Sitting of 22 December 1932

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Humber Bridge Bill,
To be read the Third time upon Tuesday, 7th February.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  SHEFFIELD CUTLERY INDUSTRY (TRADE BOARD).
  Mr. THORNEasked the Minister of Labour (1) the reasons for the delay in setting up a trade board for the cutlery trade in the city of Sheffield; and if he will take steps to expedite its formation in view of the low rates of wages paid to the workers in the trade;
  (2) if, in connection with the proposal to set up a trade board, he can state the number of firms engaged in the cutlery trade in Sheffield; the number associated with the Sheffield Cutlery Manufacturers' Association or the Cutlery Forgers' and General Stampers' Association; the number of employers' associations or firms and trade unions connected with the United Cutlery Council; and the reasons for the delay in setting up a trade board for this trade?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. R. S. Hudson): There has been no avoidable delay in this matter. A detailed report upon this trade appears in the current "Ministry of Labour Gazette," and the employers are now being invited to consider the position in the light of the full information thus available. With regard to his further inquiries, the hon. Member will find all the information available in the Gazette article, of which I am sending him a copy.

  DOCK ACCIDENTS.
  Mr. DAVID GRENFELLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department the result of the discussions between employers and workers' representatives on the issue of international regulations regarding dock accidents, and the date on which the proposed regulations are to take effect?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Gilmour): I am glad to say that the discussions have resulted in unanimous recommendations for the amendment of the Docks Regulations in force under the Factory and Workshop Act, so as to bring them fully into line with the International Labour Convention in the revised form in which it was adopted at this year's conference. Revised regulations will be issued in draft—in accordance with the procedure laid down in the Act —with the least possible delay, but I cannot at the moment say when the revised regulations will come into force.
  Mr. GRENFELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain to the House why there should be any delay?
  Sir J. GILMOUR: I imagine that it is merely a matter of procedure, and that it is not possible to go faster.

  SHOP ASSISTANTS (WORKING HOURS).
  Mr. JANNERasked the Home Secretary whether he intends to introduce legislation to give effect to the unanimous recommendations of the Select Committee on Shop Assistants to limit the hours during which young persons shall be engaged in and about shops to 48 per week?
  Sir J. GILMOUR: I am afraid I can add nothing at present to the reply I gave to the Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) on the 24th October on this subject.
  Mr. JANNER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say that this matter will be dealt with shortly?
  Sir J. GILMOUR: All I can say is that the matter is being considered; I cannot say how soon it will be dealt with.

  YOUNG PERSONS (HOURS OF EMPLOYMENT).
  Mr. JANNERasked the Home Secretary when he proposes to implement the decision of the Government to introduce legislation to establish a statutory limit to the number of weekly and daily hours during which young persons in unregulated occupations may be employed?
  Sir J. GILMOUR: I presume that the hon. Member refers to the statements made on behalf of the Government during the course of the discussions earlier this year on the Children and Young Persons Bill. I would refer him to the full reply which I gave to a question by the Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) on the 24th October last, regarding Section 51 of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1932. The Government have already announced their intention to introduce legislation to deal with this question as soon as the industrial situation improves.

  SEDITIOUS MEETINGS ACTS (PROSECUTIONS).
  Mr. MAXTONasked the Home Secretary the number of prosecutions that have taken place within the last 50 years under Section 23 of the Seditious Meetings Act, 1817, and when the Statute 34 Edw. III, of the year 1360, was last used in a prosecution previous to last week; and whether he will introduce legislation to repeal obsolete Acts of Par. liament affecting the rights of public meeting and assembly?
  Sir J. GILMOUR: It has not been possible in the time available to ascertain whether any persons have been prosecuted within the last 50 years for contravention of Section 23 of the Seditious Meetings Act, 1817, but no recent case can be traced. As I indicated in reply to a Private Notice question by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition on Monday last, the persons brought before the chief magistrate at Bow Street last week were not prosecuted for any offence, and no question of prosecution arises in such cases. The power, whatever its origin, of calling upon persons to find sureties for good behaviour and to keep the peace is well established and is frequently exercised.
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  I see no occasion for any action in the sense suggested in the last part of the question.
  Mr. MAXTON: In the prosecution referred to, were not the Acts mentioned in the question definitely cited?
  Sir J. GILMOUR: There is a number of Acts dealing with this problem, and it is a well established custom. Innumerable cases are brought up of a similar character.
  Mr. MAXTON: I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the particular prosecution referred to in my question was not brought under the Acts referred to in the question?
  Sir J. GILMOURN: No doubt reference was made to those Acts, and quite properly.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: Was not the indictment so framed as to come under this Act, and under no other Act; and, further, may I ask if this Act has been invoked in the case of any other persons who have threatened to assemble within the near precincts of the Houses of Parliament
  Sir J. GILMOUR: I think it is perfectly clear that the procedure taken in this case is procedure that is taken in a number of cases. If I may give one very simple example, any woman who has an apprehension that she may be assaulted by her husband has a right to go to the court, and the court can bind over the husband to be of good and proper behaviour. These are constant cases, and it is quite proper that this case should be so dealt with.
  Sir STAFFORD CRIPPS: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the instance he has given deals with a different class of case altogether, where one person is going in fear of bodily harm, and that person, and not the police, starts proceedings in order to get protection for herself?
  Sir J. GILMOUR: Of course, I am not a lawyer. I can only say that it is a proper power to use. As the matter is going to be debated to-day, I do not think we need further refer to it now.
  Mr. HOLFORD KNIGHT: Is it not the case that information was laid in connection with this old Statute, which

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  relates to anticipated disorder in the neighbourhood of this House, and that the person cited was merely called upon, as usual, to give undertakings to keep the peace? Is not that all that has happened?
  Mr. MAXTON: Does not the Home Secretary think that this is just a straining of the credulity of the public in order to try and make them believe that there is a basis of justice for this action?
  Mr. SPEAKER: I understand that notice has been given that this matter will be raised on the Adjournment.

  CHESTER TRAINING COLLEGE.
  Mr. GRAHAM WHITEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education the number of students receiving training at the Chester Training College; whether the college is self-sustaining; whether, in view of his intention to close the college, he will say what provisions have been, or are to be, made for the students at present in residence at, or approved for admission to, the college?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Ramsbotham): The number of students now receiving training at the Chester Training College is 160. I understand that, on the basis of the present numbers, the income from grants, fees and other sources suffices to meet the expenditure. In the event of the proposal to close the college temporarily being carried out, every care will be taken to make such arrangements for the second year students as will involve the minimum interference with their course. Under the Regulations of the Board, no promises of admission for the year 1933 may be made before 1st March.
  Mr. WHITEDo I understand the hon. Gentleman to say that this arrangement is to be temporary?
  Mr. RAMSBOTHAM: Yes, Sir, that is so.
  Mr. MORGAN JONES: Is not this college a diocesan college, and does not the initiative, therefore, rest with the diocesan authorities?
  Mr. RAMSBOTHAM: That is so. It is one of the colleges represented by the Board of Supervision.
  Mr. BROCKLEBANK: Will my hon. Friend make it quite clear that this is only a temporary measure?
  Mr. RAMSBOTHAM: That is so; it is only a temporary measure.
  Mr. REMER: Is my hon. Friend aware that very large expenditure has recently been incurred on this college, and that that expenditure may possibly be wasted owing to the closing of the college?
  Mr. RAMSBOTHAM: I have no information to that effect.

  MENTAL DEFICIENCY (TREATMENT).
  Wing-Commander JAMESasked the Minister of Health whether the evidence before the departmental committee inquiring into the sterilisation of mental defectives given by lunacy officers will be related to lunatics only and not to mental defectives?
  The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Hilton Young): It must rest with the committee to determine how they will, in carrying out their terms of reference, deal with points such as that raised in the question; but I understand that officers of mental hospital authorities have been invited to give evidence, and that any evidence they may desire to tender will be heard.
  Wing-Commander JAMESasked the Minister of Health whether the departmental committee inquiring into the sterilisation of mental defectives will take evidence from mental deficiency officers upon the question of the sterilisation of mental defectives?
  Sir H. YOUNG: I understand that the committee have already taken evidence on this subject from officers of mental deficiency authorities, and that they will be hearing others before the conclusion of their inquiry.

  HOUSING (SLUM CLEARANCE).
  Mr. BUCHANANasked the Minister of Health the number of slum clearance and re-housing schemes approved under the Housing and Slum Clearance Act, 1930, up to the most recent date at which such information is available; the number of houses and

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  tenements, respectively, completed, together with the number of persons removed from houses condemned; and the number of persons for whom new houses or tenements have been provided under the 1930 Act up to the same date?
  Sir H. YOUNG: Up to the 30th November last, I had received resolutions declaring 580 areas in England and Wales to be clearance areas. 6,451 dwellings had then been completed. I am not able to say how many of these dwellings were houses, flats or tenements respectively. Up to the 30th September last, 23,829 persons had been removed from houses demolished or closed. The houses completed provide, according to the standard laid down by Section 37 of the Act, accommodation for 30,928 persons.
  Sir FRANCIS FREMANTLE: Do the 580 cases to which the Minister has referred include those which have been completed, those which are now in process of taking effect, and those which are prospective; or do they include only those which have been completed?
  Sir H. YOUNG: I think I must ask my hon. Friend to put down a, question on that matter, as I should like to give him the exact particulars. My impression is that the figure includes them all.
  Mr. THORNE: Do I understand that the Minister is aware that all these houses in slum clearance areas are unfit for human accommodation; and will he give every encouragement to the local authorities to apply this slum clearance policy?
  Sir H. YOUNG: Undoubtedly, when an area is declared to be a clearance area, it means that the houses are unfit for human habitation, and every possible encouragement will be given to local authorities to pursue an active policy of clearance in such cases.
  Sir F. FREMANTLE: Is it the case that the 580 schemes will not include improvement schemes but only slum clearance schemes?
  Mr. BUCHANANasked the Secretary of State for Scotland the number of slum clearance and re-housing schemes approved under the Housing and Slum Clearance Act, 1930, up to the most recent date at which such information
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  is available; the number of houses and tenements, respectively, completed, together with the number of persons removed from houses condemned; and the number of persons for whom new houses or tenements have been provided under the 1930 Act up to the same date?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. Skelton): Up to the 20th December proposals have been approved by the Department of Health for Scotland for the provision of 13,765 houses with assistance under the Housing (Scotland) Act, 1930. At 30th November, the latest date for which information is available, 3,950 houses, including 604 in tenements, had been completed and 6,983 houses including 2,698 in tenements were under construction. At 30th September 24,329 persons had, in consequence of action taken under the Act, been removed from condemned houses. As regards the last part of the question, I regret that I have no information as to the number of persons accommodated in the new houses built to replace those condemned.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: Can the hon. Gentleman say the reason for the serious difference between the number approved and the number actually built or under construction, as there seems to be a rather serious difference?
  Mr. SKELTON: I think I may safely say that the reason is that the Act is a comparatively recent one, and that most of the schemes are still in the early stages. The Act was only passed in 1930, and it has taken some time for local authorities to make use of it.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: Cannot the hon. Gentleman, between now and the resumption of the House, see if there is not any further way of speeding up this matter, the delay of which is due to the long-drawn-out inquiries which have to be held. Can he not take some steps to see that the whole procedure is speeded up?
  Mr. SKELTON: I think that that is a question with which I shall have an opportunity of dealing soon after the House rises.
  Sir S. CRIPPS: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us whether the limitation which was announced by the Minister of Health

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  upon the number of slum clearance schemes which were to go forward from the financial point of view applies to Scotland as well, or only to England?
  Mr. SKELTON: I cannot speak for my right hon. Friend, but I should not accept the word "limitation."
  Sir S. CRIPPS: Do the figures given of the extra £75,000 cover Scotland as well as England?
  Mr. SKELTON: Oh no, Sir, those figures are purely English.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    CANADIAN WHEAT (AMERICAN SHIPMENT).
    Mr. WHITEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if a decision has now been given as to the eligibility of the trial shipment of Canadian-grown wheat per steamship "Laconia," via Buffalo and New York, to Liverpool for the preference accorded to Empire wheat?
    Mr. BROCKLEBANKasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether a decision has yet been reached as to the preference on Canadian wheat shipped in bond through American ports?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hore-Belisha): The documents accompanying this cargo establish that the wheat was of Canadian origin. My right hon. Friend is advised, however, that they do not afford the evidence necessary to prove that the wheat was consigned from Canada to this country as required by the Ottawa Agreements Act, 1932, and consequently this shipment cannot be admitted to preference.
    Mr. WHITE: Having regard to the fact that those decisions will cause very serious dislocation in an important trade, with consequences unfortunate to the grower in Canada as well as to the consumer in this country, will the hon. Gentleman be willing to receive a deputation in order that he may be seized at first hand of the importance of the matter and find some way of overcoming a technical difficulty?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I should always be glad to receive my hon. Friend, or any representation that he desires to make, but he knows that this is the
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    law and that no deputation would be successful in persuading me to go outside the law.
    Mr. BROCKLEBANK: Will the hon. Gentleman remember the difficulty of ice and fog?
    Sir JOHN WARDLAW-MILNE: Is it the case that, under the procedure laid down in the newspapers this morning as issued from the Treasury, it will not be at all difficult for the original consignors to make it clear that the wheat came from Canada and was consigned to people in this country?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for reminding the House of the full statement that has been issued.
    Sir ROBERT HAMILTON: Is my hon. Friend aware of the effect of this decision on American opinion?

    JAPANESE POTTERY (IMPORTS).
    Mr. HALESasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if he is aware that since the reduction of the duty on pottery from 50 per cent. to 20 per cent. the imports from Japan have increased by 500 per cent.; and whether, having regard to the crisis in the pottery industy, he will urge the Advisory Committee which received the appropriate application last April to issue their report at the earliest possible moment?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I am aware that the imports from Japan of certain types of pottery have shown a heavy increase in recent months as compared with the first four months of this year. I have no doubt that this fact is fully appreciated by the Advisory Committee.
    Mr. HALES: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that not only is this excessive dumping taking place, but that our designs are being copied and our trade marks infringed, which is resulting in a position that is jeopardising the whole prosperity of this important industry?

    FLOUR AND OATMEAL (IMPORTS).
    Duchess of ATHOLLasked the. President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that large quantities of French wheat flour and of German oatmeal, rolled oats, and pearl barley are being imported into this country at very low prices under the export bond system, to

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    the detriment of British millers and farmers; and what action the Government propose to take in the matter?
    Lieut.-Colonel J. COLVILLE (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): With regard to the first part of the question, no system comparable to the export bond system is at present in operation in France so far as I am aware. As regards the German system, it is maintained by the German Government that the modifications introduced in March last have removed the element of export subsidy. The situation is being watched.
    Duchess of ATHOLL: Does not the hon. Gentleman remember that only a month or two ago, in reply to a question, it was admitted that there must be Government co-operation in this system, and I ask, therefore, if the exports to our country are not in fact State-aided.
    Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: Actually there is encouragement of exports only in so far as imports of the same products take the place of the exports, because the export permit has no value except to secure the free entry of the products in respect of which they are issued.
    Duchess of ATHOLL: Is it not a fact that, although Government co-operation is admitted in the answer I received, these commodities are being sold in this country very much below the price at which they can be remuneratively sold here and, I believe, below the price at which they are sold in the country of origin.
    Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: The statistics do not disclose the enormous decrease in price that the Noble Lady suggests, but the situation is being watched for that purpose.

  AGRICULTURE.

    SUGAR-BEET INDUSTRY.
    Sir J. WARDLAW-MILNEasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will give the House an estimate of the number of persons directly employed in the sugar-beet industry in raising crops on the land and in the factories since the factories were first established?
    The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Major Elliot): The average number of
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    persons directly employed by the factories in the manufacture of sugar from homegrown beets, from the commencement of the subsidy period in 1924 to the end of the 1931-32 manufacturing season, was 7,136, of whom 5,356 were employed seasonally and the remainder whole-time. Figures for the current manufacturing season are not yet known. Precise information as to the number of persons employed in the cultivation of the beet crop is not available, but it is estimated that during the subsidy period the field work has provided on the average 692,000 man-weeks of employment each year.
    Sir J. WARDLAW-MILNEasked the Minister of Agriculture whether the returns made to his Department by the sugar-beet factories in this country show the tonnage of raw and manufactured merchandise, respectively, passing in and out of the factories, and give details of the coal and limestone used in the production of sugar; and, if so, whether he will give the latest returns he has in connection with these matters?
    Major ELLIOT: The returns received by my Department from the beet-sugar factories show that, during the year ended 31st March last, the quantities of (a) raw material used and (b) the resulting manufactured products, were 1,951,844 tons and 782,033 tons respectively. I have no information as to the quantities of coal and limestone used in the manufacturing process, but the values of these commodities so used were £239,108 and £48,320 respectively.
    Sir J. WARDLAW-MILNE: Will my right hon. Friend consider the desirability of issuing, in the form of a White Paper or similar statement, the figures he has given in answer to this question and to No. 23, so that the House may consider the advantages of the beet-sugar subsidy in regard to employment, as against the alternative method of paying unemployment relief?
    Major ELLIOT: The figures will be available to hon. Members in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. THORNE: If the right hon. Gentleman is going to consider the issuing of a White Paper, will he at the same time give the amount of the subsidy that has been paid during the whole period?
    Major ELLIOT: I have just said it will be unnecessary to issue a White Paper as the figures will be available in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

    EMPIRE FARMERS' CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY.
    Sir DOUGLAS NEWTONasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that a body called the Empire Farmers' Co-operative Society claims to be operating in consultation with his Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter?
    Major ELLIOT: I understand that it has been suggested that the society is operating in consultation with my Department, but I am informed that the society itself has authorised no such statement which, so far as I am aware, is wholly without foundation.

  CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS (ADVISORY COMMITTEE).
  Mr. REMERasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation is an American-controlled corporation; and can he state why in these circumstances he has requested two members of this corporation to accept a further term of office as members of the advisory committee under the Act of 1927?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Dr. Burgin): The information available at that date in regard to the holding of the shares of the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation Limited, was given in reply to a question by my hon. Friend on 21st April last year. I have no information of any substantial change in the position since then and the second part of the question does not therefore arise.
  Mr. REMER: Has the hon. Gentleman seen the statement by the Chase Securities Corporation, which shows conclusively that this Corporation is controlled by the Fox Film Corporation of America?
  Dr. BURGIN: I do not know whether that statement has been seen by my right hon. Friend, but I will certainly tell him of the hon. Member's observation. I think the word "conclusively" is a little strong.
  Mr. REMER: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the officials have certainly seen it?
  Mr. RHYS DAVIES: Will the hon. Gentleman make inquiries into the financial holdings of this company in order to dispel the doubts that there seems to be about it?
  Mr. GRANVILLE: Is it not a fact that the enormous improvement in quality and the rapid advancement of British pictures is due largely to the activities of this corporation in the last few years?
  Dr. BURGIN: The corporation is, of course, extremely well known and has done valuable work. I will certainly make inquiries. In April of last year a long statement was published in the OFFICIAL REPORT giving the holdings, and I am not aware that there has been any change since that time. I will make inquiries, and I will look at the source the hon. Member has referred to.

  INDIA.

    PRISONERS.
    Mr. MORGAN JONESasked the Secretary of State for India whether he can give the number of persons at present in prison in India in A, B and C classes, respectively?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Sir Samuel Hoare): I regret that the statistics supplied to me do not show the classification of prisoners, and I have no information later than that supplied to the hon. Member on 28th November in regard to civil disobedience prisoners.
    Mr. BERNAYS: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking to the effect that if the civil disobedience movement is called off those political prisoners will be immediately released?

    CONCESSION PASSAGES.
    Mr. HALESasked the Secretary of State for India if he is aware that 21 British military officers disembarked at Bombay on 8th August from the Lloyd Triestino steamship "Viktoria"; and whether, in view of the fact that British shipping companies have recently reduced their fares to the same level as Con-

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    tinental companies, he will now issue instructions that British officials whose passages are paid out of public funds must travel on British steamships?
    Sir S. HOARE: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington North (Mr. Bracken) on 12th December, 1932.
    Mr. HALES: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the very serious proportions of this diversion of traffic, and that it is causing what is calculated to be a loss to the steamship companies of Great Britain of about £100,000 per annum; and is it not to all intents and purposes a subsidy by the British Government to foreign steamship lines?
    Sir S. HOARE: My hon. Friend had better look at the answer I gave on the 12th December.
    Mr. KIRKPATRICK: Will my right hon. Friend apply the principle of be who pays the piper calls the tune?
    Sir S. HOARE: I could not hear that question.
    Mr. SPEAKER: Mr. Rhys.

  CHINA (SHANGHAI DISTRICT COURT).
  Mr. RHYSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government is in consultation with the Shanghai Municipal Council with reference to the special district court?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Eden): No, Sir. There is no intention to consult with the municipal council as a corporate body. His Majesty's Minister in China will, however, keep in touch with the British members of the council on this matter. I am obliged to my hon. Friend for giving me this opportunity of correcting a false impression created by my reply to a supplementary question on the 12th December.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Ordered,
"That the Proceedings on the Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Bill have precedence
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this day of the Business of Supply."—[Captain Margesson.]

ADJOURNMENT (CHRISTMAS).
Resolved,
"That this House, at its rising this day, do adjourn till Tuesday, 7th February; provided that if it is represented to Mr. Speaker by His Majesty's Government that the public interest requires that the House should meet at any earlier time during the Adjournment, and Mr. Speaker is satisfied that the public interest does so require, he may give notice that he is so satisfied, and thereupon the House shall meet at the time stated in such notice and the Government Business to be transacted on the day on which the House shall so meet shall, subject to the publication of notice thereof in the Order Paper to be circulated on the day on which the House shall so meet, be such as the Government may appoint, but subject as aforesaid the House shall transact its business as if it had been duly adjourned to the day on which it shall so meet, and any Government Orders of the Day and Government Notices of Motions that may stand on the Order Book for the 7th day of February or any subsequent day shall be appointed for the day on which the House shall so meet." —[Captain Margesson.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,—
Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Bill, without Amendment.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  DONCASTER AREA DRAINAGE BILL:
  That they have appointed a Committee consisting of Five Lords to join with a Committee of the Commons to consider the Doncaster Area Drainage Bill, pursuant to the Commons Message of Tuesday last; and they propose that the Joint Commitee do meet in Committee Room No. 4, on Tuesday the 21st of February next, at Eleven o'clock.

DONCASTER AREA DRAINAGE BILL.
Lords Message considered:
Ordered,
"That the Committee do meet the Lords Committee as proposed by their Lordships." —[Sir Frederick Thomson.]
Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL.
  Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; read the Third Time, and passed.
  ADJOURNMENT (CHRISTMAS).
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Captain Margesson.)
  ADJOURNMENT (CHRISTMAS).

    INDIA.
    11.32 a.m.
    Mr. MORGAN JONES: I rise on behalf of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House to invite the House to consider with me for a few minutes the subject of the present situation in regard to India. It is some months since this House had an opportunity of a formal kind of discussing this subject. Whether, therefore, the party for which I speak agrees or disagrees with the policy of the Government as unfolded, this, I think, we can claim, that the Government have not been in any way embarrassed by any discussion that we might have initiated in this House. Nevertheless, the situation at this moment is such that it would be a serious failure to discharge our obligations, in our opinion, both as an opposition in this House and also as Members with other Members in all parts of the House, as Great Britain is responsible still for our relationship with that great sub-continent of India, and in discharge, as we deem it, of that obligation, we have thought it desirable to raise, before we adjourn for the holiday, the subject once again.
    I want to discuss the matter under two heads. First, I would like to discuss the internal situation as it now presents itself to us in India, and later, and in a more emphasised way, the present situation in regard to the Round Table Conference. It will be clear to everybody that it is at all times difficult to know precisely the exact situation in India. Many of my hon. Friends and I have deemed it our duty to address to the right hon. Gentlemen week after week questions bearing upon specific aspects of the problem of Indian Government, but in spite of that, however full may be the information
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    which the right hon. Gentleman has been able to give to us, there must necessarily still remain a feeling that we are not quite able to get a very clear view of the situation in India by reason of the fact that we are 6,000 or 7,000 miles away from this very large territory.
    I should like to address to the right hon. Gentleman one question in regard to the economic condition of the people of India. The House has been assisted in its study of Indian conditions by a very compendious report presented to it by the late Speaker of the House of Commons, Mr. Whitley, and his Commission. The disclosures in that Commission's Report were such as to make every one of us, no matter in what part of the House he sits, feel his cheeks blush and glow with a sense of shame. Let me give one or two facts as I cull them from that Report. Here are a few facts in regard to Bombay City. Seventy per cent. of the houses there are of one room. Ninety-seven per cent. of the working classes of that city are accommodated in one room tenements, with as many as six to nine people living in one room. The infantile mortality in the city is as high as 268 per thousand births. This is an appalling recital of facts which none of us dare ignore if we have in mind clearly our much-vaunted responsibility for that great Continent. In Karachi, one-third of the whole population is crowded at this moment into tenements where there are six to nine persons in one room. Similar conditions prevail in many other cities.
    Not only are we told these facts by the Whitley Commission Report, but similar statements as to economic depression are made in a volume which is issued for us, called "A statement as to the moral and material progress of the condition of India." In that volume, for the year 1929–30, on page 115, there is the following statement:
    "The most characteristic feature of the teeming masses of India is, of course, their poverty."
    On page 116 we have this statement:
    "In any case, it is clearly the fact that a large proportion of the inhabitants of India are still beset with poverty of a kind which finds no parallel in Western lands, and are living on the very margin of subsistence."
    That statement is made in what I suppose is an official document, and we may take it that it is not an exaggeration but

    1251
    probably an under-statement of the actual situation. I need not dwell upon that point, except to turn to the economic situation as it is revealed in the factories. Again, I turn to the Whitley Report. They speak of the infants that are taken to the factories by their mothers:
    "They can be found lying on sacking, in bobbin boxes, and other unsuitable places, exposed to the noise and dangers of moving machinery, in a dust-laden atmosphere, and no year passes without a certain number of serious and minor accidents and sometimes even of deaths occurring amongst such children."
    I will not develop that point further beyond saying that I should like an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that, in spite of his many preoccupations concerning the political situation in India, the India Office is not overlooking its responsibility for seeing that some advance is effected in the economic situation in that great territory.
    I turn to another aspect of the situation. We have repeatedly in this House during the last 15 months raised the subject of the ordinances of India. Those ordinances have been in operation for 13 or 14 months. I have made certain representations to the right hon. Gentleman across the Floor of the House on information presented to me, and from time to time the right hon. Gentleman, out of a sense of loyalty to his staff—a loyalty which we naturally expect from the right hon. Gentleman—has felt obliged to repudiate the allegations which I made. It is very difficult for people who live here and have never been in India to be able to support these statements from any first-hand information, but I submit that while the right hon. Gentleman is in his office in Whitehall he is under the same disability, because he is confined to England and depends upon information from India, provided for him by other people. There has been an unofficial delegation, not an official Labour party delegation, recently in India, composed of three people, two of whom have been Members of Parliament and one has been a Parliamentary candidate. They may, therefore, be presumed to be people of some substance and some reliability. They come back and tell us that, having made, within the limits of the time at their disposal, as impartial inquiry as they could, many of these allegations seem to them to be founded upon good ground.
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    The right hon. Gentleman gave a reply the other day in this House to the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Molson), on this subject. I shall not dwell upon that answer beyond saying that I owe it to these people, who happen to be personal friends of mine, to make a statement across the Floor of the House, so that it, may have as much publicity as the answer which the right hon. Gentleman gave. The point was made by the right hon. Gentleman that no great effort was made by that delegation to secure interviews with official people. He said that the hon. Member of the Viceroy's Counsel was seen by Miss Wilkinson. I am authorised by the delegation to say that they saw the Viceroy himself, the Home Member and the Law Member of the Council of India. They interviewed at least four Governors of Provinces. Miss Wilkinson was the guest for a week end of a distinguished Governor in one of the most disturbed areas. They were escorted to the North-West Frontier by a highly-placed officer of that particular area. They interviewed Indian officials and British-Indian officials, and took, as far as they could, fairly elaborate steps to get to know not only what is called the Congress side but the Official side as well. It is fair to these people to make that point, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend will not object to my making it, because it would be undesirable for the impression to go abroad that they deliberately went out with the intention of presenting a biased report in favour one particular side. Having said that, I leave the matter.
    I could recite a number of incidents that have been reported to me, but I will not do so. I will merely take a reply which the right hon. Gentleman has presented to the House and placed on the table in the Library. The hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) asked the Secretary of State for India, on the 31st October last:
    "Whether he can give a list of the newspapers in the various Provinces from which a deposit of security has been demanded by the Government as a condition of their being allowed to continue publication."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st October, 1932; col. 1413, Vol. 269.]
    The right hon. Gentleman said that he would furnish the information, and he has fulfilled his promise by placing in the Library a very formidable list. Here it

    1253
    is, page after page, giving the names of newspapers in India which have been called upon to present deposits as a guarantee of their good behaviour. A better interpretation would be—a guarantee that in the future their matter would be innocuous. Really, we are up against a very important principle, the right of free speech, the right to discuss public affairs in the Press. However well managed and well governed a country may be good government, in my judgment, is no adequate substitute for self government, and, whatever form of government may be, unless there is freedom to discuss the actions of the Government of the day without fear of suppression or repression then clearly a very substantial element of freedom is removed and the consciousness of the removal of that element does not make for cordial co-operation between the Government and the public. Since the days of John Milton the question of the freedom of the Press has been fought out in this country. Some Milton may yet arise in India and write an Aeropagitica in the defence of the right of the Press to discuss the actions and activities of the Government of the day. I submit that this formidable list indicates that the powers vested in the authorities in India would seem to be used not merely to deal with delinquencies but largely to suppress what is a legitimate right to discuss the actions of the Government.
    I do not want to exacerbate opinion in this matter. I want to make an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman—I could dwell upon this much longer, but I forbear for a specific reason. We are to-day taking leave of each other for the Christmas season, and I wonder whether I might appeal to the right hon. Gentleman in all sincerity that he should examine this question of the retention of the Ordinances in the light of the sentiment which pervades all our hearts at this time. Of course, it is possible for the Government to say that they are willing to forgive if the Congress people will give formal expression of their wish to withdraw the civil disobedience movement and abandon it. The Government claim—I will not controvert the claim at the moment—that they have largely destroyed the effectiveness of the civil disobedience movement. The Government can, of course, crush
    1254
    by force movements of this sort, but as the Government claim that it has crushed the movement then they can now afford to do the generous and big thing. I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the time has not now come when the Government, as an act of grace, could make a generous gesture in India.
    I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will not dispute this proposition. His problems are difficult enough and if he can get in India a willingness to listen to what he has to say, a preparedness to consider any proposal he may make, his task will be made considerably lighter. A very substantial contribution towards the creation of a better atmosphere in India would be for the right hon. Gentleman at this Christmas time to declare to India that the Government are prepared, shall I say, to bury the hatchet, to let bygones be bygones and invite these people in a generous spirit to co-operate with the Government in the severe and heavy tasks which are imposed upon them. I hope that appeal will not fall upon deaf ears, because I am sure that there is not a single Member on this side of the House who takes any sort of joy in having to recite the various cases they have had to bring forward during the last 12 months. We have only done so through a deep sense of obligation and duty, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will take it that we are making this present suggestion in all good faith and with a sincere hope that he will give it his most sympathetic consideration.
    I turn to the question of the Round Table Conference. I want to ask in the plainest possible terms what is the present position? First of all let me recall the very important White Paper which contains the pronouncement of the Prime Minister on the 1st December, 1931. In that White Paper the Prime Minister stated explicitly the policy of the Government and, broadly speaking, it was largely the same as that of the preceding Government. We have now lived 12 months longer, and we have a gathering called the Round Table Conference meeting within the precincts of this House. Is it a Round Table Conference in the same sense as the old Round Table Conference? Does the pronouncement of the Prime Minister still hold? Is it still the policy of the Government to implement in

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    spirit as well as in letter the statement made on behalf of the Government by its head some 12 months ago? May I put it more particularly? What is the view of the Government concerning provincial self-government and responsibility at the centre? This is a most serious question; and we deem it necessary to repeat it. I feel that the situation is such that we are entitled to ask for a repetition, a re-endorsement, of the declaration made on behalf of the Government. This question is justified by one or two facts.
    In the first place, there seems to be a change in the constitution of the Conference. I make no reflection on the honour of the gentlemen who have come all the way from India. No sort of personal reflection is implied. But even these gentlemen will not controvert this proposition, that they are here strictly in their personal capacity and that they cannot be regarded as delegates representing a point of view and speaking authoritatively on behalf of groups of opinion. That, I think, is a substantial change. Not only is there change in that sense, but there is also change in method. During the last Conference there was a considerable degree of publicity regarding the proceedings. Here are we, Members of the House of Commons, very largely in the dark as to what, has been happening in the last month or five weeks. All we know is from bits of gossip that dribble out from the Conference room. Of course the Government must decide for itself, and it may be a wise decision—
    The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Sir Samuel Hoare): It was the Conference that decided.
    Mr, JONES: The Conference, I am told, has decided. From the point of view of the general public and especially from the point of view of Members of this House, it is very unfortunate that we have not been able to get official information or communiqués from time to time, if not daily, indicating not in the brief and somewhat brusque tenms—
    Earl WINTERTON: I do not know what the hon. Gentleman means. Every day a full communiqué has been issued. Has the hon. Member not read the "Times"?
    Mr. JONES: Perhaps the Noble Lord will keep himself in patience. I was in the middle of a sentence when he interrupted me. I want communiqués, not of the brief kind that have appeared in the Press, but of a more detailed kind giving us some idea as to the pros and cons of the discussions, a fuller account by far flan that which has appeared in the Press from time to time.
    Earl WINTERTON: A communiquë has been issued every day.
    Sir FRANCIS FREMANTLE: Cabinet secrets.
    Mr. JONES: They could not be Cabinet secrets. The Conference is not a Cabinet meeting. These people attending the Conference are important in their private capacity, but they have no more right there, and no more responsibility there, than I have, except that they happen to be members of the Conference. Can we get to know to-day what conclusions, if any, have been reached? This may be an inconvenient time to ask the question —I do not know. As the Secretary of State knows, we presumed that the Conference would be over yesterday or the day before, and we hoped to-day to be in possession of full information about it. Still this is the House of Commons, and we are entitled to ask whether any conclusions have yet been reached upon any of the subjects which have been discussed. Secondly, if conclusions have been reached or are to be reached, may we anticipate an agreed public statement, either in the form of a White Paper or in some other form, concerning the matters that have been decided?
    Thirdly, I want to ask, as a corollary to the point I have made concerning the personnel and change of method, what the Government had in their mind in convening the Conference on this occasion. Were the Government merely seeking to ascertain the opinion of these people as people of substance and authority in their respective spheres in India, or was this Conference convened for the purpose of seeking agreement? The information I have is that up to now all that has happened for all practical purposes is that speeches have been delivered on one side or the other, but I understand that there is no practical issue coming out of these discussions. Those attending the Conference merely listen to each other. What

    1257
    is the object aimed at? Is the Round Table Conference to be brought to an end after these respective speeches without focussing the discussions to a definite conclusion, or is it the purpose of the Government, having heard opinions, to retire as a Government to Whitehall and to frame proposals with a view to presenting those proposals later to a Joint Select Committee of both Houses?
    We are now some three days away from Christmas, two days beyond the date which we were told was to see the windup of the Conference. It is a most serious situation if these people, who have been brought some 6,000 or 7,000 miles from their country, are to go back without anything definite and substantial to show to their people. They have made great sacrifices in coming. They have taken great personal risks to their own reputations. Surely they are not expected to go back to their native land without being able to say, "This has been settled in this way and that is that. Such and such have been achieved. Such and such have been postponed." Surely the Government have not brought these people all this way merely to hear their opinions expressed formally, since they are fairly well-known people in India and their opinions broadly would be known before they arrived?
    Mr. HALES: Was not the Conference called at the express wish of the leaders themselves?
    Mr. JONES: The hon. Gentleman is able to answer that question better than I am, and I leave it to him. I say to the Secretary of State seriously that it would be a disaster if the Conference were brought to an end without some definite issues having been finally recorded.
    Sir JOHN WARDLAW-MILNE: Does the hon. Member mean settled without the consent of the House of Commons?
    Mr. JONES: Nothing of the sort. I am not implying that decisions arrived at would be final for all time—obviously not. What I suggest is that before the Conference has formally concluded those who are members of it should be able to say, "This and this and this have been decided." That is all I am asking. I mean decided for further recommendation to Parliament in one way or another.
    Mr. LEVY: The decisions would not be definite. Therefore nothing could be definitely decided.
    Mr. JONES: This matter cannot be pushed off. Let me remind the House of a report which appeared in the "Manchester Guardian" on 6th November, of a speech delivered by Sir Arthur Watson, editor of the "Statesman" of Calcutta. Here is one passage in that speech:
    "He was convinced that the one alternative to a constitution that would be accepted by a large body of Indians would be a doubled British army in India, a trebled police and a trebled Civil Service. For these things India could not pay. Great Britain would have to find the money, and after 20 years of resolute Government she would still be faced with the problem which confronted her to-day."
    This is not a statement of a partisan of my party but of a person who has occupied high journalistic office in India, addressing the Conservative Members of this House recently. It is as clear as the noonday sun that we cannot allow this problem to be indefinitely postponed. We must settle it and the Government must come to some final conclusions concerning it. Finally, I remind the House that in 1921 the Duke of Connaught speaking in India on behalf of the King used these words:
    "For years, it may be for generations, patriotic and loyal Indians have dreamt of swaraj for their motherland. To-day you have the beginning of swaraj within my Empire and the widest scope and amplest opportunities for progress to the liberty which my other Dominions enjoy."
    Those words were spoken on behalf of His Majesty the King in 1921; they were a pledge and a promise, and I invite the Government to-day to indicate that there is not the slightest ground for supposing that this Government has departed in the slightest degree from the full implications of that speech made 11 years ago.
    12.8 p.m.
    Sir S. HOARE: Let me say at the outset that I in no way resent this Debate. Indeed I welcome it, for I think it will be the means of clearing up a number of misunderstandings. The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones) always puts his case in a very reasonable and sober way and I think I shall be able, in my answer, to satisfy him that there is little ground for a great many of the anxieties which he has expressed. Let me begin by dealing with two or three of

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    the more detailed points which he raised at the beginning of his speech. First, he raised the question of the disgraceful conditions, in many parts of India, under which industrial labour works and lives. I agree with everything he said. My difficulty is this, that the administration of labour questions is, as he knows, a provincial subject and we here have, therefore, little or no direct control. But I can tell him that my advisers and I here are fully alive to the need for a great improvement in labour conditions. I have had more than one talk with Mr. Whitley on the subject and all the influence that I can exert here is exercised in the direction of helping both the central government and the provincial governments to do everything they can to raise standards generally.
    Next the hon. Member raised, in connection with the present state of affairs in India, the evidence that has just been brought back by two or three friends of his own and of hon. Members opposite. I do not want this morning to get into anything in the nature of a bitter wrangle as to whether the evidence which they brought back is reliable or not. I will just give him one or two examples that convince me at any rate that these people, excellent as they may be in many respects, only saw one side of the picture and that they were, during the whole of their visit, very much prejudiced against seeing the other side of the picture. For instance there was the fact quoted the other day by me in the House that a large proportion of their expenses apparently were paid from Congress funds. There is no doubt about this. I have the particulars.
    Mr. MORGAN JONES: I am not doubting that but if that argument is to be relied upon, then let it be remembered that every member of the Round Table Conference has his expenses paid by the Government.
    Sir S. HOARE: I do not think the two things are on the same footing. We have had a large body of evidence taken from Congress sources showing that, from the very start, Congress made it its business to stage-manage the kind of picture which they wished this delegation to see. Here is an extract from a document from one of the principal Congress headquarters. I quote the exact words:
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    "The delegation that is coming from England is one which may carry impressions of an important nature. We are hound therefore to try our best to place before them all that we wish to reach people outside India. It would be effective if Congress activities like processions, picketing, etc., dispersed by lathi charges happen to be seen by them or even if the things occur during their stay such things leave a better impression if seen than heard of."
    There is in addition to that extract, a large body of evidence and I could go further into the matter to show that scenes were stage-managed for this delegation and that from start to finish they saw this carefully arranged side of the picture. While I quite agree that they had talks with Government officials and one or two governors, the impression which they left upon every one of my correspondents in India, from the Viceroy downwards, is that from start to finish they were biased in the views which they took.
    Mr. LANSBURY: The right hon. Gentleman has quoted from some document which is in his possession and is, presumably, official. In those circumstances, I take it he will lay that document on the Table of the House in order that we may be, able to judge it.
    Sir S. HOARE: No, this is not an official document at all. It is a letter from Congress Headquarters.
    Mr. LANSBURY: These documents have come into the hands of the right hon. Gentleman in his official capacity as Secretary of State. He has quoted them here in support of the case which he is putting to the House and I submit that under the Rules of the House he must lay those documents on the Table.
    Sir S. HOARE: May I point out, Mr. Speaker, that this is not an official document but a quotation from a communication from Congress headquarters.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Before you give your decision, Mr. Speaker, may I submit that it is a communication supplied to the right hon. Gentleman officially and that he is acting in this matter not as a private citizen but as Secretary of State.
    Mr. SPEAKER: It is the ordinary rule, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, that when a Minister or anybody else quotes from an official document the document has to be laid on the Table, but the House has had nothing to show that this is an official document.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Are we to understand, then, that the Government may quote from documents officially in their possession and make a case—I am not saying this in any offensive sense—against certain people whose conduct is called in question and that we are not entitled to treat those documents as official? Are we to understand that it is for the Government to decide whether they will lay a paper on the Table or not and what papers shall or shall not be laid on the Table. It seems to be quite a new procedure.
    Earl WINTERTON: On a point of Order. Is it not very clearly defined, may I say with respect, that there is an official document and a non-official document? There is no suggestion that this is an official document. My right hon. Friend has said that this is a statement issued by Congress.
    Mr. LANSBURY: The right hon. Gentleman has quoted from documents received from official sources. I have a great respect for the Noble Lord and his knowledge of procedure, but the right hon. Gentleman has quoted an official communication which he has received, especially in regard to the money which has been subscribed, as he says, to pay this expense and so on. They can only have come into his possession officially, and certainly must have come in the ordinary official manner. If he quotes them here in support of his case, I submit that they should be laid on the Table. Very respectfully, I do not think that it is within the discretion of the right hon. Gentleman to withhold them or submit them.
    Sir S. HOARE: Again let me say that these are not official documents.
    Mr. LANSBURY: They must be.

  ROYAL ASSENT.
  Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.
  The House went, and, haring returned, Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

  1. Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Act, 1932 (Session 2).

  2. Expiring Laws Continuance Act, 1932.

  3. Public Works Facilities Scheme (Huddersfield Corporation) Confirmation Act, 1932.

  ADJOURNMENT (CHRISTMAS).
  Question again proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."
  12.28 p.m.
  Sir S. HOARE: When the Debate was interrupted I had been drawn reluctantly into something of the nature of a controversy with the right hon. Gentleman opposite. May I suggest to him that he shall see the document himself, and I think he will be satisfied that it is not official? Let me pass from this incident to the bigger questions raised by the hon. Member for Caerphilly, who seems still worried about the present situation in India. I am, however, glad to be able to inform him that, so far as I can judge, it is definitely better than when last I addressed the House. He may say that my view is biased, that I depend upon official reports, that I am 10,000 miles away from India, and that just as I have said that the delegation whose activities we were discussing is biased on one side, I am biased on the other. Let me therefore not give him my simple statement in answer to his inquiry, but let me rather take two outward and visible events which do quite definitely show that the cause of good will in India is growing in strength.
  I take, first of all, the example of the ratification of the Ottawa Agreement. Right hon. and hon. Members will remember that from the very start of the Ottawa negotiations I stood aside entirely. I gave a pledge that the Assembly in India should have the opportunity of ratifying or not ratifying it as it liked, and I think every member of the India delegation will say that from start to finish no influence was brought to bear upon it either by myself or from the Departments in Whitehall. The delegation went to Ottawa and, if I may say so, it was a. very able delegation. By the admission of everyone it was one of the ablest of all the Imperial delegations at Ottawa. It studied the question upon the merits and without any pressure from the Government, and it agreed at the end of the discussion to recommend an arrangement that seemed to it to be beneficial to India and to the Empire as a whole.
  The Agreement was subsequently put before the Assembly, which not unnaturally scrutinised the Agreement, and

  1263
  many members at first were under the impression that the Agreement was not altogether in the interests of India. Accordingly, a Select Committee was appointed—I believe, very representative of the main bodies of opinion in the Assembly—and the Agreement was scrutinised meticulously for several days from cover to cover. At the end of that time the Committee recommended, by a very large majority, that the Agreement should be ratified, on the ground that it was obviously in the interests of India. The Committee's report went back to the Assembly, and the Agreement was eventually carried by a majority of 77 to 25; that is to say, a majority, as far as we can judge, quite independent of the official bloc. I venture to say to hon. Members in all parts of the House that there is very significant evidence of good will between the Indian Legislature and the Imperial Parliament, that there they looked at the question upon its merits, that they set aside any partisan sentiments, and that they came to the conclusion that in the interests of India and those of the Empire the Agreement ought to be ratified; and without any pressure from here they ratified it by an overwhelming majority.
  I come to my second instance, and I am glad to be able to use it. I think the hon. Member for Caerphilly will find that it provides a satisfactory answer to a good many of the questions that he asked me just now. The hon. Member once again deplored the necessity for emergency ordinances. I tell him, and tell him quite sincerely, that I have always hated emergency orders. They are a hand-to-mouth method of dealing with a serious situation, and nobody wishes to see them imposed unless it is absolutely necessary, and nobody wishes to continue them a day longer than is necessary. Accordingly, some months ago the Government of India and I came to the view that it would be much more satisfactory if the responsibility of dealing with grave threats to law and order was imposed upon the Legislatures rather than upon the ordinance of the Governor-General. Accordingly, we decided to put the position before both the Assembly at Simla and the provincial councils telling them the state of affairs and giving them the opportunity of dealing with them. I am glad to be able to say that in the
  1264
  Assembly and in practically every provincial council this opportunity has been welcomed, and the fullest use has been made of it. The result of it is to-day that by the ordinary methods of legislation, and I think in every case without the need of the vote of the official block, legislation has been passed which gives the Central Government and the Provincial Governments sufficient power to deal with any recrudescence of trouble.
  This legislation has been passed without the vote of official blocks in almost every case, and I think in every case by an overwhelming majority. That is a very satisfactory change in the situation. It shows, in the first place, that there is a great body of public opinion behind the Government, whether in the centre or in the provinces, in the efforts they have been making to maintain law and order. It also shows that the members of the Indian legislatures are prepared to take on their own shoulders the responsibility of dealing with the situation. The result is that by the beginning of the new year we shall find ourselves in the position that the hon. Member for Caerphilly desires, namely, that we shall require emergency ordinances no longer. The legislatures have of their own free will given the Government the necessary powers to deal with the situation, and I am glad to be able to announce to-day that, so far as I can see, by the beginning of the new year there need be no further emergency ordinances. That applies also to the Press ordinances. When I say that the emergency ordinances will come to an end, I mean all the ordinances. What Press powers are retained are passed by the Assembly and the provincial legislatures.
  I pass to the other part of the hon. Member's speech dealing with the Round Table Conference.
  Mr. MORGAN JONES: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that portion of his speech, can he take the opportunity to respond to my appeal for a gesture of conciliation at this Christmas season?
  Sir S. HOARE: I would rather give my speech in the order in which I have mapped it out. I want to say a word in answer to the hon. Member's question about the Round Table Conference. There again, I do not blame the hon. Member in any way, but he seemed to

  1265
  me to be under several grave misapprehensions, first of all about the personnel of the Round Table Conference. The personnel differs only in two respects from the personnel of the last two Round Table Conferences. The first is that Congress, having refused to co-operate with us, no longer takes part in our deliberations. That was not our fault. The second difference, I suggest, was not our fault either. It was, for reasons which I dare say are very good reasons, due to the fact that the right hon. Gentleman and hon. Members opposite felt that they could not take part in the conference at this stage. I think that it is only in this stage, for we shall have their active co-operation when the proposals go to the Joint Select Committee. Apart from that, the personnel is substantially the same as it was in the last two years. It is smaller, but I think that everybody who is following the course of events is agreed that a smaller conference at this stage was better than a big conference.
  It is a mistake to say that the Conference is not representative of big bodies of Indian opinion. It is representative of very big bodies of Indian opinion. For instance, the Indian States are represented by their principal Ministers. There can be no question about the States' representation being unrepresentative of the Indian princes.
  Mr. ATTLEE: Not the Chamber of Princes.
  Sir S. HOARE: Yes, indeed, there are the principal Ministers here.
  Mr. ATTLEE: They are not nominated?
  Sir S. HOARE: They are not nominated by the Chamber, I agree, but none the less, I think the view of the Princes of the Chamber is very subtially represented. Next, there is a very representative delegation of the Moslem community, and, lastly, there is a representation of various branches of the Hindu and Sikh communities composed of public men whose names carry weight in the whole of India and here as well. I would demur very strongly to the suggestion that the personnel of this Conference is in any way less representative than that of the two previous conferences, or that its Indian members are not competent to speak for great bodies of opinion in India.
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  Next, the hon. Member seems to think that we have been holding over the Conference a curtain of secrecy. That is not the case. We came to the conclusion—the Indian delegates just as much as ourselves—that at this stage when we were dealing with details, and when we were trying to get through the work as expeditiously as we could, the kind of publicity that we had last year and the year before, in which everybody's speech was published verbatim—and we know in this House that we are rather inclined, when we know our speeches are being published verbatim, to speak at some length —upon the whole it was better to have the kind of restricted publicity that we have had this year. The publicity has been in the hands of a small committee on which the Indian delegations have been represented, and I think that, on the whole, it has given a very fair picture of what has been happening in the Conference without falling in to the kind of—I will not say error—but the state of affairs of last year and the year before when too much publicity meant prolixity of speech.
  As to the work of the Conference, and particularly as to the intentions with which the Conference is assembled, the hon. Member seemed to think that there was some change in the attitude of the Government towards the Conference, or in the conception of what we wished to get out of the Conference. I tell him quite categorically that there is no difference at all. I have been a member of all these three Conferences, and we are trying to get out of this Conference exactly the same results that we tried to get out of the Conference last year and the Conference the year before. We are trying to get out of the Conference as much agreement as ever we can between Indian opinion and ourselves. I should be the last person in the world to be too optimistic, particularly in the matter of conferences. I would never say that any conference had succeeded until it was over; I think I would go further and say that no conference has succeeded until we have had time in which to judge the actual effects of the work of the conference in hard facts. But I am able to tell the hon. Member to-day—and I think every Indian delegate will agree—that so far we have had a series of very useful

  1267
  and, on the whole, very satisfactory discussions. We have been dealing in the main with details. We have taken as our text the White Paper of last year and the White Paper of the year before, and I can tell him and his hon. Friends that we have departed from the White Paper neither in the letter nor in the spirit.
  The hon. Member asked me a specific question as to whether our attitude had changed towards provincial autonomy and responsibility at the centre. My answer is: "No, it has not changed in any way." What we have been doing in this Conference is to try to fill in the gaps —many gaps were left over in the White Papers of last year and of the year before —and to carry out the implications of the general principles that were then accepted by a great majority of hon. Members in the House. I can also tell him that the Conference will end just as the Conference ended last year and the year before, namely, with a series of reports. There will be a number of reports, and if he and his hon. Friends will read them I think he will agree that much very useful work has been done, work that was inevitable if we were to clear the ground for the meeting of the Joint Select Committee. I hope I am not too optimistic when I say I believe he will also find that a, great measure of agreement has been reached by the Government and both the British delegation and the great body of the Indian delegates assembled in London. But, as I say, let us wait until the Conference is over—it looks as if it will not be a matter of many days—and the hon. Member will then have in his hands a number of reports and will be able to judge whether the statement I am making is justified or not by the actual facts.
  Lastly, let me say a word about his appeal that we should do everything in our power to increase the forces of good will and to show our willingness to cooperate with whoever will co-operate with us. I say to the House this morning that the situation is definitely better than it was six months ago. We have had these evidences of good will, evidences which I am afraid have been rather rare in recent years, in the relations between India and Great Britain. The evidences, I believe, go to show that we are at the beginning of a new
  1268
  chapter. Further, we have the fact that the Legislatures have given the Governments, central and provincial, powers to deal with any dangerous situation. These are facts which the Government will certainly take into account. The hon. Member can rely on the Government of India taking them into account and using them to the full, making it as easy as possible for everybody who is willing to take a share in the moulding of the new Constitution to take that share and for everyone who is willing to co-operate with us upon the general lines of the two White Papers. We are following the situation very carefully, and I would ask him not to press me further on the point this morning.

  ADJOURNMENT (CHRISTMAS).

    NATIONAL UNEMPLOYED WORKERS' MOVEMENT (ARRESTS).
    Mr. LANSBURY: There are two reasons why this Debate, as I understand, could not usefully be carried further today. One is that the right hon. Gentleman himself has to attend a meeting of the Round Table Conference this afternoon, and, also, we on this side want to raise a domestic question, and there are other Members who desire to raise other domestic questions. He will allow me to say on the question of the papers that I am obliged to him for his courtesy in offering to show me the paper he thinks I refer to, but before settling my mind on the subject I should prefer to look at the OFFICIAL REPORT, because I think that —perhaps it is from my side—we are misunderstanding each other as to the particular paper to which I refer. The only other thing I want to say is that I hope the right hon. Gentleman, when he comes to consider the question of good will and an amnesty in India, will keep in mind the fact that his position is that of representing authority which has really impressed itself—if his statement is correct —upon the mass of opinion in India, and that if there is any giving way to be done it should be done by the strongest side. Most of the leaders who are in prison are personal friends of mine, and I think many of them are personal friends of many other Members in this House and in another place. Very nearly a year has passed since Gandhi was put into prison, with a number of others, and he has been kept there waiting for pledges. I do not think pledges to be extracted from people under those conditions are much use.

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    I ask the right hon. Gentleman to remember that if Mr. Gandhi died tomorrow every kind of tribute would be paid to him by opponents as well as by friends. I ask him to consider between now and Sunday whether it would not be worth while, seeing the conditions prevailing in India to-day, to make a big gesture, to have a gaol delivery and free these men on their own sort of responsibility. If what he said is true—and of course we accept the right hon. Gentleman's statement about the provincial assemblies and the general spirit of good will—why not add to that good will by setting this man and his friends free? The right hon. Gentleman will agree that no one accuses him of anything but the most honourable and patriotic intentions towards his own people. Having said that I will just leave the matter there, and hope the right hon. Gentleman will give our appeal his best consideration.
    The subject that I want to bring before the House is that of the case of Mr. Tom Mann and the other person who are at present detained because they refused to give sureties. Mrs. Duncan was also charged in South-East London, as well as Tom Mann and his friends. I hope that the Home Secretary will consider this matter very carefully. We are of the opinion that during the last few years—I raised this question when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) was Home Secretary—that the police authorities generally and the Metropolitan Police especially have taken up an attitude towards public meetings and processions, which is, relatively speaking, new.
    The start of these restrictions took place during the Home Rule discussion and during the unemployment meetings after 1886. Anyone who is acquainted with the history of public meetings in London knows that until 1886 there never was any question of note-takers at open-air meetings or of police note-takers at indoor meetings. I am sorry that there is no representative here of the Liberal party, because the Liberal party and the Home Rulers who were in this House at the time raised the question and brought before the House the new position that had arisen. I called attention to it because I thought that it was the beginning of spying upon political opponents. Those who raised the question at that time said that they did so because it
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    was the sort of thing that was bound to grow. The practice has grown, until to-day the most innocent meetings in London are subject to it. If you look round in those meetings you will find someone there representing Scotland Yard, as if it were the business of Scotland Yard to know what people's political opinions are. We used to think that that kind of thing only happened in despotic countries.
    I repeat that in London this sort of thing only started after 1886. I am quite certain that Conservative meetings, official Liberal meetings and official Labour meetings are not dealt with in this fashion. It is only what are considered to be, in the police's judgment, if you please, a sort of outside or left-wing or Communist meeting that is so dealt with. It is no business of the police to know what any of the citizens are thinking about or what they are talking about. The present Home Secretary and other Home Secretaries have again and again, in answer to questions, said that the advocacy of Communism is not an offence against the law. What do the police want to attend Communist meetings for, or have spies at Communist meetings, or at Independent Labour party meetings or at meetings of the Socialist League for? What is it to do with them? Let them mind their own business and look after burglars and people of that kind. It is not their right to know what a man is speaking about or what theory is being advocated.
    It may be said, "Oh yes, but we do not go there for that purpose; we go there for the purpose of hearing whether people are saying anything seditious." I have been a victim of these gentlemen who go to inquire as to what we say at meetings. The late Lord Brentford read a statement late one night of something that I was alleged to have said. After the Adjournment, because there was no time to discuss the matter before, he was good enough to show me the document. Everybody who knows me knows that I never said anything of the kind. The gentleman who took the note must have written it out of his imagination, because if there is one thing that my worst opponent, either Communist or Tory, will not charge me with it is the advocacy of violence. I am known as a person who gets shouted down at meetings because I denounce violence, and yet

    1271
    here is a police officer giving information which put into my mouth words that I had never uttered. I am sure that the gentleman who did it wrote it in longhand and had no knowledge of shorthand. It would be interesting to know how many of these note-takers are expert shorthand writers. Everyone knows that reporting is a very skilled business. You can miss a word or you can put a word in.
    The police authorities in London have been permitted to arrogate to themselves the right to go about and discover when meetings are being held and who is going to conduct them. I attended one meeting and the police came—this was a year or two back, but it is being done now—and they wanted a list of people who were going to speak. I raised a question in the House, and I was told that no one had instructed them but that they wanted to know. I expect that there was a burglary going on round the corner, or perhaps a murder, but, instead of the police attending to their own business, they were interfering with something that was absolutely no concern of theirs.
    Then there is the growth of what we consider as militarism in the police. I have raised this question before, and no one yet has answered it. I raise it again to-day, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary will give me an answer. In 1886, when there were disturbances, and in the year or two that followed, you could not have had a charge of the police or of the military as you can to-day. You could not have the sort of charge by the police that you have nowadays, when they plunge into a crowd on horseback armed with long sticks. That never happened. When there was danger of a riot, the Riot Act was read, and the people were warned to disperse. There is no warning to-day. I am speaking of what I know. No one rides along and says to the people on the pavement, "You must clear off," but they just gallop along and charge into the people. I have been ridden down myself when walking along Roman Road at Bow by patrols on the pavement, and no notice was given that we were doing anything—in fact we were not doing anything—illegal. We were just charged by the police.
    I want to know why it is that the authorities have taken this power. They
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    apparently have the power because they do not use firearms. You may not fire on the people, but you can injure the people just as much by riding them down with horses. Some of the stories that are told about what happened in Hyde Park on that particular Sunday, and about what happened during the disturbances outside this House in October, go to show that the police to-day imagine that they have the right to disperse a crowd anyhow. If you compare the manner in which they disperse a Labour or Socialist crowd with their manner of dealing with a crowd which assembles to see a great wedding outside the Abbey or St. Margaret's, and which is equally a nuisance, there is a great difference. It does not matter that there is inconvenience to the general public who want to go about their business, that the road is blocked and people have to go round, and so on; the treatment is altogether different.
    We feel that the police authorities in London, under the control of military people, of people who are accustomed to order people about, have got it into their heads that they are the masters of this city; but they are no more the masters than anyone else, and they have no right to do anything in the way of ordering the citizens hither and thither just as they please. Certainly no set of people has the right to ride down the general public without having given any notice whatsoever that they are called upon to disperse. Not so long ago, a justice of the peace had to be present to read the proclamation calling upon the citizens to disperse, but, under this military autocracy in London, power has been taken to deal with the public in an altogether different manner. The Communist party and ourselves have nothing in common so far as tactics are concerned. We shall denounce any attempt to incite people to violence under any sort of conditions. That is a matter about which we are denounced by the Communist party, and it is not in defence of this order that we are raising the question to-day. It is because official appetites grow with what they feed on. It is the Communists to-day; it may be ourselves to-morrow. We say that because there is no sort of equality of treatment in this matter.
    I should like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that there is a Fascist organisation in London to-day,

    1273
    which makes much more seditious speeches than are made by any Communist in the country. But no one takes any notice of them; no one has yet attempted to stop the drilling of the Fascists. The example, to which I will call attention later, of Lord Carson's agitation in Ireland, is being followed in London. During one of my elections—I think it was the election before last—a set of able-bodied, well-fed, well-groomed, well-to-do young men marched through my division, for the purpose, if you please, of preserving order. I took no notice of them, because the women took them in hand and smacked their faces for them. But I am perfectly certain that, if they had been 20 or 30 Communists, in red shirts instead of black shirts, who had gone into a Tory constituency, the police would have dealt with them. This matter, really, is entirely a class business. The black-shirts in London are being organised, and they may make their speeches. I notice that hon. Gentlemen smile, but one of these days, when Mosley marches up here, they will, perhaps, smile the other way.
    I come to another fact. In dealing with these particular cases, so far as I can understand, the right hon. Gentleman and those who advised the prosecution have not prosecuted for anything that has been done, or anything that has been said; they only anticipated that something might be said or something might be done. Before I proceed to that subject, however, I should like to say a word about Tom Mann. I have no personal knowledge of either of the two other prisoners but Tom Mann is my friend. I have known him practically all his life, and I know him as a man who is rather different from the ordinary agitator. He has not, from agitation, become a Member of Parliament, and from a Member of Parliament a member of the Government; he has remained an agitator all his life. I do not think that that is any discredit to him; I think it, is greatly to his credit.
    I have never known him—the right hon. Gentleman and his advisers might look up their records—I have never known him to advocate violence. I have never known him to advocate that unarmed men should go against armed men. He may have done what Sir Oswald Mosley is doing now, that is to say, talked about
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    the day when the workers would probably have to fight for their rights; but I never remember him urging men to throw themselves against the police or the military. In any case, what has he done all his life? What has been his job in life? He has simply been working for poor people, and his position to-day is that he is a very poor man indeed, so that no one in this House can stand up and charge him with being "on the make." That may be done with people like me; it has been done sometimes—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Those of you who are not "on the make," look in a looking-glass. The fact is that he is a very poor man, and he is a poor man, not because he has not brains enough to be a rich man, but because he chose to give his life in that particular way to the people to whom he belongs. Therefore, I think he is entitled to some consideration at the hands of this House and of the Ministry.
    There are one or two things that he has not done, and this brings me to another matter on which the Solicitor-General may have something to say if he is going to speak. Tom Mann has never yet led a riot at a church, such as has taken place at St. Hilary, in Cornwall, within the last few weeks. Apparently the Solicitor-General does not know anything about that case. They were only Protestant agitators; the Solicitor-General only knows about Communist agitators. The police do not trouble about such people, which shows that there is only one particular set of law-breakers in this connection that they know anything about. It has been referred to in all the newspapers, and I do not understand the hon. and learned Gentleman not knowing anything about it. Why did he not prosecute them? Everyone knows when people are told that they are to assemble and prevent Mass from being said—I am not talking about moving the ornaments, but about what happened within the last three weeks, when, during a service, the people were incited to go—
    The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir Boyd Merriman): The right hon. Gentleman has raised this topic and has challenged me. Will he permit me to say, first of all, that the police were present, and, secondly, that they are prosecuting?
    Mr. LANSBURY: Yes, but you took no steps to prevent the disturbance taking place. One would have thought, when you were going to have a disturbance in the church, you would have used these powers that you are using against Tom Mann to prevent the scandal and the outrage taking place. You have not the pluck to do that, because they have very powerful friends, and you only attack those who cannot hit you back. Tom Mann has not organised a volunteer army yet; he has not imported arms into the country, and he has not yet started drilling, as do the Fascists. I intended to refer to the Elias case, but I understand that there is an appeal and that I must not touch it.
    Let me come to the case of Mrs. Kate Duncan. I am going to speak now with very great deference in the presence of my hon. and learned Friend and of the Solicitor-General, because I suppose this is very much a matter of law. This woman was a disturber of the peace and an inciter of others to commit crime and, as such, subject to the provisions of the Statute of 34 Edward III. What is this Statute? I was a victim of it. You may have this lady in the House as well as myself one of these days and, having been prosecuted, she may even speak from this Box. Here is the sort of thing that this Act was passed to deal with. Last year this same public Department had great trouble in dealing with the opening of cinemas and such places on Sunday because of a silly old law, and everyone stood up and said, "These laws ought to be swept away." Of all the tomfool laws to apply in modern times, this one takes the biscuit.
    "That in every county of England shall be assigned for the keeping of the peace, one lord, and with him three or four of the most worthy in the county, with some learned in the law, and they shall have power to restrain the offenders, rioters, and all other barrators and to pursue, arrest, take, and chastise them according to their trespass or offence."
    Of course, now you are not allowed to chastise them. I should like to see you start chastising them. It means that you can flog them before you imprison them:
    "and to cause them to be imprisoned and duly punished according to the law and customs of the realm."
    There is no law and custom now to allow the police to chastise anyone.
    Mr. HOLFORD KNIGHT: It is all obsolete.
    Mr. LANSBURY: This is the Act under which they are put away.
    Mr. KNIGHT: A historical document.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Member will restrain his impatience and allow me to read it so that the House can decide:
    "according to the law and customs of the realm, and according to that which to them shall seem best to do and good advisement; and also to inform them."
    It reads like a novel and an ancient one at that—
    "and to inquire of all those that have been pillors and robbers in the parts beyond the sea"—
    Is it charged against Tom Mann and Mrs. Duncan that they are robbers across the sea?
    "and be now come again and go wandering"—
    Tom Mann has a residence. He does not wander. He is not a vagrant.
    "and will not labour"—
    There is no charge against him that he will not labour. He is six years older than the old age pension age. He has committed no crime and even if he had he does not work.
    "as they were wont in times past."
    No one accuses him of not having worked. He was an engineer—
    "and to take and arrest all those that they may find by indictment, or by suspicion, and to put them in prison; and to take of all them that be of good fame."
    There was a great controversy about the word "not" which has been interpolated here when I was before the court. The judges decided that it did not matter whether the Act of Parliament had been altered or not. They said, "This chap has to be put away and put away he must be." When you come to interpret the law, you lawyers are wonderful people, especially when you become judges. You really make law. A very learned counsel, Mr. Montague Shearman, argued that this word "not" having been interpolated into the Norman French, which I cannot read, really vitiated the law so far as I was concerned. The judges said, "No one took much notice of it in the past, and we are not going

    1277
    to take any notice of it to-day," so I went down. It reads without the interpolation:
    "and to take of all them that be of good fame"—
    That is not very good sense, so some johnny put in "not" in order to make sense of it. He said, "This is what they meant and I will make the law read what they meant instead of what they said." I do not think that is good enough.
    "nor put in the peril which may happen of such offenders: And also to hear and determine at the King's suit all manner of felonies and trespasses done in the same county according to the laws and customs aforesaid."
    I do not think I need read any more. I suggest that this would be good bedtime reading for anyone who really wants to see the kind of law under which Communists and other people are dealt with. You only deal with Communists and common people under this law. You dare not bring it into operation against the Kensitites, the Mosleyites or Carson and company. No one can deny that. It is only poor people. Mrs. Kate Duncan was charged. Let us see the evidence that she was a killer, a robber, a wanderer and a vagabond, and that she had done something she ought not to have done. The right hon. Gentleman may have a longer report of the case. I am only able to quote from the report in the "Times." Mr. Clayton, the solicitor, said that in a speech in Bermondsey Town Hall this lady spoke in a manner calculated to create a breach of the peace, that the defendant seemed—not that she had—to have taken a very prominent part, and that she repeated these words at subsequent meetings as well:
    "The public assistance people should be held personally responsible."
    I have said that myself many a time and have never been proceeded against. Then Mr. Clayton gives evidence. He is a solicitor. He makes a statement. Mr. Clayton said that he thought that Duncan was then speaking about a Bermondsey murder case. What right has he to pretend to say what he thought. What a solicitor thinks is not evidence, however distinguished he may Be. He says that "he thinks" that she was referring to a Bermondsey murder case.
    "The public assistance people should be identified and their addresses found in
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    order that pressure can be brought to bear upon them."
    Pressure is brought to bear upon me every day. Numbers of people come to my house when I am at home asking me and begging of me to bring pressure to bear upon this House and upon other people, and, no doubt, bringing pressure to bear upon me to do my job. And why should they not?
    Mr. BUCHANAN: What about the tariff people?
    Mr. LANSBURY: The tariff people come here. She says that it is the duty of the workers to do this. Is that wrong? What is there in that?
    "Every member of a local public assistance committee who refuses relief to unemployed men or who wants to send an unemployed man to Belmont must be identified so that he can be intimidated."
    [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] Wait a minute. Mr. Clayton said that the Director considered that those words were calculated to provoke a breach of the peace, and that there was no doubt that Duncan had personally endeavoured to carry out those threats. But wait a minute. The fact that the solicitor said that is not evidence that the woman said it. It was much too previous. Detective Inspector Jones, of the Special Branch, said that he was at the meeting in question and heard Duncan use the words alleged. He did not take a shorthand note. He made a note soon afterwards. There is an outrage. That proves exactly what I was saying about myself. I feel strongly about this matter, because, as I have said, the late Lord Brent-ford stood up in this House and said that he had a note of something which I had said at Poplar Town Hall, and I had said nothing of the kind. There never had been a shorthand note taken. It was a longhand note written afterwards. This man was honest enough to say that he wrote down afterwards what he thought the woman had said.
    Then the magistrate lends a hand in the giving of the evidence, and I call attention to this fact. The magistrate said:
    "I see that you have been merciful to this woman."
    He looked at the officer's note-book, and said:
    "Besides what you have given in evidence—"

    1279
    what he had remembered, but not what he had written down at the time—
    "I see you have got in your note 'These people are not necessarily local and can walk about under the Common Law without being hissed, booed or spat upon by the workers.'"
    The workers are very peaceful and law-abiding, and, if she said it, it only means that she told them what, apparently, everybody knew. Then Detective Phillips said that he saw Duncan at a demonstration in Hollydale Road, Peckham, outside the works of Mr. Evan Cooke, a borough councillor:
    "The demonstrators—
    not this woman—
    "used filthy and insulting words. They then went to Camberwell Town Hall where they were refused admission."
    Meetings have been held outside my house and most uncomplimentary things have been said about me by Tariff Reformers. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] Oh, yes, I have had men outside my door calling me everything from a pickpocket to the Lord-knows-what. Do you think that I care? It does not make any difference to me at all, but I would not dream of asking that somebody should be locked up because he was intimidating me. The point is that there is not a scrap of evidence that the woman used any of this filthy language. The right hon. Gentleman has perhaps a longer note of it than I have, but in the report in the "Times" there is not a word of evidence that this woman used this language at all. This is how the Press reports a poor woman. I have read this sort of thing about myself, and, therefore, I repeat that I feel very keenly about it:
    "Duncan, in a long rambling speech, denied that she had used any insulting words or conduct likely to provoke a breach of the peace. She had been a public worker for five years and would not do anything so foolish."
    There is not a scrap of definite evidence against the woman. She gives her own version of the case, and she has as much right to be listened to as those people who did not write down but merely remembered. Mr. Campion, the magistrate, said that he would be willing to take Duncan's word. That shows the impression which the woman and the evidence had made upon the magistrate. He said that he would take her word that
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    no such conduct would happen again, and would bind her over in her own recognisances to keep the peace for six months. Mrs. Duncan said "What if I refuse?" and Mr. Campion said, "You will have to find a surety of £50." Mrs. Duncan: "I do not want any surety." I want to say on that point, that when I was before the magistrates I could have gone free by finding sureties, but I would not find sureties and pledge myself to do something which I had no intention of doing. I considered it a gross insult and denial of justice to ask me to give such pledge. This woman was in the same position. I call the attention of the Home Secretary to the fact that the magistrate was willing to let her off on her word without any sureties at all unless this report is wrong. I will read it again:
    "He would be willing to take Duncan's word that no such conduct would happen again."
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Oliver Stanley): Read the next few words.
    Mr. LANSBURY: All right.
    "That no such conduct would happen again."
    Mr. STANLEY: The next few words.
    Mr. LANSBURY:
    "And would bind her over in her own recognizances to keep the peace for six months."
    That meant herself. She said:
    "What if I refuse?"
    The magistrate replied:
    "Then I shall want you to find a surety."
    When she refused to find sureties she was ordered to go to prison for a month in default. According to the magistrate's own statement he was willing to take the woman's word in the matter. That being so, it must have been in his mind that there was some doubt as to whether she was the kind of woman stated by the prosecution. Unless the right hon. Gentleman has some evidence which is not given in the report in the "Times," I say that there is no evidence against the woman. It is not worth the paper that it is written on. I should like the Home Secretary or the Solicitor-General to

    1281
    give us some reason why the woman cannot be released forthwith and allowed to go free.
    When we come to the case of Tom Mann and his friend it is a little complicated because of the Act of 1817. Here is what Mr. Wallace said for the prosecution:
    "He would ask that the accused men be ordered to enter into their own recognisances and to find surety or sureties for their future good behaviour and to keep the peace. The court had power to make such an order under a very old Act, the Act of Edward III, and the Seditious Meetings Act, 1817, which said that meetings of more than 50 persons within a mile of Westminster, during the sitting of Parliament or of the Superior Courts, for the purpose or on the pretext of considering or preferring a petition, complaint, remonstrance or address to the King, or either House of Parliament, for alterations in matters of Church or State, were deemed to be unlawful assemblies."
    I would point out that part of that Act is already obsolete. The Courts of Justice were formerly alongside Westminster Hall and were part of this building. Now they are situated in the Strand, and any procession at any time can go past the Law Courts. I came past the Law Courts with a great procession when the Poplar councillors were tried. We were escorted through the City of London and treated quite properly by the authorities. We marched right up to the courts. Nobody thinks now of stopping a procession simply because it is passing the Law Courts, but this Act says that you must not take a procession past the Law Courts.
    I am advised that unlawful assembly —I hope the Home Secretary will pay attention to this point—does not constitute a breach of the peace. Therefore, whatever the charge was against these men it could not be a charge concerning a breach of the peace. Unlawful assembly is mentioned in the, Act of 1817. Therefore the right hon. Gentleman must prove something more than was proven at the court. Mr. Wallace went on to say:
    "The accused men were well known members of the Communist party"—
    It is a matter of agreement between us that to be a, member of the Communist party is not something illegal. I should, however, like to ask the Home Secretary a question on that point so that that position may be affirmed. Membership
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    of the Communist party or of the National Committee of the Unemployed is not illegal. They have not been proclaimed illegal organisations. We have not come to that yet. Therefore, there is nothing against the men because they are members of the Communist party. The statement proceeds
    "or were two of the four national officials of the National Unemployed Workers' Movement."
    That is not illegal. That is no crime either against the common law or against any particular law.
    "In the 5th December issue of the 'Daily Worker,' the organ of the Communist party, there was an article which began: Unemployed! Call for action on 20th December. Fight for petition to be presented to Parliament."
    I have written that sort of thing many times. So has the right hon. Gentleman, when he has asked the electors to fight for tariff reform and the Conservative party. It does not necessarily mean that you are going to fight in any other sense than we fight one another across this piece of oak furniture, or whatever furniture it is.
    "Appeal to trade unionists. Starvation is attacking every working-class home."
    Is anyone going to say that that is an illegal statement? It may be an illegal statement in the minds of the Metropolitan police officials, who are now all military gentlemen and want to use the British public as if they were private soldiers in their charge.
    "We are facing the blackest winter in history, with the National Government launching more vicious economies and reducing the working classes to slave conditions."
    Is there anything illegal in that statement? Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what there is criminal in these statements.
    "The call to action calls for mass action to secure winter and Christmas relief, abolition of the means test, and for the right of hunger marchers to present tile means test petition to Parliament."
    What is there illegal or unlawful in that? The right hon. Gentleman has to prove that these men were guilty of inciting people to do something that was unlawful. They have done nothing of the kind. There is nothing in that article which incites anybody to do anything that is illegal, and the right hon. Gentleman knows that as well as I do. There is not

    1283
    a scrap of evidence to show that Tom Mann or Llewellyn ever wrote that article or were employed on the "Daily Worker." There is not a scrap of evidence that they had any connection whatsoever with it. You might as well say that I am responsible for what appears in the "Daily Herald" because I am a member of a party—
    Mr. BUCHANAN: They are bad enough, but they would not go to that length.
    Mr. LANSBURY: I subscribe to the people who represent the Labour movement on the board of the "Daily Herald." Suppose the "Daily Herald" libelled somebody. I should not be personally responsible for that any more than the noble Lord the Member for Southampton (Lord Apsley) is responsible for the "Morning Post." I believe he is a director, or was a director, of the "Morning Post," but he was never responsible and could not be responsible for the editor. Because Tom Mann is a member of the Communist party he cannot be held responsible for what every writer in the "Daily Worker" writes. When I edited the "Daily Herald" I had to be responsible for what others wrote, and I was never allowed to shirk my responsibility. I was editor.
    Tom Mann is not the editor of the "Daily Worker" and as far as the evidence goes there is not a scrap to show that he had anything to do with the "Daily Worker." There is no evidence that he or Llewellyn wrote the article or had anything to do with it. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not ride off on this matter, because this is really the gravamen of the case. There is nothing else against them except that in some way they are linked up with this article in the "Daily Worker." I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to prove any connection other than that they were members of the Communist party, and that they were officials of the National Unemployed Workers Society. On 9th December a letter headed "The National Unemployed Workers' Movement, the National Administrative Council"—those are not very revolutionary words—was delivered to the Prime Minister at the House of Commons. It described the officials as Mr. Elias, Mr. Wal Hannington as the organiser, Mr. Tom Mann as
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    the treasurer, and Mr. Llewellyn as the secretary. The letter was as follows:
    "Following our request prior to Tuesday, 1st November, to you and the Speaker of the House to allow a deputation of the unemployed and employed representatives to present a petition to which we have one million signatures, and also to allow this representative delegation to state their views before the House, we are going to make a similar request that you meet this deputation on 19th December. The deputation will also present the million signatures petition. It is our opinion that the Government, and particularly yourself as responsible head of the Government, should have regard to the views of over one million people in this country who have signed this national petition, which we desire to present and await your reply to this request."
    What is there illegal in that? I should have thought it was a respectable, courteous and gentlemanly letter, written in the best Oxford and Cambridge style. I want someone to tell me any particular sentence in this letter which is illegal. Mr. Wallace, in his submission, said that the letter clearly connected the National Unemployed Workers Movement with the publication in the "Daily Worker," and that the people responsible were Mann and Llewellyn. Is there a shred of evidence of any connection between the two? I have read what the "Daily Worker" said. They called for mass action, a gathering of the unemployed, not specifying where, and this letter was written asking the Prime Minister to receive a deputation. In 1922 I remember that I raised the question as to the then Prime Minister, Mr. Bonar Law, receiving a similar deputation. I went to Downing Street and saw Mr. Bonar Law. He met the deputation and prevented a great deal of trouble. The right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) under much more difficult circumstances received a very big deputation in Downing Street, and it is a pity that succeeding Governments have broken with that procedure.
    The representatives of people who are suffering as the unemployed ought to be heard. I am not arguing as to whether these people are the best or the worst representatives; that is not the point. They represent, however, a considerable feeling in this country, and they have a petition which they say is signed by one million persons. They have a right to bring that petition to the House and to ask for permission to present it, although the House can deny them the

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    right to come to the Bar of the House. But there is nothing criminal in all this. Mr. Wallace in his speech went on to say this—and I ask hon. Members to take particular note of this assumption of the lawyer to give evidence on the matter:
    "These articles and letters clearly indicate that the mass meeting which was to take place was to enforce the receiving of the deputation."
    How did he know that? There is not a word in the article or in the letter about it. He went on to say:
    "It is well known, from what has happened on former occasions, what is likely to happen when large numbers of unemployed and other people as well get together on instructions to present petitions to Parliament."
    Really we must look at this matter very closely because if this is going to hold then when the Labour people hold their demonstrations in February and want to send deputations to the House to interview Members the same treatment may be meted out to us. At any rate we ought to have the same treatment if this policy is right. You have no right to deal with us differently. Therefore, I hope we shall face the situation. There are many precedents for sending men and women to the number of five to this House to see hon. Members to put before them any statements they want to make.
    The Government base their action on what happened in November; once bitten twice shy, these people called a demonstration and attempted to get into the House. But see what happened on this occasion—and what right have you to assume that it would not have happened with Tom Mann. He was one of the first to help to organise a May Day demonstration in this House when we split ourselves into groups of five and interviewed individual Members. We got one of the best interviews on unemployment with the late Lord Salisbury and Mr. Balfour and Mr. Gladstone arid one of the Liberal Peers. That is the policy which Tom Mann might have followed if he had been given the opportunity, but as it was he was in prison. Mr. Saklatvala came to the House, brought his friends with him, and tried to see the Minister of Labour. He could not ask to see the Prime Minister because he knew that he was not here. What right had he for his assumption where
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    is the evidence upon which he based his assumption, except what had happened before. There is no evidence in the letter or in the article that this demonstration might not have been carried out in an entirely different manner. I defy the Government to produce any evidence of the kind. We have the evidence of what happened after the action of the Government. Mr. Saklatvala came here in a perfectly orderly manner and attempted to get an interview. Detective Passmore gave evidence as to what happened at the last demonstration, but there is no evidence that Mr. Mann was there and no evidence was given that his friend was there. They are mere statements, no evidence at all. Tom Mann made his speech, and this is what he said—there is not a scrap of evidence to contravert it—
    "He did not participate in violence but merely took part in meetings which were admittedly within the right of citizens. He held that these proceedings were entirely unwarranted. He looked upon them as part of the general procedure of the authorities against the workers' committee. His aim and object had been to get legitimate grievances remedied in a fair, straightforward honest and becoming fashion."
    Llewellyn addressed the magistrate in the same way. He said:
    "No violence had ever been advocated by him, and what violence had taken place was against innocent demonstrators."
    That is all the evidence. Here is what the magistrate said, and I commend it to the notice of the Solicitor-General and the Home Secretary. Sir Chartres Biron, in making his decision, said:
    "There had been a misapprehension as to the nature of these proceedings. No criminal charge had been made and there was no question of imprisonment. The proceedings were merely putting in force the law which had been the law of the land from time immemorial and which had been held by Judges on very recent occasions to be for the protection of public order. It was merely a preventive measure. In any condition he imposed on the defendants there would be nothing which would in any way interfere with their legitimate activities. The only undertaking he called upon them to give would be merely in the interests of stopping disorder, of which both men said they entirely disapproved."
    As no one had proved anything to the contrary against them, why should the magistrate want them to enter into recognisances? There was not a scrap of evidence against them, and he accepts their word.

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    "It was clear that there was a mass meeting announced and arranged for Monday, which was to present a petition to the House of Parliament. In his view there would be a mass mob within the vicinity of the House of Commons."
    How does he know? There is no evidence about it except what has happened on some other occasion. But he charges the two men in some way with being responsible for this without a scrap of evidence that they were responsible. I come back to that again and again, because that is the gravamen of our charge against the Government on this matter. Then he went on:
    "There is nothing to prevent anyone presenting a petition to the House of Commons, but it is most undesirable that such a petition should be presented by an organised mass of people marching on the House of Commons."
    Certainly, but there is no evidence to show that Tom Mann and Llewellyn had any such intention, and my case is that unless you can prove that intention you had no right to arrest. Then he went On:
    "It is common knowledge that this mass of people were meeting on Monday to make this mass demonstration under exactly the same conditions as a meeting in October, when there was great disorder."
    I may be a very ignorant person, but until Tom Mann was arrested I had no knowledge whatever that this demonstration was to be held, and I believe that the arrest of Tom Mann gave all the publicity that the Communist party desired; it gave the meeting just the advertisement that it wanted. Here is the most astounding statement of the magistrate:
    "He did not say that the present defendants were responsible for that."
    The magistrate admits that they were not responsible. Why should he have called upon them to enter into recognisances
    "But it showed what such meetings were likely to produce and against which had sworn to preserve the peace."
    But they have not produced a scintilla of evidence that these men were responsible in any way, and it is the magistrate who said it. What I want to ask is, is it the law of the land, and does the Home Secretary consider that he is really going to maintain respect for the law, if a man can be put away in this
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    way It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to say, "No honourable man would refuse to enter into recognisances." The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that if any one of us was charged under these conditions we never would give the undertaking. We have become very mealy-mouthed in these days in the Press. In the old days "Reynolds's Newspaper" used to publish much more seditious matter than this and never be attacked. The "National Reformer," which was a Republican paper, used to attack the Crown and the Princes and the Princesses when they were getting married, used to attack the allowances, and so on. "The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick" was published, also the "Secret History of the Court of England," and last "The Carson Campaign."
    It is all very well for hon. and right hon. Gentleman to laugh about it now, but in those days it was a serious matter, and when I say that this is class persecution I am stating only what the facts prove. I was a Member of this House during most of this period, and everyone knows that at that time the Government did not dare to interfere with a test mobilisation of the Ulster volunteers, who landed a huge consignment of 40,000 German Mauser rifles at Larne. I do not know what the position of the present Home Secretary was in those days. If he was in the Tory party he was up to his neck in it, and he is no sort of judge in this business at all. Under the able leadership of the late Lord Londonderry the Ulstermen, with the assistance of Lord Carson, organised an army of 100,000 men. They set up a provisional Government. They told the people in Ulster that the German Kaiser would come and help them if ever they were handed over, and so on. They organised a mutiny in the British Army which caused one War Secretary to resign and the Prime Minister to take his place. All this was done, and I believe it was the beginning of the sort of action that you are complaining about to-day. It proves that in this country there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. It shows that right hon. Gentlemen like the Home Secretary and those who acted together in the years 1910 to 1914 to stop the Home Rule Bill passing did not mind what they did, and no Government dared inter-

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    fere. Here is what one of the leaders said:
    "At the present moment the weapons are under the control of the leaders. The moment a raid for arms is made there will be an order for a general assembly."
    Here is what Lord Carson said, and he was never prosecuted:
    "I do not hesitate to tell you that you ought to set yourselves against the constituted authority in the land."
    No Communist has stated anything worse than that.
    "We will set up a Government. I am told it will be illegal. Of course it will. Drilling is illegal. Volunteers are illegal. The Government know they are illegal. The Government dare not interfere with them."
    Of course they dare not, because they were rich and well-to-do and powerful people.
    "Do not be afraid of illegalities. Illegalities are not crimes when they are taken to assert what is the elementary right of every citizen, the protection of his freedom."
    It is the doctrine of the Communists to-day—and it is my doctrine—that the first elementary right of a man is that he shall be able to earn his daily bread and live in decency and comfort. These other people were only fighting for political rights but they were not interfered with. It is only a crime to commit illegalities when you commit them for bread. But that fight is over. The people who fought that fight under Lord Londonderry and Lord Carson won. They won because they took advantage of the fact that this nation was at war, and they brought about by their action the terrible conditions that prevailed in Ireland during the last years of the War and immediately afterwards.
    If this is going to remain the law of the land then the people of the world will know that this great and powerful nation has one law with which to deal with poor people struggling for the right to earn their daily bread and another law for the well-to-do. I do not agree that the Communist party represents more than a small fraction of the people but they and those who gather around them are calling attention to the fact that in this the richest country in the world there are about 3,000,000 people, sometimes more, sometimes less, living on the verge of destitution. The Government are doing in this matter what all cowardly Governments do. They are resorting to suppression. They are mix
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    ing suppression with a sort of pseudo-charity. The Prime Minister's broadcast defined the Government's policy as a policy which said: "We are going to rely on private charity and private benefactions." That speech was made over the wireless and it has been impossible to reply to it, because the British Broadcasting Corporation arrogates to itself the right to decide who shall speak over the wireless, when they shall speak, and what they shall say on political questions of the day. If the Prime Minister and the Government had chosen they could have used the good will in the country, the real downright generous feeling that exists among multitudes of men and women to deal with the momentary difficulties which are being suffered to-day by so many people. If the Prime Minister had been true to any of the teachings which he himself has taught in this country, if he had been true to the faith he held for many years, he could also have harnessed that good will to fundamental changes in the conditions that produce poverty and distress.
    The organised workers have a right to say to the Government that they will have nothing to do with this attempt to put on to the shoulders of decent generous-hearted people a responsibility which belongs to the Government. In dealing with these people as the Government are dealing with them, the Government are accentuating class hatred and class bitterness by proving once more that you treat the weaker people, the Communists, the Labour people—even when they break the law ever so little—in a fashion altogether different from that in which you deal with the rich and well-to-do. The history of the last 20 years proves it, and the example of the right. hon. Gentleman himself proves it. It is no use saying: "That was a good cause and this is a bad cause." Illegality is illegality whether it is committed by a Lord of Appeal, Lord Carson and the Home Secretary or whether it is committed by Tom Mann and Llewellyn.
    2.11 p.m.
    Mr. BUCHANAN: I think the right hon. Gentleman has covered almost every aspect of this question, but there are one or two matters to which I should like to direct the attention of the House. In connection with the case against Mrs. Duncan I wish to mention what occurred

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    in a case heard at Birmingham a few weeks ago. I, of course, am not going to discuss here the details of that case in Birmingham, but it was a trial for murder, the most serious indictment that could be laid against any citizen. I say this to the credit of the legal profession that in that case a learned counsel for whom we have very high regard and who formerly sat with the Liberal party in this House—Mr. Birkett—went down to defend in that case. I suggest that the two gentlemen in charge of this Debate ought to have regard to what happened in that case at Birmingham.
    Incidentally I would say to legal gentlemen that they ought to have a very deep regard for the rights of the people in carrying out the law. I think if a man has dislikes, and we have all our likes and dislikes, he ought to take all the greater care in seeing that justice is carried out in the cases of those for whom he may have any dislike. I remember a Home Secretary who is a Jew saying to me that he was very diffident about acting in a case of a member of his own race, but in the cases of other people he went to the utmost extremes to give them the benefit of the doubt, and I think that that was good. In this Birmingham case to which I have referred, certain notes were given in evidence, and the judge in summing up pointed out that the notes had not been taken at the time of the alleged statement, but had been written afterwards. Mr. Birkett for the defence was able to convince the judge and a jury of his fellow countrymen of the righteousness of his case on this point, and the judge made some very pointed remarks on the nature of the evidence and gave a certain instruction to the jury.
    I do not wish to labour the point, but I would point out its application to the case against Mrs. Duncan. In the case at Birmingham it was only a matter of a short conversation and a comparatively few words. But when a person is charged with making certain statements in a speech lasting perhaps an hour, the point is even stronger. How is evidence to be given of that except by means of notes of the whole speech? One may get two or three words exactly as they are spoken in a speech, but the context may entirely change the meaning of those words. How often in this House do we hear a Member following another Member in Debate and
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    unintentionally taking quite a wrong meaning from some words of the previous speech. But here you have an instance of the liberty of the subject being jeopardised because of evidence of that kind being laid against a defendant. I say that to imprison anyone, and to ask for security on evidence of that kind, is entirely wrong.
    I am not a lawyer, but I think I know just a little about it. Hitherto, in the courts which I have attended—and I have watched some of the so-called worst criminals being tried—I have constantly watched the judge being fair to the defence. In Scotland we lay it down that it is the Procurator's duty not to prosecute, but to see that the facts are brought out. Particularly is that impressed upon him in the case of people who are poor. It is constantly emphasised that everything in favour of the defendant shall be stated. Here, not one single thing was brought out in the case of Mrs. Duncan; nothing about her past life. As the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) knows, she is Scotch and has a good record of public service. Nothing of that was brought out. All that is allowed in a court of law is evidence. I have been in a court when the Recorder at the Old Bailey has said: "We are not here to deal with what you think; we are here to deal with evidence. You can say what you like, but you must say it on oath." The notes of the case are handed up to the judge. Judges may be great, but they have no right to take into consideration a single thing unless it is sworn on oath.
    I do not share the contempt about solicitors and counsel that is often popularly voiced. I am indebted to the man from Birmingham I spoke about for defending a constituent of mine—possibly the kindest thing a man has ever done without fee, without press, without anything. I have seen even poor solicitors working night and day for people from whom they have no hope of getting any reward. I appeal to them, for the sake of their profession, to see that people are properly tried and given justice. How can you get it when the evidence is not real evidence? What right has the learned magistrate to read from notes not sworn on oath? What right have you to cross-examine on that? The trial of that woman would never

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    have been tolerated in any court if the charge had only been ordinary theft, or even a grave charge of murder. The whole thing was done in an atmosphere of sentence before trial.
    There is another point. It is no defence to plead ignorance of the law in this country. On the other hand, it is constantly being taken as good law that the law has a reasonable chance of being assimilated by the citizens. How could anybody say that a Statute of King Edward III—I forget the date quoted—could with any shadow of reason be known by any poor person. It had hardly ever been invoked within recent times. While judges may have given decisions on certain matters, that Statute had not been invoked, and no poor man had a reasonable chance of assimilating the law, or of understanding even that there was such a law, and yet the prosecution was taken under it.
    I do not want to bear out the characters given by the previous speaker other than to say I know Llewellyn and I know Tom Mann. He was general secretary of the Amalgamated Engineers' Union. I am chairman of the Pattern Makers', and he and I were associated for some years and worked together. I do not know much about his speaking. I never heard him speak on a public platform. But he was a most moderate man when I met him, and was looked upon as a much more moderate man than I was in the councils of the engineering trade. He was looked upon as capable, and clean in conduct. Llewellyn I have met many times. He is an ordinary decent Welsh chap, with no side about him, an ordinary man of the sort that might be taken from the Welsh coal-fields any day in the year. I say the whole attitude is wrong about this so-called disorder outside the House recently. I was present. The hon. Member for Bridgton would have gone with me but for the fact that as his appearance is so well known the crowd would have known him. I went down to the crowd just to see what was happening. I went through Whitehall right from Trafalgar Square. I met the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern), and he and I took diverse ways and met again. We went down to Victoria and along the Embankment. I have seen many Orange demonstrations in Glasgow 60 times worse than anything
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    connected with that demonstration, particularly at night when two or three spirits get to work. That is nothing against the organisers, who are clean and decent men. I have seen Orange demontrations in Glasgow where there have been dozens of ambulances out. I have seen them at Anderson Cross. I went through the whole thing when the demonstration was outside here, and the only untoward incident I saw—and I think a. Conservative Member would bear me out in this—was a special constable acting in a manner most—well I cannot properly describe it. I say this to the credit of the police, that they took the matter in hand and acted with discretion. That demonstration was nothing to be annoyed about.
    I think you have lost your nerve. You are in a funk. There is nobody who has any shred of imagination but knows that the Prime Minister has left us because he does not want to come. In seven weeks he may feel better. Why should we not say it? If a man who was unemployed made the journey to Lossiemouth overnight, hundreds of miles, they would not under the National Health Insurance scheme, accept that as a reason for giving benefit, and it is no use our treating well-to-do men differently from the way in which we treat poor people. The whole thing is wrong. I know the Home Secretary better than does the Leader of the Opposition. He and I are kindred Members, and have been associated for many years in public life, and I know there is not much use making an appeal to him, but I do appeal to the legal people, not because they are Members of the Government, but for the sake of their profession. I earnestly appeal to them to see that the liberties of these men and women are safeguarded at this time.
    After all, you would not have done it to the leaders of the Labour movement, because if you had, you know you would at once have made these men the greatest men in the movement. It is done because these people are in a small minority, or it is thought they are. It is thought they are unpopular, and you are taking action against them that is fundamentally wrong. The thing that arouses me is this, that it is not done fairly and with decency and credit. None of those people got the trial that they should have got, and I

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    hope the Home Secretary will say that he thinks this prosecution was mistakenly undertaken, and that the trial of Mrs. Duncan was not conducted in a way that did credit to law and justice in this country. I hope that, as Home Secretary, he will take the necessary action to overturn those decisions and that he will act a manly part, not only for his own sake and for the sake of his office, but above all for the sake of giving justice a decent name in this country.
    2.28 p.m.
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Gilmour): The last thing I should desire to do would be to introduce any heat into this discussion, but the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), who has just addressed the House, has, as he frankly said, been known to me, and we have known each other and represented constituencies in Glasgow alongside each other, for a number of years. He has said a great many things to-day about the proper conduct of trials, and anybody might be in agreement with perhaps a great deal of what fell from him, but I must join issue at once with him when he asks me to say that the trial which was conducted in dealing with Mrs. Duncan was improperly done, or that there was distinct unfairness on the part of Mr. Wallace. I would say frankly that this is not the place in which trials before courts should be reviewed. It is most unsuitable, and I suppose that at any rate it will be recognised that men like Mr. Wallace, who have these grave responsibilities, have every right to be protected against assertions to which they cannot reply.
    Mr. MAXTON: Are you supposed to defend them?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: I was given notice by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, at a late hour last night, of this particular case. I immediately, of course, made inquiries and obtained, within the time at my disposal, such information as I could about the case. Whether it be this case or the cases of Tom Mann and Llewellyn, I want to bring the House back to the position in which any officer in any executive position stands who has to deal with these problems at the present time. I for the time being occupy this post, and I
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    want to assure the House of Commons, and any who may be critics of what I may do, that the one thing above all which I desire to avoid is to allow circumstances to develop into a position in which I shall require to use the forces at my disposal and not only involve my executive and my officers in grave risks, but bring about a conflict and a clash of forces in the streets of this metropolis which can only end in bringing disaster to many people, not only those who are guilty of incitement, but those who in many cases are the dupes of those people.
    It is no use saying to me that the action which has been taken is based upon some ancient and antiquated law. It is based upon the practice of many generations, it is true, and it is linked, no doubt, with ancient laws, but it is connected and linked also with the practice of the law coming right up to modern times.
    Mr. MAXTON: How can you say that?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: It is clear that in certain cases which have taken place in this country in recent times, to which the right hon. Gentleman opposite referred, those cases were restated by the law at that time. This House knows well the possibilities of those outside coming to this House and presenting petitions, and it was only on the occasion of the last disturbance that the hon. Member representing the Shettleston Division of Glasgow (Mr. McGovern) got into touch with those very people upon this particular subject. He was prepared to place his services at their disposal in order that they might, through the proper channels, make their representations. We all know that the statement which that hon. Member made to this House was a thankless and, if I may say so, a proper appreciation of the situation which was greatly to his credit. The fact remains—
    Mr. MAXTON: The people wanted to do it themselves.
    Sir J. GILMOUR: But they wanted to do it in a manner which is well known as contrary to the Rules either of this House or of decent, orderly methods.
    Mr. MAXTON: No, nothing of the sort. These men took the view that, if this petition was to be presented here, they were going to do it through their own organisation and not through any assist-

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    tance from us or hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway. It was a perfectly legitimate view.
    Sir J. GILMOUR: Let me quote the words of the hon. Member for Shettleston:
    "Having met Mr. Wal Hannington and Mr. Harry McShane on Friday, and made that offer to them, on behalf of the unemployed hunger marchers I have been informed this morning by Mr. McShane that their council discussed the offer yesterday, and decided to reject this necessary medium and to rely on their massed strength to force Parliament to allow their deputation to appear at the Bar."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st October, 1932; col. 1445, Vol. 269.]
    Mr. MAXTON: You rely on your massed strength.
    Sir J. GILMOUR: I want the House to realise the position of responsibility in which I am placed by such words. This is not my interpretation, but the interpretation of the hon. Member for Shettleston, which was made to this House and is on record. That mass force and that large concourse of people led, as we know on the previous occasion, to grave disorders in the streets of London.
    Mr. MAXTON: Where?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: It led to disorders in Hyde Park; it dislocated the whole of the traffic throughout London; it led to the necessary calling out of large numbers of police and special constables; and it involved the necessity of envisaging, on the part of those responsible for law and order, that if the forces that were called upon were unable to cope with the large masses of people, it would be essential to call out the military. The House will believe me when I say that neither this Government nor I personally have the slightest desire to employ repressive measures either against freedom of speech or the proper passage of regular and orderly processions; but, when I am told that these processions are being deliberately organised for the purpose of avoiding the proper presentation of their petitions, and that they intend to come in such large forces as to intimidate this House, I am bound to take action.
    Some reference has been made to some of my colleagues and myself as having got cold feet. My responsibility is to see that law and order is kept, whatever class is concerned, and I want to say that I make no differentiation
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    between the orderly conduct of people to whatever class they may belong, and those who break the law and disobey the orders of the House are bound to be dealt with.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Except Ulstermen.
    Sir J. GILMOUR: Let me deal with what is before the House. The fact remains that this body, the National Unemployed Workers' Movement, did organise a mass procession. The House is aware of the result. We saw the disorders, we saw the train of trouble and difficulty which arose from them, and we saw the deluded people who were carried in the train of that disturbance. If I am convinced of one thing more than another, it is that the methods of disorderly concourse which were arranged by the organisers and members of that body are out of tune with and against the interests of the decent working-man. What the unemployed want is not mass demonstration but work, and it is not by disorderly or intimidatory methods that they are going to get that out of this Government or, indeed, of any other Government. Those who take part in such proceedings defeat their object.
    With regard to the case of Tom Mann and Llewellyn, all I can say is that they were asked, as many other people may be asked, either now or in the future, to give an undertaking that they will not conduct themselves or incite others to conduct themselves in a manner other than orderly and properly. Is it to be said that it is not proper to ask these men to give this undertaking? If that be so, the only alternative which the Executive has is to recognise, well knowing that these disorders are bound to come, that they must leave the methods of the organisers to develop, and to bring out the police force again and again in order to carry out the orders of this House. Within the precincts of the Houses of Parliament the police are directed under my care to see that no disturbance occurs. If this House is going to abrogate its rights to issue those instructions, good and well, but as long as these instructions are issued to me it is my duty to see that they are carried out; and the only way in which I can carry them out is by inviting those who have published that they are going to bring people in a demonstration in large masses within the precincts—
    Mr. LANSBURY: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman kindly to tell the house what evidence he has connecting Tom Mann with the "Daily Worker," what evidence there is that he had anything to do with writing or publishing that article, and what there is wrong in the letter that he wrote to the Prime Minister? Does the right hon. Gentleman maintain that he must take people up without giving evidence of intent on their part or of any action that they have taken which leads him to think that they ought to be put under recognisances?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: When the last disturbance occurred, the step which has now been taken was not taken. These disturbances led to very grave disorder and they placed a great strain upon the police and upon law and order. When it was apparent, from information of which I was made aware, that there would be another demonstration, which was announced in the Press, which was in fact a repetition of the attempt to bring this petition signed by a million people to the precincts of this House, not through the ordinary methods of which the House is well aware, but by exactly the same methods as on the previous occasion, it was obvious that the attempt was being organised and directed by the association of which Toni Mann and Llewellyn were members—
    Mr. LANSBURY: You have not a scrap of evidence of that.
    Sir J. GILMOUR: Let me put this to the House. This particular case was taken through the proper channels. The defendants were brought to the court, and, as far as I know, they never denied that there was justification for their being brought into court. What they refused to do there was to give a plain and perfectly simple undertaking that they would not carry out what the law said they ought not to do.
    Mr. McENTEE: They were not charged with that.
    Sir J. GILMOUR: Of course, they were not accused of that, but it was made clear that all they were asked was that they would behave themselves as orderly citizens of this country.
    Mr. LANSBURY: The point is, the right hon. Gentleman has built up his case against these two men on what
    1300
    happened previously. The magistrate himself said that he did not, hold these two men responsible for what happened in November.
    Sir J. GILMOUR: Whether that was so or not, the whole position is this: that if we had a repetition of what happened before it was going to lead to very grave disorders. In an endeavour to prevent it these men are asked to give undertakings that they will not incite or take part in any such disorderly proceedings. Is it too much to ask? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes!"] That is the object with which this action was taken—to prevent a repetition of these disturbances, which I think are contrary to the desire and wish not only of the unemployed but of every decent citizen in the country. All I have got to say is this, that I believe that we were within our rights, that what we did was calculated to cause less disturbance—it was done for that reason and that reason alone—and that these men could have given the undertaking, which was no outrageous undertaking and one which they could have given without any dereliction of their position, without giving away any right of proper free speech or attendance at political meetings. They refused to do it, and they have suffered the consequences. In both cases I have no reason to think that justice has not been carried out, and I do not propose to release them.
    Mr. MAXTON: What about Mrs. Duncan?

    UNEMPLOYMENT.
    2.47 p.m.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I do not propose to continue the exhaustive discussion, which has been carried on during the last few hours. I had intended, at one time, to raise a very controversial issue, the question of the publication of Cabinet documents, but, having regard to the correspondence which has passed between my right hon. Friend the Member for Hill head (Sir R. Horne) and myself, I do not propose to challenge that position at the present moment. I might have passed it by completely in silence had it not been for something which occurred in another place. I cannot refer to the proceedings there, and I cannot refer to the discussion, but I would like to utter just two or three sentences. The question is

    1301
    not whether a Minister is entitled to give publicity to what happens inside a Cabinet. The question is, when a Minister or ex-Minister does publish a one-sided account of a transaction, whether the other Ministers concerned are not entitled to publish the whole of the proceedings in order to make quite clear what did happen. That issue has been raised more than once in the course of the last two years. It was raised in reference to what happened with my hon. and right hon. Friends sitting round me. There were very partial disclosures; and the whole issue is whether, partial disclosures having been made which would mislead the public as to the transaction, the others are not entitled to publish the whole of the transaction, especially if there is documentary proof. That was the issue in October, 1931, and it was more or less the issue with regard to the recent Debate.
    There is no doubt at all that a very partial account of the instructions that were given by the Cabinet was published. It may be said that under those circumstances it is open to a Minister to go to the Sovereign and ask his permission. As anyone who knows the Constitution will understand, that really means going to the Prime Minister. The Sovereign is constitutionally bound to take the advice of his chief Minister, and therefore if the chief Minister, who is—I will not say more or less implicated—he is bound to be more or less partial in the matter—gives advice to the contrary, then the person who is damnified, as it were, by the partial disclosure has no remedy at all—none. Therefore, I beg to say that if partial disclosures of this kind are given again of transactions which occurred during the time I was at the head of a Government I should without any hesitation take the responsibility of publishing the whole transaction—without any hesitation.
    I know a good deal was said last night about liability to two years' imprisonment. Well, it is rather a new thing when the House of Lords begins to threaten Members of the House of Commons, but, apart from that altogether, if I were sent to gaol I should be sent to gaol in company with my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead. He and I might pass a very merry Christmas there. And may I just say that there are two or three Members of the
    1302
    present Government who would also have to go there, because I have seen no end of disclosures of Cabinet secrets by them. I therefore give fair warning that, whatever the threat may be from Peers, whether Peers I created or Peers created by my successors, it will not have the slightest influence upon my conduct in that respect, unless I am given an opportunity which I ask for the publication of the whole of the proceedings. Having regard to the last letter which came from the right hon. Member for Hillhead, which does not leave quite as much in dispute, I do not propose to continue this subject, but I was bound, in view of the discussion yesterday, just to make this statement.
    I mean now to raise once more, before we part for six weeks, the very grave position regarding unemployment, and to ask Ministers one or two practical questions. There is no doubt at all that the position is definitely worse this Christmas than it was last. The total unemployed are up by another 114,000—the total unemployed men are up by 228,000 but that is not the most serious aspect by any means. A still more serious figure is the increase in outdoor relief by 250,000—that means those who cannot pay under the new regulations and who have to go outside insurance altogether to save themselves from starvation. So we are worse by about 364,000 than we were this time last year. As mentioned by the hon. Member in his speech on Monday there is the steady growth in the numbers of the unemployed who have been out of work for 12 months. He said they had grown rapidly, and were still growing. I think that is about the most serious fact of all. I would just make a reference to the very remarkable letter written by the Bishop of Durham, whose See is devastated by unemployment—probably the worst unemployment anywhere except conceivably in South Wales. He calls attention not so much to the distress there but to the effect of unemployment upon adolescence. He says:
    "There is a general agreement in the view that unemployment has a debilitating effect on the moral and religious life of the whole community. Its worst effect is on adolescents who tend to become listless, discontented and unruly and to fall out of good habits and drift into crime."
    The Bishop is talking about his diocese, and he is summarising the reports which he has had from his clergy. He took

    1303
    steps to ascertain from the clergy in his charge what the effect of unemployment was, and he is just summarising it in that terrible sentence. He points out that it is not so much charity that they need. It is not so much that they need even sustenance, although their condition is pretty bad. What they need is work, as the Home Secretary said when he told the House that you want, not more demonstrations, but work, and it is equally true that the unemployed do not want charity so much as work.
    What is the prospect? I would like to know. I have asked the question before as to whether the Government have taken the whole situation into account, and whether they have any definite plans for dealing with it. Are they relying upon the kind of thing that has been put into speeches, maybe sometimes deliberately in order to cheer people up and to create an atmosphere of confidence? A very mistaken policy. It was a very mistaken policy at the beginning of the War when things were not going well to go round and say: "Everything is going quite right. We are nearly turning the corner. We have driven them back a few kilometres, and it will be all right in a very short time." I thought then that that was a very mistaken policy, when you are dealing with people who want to be told the whole truth before they can put the whole of their strength into any enterprise. It would be far better to tell the British people exactly what the situation is and what the prospects are, and then to call upon them to do something which would be a real contribution towards solving this extraordinarily grave problem, the gravest social problem that this country has faced, certainly for very nearly 100 years.
    What are the prospects? I have asked a great many people, and the answer that the best-informed give to me is that they really cannot tell. They have predicted good times coming so often, and have been disappointed that now they despair. There is no better proof of that than what the Government themselves say. I read the speech of the Minister of Labour. He said that he had underestimated the number of unemployed. He estimated on the basis of something between 2,400,000 and 2,500,000, and he
    1304
    found that the average was nearly 2,800,000, that is to say 2,777,000. That was an under-estimate. That means that at this time last year we were expecting far better things than have actually occurred. Are the Government quite sure that they are not making the same mistake again? There are several things which are fairly encouraging, but there are other things which are not. I do not like the decrease in the traffic returns. I am told that there is a great increase in production in this country, and then I look at the traffic returns—in the matter of passengers I can understand the decrease being an effect of motor cars and other arrangements—in respect of goods and coal. There is not a single week in which there is not a drop of something between 170,000 tons and 200,000 tons in the goods traffic. Part of that is due to road traffic, I know. I asked somebody who knows the subject very well. He was connected with a railway company, and his estimate was that 20 per cent. of the decrease was due to road traffic, and that the rest was due to bad trade. I think that he was under-estimating the amount of road traffic, but he was a man who knew the question very well. That is what is happening every week.
    I ask hon. Gentlemen who say that more goods are being produced in this country to look at that index. The railway returns do not indicate it. Instead of indicating an increase in production, the railway returns are going down. There may be some trades which are doing better, naturally. I have always said that Free Trade and Protection was a question of striking the balance, and that you want to discover, as was said by the Lord President of the Council, where the balance rests in the end, and whether you are not losing more in one direction than you are gaining in another. That is the whole issue. You are losing in many trades, there is no doubt. I have been making inquiries in regard to shipping, and the answer I get is, "Perfectly appalling." The Port of London is in a very bad state; it has never been worse, or, at any rate, it has never been as bad.
    If that is so, do let us face the facts and then grapple with them. The Minister of Labour said what has been said many a time before, that we are in.

    1305
    a better position than other countries. Then he quoted very facile figures to show how exports in other countries had gone down by 60 per cent. and 40 per cent. and how ours have only gone down 33 per cent., although in America they are really not very bad. These were not very fair figures. It was values that he was comparing. He was comparing the trade of this country—where values had gone down by 33 per cent. because they are all in sterling at 20s. in the pound as against sterling at 13s. 4d. in the pound elsewhere—with the trade of Gold Standard countries. That is not very fair.
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. R. S. Hudson): The right hon. Gentleman will, I am sure, forgive me for interrupting. I took very great pains to avoid that very error. The figure that I gave was of the volume of British exports. I said that the corresponding period of the 1931 index number of the volume of our exports had, if anything, slightly increased.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I was quoting figures given, not by the hon. Gentleman, but by the Minister of Labour and I looked at them a minute ago among my notes of the Debate last Monday. I was not referring to the hon. Gentleman's speech, but to the speech made by the Minister of Labour at the beginning. I particularly marked it; in fact, I underlined it. The word he used was "values," and he used the figures. In a moment or two, I shall be able to find my notes. At any rate, I make that point now, and, if I am wrong, I shall be only too glad to be corrected. I marked it carefully; the right hon. Gentleman used the word "values." The second point is still more important. The House of Commons must remember that we never recovered our export trade. You can reduce the whole thing to 1913 values, which is the best method of doing it, or you can take quantities. I do not care which it is; I am using the same test, whether for this country or for any other country. We have never gone beyond 1913. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour said:
    "If you take another test, you will find that the value of the exports of this country, in the past 11 months, compared with the same period of last year, has gone down by 6.9 per cent., in the United States by 35.7
    1306
    per cent. in Germany by 41.1 per cent.…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th December, 1932; col. 775, Vol. 273.]
    He uses the word "value."
    Mr. HUDSON: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will look at the end of my speech, where he will see the figures for volume, which are really the important ones.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The hon. Gentleman, naturally, thinks that his speech is more important than that of the Minister—
    Mr. HUDSON: Because it deals with the point which the right hon. Gentleman is making—with the question of volume.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am entitled to take the speech of the chief of the Department, and that is the figure with which I am dealing at the present moment. If the hon. Gentleman calls my attention to that point, I shall examine it, but I have had no opportunity of examining it. I have, however, examined the figures given by his chief, and I am giving the answer.
    I will give another answer. Will the House kindly listen to these figures? By 1928, which was more or less the great boom year, the exports of the United States of America, in comparison with 1913, had gone up to 164½; those of France to 148½; those of Italy to 132. That is to say, they exceeded their export trade of 1913 by, respectively, 64½ per cent., 48½ per cent., and 32 per cent. I found it difficult to include Germany, because Germany has been torn up. Considerable portions of her territory have been taken away, and I find it impossible to get a comparison, but, as a matter of fact, the figure for Germany was 86, even though Alsace-Lorraine and other parts have been taken away. Our figure was 84½. When the drop came, naturally it was very much greater from that height than from the very low position which we had attained, and, therefore, a comparison with the last 11 or 12 months is not a fair comparison; you must take for your comparison comparable years, between 1913 and the last boom year, which was 1928 or 1929, and then compare with the present conditions.
    What is the position beyond that? There is a great fall in re-exports. New

    1307
    industries have employed less than 10,000 —I think the figure given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade the other day, in answer to a question, was 9,361. The loss in the handling of re-exports is infinitely greater. What is going to happen that is going to put things right? Whether international debts are important or not—and there seems now to be a dispute about that; President Hoover does not seem to think that so much importance ought to be attached to them, though others think differently—whether they are important or not, it is quite clear, after the declaration of the President-designate yesterday, that they cannot be handled until after March.
    A far more important question is the instability of the exchanges. It is not so much that we are 13s. 4d. It is that we are 13s. 4d. to-day, we were 13s. yesterday, and we may be 14s. to-morrow, and no one is able to base his contracts upon any stable assumption. The other is undoubtedly the fact that you have built up these high tariff walls everywhere and that, therefore, international trade has gone down throughout the world. Those two items are probably far more important than international debts. When are you going to deal with them? I have heard the Prime Minister, who seems to know less about what is taking place than anyone in the House, affirm most emphatically that we were going to meet immediately and that before Christmas we should have six week's discussion of general principles, which would have been very useful. Where is that meeting now? Are we going to meet before the dog days? Is there any anticipation that we are going to have a meeting before June to consider these vital issues? You will not settle them in a day if you settle them at all. When you have settled them and begun to build up your trade, you may be able to reduce the tariffs of the world by common agreement and to stabilise things generally with regard to security, but you may not. Great conferences have not been a very great success in achieving definite practical results.
    That is where we are, and I should like to know how we are going to deal with the situation. We had a discussion here on Monday. I read it very carefully—I think I read it twice over—because it was
    1308
    very important. I also read what the Prime Minister said. I think we are entitled to make a protest about that. If he was really ill, no one will have a word to say about it, but, if he was well enough to travel all the way to Lossimouth, which is a pretty long distance I understand, and speak on unemployment on the very night when there was a discussion in the House of Commons, to which he owes his first responsibility, I think it is an insult to the House. But it is a little worse than that. It is proof that he has no sense of the great responsibility of his position in reference to the worst crisis that the country has passed through in times of peace, I will not say within living memory but almost within historical memory. He said that the problem of the better use of enforced leisure is a practical one of supreme importance.
    The thing that is of supreme importance is to provide work. What does the Prime Minister propose—the creating of small handicraft industries and turning land into allotments and playing fields, without any indication where you are going to get the land or how you are going to do it, reclaiming slag heaps, making a paddling pool, restoring an old Roman bridge, and making mats out of bits of old rope. That used to be called picking oakum. That is the work of the unemployed. That is what he calls the problem of the better use of enforced leisure, which is one of supreme importance for 3,000,000—and over 3,000,000, because the 250,000 black-coated have to be added to your 2,800,000—and your black-coated man is not even in the list. The right hon. Gentleman went to Lossiemouth to file his petition in bankruptcy and to declare that there were no assets worth realising. What is £10,000 worth of charity? Where we have 50 or 100 people, as we have in some of our little villages in Wales, we can deal with them quite easily. By means of subscriptions we are fairly able to cope with them. In Guildford, near where I live, we have very great encouragement arid enterprise, but after all there is no great unemployment there compared with what there is in Durham and South Wales.
    Mr. BATEY: Or even in the Prime Minister's own division.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: That is right. There is no great unemployment in the

    1309
    Guildford district, and there are fairly wealthy people who are showing extraordinary enterprise and who can afford to do it. But when you come to those districts where you have almost half the population out of work, where there are no wealthy people, and where the municipalities are bankrupt, what is this £10,000 to spend on charity'? Ten thousand pounds is £80 for each county and county borough in England and Wales. Glamorgan, with nearly half its people out of work, will get, under this beneficence, the sum of £110 to provide work for the unemployed. It is really trifling with the problem. I do ask the Government during the coming six weeks to think out something upon a greater scale than this.
    We have put forward our schemes. I am told that they are no good. What are your schemes? Do let us have them. You have had your Tariff. You put a false bottom on your economic structure. It may have been necessary. I am not arguing that. That is beside the mark at the present moment. You have it there, but why do you not build something upon it? What are you going to build upon it? Other and poorer countries are making a real effort. The "Times" has already been advertising what Signor Mussolini is doing in the way of reclamation. He was opening yesterday a town built upon a waste swamp which has been reclaimed. Italy is a poor land. It is a poorer land than ours. That is what he is doing. He has shown courage. He is facing his difficulties. He has reclaimed hundreds and thousands—and, I am not certain that there are not millions—of acres. He has put, at any rate, hundreds and thousands of people upon the land. In Germany they are going to take 1,300,000 acres in East Prussia alone in order to settle the population upon the land where 30 per cent. of the population is already on the soil. All the towns there are doing exactly the same thing—in one area alone 1,300,000 acres—and we are only talking about reclaiming waste land. We are treating the matter as though we were bankrupt. In Germany the difficulty is that they have very little land to spare. They have 10,000,000 people on the soil there. They have very little land to spare, and practically no money. In this country we have £1,800,000,000 of depreciated money rusting in our hands, worth less by one-third
    1310
    to-day than when the Government came into power. Every sovereign that was worth 20s. then is now worth 13s. 4d., and if you go on leaving them rusting there, what guarantee will you have that they will not go down and down again?
    I wonder how many hon. Members read that very remarkable article by the agricultural correspondent of the "Times," in November, as to the conditions in the East of England. He said:
    "One landowner told me that he has 1,200 acres on his hands for which he cannot find tenants. The farms lie in five different parishes and he will have to make shift to get the land cultivated somehow, so that it does not become derelict. Where forced sales have taken place farms normally worth £20 an acre have sold for £4 an acre and even as low as 35s. an acre. There are no buyers."
    There is land there, and you need not use compulsory powers to take it. Can the Minister of Agriculture name any country in Europe where you can buy 1,500 acres of land at 35s. an acre, or £4 an acre or £20 an acre, with farm buildings attached, except in this country. Why is that? Because we are not making proper use of the land as they do in other countries. That is the real reason.
    I hope that we shall get something from the Minister of Agriculture. I put this suggestion to him. If they cannot borrow money at the present moment, why do not they do what the Mayor of Godalming, who is a business man and has been a farmer, suggests. I heard him say at an agricultural dinner the other night that he had made money out of his farm. That shows that he is a very exceptional man. He suggests that you should say to the locality, "We will lump the dole and pass it on to you, providing you employ people on tasks which do not enter into competition with ordinary industry." I thought that an admirable suggestion. What kind of things are there that would not enter into competition with ordinary industry—public improvements, reclamation of waste, drainage of land, allotments, smallholdings, slum clearance, opening up roads to environments of cities with a view to garden cities. None of these things would enter into any sort of competition with ordinary industry. Therefore, you would not be subsidising one class of business as against another and you would undercut nobody. You would pay them the ordinary trade union rate

    1311
    of wages, and their dole would go towards that. If you were to do it in the case of anyone who had a leather factory or an iron and steel factory it would be helping one business as against another, but if it is for the purpose of the reclamation of land, and things of that sort, you would not be helping any industry. You would be giving the dole as a contribution towards getting work in that particular neighbourhood.
    Instead of that we prefer to ladle out all this money in sheer idleness. The Mayor of Godalming told me that if he could do this he could provide work for every man in the area. There are a considerable number of towns in this country where this policy could be adopted, and by this means you could reduce the number of unemployed by at least 25 per cent. I ask the Government to consider this possibility. May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that no legislation is necessary. There is an Act of Parliament on the Statute Book; you can do it by an Order in Council ordering that the machine should go. You can reclaim land, set up small holdings and allotments, cottage holdings and schemes of that kind, under this Act. There is another point I wish to put to the Government. The Minister of Agriculture can order a thorough survey of two or three typical counties to show the possibilities. The Home Secretary made one or two good surveys in Scotland, and he could have gone further, but at that time it was not linked up so much with unemployment.
    There is a new situation. Why should you not take two or three typical counties and have a thorough survey by practical men of the conditions to see whether there is land which is derelict which can be reclaimed. I think it is possible to reclaim in some counties tens of thousands of acres, perhaps more in larger counties with a view to land settlement. First of all, there is the pure waste, the swamp area. I could give the right hon. Gentleman instances where the soil is good, but no individual landlord can possibly spend the money upon it; and it is difficult to get the combination which is necessary. You may have 50 landlords adjoining a particular swamp, but they have not the money. In the next place, there is the land which is under-cultivated, large areas in
    1312
    this country, and an area which is growing. Why could we not have a survey of two or three counties to see what are the possibilities? If those who talk about reclamation and under-cultivation, and the reconditioning of land are talking nonsense then the sooner it is shown to be nonsense by careful examination by experts the better. We could then turn our minds to something which is more practical. But let us find out first whether there is anything in it, and whether this is the only country in the world where you cannot reclaim land and settle people upon it.
    I come to the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health. During the last Government I pressed the Minister of Health and the Lord Privy Seal to have a survey made. In this matter I had the advice of some of the ablest town planners in the Kingdom. It was not my suggestion at all. I say that in order to avoid undue prejudice against the suggestion, which came entirely from practical men whose politics I do not even know. Right hon. and hon. Members opposite cannot, therefore, say it is merely a Radical stunt. The suggestion was that there should be a survey of the possibilities of opening up the suburbs in London—the Lea Valley was one of the places indicated—with a view, not to pulling down the slums in the East End of London and rebuilding new slums, but with a view to getting the population right out into the country so as to give them the same advantage of good healthy country air as the middle classes and the well-to-do have at the moment. It is done in all the well-constructed towns and cities of the Continent, everywhere, with access to the docks and to places of business through broad avenues, sometimes by light railways, sometimes by tube, sometimes by tram—what New York does for a uniform five cents fare. I am not asking the right hon. Gentleman to commit himself to the policy. I am asking him whether what was undertaken by the late Government in the way of investigation can proceed. It cannot possibly cost more than a few pounds. The last Government also undertook to examine these possibilities in some of the distressed towns of the north, to see whether something could be done. The Government fell before I knew what had happened to these

    1313
    schemes. Perhaps they had no time to put them into operation, but they did agree to do so.
    Those are the suggestions which I put forward to the Government. I have heard many a time that the present Government have pulled us through. Pulled us through into what? Into over 3,000,000 of unemployed, maintained at a cost of £130,000,000 a year, and nothing to show for it. The Employment Exchanges are fuller, the docks are empty, the factories and workshops and railways empty. The weekly returns for goods traffic are down; the unemployment figures are up. There is land lacking drainage, more water-logged than ever; there are more labourers leaving the soil, more ships rotting for want of cargoes. We have the same old slums getting shabbier and more and more overcrowded, and nothing done to improve them. The Prime Minister leaves all this to the Department, and with a fine gesture to charity. I wonder how long the nation will stand it.
    3.35 p.m.
    Mr. LAWSON: Before the Minister replies there is one point to which I wish to draw attention. I wonder if the House clearly understands the fact that during the last year unemployment has entered upon a new and a terribly menacing stage. It was my gloomy duty on Monday to draw attention to those figures which have been mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) and emphasised by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, that during the last 12 months the number of unemployed who have been out of work for 12 months or more, has increased from just over 100,000 to 480,000. I ask the House to mark what that means. Before the War there were what were called cycles of unemployment. Since the War we have had persistence of unemployment, but up to now the elements of that unemployment were changing and, until the last year or so, we could say that there were no more than 100,000 or so permanently unemployed in the sense that they had been idle for 12 months or more. Within the last year that figure of 100,000 has leapt up to nearly 500,000.
    The Government may do as they did on Monday last, I do not suppose that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for
    1314
    Carnarvon Boroughs expects any reasonable answer to the suggestions of schemes which he has put forward. If he does he shows even more optimism than we expect from his own optimistic self. All this kind of thing was debated in this House for three days. Members of the House were supposed to pool their ideas on this subject and even Members supporting the Government pleaded with the Government to do certain things. What happened? The Government have not been decent enough even to give us an answer. Now, as I say, unemployment has entered on a new and menacing stage and we have this terrible corps of men permanently unemployed.
    The Government gave £10,000 for the work of the National Council of Social Service and on Monday we pointed out the danger that this would be taken as a Government policy. The Government said, "No!" but they did not tell us what was their policy. They have no policy. But the Prime Minister went to Lossiemouth and almost at the very time when the subject was being debated here in this House he made a speech to the country which gave the impression that he was stating Government policy. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition as well as the right hon. Gentle man the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs criticised that speech, in terms which I felt were weak, as an insult to the House. It is more titian that; it is a very grave danger to this country for the Prime Minister to do things of that description. I said on Monday—and I confess that the idea has got hold of me—that there is at present in regard to this matter throughout the country a kind of brooding quiet. It is what I should describe as a terrible quiet, a dangerous quiet, one of those quiets which history speaks of as preceding very dangerous human upheavals.
    The Government may state nothing here to-day, they may have no policy of their own, they may think that charity will suffice. But the Government will get the surprise of their lives unless they are prepared to face this problem, particularly in some of the areas of which we know. It will not be the Home Secretary who will reply to it, because if it does happen, there will be no Home Secretary to reply at all. I do hope that the right hon. Gentleman will at least have something to say. The Prime

    1315
    Minister, I think, has destroyed the scheme of the National Union of Social Service doing anything at all effectively. We on this side of the House want to see that work successful, and want to see the splendid work done in almost every part of the country continued. These men and women are labouring all over the country, and have been for some years doing first-class work in their own humble way. They have never pretended that they could be a substitute for active Government work. They do not do so now, and say so definitely. But by the gift of £10,000 they have been linked up with the Government, and by the speech of the Prime Minister not only their future possibility of good work has been torpedoed, but it looks as if even the good work that has been done has been endangered, That is what has been done by a speech on Government policy from Lossiemouth. Now that we are going to adjourn for six weeks, and when up and down the country there are great masses of people, very patient, very decent, some of whom are at this Christmas time, as the Prime Minister himself said in that speech, wanting the very elements of covering, I hope the right hon. Gentleman is going to have something more to say than his predecessors at the Ministry of Labour have had. If not, I can only finish by repeating the warning that there is in this country grave possibility of trouble, which will not be handled easily.
    3.43 p.m.
    The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Major Elliot): It is not easy in the Debate on the Adjournment Motion before the Christmas Recess to respond to all the appeals which have been made. It is quite true, as the right hon. Gentleman the Father of the House said, that it would not be possible for me to touch on any projects involving legislation. Yet the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) seemed to expect that this afternoon I should develop some great Government programme, which certainly could not be done without legislation, and which, therefore, would be out of order. He seemed to take exception, and so I regret to say did the Father of the House, to the Prime Minister not being here to develop some such programme on the Estimates of a Department. But as everybody knows, it would have been totally out of order for the Prime Minis-
    1316
    ter, or any other Minister, to develop on such an occasion any scheme involving legislation of any kind or description.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say that with the consent of the House the Prime Minister could not have made any statement, and has the House ever refused that consent?
    Major ELLIOT: I say, without a. moment's hesitation, that the consent of the House would not have made any difference whatever. The consent of the Chair is what is necessary, and the Chair would have ruled—as the Chair always rules—that on Departmental Estimates it is utterly impossible to introduce any subject demanding legislation. Well, the Leader of the Opposition has a right to his own opinion, but I have heard, and we have all heard, Members and Ministers called to order at this Box, and forced to resume their seats, because on Departmental Estimates they were broaching on subjects requiring legislation which would have been out of order in the circumstances.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Not when there has been consent asked and given.
    Major ELLIOT: I do not wish to enter into a Debate upon rules of order with my right hon. Friend, more especially as on more than one occasion recently I have found myself involved in a controversy with him which has threatened to flare up into something worse, and for which I was, as I said at the time, sincerely sorry, and I certainly do not wish to be led into such a controversy again. I think it is within the general knowledge of the House that Estimates which involved £20,000,000 of new money required close and accurate examination from the point of view of Departmental Estimates, that these Estimates were so examined, that the Prime Minister would have been out of place in such a Debate, and that the Prime Minister himself had gone home, as surely he was entitled to do, for the benefit of his health, which surely any man is entitled to do after an autumn of work which has not been surpassed by any man in this House, engaged upon the very tasks which the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition most vehemently demanded, for the sweeping away of barriers between nation and nation, for the stabilisation of exchanges, and for the cause of international peace.

    1317
    Those were the tasks upon which the Prime. Minister had exhausted himself, and the Prime Minister surely had a right to say, at such a time, "I will go home." I have known the right hon. Gentleman the Father of the House, when he had great international tasks to perform, when he was involved in great international conferences, when he was Prime Minister, paying little enough heed to those who said that he should be nailed to his place at this Box. I have known him live in foreign capitals for months at a time carrying out schemes which no doubt, he sincerely hoped, would lead to great improvements in international affairs.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I never passed any criticism on the Prime Minister because he had spent his time either at Geneva, Lausanne, or Paris, or any other place where he was discharging his duty. That is a very different thing, but I think it would be difficult for the right hon. Gentleman to find a single case where there was a most important issue of the moment, say, the War, being discussed in this House, when I was not in my place.
    The SECRETARY for MINES (Mr. Ernest Brawn): What about Gairloch?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I can hear that observation. The House was not sitting then. That was very unworthy of the hon. Member. He ought to apologise, and he would if he were a gentleman.
    Major ELLIOT: It is surely unnecessary and undignified for the House of Commons to enter into a criticism of the personal motives of any Member or any officer of this House. The House of Commons as a whole has always freely and generously extended its consideration towards either Members of the House or Members of the Government who have had to be absent for duty or for reasons of health, and I am sure that any of us who heard, as I heard, the broadcast speech of the Prime Minister will not deny that that was the voice of a man who would be greatly improved by a short holiday in his native air. I think everyone who heard that speech certainly would agree that the Prime Minister, when he went home for reasons of health, was going home for reasons that were manifest to anyone who heard that speech delivered.
    1318
    An engagement entered into long before with the British Broadcasting Corporation, an engagement on the radio, is an engagement with millions of persons, and it is inaccurate in the extreme to say that he was there developing Government policy. He was carrying out an engagement as one of the speakers in a series of talks which the British Broadcasting Corporation was giving to direct the nation towards various aspects of the great problem of unemployment, and the fact that the Prime Minister thought that that was a reasonable thing, and that even on his holiday and while not in full health he could give up an evening to make such an address, is obviously an action for which he should be commended, and not blamed. The fact that even on his holiday in Lossiemouth he directed the attention of others towards the problem not merely of Governmental action, but of personal action and social service, and to the relation between man and man which transcends all the problems of Governmental action, State grants and legislation, is surely an example of the fact that not by one avenue only must we attack this problem of unemployment, but by every avenue, not merely in the House of Commons but in the country as well.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street seized the opportunity to make a few remarks which he doubtless felt would be of great advantage to the House of Commons. He indicated that, in his view, the problem of long-term unemployment had suddenly bounced up from 100,000 to 480,000. He is aware, however, that during the Debate on the unemployment Estimates that point was made, and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour pointed out that the increase in those figures was due to the fact that they had first been enumerated at one period, and then enumerated at another period much later. It is not a sudden phenomenon. If it were, it would be easier to deal with. The problem was here before the hon. Gentleman's Government came into power, and before the period when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour. The problem was nearly as great when he was Parliamentary Secretary as it is to-day. The problem showed the same menacing features during the period he was Parliamentary Secretary as it is showing

    1319
    to-day. It is not a sudden leap; if it were, it would be, as I have said, more easily dealt with. It is part of the manifestation of the phenomenon of unemployment which no single Administration in this country can cast up against another. No sudden leap has taken place. It is the development of a trend which was developing in the past as it is to-day.
    Mr. LAWSON: I did not make this as a party point at all. The fact is that in 1931 at Geneva figures were brought out by the Minister of Labour himself showing that there were only 100,000 people who had been unemployed for 12 months or more. That was in June, 1931. I asked the hon. Gentleman for figures, and he himself told me that between 1931 and 1932 the figures had gone up to 480,000. That is the official answer which the hon. Gentleman gave me. I am not making a party point that this Government are responsible for it at all. The point I am making is that the figure has gone up by a sudden leap to five times the previous number.
    Major ELLIOT: It would be ungracious of me not to acknowledge the statement of my hon. Friend that there is no party point in it, but that he was merely drawing attention to the general trend. As to the actual discussion and analysis of the figures between two Parliamentary Secretaries to the Ministry of Labour, I will certainly stand aside in that controversy, because it is clear that I must know much less than either taken singly, and very much less than both together.
    I want to come back to the main problem, raised more particularly by my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). He spoke of the difficulty before the House in adjourning for Christmas with the unemployment figure still as high as it is to-day. He indicated that he wanted to know whether the Government had any plans, and said that while tariff barriers were as high as they are to-day and the exchanges were as unstable, it was impossible to expect any permanently good results to world trade. I do not wish to enter into the controversy with him on these matters save to say that I believe that those who seek to put affairs right by putting right the whole world at one time are trying
    1320
    to undertake too great a task. In putting right affairs region by region, in establishing an area over which the exchanges would be stable—the sterling area—and in establishing areas in which tariffs would be stable and would tend to go lower rather than to go higher, as within the British Empire, we are embarking on a more hopeful field than if we were to attempt to put right the whole affairs of the world in one or two great sweeping conferences, wherever they might be held. But that is my own view, and I am no more entitled to dogmatise than anyone else. The right hon. Gentleman did me the honour yesterday of indicating that he would raise certain points regarding the utilisation of land, the drainage of land—
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: And surveys.
    Major ELLIOT: —upon which he indicated he would press for a reply to-day. I have done my best in the time available to satisfy his demands. I would like to say, in the first place, that I think he was perhaps a little cavalier in his dismissal of allotments as merely playing with the problem.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I spoke of playing-fields. I never spoke of the provision of allotments as playing with the problem. I am strongly in favour of them, and if I did convey another impression I am sorry.
    Major ELLIOT: I did my best to take down the words of the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I was referring to what the Prime Minister said about playing-fields.
    Major ELLIOT: I took down very carefully the words of my right hon. Friend, and he referred with great scorn and derision to the statement of the Prime Minister.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: About playing-fields.
    Major ELLIOT: He said the Prime Minister had spoken of the reclaiming of waste land, of allotments, of playing-fields and of handicrafts. Those were the four specific things which he mentioned as having been discussed by the Prime Minister, and I do not think he will suggest that he excepted any of the Prime

    1321
    Minister's remarks from the vials of scorn which he poured upon the announcement.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I asked with regard to allotments how land could be obtained merely by private charity? That is all. If I conveyed the impression that allotments were a matter of derision, I did not intend to do so; but I do regard the mere acquisition of land by private charity as playing with the problem.
    Major ELLIOT: At any rate we are agreed upon one thing, that allotments are a very useful way of dealing with the subject—
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Yes.
    Major ELLIOT: —and that in so far as the Prime Minister referred to allotments he was referring to a way of handling the problem which had the heartiest approval of my right hon. Friend. Therefore, there is one ewe lamb, one brand snatched from the burning and the general conflagration.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: But not by charity.
    Major ELLIOT: Well, after all allotments are obtained by good will and by personal service as much as in any other way. The facility of access of land is as much a, case of personal service, as much a case of the kind of relationship which the Prime Minister was pleading for, between those more fortunate and those less fortunate citizens as any example which can be given. All round our great cities, and in many of our smaller towns and villages, these allotments are made available to the unemployed and other people by the good will and the friendliness of those, who, if they stood on the strict letter of their rights, could certainly exclude the unemployed from that land, and do a good deal to hold up a movement which, we all admit, is of the utmost value and help to the unemployed.
    Let me give the House one or two figures as to the extent which the movement has already reached. At the end of 1930, the total number of allotments in England and Wales was approaching 1,000,000. It was 960,000, and the available figures for Scotland showed 16,000 more allotment holders, making a total for the country as a whole of just over
    1322
    981,000. That is a figure which is not merely very remarkable, but which holds out the greatest hope for the future. I say again, speaking from this Box, that I plead with the nation as a whole to take up the challenge for social service which the Prime Minister issued, and I will reiterate that there is no more helpful way in which that challenge can be taken up than by facilitating allotment holding by personal assistance, even by the giving of charity—although the word may not be liked by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs. It is not charity when you give a man seeds or tools or an allotment, whereas if you gave him money it would be so regarded. The 981,000 allotment holders in this country represent a great factor which we should build on and understand, when we are dealing with the situation as it is at the present time.
    Mr. LAWSON: It is the local authorities who are doing it.
    Major ELLIOT: It is the combined effort of the nation, and not merely of local authorities. The result would be poor enough if we were trusting merely to county councils and local authorities. If it were not for help and service given by individuals, all the regulations passed by local authorities would be of little avail. The allotment movement is not a whole-time movement. The right hon. Gentleman asked if there were not cases where surveys could be held for land which would be available for reclamation which, by reason of being water-logged, could not be employed for the benefit of the smallholdings.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Or allotments.
    Major ELLIOT: Or allotments. The Act which was passed in 1930 for the setting up of the catchment boards is the type of legislation which he has in mind. No doubt he knows the figures as well as I do. They show that there were something like 4,000,000 acres in England and Wales which were dependent for their productivity upon efficient drainage. The catchment boards have been set up, and they are now reasonably ready to go ahead. They are making surveys. I think the surveys which the right hon. Gentleman has in mind are more properly carried out by means of ad hoc authorities working for areas, like the catch-

    1323
    ment areas of rivers, than they would be by special inquiries undertaken in county areas, such as were carried out in Scotland by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.
    We have, of course, large areas where drainage can be carried out, and where, if great improvements were made, land would be made available for smallholdings and allotments which is not available now. But of what avail would it be to bring land into cultivation if land already in cultivation is running out of cultivation? Of what avail is it to set more men on smallholdings if men in other areas are driven off the land? We have set up on smallholdings, 20,000 or 30,000 men since the war. During that time, 170,000 people have left the land, and the population is poorer by that amount. It is no advantage to the country to lose 10 ploughmen and gain one smallholder. That is a disadvantage to the country, and not an advantage. To put on 30,000 smallholders and lose 170,000 farm workers would be folly.
    We on the Conservative side of the House have every reason—[HON. MEMBERS: "The Conservative side?"] There are many Conservatives who sit on this side of the House. I do not say that there are not others who sit here, but, on the whole, the Conservatives on this side are in the majority. We have every reason to look at my right hon. Friend with a little chagrin when he inveighs against us because so many people have left the soil of this country. Who has fought more vehemently than he for the cause of free imports into this country? Who, time after time, has brought down Governments because they showed signs of moving towards the very methods of protection, the very methods of restriction of foreign imports, which he now admits are necessary if we arc to continue a programme of settling people on the land? My right hon. Friend has said repeatedly that, whatever was true of the past, now we have our chance, now we have got our conditions as to imports restriction, and we should go ahead and develop them and see what they can do. It is all very well to say that now, but why could he not have said it years ago, when we were struggling against the tremendous weight which he and many of his friends represented? It is useless to
    1324
    turn round upon us now and ask why this condition of affairs is not put straight in the twinkling of an eye. Men have left the land because they have lost confidence, because they have lost heart, because they did not believe that the towns were with them, because they did not believe that they would get support. When they begin to see support, they began to return to the land themselves.
    Reference is made to the Lea Valley. The figures have been given before in this House, and I could give them again. They show that, when the Lea Valley growers got a reasonable modicum of assurances, they pressed on, they built glass-houses, they brought capital back on to the land, they brought labour back on to the land, they increased production, and they increased the purchasing power of those who live in that area. At the present moment I am working to try and get a pig industry established in this country, but what do I meet on every side? I am met with the questions, "Do you mean it?" and, still more, "Does the Opposition mean it? "We admit that no Government can remain in power for ever, and at some time some Opposition—it may be this Opposition, or some other Opposition, or some combination of Oppositions—will come in. Will they implement the promises that we are giving to the farmers now? If the right hon. Gentleman himself could give us such assurances, he would do more to bring about confidence and get people on to the land than all the speeches that I can deliver or all the programmes that I can bring forward.
    I can bring forward programmes and make speeches, but these are programmes for half the nation, for the Government which is in power. What about the next Government, and the Government after that? Can the right hon. Gentleman say, can the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street say, that, if we put people on the land, the nation is determined to see that they have a chance on the land? Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to say that, if we start a policy of that kind, it will be acknowledged by the nation as a whole? Mere criticism will not remove these difficulties. Let hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite come along with such assurances on this day of the Motion for the Adjournment- for the Christmas Recess.

    1325
    We are having these problems examined by skilled men, by conscientious men. Reports such as the Pig Industry Report have been brought out which have been considered by the industry concerned, not with any political or party bias, but by every section of the industry and in every aspect.
    One thing only is necessary for success, and that is confidence—confidence not merely for a period of one year or two years, but for a period of five years, 10 years, 20 years. Can we have that assurance from my right hon. Friend? Can we have that assurance from the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street? He asks, what are the Government's plans? The Government have put forward plans. There is the plan for the development of our pig industry. We have just appointed a committee to examine the case of the meat industry—an examination of which the key and centre is that the committee has powers to recommend the regulation, that is to say, the restriction, of imports. Do hon. Gentlemen opposite stand for that or do they not? Will they back us up in that in the future, or will they not? These are the questions which we and the Government have a right to ask. It is no use merely saying, "What are your plans?" We have a right to say, "What is your support?" [Interruption.] The industry of agriculture has more hope because of the events of last year and the last few months. It is in a much more hopeful mood this Christmas than it was last Christmas, and certainly the Christmas before. I appeal to every hon. Member whether that is not so.
    The Government, says the right hon. Gentleman, have pulled us through to what? They have pulled us through to a fighting chance. No one says the victory has been won. No one says the end of the depression has arrived, or is even in sight. There are great and terrible trials for the country still before us. There are budgetary trials and trials of unemployment. We demand from the Opposition that, if they ask for national effort they should give us national support. On these fundamental questions, the question of the land, the question of the people of the country in their relation to the soil of the country, will they back us up? When the House reassembles, if the Government develops a land policy which will help the people of England to settle on the land of England, will they do every-
    1326
    thing in their power to back that up? If they can give us that pledge, we shall have done a great deal, even in this one year, towards the settlement of people on the land and towards the settlement of the problems with which this nation is faced. The father of the House has a great reputation. He has done much for this nation in the past. Let him put the coping stone on it, and let us see that, the next time he speaks in the House, he takes the plunge and definitely says, "As for Protection or Free Trade, a plague, if you like, on both your houses, but as for settling the people of England on the land of England and making sure that they get the advantage of reaping the fruits which they extract from the soil, I am with you now and my descendants are with you."
    4.10 p.m.
    The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Hilton Young): I only rise to answer a single specific question which the right hon. Gentleman addressed to me. It is on the subject of regional development with a view to the extension of garden cities. May I remind him, in the first place, that there is a great extension of the power of regional planning in the Town and Country Planning Act that we passed last year. Secondly, the aspect of work arising from town-planning was dealt with by the Departmental Committee on Regional Development which reported in July, 1931, and which said:
    "While we are attracted by the possibilities of this new form of development, we regretfully have to accept the fact that no immediate employment can he found on a large scale in these works."
    That Departmental Committee recommended further investigation in regard to garden cities and their possibilities, and it was accordingly arranged by my predecessor to examine the experience already gained in regard to the establishment of garden cities and villages and to make recommendations as to the steps, if any, which should be taken by the Government, or by local authorities, to extend the provision of such garden cities and villages and satellite towns, and, in particular, how the location of industries in them can be stimulated, and other similar matters. That Committee is still sitting, and I expect to receive its report before very long. I should make it clear that the Committee was rather concerned with the amenity

    1327
    aspect of the garden city movement than with any question of the provision of employment, or public works, upon which the decision of the first and major Committee was unfavourable. There is only one other point to which I am asked to refer, in reference to the quotation from a recent speech of the Minister of Labour, and I desire to point out that the Minister of Labour said:
    "If you look at the volume of exports from this country during the last nine months you will find that they are slightly greater than they were for the corresponding period of 1931."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th December, 1932; col. 775, Vol. 273.]
    So my right hon. Friend's statement was exactly accurate.

    COAL INDUSTRY (QUOTA SYSTEM).
    4.15 p.m.
    Commander COCHRANE: I wish to invite the House to turn its attention to another subject, and that is the question of the export of coal. In view of the time at my disposal, I propose to be very brief and to confine my remarks entirely to the question of the Quota as it affects the export of coal. I think that the question of minimum prices in regard to export really requires no argument. It must be generally agreed that to try to fix a minimum price below which you may not sell in competition with the foreigner is quite indefensible. With regard to the Quota, I suppose that if we now had a condition of dwindling trade the question of a quota would be arguable, but I wish to confine myself to events as they are today. There is no doubt that, as a result of the recent policy of the Government, there is a very good opportunity of having increased trade with Scandinavia. We have had a remarkably successful exhibition at Copenhagen, and we know that the President of the Board of Trade is now carrying out negotiations with various Scandinavian countries with a view to coming to satisfactory reciprocal trading arrangements. It is in these circumstances that I wish to ask my hon. Friend the Secretary for Mines the effect of quota restrictions. It is clear that if the coal trade is to get the benefit of the improved trade with Scandinavian countries, we shall have in the near future either new customers, or coming back to us old customers who have not had their requirements from this country
    1328
    for some time past. If we are to gain the benefit of that trade, we must be able to make contracts over a considerable period. It is in that connection—with the long-term contracts—that the Quota of export is least defensible.
    I know that my hon. Friend the Secretary for Mines has stated in replies to questions recently that the Quota has been increased for the present quarter. The figure has been stated of an increase in the case of Scotland of 150,000 tons in the quarter. That is cold comfort for the miners of Scotland who may be working only three or four days a week, representing as it does the output of only two days or so. The real point of importance in the circumstances of to-day, when we are hoping to get an increased export trade, is, Will this increase of Quota be available next quarter, will it be available for six months, or will it be available for 12 months? That is a question of importance, and it is clear that unless the coal producers in this country have a certainty that they will have this increased Quota in the future, it will be impossible for them to take advantage of all the opportunities for an increased trade which may come their way. The suggestion that foreigners will come here, and continue to come here to get their requirements of coal, despite whatever obstacles there may be, appears to me to be fantastic. Surely, we must agree that, if we get a foreign buyer coming over to this country for his requirements of coal, it may be the result of some general agreement arrived at between the Government, or for the more usual reason that he thinks he can get a better quality of coal over here at a price which suits him. If he does come here and meets with any difficulty whatever in getting his necessary requirements satisfied there is always standing at his elbow someone who whispers in his ear that he can get the same coal in Silesia, or the Sahr, or elsewhere, and that he can get the whole of his requirements satisfied without any impediment or hitch. I cannot understand the suggestion which appears to me sometimes to be made that there is a sort of queue of foreign buyers waiting to be supplied with our coal. I have heard it said, when some complaints have been made that some pits have been unable to fulfil a foreign order, due to the question of quota: "It does not matter.

    1329
    If the order did not go to one place, it went somewhere else." That is a fantastic view of the way in which the selling of coal or any other article is carried on. We cannot expect to maintain our export trade if there is the slightest obstacle in the way of the foreigner getting the coal which he requires.
    I am limiting myself to-day to the question of export, but that, does not mean that the export of coal can be separated from the inland sale. It is clear that in the ordinary case the requirements of the foreigner will be for some special size or type of coal which probably cannot be produced without the reduction of some other size from the same pit. Therefore, these two things, the quota for home trade and the quota for export trade are very closely linked together, but I am content to limit myself this afternoon to the question of export. To-day, we have a chance of an expanding market. The only way in which the quota can fail to be obstructive to that market is to get it out of the way. If that quota on an expanding market is to mean that there is a threat of a quota next quarter or in six months time, it is bound to make more difficult the sale of coal in foreign markets. It is to that aspect of the question that I would ask the Secretary of Mines to be good enough to give some information to the House, and, if he can, to give an assurance that he is hoping, as we are all hoping that we are going to get an improvement in the export of coal, that the question of quota or of minimum price shall not be allowed to stand in the way, and that the coal producers shall have every opportunity of taking advantage of the increase of trade which the policy of the Government may bring to them.
    4.24 p.m.
    Mr. ALBERT RUSSELL: I venture to ask for the indulgence which is accorded by hon. Members to one who addresses the House for the first time. At this late stage and with the time so limited I shall compress what I have to say into as brief a space as possible. I desire to support the views which have been expressed by the hon. and gallant Member who has just spoken, and I do so with special reference not only to Scotland but the constituency which I represent. There is no doubt that in the case of Scotland, and
    1330
    particularly Fifeshire, a great deal of the trade consists in coals which are produced there for export. There is Fifeshire on the one hand and the Lothians on the other, and I wish to voice a grievance which has been felt by many of my constituents who work in the mines in Fifeshire. During the last quarter the district allocation by the central council in regard to Scotland was considerably reduced. That happened to coincide with a sudden increase in the demand from foreign countries, and the result was that, although the machinery which exists for granting an increased allocation was set in operation, in spite of that, the particular company, by whom many of my constituents are employed, was compelled to shut down by suspending 550 of their workers at the beginning of the quarter, and by the 24th of this month, in the last week of the quarter, they will have to suspend entirely their operations, which will have the result of depriving 4,900 men, who would have been employed had they been allowed to continue at work, of a week's wages.
    It is unnecessary to emphasise the deplorable results of a policy which deprives men of work. These men lose their wages, and the country loses the purchasing power which these men would have had. The export of the coal which they could have produced, and of which their employers could have disposed abroad, would have helped to redress the balance of trade so far as visible imports and exports are concerned. The resounding effect of this loss of spending power will be felt in the reduced takings of shopkeepers, and, in addition, there is also the fact that the country has to pay them unemployment benefit, when the company are able to show that if they had been allowed to produce the output they could have produced, they could have disposed of it abroad to foreign countries. Scandinavia, particularly, has been a very forward market during the last quarter, and also other countries in Europe and some of our Colonies. I have here a list showing exactly how this company could have disposed of its output had it not been for the quota restriction and the machinery under which the quota is regulated, which prevented the coal from being produced. The matter is one which excites great apprehension in the district. Let me quote a resolution

    1331
    passed by the Town Council of Buck-haven, one of the ports on the seaboard, where a number of the miners reside. It was passed on the 12th of this month and is to this effect:—
    "They view with concern the notices posted by the Wemyss Colliery Company terminating contracts on 22nd instant, notices which would affect 5,000 men, owing to the operations of the Scottish District Mining Scheme, and resolve to petition the Secretary for Mines to adopt measures which would enable the company to withdraw the notices."
    Since that date a further allocation has been given to Scotland of 150,000 tons. If the quota is to be kept on, is it reasonable machinery suddenly to take a step on 14th December, within a fortnight of the end of the period, and to say that there is another 150,000 tons which you can produce? Surely there is something wrong with, machinery which delays the additional grant of quotas when the Central Council have been asked to grant a further allowance and have not given enough. It is a tragic situation when men and women understand that but for the operation of the quota that coal could be produced and their work could be safeguarded, and when the employers are in a position to demonstrate that, given leave to produce that coal, they have a market for it abroad. What possible justification can there be for allowing the machinery by which this scheme is regulated, to bring about results like that? I most earnestly urge the Minister to do what be can by administrative action to accelerate the machinery, not to have a regulation of output which comes to be a strangling of output where export is concerned, but to have special regard to the export trade which it is the policy of the Government to encourage just now.
    There are other points that I would have liked to have touched upon, such as the purchase of a quota, which is a very poor equivalent indeed for the purchaser who has a market abroad for his coal. I have given one example of the working of the quota in my own constituency. I know there are others on the other side of the Border. There is just now a decided tendency for the export trade to improve, but that improvement is being thwarted and prevented by the restrictions of the quota.
    4.32 p.m.
    Captain ARCHIBALD RAMSAY: May I tender to my hon. and learned Friend congratulations on his maiden speech? He has undoubtedly made a most valuable contribution to this House, to Scotland and to his constituency, and I only regret that he had not longer time to develop his argument. I hope we may hear from him again on an occasion when there will be more time for him to speak. The importance of the subject under discussion bears no relation whatever to the time that has been left to discuss it, nor indeed to the discussions that have gone before it, and I think that many people who are interested in the coal trade, when they read their newspapers, will say unpleasant things about the machinery of the House of Commons when it does not allow fuller discussion of this most important topic.
    I would like to develop the argument of my hon. and learned Friend and give a further instance of the way in which the quota is strangling our export trade in coal. It is an instance drawn from my own constituency. We applied as soon as we could for an extra allocation of quota. We could not get an answer, and there were delays. Finally, though we had applied for 450,000 tons, we received an allocation of merely 300,000 tons. After a considerable agitation and a visit to Scotland, the Minister saw the firm, who had undertaken to supply this coal to Scandinavia. They had not only to cancel the order while their men were standing idle at the pits in the Lothians, but they had to pay an indemnity for the cancellation of the order. It was proved that at least a portion of that order went to Poland. Those of us who endeavoured a year ago to prevent the Act from being continued in its present form prophesied that this sort of thing was bound to happen, and it has happened not only in this particular county but in several others.
    In the first place, this system is a handicap to administration. In tendering for contracts and in regard to applications for re-sale quota and in other respects there are delays and uncertainties. A new type of middleman has been introduced who trades and deals in quotas. Secondly, there are the financial burdens involved. Thousands of pounds are paid yearly by the best concerns in buying quota. The colliery to which I

    1333
    have just referred has paid £8,000 or £10,000 in the last two years in buying quota. No services have been rendered for that money. On the other hand we find concerns which cannot raise their own coal but are given the right to raise coal. These concerns can sell that right at the rate of 1s. 6d. or 1s. 9d. a ton. The result is that a firm which merely signs a paper and lets to another its right to produce coal, for 1s. 6d. or 1s. 9d. a ton, makes a better profit in most cases than the firm which actually raises the coal. The profit of the firm which raises the coal may be only 3d. a ton. They may even incur a dead loss.
    Apart from the effects upon administration and the financial burden, we have also the check on development. A colliery is unable to develop expanding seams. A man told me the other day that he could build a thousand extra houses in a particular area in the next two years if he could get his development. Then take this case. We find that 150,000 extra tons were allotted to the Scottish district. To those pits in the Lothians which are being put on half time—and it is a most unfortunate period at which to put miners on half time—this extra allocation merely means one and a half days extra work. It means an, extra allocation of quota to pits which had no orders, yet at the same time in order to keep the men working up to the end of the year a colliery which I have in mind has had to spend 21,800 in buying quota to keep the men at work and complete their orders.
    There is a, further anomaly. There is the difficulty of differentiating between export and inland coal. The Minister in reply to a question the other day said that under the Act it was possible to make that differentiation. I was very glad to hear that remark and we only wish that he or his predecessors had given effect to such a possibility before. I have consulted with several leading experts in Scotland and they have assured me that it is impossible for practical purposes to make such a differentiation. It may be done on paper but in the actual practice of coal-mining, they say, it is impossible to differentiate between export and inland coal. I am not going into that argument now, but if the Minister finds it practic-
    1334
    able to put that differentiation into effect we shall have gone a step forward towards solving the problem.
    As regards the export trade, I am content to say that at a time when there are possibilities of expanding our export trade, when for the first time there is a depreciated exchange, when considerable advances are being made in the industrial uses of gas, meaning extra coal consumption in many countries—at this time we have chosen deliberately to place on the export trade the burden of allowing uneconomic pits to prolong their lives and have handicapped the pits upon which depend our chances of success in international markets. We know of many examples of international contests in which other countries subsidise their representatives and we do not subsidise ours. We have the example of foreign Olympic teams which are subsidised by their countries. This is an Olympic contest, a chariot race, and we have decided that we will not run our best horses, but that we will mix up the old crocks and the best horses together in teams of four, and, further, that we will make the traces of the best horses shorter so that they will have to carry the whole weight of the chariot and of the crocks as well.
    I believe that there are further powers under the Act which have not yet been put fully into execution. I believe that there are also further powers at the disposal of the Minister, but of that I am not quite sure. Whatever powers there may be under the present Act that have not yet been put into execution, if they are capable of being used to set right this intolerable situation of burden on the best export pits, of men standing idle while there are orders to fulfil, although personally I am not one of those who believe these powers are effective, or that they could be used, I am sure that we are all more than glad to trust the Minister to use them to the fullest extent during the next few weeks and months. If he should find that he, or those in the central councils, are unable to give effective expression to these powers, I hope he will come to the House and ask for further powers.
    4.42 p.m.
    Mr. MARTIN: I cannot follow the hon. and gallant Member for Midlothian (Captain Ramsay). I would like to ask why it is that from Scotland mainly this attack

    1335
    on the Act has come? In my own county there is no weight of opinion such as seems to exist in Scotland. I am tempted to ask who represents Scotland on the central council, why do their representatives not obtain adequate treatment from the central council or the district board, and why cannot the district board not allocate the surplus allocation which has always been available to those pits which really have the orders? Scotland compares rather badly with other districts, for, according to the figures, in the September quarter this year the percentage of deficiency compared with allocation was 10.7.
    Commander COCHRANE: Will the hon. Member explain how you can fill an order for 50,000 tons when we only have a surplus of 30,000 tons?
    Mr. MARTIN: It is in your own hands. The 10.7 per cent. represents 782,657 tons.
    Sir ADRIAN BAILLIE: If you have got only 25,000 tons of quota left, and you have an order for 30,000 tons or nothing, how are you going to fill it? If you do not fill it, does that not account for the disparity between allocation and deficiency?
    Mr. MARTIN: The few cases which have arisen during the last few months, and others which are hypothetical, cannot prove the case against this part of the Act. In Durham some of the pits are working full time and getting more than the minimum price for their coal. That is why I would like to ask the Minister to tell us something about the representation of Scotland. In a leading London newspaper to-day we have an interesting example of the sort of campaign that is being carried on against this part of the Act. In the "Daily Express" to-day there is an incredibly stupid front page article in which the amazing statement is made concerning this part of the Act, that the Northumberland owners are going to smash it by an action which, under the Act, is quite absurd. Perhaps the Minister can say whether he has seen that article himself.
    The issue seems to be between co-operation and co-ordinated control and absolutely uncontrolled competition, and we must be very careful before we urge the Minister to take any steps to abolish a portion of this legislation. We must be
    1336
    very careful to find out whether it would not be a greater detriment to the industry as a whole if this part of the Act were abolished. It seems to me that there might be such a chaotic condition and such a, process of attrition set up that it would be far worse for the industry than the present irregularity, which is due more to the engineers operating the machine than to the machine itself. If one looks at the 1930 Act, one will find an answer there to every point that has been put forward by the last speaker. Every point in that speech can be covered by certain sections of the Act, and it can be shown that the machine is all right, but that the engineers who have the duty of operating the machine in their own interests are at fault. Perhaps the Minister could therefore give his views on the operation of the machinery in all exporting districts.
    4.47 p.m.
    Mr. E. BROWN: I am sorry that hon. Members who desire to take part in this Debate cannot do so, but my task in replying is even harder than theirs. There is a diversity of opinion among those connected with the coal trade, and the diversity of opinion in this House again, namely, that the bulk of those who have spoken have spoken against the Act and only the minority in favour, is not comparable to the diversity of opinion outside in the coal trade. The majority of the coal trade outside would be in favour of the continuance of the Act. [Hon. MEMBERS: "No!"] I am making a statement of fact which can be proved. It is obvious that there is a division of opinion. Secondly, the whole House attaches great importance to the development of the export trade, and the Government attach the most urgent importance to it. Indeed, we have been spending the recent weeks in very grave endeavours to expand the export trade. It is also the policy of the Central Council operating the machine to do all that it can to facilitate the export trade in coal. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Dumbartonshire (Commander Cochrane) in one sentence hinted at the difficulty. He admitted that at the moment you could not isolate the inland from the export trade. That is not quite accurate. You can, but as it is administered now they are not isolated, and I should be very surprised to find that some of those who are most forward now in putting the

    1337
    export case would support a scheme of regulation which freed the export trade and divided the inland trade from it.
    My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Midlothian and South Peebles (Captain Ramsay), who has taken such a great interest in this matter, with other Scottish Members, these many weeks, says that it is extremely difficult. I would remind him that it is the same coal, and the difficulty is not in the coal; it is in the will to work the machine which is the Act. There is one other thing. Naturally, Scottish Members are very keen to prevent happenings like that in Fife or the Lothians. All those working the scheme would he keen to prevent any order being lost in a foreign market, but I would not like the House to adjourn with the impression that this has been the regular practice of the last two years. It is indeed the exception. I have said more than once, in answer to questions in this House, when we have had assertions that orders have been lost owing to the operation of the quota, that there is all the difference in the world between assertion and fact. The assertions are many, and the verifiable facts are very few indeed. It so happens that I was able to verify one of the facts having to do with exporters in my own constituency.
    Let me consider the machinery concerned. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Albert Russell) made an admirable maiden speech which we enjoyed and appreciated, and I only regret that he was not able to put the case at greater length, but we hope to hear more from him on another occasion on this important issue. He will know, as I already informed him when he brought the matter to my notice many weeks ago, as did other hon. Members in Fife, that I could not to-day discuss the question of the Wemyss Colliery Company. He knows perfectly well that they applied for an extra allocation. It was refused, not in London, but by the Scottish Executive Board. The company appealed to independent arbitration. Independent arbitration may be either one person or two, one on each side—the executive board on one side and the coal-owner on the other. It also may consist of three persons. The demand of this company went to arbitration, and it was refused. Therefore, it must be obvious on the face of it that there is a great deal more to be said in this case than
    1338
    has been said in the propaganda on behalf of the company or in the comments that have been made in public. The case is sub judice now because a particular consumer of coal who gets his coal from that firm has taken advantage of the machinery of the Act. Bodies of workmen can take advantage of that machinery, and it is significant that they have not done so. A consumer, however, has taken advantage of it, and at the present moment the case of the consumer as against the Scottish Executive Board is under investigation.
    It is true that the 150,000 tons extra allocation to Scotland will only make work for 1½ or 2 days at the most. Nevertheless, it was known that there is machinery in the Act whereby if pits cannot use their share of the allocation, it may be purchased by others. That was put in the Act in order to make elasticity as great as possible. Scottish Members appear to think that Scotland has been unfairly treated by being dragged at the tail of England, but I think the facts are so startling that the House is entitled to have them, and Scotland is entitled to have them. I need not go into the major point that there has been an excess of allocation over output in every quarter since the Act started, for that is true except in two small coalfields. It is also true that in the December quarter last year there was a very narrow excess, and owing to the expansion, which was perhaps a forecast of what is going on in North-West Europe—for which I know hon. Members will not blame the Government—the allocation was lower than it might have been if that had been foreseen. The figures are that the highest allocation excess was in March, 1932, and that was 10,000,000 tons. The lowest excess was 2,100,000, that is to say, 15.7 per cent. and 4.4 per cent. That was for England. In Scotland the excess for the September quarter, 1932, was 10.7 per cent. I may point out that the allocations have nothing to do with the standard tonnage. That is an arrangement between pit and pit inside the district. The allocations are made by the Central Council, on estimates by the Executive Board, and, though it is true that Scotland did not get its original demand, it has now the maximum allocation that was asked for by the Scottish Board.

    1339
    Those who think that Scotland has been unjustly treated ought to consider two sets of figures. The point made by the hon. Member for Dumbarton is a very important one. It is that there is a great relationship between the inland and the export trade. I can put the facts in two sentences. It is a very remarkable thing, in the case of the export trade during the last 10 months, that at a time when every other exporting district in Great Britain has had decreases, many of them heavy decreases, the only exporting district to increase its export was the East of Scotland. The West of Scotland shows a decrease, and so do Durham, Northumberland and South Wales, some of the decreases running up to 1,250,000 tons, whereas the East of Scotland has an increased export trade of 749,000 tons. That is not all. There is the coastwise traffic. Apart from two small ports in England, every district in England and Wales which takes part in the coastwise traffic shows a decrease for the last 10 months, but the East of Scotland shows an increased traffic of 336,000 tons and the West of Scotland over 100,000 tons. My Scottish friends will be on very dangerous ground if they attempt to argue that the Act as a whole is treating Scotland unfairly.
    There are two other points. I can dismiss the article referred to by the hon. Member in two sentences. In the first place, the writer of it commits the gravest sin that any journalist can commit. He prints news which is eight days old. He says that the Central Council have decided to give full allocation. That was decided on the 14th December, and refers only to the current quarter. The rest of the article I will
    1340
    dismiss by saying that the statements are so inaccurate that I can only think the writer was born of romantic parents. Another point was raised by the hon. and gallant Member for South Midlothian (Captain Ramsay) as to whether or not it is possible to separate inland and export coal. It is possible. It is provided for in the scheme. Let me give the relevant quotation from the Act. Section 18 says:
    "'Class' in relation to coal, means a class determined according to the nature of the coal …or according to whether it he supplied for use in Great Britain or for export to any other country."
    The Northumberland scheme, the Durham scheme, the Scotch scheme, all provide that if the Northumberland Executive Board, the Durham Executive Board, or the Scottish Executive Board desire to free the export trade they can do it by determining that a class of coal shall be export coal, for export coal is a class of coal in the terms of Section 18. I am not the judge, nor the Central Council, which has no power in this matter. I am stating the facts. To say why they have not done so would require an hour's speech, and at 5 o'clock on the day of the Adjournment I am not able to give that hour's speech, and I will sit down with one more sentence. I beg to reassure the House that both the Government and the Central Council intend to do all that can be done—and much can be done inside the scheme—to see that the export of coal from this country is not hampered but is helped.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Adjourned accordingly at One Minute before Five o'Clock until Tuesday, 7th February, 1933, pursuant to the Resolution of the House this day.

TRADE AND COMMERCE.
  WAR MATERIAL (EXPORT).
  WAR MATERIAL (EXPORT).
  STOCK EXCHANGE RESTRICTIONS.
  STOCK EXCHANGE RESTRICTIONS.
  IMPORT DUTIES (ITALIAN MARBLE TOMBSTONES).
  IMPORT DUTIES (ITALIAN MARBLE TOMBSTONES).
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (PROMOTION).
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (PROMOTION).
  MEAT IMPORT RESTRICTIONS.
  MEAT IMPORT RESTRICTIONS.
  MUSK RATS.
  MUSK RATS.
  ENTERTAINMENTS (CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR'S EVES).
  ENTERTAINMENTS (CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR'S EVES).
  ALIEN JEWS.
  ALIEN JEWS.
  PADDINGTON (IRISH IMMIGRANTS).
  PADDINGTON (IRISH IMMIGRANTS).
  LICENSING HOURS (EXTENSION).
  LICENSING HOURS (EXTENSION).
TRANSPORT.
  SLIPPERY ROAD SURFACES.
  SLIPPERY ROAD SURFACES.
  PETROL (PRICE).
  PETROL (PRICE).
  CASUAL WARDS (HEATING).
  CASUAL WARDS (HEATING).
  UNEMPLOYMENT (POOR LAW RELIEF).
  UNEMPLOYMENT (POOR LAW RELIEF).
  KENT COUNTY DISTRICTS (ROAD WORKS, WEST WICKHAM).
  KENT COUNTY DISTRICTS (ROAD WORKS, WEST WICKHAM).
  MATERNAL MORTALITY (STEPNEY).
  MATERNAL MORTALITY (STEPNEY).
  CHESTER TRAINING COLLEGE.
  CHESTER TRAINING COLLEGE.
ROYAL NAVY.
  ENGINEERING BRANCH.
  ENGINEERING BRANCH.
  LOWER-DECK PROMOTIONS.
  LOWER-DECK PROMOTIONS.
  EARL HAIG STATUE.
  EARL HAIG STATUE.
  PALESTINE (AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS).
  PALESTINE (AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS).
  GREECE (BRITISH CONSULAR STAFF, SALARIES).
  GREECE (BRITISH CONSULAR STAFF, SALARIES).
  FRENCH MOROCCO (LADY ALLCHIN, DETENTION).
  FRENCH MOROCCO (LADY ALLCHIN, DETENTION).
Preamble
The House met at twelve of the clock, the LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

DONCASTER AREA DRAINAGE BILL.
Report from the Committee of Selection, That the following Lords be proposed to the House to form the Select Committee to join with the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the said Bill; namely:

E. Eldon,

V. Esher,

L. Ellenborough,

L. Amulree,

L. Rhayader:

Agreed to; and the said Lords appointed accordingly.
Ordered, that such Committee have power to agree with the Committee of the House of Commons in the appointment of a Chairman.
Then a Message was ordered to he sent to the House of Commons in answer to their Message of yesterday; to inform them of the appointment of the said Committee by this House and to propose that the Joint Committee do meet in Committee Room No. 4, on Tuesday the 21st of February next at eleven o'clock.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL.
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act, 1911.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, a Message having been received from the Commons that they have passed the Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Bill, I beg to move that Standing Order No. XXXIX be suspended for this day's sitting for the purpose of passing the Bill through all its stages.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXXIX be suspended for this day's sit-
542
ting for the purpose of passing the Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Bill through all its stages.— (Viscount Hailsham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.
Bill read la.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.— (Viscount Hailsham.)
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.
Bill read 3a, and passed.

THE RECESS.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I now beg to move, That the House, on its adjournment, do adjourn for business, other than Judicial Business, until the 7th February, except that if it appears to the satisfaction of the Lord Chancellor that the public interest requires that the House should meet at an earlier time during such adjournment, the Lord Chancellor may give notice to the Peers that he is so satisfied, and thereupon the House shall meet at the time stated in such Notice, and shall transact its business as if it had been duly adjourned to that time. This is a form that has been recently used on more than one occasion where there is a possibility, but we hope not a probability, that circumstances might arise which would render an earlier meeting of the House necessary.
Moved to resolve, That the House on its adjournment, do adjourn for business, other than Judicial Business, until the 7th February, except that if it appears to the satisfaction of the Lord Chancellor that the public interest requires that the House should meet at an earlier time during such adjournment, the Lord Chancellor may give notice to the Peers that he is so satisfied, and thereupon the House shall meet at the time stated in such Notice, and shall transact its business as if it had been duly adjourned to hat time.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION.
The Royal Assent was given to the following Bills:
Consolidated Fund (No. 1),
Expiring Laws Continuance,
Public Works Facilities Scheme (Huddersfield Corporation) Confirmation.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past twelve o'clock.