Sitting of 16 May 1930

Preamble
The House met at Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (Ashby-de-la-Zouch and Slough) Bill,
Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (Aylesbury, Chesham, and Guildford) Bill),
Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (Brentford and Chiswick and Ramsgate) Bill,
Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (Chippenham and Grimsby) Bill,
Read the Third time, and passed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Commander Sir BOLTON EYRES MONSELL: May I ask the Government what Supply Votes will be taken on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week?
The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. T. Kennedy): Supplementary to the announcement made yesterday by the Prime Minister, I am now able to say that on three Supply days next week we shall take:
Monday: Vote for the Department of the Lord Privy Seal.
Wednesday: Vote for the Ministry of Agriculture, beet sugar subsidy.
Thursday: Scottish Estimates, including the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Board, and, if time permits, the Vote relating to the Department of Health.
May I say that it is just possible that there may be a rearrangement of the Supply business to be taken on Wednesday and Thursday next, to meet the convenience of Ministers and hon. Members opposite; but, if there is any such rearrangement, notice will be given, if possible to-day?

SELECTION (INVERGORDON WATER SUPPLY BILL SELECT COMMITTEE).
Mr. FREDERICK HALLreported from the Committee of Selection; That they had nominated the following Four Members to serve on the Select Committee on the Invergordon Water Supply Bill: Mr. Culverwell, Sir Bertram Falle, Mr. Sullivan, and Mr. Watson.
Report to lie upon the Table.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Order read for Consideration as amended (in the Standing Committee).
  Mr. MacROBERT: I understand that an Amendment by the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) has been put down in my name, and it contradicts another Amendment which I have put down.
  Mr. SPEAKER: Does the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) intend to move the Motion standing in his name for the recommittal of the Bill?
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: Yes.
  Mr. SPEAKER: That will be taken first.
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: I beg to move, "That the Bill be recommitted."
  This Bill received its Second Reading, as Bills often do, without any discussion. It was passed, I believe, late at night, and there really was not a Second Reading Debate. It is a Bill which alters fundamentally the position in regard to illegitimate children. This matter has a very long history in Scotland, and, I suppose, in England too. In primitive times, before there was any Poor Law, and every person was tied to his parish—it was impossible for any man to run away—there was a practice which will be found mentioned in Hardy's "Well Beloved" and referred to in Ludovici's works. At a time when there was no Poor Law a childless marriage was regarded as the greatest of human misfortunes, because it meant that parents might die of starvation in their old age. Everybody was then very poor and had no one to support them outside the family. In those circumstances people very often formed what are called "irregular alliances," but always when there was the prospect of there being fruit of those alliances they ended in the legal bond of matrimony. There were very few what might be called illegitimate births in those days, because the man was tied to his own locality, and the pressure and force of public opinion
  2222
  was so very great that it was utterly impossible for there to be anything in the nature of the cruel desertion of the woman who had confided in him. Subsequently, when there was greater freedom, people moved about.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I am trying to connect the hon. and learned Member's speech with his motion to recommit the Bill.
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: Well, my Lord [Laughter]—Mr. Speaker—I was proposing to give, as far as I could venture to do so, what might be called a, Second Reading speech.
  Mr. SPEAKER: That certainly would not be in order. The hon. and learned Member must confine himself to the simple reasons why he asked for the Bill to be recommitted, and it must be only a short speech.
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: My reason for asking for the recommittal of the Bill is that it is one which makes a fundamental alteration in the Law which has prevailed in these cases hitherto, and we ought not to take such action unless the Measure has been adequately discussed. It is a Measure entirely changing the whole law of Scotland. If Amendments which I propose to move subsequently are accepted, the Bill will be made comparatively innocuous. What I put down was a proposal that the Bill should be read this day six months, but it has appeared in a different form. I will reserve the main portion of my argument for my Amendments.
  Duchess of ATHOLL: I venture to say that a Motion for the recommital of a Bill can never have been brought forward with less real pretext than on this occasion. The proof of that is shown by how little the hon. and gallant Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) had to say when at last he brought himself to the point at issue. This Bill was introduced under the Ten Minutes Rule and was passed without any opposition. Not a word was said against it, and there was no Division. Then two days were spent on it in Committee, where there was very full discussion of the various Clauses. The hon. and learned Member now says that the Bill fundamentally alters the Law of Scotland. That seems to be a very late discovery on his part. On looking at the report of the Debate in Com-
  2223
  mittee I find that the hon. and learned Member did not take the trouble to attend on the first day, and on the second day he did not show any hostility to any provision of the Bill until we reached Clause 3. The hon. and learned Member only spoke on that Clause when we were nearing the end of our discussion on the Bill. He was very late in discovering this wonderful fundamental change in the law of Scotland. As we had no division in Committee and no division when the Bill was introduced, and as the hon. and learned Member has been so very late in showing any opposition to the Bill, I beg strenuously to oppose this Motion.
  Question "That the Bill be recommitted" put, and negatived.
  Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee) considered.
  Duchess of ATHOLL: There are three new clauses standing on the Order Paper in my name. The first—(Power to attach pension or income in case of default)—was put down late last night, before I had had an opportunity of consulting with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Renfrew (Mr. MacRobert), who has taken so great an interest in the Bill and who has helped us so much in connection with it. I find that he thinks that this Clause needs further consideration, and therefore I do not propose to move it. The second Clause—(Power to vary existing decrees)—was put down in an endeavour to bring the law of Scotland into closer similarity with the law of England, but here again I find that my legal friends think that the Clause needs some consideration, and accordingly I do not propose to move it. With regard to the third Clause—(Change of address of person against whom decree is granted)—I think that possibly it might be considered in the House of Lords, but that at any rate it had better receive further consideration.

  ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN (SCOTLAND) BILL.

    CLAUSE 1.—(Duration and amount of aliment).
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: I beg to move, in page 1, line 10, to leave out the word "sixteen", and to insert instead thereof the word "fourteen".
    Under the law of Scotland, until comparatively recently, the age at which
    2224
    parties were liable for aliment in the case of an illegitimate child was seven years, and in some cases 10 years. I suggest that the sudden raising of the age to 16 years which is now proposed is really oppressive. People who have not been familiarly acquainted professionally with these cases do not realise the extraordinary hardship that may be inflicted. They all take the natural view that one acquires from literary stories, that it is a case of a young and innocent female misled by some designing evil man. I have had a considerable number of these cases to deal with in the course of my professional career. In Glasgow I was for a couple of years what is known as poor's agent, and I had a very considerable number of them while I was doing the work of six counsel in the Scottish Courts in Edinburgh. In the vast majority of these cases, the popular idea which is naturally present in the minds of innocent, respectable people, who have never come across them professionally and only know of one or two cases, is that there is always an evil man and a comparatively innocent female. In a great number of these cases, however, that is not so. Very often it is a case of a mere youth and a woman very much his senior. I remember one case of a boy of 18 being pursued by a woman of over 30, but he was able to prove certain facts and circumstances that led the Supreme Court to discredit the evidence that was given.
    There are snore cases of that kind, I should say from my professional experience, than there are of others, and to suggest that this burden should be imposed for this long period of years, and that the law should be so fundamentally altered as to more than double the period, is to inflict a wrong. It was said by the judges as far back as 1692 that these iliegitimate children are undesirable products and should not be encouraged, and I submit that to impose this burden for so long a period is to do a substantial injustice. I do not say that you can go back to the very short period of seven years, but I think that the age of 14 is quite long enough. Both parents are bound to sustain the child, and I think that the age of 14, when the child ought to be able to go and do something for itself, is quite long enough, and

    2225
    that to raise the age of 16 would be something in the nature of persecution move accordingly.
    Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: I beg to second the Amendment.
    I do so in order that we may have a proper explanation as to why the age of 16 is put in here. I am given to understand that, as the law stands at present, the age is seven, and that up to that age the two people concerned, in varying proportions in different cases, have to make themselves responsible for the finance in this matter. It is now proposed to raise the age from seven to 16—a very considerable jump. I can see certain reasons why 16 should be considered a proper age, and I can see other reasons why 14 should be considered a proper age. The age of 16, in the matter of education and looking after the child, does, of course, enable that to go on for a longer period, and I think that, particularly in the case of Scotland, it is most essential that we should endeavour to develop that education as far as we possibly can. It is of great interest and is naturally necessary in the case of Scotland that we should encourage that development as far as we can. I think that that is probably the reason for putting the age at 16. I imagine that someone who was an enthusiast for education got hold of the noble lady and persuaded her that there really is, at any rate in this case, some good in the matter of education. I am glad to see that she is turning towards the educational side, and is beginning to realise how valuable it is in life. There are, I believe, other reasons, and I had hoped that my hon. and learned Friend would have given us some more.
    I now come back to the age of 14, which is the age proposed in my hon. and learned Friend's Amendment, which I am seconding. That age, of course, does add enormously to the burdens which are incurred in this particular respect. In legislation of this kind, if you have too big a jump, you are apt to have a reaction which in itself defeats the purpose. There are people—I do not say that I agree with them—who think that after the age of 14 a child should be able in some cases—not in all—to be a help to itself. I do not agree with that, but it was put forward by my
    2226
    hon. and learned Friend, and I have no doubt that there are others who would follow him in that idea. As I understand the Bill, the fixing of the amount that is to be paid depends on certain people. I will not go into the proportions of the amount, but, as we are dealing with the length of time for which it has to be paid, I would point out that that length of time must have some effect on their minds in fixing the amount and the proportions. It is quite conceivable that by fixing the age at 16 instead of 14, you may not be doing a real act of benefit either to the child or to the mother. That is a point that we ought to take into very careful consideration. Many of us who do not represent Scottish constituencies find ourselves in a very difficult position, because we have not the knowledge as to which of the two figures is better from the point of view of the Departments concerned.
    It must have some effect on the Departments and, for that reason, we ought to have a clear explanation from those who have real knowledge, not only from the lawyers but from the outside point of view, those who can tell us absolutely what effect it is going to have on the upbringing of these children. For that reason, I felt that it was my duty, so as to enable the House to get a wide knowledge of the matter before they vote on it, to support the Amendment, not because I feel that I am qualified to say that one is very much better than the other, but I could see many objections which ought to be explained clearly, and I think the House is entitled, before we pass over this very difficult point, to have a full explanation as to precisely what we really ought to do in the best interests of these people themselves.
    Mr. MacROBERT: The hon. Member is under a misapprehension. The law of Scotland is not so unreasonable as to say that the age of seven is the time when liability for the child ceases. Indeed there is no time when it ceases.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: My right hon. Friend a little misrepresents me. I said I had been given to understand that it was seven, and I wanted to know whether it, was the law or whether it was the common practice. That is where I am a little wanting in knowledge.
    Mr. MacROBERT: The Clause says "without prejudice to any obligations attaching at common law." The law before the Bill was to this effect. The courts were in the habit of saying when a child was able to support itself, and at one time they used to say that a child could support itself at a much earlier age than they do now. Many years ago they thought a child should support itself at seven, at least primâ facie, and they would award aliment up to that age with power, of course, for the parties to come back when that age was reached and ask for a further award. But the practice has completely changed in more recent years and now aliment is allowed running up to 14 in many cases, but then the courts keep control and, if the person having custody of the child is able to show that it is not able to support itself, the award of aliment continues and may continue all the life of the child. We wish to make it clear that, primâ facie, the child is entitled to aliment up to 16, and we do not interfere at all with the common law, which says it may last for a longer period than 16. We think 16 is quite a fair age. You have to look at this question not from the point of view of the parents. We are not concerned with them. We are looking at it from the point of view of the child. Is anyone going to say that a girl of 15 is able to support herself? Those who are backing the Bill think that is unreasonable. Taking everything into consideration, we think that 16 is a fair age to say that those who bring into the world an illegitimate child shall have responsibility up to that time at least, and it may be for a longer time if the child is not able to maintain itself. Having satisfied my hon. Friend that the age is not seven, and that we are not jumping from seven to 16, which I agree would have been too big a jump, I hope the Amendment will not be pressed.
    Mr. MACPHERSON: The right hon. Gentleman's speech is a conclusive answer to the speeches that have been made. It seems to me that this change in the age is quite in keeping with the modern trend of public opinion. As Minister of Pensions, I had a great many cases of this kind to consider, and in every case it was regarded as a proper practice, indeed the Royal Warrant enjoined that I should consider that the State ought to look after a child until he or she reached the
    2228
    age of 16. I understand the proposal was originally made by the supporters of the Bill that the age should be 18, and I think this is a fair compromise. I hope the hon. and learned Gentleman will not press the Amendment to a division.
    Sir BASIL PETO: It is somewhat embarrassing for an English Member who is not a lawyer to intervene in this Debate because it obviously concerns Scotland first of all, and to a very great extent the legal profession. But the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Renfrew (Mr. MacRobert) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr Macpherson) both overlook the recent change in the law which has a very material bearing on this question of how long alimony may be legally enforcible. We have just passed an Unemployment Insurance Act which provides that children of 15 should be regarded as insured persons and should be entitled to unemployment benefit if they are out of employment, and it would seem to me, whether the age of 14 is right or not, there is no justification in the existing state of the law for saying that a child cannot support itself after it has joined the ranks of the employed people of the country and is entitled to benefit in case of unemployment. That is one argument.
    I should also like to put this, in reference especially to what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ross and Cromarty said. He says that when he was at the Pensions Ministry the Royal Warrant definitely indicated that the child should be supported until the age of 16. There, again, he is speaking of a period antecedent to this recent legislation. I would point out to the House that, whatever the position may be in Scotland, there is a great demand in this country for the services of even the young girls to whom my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Renfrew referred in domestic service, and, if you are going to insist by law that every child in the unfortunate position indicated in this Bill of being illegitimate is entitled to aliment until the age of 16, you practically close the door to children of the female sex, at any rate, commencing what may be a perfectly honourable and very lucrative career. There would be no inducement to anybody in

    2229
    receipt of adequate aliment to look about for themselves and see how they were going to make a start in life.
    Whatever may be said for the age of 14 indicated in the Amendment, there is absolutely no justification for the age of 16 which is proposed in the Bill. I think that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Renfrew as a distinguished member of the legal profession was very disinterested in the advice he gave to the House, because it was clear from what he told us of the present law in Scotland that every case stands on its own merits and there is an opportunity for the intervention of the legal profession at every stage in the child's life from the age of seven upwards. At any time arguments, which, no doubt, would need the assistance of members of the legal profession, may be put forward, that in a particular case a child shall have aliment up to any age, even far beyond the age of 16. If this provision were passed, there would be no opportunity for a legal job under the age of 16, and therefore to that extent the right hon. and learned Gentleman's support of the Bill is very disinterested from the point of view of the legal profession.
    I should like to hear from the Secretary of State for Scotland what he has to say about the bearing of the recent legislation to which I have referred upon the age provided in this Bill. I am not speaking of what happened before the Bill which his party has recently put before the House, but under the present circumstances I can see no justification for this overlapping and the possibility of a double support—support from the Unemployment Insurance Fund and the State contribution, and also support from the father of the child. In those circumstances, I shall undoubtedly support my hon. and learned Friend who has moved this Amendment, and I hope that in the absence of better arguments than we have had yet for the age of 16, which is at present in the Bill, he will press his Amendment.
    Sir FREDERICK THOMSON: I desire to oppose the Amendment which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. Macquisten) has put before the House and which was also supported, with not very perfect knowledge, I am afraid, by my hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams). My right
    2230
    hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Renfrew (Mr. MacRobert) pointed the law out. A child is entitled to aliment until able to support itself, and, if through a physical or mental infirmity, it is not able to support itself, that obligation continues to rest on the parent throughout its life. Apart from special circumstances, the obligation for aliment to a legitimate child falls at the age of puberty, in a boy at 14 and in a girl at 12. The obligation only continues to exist if the child is not capable either mentally or physically, of doing anything for itself. I have been looking up cases, and I see that in one case a father was held to be liable for the support of a boy up to the age of 13, and in another case a father was liable until the boy reached the age of 12. I think that it is entirely reasonable, in the altered circumstances of modern days, that this liability should continue to the age of 16.
    My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Argyllshire alluded to the old practice under which aliment was given up to the age of seven in the case of a boy and ten in the case of a girl, but I think that there was always a right to come to court for renewal for a further period. That dates from old times when it was thought that at the age of seven a boy might begin to do something to support himself. That was before the days of mining legislation, Factory Acts, and Education Acts, when an entirely different state of things obtained from those which prevail to-day. Many children are continuing their education beyond the age of 14. A large number of children in Scotland are attending school at this age, and at 16 years of age a child who is in an insured occupation passes into the insurance schemes. On the whole, 16 is a reasonable age, and I ask hon. Members to join with the promoters of the Bill in opposing the Amendment.
    Captain CROOKSHANK: There appears to be hardly any reason for the Bill from what the right hon. and learned Member for East Renfrew (Mr. MacRobert) has said. As I understood him, the Bill is going to be without pre judice to any existing obligations of common law, and from what the hon. and learned Member for South Aberdeen (Sir F. Thomson) has said the obligation exists, apparently, to support the child throughout its life.
    Sir F. THOMSON: Only in exceptional cases of mental or physical infirmity; otherwise, it ceases at the age of puberty.
    Captain CROOKSHANK: I was going to say in cases of mental or physical in firmity. If that is so, I should like a further explanation as to what is the point of the Bill. Almost every case today must be covered, except the period between 14 and 16. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) says that to raise the age from 14 to 16 years is consonant with the modern trend of public opinion. He did not say why he thought so. I should have thought that the modern trend of public opinion was that there should be fewer illegitimate children. I am sorry that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) should have moved the Amendment in its present form. I should have thought it would have been better to link up this proposal with the school age; then there would have been some reason for it. If you are going to compel children to stay at school until 15 years of age it would have been better from the point of view my hon. and learned Friend has in mind if the age in this case had been the same.
    My hon. Friend, the Member for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto), has referred to the Unemployment Insurance Acts, and this strengthens my argument, because when we were discussing that legislation the House was trying to link up the time at which the child came into the unemployment insurance scheme with the age at which he will leave school. If instead of putting in either 16 or 14 we had put down a form of words regarding the school age similar to that in respect of the last Unemployment Insurance Act we should have been on better ground and the difficulties of everybody would have been met, particularly, if we take into account the fact that the Government are pledged—whether they do it or not is a very different matter—to produce a maintenance allowance for the last year at school. It seems to me that you are going to give an undue endowment for some of these illegitimate children in comparison with some who happened to have been born in wedlock. We desire to see fair play all round. Surely there is no wish to make
    2232
    it a good thing to have illegitimate children, but it would appear that these children are going to be better off between the ages of 14 and 16 than other children. If we are going to have maintenance allowances for the period of years which we are discussing in this Amendment, it would be much better from the point of view of the promoters if, when this Bill reaches its further stages, some Amendment of that kind might be discussed. The Noble Lady withdrew her first Amendments on the Order Paper because she said that there would be an opportunity elsewhere of raising those points. Now, it is suggested that she might apply her mind and the minds of those who would be concerned on this question as to whether it would not be better to link up the maximum age under this Bill with the age at which the children have to leave school.
    Can the Secretary of State give us any statistics of the number of children who are likely to be involved at the present time? I do not imagine that he can give any actuarial figure for a period of years, but can he say at this moment what is supposed to be the number of illegitimate children in Scotland? I am not sure whether I shall support the Amendment, but I think I will, because if we put 14 into the Bill it would be easier at a later stage, in another place, to raise the matter. I think we had better put the lower age in. It is hard to say that children are going to get employment as soon as they leave school—that point has been debated again and again—but we must bear in mind that there is a curve in the child population of this country which will result in the next few years in a great shortage of juvenile labour. Therefore, is this the right time to make this proposed change in the law? I should like the Secretary of State to give us the official estimate of the number of children involved, and the view of the Government as to whether they think we had better link up this particular obligation of the parents, with the State's obligation in regard to maintenance allowances in education, and with the obligation that exists in regard to unemployment insurance.
    Sir GEORGE HAMILTON: I cannot quite make up my mind whether to vote in favour of this Amendment or against

    2233
    it. I see the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department is present. Perhaps he could inform the House what is the law in this particular matter in England? What is the age which is fixed in the English law? In this matter we do not want to have special advantages given to this type of children in Scotland. In the old days we heard much about Gretna Green and other places on the border, but I think it is a great mistake to have different legislation on this matter in Scotland from what we have for the rest of the country.
    The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. William Adamson): I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) will not press the Amendment to a Division. The existing law in regard to the liability of the parent to provide aliment, for the illegitimate child until the child is 14 or until the child is able to support itself, has been clearly stated. One or two points have been put to me but I do not think that they have much relevance to the subject of discussion. The hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) asked me if I could tell him the number of children likely to be involved in this proposal? He wanted to know if I could state the number of illegitimate children in Scotland. Even if I could give the number of illegitimate children in Scotland that would not give the number of children that would be involved. A much smaller number of children would be involved. The hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) suggested that in resisting this Amendment the Noble Lady was possibly influenced by her regard for the education of the child. If there was no other reason than the education of the child, surely, that is a very important matter. Other hon. Members have referred to juvenile labour and have expressed the opinion that there will be a great demand in the future for juvenile labour. We do not see much sign of that at the moment. Of course, I could speculate with my fellow members as to what the future will be in that respect, but we do not see very much demand for juvenile labour at the present time. Under modern conditions the chance of a child between 14 and 16 years of age being able to support itself is very unlikely.
    2234
    I suggest that the hon. and learned Member should not press the Amendment.
    Sir G. HAMILTON: Can I have a reply with regard to the conditon of the law in England?
    Mr. MacROBERT: If the hon. and gallant Member will look to the Act of 1870 and the Act of 1923, he will find that the age indicated is 16.
    Question, "That the word 'sixteen' stand part of the Bill", put, and agreed to.

    CLAUSE 2.—(Power of court to make order as to custody of child and cesser of the right of putative father to meet claim for aliment by offer to assume custody.)
    Mr. W. ADAMSON: I beg to move, in page 2, line 8, after the word "child", to insert the words:
    "or in any action for aliment for an illegitimate child."
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: On a point of Order. I had Amendments down to leave out Sub-sections (2), (3) and (4) of the last Clause.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I did not select those Amendments.
    Mr. ADAMSON: The Government think this Amendment is necessary, and I hope that the promoters of the Bill will accept it.
    Duchess of ATHOLL: I am quite willing to accept the Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 3.—(Power to raise action for lying-in expenses and aliment before birth of child.)
    Mr. MacROBERT: I beg to move, in page 2, line 22, leave out from the word "father," to the end of line 31, and to insert instead thereof the words
    "but no declarator of paternity shall be pronounced, no proof shall be taken, and, subject as hereinafter provided, no operative decree for payment shall be pronounced in such action until after the birth of the child, but where the action is undefended, or where parentage is admitted by the defender, the court may at any time make an interim award of lying-in expenses, as also an interim award of aliment, to commence at the date of the birth of the child."

    2235
    As originally framed the Clause provided that no proof of paternity should take place before the birth of the child, but it was possible, where the action was undefended, or paternity admitted, for the question of aliment to be gone into before the birth of the child. That aspect of the question was considered in the Committee stage and the supporters of the Bill think that it would not be advisable to have any proof at all before the birth of the child, because if the child was not born that proof might be wasted. The Amendment, therefore, provides that there shall be no proof at all of any kind before the birth of the child, but where paternity is admitted or the action is not defended, the court shall have the right to make an interim award of aliment or lying-in expenses. That is more appropriate because the court are entitled, on prima facie evidence, to give what they consider are reasonable expenses without any inquiry. It is the same with regard to aliment, but only in cases where paternity is admitted or the action undefended.
    12 n.
    The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Craigie Aitchison): I just want to say that the Government agree that the Amendment is an improvement on the Bill as it left the Committee, and as the reasons for the Amendment have been so clearly stated by the right hon. and learned Member for Renfrew East (Mr. Mac-Robert) it is quite unnecessary for me to take up the time of the House by repeating them. The Government wholeheartedly support the Amendment.
    Mr. ATKINSON: I do not quite follow how the Amendment accomplishes what the late Lord Advocate has in view. In the Clause as it is in the Bill it is fairly clear that an unmarried woman can get an order before the birth of the child. That seems to me to be an admirable provision, and it would only apply in admitted cases. I can see no reason why a woman should not get money before the time comes for spending it, and I cannot see, without further explanation, how the Amendment meets that case. The Amendment says that an application shall be made "to the sheriff to fix a diet for the trial of an action"—
    Mr. MacROBERT: The hon. and learned Member is reading the wrong Amendment. He is now reading an Amendment which should have been down in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) which Mr. Speaker has not selected.
    Mr. WESTWOOD: The Amendment which has been moved by the late Lord Advocate meets many of the difficulties which some of us expressed in the Committee. Clause 3 was the one Clause in the Bill which was opposed by some hon. Members because they felt that an injustice was likely to be done, but the Amendment removes many of the objections and as one of those who were hostile to the Clause in Committee I am well satisfied with the Amendment.
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: I do not think that this Amendment makes, much improvement on the unimprovable. It will have just the same effect as the Clause as originally drafted. It will merely provide a blackmailer's chart. Anyone who has the slightest acquaintance with these matters knows that very often the wrong person is selected. This Clause might have been framed by a committee of blackmailing experts and the Amendment will not improve it in any way. Neither the Amendment nor the Clause as originally drafted should be accepted by this House, but as far as I can gather from some of the speeches some hon. Members know very little about this aspect of human life.
    Duchess of ATHOLL: The reason for this Clause, broadly, is the great delay which too often takes place in the hearing of cases of this kind. I have had letters from social workers and from lawyers in all parts of Scotland speaking of the great delay which often takes place in the hearing of these cases and giving these awards. Some social workers have gone so far as to say that 50 per cent. of cases in which aliment might be claimed, are never brought forward because it is such a hopeless matter. One case of delay I might mention. It was the case of a child born in February of last year. The mother made application in April, but the case was not to be heard until January. It is obviously necessary to try to take some steps to improve matters of that kind. The

    2237
    grossest injustice has been suffered by many women in Scotland because of these delays.
    Objections were raised in Committee regarding the form of the Clause as originally proposed. Therefore my right hon. friend put down this Amendment. The Amendment provides, as the Clause did originally, that no award shall be made if paternity is defended. No final award can be made before the birth of a child, but some progress can be made in preparing the action and getting together the evidence, and all that would be very valuable in preventing delay. Even in the case where paternity is denied, the fact that an action has been raised means that the man's effects can be taken into consideration. In legal phrase there is a nexus. If a man is about to abscond his assets can be arrested, and there is some chance that the woman will be able to get the aliment. But the Amendment ensures that no proof can be taken as to the man's means if he denies paternity—no proof of his income can be taken until after the birth of the child.
    That is a point of substance, because one of the most important things in the Bill is the provision in Sub-section (2) of Clause 1, that the aliment to be awarded is to depend on a man's means and position. Therefore, to postpone any proof as to his means until after the birth of the child, is a very substantial Amendment of the Clause, and I think should go far to ensure that injustice is not done to the man. On the other hand the words in the Amendment which will enable an interim award to be made for confinement expenses and for aliment in the event of birth, are of very great importance, because it may make a very great difference to the safety and welfare of the woman in her confinement to know that before she has to meet it an interim award has been given for the expenses. That knowledge might well make a very material difference in the crisis, and a difference in the health and welfare of the child as well.
    Major ROSS: It seems to me that the discussion of this Amendment—I say so with great respect to the many eminent Scotsmen and Scotswomen who have spoken—has gone back to the merits of the original Clause. As I see the matter, that is not what we should be discussing.
    2238
    We are or should be discussing which is the preferable form in which the Clause should appear, whether the original form is the more desirable or whether the amended form is preferable. I do not propose to discuss the merits of the Clause as a whole. It contains points of rather serious contention which do not arise on the Amendment. But as between the original drafting of the Bill and the Amendment, it does surprise me that there should be this opposition to the Amendment from the quarters from which it comes, because, looking at the whole problem from the point of view of the man, it seems to me that the Amendment is definitely a move in his favour.
    In a Clause of this kind you must have two courses open to you, one in case there is to be no fight on the question of paternity, and the other if there should be. Under the original Clause, the rule was that it should go against the man, that it should be possible in the early stage for the court to make an order condemning him to pay these expenses. But it is far preferable to have the Clause drafted in the form of the Amendment, because there it is the exception that the man is made liable for these expenses and the rule is that he should not be liable. In fact, it says quite definitely:
    "No declarator of paternity shall be pronounced, no proof shall be taken," etc.
    That is quite different from the language of the original draft of the Bill, and it is much fairer to all concerned. Therefore, it surprises me that there should be opposition to the Amendment, and I for one shall be glad to go into the Lobby in support of it.
    Mr. C. WILLIAMS: I have been trying my best to get at the back of the meaning of these words. The first part of the Amendment is roughly the same as the second part of the original Bill, and the second part of the Amendment is much the same as the first part of the Bill. I have difficulty in deciding between the two. The original Bill says:
    "If the action is undefended or if parentage is admitted, the court may in that action make an order for such lying-in expenses as are appropriate to her position in life."
    The Amendment says:
    "Where the action is undefended, or where parentage is admitted by the defender, the court may at any time make an

    2239
    interim award of lying-in expenses, as also an interim award of aliment, to commence at the date of the birth of the child."
    Of course there is a slight difference in the words. The Amendment begins by saying that:
    "No declarator of paternity shall be pronounced, no proof shall be taken, and, subject as hereinafter provided, no operative decree for payment shall be pronounced in such action until after the birth of the child."
    Those are almost precisely the same as the words in the Bill. When I looked at the Amendments, I found myself drifting into a course of reading of what was said in Standing Committee, and I was much interested to notice that there seemed to be a competition among members of the Committee as to which knew most about the subject. I discovered that they all seemed to have a fair amount of knowledge, but the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Marcus) said what I think is correct, and what at any rate represents my feelings, when he explained the position from his point of view. He said:
    "The one paramount and vital advantage to the woman to be able to raise her action before the birth when there is repudiation of liability on the part of the alleged father is that she will have the day for proof fixed at the earliest possible moment."
    This question of having the proof fixed at the earliest possible moment is of vital importance, but it is very difficult to decide ae to what is the right moment, and that is why I think we ought to have more information about this Amendment. The hon. Member for Dundee in his speech at the Committee also said:
    "It will be fixed as soon as she is tit to give evidence after the birth. At the present time when a woman raises the action after the birth she cannot raise it for a month or two after the child has been born, and my experience has been that proof has not been heard until six or seven months after the birth, and even so long as 12 months after."
    That shows how essential it is that the time fixed should be as soon as possible, and I believe I have the human side of the House with me in making that statement. The Lord Advocate replied to the hon. Member for Dundee as follows:
    "In the case which my hon. Friend figures he is assuming that the proceedings will be closed prior to the birth. No judge would close the proceedings prior to
    2240
    the birth."—[OFFICIAL REPORT (Standing Committee on Scottish Bills), 12th December, 1929, col. 58.]
    I am sure that the Lord Advisory Advocate will be able to make his position quite plain, and I am only trying to help him to do so. I bare read this Amendment as carefully as I could and I have read what the Lord Advocate said upstairs, and it seems to me that there is some confusion of thought both in the Bill as it stands, and in the Amendment. For that reason I think the Lord Advocate ought to explain to us the precise difference between the Amendment and the wording which it is proposed to leave out. There is a great similarity between the two, and as a humble English Member I am not at all sure that there is any particular point involved in making the Amendment. I am certain, however, that one thing which is necessary is to try to get these matters settled as soon as is humanly possible and I appeal to the Government to give that matter their proper consideration.
    Mr. ATKINSON: A remark made by the Noble Lady the Member for Perth and Kinross (Duchess of Atholl) has rather disturbed me. I gather from what she said, that an application may be made as much as three months before the lying-in, and that although no operative decree for payment can be made during that period there may be a decree of some other kind imposing an embargo upon the man's assets. The Amendment says that no operative decree for payment shall be pronounced until after the birth of the child, but I should like to know if a man, having strenuously denied paternity, is to be in the position of having a very wicked charge hanging over him for three or four months, and if there is any other sort of decree which can be made against him, holding up his assets or placing some sort of embargo upon his assets.
    The LORD ADVOCATE: I think my hon. and learned Friend is under a complete misapprehension. Wherever paternity is denied the whole thing comes to a standstill and you get no further. You are in precisely the same position as if action had not been taken until after the birth of the child, with this exception—that the woman having brought her action into court, it may be three months prior to birth, is in a more favourable position

    2241
    for getting an early hearing of the case, and that, of course, from the woman's point of view is vitally important. I think the House may be quite clear upon that point. On the other hand, where there is a case of undisputed paternity, then the court in that case, and in that case only, may make an interim award of aliment and an award of expenses, which award, however, in no circumstances will become operative until the child is born. That, I understand, to be the position, and I hope that is clear to my hon. and learned Friend.
    Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: Some difference of opinion has arisen in regard to the meaning of the Clause as it stands, but I do not see any real difference in the Amendment which is now proposed, and I am certain that the purpose which was aimed at is still being accomplished by the Amendment.
    Sir G. HAMILTON: I did not quite follow the argument of the Lord Advocate. He was asked whether the result of this Amendment would not be that a charge might be brought by a woman against a certain man three months before the birth of the child. The question put by my hon. and learned Friend the Member of Altrincham (Mr. Atkinson) was, would that charge remain hanging over that unfortunate man, who might be perfectly innocent, for three months or more. I imagine that my hon. and learned Friend really wanted to know if it was the case that when a charge of that kind had been made and denied, it was still possible for the court to place some charge upon the man's assets. Would such a man be in the position, for instance, of having a charge upon his furniture without any right to go to the court to have the question of paternity settled right away?
    The LORD ADVOCATE: I can only speak again with the leave of the House, but the matter is perfectly simple. If hon. Members will take the trouble to read the Clause, with the Amendment in it, they will find that it reads as follows:
    "Any unmarried woman who is pregnant may before the birth of the child raise an action for lying-in expenses and for aliment against the putative father, but no declarator of paternity shall be pronounced, no proof shall be taken, and, subject as hereinafter provided, no operative decree for payment shall be pronounced in such action until after the birth of the child."
    2242
    That means that where paternity is disputed, all that happens is that the writ is taken out and then things come to an absolute standstill. Then the Clause, as amended, would proceed,
    "but where the action is undefended, or where parentage is admitted by the defender, the court may at any time make an interim award of lying-in expenses, as also an interim award of aliment, to commence at the date of the birth of the child."
    I ask the House to observe the last words. As regards the second part, no difficulty arises, and I address myself briefly to the two specific questions which have been put to me. It is perfectly true that if a woman is allowed to bring into court an action against a man three months prior to the birth of the child, in one sense that may involve a charge lying over the man's head. Then, in a matter of this kind, you have to balance the different considerations, and the Committee decided that on balance of considerations it was better and more just to the woman—and I think the woman's interests in this matter are of paramount importance—to allow the woman to take the action. As regards the other specific matter put to me, whether the funds of the alleged father could be attached, there is nothing in the Bill which for a moment would allow that to be done. You could not attach wages or furniture or any asset whatever belonging to the man until the paternity had subsequently been declared after the birth of the child.
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: Would it not be possible to put in a claim and hold the man's assets or wages tied up? It is possible that the man may be ill, or a poor, ignorant, farm servant, with no means of getting access to any defence, and he may find himself put in prison.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 5.—(Funeral expenses).
    Mr. MacROBERT: I beg to move, in page 3, line 22, after the word "shall," to insert the words:
    "without prejudice to any liability incurred by them or either of them under contract."
    This Amendment and the one next but one after it on the Paper go together. They have nothing to do with the Amendment which appears between them on the Paper, which should be

    2243
    in the name of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. Macquisten)—in line 22, after the word "liable," to insert the words "jointly and severally"—with, which I do not agree and which is entirely contradictory of mine. The purpose of my Amendment is this: The Clause as originally framed referred to a proportionate award of aliment and provided that the funeral expenses would be payable in the same proportion as the ailment was payable. When that Bill was originally framed an earlier Clause provided for the court apportioning the aliment between the mother and father, but Amendments were made in it at a later stage of the Committee proceedings which deleted all reference to proportionate aliment and simply provided that the court should award a certain sum against the father.
    Clause 5 was passed in the Committee under a misapprehension, and forgetful of the fact that the earlier Clause had been altered in the way I have described. Therefore, the Clause now does not read and is not consistent with the rest of the Bill. Accordingly, I propose to change it by providing that if a father or a mother has come under a contract with regard to funeral expenses, they must implement that contract, and that apart from contracts they shall be liable for funeral expenses jointly, which means that they shall each be liable for one-half. The Amendment goes on to provide that the expenses may be paid otherwise in such proportions as the sheriff on summary application may determine. I have put in, not the court, but the sheriff, because this is a very small matter, and I thought it was more appropriate that it should be dealt with by the sheriff and summarily.
    The LORD ADVOCATE: The Government have carefully considered the Amendment, and we consider that it introduces a desirable provision in the Clause. We therefore propose to accept it.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. MacROBERT: I beg to move, in page 3, line 22, to leave out from the word "expenses" to the word "Provided," in line 25, and to insert instead thereof the words:
    2244
    "jointly or in such proportions as the sheriff on summary application may determine."
    Mr. C. WILLIAMS: I am not quite clear what is meant by this Amendment, which seeks to take out what might be considered an important part of the Bill dealing with this very interesting question of aliment. The right hon. and learned Member for East Renfrew (Mr. MacRobert) said that the whole thing arose because someone got an Amendment in Committee at a late stage, but the Committee only lasted for two very short mornings, and I do not see how it could have been so very late. I am surprised that the House is not being given a proper reason for amending something which was apparently the considered wish of the Committee. I could understand, if there had been an agreement that the Amendment should be accepted and then reconsidered on the Report stage, but we were not told that, and we have not yet had an explanation as to the position of the Government in this matter. Will the right hon. and learned Member tell us what was the original position, so that those who have an open mind on this subject may be able to understand the position? Many of us on this occasion feel that we are entitled to a thorough explanation as to how these very remarkable changes have taken place. Just as a soft answer turneth away a division, may we have a considered answer from the law point of view, and also from the human point of view as coming from the Secretary of State for Scotland?
    The LORD ADVOCATE: The hon. Member has described this Amendment as a remarkable Amendment. There is nothing remarkable about it. It is merely intended to correct a simple error that crept into Clause 5. If the hon. Member will not give his attention, will he look at Clause 5?
    Mr. WILLIAMS: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman define the difference between not giving my attention and giving it?
    The LORD ADVOCATE: Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to read Clause 5:
    "In the event of the death of an illegitimate child under the age of sixteen, the parents of such child shall be liable for the

    2245
    funeral expenses in the proportion in which aliment may have been awarded by the court."
    In the earlier part of the Bill there is nothing about aliment being awarded in proportions at all, and, obviously, that would not do. I think I am right in saying that previously there was nothing in the Bill about awarding aliment, and, accordingly, there was an obvious error.
    Mr. MacROBERT: In the original Bill there was a reference to aliment?
    The LORD ADVOCATE: I am obliged to my right hon. and learned Friend. In the Bill, as originally drawn, there was the word "proportion". It was taken out, and when we came to Clause 5 it was forgotten that Clause I bad been altered by the omission of the word "proportion". Therefore, on Clause 5 an Amendment became necessary. I think it is perfectly clear that there will be a joint liability, or a liability "in such proportions as the sheriff on summary application may determine".
    Major ROSS: There is a short and rather legal point about which I should like to get some explanation if I could from either of the right hon. and learned Members who have spoken. The Clause as it now stands reads:
    "the parents of such child shall '(without prejudice to any liability incurred by them or either of them under contract)' be liable jointly and severalty."
    The LORD ADVOCATE: The words "jointly and severally" are not in the Bill at the moment.
    Major ROSS: I should say,
    "jointly or in such proportions as the sheriff on summary application may determine."
    The point that occurred to me was this: Here we have a prima facie liability on parents in such proportions as shall be deemed just by the sheriff, or, in the absence of such determination, equally. Further, it must be without prejudice to a contractual liability incurred by either. Supposing the death of the child happens fairly soon after birth, the mother, not unnaturally, wishes to make suitable arrangements for the burial of the child. If she goes to the local undertaker and contracts with him that the child shall be buried, the contract would be between her, a single woman, and the undertaker.
    2246
    It may well be that the father is not readily available, and may be in some other part of the country. He may be compelled to bear his share of the cost of these expenses, and it may well be that he refuses.
    What is the situation created by this Clause as amended? We are on the question of the proportion, and, therefore, I think it is proper to raise this point at this stage. There is a contractual liability between the undertaker, with whom the expenses have been incurred, and the mother. The father, as far as I can see, must escape that. I do not see how the mother can serve a third-party notice, or the Scottish equivalent, on the father, and it seems to me that the mother is to be in a position to be saddled with the expenses of the funeral, without any remedy provided in the Bill as regards the father of the child. I want to know what is the position under Scottish law created by this Bill in a case where a mother has made this contract, the father not being available to join in the contract? Will she not be liable for the full expenses of the funeral without any redress from the father, because, if that is so, it is a definite flaw in the Bill.
    The LORD ADVOCATE The LORD ADVOCATE rose—
    Mr. SPEAKER: The right hon. and learned Gentleman cannot speak again on the Report stage.
    Sir G. HAMILTON: I submit that we must have some reply. If the Lord Advocate is not allowed to speak again because we are on the Report stage, may we have a reply from the Secretary of State for Scotland? This raises a very important point.
    Major ROSS: On a point of Order. I had attempted to catch your eye before the right hon. and learned Gentleman got up because I wished to put this point, but I was not successful in doing so.
    Mr. SPEAKER: If the Minister in charge of the Bill on Report stage were able to speak several times, there would really be no end to it.
    Sir G. HAMILTON: This really is a matter of extreme importance.
    Mr. MacROBERT: I think that I should be in order in replying.
    Mr. SPEAKER: The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for East Renfrew (Mr. MacRobert) would be in order in replying, because he is the mover of the Amendment.
    Mr. MacROBERT: If the father is not available, and the mother contracts with an undertaker for the burial of her child, she is liable to the undertaker under contract, but she has the right of relief against the father, either for one-half of the expenses, or, she can go to the sheriff to have the whole or greater part placed on the father of the child. That would necessitate an independent application.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. MacROBERT: I beg to move, in page 3, line 28, to leave out the word "court", and to insert instead thereof the words "the sheriff".
    This is merely a consequential Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 8.—(Short title.)
    Mr. MacROBERT: I beg to move, in page 3, line 35, to leave out from "1929" to the end of the Clause.
    We cannot have these words in now, because we have passed the 1st January, 1930, and the Bill will therefore come into force on the day on which it is passed.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
    Duchess of ATHOLL: I should like to give hon. Members who were not present in the Committee stage a brief idea of what this Bill should do for unmarried mothers and their children in Scotland. It should make some very substantial improvements in what has too often been a hard lot. In comparing the position of unmarried mothers in Scotland with the position of similar women in England in regard to the protection which the law gives them, we find that the English law gives very much more protection to the unmarried mother than the Scottish law does. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrew (Mr. MacRobert) has told the House that since 1872 there has been an English Act which has made it possible for aliment to be
    2248
    given for the child until the age of 16. That is one way in which we are trying to bring the Scottish law to the level of the English law by this Bill.
    The next point is perhaps one of even greater importance, and that concerns the amount of aliment. The position in Scotland to-day is that both parents are held to be jointly liable and jointly is interpreted as equal; that means that the contribution of the father is limited by what are usually the limited means of the mother. Not more than 2s. 6d. a week used to be required from the man before the War, and not more than 4s. 6d. has been customary in the last 10 years. Though in some cases that sum of 4s. 6d. might be all that could reasonably be asked of the father, there must undoubtedly be certain other cases where he could give considerably more. The Bill proposes that the award shall be made according to the means and circumstances of both father and mother, so that in the possible case of where the mother might be in better circumstances than the father, she would be required to contribute more to the keep of the child; but, in many cases, this Bill should enable a much more just amount of alimony to be given by the man. I would just point out how different English law is in this matter. [HON. MEMBERS: "Agreed!"] I do not wish to detain the House, but I think it only right that Scottish Members should be told that English law puts the main liability on the father, and though it says that the mother is not to be relieved of all liability, it lays down what the father is to give. From 1372 onwards it has been possible to charge him 5s. a week; since 1918, 10s.; and since 1923,£1 a week.
    Therefore, the Scottish mother has been in a very unhappy position compared with the English mother, and I think that the most iniquitous part of the Scottish law is the provision by which the father can claim the custody of the child, and, if the mother refuses, he is relieved of further liability. Then an improvement in expediting claims will be made by Clause 3. In Ontario and other provinces of Canada, cases may be heard before birth. That is also the case in two of the Australian States. In some cases, an award of maintenance may actually be required from the father before the birth of the child. Clause 3, therefore, is a step

    2249
    forward, although it is modest compared with what is in operation in several of the States of the Dominions. This Bill has received the approval of legal practitioners in many parts of Scotland, and I hope that the House, by giving it a Third Reading, will do its best to carry into effect a tardy measure of justice.
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: This is a very dangerous Bill. I am not the least impressed by what is the law in England. England has always been indescribably harsh on women. In England, there is no such thing as an action for seduction. The woman is in no sense protected, because there can be no action for seduction under promise of marriage. In Scotland, we have had equal law as between men and women for hundreds of years. The moral standard of both sexes is the same in Scotland, but you have not got that here. That is why the Scotswoman is to a large extent protected. In Scotland, a young woman who is led astray by specious promises has a remedy at Common Law for damages. That is what the English woman does not have, and that is probably why the larger sums may be awarded for the mere support of the child.
    The particular vice of this Bill is that you may have, as an hon. Gentleman said, this charge hanging over a man's head for three months. It is a very disconcerting charge, and it is enough to drive an innocent man out of his senses. It may be raised by some wicked person, and one has bad experience of these things. You can take it that in most cases where the man contests the charge there is innocence, and the real reason why the action is taken is because the paternity of the child arises from a case of incest. In nine cases out of ten, the wretched girl must find a father of some kind and has to look for one. That is a fact that anybody who has practised in that class of case knows. In most cases, where there is a contest—it is only recently in England that incest has been a crime, but it has been a crime for hundreds of years in Scotland—in most of these contested cases there is incest.
    Mr. JAMES STEWART: What is the justification of the hon. Member for making a terrible statement like that?
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: It is the case, and those who have had a good many of
    2250
    such cases know it. I can confirm it by the statement of a professional brother of mine in this House on the other side. That is where the defended cases come in. In some cases, we have a woman who has led a promiscuous life and who simply looks for victims among the crowd. Then under this Clause there are temptations to blackmail where you may go before the sheriff and have an investigation into the means of both parties. What a temptation that is! Why a very large proportion of cases, where moral elements are involved, are blackmail cases. I actually came across one in the courts, a divorce case, where a man shamelessly told me that he was one of a crowd who got into touch with women of bad character at watering places in England to get the names of anybody they had managed to intrigue, and then so many months afterwards the solicitors wrote that something had happened as the result of their misconduct, having investigated and found out what the means of the people were. If they did not succeed in extracting the blackmail there and then they communicated with the spouse of the party. That was a case actually going on at the Court of Sessions. These gentlemen are unknown to the promoters of the Bill, who are wholly ignorant of these dark places in human life which it is our business to come across in our professional business. Acting thoughtlessly under the belief that you are on the side of innocence, you are fabricating an engine of oppression, of wrong, of imposition, and of cruelty. You think you are acting on behalf of the innocent, but you are really playing into the hands of the wicked, and I hope that the more experienced other place, which will receive this Bill, will realise that this Bill is framed by those as innocent as dust, but by no means as wise as Solomon.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read the Third time, and passed.

  HAIRDRESSERS' AND BARBERS' SHOPS (SUNDAY CLOSING) BILL.
  As amended (in the Standing Committee,) considered.
  HAIRDRESSERS' AND BARBERS' SHOPS (SUNDAY CLOSING) BILL.

    NEW CLAUSE.—(Exemption of family business.)
    Notwithstanding anything in this Act any person may carry on the business of a hairdresser

    2251
    or a barber on Sunday if the only persons employed by him in the business are members of his family.—[Sir R. Rodd.]
    Brought up, and read the First time.
    Sir RENNELL RODD: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
    1.0 p.m.
    The Bill now coming up for consideration is one, introduced in the interests of a particular and perhaps not very influential class of the community, which has not received very great interest among hon. Members other than the relatively small number of them who have given attention to its details and to the bearings of the Measure. I shall be very brief, in view of certain comments I heard last Friday, in order to deprecate any suspicion on the part of hon. Members and especially my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crook-shank), whose merit it is to have brought forward this Bill, that I wish to contest the reputation which I gather he enjoys in the eyes of the noble Lady the Member for Plymouth (Viscountess Astor). The Amendment which I am putting forward is one for which I hope to obtain consideration from the House. It is a serious Amendment, and one I would like to see carried. The text of it makes it very clear. The Sunday trading that is involved is of a very small kind. I have no special interest in bringing forward this point. I hope the House will realise that, as far as I am concerned, my representations must be disinterested. I always shave myself and have not very much hair to cut, but in a very busy life like mine, like probably other Members whose heads are better furnished, externally, at any rate, I often find it difficult on a busy week day to fit in that half-hour which is required for a visit to a hairdresser and which is often prolonged by a shampoo, wet or dry, and other amenities of the tonsorial art. If that be so in my own case, who am more or less master of the free disposition of my time, how much more must that be the case with those whose whole working hours on week days are filled up and have very few opportunities of departing from them!
    The object of this Measure with which I am personally entirely in sympathy is that those who, not owning their own establishments, are employed in barbers'
    2252
    and hairdressers' shops, should not be deprived of that weekly rest which every man has claimed as his right ever since Moses imposed the Decalogue. I do not see why the acceptance of that principle, with which I am entirely in sympathy, should necessarily deprive the barber who runs a small domestic business, perhaps assisted only by his own family, from being allowed to minister to the convenience of those who have very few opportunities of invoking his services except on Sunday mornings, when, in view of their weekly holiday, they are naturally anxious to make the best of their personal appearance, whether they intend to devote the day to social intercourse or to devotional contemplation.
    In many of the countries in which I have lived, Sunday is by far the busiest day with barbers and hairdressers. In Italy they close for the whole of Monday in compensation for keeping open on Sunday. The reason for this the Sunday opening is fairly obvious. When Sunday arrives a man who has been at work all the week puts on his best clothes and, after satisfying the claims of conscience by a hasty visit to church, goes off with his wife and family to enjoy the day; or it may be he turns his footsteps towards the paths in which a young man's fancy lightly runs, and he knows that as a suitor he will be far more acceptable with a smooth cheek than with a rough one. In those countries, when the weekly holiday comes round, it is the almost invariable practice for a man to pay an early visit to the barber's shop to prepare himself for the occasion. In that country a great many people still have a constitutional inability to shave themselves. In this country most of us, I think, shave ourselves; but the same considerations may apply with regard to a timely hair-cut or a trimming of the beard when the holiday comes round. Then there is the case of farmers and their assistants, who may live a long way from any town or village and are able to enlist the ministrations of a barber only on Sunday mornings. I am quite unable to see why a man who runs a little family business and is willing to devote a certain number of hours to work on Sunday morning, during which time he employs nobody else, unless, it may be, some of his own family, should be deprived of rendering this convenience to the public.
    Captain CROOKSHANK: Happily it it not necessary to second this new Clause, because the right hon. Gentleman who moved it is a Privy Councillor, but I wish to support it. He did me an injustice just now. He was complimentary to me in one sense, but he said that I was the promoter of the Bill. In that he was wrong, and I do not know how that impression came to his mind, because I bitterly oppose this Bill. It is one of the worst Friday Bills we have had. [Interruption.] It is no good hon. Members opposite trying to provoke me at this early hour.
    Mr. MILLS: You ought to support a Bill for a hair restorer.
    Captain CROOKSHANK: This Bill has been introduced several times, but it has never had a Second Reading Debate. The principles of this Bill have never yet been adopted by the House after a discussion of them. This year it slipped through—I do not know how or why, but I dare say there was an agreement in the days when it was still possible to have honourable agreements with the Socialist party on matters of business. The Bill slipped through after 11 o'clock, and the House has not given a verdict on whether it accepts the principle that, barbers' shops should be shut on Sundays if they are run by Christians but open if they are kept by Jews. That is one of the vital features of the Bill.
    Before we come to that point the right hon. Gentleman has quite rightly brought up the question of whether a man who runs a family business should be allowed to open on Sundays. The whole question of hair dressing and barbering is a difficult problem. I am sure that is admitted by those who are supporting the Bill, because it is not an occupation in the same category as that of ordinary trade or shopkeeping. [Interruption.] They claim to be artists, and when one looks round at some of the results of their efforts in this House one is perhaps inclined to agree with that definition. I will not mention anybody in particular. My point is that their calling is not trading in the sense of keeping a shop, so the question of the Sunday closing of shops is not entirely relevant here. There are a great many people who for one reason and another are physically incapable of shaving themselves, and I
    2254
    imagine that we are all physically incapable of cutting our own hair. There are great numbers of people who through infirmity or illness or through lack of sight cannot shave themselves; and I have heard of those who, for some psychological reason, cannot put a razor into their hands. I am not referring to lunatics.
    Mr. ERNEST BROWN: Shell-shock cases.
    Captain CROOKSHANK: No, I do not mean shell-shock cases, but there are people who are incapable of shaving themselves and one has to recognise it. That being so, it puts the whole profession or whatever you like to call it outside the scope of the ordinary restriction on shops on Sundays. If I am wrong in that, and if those who are promoting the Bill think that barbers and hairdressers should come under the category of shopkeepers rather than of the professions, what they had better do is to allow this Bill to be withdrawn and send the matter to the Committee which is investigating the whole question of shop hours. We have to decide the problem of whether we are dealing with this question from the point of view that the shop must not be open on Sunday—not because it is a place of gaiety or amusement—on Sabbatarian grounds, or whether we are taking the point of view that it is wrong that the hair dresser and the barber, his family and his children and his employés should be employed more than a certain time either per day or per week. Is this pro-Sabbatarian and against people who wish to break the Sabbath either for purposes of gain or business; or is it an attempt to make conditions more tolerable for the workers in this business?
    As we did not have any full Debate on the principle of the Bill we are entitled to get at what is in the minds of the promoters, because that does seem to affect the whole issue raised in this Amendment. If they are supporting this Bill because employés are being kept in the shops on Sundays, because of their long hours of labour, then it is a question which the Select Committee is investigating, the question of regulating the hours of labour, and whether in the general public interest it is not desirable that this special thing, the hairdressing and barbering trade, this special thing, I do not know how to

    2255
    describe it, should be made available for the people who need it through the custom and habit of going to barbers' shops on Sunday morning. Of course, if you are taking the purely Sabbatarian point of view, I agree that you cannot accept this proposed new Clause, but if the underlying principle of the Bill is to say that these places should be shut entirely on Sundays, as shops are supposed to be to-day—I will not go into that question now, because it would be out of order—if the idea is to shut barbers' shops tight, so that no one can go in at all, I quite agree that you cannot accept this proposed new Clause, which would make it possible for the man to open and for his family, if be wishes them to do so, during a pressure of business or something of that kind, to help him.
    If you are not taking the Sabbatarian point of view, but merely the question of hours of labour per week, or per fortnight, or anything else, then it is a very open question, and I think the promoters of the Bill had better accept this Clause and recognise the fact that there is a Select Committee investigating all these questions, and that their attention might very well be drawn to this particular problem. On the assumption that the second of these points of view is being taken, and not the Sabbatarian one, then if out of deference to the profession to which the hon. Member belongs we are going to call it a profession, and not just a business like a shop, that brings it into the same category as a good many other professional people who have to attend to their work on Sundays. Professional people like doctors and surgeons often have to work on Sundays, and in certain instances they may have to call upon the hairdresser and barber to assist them in carrying out their business.
    Mr. J. STEWART: That is in the Bill.
    Mr. MILLS: It is in Clause 2.
    Captain CROOKSHANK: I know all about Clause 2. The hon. Member will keep on trying to interrupt me, but it only makes matters worse, because it is very difficult to keep to the thread that I am trying to follow. It would simplify the argument if one knew which of the principles to which I have referred is
    2256
    behind the Bill. [Interruption.] I do not think that they are compatible, and, as we have never had a Second Reading Debate on the Bill, we do not know which principle it is. Take the question of the man who is assisted by his family. The right hon. Gentleman and those who support him would make an exception in that case. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out, quite rightly, that a great many people in all parts of the world are accustomed to being shaved on Sundays. The promoters of the Bill agree to that, because, if a barber's shop is run by a Jew, it may be opened on Sunday,
    Mr. MILLS: But not on Saturday.
    Captain CROOKSHANK: But not on Saturday. Therefore, it is not the Sabbatarian point of view that is taken there; it is not wrong in every case that a shop should be opened on Sunday. Now we are getting down to it. There is nothing wicked about a barber's shop being open on Sunday, and, therefore, we are thrown back on the question of hours of labour, and I should say that the Select Committee had better investigate that to begin with. Further, I must put in the protest which has so often been voiced by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten), with regard to the case of the small man in business. Measures of this kind are sometimes brought in by those who are interested in large organisations, in order to squeeze out the one-man shop or business. [Interruption.] An hon. Member says "No." All I can say is that during the last Parliament, when this Bill came up, I intervened during the Committee stage, and, as a result of some remarks that I made there, for about three months my letter-box was absolutely chock-full of correspondence from barbers all over the country who were small people with one-man shops, thanking me for sticking up for their rights and saying that they were being squeezed out by larger organisations and by the attitude of people like the hon. Member and his colleagues. I have had such communications again already during this Session, since this Bill has been on the Order Paper.
    If the small man wants to open hisshop on Sunday—and it is admitted now by the hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Mills) that there is nothing wrong in having a shop open on Sunday—why

    2257
    should this House always take it upon itself on a Friday to interfere with the liberty of the individual? It does it a good deal on other days of the week, but Friday is the day above all on which hon. Members set out on this crusade. There are still, however, Members in the Conservative party, though apparently there are not any more in the Liberal party, who are prepared to stick up for the rights of the individual, and for not making every shop and every other organisation exactly the same up and down the country.
    I am not a representative of an East London constituency, but I should like someone who is, and who is in touch with the people in this business there, to express their views. A great many of them have sent their views to me through the post, but really I cannot, nor can other Members of this House, go down to different parts of the country to see whether such communications are bogus or not. One can only assume, if one gets a letter which is apparently bonâ fide, from a bonâ fide address, that the correspondent has some reason for addressing the particular Member concerned; but I should like someone who has intimate knowledge of that part of London to tell us exactly what the situation is there.
    Nor must we forget, in dealing with this problem, the large foreign communities in London. The promoters of the Bill have not forgotten them, because, in the case of the Jews—if I may for a moment mention them with foreign communities, though I know that a great many of them are not foreigners, but British—the promoters of the Bill have admitted that it is reasonable to exclude them on the ground of their religious views, and have said that, if they shut on Saturday, they may keep open on Sunday. That, again, raises a very large question of principle, which is not suitable for discussion on this Clause, but while I am dealing with the Clause, I should like to remind the hon. Member of that fact. It raises a large question of principle whether people who come to this country are to adopt the views and prejudices, if you like, of the country as a whole, or whether they are to keep their own views. It is admitted, in the Clause dealing with the Jews, that they
    2258
    may keep their own views, but what about communities like the Italian community in London, or the Polish, or the Spanish, or any others who have their own barbers, probably men working by themselves or with their families, because, more than anywhere else, you find family businesses in foreign communities? The right hon. Gentleman himself alluded to this point. It is admitted that in the case of the Jews they are to have special privileges, and I say that—
    Mr. J. STEWART: Say something about Melanesia!
    Captain CROOKSHANK: My experience of Melanesia, when I visited those islands in the Pacific, was that the people there did not go in very much for hairdressing at all.
    Mr. DEPUTY - SPEAKER: (Mr. Dunnico): Order, order! The hon. and gallant Member is now going really too far afield.
    Captain CROOKSHANK: I only made that remark because the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. J. Stewart) referred to Melanesia. No doubt he has been to Melanesia, and I was trying to tell him that I had been there also, and my experience of the people there is that they do not cut their hair, on Sunday or on any other day. The argument to which I should like the hon. Member to address himself is this: He admits that those who hold a certain religious belief can be excluded from the Bill, and, if you are going to admit that in the case of the Jews, how is it that you cannot admit it—unless the hon. Member is going to accept the Clause—in the case of those people who run their business on family lines, namely, foreigners in London and in other parts of the country? If the hon. Member can give me an answer to that question, well and good. If not, I certainly think that this Clause ought to be put into this Bill.
    The hon. Member will probably say that the father will sweat the family, that he will make the children work long hours, overtime, and so on. We have had that argument already on the Shop Hours Bill, and it has been very thoroughly investigated. It is not really a valid argument, because it involves the assumption that all the family are quite incapable of expressing themselves, but at the same

    2259
    time are capable of barbering. It is a big order, if you take the sons as being capable of shaving and cutting hair, to ask us to assume that they will be quite incompetent to say "No" if their father tries to make them work on Sundays when they do not want to do so. If they are old enough and sensible enough to be able to shave, they are old enough and sensible enough to say "No" to their father if they do not want to do something.
    Those are some of the arguments that present themselves on this important Amendment. It is very important. Hon. Members opposite would have us believe that they, like the rest of us, are interested in family life. They are always interested in family life except on Fridays. Last Friday their interest in family life entirely dissolved when it was a question of the small community of people who live on canal boats. To-day, unless this Clause is accepted, it also dissolves, because this equally small community of hairdressers who employ their families in the business are not to be able to do what they would like to do. Although the word is "employ," I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has in mind a contractual obligation, whether they are employed in the sense of being paid so much per day, or per week, or per job—
    Mr. MILLS: Per head!
    Captain CROOKSHANK: I said "per job". It was intended to cover the point—whether he means contractual obligations to their father or whether he merely means employed in about the father's business. The hon. Member can answer that and I am glad to see he is going to, but he had better accept the Clause and put it, if he has any doubts about it, to the Select Committee on the whole question of the hours of employment in this trade, business or profession, whichever you like to call it. If he does that, there would not be very much objection to getting a great deal of this Bill if we had some safeguard of that sort. I hope the hon. Member will do that. I hope he will remember that the Bill has not had any formal approval of its principles from the House as a whole. He has to tell us whether the words in the Clause are the vital ones or not,
    2260
    whether it is the words "on Sunday", that is to say whether it is a Sabbatarian Bill, or whether it is the words "persons employed", that is to say whether it is a Bill to protect the people who are employed in the business. In the absence of any statement from any of the promoters, I am prepared to support my right hon. Friend in what seems to me a very sensible and wise Clause and I hope we shall see to it that, whatever we do in this or any other of these Bills, we will allow some right to a man to run his own business in the way he wants to, provided that in doing so he does not inflict unduly hard conditions on those whom he employs. Hon. Members opposite surely agree to that as a general proposition. If they do, why should they not accept this very proper Clause? I hope the House will unanimously agree that it should be read a Second time.
    Mr. C. WILLIAMS: My position, as far as this Clause is concerned, is one of very great difficulty indeed. In the first place, I am not in complete agreement with my right hon. Friend, and I am only in partial agreement with the hon. and gallant Gentleman who has just spoken. I cannot say I have ever had the honour of having my name on the back of the Bill. I was not asked, or it might have been there but, of course, the hon. Gentleman who is in charge of the Bill knows that he has my wholehearted sympathy throughout the whole of the proceedings. I only give him that assurance because we have known each other for some while and I should not like him to think that any little Amendment that I have down was in any way antagonistic to him. I will show my friendship straight away by saying that on the whole, up to the present, unless I hear some more powerful arguments, it is highly probable that I shall find myself reluctantly compelled—I cannot vote in two Lobbies unfortunately, not being a Liberal—to oppose the Clause. It puts us in a very difficult position. The hon. and gallant Gentleman has just spoken of people who on Sundays are quite incapable of shaving. I do not know whether he meant that they were incapable of shaving on Sunday because it follows Saturday or that they were incapable of shaving throughout the whole of the week.
    Captain CROOKSHANK: If my hon. Friend challenges me on something I said, I can only say I have no personal experience of anyone who is in a state of incapacity on Sunday morning. My acquaintance does not run, like his, to people of that kind. What I had in mind, as I thought I made clear, was that the people I was dealing with who were incapable of shaving on Sundays were always incapable through the fact that they were unable to use a razor or any other sharp instrument.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: As far as my hon. and gallant Friend's friends and mine are concerned, that is not quite the point I was raising. The trouble with my hon. and gallant Friend is that he has such an overwhelming love of shortness of speech and brevity that he is really ruling out much of what is vital in the sentences that he utters. I quite agree that there are the two classes which I was endeavouring to mention. As understand it, the class of what I might call the habitual incapables was in his mind and the other class which had occurred to me, not so much from experience as from hearsay, never entered his mind which, naturally, is one that keeps very closely to a single point. [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend refers me to the man who has lost his razor. That is a matter of carelessness.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: One is always prepared to give a certain amount of latitude but the hon. Member is really trespassing too far beyond the Rules of Order. The issue is very simple. It is whether a person may carry on business on Sunday if the only persons employed are members of his family. The hon. Member must keep to that issue.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: I will come back very severely to the point whether the hairdresser, or barber, who is the only person employed should be allowed to keep open on Sundays. Of course, that brings in the question of the one man shop being open on Sundays. This Clause largely widens the scope of the Bill. I have some reasons, as far as my own mind is concerned, for opposing the Clause. The controversy concerning the one-man shop leads us into great difficulty. It has been explained that the one-man shop is a business in which, very often, a small barber does not do
    2262
    a great deal of trade during the middle of the week owing to the nature of the locality in which he works. He is perhaps not quite in the same position to-day as he was 10 years ago owing to the fact that there is a difference in the length of the hair of the female population, which means that there is more work for him to do in the middle of the week. But barbers of this character very often rely upon the week-end for getting the bulk of their clients. My right hon. Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Sir R. Rodd) referred to certain conditions regarding other countries. I will not attempt to follow up that matter, but one does know from experience—and hon. Gentlemen opposite undoubtedly know—that throughout the country there are scores of small barbers' shops where a very large proportion of the trade is done on Saturday and Sunday. You are proposing—and it is the argument in favour of this new Clause—to prevent them from working their employés on Sunday. I sympathise with them in regard to that difficulty, and have done so for a great many years.
    You would, by allowing the privilege provided for in this new Clause, create a further difficulty. You do not think of the man who may employ two or three outside assistants. I will amplify what I say in this way. The latter part of this proposed new Clause says that a man may employ persons who are members of his family. It is possible for a man and his wife and two, three or four members of his family to be employed together, and for them to employ each other in one shop, and that would mean, for practical purposes, that the shop was a comparatively big establishment. Next door you may have a smaller shop where there may be one man employing one or two outside assistants. I am presuming for the moment that you have a proper definition of "members of the family." Compared with the shop employing four or five persons in this way, the small man paying outside wages will be at a great disadvantage, because he is to lose this particular privilege. This is one of the reasons why I hold that it is not right that we should accept the Clause.
    There is a further point in this connection. There is no definition of the word "family." I should like some information from my legal friends on this

    2263
    point. I see that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department is present. What is the definition of the word "family?" How widely can it be applied? Is it possible to take in great-grandfathers, for instance? We really ought to have this information before a new Clause of this kind is accepted. I can see that the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. J. Stewart) realises quite plainly that my paint is a good and adequate one and that he is pleased at the defence I am putting up regarding his position on the Bill. Then there is the question of what is meant by Sunday trading. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) thought that it was really only a matter of hours. I take the opposite line. I think that as far as this Clause is concerned the question of Sunday trading is the guiding principle. Although it may be necessary to have Amendments to meet certain modern conditions of life, I do not want in this case to amend the Bill in such a way that, as far as the Sabbath is concerned, you will rule out one particular section of the community. I come to another very important question in connection with this Bill. The proposed new Clause says:
    "Notwithstanding anything in this Act any person may carry on the business of a hairdresser or barber on Sunday."
    I should like to know from the Mover of the Clause what he means precisely by "hairdresser or barber." The word "barber," I would remind him, has a wider meaning in some parts of the country than in others. In the old days it meant a barber surgeon as well, and part of the barber's duty was to bleed the subject.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That is outside the scope of this Amendment.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: I will try to cover it by an Amendment. If I am not allowed to raise the point now, I am afraid that it will have to be raised at some other time. I should like to know from the promoters of the Bill what rules or regulations would have to be brought in to separate the two sorts of shops — the family business and the other kind of business. If we accept this proposed new clause, will the administration be left to
    2264
    the local authorities or to the Home Office? As far as Scotland is concerned, how will it be administered in those great northern cities? If we bring in an exception such as is suggested in this new clause, there might be a considerable amount of abuse and maladministration by people being brought in who are not members of the family. I have considered this matter with a desire to help my hon. Friends who are promoting the Bill, and I hope that they will extend their hand to me. It would not be well to pass a Clause such as the one now proposed, which seems to cut across what I conceive to be almost the guiding principle of the Bill.
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: I am opposed to all work on Sunday, except the old definition of work of necessity and mercy. St. Margaret of Scotland found that the Scottish people worked on the Lord's day as well as the other days of the week. She found that they worked much too hard. I do not think that if she revisited the country now she would find so much to complain about on that score. In those far distant years she held that people should not work on the Sabbath except in feeding the cattle and in doing other works of necessity and mercy. The provision now proposed will make an exception. In 1837, the question came up as to whether shaving of customers on Sunday by an apprentice boy was a work of necessity or mercy. The boy refused to do the work because he was devout, and his employer dismissed him, whereupon the youth sued for damages for wrongful dismissal. The Court of Session, which was in touch with the views of the Scottish people, decided that it was not a work of necessity or mercy and that if people could not shave themselves, they could go to church on one day of the week, unshaven. There was an appeal to the House of Lords, however, and they decided that shaving was a work of necessity and mercy.
    The LORD ADVOCATE: What is the name of the case?
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: I cannot give the reference at the moment, but the case arose in 1837. I do not think that this House is in any way bound by that decision. There is a discrepancy in this

    2265
    Bill. Why should people engage in labour on Sunday in shaving mental deficients or physical deficients. If a man is bodily deficient he will not be going about on Sunday, and it does not matter whether he is shaved or not. If he is mentally deficient, he probably does not care whether he is shaved or not. Therefore, I do not see that this particular class of individuals should be indulged with this right to break the Fourth Commandment. Moreover, I do not see why the barbers should go to any hotel if a person resident there requires attention, or why they should attend those who go down to the sea in ships who require to be shaved. I do not see that the individual and his family should have any rights any more than the rest. This is not the worst type of Sunday labour. The worst thing we have is the issue and sale of Sunday newspapers. I wish they could be abolished along with the Sunday barber. This Bill is a step in that direction, and I am inclined to vote for it for that reason. I think this new clause would injure the general purpose of the Bill, therefore I am not prepared to support it.
    Mr. BLINDELL: I congratulate the hon. Members who have spoken on having attempted to say a good deal in a long time, so that one could hardly understand what they were driving at. I want us to get back to the Bill and to consider seriously what this new Clause would mean. If by any accident we added the new Clause to the Bill, it would mean that the Bill would become non-operative. The Clause suggests that members of a family, or a business where only members of a family are employed, should be allowed to conduct their business on Sundays. A very large number of barbers' and hairdressers' shops are what may be termed family businesses, and if the Clause were added, the Bill would become absolutely useless. The hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) said that the small business man must be considered. He must, and the consideration that he desires is that this Bill should become law in order to protect him against the unfair competition of those people who desire to take his business from him.
    The reason why we have so many barbers' shops open on Sundays is not that, these people desire to open their
    2266
    shops, but that they are forced to do so by the action of individuals who open their shops, and to meet the competition that is set up against them. In the provinces there is a strong desire that this Bill should become law. I hope that now that hon. Members have had their say and have taken up so much time in saying many things that were not relevant to the new Clause, they will be content to withdraw the new Clause and let the Bill proceed to its further stages.
    Mr. WOMERSLEY: I am anxious that this Bill should become law. The hon. Member who introduced the Bill will bear me out in that statement. It is not a question of my assisting him with the Bill this Session, because I have done my bit to assist him in other Sessions when he had not the wholehearted support for the Bill that he is receiving to-day. I am satisfied that the House agrees with the principle of the Bill and will not assent to the new Clause. We have discussed this matter on every Shops Bill that has been introduced. Every year when the Shops Act is reaffirmed, under the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, the question of the one man business has been discussed. It has always been urged, as a plea against anything in the way of shop hours legislation, that these men would suffer severely if they were compelled to close their business. That argument does not apply in this case. The bulk of those who follow the profession of hair-dresser and barber in the provinces are men who can be described as small business men, and they carry on with just a boy or perhaps one assistant.
    What would be the position if the new Clause was accepted? It would wreck the Bill altogether. Look at the position in which it would put barbers who employ one assistant. They would have to close their premises or themselves carry on the business on Sunday and allow their assistant to take his holiday. I do not know how the Courts would interpret this Bill if the Amendment was inserted; whether they would regard it as right and proper for a man to carry on himself on Sundays and send his assistant away, or whether trey would hold that any man who employs an assistant at any time cannot keep open on Sunday, because it is not a one-man business. At

    2267
    any rate certain people would keep open and others would have to close, and you would create, undoubtedly, a gross injustice in the case of certain people.
    I regret that I did not hear the speech of the right hon. Member who moved the new Clause, but I have no doubt that the argument that you should not interfere with the liberty of the subject was used; that if a man wants to work on Sundays let him work. That is all very well so long as he is not doing an injury to other people. It may not be to the financial advantage of a man to work on Sundays. Where he is the only one in the district, and gets a monopoly, then, indeed, it is worth while, but what really happens is that if one man opens on Sunday gradually all the others who are his rivals in business follow suit. They consider that he is taking away some of their customers. So shop after shop opens, and in the long run the whole of the shops in the district are opened and nobody is one penny better off. They get the same number of people to shave and the same number of heads to shear, and they work on Sundays in addition to all the other days of the week. I cannot see why the House should accept this new Clause. We have no right to accept a proposal which will allow certain people to keep open and compel others to close.
    2.0 p.m.
    Earl WINTERTON: I approach this Bill from the point of view of one who has not made up his mind whether to oppose or support it. There is certainly a great deal in what the hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Womersley) has said, but his arguments were wider than the particular point at issue in this new Clause. I fully agree with the principle of the liberty of the subject, but the day has gone by when in relation to any trade you can say that a man should be allowed to do what he likes with his own. That principle has gone, for good or ill. Where the argument of the hon. Member for Grimsby failed was in saying that if the Amendment is adopted it will destroy the principle of the Bill, in effect, that this is a purely wrecking proposal. Looking at the Bill I do not understand why this should be so, as very wide exceptions have been allowed from the general principle. I gather that a person can be
    2268
    shaved or have his hair cut in an hotel. It is true that he must be a resident in the hotel, but it will be a very difficult thing for the barber to make sure that every person who enters the hairdresser's saloon was actually resident in the hotel. There is no safeguard in the Bill to ensure that people who make use of the hairdresser's shop in an hotel are actually residing there.
    Nor does there appear to be any reason why a person who is suffering from bodily or mental infirmity should have the right to be shaved on Sunday any more than any other person. I do not suppose his recovery will be retarded if he has to be shaved on any other day. But most important of all, and this is the most serious exception to the general rule, the Bill gives a right to the Jewish population in this country to open their shops on Sunday and so compete with a person of any other religion who cannot open his shop on Sunday. I am astonished that any Committee of this House should have agreed to such a proposal.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The Noble Lord is getting far away from the new Clause which is now under discussion.
    Earl WINTERTON: I am referring to the question of exceptions. The new clause is opposed on the ground that it affects the principle of the Bill, and I am arguing that if you make an exception of so fundamental a character as to allow a shop in an hotel to be opened, allow people who are ill to be shaved on Sundays, and allow Jewish shops to be open, we should have much more powerful arguments from the supporters of the Measure before we reject the Clause.
    Mr. J. STEWART: There is nothing in the Bill which says that a person who is suffering from bodily or mental infirmity shall be attended to inside a barber's shop. The barber may attend him in an institution or his home for that purpose, but not in the shop.
    Earl WINTERTON: I am much obliged for the hon. Member's courteous explanation. I was not fully aware of that fact. It would not be in order for me to pursue the subject. What I do assert is that this is an important exception in the Bill and that it involves Sunday labour for hairdressers. Let me refer to the new Clause. It is simply another exception

    2269
    such as the promoters of the Bill accepted in Committee. The Home Office should tell us why they consider that this exception is less necessary or less fair than the exceptions which presumably they agreed to in Standing Committee. It has been said with great truth to-day that the rights of the owners of one-man businesses have been greatly exaggerated. No one desires that the general trend of legislation, which has been so happily carried in recent years in the direction of giving more opportunities for recreation to shop assistants, should be altered by the fact that there are one-man businesses in this country. At the same time in the case of the businesses of hairdressers and barbers there is some ground for making an exception. It would, of course, be undesirable to have a large establishment open on a Sunday, but in any event very few people would be likely to make use of it. There is something to be said in favour of the one-man business being allowed to keep open on Sunday under certain conditions. There are, for instance, the hairdressers' shops in seaports. In Cardiff there are Mohammedan barbers. Friday is their Sabbath. Why should their establishments be closed on a Friday while Jewish shops are allowed to remain open?
    Mr. J. STEWART: Various speeches against the Bill have dealt with the subject as if this were the Second Reading. I do not want to weary the House with a Second Reading speech. [HON. MEMBERS: "Others have done it!"] Yes, and they have been allowed.
    Mr. EVERARD: Is it in order for the hon. Members to question whether previous speeches have been in order or not?
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I did not understand that the hon. Member was questioning my Ruling. I understood he was merely expressing an opinion.
    Mr. STEWART: The last thing I would do would be to question the ruling of yourself as the guiding spirit of the deliberations of this House. The House already knows all that there is to be known about this Bill. The Bill has been before the House on six occasions in recent years, and by one means or another Members have become fully acquainted with its provisions. Members
    2270
    of my trade—I do not call it a profession—have for long years been carrying on an agitation as best they could to get this alteration made in the law. They are a poor trade, but they have spent money to a very considerable extent in working for the change that this Bill would bring about. There are among the people of the trade employers, so-called master barbers or hairdressers, who are working 365 or 366 days a year. It is true that by compulsion they have a half holiday once a week, but little boys of 14 years of age or less, half-timers, are working every day of the week. It is the trade itself, not the men who work in the shops, not the assistants, but the employers themselves who have carried on this agitation through all these years and have asked to be saved from conditions over which they have little control.
    I was born in the trade, and when I was a boy there was no such thing in the City of Glasgow as a barber's shop open on a Sunday. I was in business for myself, a so-called business, when this thing made its appearance. For some years in Glasgow there was only one man who kept his shop open on the Sabbath day. Then there was an invasion, shall I say? of foreigners, both in religion and nationality, and they brought with them their conditions and opened on Sundays.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member is now endeavouring to do what he suggested that I allowed others to do.
    Mr. STEWART: I am sorry, and I will say nothing further on that point. But the Mover of the new Clause referred to various nationalities and said that Italians opened on a Sunday and then closed on a Monday. The new Clause does not provide for opening on Sunday and closing on Monday. It is not suggested that we should open on Sunday and should be compelled to close during the whole day on Monday, but if the suggestion of the new Clause were to be carried out, this Bill, with all its good intentions and with all the wisdom which, in my opinion, is contained therein, would go by the board. If we pass the new Clause the Bill will be dead. The new Clause asks for the exemption of a family business. How are who decide who are "the members of a family"? If the

    2271
    barber is a married man, is that term to include his brothers and his wife's brothers and any relatives of that kind? Do hon. Members understand the results which would follow from such a new Clause? It would mean that a man under this exemption would get an advantage of a kind which cannot be conceded in a trade like ours. We are too poor to allow advantages of that kind and, thus, one man with his family, might become the dictator of my lot and the lot of many other families who work at this trade.
    I do not reply to certain further remarks that have been made because I do not think that you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, would permit me to do so, and I can only say that it was the remarks which were made on the other side which led me to adopt the line of argument which I did adopt a few minutes ago. I conclude, however, by pointing out to hon. Members that this is not a party Bill; that Members who sit on the Front Opposition Bench are backing it, and that Members in all parts of the House are supporting it. In Committee, in the course of less than two hours, we came to a unanimous decision recommending this Bill as it now stands to the House and I hope that that recommendation will be followed. I appeal to hon. Members, on behalf of the trade to which I belong, to give us an opportunity to have some freedom and happiness in our lives. I myself have never worked these hours which have been described, but I know what it is to do so, and 'I hope that the House will, without further delay, complete the remaining stages of the Bill.
    Commander SOUTHBY: I also wish to—[Interruption.] The hon. Member opposite who is so vociferous in interruption and so silent in Debate, might, at least, allow some other Member to say a word in favour of this Bill in addition to the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. Perhaps if the hon. Member who interrupts had waited, he might have changed the nature of his interruption. I also wish to support what has been said by the hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Rollox (Mr. J. Stewart) who is in charge of the Bill. Although I feel very strongly that there should be the greatest possible measure of freedom for the individual to do what he likes, when he likes and as he
    2272
    likes, at the same time I believe that this new Clause, instead of giving freedom to the members of a family in this trade, would, in its operation, prove to be simply an act of tyranny to them. Undoubtedly it is a wrecking proposal and even if the House were to accept it, I do not believe that the trade would be one penny the better for it.
    I think that Members of the House must be impressed, as the Committee upstairs were impressed, by the fact that this Bill is asked for by the whole trade. It is not brought forward by the assistants but by the employers in the trade. As has been pointed out, a new Clause such as this would raise the difficulty of defining who were the members of an employer's family. It would be possible to include, for instance, cousins of a very distant degree of relationship. They might be accepted as members of the family and employed under the terms of this new Clause. The whole object of the Bill is to give one day's rest a week to a trade which now knows practically no rest at all. Members of the House must know from their experience that this is a trade in which there is very little off-time. Many of those engaged in it work under conditions which are particularly bad, and those are the very businesses which the Bill seeks to protect. I sincerely hope that if this proposal is pressed to a Division the House will reject it. Before concluding, I should like to refer to the point raised by my right hon. Friend, the Member for Horsham (Earl Winter-ton). The day's rest which the Bill gives to the trade is given also to the Jewish members of the trade, but this Amendment would give no day of rest at all to-any member of the trade whether Jew or Gentile. The new Clause would differentiate between people in the trade in a way which is quite contrary to the intention of the Bill.
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I have followed the fortunes of this and similar Bills for many years, and think nobody with any humanity in his heart or mind could fail to be impressed by the plea which has been made by the hon. Member of St. Rollox (Mr. J. Stewart). I suggest to my right hon. Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Sir B. Rodd), whose excellent speech I listened to with great pleasure, that he should now withdraw his proposed new Clause because it is

    2273
    quite clear that there is a large amount of support for the Bill in all quarters of the House. As a Scotsman, I am firmly of opinion that if the law of Scotland were put into force, it would not permit of the opening of a single barber's shop or any other shop on Sunday. I believe that that is, in fact, the law of Scotland although it is not put into force. This Bill is asked for by the trade itself; it is asked for on behalf of the trade by one of the most respected of all men in the trade, and one of our own colleagues in this House, and I think that a Measure of this kind having been discussed on six previous occasions, we ought now to pass it into law.
    Sir R. ROOD: It was not, in the least, my intention to make a wrecking proposal, nor had I solely in my mind the idea of protecting the small trade. I have very great sympathy with the small trader, and I will not say that his position was not in my mind in making this proposal, but I was really thinking of the convenience of the public. But if the new Clause is regarded, as it seems to be regarded, as a wreckage proposal, I should not wish to press it because I am entirely in sympathy with the general provisions of the Bill. I should add that I did not myself draft the terms of the new Clause. I think that had I done so I would have put it in rather different terms, but, in all the circumstances, and having heard the pathetic speech of the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. J. Stewart), I shall be very glad to accept what I feel is the sense of the House and to withdraw the proposed new Clause.
    Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

    CLAUSE 2.—(Exemption as respects hairdressers or barbers attending certain persons.)
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The next Amendment which I select is that in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Altrincham (Mr. Atkinson)—in page 1, line 13, to leave out from the word "place" to the word "the" in line 14 and to insert instead thereof the words "other than."
    Mr. C. WILLIAMS: On a point of Order. I have down a, proposed new Clause—(Exemption as to attendance on certain persons)—dealing with the ques- 2274
    tion of business carried out under the instructions of a medical practitioner, and I wish to know if that has been ruled out because it is considered that these medical cases are covered under Clause 2, paragraph (a).
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member's proposed new Clause is not selected.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: I beg to move, In page 1, line 13, to leave out, from the word "place," to the word "the," in line 14, and to insert instead thereof the words "other than."
    This is an Amendment which was put on the paper by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Altrincham (Mr. Atkinson), because he considered that it would be in the interests of the Bill. It is a technical Amendment, but it ought to be made in order to clarify the position.
    Mr. SMITH-CARINGTON: I beg to second the Amendment.
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Short): I am afraid I cannot advise the House to accept the Amendment. The effect of the Amendment would be to extend the exemption in regard to bodily or mental infirmity, and we think that we have already made ample provision in making it possible for persons suffering from bodily or mental infirmity to be treated, and also for those who are resident in hotels and those in sea-going ships.
    Earl WINTERTON: The hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. J. Stewart), who is in charge of the Bill, said that it had been discussed on several previous occasions. I try to make it a rule not to betray emotion in this House, but I confess that my defences nearly broke down when I heard his speech and his profound appeal on behalf of the Bill. We have not heard from the promoter or from the Under-Secretary of State, however, why it should be necessary to make an exception in regard to bodily and mental infirmity. As the Clause is drafted, the effect must be that any person who is unable, by reason of bodily or mental infirmity, to go to a hairdresser's shop will have the right to be attended by a hairdresser on a Sunday. I could see some reason for making an exception in

    2275
    the case of persons where it was necessary for medical reasons to be shaved or to have their hair cut on Sunday, but I cannot see a reason for making it in the case of any person who is not able to go to a hairdresser's shop. Who will determine what bodily or mental infirmity prevents a person going to a shop?
    Mr. J. STEWART: As the result of consultations and of a desire to get this Bill, which is the Magna Carta for our trade, carried, we were anxious to conciliate wherever there was reasonable opposition. It was put to us that an individual might be suffering from an illness—it might be paralysis or something else—that might make him unable to use his own hands or to attend to himself, and we decided to allow such a person to be attended. There was also the question that if a person was in an institution, he should be attended there for the same reason. If we had not agreed to that, we should have met with opposition on those grounds. I am bound to confess, as an individual having had experience of institutions, for it has been my lot to have been connected with institutions such as asylums, infirmaries, and general hospitals, that I know the necessity for these things being attended to, and I think that in making these concessions we have done something that has not in any degree weakened the Bill itself, nor in any way destroyed the principle that underlies the Bill, which is that the shops themselves shall be shut. The number of people who will ask for a barber to go and attend them on a Sunday will be very few indeed, for, like other people, when we are asked to do extra work on unusual days or at unusual hours, we take advantage of the situation and just get as much out of the person as we think the person can give. For those reasons, I hope the hon. Member will not press his Amendment but allow us to get the Bill through.
    Mr. C. WILLIAMS: As I have already said, I accept the principle of the Bill, and I realise that the case in favour of making these particular exceptions is overwhelming. The appeal of humanity alone would really, after what one has just heard, secure that these exceptions should be made. In asking leave to withdraw the Amendment, I do so with very
    2276
    real pleasure, and I can assure the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. J. Stewart) that it was moved in the very best interests and that it has been of use if only for the fact that it has enabled him to give us such a charming speech.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

    CLAUSE 4.—(Penalties and enforcement of Act.)
    Mr. C. WILLIAMS: I beg to move, in page 2, line 39, after the word "who", to insert the word "knowingly".
    The effect of the Amendment would be to provide that any person who knowingly contravenes the provisions of the Bill would be liable to a penalty. I hope the promoters of the Bill will be able to accept the Amendment quite readily, because they will realise that in dealing with these barbers' shops you are dealing with a very wide range of population. In many of our great towns at the present time there is an alien element, and although I do not frankly welcome, at any rate, a certain section, still, when we are legislating in these matters, we should realise that conceivably they might not quite as readily get to have a knowledge of this Clause as other sections of the community. I do not know that I need prove that that section exists. It is well known to many London Members, and we had the evidence just now of the hon. Member that he can remember the time when Glasgow was Scottish, and now it is getting mixed in some parts.
    For that reason, I think in this case it is necessary, either to alter the date at which the Measure comes into force, or else to insert the word "knowingly", and of the two courses, the object would be met as simply by putting in this word, because in the time it would take for the knowledge of the existence of the Act to circulate, these people would clearly be able to decide as to their position with full knowledge. It is true that by inserting such a word as this, a legal line of argument is always opened, which puts many of us into technical difficulties. I cannot pretend to give, nor should I wish to do so if I could at the present time, the legal effect of the insertion of this word. From the common sense point of view, it is evident that it ought to be inserted, and there are other Members present who will be

    2277
    able to give a purely legal definition of the word. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department will be able to help us in this matter. The hon. Member nods his head, which is as good as a promise that we shall have a full legal definition from the point of view of the Government.
    Commander SOUTHBY: I beg to second the Amendment.
    I would appeal to the hon. Gentleman opposite in the interests of the Bill. He has been extremely good in accepting Amendments which have been put, not only from this side, but from the other side of the House, in order to make the Bill, as far as can be, a better Bill, and I know that he would be the first person to wish to have this Bill as clear in the minds of the people who will have to operate under it as can possibly be arranged by this House. Undoubtedly, it might be difficult in certain cases for a man to know whether he was really contravening this Clause or not, and, therefore, if the insertion of this word will make it perfectly obvious in a man's mind, and, provided that there is no legal argument against the insertion of the word, will make it a better Bill, I appeal to the hon. Member to accept it, because this Bill has such a measure of support from all sides of the House, and these Amendments are not moved with the object of wrecking the Bill, but to make it as acceptable as possible to any who may even now have any doubts about it. Therefore, if the Under-Secretary can accept it without legal difficulties ensuing in the operation of the Bill, I hope that the promoter of the Bill will get him to do so.
    Sir HENRY CAUTLEY: I only rise to speak on the legal point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams). The insertion of the word "knowingly" here would not exempt a man, in my opinion, from an offence under this Measure should he say, "I did not know about the Act." That would be no defence at all. But where the word would be advisable, and, in fact, necessary, would be to protect an individual in the case of ignorance of certain existing facts. Let me give an illustration. If the word were inserted, it would be no defence for a man who
    2278
    was summoned for keeping his shop open on Sunday, to say that he had never heard of the Act. On the other hand, supposing a barber said that he went to a place on a Sunday afternoon, to attend a person, who "by reason of bodily or mental infirmity" could not go to the shop, and the barber went there in good faith, not knowing the real facts, and he afterwards found out that the facts were different from what he supposed, then he would be liable to a penalty under this Bill. There may be other circumstances where an offence might be inadvertently committed, and, therefore, I would suggest to the Under-Secretary that he might readily accept this Amendment.
    Mr. FOOT: I want to say a word as to the difficulty of accepting this Amendment. I think that the hon. and learned Member will agree with me that the terms of this Bill are not those which allow of the word "knowingly" being introduced. The word can have no application to the question whether a man opens his shop on a Sunday or not, and, as far as the illustration was given, there is no bench of magistrates, surely, in the country who, in the circumstances given by the hon. and learned Member, would thing of convicting. I speak from experience of magistrates. Before coming to this House, every week it was my duty, in one capacity or another, to appear before them. The word "knowingly" is a word which has given rise to considerable difficulty. Every defending solicitor seizes upon it in a court of law. It will only tend to defeat the purpose of the Bill, and it was moved by the hon. Member, if I may say so, from a complete misapprehension. He suggested that if it had not been brought to the knowledge of the hairdressers of the country that this Bill was in operation, they could plead that word in their defence.
    Of course, as has been pointed out by the hon. and learned Member, ignorance of the law is no excuse for contravention of the law, and certainly, as the Bill is not to come into operation until 1st January, 1931, it is futile to suggest that by the passing of this Bill, if it gets the Third Reading to-day, and secures a passage in another place and the King's Assent, within a short time, everyone engaged in the trade will not be well aware of the passing of the Measure

    2279
    which affects their life so closely. I hope that the promoter of the Bill will not accept the Amendment for it will largely destroy the effectiveness of the Measure, and I have no doubt that when the Bill was drawn, the possibility of the insertion of this word was carefully considered.
    Mr. SHORT: I cannot advise the promoter to accept this Amendment. The effect would be that no penalty could be imposed under the provisions of the Bill in respect of a breach of its provisions, unless it was proved that the Bill was knowingly contravened. The enforcement of this Measure rests entirely upon the local authorities, and the inclusion of this word would hamper them and make it difficult. We have already had some experience in this type of legislation. In the Shops (Hours of Closing) Acts, and particularly the Act of 1928, no such word as this is used in connection with the offences Section, and no difficulties have arisen in the administration of that Act. We might reasonably take the view, having regard to our experience in the administration of that Act, that local authorities will not institute prosecutions under this Bill if a warning would serve the purpose. Those of us who understand any law at all, realise the limiting effect of the word "knowingly" and the difficulties that would arise in establishing any prosecution at all if the word were included. Under those circumstances, I should advise the House to resist the Amendment.
    Earl WINTERTON: The hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State, and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bodmin (Mr. Foot) have not dealt with the point raised by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Grinstead (Sir H. Cautley). My hon. Friend who moved the Amendment moved it under a misapprehension as to what the effect would be. The House has already passed in Clause 2, paragraph (b) a provision that a barber in a hotel may shave or cut the hair of any person resident in the hotel. In London hotels where there is what is known as a trans-Atlantic traffic, there are large barbers' shops which are very much used on Sundays, because, as it happens, the American nation is fonder of getting a shave on Sundays
    2280
    than any other nation. Literally thousands of Americans crowd into the barbers shops of places like the Savoy Hotel, and will do so at the big hotels which are being built in Park Lane, some of which, I understand, will contain two or three thousand rooms, and these are intended almost exclusively for the trans-Atlantic trade. How is the unfortunate man who runs such barber's shops to be sure that a person who comes in for a shave is a resident?
    In order to guard against circumstances that will arise under that paragraph, there ought to be a provision later in the Bill to protect the barber who unwittingly shaves a person who is not a resident. How can the barber possibly know whether some of the people who crowd into his shop are residents? Is he to say to each customer, "We are very Sabbatarian people, and it has been laid down that it is an act against God and man to be shaved in this country on Sunday; can you tell me if you are a resident?" If the man tells the barber to go to a warm place, and says that it is no business of his, and sits down and gets a shave, the barber is liable to serious penalty. I suggest that where so many pettifogging conditions are put into the Act, as they are put into this Bill, there ought to be some provision which will prevent the unfortunate barber from being fined£5, or, in the case of a subsequent offence,£20, for breaking the law unwittingly.
    I was not surprised to find the hon. Member for Bodmin being in favour of the Amendment, for it is consistent with the principles of the Liberal party and the Noncomformist conscience that people should be heavily fined for unwittingly doing something on Sunday; it is fully in accord with the gloomiest traditions of Puritan England. The hon. Gentleman who supports the Bill is much more reasonable, and I suggest to him that some words should be put in to prevent a hairdresser, who unwittingly breaks the law because some customer takes advantage of paragraph (b), from being heavily fined.
    Mr. ATKINSON: Until comparatively recent times, it was the well established principle of our common law that nobody could be convicted of an offence unless it could be proved that he had the mens rea

    2281
    or the guilty mind. Then, coming to a recent type of legislation such as the milk Acts, where certain things were stated to be offences, the Courts were driven to put an interpretation upon the Clauses, that the Act has said, "If this is done it is an offence." An interpretation has been put on many of these Clauses that if the Act is in fact broken, however innocently, an offence is committed and the person is punished. They have said that if the legislature do not mean that, it is their duty to say it. As I read Clause 2, a hairdresser who has a regular clientèle, cannot shave that clientèle on Sunday, but if one of them rings him up and says, "I am sorry, but I have a cold, and the doctor says I must not go out, so please come round and shave me," he can go and shave him. He cannot shave him if he is well, however. The Clause says that the barber can shave a man if he has a bad cold, but he cannot shave him if he has not a cold. That is the sort of legislation with which we are dealing.
    Suppose that a customer rings a barber up and says, "I have a bad cold and must not go out," and the barber says, "All right, I will come round and shave you", and it turns out that the cold was not so bad as to prevent the customer going out, how is the unfortunate barber to deal with the position? He has clients whom he wants to keep and, after all, barbers make their living out of the class of people who do not like shaving themselves, and, if they get the habit of shaving themselves on Sunday, they may get the habit of shaving themselves on other days of the week. The barber is rung up by a valuable client who wants shaving, and the barber says, "I cannot shave you unless you are too bad to go out." The man replies, "I have a bad cold, and my wife says I must not go out." He goes round and shaves him, but the man is able to go out, and someone hears about it and he is prosecuted. The magistrate must then say that, if the cold was not had enough for the man to go out, the barber has committed an offence, but, if it was bad enough, he has not committed an offence. Does not this show the futility of saying the barber is to be punished if he makes a mistake? Indeed it is not his mistake. How is he to pass judgment on whether a customer
    2282
    is fit to go out or not? But that is the wording of Sub-section 2 (a). I should not like to say what I think about it.
    The wording of that Sub-section means that the barber is free to go round and shave his customers if they are unable to go out. I do not know what "unable" means, whether it means that he has to produce a medical certificate he is unable to go out or that he must have a broken leg. The barber has to take all the risk of this, and, if he has some competitor who wants to down him, or there is some well-paid Government inspector whose job it is to prosecute people and try to get them convicted, he may find himself prosecuted for shaving Mr. John Jones on a Sunday when Mr. John Jones was fit to go out. Does he take the customer's word for it? How is lie to judge? To say that a man who shaves somebody who said he was not fit to go out when he was fit has committed a criminal offence is absurd. As a lawyer with a great respect for the law of the country, I say that it is making it an ass. It is carrying it to absurdity.
    Now you have words proposed to be put in saying that he must know he has committed an offence. The hon. Gentleman just now referred to the Shop Hours Act, but you cannot commit an offence under that Act without knowing it. You cannot keep your shop open after hours without knowing it. There are certain offences you cannot commit without knowing it, and there are others that you can. As to hotels, it is a perfectly common thing for someone to come down to the barber's shop in them and ask for a shave. If the barber asks "Are you resident in the hotel?" and the man tells a lie and says that he is, the barber may be prosecuted and fined. That is carrying things too far. You do not want to create crimes except in the case of people knowingly doing wrong. It is wrong to say that it will not affect those who act innocently. If the House is foolish enough to create offences of this kind without a provision like this, it will affect innocent persons. It is not guilty persons who will escape, but innocent persons, whom the House does not wish to be punished, and who have been misled by their clients, will be convicted and fined. The House cannot really want to punish those people. They only want to punish those who knowingly offend.
    Mr. MUGGERIDGE: "Knowingly open their shops."
    3.0 p.m.
    Mr. ATKINSON: I do not see how that affects the case. I am pointing out that there are various offences which a man may commit quite innocently. Obviously, the intention of this Sub-section is that people unfit to leave their homes may be shaved by a barber. Mentally infirm persons are included. How on earth is a barber to determine the state of a man's mind and whether he is fit to go out and be shaved or whether he must be shaved at home? Perhaps a client was playing bridge and lost money the night before which might have affected his mind. If he shaves a man who really is not mentally unsound when he has been told that he is, he commits a criminal offence or, if he shaves a man on the assurance that he is unfit to go out and it turns out that he has been misled, he has committed a crime. Under the older Acts, it is open to a man to prove that he has acted on information, but in this case you do not give him the provision:
    "provided he had good grounds for believing … he shall not have committed an offence."
    There is no protecting provision here. I cannot think of any other Act that has not a protecting provision by which, if there is a prima facie case, it is left open to the man to prove that he had good grounds for believing he acted rightly. Here you have a Bill creating offences of a most absurd kind. Why on earth it should be an offence to shave a man who can go out and not a man who cannot go out I cannot see. To say that an unfortunate barber who quite innocently has broken one of these clauses is to be subject to these heavy fines is wrong. If you insert the word "knowingly," you will not convict an innocent man, and it should not be the object of the House to create offences under which innocent men may be convicted, as under this Act they will be.
    Mr. J. STEWART: I am sure the barbers will appreciate very much the sympathy which has been shown by the hon. Member who has just sat down. It is the barbers who are promoting this Bill.
    Mr. ATKINSON: I do not understand it.
    Mr. STEWART: Perhaps you do not understand it, but you do not understand the conditions under which barbers work, their psychology is not the same as that of the hon. Gentleman's, whose conditions of life are somewhat different from theirs. They are the victims here that the hon. Member is so anxious about. It is they who have worked for this Bill and have asked for it, who have worked and spent money to secure it, and now they are to be told by various Members and particularly the hon. and learned Member for Altrincham (Mr. Atkinson) that they are to be protected because they are not knowingly committing an offence against the Bill. They do not want "knowingly" inserted. They are against it being inserted. [HON. MEMBERS: "How do you know"?] I know perfectly well, because I have been in contact with them over this Bill, and have had to plead with them to agree to Amendments which I have accepted and which, if they had not been accepted, might have given the hon. Member the opportunity of moving more Amendments.
    Let me try to deal with this word "knowingly." In the city from which I come we have a foreign population who never knowingly do anything that is wrong, but who keep our police force very busy dealing with offences they have committed—but never "knowingly." Their ignorance of our language, their ignorance of our customs, is almost unbelievable; still, it is not "knowingly" on their part. If this word "knowingly" is incorporated in the Bill, then I, knowing the men who not knowingly do these things, know what will follow thereon. There will be many offences committed. It seems to be assumed that everybody is going to have a cold and that barbers will be called in to shave them. The hon. Member could not have heard what I said about the business capacity of the trade, because if he desires our services at his home at an awkward time we are apt, by increasing our charges, to try to make up on the hobby horses what we have lost on the swings.
    The Noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) spoke about Americans coming into our big swell hotels and wanting to get shaved on Sundays. He said they were in the habit of getting shaved in America. This is

    2285
    news to me. I have been in the United States on several occasions, and in the little town where I lived were several barbers' shops, but not one of them was opened on Sundays, and in a comparatively large city like Springfield, in Massachusetts, I did not know of any barbers' shops which were open on Sundays. If there is all that desire among Americans to be able to get a shave on Sundays, it has to go unsatisfied. Is it suggested that because there will be hordes of Americans in the large hotels which are to be built in Park Lane and elsewhere it will be an inducement to strangers to go there for a shave? Will they be willing to pay the prices that will be charged? Fancy a docker from Rotherhithe or Bermondsey who thinks he needs a shave walking up to Park Lane on a Sunday morning to get shaved there, at a charge of 2s. or thereabouts! I do not think he would do it. With all my desire to get this Bill through, and that desire is more intense than any words of mine can convey, I am sorry I cannot accept this Amendment; and if hon. Members must stand by the Amendment I beg of them to allow us to go to a Division in order that we may get the sense of the House on the question.
    Mr. ERNEST BROWN: I was very much amused by the speech of the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton). The very illustration which he gave shows that this Amendment ought not to be passed. The only illustration that he could think of was that of his very charming and exotic friends who come over here from America and stay at the Savoy Hotel and other humble dwellings of that kind. If the only desire is to put this word into the Bill in order to solve their troubles, I do not think that the House need waste any more time on that problem. When, however, the Noble Lord talks about the gloomiest traditions of our Puritan Sunday, we know, of course, that he is feeling very deeply, because those who were responsible for the gloomiest traditions of our Puritan Sunday had at any rate sufficient strength of character to give his ancestors a great deal of trouble, and to send them flying at Marston Moor, Naseby, and other great conflicts in our history.
    2286
    He said that the tendency of our times was all in favour of this kind of legislation. I wish it were. One of the most welcome signs in this House is this little Bill, for it represents the reversal of a tendency which in recent days has been in quite the opposite direction from the Puritan Sunday. Whether people take the Sabbatarian view or not, whatever view they take, anyone who values the principle that the minimum of work should be done on the first day of the week will welcome this opportunity of helping the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. J. Stewart) to get his Bill through, and to get it through in such a practical and definite form that it will be easy for those responsible for its operation to operate it. I am against this Amendment because I am sure it would make it much more difficult to operate the Measure if this word "knowingly" were put in.
    I have sometimes been lost in admiration while listening in the House to hon. and learned gentlemen like the hon. and learned Member for Altrincham (Mr. Atkinson), spinning their arguments so thin, and I have sometimes wished 1 could have a barber to cut their arguments short, because, while they are trying to split hairs, they are very long hairs indeed. I am sure that the great majority of the House will agree that the argument which the hon. and learned Member put was very thin indeed. He was singularly unfortunate, because he happened to be absent when the Amendment was moved, and it was moved by the hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams), who himself has on the Order Paper a new Clause which was not called, dealing with the case upon which he poured so much scorn in the latter part of his speech, namely, that of the man who was very ill. The difference between the Bill as it stands' and the proposed new Clause of the hon. Member for Torquay, who moved this Amendment, was that he desired to put the Noble Lord's exotic friends to the trouble of getting a medical certificate, instead of leaving it to the common sense of the administrators and the common sense of the hairdressers concerned, in dealing with people who were suffering from illness, and, therefore, were in need of the attendance which would be permissible under the Bill. I hope that

    2287
    the House will not agree to put this word in, because there are times when the common sense of ordinary people is much wiser than the hairsplitting of members of the legal profession.
    Mr. W. S. MORRISON: I would make an appeal to my hon. Friend who moved this Amendment to withdraw it. I think that the House, after the admirable and good-tempered speech of the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. J. Stewart), ought to' consider this matter with a due sense of proportion. I do not think that the dangers which have been held up before us in connection with this word "knowingly" are sufficient in any way to deter us from passing the Bill in its original text. The cases that have been put forward are very unlikely to happen in actual fact, and, in my view, it is impossible to get the words of any Act into such a form as to exclude all possible anomalies. We have to remember that there is a sufficient safeguard in the common sense of those who will conduct the prosecutions, if any, under the Act.
    Take, first of all, the case of the man who has lost at bridge, who is feeling bad on a Sunday morning, and who wants some slight consolation. Is it possible, probable, or likely that the form of consolation that he would choose to soothe his wounded spirit would be to ring up his barber and ask him to come and shave him at his house? To my mind, if he had lost at bridge, he would be the last man to indulge in such an unsatisfactory and expensive form of consolation. If we take also the case put by the Noble Lord of the difficulty of discriminating between the man staying at a hotel and the chance passer-by, that again is a matter that would be looked after by those who institute proceedings and impose penalties under the Act. The same sort of difficulty, after all, arises with regard to the sale of drink in hotels and it has not been found that it causes any great injustice to any of His Majesty's subjects.
    I differ from the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Foot) when he said my hon. Friend was labouring under a misapprehension when he moved the Amendment. He moved it for the very reasons which the Amendment, if carried, would cause.
    2288
    If the word "knowingly" were put in, the prosecution would be given the added burden, not only of proving contravention of the Act, but of proving a sate of mind, which is always difficult, if not impossible. I am sure my hon. Friend is moved by no hostility towards the Bill. If the House is agreed to the principle for which the hon. Member for St. Rollox has been contending so gallantly and good temperedly for so many years, the Amendment ought to be withdrawn and we ought to expedite the passage of a very beneficial and harmless Bill.
    Sir JOHN WITHERS: I hope the Amendment will not be withdrawn. The essence of a crime is knowledge and, if this word is not inserted, the Bill becomes ridiculous. Take the case of Clause 2 (b).
    "In any hotel, if that person is resident there ";
    I happen to go and have my hair cut on my way home at the Savoy Hotel. There is a very nice barber's shop in the basement. I walk in and have my hair cut in the ordinary way. I admit it is a soft job for the barber. At the same time, I cannot understand how, unless I get a certificate from the hotel, I am to prove that I am resident in the hotel. Another case occurs to me. I am not quite clear whether a Jew means a Jew by religion or not. It is very difficult to say. A man may be the son of Jewish parents and a Jew by tradition, but there are a great many who are not practising Jews. How on earth are you going to make a crime unless you prove that the offender has done something which he knows is wrong? Suppose a man who thinks he is a Jew carries on business, are you really going to make him a criminal because he has contravened the Act? Unless you are going to make this ridiculous, you must put the word in.
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: I hope the Amendment will not be withdrawn for the lighthearted reasons that have been given. I think the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. J. Stewart) has brought this on himself. He should have gone the whole hog. He should have had no exceptions at all. It is quite wrong that a prisoner should be convicted when he does not know. The Bill should have said, "No man shall shave another man on Sunday." He should neither have had bodily or mental infirmity. We are told

    2289
    people are unable to go to the place. We do not know why. Many a man has suffered from bodily infirmity on a Sunday morning who was quite well on the Saturday forenoon. He may have a tender skin, and perhaps say to the barber in his depressed frame of mind that he is afraid to put a razor into his hand. I do not see why we should not encourage people in these days of safety razors, which are now made in this country, to shave themselves. The hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Foot) took the same view as he took in Committee on another private Bill. This Bill proposes to prosecute the wrong persons, and that is why the word "knowingly" should be put in. The people to prosecute are the people who tempt the barber, and come in with large fees to get shaved.
    The hon. Membeer for St. Rollox rather gave away the show. He said that they would not come, and that they would make up on the swings what they lost on the roundabouts. Is the whole thing a plot on the part of the barbers to get an easy time going from house to house and charging excessive fees for shaving the millionaires? They must have a quarrel with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because there will soon be no millionaires for them to shave. The right Clause to have put in would have been one to prohibit a man from getting a shave. You may have an American who has come over here going down into the basement of the Savoy for a shave, and the barber may be excused for shaving him. The barber may ask him, "Are you resident here?" and the man may say, "Yes, my number is No. 13." In these circumstances, how can it be proper to prosecute the barber? I believe that in the hotels at this moment when men come in they are asked, "Are you resident in the hotel?" Of course, they say that they are resident in the hotel, and they get supplied. Now and again an odd conviction happens, but it is very seldom. If you have this Clause in without the word "knowingly," you will have inspectors going round, and they may get so many
    convictions that people will regard them as so many nosey-parkers. There will be more and more inspectors running about saying, "Have you been shaved here?" Perhaps, if a person says "No," the inspector may proceed to stroke his chin to see whether he has been shaved.
    The hon. Member for St. Rollox ought to put an end to all labour of this kind altogether. He then might have had some support. Here he is trying to create a class of criminals of people who have no knowledge of doing anything wrong. They believe that they are only facilitating the personal cleanliness of their fellow creatures, and yet they may be run in although they may be absolutely innocent. That is a very un-Christian proposal, and one which will be absolutely contrary to the commandment that a man should not be made a criminal for a comparatively innocent act. I was delighted to hear the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown) boasting about the military success of the Puritan brewer. I am glad to hear of the debt we owe to the brewing population. With regard to the explanation of the hon. Member for St. Rollox about the trouble they had in Glasgow because they had a foreign population who never intentionally did anything wrong but who filled the police court, I think that we now understand for the first time that is in the nature of a confession, and that explains how it is that Glasgow is represented in the House of Commons as it is.
    Mr. C. WILLIAMS: I had hoped to do everything I could to help forward the Bill in conjunction with the hon. and learned Member in whose name the Amendment stood, and that I should have been given an opportunity to ask for leave to withdraw the Amendment. In the circumstances, I am afraid that I shall have to proceed to a Division.
    Question put, "That the word 'knowingly' be there inserted in the Bill."
    The House divided. Ayes, 33; Noes; 166.

    Division No. 297.]

    AYES.

    [3.25 p.m.

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

    Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L.

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

    Balniel, Lord

    Dixey, A. C.

    Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.

    Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

    Duckworth, G. A. V.

    Macquisten, F. A.

    Bourne, Captain Robert Croft

    Dugdale, Capt. T. L.

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

    Cautley, Sir Henry S.

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

    Morden, Col. W. Grant

    Cobb, Sir Cyril

    Everard, W. Lindsay

    Muirhead, A. J.

    Colman, N. C. D.

    Ferguson, Sir John

    Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)

    Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Rennell

    Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

    Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

    Ross, Major Ronald D.

    Thomson, Sir F.

    Withers, Sir John James

    Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)

    Titchfield, Major the Marquess of

    Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart

    Wallace, Capt. D. E. (Hornsey)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

    Smith-Carington, Neville W.

    Wayland, Sir William A.

    Mr. Atkinson and Mr. Charles

    Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

    Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

    Williams.

    NOES.

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

    Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon

    Oliver, George Harold (Ilkeston)

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

    Hastings, Dr. Somerville

    Palin, John Henry.

    Albery, Irving James

    Haycock, A. W.

    Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

    Alpass, J. H.

    Hayday, Arthur

    Peake, Capt. Osbert

    Attlee, Clement Richard

    Hayes, John Henry

    Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

    Ayles, Walter

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

    Phillips, Dr. Marion

    Baker, John (Wolverhampton, Bilston)

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

    Pole, Major D. G.

    Baldwin, Oliver (Dudley)

    Herriotts, J.

    Pybus, Percy John

    Barnes, Alfred John

    Hoffman, P. C.

    Ramsay, T. B. Wilson

    Barr, James

    Hollins, A.

    Rathbone, Eleanor

    Batey, Joseph

    Horrabin, J. F.

    Raynes, W. R.

    Beaumont, M. W.

    Hunter, Dr. Joseph

    Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

    Berry, Sir George

    Isaacs, George

    Riley, Ben (Dewsbury)

    Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)

    Jones, F. Llewellyn (Flint)

    Ritson, J.

    Blindell, James

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

    Romeril, H. G.

    Bowen, J. W.

    Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

    Rosbotham, D. S. T.

    Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.

    Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)

    Rowson, Guy

    Broad, Francis Alfred

    Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W.

    Salter, Dr. Alfred

    Brockway, A. Fenner

    Kennedy, Thomas

    Sanders, W. S.

    Bromley, J.

    Kinley, J.

    Sawyer, G. F.

    Brown, Ernest (Leith)

    Knight, Holford

    Scrymgeour, E.

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

    Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George

    Shepherd, Arthur Lewis

    Burgess, F. G.

    Lawrence, Susan

    Sherwood, G. H.

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

    Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle)

    Shield, George William

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

    Leach, W.

    Shiels, Dr. Drummond

    Cape, Thomas

    Lee, Frank (Derby, N. E.)

    Shillaker, J. F.

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

    Lees, J.

    Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)

    Charleton, H. C.

    Lovat-Fraser, J. A.

    Smith, Alfred (Sunderland)

    Chater, Daniel

    Lowth, Thomas

    Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhlthe)

    Cluse, W. S.

    Lymington, Viscount

    Smith, Frank (Nuneaton)

    Cocks, Frederick Seymour

    Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)

    Smith, Rennie (Penistone)

    Daggar, George

    Macdonald, Sir M. (Inverness)

    Snell, Harry

    Davies, Dr. Vernon

    McElwee, A.

    Sorensen, R.

    Day, Harry

    McEntee, V. L.

    Stamford, Thomas W.

    Denman, Hon. R. D.

    MacNeill-Weir, L.

    Thurtle, Ernest

    Duncan, Charles

    MacRobert, Rt. Hon. Alexander M.

    Tinker, John Joseph

    Ede, James Chuter

    McShane, John James

    Todd, Capt. A. J.

    Edmunds, J. E.

    Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham)

    Toole, Joseph

    Edwards, E. (Morpeth)

    Makins, Brigadier-General E.

    Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon

    Elliot, Major Walter E.

    Mansfield, W.

    Viant, S. P.

    Elmley, Viscount

    March, S.

    Walkden, A. G.

    Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)

    Markham, S. F.

    Wallace, H. W.

    Forgan, Dr. Robert

    Marley, J.

    Wallhead, Richard C.

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

    Matters L. W.

    Watkins, F. C.

    Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, N.)

    Melville, Sir James

    Wellock, Wilfred

    George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)

    Messer, Fred

    West, F. R.

    George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesea)

    Millar, J. D.

    Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood)

    Gillett, George M.

    Milner, Major J.

    Whiteley, William (Blaydon)

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

    Montague, Frederick

    Wilkinson, Ellen C.

    Glassey, A. E.

    Morgan Dr. H. B.

    Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)

    Gossling, A. G.

    Morley, Ralph

    Wood, Major McKenzie (Banff)

    Greene, W. P. Crawford

    Morris, Rhys Hopkins

    Young, R. S. (Islington, North)

    Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro' W.)

    Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.)

    Groves, Thomas E.

    Morrison, W. S. (Glos., Clrencester)

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

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

    Muggeridge, H. T.

    Mr. James Stewart and Mr. Westwood.

    Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn)

    Naylor, T. E.

    Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry

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

    Question, "That the Bill be now read the Third time," put, and agreed to.

    Mr. C. WILLIAMS: I beg to move, in page 2, line 41, to leave out the word "five," and to insert instead thereof the word "one."
    In a Bill like this, I say, quite frankly, that a penalty of£5 for a first offence is far too severe. It is not too large a fine, perhaps, in the case of the bigger shops, but is much too large in the case of the smaller shops. I should not be averse to either£1 or£2 as the preliminary fine,
    2292
    but I hold that the very excess of the fine specified in the Bill is liable to make for weak administration.
    Mr. J. STEWART: I am willing to compromise by accepting£2 instead of£5.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: Then I am willing to withdraw my Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Amendment made: In page 2, line 41, leave out the word "five" and insert instead thereof the word "two."—[Mr. C. Williams.]
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
    Earl WINTERTON: I cannot anticipate the decision of the House, but no doubt the promoters of the Bill will get the Third Reading either this afternoon or as the first Order on Friday next. I propose now to avail myself of the right to raise certain points before we finally part with the Bill, and it is in no spirit of hostility that I do so. This Bill represents the effort which has been made for many years by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and to some extent by hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House, in favour of an alteration in the law which would have the effect of closing hairdressers' shops on Sundays, with certain important exceptions. I confess at the outset that I find myself, to use a vulgar term, in a somewhat mugwump state of mind on the Bill. As an old Member of the House I am always suspicious of arrangements come to behind the Chair, except in official matters between the two Front Benches. I never like Friday afternoon Bills when one is told of these arrangements come to outside, or when one is told that matters having been agreed upon one ought not to discuss a Bill further.
    What are the obvious points in favour of the Bill? The Bill has been supported with obvious sincerity by the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. J. Stewart), who has indeed devoted a very considerable proportion of his parliamentary time and energy to pushing forward the Bill. On the debit side, as to that point, I always feel that in such cases any hon. Member may be wholly wrong in arguing from the particular to the general. I heard with sympathy the hon. Member's reference to the changed conditions in the city of Glasgow with which he is associated. He said that 20 or 30 years ago there was no such thing as a hairdresser's shop open there on Sunday, but that owing to the influx into that city of a certain, I will not say alien element, but a certain element which is not Scottish, there had been in recent times a widespread opening of those shops on Sunday, and this has had a prejudicial
    2294
    effect upon the trade by compelling other people to work long hours. Another point which is obviously in favour of the Bill is that the trade itself, especially the small people in the trade, are in favour of it. But, on the other side, I would ask the House to remember that it is a rather dangerous principle for us to adopt, that a particular trade should be the sole arbiter in regard to time of opening shops. I think it is a dangerous principle especially in these days of depression.
    Then we come to another point which is obviously in favour of the Bill. There is no difference of opinion on the argument that Sunday trading is undesirable, It is equally true that we can take credit to ourselves in this country and in this House in that respect. More and more Continental countries are following what is known as la semaine Anglaise and those of us who have been associated with the early closing movement are very glad that it should be so. But, on the debit side, there is the fact that the law as to Sunday trading in this country is in an anomalous state and there is nothing in this Bill which makes it less anomalous. Indeed, the Bill makes it more anomalous. We are asked to pass a Bill to prohibit the opening of hairdressers shops on Sunday, but there is nothing in the Bill to prevent what is, I think, a far greater scandal, and that is the opening of shops on Sunday for the sale of newspapers, tobacco and things of that kind.
    Of course, I cannot discuss that matter in detail, but everybody knows—and let us be frank about it—that the reason why hon. Members of this House do not deal with the question of closing newspaper shops on Sundays, is because, if they did so, they would be attacked with the greatest ferocity in the Press. But why is it more immoral for a man to be shaved on a Sunday than for him to buy a newspaper on Sunday? I myself have heard, not only in the church to which I belong, but elsewhere, more than one sermon and more than one speech by people whom I must respect, by ministers of religion, who have said that the greatest harm is done in this country by the habit of buying Sunday newspapers and reading their contents. Nothing is done in the Bill to deal with that matter. If we are going to have a Sunday Closing Bill it ought to be more universal than

    2295
    this Bill. It is illogical for this House on a Friday afternoon to deal with one aspect of Sunday trading. Admittedly the Bill is intended to attack the principle of Sunday trading, and, in theory, we are all agreed that Sunday trading is undesirable, yet none of us has the courage to bring in a Bill to abolish the sale of newspapers on Sunday. In my time there has never been such a Bill before the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Bring it in yourself!"] I have no more courage in the matter than hon. Members opposite. We are all in the same boat. [HON. MEMBERS: "Canal boats!"] There is in this country a movement supported wholly on non-party and non-political grounds, which indeed has the enthusiastic support of at least one Member of the Government, and which is intended to encourage people to spend their holidays in this country. I mean the "Come to Britain" movement. In putting forward arguments in favour of it, it is often stated that the amount of money spent in this country by tourists each year might amount to from£7,000,000 to£10,000,000 and might easily indeed be raised to£100,000,000 as it is in France. One of the things which it is said acts as a deterrent to tourists coming here is the restrictions imposed here which prevent them enjoying the facilities or amenities which they are able to obtain in foreign countries. It is said that again and again tourists are dissuaded from coming to this country because they say they have a freedom in Continental countries, even in the more Northern countries, like Germany, which they do not get here.
    It is such restrictions as are imposed by this Bill that are alleged by the supporters of the "Come to Britain" movement to make it more difficult to attract tourists here. I submit that a Bill of this kind acts as a detriment, although it may be only a small one. They will read in their papers to-morrow that the British House of Commons has just passed a Bill by which you cannot get a haircut or a shave on Sunday, and they will say, "That is the sort of attitude the British take. They say they want more tourists, but can they be surprised if people flock rather to the Continental resorts?" I admit that we must claim in this country to be our own masters in the matter of what we shall or shall not do on a
    2296
    Sunday, but let no one go away and think that restrictions of this kind assist the country in that direction. Undoubtedly they do not.
    Finally I think it is a grave mistake—I imagine it has been put in by the hon. Member for St. Rollox as the result of pressure from outside and from the very natural desire on his part to meet all the opponent to the Bill—to allow Clause 3 to pass. Under that Clause it is possible, as I understand it, for any adherent of the Jewish religion to keep his shop open all Sunday. I dare say it does not happen in Glasgow, but there are towns, such as parts of London, for example, where a great deal of this trade is carried on by the Jews, and they will get an enormous advantage under this Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] If they will not, one of the principal arguments for the Bill falls to the ground, because the hon. Member in resisting an Amendment put forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Sir R. Rodd), in favour of one-man businesses, used the argument, which convinced me sufficiently to cause me to advise my right hon. Friend not to persist in his Amendment, that if we allowed one-man businesses to open on Sunday, we should enable them to make money at the expense of other people [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]. Certainly. The fact that they close on Saturday does not affect the trade they do on Sunday in the slightest degree. [Interruption.]
    Hon. Members cannot seriously use the argument that if in a town all the hairdressers' shops except the Jewish shops are closed on Sunday, that does not give an advantage to the Jewish trade. Of course it does; it is bound to do so, and you will find that the Jews will buy up all the hairdressers' businesses and, under Clause 3, they will claim that they have a right to carry on the business on Sunday, and probably open some shops on Saturday and others on Sunday. Let me say, as one who takes some interest in our fellow subjects from the East, that the Bill ought to have been wider. There are only a small number, but there do happen to be a certain number of Mohammedans as traders. Sunday means nothing to them; their great day is Friday. If you make exception in

    2297
    the case of the Jews, you ought to make it in the case of other religions as well. I have no feeling against the Jews, but I regard this as giving an advantage to the members of the Jewish community who are adherents of their ancient faith.
    Let me say one word about a matter which has already been discussed on the Report stage. I believe with my hon. and learned Friend behind me, that it is going to be almost impossible, without doing real injustice, to carry out the provisions of this Measure. The House has refused to insert the word "knowingly," and I think that some hairdressers and barbers will quite unwittingly break the law. Therefore, while I think that the principle of Sunday closing is a good one, and while I, personally, am not prepared to oppose it in this Bill, I think that before it gets the Third Reading it ought to be realised that the Bill is doing nothing to alter the already anomalous state of the law, that it contains dangerous provisions, and is just the sort of Bill, for which, rightly or wrongly, we get a reputation for hypocrisy, by saying that hairdressers' shops shall not be open on Sunday, when we allow so many other forms of Sunday trading, involving just as much hard work and hardship to those who take part as in the case of the hair-dressere. I have no doubt that the Bill will be passed, and have no doubt that the unemployed in this country will be grateful for a very considerable contribution to their welfare this afternoon.
    Mr. BARR: I have no desire to deal with the arguments of the Noble Lord. I am sure we all sympathise with him very much in his psychology in not being able to come to a decision, and sitting on both sides of the fence. I should like to say that when he launched out about this Bill not going far enough, and not shutting up newspaper shops and so on, I was congratulating myself that when we bring in a Bill for the Sunday closing of public houses, we shall have him as a most ardent supporter. I wish to refer to one remark which fell from the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) when he spoke of the Puritan brewer who won a great Republican victory. I think he forgot that that Puritan brewer sent out an ordinance
    2298
    that no soldier who drank or gambled would have any place in his army. As one whose name is on the back of the Bill, I rise for the sole purpose of congratulating the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. Stewart), who honoured me, when he went abroad two or three years ago, by asking me to take charge of the Bill. I hope that he will accept the tributes that have been passed upon him in all parts of the House as a token of the high personal esteem in which we all regard him, and of the unqualified congratulations that we give to him on the passing of this Bill, for which he has toiled so long.
    Captain BOURNE: I should like to add my congratulations to the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. J. Stewart) who has worked very hard to get this Measure on the Statute Book. I have no desire to delay its passage, but I much regret that the hon. Gentleman has accepted Clause 3 because in introducing the principle that the opening of a barber's shop on Sunday should depend on the religious belief of the shopkeeper, is to introduce a principle into our law which is highly undesirable. If a hairdresser is to be allowed to keep open because he is a Jew, why should not a draper or a butcher or anybody else be allowed to keep open if, according to their religious beliefs, that day is not sacred? I feel strongly that we ought to try and preserve the principle of Sunday closing intact, but once we begin to make exceptions for the Jews, we must go on making exceptions for the Mohammedans who are resident on our shores, and it will eventually be impossible to prevent a large number of shopkeepers in any one town keeping open on Sunday if they do not happen to be Christians.
    This is a big departure from the general principles of the law. There may be something to be said for it, but a principle of that magnitude should not be introduced in a Private Member's Bill. Although I approve the main principle of this Bill, I am sorry that the hon. Member for St. Rollox has found it necessary to give way in this respect in order to prevent opposition to the Bill. I hope that the precedent which he has set in this Bill will not be followed in any future Bill of this kind.
    Mr. J. STEWART rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
    Mr. SPEAKER: I think that the House is ready to come to a decision.
    Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
    The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
    Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3.
    Adjourned at Four o'Clock until Monday next, 19th May.

  HORSE TRAFFIC, LONDON.
  HORSE TRAFFIC, LONDON.
INDIA.
  EUROPEANS AND ALLIED RACES.
  EUROPEANS AND ALLIED RACES.
  POLICE FORCES, CASUALTIES.
  POLICE FORCES, CASUALTIES.
NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE.
  ADDITIONAL BENEFITS.
  ADDITIONAL BENEFITS.
  APPROVED SOCIETIES.
  APPROVED SOCIETIES.
  WAR OFFICE LAND, SHREWTON.
  WAR OFFICE LAND, SHREWTON.
  WAGES.
  WAGES.
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (TEMPORARY EX-SERVICE CLERKS).
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (TEMPORARY EX-SERVICE CLERKS).
  NEW CRUISER (DEVONPORT DOCKYARD).
  NEW CRUISER (DEVONPORT DOCKYARD).
SCOTLAND.
  PAISLEY CINEMA DISASTER.
  PAISLEY CINEMA DISASTER.
  LAND DRAINAGE.
  LAND DRAINAGE.