Sitting of 9 December 1938

Preamble
The House met at Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.
ORAL ANSWER TO QUESTION.

  BARLEY GROWERS (AGRICULTURE ACT SUBSIDY).
  Mr. T. Williams(by Private Notice) asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is now in a position to announce the result of the consideration which the Government have been giving to the present situation in the barley-growing industry?
  The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. W. S. Morrison): The Government have been impressed with the serious situation which has resulted from the abnormal decline in prices of barley, particularly malting barley, and have summoned a conference of growers, brewers, maltsters and other users of barley, including merchants, to consider methods of preventing the recurrence of these conditions. It is recognised that any proposals which may be put forward by the conference can relate only to future seasons. So far as this season is concerned the Government, as an emergency measure of assistance to those farmers who are dependent on barley, propose to invite Parliament to increase from the present estimated figure of 10s. per acre to £1 per acre the subsidy payable to barley growers under the Agriculture Act in respect of this year's crop. Opportunity will be given to all growers of barley who have not hitherto applied for subsidy under that Act to do so, and to those who have elected for this season to take wheat deficiency payments under the Wheat Act, to reconsider their decision and, if they so desire, now to elect for subsidy under the Agriculture Act. As regards feeding barley and oats, the Government propose to review the degree of assistance afforded to those cereals under the Agriculture Act, 1937.
  Mr. Williams: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman what is likely to be the cost of this increase which is to be given to barley
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  growers; and, further, whether the brewers who have been receiving malting barley at an uneconomic price have been consulted to see whether they are willing to, make a contribution towards barley growers this year?
  Mr. Morrison: In reply to the first part of the supplementary question, the total cost is estimated at £400,000, including £100,000 of present commitments. With regard to the second part of the question, as I have informed the House, a conference is now sitting on which brewers are represented, and I have been impressed favourably by the desire of all parties to that conference to co-operate towards an agreed solution of this problem.
  Mr. De Chair: While appreciating my right hon. Friend's recognition of the emergency conditions in the barley industry and the assistance to be offered to that industry, I should like to know whether we are to understand that the barley growers who want to benefit by the assistance, if they are not registered under the Act of 1937, but have qualified for assistance under the Wheat Act, have to renounce their right under the Wheat Act if they want to qualify under the emergency provisions, because in Norfolk a great number of those who are in the worst plight as regards barley are also wheat growers on an almost equal scale, and, as he knows, advance payments have already been made of 13s. 6d. a quarter for wheat, and—
  Hon. Members: Speech.
  Mr. Morrison: In reply to my hon. Friend, my answer, I think, covers the points he raised. It will be open now to a grower of barley who is dependent upon that crop to choose again whether he will have this subsidy or his payment under the wheat deficiency scheme. It will assist large areas where barley-growing is the staple industry, and where only a small amount of wheat is grown.
  Mr. De Chair: What will happen in the cases where advance payments have already been made? Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that farmers will have to return those payments if they want to qualify?
  Mr. Morrison: No, Sir, they can he set off against any sum accruing under this scheme.
  Mr. T. Williams: As these problems are peculiarly seasonal and largely due to weather conditions, may I ask whether the Government in advancing the £400,000, will take any power to call for repayment should there be a very small crop and high prices are ruling?
  Mr. Morrison: No, Sir, that is not contemplated. This is an emergency provision to meet a very serious situation. As regards a long-term policy for barley, I hope that satisfactory proposals will arise out of the conference I have mentioned.
  Mr. Ridley: Will the Minister say whether what he describes as a very serious situation has anything at all to do with the dangerous uncertainties of the East Norfolk by-election, whether that serious situation stimulated the Government to action?
  Mr. Morrison: No, Sir, the serious situation to which I have referred is the fact that many farmers dependent upon barley are in a very bad plight indeed this season, and that is the consideration which alone has moved His Majesty's Government to this Measure.
  Sir Louis Smith: While I am perfectly sure that barley growers will welcome the announcement by the right hon. Gentleman, particularly at a moment when they are in such distress, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman hopes in the early part of next year to be able to announce in the House the long-term policy of the Government with regard to this crop?
  Mr. Morrison: As I have informed the House, we are studying the problem with the assistance of the conference which I have mentioned, and I cannot anticipate a date when we shall produce long-term legislation.
  Mr. Gallacher: Why do you not nationalise the land and finish with it?

  PERSONAL EXPLANATION.
  Mr. Beechman: In the course of the Debate in this House on 7th December, on restriction of liberty, I alluded to a Question put to this House on 29th November, by the hon. Member for Kingswinford (Mr. A. Henderson). As the hon.
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  Member has informed me that his Question referred to the dissemination by British agencies of news abroad, I wish to remove any ambiguity by quoting the Question:
  "Mr. ARTHUR HENDERSON asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the need for straight British news, by reason of the intensive anti-British propaganda now being carried on by certain other countries, His Majesty's Government will consider the desirability of establishing a special Press and propaganda department?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th November, 1938, col. 241: Vol. 342.]
  I wish to make it clear that I do not found any observations in regard to the control of the operations of the Press in this country on the Question.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACTS (1925 to 1934) AMENDMENT BILL.
  11.13 a.m.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Miss Ward: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  I had hoped that this would be a red-letter day in my political and Parliamentary history. I wanted to put on the Statute Book, with the agreement and co-operation of all parties in the House, a Bill for the establishment of new and comprehensive machinery under the workmen's compensation laws for dealing with miners' nystagmus cases and other industrial diseases to which underground workers are subject; but, as the House will appreciate when I unfold my story, I am asking hon. Members to-day not to take part in a feast but to take part in a funeral. When the luck of the Ballot came my way, I determined to apply three tests to any Bill which I might undertake to introduce. The first test was that it should be a practical Bill, and I believe that the Bill which is now before the House satisfies that test, because I have obtained the support of my hon. Friend and, indeed, I think the House will agree that it was rather unusual for a private Member to introduce a Bill which involves a Financial Resolution. The second test which I applied to my Bill was that it should be of benefit not only to people in all parts of the country, but should have some relation to the people in my own constituency.
  I can say with deep sincerity that no one who had the honour of representing what is partially, at any rate, a mining constituency, could be unaware of the distress which can occur in the lives of miners who have contracted miners' nystagmus. There have been many commissions and committees investigating this disease, and medical evidence has proved that the cure of the disease is bound up with the provision of work; in other words, in the language of the Haldane Committee, work is the salvation of the nystagmic miner. I regret to say that it has been the practice of colliery owners in some districts to differentiate against the nystagmic workers. In
  1492
  many districts such workers have had very little opportunity of getting that work upon which their cure depends. I would like to quote to the House a few figures in substantiation of that statement.
  In my own County of Northumberland the number of nystagmic workers partially incapacitated and out of work is 76 per cent. of the men so certified. In Durham County the percentage is 8z, in South Yorkshire 74, in West Yorkshire 75 and in South Wales 76. In view of the fact that part of the scheme for the provision of work for these nystagmic miners is bound up with the comprehensive policy which I have embodied in my Bill, I felt that if the Bill were put on the Statute Book it would be of real benefit to those men in my constituency who are sufferers from miners' nystagmus. Therefore, I think I can claim that my Bill would be of benefit to a section of the people in my own constituency.
  Thirdly, the test that I applied was that the Bill should be non-controversial in its basic purpose. I quite realise that there are always differences of opinion on details, but I wanted to find a Bill which, in its basic purpose, would be non-controversial, so I chose a Bill based on the recommendations of a Departmental Committee known as the Stewart Committee. I took that section of the Stewart Committee which dealt with the whole question of miners' nystagmus. I must point out to the House that on that Committee were two trade-union leaders, members of the trade union council, and the then president, and now ex-president, of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain. Their recommendations were unanimous. There was no minority report. There were no reservations. In view of the questions put in this House by Members of the Opposition above the Gangway and of the references made in speeches in this House to the recommendations of the Stewart Committee, I believed that hon. Members wanted the implementation of the essentials in those recommendations, and in the very short time during which one is permitted, under the Standing Orders of the House, to decide upon what Bill one is going to present, I felt there was ample justification for believing that I was introducing a Bill which, in its main purpose, was non-controversial.

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  The House will appreciate what a surprise it was for me to realise, after consultation with the appropriate Members of the Opposition, that the miners' representatives in the House were unanimously opposed, as I understand it, to the introduction and Second Reading of the Bill. Indeed, so far were they opposed to it that they very kindly sent me a copy of their workmen's compensation sub-committee's report upon my draft Bill, and I found that they were opposed to some recommendations of the Stewart Committee and that they intended to oppose every Clause of the Bill. Hon. Members can very well imagine my feelings when I realised that the Bill which I had legitimately assumed to be non-controversial was to be opposed point by point and Clause by Clause. So, I come before the House not believing now that my Bill will reach the Statute Book, but for the purpose of asking for a Second Reading in order that I may hear the objections which hon Gentlemen opposite offer to the Bill. I am no expert on mining problems. My desire was the genuine one of frying to help the implementation of the recommendations contained in that unanimous report and to assist in helping the miners who suffer from miners' nystagmus. If hon. Members above the Gangway feel that they cannot support my Bill I, being a strong believer in democracy have no intention of asking them to accept it. I say so with very great regret, but that is the position that I would be bound to take up in the circumstances, much as I regret having to do so.
  It seems to me a most extraordinary thing that the Bill is to be opposed Clause by Clause, after three trade-union leaders, including the president of the Miners' Federation, signed the unanimous report. I have always understood that in trade-union organisation you obtained leadership of your particular union because of your outstanding knowledge and services in relation to the union of which you were a member. It is most remarkable that although three men who have won the confidence of their unions were prepared unanimously to sign the report as a sound and proper basis for new legislation, not a single point in the recommendations subsequently embodied in the Bill receives the support of the Miners' Federation.
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  I have no intention of wearying the House now with the whole of the details of the Bill, because I realise that other people are following me with Bills which, fortunately for them, are unopposed, but I would like to make clear one or two points. I said earlier in my remarks that one of the main objects of the recommendations of the Stewart Committee was to get away from the differentiation exercised against nystagmic workers. I want now to read a statement and a proposal made by the sub-committee of the Miners' Federation on my Bill, and that portion in the Report which relates to this specific proposal. It is a most remarkable thing, to my mind, that there should be any doubt as to what was the intention of the Stewart Committee in regard to this question. This is what the workmen's compensation sub-committee of the Miners' Federation said in relation to that portion of the Bill which is designed to correct the differentiation against nystagmic workers. Referring to Clause 3, they say:
  "This section cannot be properly considered without reference to the policy of differentiation which has been so long followed by the employers in relation to the employment of nystagmic workers. The Bill contains no provision which in any way discourages that policy. Workmen who are partially disabled are in most cases not provided with suitable employment, notwithstanding that emphasis has been laid by all parties on the fact that suitable employment is an essential part of the treatment towards recovery. In the case of those who have recovered sufficiently to enable them to return to their own employment underground, and have been certified accordingly, they are in the majority of cases excluded from work for all time. The practical effect of present legislation is to enable and encourage the employers to continue this policy. This Bill contains no provision which in any way modifies that policy, nor does it restrict its continuation in any way; and, in the absence of clear statutory provision on this point, this section will tend to give even further encouragement to and reasons for the perpetuation and extension of this policy."
  I say to hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway, and I think they will do me the honour of believing what I say, that, if I believed that the Bill I was about to introduce was reflected in the words I have just read out, I would not have touched it. But let me give the other side of the picture. Here is what is said on it at page 30 of the Stewart Committee's Report:
  "Unless the Mining Association can give an assurance on behalf of employers generally we think that the Home Office

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  should seek a definite undertaking from, or on behalf of, the employers in each district that they will do their utmost to re-employ men who have suffered from miner's nystagmus when they are certified, or agreed, to be fit either for their old work or for other suitable work above or below ground. So far as work on the surface is concerned the undertaking which we suggest does not go further than that which the Mining Association was prepared to accept as reasonable in 1925, or indeed beyond what we believe to be the actual position in most districts at the present time. To enable the Home Office to watch the position we think the coal owners should be required to include in the returns which they already send to the Home Office a return showing the extent to which nystagmic workmen are being provided with work."
  That proposition is embodied in the Bill, and presumably also comes under the condemnation of hon. Members above the Gangway. The Report goes on to say, and I would call the attention of the House specifically to this paragraph:
  "It is in the highest degree desirable that the arrangements which we have suggested above should be brought about voluntarily. Any form of compulsion must of necessity give rise to difficulties and is on general grounds undesirable. We hope that nothing of the kind may be necessary. We are of opinion, however, that in the event of any district refusing to give an undertaking, or failing to implement it if given, intervention, which might lead to the imposition of obligations of a very drastic character, would be imperative. The precise form which the intervention should take would depend on the cause of the trouble and the circumstances generally."
  I had intended in my speech to ask the Under-Secretary to give me an assurance that he would so approach the Mining Association, and I have no reason to doubt, because the Government are behind the implementation of all these recommendations, which are faithfully embodied in my Bill, that my hon. Friend would have given me that undertaking. The Bill provides, as I have already said, for enabling the Home Office to watch the position, and I cannot see why hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway should have felt it necessary to accept the statement in their workmen's compensation sub-committee's report that the Bill made no provision whatsoever for trying to better the position, but rather contains provisions which would worsen the position. That makes it extraordinarily difficult for me to understand what is at the back of the minds of my hon. Friends on the other side of the Gangway.
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  There is one other point that I should like to make. In order to enable employment to be found for nystagmic workers, we have suggested, in accordance with the recommendations of the Stewart Committee, giving power to the medical boards, when the consideration of the case of any individual man is before them, to ask for information from the individual colliery as to what provision is likely to be made for the re-employment of the man if he is put off compensation. That is an additional provision in the Bill to try to remedy the position so far as differentiation against nystagmic workers is concerned.
  There is still one other point on which I would touch. I think that the real objection of hon. Gentlemen to the Bill is on the question of a new definition of the disease. I think I can claim that, if one reads the Report and the medical evidence, which, indeed, is substantiated by the signatures of the trade union representatives on the Committee, that a new definition involving a test as to oscillation is a possible and sound recommendation. But I want to go one step further. We have attempted to meet the objections to the decision being in the hands of a medical referee by proposing the establishment of a medical board, which would be selected by the Home Secretary, which would be paid for out of moneys provided by Parliament, and on which would sit two experts, one an ophthalmic surgeon and one a physician, not only in order that they might raise the whole question of the incapacity or capacity of the individual workman to work, but in order to try to assist by reassuring the men, offering them advice and treatment, and, indeed, carrying out a friendly test rather than simply regarding themselves as people who are there to get the men off compensation at the earliest possible moment. I have noticed on many occasions, in speeches which have been made by hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway, that they have taken very grave exception to the present system, which makes a man's whole future dependent on the decision of one man. Many speeches have been made by hon. Members in this House, and I have one here which I should like to quote. It was made on the Workmen's Compensation Bill which was introduced on 18th November, and it was made by

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  an hon. Member who represents a constituency in my own part of the country. He said:
  "I want to conclude with this: To-day the decision of the medical referee is the decision of one man. I have heard legal gentlemen speaking in this House quote a maxim laid down by the Lord Chief Justice or someone else, that not only must justice be done but that justice must appear to have been done. We want the man who goes before a medical referee to have the feeling that justice has been done. We say that it is not right that the destiny of an injured workman should be in the hands of one man, that one man should determine what is to be for all time the standard of life of that man and his family, and, therefore, we propose a board of three medical referees."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th November, 1938; cols. 1238–9, Vol. 341.]
  It is true that my Bill proposes a board of only two medical referees; but, at any rate, that is an advance on the present system, which has been, so rightly I think, condemned by hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway. We want the workman to feel that he has had a fair examination, and that nothing more could have been done as regards the examination. That new proposal of mine covered what hon. Gentleman were asking for in the Bill they introduced.
  The new definition of miners' nystagmus is, I think, a point to which the attention of the House should be called. We embarked on this new definition because it was recommended by the Stewart Committee. At the same time, we also agreed to the recommendation for the establishment of a medical board. The medical board was to have power to hear an appeal, and we did not carry the definition of miners' nystagmus, so far as the oscillation of 15 seconds, stooping and in the dark, was concerned, to the medical board; we gave the medical board power to decide on all the relevant evidence. But in response to representations made by hon. Gentlemen, and because I was so determined that no man who suffered from miners' nystagmus should be done an injustice, under the new procedure, I asked my hon. Friend whether the Government would consider a concession which even went outside the recommendations of the Committee. I asked that the medical board should be entirely free to certify a man to be suffering from miners' nystagmus without any definition. I am glad and proud to say that my hon. Friend, with-
  1498
  out any question, though after consultation with the appropriate authorities of course, accepted my request and told the mining Members in the House that the medical board would be perfectly free in all circumstances, with no terms attached, to consider the case of any man who might appeal from the decision of the certifying surgeons.
  There is no point in my taking up the time of the House further. I have done my best to introduce a Bill which I genuinely believed would be of benefit to the nystagmic workers. I say this—and I do not think anyone can challenge my statement—that, whatever the result of the turning down of the Bill may be, the nystagmic workers will be the losers. But I am not going to press the Bill. Those who are the trusted representatives of the miners must take their own course. I, so far as the miners are concerned, am an outside person: I am not of them, so to speak. But I did hope and believe that this Bill would be beneficial. The miners are not prepared to accept it, and I would not dream of asking either my friends in the House or the Government to press a Bill on the miners which they are prepared to work against Clause by Clause. I, naturally, am disappointed. I believed that I might perhaps even have created a Parliamentary record as a woman Member by being so fortunate as to get two private members' Bills on the Statute Book. That goes by the board, but I am not defeated. I would far rather go down in fighting a good cause than I would win in achieving a bad one. I am going down fighting, because, although I lose to-day, I believe that in the future I shall win. It may be that one day hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway will introduce a Bill to deal with the people whose interests I have served to-day. If they do, I hope that the Bill will be as good as the one I have introduced to-day. I am neither defeated nor downhearted. One day I shall come again.
  11.42 a.m.
  Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: I beg to second the Motion.
  I am sure the House will want me to congratulate the hon. Member—
  Mr. Batey: I am in a dilemma. Has the hon. Lady moved the Bill or withdrawn it?
  Miss Ward: Yes, I have moved the Bill.
  Mr. Nicholson: As I was saying, I am sure the House will want me to congratulate my hon. Friend on the manner in which she introduced the Bill, and to mingle with those congratulations the sincere condolences of hon. Members on all sides that she has not been able to achieve what is the ambition of every hon. Member by getting the Bill on the Statute Book. We should all have been pleased if she had achieved the record of being the first woman Member to get two Bills on the Statute Book in the same Parliament. I do not wish to waste the time of the House any more than my hon. Friend has done. She has taken the stand that she has "come to bury Caesar, not to praise him." I thought it rather ominous that we should see in the House at present my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Sir A. Wilson), who has a book in the press on the compensation laws, and who has just published one on burial reform.
  I want to pay this tribute to the hon. Lady. I am sure nobody in this House doubts her deep sincerity and her profound wish to do something to help the miners. We have both contested the same constituency. In one case I was successful; in another, I was defeated by the hon. Member who sits above the Gangway, but I got 20,000 miners' votes. I hoped myself that this would have been a day of good omen, because this is my own subject. With the help of hon. Members above the Gangway, I got a Bill through four years ago dealing with this same subject. In addition, this happens to be my birthday, and I hoped that I was going to get a birthday present from the House in the shape of this Bill, or, at any rate, its Second Reading. This Bill, obviously, is for the benefit of miners, and it is entirely the business of the miners' representatives what is done with it. But I would remind them that, it is also their responsibility, and that if they reject a Bill, introduced with the sincere intention of benefiting the miners, it will not be forgotten in their constituencies. I quite understand that there may be objections, and I quite agree that any Bill that affects workmen's compensation, if it is to be successful, must be more or less an agreed Bill. But I am faced with this dilemma. Every person who has to deal with miners not only
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  expresses, but feels, the deepest sympathy with the victims of accidents, and particularly with the victims of nystagmus.
  Mr. Batey: Sympathy is all they get.
  Mr. Nicholson: The hon. Member has said truly that sympathy is all they get. We have opposed each other's Bills, I voted against the Bill which hon. Members introduced in November, and they have voted against this Bill to-day. We lavish sympathy upon them. My hon. Friend said that she was not downhearted about this Bill, and hon. Members above the Gangway are not downhearted, but I can tell them who will be downhearted about the Bill, and that will be the sufferers from miners' nystagmus.
  Mr. Batey: They are being led to believe that they are going to get something.
  Mr. Nicholson: It will not be forgotten. I beseech the House to have some sense of reality. If we go on voting against each other's Bills, the victims of accidents in the mining industry will be downhearted. I regard this matter as the most serious to come before this House, as nobody representing a mining constituency can ever get out of his mind the position of those who suffer from accidents and disease in that industry. I certainly cannot.
  I have a proposition to put before the House, and I ask hon. Members to consider it seriously. I ask hon. Members to look at the long Title of the Bill. The hon. Lady was kind enough to ask my assistance in drafting it, and, having made the mistake in my own Bill of drawing too narrow a title, I made this long Title the most comprehensive that I possibly could. Hon. Members will observe that it embraces the whole of the recommendations of the Stewart Report. The suggestion I make is that we should let the Bill go to Committee—perhaps this is out of Order, Mr. Speaker, but I hope not—not with the intention in our minds of getting the Bill on to the Statute Book, but with the intention of using the facilities of the Committee stage to get all the recommendations of the Stewart Report thrashed out. I, on my part, speaking for myself and, I think, for certain other hon. Friends of mine, will

  1501
  be prepared to give a pledge, if the miners' representatives in the House, who are more or less unanimously opposed to any suggestion, that I will back them up in that opposition, and will not try to get the Bill through. It is a thousand pities, when you have had a Committee sitting for some time and a most interesting report has been produced that that report should not be discussed either by this House or by a Committee of this House. The proper place for it to be discussed is in Committee, and, apart from that, I still think that bits of it will be accepted by everybody. I refer particularly to Clause 11, which is, perhaps, small but none the less valuable as far as it goes. That is the whole tenor of my speech to-day.
  I suggest that the Bill be sent to Committee in order that all the recommendations of the Stewart Report may be debated at as great a length as hon. Members may think necessary. When I was a small child, on my birthday, I used to be allowed to choose my own dinner—I expect that most hon. Members have been in that happy position—and the dinner that I choose for to-day is that, as quickly as possible, cutting the cackle as far as we can, we should agree to send the Bill to Committee in order to thrash out every aspect of the Stewart Report.
  11.49 a.m.
  Mr. Gordon Macdonald: I beg to move, to leave out the word "now," and, at the end of the Question, to add the words "upon this day six months."
  It is with some little regret that I rise to move the rejection of this Bill, partly because I would have liked to have seen the hon. Member for Wallsend (Miss Ward) secure a record. I fully appreciate her disappointment. She and I have been in constant and very close contact for two or three days in the presence of the Under-Secretary for the Home Department, and we agreed yesterday that, however, kind she was to me, I was to be kinder to her, and I shall certainly keep to my promise. I feel that this Bill is like all Bills that are introduced in this House. There are some portions of it which are acceptable, other portions which are less acceptable, and there are also provisions which are thoroughly objectionable. That is my case as regards this Bill.
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  There are provisions in the Bill to which I should extend a whole hearted welcome if there was nothing else in the Bill but those provisions. I have sympathy with the provisions of Clauses 3 and 6—the differential clauses—and I am very pleased to know that the Government, along with the hon. Member, realise that the coalowners have been very unfair, unreasonable and harsh in their treatment of nystagmus cases in the past. I am very pleased to know that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department also takes the view that these cases have been very unsympathetically dealt with in days gone by. I accept these Clauses as far as they go; they are feeble, and, I am afraid, ineffective Clauses in achieving that purpose. Nevertheless, knowing as I do what sufferers from nystagmus have experienced with regard to re-employment, I welcome these Clauses as far as they go. The hon. Member for Wallsend rather emphasized the reference to the fact that an appeal was to be made to coal-owners to be more sympathetic towards these cases in future and not to be so unready to re-employ these men.
  A week last Saturday—and this is months after this report was published—I was present at the meeting of the executive committee of the Miners' Federation for Lancashire, when one of the miners' agents brought forward a case of nystagmus from which the sufferer had fully recovered. The pit where he used to work having closed, he was reemployed at another colliery. He worked there for several weeks and gave every satisfaction, every official being pleased with his work. It was then discovered that at some time in his life the man had suffered from nystagmus, and he was immediately given notice that his services were no longer required. Therefore, it is evident that there is need for something to be done on these lines, and that appealing to the coalowners is not sufficient. In Lancashire to-day it is almost impossible for any man who has suffered from miners' nystagmus to be reemployed by the colliery. The Clauses in the Bill are an indication of what should be done—they do not go far enough—and as far as they go, I welcome them.
  Clauses 4 and 5 dealing with lump sum settlements are in the right direction. To-day the position is very unfair to the worker. The employer can at any time, if

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  he thinks fit, apply to the county court for a lump sum settlement and ask the judge to make an award which the man has no option but to accept. There are cases in which, perhaps, the workman himself would like a lump sum settlement, but no matter for what purpose he wants it, or how anxious he may be to get it, he cannot go to the county court and ask the judge to make an order for a lump sum settlement. This Bill does provide for that in nystagmus cases, and I welcome the provision. It is a good and a very necessary provision. It is very unfair that the employer should be in a privileged position as compared with the workman. I do not object to the qualifications in the Clause. I think that it must be dependent upon the medical board agreeing that it is a good thing for the workman to have a lump sum settlement. This is a good provision. When one considers the danger of nystagmus cases, nervy and anxious as the sufferers are, and frequently abnormal in their outlook, it may sometimes be in the interests of the sufferer to have a lump sum settlement, and advice from the medical board as to whether he should have such a settlement or not is a good provision. But the decision still remains with the man as to whether he will accept the advice. It does not put the coal-owner in a better position than that in which he is to-day, when he can go in any case to the county court to make an application, but it does put the worker in a better position. Clauses 4 and 5 are in the right direction, but they need drastic Amendment.
  I also welcome Clause 7. The setting up of medical boards in place of medical referees is in the right direction. I am not prepared to agree that one medical referee should have it in his power to determine the future of a workman and have the final and conclusive voice governing the remainder of the man's life. A medical board is a good thing. I and my hon. Friends have worked for a medical board in the past for disease and accident cases, and we shall continue to do so in the future. Clause 7 is a very good clause. I do not see any objection to Clause 9, which deals with compulsory insurance; it is in the right direction also. We ought to be quite clear on this point. The hon. Member for Wallsend is entirely wrong when she says that she has had
  1504
  some document which convinced her that we were opposed to this Bill entirely. There are objectionable features in almost every Clause, but there are certain Clauses which we would welcome, provided they were subjected to some drastic amendment.
  Now I come to the Clauses which are most objectionable. We did not see the Bill until last Tuesday. That is hardly fair, for a Bill of this importance. Since Tuesday we have had some very hurried meeting's to consider the Bill and to arrange consultations with all concerned. No one need think that we have not considered the miners' interests in coming to our decision to oppose the Second Reading of the Bill. Miners' representatives have never been as unanimous on any Bill as on this. The hon. Member for Wall-send suggests that a man becomes a trade union leader because of his go-ahead spirit and because of the confidence that is placed in him and that, therefore, the trade unionists under his leadership should necessarily accept his views. That argument can be applied to the Prime Minister. There are hon. Members who support the Prime Minister but who differ from him on certain important questions. Not long ago, for instance, he dropped the Milk Bill because of opposition. With regard to Mr. Jones, we put him into his present position in the miners' movement because we believed he was the best man for the job; but we do not think that everything that he does is necessarily right. We do not think that of any leader, because we do not accept the doctrine of infallibility. Mr. Jones has appended his signature to a report to which, in certain respects, we take exception.
  Why do we particularly object to Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill? We object because we think they would operate directly against the interests of the miners. If anyone could convince us that it would be in the interests of the miners that these Clauses should go on to the Statute Book, we should gladly support them. We cannot take that view. We have considered the matter very carefully and we have taken the best expert advice we could get, and we are satisfied that those Clauses would operate adversely to the interests of the miners. Let me try to illustrate my argument. Let us say that a mining friend of mine has something wrong with his eyes. He goes to his panel doctor and says: "I do not know what is wrong

  1505
  with me, but I suffer from headaches and dizziness." The panel doctor says: "I think, but I am not sure, that there are signs of nystagmus. You had better see your branch secretary and go to the certifying surgeon." The man sees the branch secretary and goes to the certifying surgeon, who examines him and says: "Yes, quite definitely," and he issues a certificate that the man is suffering from nystagmus. The certificate then goes to the coalowners, and they almost inevitably send him to their own colliery doctor, who examines him and says: "Yes, I think the certifying surgeon is right. It is nystagmus." If, on the other hand, the colliery doctor says that the man has eye trouble but it is not nystagmus, the case goes to the medical referee, and expert on the disease, who either says, "You have nystagmus," or "You have not nystagmus." That is the end of it. The case cannot be carried any further.
  We say that the machinery is sufficient to diagnose the disease and that it needs no alteration. It does not need anything in an Act of Parliament to say that if you do not find oscillation in the eye, continuing for 15 seconds, you must say that the man has not nystagmus. That is not fair. We know that there are times when oscillation is not there. It may be that just at the time when the man presents himself to the certifying surgeon there will not be oscillation. In the morning, for instance, after he has had a good night's sleep, it is possible that his eyes will not show oscillation for 15 seconds. The Bill says that provision is made for that. It says that the man can go at a later stage to a medical board of two experts, one a physician and the other an eye specialist, and that they can decide that he has nystagmus, even if there is no oscillation present. Where are we getting? A man is turned down by the certifying surgeon because he cannot say that there is oscillation for 15 seconds, and then there is power proposed in the Bill that a medical board shall be able to say that he has nystagmus even if there is no oscillation of the eyes. That cannot be right. Surely, if it is to be in the power of a medical board to grant a certificate without oscillation being present, it ought to be in the power of the certifying surgeon to do so.
  I hope the Under-Secretary will not object to what I am about to say. The
  1506
  hon. Lady in her speech practically made out our case, because she constantly quoted from our documents. I hope the Under-Secretary will not mind my stating that I asked him whether he could give me the precentage of cases of nystagmus receiving compensation at the present time that would not be receiving it if this Bill had been in operation. He said that he could not give the percentage. asked him whether it would be 5, 10, 15, or 25 per cent. He again said that he could not give the figure, but he added: "There are a large number of cases now receiving compensation for nystagmus which under this Bill would not be receiving compensation." We do not want men to receive compensation for nystagmus if they are not suffering from nystagmus. If we thought that men were receiving compensation for nystagmus when they were not entitled to it, and that was happening in anything like large numbers, we should take steps to prevent it. We certainly do not want men to receive compensation for disease from which they do not suffer.
  We oppose the Bill, Clauses 1 and 2 in particular, because we are not satisfied that the methods suggested for diagnosing the disease are the best methods. Doctors differ in their opinions. The majority of doctors say that oscillation must be present before there can be nystagmus, but I could produce an important minority of doctors who differ from that view. We do not think that this Bill is the right way to deal with this difficulty in connection with cases of miners nystagmus. There is a grievance, and we think that the legislation dealing with nystaginus cases should be amended, but not on these lines. We are asked to say what we would do if the Bill got a Second Reading. We are asked whether we could agree to the Second Reading, and then in Committee agree to certain Amendments or to the deletion of certain Clauses, so that the hon. Member for Wallsend would have the privilege of saying: "Not only have I piloted one Bill through the House of Commons, but I have piloted two." I was pleased to hear her say that she did not want to pilot a Bill through the House merely because it was a Bill, but that she wanted to pilot a Bill of substantial character. This Bill cannot be made a Bill of a substantial character in Committee—not

  1507
  with our approval. You may get non-mining Members to go on to the Committee to defeat the mining Members, but this Bill could not get through in any substantial form with the approval of the mining Members, because we are convinced that it is in the interests of the miners to keep it off the Statute Book.
  Miners' nystagmus is a dread disease. Some of my friends have suffered from the disease and I have seen them, strong men physically, sitting with their heads in their hands, distressed and in pain, and finding life of no interest. I have always said that something must be done more than is being done for nystagmus cases. A friend of mine committed suicide and his wife received compensation because it was decided that he had committed suicide in consequence of miners' nystagmus. It is not a disease that troubles a man temporarily, but it is a very serious matter for him. I suggest that it should not be left to a private Member to deal with this urgent question, but that the Government should take it up themselves and see that the legislation which is introduced is not only in the interest of the employers, in taking away from them a certain burden which they resent carrying, but is in the interests of the miners who are suffering from this disease. I want legislation which will deal with the victims of this disease. It is their interests which is our concern, and it is because the Bill does not deal effectively with the interests of the victims that we oppose it.
  12.6 p.m.
  Mr. W. Joseph Stewart: I beg to second the Amendment.
  I do so as a miners' representative, and after due deliberation, because I believe that certain Clauses of the Bill, if it became law, would be prejudicial to the best interests of thousands of miners in this country who are suffering from miners' nystagmus. We often have compensation Bills introduced into this House dealing with the remuneration to be paid to workmen who are injured during the course of their duty, but I suggest that there can be no real compensation for loss of health, loss of pleasure, loss of economic security and a lowering of earning capacity in the future. It is only one of a multitude of efforts to placate a workman who has been injured, or who
  1508
  is suffering from disease as a result of his work. I suggest that the time has arrived, as far as compensation is concerned, when we should get away from piece-meal methods of dealing with this matter and introduce something which will bring a greater measure of justice to the great mass of people who are broken under the industrial machine. We are considering to-day a Measure which, I suggest, is in certain parts prejudicial to the best interests of our people. We strongly object to Clause i. We consider that the present description of the disease known as miners' nystagmus should be retained. Under the present statutory provisions the disease is described in the following terms:
  "The disease known as miners' nystagmus, whether occurring in miners or others, and whether the symptoms of oscillation of the eyeballs be present or not."
  We object to the provision in Clause that no certification can be made unless the certifying surgeon
  "finds that oscillation of the eyeballs persists for not less than 15 seconds when the eyes are tested in a darkened room after the workman has performed suitable stooping exercises."
  If, for instance, the persistence of oscillation for 15 seconds results in a certificate of total disability in the case of A, would B be excluded from compensation, although the sole difference between his case and that of A is that in the case of B the oscillation is only for 14 seconds? It has already been observed that there is a proviso at the end of Clause 2 where a medical board, after examination of the workman and considering all the relevant evidence before them, are not prevented from determining that a workman is suffering from nystagmus if they are satisfied that oscillations of the eyes has been present in his case. Under that provision it is quite possible for the medical board to issue a certificate certifying that the workman is suffering from miners' nystagmus, notwithstanding the fact that there is no evidence whatever to prove that he has at any time had oscillations which have persisted for the 15 seconds set out in the Clause. Under the Clause there are two types of cases. The first is that a workman is excluded from the right to receive compensation because his oscillations do not persist for the specified period of 15 seconds, and, secondly, the case of a workman who is entitled to compensation without proof

  1509
  relating to the persistence of oscillations. In our view this will lead in practice to gross and unsatisfactory anomalies which could easily be avoided if the present statutory definition of the disease were retained.
  In my experience as a miner I remember during the years preceding the War and during War years being troubled with this dread disease of nystagmus. While on the surface it would not be discernible to the man in the street or to a medical expert that I had the disease. But getting below into the working place, where I had to proceed in a stooping position, where the lighting was bad and where the conditions altogether militated against me, the oscillations were prevalent and were clearly discernible. In more ways than one I realised that I was the subject of nystagmus. In fact, in going in and out to my working place—some of my comrades can bear me out—in meeting a light coming towards me or overtaking a light, I had to step on one side until the lights got out of the way before I attempted to proceed on my journey in or out of the mine. I submit that while these symptoms may be clearly defined below ground, there may not be above ground the necessary oscillations set out in Clause r which must determine whether a man supposed to be suffering from this disease has really got it or not.
  The Bill does not say definitely that anything is to be done in regard to the provision of work for men who are incapacitated from nystagmus except in Sub-section(1, c) of Clause 7, where it is stated:
  "giving advice with respect to that disease and with respect to suitable employment for a workman examined by the board."
  The Bill contains no provision for the employment of men who are suffering from nystagmus and are certified for light work. Workmen who are partially disabled are in most cases not provided with suitable work, notwithstanding the fact that all parties, medical men and others concerned, agree that work is necessary for recovery. In looking at the Stewart Report for the autumn of 1936 I find that there were 2,488 men suffering from partial incapacity and fit for light work, but for them practically no light work was available. In West Yorkshire we had 180 men, in South Yorkshire 483, in Northumberland 179, in Durham 895, in
  1510
  North Wales 57 and in South Wales 694, or a total of 2,488 men who had been certified as fit for light work. Yet the owners did not provide that work which the medical fraternity suggested should be provided in the best interest of the men. Instead, in West Yorkshire we had 44 employed, in South Yorkshire 123, in Northumberland 42, in Durham 153, in North Wales 23 and in South Wales 165. That is a total of 550 persons for whom light work was found out of 2,488 cases, or 22 per cent.
  We strongly object to the provision contained in Clause 6 for this reason: The practical effect of the Clause is to impose a penalty upon the men affected. The fixing of an arbitrary period of 13 weeks is objectionable because it ignores the question of fruitful earning capacity and therefore violates one of the principles upon which the right to compensation is based. Under this Clause the workman is deprived of his right to compensation notwithstanding the fact that it is admitted that he is disabled in consequence of a scheduled disease; and thus without the slightest justification the employer is relieved from his obligations. If this Clause were put into effect what is the person to do when compensation is no longer payable? We have many in-stances of what happens in the county of Durham. I was going through some papers this year, and I found that in Durham there are 520 persons receiving compensation who have to make application to the Poor Law because their compensation is inadequate to meet their immediate needs. The result is that this year Durham has had to spend approximately £21,000 out of the rates to meet the needs of these people, who ought to have sufficient compensation from other sources instead of having to seek assistance from the pockets of the ratepayers.
  I could go on dealing with other Clauses of the Bill. I do say that with many parts of the Bill we are in agreement, but there are one or two Clauses with which we are in disagreement and which, if they became law, we believe would militate against the best interests of those suffering the fell disease of nystagmus.
  12.23 p.m.
  Sir Arnold Wilson: I sympathise with the hon. Lady who has moved the Second Reading of the Bill. She is the

  1511
  victim of the futile Rules of this House, whereunder no Member successful in the Ballot has adequate time to draft his Bill, and to discuss it with others. This elaborate, de-tailed and difficult Bill was put before Members of the House at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, was on the Order Paper on Wednesday and did not reach country Members until the first post on Thursday. That is not a system at all; the sooner it is altered the better. If the hon. Lady has six weeks or two months in which to frame the Bill and to discuss it with the interests concerned, I do not doubt that the nystagmic miner would be better off. If the nystagmic miner is not getting the satisfaction he deserves, it is thanks to our Rules and our failure to bring them up-to-date.
  The speeches of the hon. Members who opposed the Bill certainly suggest that, like the curate's egg, the Bill is good in parts, and that they would be prepared to accept those parts. That being the case, I cannot but think that suggestion of the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. G. Nicholson), that the Bill should go upstairs for further consideration, has much in its favour. I should be sorry to see the Bill withdrawn. Clause 9, if nothing else, is worth having, and there are certain other Clauses which are good and my only fear is expressed in the words of the late Lord Morley in his book on "Compromise" (1st Ed. p. 185–7) where he says—
  "A small and temporary improvement may really be the worst enemy of a great and permanent improvement unless the first is made on the lines and in the direction of the second." Otherwise "it makes it more difficult to return to the right lines and direction when improvement is demanded."
  He goes on to say:
  "The second possible evil of a small reform is not that it takes us out of the progressive course, but that it is represented as settling the question…setting men's minds in a position of contentment not justified by the amount of what has been done, which makes it all the harder to arouse them to new effort when the inevitable time arrives."
  As a Royal Commission is about to be appointed, I do not think the second objection holds good, and as long as the mining industry is as well represented as it is in this House, there is not much in the first objection. The case for giving the Bill a Second Reading is thus a strong
  1512
  one. The Bill concerns four Departments of Government; it is the concern of the Mines Department; of the Medical Research Council, which works under the Lord President of the Council; and it should concern the Ministry of Health. It is merely an historical accident that it should be under the Home Office.
  Nystagmus costs the employers £450,000 a year; it costs miners as a community at least twice as much as that. The hon. Lady has done a great service to the whole community by raising the matter; but I very much doubt the first two Clauses of the Bill will help sufferers. These Clauses are based on the report of the Stewart Committee. I feel sure that they were wrong. If they felt sure of the argument, why did they not publish the evidence given before them? Why did they assure all the witnesses that they would be heard in private and that nothing would be ever said as to what they told the Committee? This House ought not to act, in general, upon the reports of Committees, however learned and representative those Committees may be, if they deliberately suppress the evidence on which they base their reports. That is more particularly the case when no Member of the House is a member of the Committee. It is clear from the Committee's Report that there was a great divergence of evidence given before them, and when they say that some witnesses thought this and others that, we are entitled, as the High Court of Parliament, to know who took one view and who took another.
  As has been said by hon. Members who moved the rejection of the Bill, the Bill leaves virtually untouched the two main sources of trouble. One is inability to find alternative employment which is really the cure for nystagmus, and the other is the question of medical boards and medical referees. It is true that a medical board of two is substituted for a medical referee; but the miners do not trust the medical referee to-day, and the Stewart Committee, in language of studious moderation, have explained why, in paragraph 15:
  "it is well known that individual medical referees take different views on the question of increased susceptibility, and that the decisions they give vary accordingly" with the result that there is "great lack of uniformity."

  1513
  A referee acts under a Statute, as a final Court of Appeal, and it ought to be impossible for anyone to say of an English Court of Justice that the decision varies with the personality of the judge, particularly when the court is the final court of appeal. The Report of the British Medical Association on Miners' Nystagmus, published in 1936, contains statements based upon the statements of certifying surgeons, and which are a discredit to those who made the report. In that report which was before the Stewart Committee, it is stated that:
  "In America, where compensation is not payable, no cases [of nystagmus] are reported"
  That suggests that if no compensation were payable, there would be no nystagmus. What else could it mean? If it does not mean that, it is meaningless. The report, which is written on the evidence of or by men to whom the miners must go for a decision, goes on to say:
  "From the relatively mild affliction of pre-compensation days, miners' nystagmus has become the dread of all colliers and the despair of insurance companies."
  That is a statement which ought not to be made by men acting in a judicial capacity. They ought not to tell a man suffering from nystagmus that because he gets compensation he has become the despair of insurance companies. The report goes on:
  "The only part of his disease that can be directly and invariably attributed to his occupation is the oscillation of the eyes."
  The words "directly and invariably" form no part of the Workmen's Compensation Act. The question is whether it arises out of and in course of his employment. The words suggest the application of illegal criteria. The report then says:
  "To go on indefinitely paying compensation to a miner who has lost his nerve in this manner long after he has ceased to have any oscillations, and to call his disability miners' nystagmus, is a mistake and tends to perpetuate in the minds of sufferers, and of medical men who are asked to certify them, a false conception of the disease."
  This might be an insurance company's pamphlet, but it comes from the British Medical Association, and it does no credit to that body. I urge the Home Office, when they introduce something on the lines of this Bill, dealing with the same case, to cut out the practising expert altogether and to bring it, as was long ago
  1514
  urged, under the existing machinery of the Ministry of Health, whose officers would unquestionably enjoy fuller confidence.
  A neurasthenic disposition may indeed incline a workman to over-estimate his malady. Nystagmus, as the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. Macdonald) has reminded us, leads in some cases to grave mental derangements and sometimes to suicide, but there is no reason to think that this frame of mind is more common than the sanguine and courageous temperament of the man who continues to work long after he should have stopped, and continues to carry on until his condition becomes chronic and incurable. Moreover, it is not unreasonable to regard this psycho-neurotic condition itself as an industrial disease, and the real objection to any change in the definition is that, for practical purposes, as it stands, it covers certain forms of psycho-neurosis.
  In a judgment in such a case, where the victim committed suicide—the case of Dixon v. Sutton Heath and Lea Green Colliery Company—Lord Justice Scrutton emphasised that the victim had been a cheerful man before he onset of miners' nystagmus, and he based his judgment largely upon that fact. The Medical Research Council in its Third Report on Nystagmus in 1932, in conclusion No. 4, suggested that the psychological conditions connected with nystagmus should be regarded as analogous to shell-shock. Under this Bill, cases of industrial shell-shock would be completely excluded, and so long as workmen's compensation remains in its present lather chaotic state, I agree with the miners in preferring to see no change in this respect.
  But there is an alternative. The Miners' Welfare Fund, under the Act of 1934, provided £20,000 for research into safety and health, but in all those magnificent reports there is no recent reference whatever to nystagmus. Nystagmus is purely a mining disease. It should have a special scheme, like silicosis and be administered in connection with or under the Central Miners' Welfare Committee of the Mines Department, which is appointed by the Secretary for Mines and on which miners' and mineowners' interests are equally represented. We should then get away, almost at once, from the present unsatisfactory position.

  1515
  The Miners' Welfare Fund is well established, is popular, is trusted, is independent and under the general control of the Ministry of Mines. I do not doubt for a moment that there would be a substantial reduction both in the cost of nystagmus and its incidence if it were dealt with by a non-party and impartial committee. At present, the percentage of new cases of nystagmus has fallen from 1.61 in 1932, to 1.28 in 1936, which is good. The actual number of cases has fallen from 11,083 in 1932 to 7,724 in 1936, and the figures for 1937 are better still. With only 7,000 new cases a year, we should get the whole thing out of politics, out of this House and under the Welfare Fund. As for the medical referees, the Miners' Welfare Fund has a medical assessor whose opinion is taken as final by both sides. Surely the hon. Lady, with the assent of the interests concerned, could insert some provision of that sort into the Bill and get us away from the medical referee who may be acting for an insurance company on Monday, sitting in court as an assessor on Tuesday and giving his services to a hospital on Wednesday. It is impossible that that system should continue. It is universally condemned. The Stewart Report killed it.
  The question of employment is vital, but is not dealt with by the Bill. It could be dealt with once we got this question out of party politics, out of insurance and into the hands of the Miners' Welfare Fund. In Germany, the compensation authority is also responsible for the berufs-sorge—employment-finding committees—and it is to the financial interest of both sides to find employment for nystagmic miners. That is not possible here. The miners themselves would object to it; it cannot be done by the employers because the insurance companies object to it and the Ministry of Labour or Mines has no adequate machinery. But if nystagmus as a disease were treated, like silicosis, as a separate scheme, financially independent, worked by the Welfare Fund under the auspices of the Ministry of Mines, then I am convinced that, in four or five years, we should find a profound and beneficial change.
  12.38 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): I share the disappointment which has
  1516
  been expressed by the hon. Lady the Member for Wallsend (Miss Ward) at the attitude of the miners' representatives towards this Bill. Perhaps the best contribution I can make to-day is to explain, as briefly as I can, the attitude of the Home Office towards this whole question. Everybody acquainted with mining districts knows the great seriousness of this disease. I have been looking into the matter, and I find that, although it has been known and has continued for a long time in mines, it was first described by that great pioneer in the investigation of industrial diseases, Thackrah, in 1832, and it first came into real prominence when it was scheduled under the Workmen's Compensation Act in 1906. From 1908 onwards there was a steady and rapid increase of disablement cases due to it. The total number of cases rose from 460 in 1906 to 2,500 in 1911. The number was 6,000 in 1914 and 11,000 in 1923. It is satisfactory to know, as the hon. Member for Hitchin (Sir A. Wilson) has pointed out, that the number dropped in 1936 to 7,724. It would be of interest to inquire into the cause of that fall, apart from the fall in the number of miners at work.
  Everybody will probably agree nowadays that the cause of the disease is inadequate and unsuitable lighting. I am glad to say there has been a good deal of improvement in lighting conditions, particularly in certain areas. The Mines Department sent out a circular recently and progress in this respect will be expedited by the lighting regulations which came into full operation in 1937. I would draw attention to one point in regard to lighting to which the Stewart Committee attached considerable importance. That is the use of cap lighting. Those who have read that report and are familiar with this matter will probably agree that from the medical point of view, with regard to nystagmus, there is a great deal to be said for cap lighting. But there are certain inconveniences and certain difficulties with regard to upkeep. Nevertheless, it is generally agreed that it is an important factor in improving the lighting and has considerable technical advantages. The number of such lights in use has increased considerably. It has risen from 33,000 in 1934 to 94,000 in June, 1938, and there

  1517
  is an increase of 13 per cent. in comparison with 1937. In Scotland, practically all the electric safety lamps used at the coal face, are now cap lamps.
  There has been a great deal of medical disagreement in the past about miners' nystagmus, and what I am about to say will not, perhaps, be agreed to entirely by hon. Members opposite. But after the very considerable and careful investigations which have been carried out by medical research committees in recent years, there is practical unanimity of authoritative medical opinion about this disease. The Home Office secured the appointment of such committees in 1922, 1923 and 1932 and one of their findings was that there is not a large increase in the amount of nystagmus actually existing among the miners in the pits, but there is an increase in the amount of disablement which is largely due, in the opinion of the committees, to unsatisfactory arrangements for medical supervision and certification. That is attributed to the fact that erroneous ideas have been present in the minds of many medical men who have had to deal with the subject, and who have given extremely discouraging views of the disease to the miners. For example, it has been said to men that nystagmus would permanently affect their sight and that it was extremely important that they should not go down into the pits in future. That, I am informed upon authoritative opinion at present, is quite erroneous and has an extremely discouraging effect upon the men who, in many cases, partly as a result of the disease, are peculiarly susceptible to discouragement.
  Therefore, the Home Office set up a Committee under Judge Stewart to reconsider the problem in the light of the reports of those medical committees. It was a very strong Committee. It included two members of the medical profession and three trade union Labour representatives—including Mr. Joseph Jones, late President of the Mineworkers Federation. I do not quarrel at all with the attitude of the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. G. Macdonald) to the advice given by the Stewart Committee. I think it was a perfectly common-sense attitude, and we do not expect representatives to act in what I may describe as a totalitarian way. On the other hand, I think the hon. Member should appreciate the point of view
  1518
  of the Home Office that, having taken a good deal of trouble to get the best trade union representation it could, it naturally attaches very considerable importance to the report which the Committee produced, because they did go very carefully into the matter and they did reach unanimous recommendations. Therefore, we are faced with a Bill the object of which is to give effect to the recommendations unanimously reached by this very strong Committee.
  I would like to go over the ground for a moment or two. The Committee did find that there were considerable defects in the present system. The main defects were, they thought, that there were unsatisfactory arrangements for medical certification and supervision, and I should like to point out to the hon. Member for Ince that there is not quite the antagonism between the two sections of the report with regard to medical opinion that he indicated, because it is not necessarily wrong to give power to an expert medical board to do something which you are not prepared to allow a certifying surgeon to do. One of the facts that came out of the inquiry was that the medical specification was not satisfactory; the matter is somewhat similar in a way to the silicosis problem in that it is a complicated and difficult disease to diagnose and the certifying surgeons are not experts in nystagmus, at any rate not the kind of experts that we regard as necessary to make authoritative diagnoses. The Committee had to choose between setting up an elaborate and expensive system and adopting a simpler and more common-sense plan. From a common-sense point of view, it is wise, if you can, to find a simpler plan than to set up an elaborate and expensive plan.
  Mr. G. Macdonald: Does not the Bill say to the certifying surgeon, "You cannot certify where oscillation is present for less than 15 seconds" and to the medical board that it can?
  Mr. Lloyd: That is true, and when the Committee had come down on the side of the view that on the whole it was better to keep the simpler procedure, the more commonsense procedure, of keeping the certifying surgeons, who, after all, are on the spot and more accessible as compared with the medical board, it came to the conclusion that it was essential to give

  1519
  some simple and readily understood guidance to the certifying surgeons to deal with this complicated disease, in view of the fact that the certifying surgeons are not experts and that at present they are inclined to take widely divergent views on this disease. It is not a very difficult test, as I am advised. When it was first mooted the proposal was oscillation for five minutes. Later it was reduced to 30 seconds, and in the Bill it is 15 seconds. I am authoritatively advised—I am not a doctor myself—that it is not possible to have the disease of miners' nystagmus without that degree of oscillation occurring at some stage. Therefore, the proposal of the Committee in the Bill is to allow the certifying surgeons to give the first decision on cases that come before them on the basis of this simple rule of guidance, but it is proposed to deal with exceptional cases, such as those mentioned, for example, by the hon. Member when as he said, and said rightly, that oscillation might have gone off at the time that a man came before the certifying surgeon, and the man's position might be prejudiced if there was not some further provision for dealing with cases of that kind. That is the reason why the Committee does propose to have a very expert medical board and not to restrict them by giving them guidance in the same way as it is proposed to give to the certifying surgeons, because they are expert diagnostic physicians and they are in a position to diagnose without this rather simple guidance which it is proposed to give to the others who are not so expert. The Committee proposes that they should have the power to give an award in favour of a workman being nystagmic without him showing, at their examination, oscillation.
  I am wishing to put these proposals as fairly as I can before the House. That was one of the ways in which the Committee found that the present situation was unsatisfactory, and that was one section of their proposals to remedy it. The other side of the question which the Committee found to be unsatisfactory was with regard to the very great difficulty that the nystagmic workman finds in getting work. It is no part of my purpose to dispute what hon. Members opposite say about those difficulties, but I want to point out, what was emphasised
  1520
  by my hon. Friend the Member for Wall-send, that it is very important, in their own interests, that they should get work and that they should get it as soon as possible after the preliminary period of rest which they ought to have after the first onset of the disease. The Committee fully recognised the desirability of these men getting work, and they went into the question whether it was possible. They considered, for instance, whether it was possible for the mineowners in all cases to provide light work on the surface, and after going into it very carefully, they regretfully came to the conclusion that it was not possible in all cases to do this. They then tried to push the inquiry further and to see whether there was any underground work in which nystagmic workmen could reasonably engage, having regard to the very great importance of getting them back to work. If there was underground work, in well lighted positions, which was suitable for them, it would be in their interests to have it, and the Committee thought they had found a certain amount of that kind of work as well.
  Therefore, the second part of the Committee's proposal was that the mineowners should be approached to give an undertaking to do their utmost to provide work in as many cases as possible. There were also provisions in the scheme whereby, in the case of men for whom it was impossible to find work and having regard to the very great importance of getting them back into activity, they might, if they wished, go to some Ministry of Labour instructional or training centre, because as I say, the Committee were strongly in favour of getting them back into industrial activity. These proposals in the Stewart Report and those in the Bill form a single co-ordinated group of recommendations, and it is the case that the coalowners attach a good deal of importance to the acceptance of the proposals for improved medical supervision and the alteration of the definition of the disease, in order to enable them to carry out the second part of the recommendation in regard to finding suitable work. I should like to sum up the arguments on this point by quoting the Committee:
  "The Committee think it is established that the present position is unjust to employers inasmuch as they may be called upon to pay compensation in circumstances, when, in our view, a certificate of incapacity

  1521
  should not have been issued; and it is unjust to the disabled miner who is largely deprived of the means of recovery and the hope of further employment."
  Broadly speaking, these are the two wings of the co-ordinated group of recommendations. I have endeavoured to draw attention to the way in which the Home Office sees this problem. There is a good deal in the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin that this Bill shows the disadvantage of a highly complicated Measure of this kind being introduced by a Private Member, because inevitably it is not possible for a Private Member to give the same kind of consideration to the preliminary stages in the preparation of the Bill as it is when a Government Measure is introduced. With the best will in the world—and I am not making any criticism of the hon. Lady, because she does not deserve any—it was impossible for her to get a complicated Bill of this kind properly drafted as quickly as she desired in this case. Everybody has worked as hard as possible, but the time available was not sufficient for the miners' representatives to consider the terms of the Bill. Had it been a Government Measure, on the other hand, there would have been prolonged consultations with the miners' representatives before the Bill was introduced. However much hon. Members opposite might be inclined to think they would have succeeded in pointing out where some of the proposals were wrong, I am inclined to think that we should have been able to convince them that a good many of their objections, if not all of them, were based on misapprehensions, albeit honestly held. That happens again and again in the case of Bills. We regret that hon. Gentlemen opposite have felt that it is necessary to take up this attitude, and since I understand that the hon. Lady is not intending to press the matter, I would advise the House not to divide on the Bill.
  12.59 p.m.
  Mr. John: I will not detain the House very long in view of the fact that the hon. Lady is not going to carry the Bill to a Division, and the Parliamentary Secretary has said that the Home Office cannot recommend the House to accept the Bill in the present circumstances. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that a Bill of this nature is too critical for a Private Member to undertake. If the
  1522
  Government feel that the subject is of sufficient importance to appoint a Royal Commission about it, it is the duty of the Government to introduce a Bill based on the recommendations of the Commission. I am glad that the Home Office had not introduced a Bill just now, because I gather from the conclusions of the Under-Secretary that there would not be much difference between the Bill of the Home Office and the present Bill.
  Miss Ward: I think I am entitled to say that this Bill was drafted by the Home Office.
  Mr. John: That confirms my statement that if the Home Office had introduced a Bill it would not have been very different from the Bill introduced by the lion. Lady. I understand now that this is the Bill of the hon. Lady and the Home Office.
  Mr. Lloyd: While not wishing to controvert the hon. Lady, I think the position is that the Home Office gave the hon. Lady assistance in the drafting.
  Mr. John: I may infer, therefore, that they gave assistance not only in the drafting, but in what was to be the composition of the Bill. We would have opposed it, even if the Home Office had introduced it, for two or three fundamental reasons and because of objections to some of the major Clauses. We would have opposed it because of the drastic change which is made in the diagnosis of the disease. At present a man can be certified as suffering from nystagmus notwithstanding the fact that the oscillation of the eyeballs is not present. Why was that definition arrived at? It was arrived at as the result of another Royal Commission in 1912, which came to the conclusion that a miner could suffer from nystagmus regardless of the fact that oscillation was not present. The definition was given as it is at present contained in the Act. They made another statement, however, and said that it could not be considered that oscillation was invariably present in cases of nystagmus. What would be the position if this Bill became an Act? Why did the Stewart Committee suggest this change in the diagnosis? They gave two reasons. The first was that the medical evidence was overwhelmingly to the effect that

  1523
  nystagmus cannot occur without the presence of oscillation. The other reason was that in occasional instances a miner was wrongly certified and that it was unfair to the employer who might be called upon to pay compensation.
  With regard to the first reason, it may be true, and undoubtedly is true, but even the Stewart Committee does not say that the medical evidence was unanimous. There are eminent men in the profession who still are prepared to certify on the same lines precisely and arrive at the same conclusion as those arrived at by the Departmental Committee of 1912. There is no change in the views of a large number of eminent men in the medical profession as compared with the conclusions arrived at in 1912. I doubt whether, if any medical question arose in this House, hon. Members who belong to the medical profession would be able to give a unanimous opinion. Therefore, the question of oscillation being present and being certified as a condition for the receipt of compensation must be an arbitrary matter. Some members of the medical profession say that nystagmus cannot be present unless there is oscillation. Other members say a man can have nystagmus notwithstanding the fact that oscillation is absent.
  Suppose we take for granted the report of the Stewart Committee. Is oscillation of the eyeballs a deciding factor? Here, again, there is considerable divergence of opinion among the medical profession with regard to the standard. The hon. Member said that three or four committees had been appointed. The Royal Medical Research Committee sat on the question and fixed the standard of oscillation at five minutes. The representatives of the miners raised an objection to that, and another medical research committee was selected. They fixed a standard at 30 seconds. The Stewart Committee have fixed it at 15 seconds. It is a purely arbitrary time limit. Oscillation cannot be a deciding factor. It is not continuous and of daily occurrence; in fact, from the medical science point of view, it sometimes depends on the weather. When a man is examined, it may be a sunny day and there will be no oscillation. If it is a cloudy day there will be oscillation. It is unfair for a workman who has contracted nystagmus for compensation to be dependent on the
  1524
  vagaries of the weather and the temperament of the individual. Temperament plays an important part with regard to the oscillation of the eyeballs.
  We have heard about the anomalies in Clause 2 with regard to a certifying surgeon not being able to certify unless he finds oscillation existing for 15 seconds, but the medical Board will be able to certify when oscillation is not present. I do not think, even if the Home Office introduced a Bill to that effect, they could avoid that, because the medical board is taking the place of the county court judge and the judge has the right to do that. Therefore, if this Clause provided that the medical board also could not certify an individual unless oscillation was present, a large number of genuine nystagmus cases would be deprived of compensation. Certifying surgeons, as the Parliamentary Secretary said, are not specialists, but they have had considerable experience and a number of them have been doing this work for years. They are fully acquainted with the symptoms and the conditions of nystagmus, and are able to judge with a fair measure of accuracy whether an individual is suffering from nystagmus or not.
  In certain instances, in regard to making oscillation a condition of certification, a miner may be wrongly certified. An employer may be called upon to pay compensation in a case where an error has been made. I would ask hon. Members: Is it worse for an employer or a rich insurance company to have to pay compensation where an error has been made in certification, or for a workman to have to suffer in consequence of that error? The workman loses the opportunity of earning his living. He is unable to earn wages and unable to obtain or to claim compensation, with the result that, because of that error in diagnosis, he is thrown upon the scrapheap.
  We do not want men to be paid compensation if they do not suffer from injury or from disease, but where an error has been made and if the benefit of the doubt is to be given in any direction, we think that workmen ought to get the benefit of that doubt and not the insurance company or the employer. Adequate provisions are made in the Bill to safeguard these errors if they are for a continuous or long period, and there is

  1525
  power given in doubtful cases for the medical board to call men up for periodical examination. The Bill would operate very unfairly against workmen. At the present time an employer has the right to demand that a workman submit himself for examination. The medical board are empowered in the Bill to call men up for examination, and workmen who have contracted nystagmus will be subject not only to examination at the behest or the request of employers but to periodical examination at the request of the medical board.
  The recovery of the nystagmic man is dependent upon work, but can anyone say, after reading the Bill, that there is any provision in it to provide work for the nystagmic worker? There is no provision; in fact, the Bill goes quite to the contrary, Clause 4 would mean the weeding out from compensation and from the industry altogether of the man who has contracted nystagmus, because it says: "We are going to give to the medical board the right to say that it is to the interest of the workman that a lump sum should be given, provided that we find that it is not conducive to the interest of the man to continue in mining work."
  A great deal of play has been made this morning that the Clause gives equal right to the workman with the employer to demand and to ask for a lump sum, but it does not. The employer has that right at the present time. He will have further rights under the Bill because of a decision of the medical board, but the workman will have the right only after the medical board has certified that he is not longer fit for the industry. If there is failure to arrive at an agreement, only then will the workman have the right to claim a lump sum. What is the position of the nystagmic man at the present time? Under the present Acts he is certified as suffering from nystagmus without regard to oscillation not being present, because oscillation was not a condition. Formerly, when the certifying surgeon issued a certificate to that effect, the certificate was accepted by the employer as a justification or as a guarantee of total disablement, and full compensation was paid. Later, the employers made an appeal against the certificate of the certifying surgeon, not for the purpose of getting the certificate set aside but to get a decision for the payment of partial compensation. There was a development of the
  1526
  methods of the employers; they refused to accept that certificate, either for partial compensation or as recognition that the man was suffering from a disease.
  Then it was for the workman to make an appeal to the medical referee, who would decide in some cases only upon partial compensation. When the employers were paying partial compensation the practice adopted was to go to the individual and to say: "You are capable of doing light work and you are receiving partial compensation. The best thing for you to do is to go to the employment exchange, because you will receive more in unemployment benefit than you would in full compensation." The employers did not say that they were being relieved of their financial obligations. That is the practice at the present time. Does the Bill do anything to relieve that situation? Does it relieve the situation which arises at the present time when a man who has suffered from nystagmus, and recovered, goes to work at another place and certifies in writing that he has not contracted the disease? Then he is not liable to claim any more compensation? Does the Bill deal with that particular case?
  Mr. Lloyd: The Bill would meet the situation by making it not so necessary for the workman to take up a position of that kind in regard to the new employer, because the rule with regard to the three-year period will automatically put the burden upon the old employer. There are other provisions in the Bill to take away some of the deterrents which at present exist upon employers from taking on a man who may have had nystagmus.
  Mr. John: Still, that Section is in existence, and the Bill does not repeal it; in fact, it makes it worse. The three-year limit, applies, it is true, so far as the Bill is concerned, but prior to the three years the present Act still operates. What about the three years? If workers who are under 30 years of age have contracted nystagmus for two years, what happens? The Bill does not provide work for them. It does not say to the employer: "This man is capable of suitable employment and we would like to provide it for him because it is necessary in order to bring about his recovery." What they tell the individual is: "Now you have to be removed from industry altogether. True,

  1527
  you will be paid compensation, but the amount of compensation is to be agreed upon between yourself and the employer, and failing that agreement, the county court judge can decide; but the county court judge cannot give you more than 50 per cent. Neither can that 50 per cent. or whatever sum is agreed upon, operate for more than 13 weeks." Because that individual is under 30 years of age and is susceptible to the disease, they have the right to certify that he is incapable of work and that he cannot carry on his ordinary work. At the end of 13 weeks, after the medical board have so certified him, he has to go. He has no work.
  Miss Ward: I hope the hon. Member will forgive me, as I do not like to interrupt him again, but I think if he were to give the facts relating to that Section he would not make the mistake that he has just made.
  Mr. John: I am trying to give the whole of the facts.
  Miss Ward: Hardly.
  Mr. John: That is the central principle of that Section. There is another provision which the hon. Lady mentioned when she introduced it—or if not introduced it, at least spoke about the matter. She did not go into the Clauses of the Bill—of which I am not making a complaint—because of the reasons. In regard to the medical board, it is true that we have been advocating for many years such a Board, we do not believe that the medical referee should be judge, jury and House of Lords as well as everything else. We welcome the principle, but I am afraid that more is being claimed from the medical board than it really would have the power to do.
  The medical board is to talk to the man about suitable employment, but where is he to get suitable employment? At the coal face? I should like to know from the hon. Lady her definition of "coal face," because that would include workmen of every grade underground. All of them, with the exception of two or three grades—electricians and officials—are liable to contract nystagmus. Where are the men to find suitable employment? Not in the mine and not on the surface. With the restriction and the limitation of
  1528
  work at present time there are not sufficient jobs to go round. Therefore, it would be impossible to provide work there, and to put in that Clause that the medical board will have a talk about suitable employment with a man who has contracted nystagmus, when the man himself knows that it is not possible for him to get suitable employment, is nothing but a farce. Then about sending to the Home Office figures with regard to the number of men contracting the disease: that simply means that the promoters of the Bill have not sufficient confidence that the medical board will be able to do anything with respect to the provision of work. If the hon. Lady had put in a Clause that in the event of the employers being unable to provide work for a man who had contracted nystagmus he should be paid full compensation, we should have been quite prepared to support it.
  For the reasons that I have mentioned and others that have been put forward by the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment, we shall vote for the rejection of the Bill. Having regard to the fact that other Bills are to come on we do not want to continue the discussion, and we are now prepared to go to a Division on the matter.
  Question, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question," put, and negatived.
  Proposed words there added.
  Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
  Second Reading put off for six months.

  CHARITIES (FUEL ALLOTMENTS) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  1.25 p.m.
  Colonel Clarke: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  I am afraid nobody can deny that this is an unexciting little Bill, and one that is unlikely to arouse very much interest, but at the same time it is curious how sometimes in the most unexpected places a touch of romance will be found, and to those who are interested in the history of our countryside this apparently dull little Bill does possess a picturesque side. That is because, in order to understand its purport, one has to go back to the times

  1529
  when that countryside was very different from what it is to-day—the times before the common fields were enclosed, and when the Saxon conception of the manor still obtained. It will be remembered that that state of affairs gradually gave way, as a result of the Enclosure Acts, to a countryside such as we see to-day; for, although in a very few parishes the old strip cultivation still remains, it is to most of us something that we only see in pictures of the countryside in the early 18th century.
  I do not want to go into the rights and wrongs of these enclosures, but I am glad that the matter with which we have to deal to-day is one in which the Commissioners have shown that common humanity has swayed them. For countless years, I suppose, before the enclosures took place, it was the custom for the poor of the parish to collect turves and wood for firing, on the waste of the manor and round the edges of the common field. After the enclosures had taken place, it was obvious, of course, that that could no longer be maintained, and, with the dividing up of the common fields and the waste of the manor into the farms that we know to-day, these sources of fuel naturally ceased to be available; but, to minimise the incidence of this hardship on the poor, fuel allotments were provided in many parishes. These fuel allotments were of two kinds. They might either be pieces of ground from which the poor of the parish might collect turves or wood actually in kind, or they might be pieces of ground which were let for some purpose or other and the rent derived from them devoted to buying firing for the poorer people of the parish. In either case these lands were vested in trustees, who were generally the vestry.
  My first main point is that these trusts were irrevocable trusts, subject to certain limited relief which was afforded by the provisions of Section 19 of the Commons Act, 1876, under which the Charity Commissioners were authorised to allow a fuel allotment to be used as a recreation ground or for field gardens, or to be exchanged for another piece of land of equal value if a more suitable piece of land could he obtained in that way. Apart from those reliefs, the sale or lease of a fuel allotment is, as the law stands to-day, not possible, and it will be easily understood that from this fact frequent
  1530
  cases of hardship arise. You may, for example, get a case where a fuel allotment has become useless because the turf has all been dug out, or the bushes and trees which provided kindling have all been cut down. Again, the standard of life in our villages to-day is much higher than it was in those times, and people often burn coal or oil, whereas in the past they burned peat or wood.
  Moreover, in cases in which fuel allotments have been let, it often happens that from some cause or other the rent has so declined as to be practically negligible. I will quote one specific instance where that has happened. It relates to a charity in Warwickshire, entitled the Dunchurch Poors Plot Charity. In this case the actual fuel allotment consists of about 22 acres, apparently secured by an Inclosure Award dated 5th November, 1708. Actually that award cannot now be found, although its terms are known, and an extract from the award is in the possession of the vestry, and it has been ruled by the Charity Commission that that extract makes the property a fuel allotment, and therefore unsaleable in law. At the present time the income from the charity enables the parish to provide winter coal for all widows, old age pensioners, and other needy persons in the parish; but, since part of the income arises from the rents of certain houses which are now getting very old and will shortly have to be pulled down as no longer habitable, the trust may lose something like £80 in income in the very near future. This will cripple it for the purpose for which it exists. Part of the plot is let for allotments, and it seems unlikely that any more allotments will be let, so that the income from that source is not likely to increase.
  What the trustees would like to do is to sell, say, half the ground and rebuild the cottages with the proceeds. This would be a great help to the people in the village, as more houses are wanted, and it would also keep up the income, which, as I have said, is likely to be depleted to the extent of £80. The local authority consider the part of the land now occupied by allotments to be particularly suitable for the building of houses, and have asked the Charity Commissioners to sell them part of the fuel allotment for this purpose; but,

  1531
  owing to the existing state of the law, it is impossible to do this, and it looks as if in the near future the number of houses in the parish will be reduced and it will not be possible to replace them, while the income from the charity will no longer be sufficient to provide the fuel for the poorer people as it has been in the past. I could quote other cases, and there are two in particular which I would like just to mention. One is at Sedge-ford, in Norfolk, where land could not be sold to the district council for housing purposes except under compulsory powers involving a great deal of extra work which would be avoided if this Bill were passed; and the other is at Hanwell, in Middlesex, where an Act of Parliament had to be obtained to authorise the sale of land belonging to the charity for use as an open space. I will not quote any more cases, because my hon. and gallant Friend who is going to second this Motion has a particularly good instance which he will place before the House.
  The Bill aims at dealing with the problem I have described. Clause 1 empowers the Charity Commissioners to make an Order for the establishment of a scheme for the administration of such a fuel allotment. Actually the Charity Commissioners make every year some-think like 400 schemes of this kind, not all relating to fuel allotments, but for the purpose of straightening out existing charities. If the income is less than £50—and in nearly all cases the income of these fuel allotments is less than £50—the request of the present trustees or of two inhabitants in the parish if necessary will cause the Charity Commissioners to take the matter up. In addition, notice of this scheme has to be displayed and brought to the attention of all public authorities concerned. A public inquiry is to be held, if necessary, at which objections can be raised. If anybody raises an objection that there is danger of the loss of a public open space, societies such as the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Society can come to the inquiry and lodge their objections. I am certain that if, on inquiry, the Charity Commissioners found that the land ought to be retained as an open space, they would refuse to permit any schemes that threatened to prejudice the public by dealing with it in any other
  1532
  manner. Thirdly, in order that there shall be no possible chance of the interests of the public in connection with the preservation of open spaces being jeopardised, I have myself got into touch with the Secretary of the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Society, and it has been arranged that the question of whether the Bill will in any way conflict with the interests of town planning will be gone into between now and the Committee stage.
  Sub-section (2) of Clause 1 provides for the scheme allowing of either of three courses. First, that on the sale or letting of any part of a fuel allotment, the trustees will be able to apply the capital sums thus obtained or any of the revenue to the provision of fuel for the parish, or, if that income is more than is required for the purchase of fuel, providing other benefits that are required. It may happen that fuel allotments, which in the past provided only peat and turf, may have had under them good gravel or something of that sort, and when this is sold, the proceeds of the sale may go towards enabling the poor of the parish to receive much better firing than they got before—coal instead of peat, for example—and the other money obtained may be used for other public purposes in the parish. The second provision is that the fuel allotment, or any part of it, might be exchanged, and the money payable to the trustees for the equality of exchange, if any such sums were payable, might be devoted to the same purposes as I have described. If an exchange were made and as a result of the exchange, a corresponding amount of land for the purpose of providing fuel in kind was obtained and also a balance in cash, that cash could be invested and devoted either to getting more fuel, or again, perhaps, getting coal instead of turf, or to some other purposes in the interests of the parish. Lastly, it will enable the use of the fuel allotment, or part of it, for some other purpose altogether if that is considered desirable. That would be some purpose which would be in the interests of the parish; for instance, it might be necessary to build a village hall and a site might be obtained in this way.
  Finally, I want to make three things clear. This Bill does not include common land in the ordinary sense of the word. It does not concern the taking of turf or

  1533
  the collecting of fuel on this common land. It might happen that in a parish, besides the fuel allotment, there was a common as well. I do not think it would often happen, because, originally, if part of a common were left unenclosed that would have been considered a sufficient area from which to collect the fuel.
  Mr. Ede: Can the hon. and gallant Member say whether there is a single case of an allotment without the whole of the waste of the manor having been enclosed?
  Colonel Clarke: No, Sir. I am simply bringing this up because I think it might be one difficulty that would arise. I do not know of any case, but I would not say that throughout the length and breadth of England such a thing did not exist. But if it did exist, the fact that the fuel allotment was sold and the money invested would, I understand, make no difference to the rights of the people to go out and collect fuel from common land or the waste of the manor as intended. It is not intended to secure the sale of all fuel allotments. Lastly, allotments in those cases have nothing to do with allotments in the ordinary sense of the word—I mean allotments in the sense of a small piece of garden provided for people in the parish who, unfortunately, have not gardens attached to their houses. I hope that the provisions of this small Bill are made clear. It occurs to me that although it is a very small and un-ambitious Bill, it has some possibilities of small, but fairly certain, service. I believe, too, that it will enable the intentions of those men of good will who set up these trusts in the past to be carried out. That is dependent on it reaching the Statute Book. In order that it may do so, I ask the House to give it a Second Reading.
  1.43 p.m.
  Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: I beg to second the Motion.
  I propose to confine my remarks to the description of a special case in my constituency, as my hon. and gallant Friend has given a general description of what lie thinks would be the effect of the Bill in other places in England. I have had a good deal of correspondence on this subject in the past four or five years. There is a parish in my constituency that suffers under the limitation imposed by a trust many years ago, when the trust
  1534
  was established. The trustees think, and I very strongly agree with them, that if this Bill is passed we shall be able to increase the amount of fuel available for the poor of that parish by at least four or five times. Some time ago I asked the Attorney-General to bring in a Bill to this effect. He looked at the proposals sideways for 18 months, and then passed the buck to the Minister of Agriculture. The Minister of Agriculture then told me definitely that there was no time. Now my hon. and gallant Friend has been lucky in the Ballot, and I hope we shall get satisfaction and put this arrangement, in this parish and elsewhere, on comparatively modern lines. This particular trust was established many years ago—certainly before 1804. Three pieces of land in the parish were placed in the hands of trustees with the following limitation:
  "The trustees should let the land annually to any person, preference being given to those who are cottagers and labouring or working men or industrious women within the Ancient Parish of Iver, to the intent that they may be thereby entitled to keep a cow or cows."
  This trust or charity is called the "Poor' s or Fuel Allotment." It is laid down that the income from the grazing of these three pieces of land to be let to poor people desirous of keeping a cow or cows should be devoted to the provision of fuel for firing to be distributed among the occupiers of dwelling-houses or cottages in the "Ancient Parish of Iver," provided these occupiers are
  "poor and industrious persons in the same parish occupying lands or tenements of not more than the yearly value of £10."
  These pieces of land are now vested in the Charity Commissioners. Trustees manage them generally, but they cannot part with or sell them and they are not entitled to make any breach in the terms of the trust. The parish of Iver has completely changed in this period of 150 years since the trust was established. It is now most difficult, and has been so for the past 25 years, to find in the parish of Iver a poor person who is willing and wishes to keep a cow or cows. Really, for 25 years the trustees, if they wanted as they have wanted, of course, to raise money from these pieces of land in order to finance the giving of fuel to the poor people of the parish, have been compelled in every case to break the terms of their trust. Still, in spite of breaking the terms

  1535
  of trust, the yield from these pieces of land is very much less than it will be if this Bill be passed.
  I will give the details of the acreage of these three pieces of land. The largest piece is 19¾ acres, and the land is on an island in the river Colne, which runs between the eastern side of Buckinghamshire and Middlesex. The only access to that island is through a shallow or ford which adjoins the land occupied by a fairly substantial farmer named Sanders. If Sanders for some reason did not want to take the grazing of this island of 19¾ acres for which he pays an annual rental of £27, there would be no other tenant to take the land. No one could get his cows on to it without trespassing over Sanders's land. I think that the House will agree that this farmer is giving a very pair price considering he is the only person who really could take the land.
  Some years ago a local gentleman who has an estate there wanted to take a lease of this island for 21 years at a rental of £50. The trustees would have liked that because it would have nearly doubled their income from the land, but the Charity Commissioners said that it was quite impossible to give a lease of 21 years, because the terms of the trust laid it down clearly that the land should only be let annually. The trustees had the island valued and the valuation came to £4,620. That sounds a very large sum for I9 acres of agricultural land. The reason is that there is a large deposit of gravel which is very valuable for a particular kind of brick. The adjoining land is worth £300 an acre to a firm for manufacturing purposes and if it were possible perhaps more could be obtained for the land on this island to complete the undertaking.
  The other piece of land of 13½ acres is, as the builders say, ripe for industrial development. It is on the main Slough-Uxbridge Road. Part of it has been let for allotments but allotment holders cannot be found for the greater part of it. It is let at a total rental of£12 18s. Immediately adjoining land has been sold for as much as £300 an acre for building purposes. Supposing the trustees were free to sell these 13½ acres even at half that figure, we calculate that it would bring in £2,000. The third piece of land is smaller—4½ acres—and it has been for many years lying
  1536
  derelict, but during the last few months a man has come along who is not a resident of Iver, and, although they have no right to let the land to him, the trustees have done so, for the purpose of growing mushrooms. He is paying a rental of £7 10s. per annum. This piece of land is right in the middle of an area occupied by a big contractor who goes in for ballast dredging, and it is worth, at any rate, £150 an acre to him.
  We have these three pieces of land, the island site which produces £27 per annum and has been valued at £4,620—and, as a conservative estimate, I put the value at £4,500—the 13¼ acre site which produces £12 18s. per annum and has been valued at £2,000; and the 4½ acre site, which produces £7 10s. per annum and has been valued at £600. Therefore, this trust has three pieces of land which produce an income of £47 8s. per annum, and if the trustees were empowered to sell this land they could invest the proceeds in gilt-edged securities, say, War Loan, to produce £248 10s. annually. The income of the trust would be multiplied more than five times, and it would be so much more money available to provide the poor of the parish of Iver—there are poor there still, though there are no industrious people wishing to keep a cow—with fuel and to be used for other purposes for the advantage of the poor. If this money were invested in gilt-edged securities it would be absolutely safe. At present, as these lands are left, the safety of the income is more precarious. If anything happened to the farmer, Sanders, who takes the largest piece of land, it would be impossible to get anyone else to rent that island, and the greater part of the income would disappear at once. This is a practical instance. I speak of it because I know the facts and have been trying for many years to get relief for the trust, and, incidentally, for the parish of Iver, I hope the House will give a Second Reading to the Bill, because I cannot imagine any one opposing it on political or economic grounds.
  1.55 p.m.
  Mr. Ede: I am afraid that the hon. and gallant Member for Wycombe (Sir A. Knox) will be disappointed in the sentiments he expressed in his peroration, because I regard this Bill, although he says it is a small one, as being very dangerous. In the first place, it seems

  1537
  to me that it offends the sound Parliamentary principle that we should not provide a second remedy for an evil when a perfectly sound one already exists. The fact that such a remedy exists was proved in the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for East Grinstead (Colonel Clark) when he said that the parish of Hanwell, faced with this problem, had managed to solve it by the promotion of a Private Bill. Such a Private Bill is not a very expensive matter, but it ensures that a particular case receives appropriate attention, either through a Select Committee upstairs or through the committee on Unopposed Bills.
  It is a very true saying that hard cases make bad laws, Parliament has had this matter before it on several occasions since it perpetrated the original injustice through the Enclosure Acts. I cannot think of a better example of historic injustice than that which was given by hon. and gallant Member for Wycombe when he told us that this island, which was allocated to poor and industrious people, including women, is approachable only by a shallow ford, and is surrounded by the lands of a farmer. Quite clearly, whoever got the piece of land that was enclosed it was not the industrious poor. It may have been in those days the non-industrious rich. It would be dangerous that a matter which has already received the attention of this House, and for which we have provided remedies, should be dealt with in the way proposed, when the other remedy of procedure by Private Bill is available. Neither of the hon. and gallant Members dealt with Section 19 of the Commons Act, 1876, which they seek to repeal by Clause 1 (3). Section 19 of the Commons Act, 1876, has the peculiar advantage of having three separate Preambles of its own, apart from any Preamble there may have been to the Commons Act itself. The third Preamble says:
  "And whereas power exists or is claimed in divers Acts of Parliament to divert an allotment from the uses declared by Parliament respecting the same, be it enacted,…"
  Among the powers given to the Charity Commissioners under Section 19 of the Commons Act, 1876, is the power to allow these lands to be used, where their original use has expired, as what are called recreation grounds and field gardens. I believe that "field gardens" was the term then used for what we now more generally describe as allotments.
  1538
  Let me take the case put by the hon. and gallant Member for Wycombe. I do, not think that he has proved that the, best use for the parish of Iver would, of necessity, having regard to the modern development of Iver, be the development, of these pieces of land on the lines he, suggests. I cannot think that it is necessary to provide opportunities for further ribbon development along the road to Slough. I cannot think that the best' use for this island on the River Colne is of necessity cutting it up for gravel. The original intention of the Act of 1876 ought not to be departed from except on a case specifically shown in relation to that Act.
  Sir A. Knox: If it were allotments, the allotment holders would have to swim to their allotments.
  Mr. Ede: The Colne is not a navigable river. The provision of a small artistic bridge might add to the amenities of the district and provide access in the summertime and at other suitable times for the inhabitants of Iver and district to meet one another and to use this island as a recreation ground. Moreover, the provision of some facilities for the juvenile population of Iver to paddle in the river, under proper safeguards, might be a desirable thing.
  Sir A. Knox: In that case there would be no money to provide fuel.
  Mr. Ede: From my experience in trying to provide recreation grounds for parishes; I am sure that if action were taken by the local authority to use the land as a recreation ground the Charity Commissioners would not allow it to be taken over at less than the district valuer's valuation, I cannot think that the finances of the charity would suffer. I do not think that the trustees should be relieved unless they can prove to the House a better case than has been made in regard to the trusts that were imposed upon them by the Act of 1876.
  Colonel Clarke: May I ask the hon. Member two questions? Does he not think that to promote a Private Bill in respect of charities with incomes of £5,£10 or£15, as is the income of some of these fuel allotments, is rather like taking a sledge hammer to crack a nut? Secondly, does he not think that this Bill is really supplementary to the provisions of Section 19 of the Commons Act, 1876, in that it was possible under that Act to turn these lands into allotments and

  1539
  recreation grounds. We are suggesting that the original land should be sold, alternative allotments or recreation grounds bought, and the balance on the turnover devoted to other purposes. Under Section 19 it is permissible to make an exchange.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Colonel Clifton Drown): The hon. and gallant Member seems to be making a speech.
  Mr. Ede: My speech seems to be affording a series of notes for the two hon. and gallant Members to bring in points that did not occur to them when they made their original speeches. With regard to the first point put by the hon. and gallant Member, I admit that it is rather like taking a Nasmyth hammer to crack a nut in the case of fuel allotments with very small incomes, but in such a case the appropriate thing would be for the Minister of Agriculture, or whoever is deemed to be the appropriate Minister for dealing with the case, to assist the charity by promoting a Bill. The hon. and gallant Member admitted that he had got so far with the Minister of Agriculture that he had recognised the fact that a Bill ought to be promoted, but that he had not the time to deal with the matter. There ought to be a more sympathetic attitude adopted by the Minister of Agriculture in regard to the small schemes; but in regard to the particular charity mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member for Wycombe, concerning Iver, that is clearly one in which we are dealing with thousands of pounds. If, therefore, they introduced a Private Bill in that case the cost would not be out of proportion to the benefits which the inhabitants would gain. There is power under Section 19 of the Commons Act, 1876, for land to be exchanged. It reads:
  "and provided that it shall be lawful for the said Charity Commissioners, on such application as aforesaid, to authorise the exchange of any fuel allotments or any part thereof for land of equal value situate in the parish or the district for the benefit of the poor for which such allotment is set out, if the Commissioners are of opinion that by means of such exchange land better situate for the purpose for which such allotment is set out will be obtained."
  The hon. and gallant Member wants to repeal that section; why, I cannot make out. He did not commend this particular part of the Bill to the House, and I can only assume that he has some reason
  1540
  which he has not so far disclosed. There is this further disadvantage about the method proposed in the Bill. Most of these lands which remain fuel allotments have been town-planned either as open spaces or as allotments. It would appear possible from the phraseology of the Bill to take these allotments outside the framework of a town planning scheme.
  Colonel Clarke: I am not clear why the hon. Member should think that the Bill will take them outside the scope of a town planning scheme, but I tried to give him my assurance that every opportunity will be given to town planning authorities to consider them.
  Mr. Ede: Unfortunately the hon. and gallant Member's assurance will not be of any value unless it is included in the Bill. If a local authority is in a difficulty with its town planning scheme as a result of this Bill, it will not be able to say to the Minister of Health or to anybody else that a specific pledge was given by the hon. and gallant Member for East Grinstead in the House of Commons that this particular think should not happen. We have to make sure that the legislation covers the point.
  Colonel Clarke: I will give the hon. Member my assurance that I meant what I said, and that if Amendments are brought forward they will be sympathetically considered in Committee.
  Mr. Ede: It would assist me very much, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, if you could tell me whether I am interrupting the hon. and gallant Member or whether he is interrupting me. I quite recognise that the hon. and gallant Member would desire to meet any serious points in Committee, but unless such matters are raised here first, it is sometimes difficult to get them considered in Committee. The hon. Member who raises them may not be a member of the Committee, and it may be that some supporters of the Bill would regard them as being obstructive and not intended to help. I want to suggest seriously that these are matters which require grave consideration before we give the Bill a Second Reading. These fuel allotments and the whole system of such rights as were reserved to the poor under the enclosure awards represent a very distinct piece of legislation by this House, and before we amend it we ought to have regard to the issues which are

  1541
  involved. I have no doubt that in the course of 150 years, with the changes in the distribution of population and the changes in the conduct of agriculture and the habits of the people, some of these original awards are no longer as useful as they might be, but I object to giving such a general power of revision without being sure that the revision in each case has really the public interest in mind and nothing else.
  I recollect the late Lord Banbury once saying in this House, when we were discussing certain rights of the people in regard to the oyster beds in Maldon, Essex, that the rights in property of a poor man ought to be as sacred to this House as the rights in property of a rich man. After all, we are dealing here with some of the rights in property of the poor which this House gave to them when it took away some of the greater rights they had previously enjoyed. One of the most famous sayings of Arthur Young, the great agricultural writer, was that he once went into a parish where common land had been enclosed and a working man said to him "Parliament may be tender of property, but all I know is that I had a cow and Parliament by enclosing the commons took it away from me." The hon. and gallant Member for Wycombe has given us a case where Parliament, although it had taken away the common, tried to preserve the cow, and I can hardly think that the Conservative party, in view of its connection with the late Jesse Collings, would desire completely to divorce the industrious poor from the keeping of cows.
  This Bill, if it gets a Second Reading, will have to be carefully examined in Committee to make sure that some of the small commons, with a fuel allotment producing only £5, shall be considered and that at the end we can rest assured that these trusts are not being diverted from the purpose for which they were established and that due regard has been had to the widest interests of the parishes concerned. I very much doubt whether all these fuel allotments are as wide in their application as that mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member for Wycombe. I think it will be found that most of the rights are attached to cottages which were in existence at the time the enclosure took place. It is very rare for these rights to be exercised by the in-
  1542
  habitants at large. Usually they are exercised by the inhabitants of certain cottages or the occupiers of certain properties. Therefore, we want to be quite sure that no divergence takes place from the original trust.
  I do not oppose the Second Reading of the Bill to the point of a Division, and I want to assure the hon. and gallant Member for East Grinstead that I do not raise these issues in any other way than to point out that we are dealing with a very important matter in this small Bill. Even in these days, when the country of King Wenceslas has been so cruelly dismembered with the assistance of this country, we have to remember that one of the kings of that name owes his fame in this country to the fact that he watched some of the gatherings of the winter fuel before the Enclosure Act was passed. We can only hope that this Debate will help to remind the House of some of the difficulties that still remain from the enclosure of commons and that the House may be able to deal with the matter so that we are well assured that no diversion of the original trust will take place unless the House gives its approval.
  2.16 p.m.
  Mr. Charles Williams: I am afraid that, much as I appreciate the sentiments and feelings and policies of the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), I cannot quite bring myself to becoming as entirely reactionary as he is. I have often wondered where he got his views from. When listening to him I have been reminded of some voice from the past, but it was not until to-day that I realised that his patron Saint's name was "Banbury." The hon. Member realises that many of us on the Tory benches are more progressive than he is. We look for reaction to the benches opposite. Let me say something about my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wycombe (Sir A. Knox). I recognise that he is one of the most enlightened, one of the most progressive Members of the House, and that he is continually changing his ideas to agree with modern tendencies. But I find myself in very great difficulty. I would like to support the Bill, for I realise that my hon. and gallant Friend has a very just cause. Moreover, he is among those who are continually helping progress in this country and in other places.

  1543
  We have been reminded by the hon. Member for South Shields that we must look after the rights of property. Personally I think that the rights of humanity come before the rights of property, and that is where we differ. [Laughter.] I am very glad indeed to hear the hysterical laughter of the Socialist party when I am propounding an article of Conservative faith. We have always believed in that doctrine, and many of us try to live up to it. I do not mind having my record gone into, or that of my family. In these matters we have to balance and weigh what is best, not from the point of view only of small property but from the point of view of those human beings who are to benefit by this Bill or otherwise. The hon. Member for South Shields said that a private Bill was not a very expensive thing. I have always heard people in all quarters of the House say that private Bills are often very expensive and a great waste of money. Lawyers might say it, but ordinary private Members cannot possibly maintain that private Bills are inexpensive. They are a very expensive luxury on all occasions.
  There are one or two questions I wish to ask about the Bill. In Clause 1, subsection (4), we find that the expression "fuel allotment" is defined as land which shall be used for the purpose of providing poor persons with fuel. We have not got a prehistoric or Socialist Government in this country, but a good modern progressive Government. We see electricity developing in the country districts. Suppose that an Act was passed and that there was no need to provide poor persons with coal or wood but that it was desired to provide them with electricity. Would it be possible to get that electricity provided under this Bill? It is a very important question and ought to be answered here or in Committee. I was hoping that I might have the presence of a Law Officer to hear my remarks.
  Mr. Ede: You drove him out.
  Mr. Williams: Not quite. Subsection (3) of Clause 1 states:
  "The powers conferred on the said Commissioners by this Section in respect of any such fuel allotment as is mentioned in Section 19 of the Commons Act, 1876.…"
  I have had a long experience in this
  1544
  House and I know that when you get a private Member's Bill backed by very intelligent private Members who have taken great trouble to get the Bill passed, very often it is found that the whole of the points it was intended to cover are not covered. I should like to know whether the Law Officers think that the Sub-section I have quoted covers the whole of the matter to be dealt with, or whether there ought to be some further quotations of Acts. It is essential that that sort of technical point should be raised and that the matter should be made absolutely sound. I do not pretend to understand the law side of the Bill. In Sub-section (2, b) of Clause 1 there is a most excellent provision. Where there is one of these small charities whose funds come from a particular piece of land, power is given to exchange that land and to consolidate it if necessary. I do not think that even the hon. Member for South Shields would object to that form of exchange. But that is not the whole of the Sub-section, which also contains the words:
  "in exchange by the said trustees, and for the application of any money payable to the said trustees for equality of exchange."
  That goes rather further than the exchange of land. When the Charity Commissioners see that an exchange of land is made, that is all right, but it is rather different when money which has been deliberately invested in land is taken out of the land and put into some trustee security. Where you provide for an exchange of land you have an excellent part of the Bill, but if money is taken out of the land in the way suggested the House should hesitate before giving its consent. That really raises the main principle of the Bill. I feel that, as the Debate on Friday afternoon must be comparatively short, we should be doing a great service to the community if we gave a Second Reading to this Bill, which would enable these small charities to make a better use of their funds, and allowed the Bill to go to the Committee, where the whole matter could be gone into carefully from the legal and other points of view. All those principles concerning the violation of the rights of property which were so well enunciated by the hon. Member for South Shields could then be considered. I hope that hon. Members will give the Bill—with its defects, for probably there are some—a Second Reading in order that the Com-

  1545
  mittee may perform a useful service in discussing the details.
  2.27 p.m.
  Mr. Charleton: I hope the House will not give this Bill a Second Reading. The Bill deals with patches of land all over the country, but we have been given no indication as to how many such patches there are, their area or the purposes for which they are being used at the present time. Hon. Members must be well aware of the growing need of land for playing fields and so on. I know that in the district of Iver, with which I am familiar, London and Slough are rapidly running together, and when that district is built up, as it will be very shortly, such land will be of the utmost value for recreation grounds and playing fields. Those who are interested in the King George V Trust know the difficulties which the trustees have in getting land. Frequently the landowners hold the trustees up to ransom. I know that in Iver there is some land of this sort, and its value is constantly rising. Why should we part with this land when we know that it becomes more valuable with every year that passes? I have no desire to see jerry-builders get hold of the land and put up all sorts of jerry-built houses on it. I want the land to remain in the hands of the people.
  When a Bill concerning land comes from the other side of the House, I am suspicious of it. My forbears in the country were deprived of the use of common land. It was said in this House at the time that the cottagers could not use the common lands profitably, and that therefore the rich landowners must do it. The rich landowners often sold the common lands in order to pay their Parliamentary dues. Ever since I have been in the House, the wail of the landlords has been that they could not work the land, that land does not pay, and that they are losing money on it. Not only have the landowners taken away the common lands from us, but we have taken the rates off their land. The whole story of what has happened in regard to land in this country shakes one's faith in the ability of hon. Members opposite to deal with it. I say that the people must retain the use of the land. I am opposed to any public body or trust of any description parting with land for building or for any other purposes. What the Bill means is that the land is to be sold to somebody
  1546
  who wants to make a profit out of it, and I am opposed to that. Let us keep these open spaces. Let us keep them for posterity, and posterity will bless us. I hope the House will reject the Bill.
  2.31 p.m.
  Brigadier-General Clifton Brown: The contention of hon. Members opposite seems to be that if a person has land he may not get rid of it. Why the question of landlords has arisen on this Bill, I do not know, except that they seem to be high in the imagination and estimation of hon. Members opposite.
  Mr. Charleton: If the landowners had not taken the common land from us, the people would not have been cold in winter.
  Brigadier-General Brown: I thought the argument of the hon. Member was that landowners should not be allowed to get rid of their land, because the land must not be allowed to get into the hands of speculators.
  Mr. Charleton: No.
  Brigadier-General Brown: Then I withdraw my remarks. I do not know what the hon. Member was talking about. I gather that the main objection of the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) to giving the Bill a Second Reading is that a bigger matter is involved, and that until we get legislation concerning the Charity Commissioners which deals with the main points, this point ought to be reserved. I hope I have not misinterpreted what the hon. Gentleman said. I think the hon. Member gave us a good, old-fashioned Tory speech. He talked about the enclosures, and seemed to blame the Charity Commissioners for enclosing land which had been acquired by the injustices of the old landowners. I submit that what the Bill does is to allow the Charity Commissioners to do what many other trustees have to do, that is, to sell land and turn it into stocks and shares. If that is allowed to the capitalists and the big landowners, who have to do it in order to pay death duties, why should not the Charity Commissioners be allowed to do the same thing? The Charity Commissioners may hold on to land and get only a small rent for it, and thus have very little to distribute in the way of fuel to poor people; or they may sell the land, put the money into War Loan, for instance, and make a bigger income, and

  1547
  therefore distribute much more to the poor people. I cannot see why any hon. Member should object to the Charity Commissioners exchanging one form of property for another so as to get a bigger income, and therefore be able to distribute more in the way of fuel to the people who need it.
  I recognise that the Bill will require amendment, but I cannot see any objection to its principle. I admired the adroitness of the hon. Member for South Shields who, having stated his objections to the Bill, said he did not intend to oppose the Second Reading. I wondered on which side the hon. Member would eventually come down. Some hon. Members seemed to be amused at the suggestion that part of this grant could be used for a supply of electricity to poor people in some villages. I think the suggestion that "fuel" should include a supply of electricity for cottages in rural districts is one that ought to be considered, and that an Amendment to that effect might possibly be incorporated in the Bill. The existing arrangements were made 150 years ago and circumstances have changed since then. I know of a case in Surrey in which the great grandfather of the present landowner bought a farm in every parish in the county, because land was then supposed to be the safest investment for money. In some cases the investment has turned out to be safe and in other cases it has not been so safe, but if private landowners are in a position to change their investments from land to other forms of security, why should not the Charity Commissioners be allowed to make such changes?
  It is suggested that the sale of the land by the Commissioners might lead to undesirable results, and that, instead of being used for open spaces, might become overcrowded with buildings against the interests of the inhabitants. My hon. and gallant Friend who moved the Second Reading of the Bill gave an assurance on that point, and I hope that the Solicitor-General will be able to give a further assurance to hon. Members opposite. It should be possible to make some provision to ensure that the amenities will not be destroyed and that the land can be dealt with under rural planning schemes. I see no objection to the Bill which cannot be met in Committee, and I hope the House will give it a Second Reading.
  2.38 p.m.
  Mr. Watkins: I am sorry I cannot agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Newbury (Brigadier-General Brown). We have had many interesting Bills brought before the House on Fridays, but I do not think I ever remember one which was such a leap in the dark as this Bill. We are asked to make general arrangements applying to these pieces of land all over the country, but not one of the supporters of the Bill has given us any information about the number of cases involved. If the hon. and gallant Member who moved the Second Reading could tell us the number of cases to which the Bill will apply, it would help us to come to a decision.
  Colonel Clarke: I understand that a number of cases come up every year, but not a great number in each year. Over a long period there might be a considerable number. If the hon. Member will give me a little time I think I shall be able to give him the exact figure.
  Mr. Watkins: The hon. and gallant Member is only adding vagueness to vagueness. I think there is an obligation on the promoter of a Bill of this nature to state the number of cases affected and where they are situated. The hon. and gallant Member for Wycombe (Sir A. Knox) admitted that he had submitted this proposal to a predecessor of the present Solicitor-General who had looked sideways at it. I can very well understand that sideways glance. The proposal was then passed on to the Minister of Agriculture, who said he had not time for it. which was a euphemistic way of turning it down. My objection to the Bill is that it is a wholesale proposal to deal with a number of specific cases and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) that the proper way to deal with this matter would be to embody each case in a private Bill and let it be considered on its merits. This land was dedicated to the service of the public for certain definite reasons. It was set aside for the benefit of the poor. Naturally, we are anxious that this service to the poor shall continue. I believe there is danger of that service b disappearing if we pass a wholesale Measure of this kind. We must agree that the arrangements of 150 years ago may not apply in every case to the circumstances of to-day. That is a broad generalisation which we must accept, but

  1549
  the proper way of meeting the situation is to deal with specific instances in separate Bills, making certain that the rights and privileges of the poor are not damaged. One hon. Member said that the promotion of Private Bills was expensive and that the finance available might not be sufficient to pay the cost of that procedure, but it would not be impossible to group some of these cases together in one Bill, say, a number of cases in one county or in adjoining counties, and in that way meet the difficulty of cost. I hope the Measure will not be allowed to proceed further.
  2.43 p.m.
  Mr. Harold Mitchell: Despite the arguments of the last speaker I hope the House will give a Second Reading to the Bill. The time has come when wider powers ought to be given to the Charity Commissioners because the existing powers are not in all cases applicable to the circumstances of the present time. In particular, I agree, that they should have power for the establishment of schemes as suggested in the Bill, but in regard to the proposal that they should have power to sell land and put the proceeds into securities, even trustee securities, I am not so happy. We have to look on charitable trusts of this kind not as being for a few years only, but as going on in many cases for hundreds of years, and our object must be to do all we can to preserve the rights of the poor who benefit from these charities. I do not find myself altogether in agreement with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newbury (Brigadier-General Brown). He made a point of the value, in some cases, of exchanging land for other forms of security. I find myself in much sympathy with those hon. Members who have suggested that land is a peculiarly suitable form of investment for charities. A charity, unlike an individual, does not die, and it is not saddled with Death Duties which create such extraordinary difficulties in the case of privately-owned land.
  I, therefore feel that we should be very careful in any powers that we give to the Commissioners to put the proceeds from the sale of land into other securities. Most trustee securities, which are the likeliest form of alternative securities suggested in this Bill, are in the form of debts of one kind or another, either Government debts or corporation
  1550
  debts and so on, and in these days of unstable currencies in many different countries and of depreciation of currencies, one cannot help feeling that, taking a long view, land may be of more use to these charities. It is for that reason that I hope the House, if it accepts the Bill to-day, as I hope it will, will carefully examine that aspect of the matter, I do not think that too wide powers of investment should be given, particularly in trustee securities. I hope the House will give further consideration to the Bill and will allow it a Second Reading.
  2.47 p.m.
  The Solicitor-General (Sir Terence O'Connor): In the view of His Majesty's Government, this is a useful little Bill, and I hope that I may be able to dispel some of the fears that have been expressed by hon. Members opposite. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Grinstead (Colonel Clarke), who moved the Second Reading, set out the origin of the Measure so very clearly that I do not need to say more than a very few words about it. These allotments, as is known, were the result of the Enclosure Acts down to 1845, and after 1845, and of many private Acts which resulted in fuel allotments being set aside for the benefit of the poor in parishes. The present position is—and I do not think the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) was quite clear in the interpretation that he gave to Section 19 of the Commons Act, 1876, that that Section, so far as fuel allotments are concerned, deals only with the pre-1845 enclosures, so that it has no application to any fuel allotment thereafter, and there is a considerable number of them.
  Mr. Ede: Can the hon. and learned Gentleman say how many?
  The Solicitor-General: I cannot give any figures, neither can I give any figures as to whether there would be few or many applications as a result of the passing of this Measure. At the present time these fuel allotments can only be used for the purposes for which they were awarded, and the only exception is as regards the pre-1845 allotments, with regard to which, by the Commons Act of 1876, the Charity Commissioners may; in their ordinary jurisdiction, authorise the use of the fuel allotment as a recreation ground or may exchange the full allotment or any part there

  1551
  of for land of equal value situate in the parish or district if better land for the original purpose is so obtained. Therefore, the original purpose for which the land was granted restricts the powers of the Charity Commissioners. They have no power either to sell or to to let, and the main object of this Bill, as I take it, is that the Charity Commissioners should be accorded power, in pursuance of a 'scheme prepared by them, to sell or to let.
  At the present time the most ridiculous anomalies have resulted. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wycombe (Sir A Knox) gave an instance in the parish of Iver, which was known to the Attorney-General, to whom, and to the Ministry of Agriculture, I think my hon. and gallant Friend did less than justice in his references. It is not the habit of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General to cast a sidelong glance at anything and to let matters slide. I know of few people who have occupied his office who have been more assiduous or more pertinacious in following up any matter that he thinks requires a remedy.
  Mr. A. V. Alexander: Especially official secrets.
  The Solicitor-General: I hope the House does not misunderstand me if I say that the help of the Ministry of Agriculture has not been denied to those who wish to remedy what is undoubtedly, I think, a grievance. What happens in so many cases is that a change in the circumstances of an area renders the old trusts really of no value to the poor, or of less value than they ought to be. In many cases there is no fuel on the land. They are useless as allotments for the furnishing of fuel, and yet the trustees, being strictly limited by their trust, have to retain land which has perhaps a high building value when there are either no facilities for providing fuel or no people in the immediate neighbourhood of the land who would want the fuel if it could be provided. I am reminded of a case that went, many years ago, to the Privy Council, a case in which one Indian was suing another Indian for trespass to his land on account of the second Indian's cow coming on to his land. The Privy Council found, after the case had been litigated through all the courts in India and had finally reached the
  1552
  Privy Council, that Indian No. 2 had no cow and that Indian No. I had no land. That contingency can literally be envisaged in connection with the present fuel allotments.
  The burden of the criticism that was made by the hon. Member for South Shields—and I am bound to say that I was surprised to hear such a reactionary doctrine coming from such a source—was that these matters could be put right by private Bill procedure. To invoke private Bill procedure to deal with some small charitable trust of this character, where the income, as has been pointed out, may be no more than £5 or £10 a year, when there is a plan allowing of general application which will do no harm to anybody, and where the public interest will be safeguarded by the intervention of the Charity Commissioners and by the powers, on their part, to prepare a scheme, is, I think, like using a sledge hammer to crack a nut.
  I was rather impressed with the view that at the present time many of these fuel farms have been diverted by virtue of Section 19 to use as allotments, and it might be, if this Bill were passed, that other uses might be made of the land. It occurs to me that it is wholly unjustifiable to deprive the people who ought to be receiving benefit from the charity of the true value of the land, in order to provide cheap allotments to different people. That is really to deprive the section of the poor for whom the charity was originally intended in the interests of a different section of the community altogether. Secondly, under some such provision as this Bill will make, it is possible that the beneficiaries of the different charities may have both their allotments and further benefits, because manifestly, if you have a valuable piece of land, you can dispose of it and use a part of the sum of money to provide for recreation grounds or allotments some where else, perhaps in a more convenient position and certainly at less expense to the charity, and use the surplus funds for investment to supplement the other resources of the charity.
  These are the general considerations which led the Government to believe that it is time we had a Bill to deal with anomalies of this kind. I was struck by an apprehension expressed in more than one quarter as regards the incidence of any projected scheme drawn up by the

  1553
  Charity Commissioners on the Town Planning Act. That is a point which will certainly have to be looked into on the Committee stage of the Bill. It may be that the Charity Commissioners would be just as much involved in any existing town planning scheme as the existing trustees, but I would not care to express a conclusive opinion on that at the moment. It is obviously, a point that will need to be looked into on the Committee stage. One of my hon. Friends—I think the hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams)—raised the question whether the Charity Commissioners would be able to supply, for example, cheap electricity to those who had previously been in receipt of fuel. That, again, is a point that wants looking into. My present impression is that they would be entitled to do that out of the proceeds of the sale of the land that was the property of the charity.
  These are the reasons why, in the view of the Government, this Bill may be commended to the House. When the possibility of the Second Reading was approaching, the Secretary of the Commons and Footpaths Preservation Society was communicated with by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, and he intimated that the society would not oppose the Bill in any way. They wished, however, to have an assurance that the Charity Commissioners, in dealing with land in accordance with the terms of the Bill, would have regard to the needs of the parishes for open spaces. I am in a position to give an assurance that the Charity Commissioners in dealing with land in accordance with the terms of the Bill, if it becomes an Act, would have regard to the needs of the parishes for open spaces. In view of that assurance and of what I have said about the Committee stage of the Bill, I feel that the House can be recommended to give the Measure a Second Reading.
  2.59 p.m.
  Mr. Alexander: We are glad to have had the advantage of some advice from the Solicitor-General, who has, no doubt, done his best to remove the anxieties which were expressed by my hon. Friends on this side of the House. We are inclined to wonder why, if, as the Solicitor-General said, this is not a matter for Private Bill legislation, but for the application of a general principle by a public Bill, the Government have not long
  1554
  since produced a Bill themselves. It is important to remember what was said by the hon. and gallant Member who introduced the Bill. He said they had been bringing pressure to bear on the Law Officers and the Ministry of Agriculture for years to introduce such a Bill, but with the sum of their wisdom and legal knowledge, plus the experience of the Ministry of Agriculture, they have never felt inclined to produce a Bill, and it has been left for a private Member to deal with the question. It looks as if the Government were not anxious to shoulder in a Bill initiated by themselves the opprobrium of abrogating in any degree the protection that exists in Statutes with regard to common land and open spaces for the people. So they have waited for a private Member to introduce a Bill in the hope that they will be able to slip it through on a Friday afternoon, not with a full-blooded blessing, but with no obstruction from the Government and the Law Officers.
  That is a poor way of dealing with such an important principle as this Bill embodies. While the Solicitor-General brought the right gift of humour into his illustration from the Privy Council records, I do not think that it was a very good analogy, because the Privy Council found in that case that there was neither cow nor land. There could be no such verdict in respect of a case initiated under this Bill. The hon. Member who spoke from the benches opposite, indeed, stressed the fact that there was a great advantage in a charity, which we hope will be, as it ought to be, of a permanent character, having land as an investment It is the purpose of this Bill to take away, to a considerable extent, at any rate, the possibility of land remaining as the basis of a permanent investment. Like my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), I have had some experience with charitable trusts. He as a member of a local authority and I as a member for 20 years of a staff of an education committee have had to deal with the trusts. I have had to look after the amendment of and changes in secondary school trusts, and often we wanted to get rid of properties which were generally regarded as good investments 50 years before, such as railway stock, which badly let down the trusts.
  Therefore, there is a good deal to be said for taking the long view of the value

  1555
  of trusts that was put by the hon. Member opposite. I recognise that there may be some force in the point mentioned by the Solicitor-General that some of the land may have been diverted from its original purpose of fuel provision to a good purpose such as allotments, which, although not yielding the amount of rent that it did formerly, was preferable from the point of view of the general amenities of the people and the preservation of open spaces than getting rid of the value as a land investment and substituting something which was, perhaps, more remunerative at the moment but less valuable on a long view. While I have no strong feelings in the matter, I am bound to say that, looking at the Bill as it stands, I do not want to see it get a Second Reading. The kind of assurance
  Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

  CUSTODY OF CHILDREN (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  which the Solicitor-General has given might have carried more weight if he had been able to come to us and say, with the authority of the Government, what the magnitude of the problem is, but he has given no information. My hon. Friend asked how many of these properties were involved in the principle of the Bill, but the Solicitor-General said he was unable to give us the figures. Therefore, what the House is being asked to do is to give carte blanche to a Bill which is all principle. Unless I can hear something more specific as to the range of its operations and what we are committed to, I shall be inclined to ask the House not to accept the Second Reading.
  Question put, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  The House divided: Ayes, 55; Noes, 46.

  Division No. 14.]

  AYES.

  [3.5 p. m.

  Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)

  Hacking, Rt. Hon. Sir D. H.

  Royds, Admiral Sir P. M. R.

  Bossom, A. C.

  Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)

  Russell, Sir Alexander

  Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)

  Holmes, J. S.

  Samuel, M. R. A.

  Bull, B. B.

  Horsbrugh, Florence

  Sandeman, Sir N. S.

  Cary, R. A.

  Hewitt, Dr. A. B.

  Smith, Sir Louis (Hallam)

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Hunloke, H. P.

  Southby, Commander Sir A. R. J.

  Cayzer, Sir C. W. (City of Chester)

  Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)

  Spears, Brigadier-General E. L.

  Chorlton, A. E. L.

  Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)

  Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)

  Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)

  Leighton, Major B. E. P.

  Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

  Courthops, Col. Rt. Hon. Sir G. L.

  Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

  Tate, Mavis C.

  Craven-Ellis, W.

  Maitland, A.

  Touche, G. C.

  Crooke, Sir J. Smedley

  Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.

  Wakefield, W. W.

  Denville, Alfred

  Marsden, Commander A.

  Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)

  Duncan, J. A. L.

  Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

  Watt, Major G. S. Harvie

  Edmondson, Major Sir J.

  Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)

  Wise, A. R.

  Erskine-Hill, A. G.

  Mitchell, H. (Brantford and Chiswiek)

  Fremantle, Sir F. E.

  Moore, Lieut.-Col. Sir T. C. R.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Gluckstein, L. H.

  Neven-Spence, Major B. H. H.

  Colonel Clarke and Major

  Grant-Ferris, R.

  Nicholson, G. (Farnham)

  General Sir Alfred Knox.

  Gridley, Sir A. B.

  O'Connor, Sir Terence J.

  NOES

  Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple)

  Green, W. H. (Deptford)

  Sanders, W. S.

  Adams, D. (Consett)

  Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

  Shinwell, E.

  Adamson, W. M.

  Groves, T. E.

  Silverman, S. S.

  Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)

  Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

  Simpson, F. B.

  Batey, J.

  Henderson, J. (Ardwisk)

  Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

  Benn, Rt. Hon. W. W.

  Lathan, G.

  Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)

  Benson, G.

  Lawson, J. J.

  Thurtle, E.

  Bevan, A.

  McEntee, V. La T.

  Viant, S. P.

  Charleton, H. C.

  Marshall, F.

  Walkden, A. G.

  Chater, D.

  Mathers, G.

  Watkins, F. C.

  Clynes, Rt. Hon. J. R.

  Montague, F.

  Whiteley, W. (Blaydon)

  Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

  Morgan, J. (York, W.R., Doncaster)

  Williams, T. (Don Valley)

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Noel-Baker, P. J.

  Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)

  Ede, J. C.

  Parker, J.

  Young, Sir R. (Newton)

  George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)

  Poole, C. C.

  George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)

  Ridley, G.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Mr. Ellis Smith and Mr. Tinker.

  3.13 p.m.
  Mr. Erskine Hill: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  This Bill, which is a short one, deals with a point which is of some importance in the law of Scotland, and is put forward

  1557
  in order to remedy what, I think, the House will agree is at present an anachronism. As the law stands at present, the court can deal with a question of the decision of the custody of children in Scotland only while the child is in pupillaris. That means that the court can deal with the custody of a female child only if she is under the age of 12 years and with that of a male child only while he is under the age of 14 years. The Bill proposes the age of 16 years for both male and female children.
  The age of 16 is chosen under the law of England and, I think, of most civilised countries. There are obvious advantages in the courts having power to control and direct the custody of children up to the age of 16 years. It does not require much imagination to realise the situation that arises when a female child, probably a sensitive child, has to decide for herself at the age of 12 years with which parent she would rather be. I have known many cases of the greatest possible hardship, where, indeed, the health of the child has been gravely affected. These cases happen most particularly where the parents of the child are living close together, and where the opportunity of getting at the child is more easy. I speak from memory, but I think the great majority of divorce cases in Scotland are cases where poor persons have applied for the benefit of the Poors Roll, and where there is not much money in the case. It is for those cases in particular that I desire the benefits of this Bill, because, when the poorer parties to a divorce case are living close together, as they often are, there are much greater facilities for the parents getting at the child in question. It was by a case of that sort that the lacuna in the law of Scotland was first brought to my notice. I feel that it may make all the difference to the child if his or her future is secured and settled and made certain by the court, rather than that the child should be in this very difficult dilemma. I feel certain that this Measure will have the sympathy of the House. I think it is a pity that such a Bill was not passed many years ago, and I ask the House now to give it its most sympathetic consideration.
  3.18 p.m.
  Mr. Mathers: I beg to second the Motion.
  It is rather an unfamiliar thing for me to deal with a Bill that has primarily a
  1558
  legal object, and in this case I think I shall follow the wishes of the House by being very brief. I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for North Edinburgh (Mr. Erskine Hill) on having succeeded, although he is a lawyer, in dealing not so much with the legal aspects of the Bill as with its more human aspects. I have heard of this problem for many years. I have always heard of it from the side that has been put to us by the hon. and learned Member, and I have never heard any argument against the raising of the age to 16 in Scotland, thereby bringing the law of Scotland into line with that of England. I think that if the House will give this Bill a Second Reading, and allow it to have the very careful consideration which it will receive from a Scottish Committee, the House will be doing a good service to children placed in this position in Scotland.
  3.19 p.m.
  Mr. James Stuart (Lord of the Treasury): I wish to apologise for the fact that my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Scotland, is unable to be here to-day. He has asked me to act for him. He is, I am sorry to say, indisposed, and the Law Officers are both in Scotland on business, as is also my hon. Friend, the Under-Secretary of State. The Mover of the Bill has stated that its object is to empower the Scottish courts to make orders as to the custody of children under the age of 16.
  At present there appears to be some doubt as to the powers to deal with the custody of children above the age of pupillarity under the present law, and I am authorised by my right hon. Friend to say that the proposals in this Bill appear to constitute a desirable form, and that they have the sympathy of the Government.
  Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

  COAST PROTECTION BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  3.21 p.m.
  Mr. Holmes: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  At the beginning of the present year those of us who represent in this House constituencies on the coast of England,

  1559
  Scotland and Wales decided to form ourselves into a body to study completely the problems which concern seaside towns. We had hardly been formed when, during the early spring, there was considerable damage done at Aberystwyth on the west coast and Horsey, in Norfolk, on the east. We immediately made it our business to go into the reasons which caused either coast erosion or flooding by the sea. We found, without a doubt, that it was caused in many cases by the removal of sand, shingle or other material from the sea shore. There is no authority which has power to deal with this matter, and the object of the Bill it to enable the Board of Trade to prohibit, restrict or impose conditions as to the excavation or removal of materials which form part of the seashore of the United Kingdom, not including Northern Ireland, if the Board are of opinion that it is desirable to make such an order for the protection of any part of the coast from erosion or the protection of any lands from damage by the action of the sea.
  The House will probably remember that leave was given me on path July last, under the Ten Minutes Rule, to introduce such a Bill, and actually I obtained a Second Reading unopposed one night after II o'clock. Of course, it was too late in that Session to make any progress, but actually the introduction and printing of the Bill and the discussion which took place have been of great value, as a number of comments and criticism have been received, and they have resulted in alterations being made in the form of the Bill. The present Bill, I think, will be more commendable to everybody than the one introduced in July last. While there is no authority which has power to deal with this matter, it has been maintained in law that no person has the right to remove shingle, sand, or other materials from the seashore if such removal will cause erosion or flooding.
  I would call the attention of the House to a case which was decided by the Court of Appeal in 1880. The matter came before the court on an action which was in the nature of an information by the Attorney-General, on behalf of the Crown. It was an action by the Secretary of War, as plaintiff, against Colonel John Tomline, Lord of the Manor of Felixstowe Priory, in Suffolk. Colonel
  1560
  Tomline claimed to be owner of the foreshore. A shingle bank on the beach formed a natural barrier which protected the land from the sea and was the only barrier which prevented the sea from encroaching on War Office land. Colonel Tomline had for some years past sold large quantities of the shingle. The War Office alleged that in consequence of this removal, War Office land was in immediate danger of being flooded, and that if the removal were continued the whole natural barrier of shingle would be destroyed, the War Office land would be flooded and the stability of a martello tower would be endangered.
  In the first Court Mr. Justice Fry laid it down that it was part of the duty of the Crown of England to protect the Realm of England from the incursions of the sea by appropriate defences, and that it was no less the duty of the Crown to protect the Realm by leaving unimpaired the natural defences which already existed from time immemorial, and probably from periods of remote geological antiquity. He, therefore, held that, it being the duty of the Crown to protect the shingle bank, the bank itself was under the safeguard of the Royal Authority in this sense, that any person removing this bank so as to prevent or interfere with the performance by the Crown of this public duty would be committing a wrongful act. It would be as much a wrongful act, said the judge, wilfully to destroy the natural bank which the Crown was bound to protect and maintain, as it would be a wrongful act for any person to interfere with the artificial barrier which the Crown might, out of its own revenues, have set up by the erection of a sea wall.
  The Court of Appeal, composed of Lord Justices Brett, Cotton and James, approved the principles of law laid down by Mr. Justice Fry. Lord Justice Brett added that although Colonel Tomline was not bound to keep the sea out, he must not do any act which would let the sea in. Lord Justice Cotton said that the duty and obligation of the Crown was to protect the land from the incursions of the sea, and that if there was land which was a natural barrier against the sea, in his opinion the public had a right to say that the Crown could not deal with that in such a way as to deprive the Realm of that natural barrier against the sea.

  1561
  The judgments in the first court and in the Court of Appeal established what the law on this particular matter is, but, as no Government Department has power to act, action to prevent any person from destroying a natural bank of shingle or sand can only at present be taken by an individual or by a local authority, and as the onus of proof would rest with the plaintiff, who might have to face a series of legal actions possibly going up to the House of Lords, it is not difficult to understand that individuals and local authorities hesitate, and have hesitated in the past, to commence proceedings. This Bill takes the practical step of enabling the Board of Trade to prohibit, restrict or impose conditions as to the excavation or removal of any materials forming part of the seashore if the Board are of opinion that the seashore needs protection.
  An endeavour has been made to provide adequate safeguards for the owners of these materials. The House will observe in the Schedule to the Bill that the Board of Trade, before making an order, must give notice of their intention, must publish the draft order, must consider objections and may hold a local inquiry. Further, before any order is made, the Board of Trade must obtain by resolution the approval of both Houses of Parliament. If it should so happen, after all this machinery has been carried out, that an order is made and the person fails to comply with its provisions, he will be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £50, and in the case of a continuing offence to an additional fine not exceeding £5 a day. It is desirable that I should mention that no compensation will be payable to the owner of a foreshore concerning which an order has been made by the Board of Trade. That is obviously a right and proper thing, since no subject of the land has the right to impede the Crown in the exercise of a primary duty.
  Immediately after the Labour Government took office in 1929 the President of the Board of Trade, the late Mr. William Graham, introduced a Coast Protection Bill, which received a Second Reading without a Division. The Bill had actually been drafted by the preceding Conservative Government and would have been presented to the House by Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister, now Lord Swinton, if that Government had remained in office.
  1562
  Clause 3 of that Bill was almost identical with the Bill before the House to-day. The Bill of 1929 was a very wide and comprehensive Measure, and a study of the Debates upon it shows that the reason it did not reach the Statute Book was that it imposed on the national Exchequer and upon local authorities an undefined liability for coast defence. It was, therefore, opposed by Members of this House and by local authorities in all parts of the country. The Debates, however, did not describe any opposition to Clause 3, and I believe that if the Bill which the late Mr. Graham introduced in 1929 had simply consisted of Clause 3 it would have been on the Statute Book for the last nine years. The House was good enough to give me leave on 19th July to introduce this Bill and, therefore, to give me the opportunity of getting a Second Reading. I hope that it will now allow the Bill to go to Committee.
  3.32 p.m.
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: I beg to second the Motion.
  I shall not detain the House, because there are on the Order Paper other Measures which require discussion. I should like to offer my congratulations, as representative of a seaside constituency, to my hon. Friend on his good fortune and the determination which he has shown in getting this Bill brought before the House of Commons for Second Reading, and giving us an opportunity of Debating it. I am probably in a unique position, because the constituency that I have the honour to represent consists entirely of seaside towns, and the consequence is that the local authorities have had to spend a great deal of ratepayers' money in forming barriers and other protections along the sea fronts. Some of my sporting listeners will bear in mind that we have a number of very good golf courses in Ayrshire, on the low-lying ground near the sea. I was subjected to personal inconvenience on one occasion, when I took advantage of the very seldom occurring opportunity of a game of golf on one of our Ayr courses. I found that the fourth hole on my favourite links had disappeared, and when I asked the Secretary why that had been allowed to happen, he referred me to the sea. That incident gives me, I think, an added and more personal claim in supporting my hon. Friend's Measure to-day. I can see that the House will give the Bill a Second

  1563
  Reading, and I hope hon. Members will follow up in Committee their action today, and ensure that the Bill becomes law.
  3.36 p.m.
  Sir J. Smedley Crooke: I should like to say a word in support of the Bill. I witnessed last year the damage which the terrible storm did at Aberystwyth. There is every reason for passing the Bill. The hon. Member has certainly made out a very good case for his Bill and I hope it will soon be on the Statute Book.
  Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

  PENSIONS ACTS (AMENDMENT) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  3.37 p.m.
  Mr. Stephen: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  I introduced this Bill just before the end of last Session in the hope that the Government would take the opportunity in the King's Speech of the present Session and promise legislation on the matter. The Government did not take the hint and, therefore, I have brought the Bill again before the House and hope it will receive a Second Reading on this occasion also. The House unanimously gave me leave to bring in the Bill; there was not a dissentient voice, on that occasion and I hope there will not be a dissentient voice to-day. The purpose of the Bill is to increase old age pensions from 10s. to £1 a week. The Bill will apply to those who are under the old scheme of pensions, the 70 year old pensioners, and also to those under the scheme of the Act of 1925. Provision is made for an increase in each of these cases. I do not want to labour the need for this reform. It is well known to hon. Members that throughout the country there are old people who are in the impossible position of trying to live on 10S. a week. It has been said that they can supplement this income in various ways, but there are many thousands of old age pensioners who cannot get any addition at all and who have to live on the miser-
  1564
  able figure of 10s. a week. One of our daily newspapers, which had its interest aroused in this question, sent one of its journalists out to see how he could manage to live for a week on 10s., and he reported to his paper, the "Daily Express," that he had managed it only by borrowing from his rent for the following week.
  The opinion in the country, I am convinced, is strongly in favour of this reform. There is a Clause in the Bill which has as its object the taking away of the statutory condition which makes a certain stamp qualification necessary for the receipt of a pension. The Bill allows the contributory system to remain so that employers and workpeople will be under the obligation of paying their contributions, but in many cases men have been deprived of their pensions because there has been a deficiency of one or two stamps. There are very many of the older people who have been unemployed for a long time who have drifted out of National Health Insurance unknown to themselves because they have not noticed that they have had a form served upon them by their friendly society. There are the cases of widows who are making application for pensions and who find that owing to certain slackness there has not been a proper return of the cards, and so they are deprived of pensions. In order to avoid these hard cases I have introduced into the Bill a Clause which does away with the statutory stamp qualification.
  In view of the time I do not want to take long in presenting the Bill. I want simply to impress on the House the greatness of the need of these people. The financial provision in connection with the Bill is the only financial provision that a private Member is able to introduce. In one Clause I have increased the contribution of the employers. As I pointed out in asking leave to introduce the Bill under the Ten Minutes Rule, I was confident that the employers of the country would have sufficient influence with the Government at a subsequent date to secure the introduction of the necessary Financial Resolution to make the charge a charge upon the Treasury. The only way in which I could present the Bill was to make financial provision otherwise than by putting the burden on the Treasury.
  I hope I have made the matter clear and that the House agrees that the financial burden should be upon the Treasury.

  1565
  It is absolutely disgraceful that local authorities in so many of the distressed areas have had placed upon them the burden of supplementing these 10s. a week pensions. Some of them have found it almost impossible to do this because of the rating burden that it entails. It is time that these old people had their pensions increased, and it is time that the Government, even at this late day, made the necessary provision to bring about a reform which would bring so much comfort and happiness to many old people in the winter-time of their lives.
  3.43 p.m.
  Mr. A. Bevan: I beg to second the Motion.
  I would congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) on having the opportunity of bringing this very important Measure before the House. The House cannot complain that it has had no other opportunity of discussing this proposal, not this particular Measure but the principle which it embodies, because on a number of occasions recently the House has debated the question. Permission having been given to my hon. Friend to introduce the Bill, one may confidently assume that the principle contained in the Bill has the support of hon. Members in all parts of the House. If there are parts of the Bill which do not meet with the approval of hon. Members the Government can introduce the necessary Amendments in Committee.
  It ought to be unnecessary for any Member to say anything in support of the general principle of the Bill. The Bill proposes to raise the rate of old age pensions. Yesterday afternoon I had an opportunity of addressing a most unusual meeting in my own constituency. It consisted of 400 to 500 men and women over 65 years of age. There is growing up in this country—hon. Members will have to pay regard to it—a very powerful organisation of old people. They are becoming politically conscious in their old age, and they are beginning to organise themselves for the purpose of bringing before the country the deep distress which many old people suffer as a consequence of inadequate pensions. It will not be sufficient for hon. Members to consider this as though it is not a vital question, for I am certain that such is the vigour and determination of these old people that, by the next General Elec-
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  tion, this will become one of the burning questions of the day. It would be so much better if the House of Commons, on its own initiative, would do justice towards these people rather than have it forced upon them by the agitation of the old people themselves.
  I know we shall be told that a Bill of this description is not possible because of the finances underlying it, and because of the excessive burden which it might place upon the finances of the State. That burden has to be borne now, but it is upon shoulders too weak to bear it. The other evening, when debating a resolution on this matter, we were told that no one contended that men and women can live on 10s. a week, and it was pointed out that the pensions are intended only to supplement other resources, such as the savings of the pensioners, the assistance given to them by relatives, and so on. That may apply in many cases, but certainly it does not apply in very many working-class districts, and it does not apply in the distressed areas, where there has been no opportunity for people to save. The earnings of relatives are often hopelessly insufficient for those relatives to assist the old people, and in many cases the relatives live in other parts of the country. In these cases, there are no means of supplementing the pension. Moreover, the local authorities are often so poor that they are unable to give the necessary additional assistance to old-age pensioners. Therefore, the argument that was used last week does not apply.
  There is one other consideration which I wish to urge upon hon. Members before I conclude. Very often poor people try to make some provision against the vicissitudes of old age by taking endowment policies or other policies with insurance companies. If we could have the amount of money which the private insurance companies get as a consequence of lapsed policies entered into by those persons, that would be a very considerable income indeed for putting the finances of these proposals on a realistic plane. If the State made provision in this way, many poor people would not find themselves persuaded to buy policies on which they were unable to pay premiums, and very much money would be saved to the poor people in that way. For these reasons, and for other reasons which are in the minds of hon. Members, I beg the

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  House to give the Bill a Second Reading, and in Committee to put right any matters that may be wrong in the Bill. If this is done, it will give many old people in the country some additional comforts and amenities in their old age. Nothing adorns a civilised community more than generosity in the treatment of the aged.
  3.49 p.m.
  Mr. Erskine Hill: A great deal of interest is taken on every side of the House on the question of pensions. I think it would be quite a wrong picture of the mind of the House if hon. Members opposite thought that they alone were interested in such questions—
  Mr. Wedgwood Benn: May I call the hon. and learned Member's attention to the fact that the Government are not sufficiently interested in the question to provide a Minister to reply?
  Mr. Erskine Hill: I think the answer to that interruption is that obviously it was not thought likely that this Bill would be reached, and there was no time to get a Minister.
  Mr. Stephen: The hon. and learned Member knew, as he consulted me about it.
  Mr. Erskine Hill: I think the hon. Gentleman is right in assuming that there is much interest in this matter among Members of the House. We would all like to give additions and make alterations in the Pensions Act wherever possible, but he must realise that in producing this Bill at this moment he is holding out hopes which cannot be fulfilled. I do not think this Bill can be described as a practicable Measure, and I would not be guilty, either in my own constituency or elsewhere, of holding out hopes to the electorate which I knew could not be fulfilled. However anxious hon. Members in any part of the House may be to increase pensions to the extent proposed in the Bill, I do not think there is one Member in this House who could honestly say that he thought this a practical proposition at the present time. It would be quite impracticable at this time to raise pensions to the figure suggested in the Bill. I have recently met in my constituency members of the Old Age Pensioners' League. I have told them that I am prepared to use any influence I have to increase the old age pension when that
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  is practicable. They appreciated the difficulty and are quite willing to accept the position, but I think that for the purpose of catching votes—because I cannot but think that there is something of that sort in this Measure—
  Mr. Stephen: Shame.
  Mr. Erskine Hill: it is wrong to try to lure people into thinking that they are to get something when we know that it is not a practical proposition.
  Mr. Stephen: Does the hon. and learned Member not realise that if he and other hon. Members opposite supported this Bill, the Government could give a pension of £1 a week. It is because he and other hon. Members opposite will not support the Bill, that the Government cannot do it.
  Mr. Erskine Hill: Nobody knows better than the hon. Member that the reason why we cannot support the Bill is because we know it is impracticable because we know that money which we would like to give cannot be provided and because we know he is holding out false hope where it would be much better to be frank with the people. The last speaker said there were other hon. Members anxious to take part in this discussion and I do not want it to be said that I tried to talk out this Bill. But I do want to make the point that although the Bill has served an admirable purpose in bringing the matter before the House for discussion, it is a Bill which is impracticable, and ought not to be passed.
  3.54 p.m.
  Mr. Groves: It would be a sin if we here allowed the next five minutes to pass without expressing an opinion on this Bill. After all the principle of the Bill is not new. Every remark which has been passed about it by the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite would have applied with equal force to any of the Bills to which we have given a Second Reading earlier this afternoon. Every argument that he has used is a century old. Every proposal from days of the Chartist movement and the beginning of the trade union movement and the co-operative societies, every reform that affected the working-class, has been called impracticable and characterised as having been asked for at the wrong time. I remember reading a speech delivered by a Member of this

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  House when this question of pensions was mooted in this country at its inception, and it was then suggested that the granting of old age pensions, whatever the rate might be, would undermine the morale and lower the dignity of the people of this country.
  We must remember that pensions were introduced at 5s. per week at the age of 70. This House itself has moved, I submit not rapidly, from that position, and I feel that, although we in this House to-day are trying to make the future safe for our sons, we have a duty also to make it reasonably secure and pleasant for the not-so-young who have made the country what it is. I fail to see any argument at all against the principle of extending the pension. I would like, as I am sure even hon. Members opposite who speak against this Bill to-day would like, to see it doubled and also granted at a lower age. We all realise that just for the moment, just to-day, there is some question of discussing ways and means, but that is what this House exists for, and I wish we could give this Bill a hearty Second Reading on principle, in order to say to the workers of this country who have attained the age of 65, who have been lucky enough to do that, that we all subscribe to the principle that is contained in this Bill.
  On a private Members' day, in passing this Bill, if we do, we are not forcing the Government to accept something that will be hurtful to them. If this is a vote-catching Measure, as one hon. Member opposite said, cotton on to it. Do not let us have all the kudos. I was very pleased to see a deputation a fortnight ago led by one of the local clergymen, on which there were 30 men who have worked in the local railway shops, and they asked us here to-day to pass this Bill. This is not something for next year. Our hearts are full of sympathy for these folk in their present demand, and I suggest that the one way for us and for all who wish for the spirit of unity that we boast about is to give the Bill a Second Reading.
  3.59 p.m.
  Commander Marsden: I am sure that not only in this House or in the other House—
  Mr. Stephen Mr. Stephen rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
  Commander Marsden: I am sure we would all like to see the old age pension doubled or trebled. It is not a question of the good-heartedness of any one part of the House or of the country, but merely of the ability of this country to produce the large sums of money which would be necessary. We would like any advance made in the condition of the life of the workers to be permanent and to be part of a continual, steady, ordered progress. We realise that something in the way of progress has occurred. The old age pension started at 5s. and went to 7s. 6d. and then to 10s., and certainly since the 10s. period—
  Mr. Stephen Mr. Stephen rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
  It being Four of the Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

  WILD BIRDS (DUCK AND GEESE) PROTECTION BILL [Lords].
  Bill read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next.— [Lieut-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore.]
  The remaining Orders were read and postponed.
  Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 2.
  Adjourned at one Minute after Four o'Clock until Monday next, 12th December.

  BRITISH ARMY (SUPPLY OF MUNITIONS).
  BRITISH ARMY (SUPPLY OF MUNITIONS).
  TELEPHONE SERVICE, TOTTENHAM.
  TELEPHONE SERVICE, TOTTENHAM.
  TRAMP SHIPPING (FREIGHT RATES SCHEME).
  TRAMP SHIPPING (FREIGHT RATES SCHEME).