Sitting of 21 November 1930

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Fraserburgh Harbour Order Confirmation Bill [Lords],
Grampian Electricity Supply Order Confirmation Bill [Lords],
Read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.

ORAL ANSWER TO QUESTION.

  COAL INDUSTRY (INDUSTRIAL BOARD).
  Mr. E. EDWARDS(by Private Notice) asked the Secretary for Mines whether he can make any statement concerning the constitution of the Coal Mines National Industrial Board?
  The SECRETARY for MINES (Mr. Shinwell): I had hoped to be able, in reply to this question, to give the House the names of the members of the Board, but the filling of one or two places cannot be definitely settled until later in the day. The House will appreciate that the Board must be appointed this week-end. I shall now be obliged to announce them through the Press. I regret this as I would have preferred to have announced the constitution of the Board first to the House of Commons. The address of the Board will be 5, old Palace Yard, S.W..
  Mr. EDWARDS: Are there any colliery owners on the Board; and in view of the seriousness of the situation will the Government consider steps to have the industry carried on, from December 1st without a stoppage.
  Mr. SHINWELL: As regards the first part of the supplementary question, there will be coalowners on the Board, but I must ask my hon. Friend to await the announcement which I shall make this afternoon. As regards the second
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  part of the supplementary question I am afraid that we must allow the Board to deal with any dispute that comes before it in the ordinary way, before coming to any other conclusion.
  Mr. TINKER: Does the hon. Gentleman intend to announce the names before the House rises to-day?
  Mr. SHINWELL: That is my intention, but there may be some difficulty. It depends on the time when the House rises, and I am unable to say anything as to that; but there will be an announcement by about Four o'Clock.

  SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
    STANDING COMMITTEE A.
    Mr. Frederick Hall reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee A: Mr. Brooke and Captain Gunston; and had appointed in substitution: Rear-Admiral Beamish and Mr. Sutton.

    STANDING COMMITTEE B.
    Mr. Frederick Hall further reported from the Committee: That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee B: Captain Crook-shank; and had appointed in substitution: the Marquess of Hartington.
    Reports to lie upon the Table.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BRITISH BEER BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Mr. SMITH-CARINGTON: I beg to move "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  The Bill which I have the honour to introduce has for its purpose the stimulation of the use of British materials in the manufacture of beer. On reference to the Bill hon. Members will notice that I give a rather wide definition of beer. That definition includes such beverages as spruce and rum and so on, and I may say in regard to that definition that I am speaking of beverages of which I have no inside knowledge. I hope that there will be a considerable measure of agreement, at least on the purpose of this Bill, if not on the method proposed in it. The purpose is one which ought to call support even from the temperance reformers because, although they are somewhat intemperate on certain occasions in their enthusiasm for the cause, I think they will agree with me that it is all to the good, as long as beer remains our national beverage, that it should be manufactured from British ingredients. I am not without hope also of gaining a little good will from the Minister of Agriculture because, the other day, in reply to a question on a kindred subject he described this as a desirable object. It is common knowledge that our agricultural industry is in a grievous plight, and I think we are in general agreement that our farming operations are so diverse that it is not possible to apply any one specific which will meet the whole case, but that we must look to a variety of remedies to meet a variety of troubles.
  This Bill deals only with barley and hops. It may he asked why I have not dealt with the question of sugar. I have omitted sugar because there would be great practical difficulty in bringing it into the Measure. It would involve bringing in also a large number of ancillary businesses and the manufacturers of various substances supplied to the brewers, such as brewers' sugar, glucose and other chemical concoctions. I ask the House to observe that I have not called this Bill a Pure Beer Bill. Pure beer is
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  a matter which appeals strongly to us all, but I do not know that it is a very urgent matter for legislation. The term "pure beer" in the old days rather suggested the necessary inference that there was such stuff as impure beer. My memory goes back to the early days of this century, when there was an epidemic of arsenic poisoning in the North and it was traced to some beer that was being produced there. As the casualties were chiefly among the best customers, of course the remedy came from within the industry, and, since then, I think we have had no repetition of it. But apart from that sense in which the expression "pure beer" is used, there has grown up a secondary sense of the term which applies not to purity as such, but to the amount of sugar content. When "pure beer" is spoken of, by that is meant beer which has not more than 15 per cent. sugar content, At the present time beer very often rather exceeds that amount, but it seems to me that to deal with that question is far less urgent than to deal with the question of barley and hops, which are of great account in our agricultural industry.
  In this matter we find the initial difficulty that there are not any statistics upon which we can base our arguments with absolute certainty. In fact one of the purposes of the Bill is to obtain such statistics, but from inquiries that I have made I am given to understand that at the present time the amount of British hops used in beer would probably not exceed 70 per cent. and yet a large number of brewers are using over 90 per cent. It therefore seems to me that there must be a large number of other brewers who fall rather short of grace in this respect. I do not propose to say anything more about hops because my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Oxford (Captain Bourne) who will second this Motion is going to deal more fully with that question. Turning to barley I am given to understand that, in the aggregate, the proportion of British-grown barley used by brewers in the manufacture of beer is probably not more than about 55 per cent. to 60 per cent., the remaining 40 per cent. to 45 per cent. being brought from oversea. I have made further inquiries, and I find that quite a large number of brewers employ something like from 75 to 80 per cent.

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  of British barley. There are actually one or two firms which make an all-British beer. There again it seems to me that there must be other brewers who are falling badly behind their colleagues in this particular opportunity that they have of giving a leg-up to British agriculture.
  With regard to the position of the barley grower, speaking generally, barley requires light soil and light rainfall, and it is very largely grown on the light limestone lands in Rutland, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and elsewhere. In those districts and on that soil it is, practically speaking—in fact, I think one might say certainly—the only cereal crop that can be grown in the rotation. The farming system there is largely turnips and barley, and the land has not sufficient depth of soil for wheat or for beans and would not lay down to good pasture. The barley is therefore practically an essential cereal in that particular district, and if the barley crop were to be given up, there is very little doubt that large tracts of land would go down to their old original state of heath or moorland. At the present moment, as the House is well aware, we are plodding our weary way through the Land (Utilisation) Bill, and it seems to me that it would be far more practical to keep on with the barley land which we have already than to proceed with other measures for utilizing it.
  Let us turn for a moment to the barley costs. I think I shall not be very far wrong—it varies in different seasons, but I think the Minister will not seriously quarrel with my figures—if I say that the cost of production is something like£6 or£7 an acre in the district I have named. The yield varies from 3½ to perhaps 4 quarters to the acre in a heavy season, and the price is an extraordinarily wide one. For barley that can be used for malting, it comes out at very high prices. I do not wish to quote extreme prices, but I think I should be well inside the mark if I said that malting barley of good quality might be put at an average of 45s. per quarter. On the other hand, if it is not good enough for malting, or if there is an excess of malting barley, so that the brewers do not absorb it for malting purposes and it cannot find a market in that category, it immediately falls into the lower
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  category of feeding barley, which on the average only gets a price of, say, 24s. a quarter. Taking those figures in rather a generous way, it therefore seems that the crop arising from an acre may vary from£4 les. up to£9, and it will be seen from those figures that the barley grouter is very much dependent on the brewer for getting a successful result from his barley.
  There are two other factors which I ought to mention. Barley is particularly sensitive to the weather, and showery weather at harvest time has a very marked effect upon it. One result of that is that it is much more difficult for brewers to obtain a large hulk of English barley from the same sample than it would be for them to obtain a large bulk from one sample of barley from abroad, where the climate is more kindly to the farmer. We are told that public taste has changed a good deal and that it looks more and more for a bright, brilliant beer, which can only be obtained by a very considerable admixture of foreign barley. I am not going to suggest that that taste has been schooled into this new channel, but whether it has or has not been cultivated because of its convenience, 1 am going to put in a plea for higher education, so that we may get a more generous proportion of British barley in our beer.
  It will be seen from some of the figures I have mentioned that it would be difficult to ask for cent. per cent. British. I think it would probably defeat the purpose of the Bill if I had asked for that, and I am therefore content with something less, and making allowance for the differences in the seasons, I have left it to the discretion of the Minister of Agriculture to fix what would be the right proportion. The brewer is a man of many virtues. He gives us good cheer and he makes us contented. I am one of those who would associate myself. quite definitely with the Persian poet, who, writing years ago about the vintners, said of them:
  " I wonder often what the Vintners buy One-half so precious as the stuff they sell."
  The brewer's virtues do not end there. I am sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer must recognise that there are many virtues in the brewing industry, and even if he may be a little inclined to dissemble

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  his love, I am sure he would not be shy about taking up the£70,000,000 odd that he receives from that golden source.
  Perhaps it is not altogether realised what a weight of taxation there is upon beer. I noticed the other day a report of a brewery meeting in which the chairman referred to the weight of taxation levied upon that industry, and he pointed out that in 1902 the Government took out of the distributed profits of that year 59 per cent., while the shareholder and reserve funds received 41 per cent., but last year that proportion had risen quite out of all recognition with the earlier figure, and the Government were actually taking 83 per cent. and the shareholder only receiving 17 per cent. of the distributed profits. I am glad to think that even at that, they received 12 per cent. upon their capital. Another serious difficulty with which the brewer has to contend is the serious fall in consumption. In the year before the war the amount of beer brewed was something like 36,000,000 barrels, but last year it had sunk to the comparatively small figure of 19,250,000 barrels.
  The brewer also occupies a very unusual position. In the first place, he is comparatively immune from foreign competition. He has a sheltered industry, and, as regards internal competition, it is mitigated in various ways. In the first place, I think I am right in suggesting that no fresh brewery could start, and therefore that source of competition is pretty well knocked out. Then the tied-house system has been developed. A cynic once told me that the tied-house system was started because anyone could sell good beer; the trouble was to sell bad beer. I cannot share the view of that cynic, because I believe there is no such thing as bad beer. Balancing the various difficulties with which the brewer has to contend with the privileges which he enjoys, one might speculate as to whether he could not do a little more for agriculture, and whether it is not fair to ask him to do so. I think it would be very desirable that he should add to his other virtues by buying British. My admiration for the brewer is such that I do not wish to burden him unduly, and in this Bill merely ask him to make certain returns. He already makes returns, and I only ask
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  him to subdivide those returns into the quantities of British Empire and foreign origin.
  I would like to say a few words about the export trade. One has to be very careful about making any disturbance in that trade, but here we are a little fortunate inasmuch as circumstances lave somewhat. circumscribed our difficulty, because, in the first place, there are very few brewers who are interested in the export trade, and, therefore, the amount of inspection and trouble which any concession to export trade requires would be strictly limited. Again, the brew that they make for export is a separate one, which would make it simpler to deal with. In return for these requests that I make of the brewer, I offer the benefit, for what it is worth, of the national mark, which we undoubtedly know, by experience in other directions, has some value, and I am not at all sure that in the ease of beer it would not so far harmonise with the wishes of the customer that a national mark beer would gain a great deal in popularity. But the national mark, though it is all I can include in this Bill, is not the whole wish that I have at heart, for I would like to see a differentiation in taxation in favour of those who comply with a reasonably high standard of British material in beer.
  If I turn to the Clauses in the Bill, what I would say upon them, after the long explanation I have already given, is that in Clause 1 I have endeavoured to keep the machinery as simple as possible. I realise that the maltster has got to be brought in, because a good many brewers buy from him direct. I also make provision for returns to cover Empire produce. In the second Clause, I wish to extend the Agricultural Produce (Grading and Marking) Act, so as to include beer. I fancy that it is more than doubtful whether beer would be included in the Act, unless it were definitely brought within it. In the third Clause, I cast a responsibility upon the Minister of Agriculture, which, I hope, he will not find too oppressive, but I make it obligatory upon him to prescribe the proportion of British barley and hops that shall qualify for a national mark, and I make it permissive for him to prescribe the percentage of Empire produce. Quite clearly, nothing will happen under that immediately. But we might as well begin

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  by getting our figures at the earliest possible time, so as to have a foundation upon which to build. I commend this Bill to the House, and I ask for the Second Reading in order to help to keep up our arable cultivation, especially in the Eastern Counties. I ask the House for a Second Reading in order to give a little encouragement to farmers, who have had a very bad time. I ask for it, also, to give a little encouragement to the brewer to adopt the course I recommend, so that he may harmonise the wishes of his customers with the good of agriculture.
  Captain BOURNE: I beg to second the Motion.
  In doing so, wish to draw the attention of the House to the fact that in recent years several Bills with this object, or a similar object, in view, have been presented, although I think in all cases they have suffered from the defect of private Members' Bills of being overwhelmed at the end of the Session. It may surprise the House to know that there is a very great pressure to introduce private Members' Bills dealing with beer, and it is, perhaps, not realised what a very large customer the brewing trade is to agriculture, and how the restrictions which we put on the trade, and the very heavy taxation which has been placed, unfortunately, not only on the brewing trade, but on the distillery trade, have affected agriculture. The consequence is that where farmers used to find, before the War, a large market for their produce, there is to-day much less demand, while competition in those markets has been such that the British farmer finds it harder to maintain his footing.
  For that reason, we bring in this Bill with the desire to protect, as far as we can, a reasonable share of the markets for the home producer. As my hon. Friend in introducing this Bill said, before the War there used to be brewed, approximately, 36,000,000 standard barrels of beer. To-day, the figure is about 19,250,000, but it would be a very great mistake if the House supposed from those figures that the consumption of beer in this country has gone down by nearly one-half. Before the War, the difference between the number of standard barrels brewed—and by that I mean a barrel of 36 gallons, with a specific gravity of 1,050—
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  and the number of bulk barrels—that is, the number of barrels of 36 gallons actually placed on the market—is to-day something like 19,250,000 standard barrels brewed, but something over 24,000,000 barrels consumed. That, in itself, reduces very largely the demand for hops. For those 24,000,000 barrels which are drunk annually now, representing something like 22,500,000 bulk standard barrels, there should be automatically a considerably bigger demand for malt, hops and sugar, and that very large drop between the standard barrel and the bulk barrel is largely due to the enormous amount of taxation which beer has to bear to-day.
  There is another difficulty which has overtaken farmers. Again, owing to the very high taxation, the amount of whisky distilled in this country, or, rather, mostly in Scotland and Ireland, has dropped very considerably. Before the war, the distiller was a competitor of the brewer and the malting farmer, and more especially the rather lower grade of malting barley which produced admirable malt for distilling, but, perhaps, would not produce malt of a sufficiently high quality to give that brightness to beer which, as my hon. Friend has said, is such a, desirable thing to-day.
  That market has to a large extent vanished, and both the growers of barley and the growers of hops find themselves with a restricted market, and have great difficulty in disposing of their produce, through causes which are no fault of their own but arise very largely from the action of the State. I wish more particularly to make an apeal to the House on behalf of the growers of hops, because their industry is one which has suffered very severely owing to the diminution in the quantity of beer brewed, and it is an industry which, for all practical purposes, has no other market except the brewing industry. It is true that there is a very small demand for hops for medicinal purposes. It is said, I believe, that if you stuff your pillow with hops you will sleep well, but I take it that is rather a matter of faith.
  I have grown hops and I have lived among hop-growers, and I claim to know something about hops, and the first thing I would like to remind the House is this: During the War, when land was

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  urgently required for the production of foodstuffs, owing to the submarine menace, hop-growers were compelled to reduce their acreage by one-half. I am not saying for a moment that that was not necessary, but what people forget is that a hop garden is a very expensive thing to establish. There is all the expense of wiring it, and it brings no return for the first three years after planting. The amount of capital required for establishing a hop-garden is something like£40 or£50 per acre. No one will deny that it may be a necessity in time of War to halve the area of the hop gardens, but, all the same, to the hop-grower it means so much good money thrown away. After the War hop-growers were encouraged, nay, almost compelled by the Controller, to increase their acreage. There was an idea, I think, that there would be a greater demand for beer than proved to be the case; or, rather, I do not think anyone foresaw that one of the effects of high taxation, would be to make so great a difference between the amount of beer brewed and the amount of beer drunk. There has been overproduction of hops, and it has been a, very difficult thing for the hop-growers to carry on at all by reason of their having only one market, the brewing market, because the amount the brewers can take is limited in present conditions
  The overhead expenses of a hop grower are very great. Not only is there the expense of wiring the gardens, but there is also the overhead expense for the erection of kilns or oast houses, and these overhead expenses have to be borne whether he is running his kilns to their full capacity or not. In many cases the kilns represent thousands of pounds in overhead expenses. It is obvious that with the decreased demand for beer the hop grower cannot hope for many years to see a return to the old acreage, and I suggest that for that very reason it is still more desirable to guarantee to him as large a share of the British market as possible. The late Government put a duty upon imported hops, and the hop growers were very grateful for it. I believe there is very little reason why British hops should not be almost universally used. The main importation of hops comes from California, Oregon and Bavaria. The Oregon hops, although
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  very nice to look at, have a curiously strong resinous smell and taste, and for that reason they can only be used in very small quantities. Our forefathers had a taste which was not altogether averse to liquorice in beers, but I do not think that present day taste runs in that direction. Prohibition in America has tendered to increase the export of American hops to this country, though judging by reports of what has occurred in America one begins to believe that the brewing industry there is getting on to its feet again. With regard to Bavarian hops, the position is a little different. As hon. Members are aware, in brewing hops are used for two purposes. They are used principally for boiling with the mash in the mash-tub; but there is a second use for very high grade quality hops. After the beer is brewed, and when it is put either into refrigerating chambers to keep or into barrels to send out, a small, quite small, quantity of very fine hops is placed in the beer to make it clear and to give it that rather bitter taste which we associate with the name "India Pale Ale." For that purpose, and for very light beers I think Bavarian hops have an advantage over our own; but for the great bulk of the brewing industry I believe British hops could be used and would serve better than those of other countries. I do not wish to deal with the question of barley, what I have had to say concerns hops, and I would add this in conclusion: The Minister of Agriculture has been making great and praiseworthy efforts to see that the National Mark is applied to British beef. May I ask him to extend the same thing to beer, which is associated with beef in our traditions?
  The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Dr. Addison): I have every sympathy with the desire of the Mover and the Seconder of this Bill that we should do whatever we can to maintain arable cultivation and to have our cultivators growing a sufficient quantity of good class barley and good hops; but if this Bill represents their best contribution towards that desirable end I must say that I do not think it will carry them very far. Let as look for a moment at the proposals of the Bill. It proposes that brewers shall make a return showing the amount of barley, malt and hops they use and whether it is British, Empire or foreign, and that

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  every maltster shall make a similar return. If anything were to happen after that there might be something to say for the proposal. It would, I imagine, place a considerable burden upon brewers and maltsters—though I think they could well afford it—but it would be worth it, perhaps, if, when they had made these returns, anything were going to happen.
  The promoters of this Bill have entirely overlooked the multiplication of hordes of officials likely to be created by these proposals. This Bill would necessitate the appointment of officials to investigate the returns; they would have to go into the breweries and the maltsters' establishments to see their books and it would be a very expensive business. I welcome the support of hon. Gentlemen responsible for this Bill for making provision for the necessary staff to do this public work. What does it mean? If we turn to Clause 3 we get down to what may be called business. That Clause provides that the brewer may, if he likes, apply to the Minister of Agriculture for a mark, and that he shall be entitled, if he uses the percentages prescribed by the Minister, to mark his beer accordingly as the description provides. The brewer is not obliged to do anything. He is not obliged to buy British barley or British hops, but he "may" buy them. He may gets the hops from Oregon, or Bavaria, or anywhere else.
  If the Bill had provided that the brewers should buy British hops, then we might have looked at these proposals a little more closely, or even if the brewers had been obliged to buy a certain percentage of British hops. We often see the brewers' vans going through the streets decorated, with red, white and blue ribbons on the horses' tails, and Union Jack on the hacks of the horses, and yet the hops used in making the beer might come from Oregon or Bavaria. I cannot see how these proposals would help the industry except in a very indirect way. I want to help, but I am afraid the proposal in this Bill is not a very good way of helping the industry.
  There is nothing to prevent British brewery companies buying British barley now. They are all well-to-do people, and there is nothing to prevent them from giving a guaranteed price for a good class of British malting barley. To use a slang expression, it is as easy as falling
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  off a log. I remember seeing the other day a placard issued by the party opposite at a recent by-election in which the advocates of this business led a revolt against their leader. That revolt has something to do with using Empire goods. Why should the British brewers not combine to buy English barley? Why adopt this roundabout way of giving an option, if they like, of getting a label from the Ministry of Agriculture to say that they are using British barley. The brewers can do it without taking that course. The case of hops is easier than that of barley.
  I would like to tell the House what has happened in the case of hops. We were informed by the Mover or the Seconder of this Bill that the brewery companies were in favour of this Measure. There was an association of hop growers formed some time ago to deal with the price of hops and malting barley, and it did quite well. The price of hops in 1927 was 235s. per cwt. and in 1928, 215s. per cwt. The brewers did not support this excellent association which was bringing prosperity to the hop-growers, and it broke down. I may have to tell that story upon another occasion, but the result was that in 1929, instead of good British hops being 215s. per cwt., the price had been smashed down to 87s. 6d. per cwt.
  That was unnecessary because the brewery companies did quite well during those years. I have the figures of the estimated profits of brewery companies in 1927–28, and they amounted to£24,000,000, which is quite a comfortable figure. I would like to point out that in 1013–14 the estimated profits were£9,971,000, and last year they were£24,500,000. The brewers could easily have afforded to buy British hops at a decent price, and they could have afforded to pay a decent price for British barley.
  I suggest to the promoters of this Bill that they ought to address their representations to the Empire Free Traders. The proposal in this Measure is a very roundabout way of proceeding in the case of a great industry, and they really do not need to bother us at all. As this Bill is optional, I do not think it can possibly be of much use. It will certainly be very difficult to work. The appointment of a lot of officials will be necessary if it becomes law, and it will

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  be a great nuisance to the companies. I want to be as helpful as I can to the industry, and if the officers of the Ministry can provide a simple way of helping the promoters by an amendment of the Agricultural Produce (Grading and Marking) Act, I shall be glad to consider it. I make that promise without having explored the question very carefully, but at any rate it will have my good will, and I think something of that kind would be of much more service than the proposals contained in the Bill. I am sorry to say that, in my view, this Measure would be completely futile, because there is no power behind it. Having given my assurance of good will, so far as I can give it without actually pledging myself, I hope the promoters will not think it necessary to press the Bill to a Division, and I will see what can be done by a conference.
  Mr. GUINNESS: I think we all agree with the Mover of this Bill that assistance for the British barley grower is a very desirable object, but I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Agriculture, that in practice this Bill would inevitably prove ineffective. My reasons for saying this I should like to give from, perhaps, rather a different point of view from that of the right hon. Gentleman. I have a great belief in the National Mark scheme, but it was never framed for and has never in any way succeeded in the case of anything except raw produce, and it is not in its nature capable of useful application to a manufactured article.
  Dr. ADDISON: There is the case of jam.
  Mr. GUINNESS: That may be so, but I will tell the House my reasons for believing that it is peculiarly inapplicable to such an article as beer. What, after all, is the essence of the National Mark scheme? We are faced with the problem of an industry consisting of a vast number of individual producers, who cannot keep up individually a regular supply uniformly packed and graded; and the National Mark is given in suitable cases as a guarantee of quality, uniformity, regularity of supply and packing which, without this National Mark, would be only available to those producers if they were on a very big scale. It has enabled
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  the small producer to get much of the trading and marketing advantage which hitherto has been enjoyed only by large combinations, and under the National Mark we are gradually seeing the development of a large-scale reputation for the benefit of a large number of conscientious individual producers. But the essence of its success is that it is built up on the production of a uniform article, and it is not suitable for a varying article which is necessary in order to meet very variable eases.
  12 n.
  Apparently what is at the back of my hon. Friend's mind is that he wants to make anyhow a large class of beer uniform and the same every year in its ingredients. He proposes that the ingredients should be prescribed by the right hon. Gentleman, and that the brewer should be left to do the rest. He forgets that the choice of ingredients is a very complicated scientific problem. It is not just a matter of buying in a cheap market, as the right hon. Gentleman knows quite well, and I do not say that he suggested that it was. The foreign barley which is required for the legitimate purpose of counteracting the excessive nitrogenous content of European barley frequently costs much more than the British barley with which it is mixed, and it would be impracticable to get a satisfactorily uniform result by laying down these ingredients without any kind of consideration for their chemical characteristics. The brewing process is one of extreme complication and delicacy, and I suppose that there is nothing consumed by the public which is turned out after a greater application of expert scientific knowledge. What, after all, is the essence of the process? It is the feeding of yeast. The yeast in a single brewery may he a complicated combination including up to about 100 different kinds, upon which the taste of the product depends. Not only do the yeasts react upon the food, hut the foods supplied to the yeast react upon the yeasts, and upon the product which they produce, and you can only control their working by giving them suitable ingredients. We all know what care the farmer uses in selecting his seed for his corn crops, and the maltster has to do the same with his barley. The barley has to be chosen, like seed corn, to live again on the malting

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  floor, to grow again under very carefully watched conditions, and the resulting malt is dependent, not only on great skill, but on very special original qualities in the barley.
  I have the greatest admiration for the officials of the Ministry of Agriculture. No doubt they could learn any subject to which they applied their minds. But they are not, in laying down the ingredients for a national mark here, to consider the matter from the point of view of biochemistry—and really it is a problem of biochemistry—but they are only to consider it from the point of view of the market. If people sell under this proposed national mark a manufactured product, they will no longer be at liberty to balance their nitrogenous excesses, which lead to various awkward results in taste and appearance; they will no longer be able to balance these varying qualities in the malts of the west of Europe by blending them with either sugar or, what is the exact equivalent of sugar in the brewing process, malt from sun-dried barleys of very high starch content. The inevitable result would be, if beer were brewed on these lines, that you would get a very unpalatable article, and for that reason I agree with my hon. Friend who moved the Bill that the teetotal party ought to support it, because, if brewers were to be induced to produce their beer under the prescriptions of the Ministry of Agriculture, based on market conditions and not on their requirements, the taste of the beer would be very much affected in consequence.
  The national mark has built up its reputation owing to the excellence of the products which it covers, and which the public is gradually learning to appreciate. When they buy extra fancy apples, they know what they are going to get; they know that they are going to get the very best that the market can produce. I am afraid that, if they get beer sold under a national mark and varying from year to year, not according to the quality of home barley, but according to the convenience of the producer, inevitably the reputation of the national mark would suffer; and I would point out that a national mark of this kind, admirable as it is for the small producer in enabling him to co-operate and get the benefit of a large-scale reputation, is quite unsuitable to producers whose reputation is
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  already established. After all, these producers have created their position by selling a special article on its merits suited to the taste of the consumer. They must necessarily try to keep their article as uniform as they possibly can. They do not want to get merged in a scheme of the Ministry of Agriculture at the risk, almost the certainty, of deterioration in what they believe to be the desirable quality of that beer. Above all, I cannot believe they would wish to lose their individuality in a national mark scheme of this kind, and for that reason I believe the scheme would be ineffective. I cannot believe that many producers would find it worth their while to use it, and it is for that reason, because, however desirable its object, I believe the Bill to be based on a complete misunderstanding of the origin and possible uses of the national mark, and also because I think it takes no proper account of the conditions of an industry dependent on meeting a great variety of public tastes, that I shall feel obliged to oppose it.
  Mr. W. B. TAYLOR: I should like to congratulate the Mover on the presentation of a Bill which is very much like the beverage that is brewed very largely from foreign barley. It seems to me an aeroplane in price and a submarine in quality. It lacks the backbone which is essential if the barley growing industry is to receive the fillip which is so terribly required, especially in East Anglia. I am dealing now with barley and not with fruit. If we are to have any legislation, either from a private Member or from the official leader of the House, it should be absolutely and definitely honest in regard to the use of the national mark. I am sure there is not the least dishonest intention on the part of the promoters of this proposal, but, if the national mark is to be used for the production of national foodstuffs, or beverages of any sort or kind, the ingredients which that mark covers should be of national origin completely so far as it is possible to secure it. From that point of view, I had hoped the promoter of the Bill would at least have included in it a definite demand from the Government for the use of the national mark and, as a quid pro quo, the frank admission by the brewers that, under the extreme urgency and stringency of the barley case, they were also determined to use only

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  British barley even though the sparkle was not quite so bright or the liquid quite so clear.
  In the early days, the brewing industry formed a very human association with the country districts. Every market town possessed its local brewery, where the local farmers could sell their barley to the brewers. There was no anxiety to invite Czechoslovakian buyers in large numbers which has resulted in our own Norfolk sellers arriving at the market to find those gentlemen in possession. We have been told by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, in perfect good faith, that foreign barley is really worth more than British barley in the production of British beer. I do not question it. The right hon. Gentleman is an expert. I believe his esteemed and honoured family are associated with the production of a commodity which figures from one end of the country to the other as being a genuine article thus far. Nevertheless, one is bound to suggest that, notwithstanding the value of the name associated with this ancient and historic beverage, it has sometimes figured in affairs which have had little to do with either its value or the quality of the ingredients that it contains. One sees in elections, that it is likely to play a great part, even in White-chapel in relation to the Palestinian problem. I find there is an election cry locally, "Guinness is good for you." There is a reply that says, "Eat it, drink it if you like, but do not let it govern you." I do not know what association the Bill may have with the position, but, judging from the attitude of both front Benches, there is little desire on either side to handle this rather difficult problem from the national point of view.
  Putting the more facetious side of the position aside, I earnestly appeal to the promoters that, whatever they do in relation to the Bill, which is a spineless offer to capture a valuable advertisement in the shape of the national mark, they will seriously face up to their patriotic duty in relation to assisting the great industry of agriculture in a far greater manner than they have hitherto done. I have no antagonism to the brewer. There is no doubt that, as has been said, he is a man of many virtues, but one objects to the way in which he is making his huge profits. He is getting his living by buying foreign barley to the detriment of
  836
  the English grower. It has a tremendous effect in East Anglia. Unless there is an improved demand for barley, we shall have the second-class land of East Anglia going completely out of cultivation. Some people think a tariff would provide a remedy, but remember the admission from the opposite Bench that, even at a higher price, foreign barley must be used. I hope chemistry may be so set to work as to provide a really definite British beverage possible to be made from purely British barley and British hops. The resources of chemistry may well be used not only in promoting peace as against war but also in promoting a genuine British liquid, which shall bring the ancient glory of this historic beverage into modern life in the best sense of the word. I do not oppose this proposal. I believe the hon. Member has brought it forward in good faith to secure the support of the Government in endeavouring to extend the use of British barley. I suggest to the Government and to the Mover that they could do no better service to the agricultural interest than to put their heads together in conference and determine that, by law established, British barley shall be used for British beer to the fullest possible extent.
  Mr. SMITH-CARINGTON: In view of what has been said, and the kindly offer of assistance which the Minister of Agriculture has given, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Rill. The only question which I should like to ask and to make sure about is whether the Minister believes he has power without legislation to apply the national mark to beer, as this is a matter about which, I believe, there is some doubt in the country.
  Dr. ADDISON: I would not like to give a definite answer to that question, as there are some questions which are not quite decided in connection with it. I should think probably, yes, but much would depend upon the conditions; and I should not like to give any undertaking.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES (PUBLICITY) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read.
Major SALMON: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

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I am pleased to think that the proposal of this Bill is not a party question. As a matter of fact, it is supported by all parties in the House, and over 200 Members have already signified their approval of such a Bill. No new principle is involved in the Bill. It is merely an extension of the Health Resorts and Watering Places Act of 1921. Briefly, the object of the Bill is to empower local authorities to spend up to the product of a halfpenny rate upon advertising the amenities of our country by contributing to a central organisation. I can imagine, if I may digress at this moment, hearing critics state that the words "central organisation" are a little too wide. I should have no objection, if the House so desired it, to add these words:
"or any non-trading organisation approved by the Ministry of Health".
My object in raising this point at this juncture is rather to anticipate any small criticism which may be made by any opponents of this Bill. The Travel Association of Great Britain and Ireland, which was started in 1929, is an organisation which exists for the purpose of advertising throughout the world the great amenities of this country. Unfortunately, it is supported only by the railway companies, hotels, and steamship companies, though the total sum which it receives per annum is gradually increasing. It started with a sum of£16,000, and it is anticipated that this year it will go up to£20,000. The Government have also seen their way to give a subscription of£5,000 to the Travel Association in support of the work which it is undertaking.
Many local authorities see the great use of this central organisation and are desirous of contributing, but the law as it at present exists prevents them from contributing to a central organisation outside their own area. The main object of the Bill is to remedy this position. It is also of interest to note that the Travel Association, which is the organisation dealing with this matter in a. comparatively small way at present, has at its head the Secretary of the Overseas Trade Department, and there are also some very influential men on the committee. The great national work which the Association has already done is demonstrated by a report which was made by the United
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States Trade Commissioner in London to his Government, in which he said that the Association had been responsible for an increase in American visitors to this country. Everyone who gives serious thought to this matter will see that there is a great necessity for us to advertise this country abroad much more than we have done in the past. I realise that there is a school of thought which does not see the true value of publicity. The idea to them is that it is undignified. To my mind, there is something of inherent snobbishness in such an attitude. We cannot afford to blush unseen.
The excuse generally is that public money should not be directed into channels not usually used. That view is not shared by foreign Governments. France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany and the United States of America all devote considerable sums of money towards advertising, in all parts of the world, the beauties and amenities of their respective countries. If we take the figures of 1928–29, it will be seen that France, by doing a great deal of this publicity, was enabled to induce 1,800,000 visitors to the country during that period, and that those visitors spent no less a sum than£75,000,000. What is the position of Great Britain? Great Britain, during that particular year, had 457,000 visitors, and it is estimated that they spent£15,000,000. Therefore, there is a great economic value in getting tourists to this country, and in giving permission to local authorities to spend, should they so desire, up to the proceeds of a halfpenny rate for the purpose of advertising this country. It will enable them to spend money for which they can obtain a quick return on their investment. I think we can truly say that the money would be used for productive purposes.
I will not trouble the House by going into details as to how it is proposed to be expended. The method which has been adopted up to now by the Travel Association has been the use of the cinema, the Press, photography, posters, and broadcast talks. If you are to do this sort of work efficiently, it requires a large sum of money. I do not believe that money could be spent to greater advantage for the benefit of this country than for people abroad to learn of the beauties and amenities than can be afforded to visitors here. I hope that

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the Bill will receive a Second Reading and that at no distant date we shall see it on the Statute Book.
Mr. RHYS DAVIES: I beg to second the Motion.
As the hon. and gallant Member for Harrow (Major Salmon) has said, all parties are in agreement on the Bill. The local authorities want it, and I gather with pleasure that the Ministry of Health also desire its passage into law. I called this morning at the office of the greatest touring agency in the world to see, casually, what advertisements for travelling there might be at hand, and I found, to my astonishment, two documents which I think illustrate the attitude of our own people towards publishing the amenities of this country. There was a booklet running into 86 pages entitled "Winter in Germany", and a leaflet of only four pages entitled "Christmas Festivities at Home Resorts." I think that gives a fair indication of what we think about our own country in connection with advertising its attractions. I have visited several foreign countries during the past few years, and when I was in America last I found, much to my surprise, that men and women even of British stock seem to be more familiar with places of resort on the Continent of Europe outside our own country than they were with our own land.
It is very necessary that our local authorities should he granted the power contained in this Bill. We have a very peculiar habit as British people, more emphasised, I think, among the people of England than of Scotland or Wales, of depreciating ourselves when we are abroad. We glory in our historical battles and Imperial achievements, but we say very little about the amenities of our own country. It is about time that we told the world what there is to be seen in this land. I would prefer to boast of the amenities and glories of Oxford and Cambridge than of the conquests of our navies and our armies. If we told the world a little more of what is to be seen in those great centres of learning, I think we could attract many more tourists here. It is a strange fact that some of our own people seem to know more about Coney Island than they do about Blackpool. The pictures, the cinema
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films and the leaflets that are published from time to time make our people more familiar with places abroad than with resorts in our own country.
I have come to the conclusion that we have been very backward in this matter. I tried some years ago to induce a local authority of a seaside resort to tell American tourists what that town was like, but I was astonished to find that they could not spend one penny piece in telling America anything whatever about the amenities of their district. This Bill is long overdue. I am delighted that the Bill is, if anything, a little more Socialistic than some hon. Members opposite would, as a general rule, care to accept, but it does not matter whether it is Socialistic or not, it is highly desirable that the Bill should be carried into law.
Attractions of foreign countries are much advertised here. We see in the windows of our tourist agencies advertisements about hotels and railways abroad. I have seen advertisements in London about the Pennsylvania Railway, Atlantic City, and the glories of California. Hon. Members from time to time receive copies of advertisements of the amenities even of the remote State of Virginia. Why should the City of Manchester not tell the world of its glories? [Laughter.] Why not? I live there. Hon. Members imagine that it rains more in Manchester than elsewhere. That is not so. It simply takes longer for the rain to come down. There is no reason why we should not advertise more in order to attract people who have a great deal of money to spare. It is astonishing how travel has grown in the last few years.
I support the Bill for another reason. My experience in travelling is this, that a tourist coming from America to this country or a Britisher going to France or Germany can sometimes do as much towards the peace of the world as a diplomat or a delegate to the League of Nations. I am satisfied of one thing, that when a person travels in another country he drops certain words out of his vocabulary. He forgets the words "foreigner" and "alien" and finds that other people are human beings like himself. That reminds me of a good story I heard the other day of an English lady who went to Berlin. She was asked to

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fill in a form because she was an alien. She was very insulted and replied, "I am not an alien, I am an Englishwoman."We all help to break down the alien feeling by travel. I hope therefore that the Bill will have a speedy passage into law.
The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Miss Lawrence): This Bill appears to the Ministry of Health and to the Government to be a small but admirable Bill. We very much desire to encourage this particular kind of imports for re-export. In the past there have been certain disagreements among those interested in the question. So far as we have learned, those differences are now at an end, and there seems to be substantial agreement both locally and nationally in favour of giving this permissive power to local authorities. I desire to associate myself very briefly with all the patriotic remarks made by the hon. Members who have moved and seconded the Second Reading of the Bill. Like them, I appreciate the beauties and amenities of this country, and I feel that if foreigners only knew how nice this country is they would flock here in their thousands and spend their money with both hands. While there is fairly general agreement locally and nationally and in this House in regard to a Bill of this character, I must say one warning word. An essential condition for the smooth passage of the Bill will be general agreement in this House both now and in the Committee stage. Any considerable amount of opposition would, I am afraid, very much prejudice the prospects of the Bill becoming law.
Sir DONALD MACLEAN: The Parliamentary Secretary has expressed the hope that there will be no undue trouble in regard to the passage of this Measure. That depends, as she has pointed out, upon a union of the three parties, or more, on the Bill. As far as I can speak for one of the parties in the House, I heartily endorse the appeal she has made, and certainly the Bill will receive hearty support from these benches during all its stages. I also endorse what has been said as to the necessity for this country advertising itself more than it has in the past. We have been inundated with advertisements of the beauties of other parts of the world. I represent a part of the country, Cornwall, which certainly can claim precedence of most other
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places of pleasure and recreation, certainly in quality, and there is a movement in the West of England, associated with the railway companies, and others, who are anxious to cater for the tourist. The endorsement of Parliament will be an immense incentive and a great encouragement to watering places and recreation places of this country.
Major GLYN: The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health need not anticipate the slightest delay in getting this Measure passed, but there is one thing in which the Government can help, and that is to give some financial assistance from the Treasury to the British Travel Association, an organisation which exists entirely for the purpose of putting forward the advantages of this country abroad. Whilst money can be well spent by local authorities in advertising the amenities of their district, there is also great need that the British Travel Association should be helped by the State, as it is at the present time by many organisations, to make the advantages of Great Britain more widely known overseas. It is estimated that the Transatlantic travellers coming to Europe leave something like£60,000,000 a year behind them. The advantages to this country would be enormous if we could get a larger share of that travel, but we cannot disguise from ourselves the fact that our legislation in regard to public-houses and hotels has been of such a character as not to make a stay in an hotel as attractive in this country as some foreigners would like it to be. Until we can improve our hotels and our accommodation for visitors we shall not be able to get that amount of foreign traffic coming to this country which we desire. An enormous amount of good work has been done by the Public House Trust, and similar organisations, and our inns are now becoming admirable for good accommodation and good food.
Travelling organisations like the railways spend annually vast sums of money abroad and at home in inducing people to travel. We spend the money and they go in chars-a-bancs by road. The railways do not get the advantages which they deserve. At the same time in association with railways there are hotels which cater for the travelling public, and if the Government could do something to help licensing magistrates to realise the

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advantages which are provided by these inns in the way of good food and accommodation for the travelling public, and encourage them, a great many more people would travel than do so to-day. If you go to a British Consulate abroad, or to the commercial side of an Embassy, you cannot get any information at all in regard to travelling in Great Britain. Many foreign countries allow a certain amount of information to be given to inquirers. If the Parliamentary Secretary would have that matter considered it would greatly assist local authorities and those who are anxious to snake the advantages of our country more widely known, and more foreign money would be spent here to the advantage of the country.
Mr. PYBUS: There is one point to which I desire to refer in connection with this Bill. Previous speeches on the question of advertising have dealt with it from the point of view of booklets and posters and other forms of literature, Hon. Members may not know that local authorities in seaside resorts have the right to spend up to a penny rate, but it can only be spent for that one town, and no form of combination between neighbouring resorts is possible. This Bill makes it possible for varioustownsto combine, not only in regard to the issue of booklets and posters, but for other modern types of advertising. It is impossible, on grounds of expense, for any one single town to get, say, a film made and exhibit it, but it is possible for a group of resorts to combine and make a film and get that film shown, not only abroad, but on the liners which cross the Atlantic. Recently, on the East Coast, we have been able by local co-operation for Clacton-on-Sea and also Dovercourt to get a loud speaker van which toured the whole of the industrial centres of Great Britain. It was also possible to distribute literature from the van at the same time as the loud speaker was proclaiming our champagne air, our minimum rainfall and our maximum sunshine. This is only possible financially if towns group themselves together, and not the least advantage of this Bill is that it makes combination in more than one form of advertising possible.
Mr. ALPASS: I desire to support this Measure. I come from a city which possesses very many advantages, historical, commercial and from the point of view of scenery. Recently a movement has been started to smile these advantages more widely known. An organisation has recently been founded called "The Bristol Publicity Board," and many of the citizens have generously supported financially the organisation. During the present year we have had the pleasure of entertaining a very large number of visitors from one of the cities in France, and we named it "The Bristol-French Week." The result was that not only was the city made more widely known commercially and physically, but we have made contacts which will result in mutual trade relationships being developed between us and this part of France. I want to see that work extended and developed, and if this Bill is passed, it will be possible by means of its financial provision for this good work, started in this voluntary way, to be much extended and developed to the advantage of the city and the surrounding district.
I do not desire to detract from the marvellous beauty of Cornwall. I have had the pleasure of visiting that county, but those who live in the city of Bristol are proud of the wonderful beauty of the scenery around the Avon. There is a story told of the great Duke of Wellington that when he was going from Bristol to Gloucester, he staved at a place called Almondsbury Hill, from where you get a wonderful view of the Severn Valley, and he said that in all his travels he had never seen anything which appeared to him more beautiful than that view. I believe it would be possible to make these beauty spots known and to attract a large number of people from other parts of the world. Even if the Duke of Wellington did not say what has been attributed to him, I think that visitors would give expression to such sentiments.
Mr. SKELTON: I am in complete agreement with the proposals of the Bill. Although permissive only, the Bill does enable local authorities to increase their rates by a halfpenny in the pound. That may seem small and trivial, but one does not require very great knowledge of local authorities and of those who are interested in local finance to know that they, like many of us, feel that at a

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time of very considerable financial stringency there must be clear and good reasons why even permission should be given to local authorities to increase the rates. In this case there are good and sufficient reasons. What has been said by every other speaker so far need not be repeated. It is clear that the encouragement of foreign visitors to this country is of financial and economic value to the laud. These visits can be increased in number by suitable propaganda and advertisement. I have no doubt that a permissive halfpenny rate would yield productive results, and if we as a House indicate our desire in the matter we do so because we are satisfied that this would be a productive use of the ratepayers' money. If I were not satisfied on that point I should oppose the Bill. My vote is given for this Bill because I am satisfied that the expenditure would be productive, and support of any expenditure that is truly productive is the best foundation for complete resistance to further expenditure on unproductive objects.
Viscount ELMLEY: I wish to support the Bill because it proposes to do a very useful thing in a very simple way. When I have been in other countries I have been struck by the absolute ignorance of our own country. In Germany this year I could not find anyone who had ever heard of the county of Norfolk or the Norfolk Broads, though they knew of glorious cities like Exeter, Bristol, Lincoln and so on. This Bill aims to put that kind of position right. What is the case in London to-day? Within a short distance of Piccadilly Circus you can find some sort of office or organisation which will give you the fullest details about any country abroad. That is not the case in regard to this country in cities like Paris or Berlin. I hope that the result of this Bill will be that more and more people will come to this country.
Commander SOUTHBY: 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."
I hesitate to sound a discordant note in this happy family gathering of supporters of the Bill. I have moved the rejection of the Bill for this reason: We are all agreed that this is a time when economy should be practiced, Economy
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means not only economy of money voted by this House, but economy of money voted by local authorities, and if possible reduction of the rates.
Mr. ALPASS: The Bill is permissive.
Commander SOUTHBY: The hon. Member has anticipated what I was about to say. It is only permissive that an extra rate may be levied. No one can have the slightest doubt that permission given to a local authority almost invariably ends in the local authority levying the rate which it has permission to levy. The Parliamentary Secretary made the point that this was the prettiest and most agreeable country in the world. The inhabitants of this country have some rights in the matter and should be allowed to enjoy the prettiness of this most agreeable country in the world without having their peace and tranquillity interfered with, very often against their will or possibly against their will. By advertising the beauties of the country you are asking not only that people may come from far and near and destroy the amenities of beautiful places, but you are asking the victims who live there to foot the bill for the destruction of their own peace of mind.
I think that some voice should be raised against this increasing of expenditure. Yesterday it was money for grand opera. To-day it is the ratepayer who has to find money in order that his own peace and security and tranquillity may be taken from him. A right hon. Gentleman who is not now in the House referred to the beauties of Cornwall. Anyone wishing to enjoy those beauties is entirely prevented from doing so by the host of other people who wish to do the same thing. By this Bill you are to raise a monster which will prevent your having the very thing that you are advertising as an attraction. Who would go to Land's End on a Bank Holiday now when thousands of chars-a-banes go there and make the beauty and pleasure and peace of the place utterly impossible? It is true that the Bill put no compulsion on local authorities, but local authorities are not slow to accept the lead of the Parliamentary Secretary and spend money if it is possible for them to do so. In that way it does put compulsion on the local inhabitants to pay this extra rate, whether they like it or not.

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I am not gainsaying that it is good for the trade of the country that there should be advertisement of the country and of certain parts of it, but it does seem to me to be rather unfair that the ratepayer should have to pay a rate to advertise something which will be for the benefit of other people. After all, the ratepayer has some rights, and it is only fair that at least one voice should be raised in defence of economy, for the Bill is brought in at a time when economy is the most crying need. Some brake should be put on the expenditure of local authorities, who already spend far more money than they should, at the expense of that patient mulch cow, the ratepayer. The Bill is inopportune. It will be used as a tyrannical measure by the local authorities upon the long-suffering and patient ratepayer.
Major LLEWELLIN: I beg to second the Amendment.
I do not go quite so far as my hon. and gallant Friend in thinking that the local authorities will be tyrannical, but I do think that we want to be cautious in encouraging any authority to increase the demands upon the public purse unless we are quite convinced that those demands will he productive. An hon. Friend has said that they would be productive demands. I am not so convinced. I do not believe that local authorities up and down the country are the best people to decide to what organisation to contribute. They are to be allowed by the Bill to contribute to
"any organisation which is established for collecting and collating information in regard to the amenities and advantages of the British Isles",
whether that authority, as I understand it, is one established in this country or outside this country. The better people to judge where and when to advertise are associations of traders or chambers of trade, the railway companies, and the associations of hotel proprietors. They know from long experience where best to advertise order to get increased publicity for this country, and to induce people to come here and spend their money, which is, I suppose, the object of this Bill. Those people who, because of their trade, have been accustomed to deal with advertising firms for years, are far the best people to do this publicity and to pay for it. What does the
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ordinary small ratepayer, the man who lives in a small house and has to pay rates on that house, gain from the fact that a number of people are brought into this country? Not a single thing. The people who gain by it are the railway companies, the hotel proprietors and the shopkeepers. The ordinary resident does not gain a bit by having a large number of people coming here from France or Germany or anywhere else outside this country. I do not suppose that anybody would dispute that fact. [Interruption.] I really do not know what the ordinary man living in a country village or in the small streets of our towns or any of us here who pay rates on our houses, would actually gain by having a large influx of visitors into this country.
The people who will gain are the traders; I hope to see them gaining, but they are the people who should pay the money to get that gain, and not the ordinary run of ratepayers. If this Bill be passed, some local authorities will be looked upon as more backward than others if they do not advertise, or pay ratepayers' money away to some advertising agency in France, when its next door neighbour is doing so. We shall hear that one seaside town is doing it, and the next is not, and in that way areas which may have no advantage to gain will be egged on to spend this extra halfpenny on the rates. I do not believe in this power being given to local authorities, because the advantages to be gained by this advertising are much more likely to be gained by the traders' associations and similar organisations, and they are the people who should put up the money.
Mr. EDE: It is surely an astonishing thing that the rejection of this Bill should be moved by the Member for one town which is known throughout the world. If the Noble Lord below the Gangway had mentioned Epsom in Germany, he would have found that it was as well known there as here. One can well understand that from the point of view of the principal town, although not the largest town in his constituency, the hon. and gallant Member for Epsom (Commander Southby) feels that this Bill is not needed. He displayed the complete and truculent insularity that we generally associate with the British naval officer.

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After all, he has seen many parts of the world; he has gone there, like some of the rest of us, under orders, and, although we are now told to join His Majesty's Forces and see the world, there were times when some of us saw the world after having joined the forces without feeling that the parts we saw were too attractive.
I hesitate to use the words which should properly apply to what he said about people in chars-a-bancs going to Cornwall. I recollect a former Conservative Member in this House once discussing with me what was the most beautiful spot on the English seaside, and he plumped for St. Margaret's Bay in Kent. I said that I was there on Easter Monday. He said, "I was staying at the hotel there." I said, "I had tea there", and he then said, "I am sure that you will agree that the whole place was spoilt by the fact that 50 chars-à banes were there". I replied, "I cannot feel that it was spoilt, because, if one of them had not been there, I should not have been there". One of the most useful things that has happened in the alteration of our social order in recent years has been the fact, that for all classes of the community there are now opportunities of getting into the most beautiful parts of the country, and he must feel a poor-spirited man who says, "My enjoyment is spoilt because there is somebody else here".
1.0 p.m.
Commander SOUTHBY: I do not wish it to be understood that I would put anything in the way of people enjoying themselves in chars-a-banes, but I have said that it should not be at the expense of the ratepayer. That is the point I was making.
Mr. EDE: I will deal with that point in a few minutes. I agree with my hon. Friend, the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. R. Davies), in what he said with regard to the desirability of people from other countries mingling with the people of this country. A more serious difficulty than getting them here and advertising, is the fact that the Channel rolls between us and other people, and, like the hon. and gallant Member for Uxbridge (Major Llewellin), I find a trip on the sea exceedingly disquieting. I crossed the Channel eight times during the War, and six times I was N.C.O. in charge of
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the hold; and I am bound to say that, if the ship had gone down, I was in such a state that I could have taken no steps towards helping the people who were supposed to be under my charge. It must surely be an advantageous thing at this time, when the world is being bound more closely together, when mechanical contrivances are destroying time and space in so far as they separate nations, that the beauties of this country should be known to people in other parts.
But, ask the Mover and Seconder of the rejection of this Bill, why do it at the expense of the ratepayer? The hon. and gallant Member for Uxbridge went so far as to say that the ordinary person living in the small streets—presumably in Uxbridge—would gain no benefit. My knowledge of the Uxbridge district is that it is becoming increasingly industrialised. From. one point of view, that is an advantage. Some of the industrialisation has not been carried out on the lines that I should have liked to have seen, and it is not likely to lead to Uxbridge being regarded as one of the beauty spots of the country. If there is anything like the amount of expenditure in this country that has been mentioned in this debate, it must follow that it is generally shared by the community. Where do the waiters and hotel servants, for instance, live? I was in what I suppose is almost the most remote part in this country for my summer holidays this year—Praa Sands near Penzance. One morning outside the post office there, I was brought right back to London by seeing one of Lyons' motor vehicles delivering chocolate and cake. I have a photograph of the van. Is not that an example of the way in which people in the small streets of the constituency of the hon. and gallant Member for Uxbridge are interested in the more complete utilisation of the beauty spots of this country for the promotion of human intercourse?
Finally, I support this Bill because of my own constituency which is known locally as Scarborough-on-Tyne. The Tyne is there, in plenty, and there are some parts of my constituency which well merit comparison with Scarborough. We have a promenade; we have a pier which is probably the finest in this country, and it has the additional advantage of being free on Saturday afternoons and Sundays. I am sure that when people

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travel up the Tyne to Newcastle from foreign countries, it would be a good thing that they should know beforehand that near to the place where they are going to land is so delightful a seaside resort as South Shields. I deplore the fact that the Member for my native town —my only claim to fame is that I was horn in Epsom—while profiting by the great advantage of that town's notoriety, should have thought fit to hinder those of us who represent less fortunate places, in trying to make known the beauty spots of our constituencies.
Captain EDEN: I should imagine after the free advertisement which the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has just given to his constituency, that there will be no need for the levying of any rate to subsidise the advertising of that district while the hon. Member can so eloquently describe its charms. I felt a little nervous earlier to find that there appeared unanimity in support of this Bill, because, if the House is unanimous it is nearly always wrong, and I was therefore relieved to find some measure of opposition to the Bill which reinforced those of us who wish to support it. Frankly, I am in sharp disagreement with my two hon. Friends who have moved and seconded the rejection of this Bill. My own constituency does not, perhaps, need the advertisement given to his constituency by the last speaker. It has perhaps more visitors than any other part of the country during the year, and the visitors to Shakespeare's country are not specialists in the same sense as the visitors to the constituency of the hon. and gallant Member for Epsom (Commander Southby). Our visitors are people interested in more diversified tastes. However that may be, the point which I am anxious to make is this. I am sure I can say with some authority, speaking for the constituency which I represent, that nothing is more remarkable, particularly of recent years, than the respect which is invariably shown by the visitor to the beauties of the district which he is visiting.
There is no justification for the suggestion that those who come out to enjoy the beauty of the English countryside, do not care for it and feel proud of it pari passu with those who live in the countryside. I think that those who have
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the privilege of living in the more beautiful parts of our country are willing to help make those beauties available to all people who can share then). I do not think that my hon. Friends did proper credit to the local authorities in this matter. This Bill is only permissive and surely the local authorities can be trusted to see that the money is not wasted and that a. rate is not levied for this purpose unless it is actually required. This is a reasonable power to give to local authorities and if one hesitates to leave to local authorities a degree of judgment such as the Bill proposes, one can have but little faith at all in local government as such.
I endorse what was said earlier by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Abingdon (Major Glyn). It is a good thing, economically, that people from abroad should spend money in this country, and that people at home should spend money here instead of on the Riviera, but there is no use in assisting local authorities to advertise in this way unless at the same time our amenities are improved. As my hon. and gallant Friend was speaking, I could not help thinking that he is associated with railways, and that the railways might do their share towards that improvement. We might have, for instance, an improved standard of food upon our railways because at present the standard is far below that of the Continent. They might also improve the facilities for the unhappy passengers who arrive at Folkestone and Dover under conditions which are unparalleled in their enormity in modern times. These are side issues which I think the House might well consider while approving this Bill. I say, finally, that it is a reasonable proposal to give local authorities this permissive power which we know they will not abuse and which we think they are entitled to use.
Mr. R. RICHARDSON: I would not have entered into this debate had it not been for the Amendment for the rejection of the Bill which has been moved from the other side. The hon. and gallant Member for Epson) (Commander Southby) said that the beauty of the countryside was very often destroyed by those who went to see it. I have been longer in this world than the hon. and gallant Member, and my experience in this country has been that natural

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beauty is always respected by those who go to admire it. We want to do all we eau to make known the beauties of our own country, and to make our country attractive for other people. It was my good fortune once to have been in the Lake district accompanied by a gentleman who had visited Switzerland and the Alps—where I have never been in my life—and I was interested in his comparison. He said, "In Switzerland you have a great expanse, but here is consolidated beauty." From my experience I know that local authorities are anxious to make known the beauties of their localities. It is true that they may meet with opposition, because a halfpenny or a penny late may be involved, but that halfpenny or penny rate is very often more than repaid in the health of the people, and I ask hon. Members to keep in mind that aspect of the question.
I want people to come and see my own industrial county. I want them to see what has been done and what has not been done there. There are some of the most beautiful spots in the country in my own county of Durham and there are also some of the most ugly. The town of Sunderland has possibilities that any goahead council would give£1,000,000 to have moved into its area, and I believe this Bill would help the people and the Council of Sunderland to develop the beauties of their town. If that were done, the whole county would benefit. In Durham we have the beautiful Tees Valley, the Wear Valley, the Derwent Valley, and the Tyne Valley, and no more beautiful dales than these can be found in England. I support the Bill because it will encourage other people who have been neglecting their duty to put their house in order.
Sir WILLIAM WAYLAND: One speaker on this side said that he represented a town and district where they probably received more foreign visitors than any other in this country. I think he is wrong, because I represent a town which is looked upon as being the Mecca of the English-speaking race, and that is Canterbury. An hon. Friend below me said the ordinary man in the street did not benefit from the visitors who came to a town, but I cannot agree to that. For some time past, for some months or a year now, Canterbury has had a great deal
of unemployment. That
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is in common with a great deal of the rest of the country, but in a place like Canterbury, which is not at all industrial and has no industries, some other cause must be looked for than industrial depression, and that cause we believe to be the fact that, owing to world conditions, we have not received so many visitors from abroad or from other parts of this country as usual.
I also represent two seaside towns on the South-East Coast, both of which have been feeling the draught from the fact that visitors from the Continent have not been as numerous as they were a few years ago. Canterbury and these two towns are very anxious that this Bill should pass. It will be a help to them, they consider, in bringing the beauties of those two seaside towns and the historical attractions of Canterbury to the notice, of the whole world. I trust the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment will agree to withdraw it, and if they do so, I hope the Government will give time for the passage of this Bill, so that it may be placed on the Statute Book before Christmas. There is such universal agreement in the House that this very small amount of money, a halfpenny in the pound—which in my case and in practically all others should give a return of many halfpennies in the pound to the people of the town and the wider circle of the surrounding country—is a good business proposition that it should receive the unanimous support of this House.
Viscount CRANBORNE: I wish to protest against this Amendment having been moved. The chief argument used by the hon. and gallant Member who proposed it, I understand, was that it would enable local authorities to spend large sums of money in opposition to the wishes of the inhabitants of the place. I must say that that seems to me an exceedingly weak argument, because, after all, the local authorities are elected just as we here are elected, and if they are too extravagant, it is always open to the inhabitants to elect someone else. With all due deference to hon. Members opposite, that is what has happened lately in the municipal elections, and it always will happen. It is no argument to say, therefore, that a council can act in opposition to the wishes of the inhabitants. As a matter of fact, in the vast, majority of

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these cases—and I sit for a constituency where there are two seaside towns—it would not be regarded as a misuse of money at all.
We have heard a. great deal in this House about what is product and what is unproductive expenditure, but so far as such towns are concerned, the most productive expenditure is advertisement. There is any number of these towns. They are luxuries to other people but necessities to themselves, but people will not be attracted to one rather than to the other except by seeing its name on a poster. Therefore, it pays the town every single time. There was an argument used by the hon and gallant Member for Uxbridge (Major Llewellin), which not only astonished me and, I suppose, other hon. Members on this side, but shocked and horrified me, when he said that the benefit from the visitors went only into the pockets of the hotel keepers and shopkeepers. On that basis, if it is true that money spent only benefits those who receive it directly, you could justify a capital levy or anything else of that nature, and I should have expected to hear such an argument used rather by the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) than by my hon. and gallant Friend. We all know that when a man makes a large profit in a hotel, he probably adds to his hotel, builds on a new wing, and so on, and that employs large numbers of people to make the windows, to paper the rooms, and so forth. That is the whole basis of our individualistic system, and I was astonished to hear that argument coming from my hon. and gallant Friend. I am sure that if he speaks again, he will wish to withdraw that particular argument.
I believe that this Bill will be of extraordinary benefit to a large number of places in this country. It certainly will be to a constituency like mine, which has been very much handicapped in the past. I feel some doubt about praising my own constituency, because the hon. and gallant Member for Warwick and Leamington (Captain Eden), who spoke just now, said that his constituency did not need praising; and, therefore, to praise your own constituency after that, rather seems to imply that it does need praise. As a matter of fact, my constitu-
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eney is an exceptionally beautiful part of the world, and I strongly advise any hon. Members to go there. It is an ideal place for a holiday, but it has suffered no doubt, and the town council has suffered by being handicapped through lack of advertisement.
It may be said that the railways always advertise, and so they do. I think the railway advertisements in this country are probably the best form of advertisement that there is anywhere, but there is this to be said—and I do not say it with any desire to criticise the railways—that it is not really a good plan that your advertisement should be done by another organisation, which may have divergent interests of its own. There may be a place where a railway company owns the hotel itself, and it is bound to boost that in preference to the other places. Though I do not think they do it any more than we should do it under similar circumstances, it is far better, I think, that the advertisement should he done by a travel agency representing all interests together. In this House we have accepted this principle of giving grants to advertisements. Under the Empire Marketing Board, we allow advertisements of that kind, and it would be unfair, therefore, to refuse to local authorities what we have voted ourselves to the country.
Colonel Sir JAMES REYNOLDS: I wish to underline the commercial aspect of this question, and I can illustrate the advantages of advertisement from my own knowledge. Liverpool has set up an organisation which is independent of the Corporation, but it is supported by the Corporation, and I think the Corporation ought to do far more for it than it does, though probably the limited powers of the Corporation prevent it. That organisation has rendered the greatest possible service to Liverpool in making known to the world at large the advantages to be found there, thanks to the Mersey, for the placing of factories and other commercial enterprises. If that sort of thing can be done for the benefit of a great commercial centre, the ratepayers in that centre 'will eventually gain. Therefore, there is justification for authorising a certain amount of expenditure so that a

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town as a whole may increase its prosperity and extend its commercial utility. I have great pleasure in supporting the Bill.
Mr. PALMER: I want to say a word in support of this Bill from, perhaps, another angle. It is a very timely and necessary Bill from the point of view of a great many localities dependent almost entirely upon that kind of advertisements and the opportunities they have for catering for visitors to this country from all parts of the world. It so happens that I have a passing acquaintance with Canterbury, which was mentioned just now; I represent Greenwich, which is one of the places that should be more widely known and better advertised; and I sleep, when I get home at night, in that fasionable Essex watering-place with a large pier. These watering-places are a very doubtful form of advertisement, but under the provisions of this Bill, opportunities are given to localities to have the right kind of advertisement and so put the features in the right light, which will be of tremendous assistance to a locality. I have no fear that it will be a burden on the rates. In point of fact, these things, if properly carried out, should be a great help to the rates. The Bill is not a day too soon, but is a very timely Bill, and one which should receive the unanimous assent of this House.
Commander SOUTHBY: In view of the unanimity in the House, I shall be most happy to withdraw my Amendment, but, in doing so, may I say that I want it to be clearly understood that I am not in any way against advertising I My point in raising this was that the advertisements should be paid for by those who are benefiting—the various enterprises—and not at the expense of the ratepayers. The hon. Member opposite who made reference to my particular constituency in the course of his speech, might have said to the House that, at any rate, Epsom is not advertised at the expense of the ratepayers, but on its merits.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Main Question put, and agreed to.
Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

MARRIAGE (PROHIBITED DEGREES OF RELATIONSHIP) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. BARR: I beg to move "That the Dill be now read a Second time."
This Bill is one which is very familiar to the House. I think it has been before the House every Session for the last five years, and whenever it has been put to the proof it has always secured the all but unanimous support of the House. In 1926 it received its Second Reading without a Division. In 1927 it was discussed in this House on 4th March, a Friday afternoon, and on 1st April it again received a Second Reading without a Division. I think that there is only one representative of the Opposition present, but I should like to say that we have no quarrel with the amount of support we received from the then Conservative Government. Time and again they said they would not oppose the Second Reading. On one occasion they said that the Parliamentary Counsel had examined the Measure and found it watertight, and that all the degrees intended had been included. In order to give emphasis and authority to what I am saying, I may mention that the right hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hacking), speaking on behalf of the Government and on behalf of the Home Office, said that they expected and desired the Bill to be read a Second time and to be dealt with in Committee. On that occasion, although it had such a good passage, owing to the congestion in the Committees, it was 1st December before it was reported to the House, and, consequently, in that year the Bill could make no further progress. In the following year it made much greater progress. On 19th April, it was given a Second Reading without a Division, and on 9th July it received its Third Reading without a Division in this House. It secured a Second Reading in another place, but through circumstances, into which the Rules of Order, I understand, do not allow me to enter, it just missed the Third Reading by 26 votes to 25—a 'majority of one.
What is the difficulty with which the Bill deals? It is within the knowledge of this House that in 1907, after a very great controversy in the country, marriage was authorised with a deceased wife's sister. That Measure was stoutly

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contested on ecclesiastical and other grounds, and, consequently, supporters of that Measure were only too pleased to get their Bill through as a single issue, and I think they even went the length of saying that they would not press for anything further—that they would regard it as a special issue, and would not press it further. The only extension that was made was that deceased wife's sister would include a sister of the half-blood. Then, in 1921, there came the corresponding Measure—the Deceased Brother's Widow's Marriage Act. So that now, to put it very plainly and very shortly, it is possible for a man to marry his deceased wife's sister; it is possible for a woman to marry her deceased husband's brother, but it is not possible to marry the children of either. Relationship more remote is left untouched.
I will say a word on the contents of the Bill. The first Clause is rather involved. It almost reminds one of the old lines:
" Sisters and brothers have I none. This man's father was my father's son."
I am not going to attempt to solve that. I would only say that if a lady wrote those lines, she would not be able to marry the mysterious man referred to. The point is that under this Bill a, man may marry his deceased wife's niece by marriage, and a woman may marry her husband's nephew by marriage; that is the substance of it. It may be argued that there is no very great demand for this Measure, and that matters might be in this Bill which are not included in it. It will be within the knowledge of the House that in the Deceased Wife's Sister Act, relief is given to the clergyman if he has any conscientious objection, and a man who is willing to perform the service can be brought in from the same diocese. The other point in that Measure is that a clergyman who might wish to marry his deceased wife's sister would still be subject to any canonical censure or Church censure that might be imposed upon him.
At any rate, we have not included that, because we do not wish to overburden the Bill. I do not think there is any need for those provisions now, because the late Archbishop of Canterbury testified that while he had been opposed to the Deceased Wife's Sister Act he had to confess that it had worked with extreme
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fairness. In any case, it is a Committee point if anyone wishes to try to get it inserted in the Bill.
It may be asked whether there is any demand for this Measure. As one who has been associated with the movement for a number of years, I have received scores of letters on the subject. People go abroad to get the marriage performed and afterwards they come back to this country and find that the marriage is not legal here. People may say, "Why do not these people regulate their affections and keep outside the prohibited degrees?" Attachments grow up, sometimes, without a knowledge of the law, and I say it is far better to regularise this matter than that resort should he had to illegitimate courses. By passing this Measure we shall be ridding ourselves of an anomaly which has appeared in our legislation, and we shall be carrying out the two Acts of 1907 and 1921 to their simple logical conclusion. It will be a little act of justice which will relieve a small number of persons, not perhaps a great multitude, of a grievance and a hardship that are very real. The only other thing I would say in conclusion is that it is a non-party Measure. If we look at the names on the back of the Bill we see that it has representative support from the three parties in the House, and I do not anticipate that there will be any opposition. As I have said, every facility was given us by the late Conservative Government, and I presume that we shall have at least equal facilities from the Labour Government.
Mr. DAVID GRENFELL: I beg to second the Motion.
As the time is so far advanced, and hon. Members are anxious to get away, I shall content myself with formally doing so.
The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. William Adamson): This Bill is identical with previous Bills on the subject. III 1928 a Bill was presented to the House by Sir Arthur Shirley Benn and passed through all its stages here without discussion, but it was thrown out in another place by one vote. The opinion generally expressed in the House of Lords was that so important an alteration in our social life ought not to be undertaken without more considera

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tion than was possible at so late a stage in the Session. The Bill is complementary to previous legislation on the subject of the prohibited degrees of relationship in marriage. The effect of the Bill is to remove the prohibition against a marriage between a man and his deceased wife's niece or between a man and his uncle's widow. Marriage with a deceased wife's sister or a deceased brother's widow has already been legalised by the Marriage (Prohibited Degrees of Relationship) Acts 1907 and 1921.
There is no reason for objecting to the present Bill so far as the Home Office or the Scottish Office is concerned. If this Bill is passed it will, no doubt, help in a few cases of hardship arising under the existing law. The objection taken to previous Bills on this subject came mainly from Members who had strong views on the sanctity of the old canon law. The drafting of the Bill, which is rather complicated, has been scrutinised by the Parliamentary Counsel. It is in proper shape, and it covers all the possible cases of marriage with nephews and nieces by marriage. As I am advised, the Bill is in the proper form to give effect to the objects of the promoters, and the Government do not wish to raise any objection to its receiving its Second Reading.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

EAST AFRICA.
Motion made, and Question proposed.
"That the Lords Message of 20th November relating to the appointment of a Committee on Closer Union in East Africa be now considered."—[Mr. Hayes.]
Captain MARCESSON: I understand the arrangement is that this Motion
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should be taken on Monday. [Interruption.] Now that the Chief Whip has come in, may I ask him to postpone this Motion until Monday? There are very few Members in the House, and there may be some Members who may have an objection to it.
The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. T. Kennedy): I can see no objection to the Motion being proceeded with now. The terms of it have been agreed upon among all parties through the usual channels and. unless there is some specific reason for postponement, I really would ask the Opposition not to press their objection.
Question put, and agreed to.
Lords Message considered accordingly.
Ordered,
"That a Select Committee of Ten Members be appointed to join with a Committee appointed by the Lords as a Select Committee to consider the Reports on Closer Union in East Africa [Cmd. 3234 and Cmd. 3378], together with the Statement of the conclusions of His Majesty's Government [Cmd. 3574]."—[Mr. Hayes.]
Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.
Sir John Sandeman Allen, Mr. Amery Mr. Buxton, Sir Robert Hamilton, Mr. James Hudson, Mr. Ormsby-Gore, Mr. Parkinson, Dr. Shiels, Lord Stanley, and Mr. Wellock nominated Members of the Committee.
Ordered,
"That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records."
Ordered,
" That, Five ho the quorum."—[Mr. Hayes.]
Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY - SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3.
Adjourned at Eighteen Minutes before Two o'Clock, until Monday, 24th November.

  WASHINGTON HOURS CONVENTION.
  WASHINGTON HOURS CONVENTION.
  UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACTS.
  UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACTS.
  CUTLERY (IMPORT AND EXPORT).
  CUTLERY (IMPORT AND EXPORT).
ROYAL NAVY.
  RECRUITMENT AND PROMOTION.
  RECRUITMENT AND PROMOTION.
  OFFICERS' STEWARDS AND COOKS.
  OFFICERS' STEWARDS AND COOKS.
AGRICULTURE.
  ACREAGE.
  ACREAGE.
  FRUIT (IMPORTS).
  FRUIT (IMPORTS).
  INDUSTRIAL ASSURANCE (LAPSED POLICIES).
  INDUSTRIAL ASSURANCE (LAPSED POLICIES).
  MUSSELS.
  MUSSELS.