the additional winding time makes an average addition to the daily work of half-an-hour. On the 28th of January I put a question to the Secretary for Mines to ask what are the actual working hours now under the present law in the several coal mining districts, and, also, bow much shorter are the hours at the week end in each district. These are the figures of daily working hours, taking some of the chief districts. In Lancashire and Cheshire the figure per day is eight hours and 34 minutes; in South Wales eight hours 30 minutes. That is for each miner working the average daily hours underground. That is bank-to-bank for the average miner to-day in those districts which I have mentioned. In Northumberland and Durham, the hewers work seven hours 52 minutes and the others eight hours 22 minutes, and similarly all down the long list.
  With regard to the short Saturday, most people think that, if a miner gets a short Saturday, he gets a half-holiday. The figures, however, are as follow. In Lancashire and Cheshire, they work two hours less leaving a day of six and a-half hours, and in South Wales one hour less leaving a day of seven and a-half hours underground. So all down the list they work half-an-hour, one hour, or, in some cases, two and a-half hours less. In Yorkshire, they work seven hours 59 minutes, half-an-hour less on Saturdays, so that they have less amenity in that direction than any of the other districts. It is a matter of real importance that these men engaged in this occupation shall have proper opportunity for recreation and amusement at the week-end. Those physical and psychological factors are of great importance, and if we consider only the economic factor, we should be making a great mistake. The miners ought not to be put in the position of being compelled either on the one hand

  2175
  to absent themselves from work to the detriment of themselves or their families or on the other hand to forego reasonable opportunities for recreation and amusement. If the miners were to consider, taking into account everything, that it is better to agree with the employers to have a real half-holiday on Saturday or to have one day off a fortnight, that is their concern, and Parliament would be well advised to accede to it.
  Our object in all these matters should be to secure the greatest amount of real liberty, and real liberty consists not merely in exemption from laws but in people being able to do what they wish to do. To secure a full measure of liberty does not necessarily mean exemption from State action. For example, in the old days in South Wales, where everybody regularly worked 10 hours a day and sometimes more in the coalfields, the miners, in order to secure a greater measure of liberty in leading their lives as they desired, formed trade unions and by trade union action sought to reduce their hours. Those who advocated the doctrine of laissez faire in those days said trade unions were tyrannical, because they compelled the individual workman to conform to certain rules against his own will. There is something to be said for that, but on the whole they clearly enlarged the independence of the workman by putting him more on an equality with his employer and enabling him to bargain for good terms. But the miners found that by trade union action alone they could not secure an adequate amount of liberty and turned to the State. In 1908, the Government, of which I had the honour to be a Member, introduced a Bill, and I remember 20 years ago doing what little I could to help to pass it into law by speaking from that bench. They turned to the State to secure by State action that Measure which they needed and to which they were entitled. That Act was passed. It extended State action and it imposed more law. In form it was restrictive, but in fact it enlarged liberty. It enabled the people to live their lives as they wished to live them, and, in fact, more law meant more liberty.
  What is the position at this moment? It is said that by enlarging the latitude
  2176
  you give the miners an opportunity to agree with the employers and to spread the hours over the week end. In the long run their wages will be better safeguarded if the industry is enabled by these means to become more prosperous. It is said that, if in some districts the miners did wish to work an extra half-an-hour and have a day off a fortnight and both parties, the employers and the miners, were at one, they would not be able to do it, because this House has forbidden it. That seems a reasonable point of view, but, from the standpoint of the miners expressed here to-day, what they fear is that what purports to be an agreement may not really be an agreement, and that what Parliament permitted should be the working hours and genuinely desired should be agreed hours would in fact become the actual hours although the miners did not really wish it—that being free from law in that regard they are still subject to economic pressure. They fear that the day man, for example, losing one day's work a fortnight, may not be repaid by additions to his wages for the remaining 11 days. That may be so or it may not. We cannot tell beforehand at all events if that fear may conceivably be realised. The right hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Hartshorn) pointed out that some employers might use this power in a way which is by no means intended, and that when a mining stoppage takes place, owing to lack of trade or absence of trucks or whatever it may be on a particular day, they may say to the miners, "This is your holiday, and you must now work an extra half-an-hour in order to make that up during the 11 days." It is like the Aberdeen firm who had a commercial traveller who was marooned by a storm in a remote island on the Orkneys and telegraphed for instructions what he was to do and the instructions came, "Begin your summer holidays as from yesterday."
  I do not know whether that fear would, in fact, ever be realised, but at all events it is a contingency which is in the minds of hon. Members, and their point is this, as I understand it. If you pass this provision and you say, "Let us agree on this rearrangement of hours by giving scope within the law to do what the miners may wish to do," you will also give scope within the law to their being subjected

  2177
  to economic pressure to compel them to do what they do not wish to do. Now this is really a form of contracting-out in the guise of allowing contracting-in. Always, whenever labour legislation has been before this House, there have been suggestions in the interests of freedom and liberty that people should be allowed to contract out. It is an old issue in connection with workmen's compensation and again in connection with other forms of social legislation. The effect of inserting a provision to allow contracting-out is that the power may be used in a manner completely different to that which Parliament has intended. Therefore, although I agree that there would be a distinct economic advantage in spreading the hours and that the pressure upon the industry of the general shortening of hours might in some degree be relieved and the miners might not be subjected to the same pressure in regard to wages, my conclusion is that it is a matter for them primarily to take into account, and, if they take the view that has been expressed here this afternoon, it is not for Parliament to force upon them a different opinion.
  Mr. W. GRAHAM: The case has been so eloquently and fairly stated on both sides of the House that hon. Members will be content if I state the view of the Government in a very short form and leave my hon. Friend the Secretary for Mines, at a later stage, to review the other parts of the discussion. There are one or two features of this problem which, in the light of the negotiations of the last months, I am bound to put to hon. Members before late to-night we proceed to a Division. From some points of view, it is unfortunate that the legislation regarding hours is complicated and not very easy to follow in Parliamentary-debate. But, in short summary, there was the Act of 1908, which was, of course, on an eight hours basis as regards its main operative Clause, Section 3 of that Act permitting the addition of those 60 hours over the year. Then came the Act of 1919, which laid down the seven hours day, and finally that legislation of 1926, which went back to Section 3 of the Act of 1008, took away the limitation of the 60 days, and made it possible to work an additional hour a day or eight hours per day on every working day in the year.
  2178
  The Amendment which the Government propose in order to give effect to one part of their pledge goes back necessarily to the Act of 1926 and fundamentally to the Act of 1908. As my hon. Friends have pointed out, both at the last General Election and during the long debates in 1926 we made it perfectly clear that the first available opportunity for dealing with coal mines legislation in this House we should take steps to return to the seven hours day. As regards the Amendment which has been moved by the right hon. Member for Billhead (Sir 11. Home), the case can be very clearly and simply stated. Various proposals have been made, not so much in official quarters as unofficially, to the effect that it might be easier, in applying this reduction of half-an-hour and presumably any larger reduction, if there were some system of averaging that change over either a week or a fortnight. Although the term "average" cannot accurately be applied to that state of affairs and still less to the Amendment, the broad idea is to supply some kind of method to ease the economic effect of this change in working hours which the Government proposes under the Bill. So the right hon. Gentleman suggests that if on certain days there is any shortage in the statutory working time which is permissible, that may be made up to the extent of half-an-hour and not more on other days, provided that there is not exceeded by 12 days the aggregate amount which can be worked under this Bill.
  I do not dispute on the limited point that there might be a certain argument in favour of an average or even in favour of this proposal, subject always to the conditions which the right hon. Gentleman himself and practically all other speakers have imported into the proposition. They have indicated quite clearly, as did my right hon. Friend who has just spoken, that they can only rest on the agreement of the parties to any proposal of this description, and that if that agreement is not forthcoming it is idle for this House to propose it. May I refer briefly to the long discussions on this point? The official attitude of the Mining Association has always been against any reduction in the working day, and their latest attitude, this: that, according to them,

  2179
  the reduction of an hour means an addition of 3s. a ton in working costs, that is to say, if we were to accept their figures, 1s. 6d. a ton on the basis of half-an-hour, and therefore, if this reduction in hours is carried through, it would be necessary to apply for wage reduction in almost every district; yet if that were averaged over either a week or a fortnight the wage reduction which they would request would be less on the average than it would be on a rigid adherence to the daily basis.
  That is the official attitude. The Government took all that into account. But I want to point out, in the first place, the qualification which was contained in my Second Reading speech on this question of hours reduction. That figure of 3s. per ton of additional working costs is a peak figure which has been seriously challenged in very responsible quarters. Moreover, it is not a figure applicable to all coalmining districts in this country. Even if we admitted the figure of 3s., or a figure of 1s. 6d. attributable to the half hour, it is a) peak figure from which there is a downward movement through other districts, and according to representative opinion there would not be that addition to working costs if this half hour were taken off. But I am prepared to say that there would be no need to propose reductions of wages even if the cost were as high as a shilling to 1s. 6d. a ton.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Hartshorn) in what all will agree was a masterly statement of the case, pointed out that the arguments which were used in 1926 and for a long period prior to that, by owners and others, had not been fulfilled, that is that there had been not only this addition to the working hours but also a very drastic reduction in wages—and I have never met anyone who defends those wages to-day. All that had not been sufficient to bring about recovery in the general volume of production in this industry, because it is a central fact that for reasons which I must not elaborate in this Debate, production in this country has settled down to 237, 340, 250 or perhaps 255 million tons per annum. All these changes have been made at enormous sacrifice to the mining
  2180
  community and they have not, achieved the result which right hon. Gentlemen opposite suggested in 1926.
  But I want to be fair. There has been a certain improvement in this industry in the last year, but we adhere to the view that other steps which we propose are still needed to bring that improvement to fruition. I am bound to tell the House that at this moment there is no prospect of agreement, so far as I am aware, on the part of the miners' representatives to anything resembling an average system. That was all explored and considered before the Government put this Clause into the Bill. It is quite true that if the two parties to this industry came along at any time and said, "We have reached an understanding in terms of something different from this Clause," any Government of the day would be bound to take that into account. But that is not before the country or the House of Commons at this moment, and so far as the Government are concerned we adhere to this proposal in Clause 9 to reduce the working time by one half-hour. What is the meaning of that? It is, of course, a modification of the Act of 1926, and it means seven and a-half hours plus one winding time, which, as has been explained to the Committee before, means, averaged over the whole country, seven and a-half hours, plus 35 minutes below ground. But it may mean in practice, in many of the mines, much more—up to nine or nine and a-half hours below ground for individual miners.
  There never was a problem yet before this House in which one was confronted by such a bewildering variety of conditions as in the mining industry. The mathematical skill that any hon. Member possesses would probably not give adequate explanation of a miner's pay bill In any event, that is the state of affairs We accordingly propose to make this change. Unless there is any intervening legislation before the end of July, 1931, the further reduction to seven hours will operate on that date. The Act of 1926 will automatically expire and the mining community will go back to the pre-1926 position, which will be a seven hours working day, plus winding time or seven hours and thirty-five minutes averaged over the whole country. What is the difficulty that, beyond all question, is

  2181
  still entertained by certain right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite? This Debate has been remarkable in that up to this point not a single Member has attacked the main proposition. Hon. Members have said that there would be certain additions to working costs, but they have not sought to attack the reduction; they have sought rather to average it or work it out on some other basis. What is the Government's cases Quite clearly it is not in the interest of any section of the industry to promote anything at all which will have repercussions on the mining community. But the first point I wish to make to convince hon. Members opposite of is that over a very large part of the coalfields in Great Britain to-day, that is, in the whole of Yorkshire and adjacent territory they are now on a seven-and-a-half hours basis, and they are producing 100,000,000 tons of output, substantially under the conditions that this Bill proposes in hours for the rest of the coal mines production. It may be said that there is a difference between the state of affairs in that vast coalfield, which has only a very small proportion of the export trade, and other coalfields like South Wales and Scotland and one or two more, which depend to an overwhelming extent on the coal which they can send abroad.
  Sir R. HORNE: The other coalfields are working on thinner seams.
  Mr. GRAHAM: That is true to a certain extent, and from some points of view they may not be so up-to-date. As regards the exporting districts, the view of the Government is as follows: We firmly believe that if there is anything resembling good-will in this industry, if the parties can be persuaded to come together, if there is a fair operation of the national Industrial Board which is proposed under the Bill, and an impartial review of the circumstances, it will not be necessary to call upon the mining community for any further wage sacrifice. On the contrary, I should think that the conditions would minister in due course to an improvement in their remuneration.
  Dark and difficult as the picture is, there are one or two points which can be summarised in defence of that part of our case. In the export districts there is undoubtedly a certain improvement
  2182
  in the situation. The export of coal is 10,000,000 tons better than it was during the preceding year. A portion of Part 1 is directed to the central problem of enabling coal to be sent from this country to compete at the world's competitive prices. I am not going to anticipate that part. But, assuming that we may change and improve the export trade—I agree that what the right hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Runciman) said, that the position of the export trade has a preponderating influence on the rest of the trade—that would be an important safeguard to this wages problem. Then there is the effect of derating. I do not dispute that it was under the auspices of the late Government that that was introduced. Its effect on the price of coal production has been estimated at 5d. or 6d. or perhaps even 7d. per ton, but whatever the figure it is plainly a material part of the amount we have to meet, even if we took the maximum at 1s. 6d, and that is the maximum estimate of the increase in working costs in what I may call the peak districts attributable to the reduction of half an hour.
  So that, first of all, there is the improvement in the industry. In the second place there is this fact that the estimate is an extreme estimate. There is that contribution of the de-rating scheme. We have never disputed that in the main the safeguard of this half hour's reduction, with no reduction in wages for the mining community, rests on Part 1. It is our case, which we shall discuss later, that our proposals will secure that substantial quantities of coal, which are now being sold either at a loss or unremuneratively, will no longer be so sold, and as long as that scramble continues and that loss goes on it may be there can be no reduction in working hours without some invasion of even the low wages that the miners now enjoy. Accordingly, the Bill provides that there will be between three and four months run of this marketing system before this part of the legislation comes into force. I have said that this is the agreement which was reached by the Miners' Federation, and I should hope that even yet the Mining Association will take a more liberal view of this proposition. But in any case we have the machinery of this National Industrial Board for full analysis of

  2183
  the situation in the event of disagreement, and we hold very definitely the view that this change, or the concession of the half-hour, can be made, in the last resort, without any invasion of the miners' remuneration.
  Commodore DOUGLAS KING: I cannot help feeling that throughout this Debate we have been arguing from different angles. The arguments advanced from the Government side of the House have been based on sentiment, whereas we have been trying to deal with the economic side of the question. I think most of the Members on t5ie Government Benches will give us credit for taking an interest in the miners but we must not take the merely sectional point of view. We have to look at the matter as it concerns the whole industry and from the point of view of the country. We heard in the speech of the President of the Board of Trade an attempt to put an economic argument in favour of this reduction. I submit that it was an extraordinarily weak argument, because the right hon. Gentleman only sought to show that the industry at the present time was on an upward grade and was improving, while, in the same breath, he explained that the improvement was largely due to the efforts of the last Government with regard to hours and to de-rating. The economic improvement in the industry is one of the points which we urge against this interference at the present time. The industry is on the up-grade, but it has not yet reached a paying basis, and that is why we oppose this Bill so strongly. We say that a steady improvement is going on but that prosperity has not yet been reached. It is not the time to interfere with a struggling industry and I emphasise that point, because it is our main reason for opposing the Bill. We think that the industry could right itself if left alone; we fear that this interference will kill the improvement which is taking place and that the industry will be put back into a state of turmoil.
  The right hon. Gentleman in one of his arguments said that the difficulty of dealing with this industry was the variation of conditions as between different districts, and even between different pits in the same districts. It is well recognised that the conditions in the mining
  2184
  industry are extremely difficult to deal with, but that is a very strung reason for providing a certain amount of elasticity in legislation of this kind. As these varying conditions exist, the less stringently the industry is tied up by regulations or Acts of Parliament the better for the industry. Elasticity is required to meet the varying conditions. The Eight Hours Act of 1926 was a permissive Act and gave a considerable amount of elasticity and scope for individual arrangements, and, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, under that Act a large number of coal workers—certainly over one-third—are not working the eight hours which some hon. Members opposite claimed would be forced upon them. It was said that the maximum number of hours would always be enforced upon the men; that they had no real power to negotiate and would have to take what was forced upon them. I think that the effect of the Eight Hours Act is entirely in favour of elasticity. Permission was given to work up to eight hours with one winding-time, and yet we find that over one-third of the workers, during the whole of the period since the Act was passed, have been working only seven and a-half hours. That is a strong argument in favour of not tying the industry down too tightly.
  We have heard a great deal of sentiment brought into the discussion of this subject. We heard the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Hartshorn) speak of the sacrifices which the miners have made and of the millions of pounds which, he said, had been taken out of the pockets of the miners for the benefit of the industry. I put it to hon. Members opposite: can they justify their plea that all of this money would have gone into the pockets of the miners had it not been for the lengthening of the hours? They must realise that the condition of the industry when that Act was passed was such that there was no indication that anything like the trade previously enjoyed would continue. There was nothing to justify the hope that employment would continue on the same scale as 1925. We claim that had it not been for the Eight Hours Act passed by the Conservative Government it would have been impossible for the industry to have carried on and the Royal Commission presided over by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir

  2185
  H. Samuel) pointed out that the industry at that time, was in such a position that some reduction had to be made in the cost of production. They said that the industry could not be carried on, at the cost of production then prevailing. It has been said this evening, of course, that they advised against an increase in hours, but they realised that the reduction of wages which was necessary, in order to bring the cost of production down to an economic basis, might be so heavy as to render it necessary or desirable to increase the hours.
  I am paraphrasing their conclusion but I think I am putting it fairly when I say that they had in mind that the reduction of wages which would have been necessary to bring the cost down to an economic basis, would have been too great. But the reduction of cost was necessary and we claim that, to a very large extent, that reduction of cost has been achieved. We have had certain comparisons of figures to the detriment of the Conservative policy but I would like to compare the cost before the stoppage—the trouble in 1926—and the cost of production at the present time. I take the figure for the June quarter of 1925 before the £20,000,000 subsidy was given and before the disturbance of 1926 arose. I think it fair to take that period because the figures in 1927 are liable to a certain amount of influence from the effects of the seven months' stoppage. In the June quarter in 1925, we find that the net cost of production amounted to 18s. 5d. per ton.
  Mr. LEE: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman give the figures for the whole of that year?
  Commodore KING: If the hon. Member refers to the statistical summary he can get those figures for himself. I cannot, at the moment give the whole of the figures.
  Mr. POTTS: Would it not be as well to give us the figures also for the years following 1925?
  Commodore KING: It might be very suitable to the hon. Member to do so, but it was not in my mind to go on year by year and to waste the time of the Committee by going into a series of figures of that kind. There is nothing to prevent the hon. Member himself from giving the Committee those figures which
  2186
  he considers relevant, but I claim that I am perfectly fair in the comparison which I propose to make. I am going to give the figures and hon. Members can draw their own conclusions. I am dealing with the cost of production and I say that in the June quarter of 1925 the net cost of production was shown as 18s. 5d. per ton, whereas, according to the latest return—the statistical summary issued by the Mines Department—the net cost has been reduced to 13s. 9d. That is a reduction in four and a-half years of 4s. 6d. per ton. I maintain that unless some such reduction had been made we should have been unable to sell anything like the quantity of coal that has been sold. The position has not been wholly satisfactory during those years and some of those years were very poor indeed, in spite of the lower cost of production but, at the same time, it is obvious that the reduction in the cost of production has been of advantage to the industry in selling coal against foreign competition.
  I do not wish to give many figures, but it is interesting to see what the effects of the Eight Hours Act have been. In the Second Reading Debate, I was not able to give any figures later than the June quarter, because the figures for the September quarter were not published until, I think, early in this year. The figures for that quarter are more interesting than those of the previous quarter. We find that the coal disposable commercially had increased from 49,500,000 tons to over 56,000,000 tons as between the 1928 and 1929 September quarters, and the exports in foreign bunkers had increased from 16,500,000 tons to nearly 20,500,000 tons. That again shows the very appreciable and desirable improvement in our export trade.
  But what is most striking of all is this. It has been pointed out that the industry, in spite of all the Sacrifices made by the workers and the heavy losses sustained by the owners, was still making a loss. In the September quarter of 1928 the debit balance per ton of coal was 1s. 4d., and in the September quarter of 1929 that had been brought down to a debit of just under one farthing, which shows that we are getting very near the balancing line. I maintain that that is a sign of real progress and of real achievement in the development of the industry and the reduction

  2187
  of costs; and that, without doubt, was effected to a large extent by the longer working hours.
  Let us take it from the men's point of view, and see what has been the effect on work. Month by month and in recent times over the 12 months, we see an increased number of men being employed and, what is far more satisfactory from the point of the mining Members and of the miners themselves, more shifts per week being worked. That is the great thing, to my mind. The shorts time working hits the miner harder than anything else. When I have been in Durham and talking with regard to wages, their one complaint has been that they might be able to rub along on the actual wage paid, if only they were working full time. That is the great hardship—not only the lowness of the wage, but not being able to get the full number of shifts per week. Therefore, it is of the very highest importance to them that the working hours should increase and show this steady development.
  I think it was the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) who was talking about comparative prices, and showing how they had fallen year by year since 1924 or 1925. Those prices, as has already been pointed out, necessarily fell in regard to export coal, because we have to sell against coal produced by our foreign competitors, and there is no question whatever of our coalowners in this country being willing to sell their coal at an unnecessarily low price when they are selling in competition with the foreigner. It is really the foreign competition which has beaten the prices down, but there again we are showing improvement, not only in the amount of exports that we are sending out, but also in the price that we are receiving for them. I do not wish to go back to the stoppage days, but hon. Members will realise that some effort was really necessary to try and win back the export trade which we lost during those seven months of stoppage, a period during which our exports were cut off completely.
  With regard to the longer day, that has been spoken of under this Amendment, and trying to keep the eight hour day within the 90 hour week. I have always maintained that the longer day was bound to be more economical. The
  2188
  right hon. Member for Ogmore was telling us of the length of time taken in going down, and he added that it might be possibly an hour at each end of the shift—that a man might be down 10 hours. I was rather interested to turn to the "International Labour Review" of the International Labour Bureau, where they give for this country the individual times spent in the mines by underground workers in 1927. Hon. Members have probably read the report, and know that it is the most recent one. They take the year 1927 for purposes of comparison between the different countries, and for this country they give the individual time spent in the mine as an average of eight hours 19 minutes. We have also to realise that there is a long time taken in travelling below ground. Actually the length of hours spent at the face, the working hours, less breaks, is given as six hours 34 minutes. That, I think, shows clearly that, though we talk about eight and a-half hours or eight hours 19minutes, as they say here, a very considerable portion of that time is taken up in going to and from the place of work.
  Mr. R. RICHARDSON: It is very hard work indeed, going to and fro.
  Commodore KING: I have had some of it myself, and I would almost sooner be working with a pick than travelling back and forth along some of those roads, but, from the economic point of view, there is the fact that every time a mar goes down there, if he was only going to work one hour, it would take just as long to get to and from his work. The one and a-half or one and three-quarter hours, or whatever it may be, that he has to take in getting there and back, is a standing proposition, whether he, is working seven hours or eight hours, or the actual time at the face, six and a-half hours, as is given in this return. It is perfectly obvious that if that time, say one and three-quarter hours, taken in going to and from the face has to be paid for in the price of coal, it is going to be far more costly if the time of actual work at the face is reduced. If the cost of getting there and back has to be paid for by six hours' work instead of six and a-half hours' work, as at present, it is obvious that the industry is going to suffer a considerable amount of loss.
  I thought my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Leeds (Captain

  2189
  Peake) made also a very good point from the men's point of view. It has been said that it is extremely unpleasant and very hard work, finding your way from the pit bottom to the face, travelling along the roadway, and I think that if they could work the one day less and thus be saved one length of travel there and back, that alone would be to a certain extent to their advantage. I would like now to say a word with regard to the question of the 11-day fortnight, because there again I am quite convinced that in many districts they very much prefer—it has been the practice, in fact—when there has been sufficient work, working 11 shifts a fortnight, that is, five shifts one week and six the next, so as to get the free day; and from my inquiries when I have had anything to do with miners, I have found that they appreciated it, where it was in existence, and would sooner have it. I believe they would sooner have that even with the extra half hour on the other day.
  I do not expect that to be agreed to by many hon. Members opposite, but let me tell them that in various meetings—I have addressed many meetings of miners in different parts of the country, mostly in the North and in Scotland—I have found that there has never been any real objection to the longer working hour a day. Their chief complaint, in conversation, is always on the irregularity of work and the wages they receive. I have put it as a proposition at many meetings composed of nothing but miners, not altogether friendly to me and many of my views, and I have never had a word of dissent from my proposition that their first desire was to have regularity of work, that their second desire was higher wages, and that the thing they wanted least of all was the decrease in hours.
  Mr. RICHARDSON: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman recall the last Election, when every miners' Member had circulars to get back to the seven hours? If we had not been right, should we have been here now?
  Commodore KING: I am not going into the question of how the trade union views were obtained, or of how the men recorded their votes, but I have had meetings of over 1,000 of what might be called hostile miners when I first started in, and I have never had a dissentient voice from that proposition
  2190
  which I have just put forward, namely, that what they want first is regularity of work, next increased wages, and lastly, a decrease in the working hours. The hon. Member might wish to put it the other way round. [Interruption.] I maintain that that is the order in which they voted.
  We have had a considerable amount of talk on the desirability of international agreement, and I think it may be agreed that there is going to be a very great difficulty indeed in obtaining any kind of international agreement on the number of hours per day that should be worked, and that there would also be extreme difficulty in ensuring that any agreement on a stated number of hours per day would be observed. The general trend of it, from what I believe took place in Geneva, has been so far that it would be better to spread the hours, whatever agreement may be come to, with a maximum over an extended period, either the week or the fortnight, and I certainly understood that the fortnight was more generally preferred, that there should be an agreement on the basis of a maximum per fortnight. I submit to the Committee and the President of the Board of Trade that it would have been very much better for us to get down to that kind of basis which, it seems to us, is going to be adopted by international agreement, and for us to set the example and start it on the fortnightly basis, so that we shall be in a position to enter into an international agreement when the time is ripe.
  I want to say only one word with regard to the other part of the Amendment, and that is with regard to starting earlier on Saturday, so as to enable people to get off earlier. I know there is in many parts of the country a strong desire in that direction. When I was at the Mines Department, I even, unofficially, of course, was told by a Member of the House at that time that at certain pits in his part of the world men were illegally going down with a less interval than was required by the Act, so as to get off earlier. I advised him to go into the matter further, which he did, and he then found that there was something in it, but that it was by agreement and really by request of the men themselves, and by full agreement of

  2191
  their trade union officials and the management. It was a little private arrangement, and I, not being of an interfering nature, and seeing that it had not been brought to my notice officially, thought it was a case in which the less known about it the better, because though—
  Sir H. SAMUEL: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman ought to have regarded this as confidential.
  Commodore KING: I am not one of those very narrow-minded persons who interfere when they find that somebody is doing something that is not quite right, and no complaints are being made, and nobody is suffering wrong. I think Government interference is best avoided in such cases.
  Mr. RICHARDSON: It has been the custom for over 50 years.
  8.0 p.m.
  Commodore KING: I should be very careful not to let the Secretary for Mines hear that, or he might feel that it was his duty to take official notice of it. But, if that has been the custom for 50 years, if it is generally approved and done by agreement, surely it is desirable that it should be made legal and laid down in an Act of Parliament. If that law is observed so much in the breach as hon. Members seem to think, it is desirable that this Amendment should be made so that it might be made permissible instead of, as at the present, being illegal. I would like to say various things about the longer working day, but I have been led into asides which have made me longer than I intended to be. I would urge on the right hon. Gentleman and hon. Members opposite that in the interest of the men themselves, quite apart from any political action, it will be an advantage to them to be able to spread the hours in order that they can, where agreement is reached, work the eight hours. There are certain districts, more especially in South Wales, where they will have no opportunity whatever of passing any increase in price on to the consumer. They are not going to make the foreigner pay more for the South Wales coal, and it is clear that, if only they are allowed to work the eight hours over a fewer number of shifts, the increase in cost will be very
  2192
  small. If something of that kind is not done, it is obvious that either more pits will be closed in South Wales and more men will be thrown out of work, or without a doubt there will be a necessity for a reduction in wages, and we do not want to see that. I think that this Amendment will be an advantage to the men and to the industry.
  Mr. LEE: I have listened carefully to what the right hon. Gentleman has said, but I have not found whether he is against the seven and a-half hours. The Amendment is an addition to the Clause, and not an alteration of it, and, taking the latter part of his intention in regard to the short day on Saturday, I wonder why he makes a distinction between a miner and the rest of the community, because almost everybody in industry and the professions, and in almost all the trades, have a short day in the week after having a long day in the rest of the week. Some of us have had some experience of this kind of thing. When I first started to work in the pit-, we had a longer day in the week in order to get a shorter Saturday, but it resulted in this, that, if we had to miss a working day, it was a short day that we missed, and having been once bitten, we do not intend to be bitten again. An hon. Member spoke about the better spirit that seemed to be prevailing in the mining industry to-day, and he suggested that it was a good omen for the industry. I agree that one of the things necessary, and very essential to the more profitable working of the industry, is a better spirit between men and owners.
  Hon. Members talk of having this spread-over arranged by agreement. Those who are acquainted with the mining industry will confirm what I say when I point out that, when you talk about wage agreements, and permissive working of eight hours, they are not agreements at all. Where everybody is working under a wage agreement, it is not an agreement at all; it is something imposed upon the men and I am convinced that, if you were to get this spread-over by agreement, it would not be an agreement between men and owners, but something enforced on the men by the owners. Therefore, we are not so keen upon the spread-over as we might otherwise be. Then, again, it would take away all the arguments that

  2193
  we have used in the past with regard to the shorter working day.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Runciman) said that we were not objecting to this on the ground of inhumanity. He has listened to plenty of speeches since to know that we are taking that objection to the proposed change. I did not hear the whole of the right, hon. Gentleman's speech but, when I came in, he was talking about inhumanity and the accidents that occur in pits in consequence of the long working day. That kind of thing is very largely aggravated by the introduction of machinery. There is growing up among our men to-day a kind of neurasthenia, such as the ex-soldiers have as a result of their experiences during the War. This is very largely due to the fact that we have more coal-cutting and conveying machinery, with all the consequent noise in the pits. You would not therefore get any great amount of opinion in favour of longer hours in the British coalfields, even though it be only half-an-hour more.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Padding ton (Commodore King) said that it was very difficult to get general agreement throughout the British coalfield because of the great variation in the field. That is one of the peculiarities of the mining industry, but there is quite as much variation in even one of the coalfields as there is in the coalfield as a whole. I come from a place where they are working seven and a-half hours. They have coal seams 16 inches thick, where the men are lying down all the time. An inspector of the Mines Department, seeing these men at work the other day, said, "I fancy you chaps will never need to go to bed, for you are always lying down." The seam ranges from 16 inches to six feet, and you get in that area every conceivable difference, in depth and height of seam and of roof, and in conditions of work. You get almost every variation, and yet inside that area we are working a seven and a-half hours' day. In the last ascertainment, which is later than that of September given by another hon. Member, it shows that we are making a profit of 1s. 1d. a ton under the present wage agreement. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Home) talked about a loss of £20,000,000
  2194
  in the British coal trade. I do not know-how far back he goes to get his £20,000,000, or on what he bases it, but in Derbyshire, in the three months of the last ascertainment, we have a deficiency shown against us of £77,000.
  I am convinced that there is no part of the British coalfield where there is any hope of agreement about this spread-over. I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Paddington said about regularity of work. I do not know where the impression has come from that the men will agree to 11 days per fortnight. If you are going to guarantee us 11 days' work a fortnight, the men, I am sure, will agree to that, but there is a difficulty in that. The men sometimes have to go to work, and after walking three miles to the pit, and two miles down below, perhaps have only one-quarter, or a half, or three-quarters of a day's work. You will have difficulty in getting a great body of opinion among the miners that they should work an extra half-hour. I hope we shall carry this part of the Bill, and do it graciously, and in some measure create a better spirit inside the mining industry.
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: There was a phrase which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Hartshorn) accidentally slipped in his speech when he addressed the House as friends, and I hope that that is symbolical of the spirit in which this Debate is carried on, and the feeling which we all have towards the miners in this strenuous industry. Many hon. Members on the other side represent miners, and I am very glad and proud to say that I have often represented them in times of trouble, and I have always tried, as hon. Gentlemen opposite have tried, to see that they get the fairest possible fair play. It is in this particular Section and in this Amendment that one wants to see that they do get the fair play which the right hon. Member for Ogmore desiderated. Some years ago the railwaymen managed to become a sheltered industry; there are many in the country, and I hardly blame the miners for wanting to become a sheltered industry. This particular Clause reducing the hours is an attempt towards that sheltering.
  The right hon. Member for Ogmore said that the passing of the Eight Hours Act

  2195
  had not developed good feeling between the mineowners and the men, and that if you have not good feeling you cannot get the production. I know that you have to have the good feeling of the men, and, I would say, their affection too, in order to get the best work out of them. In another sentence, the right hon. Gentleman indicated something rather contradictory to what he had previously said, because he said that with 160,000 fewer men in the mining industry 10,000,000 more tons had been produced. I draw more from figures than from opinions, and I am driven to the conclusion that there must have been an extraordinary amount of good feeling, or the men would not have given so much better output.
  Mr. LEE: There was more time.
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: But it shows the good feeling there was. The eight-hours day was brought in at a time when the mining industry was in a very bad way, and I believe it had a good deal to do, together with the increased exertions of the men, with bringing it into a better condition. It is true, as the right, hon. Member for Ogmore said, that there has been a very sad reduction in wages, but we must recollect that there was a very considerable increase in 1924, when the Ruhr was occupied. Afterwards, the industry could not stand that increase, but wages could not be allowed to go down to a grotesque degree, because in that case the men would have become exhausted and could not have kept at their work. As one hon. Member has said, the miner is a man of splendid physique or he could not do his job, and the main thing is to see that he gets the best possible wages in order to enable him to maintain his stamina and carry on with his job. The right hon. Member for Ogmore said that so much had gone into the pockets of the iron and steel companies, but an examination of their balance sheets since 1925 would show-nothing but losses. I do not believe that there has been a ton of pig iron made at a profit in this country since 1926. He also said that the shipowners got so much. Of course. Was not that a sign of the increased prosperity, the increased output, and the increase in the cargoes carried abroad? Then he said something about the householders having got
  2196
  £18,000,000 out of the miners' pockets. I am a householder myself, and I never saw much reduction in the price of coal. There is nothing more amazing than the difference between the cost at the pit head and the cost when it gets into our cellars. It passes through too many hands. One proprietor told me that he was bringing some tons on a motor lorry from his pit in Yorkshire to see if he could not deliver from the pit head by motor lorry cheaper than by railway. It is the railway rates that are at the bottom of it.
  The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Robert Young): We must not have a discussion on that question. Others might desire to take part in it.
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: But these are the causes which led to the eight-hours day, and the question, is can we relapse? There is a tremendous responsibility upon the shoulders of all the miners' representatives. When men start on a definite line of action, and with a definite war cry, such as we had at the General Election, that a specific body of legislation must be undertaken, then it is very difficult for them, no matter what argument is addressed to them, to agree that there is any other remedy or any other solution. Those who are engaged in any particular occupation are apt to think they are the only ones who know anything about it. They forget the old saying that "Onlookers see mist of the game." That is why there is always difficulty in reforming anything. In the legal and the medical professions you cannot get reform because the men at the top of the tree think that everything must be for the best or they would not be where they are. Sometimes it is necessary to get an outsider's view of a problem, and I am taking the outsider's view when I ask the representatives of the miners whether they cannot realise that there is some good in this Amendment. It is moved by one who has had a very intimate acquaintance with the coal trade from his youth up, as I myself know. It is moved with a regard for the-miners which is just as deep as that of any hon. Member opposite. After all this is only going to extend for about a year. Why have two changes instead of one? Why not try it for the 12 months? It is not compulsory. If it were being laid down by Act of Parliament,

  2197
  so that there was no option in the matter, I could very well understand the complaint of hon. Members opposite that Parliament was deciding a matter which ought to be left to the men themselves. But the Amendment itself begins:
  "Where …. by agreement between the representatives of the employers and the workmen."
  Mr. POTTS: And that agreement does not operate.
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: I personally should be prepared to suggest that the words, "agreement between the representatives of the employers and the workmen," should be taken out of the Amendment. I should be prepared to substitute the words "where the workmen decide by ballot," that they should do it, keeping the employers out of it altogether. That would be a perfectly fair thing. It would be found, I think, that there would be a considerable number of cases where, in the summer months, the men would like to have an entire day to themselves. In coal mining, where you have to get up every day at dawn and put on clothing heavy with coal dust, it would be very pleasant for the miner to realise that there would be one day in the fortnight when on getting up he need not put on that clothing and when on coming home he need not change his clothes. That is the human side of the matter. Why not give the workmen the chance to decide for themselves? We had the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) stating that there might be many Clauses which were supposed to give greater liberty but which in practice did not give that liberty. But he is not always accurate in his conclusions. He was not even accurate in the very amusing story he told us about the man from Aberdeen, the commercial traveller, who was in a distant island. I know that story well, because it happened in the island of Tiree. It was not an Aberdeen firm who employed him, it was a Zionist firm.
  The CHAIRMAN: Is this an illustration?
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen gave this instance and his whole argument was that this is a compulsory Clause. My suggestion is that the miners should be
  2198
  at liberty to do what we propose if they like. Of course, on such matters as these we can only exercise our judgment as well as we can. I should be glad to have a whole day once a fortnight. If it was a wet morning I should rest a little longer, but on a fine day I should engage in some kind of sport or other occupation. The miners' representatives think that they know what the miner wants, but I am inclined to say to them, as Oliver Cromwell said in this House, "Persuade yourselves that you may be wrong."
  Mr. MILLS: That was Julius Caesar.
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: I am no Brutus. I ask hon. Members opposite to be careful about this matter. I have sailed round the world. I have studied the export trade of the coal industry; I know that it is in a very delicate condition, and anything that this House may do may have a great repercussion. When I sailed for Shanghai and St. Vincent I saw no coal at all, and nothing but vast tanks of American oil. If you put this trade in that position by adding one shilling or more per ton to the price, you will be like Nero fiddling while "oil" is burning, and you will be taking another big contribution out of the pockets of the British people and especially of the British miners, and putting it into the already rich coffers of the United States. I do not think that point has been considered.
  The enormous procession of coal ships which used to go to the East do not go there any longer. Oil is now being used largely in liners and private houses, and the biggest factory in Scotland uses 30,000 tons of fuel oil. Oil is also being used for heating tenements and flats in London. Coal now runs the same danger that overtook many of my constituents in the Highlands who used peat. It is in danger of becoming out of date. Therefore, I ask hon. Members to walk warily. This Amendment gives an opportunity of diminishing the damage and diminishing the increased charges which would otherwise fall upon the industry, and it can only be operative for about a year. I submit that hon. Members opposite are not doing the best for their class when they insist upon shoving their opinions down the throats of the industry, and this course may have a disastrous effect on wages.
  Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR: As one who for 8 years represented one of the largest mining divisions in Lanarkshire in this House, and who to-day represents a large body of miners in Fifeshire, I desire to say a few words on the amendment before the House. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) has made it clear that those of us who sit on these benches are in sympathy with the view which has been expressed that this is a question affecting the hours to be worked per shift which ought to be largely determined by the men engaged in the mines. I have been much struck by the kind of arguments which have been presented to the Committee by hon. Members above the Gangway on this side of the House who have come forward like the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) as outsiders to tender to the men engaged in the coal industry their disinterested advice as to what is best for them. Those hon. Members have had their answer, and I think this is the place where the miners' representatives are fully entitled to put forward their views on behalf of those they represent.
  The arguments have been divided into two parts. In the first place it is said that the miners do not know what is good for themselves, and that really they ought to have some regard to the proposal as to the spreading of the hours which has been put forward in the Amendment we are discussing. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Sir II. Home) said that his Amendment was put forward in the interests of the miners, and other hon. Members on the Opposition side have taken up the same line of argument. They have proceeded, however, in the second place, to deal with what they regard as the economic issue, and have maintained that it is necessary to meet the situation due to the shortening of hours by proposals which will increase the working day and may involve a reduction of wages of the day wage workers. Those engaged in the industry understand best the conditions under which they are working. We should not ask the miners to remain underground for a longer period than is good for their health and comfort, and those who propose that they should work longer hours are doing no real service to the coal industry or to the country.
  2200
  The economic issue has been raised again and again in the past as an excuse for longer hours and a reduction of wages. Again and again it has been shown that if the workers were placed in a position in which they would have greater opportunities for recreation, comfort and time to allow them to take part as citizens in the affairs of their country and more opportunities to devote to domestic life at home the industry has never been the loser. I believe that the human element is considered to be a matter of great importance in this House. Many hon. Members opposite speak with great authority for the miners, and after the opinions they have expressed I should hesitate very long before I supported any proposal put before this House like the present one to extend the hours of work underground.
  Any man who has been underground, who has had an opportunity of studying conditions underground, knows perfectly well that the miners do a very hard day. I am proud to be associated with a party which has endeavoured in the past to secure fair play for the miners. Almost immediately after my first introduction to the House, in 1910, the Liberal Government of the day introduced the Coal Mines Regulation Bill of 1911, and then we had the Minimum Wage Bill of 1012.
  The House should regard this matter in its true perspective, which has been a little overlooked to-day. From 1919 the hours have been fixed it seven, with the additional 60 days on which an hour's overtime might be worked, which afforded a measure of elasticity. That, no doubt, resulted from a situation which compelled reconsideration of the state of the whole industry, but the miners were afforded the opportunity of working a seven-hour day. Then there came the Act of 1926, which was a purely temporary Measure, and I fail altogether to see why a temporary arrangement of this character, which is going to expire in 1931, cannot be brought to an end a little sooner. It was intended to be temporary, and, is it were brought to an end a little sooner, it could best be done at this time when the whole question of the reorganisation of the industry is under consideration. With good will, and within the terms of this Bill, it may be and ought to be possible to

  2201
  try to meet any additional cost involved by the shortening of the hours without throwing an unfair burden on the consumers in this country.
  Reference has been made by the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire to the tremendous cost to the consumer as compared with the cost at the pit-head, and there is a great deal to be done yet in regard to reducing the charges which are borne by our consumers. There is a great, deal to be done in reorganising the mines of this country, by cutting out unnecessary charges and by amalgamations, which I hope will result to a considerable extent in a reduction of charges; and there is a great deal to be done by the operation of the Joint Industrial Board, which, in considering the whole question of the conditions under which the industry is being carried on, may be able to recommend important proposals which will also lead to a reduction of costs. I have consulted constituents of mine, who are engaged in the mining industry, with regard to this Bill, and the miners in my division agree that this Amendment ought not to be accepted. I am perfectly confident that, when the question arises how far it may be possible to meet the additional cost involved by the reduction of hours, it will he possible, with good will on all sides, to find a way out. I am satisfied that the miners themselves have no desire to throw upon the consumers in this country additional burdens. On the other hand, many of those who are engaged in other industries want to see the miners get a fair deal and are prepared to assist towards that end by securing the passage of a Bill of this kind.
  I Sincerely hope, after the expressions of opinion that we have heard on this matter, that there will be general agreement in the Committee that this Amendment should not be insisted upon. I hope that it may not be necessary to divide upon it. If it is divided upon, I can only say that I do not think the country will regard as wise the action of those hon. Members win; press it to a Division. I believe that the general feeling of the great mass of the electors of this country to-day is that an effort ought to be made, in this Bill to secure a settlement of the great coal problem with which the country is confronted at the moment, and I, for one,
  2202
  intend to do all that I can to facilitate a settlement that is fair to the miners and to the coal consumers.
  The SECRETARY for MINES (Mr. Ben Turner): The Debate this afternoon has been a most pleasant one: it ha" been courteous and examinative, if I may use such a word, which is not often used in this House. I should like to compliment the hon. and gallant Member for North Leeds (Captain Peake), although he spoke against the clause and in favour of the Amendment, upon the splendid way in which he put his case. It showed a remarkable attitude on the part of a coalowner from the county of Yorkshire, and it also proves what is often said, that most people in the world are good people. It is sometimes wise to remind ourselves of the fact that the bad people are very few, and the good people are very many. I am very pleased that the subject of our Debate to-day has seemed largely to range itself outside party politics. I feel that all those who have spoken in favour of the Amendment have been stating their genuine opinions and expressing their genuine fears in connection with the matter. I want to take the discussion away from the economic considerations that have been most prominent this afternoon, on to the human side, where it represents the question of the hours of labour of 1,000,000 miners, and 1,000,000 miners' families. I think it is proof positive that their claim for shorter hours is demonstrated to the full because 43 members of the mining community, and 80 members from mining districts, were returned to the House of Commons on a definite election pledge on the matter.
  The only charge that has been made against the Government is that they are only carrying out half their pledge. [Interruption.] You will not give us the whole pledge. [Interruption.] I believe that what I have been saying is the correct interpretation. Anyhow, Clause 9 is only a half-way measure to the point alluded to by the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Millar). The permissive Eight Hours Act expires on the 8th July of next year, and I think it is safer for the trade, rather than adopt the suggestion of the honourable humorist from somewhere in Scotland, to take this matter in two stages.

  2203
  The whole history of the Acts of Parliament regarding hours of labour for miners has been based upon each day standing by itself. In the Act of 1908 there is no suggestion of averaging, and the same applies to the Act of 1919. Indeed, the Act of 1919 was based upon a proposal to go down to six hours, and not to go back to eight. Then came the Act of 1926, which, of course, had no averaging Clauses whatever. Anyone who consulted miners in any part of England, and I think in Scotland and Wales too, would be condemned if he suggested such a thing as reducing the hours of labour by one half-hour on the averaging policy. It is well to remember that the miners' hours to-day, in the area where the Act applies, are eight hours and 35 minutes, on the average. Anyone who has known miners and mining will know that that is a pretty long period for them to have to undergo their trials and tribulations.
  It is not the first man down who is the first man up. I hope we shall never have the regimentation that applies in some foreign countries. Our loose method is much better than the marshalling of the men as in Germany, going down at one time and coming up at another exactly on regimental lines. I do not want that. But while that would be foreign to our traditions, I do not want us to be behind them in the total number of hours or minutes in which they have to perform their occupation. This Great Britain of which everyone is proud, and to which everyone is thankful to belong, has the longest working day in Europe with one exception. I want us to bring it down by this little half hour so that we are no longer in the position of being outstriven by other nations. It seems to me that it is an act of justice. The miner's occupation is one of the most dangerous and exhausting in the world. They have to walk a mile or a mile and a-half, doubled down, and it is a marvel that they live till they are old folk. They have electrification of machinery, conveyers, elevators, and the last innovation is pneumatic drills, but the hours have not been shortened. It is wisdom, too, from the physical point of view to bring the hours down to what they were in 1926.
  2204
  There has been talk about absenteeism. I have heard it talked about scores of times. In some of the Yorkshire pits it is hell-fire underground. They are like roaring furnaces. The labour is so exhausting and the atmosphere is so bad that there are certain pits that cannot be worked more than four days a week. Absenteeism is not always due to having drawn their wages the day before. There is no more sober set of people in the world than the miners. Their reputation has changed in the last 50 years, and I do not know any body of men who are more sober, faithful, and God fearing and attentive to their work. Absenteeism can be explained in another way than that which has been alluded to. The late Secretary for Mines says that he does not want to see a reduction of wages with this proposal for a reduction of hours. It would be a shame if there were a proposal for a reduction of wages. It would be a disgrace to the mining community, and I hope no such proposal will be made. If it be made, I am with the hon. Member opposite that the proposed National Industrial Board shall be used to the fullest degree, so that there may be no conflict in the coalfield but a settlement may be arrived at by wisdom, prudence and common understanding.
  I feel sure that this half-hour will mean a considerable number more miners being employed, and it would be an effective assistance to the unemployment problem. We are told that we cannot afford it. But we have to afford unemployment pay and Poor Law relief. Surely, it would be better to pay them wages with which they could purchase the goods we make in our own Kingdom. That would beat all your Empire Free Trade proposition. I hope it will not mean a wage crisis. There is physical reason in having a short day. It has been alleged that the miners do not care about a shorter working day and that what they want is more wages. Certainly, they want more wages, but there have been recent ballots in the coalfield, and they have all declared that they want the Eight Hours Act repealed and the seven hours retored. No one could question that who knows the miners or lives among them, as I do.
  The Bill is so framed that I believe it could meet the loss of

  2205
  the half-hour on the working day, and it could be done without injury to the trade. Miners do not want to injure their trade. They love working at their most dirty and dangerous work. That is the marvel of it. It is inborn in them. But they want justice and fair play and good pay at the same time. I know that coal is a national necessity, but the pitmen are a national asset. There is no human or moral reason for keeping the hours so long, and often this House is moved by moral passion. This is not a time to have feuds and hatreds. There have been too many in the coalfield in the 100 years gone by, and I am with Arnold when he wrote:
  "Peace, Peace is what I seek, and public calm,
  Endless extinction of unhappy hates."
  Mr. CULVERWELL: I am sure we are very grateful for the interposition of the Secretary for Mines, and he has certainly been very enlightening. He started off by saying that he would bring this Debate out of the economic sphere into its human aspect, and he has certainly succeeded in doing so. I think that in doing that he represents the sentiments which animate most of the hon. Members on the opposite side. While we on this side give way to them in no wise in our desire to improve their conditions and in our solicitude for the welfare of the miners, we keep our feet upon the ground, and we appreciate the economic difficulties in the way.
  What did the hon. Gentleman say? Any reduction of wages as a result of the shortening of hours would be a shame. What was his solution when asked to provide the money? Get the money from "where it may be." That is not the way that we on this side of the House proceed when we are carrying out a great reform or a great alteration in our economic system. We want to know where the money is coming from. We want to know how much it will cost. While we appreciate the human aspects of the position of the miners, we do not want to see their last state worst than their first as a result of Government action. I make no apology for intervening in this Debate, because I believe that this really is the vital Clause of the whole Bill. This, after all, is the Clause which makes the whole Bill necessary. If it were not for this reduction of hours, we
  2206
  should not want Part I, we should not want the re-organisation Clauses, we should not want all this elaborate scheme. It is Part II, it is the alteration of hours, which has made the whole Bill necessary. The Minister himself was right when he said that there were in this House some 80—I should have put the figure even higher—Members of mining constituencies, "miners' M. Ps." I think he called them, who were determined that this Bill should go through, who promised this Bill at the last election, and who were returned to this House because they had promised this Bill. They are determined, not to see the whole of their promises fulfilled—we should not expect that—but to see a portion of their promises carried out. In my submission, it is a most dangerous state of affairs.
  This Debate has been conducted on a, very high level and in a most friendly spirit, and I hope that nothing I may say will be taken in any way as a reflection upon hon. Gentlemen opposite. But I believe that it is a very grave mistake and discreditable to this House and to the Constitution for a solid block of 80 Members of Parliament to sit in this House and dictate to the party to whom they belong the policy which that party shall carry out. I believe it is of the very greatest danger to the service which this House fulfils in the national interests. It would be very much better if Members of Parliament represented no sectional interests. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite may laugh, hut surely many hon. Members opposite to a large extent represent a sectional interest, and they are prepared to put the interests of that section of the community before the interests of the community as a whole. I very much regret that among hon. Members opposite who represent mining constituencies, who made these promises at the election, and who have forced the present Government to attempt to carry them out, there should be this influence in favour of one particular section of the community.
  9.0 p.m.
  I suppose that we are all concerned, as the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade is undoubtedly concerned, at the cost, of fulfiling this promise. He so appreciates the cost of fulfilling this promise, that, instead of fulfilling

  2207
  the whole of it, he has promised to fulfil only half of it. He cannot face the whole of the cost. He is prepared to go only half way and do it by instalments. He estimates that the cost of carrying out only half the promise which hon. Gentlemen made at the last election, is going to add something like 1s. 6d. per ton to the cost of coal. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I certainly understood that that was the figure which the right hon. Gentleman gave in the House on the Second Reading of this Bill.
  Mr. W. GRAHAM: I am obliged to the hon. Member for giving way. I said that it had been argued on that peak point of 1s. 6d. per ton additional cost of coal, but I also said that we had not accepted that maximum figure.
  Mr. CULVERWELL: I do not think that I have in any way misled the House as to the figure which the right hon. Gentleman gave. Let us put it at a shilling to 1s. 6d. per ton as the increased cost of production under this Bill. In other words, all the benefit which industry has received from that great de-rating scheme, is going to be taken away and more than taken away—there is going to be a debit balance—yet the industry is expected to go on and prosper. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Hartshorn) took a most remarkable argument. He told the House that for the last few years the miners had lost millions. I think he said £90,000,000, in wages. He told us that, as a result of this heavy loss, no advantage had come to the industry at all. He gave the figures of the consumption of the iron and steel trade, and he gave the figures of the consumption of other industries. They had not moved; they were static. They had not moved between the years 1925 and 1928. He gave the figures of the iron and steel industry. The iron and steel industry, in 1925, consumed 21,000,000 tons of coal. In 1928, it consumed the same amount, and therefore his argument was that all this sacrifice on the part of the miners had been entirely thrown away and wasted, and that nobody was any better for it.
  He seemed to ignore entirely the fact as to what the position would have been had there not been that reduction in the
  2208
  cost which was carried out as a result of the Eight Hours Act. He himself put the figure of the decreased cost of production as a result of that Eight Hours Act at 3s. a ton. Where would the iron and steel industry have been if that reduction had not taken place? His argument actually boils down to the fact that the reduction in the price of coal had made no difference at all, that industry would still have consumed the same amount, and that the miners' sacrifices were entirely wasted. I do not think that the House will appreciate the force of that argument. We all know full well what a difficult time the mining industry has been through, and we know full well what sacrifices the miners have made, but I would remind the House that, sentimental as we may be and much as we desire to give every bit of our sympathy to the miners, if they had not made that sacrifice and the Eight Hours Act had not been brought in, there would have been many more unemployed in the mining industry to-day. Much as we may deplore the passage of that Bill and the fact that that extra half-hour was granted, yet we ought to be thankful, not that conditions are as bad as they are, but that they are so much better than they might have been.
  I was amazed when the President of the Board of Trade spoke. He gave one of his usual lucid expositions, but he did not answer the questions that we are putting forward in this Amendment. Although he spoke at considerable length, the only reference that I could hear to the question of averaging, which we are putting forward, was the statement that the representatives of the miners are against averaging and that, therefore, it was much better to leave the matter for peaceful solution between the mineowners and the miners. He did not give any reason why averaging should not take place, and he did not say one word against our Amendment. All that he said, in effect, was that the miner representatives, 80 strong in this House, a solid block of 80 Socialist Members, are opposed to this solution or this partial solution of the alteration of hours. Therefore, he preferred to leave the matter alone. After hearing his speech, I formed the opinion that the right hon. Gentleman would have liked

  2209
  to have seen our Amendment carried, but that he was unable to persuade his followers to accept it.
  What does this permissive Clause do? It is permissive. There is no question of compelling the miners to adopt this suggestion, but we feel that the Clause is too rigid and that we would prefer to give the miners and the mineowners some latitude in settling this question of hours. It would be to the benefit of both parties. I do not anticipate the abuses which hon. Members opposite appear to anticipate. I think it was the hon. Member for the Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) who drew attention to the effect upon the day wage workers if our Amendment were carried. He said that they represented 60 per cent. of the men employed in the mines. If there are 60 per cent. of day wage workers in the mines it would not be difficult for them to vote against the agreement coming into effect and, the agreement being permissive, it would not take effect.
  I am concerned with regard to averaging from another point of view, when one hears that a convention at Geneva, held under the auspices of the International Labour Office, passed a resolution recommending that some proposal exactly on these lines should be adopted. That resolution was carried by 18 votes to seven. That fact ought to encourage the Committee to accept our Amendment. I attach the greatest importance to the work of the International Labour Office at Geneva because I believe that the eventual salvation of the mining industry will be the standardisation of wages and hours throughout Europe. Until we can get a standard wage and a standard hour and the same living conditions among our competitors as exist in this country, we shall always find a difficulty in competing in the markets of the world. Therefore, any effort that we can make to encourage the passing of international agreements, the better. Surely, that is the policy of hon. Members opposite. That is what they suggest as the solution of our difficulties in trade and industry. They will not protect our industries, but they will wait for the standard of living in other countries to rise to that of our own, or they will prohibit the importation of sweated goods. They want to do it by international agreement.
  2210
  Here we have an opportunity of following the recommendation which, has been set at the conference at Geneva, and it is deserving of our earnest consideration. The fact that that resolution was passed at Geneva is a sufficient answer to the statement that there would be abuses and that this proposal is a means, as one hon. Member opposite suggested, of evading the reduction of hours. Although we attach great importance to the question of averaging as a means of helping both sides in the industry, and while we believe that this reduction of half an hour in the working day is going to aim a blow at the industry, we are concerned as to how this tax, for it is nothing less than a tax, of 1s. 6d. or 1s. per ton upon export coal, is going to assist us in competing in the markets of the world. When we already have difficulty in selling our coal, how shall we stand the burden of an extra 1s. 6d. or 1s. per ton? The Secretary for Mines was somewhat ingenuous when he said that we could get the money from where it might be. He knows that it is going to come out of the consumer. In this Bill the Government are setting up a gigantic trust, a new form of syndicalism by which the mineowners and the miners, both interested in the industry, are going to exploit the consumer for all they are worth. The difference in the cost will have to be met somehow. You can either decrease wages or you can pass the increased cost of production on to the consumer, and that is what hon. Members opposite intend to do. By that means they will not only send up the price of coal to the domestic consumer, but all great industries which are already hard hit—in spite of the sacrifices of the miners which, according to the right hon. Member for Ogmore have amounted to £90,000,000 in the last three or four years—will be hit again. Those industries can scarcely carry on under the present conditions, and yet this Bill will add further to the cost of their raw material.
  How is this tax of 1s. a ton going to assist the steel industry? It will mean 3s. or 4s. extra per ton on the production of steel. How will that assist the export trade of the steel industry? How will this tax assist electricity and public utility companies, those great companies which we did our best to assist in the last Government. They are going to be handicapped and crippled

  2211
  by having to pay more for their raw material. The electricity concerns, which many of us believe can do a great deal to lower the cost of production in our manufactories, are going to pay more for their coal, and are going to be exploited in the interests of the miners and the mineowners and hon. Members opposite sit still, complacent. This is a very severe and possibly disastrous attack upon industry at a time when it is beginning to recover, when it is showing signs of returning to that prosperity which we all would like it to attain.
  I hope that hon. Members opposite will see that as little damage as possible is done. I urge them to consider the matter in no party spirit. [Laughter.] I do not know why hon. Members laugh. Why need the coal industry be made a party question? It need only be a party question if you try to run it on sentimental lines instead of business lines. I would urge the right hon. Gentleman to consider very seriously whether he cannot accept our Amendment as some modification of the burden which is being inflicted upon industry.
  Mr. DUNCAN GRAHAM: I want to say one or two things to the hon. Member who has just sat down before entering on the general question. There are a number of parasites in this country, but the miner is not one. If the hon. Member for Bristol West (Mr. Culverwell) had learned his education in the mine he would know that the miner is not the sentimental animal he has described.
  Mr. CULVERWELL: I did not accuse the miners of being sentimental. I accused hon. Members opposite of being sentimental.
  Mr. GRAHAM: Neither are the 80 miners' Members sentimentalists. There are 43 who have learnt their education in the mines, but they are not miners' Members. They have been chosen to represent the constituencies which elected them, and look after the general body of constituents they represent as much as any Member in this House. The right hon. and learned Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Home) said that he was moving the Amendment because he thought the miners would be favourable to it and that the industrial representatives
  2212
  of the miners in the House would support it. Some of them have taken part in this Debate and have made it perfectly plain that the miners do not want any permissive Clause in the Bill, particularly a permissive Clause dealing with hours. Hon. Members who have very little knowledge of this subject might pay some attention to men who speak with some knowledge. We are voicing the opinion of the miners on the question of hours. We are not so foolish as to imagine that the coalowner is a worse animal than the miner. We can discuss our differences with the coal-owner in a perfectly friendly atmosphere, but on this question there can be no possible agreement between the coal-owners and ourselves. If it is true that we represent the workmen's point of view it is equally true that most hon. Members opposite represent the employers' point of view. We do not want the matter to be considered entirely from the humanitarian standpoint, or entirely from the economic standpoint either. Both should play their part.
  There is a humanitarian claim, and no medical man on either side of the House would for a moment stand before a public audience and advocate that men should be compelled to work in the mines for seven and a half hours a day in the atmosphere which obtains particularly in the Yorkshire coalfields, where, as the hon. Member for the Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) told us, there are collieries of over 500 fathoms deep. I suggest to hon. Members opposite that they might, read the Report of the Mines Department and also some of the evidence submitted to the Samuel Commission, where they will find that millions of tons of coal are being produced in British coalfields, from seams less than two feet thick. It is impossible for hon. Members here to visualise the conditions where men have to work in a seam 20 and 18 inches thick, with water pouring on them and lying in water at the same time. I am afraid they would have something more than sentiment to talk about if they worked under such conditions. We are told by scientific experts that for every 60 feet that a pit is sunk the temperature rises one degree. There are collieries nearly three-quarters of a mile deep and the men have to travel sometimes two and three miles to get to the face. They are exhausted before they

  2213
  reach their work. Is there a medical man who will say that men should be called upon to work seven and a-half hours a day under such circumstances? There is not a medical man on either side of the House who would not say that there is no humanity or economics in such a position. We are prepared to look at the whole question of the mining industry from the economic as well as the humanitarian standpoint. We may be more interested in the wellbeing of the mining community than in that of any other section, but because we are here as miners does not mean that we are not citizens. The miners produced 400,000 men during the years of the War, and in some districts as much as 40 per cent. of the men between the ages of 18 and 40 joined the Colours until the Government was compelled to put a bar on miners being accepted for the Army. That is not the type of man who looks at life merely from his own standpoint.
  A great deal has been made of the cost of this Bill to the industry, and the effect it will have upon the industry as a whole. Let me quote the figures given in the Mines Department Report. The miners themselves did not send in these figures. They do not know who did, but I think they should command some respect on the other side of the Committee. From the year ending December, 1922, until the year ending 31st December, 1929, the saleable coal raised in Britain was £1,529,583,917; the wages paid to the miners £832,520,000, an average of 9s. 10d. per ton of coal raised during those six years; stores and timber, £139,534,864, an average cost of 2s. 3d. per ton of coal raised. Then there is the cost of management and salaries to directors, many of whom are parasites and absolute encumbrances as far as the working of the mines is concerned. They drew £192,232,569, or an average of 3s. 1d. per ton. We could get money there if the industry is reorganised. Then royalties amounted to £37,285,246. If there are any parasites in this country, then royalty owners are parasites. Their average is 6d. per ton. There is money there. Then we come to the coalowners themselves. Their amount was £46,095,266 for the six years ending 31st December, 1929. That is an average of fully 7d. per ton, and, added to the 6d. paid to the landlord, it makes 1s. 1d. At the beginning
  2214
  of the present century, we were told by the representatives of the coalowners that, if they got 6d. per ton profit on working the mines, they would be more than satisfied. There is a great amount of money, millions of pounds, going somewhere, which is of no real advantage to the country. If the industry is reorganised, as it can be, there is no doubt at all but that savings can be effected, and economies carried out which will make it unnecessary to raise the price of coal, and which will at the same time produce sufficient to give the coalminers very considerably higher wages than they are able to earn at the present time.
  We are supposed to have an eight-hours day in operation now. There is no eight-hours day in Scotland. The eight hours is honoured more in the breach than in the observance, and I am hoping that not only will this Bill pass and the Government introduce other legislation necessary for the reorganisation of the mining industry, but that they will see that the men who are appointed to act as administrators will carry out their work. The inspectors state that the number of accidents in the mines can be reduced by 50 per cent. When I say that one half of the total accidents in this country occur in the mining industry I think it can be claimed that the time has arrived when there should be more humanity brought into the industry. These men's lives could be saved. Many of them are losing their lives because of the evil conditions of the industry. I am not imputing all the blame to the employers. It would be totally wrong for me to do so, and I am not going to do so, but every employer and workman who has any conception of the nature of this particular industry is agreed that there must be reorganisation. I am glad that our Government are taking the first step towards that end. It is only the beginning, and I hope to live long enough to see the industry put on to a much sounder economic basis than it is to-day, and that humanity will play some part in its administration, with benefit to the well-being of the whole country as a consequence.
  I appeal to hon. Members on the other side to get rid of their catch-phrases about our being here merely representing a particular class or section of the community and to put into operation the

  2215
  theory that many of them advocate outside in speaking to their constituents in the country, namely, real co-operation. I believe that is the object aimed at by the Government in this Bill. There is nothing upon which the miners have set their hearts more than the reduction of the working time. We do not want any reduction in wages. There is no need for it. We do want the hours reduced. We know that the hours could very well be reduced below even seven, and that benefit would accrue, not merely to the miners as a consequence, but to the country as a whole.
  I will conclude by quoting one of the biggest men in British commercial life. Prior to his death, shortly after the War, Lord Leverhulme wrote a preface to a book published by a professor of engineering in London University, in which it is stated that, if industry were organised as it could be, it would be possible to produce all the wealth that is necessary for the well-being of the community by working one hour per week—not eight hours a day ! It looks a most remarkable statement, but it is not a statement made by Mr. Cook. The gentleman who wrote the book is a professor of engineering, and it is Lord Leverhulme who makes the statement. If it be true, then there could be no greater criticism of the incapacity of the men who control industry in this country than that statement made by one of their own members. If it be not true, then we are not responsible for the statement. We do not pretend to be able to discuss the higher criticisms and many of the high philosophical problems in the same way as many of our hon. Friends on the other side and on this side also, but we have had the advantage, even the eldest of us, of a fairly decent elementary education, and we can read. Our experience of life has helped us to think, and I am speaking to you of what I have read. The title of the book is "Wealth from Waste." Its author is Professor Spooner, of London University, professor of engineering, and the sponsor for the statement made in it is Lord Leverhulme.
  I believe that our Government is taking the right line in starting with a proposal that will at last satisfy the miners. It will enable a peaceful
  2216
  atmosphere to be brought into the industry when the other remedies are being applied, and, if there can be that co-operation which is essential for the country's well-being between the parties in this House, I venture to say that our united wisdom will be sufficient to raise the mining industry and all other industries on a higher level than they occupy to-day, and we shall be doing a very-great service to the community which we represent.
  Captain CAZALET: I am sure every one in every part of the House will be grateful to the hon. Member who has just sat down for providing us with what is a totally new fact, that at some future date this country may be organised so that it will not be necessary for any individual to do more than one hour's work a week. It will afford us a happy subject for conversation in our spare time. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that if such a situation ever comes to pass I for one, and I am sure many of us on these benches, will be prepared to do not one hour per week but even two, so that the hon. Member need do none at all.
  Mr. D. GRAHAM: Everybody over there would have to do their share of the work.
  Captain CAZALET: The hon. Member did not hear me. I not only offered to do my hour, but his as well. I think the Committee will be grateful to the hon. Member for another reason. As he said, it is not often that ho gives us statistics. He has certainly given us enough this evening to last for some time. I am not going to try to answer them, because I do not doubt for a moment the veracity of any of them; but I am certain that if he will produce some of them on a future occasion they will be found capable of a very different interpretation from that which he has put upon them this evening. No one could help being moved by the first part of the hon. Member's speech, with its graphic description of the life of the miner in this country. I speak in the presence of those who have worked underground many years, but I hope the hon. Member will allow me to say that I have never been down a mine in this country or abroad without realising—[Interruption.] I have tried

  2217
  to warn hon. Members that I was saying this with the greatest possible respect to those who have gone down a mine far oftener than I have. I have never been down a mine without feeling what a debt of gratitude I and any other Member of the ordinary public who enjoys benefits from coal owe to all those who are engaged in producing coal.
  I have listened for the last four or five hours to many arguments against the Amendment. We have been appealed to on sentimental and humanitarian grounds for the most part. I am certain that not a single Member on this side of the Committee would oppose Clause 9 of the Bill if he believed that the hours of work could be reduced without some kind of wage crisis coming in. I would recall a few facts to the attention of the Committee. We were informed by the President of the Board of Trade that he expected that in certain instances the operation of the Clause might entail at most an increase in the price of 1s. to 1s. 6d. per ton. In South Wales there is a loss of 2d. a ton already in the export district. Therefore we have to face a possible loss of anything between 1s. 2d. and 1s. 8d. a ton.
  What facts can hon. Members opposite produce to prove to us that this loss will be made good by any other part of the Bill which we have not yet discussed? What did the President of the Board of Trade tell us? He said that he hoped the loss might be made good by an increase in the export trade, uniform hardening of the price and a general attitude of good will all round.; and, lastly—to my mind it is by far the most important point—by what he was going to produce in Part I of the Bill. But that is what we here have been arguing for many hours both to-day and on Tuesday. We do not know what Part I of the Bill contains. We have been put in a very difficult position. I presume that the right hon. Gentleman- meant that the economies which might be effected by the process of amalgamation would tide over the inevitable increase in cost caused by Clause 9. I believe that we shall never be able to tide over that cost until we have come to some arrangement with our foreign competitors in regard to the price at which we sell our coal to neutral countries.
  2218
  I was in Poland not long ago, in the coal-producing districts of Silesia. The mines there, which are our keenest competitors and have done most to ruin our export trade in South Wales, are selling coal locally at the pit-head for 18s. a ton, which same coal is sold in Danzig for export purposes at 12s. 6d. a ton. Who is suffering from that? Partly the local people in Poland, but chiefly the people in this country, and particularly the miners in this country. The Poles are prepared—I believe I speak with the authority of some of the most responsible people—to come to terms with representatives of the industry in this country so that they may be able to charge the neutral countries like Scandinavia an economic price for coal, which will ensure a decent wage for the miners in this country, in Poland and elsewhere. As far as I understand the matter, however, we have as yet made no definite proposals to deal with that situation. If the President of the Board of Trade, in conjunction with members of the Liberal party who are to be the part authors of Part I of this Bill, are going to produce some scheme which will meet this situation, then surely the whole position is changed. That was the whole gravamen of our case on Tuesday—that we do not yet know what Part I of the Bill may contain.
  I want to refer to another matter. All these suggestions, these promises, thes8 speculations and hopes of good will in future, are all that we have on one side of the scale, and on the other we have this very definite loss of anything from a shilling to 1s. 6d. a ton. With what result? That we shall fail to continue to export what we are exporting to-day, and that inevitably we shall have either a wage crisis in the industry or there will be a further increase in unemployment amongst the miners of the country. Let me refer, in conclusion, to the exact terms of the Amendment. I happen to be the Member who brought to the notice of the former Secretary for Mines the case in the North of England about which he spoke. The situation is that a certain individual wrote to me calling attention to the iniquitous proceedings of a certain trade union in the North of England which was allowing miners to work more hours than they ought to work. He asked me to take notice of the case and to expose the conduct of the trade union. I

  2219
  am used to getting letters of that kind. I was very careful to get every scrap of information possible in regard to the situation before taking any action. What did I discover? Exactly what my right hon. Friend told the Committee this evening: That this technical breach was connived at by all the trade unions up there. It had been agreed to by the miners themselves, because by it they were able to obtain a free Saturday afternoon either to play football or watch some game.
  Mr. LAWTHER: Where was this?
  Captain CAZALET: Obviously, no hon. Member would ask me to state the names to the Committee—
  Mr. LAWTHER: Let us have no fictitious cases. Give us the name of the colliery.
  Captain CAZALET: Do hon. Members opposite really suppose that either the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for South Paddington (Commodore King) or I would concoct this elaborate story simply for the purpose of making a speech—
  Mr. DUNCAN Mr. DUNCAN rose—
  Captain CAZALET: I am perfectly prepared to give way if any hon. Member opposite wishes to ask any question.
  Mr. LAWTHER: I should like to ask where is this particular colliery or where is the district in which this occurrence is supposed to have taken place?
  Captain CAZALET: I am perfectly prepared to give, in private, to the hon. Member if he wishes it, the name of the mine and the name of the individual who wrote the letter. I am sure I can hunt it up in my files—
  Mr. LAWTHER Mr. LAWTHER rose—
  Captain CAZALET: Really, I must be allowed to answer the hon. Member.
  Mr. LAWTHER: Why not tell the names to the Committee? Is it because the hon. and gallant Member dare not tell the name?
  Captain CAZALET: If the hon. Member had only the sense of humour which some other hon. Members on that side have, he would not continue on this point. I say I am perfectly prepared—
  Mr. LAWTHER: Then it is only a matter of humour. That is all right.
  Captain CAZALET: I say I am perfectly prepared to give the name of the individual, but of course no one would expect me to do so publicly across the Floor, this man being a miner up in Northumberland. I cannot do more than offer to give privately the names of the individual, the colliery, the district, and everything else to any hon. Member who asks me.
  An HON. MEMBER: Curb your imagination a little.
  Mr. SKELTON: On a point of Order. Is it right that the temperature of this Debate should be raised by interruptions of that kind?
  Mr. KELLY: May I ask if this is not an attack upon all the trade union officials in the mining industry?
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. and gallant Member has made a statement, and has promised to give the information privately to any hon. Member who asks for them. Beyond that, I cannot go.
  Captain CAZALET: If hon. Members who come into the Chamber at this hour choose to interrupt—
  Mr. LAWTHER: I have been here all night.
  Captain CAZALET: I am not referring to the hon. Member. I am referring to an hon. Member who made a most unwarranted insinuation. [HON. MEMBERS: "You are doing so!"] If that hon. Member had been here an hour or two ago, when the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for South Paddington referred to this incident, he would have heard a Member on his own side who knows a great deal more about the mining industry than the hon. Member, say that of course this has been done in various districts for 50 yeans.
  Mr. R. RICHARDSON: What I said was that the short day on Saturday had been done for more than 50 years, but no time was added on to any other shift, because of that.
  Captain CAZALET: I was only repeating the words of the hon. Member—
  Mr. RICHARDSON: You must not use them in that sense.
  Captain CAZALET: I cannot help remarking, in passing, that when any fact is produced which does not entirely support the views of hon. Members opposite, they discredit its veracity at once, while we on our side are always prepared to accept the facts and figures quoted by hon. Members opposite. I apologise to the Committee for having been diverted from my argument by these very ridiculous, illjudged, ill-informed and grossly ignorant interruptions. I shall now turn with, I hope, that calm which has pervaded the rest of this Debate, to the conclusion of my remarks. The point which I raised is a very material one, and the illustrations which I gave shows that there is, among the mining community or among a certain section—it may be limited and may be in the minority, but nevertheless it definitely exists—a measure of support for the Amendment which we are putting forward. We are asking for 11 days at eight hours, namely, 88 hours a fortnight. What is the alternative proposed by the Government? It is 12 days at seven and a-half hours, namely, 90 hours a fortnight. The first gives one full holiday or two half holidays in the fortnight; the second gives neither.
  The hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Lee), in a very interesting and eloquent speech, told us that in any district where miners had the full 11 days' work in the fortnight he was perfectly convinced that they would back up this proposal, and I think no speech which has been made, gave so much support to the Amendment as that admission. We hope and pray that no trouble or wage crisis will break out in the industry as a result of Clause 9. If such trouble occurs, if there is a temporary dislocation of the industry in certain districts, if pits have to close down, if more miners are unemployed and if we lose part of our export trade, hon. Members opposite will not be able to accuse us of being the cause, because we have moved an Amendment here which takes into account the desire of everyone in this country to mitigate the hardships which the miner has to endure, and also takes into account the economic facts which govern the situation.
  Mr. R. RICHARDSON: I wish to deal with the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member on the question of hours. Let me tell him in a categorical manner what has always happened in regard to this matter. On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, all the men went down at 4 o'clock and came out, after a seven-hour day, at 11. On the Saturday they probably went down at 2 instead of at 4 and came up two hours earlier. That is all that happened, and that method of working in the county of Durham has been going on for over 50 years. Let me tell the hon. and gallant Member that the miners want no more than seven and a-half hours in any full working day, and if they can get less that they will be only too glad to have it. I have had to work in the mines myself until I came to this House in 1918, and I "ay emphatically that my present job is the best I ever had in my life. When I interrupted the hon. and gallant Member I understood him to say that he had never been down a mine, and, if that is so, I ask him to take my advice and never to go.
  Captain CAZALET: But I have been down mines.
  Mr. RICHARDSON: Then he knows, or at any rate he ought to have some idea of what this work means. My day's work was such that I often questioned in my own mind whether it was worth my while to walk three-and-a-half miles up and to go back three-and-a-half miles the next day. Had it not been for my wife and family, I should never have gone back to work. I have seen men carried out of the pit wholly exhausted, even with a seven-hours day, let alone an eight-hours day. These are actual facts that I am giving. I have been three-and-a-half miles from the shaft to my working place, and I have seen those who could not speak for them selves dropping dead on the road. I have seen five ponies in less than five hours yield under their terrible working conditions. The conditions in the mines demand your consideration. Much has been said as to the better position of mining to-day, as compared with 1926, but let it be remembered that every penny of that better position has been got at the expense of the miner. Nobody has made a penny sacrifice except him.

  2223
  I remember the Debates in 1923 very well. You said to the miners, "Give us production, and your wages will not be interfered with." Well, the production has been given to you, and let me say at once that as much at least as an average in my own county of 15 to 20 per cent. less wages have been paid to the men for an eight-hours day. Miners must not be asked to make all the sacrifices. Every trade has a right to bear its share of burdens which affect the whole country, and you ought not to come on the one industry on which you are dependent most and ask it to bear the whole burden. That is what happens to the miners.
  As to the shorter working day, ask my constituents, and they will tell you that the first thing they want is the shorter working day They ask for that first of all, and then for something to help them to keep their families. To listen to some of the things that are said about them, one would think the miners were a class below any other class in this country. The miners, congregated in their villages, with little help from outside, have a very hard lot. They cannot look after themselves properly in the pits because of their exertions and their difficulties, and accidents happen under longer hours in the pits far more often than they do under shorter hours. Let hon. Members exercise their minds for a little while and consider the conditions in which these men have to work. It is no case for them of getting God's pure air. They have to work in a vitiated atmosphere, with a temperature from 80 to 90 in the district from which I come, and there is no break whatever in their day's work. That is how miners work to try to bring back prosperity to their industry and to this country.
  10.0 p.m.
  I sincerely ask this Committee to give them kindly consideration and to rest assured that there is not anything at all for which we are asking in this Bill that is not absolutely essential for them to lead their lives. They have their own dear ones to think of, and their children are shoeless and ragged, because the men cannot earn sufficient money to feed and clothe them properly. They lose their lives much earlier than they would if they had better conditions of life. When
  2224
  I think of the selling price of coal, I wonder whether we have not been the dumpers of coal in foreign countries on the Continent, and brought down prices. I plead with hon. Members to think of this question before casting their votes to-night on this Amendment. We are asking you, because nature cannot stand what has been enforced upon the miners, at least to give us some redress, until the country can afford to do more for us.
  Mr. MANDER: I desire to intervene in this Debate for a few moments only, but as I represent a number of miners in this House, I know that they would wish me to say a few words from their point of view. They are men who work in one of the steepest and hottest mines in the whole country, a mine which I found it impossible to obtain permission to go down, though the mineowners very courteously showed me over another mine where the conditions were very much better. I say that in decreasing the miners' hours by half-an-hour a day, the Government and the country will be restoring something that ought never to have been taken away; and I should have been only too glad if the Government had felt able, with their knowledge of the circumstances, to come and say they were able to carry out a full restoration of the hour taken from the miners.
  I cannot help remembering, during the General Strike, sitting at home and listening on the wireless to an appeal made by the late Prime Minister, broadcast all over the country, asking people to bring the strike to an end and go back home and trust him, as Prime Minister of England, to see that the miners got a fair and square deal. I do not want to use the somewhat strong language that one has used on this subject outside, but it has always seemed to me one of the strangest ways of carrying out that pledge, immediately the General Strike was over, to adopt the policy of the mineowners, and to go right in the teeth of the recommendations of the Coal Commission—[Interruption]—to adopt the policy put forward by the mineowners, and rejected by the good sense of the rest of the country. We have now had experience of the mineowners' policy, and it has failed hopelessly. I am very glad that the Government has been able to come forward and take the first step to

  2225
  bring back the hours in the mines to what they ought to have been all along.
  The Prime Minister, in speaking on the Second Heading, expressed the view that no industry in this country ought to be allowed by the State to subsist on wages which are below a decent level, and that the State under those conditions ought to intervene by legislation and see that a decent wage was made payable by the action of the community. I entirely agree with that view, and the only difference that has arisen between those who sit on that side and us, is that it seemed to us when the Bill was first introduced, that the result would be an increase in the cost of coal to consumers as a whole. We are hoping that the Bill, as amended as a result of discussions that have taken place, will mean hardly an appreciable increase, if there is any at all— [Laughter.] At any rate, that is the view we hold. We hope that there will be no increase, but, if there be a small one, the miners are entitled to it. I am very glad that this piece of justice to the miners is going to be carried out, and I hope that not very far from now the Government will be able, as a- result of their negotiations at the League of Nations, to reach an international basis to bring not only the hours of miners here, but the hours of miners who are their comrades and colleagues all over the world, to the same times and standard.
  Mr. CAPE: I regret that the Debate was brought down to such a low level by the statement of an hon. Member who spoke from the Opposition Bench. He spoke about certain letters which he had received from the north of England in regard to certain conditions that were prevailing, with the consent of the miners' leaders of that particular locality. That statement cast a reflection on the whole of the miners' representatives who come from the north of England. I represent a district in one of the northern counties, and I am not only Member for that area, but the general secretary of the union, and we have not in any way ever sanctioned any breaches of the law as described by the hon. Member. Therefore, it cannot apply to that particular county, which is a small county, but nevertheless very important. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Sir R.
  2226
  Home) surprised me when he commenced his speech in moving the Amendment. He began by making us believe that he was going to do something for the benefit of the miners, and immediately he assumed that air, my mind went back to his attitude and actions in 1926 when, sitting below the Gangway on this side, on every possible occasion when he could get an opportunity, he put up a strong case in justification of the miners having to work an eight-hour day. He said to-night that, if he found the miners' Members were opposed to his Amendment, he should consider withdrawing it.
  Sir R. HORNE: If the hon. Member appeals to me, I had better say what I meant. I was not referring to the main part of the Amendment, but to the part which deals with the Saturday afternoon, and I said that if the miners did not want this facility—not the miners' Members—I would not press it. I have still to learn that they do not want it.
  Mr. CAPE: Every miners' Member is bitterly opposed to the Amendment, and we are speaking not only for the political section of the industry, but also for the industrial section, and neither the right hon. and learned Gentleman nor any of his friends have shown that there is any body of opinion in favour of the Amendment. One hon. Member has referred to a letter sent to him, and the right hon. Gentleman referred to some resolution that was passed by some small branch of a miners' organisation somewhere in Wales. What evidence does the right hon. and learned Gentleman want to indicate to him that the miners do not want the terms of the Amendment? If the whole volume of the miners' voice could be heard against this Amendment, I suggest that that would not induce the right hon. and learned Gentleman to withdraw it, because he has made up his mind that he is going to oppose the passage of this Bill at every stage. If he is so anxious to give the miners a short day on Saturdays his brain power is sufficiently acute to find words to put in this Bill to make it possible for the miners to work five days of seven and a-half hours and a short day on Saturday. I venture to say that he has no such idea in his mind at all.

  2227
  A good deal has been made of the Resolution passed at Geneva. We find that the representative of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain spoke vehemently against that Resolution, and the British representative voted against it. I suggest, therefore, that the statements about that Resolution ought to have no effect on the House at all. Another point made by the right hon. Gentleman was that the introduction of machinery into the mines caused a necessity for an increase of the hours of labour in the mines. The argument, carried to its logical conclusion, is that the more machinery that is introduced into the mines, the longer the men would be required to work. We hold a different view from that. We hope that the more machinery that is introduced, the less hours men will have to work. If that is not going to be so the introduction of machinery will not be any advantage to the men.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. D. Graham) made a statement about men working under nude conditions in some of the mines of this country. I can speak as one who had experience of that state of affairs for many years. The last colliery I ever worked in was in Whitehaven, and there all the miners in those collieries were absolutely nude except for a small bathing dress round the loins—with shoes or stockings or clogs. That is not hearsay. I myself did seven years under those conditions. Therefore, I know perfectly well that any miner in the larger portion of the mines of this country who does seven hours is an exhausted man long before the seven hours has expired.
  The hours of miners are getting consideration nowadays, are being investigated by the Mining Research Board. Why is all that being done, and why are we getting these medical reports with regard to the health of miners, if there is not a belief that the long hours of work and the conditions under which they work are sapping the health of the miners? An hon. Member talked about sympathy. We do not want sympathy; the only thing we want is justice, and that is all we are asking for. Hon. Members opposite have tried to convince the House that the passing of the
  2228
  eight hours legislation in 1926 brought some prosperity to the industry. If they will look at the figures of wages, the number of men employed and the continuity of work in the mining industry prior to 1926, they will find that in all respects conditions were considerably better than in 1929. That shows that the measures taken by the late Government did not do anything tangible for the benefit of the miners or the industry. We believe that when this Bill becomes an Act of Parliament it will be one of the first steps of any consequence towards solving the problem which now confronts the mining industry.
  Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: Whatever view may be taken as to the merits of this Amendment, I think the Committee feel under a real debt of gratitude to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Home) for having devised it, in the end, in a form which has enabled us to have one of the most important discussions I can remember in this House and one of the best informed. In this general discussion we have covered everything that is relevant to the Clause. If we had been forced to consider this Clause without being able to discuss this enormously important alternative, the Committee would have stultified themselves. Fortunately, we have been able to take this discussion both on the merits of the right hon. Gentleman's proposal and on the counter-merits of the alternative which we put forward, and hon. Members on all sides of the House have spoken not only with great sincerity but with a wealth of experience. As they have spoken with experience, each giving his personal experience, from a different standpoint, perhaps, from that of his fellows, it now falls to the Committee, in the light of that varied experience, to take a decision which is not a sectional decision but a decision which should be in accordance with the interests not only of the industry but of the community as a whole. I am sure that when a vote is taken or this question, we shall give our votes as Members representing all sections of the community.
  The question which we are considering divides itself into two parts. With regard to the second part, I shall have very little to say, because it merely proposes

  2229
  that the miners may go to work earlier on Saturday mornings in order to get off a little earlier on Saturday afternoons. I do not think that anyone will argue that that is a matter in which a principle is involved, and it must be purely a matter of convenience. I should have thought that it would have been a matter of local arrangement. I am certain that if the proposal were made that the House of Commons should sit for an extra hour on Thursday night up to twelve o'clock and not meet until twelve o'clock on Friday, instead of eleven o'clock, the keenest protesters would be those who sometimes travel north by the 5.30 train from King's Cross. In the question we are considering, there is no point which interferes with any of our principles, and I think we might leave these matters to the convenience of the different pits in the country.
  The real issue which is before the House to-night is that raised in the first part of the Amendment, namely, whether under the seven and a-half hours day there shall be an opportunity by agreement to spread that number of hours over a fortnight provided the "aggregate statutory number of hours is not exceeded. When we come to consider this vital matter, I think it will be agreed that there is no question which will arise under this Bill that is more important. Parliament has to consider this proposal, not only from the point of view of the miners, but also from the point of view of the whole industry. And because the coal industry is a basic industry affecting every other industry in this country, and, not only that, but every home in this country as well. We have to consider this question, not only from the point of view of the miner or the coal industry alone, but we have to consider it also from the point of view of the general interests of this country. I think it will be agreed on all hands that our common desire, whether by Act of Parliament or concerted action, is to provide that the miners' hours should be the shortest which the industry itself can stand with due regard to the interests of the general public. That, I think, is common ground.
  There is another matter which is equally common ground, and that is that the proposals which the right hon. Gentleman is
  2230
  making to the House in this Clause will add materially to the working costs of the industry. I am not concerned to argue whether the figure of 1s. 6d. is a peak figure or not. It is common ground that any reduction, or at any rate the compulsory reduction which he proposes of half an hour on every day, is bound greatly to increase the costs. If proof were needed of that, it is only necessary to look at the change in working costs which took place in this industry as between the early part of 1926 and the passage of the Act which has been so much challenged to-night, which enabled the industry to work eight hours.
  In the March quarter of 1926, when a seven-hour day was being worked, the total cost per ton of coal commercially disposable was 17s. 2d. for the whole of Great Britain, and 19s. 9d. for South Wales. If time permitted I could give the comparative costs in all the districts, but I take the country as a whole, and I take the largest of all the areas, with a great export market, and the one which, I think, is likely to be more affected than any other by these proposals. In the March quarter of 1929, which is the most recent corresponding quarter that we can take, the costs in Great Britain had fallen from 17s. 2d. to 13s. 3d. a ton, and the costs in South Wales had fallen from 19s. 9d. to 14s. 7d. a ton. That means that for Great Britain as a whole there was a fall of 3s. 11d. a ton in working costs, while in South Wales there was a fall of 5s. 2d. a ton.
  That was not all, by any means, at the expense of the miner. It has been said to-night that all this has been done at the expense of the miner, but that is not right. I am giving the Board of Trade figures from the same source as those taken by the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. D. Graham). It will be remembered that in 1926 there was the subvention in aid of wages, and, of course, wages would have been very different then but for the subvention. Even so, with the subvention, in the March quarter of 1926, wages in Great Britain were 10s. 4¾d., and in South Wales 10s. 9d., while in the March quarter of 1929, when the industry had no subvention to assist it—and many will remember that the subvention was as high as 4s. a ton in some districts—in the March quarter of last year, when

  2231
  there was no subvention at all, the wages had fallen to 9s. 2¾d. for Great Britain and 9s. 4d. for South Wales. That is a fall of 1s. 2d. over the whole country and of 1s. 4¾d. in South Wales. Even with the subvention gone, therefore, the saving which had been effected in costs other than wages was 2s. 9d. a ton for Great Britain, and 3s. 9d. for South Wales.
  Of course, the result of that was very largely to increase trade, and there were 10,000,000 tons extra of exports, which, as I reminded hon. Members on the last occasion, has been achieved under that Eight Hours Act. Therefore, let there be no doubt that that Act reduced costs enormously, above and beyond any reduction which took place in wages, and any variation of that Act, as, indeed, is admitted, must have a very serious effect on the costs of production. That is not denied by the President of the Board of Trade. He says with perfect frankness, and he has been very frank with the House on this point throughout, that this extra cost is going to be made up out of Part I; and the Secretary for Mines, I understand—I am very sorry that I missed his speech; I wanted particularly to hear it, but I understood that he was going to speak later in the Debate—said, we shall get the money from where it may be. We all know where it may be. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander), who is the latest recruit, as I gather, to the party opposite—whatever may be the precise value and effect of the deal, or agreement, which has been made between the right hon. Gentleman and hon. Members below the Gangway, apparently there is one hon. Member who is anxious to volunteer—all honour to him—to honour that agreement in the spirit as well as in the letter—readily ranged himself by the side of the President of the Board of Trade and said the extra cost to the consumer might not be very great and, whatever it was, the mining industry was well entitled to it. That is a perfectly intelligible point of view and one which will be most heartily welcomed by hon. Members opposite.
  Mr. MANDER: I certainly never said" whatever it was." My point was that there might be a small increase and that the industry was entitled to it.
  Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I hope the hon. Member will not reduce the measure of his support, but he obviously takes a very different view from that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), who by a process of arithmetic informed the House on the Second Beading that he was going to oppose the Bill, because it was going to add 3s. 6d. a ton to the cost to the consumer.
  Mr. MANDER: The Bill as originally introduced very likely would, as my leader argued, have increased the cost of coal. My point was that the Bill, as amended by our Amendments, as agreed by the Government, will not have that effect at all.
  Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: This is profoundly interesting, because we really now have some light thrown on the subject which has hitherto been entirely obscured from the House. The President of the Board of Trade informed us that he was going to make no variations in the Bill, that the new Clause stood as he put it on the Paper and that Part I, the foundation of the Bill, was to stand essentially as it was.
  Mr. MANDER: Amalgamation.
  Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The amalgamation Clause is to stand exactly as the right hon. Gentleman put it on the Paper.
  Mr. MANDER: It was not in the Bill at all.
  Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: Apparently, the hon. Member is in a more favoured position than any of his leaders, to whichever section of his party he belongs, because he has apparently made a deal entirely on his own which is entirely satisfactory to him. I only wonder when he attends his party meeting, on whichever day of the week it is, whether his intervention will be equally welcomed by the right hon. Gentleman' the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs. There is no doubt at all that this proposal of the right hon. Gentleman is bound to add to the cost, and that cost has to be paid for. It must be made up in one of two ways. It must be made up by an added price on coal sold at home

  2233
  or by an added price on coal sold abroad, or both. In fact there is no prospect whatever that we can get an increased price for the bulk of the coal which we sell abroad. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Runciman), who in this matter speaks with an authority which is unrivalled in this House, was very definite on that subject. I am sure he was right when he gave instances of the keen competition which our export coal trade is meeting to-day. I believe it is a fact, and the right hon. Gentleman probably knows it—I heard it, I am bound to say, with surprise the other day—that the United States of America are beginning to sell coal in Italy. It is a very sinister symptom if to the enormous and excessive potential production of the Continental countries is to he added exports, and dumped exports no doubt, from the United States of America, which can quite easily produce another 100,000,000 tons of coal or more in a year, and we are going in the future to have to meet not less but more competition in our export trade.
  I believe—and I am not quoting my own opinion but the opinion expressed to me by some of those who have the largest experience in the export market—that it is very doubtful whether the, prices which we are obtaining to-day in our export market can hold. If that be true, undoubtedly the extra cost has to come on the coal which is sold at home. It, therefore, becomes of vital importance to every consumer of coal in this country, be it the domestic consumer or be it the industrial consumer, to see in any Measure which is passed to improve the working hours of the miner, that that should be done, if it can reasonably and fairly be done, with the least possible disadvantage to the coal trade, and with the least possible addition to its cost. There is no doubt whatever that as between the two proposals, the proposal of the President of the Board, that you should have an absolutely flat, inelastic compulsory seven and a-half hours each day, and the elastic proposal of my right hon. Friend that there should be a chance by agreement of averaging out over a fortnight, the proposal of the President of the Board of Trade would be far more costly to the industry and to the country than the alternative which we put forward.
  2234
  What is more—and there is no doubt whatever about this—as the industry progresses and develops more mechanical working, as more coal cutters are introduced, the more true this will become, because it is just in those pits where coal-cutting machinery is most used that this proposal of my right hon. Friend will be most economic. Therefore, it is absolutely plain that this alternative proposal is clearly in the interests of the mining industry as an industry. It is plainly in the interests of the country as a whole, because if it is going to cost the industry less, it is going to cost us less. We, the third estate—[Interruption]—
  Mr. SANOHAM: Why need we have all this piffle?
  Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: A large number of hon. Members have spoken from the opposite side of the House and have been listened to without interruption. I have heard practically the whole of this Debate, and I intend to hear all the Debates. I intend also to show absolute courtesy to hon. Members opposite, and I expect to be treated with ordinary courtesy. It is very plain that this averaging proposal is in the interests of the industry and in the interests of the public as a whole, and we have a right to ask that the proposal shall be adopted rather than the rigid proposal of the President of the Board of Trade, unless it can be shown that it will inflict a serious hardship upon the miners.
  Mr. POTTS: So it does. [Interruption.]
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: No useful purpose is served by needless interruption. So far the Debate has been conducted in a creditable manner. I hope that hon. Members will not interrupt.
  Mr. BATEY: We did not say very much.
  Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: If the miners or any other workers are asked whether they would prefer to work the existing hours and keep the wages as they are or have less hours and take lower wages, I do not believe that there is a single miner who would desire to have lower wages and shorter hours. I am certain—indeed it has been said by several speakers—that there is nothing novel about the free Saturday. They

  2235
  have had it before. Therefore, that undoubtedly is popular in many quarters. The alternative which is offered is not an increase in hours. What is offered is exactly the same number of hours per week as the President of the Board of Trade is proposing, but giving a certain elasticity in aggregating the hours. It is certain that the miners will have a far better chance of keeping wages as they are by the adoption of our proposal.
  Only one argument has been advanced against the proposal, namely, if I may use a slang expression, the fear that the miners may be jockeyed in making an agreement, if our proposal takes effect. It is not proposed to give the coalowner a right in this matter. This alternative provision is to apply only where there is agreement between both sides. Is there much chance of the miner being jockeyed? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes!"] I have had a good many negotiations, and I have found the miners just about as competent and as tenacious negotiators as any set of men I have over known. I was very glad to hear the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Duncan Graham) say: "We can discuss our difficulties with the coalowners in a perfectly friendly manner." Unless the real spirit in this or any other industry is that matters which ought to be settled by agreement are going to be settled frankly by agreement, and that no party is going to try to jockey the other, industry is going to become hopeless. So far as the day-wage man is concerned, the fear has been entertained that he might be put in a position where he would work one day less and also get one day's wage less, but surely that is a matter for agreement. Before an agreement is made in a district, or a pit, to take advantage of this Amendment the miners, whether they are piece-workers or day workers, will take good care to see that they get an equivalent in value in any arrangement that is made.
  I beg the Committee not to close the door upon the future. Many hon. Members who to-day say that the miners do not want the Amendment might, in six months' time, give their eyes to have the advantages which the Amendment offers. I beg the Committee not to close the door upon the future at home. It might be vital to the mining industry to have this alternative power at home; and I beg the President of the Board of Trade not to close the door on negotiations which he is bound to undertake abroad. The future of this industry, hours and wages, must come by international agreement. The right hon. Gentleman knows, from his negotiations and the Resolution passed at Geneva, that the only way to get international agreement is by the kind of arrangement proposed by the Amendment, that is an aggregate number of hours to be worked, with a power of averaging. Do not let him close the door on the success of the negotiations into which he is going at Geneva in a few months' time. The right hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Hartshorn) addressed a most eloquent plea to the Committee to treat the miners with consideration. The country is prepared to treat the miners with consideration, but the country is profoundly uneasy about this Bill. Let hon. Members make no mistake about that; and its suspicions will not be lessened if the Amendment is not passed. I make this plea in all sincerity to those who have spoken on behalf of the miners, that they will get a much better hearing in the country and make a much more potent appeal to public sympathy if they slate their case in a reasonable and practical way.
  Mr. W. GRAHAM: I understand that a Division will be taken on this Amendment, and I respectfully suggest that the Committee might divide now.
  Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 197; Noes, 292.

  Division No. 144.]

  AYES.

  [10.50 p.m.

  Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel

  Atholl, Duchess of

  Bellairs, Commander Carlyon

  Ainsworth, Lieut.-Col. Charles

  Atkinson, C.

  Berry, Sir George

  Albery, Irving James

  Baillie-Hamilton, Hon. Charles W.

  Bevan, S. J. (Holborn)

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

  Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (Bewdley)

  Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman

  Allen, Sir J. Sandentan (Liverp'l., W.)

  Balfour, George (Hampstead)

  Bird, Ernest Roy

  Allen, W. E. D. (Belfast, W.)

  Balfour, Captain H. H. (I of Thanet)

  Boothby, R. J. G.

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

  Balniel, Lord

  Bourne, Captain Robert Croft

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

  Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

  Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart

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

  Beaumont, M. W.

  Boyce, H. L.

  Bracken, B.

  Greene, W. P. Crawford

  Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)

  Braithwaite, Major A. N.

  Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)

  Pownall, Sir Assheton

  Briscoe, Richard George

  Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John

  Preston, Sir Walter Rueben

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

  Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.

  Purbrick, R.

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

  Gunston, Captain D. W.

  Ramsbotham, H.

  Buchan, John

  Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.

  Reid, David D. (County Down)

  Buckingham, Sir H.

  Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)

  Remer, John R.

  Bullock, Captain Malcolm

  Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry

  Rentoul, Sir Gervais S.

  Butler, R. A.

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

  Reynolds, Col. Sir James

  Butt, Sir Alfred

  Herbert, Sir Dennis (Hertford)

  Roberts, Sir Samuel (Ecclesall)

  Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward

  Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller

  Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Rennell

  Carver, Major W. H.

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

  Roes, Major Ronald D.

  Castle Stewart, Earl of

  Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.

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

  Cautley, Sir Henry S.

  Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K.

  Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)

  Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)

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

  Salmon, Major I.

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

  Hurd, Percy A.

  Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart

  Cazalet, Captain Victor A.

  Hurst, Sir Gerald B.

  Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D.

  Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton

  Iveagh, Countess of

  Savery, S. S.

  Chamberlain, Rt. H n. Sir J. A. (Birm., W.)

  James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert

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

  Christle, J. A.

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

  Skelton, A. N.

  Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George

  Kindersley, Major G. M.

  Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)

  Cohen, Major J. Brunei

  King, Commodore Rt. Hon. Henry D.

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

  Colman, N. C. D.

  Knox, Sir Alfred

  Smith-Carington, Neville W.

  Colville, Major D. J.

  Lamb, Sir J. Q.

  Smithers, Waldron

  Conway, Sir w. Martin

  Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.

  Somerset, Thomas

  Courtauld, Major J. S.

  Law, Sir Alfred (Derby, High Peak)

  Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

  Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L.

  Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)

  Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East)

  Crichton-Stuart, Lord C.

  Leighton, Major B. E. P.

  Southby, Commander A. R. J.

  Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.

  Lewis, Oswald (Colchester)

  Steel-Maitland, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur

  Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)

  Little, Dr. E. Graham

  Stewart, W. J. (Belfast South)

  Croom-Johnson, R. P.

  Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey

  Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

  Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West)

  Long, Major Eric

  Sueter, Rear-Admiral M. F.

  Cunliffe-Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip

  Lymlngton, Viscount

  Thomson, Sir F.

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Macquisten, F. A.

  Tinne, J. A.

  Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford)

  MacRobert, Rt. Hon. Alexander M.

  Titchfield, Major the Marquess of

  Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.

  Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham)

  Todd, Capt. A. J.

  Davies, Dr. Vernon

  Makins, Brigadier-General E.

  Train, J.

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

  Margesson, Captain H. D.

  Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement

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

  Marjoribanks, E. C.

  Turton, Robert Hugh

  Dawson, Sir Philip

  Mason, Colonel Glyn K.

  Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon

  Dugdale, Capt. T. L.

  Meller, R. J.

  Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert

  Eden, Captain Anthony

  Merriman, Sir F. Boyd

  Wardlaw-Milne, J. S.

  Edmondson, Major A. J.

  Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)

  Warrender, Sir Victor

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

  Mitchell-Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W.

  Waterhouse, Captain Charles

  Everard, W. Lindsay

  Mond, Hon. Henry

  Wayland, Sir William A.

  Falle, Sir Bertram G.

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

  Wells, Sydney R.

  Ferguson, Sir John

  Moore, Sir Newton J. (Richmond)

  Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)

  Fermoy, Lord

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

  Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)

  Fielden, E. B.

  Muirhead, A. J.

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

  Fison, F. G. Claverlng

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

  Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

  Ford, Sir P. J.

  Nicholson, O. (Westminster)

  Withers, Sir John James

  Forestier-Walker, Sir t.

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

  Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount

  Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.

  Oman, Sir Charles William C.

  Womersley, W. J.

  Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton

  O'Neill, Sir H.

  Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton

  Gibson, C G. (Pudsey & Otley)

  Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William

  Glyn, Major R. G. C.

  Peake, Capt. Osbert

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Gower, Sir Robert

  Penny, Sir George

  Captain Sir George Bowyer and

  Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.

  Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)

  Captain Wallace.

  NOES.

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

  Bowen, J. W.

  Cocks, Frederick Seymour

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

  Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.

  Compton, Joseph

  Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher

  Broad, Francis Alfred

  Cove, William G.

  Aitchison, Rt. Hon. Craigie M.

  Bromfield, William

  Daggar, George

  Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro')

  Bromley, J.

  Dallas, George

  Alpass, J. H.

  Brooke, W.

  Dalton, Hugh

  Ammon, Charles George

  Brothers, M.

  Davies, E. C. (Montgomery)

  Angell, Norman

  Brown, C. W. E. (Notts, Mansfield)

  Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

  Arnott, John

  Brown, Ernest (Leith)

  Denman, Hon. R. D.

  Aske, Sir Robert

  Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)

  Dickson, T.

  Ayles, Walter

  Buchanan, G.

  Dudgeon, Major C. R.

  Baker, John (Wolverhampton, Bilston)

  Burgess, F. G.

  Dukes, C.

  Baldwin, Oliver (Dudley)

  Burgin, Dr. E. L.

  Duncan, Charles

  Barnes, Alfred John

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

  Ede, James Chuter

  Batey, Joseph

  Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel (Norfolk, N.)

  Edge, Sir William

  Beckett, John (Camberwell, Peckham)

  Caine, Derwent Hall-

  Edmunds, J. E.

  Benn, Rt. Hon. Wedgwood

  Cameron, A. G.

  Edwards, E. (Morpeth)

  Bennett, Capt. E. N. (Cardiff, Central)

  Cape, Thomas

  Egan, W. H.

  Bennett, William (Battersea, South)

  Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S. W.)

  Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)

  Benson, G.

  Charleton, H. C.

  Foot, Isaac

  Bentham, Dr. Ethel

  Chater, Daniel

  Forgan, Dr. Robert

  Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)

  Church, Major A. G.

  Freeman, Peter

  Birkett, W. Norman

  Clarke, J. S.

  Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)

  Blindell, James

  Cluse, W. S.

  George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd (Car'vn)

  2238

  2239

  George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)

  Lowth, Thomas

  Sanders, W. S.

  George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesea)

  Lunn, William

  Sandham, E.

  Gibbins, Joseph

  Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)

  Sawyer, G. F.

  Gibson, H. M. (Lancs, Mossley)

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

  Scrymgeour, E.

  Gill, T. H.

  MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)

  Scurr, John

  Gillett, George M.

  McElwee, A.

  Sexton, James

  Glassey, A. E.

  McEntee, V. L.

  Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.

  Gossling, A. G.

  McKinlay, A.

  Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)

  Gould, F.

  Mac Laren, Andrew

  Shepherd, Arthur Lewis

  Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)

  Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)

  Sherwood, G. H.

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

  MacNeill-Weir, L.

  Shield, George William

  Gray, Milner

  McShane, John James

  Shiels, Dr. Drummond

  Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)

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

  Shillaker, J. F.

  Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro'W.)

  Mander, Geoffrey le M.

  Shinwell, E.

  Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)

  Mansfield, W.

  Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)

  Groves, Thomas E.

  March, S.

  Simmons, C. J.

  Grundy, Thomas W.

  Marcus, M.

  Sinkinson, George

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

  Markham, S. F.

  Sitch, Charles H.

  Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Marley, J.

  Smith, Alfred (Sunderland)

  Hall, Capt. W. P. (Portsmouth, C.)

  Mathers, George

  Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)

  Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Zetland)

  Matters, L. W.

  Smith, Frank (Nuneaton)

  Hardie, George D.

  Maxton, James

  Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)

  Harris, Percy A.

  Melville, Sir James

  Smith, Tom (Pontefract)

  Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon

  Messer, Fred

  Smith, W. R. (Norwich)

  Hastings, Dr. Somerville

  Millar, J. D.

  Snell, Harry

  Haycock, A. W.

  Mills, J. E.

  Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip

  Hayday, Arthur

  Milner, J.

  Sorensen, R.

  Hayes, John Henry

  Montague, Frederick

  Stamford, Thomas W.

  Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley)

  Morgan, Dr. H. B.

  Stephen, Campbell

  Henderson, Arthur, junr. (Cardiff, S.)

  Morley, Ralph

  Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)

  Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow)

  Morris, Rhys Hopkins

  Strachey, E. J. St. Loe

  Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield)

  Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)

  Strauss, G. R.

  Herriotts, J.

  Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)

  Sullivan, J.

  Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth)

  Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.)

  Sutton, J. E.

  Hoffman, P. C.

  Mort, D. L.

  Taylor R. A. (Lincoln)

  Hollins, A.

  Mosley, Lady C. (Stoke-on-Trent)

  Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S. W.)

  Hopkin, Daniel

  Mosley, Sir Oswald (Smethwick)

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

  Hore-Belisha, Leslie

  Muff, G.

  Thurtle, Ernest

  Horrabin, J. F.

  Muggeridge, H. T.

  Tinker, John Joseph

  Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield)

  Murnin, Hugh

  Toole, Joseph

  Hunter, Dr. Joseph

  Nathan, Major H. L.

  Tout, W. J.

  Hutchison, Maj.-Gen. Sir R.

  Naylor, T. E.

  Townend, A. E.

  Isaacs, George

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

  Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles.

  Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)

  Noel Baker, P. J.

  Turner, B.

  Johnston, Thomas

  Oldfield, J. R.

  Vaughan, D. J.

  Jones, F. Llewellyn- (Flint)

  Oliver, George Harold (likeston)

  Viant, S. P.

  Jones, Rt. Hon Leif (Camborne)

  Oliver, P. M. (Man., Blackley)

  Walker, J.

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Owen, Major G. (Carnarvon)

  Wallace, H. W.

  Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)

  Owen, H. F. (Hereford)

  Wallhead, Richard C.

  Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W.

  Palin, John Henry

  Walters, Rt. Hon. Sir J. Tudor

  Jowitt, Rt. Hon. Sir W. A

  Paling, Wilfrid

  Watkins, F. C.

  Kedward, R. M. (Kent, Ashford)

  Palmer, E. T.

  Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline).

  Kelly, W. T.

  Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

  Wellock, Wilfred

  Kennedy, Thomas

  Perry, S. F.

  Welsh, James (Paisley)

  Kinley, J.

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

  Welsh, James C. (Coatbridge)

  Kirkwood, D.

  Phillips, Dr. Marion

  West, F. R.

  Knight, Holford

  Picton-Turbervill, Edith

  Westwood, Joseph

  Lang, Gordon

  Pole, Major D. G.

  Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.

  Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George

  Potts, John S.

  Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood)

  Lathan, G.

  Price, M. P.

  Wilkinson, Ellen C.

  Law, Albert (Bolton)

  Pybus, Percy John

  Williams, David (Swansea, East)

  Law, A. (Rossendale)

  Quibell, D. J. K.

  Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)

  Lawrence, Susan

  Ramsay, T. B. Wilson

  Williams, T. (York Don Valley)

  Lawrie, Hugh Hartley (Stalybridge)

  Raynes, W. R.

  Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

  Lawson, John James

  Richards, R.

  Wilson, J. (Oldham)

  Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle)

  Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

  Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)

  Leach, W.

  Riley, Ben (Dewsbury)

  Wise, E. F.

  Lee, Frank (Derby, N. E.)

  Ritson, J.

  Wood, Major McKenzie (Banff)

  Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern)

  Romeril, H. G.

  Wright, W. (Rutherglen)

  Lees, J.

  Rosbotham, D. S. T.

  Young, R. S. (Islington, North)

  Lewis, T. (Southampton)

  Rowson, Guy

  Lindley, Fred W.

  Russell, Richard John (Eddisbury)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Logan, David Gilbert

  Salter, Dr. Alfred

  Mr. Whiteley and Mr. Charles

  Longden, F.

  Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)

  Edwards.

  Lovat-Fraser, J. A.

  Samuel, H. W. (Swansea, West)

  Amendment made: In page 13, line 34, leave out from the word "operation," to the end of the Clause, and insert instead thereof the words "at the expiration of the period of four months from the passing of this Act."—[Mr. W. Graham.]
  Question put, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 295; Noes, 198.

  Division No. 145.]

  AYES.

  [11.1 p.m.

  Adamson, Ht. Hon. w. (Fife, West)

  Grenfell, D. R, (Glamorgan)

  Marley, J.

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

  Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro' W.)

  Mathers, George

  Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher

  Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)

  Matters, L. W.

  Aitchison, Rt. Hon. Craigie M.

  Groves, Thomas E.

  Maxton, James

  Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro')

  Grundy, Thomas W.

  Melville, Sir James

  Alpass, J. H.

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

  Messer, Fred

  Ammon, Charles George

  Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Millar, J. D.

  Angell, Norman

  Hall, Capt. W. P. (Portsmouth, C.)

  Mills, J. E.

  Arnott, John

  Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Zetland)

  Milner, J.

  Aske, Sir Robert

  Hardie, George D.

  Montague, Frederick

  Ayles, Walter

  Harris, Percy A.

  Morgan Dr. H. B.

  Baker, John (Wolverhampton, Bilston)

  Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon

  Morley, Ralph

  Baldwin, Oliver (Dudley)

  Hastings, Dr. Somerville

  Morris, Rhys Hopkins

  Barnes, Alfred John

  Haycock, A. W.

  Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)

  Batey, Joseph

  Hayday, Arthur

  Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)

  Beckett, John (Camberwell, Peckham)

  Hayes, John Henry

  Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.)

  Benn, Rt. Hon. Wedgwood

  Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)

  Mort, D. L.

  Bennett, Capt. E. N. (Cardiff, Central)

  Henderson, Arthur, Junr. (Cardiff, S.)

  Mosley, Lady C. (Stoke-on-Trent)

  Bennett, William (Battersea, South)

  Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow)

  Mosley, Sir Oswald (Smethwick)

  Benson, G.

  Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield)

  Muff, G.

  Bentham, Dr. Ethel

  Herriotts, J.

  Muggeridge, H. T.

  Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)

  Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth)

  Murnin, Hugh

  Birkett, W. Norman

  Hoffman, P. C.

  Nathan, Major H. L.

  Blindell, James

  Hollins, A.

  Naylor, T. E.

  Bowen, J. W.

  Hopkin, Daniel

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

  Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.

  Hore-Belisha, Leslie

  Noel Baker, P. J.

  Broad, Francis Alfred

  Horrabin, J. F.

  Oldfield, J. R.

  Bromfield, William

  Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield)

  Oliver, George Harold (keston)

  Bromley, J.

  Hunter, Dr. Joseph

  Oliver, P. M. (Man., Blackley)

  Brooke, W.

  Hutchison, Maj.-Gen. Sir R.

  Owen, Major G. (Carnarvon)

  Brothers, M.

  Isaacs, George

  Owen, H. F. (Hereford)

  Brown, C. W. E. (Notts, Mansfield)

  Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)

  Palin, John Henry

  Brown, Ernest (Leith)

  Johnston, Thomas

  Paling, Wilfrid

  Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)

  Jones, F. Llewellyn- (Flint)

  Palmer, E. T.

  Buchanan, G.

  Jones, Rt. Hon Leif (Camborne)

  Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

  Burgess, F. G.

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Perry, S. F.

  Burgin, Dr. E. L.

  Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. w.

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

  Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W.

  Phillips, Dr. Marion

  Caine, Derwent Hall-

  Jowitt, Rt. Hon. Sir W. A.

  Picton-Turbervill, Edith

  Cameron, A. G.

  Kedward, R. M. (Kent, Ashford)

  Pole, Major D. G.

  Cape, Thomas

  Kelly, W. T.

  Potts, John S.

  Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S. W.)

  Kennedy, Thomas

  Price, M. P.

  Charleton, H. C.

  Kinley, J.

  Pybus, Percy John

  Chater, Daniel

  Kirkwood, D.

  Quibell, D. J. K.

  Church, Major A. G.

  Knight, Holford

  Ramsay, T. B. Wilson

  Clarke, J. S.

  Lang, Gordon

  Raynes, W. R.

  Cluse, W. S.

  Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George

  Richards, R.

  Cocks, Frederick Seymour

  Lathan, G.

  Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

  Compton, Joseph

  Law, Albert (Bolton)

  Riley, Ben (Dewsbury)

  Cove, William G.

  Law, A. (Rossendale)

  Ritson, J.

  Daggar, George

  Lawrence, Susan

  Romeril, H. G.

  Dallas, George

  Lawrie, Hugh Hartley (Stalybridge)

  Rosbotham, D. S. T.

  Dalton, Hugh

  Lawson, John James

  Rowson, Guy

  Davies, E. C. (Montgomery)

  Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle)

  Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter

  Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

  Leach, W.

  Russell, Richard John (Eddisbury)

  Denman, Hon. R. D.

  Lee, Frank (Derby, N. E.)

  Salter, Dr. Alfred

  Dickson, T.

  Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern)

  Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)

  Dudgeon, Major C. R.

  Lees, J.

  Samuel, H. W. (Swansea, West)

  Dukes, C.

  Lewis, T. (Southampton)

  Sanders, W. S.

  Duncan, Charles

  Lindley, Fred W.

  Sandham, E.

  Ede, James Chuter

  Logan, David Gilbert

  Sawyer, G. F.

  Edge, Sir William

  Longbottom, A. W.

  Scrymgeour, E.

  Edmunds, J. E.

  Longden, F.

  Scurr, John

  Edwards, E. (Morpeth)

  Lovat-Fraser, J. A.

  Sexton, James

  Egan, W. H.

  Lowth, Thomas

  Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.

  Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)

  Lunn, William

  Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)

  Foot, Isaac

  Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)

  Shepherd, Arthur Lewis

  Forgan, Dr. Robert

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

  Sherwood, G. H.

  Freeman, Peter

  MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)

  Shield, George William

  Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)

  McElwee, A.

  Shiels, Dr. Drummond

  George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd (Car'vn)

  McEntee, V. L.

  Shillaker, J. F.

  George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)

  McKinlay, A.

  Shinwell, E.

  George, Meqan Lloyd (Anglesea)

  MacLaren, Andrew

  Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)

  Gibbins, Joseph

  Maclean, Sir Donald (Cornwall, N.)

  Simmons, C. J.

  Gibson, H. M. (Lancs. Mossley)

  Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)

  Sinclair, Sir A. (Caithness)

  Gill, T. H.

  MacNeill-Weir, L.

  Sinkinson, George

  Gillett, George M.

  McShane, John James

  Sitch, Charles H.

  Glassey, A. E.

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

  Smith, Alfred (Sunderland)

  Gossling, A. G.

  Mander, Geoffrey le M.

  Smith, Ben (Bermohdsey, Rotherhithe)

  Gould, F.

  Mansfield, W.

  Smith, Frank (Nuneaton)

  Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)

  March, S.

  Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)

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

  Marcus, M.

  Smith, Tom (Pontefract)

  Gray, Milner

  Markham, S. F.

  Smith, W. R. (Norwich)

  2242

  2243

  Snell, Harry

  Townend, A. E.

  Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood)

  Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip

  Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Wilkinson, Ellen C.

  Sorensen, R.

  Turner, B.

  Williams, David (Swansea, East)

  Stamford, Thomas W.

  Vaughan, D. J.

  Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)

  Stephen, Campbell

  Viant, S. P.

  Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)

  Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)

  Walker, J.

  Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

  Strachey, E. J. St. Loe

  Wallace, H. W.

  Wilson, J. (Oldham)

  Strauss, G. R.

  Wallhead, Richard C.

  Wilson R. J. (Jarrow)

  Sullivan, J.

  Walters, Rt. Hon. Sir J. Tudor

  Wise, E. F.

  Sutton, J. E.

  Watkins, F. C.

  Wood, Major McKenzie (Banff)

  Taylor, R. A. (Lincoln)

  Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)

  Wright, W. (Rutherglen)

  Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S. W.)

  Wellock, Wilfred

  Young, R. S. (Islington, North)

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

  Welsh, James (Paisley)

  Thurtle, Ernest

  Welsh, James C. (Coatbridge)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Tinker, John Joseph

  West, F. R.

  Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr.

  Toole, Joseph

  Westwood, Joseph

  Whiteley.

  Tout, W. J.

  Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.

  NOES.

  Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel

  Davies, Dr. Vernon

  Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)

  Ainsworth, Lieut.-Col. Charles

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

  Mitchell-Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W.

  Albery, Irving James

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

  Mond, Hon. Henry

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

  Dawson, Sir Philip

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

  Allen, Sir J. Sandeman (Liverp'l., W.)

  Dugdale, Capt. T. L.

  Moore, Sir Newton J. (Richmond)

  Allen, W. E. O. (Belfast, W.)

  Eden, Captain Anthony

  Muirhead, A. J.

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

  Edmondson, Major A. J.

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

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

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

  Nicholson, O. (Westminster)

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

  Everard, W. Lindsay

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

  Atholl, Duchess of

  Falle, Sir Bertram G.

  Oman, Sir Charles William C.

  Atkinson, C.

  Ferguson, Sir John

  O'Neill, Sir H.

  Baillie-Hamilton, Hon. Charles W.

  Fermoy, Lord

  Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William

  Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (Bewdley)

  Fielden, E. B.

  Peake, Capt. Osbert

  Balfour, George (Hampstead)

  Fison, F. G. Clavering

  Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)

  Balfour, Captain H. H. (I. of Thanet)

  Ford, Sir P. J.

  Poto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)

  Balniel, Lord

  Forestler-Walker, Sir L.

  Power, Sir John Cecil

  Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

  Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.

  Pownall, Sir Assheton

  Beaumont, Mr. W.

  Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton

  Preston, Sir Walter Rueben

  Bellairs, Commander Carlyon

  Gibson, C. G. (Pudsey & Otley)

  Purbrick, R.

  Berry, Sir George

  Glyn, Major R. G. C.

  Ramsbotham, H.

  Bevan, S. J. (Holborn)

  Gower, Sir Robert

  Reid, David D. (County Down)

  Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman

  Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.

  Remer, John R.

  Bird, Ernest Roy

  Greene, W. P. Crawford

  Rentoul, Sir Gervais S.

  Boothby, R. J. G.

  Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)

  Reynolds, Col. Sir James

  Bourne, Captain Robert Croft

  Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John

  Roberts, Sir Samuel (Ecclesall)

  Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart

  Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.

  Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Rennell

  Boyce, H. L.

  Gunston, Captain D. W.

  Ross, Major Ronald D.

  Bracken, B.

  Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.

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

  Braithwaite, Major A. N.

  Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)

  Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)

  Briscoe, Richard George

  Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry

  Salmon, Major I.

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

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

  Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart

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

  Herbert, Sir Dennis (Hertford)

  Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D.

  Buchan, John

  Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller

  Savery, S. S.

  Buckingham, Sir H.

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

  Skelton, A. N.

  Bullock, Captain Malcolm

  Home, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.

  Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)

  Butler, R. A.

  Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K.

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

  Butt, Sir Alfred

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

  Smith-Carington, Neville W.

  Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward

  Hurd, Percy A.

  Smithers, Waldron

  Carver, Major W. H.

  Hurst, Sir Gerald B.

  Somerset, Thomas

  Castle Stewart, Earl of

  Iveagh, Countess of

  Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

  Cautley, Sir Henry S.

  James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert

  Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East)

  Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)

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

  Southby, Commander A. R. J.

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

  Kindersley, Major G. M.

  Steel-Maitland, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur

  Cazalet, Captain Victor A.

  King, Commodore Rt. Hon. Henry D.

  Stewart, W. J. (Belfast, South)

  Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton

  Knox, Sir Alfred

  Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

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

  Lamb, Sir J. Q.

  Sueter, Rear-Admiral M. F.

  Christie, J. A.

  Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.

  Thomson, Sir F.

  Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer

  Law, Sir Alfred (Derby, High Peak)

  Tinne, J. A.

  Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George

  Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)

  Titchfield, Major the Marquess of

  Cohen, Major J. Brunel

  Leighton, Major B. E. P.

  Todd, Capt. A. J.

  Colman, N. C. D.

  Lewis, Oswald (Colchester)

  Train, J.

  Colville, Major D. J.

  Little, Dr. E. Graham

  Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement

  Conway, Sir W. Martin

  Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey

  Turton, Robert Hugh

  Courtauld, Major J. S.

  Long, Major Eric

  Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon

  Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L.

  Lymington, Viscount

  Wallace, Capt. D. E. (Hornsey)

  Crichton-Stuart, Lord C.

  Macquisten, F. A.

  Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert

  Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.

  MacRobert, Rt. Hon. Alexander M.

  Wardlaw-Milne, J. S.

  Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)

  Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham)

  Warrender, Sir Victor

  Croom-Johnson, R. P.

  Makins, Brigadier-General E.

  Waterhouse, Captain Charles

  Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West)

  Margesson, Captain H. D.

  Wayland, Sir William A.

  Cunliffe-Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip

  Marjoribanks, E. C.

  Wells, Sydney R.

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Mason, Colonel Glyn K.

  Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)

  Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford)

  Meller, R. J.

  Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)

  Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.

  Merriman, Sir F. Boyd

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

  2244

  2245

  Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

  Womersley, W. J.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Withers, Sir John James

  Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.

  Captain Sir George Bowyer and

  Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount

  Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton

  Sir George Penny.

  It being after Eleven of the Clock, the CHAIRMAN left the Chair to make his Report to the House,
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

  HAIRDRESSERS' AND BARBERS' SHOPS (SUNDAY CLOSING) BILL.
  Read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

  MOCK AUCTIONS BILL.
  Read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

  ADJOURNMENT.
  Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Parkinson.]
  Adjourned accordingly at Fifteen Minutes after Eleven o'Clock.

  MEXICO (BRITISH BONDHOLDERS).
  MEXICO (BRITISH BONDHOLDERS).
  AMERICAN STATES (LOANS).
  AMERICAN STATES (LOANS).
  ARMS TRAFFIC CONVENTION.
  ARMS TRAFFIC CONVENTION.
  RUSSIAN CONSULATE-GENERAL, LONDON.
  RUSSIAN CONSULATE-GENERAL, LONDON.
INDIA.
  OPIUM CULTIVATION.
  OPIUM CULTIVATION.
  WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION.
  WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION.
  EAST AFRICAN REPORT.
  EAST AFRICAN REPORT.
  RUSSIAN TRADE.
  RUSSIAN TRADE.
  AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH.
  AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH.
  MATERNITY BENEFIT.
  MATERNITY BENEFIT.
POST OFFICE.
  TRAFFIC SECTIONS.
  TRAFFIC SECTIONS.
  CHRISTMAS WORK (PAY).
  CHRISTMAS WORK (PAY).
  UNDERGROUND CABLES.
  UNDERGROUND CABLES.
  FACILITIES, PALMERS GREEN.
  FACILITIES, PALMERS GREEN.
EDUCATION.
  SCHOOL-LEAVING AGE.
  SCHOOL-LEAVING AGE.
  EXPENDITURE.
  EXPENDITURE.
  SCHOOL DEFECTS (INSPECTORS' REPORTS).
  SCHOOL DEFECTS (INSPECTORS' REPORTS).
ROYAL NAVY.
  STOREHOUSEMEN.
  STOREHOUSEMEN.
  SHIPBUILDING PROGRAMME.
  SHIPBUILDING PROGRAMME.
  AIRCRAFT-CARRIER "ARGUS."
  AIRCRAFT-CARRIER "ARGUS."
NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
  TUBERCULAR CASES.
  TUBERCULAR CASES.
  DEPENDANT'S ALLOWANCE.
  DEPENDANT'S ALLOWANCE.
SCOTLAND.
  ADMINISTRATIVE SCHEMES.
  ADMINISTRATIVE SCHEMES.
  POTATOES.
  POTATOES.
  HIRE-PURCHASK SYSTEM.
  HIRE-PURCHASK SYSTEM.
  FARINA FACTORY, MONIKIE.
  FARINA FACTORY, MONIKIE.
AGRICULTURE.
  CEREALS AND POTATOES (YIELD).
  CEREALS AND POTATOES (YIELD).
  (CEREALS PRICES)
  (CEREALS PRICES)
  GRADING AND MARKING.
  GRADING AND MARKING.
  WORKERS (LONG-TERM HIRINGS).
  WORKERS (LONG-TERM HIRINGS).
  DERELICT LAND.
  DERELICT LAND.
  ESTATE AND SUCCESSION DUTIES.
  ESTATE AND SUCCESSION DUTIES.
TRANSPORT.
  MOTORING OFFENCES, LONDON.
  MOTORING OFFENCES, LONDON.
  TRAFFIC FACILITIES, FIRTH OU FORTH.
  TRAFFIC FACILITIES, FIRTH OU FORTH.
  RELIABILITY TRIALS, KENT.
  RELIABILITY TRIALS, KENT.
  ELECTRICITY COMMISSIONERS.
  ELECTRICITY COMMISSIONERS.
  NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE FUND.
  NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE FUND.
  EXCESS PROFITS DUTY.
  EXCESS PROFITS DUTY.
  CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS (IMPORTATION).
  CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS (IMPORTATION).
INCOME TAX.
  ASSESSMENTS.
  ASSESSMENTS.
  REGISTERED OFFICES (TRANSFERENCE ABROAD).
  REGISTERED OFFICES (TRANSFERENCE ABROAD).
  CHILDREN ALLOWANCES.
  CHILDREN ALLOWANCES.
  ECONOMIC ADVISORY COUNCIL.
  ECONOMIC ADVISORY COUNCIL.
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (EXAMINATION, EXECUTIVE CLASS).
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (EXAMINATION, EXECUTIVE CLASS).
TRADE AND COMMERCE.
  COCOA PREPARATIONS (IMPORT DUTY).
  COCOA PREPARATIONS (IMPORT DUTY).
  IMPORT DUTIES.
  IMPORT DUTIES.
  IMPERIAL PREFERENCE.
  IMPERIAL PREFERENCE.
  DUMPING.
  DUMPING.
  IRON AND STEEL.
  IRON AND STEEL.
  FORGED SECURITY CERTIFICATES.
  FORGED SECURITY CERTIFICATES.
  COST-OF-LIVING INDEX FIGURE (CLOTHING).
  COST-OF-LIVING INDEX FIGURE (CLOTHING).
  NATIONAL UNION OF RAILWAYMEN (RULES).
  NATIONAL UNION OF RAILWAYMEN (RULES).
  EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGES (ELECTION POSTERS).
  EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGES (ELECTION POSTERS).
UNEMPLOYMENT.
  BENEFIT.
  BENEFIT.
  INSURANCE BILL (LIVE REGISTER, ADDITIONS).
  INSURANCE BILL (LIVE REGISTER, ADDITIONS).
  ALIEN MUSICIANS.
  ALIEN MUSICIANS.
  ALLOTMENTS.
  ALLOTMENTS.
  HARVESTING, CANADA.
  HARVESTING, CANADA.
  MUSICIANS AND WAITERS.
  MUSICIANS AND WAITERS.
  ALIEN WAITERS.
  ALIEN WAITERS.
  WOOLWICH.
  WOOLWICH.
  SOUTHALL.
  SOUTHALL.
  INSURANCE FUND.
  INSURANCE FUND.
  ROYAL AIR FORCE (OFFICERS' PAY).
  ROYAL AIR FORCE (OFFICERS' PAY).
  DARTMOOR PRISONERS (SIGHTSEERS).
  DARTMOOR PRISONERS (SIGHTSEERS).
  CAPITAL PUNISHMENT (SELECT COMMITTEE).
  CAPITAL PUNISHMENT (SELECT COMMITTEE).
PUBLIC HEALTH.
  VACCINATION.
  VACCINATION.
  BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS.
  BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS.
  PRESERVED MILK (IMPORTS).
  PRESERVED MILK (IMPORTS).
  MATERNTITY AND CHILD WELFARE, WOOLWICH.
  MATERNTITY AND CHILD WELFARE, WOOLWICH.
HOUSING.
  OPERATIVES (OUTPUT).
  OPERATIVES (OUTPUT).
  WOMEN HOUSE-PROPERTY MANAGERS.
  WOMEN HOUSE-PROPERTY MANAGERS.
  STATISTICS.
  STATISTICS.
  SLUM CLEARANCE SCHEMES.
  SLUM CLEARANCE SCHEMES.
  RURAL WORKERS ACT (LOANS).
  RURAL WORKERS ACT (LOANS).
POOR LAW.
  CASUAL WARD, WOODLEY.
  CASUAL WARD, WOODLEY.
  AGRICULTURAL WORKERS.
  AGRICULTURAL WORKERS.
  CHILDREN'S PLAYGROUNDS.
  CHILDREN'S PLAYGROUNDS.
  NEW EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGE, WALSALL.
  NEW EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGE, WALSALL.
Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

PRIVATE BILL FEES.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, you will remember that just before the Christmas adjournment I mentioned that it would be necessary to make some such proposition as that which appears in the two Motions (one following the other) that are on the Order Paper. There is nothing in these Motions which is outside of what I referred to on that occasion, and unless any of yowl. Lordships desire that I should elaborate anything I will leave the matter there; merely reminding your Lordships that the ultimate result of the charging of these fees will be that in a Joint Committee the parties would have to pay very much less than they would pay should no Joint. Committee be agreed to and they therefore would be called upon to pay separate fees in the two Houses. Again, I would emphasise the fact that the fees of your Lordships' House are a very small proportion of the cost of obtaining an Act of Parliament as a Private Bill. At the same time to a great extent we are doing something to make it cheaper by these two Motions. I therefore submit the first Motion to your Lordships.
Moved, That the Schedule of Fees to be charged and taken in respect of Bills in the House of Lords referred to in Standing Order 147A be amended as follows:—
At the end of that part of the Schedule which refers to Local or Personal Bills insert:—
Joint Committees.
In the case of every Local Bill referred to a Joint Committee, whether by this House or the House of Commons, the following fees shall be charged and taken in respect of the Joint Committee:
For every day on which Counsel appear in support of Bill £5
For every day on which Counsel Agents or appear in support of a Petition £2
In the case of every Local Bill referred to a Joint Committee by this House the following further fees shall be charged and taken in respect of the Joint Committee:
Every Petition in favour of or against a Bill not praying to be heard £1
Every Petition praying to be heard against a Bill £2
Every Petition in favour of a Bill and praying to be heard against alteration therein £2
Order for attendance of witnesses, each witness £1
Every witness to whom an oath or affirmation is administered before a Committee 2s.
Committee on any Local Bill £5
Report, any Local Bill, with Amendment £4
Report, any Local Bill, without amendment £2
Report, Bill not to proceed £1
Order on Report that promoters do not intend to proceed further with Bill £1
—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: My Lords, the second Motion refers to the procedure which will be followed when Bills are divided. We know that there will be some such cases submitted to your Lordships in due course. I beg, therefore, to make the Motion standing in my name.
Moved to resolve, That in case during the present Session of Parliament any Local Bill be divided before the Second Reading in this House into two Bills, the usual fees shall be charged in this House in respect of each of the two divided Bills, provided that there shall be remitted to the promoters in respect of the fees applicable to Second Reading and Third Reading in this House the excess, if any, of the fees charged on the two divided Bills over the fees which would have been charged on the Bill as read a first time in this House.—(The Earl of Dononughmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

REDCROSS STREET BURIAL GROUND (BRISTOL) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a.
ROYAL EXCHANGE ASSURANCE BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a.
SHROPSHIRE, WORCESTERSHIRE, AND STAFFORDSHIRE ELECTRIC POWER BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a.

ROTHE SAY TRAMWAYS AND OMNIBUSES ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, deemed to have been reported from the Committee.
Bill read 3a (according to Order).
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE LORD MUIR MACKENZIE moved, after Clause 34, to insert the following new clause:—
Accounts of omnibus undertaking.
The company shall keep the accounts in respect of their omnibus undertaking separate from their other accounts distinguishing therein capital from revenue.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name, which is simply for the purpose of enabling separate accounts to be kept of the omnibus undertaking under the provisions of the Bill.
Amendment moved—
Page 25, after Clause 34, insert the sail new clause.—(Lord Muir Mackenzie.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (GOSPORT EXTENSION) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.

WEST INDIAN SUGAR INDUSTRY.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK VISCOUNT ELIBANK rose to call attention to the serious state of the British
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West Indian sugar industry and to press His Majesty's Government for the early publication of the Report of the West Indian Sugar Commission which has recently returned from the West Indies. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I rise to call attention to the question mentioned in my Notice on the Paper. This is not the occasion for a long or informative speech, and I only propose to state the facts as briefly as possible. It will be within the recollection of your Lordships that some four months ago His Majesty's Government decided to appoint a Royal Commission, consisting of two gentlemen, one a distinguished member of your Lordships' House, Lord Olivier, whom we are glad to see back here to-day after his long journey. His Majesty's Government appointed that Commission with the object of investigating the position of the sugar industry in the West Indies and British Guiana, and generally to make recommendations as to how the position might be remedied.
The members of the Commission have returned from the West Indies, and we learn from a statement in the Press that in the first instance a Report of the Commission's findings was cabled to the Colonial Office and received there at the end of December—four or five weeks ago. We have also learned from a statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Olivier, himself in the Press to-day, that the full Report has been presented now to the Colonial Office and is in the hands of that Office. My object in raising this matter is to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies for the earliest publication of that Report, so that those who are engaged in the sugar industry in the West Indies and in British Guiana, and also those who are interested in the sugar business in this country, may know at the earliest possible moment what that Report contains and what its recommendations are. My reason for urging the earliest publication of that Report is that the condition of the sugar industry in the West Indies, critical as it was at the time the Commission was appointed, has become more critical still, and is growing more critical every day. The continued over-production of sugar in foreign countries, sheltered behind high tariffs, and subsidised and assisted by cartels, has so flooded

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the markets of the world that our Colonial sugar industry finds it impossible to compete with it.
We have to-day a very interesting statement in the shape of an interview between Lord Olivier and the Secretary of the West India Committee which was published in The Times this morning. In the course of that interview he gives some very interesting and very vital facts as affecting the situation to-day. For instance, he says:—
"There is now a load of over 5,000,000 tons of visible stocks unsold—and the over-production in 1930 seems likely to add to it another 1,000,000 tons."
I should like to refer to another matter. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Snowden, in another place, speaking in July last, indicated that it was his intention to sweep away all duties on foodstuffs during the term of office of this Government. At the same time he said he realised that the abolition of the Sugar Duties might and would bear very hardly upon the Colonial sugar industry, especially in the West Indies and British Guiana. It was as a result of that, as I understand it, that His Majesty's Government agreed to appoint this Royal Commission and send it to the West Indies.
What does Lord Olivier say about that? I ought to preface the quotation by mentioning that if the Sugar Duties are repealed then, automatically, the preference on the sugar industry, which to-day amounts to a sum of about £3 15 s. a ton, would automatically disappear. Lord Olivier says:—
"If sugar throughout the world were being produced and sold under free trade conditions, the West Indian Colonies would be selling at good profits. As it is, they are selling—when they can sell at all—at a loss, even with the help of the British and Canadian tariff preferences."
It is clear that sugar is not being sold to-day under free trade conditions. As I have already pointed out to your Lordships, this over-production of sugar, which is being loaded upon the markets of the world, is very largely due to high protective tariffs, to subsidies and to cartels, and I would suggest to the Government, if I may venture to do so, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer might very well, in view of the financial exigencies which exist to-day and which everyone admits, consider the practicability
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of making a statement which will take the sugar industry out of the state of uncertainty in which it rests to-day. He might tell us, knowing as one can only believe will be the case, that it will not be possible to remove or reduce the Sugar Duties this year and that he will be prepared to continue the preferential duty which does exist.
What is happening as the result of this state of uncertainty with regard to the retention or non-retention of the preferential duty? The English refiners in this country have inserted a clause in their buying contracts and that clause reads to this effect:—
"The price stated in this contract includes the amount of preference in the duty based upon rates in force at the date of contract. Should there be any reduction in the amount of the preference in duty before the Budget introduced in 1930 or as a result of that Budget, then the seller shall reimburse the buyer by the exact amount of such reduction on the full quantity of the contract, notwithstanding the fact that a part or whole of the sugar to which this contract refers may already have been melted."
Those last words are the vital part of that particular clause: that—
"the seller shall reimburse the buyer by the exact amount of such reduction on the full quantity of the contract, notwithstanding the fact that a part or whole of the sugar to which this contract refers may already have been melted."
How can you expect business to be carried on under those conditions?
The effect of that clause is that to-day the British refiners are not bidding and have not bid for Colonial sugar in this market for some months. Not only that, but the Canadian Government give £4 8s. per ton preference, and Canadian refiners are taking advantage of the state of uncertainty in this country regarding the preferential duty and of this clause in the refiners' contract to come to this country and bid for British Colonial sugar at £10 5s. per ton, for February and March and £10 13,s. 6d.for April shipment, which is the actual price of the sugar without any preference at all. Taking the average cost of the production of sugar in the West Indies and British Guiana to-day—and it is a part of the world where sugar is produced more cheaply than anywhere else except, perhaps, Java—that means that the sugar producers in these Colonies are being asked to sell their sugar at a

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loss varying from £3 down to £2 10 s. per ton for the next three months. What industry can stand that? The noble Lord, Lord Olivier, who has such an intimate knowledge not only of present but of former conditions in the West Indies, and who has so recently been there and again investigated very carefully on behalf of His Majesty's Government the conditions existing to-day, tells us that as a result of this the sugar industry must gradually expire, and that nearly all the plantations must go out of business altogether.
That, shortly, is the condition as it exists. I am going to appeal to the Government for two things. Firstly, I am going to appeal to the Government to persuade, if possible, Mr. Snowden, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to make a statement with regard to the retention of the preferential duties on sugar. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer were to make that statement I can assure you that that would immediately prove of very great, if temporary, relief. I am also going to appeal to the Government for the very earliest publication of the Report of this Commission, because I think it is of the utmost importance that those who are interested in sugar and those who, like ourselves in this House, have a responsibility for the well-being of the Colonies should know as soon as possible what are those recommendations. Moreover, if those recommendations are to be adopted it is important they should be carried out as quickly as possible.
LORD OLIVIER: My Lords, I do not think that the circumstance that at the present moment I am probably the best informed member of your Lordships' House on this subject makes it incumbent upon me to be silent and to refrain from supporting my noble friend on the other side of the House. My noble friend and I are familiar with the circumstances of the West Indies, and they are to us very much as Devon and Cornwall are to others. We have friends there, we have worked there, we know the interests of the Island intimately, and we perhaps feel more strongly than some members of your Lordships' House the intense gravity of the situation now threatening the West Indies, although I am quite sure that the members of the Government and all members of the House, if the facts were within their knowledge, would feel just
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as strong a sympathy and just as strong a conviction that steps must be taken to avert the impending calamity.
There is nothing whatever confidential in the conversation I had with the Secretary of the West India Committee which my noble friend just quoted. There is nothing whatever confidential in any part of our Report. All that is in our Report is statements of fact and findings very carefully canvassed, all of which have been publicly canvassed and taken in evidence and discussed by my colleague and myself in the West Indies. If anybody were to undertake the immense labour of wading through the files of the West Indian newspapers they would probably be able to write as good a Report on the subject as my colleague and myself, except of course the minute analyses which we have made with the assistance of our agricultural adviser, Mr. Jones, a man of great experience in the West Indies, of the factory work and cultivation work which make our Report perhaps a fuller document on the subject than has yet been published. In the interview which I had with the Secretary of the West India Committee, which the noble Lord has quoted, I expressed cursorily the opinion that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer made the statement which he did in July last he really could not have been fully acquainted with the facts of the situation. I say that in no impertinent or cavilling spirit, but the facts of the case have been made much more clear since the Chancellor of the Exchequer made his announcement.
Since then there has been published a very important document of the Economic Committee of the League of Nations which made a minute analysis of the world situation and of the causes which are conducing to the present difficulties in the sugar world. Taking that as our foundation, my colleague and myself have written our Report filling up the lacunœ of that Report with reference to the West Indies and taking that as an authentic document which may be held as the governing piece of evidence in the situation. We have elaborated that with criticisms of the situation in the various West Indian Colonies as the result of our investigations of the subject, and we have

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come to the conclusion—a conclusion that is quite unquestionable—that under present circumstances, and even with the preference, the West Indian sugar industry cannot continue to be carried on for two reasons: (1), because the collapse of credit is making it impossible for those persons who have to come for advances to banks and other people to get those advances or to get credit beyond the present crop: and (2), because the statements of the Chancellor of the Exchequer have knocked the bottom out of the market and no price can be got by West Indian producers at the present time for the sugar that they are now turning out, which is filling their warehouses, which they must get rid of somehow and for which they cannot get anything like a decent price. Those are the bones of the situation.
That is the position with the preference, and I say uncompromisingly, and your Lordships may take it as an unquestionable fact, that if and when the preference is taken away without any compensating or equivalent protection, the whole of the West Indian sugar industry, except so far as it provides for home consumption, will immediately be put in process of winding up. There will be no re-planting, existing crops will be taken off and sold for what they will fetch, and in the course of the next eighteen months, if present conditions continue and the preference is abolished, the West Indian sugar industry will come to an end.
No member of your Lordships' House who knows anything of the West Indies can contemplate that state of things without great perturbation. It will mean that the four Colonies which depend chiefly on sugar, St. Kitts, Antigua, Barbados and British Guiana, will be entirely knocked to pieces. The whole of the labouring population in the three first-named centres will be thrown out of work, and more than half that of British Guiana, and the whole economy of those Colonies will collapse. There will be great distress among labourers, there will be an entire cessation of the principal exports, there will be an entire destruction of purchasing power and there will be an almost entire collapse of the public Revenues. The basis of the society of those Colonies will be permanently destroyed. Those are results which I do not wish to elaborate. I just
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state them. They have been elaborated in our Report. These things will come to pass if the adumbrated intention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to do away with the existing preference without some compensating succedaneum for it is carried out. That is a position at which I am sure my noble friend will be very much perturbed, and against which it is his business and that of the present Government to find a remedy.
Let me add that it is right and proper that a remedy should be found, even apart from the great distress that will be caused in the Colonies and the great damage that will be done to the British Empire if such a thing should come about. The West Indian producers of sugar produce sugar, from the world point of view, quite economically. If you take the cost of production of sugar in the various countries of the world, you will find that the British West Indies, Fiji and, I believe, also Mauritius—all British Colonies, long accustomed to carry on the industry, having spent a great deal of labour and capital on it and devoted much intelligence to building it up—come next to the great phenomenal producers of the world, Cuba and Java, in which the situations are very peculiar in the economy of sugar production. Cuba is the cheapest, but at present they are carrying on at a most serious loss to everybody engaged in the industry. Next to Java and Cuba, the West Indies are the most economic producers of sugar in the world. Cuba and Java together produce less than one-third of the world production of sugar. The West Indies come next, and the West Indies, Cuba and Java produce together a little less than one-third of the whole world production. In the rest of the world there is increasing cost of production, rising to double that of the West Indian Colonies. Is it not on the face of it an absurdity to say that it is economical for the world, for the British Empire or for anybody else to abolish West Indian sugar production?
I say, as the noble Viscount said, that this has nothing to do with free trade. If we were in a free trade world and sugar were produced and distributed on free trade principles, the West Indian producers would be making considerable profit. I think I have said enough about the gravity of the circumstances. They are fully established, as I hold, in our Report.

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I am quite sure that my noble friend is duly impressed with it and will do his best on behalf of the Colonies to seek a remedy. Let me add this. If there is anything in our Report which the noble Lords thinks controversial, or which any economist in the Cabinet thinks controversial, I challenge the noble Lord to make use of that newly established engine, the Economic Commission, which has been set up, to submit our Report to them and to allow my colleague and me and other experts on sugar to appear before them, not merely to state the facts, which are indisputable, but to state the argument which we found upon them. If there is any question of economic applicability in this matter let that brand-new engine of economists and statesmen get to work upon it. I do not think that my noble friend on reading the Report will find that it has any fallacies in its argument but, if he does so, I make that suggestion.
With regard to the publication of the Report, as a member of this House and of the public and as one with a life-long connection with the West Indies, I think it is of the utmost importance in the interests of the West Indies, both for the reasons given by my noble friend and for other reasons, that this Report, this perfectly non-controversial statement of facts, should be put in the hands of the electorate of this country and of Parliament, because it imposes upon His Majesty's Government the necessity of very serious consideration, and I am quite sure that His Majesty's Government will be assisted in that consideration and not hampered in it by a general understanding on the part of the public of what the issues are and of the premises upon which action ought to be taken. I do not think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking last July, was fully apprised of the facts of the situation. If he had been apprised of them he could not have made a statement which, on the face of it, was a derisory statement—just as derisory a statement as that of the King of Abyssinia or Assyria who said to one of the Kings of Israel: "I will give you two or three thousand chariots and horses if you for your part are able to put riders upon them."
The Chancellor of the Exchequer suggested that the difficulties of the West Indian sugar producers in facing world
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competition could be met by a little assistance in improving their methods of production. Their methods of production are pretty good and they do not require very much improvement. Every West Indian sugar producer knows how the methods could be improved if they had a little more credit and money to turn around on, but they have been dealing with a difficult market. If they are given a stable market they will go on without asking the Imperial Government for any assistance, and if they have a stable market and proper prices are assured for them they will not want any assistance at all. All they want are a fair price and a fair market. Any little improvements they could make would not put them in a position to face the world competition that has been built up by this enormous accumulation of stock's, founded on protective tariffs, on bounties and on subsidies.
The thing goes on in the most maddening way. Take Czecho-Slovakia. They say: "We must subsidise our beet industry because we have an important wheat industry and in order to enable the farmers to grow wheat more cheaply we must subsidise the beet industry." It is the same in Germany and Norway. The subsidy which helps the Continental sugar producers enables them to dump sugar outside, and the assistance which is given to the wheat producers enables them to dump wheat in this country; and so the thing goes on. Just now the Government of Norway has found that the bonus given to the sugar producers is not sufficient, because it does not enable them to give the farmers a high enough price for their roots. Consequently, the bonus is being increased in the interests of the sugar producers and also of the farmers. So it goes on. The lower the price of sugar falls the more essential it is to increase the bonus and the assistance. Under present conditions the West Indian producers are producing sugar at an average loss of 25 s. per ton, but if the preference is taken away they will produce sugar at an average loss of £5 per ton, and obviously the Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot have been aware of that fact when he suggested that a few improvements in production would enable them to maintain production.
All that is set out in this Report, and I think it is important that the country

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and Parliament should know that as soon as possible. I am sure that my noble friend is not unwilling to publish the Report, but last night I saw an extraordinary suggestion made that it might be necessary for the Government to declare their policy before publishing the Report. Twelve months ago a very important Report on East Africa was published, because it was thought to be a matter of urgent public interest. Later on another Report on the same topic was published, for the same reason. From that day to this His Majesty's Government have not been able to deliver themselves of a policy founded upon either of those Reports, and East Africa and the world are still waiting anxiously for it. Nevertheless, it was right and useful that both those Reports should be published, and it is equally right that this Report should be published at an early date. There is nothing confidential in it.
I will give my noble friend a last suggestion. The West Indian Colonies are paying for this Report. I do not say that those who pay the piper should call the tune in this case. My colleague and I thought it our duty to sing what tune we thought right, but I think the West Indies are entitled to have the tune played to them as soon as possible. Not only are the West Indies paying for the Report, but they are also presenting the Chancellor of the Exchequer with the amount of the Income Tax which he will be able to take from the fees paid to my colleague and myself as an honorarium, and therefore he will have a considerable windfall from the West Indian Colonies owing to the setting up of this Commission. That windfall will pay for the expeditious and full printing of the Report, and the appendices, and I urge my noble friend to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to allow that amount to be repaid to the West Indies if it is not required for the printing of the Report. I share the strong feeling of my noble friend as to the urgent importance of the West Indian situation, and agree that it is in the public interest and the Imperial interest that there should be a full understanding upon the subject throughout the whole country at the earliest possible moment.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS AND THE COLONIES (LORD PASSFIELD): My
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Lords, I think your Lordships will excuse me if I do not follow all the remarks of my noble friend behind me upon the subject of this Report and its publication. I have in a small way known something of the joys of authorship, and of the impatience of the author to see his work in print, but I have seldom known an author quite so impatient. Part of the manuscript of this very voluminous Report was delivered to me, I think, just about seven days ago. We still have not got the whole of it.
LORD OLIVIER: I told my noble friend, verbally and in writing, that the whole of the Report relative to his inquiry was in his hands last Saturday. It is now in the printers' hands, and I have here a proof.
LORD PASSFIELD: My noble friend is very hasty. I was going to say that the important part of the Report has certainly been in my hands for five days, or something like that. It was immediately taken into consideration. The first thing to do was to print it. I think by now nearly all of it is printed, but I fancy there is still a part to come, though I admit that no doubt the latter part is not so important and urgent as the former part; but it shows a little undue impatience if the Government are to be reproached for not having issued a Report to the public on such an important subject, with important proposals in it, to which my noble friend did not allude, before the Government have had an opportunity of at any rate reading it and considering it. Of course, this Report will be published, and I hope it will be published without any undue delay, but my noble friend behind me is well aware of the necessary organisation not only of one Government Office but of the machinery of Government, and I am not in a position to say when this Report will be published, but it will be published, I hope, long before the ruin of the West Indies.
I do not want to minimise or to understate the gravity of the economic position facing us not only in these Colonies but also in Mauritius and to some extent Fiji. The Commission to which my noble friend was attached was not the only one sent out. A similar Commission went to Mauritius, and the Report of that very eminent agriculturist, Sir Francis Watts, has just

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been received. I may say at once that his Report shows in Mauritius a condition of things which is as grave as the condition of things in the West Indies. It will have to be taken into account at the same time as the Report of the West Indian Commission. This is not the first crisis which has overtaken the sugar industry. I think as a matter of fact that every twenty or thirty years during the last one hundred years there has been a crisis in the sugar industry. So much is that the case, that when, six months ago, I was told at the Colonial Office of an impending crisis, I am afraid I laughed and said: "Another sugar crisis." The West Indies have weathered these former crises, from which they have suffered, and I hope that they are not going to come to an end now. Undoubtedly the present crisis is one of exceptional severity and gravity. Fundamentally, the cause of the situation is that the world's production of sugar has out-run consumption. Consumption is increasing at the rate of 4 per cent. or 5 per cent. a year, but nevertheless production has been in excess of consumption by between one and two million tons each year, and there appear to be now visible stocks depressing the market of something like 5,000,000 tons, the annual consumption being about 27,000,000 tons. That 5,000,000 tons is an incubus, and is no doubt depressing prices quite unduly. But it is an extremely difficult thing for His Majesty's Government, or for any Government, to get rid of that incubus.
If I might venture, without minimising the severity of the crisis, to look at it from another point of view, I would say that it is an unfortunate incident of the system of production under which we live that it passes from excess to deficiency, and from deficiency to excess. At the present time the sugar producers of all the world have made frantic efforts to increase their production, with the result that they are getting lower prices for their product than before. And it must be remembered that ten years ago the West Indies were making huge profits on their sugar, earning an enormous percentage on the investment of capital which they had made. And I am afraid it is one of the incidents of this system of production—a very regrettable incident—that those who make the profits during the good years may not be those who
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bear the loss when the bad years come. Of course, if we were actually conducting a system of scientific and strict bookkeeping, those high profits in the good years would not have been taken as income at all. The normal percentage of capital might perhaps have been credited as income, and the rest would have been put aside as an equalisation of dividends fund, as it is called in some cases. Unfortunately, that is not the way in which these things happen. The enormous profits which some people were fortunate enough to receive in the boom years—and, of course, it is almost incredible to-day, the profit that was made in those days by sugar producers, and by other producers too—do not come as any sort of compensation to the producers in the bad years.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: May I ask if the producers are the same people in the two cases?
LORD PASSFIELD: I think the noble Duke can hardly have heard my statement, which was that the producers have changed. I was going on to say that some of the more fortunate of the holders in those years sold out at enormous prices. I have heard of one case where the sale was made on the condition that a quarter of the purchase price should remain as mortgage, and when the bad years came, a few years ago, the seller bought back his estate at the amount of the mortgage. That has happened in more cases than one. This depression in the trade has produced a catastrophic fall of prices—something like 65 per cent. in the last five years, and very much more than that if you make the comparison with ten or fifteen years ago. The Economic Committee of the League of Nations, to which my noble friend has alluded, has made an analysis of the world production in a very valuable Report, which quite bears out the discoveries that we have just made, both as to the West Indies and as to Mauritius.
What we can do in that matter I cannot tell at the present time. I am bound to say that the difficulty seems almost insuperable. We are bound to see what we can do for the West Indies and for Mauritius for many reasons. If the industry collapses we shall have a large proportion of the population, in some places almost the whole population,

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on the hands of the Government in a state of destitution. Something would have to be done for that reason, if for no other. As a matter of fact, we are bound by higher reasons to have that consideration for the West Indian population. They have been brought there in the past at the instance of people of our own race, to some extent at the instance of former Governments of this country they have been brought there from other places, in order that they might work at sugar production, and we are surely bound to have regard for their welfare if the industry should collapse and they should be cast into destitution. But I am not going to be led even into a consideration of the effect upon the sugar position of the existing preferences in this country and elsewhere.
Of course, it is not in my power to forecast the Budget, but I should just like to remind noble Lords that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that it was his desire, or his intention, if he had the power, to sweep away all duties on foodstuffs, I understand that he was only expressing the common feeling of all three Parties in the House, and, as a matter of fact, I understand that the Liberal Party is as strong against duties on foodstuffs as the Labour Party is. I understand, too, on the highest authority that the Conservative Party is against putting import duties on foodstuffs. That is a doctrine common to all three Parties in the House, and for a very good reason. It must be admitted that duties upon foodstuffs, necessarily raising the prices of those foodstuffs—you would not put them on except for that reason—puts a quite exceptional and disproportionate burden upon the cost of living of the great mass of the people. A duty upon foodstuffs violates in the grossest way all the canons of taxation. It was pointed out by the Colwyn Committee that, among all duties on all foodstuffs in this country, that upon sugar was the least defensible, and that it ought to be marked out for abolition at the earliest possible moment.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: Might I ask, then, why we keep an Empire at all? What is the good of having Colonies? Why is it that we spent on the West Indies over many years hundreds of thousands of pounds, and lost many lives in building up these Colonies?
LORD PASSFIELD: I do not quite understand the relevance of the noble Viscount's remark. I was talking about duties on foodstuffs. Does the noble Viscount take it for granted that help for the West Indies is impossible without duties on foodstuffs? Then why do all three Parties in the State pronounce against duties on foodstuffs? Surely for the reason that there is the utmost scientific authority against duties on foodstuffs; and any Party which puts duties on foodstuffs is flying in the face, not only of public opinion, but of all the science on the subject. It may be necessary for some other reason, but do not let us pretend that it is otherwise than contrary to the principles of all three Parties in the State. Well, that has no necessary relevance to the question of the present state of the West Indies. The present state of the West Indies requires, no doubt, the most serious consideration, but I would utter a word of warning that it is not desirable to attach this particular question to any one prescribed remedy. There may possibly be other remedies, and whatever action is taken we must not suppose that we are confined to one particular remedy. That is a mistake which is very often made.
I should like to point out that if, in order to subsidise the planters in the West Indies, a duty is put upon foodstuffs, or a duty is continued on foodstuffs which would otherwise be removed, that means that the cost of that help to the West Indian planters is not placed where it ought to be borne—namely, by the community as a whole in proportion to its ability to pay, but is levied on the child's jam and upon the necessary food of the people. It would be a mean thing to do, even for the West Indies, to obtain that assistance in that worst of all possible ways. Because remember, it is cash handed out from the Chancellor of the Exchequer as if it had been a grant-in-aid, but if it were a grant-in-aid it would be added to the Income Tax and the Super-tax, and we should have to bear our share of it. Is it wise to propose that it should be levied upon the sugar in the tea of the charwoman, the jam of the children of the labourer? Is it wise to suggest that it should be levied in that way, rather than in proportion to our means? If we have to meet this great charge for the sake of the

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West Indies and for the sake of Mauritius, and for the sake of ulterior Imperial reasons, is it wise that we should suggest that that necessary charge should be levied deliberately in such a way that we shall escape and that all persons of any appreciable means will not feel it at all, but that it will fall with pretty severe weight upon the man with £2 a week or upon the old age pensioner? I do not believe that the West Indian planters would ask that this should be done. I do not believe that any noble Lord here would ask that it should be done. I venture to think that your Lordships would say: "If a large charge is to be borne for the sake of the West Indies that charge had better be borne by all of us in proportion to our ability to pay and not by the poorest section of the community in proportion to their means."
There are, of course, other things to be considered besides that. The noble Viscount who opened this debate referred to the way in which the situation has been intensified or even caused, I think he said, by the whole machinery of tariffs and cartels and hidden subsidies of one form and another. I largely agree with him, of course, in that. But I venture to think that that point of view is a little exaggerated. You have the bottom fact that whereas the West Indies are producing sugar, let us say, at £13 a ton, Java and Cuba are producing it, roughly speaking, at £9 a ton. They are not producing it in that way by any subsidy, by any tariffs, or by any cartels; that is the actual cost of production at the factory.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: Might I interrupt the noble Lord for a moment to say that that is on account of the soil of Java and Cuba being so very much richer than the soil of the West Indian Colonies?
LORD PASSFIELD: I have no doubt it is on account of the soil; but that is why the industry San be carried on more economically there than anywhere else. Let me put a case. Supposing that Java and Cuba with their advantages were able to produce all the sugar that the world required—and they produce a very large proportion of it now—what a calamity it would be that the world should get sugar at £9 a ton instead of growing
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it on less grateful soils at £13 a ton, and a great deal more in some places! Are we going to think that this abundance is a great calamity? We used to think that of scarcity. I think in the Prayer Book there is a prayer against scarcity. There is no prayer against abundance in the Prayer Book. There are prayers against dearness in time of dearth and famine, but there is no prayer against cheapness. Is not that what we are all after? Is not the whole of the effort of civilisation in industry directed to getting the cost of production down to the lowest possible point? I am not going to be appalled or alarmed if things are getting cheaper. That is what we want. Does anybody venture to say that he wants things to get dearer?
But that does not alleviate the present problem. Because we have chosen to conduct our industry upon the system which is known to your Lordships, we are now called upon to come to the rescue of the industry out of which the profits have been taken in past years, now that it has come up against this position in Cuba and Java. Remember that Java and Cuba do not undersell the West Indies merely because of their climate or their soil. It is because in Java in particular they have put a very large amount of science into the work. They have discovered new canes. They have discovered more productive sugar plants, and they have put the utmost skill and capital and science into their machinery. I do not say that that has not been done elsewhere in particular places; but Java has been signally successful in sugar production very largely because of the ability and skill of the Dutchmen who have developed that industry. I am not going to say that that is a calamity for the world. Similarly, I have seen the Americans, not in Cuba it is true, but in Hawaii. I have been fed with figures there as to their enormous superiority over everybody else in their sugar production. I did not believe—
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: That is due to a preferential duty, is it not?
LORD OLIVIER: Because the production of Hawaii is greater than the production in the. West Indies.
LORD PASSPIELD: My noble friend is somewhat hasty. I was going to say that I did not believe all the figures that

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were stated to me. But is it not the fact that in Cuba you have, as with the Americans in Hawaii, a low cost of production?
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: That production was built up under a preferential duty given by the United States of America. In twenty years the production under this system went up from 750,000 tons to 4,000,000 tons per annum, which it is today.
LORD PASSFIELD: The noble Lord will know that no amount of preference has anything to do with what the cost of production is. It has to do with the profit, not the cost of production. I am talking about the cost of production and that, whilst it warns us against attaching ourselves to any particular remedy in advance, does not lessen the gravity of the situation or the necessity of something being done regarding the position in the West Indies and in the Mauritius. In that we shall be greatly helped by Reports of my noble friend and his colleague for the West Indies and of Sir Francis Watts for Mauritius. I am sure that noble Lords will realise that it needs a little thinking about, and I am not able at this moment, necessarily, to give your Lordships the least indication of what step the Government will take in the matter. I have made no secret of the fact that something will have to be done. If it is impossible to avert the ruin which will come over a large number of the sugar producers in these Colonies, then, at any rate, we shall have to take no less important action in relieving the distress which will inevitably follow from their ruin.
But it is not altogether so black as might be imagined. I distrust all these figures about average costs of production as being relevant to the circumstances. There are some sugar factories and plantations in the West Indies which are probably able to go on even at low prices. There are others which are hopelessly unable to go on, and obviously those which are hopelessly unable to go on will go under first. It may be that in a way which is, unfortunately, the normal way in capitalist competition, we shall see that the weak producers will be shaken out in a ruthless way and the over-production to which they have contributed will right itself in that way. Somehow or other, whatever is done we have to right this
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over-production. No Government can maintain any industry in the face of over-production in the world market and somehow or other that has to be brought to an end.
I hope we shall be able to do something in the international field—it can only be done in the international field—to deal with this over-production. In so far as countries are deliberately fostering and stimulating the sugar industry in their own areas—and I may remind your Lordships that this country has been doing that for the last five years in its subsidy to the sugar industry and has contributed its share to the overproduction—I think we can go to the other countries and say: "Let us all put on a similar white sheet; we have all been creating the over-production of sugar." In that international way I think something could be done. I do not know what else could be done immediately and I am not able to say. I have given a very inadequate answer. I know the gravity of this situation. I know the importance that it has and I have not failed already to do what I can in the matter; but it is not a matter on which your Lordships will expect the Government to make up its mind instantly, in twenty-four hours or anything of that kind. Certainly, I have no policy for the moment that I am able to announce. With all that I can assure your Lordships that the Government will not be slow in considering the matter and it will have to deal with it with the least possible delay; at any rate, I shall not be wanting in that respect.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: Can the noble Lord tell us when these Papers will be published?
LORD PASSFIELD: I cannot give the date, but the Reports shall certainly be published with the least possible delay. The Government must read them first, and we have not yet been able even to read them.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I do not think anybody could have been better qualified to initiate what has become a debate than the noble Viscount who asked the Question. He has had a very long experience in the West Indies, and nobody could be more suited to sound a note of alarm than himself. The noble Lord, Lord Olivier, has just come

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back from the West Indies. He made a very courageous, a very understanding and a very well seasoned speech, and I think that the thanks of all sugar growers throughout the Empire are very much due to him for what he has done. He at least appreciates the gravity of the situation. I do not want to follow the noble Lord the Secretary of State for the Colonies into his various rambles, which really have nothing to do with the case, but I must say I think it would have been better perhaps if he had commenced his speech with the end of it and not troubled to make some of the first part.
The first part was really all jam and smiles. He said that when he was told of what was going to happen some months ago it really made him laugh. I can assure him it has been no laughing matter to those who have been concerned in this industry, who have put their capital into it, and have lost it, nor for the people who have been working in it. Surely it was unnecessary, in a grave question of this sort, to bring in all that stuff, if I may so call it, with regard to charwomen and their jam and so on. In fact the only person really appealing to our heart-strings whom he did not mention was the widow of the Unknown Warrior. The noble Lord asked: Was it not lamentable that we should tax the food of the poorest of our people. Those may not have been his exact words, but that is really what he meant. I quite agree with him, but I would remind him that everybody has to pay taxation in one way or another, and what I want to point out to him in regard to this free-breakfast-table ideal is this. I wonder if it would not be rather unpalatable to the average working man to feel that every lump of sugar that he was eating was probably foreign, or, if British, was produced in unfair competition by his fellow workers in another country, and that these m retched fellow-workers of his were working there and he was taking their sugar below the cost at which they could produce it—in other words, that he was helping to sweat them and the industry in order that he, the British working man here, might have his food below the cost of production I do not think any British working man has a right to ask for that.
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I do not want to entrench too long upon the time of your Lordships, but I would like to give a few facts from my own personal knowledge derived from some years of experience in the sugar industry. I do not want to follow a good many of the arguments used with regard to Java and so on. This is not the time nor the place for doing so. We shall, no doubt, have ample opportunities, and if the ammunition which the noble Lord uses against us then is of the same type as he has used to-day, I am sure we will be able to engage in a safe battle. I am able to bring some facts to the notice of your Lordships which perhaps were not known to you before. The Colonies that are chiefly under review are Mauritius, British Guiana, the West Indies, especially Trinidad, Barbados and Jamaica. I want to impress upon your Lordships that these Colonies have only one market and that is the British market. That is where all the trouble arises. Under certain conditions they have the Canadian market, but at the present time it is not really open to them. There are no other markets in the world open to the Colonies, and even our own Dominions have closed their doors to them. Yet the Colonies are the only part of our Empire to whose existence the growing of sugar is really vital. In Australia there is a high tariff. They have a definite reason for that; it is because it is necessary for them to keep out sugar if they are to maintain their own industry; and they keep out British sugar. The same applies to South Africa, where the situation is maintained by a price of something like £20 a ton being assured to the grower. That is all right for them, but the balance of all the Australian and South African sugar can then be dumped upon our market at a few shillings and below the cost of production.
As has been stated there is an overproduction of sugar of a million tons in the year, and, as Lord Olivier has said, some five million tons of surplus sugar are now in store waiting to be crashed upon the British market, which is the only market that will take it. The Government of this country seem to be prepared to allow this enormous quantity of sugar to be dumped on our market and thereby destroy the industry in our Colonies. Surely our Colonies might well expect something better than that from a British

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Government. In consequence of sugar being subsidised elsewhere and other markets being protected, other countries are able to dump their surplus here. The result is, as has been pointed out, that the price of sugar outside the protected markets is just about £2 below the cost of production. Our Colonies are able to produce sugar as cheaply as anywhere else in the world, except Java, but here other questions such as pay and labour come in. We have, however, to enter a market where sugar is £2 a ton below the cost of production, and in which we alone are affected because of the high subsidies or protection given by other countries. Our sugar is forbidden to enter into the United States, but American territories receive a preference of 10 s. 3d. per cwt. We are not allowed into their market, but they are allowed into ours. We are not allowed into the market of France, but the French Colonies receive a preference of 7s. 11 d. and any of their surplus sugar is allowed to come into our market. The British Colonies, however, only get 3s. 9d. as against 10 s. 3d., and that is one of the reasons why we cannot compete.
It is suggested that free trade in the world is the answer. I quite agree; we should be glad to have free trade seeing we have the best growing districts and an excellent organisation. But does anyone really and seriously believe that all the world will agree to have free trade in this matter? We are in difficulties at this moment in the West Indies, and we know perfectly well that other countries are not going to adopt free trade and alter their entire fiscal system. We know it is no use discussing that question. Unless the industry is to be allowed to go crash, and with it the West Indies, something has got to be done, and that something is either to increase the preference—I do not want to discuss that question now—or have some other means of making up for the difference caused by these outside subsidies and the low cost at which we have to sell.
There are a number of other considerations that strike one and one in particular which may or may not strike America; but this is a matter which I will not discuss now. Before the War and during the War those engaged in the sugar industry were well able to sell their sugar and various by-products. At
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the present moment, however, whether for good or ill, the duty on a puncheon of rum, which is only 110 gallons, is not less than £500. Obviously the rum industry has suffered. I am not suggesting for one moment that this should be altered in the case of rum, but I do think that those who are dealing with this question should remember that it has a very important bearing on the matter and should be taken into account when considering what assistance should be given to sugar. There is a good deal that one might say with regard to molasses also, but I do not want to trouble your Lordships with that question.
What we want to know is whether the Government are going to do anything during the present crisis. The matter cannot wait. It will take a long time to come to a permanent settlement and by the time a permanent settlement is reached the sugar industry will have gone. It is absolutely vital that something, whether it is good finance or bad finance, whether it is good politics or bad politics, should be done to save the industry in the meantime. Otherwise it will have gone. It is very necessary that the Government should make some statement at an early date, otherwise, as I say, the industry cannot go on. In Barbados it means the very existence of the Island; in Trinidad it is the mainstay; in British Guiana it is equally the mainstay. In Jamaica hundreds of thousands of pounds have been sunk in the industry, which must crash if help is not forthcoming immediately. It is almost touching, because they are such small people, to learn that in the latter Island the Legislature came forward with a small temporary bounty which was the best they could do but which is quite inadequate. As was said by one member of the Legislature: "We are small people and we can do very little, but this is an earnest of our desire to help ourselves, and we hope it will stimulate the great British Government to do something to help us in our distress."
The question was put before the late Government and, though sympathy was expressed and indication given of possible future help, the terrible state of the industry was apparently not appreciated. Then the present Government came in. It is no use saying that this is a sudden thing. The request was immediately

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made to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to the noble Lord opposite, but owing to the Chancellor of the Exchequer being abroad he could do nothing and apparently the noble Lord was unable to do anything. The facts were then given fully to the secretary of State for the Colonies and I cannot believe that the present Chancellor of the Exchequer could have been aware of the facts of the case or could have realised the import of his words when he made his statement that the policy of the present Government was to sweep away all preferences on sugar, definitely using the word sugar. I want to point out that this was a distressed industry and the immediate result was that the whole credit of the industry was destroyed. And as if that were not enough, instructions were issued that in the case of those concerns which were at all shaky and had trade facilities loans, liquidators were to be put in. The moment this was done, of course, the whole of the credit of the industry was gene and then the banks began to call in the whole of their loans. Money that used to be lent to these planters for putting in their next crop was not forthcoming. What the Chancellor of the Exchequer said started a credit crash, and the industry is in a very parlous condition in consequence.
In conclusion I would ask His Majesty's Government to remember the peculiar situation of the Crown Colonies. The Dominions are independent and can look after themselves. The Dominions can consume sufficient of their products to make them worth growing. The Crown Colonies are not consumers and so are entirely dependent upon the British market. Moreover, many of them have no alternative crop that they can grow. If you take sugar away from places like Barbados and British Guiana, what does the node Lord suggest that they are going to grow instead? They are unable to carve out their own way in the world because they are subservient to the Home Government, to a Government in the election of whose members they can take part. This means that the British Government are in a fiduciary position to them and if they let down the West Indies they will be literally guilty of a breach of trust.
It is not as if it were a new story at all. It has been well studied and there
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is enough information at the Colonial Office, if the noble Lord would read it, to occupy him a very long time. The people of these Colonies are simple folk. They have to work hard to make both ends meet. It is no holiday task that they have at the present moment. They are intensely loyal and as a great Empire we cannot afford to neglect our outposts. There are other people who would like to possess those outposts. That, of course, is unthinkable, but the people in these outposts, finding they cannot get help from the main body, may possibly wish to walk out. Finding their quarters quite untenable they may even desert their posts, and they are doing so, I may say, almost every day. Very soon in the West Indies you will not find white men, or at any rate you will not find white men of the type England would like to see there. That is what is happening. These people are not interested in British domestic politics. They are only really interested in their own existence. Is it too much to ask that all Parties in the body politic at home should come together and try to arrive at some agreed and stable policy and not leave the West Indies simply the plaything of the various political Parties here at home? In the meantime it is for the present Government of this country to take rapid action and show that they are not forgetful of the great responsibility which rests upon those who control the destinies of our great Empire. I do implore the noble Lord to get stirring to do something, if he can, in this time of great emergency.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: My Lords, I rise for a moment or two only to add the support of noble Lords on this Bench to the plea made by noble Lords that the Report of Lord Olivier's Commission with regard to this matter should be published at the earliest possible opportunity. No one who has spoken in the course of this debate has desired to minimise the real gravity of the situation. We have listened to a very interesting dissertation from the noble Lord, Lord Passfield, on economics, but I would venture to say that there was little in his speech which could give much hope or encouragement to those unfortunate people who are engaged in this industry in the West Indies. As far as I can

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make out what really matters more than anything else at the present moment is the state of uncertainty which exists.
That state of uncertainty is so great that Colonial sugar is almost unsaleable here at the present moment, and I think that state of uncertainty is due very largely to the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with regard to this matter as long ago as July. The noble Lord, Lord Passfield, treated this statement as if it were a very ordinary one and as if the sentiments expressed in it might be ascribed to both the other Parties in the State. I venture to say that if we look at the statement, it will appear to be a much more definite one than the interpretation which the noble Lord has put upon it would suggest. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said:—
"We were pledged when we were in office to maintain these preferences as long as there were duties upon these articles, but I hope—and I am not anticipating any Budget statement—that before we leave office, if ever we do leave office, we shall have swept away all duties upon food—upon sugar, upon dried fruits and upon all articles of food which are subject to duty at the present time and on which there are preferences."
I think it is natural that those who are concerned in this industry should be alarmed at this statement, and I hope that something will be done as soon as possible to put an end to that state of uncertainty.
The noble Lord, Lord Passfield, spoke about putting duties on foodstuffs. So far as we on this side of the House are concerned, it is not a question of putting duties on, but, if possible, of taking duties off. From what has been said on all sides of the House it is perfectly clear that those engaged in this industry in the West Indies are facing utterly unfair standards of competition in other parts of the world. Although I quite agree that, up to a point, this is a matter for international arrangement, I do most sincerely hope that the noble Lord is not going to suggest that the way to treat this matter is to refer it to the League of Nations and to do nothing else. The industry is in a very sore state at the present time and something should be done at the earliest possible opportunity
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to put an end to this state of uncertainty and to do something to help the industry in the dire straits in which it finds itself. I quite agree that the Government must have time to consider the noble Lord's Report, but I cannot see that this is a reason why this Report should not be published at once. I hope that it will be published at the earliest possible moment and that the policy of the Government upon this matter will also be announced at the earliest possible date.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

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

Consolidated Fund (No. 2),

Arbitration (Foreign Awards),

Unemployment Insurance,

Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (Sheppey Water),

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 13).

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (LORD PARMOOR): My Lords, in moving the adjournment of the House, I should like to say there is some doubt whether we ought to ask the House to assemble on Tuesday, but Motions and Questions might be put down before that day. I think we had better meet on Tuesday. I know of one Motion that could be considered on Tuesday, but of course it may only be a formal sitting. I say that in order that noble Lords should not put themselves to any inconvenience if the business is only of a formal character. I move that the House do now adjourn until Tuesday next.
Moved accordingly, and on Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at six o'clock.

BIRKENHEAD GAS ORDER, 1930.
Special Order proposed to be made on the application of the Mayor, aldermen and burgesses of the County Borough of Birkenhead:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and referred to the Special Orders Committee.
CHORLEY GAS ORDER, 1929.
BARRY GAS ORDER, 1930.
SPALDING GAS ORDER, 1930.
KENDAL GAS ORDER, 1930.
Report from the Special Orders Committee, That no Petition has been presented praying to be heard against the Special Orders; that they have received and considered a Report from the Board of Trade upon the Orders; that in connection with such Report they have considered the question of "vires" and are Of opinion that there is nothing in these Orders to which they think it necessary to call the attention of the House: Read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
PONTARDAWE RURAL DISTRICT ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1929.
GREAT YARMOUTH ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION) ORDER, 1930.
HORNSEA AND SKIRLAUGH DISTRICT ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1929.
TORQUAY ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION, ETC.) ORDER, 1929.
Report from the Special Orders Committee, That no Petition has been presented praying to be heard against the Special Orders, and that there is nothing in these Orders to which they think it necessary to call the attention of the House: Read, and ordered to lie on the Table.