Sitting of 19 November 1930

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
London and North Eastern Railway Order Confirmation Bill,
Considered: to be read the Third time To-morrow.
Marriages Provisional Orders Bill,
Read a Second time, and committed.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  RUSSIA.

    UNEMPLOYMENT.
    Sir KINGSLEY WOODasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received a report from His Majesty's Ambassador in Moscow on the subject of unemployment in the Soviet Union?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Arthur Henderson): Yes, Sir. His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Moscow recently reported the promulgation on the 9th of October of a decree of the Commissariat of Labour to the effect that, as there was an acute shortage of labour in all industries, no provision is being made in the Social Insurance budget for unemployment payments during the current quarter.

    BRITISH EMBASSY, MOSCOW.
    Captain BULLOCKasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, if it is the intention of the Government to appoint either a naval, a military, or an air attaché to the British Embassy in Moscow?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: No, Sir. It is not proposed to make such appointments.
    Colonel ASHLEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman say why it is not proposed, in
    404
    view of the number of armed forces possessed by the Soviet Government?
    Mr. HENDERSON: One of the reasons is that we have a little regard for economy.
    Colonel ASHLEY: If that is so, why should we not withdraw our military attaché from Holland and Denmark, where there is no army at all and send them to countries where there are armies?
    Captain BULLOCKasked the First Commissioner of Works when the British Embassy in Moscow will be ready for occupation; what are the terms of the lease of the new Embassy; and what rent is being paid to the Soviet Government?
    The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Lansbury): It is expected that the building will be ready for occupation by January next. The premises have been taken for a period of 20 years from June last, with an option in favour of His Majesty's Government to determine every fifth year. The rent is £4,500 per annum, in addition to an initial lump sum payment of £20,000.
    Captain BULLOCK: Would the right hon. Gentleman state if that sum includes rates and taxes?
    Mr. LANSBURY: If the hon. and gallant Member will give me notice I will inquire.
    Sir ASSHETON POWNALL: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider having another possible break in the lease, as unfortunately it was necessary in 1927 to break the lease of our premises in Moscow?
    Mr. LANSBURY: We are much more sensible than they were in 1927.

    PROPAGANDA.
    Sir WILLIAM DAVISONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he explained to the Russian Soviet Ambassador, prior to his signing, the pledge with regard to propaganda under paragraph 7 of the Protocol of the 3rd October, 1929, that such pledge was understood by the British Government and Parliament to be applicable to the

    405
    propagandist activities of the Comintern as explained by him to the House of Commons on the 18th November, 1929?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: The conditions under which diplomatic relations were resumed, in accordance with the terms of the Protocol of the 3rd of October, were fully explained in my speech of the 5th of November, 1929. No further explanation was, therefore, required.
    Sir W. DAVISON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he informed the House in November last, when the Protocol was under consideration, that the pledge about to be given by the Soviet Ambassador as to propaganda, would include the activities of the Comintern? Does he not think that the House was misled on that occasion if that pledge did not include the activities of the Comintern?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I cannot admit that the house was misled for a single moment. I do not depart from the statement that I have made.
    Sir RENNELL RODDasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has made any representations to the Soviet Government similar to those officially announced to have been made by the French Government, protesting against the allegation officially advanced in the 10-day defence programme that the British Government have been involved with the French Government and a group of Russian professors in a plot for the invasion of the United States of Soviet Russia.?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: A very long report in Russian of depositions made in the course of proceedings against certain engineers and others in Moscow has just been received, and is now being examined. If the right hon. Gentleman will put down a question for this day week, I hope to be able to inform him what action, if any, I propose to take.

    BRITISH CLAIMS.
    Sir W. DAVISONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any claims by British firms or companies arising from the compulsory acquisition of their property by the Russian Soviet Government have yet been considered by the Joint Anglo-Soviet Committee appointed to deal with such claims; whether
    406
    any of the claimants have been called upon to give evidence; and whether the Soviet Government have agreed in principle to pay compensation in respect of any claims found by the committee to be genuine?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: As I have already informed the House, all questions concerning Anglo-Soviet debts and claims are at present under discussion by the committee to which the bon. Member refers. I am not in a position to make any further statement on the subject.
    Sir W. DAVISON: Can the right hon. Gentleman answer the specific question that has been put; whether any claimants have yet been examined? Do the Government intend to let this matter drift, having regard to the millions of British money concerned?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I have nothing to add to what I have already said.

  LONDON AND WASHINGTON NAVAL TREATIES.
  Sir K. WOODasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any further steps have been taken in relation to the outstanding differences left by the London Naval Treaty?
  Mr. A. HENDERSON: Certain conversations have recently taken place, but I am not in a position at present to make any statement on the subject.
  Sir K. WOOD: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any indication when he will be able to make a. statement?
  Mr. HENDERSON: I am afraid not. These conferences began as long ago as last May and were reopened in September. They have recently been reopened again. How long they will continue or what progress will be made I am not at the moment in a position to say.
  Major ROSSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has any information as to the intentions of the French Government with regard to its availing itself of the replacement tonnage of capital ships permissible under the Washington Agreement?
  The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. A. V. Alexander): The answer is in the negative.
  Major ROSS: Has the First Lord's attention been called to notices which have appeared in the Press in connection with this matter?
  Mr. ALEXANDER: I am aware of what has appeared in the Press,
  Sir NICHOLAS GRATTANDOYLEasked the First lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware of any naval construction now being undertaken by foreign Powers which will place Great Britain at a disadvantage on the expiry of the Washington and London Naval Treaties; and what steps he proposes to take to protect British interests?
  Mr. ALEXANDER: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. The second part of the question, therefore, does not arise.
  Mr. SMITHERS: Does that mean in the opinion of the Sea Lords also?
  Mr. ALEXANDER: It means exactly what I have said.

  CHINA.

    MURDER OF BRITISH MISSIONARIES.
    Sir K. WOODasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received any communication from the Chinese National Government as to the capture of the persons guilty of the murder of the two missionaries, Misses Nettleton and Harrison; and what further steps are being taken to protect British subjects in China?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: Since my reply to the hon. Members for East Lewisham (Sir A. Pownall) and Kidderminster (Mr. Wardlaw-Milne) on the 3rd of November, His Majesty's Minister in China has received a further Note from the Minister for Foreign Affairs expressing on behalf of the Chinese Government their profound grief, and stating that they had telegraphed instructions to the Provincial Government to apprehend and bring to justice the guilty parties. Chinese troops have been despatched for this purpose to the -district concerned. His Majesty's Minister recently issued instructions to all consular officers in disturbed dis-
    408
    tricts in China to give warning in ample time to any British subjects who might be endangered by the activities of brigands and bandits.
    Sir K. WOOD: Is it true that since this unfortunate occurrence missionaries belonging to other countries have been captured?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I cannot say whether there is any definite information to that effect.

    SITUATION.
    Mr. DAYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a statement on any recent changes in the conditions in China?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply returned to the hon. Member for Moseley (Mr. Hannon) on the 10th of November. The Governor of Manchuria arrived in Nan king on the 12th of November for a personal exchange of views with the heads of the National Government. I have no information of any other development in the situation.
    Mr. DAY: Is it not the case that civil war is gradually coming to an end?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I have already reported that conditions continue to improve.

    FIVE PER CENT. LOAN, 1913.
    Mr. ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUELasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received a complaint that the Chinese Government has refused to recognise the yellow bonds of the Chinese Five Per Cent. Loan of 1913, purchased in the open market in London in good faith by British investors; and whether he will make a protest and request the Chinese authorities to honour their obligations?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: A complaint of this nature has been received. Representations were made to the Chinese Government who have recently returned an unfavourable reply. I am in communication with the interested British parties, and am considering what further action can usefully be taken.
    Mr. SAMUEL: As a committee has been formed will the right hon. Gentle-

    409
    man allow representatives of the parties interested to call and see him or the Under-Secretary on this matter?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I will arrange for them to see the proper representative at my office, along with the Under-Secretary of State. I have to devote a lot of time to other conferences.

  LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

    DISARMAMENT.
    Mr. BROCKWAYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what proposals are being made at Geneva on behalf of the Government for derogations from the draft Disarmament Convention?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to my hon. and gallant Friend, the Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) on the 12th of November.
    Mr. BROCKWAY: In view of the reports which have appeared in the Press, may I ask whether it is the ease that the representative of the Government on the Preparatory Commission has proposed a derogation of the draft Convention allowing the Government to increase forthwith beyond the Convention in case of rebellion within the Empire?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I have already stated to the House, and I think the House generally has accepted the position, that when the present session of the Preparatory Commission terminates I will publish a full statement indicating the line our representative has taken; and I understand that the House accepted that position.
    Mr. BROCKWAY: Are we to have reports of these amendments appearing in the Press without the House being informed about them?
    Mr. HENDERSON: The hon. Member has been sufficiently long in this House to know that he may expect anything from the Press.

    WORKING HOURS.
    Mr. FREEMANasked the Minister of Labour if, and when, it is intended to give effect to the recommendations made on 10th June, 1930, by the Inter-
    410
    national Labour Conference of the League of Nations on the hours of work in commerce and offices?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Lawson): This along with the other decisions of the fourteenth Session of the International Labour Conference, are under consideration at the present time.
    Mr. FREEMAN: Can this matter be considered in the Bill which was presented yesterday by the Minister of Labour, and the Clauses extended to cover commerce and offices?
    Mr. LAWSON: I do not think so, but I have said to the hon. Gentleman that the Government proposals will be laid before the House by means of a White Paper.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    RETIRED OFFICERS.
    Mr. WELLOCKasked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of retired naval officers who last year received as pensions a total sum of £2,474,542?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: The average number of officers in receipt of retired pay throughout the financial year 1929 was 7,980.

    STRENGTH.
    Captain PETER MACDONALDasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is prepared to specify a minimum strength for the British Navy below which it will not be allowed to fall in any circumstances?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: The British Navy will be maintained at a strength which, in the opinion of His Majesty's Government, will provide adequate security and enable this country to fulfil its commitments. It must be obvious to the hon. and gallant Member that it is quite impossible to specify the minimum strength which may be required in the future.

    EX-FLEET RESERVE MEN (BONUS).
    Mr. MARKHAMasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if ex-Fleet Reserve men are allowed to count the time served with the Fleet Reserve for

    411
    bonus when employed in His Majesty's dockyards as unestablished men?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: The reply is in the negative.
    Mr. MARKHAM: Will the First Lord say why there should be this differential treatment in the case of these Reserve men as compared with other men in the dockyards?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: I am not aware that there is any differential treatment at all. The suggestion of the hon. Member in his question is so wide that it would affect all State services, not only those in the dockyards.
    Mr. MILLS: Would the First Lord consider a shorter period of service counting for establishment?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: No. I do not think that would be at all wise.
    Mr. MARKHAM: Will the right hon. Gentleman look into this matter in view of the fact that these men are penalised as compared with other naval men?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: I am not aware that they are penalised at all. The hon. Member raises a much wider issue affecting State services generally.

    COMPENSATION CLAIM (GEORGE L. MORGAN).
    Mr. MARKHAMasked the First Lord of the Admiralty on what grounds it has been decided that George Lemuel Morgan, of 94, Skinner Street, Chatham, is ineligible for compensation for disability due to the contraction of tuberculosis whilst working in Chatham Dockyard?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: This man accepted the Government Scheme of Compensation framed under the Workmen's Compensation Act, and his claim to compensation was a matter for consideration by the Treasury in whom is vested the administration of the scheme. On the evidence submitted the Treasury were unable to regard the pulmonary tuberculosis in respect of which his claim arose as a result of personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment or of an industrial disease scheduled under the Workmen's Compensation Acts, and were therefore unable to award compensation to him.
    Mr. MARKHAM: Does not the First Lord think that this is a clear case for an ex gratia payment on humanitarian lines?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: That matter does not rest at all with me or my Department. The question ought to be addressed to the Treasury.

    GRAVES, GIBRALTAR.
    Sir BERTRAM FALLEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty who is responsible for the care of the graves of naval ratings buried in the North Front Cemetery, Gibraltar; and if he will give instructions for the graves and wooden crosses to be put into a proper condition and properly maintained, with a wooden cross to each grave giving particulars of the rating buried there?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: No reports have been received that these graves are not in a satisfactory condition, but I will make inquiries into the matter and let the hon. and gallant Member know the result.

    ENGINE-ROOM ARTIFICERS (RECRUITING EXPENSES).
    Mr. GOULD (for Mr. MOSES)asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the total cost of advertising in the Press during the past three years for men to join the Royal Navy as engine-room artificers; the cost incurred for applicants' travelling and maintenance during. examination tests: the numbers failing to pass; and the expenses incurred in such cases?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Ammon): As the reply is rather long I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the 0FFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the reply:
    The cost of advertising in the Press for engine-room artificers cannot be stated; advertisements arc rarely inserted for engine-room artificers alone, but for all ratings for which vacancies exist.
    The numbers failing to pass during the past three years are:

    1927–28

    …

    …

    …

    …

    4

    1928–29

    …

    …

    …

    …

    7

    1929–30

    …

    …

    …

    …

    12

    The cost of applicants' travelling and maintenance during examination tests is approximately as follows:

    —

    Accepted Applicants.

    Rejected Applicants.

    Travelling.

    Maintenance including pay.

    Travelling.

    Maintenance only.

    £

    £

    £

    £

    1927–28

    …

    …

    50

    225

    10

    2

    1928–29

    …

    …

    23

    103

    18

    3

    1929–30

    …

    …

    33

    145

    31

    6

    PIXSIONS (RESERVE MEN).
    Mr. GOULD (for Mr. MOSES)asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will consider the possibility of granting the Greenwich Hospital pension of 5d. per day to all Naval Reserve men at the age of 05 years with from 15 to 3i years' service who have received the long-service and good conduct medals?
    Mr. AMMON: Greenwich Hospital pensions are part of the benefits of Greenwich Hospital, which, in regard to the age pension of 5d. a day, are restricted by Order in Council to pensioners from the active service who are in receipt of naval pensions for life. In these circumstances I regret that Naval Reserve men are not eligible.
    Mr. GOULD (for Mr. MOSES)asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he is aware that Naval Reserve men who served during the Great War in mine-sweepers and merchant ships, pensioned since 1923, only receive £12 per annum instead of £18 as granted to the older men; and will he take any steps to help these men?
    Mr. AMMON: The pension to which my hon. Friend refers is a deferred pension at the rate of £12 a year formerly granted to ex-members of the Royal Naval Reserve. It was susceptible of increase to £18 a year, under the provisions of Orders-in-Council which extended to Navy and Reserve pensioners benefits similar to those laid down in the Pensions (Increase) Acts, but these benefits do not apply to such pensions awarded after the 13th August, 1920. The particular type of pension is -now obsolete hut a certain number of awards at the rate of £12 a year have been made since August, 1920, and it is regretted that for the reason stated they are not susceptible of increase to £18.

  JAMAICA (JUVENILE AND WOMEN OFFENDERS).
  Captain CAZALETasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, (1) how many paid probation officers there are in Jamaica;
  (2) how many women prisoners there are in Kingston penitentiary and what facilities are provided for the classification of these prisoners?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Dr. Drummond Shiels): The number of women prisoners in the general penitentiary at 31st December, 1929, was 73. Full details as to classification, etc., in the gaols and prisons are given in Section 24 of the Jamaica Blue Book for 1929, a copy of which I will have sent to the hon. and gallant Member. The report on Probation Work for the year does not give the exact number of probation officers, paid or otherwise, but alludes to "a large staff" which is under the direction of two capable officers. Provision is made in the Colony's Estimates for the current year for £768 to cover allowances for probation work throughout the parishes of the Colony.
  Captain CAZALETasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will take immediate steps to establish separate children's courts at Kingston and in other centres in Jamaica?
  Dr. SHIELS: The law of Jamaica allows a discretion to a Resident Magistrate or the presiding Justices to order that the case against any child shall he heard in camera. Early this year the Secretary of State appointed a Committee to consider the arrangements in force in the Dependencies under the control of the Colonial Office in connection with the trial and punishment of young

  415
  offenders, and the recommendations made by the Committee were discussed at the Colonial Office Conference in the summer and communicated to the Colonial Governments in September. Among the recommendations is a model draft law which deals fully with, inter alia, the establishment of juvenile courts, and the Government of Jamaica amongst other dependencies has been asked to consider the introduction of legislation on the lines of the model.

  GOLD COAST (IMPORTS OF SPIRITS).
  Mr. DAYasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies the number of gallons of spirits that were imported into the Gold Coast for the six months ended to the last convenient date; and can he give comparable figures for the same period in 1920?
  Dr. SHIELS: The number of gallons of spirits imported into the Gold Coast for the six months ended September last was 190,354. For the corresponding period of 1920 the figure was 105,900 gallons.

  IRAQ (TREATMENT OF CHRISTIANS).
  Mr. ANNESLEY SOMERVILLEasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can give the House any recent information regarding the treatment of Christians in Iraq?
  Dr. SHIELS: Yes, Sir. There is no reason to suppose that the various Christian communities in Iraq are not receiving sympathetic and equitable treatment from the Iraq Government. I am aware that allegations to the contrary have recently appeared. Inquiry was made of the High Commissioner who was in England and of the officer acting for him, and as a result my Noble Friend is satisfied that the charges made against the Government of Iraq were not well founded.
  Mr. SOMERVILLE: Are we to understand that the treatment of the Assyrian Christians is now satisfactory?
  Dr. SHIELS: I have read all the reports and papers on this subject, and I am satisfied that what is stated in my reply gives a very fair and reasonable
  416
  account of the position, but I would be very glad if the hon. Member would communicate to me any instances of alleged ill-treatment that have come to his notice, so that I can have inquiry made.

  NYASALAND (ZAMBESI BRIDGE).
  Mr. A. M. SAMUELasked the Under-Secretary of Slate for the Colonies whether the Nyasaland authorities will have any control of the rates for traffic passing over the Zambesi bridge; and, if not, who will fix or control the rates?
  Dr. SHIELS: I would refer the hon. Member to Clause 1 of the Agreement with the Central Africa and Shire Highlands Railway Companies, a copy of which has been placed in the Library, as it would be difficult to explain the exact extent of the control without a long quotation.
  Mr. SAMUEL: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the control of the rates over the Zambesi bridge will either hamper or assist the economic development of Nyasaland, and will he see that such control is provided in the articles of association of the company that Nyasaland will not be injured?
  Dr. SHIELS: Those considerations have already been before us for a considerable time, and any decisions that have been reached have been reached with those considerations hi mind.
  Mr. SMITHERS: When is it expected that the bridge will be finished?

  NORTH AND SOUTH RHODESIA (AMALGAMATION).
  Mr. LESLIE BOYCEasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the observations of the Governor of Northern Rhodesia have now been received in respect of the telegram sent to the Secretary of State for the Colonies on 30th September last by the unofficial members of the legislative council of Northern Rhodesia, on the subject of the amalgamation of the two Rhodesias; if so, whether he will inform the House of the purport of those observations; and whether a reply has now been sent, or is about to be sent, to the unofficial members, and in what terms?
  Dr. SHIELS: I would refer the hon. Member to the report of my speech on the Motion for Adjournment last night.
  Earl WINTERTON: Is it intended to publish these observations, and will the hon. Gentleman recollect that last night he quoted a document which he promised to lay on the Table?
  Dr. SHIELS: Since the Noble Lord asks me, I will certainly do that.
  Earl WINTERTON: I claimed the right that the document from which he quoted should be published.

  KENYA (H.THUKU).
  Mr. W. J. BROWNasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Government is aware that Harry Thuku has now been exiled from his tribe and district in Kenya Colony for more than 8?I years without trial; arid what the result, if any, has been of the Secretary of State's reference to the Kenya Government on this subject?
  Dr. SHIELS: My Noble Friend understands that it was the wish of the Governor of Kenya, who recently left the colony on leave pending the expiration of his term of office, that Harry Thuku should be permitted to return to the Kikuyu Reserve in the near future; but he was unable before leaving Kenya to make any official recommendation in the matter. The new Governor of Kenya will be requested to report on the question as soon as he can do so after assuming office.
  Mr. SKELTON: Now that this interesting figure has reappeared in Parliament will the Under-Secretary state the exact nature of Mr. Thuku's crime?

  WEST INDIES (SUGAR INDUSTRY).
  Captain P. MACDONALDasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has yet received from the Governors of the West Indies and British Guiana the reports on the economic position for which he telegraphed specially in the middle of September; if not, will he hasten the production of these reports; and, if he has received them, will he state what is their substance and when will they be published?
  Dr. SHIELS: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply which I returned to the question of the hon. Baronet the Member for South Croydon (Sir W. Mitchell-Thomson) on the 17th of November, to which at present I can add nothing.

  CEYLON (INCOME TAX).
  Lord STANLEYasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the new Income Tax Bill which is to be introduced in the Ceylon Legislature imposes considerable penalties on companies registered in Great Britain; and whether he will receive a deputation on the subject?
  Dr. SHIELS: Representations have been received regarding certain provisions of the Ceylon Income Tax Bill which affect the profits of non-resident shipowners and charterers. Those representations have been communicated to the Governor of Ceylon, and pending the receipt of his reply I do not think that there would be any advantage in my receiving a deputation on the subject; but I will communicate to the Governor any detailed criticisms which the Noble Lord may wish to furnish to me.
  Lord STANLEY: Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to receive a deputation before the Bill reaches its final stages?
  Dr. SHIELS: Yes, certainly; later on I shall be glad to do so.
  Sir FREDERICK THOMSON: Is it not the case that the Colonial Secretary of Ceylon stated that the Governor will instruct the official members of the Legislative Council Lo vote for the Income Tax Bill, and that but for this action the Bill would not pass?
  Dr. SHIELS: I am not aware of that fact.

  HONG KONG (MUI-TSAI SYSTEM).
  Mr. GRAHAM WHITEasked the Tinder-Secretary of State for the Colonies, if, in view of the great interest in the report of the Governor of Hong Kong, dated 25th June, 1930, on the working of the mui-tsai regulations, he will arrange for this report to be issued as a White Paper?
  Dr. SHIELS: Yes, Sir. We shall be glad to have this report printed and published.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE.

    DISCHARGES.
    Mr. MARKHAMasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if he will say whether there is any regulation, and, if so, its terms, which lays down the procedure to be adopted in the case of men found to be unsuitable or incompetent after entering the service; and whether it applies to mechanics and other engineering units?
    Mr. WILLIAM WHITELEY (Lord of the Treasury): I have been asked to reply. Yes, Sir. The regulation in question is paragraph 504 of the King's Regulations and Air Council Instructions for the Royal Air Force. I am sending my hon. Friend a copy of the paragraph in question, and he will see that it lays down the procedure to be followed in the eases which he has in mind. It applies to airmen of all trade classifications.

    AIRSHIP R101 (CREW'S DEPENDANTS).
    Mr. WELLSasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if he will consider making a deduction in the rents of the Ministry's houses at Cardington for the dependants of those lost in the disaster to the R101?
    Mr. WILLIAM WHITELEY: I have been asked to reply. Less than one-third of the dependants reside in Air Ministry houses. My noble Friend regrets, therefore, that he cannot agree to the adoption of the hon. Member's suggestion, the effect of which would he to pay compensation on a more liberal scale for some dependants than for others.
    Mr. WELLS: May I ask that this matter he reconsidered in view of the fact that many of these houses are let at 15s. a week rent, that there is a shortage of houses in the district, and that the pensions are only 20s. to 30s. in many cases?
    Mr. WHITELEY: I can communicate that request to my right hon. Friend, but he has already examined the whole situation from every point of view.
    Mr. L'ESTRANGE MALONEasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air
    420
    whether Mr. Rudd, the father and dependant of E. G. Rudd, rigger, who lost his life in the R101, has been discharged from the airship works at Cardington; and why he was among the first to receive notice of discharge?
    Mr. WHITELEY: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative, and the last part does not, therefore, arise.
    Mr. MALONEasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air why the pensions granted to the dependants of those who were lost in R101 are not yet being paid; whether he is aware that the Air Ministry is demanding payment of current rents, from those dependants who are living in houses belonging to the Air Ministry; and will he expedite the payment of the pensions and ensure that the rents are not demanded until the pensions are actually being paid?
    Mr. WHITELEY: The pensions granted to the dependants of those who were lost in the R101 cannot be paid until certain necessary formalities have been completed, but such of the dependants as were in immediate need of money have been granted advances to enable them to meet their needs, including accruing rent. It has been made clear to all the widows that, if they so desire, advances of pension up to the limit of their entitlement will be issued to them pending the completion of the formalities.
    Sir B. FALLEasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if the pensions of those who lost their lives on the R101 are calculated on the scale of pensions granted to the relatives of men in the Navy and Army killed in action or on a special scale?
    Mr. WHITELEY: The relatives of Royal Air Force personnel who lost their lives on the R101 have been granted pensions calculated on a scale, applicable to the case of death in action, which is common to the Navy, Army and Air Force. With regard to grants to the relatives of the civilians who lost their lives in the disaster, T would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply given to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare) 6th November; but the brief answer is that

    421
    they are likewise on the most beneficial scale permissible under the standing authorities.
    Mr. MALONE: Is my hon. Friend aware that a number of anomalies and injustices exist in regard to these pensions; and will he ask the Secretary of State for Air to inquire into the matter himself as soon as possible?

    PERSONNEL AND COST.
    Mr. THOMAS LEWISasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if he will give particulars as to the number of the personnel of the Royal Air Force for the years 1926–27, 1927–28, 1928–29, 1929–30, and 1930–31, respectively, and the annual cost. of the service for the same periods?
    Mr. WILLIAM WHITELEY: The numbers of personnel in the Royal Air Force paid for out of Air Votes are set out in a table which, with my hon. Friend's permission, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I am not sure what my hon. Friend means by the annual cost of the service. If he will be so good as to communicate with the Under-Secretary of State for Air, he will endeavour to supply the figures required.
    Following is the trade:

    Number of Personnel (exclusive of those serving in India).

    1926

    …

    …

    …

    30,640*

    1927

    …

    …

    …

    28,139*

    1928

    …

    …

    …

    28,888*

    1929

    …

    …

    …

    29,240*‡

    1930

    …

    …

    …

    32,000†

    * Average for the year.

    † Estimated maximum allowed to be borne at any period of the year.

    ‡ On 29th January, 1930, in reply to a question by the hon. Member for Colchester, a figure of 30,670 was given as the number of the Royal Air Force in July, 1929. This figure, however, included the R.A.F. in India.

    PARACHUTES.
    Commander SOUTHBY (for Captain HAROLD BALFOUR)asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if parachutes are now issued as standard equipment to the crews of sea-planes, flying-boats,. and fleet air-arm land aircraft?
    Mr. WILLIAM WHITELEY: Parachutes have now either been issued, or are on order, for all sea-going aircraft, except for one type which is obsolescent.

  AVIATION.

    AIRSHIP R100 (ATLANTIC VOYAGE).
    Mr. MILLSasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if he is aware that no written appreciation or certificate of any kind has been issued to the officers and crew of R100 who successfully carried out the voyage across the Atlantic; and if he will consider issuing a fascimile of the oral message of thanks delivered by the late Secretary of State for Air?
    Mr. WILLIAM WHITELEY: I would refer my hon. Friend to the replies given to him by the Under-Secretary of State for Air on I1th November, to which I have nothing to add, except that the message of thanks delivered by the late Secretary of State for Air to the officers and crew of R100 on their return from Canada last August was reproduced in the. Press at the time.
    Mr. MILLS: Will the hon. Gentleman take into consideration the fact that many precedents exist for giving some appreciation of this unique feat; and, further, is he aware that the very meagre appreciation referred to was not a written message, but merely an oral message delivered by the Secretary of State for Air and that, if it were put on paper, the men could carry it with them into civil life?
    Mr. WHITELEY: I will convey the hon. Member's suggestion to my right hon. Friend, but I would point out to him that this crossing was not unique. There had been other crossings prior to this by other kinds of aircraft.

    AIRWORTHINESS (CERTIFICATES).
    Commander SOUTHBY (for Captain BALFOUR)asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air when the Air Ministry are likely to be able to make an announcement on any change of procedure of the conditions governing the grant of certificates of airworthiness for civil aircraft?
    Mr. WILLIAM WHITELEY: A committee has recently been set up to inquire into certain difficulties experienced by British aircraft constructors in connection with the certification of aircraft for airworthiness, but my Noble Friend is not in a position to give a date for the production of a report by the committee.
    Commander SOUTHBY: If I put this question down in a week's time, will the hon. Gentleman be able to answer then?
    Mr. WHITELEY

    ACCIDENTS.
    Commander SOUTHBY (for Captain BALFOUR)asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air when the Air Ministry are likely to be able to make an announcement on any change of procedure of present methods of investigating and reporting the findings into Royal Air Force and civil air accidents?
    Mr. WILLIAM WHITELEY: No, Sir, I regret that I can add nothing at present to the reply given to the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Wight (Captain P. Macdonald) on 12th November.

  TRANSPORT.

    ROAD SURFACES (EXPERIMENTS)
    Mr. DOUGLAS HACKINGasked the Minister of Transport whether he can give any information to the House in connection with experiments recently conducted on the resistance to skidding exerted by various road surfaces?
    The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Herbert Morrison): The trial sections to which I referred in my reply to the hon. Member's question on 18th June last have since been laid along the course of the Kingston by-pass in Surrey, and the nonskid qualities of the various materials are now being tested. These trials will, however, have to proceed for a long period under varying weather conditions before reliable deductions can be drawn.

    POLICE MOTOR-CYCLE SERVICE.
    Mr. FREEMANasked the Minister of Transport whether he can give any information about the proposed regulations with regard to the formation of a new motor-cycle department of the police service under the Road Traffic Act?
    Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: Arrangements are in train for the organisation of these units in the various police forces with a view to the better control of road traffic and the proper enforcement of the provisions of the Road Traffic Act. No regulations under the Act are required in connection with these special units.
    Mr. FREEMAN: When will the part of the Act dealing with this force come into operation?
    Mr. MORRISON: It will be substantially in operation—perhaps not completely—by the beginning of next year, but the responsibility in that matter, as far as the Government are concerned, rests with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.
    Mr. FREEMAN: Approximately, how many people will be involved?
    Mr. MORRISON: Probably the number of motor units will he in the neigh bourhood of 1,000 for the whole country.
    Colonel ASHLEY: Will the Road Fund contribute towards the cost?
    Mr. MORRISON: Yes, in accordance with the Act, there will be an annual contribution, not towards the police fund as such, but towards the motor vehicles, out of the Road Fund.
    Mr. MILLS: Will this force be recruited from the existing police force or will there be any special enlistment?
    Mr. MORRISON: I think that that is a matter for the local authorities, but I understand that, in the main, they will be recruited from the existing force.
    Mr. DAY: Will the machines be British made?
    Mr. MORRISON: I should assume so, but that is a question for the Home Secretary.
    Mr. HALL-CAINE: Will these police on motor cycles be in uniform?
    Mr. MORRISON: I understand that in any case nobody can be stopped upon the road unless by a policeman in uniform. Perhaps the hon. Member will consult the Act to verify that, but I think it is so.

    MOTOR LICENCES (REMINDERS).
    Mr. SHAKESPEAREasked the Minister of Transport whether he will issue instructions that those licensing authorities which are accustomed to issue reminders to drivers that their licences have expired shall be entitled to continue this practice under the new Road Traffic Act regulations?
    Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: I am satisfied that it is necessary that there should be uniformity of practice in this matter, as difficulties have arisen in cases where a person has moved from an area in which reminders are issued to another in which they are not. After careful consideration I have reached the conclusion that the expense entailed by the adoption universally of the practice of issuing reminders would not be justified. It would be necessary for all licensing authorities to maintain special card indexes for the purpose and in the aggregate to address and send through the post between 2,500,000 and 3,000,000 forms. I have therefore notified licensing authorities that as from 1st December the cost of issuing these reminders cannot be accepted as a charge against the Road Fund.
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: Is it not the fact that the licensing authorities which adopt this practice do so now in the interests of economy; and cannot the Department adopt the business principle that courtesy and consideration for the convenience of customers will in the long run lead to efficiency?
    Mr. MORRISON: I do not think that the licensing authorities do it in the interests of economy. It may be so, in one or two cases, but I think it just an instance of the normal desire of the official machine to be very courteous to everybody. That is probably the reason, but I really cannot see that the step is justified. Licences are carried by drivers. The driver always has his licence with him, and one has a right to assume that people who have the responsibility of driving cars are aware of their obligations in this respect.
    Colonel ASHLEY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many people completely support him in this sensible action in the interests of economy? Why should people have to be reminded of these obligations?
    Mr. MORRISON: I am very much obliged to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman.

    WOOLWICH-BEXLEY ROAD.
    Mr. MILLSasked the Minister of Transport if he is aware of the dangerous state of the main road from Woolwich to Bexley, known as Wickham Hill, which is still without a footpath on its most dangerous bend; and if, in view of recurring damage to tramcars and other vehicles, he will order a local inquiry?
    Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: My attention has not been called to the condition of this road. I am, however, informed that there is a footpath on one side of the road throughout its length and that a footpath on the other side is being provided as the frontages are developed. I do not consider that a local inquiry is necessary, but I will bring my hon. Friend's question to the attention of the responsible highway authority.

    MOTOR TRAFFIC (LEARNERS).
    Mr. HALL-CAINEasked the Minister of Transport whether his attention has been drawn to an inquest held in the coroner's court at Hammersmith, on Saturday, 15th November, on a fatal accident to a man of 81 years of age, who was knocked down and killed in Chelsea by a woman learning to drive a motor car; and if he will consider the advisability of securing the construction of driving parkways in the neighbourhood of large towns where people can learn to drive without being a danger to the public?
    Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: My attention has not been drawn to the particular accident referred to by the hon. Member. As regards the second part of the question, I do not think that, apart from other considerations, the expense of providing special roads for the use of persons learning to drive motor vehicles would be justified.
    Mr. HALL-CAINE: Does not the hon. Gentleman consider that this murder in the streets by incompetent drivers has gone on long enough?
    Mr. HALL-CAINEasked the First Commissioner of Works whether, in view of the increasing number of fatal accidents caused by people learning to drive motor cars in the streets, he will consider

    427
    allocating a certain portion of the parks where people could learn to drive without being a danger to the public?
    Mr. LANSBURY: Having regard to the interests of other users of the Royal parks, I do not consider that it would be desirable to set apart any of the roads in these parks for this purpose.
    Mr. HALL-CAINE: Now that the horse is not as popular as it was before the War, could not a part of the roads be adapted for the purpose?
    Mr. LANSBURY: No. I am sure I should be very sorry indeed that the user of the roads should be changed in that fashion. It is rather nice to see horses there.
    Mr. HALL-CAINE: Is it not the case that the horses belong to the rich people?

    RAILWAY PASSENGER ACCOMMODATION (FISH WORKERS).
    Major McKENZIE WOODasked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the dangerous conditions of overcrowding in which women and other fish-workers returning from Yarmouth and Lowestoft to Scotland have in former years been compelled to travel, he will take steps, either by representation to the railway authorities or otherwise, to see that adequate railway-carriage accommodation is provided at the approaching termination of the East Anglian fishing season?
    Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: I will bring the hon. and gallant Member's representations to the notice of the railway companies concerned.

    LONDON OMNIBUSES (STANDING PASSENGERS).
    Mr. MUGGERIDGE (for Mr. SORENSEN)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the breaking of regulations concerning standing passengers in omnibuses; and how many prosecutions for this offence in the Metropolitan Police area have taken place during the last 12 months?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Short): As my hon. Friend is no doubt aware, it is the considered policy
    428
    to allow some latitude in the matter of standing passengers during the rush hours, provided the number of standing passengers does not exceed five. Where this number is exceeded or standing passengers are carried at other times of day, action is taken by the police and in the 12 months ended 31st October last proceedings were instituted in 110 cases. In addition proceedings were instituted against conductors of motor coaches in 70 eases.
    Mr. HARRIS: Will the Home Secretary try to see that better omnibuses are allowed to ply for hire along those overcrowded routes in the future, so as to prevent straphanging?

  UNEMPLOYMENT.

    INSURANCE FUND (ROYAL COMMISSION).
    Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLEasked the Prime Minister when he will be in a position to announce the names of the members of the Royal Commission on Unemployment Insurance?
    The MINISTER of LABOUR (Miss Bondfield): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply as he is unable to be present himself. It is not yet possible to say precisely when this announcement will be made but there will be no avoidable delay.
    Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLE: Will the right hon. Lady give the House some indication as to when this Commission will be appointed, as this is a very important matter?
    Miss BONDFIELD: I would ask the hon. Member to await the further announcement.

    ROAD SCHEMES, LONDON.
    Mr. HARRISasked the Minister of Transport how many London men were employed on arterial roads receiving financial assistance from the London County Council and from the Government at the last available date, and on the same date in 1929, 1928, and 1927, respectively?
    Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: I assume that the hon. Member refers to the programme of works on arterial roads arranged for in the year 1923–24 and carried out under the direct supervision

    429
    of my Department, towards the cost of which the London County Council made a contribution on condition that a pro- portion of the labour employed should be recruited from the London Employment Exchanges. The programme of works referred to, estimated to cost £3,000,000, is now practically completed and the number of men so recruited who were in employment on 31st October, 1930, was 42. On the corresponding date in 1929, 1928 and 1927, the respective numbers were 141,272 and 664. I would add that other schemes have been carried out under the direct supervision of the Ministry towards the cost of which the London County Council have contributed, but without the condition regarding recruitment through London Exchanges, and in these cases information is not available in the Department as to the number of London men employed on the works.
    Mr. HARRIS: Is it proposed to initiate any new schemes on similar lines to meet the special conditions of unemployment this winter, or is this to be allowed to lapse?
    Mr. MORRISON: I am not sure that schemes could be submitted on exactly similar lines, because a great deal of this work has now been completed. We are in negotiation with the London County Council as to a considerable programme of public improvements which I am anxious to get carried forward at the earliest possible date.

    EXCHANGE, BRISTOL.
    Mr. ALPASSasked the First Com- missioner of Works if, before approving the plans for the new Employment Ex- change in Bristol, he will satisfy himself that adequate and suitable conveniences for both sexes are provided?
    Mr. LANSBURY: For reasons Which have been given in this House, it is the policy of my Department or of Ministry of Labour to provide conveniences for applicants attending Employment Exchanges. The plans for the Bristol Exchange have been discussed with the local employment committee, and arrangements have been made to meet cases of emergency.
    Mr. ALPASS: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the local Employment Exchange committee are fully satisfied with the plans?
    Mr. LANSBURY: I should not like to say that anybody is satisfied with anything, but, so far as it is possible to satisfy them, I think they are.
    Mr. MILLS: Is my right bon. Friend aware that in Berlin and in other large Continental cities there is provision of this sort?

    ROAD WORK.
    Mr. SHAKESPEAREasked the Minister of Labour the estimated number of men employed on works of improvement and new construction on classified roads and bridges, excluding those on work of maintenance, repair and reconstruction?
    Mr. LAWSON: The number is approximately 21,500.
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: Does that mean that this 21,000, who are employed under the Road Fund, which was not started by the present Government, must be deducted from the total of 72,000 who are said to be directly employed under Government schemes?
    Mr. LAWSON: Yes, that is so.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    EXPORT CREDITS (TURKEY).
    Mr. GRANVILLE GIBSONasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department (1) if he is prepared to divert credits allocated to certain foreign markets under the Export Credits Scheme, but which have not been exhausted, to the Turkish markets where traders have been refused credit insurance facilities;
    (2)if the full amount of credit allocated under the Export Credits eme for Turkey has been exhausted; and, if so, whether, seeing that there is business to be done in that country, providing employment for operatives in the woollen industry of the West Riding of Yorkshire if credit insurance is provided, he will make a further allocation of credit for Turkey?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. W. R. Smith): The Advisory Committee to the Export Credits Guarantee Department will be glad to consider on their merits any proposals regarding exports to Turkey.
    Mr. GIBSON: Does the hon. Gentleman not consider that, in the difficult times through which we are passing, along with business men all over the country, the Department might be prepared to take greater risks than normally of making bad debts, in order to win trade in foreign markets and provide employment, whereas restriction of insurance facilities would throw many people out of employment?
    HON. MEMBERS: Speech!

    RUSSIA.
    Sir GERALD HURSTasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether he will ascertain and state what measures are being taken by the Chinese Government against Soviet dumping at Shanghai; and whether he will make inquiries of the British representative there as to what extent, if any, British trade in the Far East is being thereby affected?
    Mr. W. R. SMITH: No information regarding the steps taken by the Chinese Government against Soviet dumping at Shanghai has been received. The Commercial Counsellor at Shanghai has been requested to forward a report on the subject.
    Mr. SMITHERSasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will make inquiries as to what steps are being taken in the United States of America to place an embargo on Russian manganese, coal, timber, wood pulp, glue, and wheat; and will His Majesty's Government consider the advisability of taking similar steps?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. William Graham): I understand that the only action of this kind taken in the United States was the placing of an embargo on the importation of Russian timber and Russian pulp wood. In each case the prohibition was removed after a few days. The second part of the question does not, therefore, arise.
    Sir G. HURSTasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will ascertain and state whether cargoes of Soviet wheat have been refused in
    432
    Sweden and what measures the Swedish Government has taken to stop the import of Soviet timber; and will he consider taking similar measures in this country?
    Mr. GRAHAM: I have no information on the subject, but I have no doubt that, if any action of the kind suggested in the question had been taken, His Majesty's Minister would have reported the matter. The second part of the question does not arise.
    Captain CROOKSHANK: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why the second part of the question does not arise?
    Mr. BOYCEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether it is the intention of His Majesty's Government at the next meeting of the League of Nations to call attention to Soviet dumping in Europe?
    Mr. GRAHAM: I fear I can only refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 3rd November to the similar question asked by the hon. And gallant Member for Maidstone (Commander Bellairs), which indicates the attitude of His Majesty's Government to the League's activities in these matters.
    Sir GEORGE PENNY: Would it not strengthen the hands of the Government if they took action before they went to Geneva?
    Mr. GRAHAM: Yes, Sir, but it all depends on what the action is. Quite plainly, all the questions refer to prohibition, tariffs or licences, and I have indicated that, in our view, they would aggravate rather than cure the disease.
    Mr. BOYCEasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the Belgian Government is taking effective measures to fight against Soviet dumping in industry and agriculture; and will he consider the advisability of taking similar steps in this country?
    Mr. GRAHAM: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which was given to a question by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) on 4th November, of which I am sending him a copy.

  POST OFFICE.

    OFFICE, LONDONDERRY (COUNTER DUTIES).
    Major ROSSasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that at the general post office, Londonderry, one counter clerk is expected to take in parcels, sell postage stamps, sell insurance stamps, accept documents for stamping, and sort and deliver private box and callers' letters; and, seeing that for one clerk to exercise these functions involves undue fatigue to him and delay to customers of the post office, will he take steps to remedy this state of affairs?
    The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Viant): I am having inquiry made into the matter and will communicate with the hon. Member.
    Major ROSS: Is the hon. Member aware that the recent reductions in the Post Office have been condemned by the Chamber of Commerce, the local newspapers, and the representatives of the Post Office workers?
    Mr. VIANT: I will see that the points raised by the hon. Member are taken into consideration when the reply to the original question is prepared.

    IRISH SWEEPSTAKE.
    Mr. HACKINGasked the Postmaster-General the number of letters addressed to the organizers of the Irish sweepstake on the Manchester November Handicap which were opened by the Post Office and the total amount of money which was returned to the senders?
    Mr. VIANT: 9,031 letters addressed to the organisers of the sweepstake in question have been opened by the Post Office. The total amount of money returned to the senders is approximately £6,960.

    TELEPHONE CABLES, NORTHERN IRELAND (CONTRACTS).
    Mr. REIDasked the Postmaster-General whether the contracts for the extensions of telephone cables now being carried out between Belfast, Newtownards, Bangor, and adjoining places were put up to public competition; and what steps were taken to bring the matter to the notice of possible tenderers?
    Mr. VIANT: The contracts in question, which were for the laying of earthenware ducts, were put out to com-
    434
    petitive tender among firms selected from the Department's list of eligible contractors.

  DYESTUFFS (IMPORT REGULA- TION) ACT, 1920.

    GOVERNMENT DECISION.
    Mr. BROOKEasked the President of the Board of Trade what is the position of the Government in regard to the expiry of the Dyestuffs Act, now imminent?
    Mr. W. GRAHAM: Yes, Sir. The Government have given full and careful consideration to the position in respect of the Dyestuffs (Import Regulation) Act, 1920, in the light of the Report of the Dyestuffs Industry Development Committee.
    The Act provided for the safeguarding of the dye-making industry by a system of prohibition subject to licensing, and it was expressly provided in Section 5 of the Act that it should continue in force for a period of 10 years and no longer. That clearly indicated the opinion of the framers of the Act that a period of 10 years should be sufficient to enable the, industry to become firmly established and thereafter to meet international competition unaided. The comprehensive Report of the Dyestuffs Industry Development Committee shows that the industry has now reached a stage at which it is capable of meeting a very large proportion of the requirements of dyestuff users in the United Kingdom and of carrying on an increasing export trade, and the manufacturers have indicated their ability to meet normal foreign competition in respect of prices. It appears then that the object of the Act has been attained.
    The Government have also had under consideration representations from all the interests affected, including the users of dyestuffs and the organisations of employers and operatives in the textile industries of Lancashire and Yorkshire. These using industries have represented that the burden of developing the dyestuffs industry during the period of the Act has fallen mainly upon them, and that there is in present circumstances no justification for the continuance of the Act beyond the period originally contemplated.

    435
    The Government have decided that the Dyestuffs (Import Regulation) Act shall be allowed to lapse at the appointed date, that is, on the 15th January next.
    Sir PHILIP CUNLIFFE-LISTER: Is it not a fact that the makers of dye in this country are prepared to give an undertaking that, if the Act is continued, there shall be the free entry of any dye which cannot be manufactured in this country of an equal excellence and at an equal price to the foreign dyes, and, if that is so, how can any dye user in this country possibly be prejudiced by the continuance of the Act?
    Mr. GRAHAM: It is quite true that they have made representations in that sense, but there is, of course, controversy even on that point among the users. I dare not go into details in reply to a supplementary question, but I can, of course, if hon. Members opposite exercise their opportunity on the Adjournment or in any other way, give much fuller details.
    Mr. STANLEY BALDWIN: The information which the right hon. Gentleman has given is of no use at all. This matter is of very vital importance. The right hon. Gentleman says that there is controversy, and, of course, the whole House will expect a much fuller statement—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech!"]—than is possible in answer to a Parliamentary question. I therefore ask the right hon. Gentleman formally if the Government will give time at an early date for a full discussion on this subject in such a manner that the voice of the House may be ascertained?
    Mr. GRAHAM: The point was raised by my right hon. Friend on the last occasion. I said then that I could not give any pledge regarding Government time, having regard to the nature of Business, but I said that there were other opportunities. It may be that the Adjournment is not very suitable, but I see no reason why on a private Member's Motion—[Interruption]—this matter should not be discussed.
    Mr. BALDWIN: I can only observe at this point that, if we are not met, it is always open to us to put it down in the form of a Vote of Censure.

  COAL MINES ACT.
  Mr. BATEYasked the Secretary for Mines whether the national industrial council under the Coal Mines Act, 1930, has yet been constituted; and if he will give the names of the members of the council?
  The SECRETARY for MINES (Mr. Shinwell): I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave yesterday to the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Rosbotham).
  Mr. BATEY: Is the Minister aware that he did not reply to the second part of my question yesterday? All he said was that he hoped to be in a position to set up the council this week; will he answer the second part of the question whether he can give the names or not?
  Mr. SHINWELL: I think perhaps that my hon. Friend had better wait the announcement, which will come very shortly.
  Mr. BATEY: Can the Minister tell us when he will be in a position to give the names that constitute the council?
  Mr. SHINWELL: Before the end of this week.
  Mr. MARDY JONES: Have the coal-owners agreed to carry out any part of this Act?
  Mr. SHINWELL: My hon. Friend had better wait and see.
  Mr. BATEYasked the Secretary for Mines if he will issue a White Paper giving the various schemes set up in the different coalfields under the Coal Mines Act, 1930?
  Mr. SHINWELL: The Central Scheme and District Scheme's made under Part I. of the Coal Mines Act, 1930, have been published by the Stationery Office. I will arrange for two or three sets of the Schemes to be placed in the Library.

  VIVISECTION.
  Mr. FREEMANasked the Home Secretary the estimated cost of keeping a record of the number of animals involved on the basis of the 403,141 experiments for purposes of vivisection performed last year?
  Mr. SHORT: The cost would depend on the amount of detail required to be collected and tabulated and the degree of completeness to be attained in the collection. Additional clerical assistance would be needed in any case, and the inspectors would have to give a certain amount of the time which is at present available for "inspection."
  Mr. FREEMAN: Does not the hon. Gentleman think that it would be a, small amount, and, in view of the millions spent on vivisection, will he not consider keeping a record of this cruel and useless torture of animals?

  PALESTINE.
  Mr. BRACKENasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether His Majesty's Government have entered into any fresh financial commitments in Palestine during the last three months; and whether they propose to enter into any further financial commitments during the present financial year?
  Dr. SHIELS: I have been asked to answer this question. As a result of the decision by His Majesty's Government to continue to maintain the present garrison in Palestine, it will be necessary to provide further accommodation for the troops. Full details of the liability of His Majesty's Government on account of defence will be found on pages 5, 6 and 7 of the Supplementary Estimate for Colonial and Middle Eastern Services which was presented to the House on the 14th intant.
  As I stated on the 17th November, His Majesty's Government intend to submit to the House proposals for the guarantee by His Majesty's Government of a loan of not exceeding 2½ million pounds on which it is contemplated that the interest and sinking fund should be met, for the first few years, from votes of Parliament. It is not anticipated that any expenditure on this account will fall to be met during the current financial year. I am not aware of any contingency that might entail further commitments during the remainder of the current financial year.
  Mr. BRACKEN: Is this loan the price which we have to pay for Lord Passfield's tactlessness and incompetence?

  INCOME TAX.
  Mr. BLINDELLasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the amounts obtained from taxation under Schedule D assessments for the financial years 1913–14, 1923–24, and 1929–30; and the total amounts received from direct taxation during each of the above years?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence): I regret I am unable to divide up the produce of the Income Tax by reference to the various schedules of charge. The total receipts from direct taxation for the years mentioned were:

  £

  1913–14

  …

  …

  93,814,000

  1923–24

  …

  …

  456,345,000

  1929–30

  …

  …

  434,166,000

  EDUCATION (STATISTICS).
  Mr. WHITE (for Mr. HOREBELISHA)asked the President of the Board of Education what were the num hers of boys and girls, respectively, proceeding from primary to secondary schools at the end of the last school year for which figures are available; and what proportion these figures bear to the total numbers of boys and girls, respectively, leaving primary schools at that date?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Sir Charles Trevelyan): During the year ended on 31st July, 1930, there were admitted to secondary school; in receipt of the Board's grant 34,427 boys and 29,066 girls who had attended public elementary schools for at least two years immediately preceding their admission. These figures represent 11.7 and 10.3 per cent., respectively, of the total numbers of boys and girls who left public elementary schools during the year ended on 31st March, 1930.
  Mr. SMITHERS: As we are so early, may I ask the Minister to read the answer again, as we could not hear a word of it?

  CATERING TRADE, CARDIFF (WORKING HOURS).
  Mr. EDMUNDS (for Mr. THORNE)asked the Minister of Labour if her attention has been called to the statement made by the Cardiff juvenile employment officer that many boys in Cardiff City are working 80 hours per week in hotels and cafes; and, if so, if she will state whether she intends taking any action in the matter?
  Mr. LAWSON: I have seen reference to this statement in the Press. My right hon. Friend is in consultation with the Home Secretary about the whole question of the hours of employment of boys and girls in occupations of this nature. My hon. Friend will be aware that a notice of intention to apply the Trade Boards Acts to the catering trade has been issued.
  Mr. EDMUNDS: Can the hon. Member state the number of these boys between the ages of 14 and 15?
  Mr. LAWSON: No, I am not aware of that.
  Mr. FREEMAN: Can the hon. Member say when the trade boards legislation will be extended to this trade?
  Mr. LAWSON: That all depends on the result of discussions which are now proceeding.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS.
  POLITICAL PARTIES (CO-OPERATION).
  Dr. MORRIS-JONES: I beg to give notice that, on this day four weeks, I shall call attention to the Need of Better Co-operation among the Parties in this House, and move a Resolution.
  MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE SERVICES.
  Mr. BOWEN: I beg to give notice that, on this day four weeks, I shall call attention to the question of Maternity and Child Welfare Services, and move a Resolution.

  GOVERNMENT PLEDGES.
  Captain AUSTIN HUDSON: I beg to give notice that, on this day four weeks,
  440
  I shall call attention to the Failure of the Present Government to keep their Pledges, and move a Resolution.

  TAXATION OF FOOD AND RAW MATERIALS.
  Major McKENZIE WOOD: I beg to give notice that, on this day four weeks, I shall call attention to the question of the Taxation of Food and Raw Materials, and move a Resolution.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, relating to Fraser-burgh Harbour." [Fraserburgh Harbour Order Confirmation Bill [Lords.]
And also a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, relating to Grampian Electricity Supply." [Grampian Electricity Supply Order Confirmation Bill [Lords.]

FRASERBURGH HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL [Lords].
Ordered (under Section 7 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899) to be considered To-morrow.
GRAMPIAN ELECTRICITY SUPPLY ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL [Lords].
Ordered (under Section 7 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899) to be considered To-morrow.
MARRIAGE (PROHIBITED DEGREES OF RELATIONSHIP) BILL,
"to amend the Law relating to the marriage of persons with their nephew or niece by marriage," presented by Mr. Barr; supported by Commander Bellairs, Lieut.-Colonel Moore, Mr. Ernest Brown, Mr. Foot, Mr. Hardie, and Mr. David Grenfell; to be read a Second time upon Friday, and to be printed. [Bill 51.]

FRUIT-GROWING INDUSTRY.
Viscount ELMLEY: I beg to move,
"That this House deplores the present condition of the Fruit-growing Industry and the heavy losses incurred this year by growers, and calls upon His Majesty's Government to put into effect schemes which, without penalising the consuming public, will secure to the grower an economic return for his crop."
The affairs of the county of Norfolk will hold the field here to-day, and I am very glad to be able to fire the first shot. The fruit-growing industry is naturally influenced by the international and national factors which affect all our industries to-day, but it has its own peculiar problems, and those I shall discuss this afternoon. It is common knowledge that conditions in the fruit-growing industry to-day are bad, and what we have to do is to ascertain the causes and to find remedies for those causes. Before I proceed to that I would like to give the House a bird's eye view of what is being done in Norfolk. It is calculated that there are some 4,000 fruit growers in the county, including smallholders, and that they pay out about £150,000 a year in wages, and spend on the average £15 an acre on their land. In the year 1928, when a census of production was taken, it was found that there were some 3,000 acres of strawberries, 600 acres of raspberries, 6,000 acres of currants and gooseberries, and 3,800 acres of orchard trees. It would be approximately correct to add 10 per cent. to those figures to bring them up to date for this year. I will divide my remarks under the headings of "Causes" and "Remedies," and at the end will say something about the currant-growing branch of the industry, which has some peculiar problems of its own.
As far as I can see, there are some nine main causes of the present difficulties. There may be more, and, if so, I hope they will be brought out during the debate. The first cause I would mention is the very knotty one of foreign imports. It is calculated that since the War and up to 1928 the imports of strawberries into this country increased by 195 per cent., of plums by 60 per cent. and of gooseberries by 40 per cent. It is contended that the foreigner has two advantages. First of all there is the superior climate which the countries
450
of Europe enjoy, which enable them to get their fruit ready about three weeks before ours; and secondly, they get the high prices which are paid for early produce on the markets. I do not believe those are altogether sound contentions, and when I come to discuss the remedies I shall go into that aspect of the matter a little further.
When dealing with imports we have to take into account the Empire products corning into this country. In the year 1928, the latest for which figures are available, there was not very much difference between the imports from foreign countries and the Empire. In the case of apples the imports from foreign countries amounted to 3,054,000 cwts. of a value of £3,440,961, and the imports from Empire countries were 3,034,000 cwts and the value £4,196,815. There have been complaints that fruit-growers in this country were quite unable to stock English apples this year because 300,000 boxes of Australian apples were imported, placed on ice, and released when required, and sold at any price between 2d. and 6d. per lb. When we are considering the result of the importation of fruit, that is a fact which we must take into account.
The next problem is that of prices. There is often a great and striking disparity between the price which the growers receive, and the price which the general public pay. At the end of last Session the Minister for Agriculture spoke about the atrocious disparity of prices in the fruit trade. The right hon. Gentleman was perfectly right, and I would like to give the House an example. It has been estimated that this year £39 per ton more was paid by the consumer than was paid for fresh currants which were sold by the grower at 2½d. per lb. and by the retailers at 1s. per lb. There is a still more glaring instance in the case of plums which were sold at 72 lbs. for 6d. in Evesham, and in Birmingham those plums were sold at 2d. per lb. The result is that fruit-growers have lost money and the prices have been far too high to the bulk of the people of this country.
There is the question of marketing, and here we have to consider several things. First. of all, the fruit-growing in-

451
dustry in this country is entirely dependent on home customers. I was reading the other day an' article' by an eminent agriculturist who estimated that sometimes there were six intermediaries in the fruit industry between the grower and the consumer. There is the commission salesman who buys from the grower. Then comes the wholesale buyer, who buys from the commission salesman and sells to the commission buyer. After that, there may be one or two provincial wholesale and retail dealers, with the result that the selling price is going up all along the line. Another point is that a great deal of our English fruit has to pass through Covent Garden as a clearing-house. I should like to point out that as long ago as 1923 the Linlithgow Committee condemned Covent Garden as confused and unorganised anachronism. I know from experience in the early part of this week that it is still true to say that of Covent Garden, and, if it was not for the fact that a great deal of the work there is done in the early, morning; I do not think it would be possible to, carry on the transactions which take place there with any degree. of certainty.
I could quote the case of growers who are in open competition with each other in various districts. I hays heard, of a wholesale buyer who went to Evesham, and he was offered a dozen different small lots of fruit, although that method was simply a waste of time. The result is that we find that the growers are not making money, the consumers are paying too high prices, and the, middlemen are making most of the profit. There is no doubt that in previous years the fruit-growing industry has been successful, and has attracted a great many people to it, but at the present time the tendency 'is for the private gardens to be run more and more as market gardens, and it is a fact that many farmers who have found that arable farming does not pay have turned their attention to the cultivation of fruit. know that many farmers only do this as a side line, but a great number of them have taken fruit-growing up in this way.
Another cause of complaint is the lack of any reliable information which will enable growers to foresee the demand for a certain kind of fruit. Very few people
452
knew this year that there was glut of raspberries until they saw it in the Press. The raspberries we grew at home were sold quite easily, and we specialised this year in growing a raspberry called the Lloyd George raspberry. Some people thought it had a sharp flavour while others thought that it had good preservative qualities. Perhaps I may be allowed to show the House what has actually been done in the industry. Here is a poster which was placed in the window of every agent who stocked Norfolk currants. I have here a sample of the label which goes on every 4-lb. basket of currants. I have come in contact with people who know all about this trade, and they tell me that what is wanted is something on a far greater scale.
4.0 p.m.
Another fact to which I wish to draw attention is that a much smaller number of people are making jam at home than used to be the case. This is one of the results of the War, which I hope will be gradually overcome. I think the growers of fruit ought to be placed in a better position, to obtain more accurate knowledge of the state of the market. Under present conditions, it is almost impossible that the grower should be expected to know everything about the state of the market and freight rates. I have come across cases where wholesalers had given whatever reasons they thought fit to growers about the state of the market. That is a point which requires attention, and, if the Minister of Agriculture will devise some method of giving some more first-hand knowledge of the markets, I am 'sure that would help the growers a Mt. There is another point which is recognised by the Linlithgow Committee. Greengrocers got into a certain bad habit during the War, when under the control of the Food Controller. What they like to do is to make a big profit on a small turnover, instead of making a more modest profit on a large turnover. We want to try to break the greengrocer of this bad habit. Then there is the question of railway rates, which are far too high. I would ask the Minister of Agriculture to get into touch with the Minister of Transport and see what he can do to get our railways to reduce their rates. A ton of currants sent from East Norfolk to Grimsby costs £2 5s. per ton, and a similar amount consigned from

453
Rotterdam costs £l 10s. a tom On top of that, I understand that our railways do a certain amount of advertising in foreign trade journals, and also grant flat rates to Covent Garden: I have also heard of a train going from Harwich or Tilbury With Continental fruit, being given a clear run to London, while trains from districts in this country with English fruit are held up in sidings. If the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Transport together would get a move on with the railways in this respect, it would help. It must always be remembered that fruit is a very perishable article, and, unless you preserve it in some way or other, you cannot possibly hold up supplies until prices are better. It has to be sold quickly.
I end with two more general caused. Generally speaking to-day in the fruit growing industry, the grower has to pay post-Mat expenses. Unfortunately, this year he has been getting something like, and in some cases less than, pre-War prices. In Norfolk, at any rate, the labour bill is 2½ times what it used to be before the War. It must be remembered, too, that the grower has to pay high rates on his house. It is true to say that his rent is now about the same, and, thanks to the Derating Act, he does not have to pay rates an, his land. But even taking that into account, the situation is very different in these days from- what it was before the War. As are instance of that, I am told that the price of Scottish raspberries this year was about £9 10s. a ton, which is the exact cost of picking a ton of raspberries in Scotland. Is it to be wondered at that people say, "What is the good of picking them? We had better leave them"? Last of all, in- regard to the general causes, there is the depressed state of this country to-day with over 2,000,000 unemployed and 8,000,000 more or less affected by them. It is calculated that our spending power is down by one-third. Obviously, that means that people in this country cannot spend what they used to spend. I am very glad to see the right hon. Member for Evesham (Sir B. Eyres Monsell) in his place. I am sure he can bear me out in this, that before the War there was an excellent market for the products of Evesham in South Wales, but that market, owing to
454
the general depression of industry in South Wales, has more or less gone today. For that, of course, the remedy is to get this country back into a prosperous state.
I come to the remedies. In discussing this question of foreign imports, I bear in mind the excellent piece of advice which the Minister of Agriculture gave the other day, when he said, "Stop arguing about: tariffs, which you have done for 25 years, and get down to it." I am sure that we all want to carry that out, but there are certain points in connection with these foreign imports which must be borne in mind. First of all, we ought to note, that although the industry has had good years and bad years, the situation with regard to foreign produce coming into this country has always been the same. In many imports of fruits this year there has been a drop of thousands of cwts. For instance, in 1929, in round figures, 141,000 cwts. of currants came into this country, while in the first nine months of this year the amount was 123,000 cwt's. With regard to plums, in 1929 the amount imported was 445,000 cwts., and this year 366,000 cwts. In the case of strawberries, the figure has decreased from 80,000 cwts. to 67,000 cwts. this year. One can see from those figures that foreign imports are not by any manner of means the sole cause of the difficulties of our growers day. I put a question to the right hon. Gentleman the other day, about the answer to which I would like to say something. The question had reference to pulped black currants coming from Holland. The answer was that in 1929 2,685 tons, valued at £71,712, came into this country, and for the corresponding period this year 1,760 tons, valued at £40,778—a drop of 925 tons, and a very surprising drop in value of £30,934.
That accounts for one or two things which I found to be true when I was on my holiday in Holland this year. I did my best to get into touch with growers of black currants over there, and found exactly the same thing was being said there as in this country, namely, that they were getting a very bad price. I will give two figures. On 4th July this year, the beginning of the season, a trader at Breda, the central market place for fruit in Holland, sold 15 tons of black currants at £14 a ton. On the 26th he sold 36

455
tons and only got £5 16s. 6d. a ton. That shows, I think, that the slump in prices is by no means confined to this country. A great many people—in fact, 4.700—in Norfolk, I understand, signed a resolution which was presented to the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor demanding that foreign imports of fruit should be restricted. It would be easy to get 4,700 to sign such a resolution, and I would be prepared to get 470,000 to sign a resolution against it.
There is another point which I would like to put. In this fruit-growing industry we seem to have either very good years or very bad years. There seems to be no happy medium between the two. Last year about this time we were hearing a great deal about the potato industry. It was claimed that potato growers were being ruined by potatoes coming from Germany. This year potatoes still come from Germany, but we do not hear anything about our potato growers being ruined. I understand from the hon. Member for Holland-with-Boston (Mr. Blindell), that the happier position this year is due to the fact that potato growers have put their house in order, and have instituted a better marketing system. At the beginning of my speech I referred to the Protectionist argument that, owing to climate, foreign fruit comes here three weeks earlier, gets the best of the prices and tires our people of such fruit. I am not sure that that argument is absolutely sound, for this reason. it is not the bulk of people in this country who buy early, expensive fruits. There are very few people who can afford to buy strawberries at 3s. a lb. Therefore, if they do not buy these early fruits at high prices, it cannot be said that they are tired of these things by the time that the home fruit comes along. This argument is used for protecting this branch of the industry, but I do not think this House ought to do it. It would put itself in a very difficult position if it did, because, logically, it would have to protect every other branch of the agricultural industry. It would open a door to endless possibilities in that way. I dare say some hon. Members here would approve of that, but I am quite certain that the country itself would not, and that we have no mandate to do such a thing.
456
It has also to be remembered in this connection that there is the possibility of retaliation from other countries. Taxing goods coming from various countries is a very catching thing. If one country starts doing it, other countries follow suit, and those of us who want to work for universal Free Trade say that we do not want any fresh taxes at all. Then, I would ask Protectionists to remember that wages in Protectionist countries are always lower than they are here. A point made by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) yesterday was that we are getting most agricultural competition, on the whole, from Free Trade countries. There is a further consideration. The chief reason why jam-makers buy foreign pulped fruit is to keep their factories going before our fruit is ready, and if the import of such fruit were forbidden, it would reduce employment in this trade and also reduce the amount of jam consumed in this country.
I do not want to claim for a moment that Free Trade as Free Trade is a remedy for the present position, but, to put the case of Free Trade in a nutshell, this country is a relatively small one with some 45,000,000 people, with vast exporting industries in spite of the present depression, and I believe that, on the whole, Free Trade is the best system under which this country can live, and the best with which we can treat with other people, and get along generally. No Free Trader wishes to stop people from buying British or Empire goods. On the contrary, we say, "Certainly buy them if you wish to do so." On the other hand, I do not think that we have any right to say to the millions of people in this country, of whom far too many are living near the borderline of starvation, that they have got to buy things which cost them more.
We all admire, I think, the very excellent posters which the Empire Marketing Board puts about this country. I think that they are the best posters I have ever seen, but when I see at or near Wisbech, which is represented by my hon. Friend who will second the Motion, exhortations to buy Australian apples, I feel that if I were an apple-grower there I should want to tear up those posters. We do want, in some way, to think out a scheme of home marketing, to have a

457
home marketing board, because there are no foreign or Empire apples which can touch ours in quality, and I am not quite satisfied, in my own mind, whether the Empire Marketing Board makes that quite clear enough. You would still have a bad state of affairs in the fruit trade if you only clapped on a tariff. If some of the other causes which I have mentioned are attended to, I think we shall be in a far better position to compete against the foreigner than we are to-day.
That is all that I wish to say on the question of foreign imports. As to the question of prices, I hope that this House will pass a Consumers Council Bill as quickly as possible which will give the Government the power to see that a fairer price is paid to the grower, because I think the figures I have given prove that the grower could have been paid a better price while consumers could have paid less for their fruit. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to investigate this problem of price very carefully, and I think it would help if he were to try to get more direct trading between grower and consumer, to the advantage of both. Another point which I think he might consider is that of getting other centres in this country as clearing houses for fruit than Covent Garden, because there is no doubt that Covent Garden is far too much choked up at present.
With regard to the question of gluts, I mentioned just now the subject of advertisement, and said that I thought that something on a bigger scale than the examples I gave was required. The posters which I showed to the House ought to be seen, not only in shop windows and in baskets, but in railway stations, streets and omnibuses, and in newspapers all over the country. I would also like to see a kind of alliance between the grower, the greengrocer and the ironmonger. As I have already said, nobody, as far as I can see, knew that there was going to be a surplus this year until the surplus was actually upon us. What I should like to see happen is something like this. I should like to see in ironmongers' windows posters saying, "We sell special bottling outfits at special rates. Fruit will be very plentiful and cheap in a fortnight's time; come and inspect our stock." I believe that that sort of thing would help in dealing with
458
this problem. Then I think it would make a very big difference to the growers in this country if everyone were to make a resolution to eat, say, another apple every day. Not only would that help our growers, but it would also carry out the proverb about keeping the doctor away, though perhaps I ought not to use that argument when the right hon. Gentleman is listening to me. I have already mentioned the bad habit that greengrocers got into during the War, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to do what he can to change that.
There is another remedy which I have not yet mentioned, but which I think is rather important. When I read the Marketing Bill, I was very surprised to find that fruit was not included in it. Even among those who have condemned the Marketing Bill, I have come across many who have said to me, "You must get fruit put into it." I do not think, therefore, that the Bill can be really quite so bad as they say it is, when they want fruit to be put into it. After all, this industry has become quite as essential a part of our life as any of the other industries concerned with products which are already included in the Bill. The inclusion of fruit will help in one or two ways. For instance, with regard to the excellent cooperative society whose posters I showed to the House, and some of whose figures I will quote in a moment, while it has done quite well, I am afraid that people treat it rather in this way, that they go everywhere they can to try to get a better price before they go to the co-operative society, and, if that happens, it is not going to make for the success of the cooperative society.
Then there is the position of dealers and jam makers in this matter. If a man is dealing in things like cheeses, he can ring up on the telephone before breakfast and order 5,000 cheeses, but the jam manufacturer cannot do a thing like that. Very often he has to visit 200 or 300 growers, and he may have to visit them three or four times before he can get them to do business and fix up a deal with them. That is another reason why foreign pulp is bought from Holland, because in that case it is only necessary to send over an agent and all the pulp that is required can be obtained. Certainly, to ensure the success of co-operative societies, the element of compulsion

459
is necessary and indeed one of the criticisms passed by farmers about co-operation is that there is not an element of compulsion and that therefore people do nut support the societies to the best of their ability. As I read the Marketing Bill, that paint is going to be attended to and there is going to be an element of compulsion.
Further, it would help if more advance contracts could be made between jam makers and growers, as both parties would then know better where they were. Then the question of grading, labelling and packing must not be neglected; it is not so unimportant as it may be thought to be. I have come across boxes of fruit which were labelled "Selected Strawberries," and which only had selected strawberries on the top, and very bad ones underneath. That does not predispose people in the growers favour. Again, I have heard the advice given by a grower to his currant pickers: "Pick all the stalk you can, because it all weighs." That, again, is not a kind of practice that is going to do any good to the industry. Finally, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether the time has not come for applying the National Mark to all fruits, as well as to strawberries and other things to which it has been applied already. That scheme has been a success wherever it has been tried.
With regard to co-operation, people sometimes say that it is el no use, but I would like to quote some figures from Norfolk Fruit Growers, Limited, which is a co-operative society that vas founded in 1926. It has gone on very well, as the following figures will show. In the year in which the society was formed, it handled 77 tons and had 92 shareholders. In 1927, it handled 182 tons and had 150 shareholders. In 1928, it handled 288 tons and had 191 shareholders. In 1929 it handled 507 tons and had 235 shareholders; and this year it has handled 580 tons and has 255 shareholders. These figures show that there is a great future in co-operation. A society like this is good, but it is not big enough, because, although the quantity of fruit it has handled has steadily gone up from 77 tons to 580 tons, this is not enough to deal with fruit in a really large-scale way, and I think that if fruit were to
460
be included in the Marketing Bill a still further increase would come about.
I want now to say just a word about the currant industry, because most of our currants in this country are grown in Norfolk. The growers there have suffered from foreign competition this year for two reasons. The first is their geographical position. They are mot like the more fortunate fruit growers in Kent, who can send up a lorry-load of fruit to Covent Garden at almost any time. They depend more upon the Midlands for their market, and that is some distance away. Moreover, 80 per cent. of the currants grown in Norfolk go into jam, and, in regard to the question of the use of pulped fruit for jam making, I would ask the Minister seriously to consider whether it should not be made compulsory that all receptacles containing jam made from pulped or preserved fruit should be so labelled.
A great deal of jam is being sold to-day as fresh jam which is made from preserved fruit, and that means that people who buy it are not getting what they contract to buy. People. sometimes ask, why advertise the foreigner at our, expense; but I do not think that that argument is a good one, since, if people wish to buy foreign jam, they will buy it anyhow. There are many people, however, myself included, who are very aneasy about the idea of eating in the form of jam fruit which has been in sulphur dioxide for two years. I do not know whether any hon. Members have seen this pulped fruit preserved with sulphur dioxide, but, if they have, I am sure they will agree with me that it is most unpleasant-looking stuff.
I realise that it is not possible for the Minister to send a commission to every country to see under what conditions this stuff is made, but I would like him to make some statement about the amount of sulphur dioxide which is allowed in fruit. I have tried to find the regulations about it, and I find, in the book of Statutory Rules and Orders for 1928, on page 1179, a definite Order fixing the amount of sulphur dioxide allowed in jam. I tried to find out also what the position was in earlier years, because, as hon. Members will recollect, it was after 1926 that we began to feel the effects of mill coining in from other countries, and I should like to know whether there is any relation between that Order and the

461
fact that, after 1926, more and more pulped fruit came into this country.
While I am on this point, I should like to mention that at the end of 1926 an unfortunate rumour that all our crop had been destroyed by frost carried a certain amount of weight, and a great many foreign orders were given as a consequence, but, as far, as I know, there was no truth at all in that. I would also like to ask the Minister if he could arrange for the Empire Marketing Board to publish the amounts of pulped and preserved fruit that come into this country. It is calculated that the average price of currants is now between £16 and £20 a ton, while before the War it was between £31 and 235. That gives one an idea of she position. This year, for the first time, there has been unemployment among fruit pickers, and that is a rather serious thing for those families who sometimes double their earnings during dm fruit picking season.
Some people have urged me to put the point that preservation with sulphur dioxide should be carried on to a, greater extent in this country. I daresay it is all right under good conditions, and it has this in its favour, that it can be done at any time, and that the process of preservation halves the weight and space which the fruit takes up. Some of the growers in Norfolk have suggested that, if they did this, perhaps the Government might be disposed to advance them credit in order to enable them to hold up their supplies, but I would ask the Government to be very careful about that, because we all know what happened in the case of the Canadian farmers who tried to hold up supplies in order to get better prices.
I hope I have covered the ground enough to give the House an idea of the present position, and to show some of the ways in which it could be improved. Having been born in Worcestershire, and representing, as I do, a Norfolk Division, I have a connection with two very important fruit-growing counties, and, therefore, I am very glad to be able to move this Resolution, because I do not think that this industry has had so far from the House of Commons the attention that it ought to have had.
The industry of fruit-growing is one of the earliest industries. It goes back to
462
very early times, but it is essentially a civilised industry. In the early days of the human race, all that primitive man had to eat was raw meat. [Interruption.] Later on, we know that he tilled the fields and went in for cereals, and after that he began to cultivate fruits. So I say this is essentially an industry of civilisation. No one can say anything against it. No one can do anything except wish it every success. It has been the very last to feel the present depression of industry. Let us hope that, it will he the very first to recover.
I do not hold the pure Socialistic view that the State should do everything for us. That is -too much looking upon the State as a kind of nurse. I prefer to look on it as a Wise and faithful friend to whom one can turn in trouble. I hope the Government will help the fruit growing industry to the beat, of their ability in that spirit. I said just now that no one can say anything against it There are plenty of Members who could say a good deal against other branches of the agricultural industry. Some have very decided views against products of hops and barley, but I do not think anyone can say that applies to the fruit-growing industry. If the Government can help it, they will probably find it much easier to carry out the details of their Land (Utilisation) Bill, because, if it is known that the fruit-growing industry affords a good opportunity, you will find more people willing and ready to go into it. I ask the Government to consider very carefully the present position and then to act promptly. There are many throughout the country who are expecting good results from the debate, and it is my most earnest hope that we shall not disappoint them.
Mr. de ROTHSCHILD: I beg to second the Motion.
I congratulate my Noble Friend on the admirable and cogent manner in which he has put the matter before the House. He has gone over the ground so carefully that there is but little that remains for me to say to persuade this assembly that it should carry this Motion unanimously. The fruit industry, like most others at present, is in the slough of despond. Prices barely cover the costs. I could quote an instance in my own-constituency where in the neighbourhood of Wisbech there was a considerable

463
quantity of fruit that remained unpicked this season. There was as much as 940 tons of gooseberries, 156 of raspberries and 350 of plums. This meant the work of a good many people.
I should like to allude to the drastic fall in land values. in 1914, planted orchard land was worth from £100 to £120. It is an established fact that immediately after the War, owing to the restriction of fruit that existed during the War, this land rose to £200 and even £300 an acre. To-day, it is worth from £60 to £40. The people who own it have mortgaged it for 30 and 40 per cent. more than it is worth to-day. I will not stress the disparity between the costs and the returns, still it is well known that, except as regards strawberries, the prices are the same as in 1914, whereas the growers costs are up from 60 to 100 per cent. their—labour costs, railway costs, marketing costs, their costs for implements and artificial manures and spraying materials. The wages and rail costs are beyond the growers control, and the other costs are, of course, imposed upon him by the competition of foreign and Empire grown fruit.
The cause of the distressed state of the industry cannot be said to be the inefficiency of the grower. This has been proved over and over again, and never more so than at the last Imperial show, which commanded the admiration of fruit-growers and fruit lovers all over the world. The problem is part of the trade depression. Sir William Lobjoit is the Chairman of the fruit department of the National Farmers' Union, a body which is no more friendly disposed to me than it is to the right hon. Gentleman, and I much regret it, because in this matter I think all who are interested should co-operate. He stated in my constituency the other day that the situation was created, first of all, by world depression of trade and the consequent fall in the world's commodity prices. But we cannot wait to restore this industry until such time as the present industrial condition all over the world mends itself. It is imperative that we should put our shoulders to the wheel. In this matter, possibly some of the responsibility may attach to the Government, because, during the War, those who owned fruit farms were ordered to till their land and grow corn. After
464
the War, they were discouraged from growing corn and told to put the land back into fruit.
One of the greatest difficulties experienced by the fruit-grower, but one which he has been able to get over by the help of the Government schools and the instruction that the Government have given him, is that of pests. But there are other parasites besides mildew and fly which affect fruit. May I remind the right hon. Gentleman of the finding of the Linlithgow Commission. It stated that this industry was unique in the number of its intermediaries whose sole service was distribution. What it said in 1923 is true to-day and, in fact, the trouble has increased. It stated that 30 per cent. of the produce passed through two intermediaries, 30 per cent. through three and 25 per cent. through four, five or six intermediaries. Beside this, the fruit, before it reached the consumer, was calculated to go through as many as 20 different handlings.
On the top of that, 90 per cent. of the fruit sold is sold on commission. There can be no worse method of disposal than that. It is open to every abuse. Although some of these abuses have been remedied by the Act of 1926, yet the fundamental defect still remains. When prices are high, the commission broker charges commission at percentage rates. When prices are low, he charges commission on a flat rate. The result is that fluctuations are immaterial, and the consumer does not benefit by the drop in prices. Besides this, the system results also in maldistribution. There is no control of the supplies that are sent to the different markets, and there may be a glut in one place for a week, and a glut in one place on an occasion when there is a shortage in another at the same time. There is no doubt that the opinion is held by many growers that if this method of commission sale was made illegal, the industry would be on the road to the solution of some of its difficulties.
These pests, as I have said, are as difficult for the grower to fight as fly and mildew. It is for the Government to provide the insecticide. The first measure is that the commission salesman should be licensed. This proposal was put forward by the Linlithgow Committee but has not been followed out. The question

465
of marketing is like a red rag to a bull to the fruit-growing industry, and nowhere more so than in my own constituency, but for all that I think it is essential that fruit-growing should be included by the right hon. Gentleman in the plans that he is going to put before the House. What is wanted is not that prices should go up but that profits should increase. As it stands now, the Marketing Bill which the right hon. Gentleman proposes to bring in will not suffice to bring about the necessary revolution in marketing which is imperative in order to help the industry. It is necessary that he should consider means of educating fruit-growers all over the country. I suggest that in this respect he should take one more leaf out of the Liberal book and give a thought to a national marketing board. Unless he himself initiates a certain number of schemes in the different areas, there is very little chance that a sufficient number of schemes will be put forward and will come to fruition. It is not surprising, of course, that fruit gardeners, who are disseminated and who are busy with their cultivation, should not read statistics and political economy, and that is why they are persuaded so easily by their leaders that the whole trouble is imported foreign produce. Again, may I quote Sir William Lobjoit, who did not subscribe wholly to their view and said if there had been no foreign imports at all there would have been a glut of fruit this year. During this season only 4½ per cent. of the total amount of gooseberries in this country was imported from abroad, i.e., only 4½ per cent. of gooseberry pulp. I have taken this figure from a quotation by Sir William Lobjoit, because, I regret to say, it is very difficult to get this information from any of the Government's statistics.
I come to the question of regulating or excluding foreign imports of fruit or of pulp. This question is not before the Horse. At the last election the Conservative party did not put before the electors the question either of taxing the imports of foreign fruit or of excluding them, and therefore there is no mandate before the House to-day. These imports remind me of the ogres of the story. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bewdley (Mr. S. Baldwin), who I am pleased and honoured to see here to-day,
466
thinks that you should cut off their heads, but I am doubtful, when the time comes, whether he himself, with all his courage, will be able to engage in this practice. There will be too much hostility on the part of the consuming public, which represents, as regards the agricultural population, 93 per cent. Let me remind the House what "Hop o' my Thumb" did when he wanted to cut off the ogre's head. He took off the ogre's seven-league boots. I should like the right hon. Gentleman who is at present in office to take off the seven-league boots of these ogres and then later on, perhaps in the fulness and ripeness of time, in the dim and distant future, if it is still necessary, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bewdley may find it easier to chop off their heads. But these ogres only flourish in an atmosphere of fairyland. Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Rothermere are the Grimm and the Andersen of the fruit trade. Their phantasy reacts adversely and out of all proportion upon the psychology of the market.
We may condemn the system of marketing which is in existence, but, if the new Marketing Bill is introduced, it will take a good deal of time before it has any effect on the fruit-growing industry. We are all concerned with what is going to happen next year and the year after. That is why I am urging the Government to deal with the seven-league boots, and to take steps to prevent a small percentage of imports from being used as a means of manipulating the markets. When these imports are reduced to their proper size by information given to the public, it will be possible for the industry to calculate where they are and where they stand. In Wisbech, for instance, as I have said, there is a considerable acreage of gooseberries, and yet, although there was only an importation of 4½ per cent., I am convinced that that foreign importation was tremendously magnified in the minds of the growers. The price is artificially depressed to the producers by telegrams from agents or dealers, such as "Markets are blocked." An offer of fruit for sale receives the following reply: "Dutch can he bought for £2 less." The poor, unfortunate grower is ignorant about Dutch supplies. He does not know what is their competitive quality, and he does not even know whether that quantity is available. The result is that he

467
gives way to the extortions of the dealer. I suggest that it is well within the power of the Minister to disseminate information to the growers about market prices, and to give the grower the necessary information which he requires to enable him to estimate the influence of those imports upon the market. I cannot find any figures which give the imports.
The three suggestions which I have made are that commission salesmen should be licensed, that fruit-growing should be included in the Marketing Bill, and that the Minister should counteract the exaggerated influence of imports upon prices. I do not want to weary the House any longer, as I know there are other Members who wish to speak on this point, but I still wish to stress two or three other points. I do not for a minute pretend that they will solve this problem, but we want to alleviate the situation. The problem, if the Marketing Bill is successful and if conditions in this country are restored, will, in my opinion, like a great many other of the industrial problems which are besetting us just now, solve itself.
Another point to which I want to call attention is the use of SO2 in jam. I see a smile on the face of the right hon. Gentleman. I know that this question has almost worried him to death. Still it is not right that children—and it is children who consume most of the jam—who could be fed on good wholesome jam made of fresh English fruit, should be given jam made from stale pulp preserved with SO2. I urge the right hon. Gentleman to confer with the Minister of Health on this matter in the interests of public health. Beside, it is hardly fair on the home grower, because SO2 at the present time, except in infinitesimal quantities, is not allowed to be put into sugar. What is jam except sugar added to fruit? If you are going to allow a greater quantity of SO2 in fruit pulp than you allow in sugar, is it fair on the producers of this country to allow this pulp to be mixed with sugar and sold as jam for the children of this country? I need not impress upon the right hon. Gentleman that it is essential also that he should cause the jam to be marked and so let as know, by moans of the label on the case
468
and on the bottle, what it is, and what is the country of origin. This is already being enjoined by the Merchandise Marks Act, but I am afraid that, like a great many other laws, this is more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
The railway rates should also be lowered. I regret the undoubted preference which is given, not only in rates, but also in wagons to produce which comes from abroad. If any preference is given by our railways it should be given to our own people.
There is another matter to which I will call the attention of the Minister which will undoubtedly help the fruit-growing industry. I should like him to consider the question of cold storage. The present charge for storing apples is £1 per ton per month, and the Ministry, in one of its publications estimate that this cost should be 50s. per ton for seven months. I should like the Minister to establish in the different fruit-growing areas a certain number of cold storage houses, which would help to condition the fruit and to regulate distribution, and would, to a certain extent, control gluts, and lay the foundation of proper and extensive marketing. I am sure that the growers all over England and all over Scotland and Wales would be very grateful for any message on this subject.
Lastly, I would urge the Minister to take the banks into consultation. There are many growers, especially the smaller ones, who are paying at the present time high mortgage interest on inflated values. In view of the intention of the right hon. Gentleman to provide land and easy credit for the new farmers, I can see the possibility of unfair discrimination against the present growers if he does not give them equal facilities in order to lighten their present burdens. We hope that the Minister will take the industry to which we are giving consideration under his protecting wing. It is not struggling to keep alive by old-fashioned methods. Whatever its shortcomings, it is most receptive of new ideas and of scientific methods, and I trust that, though there may still be some reluctance among the fruit farmers to-day to engage in co-operation, the efforts of the right hon. Gentleman will soon dispel that disinclination. But by the intrinsic value of its output and by the importance of its produce as

469
a service to the health of the nation, this industry is fully justified in asking this House for greater consideration and encouragement.
5.0 p.m.
Commander Sir BOLTON EYRES MONSELL: I for one am very much indebted to the Noble Lord the Member for Norfolk, Eastern (Viscount Elmley) for having brought forward this Motion to-day, and, although in the Motion he makes no proposals whatever for the amelioration of the market gardening industry, it at least gives us an opportunity of bringing before the House and the country the really desperate state of that industry, and the fruit-growing industry, including the fruits which are grown in greenhouses round about Worthing and elsewhere and the East Coast. As the representative of Evesham, I represent a highly-skilled, highly-organised, highly-competent community of smallholders, and I can bear witness, knowing these men and their trade pretty intimately, to the tragic state in which the industry has been this summer. Before I go on to that, I should like to say a word as to the personnel of the market-gardening industry, because I think it is composed of a class and type of men who deserve the help of the Members of this House on whatever side they may sit. They are a sturdy, independent body of smallholders. I estimate that in the Vale of Evesham something like 40,000 people are earning their livelihood by the market gardening industry. The holdings average about six acres. A good many of them own their own holdings, but the huge majority of them rent under the Evesham custom, which is much more convenient for them than owning their own land. They are a hard-working lot of men and women. Not only do they work but their families work, and they extract every possible thing that they can get from the soil. What I would like to bring to the notice of the House is the number of men per acre that this industry employs. The market gardening industry employs 16 men per hundred acres, which is comparable to four men for the same acreage on arable land and to one man only on grassland: sixteen times the number of men who are employed on the same acreage of grassland. Hon. Members opposite seem rather to have the
470
chicken complex, but I would point out that market gardening is the best way of bringing people back to the land in large numbers, if we want to do so.
Market gardening is a splendid industry. A well-kept market garden is a very beautiful sight. I expect that many hon. Members have gone over the Cotswold Hills and suddenly have come upon the Vale of Evesham and seen below them miles of pink and white blossom, stretching away into the distance. This year that blossom gave place to an abundant crop of fruit, but the tragedy of it was that a lot of that fruit remained unpicked and rotted on the trees. We all want to remedy that terrible economic state of things which occurs when there is an abundant crop of fruit. The Noble Lord made several suggestions. He brought up the middleman. I hold no brief for the middleman. I am in favour of legislation to prevent him unduly profiteering, but I think it is very hard to trace universal profiteering in fruit. I do not know of any fruiterer who has died a millionaire, and I certainly believe that the greengrocers supply an average number of the bankruptcies that occur in this country. I would do all I can to reduce the profit taken between the grower and the consumer, but I think that subject Ls somewhat exaggerated.
The Noble Lord and the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Mr. de Rothschild) referred to marketing. I wish they would come to Evesham and have a look at the marketing arrangements that we have there. I cannot help thinking, from their speeches, that their experience of marketing is rather a chaotic thing. We are very highly organised in Evesham in regard to marketing. We have 11 markets in the Vale of Evesham. [Interruption.] It is very healthy competition and prevents any one market from making too much profit. Moreover, the market provides for the small man, the small grower. The big growers go direct to the merchants, but the small men send in to these markets. I have been in these markets and I have seen supplies brought in from the villages. The fruit or vegetables are put down and graded for sale. Then they are auctioned, and I have seen them put on to motor lorries and taken straight off to fruit shops in Manchester and Birmingham. You cannot better that in the way of distribution, and

471
the amount that is charged is only 7½ per cent. That price is cut down by competition between the markets and I do not think that it is too much.
The Noble Lord said that we are eating less jam. I think that is true, and I am afraid that the jam makers this year anticipating a shortage, have not made nearly as much jam as they generally do. The Noble Lord also spoke about unemployment and eventually came to the question of foreign imports. I thought for a moment that he was going to leave the rigid road of Cobdenism, but he only got one foot over the curb and he brought it back very quickly. He gave rather cold comfort to the growers in Norfolk and in the Isle of Ely, where they have been overwhelmed by foreign competition, when he said that he did not think that Free Trade was a cure. I do not think so, and I want to give the House my scheme for dealing with the matter. I do not desire to weary hon. Members with many figures but I have some extremely interesting figures that bear on what I consider to be unfair foreign competition. If we compare the five years 1905–10 with the five years 1924–28 we see that the home produce increased from 8,100,000 cwts. to 8,900,000 cwts. I am new talking of the ordinary raw fruit which we grow. I am not talking about bananas or pineapples, but fruit that we ordinarily grow in this country. There was an increase in the home produce but the net imports in the same period increased from 4,400,000 to 8,300,000 cwts. Those are very remarkable figures because they show that whereas before the War we were producing considerably more than two-thirds of the raw fruit con-seined in this country, in the five years 1924–28 we were only growing a little more than one-half of the raw fruit consumed in this country. That is not the end of the picture because in 1930, according to the figures that I obtained recently from the Ministry of Agriculture, the proportion of home produce fell to 44 per cent., and the decline in our own produce compared with net imports was accelerated.
Major CHURCH: Do those imports include imports of fruit from the Colonies?
Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: No, they are the ordinary soft fruits that we grow. We are open to unfair competition in two distinct ways. First of all, let me take the question of early fruit and vegetables. High luxury prices are always paid for the early produce of any crop and very often that may pay for the whole crop, even if prices slump a little later on. Our growers in this country never get these high luxury prices; they are invariably obtained by the foreign producer, who, having the advantage of climatic conditions, always manages to put in his produce two or three weeks before the produce can mature in this country. Consequently, the foreigner obtains the high price. I have many figures, but as we grow a lot of plums in Evesham district I will give figures relating to plums. The approximate dates on which imports of plums from foreign countries began to reach the British markets in bulk last year was in the second quarter of July, while the approximate date on which the home-produced fruit began to reach the borne market was early August. Therefore, they had about three weeks advantage of us. The remarkable thing is the price that obtained. In the second quarter of July, when only the foreign produce was coming in, the first quality of plums were selling for 52s. but when our hulk crop came into the market the price had gone down to 32s. 6d. That happens in regard to every single thing one can think of.
What is the remedy for this state of things? My remedy is a simple one. This competition is becoming more and more fierce. Great stretches of land in Northern Africa are being opened up for fruit production. In Northern Africa, where we have the question of the low wage again, they are able to produce fruit even earlier than they can produce it in the South of France. I think my remedy is simple. I would prohibit the importation of, I will say, plums until our crops have been ripe for two or three weeks and our people have had the chance of getting the high prices instead of the foreigner. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Yes, and that would be well. within the terms of the Resolution, "without penalising the consuming public." Who can say that that is going to penalise the consuming public? I rather pity hon. Members opposite if they go to

473
their constituencies and try to arouse sympathy on behalf of the rich people who buy early asparagus, because we shall be able to tell them that all that these rich people will have to do will be to wait a fortnight and instead of buying it from the foreigner they will be able to buy it from and pay high prices to the English growers.
By the means that I have just described the foreigner is invarably allowed to skim the cream of every market, and he leaves us with the skimmed milk. We have to make the best of the skimmed milk, but we are not allowed even to have that for ourselves. At any moment from any country the surplus products of that country can be dumped here, because this is the only country that is open to it, thereby bringing the prices bumping down out of all proportion, at the same time giving no advantage to the consumers. In the first week of August I went into one of the markets in Evesham and I saw the most beautiful plums with the bloom on them, Pershore plums, which are our main crop, and are suitable for jam making, selling for 1s. 6d. per pot. A pot represents 72 lbs., while there are about 10 of the plums to the lb. When we consider that these plums cost 9d. to pick and they were sold at Is. 6d. a pot, there was not much profit on the production. Unfortunately, a great many of these plums were not picked because you could not get any price for them.
I do not want to exaggerate but I should think that thousands of tons of these plums were left unpicked in the Vale of Evesham this year, and during the months of July and August we imported into this country no less than 15,000 tons of plums. I cannot see the sense of that; and I do not believe that anybody can see any sense in it. These 15,000 tons of plums which were dumped into this country may not have paid the men who dumped them but at any rate it paid the people who picked them, and if we had not imported this amount of plums we should have been able to pick our own plums and pay wages for the picking. It would be easy for the Minister of Agriculture, with the help of great central places like Evesham, to make a survey of any particular crop and if, as was the case this year, we are certain to have a crop so large that it will provide an ample and cheap supply
474
of fruit to everybody at home, to the jam makers and to the consuming public as well, I say, why on earth should we allow any foreign plums to come in at all.
I bring these two points forward as keeping well within the terms of the Motion, and I have made some practical suggestions for dealing with the problem of market gardening. I have tried to place before the House the hard case of market gardeners to-day. This Parliament is more ready I believe than any other Parliament I have seen to get away from old party battlecries and slogans and treat each case on its merits. I ask hon. Members to believe that this is a serious question and I hope, when the time comes for us to put forward definite suggestions, I hope it will not be long, that the House will be ready to give practical relief and sympathy to a great and deserving industry.
The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Dr. Addison): We are much indebted to the Noble Lord for bringing forward this subject to-day and I have no hesitation in accepting the Motion and acknowledging its implications. Let me come to the suggestions made by the right hon. and gallant Member for Evesham (Sir B. Eyres Monsell). If I wanted a testimonial in advance of the advantages of the Marketing Bill I have had it this afternoon. With the exception of the proposal to exclude foreign imports which the right hon. and gallant Member mentioned every other suggestion he has put forward is there and can be given effect to in the Marketing Bill. The omission of fruit from that Bill as it was first printed was deliberate on my part because I wanted to draw fire. When the Bill is reintroduced, I hope in a few days time, it will be found that fruit is now included in the Schedule and two or three other things as well, and there wilt also be machinery for the provision of the initiative which was somewhat defective in the first draft. I hope the House generally, and hon. Members opposite particularly, will take note of the right hon. and gallant Member's glowing description, not exaggerated, of the beauties of the Vale of Evesham with its large numbers of smallholders many of whom have bought their holdings. I know their troubles this year and it is quite right and

475
proper that we should do what we can to prevent a recurrence of those difficulties. But there it is; a picture of prosperity where many smallholders have bought their own holding—
Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: I never said that they have bought their holding. I said that a few owned their holdings and that the great majority prefer to rent them under the Evesham custom.
Dr. ADDISON: I was only making a friendly and I think a proper comment on the fact that a number of them had bought their own holdings. In regard to the facts of the case I think the explanation which has been put forward by the right hon. and gallant Member scarcely meets the case; nor is his suggested remedy applicable for a, reason which I will give. The import of plums this year was 387,000 cwt. Last year it was 505,000 cwt. In 1927 it was 597,000 cwt. In other words, in 1927 there were 200,000 cwt. more of imported plums than there were this year. Surely if there was a case for excluding foreign plums it was in 1927.
Mr. STANLEY BALDWIN: The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that we had no authority or mandate to do anything of the kind, but we shall have next time.
Dr. ADDISON: The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that the reason why I cannot now exclude foreign plums is because I am bound by the treaties which he himself concluded.
Captain RONALD HENDERSON: Would you do it if it were otherwise?
Dr. ADDISON: I have no power at all to do it.
Captain HENDERSON: You can give three months notice.
Dr. ADDISON: We have no power. The treaties which were concluded during the office of the right hon. Member for Bewdley (Mr. S. Baldwin) prevent our prohibiting the import of foodstuffs on any ground except health grounds. Therefore it is not within my power at the present time to do what the right hon. and gallant Member recommends, and, quite frankly, whilst it would affect prices for the first few weeks, the main returns are derived from the bulk of the Crop.
Sir NAIRNE STEWART SANDEMAN: When were these treaties ratified?
Dr. ADDISON: I think the one to which I am referring was ratified in July, 1929.
Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: 'During your term of office.
Dr. ADDISON: Yes, but the right hon. and gallant Member knows that when a treaty has been signed, sealed and delivered, when everything has been done and all the negotiations have taken place, no Government can do anything else but ratify it. That argument will not do at all. I welcome the suggestion that we should try and approach these problems apart altogether from any party prejudices. We are all anxious to do what we can to help this and kindred industries. The first difficulty of the grower is that he is relatively helpless in the existing markets. There is insufficient organisation among a large number of small producers. That is the case all over the country. The small producer in Norfolk, we are told, is helpless. He has no knowledge of prices, no organisation to advise him as to prices—and as to that I will see if we can improve the market intelligence in the Noble Lord's constituency. He has no machinery to advise him as to prices, no machinery for collective transport. I agree that transport charges should be reduced.
From whatever point of view we approach it the difficulty resolves itself into this, that there is no organisation of a sufficiently comprehensive character to deal with these matters on behalf of the small producer. Where it is a case of dealing with the merchant or middle man, or the question of transport charges, storage, and all the rest, none of these things can be dealt with unless you have a powerful organisation handling the stuff in bulk. The railway companies charge more for small parcels, and for a large number of small parcels, and we can only make a collective and better bargain with the railway companies if there is an organisation which is competent to handle the stuff in bulk. What applies to transport applies even more to storage, and the suggestion made by the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Mr. de Rothschild) for improving our storage facilities is a very valuable suggestion. There has been a great improvement in

477
this respect in late years owing to the growth of cold storage facilities, and we have just finished a large station capable of storing several hundred tons of fruit. From what I am told by the head of the concern it will enable us to have the best Cox's Pippin Apple in June. If that is so it will mean a new era for the fruit trade. At all events it is an experiment which I hope hon. Members will follow; the station at East Mailing is well worth a visit. It is one of the most ambitious and most important experiments in this branch of industry that has been undertaken for many years.
Just a word about prices. We have applied the Act of 1928, the Agricultural Produce (Grading and Marking) Act, very vigorously and it has been conspicuously successful in the case of many fruits. One fact emerges quit;, clearly, and that is that if you have fruits well graded, well stored, well packed, and for the most part of good quality, British fruits will demand a good price. The demand of the markets last year for the best dessert British apples was not adequately met. One of the complaints of the middleman, and I sympathise with him, is that he gets too much produce from the home grower in an utterly mixed up and unsatisfactorily graded condition. I have told this story before, but it is worth repeating. In the middle of the difficulties last year about potatoes I was remonstrating with a tradesman. He said, "Come along here," and he took me to a room at the back, and there showed me a heap on the floor. It had come out of a sack of potatoes. It was mostly earth, and contained a few damaged potatoes. He had, of course, to supply his goods properly graded and nicely sorted and shown. He said, "There is 28 lbs. Weight of stuff there. I was not buying the man's freehold; I was buying his potatoes." It was a fair criticism. I am sure it is a very important matter that we should have in the trade an organisation in being such as will help to improve grading, storage and so on. Even then we are still confronted with what I think, with great respect, is the prime cause of the present unsatisfactory position.
Whatever else we may say it was not foreign imports that was the cause last year. I know that early imports of
478
specialised high quality stuff took the cream off our market. But we could not then supply ourselves, the difficulty being climatic. Do what we will we cannot have here the climate of Algiers. With that side of the question we cannot deal. These early strawberries fetched extraordinarily high prices. They were not dumped at prices below those at which the British producer could have sold his produce, but they were dumped before the British crops were available. That is not dumping in the sense in which most of us understand it. A great difficulty in this matter is the complete absence of any organisation in the industry. With the greatest possible respect to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Evesham, if he and his party came into power to-morrow with a mandate they would be unable to exercise the wholesale prohibition of foreign food imports about which there is so much light talk. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman knows that he would raise a thousand and one administrative and treaty difficulties which it would be almost impossible to overcome. It is a game at which two people can play.
The way out for this country is to improve the industry organically. That will come with the Marketing Bill in its improved form. I think the House will agree that in that Bill we are taking the necessary steps. There is the question of applying it particularly to soft fruit. One of the main reasons why the jam-making trade does not obtain supplies of home-grown fruit is the lack of organisation among the small growers and their inability to enter into firm contracts for delivery of quantities of fruit at stated times. If the jam maker has to apply to 200 or 300 different places to fix up bargains it is obvious that should there be another agency at his disposal whereby he can order what he wants over the telephone, he will naturally choose the path that is easy. We have to bring into being an organisation which can deal in this way on behalf of the small producers.
It is true, I am sorry to say, that a lot of the fruit this year dropped on the ground and rotted. There was a surplus and bad weather at the same time in many parts of the country. We have no agency in existence for dealing with a surplus. Whatever anyone could have done in the way of prohibiting foreign

479
imports, those fruit trees would not have had fewer plums on them. The imports that the right hon. Gentleman wanted to prohibit were the early imports which arrived before these British fruits were ripe. There are two ways in which this matter can be dealt with. The first is to have an organisation for marketing in bulk which can make sales in advance to the jam makers on firm contracts. The second thing is to develop the canning industry. Here there are immense possibilities. I am glad to say that there has been a very great advance during the last year or two in canning, and that the industry is making rapid progress. Anything that we can do to help I am sure we shall all do. We have been in negotiation with some of the heads of the canning industry.
Quite frankly, I am planning to fit in some of our groups for the production of vegetables and other things, with the canning trades' wants. There is the question of trying to arrange for the provision of suitable canning factories to take the produce of group holdings. There is room for immense expansion there. I am glad to say that where we have applied the national mark the public is more and more insisting on homegrown fruits. I was gratified to learn only yesterday that a large dealer had sent back his supplies to the market because they did not hear the national mark. He said that his customers were beginning to say that they wanted Rational mark goods. We shall do everything we can to extend the national mark scheme. Success must depend on the organisation or setting up of canning factories in association with an organisation which can take the surplus of the crops. The two things must go together. It is on these lines that we must look for the development of this type of production.
One other comment I would make and not in any partisan spirit. I will go into the matter with the right hon. Member for Evesham and any others who are concerned. I refer to the point raised by the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely with respect to fruit pulp that is preserved with SO2. I remember that as a child I was given brimstone and treacle. After all, this pulp is brimstone and treacle in a diluted form. We cannot insist on the marking of this stuff because quite inadvertently we are pre-
480
vented by the Merchandise Marks Act from insisting upon a description of such an imported article which undergoes material change after it gets into this country. This fruit pulp, preserved in SO2, is boiled down and made into jam. It is held to have undergone an important change and is sold as home-made jam. It is home-made jam, but is not made from British fruit. I hope it may be possible in a friendly way to negotiate some small verbal alterations of the Act which will enable us to deal with that difficulty. Apart from minor matters, the way to help the fruit industry is on the lines of organisation more or less as I have indicated. With respect to the Marketing Bill I shall be only too delighted to receive any helpful suggestions from anyone.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: So far as I have been able to hear it, this has been a most useful discussion. The right hon. Member for Evesham (Sir B. Eyres Monsell) said a good deal with which I am in complete agreement as a fruit grower. I congratulate my Noble Friend on having initiated a most admirable debate. I believe that the most important matter of all is marketing. I rose, however, to make one point. I hope that the Minister will look further into the question of dumping. By dumping I do not mean legitimate competition as far as food is concerned, when the foreigner comes here, and rights a fair fight in the market. What I mean by dumping is this: Where there is a surplus the producer, first of all, sells in his home market at a price which enables him to make a profit under the shelter of a protective tariff, and then dumps the surplus here at a figure which is under the cost price to himself.
I happen to know of actual fruits purchased here at a. price at which the foreigner could not possibly have raised them or even picked them. I know of a considerable quantity that was purchased from abroad. The foreigner's price was a price at which he could not possibly have produced the fruit, even at low wages; certainly the price would not have paid for picking or for packing and sending it over. [HON. MEMBERS: "The early crop!"] I am not talking about the early crop. The early crap is not a question of dumping. I

481
quite agree with my right hon. Friend that you could hardly call the early crop dumping. The whole question in that case is whether you are going to allow luxuries to be brought over here, but that is a very big issue. In Italy, for instance, they are forbidding luxuries in order to put down the imports, first, because of the injury to the exchange, but that is a very big issue of policy. It is not merely a trade question, but a currency question, an exchange question. I do not know that it is not worth examining and discussing, but it is a different issue.
I am now purely on the question of dumping, and by dumping I mean foreigners using the protective tariff in their own countries to obtain a good price in their own home market, and, then, if they find that they have a surplus, landing it here at below the cost of production, of picking and packing and sending over here. I do not think, honestly, that that is fair trading. I have never thought so, and I put it in a totally different category from the general principles of Free Trade and Protection. If there are treaties, I think it is time that they should be revised. I hope that the Government will face that matter. I know it is said that you may tear up treaties under which we get advantages, but, you may depend upon it, that if there are treaties of that kind, other Powers are also getting advantages, and they are not going to surrender those advantages merely in order to get this factitious advantage of occasional dumping.
I agree that, taking the average, year by year, it does not often occur. It only occurs when you have something like last year, when there was a tremendous surplus of currants and plums. But you are hit very hard, first, by the fact that even if there were no dumping, prices would go very low. Our most formidable competitors come from inside our own country. That is perfectly legitimate competition inside your own country because you are all producing on equal terms. But I hope that my right hon. Friend when he looks into the question of marketing will also consider the question of dumping, which is putting the foreign fruit on the market, under the cost of production to the foreigner. It is not merely a question of fruit, of
482
currants arid plums, but it is also a, question of wheat and there may be other things. I have always been against dumping. I do not consider, as I have said before here, that Free Trade is bound to carry that monster on its back. In reference to the Marketing Bill I believe that if things are properly arranged, and if the organisation gets proper powers, a strong marketing organisation will be able to achieve two or three of the things which my right hon. Friend has in mind, as well as the arrest of dumping. I believe that you will be able to do it. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will bear the matter in mind because, when we are setting out to establish people on smallholdings and allotments and cottage holdings, I do not think that they should be subject to a competition which is absolutely unfair.
Dr. FORGAN: I am sure that we all appreciate the measure of encouragement given to the Noble Lord in introducing this Motion. This is a matter which concerns both the producer and the consumer, and it is the opinion of many of us on these benches that neither the producer nor the consumer has been getting fair play. I listened with interest to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Evesham (Sir B. Eyres Monsell) when he described the ideal conditions prevailing in his district. I am afraid that those conditions are not, in any way, comparable with the conditions prevailing all over the country, but I wish to endorse what he said about the ability and ingenuity of the men engaged in market-gardening and fruit-farming. Although England is generally regarded as a greater fruit-growing country than Scotland, yet we have in Scotland a considerable number of fruit-growers and they have been very hardly hit for a number of years past in their attempts to make a living on the land in this way. Some of them have already been driven out of the industry and ruined and they now regard, almost with jealousy, the proposals of the Government to place unemployed men on the land and to subsidise and to help these men, when they themselves have received no help in recent years. I know of one fruit-grower in Scotland whose farm is close to a coal-mining area, and who was clever enough to tap a natural gas sup-

483
ply and to heat his glasshouses at no cost to himself at all. Yet even with that advantage he has been quite unable to get a profitable price for his fruit.
I cannot agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Evesham that marketing conditions are not as bad as they are represented. The Linlithgow Committee reported six years ago that the methods employed by middlemen in the fruit industry were dishonest, unjust and unjustifiable, and I do not recollect any important steps taken by any Government, between 1924, the year of that report, and 1929, to stop those methods. T suppose it is almost unnecessary to add to the tale of the plight of the fruit-growers. Even if the fruit-grower in Scotland were able to get for his fruit that which it cost to pick, there would still be nothing for himself. We have been told by the Minister that this year there has not been so much foreign fruit imported as in previous years, but the fruit-grower has had unfair conditions to contend with for several years. A good deal has been said about the possibility of preventing the import of foreign fruit. Some of us would like to see the Minister do all in his power to bring these commercial treaties to an early end. In the fruit industry one cannot this year prepare for next year's crops. It is not a case of looking one year ahead but of looking two years, four years and sometimes six years ahead. In order that those who still manage to keep their heads above water in the industry may put their ground into preparation for the crops of 1932 or 1934 or 1936, one would like to see the Minister holding out some hope to them that these treaties will be annulled or revised.
I do not know if we can interpret what the right, hon. Gentleman said as meaning that he would be prepared, if there were no such treaties, to control imports. That is the interpretation which one would sometimes like to read into that statement. We think that it is only by means of import boards controlling the importation of fruit which compete with home-grown fruit, that the home producer can be given any real chance of an assured market. In those years to which the right hon. Gentleman referred there was no glut of home-grown fruit such as there was this year and
484
although it is probably certain that we cannot prohibit the import of fruit next season, yet I hope that before this debate concludes we shall have some assurance from the Government that efforts will be made to bring these commercial treaties to an end and that the fruit-grower, if not next year, at least as soon as possible, will have some measure of protection from this kind of competition.
We are concerned, not merely about the fruit-grower who owns the farm, but about his workers. In Scotland fruit growers formerly could pay to a picker as much as 7s. a day and pay his fare from the town to the farm. To-day that wage has dropped to 3s. and no fare is paid. In spite of that big reduction in the remuneration of the pickers, fruit growers are going out of business to a great extent in Scotland because the price of the product has fallen so much. Only eight years ago strawberries were being sold for about £75 per ton but last summer only £22 per ton was offered. The jam-maker has not been helping the fruit-grower because he has made use of foreign fruit pulp imported from Holland and France. I am glad that the Minister told us that he, hopes to put an end to that practice.
It is contradictory that we should prevent children from drinking cream containing SO2, and that we should allow them to eat jam containing the same preservative. I think it might be well to hold an inquiry into this matter and into the question of the sale of graded jam in this country. It may be that the dioxide in the pulp is changed in some way when the fruit is made into jam, but chemical analyses of numerous samples of jam have revealed the interesting fact that the chemical composition of the sugar in the jam is so altered that the food value is reduced almost to vanishing point and some jams made with pulp are actually harmful to the digestive organs. Either the Ministry of Agriculture or the Ministry of Health ought to investigate this subject. It is true that the jam makers have done something to set their house in order by grading jams and giving an assurance that a certain percentage of fruit—not home-grown fruit—is contained in the jam and that there is no foreign matter in nt. They have done something to improve the quality, but more might be done in that direction.

485
I have said that we cannot expect restriction of imports for some little time, but there are other methods. Possibly the key to the situation—despite what has been said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Evesham—is to be found in marketing. The question of marketing of foreign fruit in this country is important. The importer is very often the broker. He actually buys the fruit from the foreigner and then he has to sell the foreign fruit to get it off his hands, otherwise he would be out of pocket. Consequently the home producer is in very unfair competition with the foreign producer, because, actually, the broker who professes to get a market for the home-grown fruit., will, in his own interest, try to sell the foreign fruit first. if we could interfere in the marketing of foreign fruit in some way beneficial to the home producer, it would be a great help. The prices obtained for fruit in this country by the producer have been absolutely ridiculous. Plums, for instance, have fetched 1½d. a pound to the grower and have afterwards been sold in the shops at from 10d. to is. per pound.
6.0 p.m.
Although the national mark has helped the home producer, it is very difficult to employ any detective methods which will prevent dishonest traders from putting foreign-grown fruit into baskets and other receptacles bearing the national mark. A month or two ago in Scotland a number of producers banded themselves together in an attempt to get something done in this respect and, within a few days, they secured 16 convictions in cases where merchants had been selling foreign fruit as home-produced fruit. It is difficult to suggest how to protect the home producer, but I think the Minister might with advantage direct the attention of his Department to seeing that foreign fruit is not sold under the protection of our national mark. Producers have attempted to organise in this country unsuccessfully, because many of them are financed by the brokers. They are often in debt to the brokers. They have often pledged the coming season's crop in order to get the funds wherewith to till the soil, to buy their implements, and to pay the wages of the men on their fruit farms, and I hope that something more
486
may be done by the Minister of Agriculture to rescue the producers from the financial stranglehold which the brokers have on very many of them at the present time. The Agriculture Bill and the Marketing Bill, if and when they become law, will certainly help in this direction, but until this financial assistance given by the broker is removed, and Government assistance is given in its place, it will be almost impossible for the producers to organise themselves together to defeat the brokers, who are taking too big a share of the profits at the present time.
During this debate to-day we have been discussing primarily the interests of those engaged in the industry, but the consumers' interests also must be considered. We have had the slogan "Eat more fruit" for some time past, but, speaking as a medical man, in spite of all the fruit that has been consumed, the doctor has not been kept away from the homes of the people because not nearly enough fruit is consumed yet by the people, and one reason is that, although the producers are not getting a fair price for their produce, the price charged to the consumer is still in many cases unnecessarily high. If we can help the producer and at the same time reduce the price of fruit, we shall be contributing very materially to an improvement, in the health of the people of this country.
It is now many centuries since an attempt has been made to induce the people of England to eat fresh vegetables and more fruit. One of the wives of Henry VIII was, I believe, responsible for introducing the lettuce to the English people. Fruit and vegetables are not consumed in sufficient quantities, but in spite of the old adage which says that "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," it is truer to say that an apple a day keeps the dentist away, for if mothers, infants and school-children could have a more plentiful supply of fruit, it would enormously improve that particular state of ill-health, bad dentition, which is a disgrace to this country.
For all these reasons, I thank the Noble Lord for having given us an opportunity of debating this subject, and I hope that the Minister will be prepared to hasten the passage into law of the Marketing Bill and the Agriculture Bill, in order to help those who are at present on the land

487
and to stimulate the setting up of canneries in England and Scotland, but the canneries must be near the fruit farms to be useful. In a variety of such ways there is a possibility for the fruit grower, and I again thank the Noble Lord for having given us this chance of holding out hope to these very honest and hard-working men.
Lord FERMOY: I am sure that every Member like myself who represents a fruit-growing area wishes with all his heart that the speech which we have just heard from the hon. Member for West Renfrew (Dr. Forgan) had been given by the Minister of Agriculture himself. He represents a district which is well known for the quality of its fruit, and there is no need for the Minister to say, as he did in the greater part of his speech, that this is a question of marketing. I am going to-morrow into districts like my own, where smallholders and indeed big people have had to stand by and see over 1,400 tons of plums and apples hanging on the trees and rotting, to say nothing of the loss of 1,600 tons which have been marketed in the very best up-to-date way, and I am wondering what they will say to-morrow to the reply of the Minister this afternoon. Everybody knows that on the other side of the House there is a great number of the representatives of the heavy industries which are suffering to-day, and we all have to face the great problem of regulating imports. I only wish one of my hon. Friends who represents a very large steel area were here to-night. He would know perfectly well that we cannot compete with the wages paid on the Continent, whether we are growing fruit or producing the commodities that come into this country from abroad.
If we are to save the fruit-growing industry, in which we are told that 40,000 people are in the area of the right hon. Member for Evesham (Sir B. Eyres Monsell), we must do something at once. I can see no harm in the restriction of imports, or indeed some sort of licensing. I spent 30 years in a protected country—in the United States—where they have a licence. The very moment the plums co above a certain price the foreigner comes in, and in all the Great Lake areas of Ontario and on the American side, fruit growing will always be more
488
or less a paying proposition. The Leader of the Liberal party this afternoon gave a disclosure which I am sure will be very amazing to the Press to-morrow as coming from a strong advocate of Free Trade, when he said that clumping is a curse.
This debate has been carried on in a friendly manner, and I hope the result will be pressure on all sides upon the Minister, who has just brought in a Land Bill to place countless thousands of people on the land, and that he will help in revoking the Treaties to some extent, and then hold out some hope to these people. I am sure I thank the Noble Lord who introduced this Motion, which I hope will in future have a very great bearing on the new people who are to take up positions on the land and will be rendering a very great service to the fruit-growers of this country.
Mr. KEDWARD: I am glad the House has had the opportunity of considering the very serious depression in the fruit-growing industry of this country. We cannot close our eyes to the fact that there has been a great increase in the import of fruit from foreign countries during the past few years. I think that perhaps during the War our own people were placed at a considerable disadvantage. Most of the young men and labourers had gone to the front, and it was necessary, in order to preserve the food supply of this country, to grow cereals and potatoes. Large areas of fruit trees were dug up, and I myself, when on leave, watched a whole plantation being cleared by the trees being pulled up in order that potatoes might be grown. Of course, during that time, Holland, which was outside the War, reaped a very rich harvest in this country by sending her fruit to us. She developed her resources for exporting fruit four or five times, and now we are feeling pretty severely that rather intense competition.
After the War, France used some of the money which she obtained from reparations in providing trees, bushes, and other things for the various farmers right away up to the North, and in getting the produce from the wayside stations and sending it to this country. It has been said in the course of this debate that that produce arrives in this country three weeks earlier than ours. I have no particular complaint about that fruit

489
arriving three weeks before our currants and other things are ready, but the growers' complaint is that it takes the cream off the market, and the foreigner gets a very good price during those weeks when we have no British fruit available, but because he gets that good price of 6d., 8d., or even more per lb. for black currants, he is enabled to sell his main crop and the tail end of his crop at such prices as makes it impossible for the British grower to get fair play when his main crop comes on to the market. I suggest that a great deal has been done by the British grower to organise the industry, to grade the fruit, and to pack it and market it. Very great and rapid strides have been made along these lines, but it is rather disheartening when all these things have been done, to find that you have really no market for your fruit at all, and that it has to fall to the ground and rot.
The Minister off Agriculture said that the jam-makers were in difficulties because they wanted to make forward contracts and our supplies were in such small quantities that it could not be done. I should not like that statement to go out unchallenged, because I am in a position to state that one of the largest fruit growers in the county of Kent, when he saw that he was going to have a very fine crop of black currants, said to his partners, "We must make forward contracts." He took the trouble to go to the Continent and to make inquiries into the prospects of the crop there, and when he came back, being a keen business man, he said, "We must make forward contracts." He went to one jam manufacturer after another offering to deliver 100 tons or more of British black currants, and there was not one who would enter into that forward con- tract. It was not a question of price, but they said that from all their reports from abroad they thought there would be a good crop in Holland and France, and at that stage they were not prepared to enter into a forward contract.
That is an actual case within my own experience, and I do not think it is fair to the growers to suggest they were not in a. position to offer delivery of sufficient quantities of fruit to meet the demand. Of course, on the other hand, the jam makers and others buy in the best market, and as the law stands at present you can-
490
not blame them for taking advantage of the market, and for being as keen as possible. I feel that if this House will look at this question with unbiased eyes, the day will arrive when these problems will not be the football of party controversy, but we shall come down to examine them, feeling that at any rate we want to help the people who are

tilling the British soil.
There is a friend of mine who went into Covent Garden Market this year and purchased a number of pounds of cherries. He examined them, and then took them across to the Ministry of Health. The Minister or his staff examined them and cut some of them open with a knife, and found inside a kind of little worm. After consultation, my friend said, "Do you know what will happen? Those cherries will go all over England, and people will buy them and throw out those that have this disease. They will be thrown on to the refuse heaps, and later they will go on to the land as manure, and you will have this disease in your orchards all over the country." The Ministry said that within 48 hours they would issue an order of prohibition, and within 48 hours that order was issued, because there was a disease that would spoil the tree. Is it not a far more terrible disease when we have our people out of work and lose our fruit, which rots on the trees and is used merely to manure the land? If it is a terrible thing because a worm is in the cherry, it does not need much imagination for sane business men, who are prepared to look at things with unbiased eyes, to say that when we have an ample quantity to supply our own requirements in this country, we will only allow importation by licence.
There are other means by which price can be regulated and by which the consumer can be protected. It is not in the interest of anybody that this stuff should go to waste, or that our own people in the countryside should become broken and disheartened. I have had letter after letter from little people in my constituency who tilled their land and cleaned it, and were just expecting their harvest of blackcurrants and gooseberries; and they sent me the actual notes relating to their consignments to London, showing that they did not get. enough back to pay for carriage and commission. We cannot go to

491
these people, who have gone bankrupt in money and in hope, and hold out to them some long-distanced remedy. They want somebody to come to their help now with some suggestion, so that they will get a reasonable return for the money, intelligence and energy which they invest in the soil. I was glad to hear my leader speak of dumping. So far as I and many others who sit on these benches are concerned, we believe that the time has arrived when we are not going to allow any deliberate attempt outside fair trade to lower the standard of life of the people of this country. We have to take that stand very definitely.
Careful examination should be made into statements which have appeared in the public Press over signatures that carry some weight. I will read without the slightest prejudice a letter which appeared on 17th November; it is from one of the leading London newspapers, and has gone out to the British public, and I want the House to note it. I am not in a position to deny or to verify it, but it is up to the Ministry of Agriculture and the Government to take such steps to find out whether the statement is true.
"I do not think that it is sufficiently known that the fruit forming the fruit pulp being imported into this country from Russia is largely gathered by abandoned children, of whom more than 5,000,000 exist in Russia to-day. The verdict of the medical inspection undertaken by the Nansen Mission under the authority of M. Joseph Douillet, late Belgian Consul in Russia, was that almost 100 per cent. of the abandoned children in Russia were affected with venereal diseases, and that even among the student classes who received free meals from the Mission, the percentage was as high as 70 to 75 per cent. Even Soviet statistics admit a 30 per cent, average infection of the whole population for the whole of Soviet Russia. In those circumstances, surely it is nothing short of scandalous and a danger to the community at large that the importation of this fruit pulp should be allowed, seeing that it is presently consumed as jam, for the main part by our own children."
Dr. FORGAN: May I ask the hon. Gentleman, in the interests of the public of Great Britain, so that there should not be an undue scare, whether he is aware that the nature of the infection in cases of syphilis is such that it would be physically impossible for any infection to be conveyed by fruit pulp?
Mr. KEDWARD: I can only give the facts that have been made public, and if there is a sufficient answer, it ought to be made.
Mr. DALLAS: Who is the authority?
Mr. KEDWARD: I will give the authority. The statement goes on:
"Can nothing be done to protect ourselves against this frightful menace beyond requiring a direct assurance from the manufacturer of our favourite brand that no infected Russia fruit pulp has been used in its manufacture?—Professor D. J. Wilden-Hart."
Mr. BATEY: What is the date of the Nansen Mission?
Mr. KEDWARD: I am sorry that I am not in a position to supply that information. If these conditions do not prevail, a reply that should be adequate ought to be given. If a tithe of this statement be true, it would be a great mistake to allow this fruit pulp to be imported and used. I went with a friend of mine the other day to a jam factory; he was there on business, and we were shown some Russian pulp strawberries offered at a very cheap price, which were being put into tins and sold under a name that carries a great deal of weight in the country. I feel sure that if it were known that they were strawberries grown in Soviet Russia and picked under the conditions which I have quoted, the majority of the British people have enough public spirit and patriotism to refuse them, whatever the price. We ought to examine this with the utmost care and without any party bias. These statements have been circulated to people in this country, and I hope that the Government will take a careful note of them.
The Irish Free State have a method by which they allow potatoes to come in up to a certain date. When they have sufficient for their own requirements, an Order is laid on the Table of the House prohibiting imports until such time as it is necessary to have further imports. Yesterday I supported the Bill which will place thousands of people on the land, and I hope that it will he a great success. I want to see these small cultivators properly organised in their marketing, and I want to see them growing fruit. It will be a grave disaster, after we have spent public money in putting them on holdings, and giving them a little hope

493
and heart, to find that there was no market for the things that they produce, and that other people who had reaped a rich harvest, because of climatic conditions, by the earlier crops, were putting in the later part of their crops at such a price that made it impossible for the home growers to get a decent living. I hope that all these considerations will be borne in mind, and that in this House we shall find a way out of our difficulties that will bring prosperity to the fruit-growing industry and to the countryside.
Lieut.-Colonel RUGGLES-BRISE: I should like to call tile attention of the House to the terms of the Motion. The Noble Lord calls upon the Government to secure to the grower of fruit an economic return for his crops. The Minister of Agriculture accepted the Motion, and added that he also accepted its implications. I listened, therefore, with some interest to hear from the right hon. Gentleman in what way he intended to translate those implications into action. As far as I was able to gather, he pins all his hopes and all his faith in a solution of the difficulties of the fruit industry on his forthcoming Marketing Bill. It will be out of order for me to discuss a Bill which has already been once withdrawn, and has not yet been reintroduced, but perhaps I may be permitted this observation. It is all very well to introduce a Marketing Bill, hut that is of very little avail unless you can actually provide a market.
We have heard from hon. Members who represent fruit-growing districts, evidence of the complete efficiency that exists in their constituencies for marketing fruit. We heard it from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Evesham (Sir B. Eyres Monsell) and from the hon. Member for King's Lynn (Lord Fermoy). Their constituencies are in two of the greatest fruit-growing districts in the country, and they are able to state definitely that their marketing efficiency is of a very high order. Therefore, there is nothing wrong about that. The trouble is that there is no market in which to market the fruit. If, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman thinks that by a marketing Bill lie will do all that is necessary to rescue the fruit industry, he and those in the industry will be grievously disappointed. After
494
hearing the speeches of the Mover and the Seconder of this Motion, and the speeches of the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), and of the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Kedward), I cannot help saying that I wish the Mover and Seconder had shown a little of the courage of the older Members of their party. I was interested to hear the right hon. Member fur Carnarvon Boroughs say that, he for one would not subscribe to the theory that Free Trade should have dumping saddled on its back. I would observe, however, that were it not for Free Trade, this country would not have had dumping carried on its back. It is entirely due to the fact that the Free Trade theory has held this country enthralled for too many generations, that not only the fruit industry, not only the great agricultural industry, but a hundred other industries in the country to-day arc suffering from this evil of dumping. There is no need for me, after what has fallen from so many hon. Members, to express the gravity of the situation in the fruit industry. In my own constituency, I have ample proof of it, as there is considerable fruit growing there.
In my constituency, also, there are jam factories. I have one particular factory in mind which grows a great deal of its own fruit for its own consumption. It supplements its own supply with supplies bought from the neighbourhood, and in normal times, when there is a glut, the factory has been in the habit of removing that glut from the market. The position, however, in the last two years has altered. Long before the British crop is nearly ripe, forward offers come from the Continent of fruit and fruit pulp at prices with which it is quite impossible for own own fruit growers to compete. I have here two actual quotations for fruit from abroad which were received this year. One is from a French firm offering very best quality French black currants at £18 a ton, that is 1.9d. per lb., and there is another offer of black currants from Holland at £16 a ton, which works out at only 1.7d. per lb. I have it on the best authority that it is impossible to grow and to pick black currants in this country for less than 4d. a lb., and the consequence is that the factories here get filled up with foreign fruit long be-

495
fore our crop is available, bought at prices with which it is quite impossible for our growers to compete. The Noble Lord stated this afternoon that no less than 1,760 tons of black currant pulp was imported from Holland alone. The House may be interested to hear what was dumped into this country by Russia last year. More than 2,000 tons of strawberries, raspberries and black currant pulp came from Russia alone in 1929. These figures can be verified by anyone who cares to turn up the statistics published in the Empire Marketing Board's weekly notes.
During this debate a good many tentative remedies have been suggested by the Noble Lord who introduced the Motion, by the Seconder, and others. I think only one, possibly, has any practical value, and that is that the benefits of a Marking Order should be extended to fruit, jam and preserved fruits. I trust the Minister may be active—I feel sure he will—in seeing whether a Marking Order cannot be applied to them. There is another matter in which the Minister could help. The Food Manufacturers' Association decided recently to label their jams according to the grade. The first grade will be known as "full fruit standard," and jams of that grade will contain at least 42 per cent. of fruit. The second grade will contain a minimum of 33 per cent. of fruit and will be known as jams of "lower fruit standard." In my opinion, neither standard seems to be abnormally high. But the point to which I wish to draw attention is that there is to be nothing on the labels to show whether the fruit in the jam is home-grown or foreign; and, secondly, there is nothing to prevent a jam such as strawberry jam being called "full fruit standard" although it may contain other fruit juices, and also acids or artificial colourings. Therefore, these labels are very apt to mislead the public.
Another point is that some firms—I know one—are not content to make their strawberry jam of less than 70 per cent. of home-grown strawberries. A firm such as that will, obviously, be penalised, as their jams will have no labels other than the label prescribed by the Food Manufacturers' Association, namely, one stating that there is 42 per cent. of fruit in the "full fruit standard." One has
496
to bear in mind, also, that these percentages of 42 and 33 per cent. are minima, and the tendency will be for manufacturers who have been in the habit of putting a higher percentage of fruit in their jams to come down to the minima in order to compete with their rivals in the trade. This new system of labelling is obviously detrimental to manufacturers who now give a high per-centage of home-grown fruit, and also detrimental to consumers. On Monday last I addressed a question to the Minister of Agriculture on this point, but it was referred by his Department to the Ministry of Health, and I regret to say that the reply which I received from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health indicated that her Department intended to take no action in this matter. I hope, however, that the Minister of Agriculture will be good enough to look into all the points which I have raised in connection with it.
But neither marking nor getting jam correctly described can possibly save the fruit industry. In common with so many other industries, it is suffering from the havoc being created upon the home market by undue imports from abroad. After all, it is our home market; it belongs to us. Why should not our own people have it first? What objection can there be to that? Why is it that the Liberal party and the Socialist party object to our own people living and thriving on our own home market, at least having the first chance there? We may talk about it for years or months—
Mr. BEN SMITH (Treasurer of the Household): You had five years in which to do it.
Lieut.-Colonel RUGGLES-BRISE: We may talk round this question for years, but we have got to come to a conclusion. It is not merely one or two of our industries which are suffering, almost all our industries are suffering, every branch of agriculture is suffering. We have been invited to approach this subject as a Council of State and not in a party spirit, and contributions and helpful suggestions have come from the Liberal benches and from the Conservatives; it only remains now for the Government benches to respond to their own invitation, and of only they would abandon the fetish of their prejudices then, indeed,

497
we should have come to a real agreement. We have heard from the Noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn who lived for 30 years in a protected country, how the United States of America are able to restrict the importation of certain fruits by licence. As it is possible for them to do it, surely it is not impossible for us! Our Customs Service is as efficient as any in the world. It only requires the goodwill of all parties, and we could take steps to stop dumping. We have the market at our doors, it is our own market, but we let in everybody who is a foreigner. Surely that must be wrong. I would ask those on the Government side of the House to move in the direction in which they have invited the other parties to move. We shall not be slow to go many steps further if only they themselves will take one or two steps forward, and when the right hon. Gentleman tells us that he has accepted this Motion and all its implications, I trust that he will not content himself by thinking the problem can be solved by such a Bill as he foreshadowed to us this afternoon.
Captain RONALD HENDERSON: I do not wish to traverse ground which has already been gone over, and I will confine myself to the closing sentence of the Minister's speech, in which he said he would be glad to receive any practical suggestions for assisting this industry. The Minister finds himself, as I must acknowledge, facing serious difficulties, from his point of view, in dealing with imported produce, but I suggest that he could greatly alleviate the situation by issuing a Departmental Order stating that all jams which contain imported pulp must have that fact stated on the label. That would be an immense benefit to the industry and to British jam manufacturers. I believe it could be done by a Departmental Order stating that all jams and preserves sold in this country should bear a label stating whether or not they contain imported fruit pulp which has been treated with sulphur dioxide. In that way the Minister could probably get over the difficulty with regard to treaties. The Noble Lord who brought forward this Motion made one criticism, a very fair one, that the Empire Marketing Board laid immense stress upon buying Empire fruit but did not lay sufficient emphasis upon buying
498
British fruit. I would point out to the Minister that the money for its work is found by British people and British fruit growers, and in all fairness they are entitled to ask that their ware should receive some attention.
Dr. ADDISON: In justice to the Empire Marketing Board, I ought to say that all its anouncements bear words to the effect "Buy Home Products." I have not the actual words with me, but they are to that effect.
Captain HENDERSON: Another point which ought to be stressed is the ignorance throughout the country of prevailing market prices. The Ministry of Agriculture is doing excellent work already by broadcasting prices, and I suggest to the Minister that during the fruit season, which is a comparatively short one, market prices should be broadcast rather oftener. It would be of immense help to fruit growers to know how markets were running throughout the country. Striking instances have been given us of the low prices offered for British fruits in certain instances. The Minister said that one thing which was militating against fruit growers was the decline in the consumption of jam in this country. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Evesham (Sir B Eyres Monsell) mentioned a case in which plums were sold at 1s. 6d. for 72 lbs. if information of that kind were published. I am sure a good deal of business could be done by the cash-on-delivery system in sending parcels of fruit by post. That would give a tremendous stimulus to the fruit trade. That system of sending goods by post was started for the sale of agricultural produce, and, if properly developed, it has in it the making of an immense market. I understand that under this system in America there is a turnover of about £1,000,000 per annum, and a similar system in this country would he of immense value to the fruit grower.
I do not wish to detract from the praise which has been bestowed on the Minister of Agriculture, who has put in force some very excellent Regulations. I would, however, like to draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the danger in this country to the cherry fruit crop of a pest which has practically wiped out the cherry fruit crop on the Continent. I feel sure that, in calling the right hon.

499
Gentleman's attention to this matter he will not feel that I am attacking his policy, but I should like the right hon. Gentleman to take all possible steps to guard against this danger. The suggestion I put forward is a very small one, but I believe that the Minister of Agriculture could introduce something to deal with this danger without haying to bring forward any fresh legislation.
Mr. HARDIE: Once before in this House I!have tackled the question of jam. Who destroyed our home market for jam? Who destroyed our home market for the sale of fresh fruit grown in this country? What are the facts? It is all very well to say that the home market is our own market, but that is simply talking about the obvious. Consider things like oranges, bananas, dates, and fruit of that character. What happens? You have got a market for these things, and, according to those who compile statistics, we can do with twice as much of these articles. We find that a man called a trader buys oranges for ¼d. each and sells them at 4d. and 2d. each. Those are the things hon. Members should examine if they want to find out where our market goes. I know of butchers who started business only three years ago and they have now retired.
The reason is that in all these things we have no competition at work. Why is it that nothing is said about oranges, dates, and bananas? Is it because the truth is too blunt and obvious? Since I came to London I have been doing a good deal of my own shopping in order to obtain first-hand information. By doing my own shopping, I get to know the market price. I find out the price at which certain articles arrive in this country, and I discover just how much the swindle is to the consumer. I am very much surprised that no action is taken to prevent this kind of thing. I buy my goods direct, but that does not get me very far, because you have a large floating population in London buying things. Who brings in all the stuff about which we have heard so much? Who brings in the pulp? Who is it that puts glucose into the jam? Not the workmen. Who is it who uses the dye and a compound in making jam? I would rather take a straight dose of strychnine than some of the jam which is sold in the home market.
500
A good deal has been said in this debate about the making of black currant jam. I remember on one occasion I went to purchase some black currants, and I found that they were mixed up with so many stalks and leaves that half the weight consisted of bush. I think: that is a rotten way of sending an article of that kind to the market. I offered the man who had those black currants for sale four times the price he had asked if he would pick the currants, take away the stalks and leaves, and put them on the scale. That is the way in which the home market is being destroyed, and things will get worse if you cannot find some way of dealing with this retail robbery. I know people who grow for the market in London and I also know people who grow for the market in Scotland. They are growing good, sound fruit and they are robbed of their years of labour—by whom? They are told by the wholesale purchasers and distributors of fruit that the best price they can offer is a ¼d. or ½d. a lb. and the grower is told that he can either take that price or leave it. It is a well-known fact that in hundreds of cases, because of the grip of the swindling profiteers who come between the producer and the consumer, fruit growers are robbed of produce that has taken years of labour to produce, and a vast amount of their produce is allowed to go to waste because they will not bow to the demands of these profiteers.
Hon. Members will recollect that last year I mentioned the fact that cabbages which were sold at ¼d. each to the wholesale dealer were retailed al 4d. and 6d. each. There is no scarcity of these articles, and the home market is not saturated with jam. It is not a case of scarcity that is starving the consumer. The consumers are robbed every time they go to the shop counter. There is a plentiful supply of all these articles, and I know that there are hundreds of homes in London in which the people would be in a much better state of health if they could have more of those articles. There is no market in the world which can compete with our own if you clean up the filth channels and sewers of swindling through which these goods have to pass. The hon. and gallant Member for Henley-on-Thames (Captain Henderson) suggested a larger development of the "cash-on-delivery" system through the post

501
Why? Was that suggestion made to escape the profiteer? If not, why was the suggestion made that these articles should be sent through the post? The last thing you want to do with fruit is to keep it closely wrapped. I hope that whatever the Government are going to do in relation to this discussion to-day, they will keep in mind some of these things which underlie all this verbiage in connection with our markets, and the way in which they have been destroyed.
Not long ago I was in a place where they were making dyes, and I was asked by the chief what would happen to a certain extract from Scottish coal. The extract referred to was a beautiful green colour, called "gooseberry green," and I was asked whether it would be a good thing to mix with fruit juice in gooseberry jam. We have to protect the brain of the scientist from being sabotaged and prostituted by these people. Hon. Members will recollect that last year I brought here some jars of jam, and one of them was 3½ ounces short of the lb. which it was supposed to contain. No one should be allowed to go on with a swindle of that kind. If we do not deal with these things, our market will never recover. There is nothing that will restore the home market except the confidence of the consumer in what is being sold, both as regards its purity and the price at which it is sold.
7.0 p.m.
Quality is one of the bases that restore any market anywhere. But think of jam being made from rotten turnips—I have seen them delivered in towns—and from things I will not mention! Anyone who knows what really decaying fruit is and has once smelt it never forgets it. I know one jam factory where the sanitary inspector was summoned by the neighbours around because they thought the sewer had come to the surface, but it was discovered that it was a delivery which had taken place that morning and had not reached the boiling pots so that the nasty parts could be evaporated in steam. You talk about our market, yet they will poison the people for a halfpenny more profit.
Mr. MacLAREN: In Scotland they poison them for a farthing.
Mr. HARDIE: The housewife 4.in Scotland likes to get her fruit direct from the gardens; the housewife there is
502
more thrifty than in any other part of these islands. In conclusion, I hope that, whatever is done by the Government, there will be no flippancy as far as our markets are concerned,. and that the Government will get rid of all this swindle. If they rooted it out, then we shall have this market Again.
Colonel HOWARD-BURY: I shall not follow the last speaker into all the vagaries of the market, because I want to get down to the fundamental facts as to why the bottom has dropped out of the market. There is no doubt that it is chiefly due to foreign imports. Since pre-War days, as the right hon. Member for Evesham (Sir B. Eyres Monsell) has pointed out it has increased from 4,800,000 cwts. to over 8,000,000 cwts. The hon. and gallant Member for Wandsworth (Major Church) asked how much of this fruit came from the Dominions and what from foreign countries. I find that foreign imports from other countries, except the Empire, increased from 25 to 37 per cent., and the proportion supplied by British countries shows a very small rise, from 15 per cent. to 17 per cent. The greater part of that is apples and pears, and a great deal of it comes from Australia and South Africa at a time of year when it does not compete with the home market.
This debate has been extremely valuable. It has brought out the Leader of the Liberal party with a statement which was remarkable for a Free Trader. When the debate started and the Motion was moved by the Noble Lord, I wondered, knowing how much he was tied up in the bonds of matrimony with Free Trade, how far he could go on the lines of either separation or divorce, and I found his marriage lines were kept with renewed vigour, and that he proposed only a very small palliative. He did not come down to the bottom of the problem. The leader of his party was, however, far holder and came out with a statement that these dumped imports have to be stopped.
The foreigner has the advantage of climate, and he can come in a fortnight or three weeks earlier and can get the pick of the market and the higher prices. That pays for the cultivation of his land and for his crop, and he can afford to send the remainder of the crop at a

503
time when our crop is coming on the market and to force down the price that home-grown fruit can fetch. I would like to quote one or two instances from my own constituency from particular large growers as to the cost of growing this fruit and as to the price received at Covent Garden. Both blackcurrants and raspberries are very similar in cultivation, and it costs about £30 an acre to produce them. The cost per picking averages a penny a lb. or just under £10 a ton, and the price received in July of this year has been £20 per ton delivered to the jam factory, while the price of fruit picked and packed in chip baskets sold in London was very similar. As an acre produces on an average one-and-a-half tons, it follows that it just paid without anything left over for interest on capital or profit and without giving an inducement to carry on. It only just paid its expenses.
Mr. HARDIE: What was the retail price of this fruit?
Colonel HOWARD-BURY: It averaged about 2d. a lb. at Covent Garden. That is all the home grower gets.
Mr. MacLAREN: But has the hon. Member any idea of what the price of that commodity was when sold in the shops?
Colonel HOWARD-BURY: That, I have not got. I know there is a great deal of difference between what the consumer pays and what the producer gets. I know there is need for inquiry, but I am dealing with the position of the home grower and with what he gets. As I have shown, he received an average of 2d. a lb. As to gooseberries, one grower had 60 acres of gooseberries, and the price was so low that it did not pay to pick them, and the bushes are being grubbed up this year. That was due to the foreign consignments which were coming in. The Minister of Agriculture was right in saying that not such a large quantity came in this year, but it is the time they came in that caused the harm. The fruit that is first on the market causes the market to be saturated. Let me give an instance with regard to plums. On the 25th July French plums were sold at Covent Garden at from 2½d. to 4½d. a lb
504
and Italian plums at from 4½d. to 6d. per lb. A fortnight later, British plums came on the market, and the grower to whom I referred sent up his plums to the market. They were "Rivers Early Prolific" and much better plums, but for boats of 18 lbs. he only got 6d. That means that early British plums only fetched ¾d. for 2¼ lbs. That was due entirely to the importation of French and Italian inferior plums. Those are very striking facts.
Then we come to the question of jam. I asked the Minister of Agriculture the other day whether he could bring in a marking order so that in the future we could know whether jam was made from British or foreign fruit. On the 1st July strawberries from Holland were offered in casks with SO2 preservative at 58s. a 100 kilos, which works out at about 3d. per lb. Raspberries were also offered at 3¼d. A week later these raspberries with SO2 preservative were 2d. per lb. How can the British grower possibly compete with this foreign pulp when the big jam makers use it and have contracts ahead? There is a case where jam makers have taken 1,000 tons of Dutch strawberries in bisulphite of lime for this season. It is a deleterious mixture on which British people are fed, though they are quite ignorant what they are eating. As the hon. Member for West Renfrew (Dr. Forgan) has told us, there is very little, indeed no, nourishment in this jam, and in some cases it is harmful. I ask the Minister to take steps in this matter. I suggest that he can take a monthly survey, as is done in other agricultural matters, of what the fruit crops are likely to be. After he has made a survey through his Ministry of what the fruit crop is likely to he for the coming year, as he knows the amount that is consumed in this country every year, then he should act by licence, as in the case of the Dyestuffs Act, which I am sorry to say is being allowed to lapse. The principle of that Act should be applied to fruit and so much imported by licence.
Major CHURCH: Did not the Government of which the hon. Member was a supporter pass the Merchandise Marks Act in 1926, and were not these possibilities foreseen when they passed that Act? Surely he is attributing to this Government the blame for the Government of which he was a supporter.
Colonel HOWARD-BURY: I am not attributing any blame to them. I am asking them to remedy a state of affairs which is getting increasingly bad. I do not say it was not bad before, but it is getting worse. The imports have increased.
Dr. ADDISON: Is it not that very Act which prevents me putting a label on the jam to which the hon. and gallant Member refers?
Colonel HOWARD-BURY: The Act was framed in order that we should know whether we are getting foreign produce or not. The right hon. Gentleman says that, in the process of turning this pulp with SO2 into jam, it changes the consistency of it—
Mr. HARDIE: The heating changes it.
Colonel HOWARD-BURY: It changes in manufacture. I am asking him to take steps to remedy that, and I believe he is going to do so. This is one of the remedies. I ask him either to let the fruit in by licence in such quantities as not unduly to affect the home market or else to prohibit it altogether whenever there is a sufficiency in our home market. In Ireland, for instance, as far as new potatoes are concerned, they are allowed in up to a certain date. After that, when they are likely to conflict with the home market and enter into competition, they are stopped corning in. Surely the Government can use some such power in these markets. There, again, it would, of course, be against their policy. Import duties on foodstuffs are another policy which will have to be considered.
There is one other point which has not been raised and that is the Early Closing Act and the effect which it has had upon the small sellers of fruit in the country districts. The Shops (Early Closing) Act has stopped the late sale of cheap fruit for which the hon. Member is so anxious. It has stopped that sale in the evening hours in the one-man fruit shop or by the street trader. It has prevented the carrying on of that trade which absorbed a large quantity of the surplus fruit in country districts.
Mr. HARDIE: The hon. Member speaks of the small shopkeeper and the street trader who goes round with a barrow. I do not know if the hon. Member has
506
done any business with them, but, if a man goes round with some fruit and it is dark, one knows there must be something wrong with it for him to have got it cheap enough to go round with it on a barrow.
Colonel HOWARD-BURY: That may be so in the great towns, but not in the country. Country people are clever enough to know what is a good apple and what is a bad one, and, if it is bad, they will not buy it. That would be a means of getting rid of a great deal of surplus fruit, and I think it might be made possible by excluding fresh fruit from that Act. I put that to the Minister as a method of getting rid of a considerable surplus of fruit, it may be comparatively cheaply, but probably at prices as good as the grower would get if he sent it to Covent Garden. The real point, however, is that the harm which this foreign imported fruit does is due to its coming in early and getting the best prices. It then goes on and inflicts untold damage on the home grower. It is not so much the amount that comes in, but, when the news gets about that there is a large consignment of foreign fruit somewhere in the offing, people will only offer the fruit grower in this country a very miserable price. The whole question needs thoroughly looking into, and I hope that the Minister will follow the example of his partner, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), and deal with this dumping of fruit stuffs by making it illegal and prohibiting it.
Mr. MacLAREN: I am amazed at that part of this discussion to which I have listened. Most of the speeches that I have heard have represented a sort of intermingling of Tariff Reform and bad fruit and the dyes that are used to fake up what is handed out for general consumption by British consumers. My hon. Friend the Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie) has put certain points before the House, but the hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford (Colonel Howard-Bury) has evaded replying to them. We know that all over the country the ordinary British consumer, whether of fresh meat or fruit, would be willing to pay an extra fraction more on the price if he knew that he was getting an English product. The miners in my own Division would pay more for their meat, if I may

507
take that as an example, if they knew that it was English home-fed meat, but in order to buy English home-fed meat they would have to be Members of Parliament, and not diggers of coal. The same applies to fruit, and almost anything produced at home.
The British consumer would willingly pay a good price within reason if he knew that he was getting home-produced There is, however, a national combination among the distributive trades to stabilise the prices at which. these commodities shall be sold, and I am always astonished at the reasoning that pervades most of the debates in this House; I cannot understand how some Members reason in this House. The plain fact is that the producer of fruit goes to Covent Garden and gets a starvation price, or a price which (foes not compensate him for the work of production, but what is the price of that same commodity, which has been procured at a starvation price at Covent Garden, when the consumer goes to the shop to buy it? We are told that it is the sending in of pulp by foreigners that is wrecking the business. I suggest that it is the stabilisation of prices by the combinations formed by the distributive trades that is throttling the industry of home production.
We on this side of the House are just as anxious as anyone on the other side that the people of this country shall eat the fresh, luscious and pure food of their own country, but let any Member of this House go down into a working-class district, receive a- working man's wage, and go out with his wife on- Saturday night and attempt to buy English fruit or English meat. He will find that he cannot get it, because the price is prohibitive and bears no relation to the price paid in the wholesale market. This wholesale profiteering is throttling our home market more than the competition of pulp from foreign countries, which has to a very large extent been so doctored and faked that any self-respecting consumer in this country would refuse to touch it. If anyone says that an ordinary Englishman would prefer a mixture of peroxide and hair oil, with some cochineal, imported from Russia and sold at a very cheap price, as against fresh fruit grown on English soil, provided that it was at all possible
508
for him to get this within the limits of his income—that he would not be prepared to pay an extra price for the English product, but would take- this poisonous stuff by preference—I say that it is not true. He is driven to it by the sheer excess of price that is demanded.
I do not blame the farmer abroad if he finds here a ready market for the offal which he cannot dispose of in his own country. The measure of the success of the sale of that stuff in this country is the measure of the prohibitive price which is levied upon our home production. Ask the farmer what he gets for his milk, and what it is sold at. Ask him what it costs him to produce his butter, and what it is sold for. It is the same with almost every commodity in this country. A commodity is produced in my own Division. I know the cost of producing it—the best English production, which can defy competition throughout the world. I also know the price that is asked for that commodity when. I see it in the shops in London, and the difference is astonishing. In fact, I marvel at the placidity of the Ordinary British consumer who tries to buy commodities with the wages that he receives. An Englishman seems to be a sort of paradoxical fellow; he is a lion when he goes to war, and a lamb when he gets home. He lets anyone take advantage of him.
It is the extortionate price that is to blame here. If English people were offered home-produced food at a fair price, if there were no more than a fair difference between the wholesale price and the price paid at the counter, if this unseemly profiteering that is going on could be weeded out, the market would immediately revive, and it would not be necessary to buy this stuff after a peregrination round the Cape of Good Hope with a few odds and ends in it to keep it fresh at all. Do not let us miss the link of the profiteer in the home market. I observe that the enthusiasm on the other side of the House for Tariff Reform in almost any circumstances is almost equal to my enthusiasm for bringing in another idea. I do not blame hon. Members, but at least I try to bring in my idea logically; I do not try to jump links, I do not close my eyes to the profiteering that is going on at home

509
and blame the farmer abroad for taking advantage of a paralysed condition which is brought about by the rapacity of my own fellow-countrymen who are profiteering in the people's food.
Mr. CHRISTIE: I cannot help feeling that there is a certain amount of misunderstanding on this question. The hon. Member for Burslem (Mr. MacLaren) is very much concerned about what is sold as fruit to the consumer, but the trouble really is that the jam manufacturer buys pulp from abroad at an early date, so that he can make jam at the earliest possible moment. The consequence is that, when English fruit is ready for the market, there is no market for it, because the jam boiler is boiling foreign pulp. I do not know whether the hon. Member appreciates that fact, but it is one which the fruit grower finds very trying. When he begins to market his fruit, the jam boiler has already procured foreign pulp and is boiling that, and is not in the market to buy the fresh fruit. That is what goes so far toward, making the position of the fruit grower impossible.
As is always the case on these occasions, a great many hard words have been said about the intermediaries between grower and consumer, and sonic of the criticisms, undoubtedly, are perfectly just; but do not let us go too far. From some of the speeches that have been delivered, one would think that the unfortunate fruit grower had only one villian With whom to deal, and that there was no alternative at all, but it is the obvious course of business with a fruit grower not to put "all his eggs in one basket." We are always talking about Covent Garden, but there are many other markets in England, and the' fruit grower is not such a fool as to send all his fruit to one market; he spreads it as widely as possible.
Mr. HARDIE: The price is the same all over the country.
Mr. CHRISTIE: No, I do not think so. I have grown many tons of black currants and other fruit, and I do not think it is really fair to say that. After all, the fruit that is sent to these markets is sold on commission, and it is quite obvious that, if the grower feels that the commission agent is not giving him a good show, he will not go on sending his fruit to him.
Mr. HARDIE: Is it not a fact that in the morning the prices are broadcast by telephone?
Mr. CHRISTIE: No doubt they are.
Mr. HARDIE: The whole trade is advised, and the prices are the same everywhere.
Mr. CHRISTIE: I think that the hon. Member has got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The commission agent gets more money if he gets a bigger price for his client, and he has no interest in bringing the price down, but, on the other hand; is interested in keeping it up. I' had a great deal to do with the fruit industry and the growing' of market garden crops for a great many years; and I honestly believe that we could grow in this country everything that we want, but it is absurd that, when a smallholder or allotment holder wishes to sell, say, some carrots in his local market, he should find the price depressed by Dutch or Belgian carrots. I do hope that the Minister will change his mind and say that he will do something to help us in this position.
Question put, and agreed to.
Resolved,
"That this House deplores the present condition of the Fruit-growing Industry and the heavy losses incurred this year by growers, and calls upon His Majesty's Government to put into effect schemes which, without penalising the consuming public, will secure to the grower an economic return for his crop."

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (IMPROVEMENTS) BILL [Lords]. (By Order).
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  Mr. ISAACS: I beg to move to leave out the word "now," and, at the end of the Question, to add the words "upon this day six months."
  We object to the Bill, first, on the ground of unsuitability, second, on the ground of cost, third, on the ground of unreasonable hardship and, fourth, on the urgent need for housing accommodation in this area. On the ground of un-

  511
  suitability, we admit freely and fully that there is urgent need for some improvement of the traffic congestion in the Elephant and Castle area. No one can live or work in that locality without at once admitting that. We submit that the scheme is unsuitable on the ground that it increases the traffic capacity from the North without improving the outlet to the South. The scheme comprises a half circle arrangement. The traffic coming from the North will go round the half circle and then will have to turn back again to get into the South through the New Kent Road, and the scheme does not take sufficient notice of the need for increasing that outlet into the New Kent Road. There is an alternative scheme which will enable that traffic improvement to be obtained at considerably less cost, with less disturbance and with more efficiency. It may be considered presumptuous for same of us who have no engineering experience to put forward these proposals, but we feel that. there is a very sound alternative proposal. Instead of sweeping away these houses and shops and interfering with some 200 properties, the Elephant and Castle site in the centre of the road might be cleared away and the earners taken off the various roads that converge into that centre. By so doing a circle could be created very similar to that outside the door of the Houses of Parliament around which traffic could flow more naturally, and it would involve a widening of the entrance to the New Kent Road, thereby removing one of the objections which we have named.
  Further, a scheme of this character would permit of other essential improvements. There are two tube railway stations involved in the present scheme. They are within the area but not adjacent to each other. The creation of a circle in the centre would permit of these stations being located in the centre, or having access from the centre, in very much the same way as those at the Mansion House and at Piccadilly Circus, anal there would be accommodation for the stations, for access to public conveniences, linked up with subways to enable pedestrians to cross the road. The scheme as it stands provides for roads 120 feet wide, and no definite provision has been made for subways. The promoters state that consideration is to be given to it and that subways will be provided, and we
  512
  unhesitatingly accept their assurance, but we feel that this alternative scheme would permit a more easy clearance of the traffic. It would permit of an improvement of the southern exit, it would involve the destruction of fewer properties, it would involve the removal of a far smaller number of people, and it would avoid what in the opinion of those who know the locality consider otherwise to be inevitable. If this half-circle is built on the north side, you will have to have a precisely similar half circle on the southern side in order to enable the traffic to get away properly. We feel that the, centralised circle system would enable that to be done and, what is more, would be of such a character as to enable the area to be widened in the future without the tremendous cost that would be involved in building another half-circle on the southern side.
  On the question of cost, I should like the House to note these figures. A question was put to the Minister of Transport on 22nd July, and it was stated in the answer that the scheme would cost £1,950,000. That sounds something like the 1s. 11¾d. of the draper's shop. It is within a few pounds of £2,000,000, and of that total £1,458,000 is for acquiring the necessary properties and easements, leaving £512,000 for reconstruction. That reconstruction is almost exclusively the making of the roads, relaying tramway tracks, and taking up the old tracks. Nothing is provided in that sum for any attempt to re-house the people disturbed or for further housing improvements. The alternative scheme we have put forward could be carried out at half the cost of the work itself and at considerably less cost in making provision for those who are to be disturbed.
  There are other hardships than those caused to the community First of all, there will be the utter and absolute ruin of many flourishing businesses. Most of the area to be treated consists of the main road, which is fronted on both sides with shops of the special character most suited to the needs of the working-class people of the type who live in the locality. Many of the businesses have been there for years. It is no good telling a barber or a tailor or a butcher that you can give him another site elsewhere. He loses the goodwill and, what is more dangerous, not only is there injury to

  513
  the shopkeeper in losing his business, but there is also injury to the community, which is going to be faced with a reconstructed area of such a character that it will permit only of the huge multiple shop coming in, to which people will be compelled to go, faced with the kind of price ranges that we have heard discussed on the previous Motion.
  While we all appreciate that there is need to provide work for the unemployed, we do not think it is a sound policy to do a thing simply because it provides work for the unemployed unless it has other advantages. This scheme may find work for unemployed navvies, but it brings in its train unemployment for at least 300 shop assistants. Most of the shops are of the kind that employ one, two or three assistants. Some are larger. When they close down, even assuming that the owner of the business is going to get some sort of compensation, what compensation is to be given to the worker who loses his opportunity of employment? He will be left to do the best he can without any help.
  There is this other hardship. The scheme will entail demolishing a number of premises. According to estimates that we have been able to prepare, it will affect some 350 families. The irony of it is that, although in this borough there is a considerable amount of property of the very worst type, the scheme is going to abolish some of the houses of the best type in the locality and deprive us of that amount of housing accommodation. It will drive people out of their home centres and their shopping centres and deprive them of excellent facilities, and in the end it will leave the area with a smaller number of houses than at present. As the county council is interested in the work, it may be useful to refer to the question of housing in the central area, because our case is, first, that we recognise the need for some improvement, second, that we think an alternative scheme can be prepared, third, if it is found that this scheme is the best and the most suitable for the locality, we ask that consideration should be given to enable the locality to have more houses and not fewer. It will be useful to quote from the report of the housing committee of the London County Council dated 18th July, 1928. It says on page 2:
  514
  "There is a continually diminishing reserve of working-class dwelling accommodation in central London owing to the demolition of houses and the adaptation of houses for business or industrial purposes. The compensatory outward movement among the working class is necessarily limited to the better off members of this class."
  Unfortunately, the people whom I represent are not the better off members of the working-class. Later on, the council say:
  "For a considerable time before the War little housing accommodation for persons of the working class was provided in the central areas, whilst on the other hand a good deal was demolished or utilised for business or industrial purposes, the net result being that the working-class accommodation was diminishing in the central areas as a whole."
  I hope to give some information later as to the essential need for the class of workers in this locality living near to their work. They consist very largely of men of the casual labour class. We have a vast number of building trade employés, and there are a great number of our people who work at Covent Garden and in the market at the end of London Bridge and at the Borough market. Any day in the Blackfriars Road you can see a vast army of women who go into the City as office cleaners, at about six o'clock, come home in the day-time and go back in the evening, a class of people that it is quite impossible to move right out of London. You cannot expect them to pay the fares or the rent that is demanded. The county council, in its report further, says:
  "Considerable numbers of persons of the working class, because of the nature or conditions of their employment, are almost compelled to live in reasonable proximity to their place of work. With a diminution of working-class housing accommodation in the central areas and the continuance of the pressure on housing generally, it must become increasingly difficult for such persons to obtain suitable accommodation, and overcrowding must tend to increase."
  The change from a residential into a business area has a very important bearing on transport, and I commend this to the Minister, because of his own special knowledge of the locality and of the people affected:
  "From the general considerations of transport and street traffic it is undesirable that the central areas should become cleared of residences and given up to business and industrial premises. This has the double effect of increasing the need for labour in the central areas and diminishing the Humber of resident workers in the locality, with

  515
  the congestion in transport services and street traffic which result."
  Further on they say:
  "we regard as a necessary adjunct to clearance and reconstruction schemes special provision for dealing with the poorer class of person who have to be displaced from insanitary areas."
  It is true that this is not an insanitary area, but an insanitary area of almost the worst type to be found is closely adjacent to it in every direction. I hope to give some information on that point to show that we have some justification for asking the county council to utilise this site when it is cleared for residences for the people of the locality. I claim that those in the locality have the first claim on the locality. Here is an opportunity of using this site for housing people who could be moved from the insanitary areas, thus giving an opportunity of cleaning up our borough bit by bit in a way that is not otherwise open to us. Some hon. Members may be familiar with the report of the Survey of Housing Conditions in the Metropolitan Borough of Southwark. It was undertaken by an independent body of investigators representing all creeds, all classes and all shades of political opinion. Here are one or two of the things to which they draw attention which ought to be put right and which can be put right if the county council will give us some houses in that area to enable us to provide alternative accommodation for the people. This report relates to Moss Alley and Bankside Courts, and says:
  "This passage.…is too narrow to benefit much from the fresh air of the river. The cottages are small.…very dark, and damp. Walls are bulging and brickwork worn out. Repairs are generally neglected. The owners of most of this property are the City of London Corporation."
  It is true that at the moment that area is being dealt with, but the area is typical of the property all around. People cannot be moved because of the impossibility of finding alternative accommodation. The report goes on to deal with Blackfriars Road and contains a reference to Collingwood Street. It says:
  "A few cottages in Collingwood Street appear to be about 300 years old. They have wooden walls and are very damp and overrun with beetles."
  516
  Cottages on the corner of Edward Street and Bear Lane are of the back-to-back type. Here in the town of London, under the shadow of St. Pauls, we still have houses of the back-to-back type. We have even worse conditions close to the area with which it is proposed to deal. There is a terrace. Why it is called a terrace I do not know. There is a little back court called Cavan Terrace. It has 10 cottages. There is only one dustbin. There are two water taps. There are no wash-houses. One house has no w.c. All the cottages are damp and dilapidated, with leaking roofs and verminous walls. I quote from the report. In addition to that, these houses are overrun with rats. I know from my personal knowledge that the rats are of such a bold character that they are courageous enough to come on to the table and steal food even while the people are in the room, if their attention is momentarily diverted. We have serious over-crowding in the borough. May I quote another instance from Bittern Street, that of an ex-service man with 25s. a week pension. He is a hawker. It is true that this matter has been remedied in the last few weeks because alternative accommodation has been found. He is a man with a wife and nine children, five girls and four boys, living in one room. If we apply to the county council for a house for the man, they cannot let him have one because his income is not sufficient to pay the rent of the house which would be available. What are these people to do? The report says with respect to this one room containing a family of 11 persons:
  "In spite of excessive overcrowding the room was clean and tidy."
  We want houses in Southwark. This Bill destroys some of the good; it leaves all the bad. Our complaint is not on that score, but that it makes no new provision. Finally, I will quote from the Medical Officer of Health of the Borough of Southwark who in his report for the year 1927 said:
  "The number of dwelling houses found not to he in all respects reasonably fit for human habitation is 10,499."
  That is in the Borough of Southwark. No houses are being built by the Southwark Borough Council, which is, I think, the only borough council in London with such an unenviable record. [An HON. MEMBER: "Camberwell."] Well, they

  517
  can share it between them. The London County Council have built a few houses. The county council houses which have been built are of excellent type, and we are applying for more of them. It is not a new scheme. The London County Council, in the Tabard Street area, have completed a scheme which was commenced before the War and have adopted an excellent type of building eminently suited to the locality, and we maintain that they can do the same on this area. Bermondsey, a locality similar to ours in every respect, have a record which is second to none in London for what they have done for housing. What one can do others can do. We asked the County Council to erect on this site property of a character which they built in the Waterloo Road. There they have dwellings—I am not sure whether they are four or five storeys high—the ground floors of which are let out as shops, the upper floors being used as residences. They can, I respectfully submit, put that kind of property on to the area to be cleared, giving adequate facilities to the shopkeepers to retain their goodwill and providing opportunities for alternative accommodation for the people in the locality.
  I have to recognise that information which has come to hand informs me that the county council have taken a site in Stockwell to which they will move the people who are to be turned out of this locality. It is nearly two miles away, but that is not so bad. It is all right for people who are going to move, but we ask that they will not put up a lot more big factories and business places. We ask the county council to use the site for houses to enable us to cope with the work of slum clearance which is so badly needed. Part of our property in this borough is of the character which compels people to sit up at night every time that a high tide comes into the river, because their premises become flooded, as was the case a year or two back. There is another point which the council are asked to consider, and that is the question of the effect of rent. People are moving out of low-rented, comfortable, decent houses and are having to go into other houses at higher rents. I will quote to the House from a letter, which, though very illiterate in its, phrasing, is
  518
  eloquent in its meaning. This letter came to me yesterday, and it says:
  "We are both old age pensioners which brings us in £1 a week. My rent is 6s. 5d. a week with 8s. 6d. from the Guardians, which has to keep the two of us. I have been unable to go to work for some years. I am now 77 years of age. If this new scheme passes, after many years of married life, we may be found in different workhouses, because we cannot afford the high rent we should be charged in another locality."
  I do not suppose that these old people would make application to enter the workhouse, but rather for the tenancy of some other overcrowded house, and thus add to the congestion. I would suggest to the Ministry and to the county council that they might do something similar to that which is being done in West Ham. I understand that a new road is being built in West Ham and that the scheme, which is disturbing property, carries with it an arrangement to provide new property. The new property already provided seems to be equal to, if not better than, the property which has been destroyed.
  I will sum up by putting a definite application. We ask for an assurance. We asked for an assurance early on, but the statement of the county council says that they are not aware of the reasons to be urged in support of this Amendment. Some time back we set out our application to the county council in very great detail, and the county council, in a reply, on the 3rd July, said that our request could not be met until the scheme had received Parliamentary sanction. We respectfully suggest that the time to ask for consideration is before the Bill has passed and not after the Bill has passed. We ask for some assurance that due and full consideration shall be given with a view to providing that the land shall be utilised by the London County Council in the interests of the people directly concerned, and that the charge shall be borne by the Ministry's grant and by London as a whole. The additional cost in utilising the land, if borne out of London's general rate and the Minister's grant, would permit of houses being built for letting at reasonable rates.
  As the matter stands, it appears that the area is to be cleared. The council have no building operations. Therefore, they are waiting for someone to come along, and they will let the property to

  519
  those prepared to pay the highest rent, which means that businesses will get it and that the workers will be shut out. We ask for new shops and houses on the cleared site in order to retain business goodwill and get a start on slum clearance. We ask that the first offer should be given to Southwark residents and business people at rents comparable with those now paid. When I say comparable rents I mean comparable in consideration of the extra facilities and so on. In addition, we ask for proper compensation for those disturbed for the cost of removal and the loss of business goodwill. For these reasons, I ask the House not to give the Bill a Second Reading unless we can get some understanding that this terrible condition in Southwark which so badly needs attention shall be taken in hand and that the expenditure of this money shall be of such a character that, arising out of it, there may be some houses provided and some prospect for the people of the constituency which I represent being able to live in the future under better conditions than those which at present obtain.
  Mr. ROMERIL: I beg to second the Amendment.
  In view of the comprehensive way in which my hon. Friend has covered the ground I do not propose to delay the House at this stage, more especially as I am hopeful that we shall have a satisfactory statement from the hon. Gentleman who will speak for the London County Council. My reason for associating myself with this Amendment is that I have had a good deal of experience in my Division of the hardships, perhaps inevitable but none the less real, occasioned in connection with disturbances for rehousing purposes. I am bound to say that I have not always found the London County Council very reasonable in their methods of dealing with complaints or requests which one has had to make from time to time. This House should concern itself with the activities of a body which is possessed of such enormous powers as are vested in the London County Council. The disturbing and rooting up of people from the foundations upon which their lives have been built is a big human question, and, although the London
  520
  County Council are a great body with enormous interests, I feel that we are entitled to ask that these human questions shall be dealt with in a humane spirit. I do not desire to take up any more time, but I wish to emphasise that particular aspect of the case.
  Sir CYRIL COBB: I am very glad that the opponents of this Bill have at least admitted that this is a very important improvement which is projected by the London County Council. I think everybody who knows South London will realise that this is quite the most important of all the suggested improvements that we have had before us in connection with the South of London. It is often said that the South of London has not had its fair share in Metropolitan improvements, and I think that it is time now that the London County Council should make an effort to do something for South London. It must be remembered, however, that when we are dealing with modern traffic conditions we are dealing with conditions which must involve much greater and more extended clearances of property that we have been accustomed to deal with before these modern traffic conditions arose. If, for instance, we had now to deal with the question of the Aldwych and Kingsway improvements it is clear that we should have to make a great deal more clearance than we did many years ago when that scheme was carried out.
  8.0 p.m.
  I think it must be admitted by every-one that the Elephant and Castle district is one of the most congested districts in the whole of London. Anybody who has to go, as I sometimes have to go, there during the early hours between six and say nine when the congestion caused by our tramways and omnibuses all through that district is so great, will know that this kind of improvement in the South of London is certainly long overdue. This is not a scheme that has been thought out hastily and with-out due consultation with everybody concerned. It was a well considered scheme in February of this year, when it was first submitted to the Minister of Transport. It was thoroughly discussed by him, certain exceptions were taken to the scheme, certain modifications were suggested, and those modifications the county council

  521
  agreed to. They adopted everything suggested to improve the scheme according to the ideas of the Minister of Transport and to bring it into conformity with the views of the London and Home Counties Traffic Committee. When the scheme reached its final form it might be said to have been an agreed scheme between the persons concerned in bringing it out. Not only was that the case but we were in communication with the Southwark Borough Council. That council had certain observations to make on the scheme. They said we were not making the streets and roads wide enough, and they had certain questions to raise in regard to sub-ways. The question of subways has already been raised, and we are in a very fair way towards coining to a final conclusion with the Southwark Borough Council on that question. So late as the 15th October we agreed to the widening of roads which we were asked to do by the Southwark Borough Council, and we are now on the way towards settling with them on the question of subways.
  Dr. SALTER: Can the hon. Member give us an assurance with regard to the sub ways?
  Sir C. COBB: I cannot give any specific assurance as to the details, but I can say that we are in a- very good way towards coming to a conclusion with the Southwark Borough Council on the question of subways. So far as I understand it, we are in a very fair way to settle that question on an amicable basis. That being the case, we may say that so tar as public interests are concerned we have the case in our own hands. It is obviously to the advantage of the public that this improvement should be made. There are tens of thousands of people who pass through this district every day, apart from the 180,000 people who live in Southwark. What is the opposition? The only opposition that I can see to the Bill is the opposition of 250 people who are mentioned in the statement as opposers. I read, to my astonishment, that there are only 250 people who signed the protest against the scheme. At a meeting of 250 residents held at the Lamington Road Baths, Southwark, a. resolution was passed against this scheme. There are something like 180,000 people in Southwark and only 250 people have been found to sign the protest
  522
  against the scheme. This Bill ought certainly to go through in the interests of the public.
  When I come to the specific objections that have been raised to-night, I think I can show that the county council are trying to do all they can to meet those objections. Take the question of the shopping area. We are told that this is the great shopping area for South London. I wonder what the shopping community in the Brixton Road would say if we told them that the Elephant and Castle district is the great shopping area for South London. What would they think of such a statement on the Streatham High Road? It is a most exaggerated statement by the shopping tradesmen in that particular neighbourhood.
  In regard to the question of compensation for the shops and business interests centred in that area, the opposers of the Bill must have noticed that we have the usual Clause in regard to compensation. Nothing has been done to alter the ordinary statutory arrangements with respect to compensation for displacement of trade, and so on. Those provisions are contained in Clause 13. When we come to the question of working-class displacement. I feel the matter very much because I have been for a very long time a member of the Housing Committee of the London County Council and I know what good work has been done and what remains to be done. There is going to be displacement of the working classes in this area. That is as inevitable as the displacement of the shops. If you are going to have any kind of improvement and clearance for traffic purposes, you must necessarily displace large numbers of persons, whether of the shopping class or the working class. 'While there is no question of compensation to the displaced working class, we are bound to rehouse them. We have the Stockwell site, which is a little less than two miles a-way, and is easily get-at-able by tram and omnibus, and that site is to be placed at the disposal of this improvement scheme. In normal circumstances, that site would have been used for general housing purposes, but in view of this particular scheme being put forward by the County Council and their desire to complete this important traffic

  523
  scheme in South London we are willing to allocate the Stockwell site for the special purpose of housing the people who are displaced on the Elephant and Castle site.
  When one comes to deal with those people who find it very difficult, often from hereditary reasons and otherwise, to remove themselves from the place in which they, their parents and very often their grandparents have been accustomed to live, we are confronted with a very difficult problem, because we have only available for them, if they do not go to Stockwell, the Tabard Street site. For the people who come under that special category and who cannot be removed except with difficulty from the place where they are living, or who, if they are removed, must be moved as short a distance away as possible, we can offer only such accommodation as comes vacant on the Tabard Street site. It would be wrong to lead the House to suppose that we could find at this moment in Southwark any site which could be used for tenement houses. We have been looking for such a site at a reasonable cost for a very long time, and it was only because we could not find such a site in Southwark that we decided upon the Stockwell site for the general housing scheme. Therefore, I think that I have made it clear that our scheme is reasonable and that we are making every provision that we can in order to meet the question of rehousing and to see to it that we do not cause any more disturbance than is absolutely essential when you are going forward with such a very large measure of clearance, a measure necessary in order that the traffic difficulties in this part of London may be solved, as far as it is possible to solve them.
  The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I make no complaint, and I am sure the House does not complain, that my hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark (Mr. Isaacs) has taken his perfectly proper Parliamentary opportunity of raising in the interests of his constituents certain matters which affect them in connection with this Bill. I am intervening at this juncture because I have a semi-official engagement to which I ought to have gone, and I hope the House will excuse me if I leave some
  524
  what early. I am not concerned with this Bill in its housing aspects, but I am concerned officially as Minister of Transport in the traffic aspects of the problem. Everybody will agree, certainly my hon. Friend who moved the rejection of the Bill will agree, that the Elephant and Castle traffic problem is amongst the half dozen most serious traffic problems in the whole London area. Every hon. Member will concur in the view that it is a matter of the greatest urgency that this problem should be dealt with, and only on most serious and conclusive grounds ought a Bill of this kind to be rejected.
  A traffic census was taken by the Metropolitan Police on the 9th July, 1929, which showed that 32,219 vehicles passed the junction of the Elephant and Castle between the hours of 8 in the morning and 8 at night, giving an average of 2,685 vehicles an hour. On one day in October, 1926, the traffic passing out of London Road going to Walworth Road and New Kent Road was held up 30 times between 5.20 p.m. and 7.0 p.m., little more than an hour and a half, the total period of hold-up being 37½ minutes, so that, roughly, one-third of the time during which the check was taken was occupied by vehicles standing still. Traffic proceeding from the Walworth Road to Newington Causeway was held up 30 times between 5.25 p.m. and 6.59 p.m., the total period of hold-up occupying 61 minutes. That represents a substantial cost to the transport undertakings involved in the delays. Therefore, it is of economic importance that the question should be faced and that we should take every possible step to solve the traffic problem at a London junction which is notoriously difficult and serious.
  Regard has been had to the consideration that a proper traffic lay-out at this junction will increase the traffic capacity of the converging roads. It is estimated that the capacity of those roads will be increased by at least 100 per cent., thus avoiding for many years the necessity of widening the approach roads. Instead of the roads converging into the middle of a whole series of very important thoroughfares that lead to the Elephant and Castle, we shall have a crescent layout, and we shall get practically no delays but a constant circulation of traffic. Any expenditure on a matter of this kind which does not enable the

  525
  chief avoidable causes of the present delays to be obviated would be unjustifiable, and in large measure a waste of money.
  The evolution of the scheme is this: the problem has been considered by the London County Council, the Traffic Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Transport and my predecessor and myself for a number of years. Very careful discussions have taken place between the experts of the county council, the experts of the Ministry of Transport and the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, who has given us the advantage of the
  knowledge of the police. It has been sifted. Other schemes have been examined. The whole thing has been very carefully considered, and at the end of all these discussions by all these people, who have a very great knowledge of traffic problems in the London area, they have come to the conclusion that in all the circumstances of the case and having reasonable regard to considerations of cost this is a scheme which should be adopted and proceeded with. We have often discussed London traffic problems on private Bills. I will not refer to an earlier Bill which was passed by a large majority of this House on Second Reading and which subsequently met with an unfortunate fate, but I will put this point to hon. Members. There must come a time when, if the House is satisfied that all schemes have been carefully examined and thoroughly sifted by the expert officers of all the authorities concerned, there should be a sense of finality. If the London County Council, the Ministry of Transport, and all the authorities concerned have come to the conclusion that on traffic grounds and on general ground also this is the proper thing to do, then I think the House should have a sense of finality in the matter and realise that we must take the advice of expert people who have a great knowledge and experience of these problems.
  I would not for a moment suggest that the House of Commons has not the right to say that it thinks the experts are wrong; all of them, those at the Ministry of Transport and on the London County Council, as well as the Metropolitan Police. The House has every right to do that, but if, after the most careful examination, a scheme is put before it,
  526
  and it is said that the scheme is bad, there will be no finality to improvements in the London area which are urgently desired. I beg the House to take sympathetic account of the very well-informed and highly technical advice which we have received from our experts on these points.
  In the circular issued by the objectors to the Bill a feature is made of the importance of the tramway junction at this point. There was the suspicion of an endeavour to draw an anti-tramway bias against the Bill. My hon. Friend did not pursue that line of argument., but in the circular it is somewhat stressed. The tramway problem is by no means the principal incentive behind this project. I imagine that if the general manager of the tramways had been asked whether he would like to lead an agitation in favour of clearing up the Elephant and Castle, he would say: "No, it is not an ideal place for circular tramway traffic. We get through, and I am content to heave things as they are." Primarily, this is needed not on tramway grounds but on general traffic grounds. If the Bill goes through, the tramway position will, of course, be improved, and the tramways will not present the same difficulty to other forms of traffic as they do at present.
  The hon. Member for North Southwark has said that this is an expensive scheme and that a great deal of the cost is going in compensation to property owners. That is perfectly true, and it will continue to be true until this House deals with the rights of property on a bold and thorough-going basis. In the meantime, we, have to face these problems in this imperfect world, and as the law stands—and that is the thing that matters—you have to pay compensation according to the rules of the game as they are now, and the rejection of this Bill will not reduce the cost of compensation. On the contrary, it is conceivable that the compensation might increase. The hon. Member is on difficult ground, because he has pleaded that existing traders, if they are put hack, should be put back on the sites they now occupy, which inevitably would be much more valuable when this improvement is carried through, at the same, comparable rent which they now pay. He is really in danger of turning his back on all the

  527
  doctrines which the Labour party have been advocating for years, and I would suggest that he should be a little careful how far he gets mixed up with property owners and their interests; otherwise, I shall have to rescue him like a brand from the burning. As a matter of fact, the cost has been considerably reduced from the amount of the original scheme, and the inconvenience to people in the district has been considerably reduced. That is a factor which ought not to be ignored.
  The scheme is supported by the Minister of Transport, which in itself ought to be nearly conclusive. I advise the House to accept the Bill on the advice of officers who really have an extraordinary knowledge of these problems and for whom I have a high regard. It is supported unanimously by the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee, and by the police. It is also supported by the London County Council, who are the elected representatives of the citizens of London, a factor which cannot be lightly set aside. I appreciate how my hon. Friend and his constituents feel on this matter. I have a warm regard for the Borough of Southwark. It returns my hon. Friend for North Southwark. He is the general secretary of my own trade union. It returns the hon. Member for South-East Southwark (Mr. Naylor) who is chairman of the London Labour party, and my hon. Friend the Member for Central Southwark (Mr. Day) who asks me a good number of questions from time to time.
  I have associations with Southwark myself. I once stood as a candidate for the London County Council for the Division which my hon. Friend represents, but the electors were unwise enough to reject the offer of my services. I bear no spite on that account. But in the matter of slum clearance and improvements you always have great difficulties with the people who live there and who become greatly attached even to the most miserable slums. An extraordinary sentiment grows up. Nearly every slum clearance has to be achieved in spite of the opposition of the people whose housing conditions it is proposed to improve. They have lived there for many years, and their fathers and grandfathers before them, and they are attached to the
  528
  place by ties of sentiment. Southwark has a great history; it is one of the most ancient boroughs in the County of London. I understand that; I do not scorn it. But how is one to solve this traffic problem at the Elephant and Castle unless some scheme of this kind is put forward; and if you are satisfied that the scheme is substantially right somebody has to be upset. I am sorry, but this is inevitable in every public improvement that is made. In this case, the county council has made an offer which is better than most offers made in the case of a shun clearance. They propose to house the people who are dispossessed within a penny or twopenny tramway ride of the Elephant and Castle.
  The hon. Member for West Bermondsey (Dr. Salter) has asked where it is proposed to put the subways. At the moment, we cannot say exactly where they will be. We do not know what is underground at the Elephant and Castle; we do not know what is underground in a great part of London; there are a good many mysteries underground in London. But if you have circulating traffic at the Elephant and Castle I agree, and the London County Council agree, that adequate and proper subway provision must be provided for pedestrians. The London County Council have said that not only will they discuss the matter with the Minister of Transport—it may not be necessary for me to use my power and influence in that regard, because I do not think it will be necessary for me to keep the London County Council in a nice, healthy frame of mind on the subject—but they have also offered to discuss it with the Southwark Borough Council. To my hon. Friends on this side of the House I will say that the Labour party on the London County Council definitely supports the Bill. I must ask them to take account of that fact. They cannot ignore the wishes of the people who are elected by the citizens. I cannot ignore the wishes of the London County Council, whatever its political complexion; I must treat them with respect. I put it to my hon. Friends who are not Ministers that they ought to take into account the views of their own political friends on the London County Council who have responsibilities in the matter.
  This improvement is a popular one and is badly wanted. Therefore, the House

  529
  will take a great responsibility in rejecting the Bill. In view of the sympathetic way in which the hon. Member opposite has replied to the objectors, and in view of the urgency of the matter, I would suggest to my hon. Friend who has moved the rejection of the Bill that if he withdraws his objection to-night he has not necessarily given up the fight on points on which he may not yet be satisfied. Even at this stage I hope that the hon. Member for North Southwark, having made his case, will realise that it would not be wise for him to run the risk a Division, in which I believe he would he defeated, because his position would then be weaker than it is now. I suggest to him that the expedient and the wisest course would be to withdraw the Motion, reserving his own rights and that of the promoters to fight further in another place and in another way in order to get their way.
  Mr. MacLAREN: Certain figures have been given and I would like to know whether they are correct. We have been told that the total sum involved in the expenditure on this improvement would be, in round figures, £1,950,000. It was stated also that the compensation to the landowners and property owners out of this round sum would be £1,438,000 Therefore of the total money only £512,000 will be used for the works themselves?
  Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: I could not answer on the spur of the moment, hut I am quite prepared to accept what my hon. Friend has said, seeing that he quoted from an official report. The figures would certainly accord with my general experience of all public improvements, whether they be in the London area or at Stoke-on-Trent. My hon. Friend referred to the landowners. Let me tell him for his comfort that most of the money which he mentioned will go to the owners of buildings and the people who have businesses in the area.
  Mr. NAYLOR: I am sorry if my rising should detain the Minister from the dinner which I have no doubt he well deserves, but I am not responsible for the fact that he has spoken in defence of the Bill. There are one or two points that even now do not seem to have been satisfactorily answered either by the hon. Member who is promoting the Bill or the Minister. We who are opposing the Bill—
  Mr. MORRISON: My hon. Friend will appreciate that my only duty is to inform the House and to give advice to the House as the Minister concerned. The responsibility for the Bill rests with the London County Council and with my hon. Friend the Member for West Fulham (Sir C. Cobb). Therefore, it will not be necessary for me to hear the end of this debate. Technically I am not in charge of the Bill.
  Mr. NAYLOR: I know the Minister too well to think that he would show any discourtesy to the House in departing before the debate is finished. But he has asked the House not to reject the Bill. He has said that the Elephant and Castle improvement scheme is badly needed. We do not deny that; we appreciate the fact that the traffic conditions at the Elephant and Castle call for some such scheme as this. What we complain of is that certain details in this scheme have received scant consideration from the London County Council. Subways have been mentioned. The hon. Member for West Fulham (Sir C. Cobb) was not very definite concerning these subways. I understood him to say that negotiations were in progress, I presume with the railway company. That means that there have been no decisions taken with regard to these subways. Nothing has been said by the hon. Member for West Fulham as to whether the railway companies are to have discretion in the matter. Are they to have permits to limit subways according to what they consider to be the public convenience, or has the London County Council reserved to itself the right to say where the subway shall be placed?
  The hon. Member did not tell us anything as to the cost of the maintenance of the subways. If the railway interests are to be considered are we to assume that the maintenance of the subways is not to be a cost either on the London County Council or the Southwark Borough Council, but will rest with the railways? The suggestion was recently made that the present would be a great opportunity for relieving the congestion of traffic between Blackfriars and the Elephant and Castle if the railway companies would consider an extension of the tube railway from the Elephant and Castle to Blackfriars. Such a suggestion ought to be considered before the Bill receives a Second Reading.

  531
  Then there is the position of the tenants who are to be displaced. The hon. Member for West Fulham stated that only 250 names were on the appeal presented to the London County Council. Has he realised that that total does not represent the entire number of tenants who are to be displaced? Those 250 were signatories to the appeal, and probably on the average each of the signatures represented a family and not an individual. All these persons have now the protection of the Rent Restriction Acts. If they are displaced and have to take up new accommodation at Stockwell, are the rights and privileges that they now possess under that Act to be transferred to their new tenancies? Perhaps the hon. Member or one of his colleagues can tell us? If the dispossessed tenants are not to have the same privileges in their new tenancies, are they to he compensated for the loss of privileges due to displacement from their houses?
  The London County Council, according to the hon. Member for West Fulham, consulted all interests. Did they consult those tenants who are not in business for themselves, and, if not, why not? If they are not commercially interested in the same way as the owners of businesses, at least they are entitled to consideration, and if consideration is to be shown on the commercial side in terms of cash, surely it should also be shown in the case of these private tenants, who may not get suitable accommodation elsewhere at rents which they can afford. I think the position of the London County Council in that respect
  is to be criticised. The hon. Member for West Fulham said that they have been looking for a site for several years past. I can tell him of a site very near this locality which would accommodate the tenants who are to be displaced. The London County Council made no effort to secure that site, or, if they did, they failed to take full advantage of their opportunities. It is a site now occupied by the largest cinema in the country and that site would have provided sufficient space to house a very large proportion of these people. Therefore, the hon. Member for West Fulham is not justified in saying that they were unable to secure a, site when that site was available for them, if they had not allowed
  532
  it to slip into the hands of the cinema company. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is it?"] It is off the corner of the New Kent Road, and close by the Elephant itself. It would have been a very good position for the erection of model tenements of the kind required.
  Again, the scheme takes in a portion of the market where street traders at present get their living. Nothing has been said as to whether any compensation is to be paid to those street traders who will lose their market and that is a matter which ought to be cleared up before the House consents to the Second Reading of this Bill. Unless these points are considered, and Satisfactory assurances given upon them, it seems to me that my hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark (Mr. Isaacs) will have no option but to ask the House to reject the Bill, and to go to a Division upon it. The rejection of the Bill as it stands does not mean the rejection of the Elephant and Castle scheme. It would be easy to withdraw this Bill for the time being, and to alter its provisions so as to meet objections which will have to be met sooner or later. It could then he reintroduced in a form which would make it acceptable to those hon. Members who are now opposing it. It seems strange that it should be left to hon. Members on the opposite side of the House to support this Bill. That is probably because the London County Council happens to be a Conservative County Council.
  I have not overlooked the fact that the Minister has pointed out that the Labour party on the London County Council are in favour of the Bill. That may be, but the objections raised here must be either worthy of consideration or not worthy of consideration. If the House thinks the objections are frivolous, then the House will be right to take no notice of them. On the other hand, if the House thinks that the objections are real, and are not brought forward merely to cause obstruction then, while admitting that, subject to proper safeguards, this is a necessary improvement, we are justified in asking that these concessions should be made while we have the power and the right to ask for them. Once the Bill goes to Committee what chance have we to secure recognition of the principles which we have put forward? It has often been said

  533
  that it is the right of this House to reject a Bill on Second Reading, not because the principles in the Bill are antagonistic to the opinion of the House, but because the House believes that the rejection of the Bill is the only safe way of securing that its objections to certain proposals shall be honoured. We object to this Bill because we feel that unless we carry the matter to a Division at this stage, our objections will not be fairly and squarely met. I ask the House to believe that we are not doing so in order to kill the scheme. In doing so we shall not kill the scheme. We want to see a scheme carried out, but let us have a scheme which will have due regard to the interests, not only of the big people, but of the poorer people whom we also represent.
  Sir KENYON VAUGHAN-MORGAN: I shall endeavour to reply on behalf of the promoters of the Bill to some of the points raised by the hon. Member for South East Southwark (Mr. Naylor) and to the general objections which have been urged against the Bill by the hon. Member who moved its rejection. On the subject of rehousing referred to by the last speaker, I am reminded that the housing proposals of the London County Council could not be put into effect until after the passage of the Bill, and the submission of the scheme to the Ministry of Health. The one step must necessarily precede the other. The hon. Member has already been reminded that the proposals embodied in the Bill have the support of his colleagues of the Labour party in the London County Council as well as of the Ministry of Transport and the Minister himself. The hon. Member referred to the neglect of the London County Council to purchase a certain site. Surely, he does not overlook the fact that the London County Council, in the expenditure of public money, must have regard to the cost of one site as compared with other sites available in other parts of London. The corner site which the hon. Member has in mind was, I think, of a costly nature, and the London County Council would hardly be warranted in the ordinary way in acquiring land of that character in that position for the purpose indicated.
  534
  With regard to the displaced tenants, I think he has perhaps overlooked that they will surely have a hearing through their representatives before the committee. He asked as to the transfer of the rights and privileges of the tenants under the Rent Restrictions Acts. I cannot give him a definite answer because it is a legal question, but it might be submitted, on behalf of the tenants, to the committee, though I doubt whether the powers of the London County Council extend so far as to provide him with what he wants in those circumstances. He recommended that the traffic situation there might be met by extensions of the tube railways. There would be no difficulty whatever in putting that proposal before the railway interests concerned. The negotiations with regard to subways, to which reference was made, are proceeding with the Southwark Borough Council, and the hon. Member for West Fulham (Sir C. Cobb) gave us to understand that they had reached a satisfactory stage, so that I think the hon. Member's anxiety on that score may be set at rest.
  I have risen, not only to answer these questions, but because the question of communications and the provision of adequate traffic facilities in London is a subject to which I have given some study and in which I am greatly interested. I think we have all agreed by this time that there is an urgent necessity for such a scheme, and I would like to remind hon. Members who have raised objections to this particular scheme that it is a scheme in its later stages already. It is not the scheme originally proposed by the London County Council; it is not the alternative originally suggested by the Ministry of Transport; it is a third alternative, which has found favour with both parties, and incidentally it is considerably less expensive than the original proposals of the Ministry of Transport.
  If we reject this Bill, what are we to put in its place? The hon. Member who moved the rejection put forward a scheme which he considered was better than that which is now before the House, but with every desire to be complimentary to his alternative, I think we shall have to leave the selection of the best scheme in the hands of the experts of all the parties concerned—the London County Council, the Ministry of Transport, the police, and

  535
  others—so that I think we must leave this possible alternative out of account at this late stage.
  This Bill has already had an uninterrupted and unopposed passage in another place, and the opponents of the Bill had ample opportunity of putting objections through the members of their party in another place. No doubt the hon. Member is aware that its unopposed and somewhat rapid passage there created some surprise. However, the opportunity was not taken, and are they not coming a little late in the day to urge these objections, which must have been as forcible at any time during the career of this proposal as they are to-day? The question of loss to traders has been dealt with by the hon. Member for West Fulham. This is not a local, it is not even a London, question; it amounts to something that is very nearly a national question, and that is fully covered by the fact that the Ministry of Transport contributes the large proportion of 75 per cent. to its cost.
  Reference has been made to the question of the trams, but I ought to point out that the scheme is one to benefit the traffic generally and that the alteration of the position of the tracks is incidental. Although the cost of the whole scheme is very little short of £2,000,000, the estimated cost of altering and adjusting the tramlines in connection with it is only £115,200, a really paltry amount out of the whole sum. Having answered various points that have been raised, if I may add my modest contribution to the recommendations to the House already so effectively made by the Minister of Transport, I think the House should have little doubt as to the desirability of giving this Bill its Second Reading.
  Dr. SALTER: I am not at all satisfied by what has been said to-night on behalf of the promoters of the Bill with regard to the provision of subways. The hon. Member for East Fulham (Sir K. Vaughan-Morgan) asked what opposition there was to the Bill, and he said that only some 250 people had objected or protested. I am here to-night to protest on behalf of the tens of thousands of pedestrians who use that important traffic junction every day in the week. At present there is a number of radiating
  536
  subways connecting all the different street corners that abut upon the Elephant Circus. Those subways, we understand, are to be swept away, and there is not a single word in the Bill about the provision of new subways.
  I was very astonished by one of the observations that fell from the Minister of Transport, when he said that this Bill in all its phases had received the most careful, exhaustive, and elaborate consideration by the officials of the Ministry, the experts, the representatives of the Metropolitan Police, and the London Traffic Advisory Committee. All those groups and bodies concerned never gave a single thought or any attention to the wants of pedestrians. There has never been, from beginning to end, in connection with the promotion of this Bill, until opposition declared itself in this House, a single provision for pedestrians made or offered by the promoters to replace the subways which are to be swept away. Only this morning did we receive this White Paper from the promoters, in which we are told that passenger subways will be provided in connection with the scheme. We want an undertaking that in Committee a definite Amendment will be accepted providing in the most specific terms that these subways shall be constructed.
  We are told by the Minister to-night and by the hon. Member for East Fulham that negotiations with the Southwark Borough Council are proceeding satisfactorily and that everything will be all right, but what happened when a number of us who are opposed to the Bill on this ground met the representatives of the Ministry of Transport and of the Loudon County Council? We were told, "Oh, yes, we will do what we can for you in this matter, but the difficulties are enormous." Those are the actual words used. We were told that there might be a main sewer, that there might he gas and water mains, even that there might be an underground river—in fact, they thought there was an underground river—and it would be impossible to make any subways of the kind that we desired. Now we are told that there will be some subways, but they cannot at all promise us where they will be, and the specific assurance for which I ask from the promoters is that there will be subways

  537
  which will enable a pedestrian to cross from any one corner to the other corner, as existing at present.
  We have been given no such assurance whatever, and I ask again, from the representatives of the London County Council here to-night, whether such subways are or are not to be constructed or whether only one or two of the existing subways are to be re-utilised hereafter, and no connections made between the remaining streets, and no additional passages made to replace those which are to be removed, destroyed, or blocked up. I ask for that assurance. I have received nothing up to the present except a vague statement that something is going to be done in the way of providing subways. If we have every assurance, I can say, speaking for myself and a number of other Members who are interested in this aspect of the matter, that we shall withdraw our opposition to the Bill. At the moment, however, we have nothing definite, and if the promoters can help us, or if my hon. Friend the Member for North Lambeth (Mr. Strauss), who is a member of the London County Council, can give me some clear undertaking that provision for subways will be made in this Bill, a number of us will be quite satisfied and will withdraw our opposition.
  Sir C. COBB: The answer to the hon. Gentleman is that we are certainly going to put a proper system of subways. We cannot say during the negotiations with the Southwark Borough Council what the system will be, but there is going to be a satisfactory system. We may utilise existing subways; I do not know, hut we shall have a proper system.
  Dr. SALTER: Can the hon. Gentleman give me an assurance on this particular point? I believe that eight streets converge on the Elephant and Castle circus, and it is possible, by means of the existing system of radiating subways, for a foot passenger at one street corner to pass to another street corner. So far as the experts were able to give us any assurance in the past, all they could say was, "We should probably be able to provide for you to cross from one side here to that side there, but we shall not he able to do anything in respect of the other five or six corners." I want to know whether a proper system will be
  538
  available whereby a foot passenger will be able to cross to the opposite side of the road without making a circuit of about six corners.
  Sir C. COBB: Obviously, if that is a matter for negotiation, I cannot give an answer. It will depend on the Southwark Borough Council.
  9.0 p.m.
  Mr. CAMPBELL: We all sympathise with the hon. Member for West Bermondsey (Dr. Salter), but the London County Council and the Ministry of Transport can be trusted to make reason-able plans for pedestrians. At present there are subways, and it is only reason-able to suppose that, in any scheme that is brought forward, this provision will be made. All of us have listened with interest to the speeches made by the local representatives; nobody can grumble if a local representative does his utmost in the interests of the people he serves; this Bill, however, goes a great deal further than the Elephant and Castle. I remember the district as a young fellow going past there two or three nights a week to work at a boys' club in Bermondsey, and in those days, in 1896, the traffic was pretty considerable. Now, it I want to take the shortest way home from the House, I avoid the Elephant and Castle, which even during the day is a nightmare. In the early morning one does go that way sometimes, for there is less traffic about then, It is a very dangerous place. Apart from the danger, there is the time that one is held up, often amounting to 5, 10 or 15 minutes. During the whole of that time it is very difficult for passengers who do not use the subways to cross. We have not in this country cultivated the habit of using subways, and many people are run over because they are too lazy or do not feel inclined to use them. The subways exist at the Elephant and Castle and they can be used. Nevertheless, it is a dangerous spot, and it is high time that something was done. We have heard from various Members that this scheme has been well considered, and, not with-standing the fact that there may be some objections, such as those suggested by the hon. Members representing Southwark, we should give this Bill a passage. We have to remember that all improvements, of whatever nature, always incon-

  539
  venience somebody. In housing and rehousing schemes somebody will always be troubled, and in this particular case we are fortunate in having a comparatively small number of people inconvenienced. Those who are inconvenienced will be recompensed to the best of the ability of those who are inconveniencing them. Stockwell is not very far away. The hon. Member for South-East Southwark (Mr. Naylor) said that a site had been bought near the Elephant and Castle by a cinema company, but we must realise that even the London County-Council cannot spend the ratepayers money on very extravagant sites; in the interests of the ratepayers and the people, they have to act economically.
  Reference has been made to the gigantic sum of £2,000,000, but when one realises that of that amount £1,438,000 is to be spent on property, £120,000 on re-housing, £276,000 on improvements, and only £115,000 on the tramways, over which so much noise is made, one will agree that the sum is only reasonable. I hope that the House will come to the conclusion that this Bill must be passed, and if there be any question relating to subways, I am sure that the hon. Member for West Bermondsey will have the sympathy of all parties in his contention that the pedestrians must also have a say in the matter—
  Dr. SALTER: There was no sympathy shown until we opposed the Bill.
  Mr. CAMPBELL: The sympathy was shown in the fact that subways were there already.
  Mr. STRAUSS: I rise to deal with the point raised by the hon. Member for West Bermondsey (Dr. Salter). It is an important one, because it interests many people. I can definitely say that it is the intention of the London County Council to provide adequate subways. It is true that they do not know—nobody knows—what the ground is like underneath the road, and it is quite impossible to say at the moment the exact spots where the subways will be. It is, however, their intention to put subways—I can say this quite definitely—where necessary if it is physically possible to do so, and they have undertaken to consult the Ministry of Transport and the Southwark Borough Council in that respect. The London
  540
  County Council are at the moment negotiating with the Southwark Borough Council on this matter, and I understand that they have almost come to an agreement. There is no point of real dispute between the two bodies. The borough council are not discussing with the county council the position or the number of the subways; the only matter outstanding is the question of the maintenance of the subways, which is complicated owing to various circumstances. I can assure the hon. Member that the county council are meeting him in the case which he put before the House. I would say to the other Members of my party here this evening, as the Minister of Transport has said, that the Bill has the full and unanimous support of the Labour party on the London County Council. [Interruption.] I suggest to my hon. Friends that they ought to take some little notice of what my 48 colleagues on the London County Council think about this matter. They have discussed this scheme and previous schemes very fully, have gone into the details and weighed the pros and cons, and I am merely putting it that they are in favour of this scheme and have written a letter to the Labour Members of Parliament urging them to do all they can to support it.
  Mr. NAYLOR: Would it not be also true to say that if we asked the Labour party on the London County Council what they thought of our objections that they would agree with them?
  Mr. STRAUSS: I am afraid I cannot say anything about that. All I do say is they have fully considered this scheme in all its aspects and strongly urge their colleagues here to support them, and I merely suggest that their attitude should have some weight with my hon. Friends. On their behalf I ask my fellow Members here to support this Bill.
  Mr. WOMERSLEY: I make no apology for intervening in this debate, although this matter is really confined to London so far as the traffic question is concerned; but I am speaking on behalf of the National Chamber of Trade, which is the retail traders' trade union. I am here to-night as a staunch trade unionist to put in a plea on behalf of retail traders who will be dispossessed, and without compensation whatever, if this Bill is passed into law in its present

  541
  form. The hon. Member for West Fulham (Sir C. Cobb), in dealing with this question of compensation to the shopkeepers, dismissed it by saying they are fully provided for under Clause 13. I suggest they are not provided for at all. Clause 13 reads:

  "For the purpose of determining any question of disputed compensation payable in respect of lands taken under the powers of this Act the following provisions shall apply."
  In a further explanation we were told that £1,438,000 is being provided as compensation, but to whom? To the landowner and the property owner. [Interruption.] I am not complaining about that, though hon. Members opposite may do so, but what I do complain of is that whilst rightful compensation is provided for the owner of the land and the owner of the buildings, nothing whatever is provided for the shopkeeper, who is to lose the goodwill of his business and the improvements which he has put into his premises. When the Landlord and Tenant Act came before this House we found that it provided that a shopkeeper who was dispossessed had a right to compensation for the goodwill of his business if he were either a leaseholder of the premises or had been in occupation of them for five years; so that even if he were a weekly tenant he still could claim compensation if he or his predecessor in title had been in occupation for more than five years. When that Measure was under consideration in Committee, however, an Amendment was moved by which it was provided that compensation was not to be payable where the property was required for a street improvement. The interests of the owner of the building and the owner of the land were already adequately covered by the common law of the land; but, although we were providing compensation to a man for the goodwill of his business in other instances, when this Amendment was accepted no compensation could be claimed in respect of shops and business purposes required by a public authority for a public improvement.
  There is no doubt that what the Bill now under consideration is dealing with can be designated as a public improvement. There is no doubt, also, that those responsible for drafting the Bill know full well that these shopkeepers had no legal claims to compensation,
  542
  though I suggest that at least they have a moral claim. These men, who have approached me to put their case to the House, are, most of them, one-man shopkeepers. They are not big firms with plenty of capital. Most of them have all their savings invested in their business. They have worked for many years to build up a goodwill, and if the premises were acquired by a private individual who wanted to get them out he would have to pay them reasonable compensation for any improvements that might have been effected by them and also reasonable compensation for goodwill; but a great authority like the London County Council can come along and, owing to the Amendment which I have referred to, can dispossess them without giving them a farthing of compensation; and those who are responsible for the framing of the Bill know it. I defy anyone to find in Clause 13 anything which will give these people one halfpenny compensation.
  I am determined to vote against the Bill unless we can get from the promoters a reasonable promise that something will be done to meet the ease of these tenants. No large sum of money will be required—only a very small sum in comparison with the large outlay, and it would only be an act of justice. I do not see also why these people should not have the first claim on the new shop premises which will be erected when the improvement is made. That is a fair and square way out of the difficulty. I am not suggesting they should be allowed to have the new, up-to-date premises at the same rents as for the old ones, but at reasonable rents which could be fixed by agreement. It is absolutely unfair to turn these people out into the streets and cause them to lose the results of all the hard work they have put into building up their business simply because the law is on the side of the stronger person. I hope to hear something from the promoters of the Bill in answer to the plea I am putting forward on behalf of these people.
  Mr. MacLAREN: I was rather amazed at the speech of the Minister of Transport this evening. He has fallen into the practice of getting hold of some official document and becoming extremely voluble without there being much substance in what he is saying. He seems

  543
  to confound flippancy with sound reason. He told us the scheme ought to pass the House because it had been under the hands of the experts of his Department and under the hands of various experts of various Departments. We, the Members of the British House of Commons, are to pass it and allow it to go upstairs because—note the words—the officials had had it under their hands. I remember a scheme brought into the House by the same Minister of Transport with the same flippancy and volubility, and it was carried to Committee upstairs. In that case we were told that the Charing Cross Bridge scheme had been analysed by the engineers, analysed by the officials of the Ministry of Transport, analysed by all the experts at the command of various Departments. I hope the House will not be deluded by all this talk about experts. Never in my life as an engineer or an architect have I ever had to witness such a chaotic and stupid proposal as that which was advanced by the experts in regard to the Charing Cross Bridge scheme. We killed that Bill on technical and engineering grounds as well as upon architectural grounds.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Robert Young): We are not now dealing with the Charing Cross Bridge.
  Mr. MacLAREN: If you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, bad been present when the Minister of Transport delivered his speech, I am sure you would appreciate the point which I am putting.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The Charing Cross Bridge is not dealt with under this Bill.
  Mr. MacLAREN: My point is that we have been asked to accept this Bill on the same grounds as we were asked to pass the Measure to which I have just referred. I put it to the House that we should not be asked to accept blindfold a scheme simply because the permanent officials have passed it, or have said the last word in regard to it. Questions have been asked about the provision of subways. Hon. Members will agree that in a Bill of this kind the pedestrians should be considered, and I have not seen anything in this Measure which will safeguard their interest. No provision has been made for
  544
  the great increase in London traffic which is bound to take place, and, if the increase of traffic in London proceeds at the same ratio as it has done during the last seven years, even the Measure we are considering will be quite inadequate to deal with the increased traffic of the future.
  We have been told that the scheme of this Bill will cost, in round figures, something less than £2,000,000. I put it to the House that that is not true, and the scheme will cost much more than £2,000,000. A protest has already been made by certain shopkeepers, and other people who will be displaced by this scheme. I understand from those who are in the inner counsels of those who are promoting this scheme that an arrangement has been come to under which land in Holborn, costing £50,000 an acre, will be purchased to provide for those who are going to be displaced by this Measure. There will also be a heavy charge for providing contiguous land which must be very dear to purchase.
  Mr. STRAUSS: May I point out to the hon. Member that it is the intention of the London County Council to rehouse those people in Stockwell?
  Mr. MacLAREN: If the London County Council has come to an agreement on this question, I am very glad to hear it. I should like to know if the sum required for rehousing these people is included in the figure which has been given as the total cost of this scheme. Before any hon. Members sitting on the Labour benches go into the Lobby, I should like them to consider one or two things. The figures have been given, and in case they are wrong I would like to ask the Minister of Transport for a confirmation of them before he leaves the House. We have been told that £1,438,000 will be devoted to compensating the landowners and the property owners. That sum is required to compensate the landowners plus compensation for property which should have been destroyed years ago. That leaves £512,000 for the great scheme.
  I want Members of the Labour party to consider those figures before they support the Bill. The Minister of Transport told us, in regard to the payment of this compensation, that it is the law of the

  545
  land that we must pay the lion's share of compensation to the landowners. The Minister of Transport told us that the experts have said that the law is such that the landowners must get the lion's share of the compensation and we have no redress. I remember another large scheme which cost £14,000,000, and £11,000,000 of that sum went in compensation to the landowners. I want Labour Members to weigh these figures very carefully. I am not saying that the improvements put forward in this Bill are not needed, and I have no hesitation in saying to the London County Council that the whole of the streets of London are a standing disgrace. In London, we have a large number of narrow streets, and yet the London County Council is standing passively by, and allowing new buildings to be erected on the old building line in streets which are already seriously congested.
  What is required in London is a broad vision, a recasting and replanning of the whole of London in order to meet the enormous pressure of the increase in traffic which modern civilisation is bringing into the heart of this great City. If you start spending money upon the improvement provided for in this. Bill at the Elephant and Castle you will have to hand over money later on for similar improvements somewhere else, and there will be no end to this kind of expenditure. There is a Budget coming, and we shall have the Chancellor of the Exchequer threatening to do something. In these circumstances, I can understand the anxiety of landowners to get rid of their property at a high market value.
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir FREDERICK HALL: I should have thought that the hon. Member for Burslem (Mr. MacLaren) would have realised that you cannot change the whole of the streets of London by using a magic wand. All these improvements have to be done in stages. As far as the Elephant and Castle improvement is concerned, I think the hon. Member for Burslem should be one of the first to recognise that the time is long overdue when that alteration should be made. Anyone who has watched the traffic going North, South, East and West at the Elephant and Castle will wonder why an improvement has not been made there before now. I am glad that at last we are going to have an improve
  546
  ment at that spot. I do not say that that improvement will last for ever, but the scheme of the London County Council is a good one, and it will be of great value to the people of London for many years to come.
  The hon. Gentleman who moved the rejection of the Bill spoke of not being agreeable to 120 feet of roadway being constructed. Anyone who knows the traffic problem there will recognise that it is absolutely necessary to have the widest possible street for such a position as is contemplated in this alteration. It I am not digressing, there is the question of London transport to be considered in connection with the alteration of the tramway system. After all, it is not a question of the construction of any new lines, but only that when you are making this alteration, the alteration to the tramway system must be contemplated and carried out. I am one of those- who are hopeful that before very long we shall have further improvements with regard to South London. We were the pioneers with regard to the tube system, and I cannot help thinking that if the various authorities, the London County Council and all those connected with the transport system of London, would give careful consideration to the position in South London by the construction of a tube, they would be able to do away with an enormous amount of congestion from which we are at present suffering.
  I have very great sympathy with the point raised by the hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Womersley). After all, you have to carry out the statutory regulations, and I do not think it is fair to take away the businesses of these various people, and simply say they must go, though they have built up their businesses for 15, 20, 30 years or longer, and many of them are what we may call more or less one- or two-assistant businesses. These people have built up goodwill and I am sorry that, according to the Statutes and regulations nothing can be paid to them by law for the loss of the goodwill of their businesses. I hope that the time is not very far distant when a general scheme of compensation for all losses that occur when a man loses his business will be dealt with. I never believe in confiscation of any business, no matter what kind. It is a great pity that the London County Council are not

  547
  in a position to give some reasonable compensation to these people who have to move their businesses to other places. It is all very well when you are dealing with housing and a man is displaced, for you can re-house him, though it may be you have got to take him, as in the present case, a mile and a-half or two miles away. That is all very well. You can do it in that case, but in regard to a man's personal business in his own neighbourhood, you cannot simply say you are going to take that business from the Elephant and Castle, St. George's Road or the Old Kent Road, and dump it down in some place in Stockwell, because business does not follow him. Therefore, the law as it at present stands is very unfair to that class of person.
  Another hon. Gentleman raised a point with regard to the London County Council paying somewhere in the neighbourhood of £50,000 per acre for the utilisation of land for rehousing. It is a pity that a statement of that nature should be made. The London County Council have made, it perfectly plain that, as regards Tabard Street, they cannot use it. They are not coming to the House of Commons and saying they will do this and do that, as was made perfectly plain by the hon. Member for West Fulham (Sir C. Cobb). They say that they are not going to undertake what they cannot carry out. As far as the Tabard Street scheme is concerned, although much nearer to the Elephant and Castle, they cannot house the people they are taking away from the parts they have got to demolish. They cannot rehouse them under the Tabard Street scheme, and they are not going to say they will. They have the Stockwell scheme and the London County Council are going to take the necessary steps for rehousing the people displaced from the Elephant and Castle area under that scheme. That is a project very different from indicating that the London County Council have purchased land in the neighbourhood of £50,000 per acre for rehousing purposes, and it is just as well that it should be made perfectly plain that they are not doing anything of the sort.
  As far as this Bill is concerned, I am entirely in sympathy with the point which has been raised by the hon. Mem-
  548
  ber for Grimsby, but it should be pointed out that the London County Council or any other authority have got to carry out their obligations according to law. It would be perfectly unfair if the London County Council, in the Bill they have brought forward, did not lay down perfectly clearly, as they have done in Clause 13, what is to be done in the statutory position in which they are placed. I am certain that if it had been within their power to make any alteration, they would have given favourable consideration to it. I hope that my hon. Friend who says he is going to vote against this Bill will do nothing of the sort, since we have had an opportunity of expressing our views here. The London County Council are faced with difficulties and are endeavouring to meet them as far as they possibly can.
  There are many of us in this House who are old members of the London County Council and know full well the" care and attention they have always given to all these matters. They consult lie various local authorities, and they have consulted Southwark with regard to this. Although we have heard it said that everything is not perhaps in just as happy a condition as it might be with regard to the borough council, nevertheless the London County Council arc not in the habit of riding roughshod over any of these local authorities. They will do what they can, and, as far as subways are concerned, though they cannot say exactly where they will be placed, they are prepared to give an undertaking that wherever subways are really required they will be provided. I think in the circumstances we should be a great deal better advised to let this Bill go through Second Reading without a Division. The Minister of Transport, in what I thought a perfectly reasonable speech, ventured to suggest that to the hon. Member who moved the rejection of the Bill. You know you are not going to kill this Bill. You might have a very small minority against it, but by that means you will not be at all helping what you want. Therefore, I do trust that when we realise the difficulties of the London County Council and know full well the care and attention they have given to these matters, we shall be able to give a unanimous Second Reading to the Bill.
  Mr. HAYCOCK: May I ask what is going to be done about the payment of £50,000 an acre for which the landlords are asking?
  Sir F. HALL: I raised that point with the hon. Member for Burslem, and no doubt, as he has indicated that £50,000 an acre was to be paid, he will be able to answer his hon. Friend's question.
  Mr. MacLAREN: I do not wish this to go any further. When I made the statement, I said that I was prepared to be corrected, but that I had been informed that £50,000 an acre was to be paid. The correction was duly made, and I accepted the correction, so I ask that it should not go any further. It seems that £50,000 has been paid for quite another scheme.
  Mr. HARRIS: I only intervene for a few moments to plead that London should be allowed to have this great improvement, and that the House will at any rate give the Bill a. Second Reading. It is many years since. London has had any great improvement, and this is a case in which all the elected members of a properly constituted municipal authority are agreed. There is as much difference in most matters between members at the County Hall as there is in this House, but it would be most unfortunate that London this year should be deprived of an opportunity of bringing about this improvement, which is going to facilitate London traffic so much. Every day the cost of the delays to the movement of goods and passengers runs into many thousands of pounds. I suggest that this Bill should be allowed to go to a Committee, and I am authorised to say that the council is prepared to meet every reasonable request. I go further, and say this: The particular tenants about whom my hon. Friend is so concerned are only weekly tenants. Of course, anyone who has a long lease or other interest in the property would be able to claim compensation, but the ordinary weekly tenants are more likely to get some substantial gratuity from the county council—and, in fact, it is the general custom to give them something in such cases—than if they were turned out by the landlord.
  Mr. ISAACS: Are we to understand that the London County Council is pre-
  550
  pared to consider the erection of houses on the site that is going to be cleared?
  Mr. HARRIS: I understand that that is quite impracticable, but what they propose to do is to put up brand-new buildings—I have seen the plans and know the site—so that every person who is displaced will be rehoused. The Ministry of Health is the protector of tenants who are displaced, and no public authority would be allowed to turn people out of their houses unless they can show that alternative accommodation will be provided.
  Mr. ISAACS: My ease is that Southwark wants houses. Here is a great site that is to be cleared. Will the county council give us some houses on that site, apart from the people who are going to be displaced and rehoused, or is it going to be handed over for industrial purposes?
  Mr. HARRIS: I am not in a position to say, but I suggest that in Committee these matters can be raised, and every reasonable security that is lacking can be fought for in Committee. All that I ask is that this Bill should go to a properly constituted Committee of this House, where all the interests concerned can be sure that their rights will be considered. If the Bill comes down from the Committee unchanged, by all means let hon. Members raise these questions on the Third Reading, but I do ask that this improvement, which is most urgently required for London traffic in the interests of business and trade and of the travelling public as a whole, should not be delayed.
  Mr. WOMERSLEY: The hon. Member for South West Bethnal Green (Mr. Harris) was interrupted when he was making a statement with reference to the tenants, and I did not quite catch what he said. Do I understand that the Council is prepared to consider the case of these tenants with a view to compensation?
  Mr. HARRIS: All that I can say is that it is the general practice to deal sympathetically with ordinary weekly tenants, and to give them as generous treatment as is possible.
  Sir F. HALL: May I, in order to make matters clear, say that I am authorised

  551
  by the London County Council to say that they have purchased no land at the rate of £50,000 an acre for housing purposes?
  Question, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a Second time, and committed.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE.
Lady NOEL-BUXTON: I beg to move,
"That, in the opinion of this House, unemployment insurance should be extended to include agricultural workers."
It must be a temptation to every new Member speaking in this House for the first time to follow the example of the late Lord Balfour, and to speak during the dinner hour on a dull subject. However, the London County Council Bill robbed me of the dinner hour, and I could not waste my Motion on any subject that was not of urgent importance. In speaking for the first time, I can say at least that, as was said by an old writer:
"There was one excellency that was within my reach; it was brevity, and I determined to obtain it."
Brevity will not hurt my cause. As was said by Steele,
"When a man has no desire but to speak plain truth, he may say a good deal in a very narrow compass."
My two reasons for the choice of my subject are as follows. In the first place, I represent a purely agricultural constituency; and, in the second place, I come from that constituency with a mandate—a very recent mandate; and I am perfectly certain that other Members who have been in agricultural constituencies in the last few months will agree with me that this is a matter of the most urgent importance. There are two questions that will be asked at once. The first is: Is there enough unemployment to justify this measure At the moment, as all agricultural Members know, there is not a great deal of unemployment, because it is of a seasonal nature in agriculture; but when the roots have been lifted will he the time when agricultural unemployment begins. It was had enough last winter to justify such a measure, and I am afraid that it will
552
be as bad or worse this winter. There have been a great many prophets, who have not been making things very cheerful for the agricultural labourer in my own and other constituencies. A Noble Lord from my constituency, speaking in another place, said that after Christmas thousands of agricultural workers will be out of work; and during my recent election campaign another prophet, who was resident for the time being in my constituency, said that, if his advice was not followed, 9,000 agricultural labourers in Norfolk alone would be out of work this winter. The Noble Lord to whom I referred has, however, chosen to leave the East Coast for the East Indies, so he will not be here to see whether he proves to be a true or an untrue prophet. Personally, I prefer resident prophets.
The second question that will be asked is: Are the agricultural labourers themselves in favour of this Motion? There was a time when they could think of nothing but the cost, but now they are certainly united in demanding that this Measure shall be passed, particularly since the debate in January of this year, when the right hon. Lady the Minister of Labour said:
"We must try and find a financial basis which will not merely make a possible scheme, but which will he in the competence of the agricultural labourer to pay."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th January, 1930; col. 1139, Vol. 234.]
A low contribution, and I say this vehemently, is essential. An agricultural labourer out of his small wage is not able to pay a large contribution. Recently in this House the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edgbaston (Mr. Chamberlain) referred to the meagre wages of agricultural labourers, and one reason why agricultural unemployment insurance is necessary is that the agricultural labourer cannot save. There is no stocking in the modern agricultural labourer's home. He cannot save for a rainy day, because it is raining all the time, or, anyhow, there is a Scotch mist all the time, as Members from North of the Tweed would say.
The Noble Lord who represents Aldershot (Viscount Wolmer) supplemented the remark I mentioned just now by saying:
"We believe that the maintenance and stabilisation of agricultural prices at a figure at which the farmers can earn a livelihood and the farm labourers maintain

553
their present wages…are the only hope for agriculture in this emergency."
If the only hope of their new agricultural policy is to be that wages are maintained at the present level, there is certainly not much hope in the future, if the opposite party is in power, of the labourer being able to do without unemployment insurance. There is nothing between the agricultural labourer this winter and destitution but the Poor Law. In the villages, the fact that the agricultural labourer is debarred from insurance causes a certain amount of jealousy. He is working side by side, for instance, with the carpenter, who is fully insured. A father may be in the position of having to depend more or less on charity, while his son is fully insured. There were very hard cases last winter in my constituency. There is one particularly hard case that arises, and that is of a man who works in a sugar-beet factory. He does not pay his 30 contributions, because the factory only works for a few months, and he gets no benefit whatever. There are also men who have been working in road gangs under the county council and have made a certain number of contributions. They are now out of work, not having paid sufficient contributions to entitle them to benefit.
Not only is it a danger to the men to let them go on in this way but it is a danger to the industry, because the men are leaving the land in large numbers. The disease which even in Joseph Arch's day was called "man rot" is setting in, and one of the chief reasons why young men will not stay on the land is that they have an inferiority complex owing to the fact that they are treated unlike other workers in having no unemployment insurance. Attempts have been made to keep them on the land, very laudable attempts, attempts that are called "brightening the villages," but a man cannot very well enjoy dancing on the village green and cannot laugh at the sallies of Falstaff on the platform of the village hall if the prospect of unemployment, and no provision for it, lies like a shadow across his home. Agricultural labourers ask for security before gaiety.
When the agricultural labourers have left the land in large numbers, sooner or later will come a boom in agriculture, because a depression cannot go on for ever. Agriculture is much courted at the moment. She has at least four suitors. One is crusading vigorously on her
554
behalf, offering to give her an England flowing with Canadian milk and New Zealand honey. When the labourers have gone, people will realise, what many living in urban districts do not realise to-day, that this is a skilled profession. Anyone who has spent a week-end in a farmhouse will find, if they try laying a hedge, thatching or ploughing, that they cannot compete with a skilled man at the job, and they will come back to their town dwelling with a deeper respect for the agricultural labourer in their heart. We must take in time Goldsmith's warning given very many years ago in the "Deserted Village."
"A bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroyed, can never be supplied."
Hon. Members may say I am unduly optimistic, that no boom can ever come and that the sky is as brass, but I see in the policy put forward from these benches a cloud, perhaps no bigger at present than a man's hand, which will mean that rain will fall on the parched soil.
The chief argument used against this Measure is that the industry cannot stand it. It is the last straw that breaks the camel's back. But legislation is being brought in for the purpose of strengthening the camel before the last straw is put on. Another argument is that the country cannot stand it. The Leader of the Opposition said the other day that the nation cannot afford to finance schemes not productive of return. I claim that this is a scheme which, from the point of view of every party, is productive of return, because anything that brings health and efficiency to our second largest industry must be looked upon as productive. After all, health is wealth, and
"gold that buys health can never be misspent."
It was left for this generation to find out the tremendous effect of worry upon health. Worry and fear undermine health, and the labourer cannot be at his best when he lives a life constantly overshadowed by fear and worry. There is not only the labourer himself to consider, but his wife and children, and the worry that comes to the mother and the children, and the unborn children, is all very much undermining the health of the nation. A case occurred the other day in my constituency—I hope no case like

555
it will ever occur again-in which a man worried so much over the possibility of unemployment that now his reason is clouded, and he is in an asylum. He will never follow the plough again.
Such cases must not be allowed to occur, but I am afraid at present many agricultural labourers are in a position in which their worries are so great that their reason may be in danger. I cannot imagine a worse case than that of an agricultural labourer in a tied cottage, with wife and children, who knows that if he loses his job he loses his home and who has made no provision for the future. Christmas is not so very far off. It is sad to think that at what is a festive season to many of us the agricultural labourer is going through his greatest period of worry. Last Christmas, at a time when one hopes for just a little more in the cupboard, many boys of 18 and 19 were coming home unemployed asking their parents for a crust. Poverty is the only load which is the heavier the more loved ones there are to assist in supporting it. I was very glad to see the Minister of Labour in the debate earlier this year said she realised the difficulties of the task but that difficulties were there to be surmounted. We hope to hear to-night that this subject is receiving serious attention. One thing I wish to say emphatically, and that is that any legislation that gives extra security and prosperity to the farmer must always go hand in hand with measures to secure corresponding security for the labourer. I feel that this Measure is one of these. I look confidently to the Labour party to make the agricultural worker a man of
"cheerful yesterdays and confident tomorrows."
Mr. W. B. TAYLOR: I beg to second the Motion.
It falls to my lot to have the honour of very sincerely congratulating the Noble Lady upon a most excellent, cogent and moving speech. I am sure that the House will wish to hear more from her along the lines so ably indicated to-night. I do not know whether I shall be in order, but one cannot help recalling that as far back as 1823 a Fowell Buxton, a member of an earlier branch of the same family, moved for the first time, in a hostile House, a Motion dealing with the abolition of slavery, which, although
556
defeated, in a few short years, in 1833, enabled him to see the emancipation of slaves in the British Dominions, which he described as the main object of his life. It is not, I think, out of keeping with this occasion that I respectfully suggest, as a representative from the county of Norfolk, and remembering the words that the late Minister of Agriculture did in this House for many years, that the one outstanding occasion for which his name will remain in the memory of this House and the cottages of the agricultural workers was the bringing in of the Agricultural Wages Act for the benefit of that class which has too often been forgotten. I again congratulate the Noble Lady on the fact that her first speech in this House should be one on behalf of the lowest, the bottom dog in the social scale of this country under the existing system. She is opening out a new vista, and on this occasion we hope that the result may be to place the agricultural worker in a position, and on terms of definite equality with his fellow-workers in the cities and the industrial centres in relation to Unemployment Insurance.
10.0 p.m.
We welcome the fact that the present Government—this House has already endorsed it on an earlier occasion—have endorsed the principle which the Motion seeks to advance. Such being the case, we look forward with confidence that at the earliest possible moment this House may seek to give practical effect to what, after all, is a measure of justice, fair-play and reasonable provision for men who have too long been denied the opportunities which others have enjoyed. I think it was Samuel Johnson, writing as far back as 1756, who said:
"Agriculture is the spring which sets the whole machine of commerce in motion. and the sail cannot he spread without the assistance of the plough."
And he goes on to say:
"Though the farmer and the farm worker are of such utility to the State, we find them in general too much disregarded among the politer kind of people in the present age."
That was in 1756. I think that if Samuel Johnson could have come into this House during this Session he would have discovered a Government which is giving agriculture a far better recognition than it has had at least since the War in relation to this and other problems. And because the Motion, so ably moved by the Noble Lady, puts the

557
necessary completion to the position thus far developed) from the standpoint of the farm worker, I must express my surprise that my hon. Friends on the other side of the House, especially the agricultural Members who know the hard-pressed condition—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where are they?" and "There are five of them!"] I do not wish to criticise the Members who are here. Perhaps the absence of hon. Members means that they have not the face to come and try to stop this very reasonable demand. Do I gather that the presence of our Friends here is rather to bless and not to curse? I hope that that may be the position, because cannot believe that 'the Conservative mind in this House which has had agricultural experience and knows rural conditions can feel that it is either wise statesmanship or patriotic to raise one little barrier against this simple act of justice to the farm worker. The provision is so necessary. It is the one barrier against his application to the public assistance committee which is repugnant to a self-respecting agricultural worker. The seasonal occupation and the later rotation of crops, arising partly from the introduction of sugar-beet and partly from the unremunerative price of cereals and other causes, which it is not my duty to enter upon at this stage, have caused, during recent years, especially during the last two years, a terrible amount of unemployment, especially in East Anglia. I shall never forget the look of indignation of agricultural workers who had been employed all their lives when told that they were expected to apply for parish relief. It seemed altogether alien to their conception of justice, and I think it is alien to the highest conception of justice in this honourable House. We must find a more satisfactory way. Our people are not asking for charity; they are asking for justice. The agricultural worker is not prepared to make as large a contribution as the city worker is enabled to make by reason of his larger wage, but he is willing to pay his share in keeping with the small wage which he at present receives. Speaking individually as a small tenant farmer, I am sure that the employer is willing to pay his share, having regard to the position
558
in which the industry is placed. I am going to appeal to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, if it is possible for such a scheme to be launched, to remember that while we ask for a smaller contribution from the worker and the employer in agriculture than is asked from others, the need of the agricultural worker is equal to that of the worker in the city. Therefore, the State will wish, I hope, to make the same standard of contribution towards assisting these deserving people.
This Motion asks for one further step towards economic freedom for farm workers. In the last century, as my hon. Friends know, the Liberal party made no mean contribution to the great cause of political freedom. I think that the challenge to the new party on this side of the House is to seek to secure real economic freedom. This is one step in that direction. I think it was as far back as 1875 that John Bright, speaking in this House, quoted these words:
"The landless labourer, hopeless, toils and strives,
And tastes no portion of the Fruit he hives."
I want to suggest that, long ago as that may seem, there is still a great deal of truth in the quotation in present day conditions in regard to this industry, which has been too long forgotten in this House, in regard to its value to the State, and in regard to the contribution these people are willing to make towards the prosperity of the State. In passing this Motion we shall give the Government renewed encouragement to launch this simple remedy against unemployment. Later, we hope to make unemployment impossible by the various Acts arising from our Bills now under consideration, of which we hope that this Motion will form one part. We shall endeavour to strengthen the industrial and human position of those who have done so much in the past centuries for the welfare of this old country, and at long last we shall crown the efforts of men like Joseph Arch, Sir George Edwards and others who have made their contribution. I suppose that I am not in order, but I cannot refrain from saying how glad I am to see my old friend, Sir George, within this building listening to appeals on behalf of the farm workers. I thank the House for the courtesy with which it has listened to this appeal, and

559
I appeal to my hon. Friends opposite to give the agricultural worker a fair chance in order that he may stand on equal terms with the workers in other industries.
Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: I beg to move to leave out from the word "That to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words:
"inasmuch as His Majesty's Government have announced their intention to appoint a Royal Commission to investigate the question of unemployment insurance, this House is of opinion that the question of the extension of unemployment insurance to agricultural labourers should be referred to the aforesaid Royal Commission."
When a maiden speech is made by the Mover of a Motion it is the custom for the first Opposition speaker who moves an Amendment to pay a tribute to the hon. Member who has made the maiden speech. The speech of the Noble Lady was delivered with intense sincerity and charm. When a son succeeds a father, one finds it easy to talk about heredity, but when a wife succeeds her husband there is perhaps no adjective that occurs to one. In this case I would like to say one word about a rhyme which I remember in the old days, which ran:
"No Noel for North Norfolk."
I am sure that we are glad to have a Noel again in this House. When we first read the Motion which the Noble Lady has moved it occurred to us that it was a demand that the agricultural labourer should bolster up a bankrupt scheme of unemployment insurance, but I understand from the Mover and Seconder of the Resolution that that is not entirely their intention. Whatever they may say, that will be the result, and I think the House is entitled in these circumstances to turn to the history of unemployment insurance so far as it affects agricultural workers. In 1921 a Committee sat on this subject. We have to remember that in 1921 the conditions were very different from the conditions prevailing to-day, and we may be sure that the conclusions arrived at by that Committee are not altogether justified at the present time. Their conclusions against such insurance were (1) on the ground of general opposition by employers and workers in agriculture under the general provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1920. Another reason
560
was that there was no evidence that a special scheme under the Act or a voluntary scheme outside the Act would be acceptable. A third reason which they advanced was that the incidence of unemployment was insufficient to enable such a scheme to be prepared.
In 1925, another Committee was set up under what we might call rather more modern conditions. They went very carefully into the scheme and they estimated that 1 per cent. of regular workers, and 5 per cent. of casual workers might claim benefit in the course of the year, and that the average duration of unemployment would be in the case of the regular workers four weeks, and in the case of the casual workers 10 weeks. It is clear, whatever the Mover and Seconder of the Motion have said, that the people who are keenest on being included in an unemployment insurance scheme are the casual workers and those whose occupation in agriculture is only semipermanent. Of the others, the foremen and permanent workers, their desire to remain outside a scheme has been very severly shaken during the present year because they have seen alongside themselves people who are out of work and who are in some cases getting more money than they get. But that is only a temporary phase. The Committee said that if the scheme started on the calculation of an annual liability of £250,000 it would provide for a greater degree of unemployment than appeared to exist. They further said that if the whole of the 800,000 agricultural workers were insurable, a weekly payment of 6d. in respect of each of them would give an annual revenue of approximately £1,000,000. That would show on the whole a considerable profit on the scheme. The suggestion made by the Committee was that 3d. should be paid by the State and l½d. by the employer and 1½d. by the worker.
The Committee took the case of a farm of 250 acres employing 10 regular workers, which is rather in excess of the number employed at the present time on such an acreage. That would involve a charge of £3 a year, or rather less than 3d. per acre. No scheme of unemployment insurance for agricultural workers has been recommended unanimously. There has only been a majority of one for the recommendation that there should

561
be an unemployment insurance scheme for agricultural workers. I think that the scheme of 1925 should be reviewed in the light of present circumstances, for which this Government are responsible, and for that reason, along with several of my hon. Friends, I have suggested that it should he referred to the Royal Commission that is now sitting.
I now come to consider the attitude of the farmers towards this scheme. Naturally they know that any additional burden on agriculture will be very grievous and hard at the present time. I have received a very interesting letter from a farmer in which he says:
"We have still much of the old feeling of companionship for our men and find work for them, not always profitably to ourselves throughout the whole year. If there were an unemployment fund we should then have no scruples in discharging any of them for a long or abort time;"—
If this scheme is put into operation there is a danger of an increase in un-employment—
"either when work was slack or more often when we had difficulty in finding the cash to pay them. When a good many men are out of work then the Government may realise that agriculture is really in a bad way; so long as the farmer alone suffers, and not his men, nobody in authority cares."
That is a criticism which the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Labour should bear in mind. No more drastic criticism has been uttered than that passed by the Noble Lady in moving, this Motion. She said that there is nothing between the agricultural labourer this winter but destitution or the poor law. What a comment on agricultural affairs as administered by the present Government. If there was a little bit of ginger in the Government they would say that the difficulties are there to be surmounted; and I hope they will find the means to surmount them. And what is going to happen to the smallholders under this proposal? I hope the Minister of Labour will tell us. At the present time there are glaring instances of injustice and inequality. Small traders, or employers in a small way, who are almost as badly off as those who are receiving unemployment benefit are not able to come into the scheme. What is going to happen to the smallholder, especially in view of the Bill which has been promised by the Government? Are they to be allowed to
562
come in? And what about their wives and families who work for them for no wages? That is an aspect of the matter which should be considered by a Royal Commission. For these and other reasons I am proposing that this matter should be reviewed by a Royal Commission. It will enable the Government to consider their position afresh with new information at their disposal. I do not know whether they are going to accept my proposal. If they do, well and good they do not, what sort of a scheme are they going to propose Are they going to leave the agricultural labourer to the mercy of the poor law or are they going to have a special scheme of their own? There is only one way of dealing with this matter and that is for a Royal Commission to inquire into it.
Mr. BUTLER: I beg to second the Amendment.
I should like to add my congratulations to the Noble Lady the Member for Norfolk North (Lady Noel-Buxton) on her maiden speech. I was interested in one remark which she made, and that was that it was the last straw which broke the camel's back and she said that the policy of the present administration was to strengthen the back of the camel. I take it that that is an acknowledgment that the policy of the present Government is to strengthen the back of the camel in order to place additional burdens on the back of the agricultural camel. That may be taken as a fair indication of the policy of His Majesty's Government towards the great industry in which I know the Noble Lady is so vitally interested. The policy rather should he to relieve the burdens on the back of the camel of agriculture and enable it to proceed in the way it should go. In the distressed areas, where unemployment exists, this scheme we believe will be regarded by the farmers and farm workers as a last straw, which in the present condition of the industry will break the back of the agricultural camel. I come from a district which realises the gravity of the situation this winter as regards unemployment. At the same time, even though I acknowledge almost every word that the Noble Lady has said about the situation, yet I think that the course suggested in the Amendment is a very much saner course than that proposed in the Motion. I was very

563
glad to notice, in passing, that the Noble Lady suggested a low contribution in any scheme. We all realise that it would be impossible for the agricultural worker to afford as high a contribution as that which the industrial worker pays.
There is one point I wish to deal with before giving reasons for supporting the Amendment. The Noble Lady said that the industry was united in a demand for unemployment insurance. I challenge that statement, because I do not think it represents the facts. In the Recess I went round all the agricultural villages in my constituency. It is an arable district, and I dare say that I have as many of such villages in the district as any hon. Member. I raised this question purposely at every meeting. A decision was taken in an informal way on each occasion, and the voting of the agricultural workers was approximately half for and half against insurance. I would warn the Noble Lady against believing that the unions in agriculture represent the agricultural workers. It is a well known fact that they do not, and that the great majority of agricultural workers are in fact outside the unions, although the opinions of the unions have had so much attention paid to them by the Labour party.
It is only fair to the many thousands of agricultural workers outside the unions to say that they do not agree with the recommendations of the unions. I believe it to be the case that the majority of farm workers are not in favour of a scheme of unemployment insurance at the present time. That is not to say that I personally have not great sympathy with the idea, if it could be worked out in a practical way, and if we are to hear from the Government that they have no scheme to put the farming industry on its feet. We have always said, on this side of the House, that the best way to cure unemployment in agriculture is to make farming pay. We believe that the scheme which we have outlined for the arable districts is much more likely to take away the dread of unemployment than the suggestion to apply the same remedies in the country as in the towns.
Dr. MORRIS-JONES: What schemes?
Mr. BUTLER: The scheme which we have outlined repeatedly, to give a
564
guaranteed price for British wheat. I am convinced, from knowledge of the arable districts, that such a scheme would. be much more effective than anything proposed by the Government, which the Noble Lady said has only had the effect of strengthening the back of the camel to take further burdens instead of removing some of those burdens. Unemployment exists almost entirely or largely in the arable districts. Until we adopt a policy for saving our own agriculturists by guaranteeing them a fixed price for their produce, we can have no diminution of unemployment in the arable districts. I could pursue this subject indefinitely, as regards policy. There is the question of a tax on imported foreign barley which would also help the arable districts and particularly that district in which I am interested could pursue the subject in relation to oats and the whole range of agricultural products. As I have explained to the agricultural workers who sent me to this House, I believe that we have a practical policy for-every single one of these agricultural commodities and but for the fact that time is limited and other hon. Members wish to speak upon this important point, I could detain the House longer in dealing with it.
I desire, however, to give certain reasons why I consider it best that this subject should be put before a Royal Commission as suggested in thé Amendment. First there is the question of the relationship between town and country. I believe that the Noble Lady is right in saying that certain anomalies arise as between workers in the town and those in the country. An agricultural worker who is unemployed may for a time drift into employment which has unemployment insurance. Then a difficult position arises if he wishes to return to the land. We know the difficulty which employers have when they send to the towns for men to work at seasonal agricultural employment. The men reply that while they remain in town employment, they have unemployment insurance, but if they go into the countryside they submit to the danger of being deprived of it. Anomalies undoubtedly exist and there are matters which should be considered by a body like a Royal Commission, so that we may receive technical advice upon the difficulties and upon the best method of removing them.

565
Reference has also been made to the question of whether or not the farmers would turn men off if a scheme were introduced. I have heard it said that if an unemployment insurance scheme were brought in to deal with the labour emergency in the coming winter, it would result in a great number of men being turned out of work. The men consider that they and their families would be less well off under a State-regulated scheme than in submitting, as they do at present, in the old tradition of agriculture, to the generous treatment of their masters. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh but in no industry in England are there such amicable relations between master and men as in agriculture. [Laughter.] An hon. Member continues to laugh but it only shows that he has not been in touch with the masters and men in the amble districts during the present great depression. The farmer has often been compared to the sailor on his ship. He has to face emergencies and sudden eventualities and on those occasions he is on closer terms with his men, and is more loth to turn them off, than would be the case if they were part and parcel of a big industrial machine where there is no personal relationship. Instead of smiling at a remark of that sort those who know the agricultural districts take a pride in the fact that there is, so to speak, a family relationship between master arid men in agriculture. We believe that if industrial legislation is introduced into the countryside we shall lose a great deal of that personal relationship to which we attach enormous importance and which is so much a pan of the philosophy of the country side.
The third reason why there should be further technical consideration of any such scheme is the fact that physical difficulties would arise in administration, in regard to distances and so forth. In the town you have your Employment Exchanges in a central position, which can easily be got at. I have talked this question over night After night with agricultural workers in my own district, and we have come to the conclusion that it would need very expert advice to get a satisfactory agreement as to how this scheme should be administered with the least physical difficulty to the unemployed workers themselves. Distances in the country places are very great, and
566
greater in certain parts of England than in others; and in any great scheme such as this there will be great difficulties of administration which could best be decided by a Royal Commission.
I think the reasons given are sufficient to justify us on this side in asking for an expert body to consider this scheme. I have always had a great deal of sympathy with men who say that they definitely want it, but I have always found that when the difficulties were put up to them they came round to the point of view of those many other men who are in sure and certain employment, and that it is only the casuals who are likely to be out of work. A farm has to be run by certain hands. We have heard in discussions of agricultural depression in this House that the depression is not so obvious because the farms have to be kept going and cannot be shut down, like a factory. Therefore, they have to have their bare minimum of men working on them. We have already got down to that bare minimum of men in almost every district, and we believe it will be difficult to turn off more men now. Therefore, we believe the danger is not so great, although we are fully alive to the horrible nature of the danger should this policy be adopted.
We would ask the right hon. Lady to submit this question to the Royal Commission, with all the advice that can be brought to bear, so that the farm workers of this country, if they are to have such a scheme, shall have the benefit of a scheme which does not have the danger, in the words of the right hon. Lady herself, of bringing in the healthy lives to make up for the lives that are not so healthy. That was a phrase which she used some time ago with reference to the insurance of farm Workers. We wish the farm workers to have the matter investigated in the best manner possible, and then they will be satisfied whatever decision is come to.
The MINISTER of LABOUR (Miss Bondfield): I should like also to add my word of congratulation on the maiden speech of the Noble Lady the Member for North Norfolk (Lady Noel-Buxton), in which she showed us that we have secured an addition to the debating power of this House and, what, is equally and perhaps more important, a very ardent and

567
firm advocate and a specialist on agricultural questions with a knowledge of agricultural conditions.
I think the Movers of the Motion may congratulate themselves upon the debate so far, because although hon. Members opposite have moved an Amendment that the question should be referred to a Royal Commission, they have not in fact shown any very great enthusiasm about opposing the idea of the unemployment insurance of agricultural labourers. As a matter of fact, the last speaker went very far over the line in agreeing with us that something of the kind really ought to be done. The position that I take up has been made perfectly clear to this House on more than one occasion. I very cordially wish to support the principle contained in the Motion, and I am rather sorry that hon. Members opposite are moving an Amendment, because it would have been very interesting to have a further discussion alone upon the principle of the extension of unemployment insurance to agricultural workers, without any other issue being raised. But, of course, I shall not oppose the Amendment, because agriculture must be one of the questions which it will be proper for the Royal Commission on Unemployment Insurance to consider.
The history of the development of opinion on this question is very interesting and was referred to by the hon. and gallant Member for Louth (Lieut.-Colonel IIeneage). It is within the recollection of this House that prior to 1920, when the Acts were extended, we could get no support from any quarter for the inclusion of agriculture within the scope of the Acts, and even the first Rew Committee reported that they -could get no support for agricultural workers. By 1925 there was a very distinct change of opinion in the country, and in the Pew Committee of 1025, the majority definitely came down on the side of a scheme, although they conditioned it by a request that it should be a special scheme apart and separate from the Ministry of Labour, but under the Ministry of Agriculture, in terms which further consideration showed to be impracticable. In 1930, a Motion was carried in this House in favour of the extension of insurance to agricultural labourers by 185 votes to 82.
568
What is the cause of the change of opinion? It is due to changes that are taking place in methods of agriculture. I will take one illustration, that of sugarbeet. May I give the House some figures which I secured from the Ministry of Agriculture quite recently? The British Sugar (Subsidy) Act was passed in 1925. Before that, in 1924, the acreage of sugar-beet under cultivation was 22,414. In 1930, the estimated acreage was 320,000. The sugar-beet industry is a seasonal trade, and, whereas in 1924 there were 2,630 seasonal casual labourers employed on farms, there were estimated to be 28,000 in 1929. So that the change that has taken place in those areas where sugar-beet has been introduced has been all in the direction of shaking the security of the agricultural labourer in regard to all the year round employment. It is largely because of that feeling of uncertainty about the continuity of tenure that public opinion has changed an this question.
At the beginning of this year, when the House passed that Resolution, I followed up the question by starting discussions, and when discussions began with organised groups of workers connected with agriculture, there were great difficulties in coming to grips with the details of the scheme. These discussions have continued, and only yesterday I received an important deputation representing not merely Norfolk, but a large proportion of the agricultural counties in this country, which had by discussion come to the conclusion that it was not a reasonable thing to ask to be excepted from the general framework of insurance, but that within that framework some scheme should be evolved which would come to their relief. It has been urged that there are a large number of workers in agriculture who even now, in spite of the changed conditions, have security of tenure. I admit that, and I think my hon. Friends admit it; but so there are in the industrial world, where we have already compulsory unemployment insurance. A large number of persons who are paying into unemployment insurance are in permanent employment, but they are covered against any risk that may occur to them, just as most hon. Members in this House are insured against fire. They go on paying their fire insurance, but they thank God that no fire happens. We

569
must regard the principle of unemployment insurance in the same way. The workers are insured against a possible risk, and who is brave enough, or has foresight enough, or is knowledgeable enough, to be able to say that the agricultural labourers, who are to-day in security, will be equally in security five years hence?
With the coming of mechanical power applied to agriculture, as it is already being applied to industry, processes may change, and these changes may result in a great accentuation of intermittent work in agriculture, as it has resulted in intermittent work in other industries. Therefore, I am not at all surprised to find this progressive demand growing throughout the whole of the country amongst a group of workers who only as lately as 1920 were opposed altogether to coming into insurance. It is a mark of the rapidity of the changes which are taking place in connection with all the processes of production, whether in agriculture or industry. It is quite true that there are obstacles to be overcome, but I am glad to be able to say that some of the obstacles which seemed insurmountable when we began our discussion at the beginning of the year have, in fact, been overcome; and just as we have overcome those, it is possible that by continued discussions—discussions which will be continued with eagerness so far as I am concerned—we shall be able, with expert and technical advice on the various difficulties that may occur, ultimately to bring agricultural labourers within the scheme of unemployment insurance.
Mr. GUINNESS: I am very glad that the right hon. Lady has accepted the Amendment which has been moved from this side of the House. It is quite clear from what she has told us that she is not to-night in a position to give us sufficient information to justify us in forming an opinion as to whether, in view or actuarial possibilities, it is advisable that agricultural labourers should be brought into unemployment insurance. Undoubtedly there is a great division of opinion amongst agricultural workers, and I do not think it is possible for us to commit ourselves without details of what is actually possible. It is a matter which can only be decided after careful inquiry by a Government Department or by committees which have all the
570
actuarial information and all the resources of a State Department at their disposal. When the right hon. Lady is able to give us that information, she can rest assured that we on this side of the House will give very sympathetic consideration to any scheme brought forward which is within the power of the agricultural labourer's finances and which can be framed to secure him from the consequences of unemployment without undue burden. Until we know that such a scheme is possible it would not be honest to our constituents to commit ourselves to what can only be a generality. I am glad the right hon. Lady is going into this matter thoroughly, and that she agrees with the reasonableness of our attitude.
Mr. ERNEST WINTERTON: As the representative of a. constituency where one-third of the people are workers on the land I am unable to agree with the last speaker in congratulating the Minister of Labour on the decision to accept this Amendment. I regret that what apparently has been decided is that this matter should be postponed. I believe the postponement of this matter is a very serious danger. Royal Commissions are a favourite expedient for not doing anything, and so far as I have been able to study this question I am of the opinion that already the Government are in possession of sufficient information to enable them to bring before the House a tentative scheme, a special scheme for agricultural insurance of an experimental character which would at any rate justify the Labour party in the pledges which it has given—pledges which are now becoming popular on the Liberal benches—in favour of the principle of agricultural insurance and show that we mean at the earliest possible moment to implement those promises.
I think, rightly or wrongly, that when the Government approach a problem of this kind they ought at any rate to-have a little more faith than they sometimes display. I am beginning to be told by my friends that the only really progressive people in this House are those who sit on the Liberal benches, and my friends also tell me that the Liberals seem prepared to go even further than the Labour Government. I think we ought to test those professions, and I would say to the Government, "let us

571
find out whether those professions of support for a full-blooded policy have any substance in them or not." In every quarter of the House, I think there is sufficient support for an immediate scheme to insure agricultural workers against the risk of unemployment to warrant us in expecting a far bolder declaration than we have had from the Minister of Labour.
I am sorry that almost the first suggestion made by the right hon. Lady seemed to be that she was not taking up any hostile attitude towards this proposal for postponement. Never before has there been such grave risk of men losing their jobs on the land than we shall have to face during the coming months of the present winter. I know of men who, up to the present, have always been able to get a job, who are now in danger of losing their employment. Farmers tell me that they are dismissing men whom they have employed for years, and, that being so, surely this is not the time for postponing or delaying taking action in this matter. Any reexamination of this question simply means going over the same ground that has been gone over so many times. I associate myself with those who urge the immediacy of this problem, and I congratulate them upon taking that view. I am sure that the general feeling of the Members of this House is not hostile to the introduction of a Bill dealing with this question. I was amused, if not amazed, by the way in which the Mover and Seconder of this Resolution dealt with this subject. Certainly, it was not on the merits of the speeches from the Opposition that the hon. Lady accepted this Motion. Speeches of less merit have scarcely ever been heard in this House, for the speakers contradicted each other. One of them, for example the hon. and gallant Member for Louth (Lieut.-Colonel Heneage), was afraid that a scheme for insuring agricultural labourers was being introduced in order to bolster up a bankrupt scheme of general unemployment insurance.
Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: I made it quite clear when reading the terms of the Amendment that that was the obvious inference to be drawn from it.
Mr. WINTERTON: The hon. Member has not really denied the suggestion I made. I suggest again that he wished to make us believe that the expedient which is now suggested would have the effect of bolstering up the general insurance scheme. He went on to give us some figures which showed that this scheme would not really affect the general insurance scheme at all, because on his own suggestion it would show a profit, and there would be a balance as a result. That being so, how can it be suggested that this is a scheme to put a new burden on the agricultural industry? The Seconder of this Amendment went on to suggest that there was going to be another burden put on the back of the camel. It is always dangerous to use metaphors either in this House or anywhere else, because almost immediately he went on to show that there was to be no real burden put on this industry. He agreed that two opposite things were going to happen. First of all he said that as the result of insurance for unemployment being extended to the agricultural industry there would be a disposition on the part of the farmers to show no scruples in getting rid of their men, and he went on to tell us that already the amount of labour had been reduced to the very barest minimum, and that, in fact, there was no superfluous labour which could be got rid of, because the farms must go on, and the bone had already been picked, with the result that there was no margin to be displaced. A I followed the hon. Gentleman, I could see there was no need for anybody on this side to reply to him, because he had destroyed the case which he had built up.
I want to give, very briefly, the reasons why I think this question should not be postponed, and that an immediate treatment of the subject is called for. There is a strong prima facie case already made out for the extension of insurance to agriculture. No stronger or better case could be made out for it if you had half a dozen Royal Commissions. There has been, as was acknowledged by the Minister of Labour herself, an increasing demand on the part of the industry itself that this reform should be brought about. We have to remember the moral claim of the agricultural labourer. He is

573
a consumer and a taxpayer, and by that fact is already contributing his quota to the insurance of men in far better economic circumstances than he is himself, and yet he is denied, and finds delayed, the possibility of entering into similar benefit himself.
I noticed that the Seconder of the Amendment spoke about the family relationship that exists between master and man, the care that the employers in this Kingdom have for the life and welfare and wages and well-being of the men whom they employ. Yes, but I do not find those masters associating with those labourers when they go to the Poor Law or find themselves in the workhouse. That, unhappily, is the fate of many of those who labour on the land to-day, and, the sooner we remove the possibility of that stigma upon the workers in the countryside, the better will be the credit of this House. I think I am expressing the feeling of many Members when I say that there is a feeling of great disappointment at the speech which has been delivered. The sympathy which has been expressed from the Front Bench and from all quarters of the House is, I believe, as sincere as it is general, but I am reminded of some lines which show that mere sympathy with an idea is not necessarily the end that is called for when such a problem as this is being discussed:
"I know the right, and I approve it, too;
Condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue."
We feel that the wrong step is being taken—a step which will cause grave disappointment to many of those who have been looking to the Government to take a strong and safe line on this question—by the suggestion of postponement and delay, and even now I go so far as to beg the Minister of Labour to speed up in every way that she possibly can the inquiry to which she has agreed, and to see that this reproach, which exists against every party in this House for its neglect of this deserving industry, is removed as speedily as possible, and that we do justice, as we ought to do, to the workers on the land.
Lady NOEL-BUXTON Lady NOEL-BUXTON rose in her place and claimed to move, "That the
574
Question be now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
Mr. ERNEST BROWN: The Noble Lady is entitled, not only to the congratulations, but to the sympathy of the house, firstly because the time for the discussion of this Motion has been so short, and, secondly, that the Minister should have accepted the Amendment. I do not wish to stand between the House and its decision, but I do want to dissociate myself from any idea of a Royal Commission on unemployment insurance. I could not sit quiet without making my protest against the appointment of a Royal Commission at all, and I do that now, although I am very sorely tempted to take up the dangerous challenge of the hon. Member opposite.
Lady NOEL-BUXTON Lady NOEL-BUXTON rose in her place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
Mr. EDE: I am quite sure that the speech of the right hon. Lady was heard with great surprise on this side of the House, in view of the vote that was taken earlier this year whereby the present Parliament affirmed its belief in the principle of unemployment insurance for agricultural workers. [HON. MEMBERS: "Divide!"] A great deal of sympathy with the agricultural worker has been expressed—
Lady NOEL-BUXTON Lady NOEL-BUXTON rose in her place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
Mr. EDE: One is reminded of the old saying that sympathy without help is like mustard without beef. The agricultural labourer is entitled to this recognition—[HON. MEMBERS: "Divide!"]
Lady NOEL-BUXTON Lady NOEL-BUXTON rose in her place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
Question put, "That the Question be now put."
The House divided Ayes, 159; Noes, 18.

Division No. 11.]

AYES.

[11.0 p.m.

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

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

Potts, John S.

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

Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)

Price, M. P.

Alpass, J. H.

Hoffman, P. C.

Quibell, D. J. K.

Arnott, John

Hopkin, Daniel

Ramsay, T. B. Wilson

Aske, Sir Robert

Horrabin, J. F.

Raynes, W. R.

Barr, James

Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield)

Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

Batey, Joseph

Johnston, Thomas

Riley, Ben (Dewsbury)

Bellamy, Albert

Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)

Ritson, J.

Bennett, William (Battersea, South)

Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W.

Rosbotham, D. S. T.

Benson, G.

Kelly, W. T.

Salter, Dr. Alfred

Bentham, Dr. Ethel

Kennedy, Thomas

Sanders, W. S.

Bowen, J. W.

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

Sawyer, G. F.

Brothers, M.

Kinley, J.

Scrymgeour, E.

Brown, Ernest (Leith)

Kirkwood, D.

Scurr, John

Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (South Ayrshire)

Lathan, G.

Sexton, James

Buchanan, G.

Law, Albert (Bolton)

Shepherd, Arthur Lewis

Burgess, F. G.

Law, A. (Rossendale)

Sherwood, G. H.

Burgin, Dr. E. L.

Lawrence, Susan

Shield, George William

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

Lawrie. Hugh Hartley (Stalybridge)

Shillaker, J. F.

Cameron, A. G.

Lee, Frank (Derby, N.E.)

Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)

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

Lewis, T. (Southampton)

Simmons, C. J.

Clarke, J. S.

Lindley, Fred W.

Sinkinson, George

Cocks, Frederick Seymour

Lloyd. C. Ellis

Sitch, Charles H.

Daggar, George

Logan, David Gilbert

Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)

Dalton, Hugh

Longden, F.

Smith, Frank (Nuneaton)

Dukes, C.

Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)

Smith, Rennie (Penistone)

Ede, James Chuter

McElwee, A.

Smith, Tom (Pontefract)

Edge, Sir William

McEntee, V. L.

Smith, W. R. (Norwich)

Edmunds, J. E.

McKinlay, A.

Stamford, Thomas W.

Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)

Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)

Stephen, Campbell

Elmley, Viscount

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

Sutton, J. E.

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

Mansfield, W.

Thurtle, Ernest

Gibbins, Joseph

Marcus, M.

Tillett, Ben

Gibson, H. M. (Lance, Mossley)

Markham, S. F.

Tinker, John Joseph

Glassey, A. E.

Marshall, Fred

Toole, Joseph

Gossling, A. G.

Mathers, George

Turner, B.

Gould, F.

Messer, Fred

Walkden, A. G.

Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)

Morgan, Dr. H. B.

Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)

Gray, Milner

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

Wellock, Wilfred

Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Colne)

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

Welsh. James C. (Coatbridge)

Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)

Mosley, Sir Oswald (Smethwick)

Westwood, Joseph

Grundy, Thomas W.

Muggeridge, H. T.

Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood)

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

Murnin, Hugh

Whiteley, William (Blaydon)

Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)

Noel-Buxton, Baroness (Norfolk, N.)

Wilkinson, Ellen C.

Harbord, A.

Oldfield, J. R.

Williams, David (Swansea, East)

Hastings, Dr. Somerville

Oliver, George Harold (Ilkeston)

Williams, Dr. J. H. (Lianelly)

Haycock, A. W.

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

Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)

Hayday, Arthur

Owen, H. F. (Hereford)

Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

Hayes, John Henry

Palin, John Henry

Wilson, J. (Oldham)

Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)

Paling, willfrid

Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)

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

Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

Winterton, G. E. (Leicester, Loughb'gh)

Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow)

Peters, Dr. Sidney John

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

Phillips, Dr. Marlon

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

Herriotts, J

Picton-Turbervill, Edith

Mr. McShane and Mr. W. B. Taylor

NOES.

Bevan, S. J. (Holborn)

Llewellin, Major J. J.

Titchfield, Major the Marquess of

Bourne, Captain Robert Croft

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

Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert

Briscoe, Richard George

Muirhead, A. J.

Warrender, Sir Victor

Campbell, E. T.

Roberts, Sir Samuel (Ecclesall)

Womersley, W. J.

Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.

Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart

Hanbury, C.

Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

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

Thomson, Sir F.

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage and Mr.

Butler.

Question put accordingly, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
The House divided: Ayes, 156; Noes, 19.

Division No. 12.]

AYES.

[11.10 p.m.

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

Benson, G.

Burgin, Dr. E. L.

Alpass, J. H.

Bentham, Dr. Ethel

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

Arnott, John

Bowen, J. W.

Cameron, A. G.

Aske, Sir Robert

Brothers, M.

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

Barr, James

Brown, Ernest (Leith)

Clarke, J. S.

Batey, Joseph

Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (South Ayrshire)

Cocks, Frederick Seymour

Bellamy, Albert

Buchanan, G.

Daggar, George

Bennett, William (Battersea, South)

Burgess, F. G.

Dalton, Hugh

Dukes, C.

Lawrie, Hugh Hartley (Stalybridge)

Salter, Dr. Alfred

Ede, James Chuter

Lee, Frank (Derby, N.E.)

Sanders, W. S.

Edge, Sir William

Lewis, T. (Southampton)

Sawyer, G. F.

Edmunds, J. E.

Lindley, Fred W.

Scrymgeour, E.

Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)

Lloyd, C. Ellis

Scurr, John

Elmley, Viscount

Logan, David Gilbert

Sexton, James

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

Longden, F.

Shepherd, Arthur Lewis

Gibbins, Joseph

Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)

Sherwood, G. H.

Gibson, H. M. (Lancs, Mossley)

McElwee, A.

Shield, George William

Glassey, A. E.

McEntee, V. L.

Shillaker, J. F.

Gossling, A. G.

McKinlay, A.

Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)

Gould, F.

Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)

Simmons, C. J.

Graham D. M. (Lanark. Hamilton)

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

Sinkinson, George

Gray, Milner

Mansfield, W.

Sitch, Charles H.

Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)

Marcus, M.

Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)

Groves, Thomas E.

Markham, S. F.

Smith, Frank (Nuneaton)

Grundy, Thomas W.

Marshall, Fred

Smith, Rennie (Penistone)

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

Mathers, George

Smith, Tom (Pontefract)

Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvll)

Messer, Fred

Smith. W. R. (Norwich)

Harbord, A.

Morgan, Dr. H. B.

Stamford, Thomas W.

Hastings, Dr. Somerville

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

Stephen, Campbell

Haycock, A. W.

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

Sutton, J. E.

Hayday, Arthur

Mosley. Sir Oswald (Smethwick)

Thurtle, Ernest

Hayes, John Henry

Muggeridge, H. T.

Tillett, Ben

Henderson, Arthur, Junr. (Cardiff, S)

Murnin, Hugh

Tinker, John Joseph

Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow)

Noel-Buxton, Baroness (Norfolk, N.)

Toole, Joseph

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

Oldfield, J. R

Turner, B.

Herriotts, J.

Oliver, George Harold (Ilkeston)

Walkden, A. G.

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

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

Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)

Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)

Owen, H. F. (Hereford)

Wellock, Wilfred

Hoffman, P. C.

Palin, John Henry.

Welsh, James (Paisley)

Hopkin, Daniel

Paling, Wilfrid

Westwood, Joseph

Horrabin, J. F.

Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood)

Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield)

Peters. Dr, Sidney John

Whiteley, William (Blaydon)

Johnston, Thomas

Phillips, Dr. Marion

Wilkinson, Ellen C.

Jones. T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)

Picton-Turbervill, Edith

Williams, David (Swansea, East)

Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W.

Potts, John S.

Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)

Kelly, W. T.

Price, M. P.

Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)

Kennedy, Thomas

Quibell, D. J. K.

Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

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

Ramsay. T. B. Wilson

Wilson, J. (Oldham)

Kinley. J.

Raynes, W. R.

Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)

Kirkwood, D.

Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

Winterton, G. E. (Leicester, Loughb'gh)

Lathan, G.

Riley, Ben (Dewsbury)

Law, Albert (Bolton)

Ritson, J.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

Law, A. (Rossendale)

Rosbotham, D. S. T.

Mr. McShane and Mr. W. B. Taylor.

NOES.

Bevan, S. J. (Holborn)

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

Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert

Bourne, Captain Robert Croft

Muirhead, A. J.

Warrender, Sir Victor

Briscoe, Richard George

Roberts, Sir Samuel (Ecclesall)

Womersley, W. J.

Campbell, E. T.

Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart

Guinness Rt. Hon. Walter E

Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

Hanbury, C.

Thomson, Sir F.

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage and Mr.

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

Titchfield, Major the Marquess of

Butler.

Llewellin, Major J. J.

Todd, Capt. A. J.

Main Question again proposed.
Several HON. MEMBERS Several HON. MEMBERS rose—
It being after Eleven of the Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SHOP ASSISTANTS.
  Ordered,
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to consider and report upon proposals for limiting the hours of work of shop assistants and improving the conditions of their
  578
  employment, and for that purpose to inquire—

  (1) what are the hours at present usually worked in the various distributive trades, both retail and wholesale;

  (2) what would be the probable economic effects of a statutory 48-hours week (with a limited amount of overtime) upon the distributive trades as regards organisation of work, wages, employment, and prices; by what methods it could be applied to various kinds of trade and what arrangements would be feasible for enforcing it;

  (3) whether conditions of employment exist in any classes or descriptions of shops in respect of matters affecting the health and welfare of the assistants which make it desirable that powers of regulation and supervision should be given by statute:"

  Ordered
  That the Committee do consist of Eleven Members:
  Major Braithwaite, Mr. Charles Buxton, Mr. Rhys Davies, Lieut.-Colonel Gault, Mr. William Hirst, Sir Alfred Law, Mr. Philip Oliver, Sir Gervais Rentoul, Mr. James Stewart, Mr. R. A. Taylor, and Mr. Womersley nominated members of the Committee:
  Ordered,
  That the Minutes of Evidence taken by the Select Committee on Shop Assistants of last Session be referred to the Committee.
  Ordered,
  That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records:
  Ordered,
  That Three be the quorum.—[Mr. T. Kennedy.]
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

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

PUBLIC HEALTH.
  MATERNAL MORTALITY.
  MATERNAL MORTALITY.
  SMALL-POX, COAL-MINING COUNTIES.
  SMALL-POX, COAL-MINING COUNTIES.
  CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS.
  CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS.
  ZAMBESI BRIDGE.
  ZAMBESI BRIDGE.
  ROYAL AIR FORCE (COMMISSIONS).
  ROYAL AIR FORCE (COMMISSIONS).
EDUCATION.
  MILK RATION, BRECON.
  MILK RATION, BRECON.
  GRANTS, LOCAL AUTHTHORITIES.
  GRANTS, LOCAL AUTHTHORITIES.
  DEAF PUPILS.
  DEAF PUPILS.
TRANSPORT.
  ROADS (EXPENDITURE).
  ROADS (EXPENDITURE).
  ROAD WORKS, KENT.
  ROAD WORKS, KENT.
  ELECTRICITY SUPPLY (NAVAL RATING, TRAINING).
  ELECTRICITY SUPPLY (NAVAL RATING, TRAINING).
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (PENSIONS).
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (PENSIONS).
  INCOME TAX (COLLECTION, ABERTILLERY).
  INCOME TAX (COLLECTION, ABERTILLERY).
  PEE-WAR PENSIONERS.
  PEE-WAR PENSIONERS.
  CEMENT (IMPORT).
  CEMENT (IMPORT).
AGRICULTURE.
  EGGS.
  EGGS.
  GRANTS, LOCAL ATITTIORITIES.
  GRANTS, LOCAL ATITTIORITIES.
Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
THE LORD BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.
Martin Linton, Lord Bishop of Rochester—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
THE LORD BISHOP OF TRURO.
Walter Howard, Lord Bishop of Truro—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH.
Walter Godfrey, Lord Bishop of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

COLONIAL NAVAL DEFENCE BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (LORD PASSFIELD): My Lords, this is a very small, insignificant Bill, much smaller than it appears to be in print. I think that it is a Bill of about 120 lines but only twelve lines of it, as I have counted, are new. The Department concerned, very meritoriously, in order to avoid legislation by reference, has chosen to reprint the two Acts of Parliament which are to be amended, and thus present a complete code on the subject for the sake of adding twelve lines of new law. The only two new provisions are that the Colonial Naval Defence Acts of 1865 and 1909 empower the legislative authority of each Colony to provide vessels of war and to raise seamen and others bound to serve in such vessels. But those powers are conferred only on each particular Colony individually, and apparently they cannot he acted upon by two Colonies jointly. There is reason for a number of small Colonies in a single neighbourhood, if
228
they are to have vessels of war, having them jointly—say, in the service of Gambia and Sierra Leone together, in stead of each of those countries being confined to its own vessel of war.
The second point is that, whilst the Acts already provide that such vessels, crews and volunteers may be placed at the disposal of the Admiralty, no provision exists for the training of the crews or volunteers outside the territorial waters of each particular Colony. That, of course, is nonsense, and as it has apparently been held that these crews cannot be trained outside the territorial waters of the particular Colony to which they belong, it is proposed to make those two changes in the law, and those two changes only. I think your Lordships will appreciate the good conduct of the Department concerned, and of His Majesty's Government in not asking you to make those two amendments by themselves, to be incorporated by reference in the other two Acts. The two Acts are embodied in the Bill without alteration, except for those two small provisions which legal opinion states to be necessary to give effect to the intention of the original Act. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Passfield.)
EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, I hoped that I was going to be able to congratulate the noble Lord on being able to tell the House that some part of the Empire was going to make provision to assist us in the defence which lies so heavily on the shoulders of the taxpayers of this country. Unfortunately we find that this is only a consolidating Bill, and therefore I cannot congratulate him in that way. I feel sure, however, that everybody will agree that it is an excellent thing that the noble Lord should have produced a consolidating Bill instead of legislating by reference, and therefore we can congratulate him in a minor respect. Let me remind the noble Lord that in these days vessels of war are strictly limited by the Naval Treaty, and therefore consideration will be required before the order is given for a Colony to have warships of its own, unless those warships are of the type required by the Empire and are efficient. I do not rise to oppose the Bill, which we on this side of the House warmly welcome.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, may I congratulate the Government on bringing in a Bill which does not seem to have much harm in it?
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

QUARRYING INDUSTRY.
VISCOUNT MERSEY VISCOUNT MERSEY rose to ask His Majesty s Government whether any development can be made in the employment of British labour and material in the quarrying industry, more particularly as regards road construction; and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, my Question will not take very long, for I am aware that your Lordships are anxious to proceed to the next debate. It is not a very technical question, and it is one which, I think, deserves some little attention because it might perhaps, under different treatment, benefit employment in this country. The position appears to be this. As your Lordships are aware, a good deal of road construction is at present going on in this country. For this purpose, kerbs, lengths of cut granite, are used along the edges of the road. There are three great groups of granite quarries in Great Britain—in Cornwall, in the Midlands and in Scotland—and it would naturally be the wish of the authorities who are employed in making roads to utilise this material. What is in fact the case, as I am informed, is that quarry owners, or persons to whom quarries are leased, cannot come anywhere near meeting the requirements of the local authorities.
The Unemployment Grants Committee, of which my noble friend Lord St. Davids is Chairman—and I may say that it is with his full approbation that I am putting this Question—cannot, of course, make grants of public money to the purchase of materials which are not British materials (with special exceptions), and they are very much concerned at the present position, which is that all the granite kerbs, or very nearly all, come in from Norway. The gravamen of the complaint against the quarry owners is that they will not cut for stock. They require notice of three or four months before they will produce the kerb lengths required. Another complaint is that they will not cut the lengths required by the local authorities. Different lengths,
230
of 3, 6, 9 and 12 feet, are required, and the quarry owners do not produce the lengths which the local authorities need. There is also a difference in price of 12 per cent. to 15 per cent., both c.i.f., as between the Norwegian article, landed at the place where it is to be used, and the British article. That, however, is the least of the complaints.
The main complaints are the inability of the British quarry owners to produce the article in anything like reasonable time, and their inability to produce the lengths that are required. I should say that this is an ex-parte statement, and if any noble Lord is a quarry owner I should be only too glad if he would meet some of the objections that I am putting forward, but the only noble Lord I have found who is a quarry owner will not come into the open. The answer, I am told, of the quarry owners is that there is not sufficient skilled labour available for them to cut these lengths. I believe that the Norwegian quarries produce machine-cut lengths for which they employ only semi-skilled labour. Our own quarry owners apparently have to employ fully skilled labour. Another of their answers is that they suggest that local authorities might make use of some other material, and that there are various sorts of other stone which might be used instead for kerbing. That is the whole question. It is not put in any spirit except that of trying to find a possible remedy for unemployment, and on behalf of my noble friend the Chairman of the Unemployment Grants Committee, who is very much exercised at the position. He says that personally he would be inclined to approve of the Government opening up a quarry of their own. I do not advocate that, but I would like to ask the noble Lord who is going to reply if be can throw any light upon this alleged incapacity of the British quarry owners.
LORD CUSHENDUN: My Lords, I am not a quarry owner, and I confess that such knowledge as I have on this subject is not up-to-date, but some years ago I was extremely familiar with this question, because I was Parliamentary Candidate in a division where some of the chief granite quarries were at work. I think my noble friend above the gangway has been rather unfair to the quarry owners, unless things have entirely

231
altered in the last fifteen or twenty years. The real fact of the matter is that owing to our persistent free trade policy in the past we have killed the granite interest. When I was a candidate in Aberdeenshire, I knew of businesses which had been practically wiped out, so far as workmen were concerned, simply by the importation of Norwegian granite, which was sold at a much cheaper rate than our people could produce, with the result that our skilled granite workers left the country in large numbers and went to America, or elsewhere, and the industry was practically being killed.
The noble Viscount suggests that the quarry owners are in default in two ways. First he says that they cannot produce the labour. That is for the reason that I have given. The labour has left the country. The labour has been crushed out of the industry by our policy in the past. I am not at all surprised that the quarry owners are unable for that reason to produce labour in sufficient numbers to meet certain demands, such as they are now asked to provide for. Then the noble Viscount complained that they are not able to produce the right lengths. That is exactly for the same reason. In order to introduce the machinery which is used in Norway it will be necessary to incur considerable expense, and that could not be done, it is plain, without some sort of security with regard to our policy in the future. It is really most unfair to come down to the House and complain of these quarry owners who, as I have said, have had their labour taken away and crushed out by the policy of the country—I am not saying whether for other reasons it is good or bad. The British industry has been killed, and it is consequently only sympathy that we ought to give to the quarry owners when, without any security that the demand will continue, they are being told they are ineffective and inefficient.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE): My Lords, this may seem a relatively small matter, but owing to the enormous increase in road construction it certainly is one of importance, and I thank the noble Viscount who raised this Question, because I think that a certain amount of publicity given to the state of affairs which at present exists may be helpful.
232
The noble Lord who has just addressed the House has taken up the cudgels for the quarry owners, and I do not in any way desire to attack them, nor do I think the noble Viscount who raised the subject really did attack them, or charge them with being unpatriotic. The condition of affairs as it at present exists is, however, very disappointing, and I think the remedy is perhaps not so remote as might be supposed from the statement of Lord Cushendun that this industry has been crushed out of existence.
I would draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that there has been an enormous increase in recent years of road construction. In addition to the annual amount which has for some years past been spent on road construction, the present Government have approved the expenditure of £50,000,000 during the last year for the construction and widening of classified roads. Definite approval has been given to about half that amount, the work on which is now going on. In addition to that, £20,000,000 has been approved for the maintenance of classified roads, and another £10,000,000 for the improvement of rural roads and unclassified roads. That will give your Lordships some idea of the enormous amount of material which is required. To begin with, there is broken stone for the roads. That is not a question which need really exercise our attention very much. A gigantic amount is required, for there are 40,000 miles of classified roads with which the Ministry of Transport is concerned, and about 12,000,000 tons a year of broken stone is required. When I say that only 172,000 tons in the last nine months have been imported that will show your Lordships that, with regard to broken stone, no particular problem arises. The amount imported is absolutely negligible.
But the question of granite kerbs is different, and that really is the point to which the noble Viscount addressed his remarks. Granite kerb can be produced in Great Britain. It is undoubtedly superior to concrete kerb, which is being manufactured now under the orders of some local authorities in their anxiety not to import foreign granite; but all experts are in agreement that the granite kerb is far more durable, and far more satisfactory.

233
Of course, hundreds of thousands of feet of this granite kerb are required. When I say that a road which is now being constructed in Kent wants eighteen miles of this granite kerb it will show your Lordships that we are dealing with very large quantities. There are several centres in this country: Cornwall and South Devon, Shropshire, North Wales, Lancashire and Yorkshire, Scotland in the neighbourhood of North Queensferry and Inverkeithing, the Channel Islands, and Leicestershire. If I might say a word with regard to Leicestershire it will be to show that there is a case there where very satisfactory progress has been made. There is no unemployment. About 4,000 men are employed, and the Chamber of Commerce is anxious to receive applications from those who are willing to serve an apprenticeship in the dressing of the granite. During the past three months 400,000 tons of granite were produced in Leicestershire, as compared with 350,000 tons last year; and they are making every effort to get their organisation in a more efficient state, to get publicity, and to put their house in order, and they are succeeding.
No blame need be attached to the local authorities for any desire to get granite from abroad rather than from at home. They make every effort to get it from British quarries; they prefer it to the foreign manufacture. But unfortunately they are very much hampered. First of all by the price, secondly, by the delay in delivery, and very often by a pure incapacity to take up the contract. They are therefore driven to get the imported granite. Your Lordships will realise that in the Eastern Counties it is a great deal easier to have granite shipped over from the Continent than to have it transported from the distant counties in the West. And therefore the local authorities have been more or less forced—not desiring to go in for extravagance—to accept the foreign material. I have seen some correspondence from the local authorities and from the contractors on this point, and it certainly does seem a matter of some regret that more is not clone, as it can be done, to meet this great demand. All sorts of excuses are made—that there is not sufficient output to meet the order; that they have a great many orders and cannot take any more; that they will not quote or tender because
234
there is no chance of their delivering. In fact, it must be said, in really examining the question of granite kerb, that the available output of British granite is disappointingly small. Importation therefore—although not on the increase—has been resorted to by a great, number of local authorities.
It does seem disappointing, because the quarries are there, the raw material is there, the labour surely can be made available, and yet the finished product is not turned out in adequate quantities. Of course, regularity and speed in delivery are very important, and in these respects the foreign producer certainly is far in advance of the British quarry owner. But the question is not absolutely simple even then, and perhaps I might draw your Lordships' attention to a position which shows that one cannot say straight away: "We must have no foreign granite, we must have nothing hut British granite." There is a British firm which owns granite quarries in Norway, and also has considerable coal interests through an affiliated firm. The quarries have been developed with British capital and the granite therefrom is imported on colliery vessels, which take coal or coke back to Norway as a return freight. If vessels are chartered for this trade it is found that the shipmasters can only bring back granite to the extent that they can get coal freights hack to Norway, and, if it were not for the English trade in Norwegian granite, it is alleged that it might be cheaper for Norwegian customers to purchase coal from Germany or Poland. That is the sort of side issue that shows that there are parts of this subject which are not quite so simple as might seem on the surface.
I quite admit that the quarry owners have difficulties. I have met them and talked over this question with them, and it would be most unfair not to realise that they are up against difficulties. To begin with, they have this very large demand rather suddenly put upon them, and perhaps they are not entirely to be blamed for not having adequate machinery to meet it. They have the difficulty of getting apprentices and of getting skilled workmen to dress the granite. It is hard and difficult work, and they do not find it easy to get a sufficient number of men. They find that

235
the cost of carriage is very considerable. The cost of carriage from Cornwall to London is a great deal more than the cost of carriage from Norway to London.
EARL STANHOPE: Why not bring it by sea?
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE: That is one of the things that I think they might go into. Coastwise steamers might carry the stone. That is one of the points that they really have got to look into. The Ministry of Transport has recommended that they should set up within their industry an organisation devised to secure efficient propaganda in favour of British quarry products; that they should display the value of British material on trial sections of road and get local authorities to see it, and therefore to order it; and that they should adopt a policy of standardisation. This is what the noble Viscount referred to. They have at present got a great number of different sizes into which they cut their stone. It is unnecessary and expensive and it would be far better if they had a standard specification. The British Engineering Standards Committee is going into it, and is engaged on it now with a view of seeing whether a recognised standard cannot be arrived at. They must secure co-operation between the industry and the various transport agencies—that is where the noble Viscount's suggestion comes in—and prompt and reliable deliveries, if need be, by sea-borne transport. There are indications that steps are being taken to improve matters, but there is no question that a great deal remains to be done. There is no question of a subsidy, because neither from the Unemployment Grants Committee, nor from the Road Fund, nor from the Development Committee, could any grant be made to these quarry owners. Nor, if I may respectfully say so—and may I differ from the noble Lord who spoke last—is it any question of tariffs or Protection of the British industry.
It is in this case, as I am afraid in a good many other cases, a lack of efficiency, a failure to realise the great opportunity that is within their reach, and a want of the development of more business-like methods which would allow them to meet the very great demand for this particular material which at present
236
exists. I feel sure that they can put their house in order and that they can gradually meet the demand. The price of British granite is going down. The price of Norwegian granite is slightly rising. Road construction is increasing in volume, and I feel sure that quarry owners all over the country, following the example that has been given by the Leicestershire quarry owners, will do their utmost to employ more men and to set up machinery which can adequately deal with this problem. I may say that I have no Papers to present.
LORD SEMPILL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord who replied for the Government whether he said that 134,000 tons was the total importation of Norwegian granite? I should like also to ask what period that covered and whether it was entirely in the form of granite setts? I ask those questions because my noble friend Lord Cushendun referred to a quarry in Aberdeenshire in which a great many quarrymen have been put out of work. Their complaint, as I understand it, is that the importation of Norwegian granite setts has cut their trade.
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE My Lords, I did not perhaps make it quite clear, and I think that the noble Lord has misunderstood what I said. The 172,000 tons was of broken road stone, not granite.
LORD SEMPILL: My Lords, might I supplement that question? Can the noble Lord say what the importation of granite setts from Norway amounted to?
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE: I regret, my Lords, that I cannot give that figure with any, accuracy.
VISCOUNT MERSEY: My Lords, I have to thank the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for the information that he has given. May I say, with regard to the remarks of my noble friend Lord Cushendun, that perhaps he was a little bit heavy on me. I did not accuse the quarry owners. I said that there was a certain lack of efficiency, but I prefaced my remarks by saying that it was an ex parte statement and that I was most anxious that some quarry owner should come into the open and give us a little more light from the other side. That the noble Lord very kindly did. I think, however, that he

237
rather rode off on the Free Trade horse and saddled me with remarks that I certainly did not make. As I say, I am much obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and with leave of your Lordships' House, I will withdraw my Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

EDUCATION (LOCAL AUTHORITIES) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without Amendment.

AGRICULTURE.
Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Motion made by Lord Cranworth on Thursday last, That there be laid before the House Papers relating to the present disastrous condition of agriculture.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (EARL DE LA WARR): My Lords, I gather that it would be for the convenience of the House if the Government made their reply at the beginning of the discussion this evening on the debate that we had last Thursday. I rather gather that the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, has been feeling somewhat the lack of an Aunt Sally at which to have a shot. I am proposing to offer myself to his skill in a few moments. The general discussion that we had last Thursday centred largely, I think, round the position in the arable counties. While I do not intend to confine my remarks by any means to that particular situation, it might be well if I started by dealing with the position of the Government in regard to the policy in the arable counties. It might be well also if we tried to consider the general ideas that must be in the minds not only of this Government, but of any Government that is in power in this country, in considering this question. There are certain broad, major considerations which none of us can escape. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, who expressed the hope that he would not have thrown back at him the general situation of other industries in the country. I venture to suggest that it is impossible to discuss the situation of any industry
238
without realising, and we have to face it, that the whole economic life of this country is at the present moment in a state of the most acute depression. Furthermore (and this is another general consideration), whether we are Free Traders or Protectionists—personally I belong to a generation that has not been brought up to regard either idea as a religion—we have to face the fact that we are living in a country that is mainly a consuming country, where the majority of voters are consumers. Noble Lords on the other side who are continually urging on their Leaders a more strenuous policy in the direction of adopting tariffs are only too well aware that we are living in a country which is mainly a consuming country and that the vast mass of the voters in this country are consumers of foodstuffs. Moreover, we are an industrial, exporting country, and it is, therefore, of vital interest for us to keep down our costs of production.
I cannot put these points to your Lordships with any view of making an excuse for not putting forward a policy. I am simply laying them before your Lordships as the general considerations from which none of us can escape if we want to look at this problem honestly. There is a further point. We are dealing for the moment mainly with the arable counties, and the two crops that have been chiefly mentioned in the discussion have been wheat and beet sugar. Whether we want to foster the production of wheat or beet in this country or not, we have to face very uncomfortable conclusions. We have to realise that if we set out to encourage the production of those crops we are setting out to encourage crops of which there is already a glut in the world. The noble Lord, Lord Ernle, gave us a most, interesting account of what was going on in Russia at this moment, and he showed how the Russian five-year plan has not yet even begun in its operation, and how every year Russia was going to turn more and more of its acreage into wheat production. Therefore, if we decide to encourage the growing of wheat in this country, we have to do it with our eyes open, realising that whereas the great producing countries at the present moment can undoubtedly—and I am quite convinced of this from all the figures I have seen—produce wheat at about 30 s. a quarter, our Farmers' Union

239
say they cannot do it at less than 55 s. I do not think any of your Lordships would consider for a moment accepting that figure without further inquiry.
LORD PHILLIMORE: Would the noble Earl kindly repeat those figures? We could not hear them.
EARL DE LA WARR: The cost of production in exporting countries is round about 30s. per quarter, including transport charges over here. The lowest price that is mentioned for producing wheat in this country is 45 s., and the Farmers' Union price is round about 55 s. The noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, said "Hear, hear" when I stated that we have to face the facts. We should be letting ourselves in for the raising of the price of wheat in this country by over 50 per cent.—at least 15 s. increase in the price of a commodity that we can buy at 30 s. Put briefly and roughly, that is the case against doing anything to help the growing of wheat.
On the other hand, we have to balance one consideration against the other. As a Government we have to face the fact that in certain agricultural counties in England at the present moment a great mass of the arable farmers are on the verge of disaster. We have to recognise, however much we contend—and I personally do contend—it will be for the good of the agricultural industry that the cereal growers should transfer their attention to other forms of production, that the change-over must of necessity be slow. We also have to face another fact. At the present moment, if they make that change-over, one of the most likely changes would be to go into an already over-supplied milk market; and further—the last point—whereas wheat is only approximately 4 per cent. of our total agricultural production—a very small figure—it is nevertheless the basis of a system of farming which contributes a good deal more than 4 per cent. to our total agricultural production.
I have tried to lay before your Lordships the sort of considerations we have had to have in mind in forming a policy on this question. Finally, your Lordships will remember that the Chancellor of the Exchequer last August made a definite pledge to Parliament. He said that this matter, affecting as it does the question of wheat, affecting as it does
240
so vitally our great Dominions, would be discussed at the Imperial Conference, and that after the imperial Conference the Government would undertake whatever practicable steps could be devised to put cereal farming on an economic basis. That pledge was a very specific one. So far as I can see there are only four ways of interpreting it at the present moment. One is by having an import board for wheat; the others are a quota, a tariff or a subsidy. The last two are obviously out of the question.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Why?
EARL DE LA WARR: Neither is even proposed by the Conservative Party itself. I do not know whether Mr. Baldwin still represents the Conservative Party, but I understand he does—some of them. It is very hard for us to know on this side of the House who really is Leader of the Conservative Party at the moment. We have been given to understand that there are still important people in the Conservative Party, like Mr. Baldwin, Mr. Churchill and Mr. Guinness, who have all quite definitely pronounced against a tariff. That leaves the proposals of an import board and the quota, both of which have been discussed at the Imperial Conference. I cannot disguise from your Lordships that, personally, I have always felt that the import board system would in the long run offer the most complete machinery for meeting the problem of regulating the imports of wheat into this country. On the other hand, it would appear that others are of opinion that the quota system is the most practicable and immediate step to take if we wish, as we all do, to co-operate with the Dominions. Both systems would enable us to continue the benefit of cheap imports, while at the same time mitigating the situation of producers in this country. I am assuming that attached to either, to make it effective, must be some stabilisation of price at more than the price of wheat at the moment. But, unfortunately, it is not quite so simple as that.
LORD LOVAT: May I ask the noble Earl to speak up. We are very anxious to hear him, but we can only hear about one word in three.
EARL DE LA WARR: Unfortunately the matter is not so simple as that. The

241
import board system would offer us the opportunity, by controlling the whole grain trade and by being able to control margins right through to the baking trade, to see that an actual decrease in the price of bread took place. At the present moment there are bakers in this country charging 10 d. for a quartern loaf, which assumes wheat, according to the millers' margins, at 65 s. a quarter. Others are selling at 7½d. and 8d., which assumes wheat at 40 s. and 45 s. By the control over the whole industry that we would gain by having a great purchasing board, undoubtedly we could control very largely the price of bread itself. But at the present moment we are only a Minority Government and the Leaders of both Opposition Parties have refused to accept the import board idea and have definitely turned it down. The quota system does not offer us the same opportunities for keeping down the price of bread. I have only offered you, my Lords, a general discussion of this question.
The Imperial Conference has only been ended three or four days and the Government must have time to discuss its conclusions. I think your Lordships will agree that we are right in saying that the question of cereal growing in this country should be considered in the light of the conclusions of that Conference. I cannot, at the moment, commit His, Majesty's Government to taking any definite step, but I can say—and it is a great deal more than anybody said on behalf of your Lordships opposite when your Lordships were sitting on this Front Bench—that whatever ultimate decision His Majesty's Government may take on this question there is no intention whatsoever to withdraw from the pledge made in the House of Commons by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: May I ask whether the pledge was to make farming pay?
EARL DE LA WARR: The pledge was that after the Imperial Conference His Majesty's Government would undertake whatever practicable steps could be devised to put cereal farming on an economic basis. This is only one side of the agricultural problem, and if your Lordships will allow me to draw your attention to certain figures I think that you will agree with me that it is by no
242
means the most important side of the industry. The wheat crop amounts, as I have already said, in value to 4 per cent. of our total agricultural production. Live stock amounts to 36 per cent., milk and dairy produce amounts to 25 per cent., poultry and eggs amount to 8 per cent. Even poultry and eggs are twice as valuable as the wheat crop. Potatoes amount to 5 per cent., vegetables amount to 5 per cent.—both of these more than the wheat crop—and fruit and glasshouse produce also amounts to 5 per cent. Therefore, whatever the ultimate decision on cereal farming in this country, our intention will be not to stimulate wheat growing but at the very most to mitigate the difficulties at the present moment in districts which have not left off wheat growing, and at the same time to provide means and opportunities for a change over to other forms of farming so far as that may prove practicable.
The proposals which have come from your Lordships opposite deal mainly, as I have said, with wheat and beet, one being 4 per cent, of our total produce and the other only 2 per cent.—a total of 6 per cent. There has been hardly a single word from your Lordships with reference to the other 94 per cent. The main plank in this Government's policy—and I hope it will be the main plank in any Government's policy—is to help the industry to help itself by giving it a greater control of its markets in regard to those commodities that can be produced economically in this country. Quite apart from the merits of the tariff controversy I should like to suggest to your Lordships that no good friend to the farmer to-day would encourage him to continue in his dependence on future protective assistance.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: Why not?
EARL DE LA WARR: For the simple reason that there is no single Party in the State prepared to go to the country to attempt to get it.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: Wait and see.
EARL DE LA WARR: There may be a fourth Party arise. We will wait and see how large that Party is. There is not a single official Party now prepared to go to the country with a definite policy of food taxes. Therefore, I submit that no good friend to the farmer to-day, who

243
really wants to help the farmer, would go to him and suggest that he should depend on possible future protective duties.
Our policy is to develop the side of the industry in which the farmer can help himself—that is, the organisation of markets. That marketing policy has really two sides. The first is the standardisation of his product and the second is the organisation of his marketing. Standardisation was really dealt with in the last Government's grading and marking project by the initiation of a National Mark scheme. The essence of that scheme is the voluntary grading and packing of home agricultural products, backed by an official guarantee, a national guarantee, as to its quality and as to the fact that it was produced at home, and this is supported by a system of State inspection. That has already been enacted by the last Government. Results of a very considerable character have already been obtained under that scheme although it has only just begun. In the case of eggs, during last year, in spite of generally falling prices, no less than £1,000,000 extra has been brought into the egg industry; in the case of beef, at the present moment we are grading the larger part of the beef that is sold in London. Having started with only 800 sides at the end of 1929, we are now doing over 5,000 a week, and in spite of considerable opposition at Birmingham, which I am glad to be able to say we have combated most successfully, we are now actually grading in Birmingham more sides of beef than before the boycott started.
We have lately added to the activities under the Marking and Grading Act by putting £50,000 a year aside for advertising National Mark goods, and so efficacious is that advertisement becoming that not only did the Birmingham butchers have to give way as the result of it, but in the ease of other products it has had the most remarkable success in creating a demand. The National Mark is now being applied to canned fruits, and only the other day I heard of a large canner having his products returned to him by a grocer because, as the grocer told him, he could sell only National Mark goods; and that man, from having been one of the opponents of the National Mark scheme, will now, we hope, shortly join our ranks.
244
But standardisation without organisation is really only touching the fringe of the problem. The Agricultural Marketing Bill of the Government will very shortly be introduced. I regret that I cannot at the moment inform your Lordships into which House it will be introduced, but, speaking as a member of your Lordships' House rather than as a member of the Government, I am sure that we should all be very pleased if it could come here first, in order that we might make our comments upon it. That Bill proposes to allow the producers of an agricultural product to which the Bill applies to regulate the marketing of that product by means of boards elected by themselves, and in accordance with schemes submitted by themselves to the Minister. The Bill, whilst allowing internal compulsion amongst the members of the Boards, makes provision for those who have found special markets for themselves to be exempted, and gives to the Minister himself no powers of compulsion whatsoever. It does not pretend to guarantee a market. How can one guarantee a market? But it does offer powers to the farmer to organise for the purpose of capturing and making the best of what is the best market in the world—namely, the British industrial market. Funds are provided for the purpose of financing the boards who administer schemes, and from these funds short-term and long-term loans can be made.
While I am on this point, I really feel that I must just mention a matter that occurred on Thursday. Your Lordships may remember that at a certain point in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Strachie, I interrupted him. I did so for this reason. He read a short extract from the report of the Council of Agriculture for England, which must have given your Lordships the impression that the Council—a most important body, and it is for that reason that I refer to the matter now—was opposed to the Bill. In order to make the situation quite clear, perhaps your Lordships will allow me to read extracts from the report which, by the way, was adopted unanimously and voted for by the noble Lord himself They say:—
"The Bill is a logical development of policy in sequence with the provisions of the Agricultural Produce (Grading and Marking) Act, 1928 …. No one seriously doubts the advisability of producers combining for the purpose of orderly marketing on some

245
such lines as those indicated in the Bill …. The measure is entirely optional en groups of farmers, and the legislation lay be said to provide means, which fanners may adopt or not as they choose, to help them to market their produce efficiently."
I have the whole Report here, but I will not inflict it all on your Lordships. I think the House will agree that it is fairly clear that the Council of Agriculture, judging from the excerpts that I have read, were not opposed to the Bill.
Loan STRACHIE: May I for one moment interrupt the noble Earl, and ask if he will quote from paragraphs 5 and 6, where they say they approve of it only subject to keeping out foreign goods which compete?
LORD LOVAT: May I say also that the whole of Scottish agriculturists hold exactly the same view?
EARL DE LA WARR: I have the full document here, and I was going on to deal with that point. It is perfectly true that they go on to say that in their view the Bill can reach its full beneficial effect only if there is coupled with it control of imports. That is perfectly true, hut they do not say that the Bill is no use without it. Let me read their concluding sentences. After saying that they would like to see control of imports coupled with it, they add:—
"At the same time, the Marketing Bill can be made of considerable value to farmers in helping them to organise the marketing of those commodities in which they are not driven out of business."
Is it not perfectly clear that the Council of Agriculture were in favour of the Bill, but at the same time thought that it could not reach its full beneficial effect without the control of imports? It is a very different matter to say that they were against the Bill altogether.
LORD STRACHIE: Not at all.
EARL DE LA WARR: Of course it is a completely different matter, and really, considering that the noble Lord, Lord Strachie, voted in favour of all the first clauses of that report, as well as the latter, I think that it would have been only fair if he had quoted to your Lordships the whole of that report. I should like to submit to your Lordships that this Bill, worked in conjunction with the Marking and Grading Act, really does offer a complete revolution in agricul-
246
tural marketing methods in this country. For the first time it puts the farmer in the position of being able to organise his marketing in the same manner as the foreigner against whom he is competing. You may say that they have always been in a position to co-operate in this country, but those of us who have had any experience of co-operation in this country know that, with a few small exceptions, most of those experiences have been of a very sad nature. Why is that so? You may say that voluntary cooperation has succeeded in other countries, such as Denmark. That is perfectly true. It has been voluntary from the point of view of the law, but has it been really voluntary? It was virtually compulsory on the Dane to co-operate, because he had to get his produce through the bottle-neck of the port in order to reach this country; and his produce had to be graded in order to get it away to this market. No such condition exists in this country to-day, and for that reason co-operation on a voluntary basis has never really contributed to the agricultural life of this country as it should have done, and as we should have liked to see it do.
Let me give your Lordships one or two examples of the way in which the Marketing Bill will be of use—immediate practical use—to the farmers in this country. Let us consider for a moment the question of milk. Milk represents 20 per cent. of our agricultural produce, and is, therefore, of immense importance. I think it was Lord Hastings, or perhaps it was Lord Cranworth, who mentioned skimmed milk as being the true source of trouble in the milk industry. With all respect I would submit to the noble Lord that whether the imports of skimmed milk do to a certain extent, as they do, affect the milk market in this country, it is possible to exaggerate immensely the harm which is done. Skimmed milk imports are a comparatively small quantity.
LORD CRANWORTH: 500,000 tons.
EARL DE LA WARR: Under 5 per cent. of our milk production, and not all of that is competing with our fluid milk. One of the reasons given against having skimmed and dried milk in this country is that they are different, products from fluid milk, and really it is not true to

247
put down the troubles in the milk industry to this comparatively small 5 per cent. import. The position in the mil industry is that there is a great surplus hanging like a blight over the industry, and that it is not controlled, and under the existing system of organisation is not controllable. While the Farmers' Union are attempting to conduct national negotiations individual farmers are tumbling over one another in an endeavour to get their milk sold at once, and are even in some cases under-cutting each other. Each individual man, under the existing system, has got to live, and individual milk producers, realising the surplus that there is in the trade, are only anxious not to be left out in the cold. At the present moment it is fair to say that national negotiations on the price of milk are a farce. Not only during the last negotiations was it necessary for the National Farmers' Union to accept a lower price for milk, but far worse than that, those of us who are in touch with the industry are able to realise that the great bulk of the milk produced is not sold to-day, and that a very large proportion of it is disposed of at the roadside at pretty well any price that the manufacturers like to give the producers. That situation must continue as it is unless the negotiating body for the farmers is able to negotiate for the whole product, with complete control over that product. They must also have power to deal with the surplus, because I think we have all come to realise that whoever controls the surplus in the milk market virtually controls that market.
That organisation—call it the Farmers Milk Marketing Board—formed under the Marketing Bill, must have power to divert milk from the fluid market to the manufacturing market. They must have power to obtain sufficient financial assistance, in the form possibly of a levy on the producers, in order to compensate those producers who send their milk to the manufacturing side of the industry. Further, it is essential that there should be a central body of the whole industry, in a position to see to it that a national advertising campaign is carried out on behalf of the milk producers. We all know the regrettable fact that at the present moment this country only consumes about one-third per head of the milk consumed by other
248
countries, and at the present moment the only body attempting to deal with the subject is the National Milk Publicity Council, which is struggling on with little support from the farming industry. Further, there must be a body prepared to make a real attack upon the cheese market. At the present moment we import £15,000,000 of cheese, and produce only about half that amount, and the only means of capturing that trade is by adopting the methods of the foreigner, which is by offering to the market a standardised product so that the buyer knows exactly what he is going to get. At the present moment that is not possible.
So much for milk. What about potatoes? They represent 5 per cent. of the industry. Again we hear a great deal of the damage which imports do us. Last year the price of potatoes fell to £2 per ton, and many growers did not sell their potatoes at all. Not a single potato came into this country under £3 10 s. per ton. Any price below £3 10 s. accepted by the home producers was the result of want of organisation in the industry in this country. It would not have paid the Continental producer to send potatoes in below that price.
LORD LOVAT: The potato industry was entirely knocked out last year by the new potatoes coming in from the South of France.
EARL DE LA WARR: Really, the noble Lord must forgive me. He knows that that is an entirely different trade, as compared with that with which I am dealing. A lot of those foreign growers buy their seed from us, and if we were unable to supply them they would have to give up. Every penny less than £3 10 s. per ton received by our growers at that time was the result of our surplus, and if there had been an all-in scheme among the growers, by which they contributed a small yearly sum to a central fund, they could in two or three years have had a fund which would have enabled them to keep that surplus off the market. But it disorganised the potato trade, and we have calculated that if one-sixth of the potatoes produced last year in this country could have been kept off the ordinary human food market, potato growers by organisation could have got at least£2 a ton more for their product.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: Corners are not generally successful, even in potatoes.
EARL DE LA WARR: This is not a question of a corner at all; it is purely a question of organisation. There is another market that is open to capture by the home producer if he is prepared to adopt the right methods. At the present moment we produce about£16,000,000 worth of eggs in this country, and we import about£20,000,000 worth of eggs. We are slowly capturing that market. Since the War we have doubled our production of eggs, and imports have not increased£a most encouraging development, I think your Lordships will admit; but there is still£20,000,000 of trade for us to capture. Again, how do you imagine that the foreigner has been able to establish himself in the great industrial markets of this country? He has been able to establish himself there because he delivers the goods to the wholesaler and to the retailer in a form in which they want to deal with them. He grades them and he bulks them. It may or may not be that this Bill will be of use to egg producers in areas where they are close to their market. But there are certain areas in this country, about twenty counties, that are what are called exporting areas in eggs, and somehow or other these men, say in Norfolk or Devon and Cornwall, far away from their markets, have to get their goods to places like Birmingham in a form in which the retailer and wholesaler will want to deal with them.
The National Mark scheme has done a great deal in that direction, but unfortunately packing stations set up under the National Mark scheme have been suffering from a certain amount of competition. No sooner has a packing station started in a district than the egg higglers come round, and afterwards offer a small extra inducement in order to persuade producers not to go to the packing station. The result is that, the overhead charges of the packing station are found to be too high. They then cannot compete, and therefore at a slightly later time they find themselves in difficulties. I submit that the only way in which we can build up an organisation that will capture that trade is by giving the egg producers in a district the right to lay it down that no egg shall leave their district that does not reach a certain standard. Thereby
250
it will become necessary that those eggs shall be graded, and at a later stage they will have to be bulked, as you can only grade on a large scale; and it will then be possible to make a great bid for the home egg market.
Then there is the question of the development of fruit and vegetables in this country. We all know that last year was an unfortunate one for black currants. But there were certain special conditions there, which I do not think there is time to go into at the moment, but which, as far as one can ascertain, are not likely to recur for some time. But at the present moment there are certain forms of fruit in which we cannot satisfy the English market. We cannot satisfy the demand for first grade apples, and for a number of first grade soft fruits. We can grow them. At the Imperial Fruit Show, which has now been running for nine years, this year for the first time we not only took prizes, but we took first, second, and third prizes in apples; which shows that we can grow the commodity. But the difficulty of encouraging this trade is that there are not sufficient growers in the country. One would like to see packing stations and grading stations set up in order to take these apples from the growers and market them. But there are not sufficient in the country to justify the setting up of these packing and grading stations.
That brings me to another point. There is another big development going on at the moment in the industry. During the last two years the output of canned fruit and vegetables has doubled. In the two years before that it doubled, so that whereas four years ago we were doing trade to the value of £250,000 in canned fruit and vegetables, we are now doing over £1,000,000. And that development has taken place during a period of depression. We are still importing £6,000,000 or £7,000,000 worth of canned fruit and vegetables. There is no reason why, with proper organisation, this industry should not be built up so as to make a big contribution to the agricultural industry—but, I say, With proper organisation. Last year, at a time when a considerable number of growers were having difficulty in selling their fruit, the canning factories had to go short by between 3,000 and 4,000 tons of fruit and

251
vegetables for canning. That was a matter for organisation. It is essential that these factories should be guaranteed steady, standard supplies of the product in which they are going to deal. And it would be for the marketing board under the Marketing Bill to lay down the standard and the grade that the growers must produce, and they would be the central negotiating body with the canning factories on behalf of the growers.
One last example is hops. It is a comparatively small crop, but very important to certain areas, and I think it is hardly necessary to repeat to your Lordships the experience of the hop growers under the existing law. No less than 90 per cent. of the hop growers combined in order to control their production and carry out certain marketing operations. Ten percent. of the growers stood out. They benefited for two or three years by the sacrifices of the 90 per cent., and then, as the result of the increase of production and of acreage, they smashed the whole concern. It is only, again, by giving to the producer compulsory powers over minorities—a power which is essential with regard to all the commodities that I have been discussing—that the hop growers will ever again be able to start an organisation for safeguarding their market.
These are just a few examples of what the Marketing Bill can do for the agriculturist. It is perfectly true to say that the Bill includes powers for compulsory grading, for compulsory price-fixing, for controlling the sale of the whole product, and even for limiting the sale, as is necessary in the case of hops. If you visualise an external body coming down upon the industry in a tyrannical manner to exercise all these powers for the benefit, as has been suggested, of the foreign producer, then, of course, the Bill is a useless and pernicious measure. But if you visualise a body of farmers appointed by their fellow farmers to formulate a scheme, which may, according to the needs of their particular branch of the industry, include the taking of some or all of these powers, which are offered to them, in so far as they will assist them to capture the home market, then I venture to suggest to your Lordships, that it should he the most
252
effective weapon that the farming industry has ever possessed in its whole existence.
In mentioning different products which could be affected by the Marketing Bill, I told your Lordships what percentage of the agricultural industry they were. If you add those percentages together, they come to between 40 and 50 per cent. of the whole industry. When we are told that we have done nothing, or it has been suggested that we have done nothing, or that this Marketing Bill will do nothing for the industry, I would ask your Lordships whether any other Government has ever before brought in a Bill giving power to farmers for organising no less than 40 or 50 per cent, of their commodities and getting the best price for them. The Bill was introduced into the House of Commons last Session.
LORD BANBURY of SOUTHAM: It was withdrawn.
EARL DE LA WARR: It has not been withdrawn. In addition to grading and organising the disposal of products off the farm, it recognised that in the disposal of a surplus by organisations of producers, the provision of adequate facilities for processing—that is, for manufacturing the articles—is very important, and it is hoped that a fund can be provided in the Bill to enable efficient processing facilities to be available for organisations of producers. That is, that marketing boards might be in a position, and might desire, to set up a creamery or a cheese factory for dealing with their surplus milk. They might want to undertake their own canning operations or some other operations. It is intended, therefore, to provide a fund out of which those operations can be financed.
We also have in mind the appointment of a Committee to report as soon as possible with regard to facilities for central slaughtering. The meat market is a very large market and one which should be capable of considerable development in this country. Even our small experience under the Marking and Grading Act has encouraged us to feel that there is immense scope for the development of that market. If you ask butchers why it is that they press foreign meat on the consumer, they will tell you that it is

253
because it is so much easier to deal with. Instead, possibly, of having, in extreme cases, to buy their beast and bring it back and either slaughter it themselves or have it slaughtered, if they have no slaughterhouse, and being left, probably, with a great number of cuts that are not suitable for their trade—instead of having to go through all that, all they have to do with regard to foreign meat is to drop a postcard to the wholesaler, or ring him up, and say that they want so many of such and such cuts which are specifically suited to their trade. Therefore it is essential, if we are to increase the consumption of home-grown meat in this country, that we should place that meat on the market in a form which will enable it really to compete with the foreign product.
Not only that, but so efficient are the methods of slaughtering in America that a farmer who is 200 miles front Chicago will find that it pays him to send his beast to Chicago and buy his meat back from Chicago rather than kill the beast himself. It is actually said of Chicago that they sell meat for less than they give for it because they make use of all the offals. Compare that with the situation in this country. I will not go into detail because I have already spoken for longer than I meant to do. We have found by preliminary investigations that by the inefficient means of sending beasts up to London, to take London as an example, the means by which they are dealt with, the small scale methods employed in all our abattoirs, costs on each beast are amazing, going up to something like £3 a beast. That is an almost sensational figure and will require verification. The figure I have given your Lordships is merely the result of preliminary investigations; but your Lordships will see how important it is, if we are to attempt to develop this meat market, that we should have a form of meat in this country which will enable us to compete with the foreigner in the form in which the goods are put on the market and will reduce to a very large extent the entirely unnecessary charge that the farmer and the consumer have to bear on the beasts at the present time.
The noble Lord, Lord Cranworth, mentioned the question of bacon and the imports of bacon. Of course, the imports of bacon must depress the home market,
254
and that must be admitted; but the actual effect of the import of bacon is very much lessened by the fact that the dry-cured English product is almost a totally different article from the tank-cured imported product and, therefore, the competition between them is of a very limited character. With the restriction of imports, of course, bacon factories would very probably have a larger supply of pigs for the time being. But there is no reason to believe that the central trouble in this industry will be dealt with in this manner. There is no reason to believe that they would have a less irregular supply unless some steps were taken in counteract the tendency to fluctuation in the pig population which is universal throughout the world.
In the Minister's view, the organisation of that industry, not the restriction of imports, must be the first condition. Any other question, such as import boards for bacon and so on, can be discussed at a later stage, but without organisation the vicious circle by which our factories are undoubtedly hampered would still continue to operate owing to the unregulated production and marketing of pigs in this country. Until now the factories have never been prepared to encourage regular production by giving contracts to pig producers, nor have they been prepared to encourage nearly sufficiently the production of better quality pigs by paying on grades. I venture to say that no Government, however protectionist it might be, could even consider Protection in the present state of the bacon industry. There is no less than round about £40,000,000 worth of Wiltshire side bacon coming into this country, and as far as we can see there is no economic reason why we should not produce that in this country, even without Protection. I will not, however, go further into that matter, except to assure your Lordships that the Ministry is fully seized of the importance of this subject, and we do not mean to let the matter rest as it is at present.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: Will the noble Earl say how many million pounds worth of bacon are imported into this country to-day?
EARL DE LA WARP: There are about £60,000,000 worth or more of pig products imported, and of that £40,000,000 worth

255
is of a particular kind—namely, Wiltshire side bacon—which we could certainly produce in this country. I am afraid I have taken up your Lordships' time at some length, but you asked me a good many questions, and I felt that perhaps the best way of answering them was not so much by taking them separately as by trying to lay before your Lordships our general lines of development. I think you must admit that the Ministry of Agriculture has not been idle during the last few months. The cereal problem has been tackled as far as our Imperial responsibilities will allow, and a definite pledge given to take action in the future. The problem of standardisation, and the organisation and presentation of homegrown goods for the home market in such a way as to obtain the maximum control of that market, has been tackled by pressing forward the National Mark scheme and by the preparation of the Marketing Bill. A review of the possibility of extending such operations as organised central slaughtering on meat works lines is also taking place. Provision has also been made, though there is not time to deal with these matters to-day, for the drainage of land, which is suffering from a lack of proper facilities for drainage, for an increase of rural workers, for increased access to the land, for the suppression of the scrub bull—a most important measure, I venture to suggest to your Lordships, particularly if we are to make an onslaught upon the meat market—and the increase of agricultural research and its re-organisation under a Central Agricultural Research Council, which will be responsible for the co-ordination of all its operations. All these last mentioned subjects are almost worthy of a debate by themselves. I merely mention them as being items in our programme of development.
This programme, full though it is, may be criticised as containing no panacea for the ills of agriculture. The neglect of generations cannot be made up for in a few days. If previous Governments, if even the last Government had done as much in four and a half years of office as we have done in eighteen months, I suggest that to-day the position of agriculture would be a very different one from what it is. Some noble Lords laugh, but I do suggest that we would not be suffering from the same milk situation
256
as that from which we are suffering today, and I also say that producers to-day would not be in the same position if our Marketing Bill had been put on the Statute Book. I maintain that if the last Government had done as much in four and a half years as we have done in one and a half years they would have more reason to be proud than they have any right to be at the present moment. Our programme is a far-reaching one. It may lay the foundation for the development of the agricultural industry on sound economic lines. I therefore would appeal to your Lordships to give us what support you can, and, where you cannot give us your support, give us your helpful criticism in order that we may get on as far as we can. If any of your Lordships feel that we are not going far enough, or fast enough, then I can only say that any suggestions your Lordships make that you feel to be really practicable, and which you would be likely to put into operation if you got into office yourselves, will receive our most sympathetic and grateful consideration.
Our programme embodies a certain number of new principles of a drastic character—the compulsory nature of the Marketing Bill for instance. Why not? Times are changing. There are far too many people going up and down the country at the present moment protesting that something really must be done, and whenever something is suggested they apply all their energies in opposition to it, and refuse even to consider it. For this great industry of agriculture there is a market of between£100,000,000 and £200,000,000 that can be captured by the home producers, and an effort to capture it must be made whether we have Protection or not. I know no other industry in this country which has the same possibility of development, or in regard to which there is so much preliminary common ground on which we can get together for agreeing upon immediate practical action. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will he convinced that this policy of ours is a comprehensive one and is a genuine attempt to make a real contribution to the prosperity of the industry, and that you will to that extent give us your support in carrying it through.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: My Lords, you will realise that the request I made

257
before the House adjourned last week was a justifiable one. We had had, I think, seven or eight speeches from this side of your Lordships' House asking various questions of the Government, and no single speaker had answered them. We have now had from the noble Earl a speech of very great interest, and containing a good deal of promise, but I confess I was a little startled at the suggestion he made at the end of his speech that his Government had done more in the last eighteen months than we had done in four and a-half years. The noble Earl's claim was based on the fact that he had given us a Marking and Grading Act, and the whole of the rest of his speech dealt with what his Government intended to do when it brings in its Marketing Bill either into this or the other House. It is true the Government brought in a Marketing Bill at the end of July in the other House, but without any intention of proceeding with it. It was brought in, I believe, for the purposes of discussion and discussion has been taking place.
Having lost a certain amount of money myself in arable farming, of which I have had some experience, I agree there are opportunities of very largely improving the marketing of the various products to which the noble Earl has referred. At the same time, the noble Earl left almost entirely out of consideration the whole gravamen of the points which were put-by my noble friends in the debate last, week. The points that were put before the Government were really these. What are you going to do in regard to arable farming? What are you going to do in regard to the numbers of farmers who are going bankrupt? What are you going to do about the numbers of agricultural labourers who are gradually being driven out of employment? Those points have not been touched upon at all.
The noble Earl, in the early part of his speech, said that wheat farming or cereal farming was really at an end, that we could not compete with foreign imports, that Russia could import wheat here at 30 s. a quarter while we could not grow it at less than 50 s. or 55 s. a quarter, and that we might as well, from an arable point of view, throw up the sponge altogether. The noble Earl must know that the preparation of a great number of the products of agriculture depends entirely upon arable farming.
258
A great deal of your beef, a great deal of your bacon, and of various other products of that kind, could not be reared at all if it were not for arable farming, upon which they are founded. Your beef is all grown on your arable land. All your swedes and other products of that kind, which are utilised for beef, your pig food, your sheep food come entirely from arable land. So you must not say that because the actual production of wheat itself is a small proportion of your total products it is negligible. I want the noble Earl to realise, as I am sure your Lordships entirely realise, that this is the basic side of agriculture and that he has not really touched upon it.
He told us at the beginning of his speech that we have to put up with the fact that the bulk of the voters in this country are consumers. I was rather surprised at his hurling that statement at us at the beginning of his speech, because after all if we are going simply to put our case before the voters from the consuming point of view, and to say to them: "It is essential for you that you should have cheap food, never mind whether you ruin the farmer, never mind whether the whole arable farming of this country goes to pieces," then I can only say that I trust there will be noble Lords and members of the House of Commons on our side who will have the courage to go to the mass of voters who are consumers, and tell them that there is someone more important than the consumer, and that is the producer. I am satisfied myself—and I have had a certain amount of experience of speaking on public platforms—that the consumer is not a purely selfish individual, that he is concerned with the interests of the country as a whole, and that if the matter is put before him he must realise that after all the employment market is one and indivisible, that you cannot have prosperity in one form of production with a vast number—thousands and hundreds of thousands—of workmen in another form of production flocking into the labour market.
The noble Earl has asked us to assume, in effect, that nothing further can be done for cereal farming, unless, he suggests, we have either import boards, tariffs, quotas, or subsidies, and in regard to them the noble Earl seems to think that import boards give us most,

259
hope, that subsidies might give some hope, but that they are out of the question because they will never be permitted. He made great play with what he assumed to be dissensions in the Party to winch I have the honour to belong. There is no question whatever in regard to the policy of the Leader of the Conservative Party—none whatever. He has pledged himself quite definitely to a secure price for wheat, quite definitely. If that demands a subsidy—as of course it will demand a subsidy—that subsidy will be forthcoming. The noble Earl knows that. I do not think he can have read Mr. Baldwin's speeches if he has not realised that. The Leader of the Conservative Party has pledged himself also to the quota system. I quite frankly admit that I have not seen on all points eye to eye with him on that, but the noble Earl knows that if necessary we are not going to be frightened—as he appears to be frightened—of the real need in this matter of dealing with the imports of foreign goods. It can be dealt with either by a subsidy, or a quota, or a tax or tariff, one or the other, all of which, I think personally, are better than import boards with all their disturbance of the market, with all their management from Whitehall, with all the inspectors that will be required. All three are open to the Conservative Party on the policy of the free hand, laid down by Mr. Baldwin, and the noble Earl knows that perfectly well.
He seems to think that by his policy of marketing, which we shall have to deal with in one House or the other—we do not know yet whether the Bill will be introduced in this House or the other, but we shall have to deal with it in the very near future—the whole difficulty is going to be overcome. I am not going to deal with it now because the Bill, I believe, is going to be altered in certain details and it is better to deal with it when it comes forward. There may be good in the Bill—I am not going to dispute that—assuming that it is worked to the nth degree by the farmers. Improvements will be made in marketing, but even then the noble Earl is surely not going to tell us that the state of affairs set forth by my noble friends Lord Cranworth and Lord Hastings, last week, is going to be entirely remedied by a proposal of this kind.
260
May I quote to your Lordships on this matter a statement made three years ago by a very experienced noble Lord in this House. He said:—
"It therefore comes to this, that however you organise the farmer in this country, if you get the whole of his wheat and the whole of his beef in great produce pools, you are still not going to be able to control the price in that way because you are not going to be able to control the importer."
I wonder whether the noble Earl recognises that.
EARL DE LA WARR: It is the speech on import boards which I made then.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: I am quite sure the noble Earl would not deny his speech for one moment. I appreciate the speech he has made this afternoon, but I appreciate much more the speech he made last May. I just want to press the noble Earl a little bit further in regard to his remedies. We have certain facts which were stated in the debate last week and which were admitted in the debate in another place three days ago, to which the noble Earl really did not refer at all. There has been an absolute decrease in the amount of arable land, a decrease of practically a million acres in the last ten years, and a decrease of over 100,000 in the number of agricultural labourers employed on the land. We were told in another place that the Government's policy is to deal with unemployment and to get the labourer back on the land. I want a suggestion this afternoon from the noble Earl as to how that is going to he done. The Prime Minister put it certainly more clearly than the noble Earl. The Prime Minister wants to maintain price conditions which are fair to the farmer. Now, my Lords, if he will do that then, I will not say I will be prepared to vote Socialist, but I shall be prepared to be extraordinarily friendly to the noble Earl. That is really what we want.
I will not say that a marketing scheme is no good, but I do say that it will not do for us what maintenance of price will do. We want prices kept up. The workers are protected by the Wages Act. We want to keep up wages. We want to pay them, because the agricultural labourers are skilled men, even higher wages than the wages which the wage-earners in protected trades are getting to-day, men of far less capacity and far less training than the agricultural

261
labourer. In the old days the wage of an agricultural labourer was the price of a sack of wheat per week. To-day the agricultural labourer's wage is 2½ times the price of a sack of wheat. How can the farmer go on unless you are prepared to do something which will enable him to produce wheat at a price at which he can afford to pay the wages which by law he is bound to pay, and which he wants to pay? You are not really going to touch the heart of this very important question unless you can do that.
The noble Earl took refuge in the proportion of beef and meat that is produced in this country. It was said in the other House, and the noble Earl told us, that about the same amount is imported from abroad. Though it may be that a good deal of land has gone down to grass from arable in the last few years, and there was an increase in the production of our herds and flocks, during the last three years they have begun to go down. The position is not as bad as it is in arable farming, but the noble Earl did not mention that herds were reduced by 429,000 during the last three years, sheep by 743,000, and pigs—which of course, as the noble Earl knows, go up and down very much according to whether they are paying or not—have been reduced by 386,000. If you put together all the figures that he gave us, it comes to something over £300,000,000 of foodstuffs which we are importing from foreign countries, nearly all of which could he grown in the Empire and a great deal, as the noble Earl admitted, in this country. When you have a position of that kind, with £300,000,000 of imports, you are really only playing—I do not want to belittle the noble Earl's Marketing Bill, and when it comes we will deal with it, but to give his Marketing Bill as a panacea for the importation of £300,000,000—
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: It is £472,000,000.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: I said over £300,000,000, for I am always very anxious not to exaggerate in my figures. I have no doubt that the noble Earl will accept the amended figure suggested by my noble friend of over £470,000,000. You are not going to remedy that by your Marketing Bill. Still more, the noble Earl has not touched the question of the importation of foreign food grown under conditions which we in this coun-
262
try cannot possibly imitate, and do not attempt to imitate. Russia is going to export 7,000,000 quarters of wheat between now and the next harvest. That is the Russian programme. An answer was given in the other place only yesterday to the effect that 3,294,000 cwts. of Russian wheat were imported into this country last month. The noble and learned Lord, the Leader of the House, was good enough a few days ago to minimise very largely this question of the Russian importation. He put the matter rather more firmly than the noble Earl did. The Lord President is an unabashed Free Trader—
LORD PARMOOR: Hear, hear!
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD:—free importer—
LORD PARMOOR: Hear, hear!
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD:—and free dumper. Does the noble Lord go as far as that? I am not sure that he does not. I am not sure that he did not do so in this House when he said:—
"If you take the view that I do, and that always has been taken, that you have to consider the interests of the consumer, then, if there is nothing unfair, it is unjust to him to exclude commodities because they can be produced more cheaply in some other area than our own."
I think the noble Lord really is a free dumper. I think he really rather rejoices in the importation of Russian wheat. He is rather glad that the consumer in this country, who can buy English meat (Heaven knows!) cheaply enough to-day, should still have the price kept down by the importation of Russian wheat at a price that we cannot possibly touch, and grown under conditions which we certainly do not want to see in this country.
I had sent to me a couple of months ago a circular from Rotterdam. It is not only wheat that comes in in this way. How are our growers of fruit and vegetables going to compete with things of this kind? Standard trays of finest tomatoes, C grade, layer packed, 27½ lbs. at 2s. 4d. a tray, or 1d. a lb.; cucumbers at 1d. a lb.; carrots in bags of 50 kilos at 1s. 7d. a bag, which works out, I think, at 5 lbs. for 1d.; winter onions at 2s.;3d. for a bag of 50 kilos, which is just over 4 lbs. for 1d. This was sent broadcast into this country, and anybody could have gone and bought these

263
vegetables at those prices. I do not know whether the noble Lord really considers, or will consider, doing anything to deal with that. I doubt very much whether his marketing scheme will deal with it at all.
It is because the Party opposite is so tied up with the Co-operative Party in this country that they will not do anything to touch this Russian grain? France has done it, Rumania has done it, Canada is considering it at the moment. The Russo-British Grain Export Company has as its principal shareholders in this country Arcos, Centro-Soyus and the Co-operative Wholesale Society. That is the body which is importing into this country this slave-grown grain from Russia. The Co-operative Wholesale Society is the biggest shareholder—29 per cent. of capital—and early in September, two months ago, they themselves imported into Leith 7,000 quarters of Russian wheat. Surely the noble Earl and his Party would he doing better work for the country if they would consider what this importation is doing, and what it is going to do between now and the harvest next year. I give them all they ask about the Marketing Bill, but we have lost a million acres of arable land, we have lost over 100,000 splendid agricultural labourers, and we see every possibility of losing very many more in the course of the next year owing to this further import of Russian wheat. Are they going to stop it? Have they any plan in mind for stopping it? Is the noble and learned Lord, the Leader of the House, going to say that it is the consumer whom we must look after if, in the course of looking after the consumer, arable farming in this country is to go to pieces? Is he going to say: "We are very sorry, and we will shed a tear over its tombstone, but we shall get the votes of the consumers"?
LORD PARMOOR: I do not think that at all.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: That is the noble and learned Lord and the noble Earl put together. The noble and learned Lord is a free dumper, and the noble Earl is the one who wants the votes of the consumers at the next Election. I do not want to take up anything like the amount of time that the noble Earl very rightly took in his most interesting and
264
informative speech. I could deal with fruit. In Sussex, where I live, I was offered 100 acres of black currants for nothing if I would only pick them for the good of the trees. They would not pay for the picking. They belonged to a very well-known grower. The President of the Wisbech and District Fruit Growers' Association told us not long ago of the fruit that was left to rot on the trees in Norfolk: 940 tons of gooseberries, 156 tons of raspberries, 35 tons of red currants—I am not speaking now of black currants—and 330 tons of plums, which were left to rot because they would not pay for the picking. At the same time fruit pulp was coming in from Russia by the hundred tons, and getting into our markets to the detriment of English growers.
Again I ask, what are you going to do? France, as I say, is doing something and so are other countries. The Government know, and members of the Government, when they make speeches in public, go on trying to make the public believe that they are worried about this state of affairs.
Mr. Lansbury, who occupies a seat in the Cabinet, said only the other day:—
"Agriculture, our greatest and most important industry"—
to have heard the noble Earl, in the beginning of his speech this afternoon, one would have imagined that agriculture was a very secondary affair—
"is simply going from bad to worse."
The Minister of Agriculture himself said that:—
"The main cause of the depression of agriculture in this country is that the industry has not been on an economic basis."
The reason why it has not been on an economic basis is that it cannot compete, with its fixed rate of wages, with imports from, foreign agriculture which have no such condition. We do not want to do away with the condition, but we want to make it possible, if necessary by means of tariffs, to level up the basis in order that our farmers may be able to produce here in competition with foreign produce.
EARL DE LA WARR: If that is the policy of the noble Viscount's Party, will he tell us why the Conservative candidate at Shipley received the support of the Party? He placarded the town with: "No food taxes."
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: I said at the beginning of my speech that the policy of the Leader of my Party was a free hand to deal with the matter by tariffs, quotas or subsidies, and I believe they are the only three conditions by means of one or other of which a remedy is to be found. I do not for one moment believe that a remedy is to be: found in the finicking policy of marketing put forward by the noble Earl. The Minister of Health said the other day that the price of wheat, like the price of coal, was uneconomically low, and that he did not see how they could let these things drift. The friends of the noble Earl have put up the price of coal by Act of Parliament. Will not they let us put up the price of wheat, or by tariffs enable us in this country to compete with slave-grown wheat? I have here one other quotation from the Prime Minister himself. I take it from the Daily Herald:—
"The immediate problem of agriculture is that our markets, season after season, are being flooded with various kinds of agricultural produce under conditions which deprive our farmers of fairness in competition."
Flooding takes place undoubtedly from abroad of foodstuffs produced under longer hours of labour and worse conditions of wages—of course in Russia they are far worse—than those which prevail in this country. Of course, in this country we want to keep up the standard of living. England has done well in the past because it has been not only a great industrial but a great agricultural country, and we want to maintain the condition of prosperous manufacturers, without seeing agriculture going gradually down to the depths, as it is to-day.
The noble Earl has said nothing about the policy of his Party contained in the Bill which is going to enable the Government to start large farms of their own in all parts of the country, and small holdings in other parts. Large farms will, of course, mean reduced labour. Fewer horses will be used, electricity will be used, and, I assume, they will be highly scientifically run, large farms. If they are to be demonstration farms you will have to reduce the labour hill still further. Every large farm in the country run on highly scientific lines employs less labour than if it were cut up into moderate sized farms. What are you going to grow on those large
266
farms? Not tomatoes. You are going to grow wheat. You must grow wheat. If you are going to establish a number of large farms at the public expense, and work them by tractors, they must be largely arable, and yet we are told by the noble Earl, in effect, that the days of arable farming are over.
The Government marketing system will not apply to wheat, and yet that is the type of farming which will be established at the public expense or, I venture to believe, at the public loss. There are already twenty-one demonstration farms in the country. Why do you want more. I am in favour of small holdings. There are reasons why I think it is an admirable thing to give an opportunity to men to take their share, in their awn small way, in farming and growing things in this country; but you must remember that you do not thereby increase employment. You turn out ten farm labourers from every farm you take over and cut up, and if you replace them by ten small holders you do not decrease the problem of unemployment connected with agriculture to-day. The Minister of Agriculture quoted from that new book by Professor Orwin on the future of farming. Professor Orwin makes a very clear and useful pronouncement in his book, which is approved by the Minister of Agriculture in another place. It is as follows:—
"There is no policy which will put more men on the land except a reduction in the standard of living or an artificial improvement in prices, either of which would increase the margin between costs and returns, and so make it possible once more to cultivate marginal and sub-marginal land."
Nobody wants to reduce the standard of living, but I say quite frankly that I do want, by an artificial method, to bring about an improvement in the price of the commodity which the farmer produces.
The noble Earl has said nothing as to that. He has devoted himself in his interesting speech to the principle of the Marketing Bill. He has never told us what he is going to do about sugar beet. Lord Hastings has told us of the consequences in East Anglia if the subsidy is really going to come to an end. Thousands of more men will be thrown out of work. The responsibility will be on the Government. The money spent under our Acts in the last three or four

267
years has come back to the State four or five times over in the form of employment. I take it that you, the Government, are not going to give any subsidy to wheat. That, I suppose, is ruled out by so determined a Free Trader as the Lord President of the Council. I take it the Government are not going to do anything with regard to the dumping of corn from Russia. The noble Earl, in his speech last week on dumping, said we want unfair conditions very carefully ascertained. Are you not satisfied that in Russia, at all events, the conditions are unfair, and that there is no need for further investigation into the conditions under which farms in Russia are being utilised for the growing of wheat, and are still going to be utilised in the next year or two? Unemployment is now a crime in Russia. If you do not go where you are sent, if you do not go and work on these farms, you get six months hard labour, or you may die of starvation, whichever you like. I take it the answer is in the negative there. In regard to dairy produce, in regard to skimmed milk and powdered milk, the noble Earl has told us that he is going to give us no help. The consumer again is the person who is to be thought of to the utmost extent, and the farmer who produces the milk is to be subjected to the conditions of this Bill which has been referred to.
The noble Earl has told us the result of the Imperial Conference. He seemed more pleased with it than I think I am. "Delay," as Mr. Bennett said at the beginning, "is hazardous, the time for action has come, we dare not fail." The delay is still hazardous, the time for action has come and gone, and noble Lords opposite have failed. It is true they have promised another Conference in Ottawa. What are they going to do there for the help of British agriculture? What are they going to do to maintain the prices of agricultural produce in this country? "You cannot let things drift," said the Minister of Health; but they are drifting. If it had only been steel that was dumped here at starvation prices the thing would very soon have been attended to, because there is a strong trade union who are largely supporters of noble Lords opposite, who would have had something to say about steel produced in Russia and dumped here far below cost of production. No,
268
it is only wheat. The agricultural labourer is perhaps not a very important voter for noble Lords opposite.
LORD HARRIS: He was at one time.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: He was at one time very important indeed, but, as I have said, 125,000 of them have disappeared since the War, and all we get when we raise this debate is the suggestion from the noble Earl opposite that he will bring in a Marketing Bill, and, if it passes, new forms of compulsion will be applied to the farmer, new forms of levy will be placed upon him.
EARL DE LA WARR: By the farmer himself.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: Yes, but it is compulsory on the farmer; he is compelled by his colleagues. New levies will be made on the farmer, whether he likes it or not and new swarms of inspectors from Whitehall will have to see how this thing is carried out. My noble friends ask quite definitely for help for agriculture, for the arable farmer in his present desperate condition. We put every suggestion we can to the Government opposite, and we have got a Marketing Bill promised for the future, and a Scrub Bull Bill for to-day—both of them good in their way, but both of them utterly inadequate to bring the men back on to the farm and to bring prosperity to the farmer himself.
THE DUKE OF MONTROSE: My Lords, I listened very carefully to the speech of the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, and I had hoped to hear some positive remedy for the ills of agriculture. I think he mentioned something about giving fixity of tenure, or, if he did not, it is a subject frequently mentioned by speakers on Labour Party platforms. There is an idea that there is something wrong with the way in which land is held to-day, and that by giving fixity of tenure the ills of agriculture will be cured. You may change tenure as much as you like, but you will never cure the ills of agriculture by tinkering with tenure. One might just as well say that by changing the bed of a sick patient in a hospital you would cure his disease. No amount of shifting the bed of a sick patient would ever cure him of his disease, and no amount of tinkering with tenure will ever cure the present depression in agriculture. There is only one remedy, and that is adequate prices. We

269
must have adequate prices for the produce of the land. And by adequate prices I mean prices which will not only cover the cost of production, but will leave a profit to the farmer, and enable him to pay a decent living wage to his employees.
There is another idea that is frequently mentioned, and that is small holdings. I wish I could think that by the establishment of small holdings we could really bring prosperity to agriculture. Our experience, especially in Scotland, has been that the establishment of small holdings has proved anything but economic, even if the Government got the land for nothing. There is the case of the estate of Borgie in Sutherlandshire. There, I believe, the Government got the estate as a gift from the Duke of Sutherland, and they established ten holders upon it, and what has been their experience? They lost£53,000. £53,000 for establishing ten settlers!—£5,000 a settler! It would have been better to have pensioned them off at £3 a week, the loss would have been less. But that is not the only instance. If you take all the small holdings established in Scotland in the last fifteen years the loss has been £1,874,000. And 53 per cent. of that loss has had to be borne direct by the taxpayers, and the rest by public, authorities. What have we got to show for the loss of all that money? We have established here and there in the country a few small holders in poverty, trying to eke out an existence from the land, face to face with the unlimited competition of foreign goods, dumped here at prices below the cost of production here.
The Prime Minister in another place offered a challenge, asking if there was any Conservative in favour of taxing food. Well, as a humble Conservative Back Bencher, I say I am. Yes, I am in favour of taxing food, if that food is produced under sweated conditions and conditions lower than exist in this country. Does it not strike the noble Earl that if you allow food, or anything else, produced under sweated conditions and low social conditions, to come into this country free and untaxed, you are putting a premium upon sweated goods? Because countries say to themselves: "It is only by maintaining low wages and sweated conditions that we can sell our goods to Great Britain and maintain our
270
hold on their markets." Much better penalise those goods in proportion to the lowness of the wages and of the conditions under which they are manufactured, and then foreign nations will say:—"The more we raise our wages, and the more we raise our standard of living, the lower the tariff in Britain will be." Then the day will come when their conditions are the same as our conditions. When that day comes and foreign nations pay wages as high as we pay and their conditions are as high as ours, give us free trade and fair trade.
The last time I listened to a debate on the subject of free imports, the Lord President of the Council gave us an address on cheapness. He said that no one would be in favour of taxation which would mean dear food. He said he was in favour of cheapness, but he forgot to tell us what he meant by cheapness. Cheapness, it must be remembered, is a relative term. Cheapness by itself means nothing. It is whether you have money-in your pocket or not which makes a thing cheap or dear. Oranges at one shilling a dozen are cheap ii you have a florin in your pocket. Oranges at sixpence a dozen are dear if you have only a half-penny. The thing that is important is not cheapness; it is money. The thing that matters to the working classes is money. They will never get money until they have employment, and employment will never be satisfactory in this country so long as you allow dumped goods to come in below the cost of production here.
There has been mention of a Marketing Bill. In that Marketing Bill there is an idea of creating areas. There is an idea that if, for instance, dairy farmers can show that they are in a majority in an area, they form a pool and can have compulsory powers to compel other farmers to sell their goods through the pool or else join the pool. There is some idea of forming areas, according to the Under-Secretary for Scotland, by which compulsory powers will he given to the pool—in our case a milk pool—to control the milk in the area. That marketing scheme will never he the least possible good unless power is given also to control the sale of milk or any other thing coming into the area from outside. If you give a pool power to control the sale of a thing within an area and also to

271
sell the same thing coming in from an area outside that is protection locally.
EARL DE LA WARE: May I make an explanation to the noble Duke about the Bill? That area can be a national area and certainly would be in the case of milk. I thought he would like to know that as is rather bears upon what he was saying.
THE DUKE OF MONTROSE: I am repeating what the Under-Secretary for Scotland said about having these areas and the control of the sale of things within them. That will never have any success until power is given to control imports brought in from outside the area. If that should be agreed upon, there will be no difference between that protection which is given locally and that for which we ask nationally. Then there is the question of co-operative societies. In our milk pool, which is the largest concern of the kind in the United Kingdom, there is an association on a co-operative footing of a large number of farmers and an association of producers. You would have thought that this co-operative society of producers would have met with the approval of the great co-operative societies of industrialists. Not a bit of it. The great cooperative societies of industrialists have been the greatest enemies of the milk pool and the cooperation of producers. If the Government are going to favour the co-operation of agricultural producers they must tackle the co-operative societies of industrialists. I understand that the Labour Party draw a great deal of their funds from the co-operative societies of industrialists. They are up against a very stiff hedge there. The question is, are they not going to compel the cooperative societies of industrialists to come to heel and deal with the cooperative societies of producers? I have only one word more and that is on the question of the fixed rent of holdings. I do not see how you are going to get that except by law. I do not think I will deal with it further. I have said enough as it is.
LORD ORANWORTH: My Lords, I must thank the noble Earl for the great trouble and courtesy with which he replied to my Motion. I think your Lordships' House is accustomed to expect from the noble Earl the courtesy with which he always replies to his political opponents, and I as well as the rest of your Lordships much appreciate it. But if I
272
am more than satisfied with the manner in which the noble Earl replied to me, I am much less than satisfied with the matter of his speech. My noble friends and I asked several questions of the noble Earl. There is the question about wheat, the question about sugar beet, the question about milk. But they all might be summed up in the one question: Have the Government any immediate measures whereby the British agriculturist can get for his produce more than it costs him to produce?
The noble Earl replied to some of those questions specifically, but to the question as a whole his answer, as I understand it, was: "All these things will be remedied by the Marketing Bill which we are about to introduce." All I would say about that is, as we shall have a further opportunity of discussing that remarkable Bill, that it seems a little unfortunate that this wonderful Bill has been received with such faint praise by every one of the great agricultural bodies who have so far considered it. I thought, and there are many like me who thought that this Government had a wonderful opportunity so far as agriculture was concerned when they came in. Because they had, perhaps, some slight advantage in that any measures they produced would be considered on their merits and on their merits alone, and would not be considered with the view to political advantage. I cannot conceal my opinion that they have let this opportunity slide.
I would only say, in conclusion, that I heard from the noble Earl the most remarkable statement that I think I ever heard made—the statement in which he said at the close of his speech that in the brief eighteen months the Government had been in office they had done more for agriculture than had been done in four and a-half years by the previous Government. Then, when I was waiting to hear what they had done, he stopped and I am still completely ignorant of what that record is. What is to come I do not know. But what has passed, I think, frankly ranks as nothing. Nevertheless, I think your Lordships will agree with me that it would be of no real use or value to press my Motion to a Division, and I will ask the leave of your Lordships to withdraw it.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before seven o'clock.